Business Brainstorm
Lately, I’ve found myself using a phrase I haven’t used in years: hand selling. Back in my days at America’s former second largest bookseller, hand selling was my favorite thing.
In bookselling, hand selling is making a recommendation to a customer based on her description of what she’s looking for. Literary vampire fiction? Funny but informative non-fiction by a journalist? Gothic books about books and the people who love them? I had you covered.
I read Publisher’s Weekly religiously. I poured over displays. I read advance copies. I did everything I could to have an answer when a customer asked me for a book. And if I didn’t know the right book for her, I would know the team member who would.
Why? Because there was no greater joy than connecting the right person with the right book.
That’s it: knowing that what I put into that person’s hands was exactly what they needed for their next reading fix.
It would make my day.
Now, why am I thinking about hand selling again after so long?
There’s a misconception in the online space that customers will (or need to) come to you. Yes, inbound marketing is a beautiful thing but it’s not the only thing. Especially with markets and conversations as crowded—and loud—as they are.
Sometimes, you need to put your solution in the hands of the right people. That can not only make your goals, but make their days.
When is hand selling the right solution for your business?
- When you’re offering a “beta” or Minimum Viable Product version of an offer
- When you’re branching into new territory either with your offerings or your market
- When you’re feeling sure of your value but unsure of your drawing in your right prospects
- When your network is a goldmine of potential clients
The truth is that it’s not always feasible to expect that your existing audience will supply the necessary numbers to make your product idea work. You might have to look elsewhere. And that will probably require making individual offers, supplying personalized insights, and looking for specific problems your new offer can solve.
Put your product in the hands of the people who need it most. Make their day. And feel good about it—even if that means selling your work one book at a time.
Business Brainstorm
Need to make more money? Generate some revenue? It’s as easy as creating a new offer, right?
Not so fast. True, being an entrepreneur means that, even if money doesn’t grow on trees, it’s not so hard to find something to sell when you need a few extra dollars.
But creating a new product, program, or offer every time you want to generate revenue isn’t a good plan. In fact, it’s not a plan at all. It’s a reaction to a need.
When you’re just starting out, most of what you do is react. And that’s okay. But you’re really ready for something a little more proactive now, aren’t you?
My story starts no differently than yours. I “got” the entrepreneurial money mindset—that you can create revenue whenever you need it—well before I “got” planning for steady, predictable revenue growth. When I wanted to make some money, I’d make something new. I’d write a book, create a program, make a new coaching offer.
Of course, launching all the time, creating products all the time (even when you’re an idea person like me!), and selling all the time is exhausting.
Beyond that, it’s not building a legacy for your business. It doesn’t give your prospects something to remember your business for.
But most importantly, always creating new offers doesn’t set you up for making more money in the long run.
Every time you launch a new product or program, you’re only tapping into a very small segment of your potential customer base (the Early Adopters). If you stop there, other customers might trickle in over time but most people won’t even know you have that offer available.
That just puts your business back in the position of needing to generate revenue with another new product. It’s a vicious cycle.
Instead of a vicious cycle, your business needs a system for marketing, launching, and selling your best offers over & over again. And when that system also includes products that work together to create more value for your customers and your business than they could alone, it’s a Business Model.
When your business has that kind of system in place, revenue becomes predictable and more consistent. At the very least, you know when it’s coming. Best of all, you’ll find that your offers start to generate more and more revenue each time you enter a sales cycle because your customers are expecting them, planning for them, and eager to buy them.
It’s so much easier to sell to a prospect who is already aware of your product. It’s even easier when your prospect knows people who have purchased and loved your product already. That’s easy to accomplish when your business has regular sales cycles for your best offers.
My business now has two main offers: Kick Start Labs and Quiet Power Strategy. And with just those two offers, my business is on track to do $100,000 more in revenue than it did last year—and possibly much more. Instead of generating new offers over the last 2 years, I’ve focused on making those offers better and better, more predictable, and more familiar.
To get really specific, that means that my interest list for an offer like 10ThousandFeet has gone from 20 to 50 to 150 to 250 to many, many more without much promotion. When I enter a sales cycle with that group, they’re there because they’re truly eager to find out more about the program. They’ve probably heard about it from a past client and they want to get similar results.
