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Bulid to Sell (Part Deux)

Lesson 17 from: Turn Your Service Into a Product

Tara McMullin

Bulid to Sell (Part Deux)

Lesson 17 from: Turn Your Service Into a Product

Tara McMullin

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Lesson Info

17. Bulid to Sell (Part Deux)

Next Lesson: Price Your Product

Lesson Info

Bulid to Sell (Part Deux)

Now we're going to talk about building to sell again this is built to sell part d um because it's now finally time you finally have the framework that you need the selling part, the marketing part that you need to make sure that the thing that you're building is actually going to work and the way we make decisions about formatting packaging, pricing all has to tie back to the marketing framework that you've just created if it doesn't fit in the marketing framework if it doesn't fit in the sales framework, it doesn't fit in your product period. Rebecca that's your lesson for today? Okay, so once you've done all the previous steps, you can finally start making really good decisions about actually building your product finally, if you don't do the work ahead of time, if you don't do the previous steps, you are much more likely to make a misstep when it comes to actually building your product, so we're going to answer questions like how do I decide what to build? How do I know how to packa...

ge it? How do I know the best way to deliver it? These are all questions that are functions of the decisions you've already made about why this product will sell and about how it will achieve the transformation that you've promised if you don't baste the answers to those questions on the work that we've already done again you're much more likely tohave ah product development flop and he don't want you to have to experience that there's no reason to experience that anymore. You've got the keys to the kingdom, so make sure you do those steps ahead of time so that you know how to answer these questions based on why the product will sell and how will achieve the transformation that you've promised. So step nine finally is billed to sell, actually build the product so let's, look at what this entails. First of all, there's, no right way to do this. Any product idea could be built in a number of different ways is you just want to figure out what you want to build. All right, so I want you to focus on like, is this the right thing? You'll figure it out in the process, whether it's the right thing, you just need to start ah, and base these decisions on the framework that you've already created. So here's, what you want to consider what features would help my customers get the best results? What features would help my customers get the best results? In other words, you know, is it are you video's a feature that you want to build into your course is in person experiences something that you want to build into your product is, you know, ah ah, consulting session with you something that you want to build in eyes an agency experienced something that you want to build in what kind of features are going to help your customers get the best results? Then you want to ask yourself what features would help you create at your best? What features would allow you to create at your best? All of us have different strengths when it comes to communicating what we do teaching what we do, sharing the thie ideas that we have. What is it that's going to allow you to create at your best? What constraints are you going to put on it so that you can do your very best work throughout this throughout the process of building this? They don't ask yourself what is your customer expect from a product like this? This is this is a little bit of a tricky one, because it's going to force you to think again about what already exists out there but it's an important one. What does your customer expect from a product like this? Sometimes you could do something opposite to what people expect and use that as a selling point. But often you need to create a sense of familiarity with your product so you want to take into consideration expectations are already exist and used them to your advantage. You do it either way but you absolutely must consider this question you don't want to create your product in a bubble uh then you want to ask how could I package my product to reinforce the transformation it creates in other words, how could you build it so that it's mirroring the transformation that you're creating how could you build results an action or or change into the very product itself the way you deliver it the way you package it and then finally how does the way I deliver this product effect my business operations how does the way I deliver this product affect my business operations in other words, don't make a change in your business that you don't want to make just because you want to put this product out there I run and I see that all the time people are like well I want to create this product I'm just a little afraid that it's going to do this this this this and this to my business operations was like, well, don't do that please because that sounds awful or you think it's going to be awful so it's not a good it's not a good solution for you you know jennifer's got a membership community but having a membership community is a is a very special animal when it comes to your business operations and if you don't want to take that on, don't make a membership community okay, if having an agency is not the type of business operations you want tohave don't build an agency, it might help get people great results. It might make a lot of sense for what people expect, but if it doesn't make sense in your business operations, don't do it. The answers to these questions are all about figuring out, you know, what's going to help people get the best results what's going to help you get the best results. And then also, what are the constraints that you want to put in place? What do you not want to do with this product? What would be bad for you as an individual? What would be bad for you in your business? What would be bad for your team? Put those constraints in place? They know I could do this, but I don't want teo give yourself the permission to say, I don't want to do that in my b business. Okay, then as you start to answer these questions, you can really build it up around that marketing framework that we have any questions about this