July 18, 2024 • 19 mins
Today I am answering a question from a listener who has multiple business ideas but doesn't know which one to pursue. In today's episode, I'm sharing how I've used the wrong ideas in the past and reveal the 6-step process I now follow when making decisions.
- Why unique ideas are not always the best ideas—or what people actually want.
- Why starting with the market you intend to sell to and brainstorming (their problems and solutions) is the first step.
- The power of 1:1 client research to gain insight into their problems and what they need.
- The importance of brainstorming for potential solutions to their most pressing problems.
- Why testing your idea is a crucial step in the decision-making process.
Have a question you’d like me to answer on the show? Write in with your question at https://stephtaylor.co/asksteph
SHOW LINKS:
- Get my Daily Biz Booster emails: https://stephtaylor.co/DBB
- 5 Simple Tweaks to Boost Your Launch Profits: https://stephtaylor.co/tweaks
- Want me to spend a day working on your next launch? Book a VIP intensive: https://stephtaylor.co/vip
- Get The A-Z Podcast Launch Plan: https://stephtaylor.co/plp-ig
- Get a 30-day free trial of Kajabi: https://stephtaylor.co/kajabi
Let's be Instagram friends: https://instagram.com/stephtay...
- Why unique ideas are not always the best ideas—or what people actually want.
- Why starting with the market you intend to sell to and brainstorming (their problems and solutions) is the first step.
- The power of 1:1 client research to gain insight into their problems and what they need.
- The importance of brainstorming for potential solutions to their most pressing problems.
- Why testing your idea is a crucial step in the decision-making process.
Have a question you’d like me to answer on the show? Write in with your question at https://stephtaylor.co/asksteph
SHOW LINKS:
- Get my Daily Biz Booster emails: https://stephtaylor.co/DBB
- 5 Simple Tweaks to Boost Your Launch Profits: https://stephtaylor.co/tweaks
- Want me to spend a day working on your next launch? Book a VIP intensive: https://stephtaylor.co/vip
- Get The A-Z Podcast Launch Plan: https://stephtaylor.co/plp-ig
- Get a 30-day free trial of Kajabi: https://stephtaylor.co/kajabi
Let's be Instagram friends: https://instagram.com/stephtay...
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
When you're choosing which ideas to pursuein your business, or when you're choosing
between new ideas for a business.Just because you think that an idea is
exciting and unique and you think peopleare going to get so excited about it
and it's going to sell, thatdoesn't mean that it's actually viable from the
business model perspective or from a marketfit perspective. Welcome to Imperfect Action.
(00:24):
I'm Steph Taylor. For years,I read all the books, downloaded all
the freebies, and did all thecourses, but it wasn't until I started
taking imperfect action that my business hadits first million dollar year. Imperfect action
is about doing things before you're ready, prioritizing consistent action over perfect action,
(00:44):
and moving forward even when you're notsure you're doing it right. On this
show, you can expect mindset advice, actionable marketing tips and strategies to build
a business that brings you more profit, more freedom, and even more joy.
You w on the list to getmy daily businesses. Every day,
I'll send you a bite sized promptdesigned to help you grow your business in
(01:06):
a more intentional way. Sign upat Steph Taylor dot co. Forward slash
DBB or at the link and yourshoes. Hey, welcome back to the
Perfect Action. This is episode eighthundred and thirty five. Today is another
episode of Ask Steph, where Ianswer listeners questions that have been submitted.
(01:27):
Now, if you have a questionfor me, you have a situation you
want to know what I would doif I were in your shoes, head
over to Steph Taylor dot Co slashask Steph. You'll find a form there
where you can submit your question withor without a name. It can be
completely anonymous if you like, Liketoday's question comes from somebody who chose not
to submit their name, and thequestion is a really nice short one.
(01:51):
I have multiple ideas for businesses tostart, but I don't know which one
to pursue. How would you makethis decision? So I'm gonna answer this
question with the process that I gothrough to decide between any ideas, not
just ideas for new businesses to start, because the process is roughly the same.
(02:12):
And before you can really understand whyI go through this process, I
want to tell you a little bitabout a time a few months after I
quit my corporate job. And picturethis, You're in a pretty small two
bedroom apartment and wall to wall inthe living room, there are about one
hundred small shipping boxes stacked there ina few rows. This was my reality.