Each time I launch the program, it’s easier and easier to sell and I’m more confident about its ability to sell out.
That’s how a blockbuster product is born.
It doesn’t happen all it once. It builds over time. When you design your whole business model that way, you’ve got the makings of a blockbuster business.
This is a great time of year to step back and examine the offers your business currently has, how they’re working together (or not), and how you could plan a system for revenue growth based on those existing offers. Your Next Big Thing might be something you’re already selling.
Announcements, Business Brainstorm
This is a time of year when many business owners are thinking about what’s next in their businesses. And for you, that might be your “Next Big Thing.” It’s a product, program, or service that you’re incredibly excited about. Something you think might represent your business for years to come. Something that might finally put you over the top of your revenue goal or revolutionize your business model.
A Next Big Thing could be exactly what your business needs to do all those things. Unfortunately, if you’re an idea person like me—and I reckon you probably are, it’s likely that you’ll get carried away with the idea itself and forget to engage some of the strategies that can help you realize the true potential of your idea.
After all, you’d like people to be hungry to buy your new idea, right?
Here are 4 mistakes you’re likely to make in the process of marketing, launching, and selling your new product—and how to avoid them:
1) You take it to market too slowly.
Yes, too slowly. The faster you can bring a product to market the better. My highest grossing, most respected and well-known products have gone from idea to sales in the shortest periods of time. And that’s no fluke.
When you take a product to market as quickly as possible, you get “proof of concept.” The proof, of course, is whether people are willing to buy it or not.
To get that proof, you need to ask yourself, “What’s the least amount of work I can do on this for people to be willing to buy it?” Perfectionists, please stay with me. I’m a Virgo, I get it.
Challenge yourself to think small.
The answer to that question is the design of your Minimum Viable Product. Often for service or information businesses, the answer is nothing more than an offer, a sales page, or even just a conversation. For product businesses, it might be a photoshop mockup or a sketch.
If you don’t have at least some people willing to buy this kind of product, your Next Big Thing isn’t going to be that big the way you’ve conceived it. The great part of going to market fast is that you can make changes, adjust your idea—possibly several times—so that when it comes time to really investing your time, money, or energy into your idea, you know it’s going to work.
2) You don’t take into account who’s ready to buy.
Now, not everyone buys a Minimum Viable Product. Who does? Early Adopters. They’re often your business’s biggest fans and most loyal customers. They love trying out new stuff and are just tickled when they get to try out something before everyone else.
But what about when you move past of the MVP stage? Every stage of product iteration and marketing development should take into consideration the segment of the market you’re ready to reach—and who’s ready to be sold to.
For example, you might develop an internal launch of your new product that is designed specifically for customers who wouldn’t have been comfortable buying a prototype but are nonetheless excited about a new idea. They’re focused on what they’re trying to achieve, how they want to feel, and how they could be doing things better.
Later in the game, you might turn an active product into a more passive product or evergreen offering and put it on autopilot. The kind of customer who is going to buy that product wants to have everything figured out for them. They’re likely more focused on fixing a problem or alleviating some pain.
Each of these stages deserves a fresh marketing message that appeals to that customer segment’s specific needs.
3) You focus on feel-good ideas instead of urgent needs.
Speaking of needs, let’s talk about that. I know you, you hate to be “salesy.” And you just love this idea that business “starts with why” because it feels good, feels safe, feels altruistic.
Here’s the thing, business starts with why but transactions don’t end with it.
Instead, the real reason people Buy Now is because they’re actually looking for something to buy. People love to buy! And when you tap into the natural reasons they’re already in the market with their wallets out, you’re much more likely to get the sale.
And the really beautiful part of that is that you still don’t have to be salesy. You just have to match your sales copy to the reasons people are looking to buy, whether that’s because they’re looking for a great necklace for date night, they’re frustrated by their website, or they’re finally ready to stop visiting the refrigerator every night at 8pm.
Don’t just get people excited, give them a reason to buy.
4) You don’t start marketing and selling soon enough.
Finally, the number one mistake I see with marketing, launching, and selling a new product is that business owners don’t start the marketing and sales process soon enough. Clients ask me all the time, “How early is too early to start marketing my new product?” The answer is never.