part, because I'm essentially recreating an existing product, uh, there's a question of how I start, how closely together I structure the homework that I give. People as they're going through the class okay, when I first created the classical years ago, it was all really close together and it was too overwhelming and people couldn't get it done um and so now what I've done is I think that there are I think the gaps in between are maybe too wide okay? Ah and so I'm trying to figure out uh, how I structure that on dh the feedback that I've received is all over the board as faras how close we should be together at and which parts are overwhelming it's sort of yeah, I mean, there are a couple of specific places that air that overwhelming but, um this's sort of fine tuning the howto get that together do you have thoughts that on that? Yeah, I would think about who's giving you what answers or who's giving you what feedback? Because you may be at a point where to scale you actually need to get more precise as to who the customer is for this course. Andi, you also want to consider who are your outliers on either side like who were the people that want it closer together and who are the people who still want it further apart? So I would say, yeah, I really think about who you want to have buying this and they're on ly look att the feedback from people that are like them right and hopefully you get a more consistent answer if you don't have a more consistent answer like shoot me an e well, we'll talk about it, but that's, what I would do is I I really only ever take feedback on my products from people I want more people like them like I'm constantly writing what you're talking I'm trying to constantly think about how can I essentially put my favorite people on a xerox machine and just run a thousand copies that's what I d'oh, I'm really good at it, teo, but that's, what I would look at for you is who do you want? Mohr of and what's the feedback that you're that you're getting from them so that you could design the product even more closely for that exact customer on then just really don't be afraid about being really specific in your marketing of this is exactly who this is for you okay? Cool pics? Yeah, any other questions? We have a thought to add to that, too, because I've run my program it's sort of automated writing people get an email every week, so I've run the same program even at the same time, but would you like the once every two wee expression or the one every week people can kind of self select, so if it's all automated, yeah, you could be like are you working full time and don't have enough time you could sign up for this one's our programme we have a live and on automated version so yeah that's interesting yeah, yeah, it is and I mean that's just a matter of duplicating your automation sequence and email service provider and changing the frequency that's brilliant. Yeah, good job, marie. Okay, let's look at what this thing is actually gonna be what is actually going to look like and what it's actually going to look like is not much that's the good news, your days of spending months and months and months building a product are over don't do it again. Okay? Ah, minimum viable product is the way to go. What is a minimum viable product? You're mvp or your minimum viable product is the smallest thing that allows you to build, measure and learn um I used to use the the quote that your minimum viable product is the smallest feature set that someone will be willing to pay for to get the results that you're promising there's ah that's a little bit problematic not to mention it's also a little jargon e but essentially what this means is that the smallest thing that you can possibly build uh that will help you actually build something and offer something measure whether people get results and then learn from those that measuring is the most that's that's what you're mvp is payment in some form is extremely important if you can get people to pay cash money that is the best thing but you can also get people to pay in time and you can get people to pay with information like an email address or a survey response or feedback okay, so that means that an m v p might look like a gn argue interested page that's essentially like a super short sales page where you ask people for an email address does this sound good? Does this sound like something you'd be looking for? Put your e mail address in here and I'll let you know when it's available you've not built anything you may not even be building the thing but you know you get to a certain number of email addresses and you feel like this is this is validated way back when when we were very first offering quiet power strategy my assistant at the time, meghan eckman used this idea and building a minimum viable product to put together a landing page for her embroidery of the month club. She had this idea that she could offer an embroidery pattern a digital version of one every month on that people could pay a small fee to be subscribed to this because what she was hearing from people was there was just never enough patterns and she thought, well, if I just send patterns all the time, they'll be really happy. So she put together a little page as just a little landing page, asked for email addresses, got plenty of email addresses and within a couple weeks was making money on this product because there was really nothing to build outside of just making sure that people wanted to pay for embroidery patterns that she was making. Anyhow, once a month is really bad, easy, you could be making money that fast. I also talked about in the earlier like in lesson, too, when I talked about how quiet power strategy was born, I talked about that I invited people to a program that had a certain set of outcomes associated with it, a certain set of ideas that I was going to deliver, but no set curriculum because I didn't build anything before we started that program for the very first time I built the first lesson the first week that we were there. Then I saw how people used it. I found out what questions they had next, and then I looked on my little mind map of options, and I said, this is the next one, okay, great. And then I built that, and then I just did that over and over and over again for sixteen weeks, and it worked great, and then I had this starter curriculum which we've since revised over and over god, I've changed the order of