(02:38):
A few months after I quit mycorporate job, I had spent two
days packing orders to ship that month. My back was so sore, and
all I wanted was to grow thisbusiness out of my apartment. I had
twenty thousand Instagram followers, but Iwas struggling to sell more than one hundred
products a month, and I wasmaking about five dollars profit for each of
(03:00):
these. I had invested in Facebook, cards, website design, all of
the things that I thought would makemore sales, but somehow I just couldn't
get past about one hundred orders amonth. Now, this was a physical
product, and with physical products,you know you've got to pack the orders,
(03:21):
You've got to ship the orders,you've got to deal with customer support.
Because I was only making about fivedollars profit per order, some months
it would be less. Because Iwas making such a small profit margin,
I couldn't afford to outsource the packingand the shipping and the customer support.
I'd started this business for freedom.I had quit my corporate job because I
thought I would have freedom, andyet here I was with less freedom and
(03:45):
less money than I was earning inmy corporate job. I really wanted to
travel, but I couldn't afford it, and even if I could afford it,
I couldn't leave the country because Ineeded to ship these orders. And
I just really all I wanted wasto make this business profitable and prove to
everybody who had doubted me when Isaid I'm going to quit my corporate job
and start a business. I reallyjust wanted to prove to these people that
(04:08):
I had it in me. ButI just couldn't get more people to buy
my product. And eventually, abouta year or so after I started the
business, nearly a full year afterI quit my corporate job, I decided
to close the business. I triedfor months, and I realized that this
just wasn't a sustainable business. Iwas burning out and I was going to
(04:30):
run out of money before it tookoff. And it wasn't until a few
years later when my next business,the business that I'm in now, took
off and I sold a few thousandcopies of an online course, that I
realized just how easy it can beto sell something when people do want it.
And I had this realization around whymy first business didn't work, and
(04:56):
there were two main reasons. Firstly, the business model was broken. The
pricing was wrong. The expenses thatI incurred for each additional unit that I
sold were way too high, andbecause of that, it wasn't ever going
to be profitable until we hit areally huge scale. But unfortunately, because
it was a physical product, becausethere was food involved, I couldn't ship
(05:18):
it overseas and there just wasn't abig enough market for the level of scale
that we needed in Australia. Right, So there wasn't a big enough market
in Australia for that level of scaleto make it profitable and viable for me
to run this particular business. Andthen the other big breakthrough I had from
(05:39):
this was I realized it doesn't matterhow unique or great your idea is.
Because I thought that this was agreat idea for a product. And I'm
not going to tell you what itwas because that's not relevant to the story,
but it's I thought it was sucha great, unique idea nobody else
had done it before. I thoughteverybody would get excited about it, and
they didn't. And that was whyI really struggle to grow it. So
(06:01):
I realized it's not about having aunique idea, but rather it's about solving
a problem for a specific group ofpeople, and that particular business didn't do
it. My current business does itreally well, and that's why it's been
so much easier to grow this business. So when you're choosing which ideas to
pursue in your business, or whenyou're choosing between new ideas for a business,
(06:24):
just because you think that an ideais exciting and unique and you think
people are going to get so excitedabout it and it's going to sell,
that doesn't mean that it's actually viablefrom the business model perspective or from a
market fit perspective. So how wouldI go about deciding which ideas to pursue?
(06:44):
Now, Now, this is theprocess that I go through. Whenever
I'm like, well, we needto add a new offer to our office
suite, or I think about weneed to I want to sell something new,
I go through roughly this process.So step one, I start with
the market that I intend to sellit to. Rather than having an idea
and then looking for people who arethe right audience for it. I start
(07:08):
the other way around. I thinkthese people are the ones that I have
in my audience, or these arethe people that I want to help.