It is never too early.
It doesn’t have to be polished, it doesn’t have to be strategic. It does’t need to use the latest trend in online marketing.
First, marketing starts the minute you start product development. Because marketing is so much more than promotion, as soon as you start thinking about who your product is for, why they need it now, and how you’re going to best fill those needs with your product, you’ve started marketing.
Second, promotion can begin with a whisper. A small wave of a mention that you’re working on something for your people that does x, y, or z can lead to a tsunami at launch time.
Finally, I don’t let any of my clients start building a product if they haven’t figured out their sales message. If you don’t have confidence your product is going to sell, you’re not ready to realize your idea yet. Start there.
If you can avoid these 4 mistakes, you’ll be well on your way to creating and selling your next blockbuster product.
Want more on marketing, launching, and selling your next big thing? Check out my bestselling class on CreativeLive: Create a Marketing Plan & Grow Your Standout Business.
Business Brainstorm, Interviews
In a recent post, I remarked that everything in business is a choice. From how you price your offerings to the brand you create to the marketplace you sell in, everything can be determined by you.
Of course, we’re often less than intentional about these choices and that leaves us feeling backed into the nether-corners of business.
The same is true of our health. And entrepreneurship can be a heavy burden to bear on our overall well-being.
I spoke with Dr. Samantha Brody, a Portland-based naturopathic physician (and a client of mine!), about handling stress as an entrepreneur.
The two big takeaways I had from this chat were:
- I can be more in control of my own health when I better understand all the things that are stressing my body.
- I can choose to remove stress factors, even in little ways, to have a big impact on my overall health.
Watch this short interview above, or click here to view it in Vimeo.
Learn more about Dr. Samantha, Stress 2.0, and how to take control of your health: click here.
Business Brainstorm
What follows might be the most apolitical thing ever written about American health insurance reform. What follows might also save you a lot of heart ache, time, and money on your next product launch.
To my mind, there is nothing worth building that should be built all at once.
That’s what really stunned me about the roll out of health insurance reform in the US. Politics aside, the company building the website–the primary interface for the reform–should have known better than to try to build something so complete all at once.
This was especially true here in Oregon where the state government went all in. Cover Oregon wanted to be the most complete, most comprehensive health exchange in the nation. They invested millions of dollars in a really great, you-know-you’re-in-Oregon-when marketing campaign.
The intention was great. (Sound familiar?)
As of January 1, they had not enrolled a single customer via the website.
Everything that serves, everything that has value, everything that has a message worth sharing has been built in pieces. Test upon test upon test. Ideas, features, details all carefully fashioned together one at a time.
Sculptures, transformational programs, jewelry collections, menus, books… all reach their fullest potential when they are reduced to a single this-is-what-really-works element. And especially when that element is not just what the creator wants to create but what is created to delight the customer.
Bottom line:
Don’t try to build something all at once.
Don’t let your ambition, your vision, or your perfectionism side-track the proper development of your idea.
Silicon Valley figured this out a long time ago, relatively speaking. It’s the essence of Lean Startup mentality. Build. Measure. Learn.
It’s why your new favorite app doesn’t actually do everything you’d like it to do (they’re working on it).
When you launch something all at once, you have to stop at “Build.” You have no time (or data) for measuring. You have no energy (or experience) for learning.
When Megan Auman sits down to design a new jewelry collection, she doesn’t try to create the whole thing at once. It starts with a single piece, even a singular idea. Maybe it’s a change in the way she designs the shapes, maybe it’s a shift in the way she composes the metals.
She plays. And then she completes… something.
What she does next is extremely important: she wears it.
She takes it for a test drive. She starts to understand how it feels, how it changes the way she dresses, how it attracts compliments and “gotta have its!” That’s solid data to measure.
Then she learns and adapts. Each piece that derives from the initial prototype is a new iteration on that single idea. She constructs each piece knowing that it’s built on a proven idea.
All to often I see people with brilliant ideas spending too long trying to realize the full brilliance of their idea. Businesses that bring truly valuable things into the world know when to stop and analyze.
It’s a leap of faith.
A big one.
But it’s one that pays off in the long run.