things we brought bridget on board I've made everything more actionable I've made it all more problem oriented even this time we're changing the order of certain things to make it more effective and to get people a feeling of accomplishment sooner but again I didn't have anything when I sold that the first time and I did about twenty five thousand dollars in sales on the very first time I did that s so it works like this it works and the biggest thing that I have to say about building a minimum viable product is that it's not cheating it's not cheating it's not cheating to sell something before it's built that's the way you do it this is the way that you create something with people it's the way that you create something for people it's the way that you ensure that as many people as possible are going to get results the first time through not to mention it's the way that you ensure that you're going to get results without having to invest a load of time or money or energy into building it okay so here's some ideas for things you're mvp might look like it could be a landing page with a description of the product and a sign up form and it could be a complete guess you just guess you put it up you see what happens you promote it just like you promote any other thing you put it out to your email lest you put it up on social media you say hey, I've got this idea or hey, I'm working on this thing are you interested again? You don't have to be working on the thing it could be a video prototype that asked for a pre purchase where do you guys see this most often a video prototype that asked for a pre purchase kickstarter boom ding ding ding those that pit that kickstarter is just full of envy piece minimum viable products right? Sometimes people have actually gone and gotten the thing manufactured you know, in a very small lot already ah lot of times you see a digital mock up of something, you see an app that has not been built yet and so you put together a video you make it look really good you talk about the experience of the product because this is the thing that you're going to build and then you see that's something that people want to buy if it's not something that people want to buy your refund the couple of people that did and you haven't lost any time in fact you've learned something you've probably gotten feedback on the product in one way or another you've learned something about where the format was off for the pricing was off and you can try again you might create a no frills version of the product that's actively sold to the right people. That's the quiet power strategy example or I love this one. You might create a concierge project that's built to customers exact specifications mentioned this one in a previous lesson, this is they actually mentioned this in the lean startup book, but what this looks like is I've got an idea for a product. I know who I want to sell it, teo, so I'm actually gonna work with that person or a few different people to build the product with them and make sure I'm building something exactly the way they would want to use it. And again, you want to charge for this. This is not about working for free. This is about charging for this, you're not going to charge them the same amount that you would work, you know, working one on one, although you might, but instead you're thinking about how this is going to turn into a product and you want to be up front with, um, about that too, it's, it's, that's part of the deal, and that could actually be a selling point in and of itself, I'd really love for you to be a part of, you know, the beta testers that I have. For this new product on building this I want to make sure that it's exactly what people like you need s o would you work with me on this all make sure you get exactly the results that you want that simple all right? Those are all different types of envy piece so panelists I'd love to hear from you how did you choose the format delivery and packaging for your product? Marie let's start with you. Yeah, so because I found most people through facebook that was sort of where I was doing my research I just reached out and I made a little page that was like, hey, friends, I have an idea for this thing this is what I think it will do this what I think we'll cover are you interested? Got the sign ups and I think I have thirty five sign ups and a couple days, okay, I know this is, you know of interest it was pretty small facebook groups on dh, so I did as a pay what you can with a suggested price and I accepted everybody, regardless of how of all of their offer wass and some people said I'm really sorry I can't afford to give you more I love it was like no problem, whatever you can afford let's do that and so there was no material it was all facebook I made a facebook group and then that way I was able to just start talking with them directly, and they were helped me curate the content night, because if I'd built their thing, I thought I needed to build, it would have been ten times more complex. We've been away where complex it was like, okay, this stuff is the stuff I thought was kind of basic was like, way over some of their heads was like, okay, I can actually scale this back that could be advanced version to exact, so it helps you keep up stuff in check. Yeah, perfect. I love that you took the environment that you were already talking to them in and just turned it into a paid version of that with its very focused and strong, I get paid to give the advice that I was already giving any highly leaving nothing wrong with that. That is the dream. Think about that, too was I asked them, like, what from a do you guys consume online courses? And a lot of designers are introverts, and they were like, no video, please. No audio, no video and since I love tto blogger right and that's easiest for me it was like oh it's a good match thank goodness that that's how they connect with me and that's what makes the most sense for this product nice so yours was kind of a version of that concierge project product that you worked with a specific group of people on exactly what they needed on dh you know built it kind of step by step from there sweets uh jen well because I was replacing a product that I didn't think worked I just jumped right in and built the whole darn thing ah based on feedback I gotta conversations obviously in person conversations and things with people so I kind of knew what they want and