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Name Your Unfair Advantage

Lesson 6 from: Turn Your Service Into a Product

Tara McMullin

Name Your Unfair Advantage

Lesson 6 from: Turn Your Service Into a Product

Tara McMullin

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Lesson Info

6. Name Your Unfair Advantage

Lesson Info

Name Your Unfair Advantage

Let's, move on, we're going to start diving into the nitty gritty now of uncovering that product. This mindset stuff will continue to come up throughout this class, but we're going to start diving into the actual tactical pieces of how you uncover your product and identify what it is that you really are going to be creating. So, as I mentioned earlier, I find still owe entrepreneurship to be highly problematic. Still, entrepreneurship, it's a it's, a great idea, right? And it's it's an amazing thing that's happened over the last ten years or so. The ease and an ability you have to set up shop tomorrow today, by yourself is fantastic, and I'm glad people are talking about this. I'm glad people are talking about the ease of setting up a business all on your own without knowing what you're doing, just because you want teo like I love that. But the concept of solo entrepreneurship leaves a lot to be desired. When you are a solo entrepreneur, it puts you in a bubble. It greatly limits your ...

ability to grow, to reach out to connect solo. Entrepreneurship is often not always, but often self employment, and the limitations that come with self employment most often come with solo entrepreneurship teo, I do know people who have built solo entrepreneurship businesses that do create the kind of revenue you guys were thinking about that do create the kind of impact that you guys were thinking about, but largely they still have teams they still invest in things they still ask for help on most importantly, they connect with other business owners, so I don't like thinking about so entrepreneurship. I like thinking about entrepreneurship as a social act. I like thinking about entrepreneurship as the act of connecting with people, whether their team members or your community, where they're just the world around you or the applications and the tools that are available to you. That's what entrepreneurship is all about? No, another big problem with entrepreneur solo entrepreneurship is that one of the key messages of solo entrepreneurship is that you've been told that you're the only one who could do what you d'oh, how many of you have gotten that message before? You are the only one who could do what you d'oh lily's raising her hand? Yeah, I've gotten that it's right for yeah, and, you know, part of that is trailed your unique, you've got an unfair advantage. You've got a unique perspective on how you do your work, but it doesn't have to be that way and thinking that on lee, you can do what you dio is holding you back that belief can leave you drowning it can leave you drowning in a pile of work. It can leave you drowning in a pile of calendar invites. It can leave you drowning in email. Mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm! If you're the only one who can answer the questions, you can't have someone else answer your email. If you're the only one who can give support to your customers, you can't hire a customer support person. If you're the only one who can deliver your service, you can't find partners to do that for you. You can't create a course. You are not the only person who could do what you d'oh. But you do contribute an unfair advantage. Do you have a unique perspective? Given unique talent, even unique piece that you can leverage? You've been unique, slow, unique system. There is something unique about what you do and how you do it. The good news is, is that that's? Not a point that you have to hold onto and take care of. And you keep precious that unfair advantage is the key toe leveraging what you d'oh it's the key to scaling what you want to dio if that's what you want that's your unfair advantage, now you contribute this unfair advantage to your business. It's not just about you because if you only think of your unfair advantage in terms of you you're right back where we started, so I want you to think about the unfair advantage you contribute to your business and I talked about unfair advantage a lot in the builder standout business class that we did boot camp that we did back in march that's still available on creative life on guy talked about how my unfair advantage is depth I get obsessive, I want to know exactly how something works start to finish I want to know all the different layers I don't want to just learn how to make any book I want to know how to make in the back e book that powers the whole business model like I don't do anything on surface level but there's a lot of surface level tactical business training out there so one of the unfair advantages or even the key unfair advantage of my business has been death we're going to go deeper, we're gonna uncover mohr. We're goingto go further than other training, other coaching, other strategy services that are out there and so I make that depth on integral part of everything that I offer when I'm thinking about how I'm going to be reese tooling and restructuring my business for next year depth is still the thing that I'm thinking about, how can we go deeper so, you know, instead of courses were thinking in terms of intensive sze instead of even training programs, we're thinking in terms of, you know, hands on support that's my unfair advantage that's, how I stand out in my market and that's the point that I've used to actually create leverage because here's, the