Show Notes

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• Nothing here just yet.

Transcription

Alright now right off the bat...What does your market say they want? In other words, what end result are they striving for?

Are they trying to resolve a particular problem? Fix a nagging hassle? Or maybe, are they trying to find a more efficient way to get a particular task done?

See, no matter what market you serve, your audience of potential customers want to reach a certain destination.

It's sorta like a road trip -- right now, they're here...they're stuck where they are, stuck in a frustrating spot, wrestling with a problem.

And what they want to do is get out of where they are -- they want to go somewhere else...they want to get to a better place that they can envision for themselves.

You could call this "a better tomorrow."

So, they're stuck and they want to change their circumstances or their situation. So as an online business owner and marketer, it's your job to find out where they want to go...

...you've gotta find out what they want.

What do they need?

Once you find out where your audience wants to go, the next thing you've gotta figure out is what they need to get there.

For example, if they're frustrated with their current inventory-tracking software, then where they want to go -- the destination they want to reach -- is obviously a more efficient way to track their inventory.

Or maybe they're frustrated with their current lead-generation methods and want something better that'll give them faster results...

...or maybe they want to lose a bunch of weight and get looking their best...or maybe they don't know how to get started investing their money...or who knows what!

No matter the case, we know they're stuck, we know they're frustrated and in pain...and we know that they want to get to a "better tomorrow".

So now we have to get creative and figure out how we're going to get them from Point-A to Point-B...and this is where product development comes in.

So, can you build and develop -- either yourself or by hiring other people -- what they need...which is a product or service that will take them from their current circumstances to the destination they want to arrive at?

What do they buy?

See, this is important to understand because your customers aren't buying your product or your service. In fact, they largely don't care about whatever it is you're selling.

Instead what they're buying is that "better tomorrow" that they can picture for themselves...whatever that "better tomorrow" is for them.

So really, they're buying a result. They're buying a solution to their painful, frustrating problem.

See, people who are new to business and entrepreneurship have it all backwards. When we're starting out, we think it's all about coming up with some unique, never been done before idea for a product, service, or business.

I call these "magical big ideas," because to us, they take on a mystical, magical power. We fall in love with our ideas...but all that stuff's all coming from us. It comes from us putting all our faith into this one single idea.

And 9.9 times out of ten, the "magical big idea" will fail.

And by the way, don't feel bad if this is you...this is like a rite of passage that all business owners have to go through. It's all just part of the learning process.

So what we as online business owners need to do is, we need to 1) Find out what our audience is struggling with, 2) Find out where they want to go -- what result they want, and 3) Develop a product or service that'll get them to wherever they want to go.

I'll tell you a quick story to illustrate what I'm talking about. I do a lot of DIY stuff around the house. And one day I was working on a particular project where I needed to cut a 1" hole into a piece of wood.

Problem was, I didn't have a way to cut a 1" hole cleanly.

So I go into Home Depot, I head to my favourite section -- tools! -- and I ask they guy, "Hey, I need a 1" hole in a piece of wood."

He goes, "No problem, there are a bunch of ways you can do that. You could buy a regular drill bit or a bit with a Brad point, but that's gonna be expensive. You could buy a step drill bit, a Forstner bit if you want a flat bottom in the hole, you could use a spade bit if you don't need it to look pretty, or you could buy a 1" hole saw for a nice, clean hole.

Now let me ask you, do you think I cared about the kind of product I bought? I mean, I just wanted a result, right?

And based on what I wanted -- getting more specific on the result I wanted, which was a nice, clean hole -- that helped me determine what I was gonna buy.

And the same holds true for your customer. They don't really care about the particular product. What they really want is something that'll give them the exact result they're after.