I knew what I wanted yeah I knew that I was my client uh and I was my audience so I built the thing that I wanted and then packaged it based on that with you know, different language probably contrary language sort of challenging or I'm telling to the convention of what was already happening in the industry and it just kind of steam rolled from there did you book on event space before here okay would you do that again no I would not do that to go no don't do what I did no yeah that's a really good point yeah no no yeah I'll tell anyone that don't do that yeah, don't don't don't do that. Don't do back their money in hand. Yeah, because if if, if you know, if the first batch of tickets aren't willing to just say yes, I love your vision, and I trust you, then you probably shouldn't percentage events of mistake, yes, yeah, absolutely. Jennifer, I'm speaking again on this seven day workshop that I hold, so the standard of my industry is doing, like a four, six or twelve week workshop, but people tend to not have a lot of success with that stopping industry, some people and debris, and talks about this to some people who like the ten percent that are totally go getters, and we'll do everything but people are not going to do everything and that have a workshop, and I wanted to create an experience that would help we'll get results quicker, and I know that a couple of years ago, you did a customer perspective processing that was three days. Uh, yeah, I think that was and I was like, wow, you could do a lot doing things kind of live over a short period of time, and so my middle ground, too, that was seven days, like, what can we get done in a week or ten days together, that is maur transformative than something that languishes over six to twelve weeks that even I have trouble kind of keeping the attention span for on dh that's worked really well so did you have to cut what you thought you were going to teach way down totally and completely yeah even you having like seven activities in seven days this way too much it needs to be like three or four different things that I'm expecting people to dio they're inviting them to dio in that time period perfect thank you so much for sharing that alright it is time for another hot seat there we go time for another hot seat who wants to talk? Natalie, I'm going to pick on you uh because I know you already have in mind what you're going to build and I think it's a great product but I want to talk to you about what the m v p for that might look like so tell us again who you are, what you do where we could find you wild line and then tell us about the product that you're planning on building her um I'm natalie maguire I'm a graphic and web designer focusing on personality and practicality packed website design uhm and uh yeah, I still feel so clunky like trying to articulate what I want to build but it's basically a combination of uh, brandon website course on for new business owners that want teo we're kind of new to business and they need a website they don't really know where to start um so this course would kind of walk them through how to create their own brandon and it would also come with a conversion optimized wordpress theme that they can load in with their own content and kind of be basically kind of having a short cut uh to kind of business success so so cookie okay, so I was just going to address that yeah, I would say that you know, we're all really familiar, I think with education products as service and most of us I think are familiar with software service products as well. And so what I would say your building is a software and education, software and education as service product does that make sense? Yeah, I mean it's a clunky, but it at least it addresses some things that were already familiar with your combining software service with education a service to create one transformative experience for new business owners, right? Yeah. All right, so that's huge. What you're gonna build right? It's scary it's scary for sure. So how can we make sure that this is going to be a good investment for you? Have you thought about ways to test it yet yeah, I've actually so I kind of created like a giant list of features and I pitched it to three people in my that have been past clients that I did like logo's and like business cards for and but they ended up going and getting like a really basic theme because this is like before they knew me they already had it you know, set up and they did it themselves and so I was like, well, they've already kind of going through this process so I kind of want to see you know if they'd be attracted to this idea so I wrote up like the whole list of features and what the course would be about what the theme would have and I said, you know, I asked them a bunch of questions about it like how does this make you feel what's lacking what's overwhelming what's more that you would want to know about and all of them wrote back amazing feedback but what I got out of it was this was way too complicated so like I basically cut everything in half okay? So I kind of feel like I have a little bit of a handle of what the minimum viable product is but I need this kind of pitch it back to them and see if that's if I hit the right mark or not yeah and I would bet that there's actually a minimum viable products before the minimum viable a product that you have in mind I know I totally feel like that to you yeah and I think that probably landing page is the easiest way to go I think that you and I think that you should pre sell it to really uh because you said that like oh, I don't know because like, the landing page seems really safe and happy and nice for me and I was good was planning on doing that kind of anyway but then yeah, you mentioned that it was like it kind of resonated with me and I was like no that's a really good so what? Well, what is scaring you about pre selling now it's just so legit I mean that like that's like you're going all in at that point? Uh, so so what would make you feel more comfortable with that? I don't know, I guess I probably need more validation and I think from only talked to three people and their um and they like me and so I don't know what their eyes so it's our fault well, they liked me so they could just be be nice. Yeah, I kind of need to talk to strangers. Yeah, absolutely. You need to talk to strangers so here's what I think you should d'oh I think you should build a