cool thing doubling down on my unfair advantage actually allows me to charge more money if I ignore my unfair advantage. If I try and do what everybody else is doing, I have to charge what everybody else is charging. I don't want to charge what everybody else is doing. I wantto price my stuff at a premium, and so the more I step into my unfair advantage the mohr I, uh, you know, really make that the focal point of what I offer, the more I can charge and the less push back I get up, get on it and the more value people find in it so that's the benefit of the unfair advantage. Now bernadette guo talks about this a little bit in her book difference, she says, creating difference is about seeing things in a whole new light difference for me is not just that I offer business strategy it's that I offer, you know, in depth, hands on strategic training and support for your business, right? It's about reimagining what the problem or the need might be again, I said, when I was developing my program, I saw everybody was at surface level and I knew that people wanted to move from phase one two face to everybody was offering stuff for beginners. I knew there was an opportunity to offer something for a different need people who had been in business longer it's about reimagining what the problem or need might be, and the deciding that you will do whatever it takes to be the one to solve this problem for people. This approach leads to the creation of innovations and solutions that redefine the rules of the game that reinvent a category or experience hearing from a lot of you that you want to be the go to expert. I'm hearing from a lot of you that you want to leave a legacy that impacting your community is a huge part of the goal for turning your service into a product, not just making more money. If you want to leave a legacy, redefine your market if you want to leave a legacy, innovate on on a regular old solution that people have had for years and pinning down you're unfair advantage, finding your difference is exactly how you could do that so what's different about the way you solve the problem. That you saw jennifer, I'm gonna point to you first because this is something you actually talked about. Earlier. You said that most people in the scrapbooking industry or creating scrapbooking products, communities, programs, whatever about design, specifically, uh and that that wasn't actually helping people solve the biggest problem that they have, the biggest problem that they had was actually completing the things in the first place, correct or finding the time to start. Yeah, so what is your unfair advantage? How do you do what you do differently? That I'm an I n t j that I am totally analytical and methodical with everything I do, and I'm really good at breaking down projects and processes to figure out what's working what's not, and helping people create the steps in order to accomplish whatever it is they want to accomplish if it's finding the time in their day or finishing that album, yes, fantastic! I love that you brought up that urine I n t j, too, because they're so many tools out there that can actually, you know, if you're clueless of what you're unfair advantages, there are actually tools that you can use to help you. Myers briggs is a big one, I'm a ny ntp they say that one of the examples that they often give for anti peace is cs lewis and tolkien because I am tps or people, we're not it's, not that we don't like systems is that we like our own the steps way create our own world and our realities. And so that was that was actually key and helping me figure out what my unfair advantage was and how it could really create leverage in my business, too. So thank you for that. Another one, you guys noah's. I'm obsessed with sally hogshead fascination advantage system it's a communication profile. It helps you figure out how your you know what your most compelling communications style is, and your communication style could absolutely be a part of your unfair advantage. It could be a big part of the way you do what you do differently, the way you solve problems differently. So that's another thing to check out. Bridget what's different about the way you saw your this problem you solve. Yeah, well, I'm actually just kind of realizing it's something I've always had, which is like this ability. Teo, imagine the world is like, I think it should be and but see it as it iss and like with our clients, like what we often do is like things that people see his road blocks, I can flip them, and opportunities like michelle was in my messaging program. And she's doing media research and she said, oh, god, all the other speaking columnists are just they're all saying the same thing. It's not great, it's boring. And she felt kind of dejected by that and, like, you know, that's, the opportunity, right, you get to come in is a breath of fresh air, but I think it's common to see patterns and feel stuck and block to them, and I see negative patterns and I come up with, like, new worlds or new ways to approach them. And and I can bring that to all the work that I d'oh. Excellent. How about somebody else what's different about the way you solve the problem? You saw melissa? Well, most of the people who do so similar to what I d'oh helping people find a feed, their creative hungers are playful and whimsical, and maybe wu, but what I bring to the table that my people have mirrored back to me over and over again is I bring the solid, pragmatic, science based kind of approach to it in addition to the playfulness and the warm, warm fuzzies. Nice, nice you bring up a really great point, which is that your people mirrored this back