It’s a little light bulb that goes off and says “this is enough.” For now.
Before you embark on your next big project or idea, remind yourself to look for that first stopping point. Quiet your perfectionist’s brain enough to hear when a potential prototype is whispering to you. Challenge yourself to think beyond big and, instead, reach for small.
So before you being your next big project, figure out the small thing you’d like to accomplish first.
Business Brainstorm
“I make better kimchi than your Korean grandmother.”
That was what his online dating profile said.
I was intrigued.
Not because I have any great love of kimchi but because that was how he chose to describe himself.
After a couple weeks of dating, he dropped off a jar of kimchi and some soup at my apartment. I promptly ate the soup. The kimchi, I put in the cabinet. No freaking way was I going to eat that.
A few months later, going through my cabinets in an attempt to find some movie snacks, he discovered the jar of kimchi. “Um, this wasn’t sealed. It needed to be in the refrigerator.”
What happened next completely shocked this suburban girl who grew up on processed food and the-mall-as-entertainment:
He opened the jar and popped a big bite of fermented cabbage in his mouth.
Then… then… he plucked out a bite for me.
Blinded by love and inspired by his enthusiasm, I ate it.
It was good. Really good.
Fast forward 9 months.
One morning last week, he told me slept poorly because he read too much stimulating information before he went to sleep; The Art of Fermentation was sprawled out on the floor next to the bed. He’d spent restlessface hours considering new ideas for pickled vegetables.
On New Year’s Eve, he dropped off a jar of kimchi to the newest chef in town, a chef who’s been featured in Bon Appetit & Sunset Magazine, among others. New Year’s Day, he told me how he brought in another jar for his coworkers to try. He said, “I just want everyone to know how good this stuff is. I love it and I want them to love it too.”
I’ve told him many times that I think he could easily make a business out of his passion for pickling. But it was that last statement that really sold me on his ability to create something sustainable.
Businesses motivated by the deep desire to get what they create in the hands of others–to solve their problems or delight their senses–succeed. They inspire truly great marketing. They prompt story after story, reaching new prospects all the time.
That’s very different than just starting a business because you love doing your thing. Those kind of businesses generally don’t cause ripple effects of results or person-to-person sharing. They don’t get stories in magazines or mentions on the nightly news. They don’t inspire their teams to do better work.
It’s not the feeling you get when you’ve created something awesome that motivates great business; it’s the feeling you get when someone else experiences that something awesome.
When that is what drives you on a daily basis, you don’t need top 10 lists of promotional tactics. You don’t need Advanced Social Media Marketing. All you need is that core desire to share.
The reason I see potential in my partner’s passion for a sustainable business isn’t just because he loves to pickle things, it’s because he also has a passion for offering it up to others. The delight on his face when someone tries something from one of his jars for the first time is contagious. The energy he derives from seeing yet another skeptic converted to the ways of the fermented is immense.
You must have as much passion for the dissemination of your art as for the creation of it.
You must be willing to break down all your personal fears to pursue the act of plopping what you’ve created in the laps of the people you think should care about it.
You must be motivated by the surprise and the delight those you share your art with will experience.
Anything less than that and you won’t push past all the ways your fear will get block you sharing your art with the world.
Amanda Steinberg has built her publishing empire to over 1 million subscribers not because she loves writing about women & money but because she can’t wait to get smart financial information in the hands of women everywhere. Sarah Peck doesn’t just write because she loves to write but because she has a passion for engaging others about the questions and ideas she’s pondering. Catherine Just isn’t a photographer because she likes to snap pictures but because she’s eager to share the miracles she sees through the viewfinder with as many people as possible.
You might find these distinctions semantic. I don’t.
This very real difference not only predicts success but indicates whether a business owner will push through her fear, tolerate more risk, and do what is necessary to make her vision reality. It indicates whether she’ll have what it takes to trust her own ability to create the tactics that will grow her business instead of relying on the prevailing trends.
As you begin the new year in your business, ask yourself if you’re as passionate about sharing your work with others as you are about creating it. Forget that you might not know the “ins and outs” of marketing and sales. Instead, embrace a burning desire to say, as Seth Godin puts it, “Here, I made this for you.”
The rest you can figure out in time.