landing page, yeah I think you should do you have a girl for this yet? Know not, I don't have a name for it. Okay? Because the clunky is the clunky. Yeah. Eso no one's brought up naming at which is awesome because I hate talking about naming in the name of your product. Doesn't matter that much, but cory disagrees with may. I don't care names get meaning because you give them meaning not because they have meaning in it up themselves. That's. Not to say that there are great names for products out there that really do mean something just because you felt, you know, just because you come up with, like, just just because you put the words together because their outcome based their results based their tribe based absolutely. There are names that you, khun that you can hit on that just are like, yeah, that's the thing. But there's also names that, you know, think of all the brand names that we have that we associate so much. Meaning teo that mean nothing on their own? Yeah, right. Andi, I don't think you can argue with that, cory. Okay, so yes spend some time on the name but also don't let the name of your product hold you back it should not be a sticking point ok s o I want you to spend some time thinking about that and then I want you to buy a domain name because I don't want you to put this it natalie maguire design stock car no I don't want to know I want you to find a domain name by the domain name and set up a lead page for it because I know you usually pages so build a landing page put it on its own domain name so it looks really legit and that's it good that should be a good measurement for you actually is how can you make each piece of this mvp process look and feel fancy because that's going to help give you the confidence to keep moving forward with this and it's also a value point that you have in common with your ideal customers is that they want to feel fans see to you and that's one of the reasons that they're going to buy this product is because it feels fancy which is an interesting thing about m v p s for a lot of people m v p s can look really ugly and have be no nonsense like we still run quiet power strategy off google docks because it's the best tool that we have for you know being able to collaborate with people and give them the hands on personalized experience that we really want to give them um but for other people and web designers are often one I've I think marie would agree with this that you need to build in the you need to build the design into the mvp that's not one of the places you can cut corners you could look to cut corners elsewhere like marie your stuff probably looked good when you send it out but you send it out on facebook not on out on its own website right after I got the validation from facebook then I sure yeah no I know you did but initially it was like a very blank page that just described like it was very stripped back yeah no design perfect okay, so that's something to that's something to keep in mind so I want you to build a landing page on its own domain name then I want you to teo right? A sales pitch and the sales paige is going to say if you buy this this is what you're going to get in addition to the most important stuff which is the marketing framework marketing a sales framework that we came up with in the first nine steps okay, so you're gonna build a sales page and you're gonna ask for pre sales and you're going to give them a significantly discounted price yeah way we're gonna give them a significantly uh discounted price and you are going to put personally into place whatever systems you need to feel comfortable knowing that that money is not going anywhere okay because I know you pretty well and I know that personal finances one of the things that you're very disciplined about yes and so I would say open a new bank account for this ooh that's a good idea yeah but anyone bank account put all that money behind a firewall okay alright esse o actually I skipped a step here so between the landing page and the sales paige I want you to talk to the people that sign up send them block post ive already written uh talk to them about what their needs are survey them um all sorts of different things all the normal things that you would do content marketing getting to know your audience wise do that with this specific group of people because that's going to include people that you don't know right because soon as you put this out there your champions out there in the web design world out there in the in the digital marketing world we're going to champion it for you and we're going to send our people to your landing page and you're going to lots of people that you don't know signing up for it and then you can talk to them and find out about what they want so you don't have that excuse anymore. Yeah, right, zack okay, then you can turn that off into a sales page, so essentially, you're going to start with the marketing and sales framework that you came up with. Then you're gonna validate that marketing and sales sprained work, and you're gonna iterated on it to come up with the sales page and maybe you don't need to change it at all. Maybe you find out that some of the language doesn't work and you need to adjust it a little bit that's gonna be your sales page that's, where you're going to ask for pre sales, then you're going to continue to talk to people because this is the other important part of the pre sale process. If you don't talk to people, you lose their trust and it gets clunky and it gets scary and you don't want it to be that way. You want it to be really transparent and awesome. So tell them, you know what you're working on, give them sneak peeks. I mean, they've already bought the product, so, you know, send them the first module, send them of work sheet that you developed or tell them ten things that they could do, what there, existing world where press theme before they get to your software project, right? And then then you're actually gonna build something so you're talking to them actually accounts is kind of continuing on the m v p process I would say but you know you're going to start building the curriculum and I would also say to that after after you've gotten those pre sales you're not actually taught re talking to the side ups right? You're talking to your customer group okay, so again you're kind of honing in on what exactly these people need so that then you can develop the curriculum and then