to you if you're at all confused about what you're unfair advantage might be, think about what people say say to you what did they tell you is different about what you offer that's again a big place where my understanding of my unfair advantage came from people would tell me you know, this is more in depth this is the robustness that I'm looking for from a business coach other people were kind offering me stuff that was either really mindset based a really tacky double I really appreciate the depth that you bring to your system wow okay, that was a huge wake up I should probably put that to use yes, ok and so that's that's where so much of that came from so you know you can look back through emails we're actually gonna be doing that in a few lessons but you can look back through emails look at your social media, talk to your old clients what is different about the problem about the way you solve the problem you solve which leads us to another question what's most compelling about what you offer and this is something that definitely your customers have been telling you about probably for years what is most compelling about what you offer in other words, why two people ultimately decide to buy from you sasha why do people buy from you? Why why do people buy tang azem um well, with tang asm and I've been thinking a lot about corky alone on all of this I think that it's looking at things in a new way there's like a new spin that they haven't heard bef for with quirkyalone it's very much most things about being single make you feel bad and there's just so much validation in the experience of finding out your quirky alone and that there are others so that it's not just about being single but it's a platform where you can feel good about yourself either way so you know it's just like coming into a field of affirmation for who you are as an individual that's really interesting because I could see that happening with your tango awesome adventures tio it's a new identity aunt it's a sense of belonging even that comes with that new identity and so for quirkyalone it's the idea of wow I'm not just weird I'm quirkyalone where I'm not just single I'm quirkyalone this is intentional, there are other people just like me and there are people who are in hk working relationships two and that if I don't want to be this way for the rest of my life I can see that there's there's other options that I have based on who I now know I am and I think probably with ten gasam adventures it's the exact same thing they come in, you know, a seeker they come in as someone who's really interested in their own personal growth may leave a tango dancer like you change how they see themselves, and now suddenly they're part of this huge community in addition to having all of the personal growth tools and development that comes from that process. So that's, that's huge. I love that cool what's most compelling about what you offer, michelle my clients tell me again and again what they love most about working with me is that I'm able to pull out the uniqueness of their message because I can see the whole message I like, well, what if we combine this part and this part and wow, wouldn't that be cool and look at how that positions you against everyone else in your industry? And so time and time again, they're like, I love how you're able just to pull out what makes me unique because idea people don't normally see it for themselves, right? Right. Awesome. Perfect. Okay. Oh, yeah. Jennifer one thing that I've heard a lot from my students is that I give them permission. Tio be a scrapbook or they the way that this into their lifestyle and what they want they want to do it. There's been a lot of pressure in the industry, uh going back a long way with there was a right way to scrapbook there was a right way to do this he had to use certain supplies and now in the online space it's always focused on bye bye bye because as an industry that buying products is what supports having an industry but I give my people ah, permission teo choose the projects that they want to work with you don't have to kind of be a sheep and follow the herd you have to figure out what's going to work for your lifestyle in order to be fulfilled by your hobby and not totally overwhelmed by it. Nice, perfect. All right, so the last question here is why is your business the right one for the job? I mentioned sally hogshead just a couple of minutes ago and this was a question that she asked when I was in a training with her she asked every one of us that was there. Why is your business the right one for the job? There are so many other options, so many other options out there not to mention just people trying to figure stuff out on their own. Why should someone hire you instead of or your business or buy your product instead of everybody else? Why you cory? Why the abundant artist? So the industry that I work in professional fine art uh is the general trend and mindset in that world is you must go through a gate keeper in orderto have financial success. But the dirty secret in the business is that most artists actually sell their art themselves. Direct collector. But they don't become famous that way. Oh, interesting. So what I teach artists is howto actually run a business rather than be dependent on gatekeepers and there's. Really? Only like three people in the world that air actively teaching that toe large numbers of artists. Nice. So a lot of people out there instead teaching how to get to the gate. Keepers got, uh, gotcha. And so that's. Almost like that. It sounds like it that's all that's like a vanity thing. Like if I could get to the gatekeeper, then I'll be so good