How can I help them? Whatdo they need? And then I brainstorm
all of the problems that need solving, all of the problems they're dealing with,
all of the struggles that are showingup in their life, all of
the things that are frustrating them,all of the things that they need help
(07:29):
with. I brain dump all ofthese on paper. I don't think about
how I'm going to solve these problems. I don't even think about whether I
have the skills to solve these problems. I don't think, oh, I'm
going to solve that with one onone coaching, or I'm going to solve
that by creating a course. Idon't. I purely just think what are
the problems, and I list themout. Then I conduct a little bit
(07:49):
of research. I would typically finda few people who are in this intended
audience, and I'd try to rangea few zoom calls to chat with them
one on one. Okay, Iknow it's very tempting to skip the step.
It's really scary to jump on azoom call and ask people these kinds
of questions. But even if youthink that you know your audience really well,
(08:13):
you often don't know what's going oninside their minds. And I don't
think you can replace this step witha survey. A survey is great to
help you understand at a really highlevel, you know what they're struggling with
and where they might think that theyneed help before you sit down and brainstorm
all of those problems before you dostep one, but it doesn't give you
(08:33):
much insight into what is really pressingfor them right now, in other words,
what they would pay money to solveright now. So I would jump
on those zoom calls. I wouldask them a few questions, find out
what else they are struggling with,what's most painful for them, what problems
they would pay to solve, andgo really deep. With a survey,
(08:56):
you can't ask follow up questions,but with a one on one call you
can. So when they say somethinglike, oh, I'm feeling really overwhelmed,
you can now follow up with aspecific question asking them, Hey,
well, what specifically is making youfeel overwhelmed right now and get a much
deeper insight so that you can createsomething that actually solves their overwhelm rather than
(09:18):
attempts to end fails. Then thenext step I would take is I would
brainstorm some potential solutions for their mostpressing problems. So, based on what
they told me in that call,I would think, Okay, let's look
at let's narrow it down to maybefive or ten of the most pressing problems.
And then this is the point whereI would ask, can I actually
(09:41):
solve this? And how can Isolve this? And it doesn't always have
to be something that I can personallysolve. So if it's a problem that
is not in my zone of geniusto solve, maybe I can bring somebody
else in to do it. Forexample, in my twelve month program Freedom
fast Track, I brought in guestexperts every second month. My good friend
(10:03):
Anita Siek, who's a brand strategist. She ran a hot seat coaching session
for my students on brand strategy,which I know a little bit about,
but it's not my zone of geniuslike it is Anita's zone of genius.
So she's helping me to solve theproblem that my students are really struggling to
stand out online and they're really strugglingwith the messaging and how they communicate their
(10:24):
offers. So she came in andthey had the opportunity to ask her those
questions and have her workshop those challengeswith them. So see how I'm helping
to solve a problem without me actuallysolving it with my skills. Then I
might also think about the ones whereI can solve it. How am I
going to package that up? Isit best solved in a one on one
(10:46):
format? Is it best solved ina group format? Is it best solved
in a self paced format? Howwould I structure it? That is how
I would kind of narrow it downinto actual offers. Then step four,
I would pick one idea. AndI know this is easier said than done,
(11:07):
And I know this is the partthat our listener who submitted the question
was really struggling with. And Iknow that I've taken a very roundabout way
of answering this one question of howto choose between multiple ideas. But I
also wonder if walking you through myprocess has helped you to cull some of
those ideas that were on your list. Now in choosing which idea I would
(11:31):
test first. So I'm going toexplain to you what I mean by test
in a minute. But I wouldtest an idea before before I go all
in on it. And the bestway to test something is to find out
if people would actually pay money forit. So in choosing which idea to
test, I would consider which oneis going to be easiest for me to
(11:52):
test. You know, it's goingto be much easier for me to email
my list and say, hey,I'm putting together this one on one Vaday
offer click here to sign up,versus launching a twelve week course to them,
Because even if I launch the coursebefore I've created it, before I've
created the course content, I'm probablystill going to need to create a sales
page and a bunch of other assetsaround it. But a one on one
(12:16):
offer might be a really easy onefor me to test. I'd also consider
which one solves the most urgent problemfor my audience. Out of all of
those problems that they told me,which problem is the most pressing for them
to solve right now, and whichof my ideas that I could test solves
the most urgent problem. I'd alsoconsider which one do I most want to
(12:39):
deliver. If one of my ideasis an online coaching program and I don't
want to do one on one coaching, then why why bother part of building
a business is building something that youenjoy, not something that you're going to
resent, but you're doing because it'sprofitable or because it brings in the cash.
