How To Build A Productocracy, Select A Niche, Build A Solution, And Pre-Sell
I am pleasantly surprised bro, I haven't met people around me who'd normally be interested in how I would want to start a business so this really is a breath of fresh air (This is what I originally wrote to you @
CruxisKnight
). After pondering it for about a week now. I'm going the Sam Ovens/ IceCreamKid route/ alexanderkjones. Basically going from Niche Market > Problem > Solution [>Value> Money].
Here is Alex’s thread-
How to Choose a Target Industry for the Fastlane for more info.
Here is IceCreamKid’s thread-
GOLD! - No network? No money? No idea? No education? NO PROBLEM!.
I’d say this solution is a hybrid of both, leaning more to Alex’s side. Ice also recommended you learn copywriting for marketing and sales. This thread was recommended by people in his thread as the killer guide for it-
Due to hijacking another thread I decided to create my own thread. This thread is for every one who is interested on taking Gary Halbert 30 day challenge to be a world class copywriter. The intention is to follow gary halberts way to the letter without deviation, and, to keep each other...
www.thefastlaneforum.com
But don’t action fake, if you are going to do that, do that as you move with the solution below. Just draft a plan that is well researched. And follow each step in that plan, focus on performing the next step and not worrying about something like step 64. Mario kart anyone?
I'm always open to feedback by the way, so don't hold back!
I was going to write what I was going to do in my
perspective, but after looking at the entire plan I decided perhaps others would find it useful and if they were to ever implement it, would prefer it says you’s rather than I’s. Might create a new thread based on this to help others like me who have nowhere to start from and need pointers for how they can go. I’m a person who loves plans based on underlying moral values and logic so I hope this helps you as much as it helps me.
Also, one should know there are really are only two ways to provide value. Either you make something that exists distinctly better in some way/more frictionless or you solve a real problem people are having in their industry which I do think this method is the latter. By providing relative value solving needs or wants, you will birth a
Productocracy. Finally, I’ll be documenting my 90 day journey on the forum, either on my profile posts or on this thread itself or in a new thread, what would you recommend? I will do my best to update everyday so wish me luck as well. [Date start of challenge for me- 29th May, end- 29th August] Here we go!
If
STUCK/FAILING/…
Principles of the Journey:
- Act, Fail, Assess, Adjust- Each step to a goal will always be in one of these phases, so that’s one certainty. If it fails, you need to do more. KEEP TRUDGING AT THE FAIL PHASE, eventually progress will be made. Make sure your moving to…
2. Focus on value and know your reasons for even attempting the Fastlane. Scale * magnitude. My goal is to help at least 1000 people(In the long run) and see their smiles in total in 5 years by solving their problems and be known for being a kind, loving, awesome, and smart entrepreneur. Why? So I can liberate others and myself in ways of time and frustration. Now this is my personal goal, in addition to never having to need wearing a tie and suit and taking my family to travel in Monaco, as well as relieving their financial stress. These goals help to act as a superhuman motivator, each day revisit them, revisit your grand why.
3. Love everyone like your mom and all the treasures in the world will dance to your doorstep. Help people for real, from a genuine place of love. There is no shortage of treasures for the men and women who help other people in solving their problems.
4. It's not about YOU -- it's about what YOU CAN DO for the market you serve. Be a helper with no needs and wants of your own but theirs. Care about what they care about.
5. Understand you gain regardless of the outcome
If Failure —> Experience, skills and new connections gained.
If Success —> Experience, skills and new connections gained + Monetary benefits.
6. Do your very best to leverage expertise, knowledge, connections and time of others to allow for the maximum productivity with the minimum effort. This is your superpower as an entrepreneur, coupled with your innate strengths, for example speaking.
IF IT ALREADY EXISTS, USE IT IF YOU CAN. AVOID STARTING FROM SCRATCH WHERE POSSIBLE TO SAVE TIME AND MONEY. For example, trying to create a search engine for your app -> It must exist, this isn’t where you’ll be adding value though so save yourself the time. Unless, you really do need to build in this search engine as all others just aren’t up to what you have to do, in that case you can even sell that solution too in another market if you go ahead with it.
7. Optimise actions for great goals by operating on a ‘100% this plan will/must work mindset’. This should give you a real chance to succeed.
8. Optimise goals and results by basing it on the top 10% of results and expertise on a subject worldwide (Consult the experts). E.G. building a website. Compare with the top websites on the web, or a ‘great’ website and build towards that. If you want to the results to be known as good by other people, it must be greater than the standard, even if by a little. This also avoids building a bad website due to your own biases.
9. At least 1 hour of work each day, preferably at the same time each day. Start to increase these hours as you go, so you can do do and be more.