you can develop the software okay does that feel doable? Absolutely. Are you going to do it? Oh yeah okay questions? I don't think so. Uh thanks, sally. Okay questions about building a minimum viable product questions about choosing the packaging of formatting cory how do you like to decide on timeframes between announcing and landing pages and actually doing the pre sale like how long? What is your criteria for that conversation? Yeah it's been a long time since I did a pre sell personally um so with the landing page I don't think you're necessarily opening up a timeframe. I think that you're really gathering information and that as long as you keep talking to people that timeframe khun kind of stay on going as long as you're providing value presales I think that you should have a pretty good idea of when you construct delivering the product before you go into pre sale like like once you've talked to them and have a pretty good idea of what they want, then you open up the sails page yes and yeah and that you can respond to that right away like you can send out look, I don't think it's necessary to be able to say you know, from pre sales with bin two weeks you're going to get the software product but you could say within two weeks you're going to get the first correct it in the first piece of curriculum right? And you could do a whole survey thing to figure out what that very first pieces that they need because it may not be what you think it isthe right on do you want to make sure that you're not just designing this for the people who signed up from the landing page but from the people who actually pre sold right everybody rebecca talked about? You know how you can have set up when you caught a concierge format and I'm wondering too, cause I'm still parking percolating a little earlier. What I had done a while ago is invited a bunch of friends facebook friends instead of a private facebook group group and just order asking questions and telling them what I'm developing how do I take something like that and still I can continue to edit and distill means it just questions answers say this is what I'm offering. I mean, because you were intentionally how do you want this delivered? Hey, what are you looking for? You put some content out there and see how they responded. You just use that kind of format. Tio tio tio edit more than anything into still yeah, so I think that you could jump from interviewing people are being curious about what's going on for them to a sales page or a landing page, but I wouldn't jump from the conversation into building content. I would find out who actually so first of all, you would decide on what result you want to get for people with the transformation is the before and the after always go back to the before and the after on dh, then you'd want to find out who actually wants is that who's going to say yes to that? And just that it doesn't have to be more than that, right? Who wants to say yes to that before and after? Then take those people and start building the product based on them. Great that's it and that's exactly what marie did for people I already like. Yes opted in, they'd filled out my questionnaire so already knew they were committed to at least paying something right so yeah yeah on dh that's why I say the payment part is unimportant part of the minimum viable product if you can't get people to pay you haven't landed on the right idea yes essentially didn't pay what you can and people were paying okay so I had it but I was just I've been collecting data on iterating and just posting different things but just saying it's in development and in it wasn't super super formal cause again these were more yeah so I would say that your next step with iterating there is to deliver the product to people that you don't know so you might go back to that original group and say can you can you share this invitation with five other people um and tell them your experience with the work on the transformation that you've had because I'd like to I'd like to do this again with another group okay bridget how do you know I really start because I talked to her realises of my clients who like they put out their mvp and they've signed up like fifty people or twenty five people and I had first products maybe like twenty people sign up and so like what? How do you know like okay, so I did a beta run and people sign up for it and I did it in person workshopping it seemed to go okay but it was small like that you've had enough traction that you have enough data to go forward so you don't know until you do it again theo um yeah so you've got to take what you what you've done in the m v p stage and use it to create traction to go into the second stage and I think the thing that people forget to is that the marketing starts were before ah this all happens so you start guiding the conversation you start changing the way people are thinking about things we start calling out observations that you've got and you start building traction for it before you're even sure you're going to offer it again or how you're gonna offer it again eh so that you you know you're using what you've learned to build that second stage I don't think you can know whether our products succeeded or failed until you offer it a second time and you can you can iterated on it you can reposition it you can differentiate it you can even change the format but you can't know whether it's succeeded or failed until you offered a second time and I would say you can't even really know if it's succeeded or failed until you've offered it like four times and clients hate it when I tell them that but the fact of the matter is it takes a lot of build up it takes a little yeah it just it takes time to get traction, I mean, you know, think about quiet power strategy how many times that we offer that program before we really hit that big traction points on dh now again, it's time to pivot again already, right? But yeah, it takes it takes time and I hate watching people thing you know with either because of unrealistic expectations or because of fear. I hate seeing people put the kibosh on a brand new product without offering at a second or third or fourth or fifth time, and I know that that process of doing it over and over again could can be painful, and it could be a lot of work, but you're not learning if you're not putting it out there. Andi think people rush into building something new, trying