that it's validation. Itt's what? The industry? The art industry teaches a zoo hole. So it's look, it's sort of the path that's laid out for all of them. And I have taken on the role of truth speaker I'm an outsider. Yeah, truth speaker. I love that you try and do that myself. Well, yeah. So that that's huge andi, I love busting misconceptions in terms of you know. You might think that this is how things are but actually like they're like best, and I'm going to teach you why I'm going to show you how other people are doing this, you know, we do that with the living room strategy, which I'll be talking about in later lessons where a lot of people think that the way you launch a big program is, you know, you get us many affiliates onboard as you possibly can it's brand new and then you just kind of throw it out there and you make lots of lots of money. That's not actually how people are developing products, they're they're selling them to ten people, first seeing what works and then iterating, which is exactly what we're going to dio but yes, so that's that's that's really that's? Thank you. Um, why is your business the right one for the job? Marie, I think what I'm doing is making strategy more approachable. S o I think a lot of people are teaching other designers how to run better design businesses, and I'm saying design is not enough ballistics and these more complex topics and maketh, um, more approachable, so I think people sort of like that oh, I I can do this too nice, nice and so strategy is probably your unfair advantage, right? I feel like I've been told it's the approachability like it's there's a down to earth this like it it doesn't seem so crazy and complex gotcha nice I like it gen george your hand up um yeah, I think what we do is we invite encouraging model vulnerability and then ultimately provide the tools for people to build on that nice excellent. Well, I kind of got through this question already so we'll skip through that and we're gonna go right? Tio ah hot seat. I want to help somebody find their unfair advantage. Natalie, I'm going to pick on you for this e I have a feeling this might be helpful for you so come on and now you tell us who you are and where we can find you online uh my name is natalie maguire found it. Natalie maguire design dot com and I'm a graphic and web designer that kind of believes that you can create personality and practicality pack designs have you been working out matters I have here may not have said it a couple times today my head today fantastic that's a porte de so what do you what do you see is the main problem that your web design clients facing um well there's a few things one is that their sights don't reflect who they are, what they dio that their personalities aren't being represented to the full amount of their authenticity um and also they're struggling with a lot of conversion rates, their people aren't signing up for their email list or they're not signing up for their product or program, they may have too many goals on their site or no goals on there saying s o I talk a lot with them about, you know, finding out really what their goals are and then design around those schools while also bringing in their personality. Yes, so this is this is kind of ah client problem and sort of an industry problem as well, right? So lots of people are building really pretty sights, but that pretty doesn't necessarily reflect the business, and it doesn't necessarily reflect b how are we gonna turn this into something that makes money? Exactly? Yeah, so many designers are focusing on making a pretty picture on then there's a lot of the other side of things where it's, you know, everything is really conversion based and, you know, a lot of flashing animated jess and and I believe they're khun b a marriage between those two things, I don't think you have to make something ugly for it to work, but I also think, you know, prettiness is a perk, yeah, awesome, so it sounds like you kind of got your unfair advantage down that it's, this marriage of personality and practicality yeah I sort of distillate as I believe that design is much more than just a pretty picture nice eso you told us earlier that the asset that you're working on is sort of like ah wordpress beam that comes with training embedded in it yeah so it would help you basically right you're content create the images that you would need teo represent your personality kind of how to find those elements visually and manifest that get all of that together and then you would get a wordpress theme that's conversion optimized so as you go through this course it would show you really where to put those answers to those questions in a theme that is already conversion optimized right out the box without any coding or any sort of tech skills required okay perfect so that's really then kind of addressing this giant hole that you you've got in your market where people are working with individual designers and they're getting pretty sights that aren't necessarily practical on dh there there's then tons of courses on how to design your own website but often they're either focused on how to make it prettier or how to do the nasty stuff on the back end that actually makes it like work yeah and nobody likes doing it it's scarce yeah exactly so you're you're pretty much pulling all of these different elements together around that unfair advantage then to say you can do this yourself there is cem, systematic things that you need to follow to be able to really get results from this website, and we absolutely could make it look good and reflects your personality as well, right? Exactly. Yeah, well, you've got this figured