10. Do things properly, and if required, at a professional level. Do your best not to compromise for worse quality. No rush work if not needed, it reduces the chances of success.
11. Do things more efficiently where possible.
12. You can not exit this challenge. You must do your part for 90 days. Or give $3-$50 to your friend. You may have 1 rest day a week in the early stages. In case of an extenuating circumstance, you may skip a day. (My accountability would be posting here in this thread)
For the Niche. Select a niche. A niche business usually within a broader industry. I already have a good number of options so that’s settled. This site lists over 2000 of them-
Find Profitable Niches: Mega List of 2,531+ Niches & Micro Niches | Nh OR use Linkedin industry selector to find all the official markets and then niche down not those.
- Your target market is the group of people you serve.
- Your niche is the service you specialise in offering to your target market.
Narrow it down to the one you like the most and niche down to a specific subset. The subset you choose must be a High value industry where the number of businesses nationwide is 30K-50K (Or more). They have less than 25 employees and $100K - $1 million Revenue/profits a year ( Meaning a market size of around $40 million nationwide in this example)[The Important thing would be that there's enough disposable income so that they are willing and able to spend on improving themselves and the situation they are in] and that sell products in the $1000 price basket. As Alex would say, for most beginners, to make a radical change in your life, all you need are 10 businesses making you $2,000/month. If you're making an additional $500/week that's a significant chunk of change starting out and a great baseline to shoot for. if you're not able to find a $200/month problem for a client move on and look for a more expensive problem. You'll most likely find several problems in any industry, make sure you go for the ones that will bring you cash-flow and momentum. As you'll normally only be able to charge 10-20% of the value of the problem (Based monthly). E.g. 10% * (hours lost to problem * hourly rate), that's why an expensive industry is chosen. Also, this niche should be on the rise not decline. These businesses can even have a $2000/month problem. Launch should be aimed for 3(Software) to 6(Physical product) months max after pre-sales.
For the problem. The bigger the problem, the bigger the opportunity. It would be finding problems that people in the field stress over in the night, their 'Biggest Problem’ (A real pain point). Coming up with the actual problem is near impossible because you don't have it, so ask the people in the niche what their biggest problems are (Through text or a meeting) and extract the pattern of problems from asking at least 50 people in the niche using platforms like Linkedin, Quora, Yell or email. By telling them you would like to to know the biggest problem in their profession and that you’re a budding entrepreneur looking to help people. [UPDATE: This route can be taken to find out these problems, from ICK. Right now the approach I'm using to get problems is to use this method and ask them directly. "After getting to this step, I recommend you ask for an interview from these people about their marketing and sales strategies which you will publish on your website.
1. Find the top (50)-100 performers in XYZ niche and contact them through various methods for an interview.
2. Create a website and post one new interview per week discussing their best sales and marketing strategies (Or whatever you wish to be perceived an expert on).
3. Use free marketing strategies to drive traffic to your website. You are not selling anything at this point, only creating credibility and gaining trust.
4. After a good number of interviews, write up a PDF article titled, “The Astonishing Secrets That The Top Performers In XYZ Niche Don’t Want You To Know!”. List out some good info in this article. Generate an e-mail list by offering this article to potential leads on your website. “Enter your e-mail HERE and receive a FREE report!”. The list of e-mail leads is key for later on. THE LEADS ARE THE GOLD.
5. You’ll start noticing common pains that many of these top performers are experiencing. Take note of these pains for later."
So Steps 1-2 build trust. Step 3-4 builds your own authority. Step 5+ identifies and eliminates pains of people in this niche, with which you just created authority.
]
After seeing at least 50 of these performers, a main problem(s) (the pattern) will appear. Next go back. Tell them that you'd love a few minutes of their time to understand what their challenges are to see if you can help (Preferably the ones with the main problem). You would then sit down with them to have them walk you through their day, after introducing ourselves so You can understand the processes to see how things work and what they do to try and rectify their problems. What are their dreams? What's stopping them from reaching that next big goal? What are their biggest challenges? What is their process (Activity and purpose of activity,Tools used and for what purpose)? where does the problem appear in it? Maybe they spend 100 hours a week doing some mundane paperwork task or maybe they have a communications problem that's causing them to lose their sales productivity by 200 hours a month. For the hours lost, you will ask them that as well in the meeting, after asking on average what their price/hour is, for example $50/hour. Whatever it is, let them tell you the value of the assets and do the math, on paper to know much the problem really is worth. Know that you'll be able to charge 10-20[ 20% if it is a really well done job ]% of that problem as a service fee and it will be a no brainer. [Start Block A]
*****Optional route****
Bonus! Finding Problems Another Way
Of course another way to find problems would be to Read Yelp reviews. Read what people are posting about in Facebook Groups. Read what people are commenting on Twitter. See what people are creating boards around on Pinterest (and why). Join LinkedIn groups and see what posts get the most attention in your niche.