(13:01):
And then I would also consider whichof the ideas makes the most sense
in terms of vision fit, marketfit and skills fit? So vision fit
does this give me the freedom,fulfillment and income that I desire? Right?
Is this creating time freedom? Isit fulfilling me? Like? Do
I enjoy doing it? And isit creating the income that I desire?
(13:26):
Whatever level that is? For you? Skills fit, do I have the
skills to deliver the solution and helpthem achieve the outcome? Or do I
have somebody I can bring in todo that on my behalf? Or market
fit is the last one? Isthe market willing to pay money for it?
How am I gonna package it up? How am I going to sell
it? And will the market paymoney for it when it's packaged like this
(13:48):
and sold like this? Right?Vision fit, skills fit, market fit?
Which one of your ideas makes themost sense in terms of that?
So in summary, which one's easiestfor you? To test which one solves
the most urgent problems, which onedo you most want to deliver, and
which one makes the most sense interms of vision fit, market fit,
and skills fit. And you mightfind that the one that's easiest for you
(14:11):
to test is maybe the one youdon't want to deliver. That's fine.
Find a balance of those fours,so assess it based on those four questions,
and then pick one that feels right. And then step five the last
step I would test or actually secondto last step, I would test the
minimum viable version of that idea.So when I say test it, for
(14:31):
example, if my idea is fora really short, self paced online course,
the minimum viable way I could testthat was to launch it as a
live workshop. First, I wouldsell it to my audience. I'd send
an email to my list, I'dtalk about it on social media. Actually,
i'd send more than one email tomy list, and then if they
buy it, that's when I thencreate the workshop and teach it live.
(14:54):
Then I can based on the questionsthey ask in the workshop. Then I
would find that and maybe record itand turn it into an online course because
now I know people want it andit gets results. Too many people do
this the wrong way around. Ratherthan creating the minimum viable version, they
create the perfect version. They'll spendmonths creating the final version of this online
(15:16):
course. They'll record everything. Isee people hiring videographers before they've even sold,
like the first copy of it,before they've even enrolled the very first
student, And then they launch itright, and then maybe nobody buys and
they're like, oh, I've justwasted ten thousand dollars on a videographer yet,
because you did it the wrong wayaround. The right way around is
(15:37):
to actually see if anybody wants it, if anybody will spend money for it,
before you create it. Now we'reonly a few weeks into this round
of Launch Magic, and I'm alreadystarting to see a lot of my students
pivoting parts of their ideas, pivotingtheir messaging, some of them completely pivoting
their ideas because of what they havelearned in the course so far and from
(16:00):
the feedback that they've had from theiraudience by following the process, and they're
realizing, oh, I was goingabout this the completely wrong idea. So
this is why it's so important totest it before you go and spend a
lot of time and potentially money creatingit, and then the final step step
six. If it works. Ifyour test works, people buy it amazing.
(16:22):
Now we look at how can weimprove it, refine it, and
scale it. How can we takethat minimum viable version and make it incredibly
awesome and start to scale it up, start to sell more of it.
Now, if it doesn't work,then we need to investigate. Is it
the messaging that is off? Isit the sales process that is off.
(16:45):
Is it that they simply don't valuesolving this problem enough to pay for it.
And maybe if they don't value solvingthis problem enough to pay for it,
then we need to go back tothe drawing board, back to that
list of ideas, test the nextone. This is such a process of
experimenting. It's not a process ofI'm going to have a unique idea.
(17:07):
I'm going to put it out there. People are gonna get excited about it,
They're going to buy. That's whatwe see from the outside. That's
what we see in the media headlines. When we hear about somebody who became
an overnight success and they sold amillion dollars of their product in a week.
We see that in the headlines,but we don't see the experimenting that
they've gone through to get to thatproduct that sells really easily. Okay,
(17:30):
And there's a beautiful quote I thinkit's from Einstein when he talked about creating
a light bulb and he tried liketen thousand ways before he finally got the
right way to get a light bulbto work. And his quote was,
I didn't fail ten thousand times.I just found ten thousand ways that a
light bulb wouldn't work. Something alongthose lines. I may have completely butchered
(17:52):
that, but this is exactly whatit is. You're finding what's not gonna
work, and it's like this processof elimination to decide what does work.