something new instead of the doing the learn phase from the build measure learn cycle of evp development. Sasha I have that experience twice with sue online classes where I had double the number of people the first time and it was the same product in the same price, so then the second and third times I offered each one it was half of the original and I was exactly that I sort of gave up and when I look back on it and we were talking about one of these classes, it was really cool I probably could come back and alter it somehow I make it work better, but yeah, it seems to take a lot of persistence. Yeah, so a couple different things could be going on there, and so since this is a topic that it sounds like people are interested in, I will out like those one thing that you could be doing is that when you sell something new, you're selling too early adopters who are completely aware of who you are and what you're doing, and they're the people that are easiest to sell. And so a lot of times you do get that burst of energy right at the beginning of the product, and then if you don't change your sales process, to appeal to people who don't know you and don't know what you do and aren't completely aware of exactly what they need, you will have less and less people every time you run the program. So you have to not only interrupt your product, but airy your sales process based on feedback, so that you can appeal to a wider and wider market. It's still all the right people, it's just not all the right people are triggered by the same things, and so you need to reiterate on what what the triggers are, what the conversation starters are on dh, then the other piece of that, too, is if you're even if you do, it'll rate the sales process you also need to be building your list, building the people that you have a connection with wow, you're delivering the product for the first time or the second time or the third time and this is another thing that people very, very, very often fall of down on because the process of doing that initial mark initial marketing push and then the initial product delivery is can be really exhausting like let's yeah, like let's be real about it it's exhausting and it can be, but you also have to continue marketing through that thymus well, you got to keep posting to your block, you got to keep having the same conversation, you've got to keep inter being interviewed on podcast whatever it might be, and this is this is a big sticking point for people who are moving from service delivery to product delivery. Moving from a deep business model to a wide business model is the things that you have to do in your business are going to change a lot, and that means devoting fifty percent of your time or mohr to getting traction. So you've got to figure out a way even beyond developing the product to cut back on your service delivery time to be able teo accommodate for that as well thie easiest way to do that is to raise your prices and the easiest way to raise your prices is to put a product out there so you can say my times more valuable now. But do the math it's shockingly easy to cut back on the amount of time you do instead of a still every by raising your price by a fraction? Bridget and I did a webinar earlier this year where we gave five different ways that you could get mohr time to work on your business and one of them, wass you know, just raising your prices actually creates more time, and I don't remember the exact math that I used, but it was something like, if you're serving twenty clients a month, you only have to raise your prices like five percent to cut back on one client and gained four hours a month. So do you know, do the math you, khun, add that up really, really quickly and the really cool part of that is this. If you know if you're charging one hundred dollars an hour, is someone really gonna bulk bach on paying one hundred dollars an hour versus paying one hundred twenty dollars an hour? No, people who will pay one hundred dollars an hour will pay one hundred and twenty dollars an hour, so you might as well raise your prices. Make that extra money cut back on a client or two, and use that time to start stepping into the activities that you need to dio as a product designer and a business owner. Okay, jefferson sure, one thing that I've done over the years, yes, I end up having to separate in time my really intensively generation activities from my marketing and selling activities so that I could have more rest time in between and, um better nurture those leads and have the more ready to buy once there was something to buy because I was it was all being stacked up together. I mentioned that a little bit yesterday that I was doing lee generation so much related to the project, the product that by the time it went to market and sell it, I was out of energy. Yeah, because I had been doing it all clustered together yeah started separate them in time. Yeah, we're really going to talk about something similar in a future lesson and that's thinking about who you're actually marketing or why you're actually creating content because you can create content that generates leads and you can create content that nurtures your existing audience, but most of those most of the time that doesn't overlap and you need to just like you said, you need to think about lee generation is one thing an outreach, you know, adding new you know, breaking into new markets and adding new audiences to your audience on dh, then taking those people and taking them on the journey that they need to go on to feel really comfortable buying your product. Yeah, I appreciate you pointing that out. Thanks. All right. So your task for this lesson is to create the mvp prototype for your new products. Create the m v p prototype for your new product could be a simple as a landing page. It could be a simple as an email that you sent out to a few people. It could be a concierge product, a product that you build with five of the right people. It could be all of these different things, but build your mvp. Commit to it now, it's something that you could do tonight, it's something you could do immediately after you watch this lesson. Get out there, build it, put it together, use the marketing and sales framework that we did in the first eight steps of this process to make sure that what you're building is really, really built to sell.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