All complaints or questions you find online within your target market will translate into your opportunity.
Even realising that competitors are making money with a similar product or service, this will help you validate the idea that your product or service works.
**********
——Optional route—
Email marketing to build an audience after you’ve found a problem
Go Talk to Your Target Market & Build an Audience
After the main pain point is identified, boost your audience.
(Edit template as necessary, this is just a sample)
Make a spreadsheet list of about 300 websites. Include the name of the person you want to contact and the link to their email or contact form. Kick off your campaign by sending between 10-20 emails per day.
Follow up template
Keep track of all replies and responses you get. Seek to engage them in a conversation and get answers to the key questions listed above. (Remember)
Since you’re looking to help people solve a problem, chances are you’ll get a high email response rate (Probably 10%). This confirms if , “X is a problem, or is there a more pressing (painful) problem you might solve?” Article link-https://www.autogrow.co/pre-selling-guide/
———
[End Block A]
Each meeting may last for 5-10 minutes. Obviously, through a virtual meeting since we are currently in a pandemic. You would then get to the root of the problem by asking the 5 why's to see what they aren't seeing. After you have collated the data, a main pain point(s) [If multiple, select the top 3 and work with them, or select one big one and focus on it] will be apparent within the people in the field. Look through your list of expensive problems and choose the one that looks the easiest (Or rather, a harder problem as this means a bigger opportunity). That will be the problem you are solving which will motivate you even more since you would be helping people for real! Then You you can onboard these people as investors later through pre-sale.
**** [Bonus Stage!]****
This step would be optional if you don't have any money. But it also furthers the principle of give first before receiving, people would even be more likely to listen to you if you give them value of some kind.
The next step would be to find the top 30-100 performers in the niche and contact them through various methods for an interview probably through Linked in, or other means after creating a website that allows you to post one new interview per week discussing their best sales and marketing strategies. And then use, free marketing strategies to drive traffic to the website.
A good interview ender would be-
"Who in the <NICHE> world is considered a superstar? Someone even the most accomplished <NICHE PROFESSIONALS> look up to?”
This gives you more people to talk to, and an easy referral to start your next email "I was referred to you by another <NICHE PRO> at the end of our interview”
After a good number of interviews [Can be 10 interviews to start off], write up a PDF article titled, “The Astonishing Secrets That The Top Performers In XYZ Niche Don’t Want You To Know!”. List out some good info in this article. Generate an e-mail list by offering this article to potential leads on your website. “Enter your e-mail HERE and receive a FREE report!”. The list of e-mail leads is key for later on. You should also email this to the contacts you’ve touched on before, after telling them it is on your website but for their convenience, you’re emailing it to them as well.
********
And when you’re done engaging (via email or even via phone) with people who replied, it’s time to stand back and read through all the data you collected, all the notes you took, and all the responses to the key survey questions.
Then make an objective decision about whether it’s worth proceeding or not with your product or service idea.
Ask yourself:
Does the data point to the original problem you thought the market has?
Does the data point to a different idea you had? Or a totally new direction?
Look for patterns in the responses.
For the solution.
This is the inverse/opposite of the problem. Just doing this assures you that theoretically, you've already solved the problem, the rest is just breathing life into it. A dancing baby solution is born! The first step would be to organise a Google meet for 10-20 of these performers [If bonus stage was done, also add in the top performers in these groups preferably ] who want the same need solved and organise weekly calls with the group. It is recommended to start with at least 30-100 pre sales before you go do it, but of course this depends on the price of the product as well. During each call, you'll have them describe in EXPLICIT detail what they want the solution to look like. (Ask if people had a magic wand to solve the problem, what that wand would do) Thus, this will build rapport and trust with you over the coming weeks since you genuinely care about solving their problem.
Once they have told you IN VERY DETAILED DESCRIPTIONS(Basically gathering the requirements and give each feature a mark so you can measure your progress to the end goal) of what their solution should look like [In this process, a mockup or dummy prototype can be used to demonstrate what this solution will do e.g. using powerpoint presentation], you will get $2k-3k [Or whatever product development money is appropriate to build the product] in
pre-sales from each of them.
You can also
build a landing page to check if people are interested in the service
- Like a Sign Up to Our newsletter or Subscribe to Our newsletter to Get Notified When Our Product Launches. If people enter their email, it suggests that they are interested in your product/service.
Charge up front, offer a discount, and provide an estimated (but doable) delivery date for the product. Should be a comfortable experience, yay! This is also important, since it would be validating the market and ensure that there are people willing and able to pay for the solution. Next, build the solution.