So hopefully that has helped you,the listener who wrote in with multiple ideas
for businesses to start, and hopefullyeven if you're somebody who's already got a
business and maybe you're just deciding betweenoffer ideas in your business, hopefully this
(18:15):
has been really helpful for you aswell. If you've ever learned anything from
any of my podcast episodes, pleaseI really would love it if you could
take thirty seconds to write me aquick review and leave a rating in Apple
Podcasts. I read every single oneof them. It means a lot to
me. Podcasting is such a onesided medium where I feel like I'm talking
(18:37):
into my microphone and I don't alwaysget to connect with the people who are
listening to what I'm talking about.So I would really appreciate if you could
take that time just to quickly writea little feedback, say hello, so
I know that you're there, thatyou're listening. It means so much to
me, honestly, And if youhaven't already hit the subscribe button or the
follow button in Spotify, make sureyou do that so you don't miss every
(18:59):
new podcast episod or released every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks so much
for listening. Catch you next time.
When you're choosing which ideas to pursuein your business, or when you're choosing
between new ideas for a business.Just because you think that an idea is
exciting and unique and you think peopleare going to get so excited about it
and it's going to sell, thatdoesn't mean that it's actually viable from the
business model perspective or from a marketfit perspective. Welcome to Imperfect Action.
(00:24):
I'm Steph Taylor. For years,I read all the books, downloaded all
the freebies, and did all thecourses, but it wasn't until I started
taking imperfect action that my business hadits first million dollar year. Imperfect action
is about doing things before you're ready, prioritizing consistent action over perfect action,
(00:44):
and moving forward even when you're notsure you're doing it right. On this
show, you can expect mindset advice, actionable marketing tips and strategies to build
a business that brings you more profit, more freedom, and even more joy.
You w on the list to getmy daily businesses. Every day,
I'll send you a bite sized promptdesigned to help you grow your business in
(01:06):
a more intentional way. Sign upat Steph Taylor dot co. Forward slash
DBB or at the link and yourshoes. Hey, welcome back to the
Perfect Action. This is episode eighthundred and thirty five. Today is another
episode of Ask Steph, where Ianswer listeners questions that have been submitted.
(01:27):
Now, if you have a questionfor me, you have a situation you
want to know what I would doif I were in your shoes, head
over to Steph Taylor dot Co slashask Steph. You'll find a form there
where you can submit your question withor without a name. It can be
completely anonymous if you like, Liketoday's question comes from somebody who chose not
to submit their name, and thequestion is a really nice short one.
(01:51):
I have multiple ideas for businesses tostart, but I don't know which one
to pursue. How would you makethis decision? So I'm gonna answer this
question with the process that I gothrough to decide between any ideas, not
just ideas for new businesses to start, because the process is roughly the same.
(02:12):
And before you can really understand whyI go through this process, I
want to tell you a little bitabout a time a few months after I
quit my corporate job. And picturethis, You're in a pretty small two
bedroom apartment and wall to wall inthe living room, there are about one
hundred small shipping boxes stacked there ina few rows. This was my reality.
(02:38):
A few months after I quit mycorporate job, I had spent two
days packing orders to ship that month. My back was so sore, and
all I wanted was to grow thisbusiness out of my apartment. I had
twenty thousand Instagram followers, but Iwas struggling to sell more than one hundred
products a month, and I wasmaking about five dollars profit for each of
(03:00):
these. I had invested in Facebook, cards, website design, all of
the things that I thought would makemore sales, but somehow I just couldn't
get past about one hundred orders amonth. Now, this was a physical
product, and with physical products,you know you've got to pack the orders,
(03:21):
You've got to ship the orders,you've got to deal with customer support.
Because I was only making about fivedollars profit per order, some months
it would be less. Because Iwas making such a small profit margin,
I couldn't afford to outsource the packingand the shipping and the customer support.
