Introductions… and Is It Worth Selling?

We have two newish members on our team. I say “newish” because they have both been around for awhile and I’ve been awkwardly remiss in not introducing them to you sooner.

The first is Trisha Cupra, who I’ve known for years, despite our being on opposite sides of the world. If you’ve been around for a few months you may have noticed a sudden change in the email newsletter from all-text and butt-ugly to beautiful, formatted, and easy-to-read.

She’s the one who designed the newsletter, made it work, and continues to help us get it out every week. Plus, she’s been helping with a variety of other design and web-based projects with more to come.

I shouldn’t tell you about her, because if she gets too busy and doesn’t have time for us we’d be lost. But the greater good wins. If you need a website makeover, design, or html newsletter created with someone who also offers clear, responsible communication, hire Trisha-while you still can. Visit her site at Blue Owl Web Design.

The second is Judy Murdoch. Judy has been around for quite awhile, too. She’s been a client and participant in nearly every program we’ve offered over the last few years, including a beta train-the-trainer program we ran earlier this year.

She’s now an official Heart of Business practitioner, working with clients, helping them get their business going. She has a passion for and speciality in creating heart-centered information products. Watch for her offering a course on the topic next year in our 12-month business development program that we haven’t announced to the world yet, except I just did.

Judy is working with individual clients, but she can only handle so many at a time. If you’re needing the particular flavor of help that Heart of Business provides, then I recommend having a conversation with her. Check out her offer. fill out the form, and talk to her. You’ll be happy you did.

And now, on to our regularly scheduled program…

The Article: More on Class Filling, or, Is It Worth Selling?

Last week I delved into “Another Way to Fill A Class,” comparing having a longer promotion campaign to building up anticipation and having a very short buying window.

But what if your stuff doesn’t sell at all? One reader asked this question:

“Hey Mark! Have another request I’d like your thoughts on. I agree that building a product, program or business to sell out at big bucks takes lots of care and feeding over a long period of time, but not all ideas are worth that investment in time.

“I see lots of wonderfully heart centered folks who so sincerely want to make a difference in people’s lives, create products that aren’t going to sell no matter what they do or how long they do it because there’s no market.

“My motto has become (after operating in that fashion for way too long) ‘test fast and build slowly.’ I take the guidance that’s coming through, test it quickly, and then decide whether it’s worth developing.

“How do you advise clients about when to persistently pursue and when to bail? There is a time for each, but how does one decide?

Susan
http://www.newnichefinder.com“

It’s so true. There are offers that just won’t sell no matter how you jiggle with the price, how much compelling copy you write, or how many people you offer it to.

Putting a lot of time and effort into an offer like that is really painful, so it’s good to know ahead of time whether it is marketable. But… how do you know?

The answer is relatively easy, and Susan wrote it herself up above: “test fast and build slowly.” What often sabotages our ability to do what is sensible is subscribing to the business mantra “think big.” Don’t think big. Think small.

It’s really easy to have big dreams. I’ve heard so many people who have a goal of “being on Oprah” or “owning a retreat center” or “reaching a million people.”

Whoa, People. Why Such Big Goals?

In your chest there’s a war going on. It’s the war between the ego, who wants to control things so it can feel safe, and your heart, which wants to be humble and of service. Of course, someone whose heart has won over their ego can have a huge impact, and there are plenty of examples of that.

Well, maybe not plenty of examples. But, still, there are some. Consider Nelson Mandela. Consider the Dalai Lama. Consider Mother Teresa. One thing they each had in common: None of them really started with a global vision. They all started small.

It turns out that the vision they were each involved in ended up having a global impact. But that wasn’t their aim. They were just focused on being of service to what was in front of them, to the immediate and strategic (yes, strategic) needs of the people and issues they were working for.

The paths they were on happened to lead to big places. But they didn’t aim for it, at least not at first.

Each Rung of the Ladder Leads to the Next Rung

I’m about to speak “motivational-business-coach” heresy. But it’s okay, because I’m not motivational, and I’m not a coach. But anyway, on to the heresy.

If you are small fry, and I consider myself “small fry” just as a point of comparison, let go of your big dreams. Let go. Ease your grip on visions of fame and fortune, or of impact and Oprah. Loosen your fingers and breathe.

Instead of a million people, would you be okay if you helped a few hundred or a thousand people? Good. Deep breath. Let that in.

Once you get there, we can talk about 5,000 to 10,000 people. But not before.

Now You’re Ready

Suddenly, the stakes aren’t so high. If you have an offer that you are considering, before you try to network across the known universe and create some big launch that might never sell, try it on a small scale.

Say, five people. Can you get five people to buy an individual, one-on-one, custom version of whatever it is you’re developing? Can you sell it to them as a beta, fitting it to them?

Once those five people are happy, can you then create a packaged, off-the-shelf version of the same thing and sell it to a few dozen people? Maybe a class. Maybe a product. Maybe just leading 24 people individually through your program or offer.

Then, you’re looking for three things.

1. People are loving it. I mean loving it. I mean ga-ga over it. Well, they shouldn’t worship it as an idol, that would be bad karma anyway, but you want them to really dig it.

This means that you have the possibility of having a larger number of raving fans, which increases word-of-mouth referrals, which can make you successful at that next rung of the ladder when you broaden your reach.

A classic story here is about the birth of the Post-It Note. Someone at the 3M company was experimenting with low-adhesive glues and created a small number of pads with a bit of the glue on one end. He gave it out to a few people, who loved it. Loved it. Couldn’t get enough of them. Begged for more.

That’s a good sign, people begging for more. Look for that. If, on the other hand, people don’t want any more after they’ve had the first taste and instead respond with a bland statement like “Oh yeah, that was nice; I’m all set for now, thanks,” then something may be missing from your offer.

2. You’ve identified who really needs it. As you work with folks, you’ll no doubt discover that some people do really well with it, and some people do kinda okay with it. And some people really, really need it, and that it makes a big difference in their lives.

Who are those people? How do they talk about the problem it solves? How do they identify themselves? What communities or groups do they belong to? Where are there more of those people?

3. It’s getting easier to sell. The first time you sold it to someone you were nervous, and it didn’t happen so easily. The next few times were only slightly easier. By the twentieth time it’s gotten a lot more butter-like.

You begin to notice that the conversations begin to sound similar, that you cover a lot of the same ground with each person in the sales process. The same questions come up in every new sales conversation.

Aha! That’s a sign that you could put it all down in a sales page on a website and have a reasonably good chance of success. That means it’s scalable, and you could offer it to many more people.

If you’re willing to let go of big dreams and just focus on the next rung on your ladder, you have a chance of actually climbing somewhere. Just keep taking those ladder rungs one at a time, and who knows where you’ll end up.

But don’t worry about that right now. Breathe. Think small. Test. You’ll know when you’ve got something people want, because they are buying it from you.