April 2017,
In this issue of The Monthly Guide, we explore how to validate your business idea— before you invest too much time and money.
You want to create a business that you own and control.
You’ve gone through the process to find a niche that excites you.
Now, you have an idea that you think will be successful.
But, you’re not sure there will be a paying audience.
Your next step is to validate, and prove that you’re not off base before you go too far.
What is Validation?
The goal of validating, is to determine that there’s a desire and need for your service or product.
That an interested, and growing group of people will spend money to get what you have.
Because they believe you can solve their problem, customers are willing to sign-up. commit and pre-order your offer.
How Do You Validate?
There are several steps to determine if you have a winning idea.
- Look for competition in your niche.
- Do a comprehensive search for any similar products or services.
- Analyze how much competition there is.
- Determine if the field is crowded, or empty.
A saturated market could be a challenge to break into, while an empty market could mean there is no interest.
Use Google to find other websites doing what you plan to do, and pay attention to customer comments and testimonials.
Read reviews on Amazon for similar products or books dealing with your topic.
Once you see what others are offering and the feedback, you’ll know if your idea is feasible. You can determine the demand for the product and price others are charging, to get a sense if it is profitable.
Can You Stand Out in Your Niche?
Now that you’ve determined that your idea is viable and profitable, how can you make it stand out?
Study those other websites, the products and services, and the customer comments and reviews to see what is missing.
Look at both the positive and negative feedback. There is a goldmine of information pointing you to how to improve the product, how to fill the gaps that are not being served in your market.
How can you improve on the competition?
How can you be unique, better, different, or innovative?
Some things to consider when developing a product or a service:
- Is my product or service better quality?
- Is it cheaper?
- Does it have a unique feature?
- Is there more variety?
- Do I offer experience or a special skill that is valuable?
- Is there great customer support?
- Can it produce superior results?
- Does it offer a better guarantee?
Once you’ve defined your competitive advantage it’s time to test and validate it.
Get Feedback from Your Market
Now that you’re confident that there’s a market for your idea, you can be profitable, and you’ve formulated your USP—unique selling proposition.
It’s time to test it and get feedback from your potential audience.
The goal here is to propose your idea to people who will make up your market.
Maybe that market includes: family, friends, co-workers, professionals, social media connections, or groups you belong to. Introduce the idea to them. Tell them what you plan to create. Ask them questions.
If they seem interested, keep a conversation going.
You’re looking for suggestions and ideas from potential users.
Specifically, you want answers about the topic you’re designing:
- What are they doing or using now?
- What are their frustrations?
- What’s stopping them from using the product or service?
- What do they want to avoid in a new product?
- Are they willing to pay for a solution to the problem?
Using Social Media to Validate Your Idea.
You can further test your idea by running Facebook ads.
For a small dollar amount, you can target your ads to potential customers.
You should know who your ideal customer is and where to find them.
Create an ad to sell them on the benefits on what you’ll be offering. If you have a landing page, send them to the page and have a sign-up form where they can get more information about your servicet.
Therefore, you not only get validation that their is interest in what you want to offer, but it will build your email list, too.
If you don’t have a website or even a landing page, ask a question that hits a pain point and offer them the solution.
Tell them to email you to get more information.
This doesn’t work as well as sending them to a sign-up page on your site, but you can determine if there is interest.
Beyond Validation
These are several ways to confirm that there is a market of willing buyers.
Assuming you were happy with the results of your validation test, you can develop your product or service.
Contacts you made through family and friends, social media and ads, now form the first group will email with your offer.
What’s stopping you?
If you want to start a business, but don’t know what to do first.
If you’re looking to find the right, profitable idea for you.
If you’re looking for someone to take you step-by-step.
I ‘d like to help.
I offer private coaching to get you started and get results.
I’d love to hear your feedback.
What additional help do you need to help you get started?
Click here to find out more.
Links You’ll Find Useful:
Here is this month’s selection of six great articles from the web. They include a success story to inspire you, a post explaining why an online business is your key to financial freedom, a piece exploring why you need to belong to a mastermind group and how to find one, and many more.
1-A success story-Can Anybody Become Known? Let’s Ask the Janitor.
This story tells how Faith McKinney, a janitor at the Post Office was determined to overcome her short comings and prove herself. She read Mark Schaefer’s book KNOWN: The handbook for building and unleashing your personal brand in the digital age and was encouraged to find a sustainable interest and work to become known in her space.
2–How to Beat Your Brain and Succeed.
If you struggle to get things done, consider the insights here on overcoming your biggest obstacles. Learn three ways to increase your self-discipline.
3-5 Reasons an Online Business is the Shortest Route to Financial Freedom
You can’t become truly wealthy working for some one else. Building a business prevents you from trading time for money. And here are 5 reasons why having an online business will scale your business for a maximum return.
4-Pricing Strategy:The Ultimate Guide for Online Business Growth
Offering a product or service for sale, requires you to set a price. When you’re running your own business, that can create a great deal of stress. In this comprehensive guide, there are 12 pricing models, and 7 pricing strategies to help you create the most value from the product or service you sell.
5-Why You Need to Find a Mastermind Group (And How to Do It)
As a solopreneur, the burden to succeed is on you. Often, you feel alone and paralyzed with no one to give you insights, advice or support. This article recognizes the many benefits of belonging to a mastermind group. It explains how to find and run one.
If you want to be part of a mastermind group, check out The Business Start-up Mastermind Group.
6-5 Resources to Grow a Business Around Your Skills and Expertise
In this article from www.Jeff Bullas.com, Zac Johnson helps you to find what you’re expert in. Once you’ve found your skill, Zac shows you how to build your business with powerful resources. This post has great links to useful tools for growing your business. It’s certainly worth taking a look.
If you looking to find your business idea, that’s something we can help you with at Create Income Independence, too.
Create Income Independence
P.S. Were these articles helpful?
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Question or comments? Feel free to contact me.
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