I'd started this business for freedom.I had quit my corporate job because I
thought I would have freedom, andyet here I was with less freedom and
(03:45):
less money than I was earning inmy corporate job. I really wanted to
travel, but I couldn't afford it, and even if I could afford it,
I couldn't leave the country because Ineeded to ship these orders. And
I just really all I wanted wasto make this business profitable and prove to
everybody who had doubted me when Isaid I'm going to quit my corporate job
and start a business. I reallyjust wanted to prove to these people that
(04:08):
I had it in me. ButI just couldn't get more people to buy
my product. And eventually, abouta year or so after I started the
business, nearly a full year afterI quit my corporate job, I decided
to close the business. I triedfor months, and I realized that this
just wasn't a sustainable business. Iwas burning out and I was going to
(04:30):
run out of money before it tookoff. And it wasn't until a few
years later when my next business,the business that I'm in now, took
off and I sold a few thousandcopies of an online course, that I
realized just how easy it can beto sell something when people do want it.
And I had this realization around whymy first business didn't work, and
(04:56):
there were two main reasons. Firstly, the business model was broken. The
pricing was wrong. The expenses thatI incurred for each additional unit that I
sold were way too high, andbecause of that, it wasn't ever going
to be profitable until we hit areally huge scale. But unfortunately, because
it was a physical product, becausethere was food involved, I couldn't ship
(05:18):
it overseas and there just wasn't abig enough market for the level of scale
that we needed in Australia. Right, So there wasn't a big enough market
in Australia for that level of scaleto make it profitable and viable for me
to run this particular business. Andthen the other big breakthrough I had from
(05:39):
this was I realized it doesn't matterhow unique or great your idea is.
Because I thought that this was agreat idea for a product. And I'm
not going to tell you what itwas because that's not relevant to the story,
but it's I thought it was sucha great, unique idea nobody else
had done it before. I thoughteverybody would get excited about it, and
they didn't. And that was whyI really struggle to grow it. So
(06:01):
I realized it's not about having aunique idea, but rather it's about solving
a problem for a specific group ofpeople, and that particular business didn't do
it. My current business does itreally well, and that's why it's been
so much easier to grow this business. So when you're choosing which ideas to
pursue in your business, or whenyou're choosing between new ideas for a business,
(06:24):
just because you think that an ideais exciting and unique and you think
people are going to get so excitedabout it and it's going to sell,
that doesn't mean that it's actually viablefrom the business model perspective or from a
market fit perspective. So how wouldI go about deciding which ideas to pursue?
(06:44):
Now, Now, this is theprocess that I go through. Whenever
I'm like, well, we needto add a new offer to our office
suite, or I think about weneed to I want to sell something new,
I go through roughly this process.So step one, I start with
the market that I intend to sellit to. Rather than having an idea
and then looking for people who arethe right audience for it. I start
(07:08):
the other way around. I thinkthese people are the ones that I have
in my audience, or these arethe people that I want to help.
How can I help them? Whatdo they need? And then I brainstorm
all of the problems that need solving, all of the problems they're dealing with,
all of the struggles that are showingup in their life, all of
the things that are frustrating them,all of the things that they need help
(07:29):
with. I brain dump all ofthese on paper. I don't think about
how I'm going to solve these problems. I don't even think about whether I
have the skills to solve these problems. I don't think, oh, I'm
going to solve that with one onone coaching, or I'm going to solve
that by creating a course. Idon't. I purely just think what are
the problems, and I list themout. Then I conduct a little bit
(07:49):
of research. I would typically finda few people who are in this intended
audience, and I'd try to rangea few zoom calls to chat with them
one on one. Okay, Iknow it's very tempting to skip the step.
It's really scary to jump on azoom call and ask people these kinds
of questions. But even if youthink that you know your audience really well,
(08:13):
you often don't know what's going oninside their minds. And I don't
think you can replace this step witha survey. A survey is great to
help you understand at a really highlevel, you know what they're struggling with
and where they might think that theyneed help before you sit down and brainstorm
all of those problems before you dostep one, but it doesn't give you
(08:33):
much insight into what is really pressingfor them right now, in other words,
what they would pay money to solveright now. So I would jump
on those zoom calls. I wouldask them a few questions, find out
what else they are struggling with,what's most painful for them, what problems
they would pay to solve, andgo really deep. With a survey,
(08:56):
you can't ask follow up questions,but with a one on one call you
can. So when they say somethinglike, oh, I'm feeling really overwhelmed,
you can now follow up with aspecific question asking them, Hey,
well, what specifically is making youfeel overwhelmed right now and get a much
deeper insight so that you can createsomething that actually solves their overwhelm rather than
(09:18):
attempts to end fails. Then thenext step I would take is I would
brainstorm some potential solutions for their mostpressing problems. So, based on what
they told me in that call,I would think, Okay, let's look
at let's narrow it down to maybefive or ten of the most pressing problems.
