Why you shouldn’t fall in love with your new idea, and why you need to test it first

 I’ve been excited lately – very excited – about adding a new service to my list.  Suffice it to say that it has the potential of creating a very good situation for both me and the buyer. A win / win, as they say; and we’re all up for those!

So I began spending a little time in my head, putting together scenarios for reaching and delivering my new service my current client base (always start at home first, unless there’s a very good reason not to do so).

In effect, I was putting together my sales funnel.

Note however, that I do this in my head FIRST – before ANY work is carried out.

And no, of course I haven’t always done it this way. I also heard that ‘if you build it they will come,’ crap and wasted ample amounts of time and effort (and money too) putting together something that nobody wanted.

I learned from that.

Some things to remember when you next start working on your own big idea, is that YOU are your number 1 fan. Nobody else cares, or they care very little, at least until you’re able to frame the offer in a way that makes sense to THEM.

But as for the idea itself… whilst you may fall in love with the simplicity of an idea, with the elegance of its execution, with the grace of its fluidity… everybody else cares only (generally) about HOW MUCH IS IT GOING TO MAKE THEM.

So keep the mechanics for yourself and talk in math when you present your offer. Math is reliable. Business owners like math, especially when it predicts a profit for them.

So how did I test my idea?

This is the simple part, and yet the part that can save you the most time, effort, pain and even embarrassment.

And let’s not forget frustration.

Ok, so the test was simply to devise a way to reach my client list and educate them, by offering something of value in return for nothing.

This is the way online business models roll these days: offer valuable content in return for nothing. Educate your prospect and present them with a solution that fixes one of their needs.

In my case, I was pushing online marketing, so I decided to contact a few of my clients – those who I thought would be most responsive to this particular offer – and informed them that I was about to put together a whole of of video training materials about online marketing, which my clients would then receive at no cost whatsoever.

All I asked for, was whether they had any queries, any unanswered questions about any aspect of marketing their business online, which I would address in the videos.

Sounds like a good deal to me. Free training, and you get to find out what you don’t know and what you want to know. No cost.

Surprisingly (at first) nobody replied.

Not a single one of them.

So much for that.

Despite the slight disappointment, it was a good test, and it was the right way to do it. 

My clients ask me questions about online marketing often and relentlessly. But when I offered to put together some free training, nobody wanted to know.

Everybody is busy. Everybody is dealing with noise.

When they want to know something, they’ll let me know. At that point.

It doesn’t matter what I think about my idea, or how excited I am about my video training (although that helps…). What matters in this scenario – and in the typical sales transaction – is what the client THINKS, FEELS, NEEDS at this point in time.

Training is not a priority for them. They don’t even have time for it. They want results. Profit. Now.

The important thing – for my – was to test the market, to see whether a need existed for my idea to thrive in… BEFORE I started work on my idea.