out. D'oh, you've any questions about how to imply that unfair advantage? Further, I think just sorting it out is helpful and kind of owning that. I think just having a framework of discussing it on drily just pointed it out and having that's distinct phrase and owning that I think is really helpful for someone like me who suffers from imposter complex massively. Yeah, yeah, so and I think that's a really good point two is that you're unfair advantage is not just about figuring out where you are create leverage from a product or how you can start to uncover it out of your service, but it's also about kind of, you know, getting those getting that nagging voice to go away when you can introduce yourself and say, this is how I'm unique, this is how I do things differently. This is why you should hire my business and set of another business, or why should buy my product instead of a different product that, as my friend tanya geisler would say, is your authority fi cess, you've got this. One sentence way to be able to say no, I got this. No, really. You should listen to me. Yes, I am the goto expert on this, right? And so that we can really start getting rid of that impostor complex there at least a little bit by little bit by little bit. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Because your e a I was just gonna say, natalie, I I've hired a few web designers. Uh, natalie's, thie only designer I've ever heard bring up conversion on her own without me asking about what's your experience with designing for conversion. Web designers don't think about it at all and don't have any concept and don't have any experience doing it. Yeah, well, and is a huge advantage for you. Absolutely. And, you know, not a lot of clients or a savvy issue are either a lot of people just want teo have some home on the web that's beautiful, which is understandable, but there's more to it than that. And so that gives also, natalie gives a huge point for education as well. And education is hugely important in terms of creating a great customer experience and convincing people that you are the right person for the job so there's tons of content marketing baked into your unfair advantage as well and I think that that's something that all of you will find is that if content marketing is one of the ways that you're going to go about turning prospects into customers that you know talking about air using your unfair advantage in that content marketing creates a much easier shift from thinking about something toe actually buying something it's something that I again try and do with my content marketing as well I think for the most part you will not find articles that talk about the things that I talk about on my block on other business blog's you know you might talk you might find articles about you know how to get more reach on facebook on other people's I'm going to tell you why things are getting more reach on facebook and how you can duplicate that through everything that you're doing so you never have marketing the false plot of flat again right? So very different andi really helps your content it helps your marketing really stand out so then your products becomes kind of a no brainer all right, so this is another opportunity to tweet me what's your unfair advantage and I'm just gonna go straight down the line and I find out what you're unfair advantages melissa oh I talked about that that um I bring the creative and the playful and the whimsical but I ground it with the very pragmatic science based approach perfect michelle strategically discovering your uniqueness nice cory I'm a fine our world outsider and truth speaker nice rebecca still working evolving from my brick and mortar to this product so I think that's what I'm trying to translate I could talk to you about my brick and mortar that no problem but I'm trying teo think a little differently so that's why I'm still iterating all right so then what I want you to be paying attention to him for anyone online was also struggling with this a swell is in our upcoming lessons we're gonna kind of unpack the process that already eggs exists and so I want you to be thinking about which parts of that process point to an unfair advantage that you don't really recognize yet on dh well well actually be flipping that around than later on where we're a signing are unfair advantage to a part of that process but your process might actually help you get to that point as well. Great thing okay, andy I hope you see things um artistic and creatively to that other people don't fantastic bridget I can take the things that you think our blocks and turn them in opportunities jen I'm an intuitive problem solve the solver who can break things down to their simplest level it's murray I make strategy more approachable nice jennifer I have scrap pickers used their brains to create I'm not doing well today um I, uh take a more purposeful approach to their hobbies fantastic sasha um getting you out of your comfort zone while celebrating who you are already fantastic this group I mean okay, just talking about unfair advantages how interesting is all of this stuff? I want to talk to mme or I want to talk maur toe all of you about what you just said and so that's another piece here is this unfair advantage isn't just a starting off point for a product it's also a conversation starter. This is something you can use in your cocktail line in your elevator pitch. This is something that you can weave into a keynote address it's something that you can teach from its a position that you khun using a sales conversation to say, you know, I know that you've probably talked to other web designers on dh probably