Goals: The Key Part to Effective Weekly Customer Discovery Journal

Keeping a journal is an effective way to track your progress and reflect on your experiences, and this is especially true when it comes to customer discovery. A weekly customer discovery journal can help you stay organized, focused, and most importantly, it can help you identify patterns in customer feedback and behavior.

But to make the most out of your customer discovery journal, you need to set clear goals. In this article, we’ll explore why goals are essential for an effective customer discovery journal and how to set them at three different levels: Specifics, High Hard, and Purpose.

Why Goals are Essential for an Effective Customer Discovery Journal

Setting goals is essential for any endeavor, and customer discovery is no exception. Without goals, you’re just gathering data without any clear direction or purpose. Goals help you stay focused, prioritize your time and resources, and measure your progress.

Moreover, setting goals for your customer discovery journal can help you overcome biases and prevent you from falling into the trap of confirmation bias, where you only look for information that supports your pre-existing assumptions. By setting specific goals, you force yourself to look for information that challenges your assumptions, which is essential for effective customer discovery.

Three Levels of Goals for an Effective Customer Discovery Journal

To make the most out of your customer discovery journal, you need to set goals at three different levels: Specifics, High Hard, and Purpose.

Specifics

Specific goals are tangible, measurable, and time-bound. They help you stay focused on the task at hand and give you a clear sense of progress. For customer discovery, specific goals might include:

• Conduct at least five customer interviews per week
• Test at least three different value propositions with three potential customers
• Identify at least two key pain points for your target market

By setting specific goals, you give yourself a roadmap to follow, which makes it easier to stay on track and avoid getting sidetracked by tangential issues.

High Hard

High Hard goals are ambitious, challenging, and require a significant amount of effort and resources to achieve. They help you push beyond your comfort zone and challenge your assumptions. For customer discovery, high hard goals might include:

• Identify a new market segment that you haven’t explored before
• Develop a completely new value proposition that sets you apart from the competition
• Conduct a comprehensive competitive analysis to identify gaps and opportunities in the market

High hard goals are essential for innovation and growth, and they can help you stay ahead of the competition by challenging the status quo and exploring new ideas.

Purpose

Purpose goals are overarching, long-term, and tie into your broader mission and vision. They help you stay focused on your ultimate goal and prevent you from getting bogged down in the day-to-day details. For customer discovery, purpose goals might include:

• Build a product that solves a critical pain point for your target market
• Create a brand that resonates with your customers and reflects your values
• Build a business that has a positive impact on society and the environment

Purpose goals are essential for staying true to your values and vision, and they can help you stay motivated and focused, even when faced with challenges and setbacks.

The Science Behind Setting Goals

The three levels of goals – Specifics, High Hard and Purpose – are interconnected and help to create a comprehensive goal-setting framework. When applied to customer discovery journaling, this framework can help you stay on track and achieve long-term success.

The Specifics level of goal-setting pertains to the short-term goals and action steps that need to be taken in order to achieve the High Hard and Purpose levels. This level is focused on the specific details and tasks that need to be accomplished on a weekly basis. In the context of customer discovery journaling, this level of goal-setting could involve tracking the number of customer interviews conducted each week, noting key takeaways and insights from each interview, and identifying any challenges or roadblocks that need to be addressed. By setting and tracking Specifics goals, individuals can ensure that they are making consistent progress towards their larger goals.

The High Hard level of goal-setting is focused on longer-term goals, typically spanning a period of 12 months. This level involves setting more challenging and ambitious goals that are aligned with the Purpose level. For customer discovery journaling, High Hard goals could involve reaching a certain number of validated customer interviews or identifying key customer pain points and needs. By setting High Hard goals, individuals can ensure that they are continuously pushing themselves to improve and make progress towards their overall objectives.

The Purpose level of goal-setting is focused on the ultimate vision or mission that an individual or organization is working towards. This level involves identifying the larger purpose behind one’s actions and goals. For customer discovery journaling, Purpose goals could involve developing a deep understanding of the target customer and their needs, as well as identifying opportunities to create products or services that address those needs. By setting and pursuing Purpose goals, individuals can ensure that they are working towards a larger vision and mission, rather than just completing tasks.

By applying this framework to customer discovery journaling, you can ensure that you are setting and tracking goals that align with their larger vision and mission. Additionally, by regularly reflecting on progress and making adjustments as necessary, you can stay on track and make consistent progress towards the goals over time. Want to learn more? Download our free ebook “Cracking the Code of Customer Discovery: Through Your Weekly Side Project Journal” now.