The easiest way, would be to find the rare people in the Niche who have already obtained the solution (About 50 people, you can then talk to these people in the same way you did previously with the other group). For example, Lawyers who have enough clients (Niche + Problem (Dissolved with solution) + solution). As Sam would say, people do solve their own problems eventually, and the future is already here, it is just unevenly distributed. An entrepreneur’s job would then be to make this solution widely available to the masses. The next step, would be to analyse and study both groups to see what they are doing or have. Then identify the core differences between the two performing groups, this will be provided in my solution. It could be a collection of, tools, strategies, level of skill, characteristics, behaviour etc. Package these differences in service or product form as a solution.
The solution development could also be outsourced to a developer. Which should be easy with the pre sale money. Otherwise, find a way to the solution using your entrepreneurial problem solving skills [Remember leverage if you can].
Afterwards,
launch it to the group for testing. After they have tested it out over the next few weeks and used it to their liking, they can then give you testimonials. Now that the product is up and running or nearing the end of when the solution is almost here, you can then ask those people who you did a discussion with in the beginning stages and ask them for pre sales as well. The solution could be 1 day - 3 weeks to launch. During this time, hype up these guys by telling them what the solution can do and how it will solve their problem. This would be an anticipation email.
Now that the product has been tested and proven to work without bugs, You will
promote it more. Then do this for
pre selling to an even wider audience,
The conversation could go like this…
You: Hey Mr(s) ___! How's your day? How's your daughter Emily doing?
Customer: She's fine, she just entered college, though there might be this boy who's trying to take her away from me!
You: Nah, she will always know who the real big daddy is. XD Btw, do you still face that annoying problem we discussed?
[This is the filter. if they do not have this problem, or have it anymore it is useless to continue since no one is going to buy a product that they have no use for. Then just skip the remaining conversation below, tell them what product you made, and ask if they can refer it to anybody who is facing the problem it solves. Wish them a nice day at the end]
Customer: Ah, Yes! It gives me such a headache!
You: Hehe, well through the help of tens of other <Niche person> like you, we've created a solution to that! (Explain solution and delivery date). It's currently being pre sold at a discount of course. And we will use the money to develop the product. Do you want to pay for it?
Customer: Hmmm, let me think about it alright.
*Hours later*
Customer: Alright, I'll pay!
You: Sway! [Time to go build that product or service]….
Send a launch announcement email. Then a how it works email.Then an FAQ email later on the product from customer questions if need be. Send a Scarcity Email. And then a “This Is Your Last Chance” Email. Notify People That the Doors to Your Product or Service Are Closed: This email is to thank those who opened or clicked on your previous emails for the pre-selling. And it’s also a reminder of the benefits your product or service adds to them. And finally, this email will encourage customers who were interested but just didn’t pull the trigger to join your waitlist for when you officially launch the product later on. Send a “Thank you Post-purchase” Email to reduce anxiety.
Create Your Landing Page. Write the copy for your sales page and focus on design second. On this page, you’ll clarify for your site’s visitors any questions they may have about your product or service before buying. (Do this if you haven’t already created the website due to the interviews). Include Deadlines and Delivery Dates of Your Product or Service on Your Landing Page. Create a Thank You Page for each purchase. Build Your Checkout Page eg.g using Sam’s cart. Check out the guide here-https://www.autogrow.co/pre-selling-guide/
For Promotion (Paid).
You can use Adwords, facebook/instagram ads, influencers, paid referrals, affiliate marketing, social media contests, e-mail to some really good sales copy to different people in the niche, etc. if you can't initially sell your idea to a grassroots base of customers, the product goes unused and remains hidden to the marketplace, and the Fastlane is a no go, so get it out there.
****
If an email list is available due to posting the valuable marketing tips and knowledge, promote to that as well.
****
For Scale.
Once you are out of survival mode, it is time to scale and to think bigger. If you're not moving forwards, you're moving backwards. You always need to be making advancements and to do that you need a clear goal of where you are trying to go. This is why a mission statement is so important. To go big and think in terms of perfection. Aiming for something big makes you go much further than if you didn't. Ask clients what the perfect product would be. That if with the wave of a magic wand, what would their wildest dreams be that the product would create -> This is what Perfection looks like. We can start working towards that and using measuring instruments to measure the progress we are making towards that.
The people who add the most value, always win, 100% of the time long term. So spend 80% on product development, 20% on marketing at least. Continue improving or the market will catch up.
The point is to start moving don't pay too much attention to where you're going as long you're moving in the right general direction i.e. anywhere from where you are now! Good luck soldier!
Please treat me well.