you know, they're they all create amazing websites. What I can do for you is not just create you an amazing website, but I can create you an amazing website that gets results and I think getting results is really important to you is that important to you? And they say yes and now they're sold that's it they're sold so you're unfair advantage is the key to so many of these different things do we have some responses from the online audience d'oh chris, with the cases I could teach and motivate, I can categorize and organize a big thing into bite sized pieces is nice. I help women to maintain control of their own stories by lighting of their voices, and amanda sue says, I have the ability to think both very creatively and very strategically analytically that is my unfair advantage. Nice! I love hearing how many people have that kind of dual approach to their work. We've got a number of different people in the audience and on the online audience as well. Any questions before we sort of wrap up this segment, so one was from whitney hess. Why the focus on revenue? Not profit in terms of the numbers? Yeah, yeah, so I'm talking about revenue right now because revenue is what's going to to drive what you build and why you spent s o prophet obviously is hugely important, and thinking about profit goals is hugely important as well. However, I think in terms of what is going to inspire you to change the way you make money, revenue is the way you do that and then from there you can kind of re engineer how you're then also goingto optimize your profit and what those profit goals are going to be, but when you're especially when you're making that transition from that self employed mindset to the business owner, mind that I think those, you know, ten times or even just three times or two times revenue goals can really get you out of out of your comfort zone and help you think really creatively about what you could create to actually get you there. So that's, why I focused on revenue instead of profit today, anything else? I've been always told not to offer my services for free because then people don't have the buy in how can I find people who would have the buy in even if I'm not asking them to pay me? That's a good question and it's it's a tough one, but I think it really comes down, teo, you know, being very purposeful about who you're talking, teo one thing that I have done, what I want to work for free is actually go out and find the people I would never say. I would never put a call out on my website. Hey, I'd like to work for free for five people, you know, sign up here and I'll get in touch instead, I would kind of use my network connections esso I might use social media would definitely use colleagues or friends, and I would look for exactly who I wanted to work work with one thing that you can actually do is create a job description for who this client is going to be, so you can say, you know, these air, the interest they have, these are the goals that they have these or maybe some of the personal values that they have on kind of put that description together and actually send that out to your network, friends, family, colleagues and say, I'm looking for someone who meets this description, can you send them my way? Send an introduction? I'd like to do some work for free in terms because I have a goal of building this other thing that I'm building on dh, then you can kind of interview that person, make sure they're a good fit and then move on from there. Yeah, sasha, um, I have a number of intertwining brands with that have a goal, I think that's in common of empowerment, especially for women, and my challenge now is picking, and I'm all for this product thing because I really think being a one on one service provider or coach for me is just not big enough, and I really am totally on board with being the boss like I feel really good about that that's what I want to be, um, so I'm wondering if you've seen people launch our work on more than one product at a time that have sort of interconnected brands or things or if it really is a one at a time process to get something toe work yeah, I think to get something to work there needs to be quite a bit of focus I think that focus is what helps create traction and you know, I know you and I have talked about in the past you know, all the effort that goes into actually selling something once you know what the thing is yeah and that on top of you know, the burden of building multiple things be burden of selling multiple things is crazy and I think if you're being really honest about how you want to spend your time and what kind of results you really want to get it's always going to land on building one thing first thie other thing without that people forget is that when you work to get traction for one thing, getting traction for the next thing is a lot easier. S o as an example, I've worked really hard over the last three years to get traction for quiet power strategy or it used to be called ten thousand feet and now this year and launching some new offers that go along with that one of the things that were in the process of launching right now is briones the masterclass offer so I can then say it's quiet power strategies the masterclass with bree and dick the attraction that I've gotten for my program spills over into this other offer that we that we're putting out there and so I know that you know, I have riel you know, fair man, not a real fair amount I have a pretty certain amount of of confidence in its ability teo cell because of the traction I've created with something else s o I'm a huge fan of focus I don't think that means that you you have to get rid