The Observation Engine - Multimedia Pack
Intro to How to Thing Like a Marketer - HD.mp4
How to Think Like a Marketer: The Who - HD.mp4
How to Think Like a Marketer: The What - HD.mp4
How to Think Like a Marketer: The How - HD.mp4
Create a Product That Resonates Workbook
Turn Your Service Into a Product Workbook

Ratings and Reviews

Mel
 

I love Creativelive and I watch a lot of good classes, but this course is mind blowing, I can´t explain how much Tara makes me rethink my business, and how this class clears up what are the right things to do to grow my business. This is especially important as I am a sole propriator and at times I am just completely lost about what to do. I love love love this course, and to be honest, the course worths so much more than what it is priced. Thank you Tara and Creativelive!

Gloria Roheim McRae
 

Ever wondered about the roadmap to creating VALUE in your products? This Creative Live houses that roadmap. I just finished three full days doing this training and can say that it's Tara's best yet, and that my business in 2016 will not be the same because of it. We will be better connected to our customers needs, we'll have content that transforms their lives (for free), and as business owners we now have the toolkit to sell our products more consistently. Thank you CL and Tara Gentile for this gift. You make small business dreams come true.

user-651608
 

It was a great experience, thank you Tara! I have watched and own other classes. This feels to me like some kind of broadening of knowledge every time with you. It has been very inspiring 3 days. My service is not a product yet but on the way to become. Great people in studio, too.

Student Work

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