Know Your People Better Than They Know Themselves

— Robert Collier

You can build a useful ideal client avatar quickly.

Name. Scene. Problem. What they've tried. What they want.

That high-level snapshot can guide a lot of decisions: product design, positioning, even marketing direction.

I've done it. When I co-founded a hotel in Colombia, we created four or five simple avatars.

Just enough detail to ask: "Would Joanne expect this? Would this family want that?" It kept us aligned for five years.

But here's what I've learned:

For operations and planning, a light avatar works. For messaging in a saturated market, you need depth.

You need the language. The emotions. The lived moments.

You need to understand your people better than they understand themselves.

Result?

You speak to real pain, in real words, with real empathy.

Your marketing stops sounding generic, and starts sounding like you get it.

This is a three-step process:

Gut instinct → Human research → AI acceleration

It doesn't take long. But it does take focus.

Start with one real person.

Not a composite. Not a demographic profile.

A vivid, human snapshot of someone you want to help.

What to include:

Example (for a fitness coach):

This paragraph becomes your baseline.

Everything else builds from here.

Now layer in the psychographics—the beliefs, motivations, and inner tensions that explain why people do what they do.

Ask yourself:

✅ What does a typical day look like when this problem shows up?
✅ What do they believe needs to change for things to improve?
✅ How do they describe themselves when talking about this challenge?
✅ What are they most afraid will happen if nothing changes?
✅ What motivates them most when they picture the problem solved?

These answers give you context.

Context is what makes your messaging feel personal instead of templated.

You want exact phrases. Verbatim language. Real words people use when no marketer is watching.

Manual methods that still work:

AI acceleration (faster + deeper):

Use this prompt with ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini:

What you get back:

Now you're not guessing.

You're reflecting what they're already thinking.

Here's what happened when I ran this for a candle business in a workshop I did recently:

Quote from the research:
"Candles make me feel like a goddess and I love it."

What you can do with that:

Another quote:
"Candles are the easiest way to create an entirely different atmosphere."

Turn it into messaging:
"Create an entirely different atmosphere in your home for less than the cost of new lighting, paint, or furniture. Just light a candle."

Another one:
"Whenever I'm sad, I make my bathtub bubbly and relaxing with candles. I eat burritos and cry."

Turn it into a meme ad.

You see how fast this gets powerful?

What used to take hours of copywriting now takes minutes.

If you feed AI the right research.

A light avatar can guide big decisions.

But if you're writing emails, creating ads, or trying to stand out?

You need depth.

You need to know what keeps them up at 3 AM.
You need to know the exact words they use when they're alone, frustrated, and searching for a solution.
You need to know what they've already tried and why it didn't work.

That's what separates okay messaging from messaging that makes people stop, lean in, and say:

"How did you know exactly what I'm going through?"

And when they feel that?

They trust you can help.

→ Try the research prompt this week.
Pick one person. Write the paragraph. Run the research. See what you find.

💡 Bonus move:
Once you have your research, paste it back into ChatGPT and say:
"Now give me 10 email subject lines based on these quotes."
Or:
"Turn these into 5 social media hooks."

Watch how fast you go from research to ready-to-use content.

Thanks for reading!

Nathan Rodgers

👋 Say hello on Substack and LinkedIn

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