How to choose a product or service to offer is often the most daunting question for newbies to business.
This straightforward-sounding issue leads to more newbies giving up than any other. After months of paralyzing indecision and 'analysis paralysis', alongside the resulting failure to make an income stream, you have no choice but to return to a job.
If you are in the situation of recently becoming self-employed but don't know how to choose a product or service for your business, these instructions are for you.
How To Choose a Product or Service for Your New Business
Here's a quick video I made about what we're about to discuss:
Get your list of potential topics ready. I'll be back soon with the next set of instructions in this series.
I am constantly contacted by people who are not yet in a position to be helped by me. They don't have a business. No product or service, no processes, no branding, no marketing...nothing for me to work with. So that's why I'm writing this Business Newbie Guide series...to give you the How To instructions to create a business I can make a significant positive impact on with you.
The typical newbie mistake is to run around asking everyone they encounter, "What's working? What's selling for you now?" The hope is the people they talk to are a little bit ahead of them, and have some secret they don't yet possess. This is wrong.
First, the question is incomplete. Second, the question leads you into a crowded market. What's wrong with these concerns? Without the addition of, "and what's broken/what's wrong/what's the worst thing about it?" you won't be able to stand out if you enter that marketplace. And even if you do head into it, that market is already full of competitors--who are far better at delivering this product or service than you are. Beginning with everyone else at a huge head start is a bad idea.
Step One of How To Choose a Product
When figuring out how to choose a product, you must think differently. Do not chase the herd. Chasing the herd will only lead you into a crowded market filled with landmines, snares and hungry predators much larger and more savvy than you. Instead, begin with this:
"What do I like to talk about all day?"
Write down this question and as many answers as you can come up with over the next 48 hours.
Take your time.
Take a walk and think about it.
Don't rush.
When you chase the herd, you rush. And that leads you into bad decisions. Does it sound good to base your business, and therefore your chances of success, on a rush decision about what the herd is doing?
If I was coaching you, I would like to see at least four or five answers on that sheet of paper two days from now. Six or seven if you can manage it.
These topics must be things you enjoy. Not subjects you think other people want to know about. We're talking about YOU. Your emotions. Not how you think about it, but how you feel about it.
Note this distinction. You are going to be, if the business takes off, talking about this topic with other people for many years. Can you see why picking a core that excites you is the perfect place to start?
The Life Secret Within How To Choose a Product or Service
"But what if nobody wants to buy what I'm excited about?" you ask. Yes, this is the fear of the newbie. Let me point out that the process of how to choose a product or service for your fledgling business doesn't stop here. We're going to do more with these potential core subjects. But this is the place to start.
I'm about to share a 'secret' of life, so pay attention:
How you FEEL about what you do is more important than anything else.
Yes. The emotions you experience as you live produce your reality. Now they are like wind: they come and they go. But as they pass, they affect your thinking.
If you are all doom and gloom because you don't feel good about your business, will you take action? Will you do the daily behaviors necessary for success? Of course not: you'll huddle in your bedroom.
And if you feel happy about what you're offering the world, what then? Will you bravely take the next step? Naturally.
So picking a topic that you love talking about automatically makes you enthusiastic about your business.
Ah ha!
Are you starting to get the picture?
Topics you list may be general or specific. A list of possible topics might include:
> airplanes
> fly fishing
> skin care to help people with psoriasis
> dogs (or a specific breed of dog)
> cooking
> network security in Fortune 500 companies
> real estate.
We're not done. Nowhere near. But this is the very first and most important step of how to choose a product--deliberately select a core subject for you business that you enjoy talking about all day. Click here for Part Two.
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