And then this is the point whereI would ask, can I actually
(09:41):
solve this? And how can Isolve this? And it doesn't always have
to be something that I can personallysolve. So if it's a problem that
is not in my zone of geniusto solve, maybe I can bring somebody
else in to do it. Forexample, in my twelve month program Freedom
fast Track, I brought in guestexperts every second month. My good friend
(10:03):
Anita Siek, who's a brand strategist. She ran a hot seat coaching session
for my students on brand strategy,which I know a little bit about,
but it's not my zone of geniuslike it is Anita's zone of genius.
So she's helping me to solve theproblem that my students are really struggling to
stand out online and they're really strugglingwith the messaging and how they communicate their
(10:24):
offers. So she came in andthey had the opportunity to ask her those
questions and have her workshop those challengeswith them. So see how I'm helping
to solve a problem without me actuallysolving it with my skills. Then I
might also think about the ones whereI can solve it. How am I
going to package that up? Isit best solved in a one on one
(10:46):
format? Is it best solved ina group format? Is it best solved
in a self paced format? Howwould I structure it? That is how
I would kind of narrow it downinto actual offers. Then step four,
I would pick one idea. AndI know this is easier said than done,
(11:07):
And I know this is the partthat our listener who submitted the question
was really struggling with. And Iknow that I've taken a very roundabout way
of answering this one question of howto choose between multiple ideas. But I
also wonder if walking you through myprocess has helped you to cull some of
those ideas that were on your list. Now in choosing which idea I would
(11:31):
test first. So I'm going toexplain to you what I mean by test
in a minute. But I wouldtest an idea before before I go all
in on it. And the bestway to test something is to find out
if people would actually pay money forit. So in choosing which idea to
test, I would consider which oneis going to be easiest for me to
(11:52):
test. You know, it's goingto be much easier for me to email
my list and say, hey,I'm putting together this one on one Vaday
offer click here to sign up,versus launching a twelve week course to them,
Because even if I launch the coursebefore I've created it, before I've
created the course content, I'm probablystill going to need to create a sales
page and a bunch of other assetsaround it. But a one on one
(12:16):
offer might be a really easy onefor me to test. I'd also consider
which one solves the most urgent problemfor my audience. Out of all of
those problems that they told me,which problem is the most pressing for them
to solve right now, and whichof my ideas that I could test solves
the most urgent problem. I'd alsoconsider which one do I most want to
(12:39):
deliver. If one of my ideasis an online coaching program and I don't
want to do one on one coaching, then why why bother part of building
a business is building something that youenjoy, not something that you're going to
resent, but you're doing because it'sprofitable or because it brings in the cash.
(13:01):
And then I would also consider whichof the ideas makes the most sense
in terms of vision fit, marketfit and skills fit? So vision fit
does this give me the freedom,fulfillment and income that I desire? Right?
Is this creating time freedom? Isit fulfilling me? Like? Do
I enjoy doing it? And isit creating the income that I desire?
(13:26):
Whatever level that is? For you? Skills fit, do I have the
skills to deliver the solution and helpthem achieve the outcome? Or do I
have somebody I can bring in todo that on my behalf? Or market
fit is the last one? Isthe market willing to pay money for it?
How am I gonna package it up? How am I going to sell
it? And will the market paymoney for it when it's packaged like this
(13:48):
and sold like this? Right?Vision fit, skills fit, market fit?
Which one of your ideas makes themost sense in terms of that?
So in summary, which one's easiestfor you? To test which one solves
the most urgent problems, which onedo you most want to deliver, and
which one makes the most sense interms of vision fit, market fit,
and skills fit. And you mightfind that the one that's easiest for you
(14:11):
to test is maybe the one youdon't want to deliver. That's fine.