of everything else in your business or that you have to get rid of these other interest or other brands, but I do think in terms of actually getting the traction you need to make something succeed focus is one of the ways that you do that that said, I think, you know, you know that the chief initiative idea that I've talked about a couple of times here on creative live if you've got that chief initiative that you're super focused on and there's other projects that help you achieve that chief initiative, you can create that kind of focus with multiple projects as well, so that that's a different way to look at it, but it's still involves knowing what you want to create and why makes sense all right cool, so let's take oh yes, melissa, I think you're primarily aiming at a lot of people who have a one on one service that they offer and I have done one on ones but it has been such a tiny piece of what I've offered in it and I haven't had an offer on my website for I mean for months and months and months and I've like partway through a sales page and haven't been able to get it up there and part of it is I feel so much resistance to booking up my time with one on one and yet I also appreciate the value of of, you know, the research, huh for those you know, doing the one on ones and and what that could give me in terms of research so can you just kind of talk about that? Like how how how do I approach that? I mean, I am just so I've been so stuck around it and I have two members of a mastermind group here we've been waiting for me to get a sales paige up yeah, four months and I just can't seem to get myself to pull the trigger. Yeah, so I will say that I think a lot of people jump into information product development much faster than they probably should at least someone who's moving from something that's either intuitive or really service based like what you see what you've done um because they don't realize how much how much the service can inform the product they also then don't think necessarily of the product as a service which it is on dh they don't realize how much time and energy has to go into building the platform for that product as well. I don't think you know, obviously lots of people build products without having services first or without having done you know that's not true I was going to say without having done the research that and that is absolutely not true if you read the little lean startup eric reese talks about all of the research that went into the products that he's built and it's insane amounts of research and it's it's done um alongside of the product development, but it is completely intertwined with it to the point where you know, one of the examples that he actually gives is a concierge project their product concierge product product on dh what he means by that is a product that has been designed specifically for a particular client, so it is a service but it's with the goal of creating a product and it's with that system first and foremost in there in your mind, I think the example that he uses if I'm remembering correctly as it is essentially a grocery shopping service and so they this company that was developing this actually went to people's homes sat down with people and said if you were to buy into a concierge grocery shopping service or if you were to buy an app that was a grocery shopping star best or aa system, what would you want out of that? What do you buy on a weekly basis? How do you decide what you're going to buy on a weekly basis or you meal planning? Are you just playing it by ear? And so then they'd go out and buy groceries for this purse, ed, right? And so it was not scaleable at all. Paul graham talks from y combinator talks a lot about doing things that aren't scaleable in order to build a product that scales on dh, so you may not want to think about it as I'm offering a survey I'm offering a one to one service you might want to think about it as this is an absolutely essential part of the product development process, and your time is gonna be spent doing this no matter what, so you can either get paid for it, you could get paid for your product development or you can sit at home, work on it yourself, not get paid for it and then watch it flop when you go to launch it, does that clarify things really? Okay, I'm here, so I'm a huge fan of getting paid for product development. Even right now, if you're like rushing off from creative lives to go deliver your service, I want you to think right now I'm getting paid for my product development, but even if you're not like if you're not totally involved in your service delivery right now, if you're in the in the same department as as melissa, I want you to think about any one, two, one service that you would offer as I am getting paid for product development that's what I did in over those two years, I could have built courses instead of doing that, and I would have watched them continue to flop, and instead I said, I'm gonna work with the right people. I'm gonna really devote my time and energy to understanding what's going on here, I'm going to get paid for product development because this is my ultimate goal again, you don't need to spend two years doing it, but a little bit of time invested now in actually working with people on what their problems are on. How you can help solve them on where you're applying her unfair advantage could mean that you avoid a flop in the future.

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!

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.

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.

Student Work

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