Find a balance of those fours,so assess it based on those four questions,
and then pick one that feels right. And then step five the last
step I would test or actually secondto last step, I would test the
minimum viable version of that idea.So when I say test it, for
(14:31):
example, if my idea is fora really short, self paced online course,
the minimum viable way I could testthat was to launch it as a
live workshop. First, I wouldsell it to my audience. I'd send
an email to my list, I'dtalk about it on social media. Actually,
i'd send more than one email tomy list, and then if they
buy it, that's when I thencreate the workshop and teach it live.
(14:54):
Then I can based on the questionsthey ask in the workshop. Then I
would find that and maybe record itand turn it into an online course because
now I know people want it andit gets results. Too many people do
this the wrong way around. Ratherthan creating the minimum viable version, they
create the perfect version. They'll spendmonths creating the final version of this online
(15:16):
course. They'll record everything. Isee people hiring videographers before they've even sold,
like the first copy of it,before they've even enrolled the very first
student, And then they launch itright, and then maybe nobody buys and
they're like, oh, I've justwasted ten thousand dollars on a videographer yet,
because you did it the wrong wayaround. The right way around is
(15:37):
to actually see if anybody wants it, if anybody will spend money for it,
before you create it. Now we'reonly a few weeks into this round
of Launch Magic, and I'm alreadystarting to see a lot of my students
pivoting parts of their ideas, pivotingtheir messaging, some of them completely pivoting
their ideas because of what they havelearned in the course so far and from
(16:00):
the feedback that they've had from theiraudience by following the process, and they're
realizing, oh, I was goingabout this the completely wrong idea. So
this is why it's so important totest it before you go and spend a
lot of time and potentially money creatingit, and then the final step step
six. If it works. Ifyour test works, people buy it amazing.
(16:22):
Now we look at how can weimprove it, refine it, and
scale it. How can we takethat minimum viable version and make it incredibly
awesome and start to scale it up, start to sell more of it.
Now, if it doesn't work,then we need to investigate. Is it
the messaging that is off? Isit the sales process that is off.
(16:45):
Is it that they simply don't valuesolving this problem enough to pay for it.
And maybe if they don't value solvingthis problem enough to pay for it,
then we need to go back tothe drawing board, back to that
list of ideas, test the nextone. This is such a process of
experimenting. It's not a process ofI'm going to have a unique idea.
(17:07):
I'm going to put it out there. People are gonna get excited about it,
They're going to buy. That's whatwe see from the outside. That's
what we see in the media headlines. When we hear about somebody who became
an overnight success and they sold amillion dollars of their product in a week.
We see that in the headlines,but we don't see the experimenting that
they've gone through to get to thatproduct that sells really easily. Okay,
(17:30):
And there's a beautiful quote I thinkit's from Einstein when he talked about creating
a light bulb and he tried liketen thousand ways before he finally got the
right way to get a light bulbto work. And his quote was,
I didn't fail ten thousand times.I just found ten thousand ways that a
light bulb wouldn't work. Something alongthose lines. I may have completely butchered
(17:52):
that, but this is exactly whatit is. You're finding what's not gonna
work, and it's like this processof elimination to decide what does work.
So hopefully that has helped you,the listener who wrote in with multiple ideas
for businesses to start, and hopefullyeven if you're somebody who's already got a
business and maybe you're just deciding betweenoffer ideas in your business, hopefully this
(18:15):
has been really helpful for you aswell. If you've ever learned anything from
any of my podcast episodes, pleaseI really would love it if you could
take thirty seconds to write me aquick review and leave a rating in Apple
Podcasts. I read every single oneof them. It means a lot to
me. Podcasting is such a onesided medium where I feel like I'm talking
(18:37):
into my microphone and I don't alwaysget to connect with the people who are
listening to what I'm talking about.So I would really appreciate if you could
take that time just to quickly writea little feedback, say hello, so
I know that you're there, thatyou're listening. It means so much to
me, honestly, And if youhaven't already hit the subscribe button or the
follow button in Spotify, make sureyou do that so you don't miss every
(18:59):
new podcast episod or released every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks so much
for listening. Catch you next time.
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