Continuing our journey of the three phases of business life, in this episode we are going to dig into the last piece of ideation which is the resign and redesign process. This process is about taking and testing our products.

For a product or service to be a commercial success, the market should believe in and buy the product. An entrepreneur might think that it is life changing and unique but the market might not have the same thoughts. Hence, before investing and going all in, we must give some serious effort to test our idea and listen to the market. Then depending upon the collected information, we go back and redesign things.

Six Steps to Testing the Market

1. Create a Sample: Put your idea out there in a small way to get feedback from the market. The information should be used to make better choices and decisions.
2. Show it: Once the sample is ready, show it to some of the customers. Let them experience it so that they will give you valuable feedback.
3. What’s the Pricing: Learn how much customers are willing to pay for it. Don’t just work from a place of cost. Know how much the market values it and make necessary adjustments to the pricing strategy.
4. Ask Questions: Ask the market everything about what they like, don’t like and even what they are thinking. Ask questions about expanding and follow-up products.
5. Look at the Competition: Learn what the competitors are providing and their strategies to pricing, connecting, communicating, selling and solving problems. Figure out your uniqueness and distinction in the marketplace from the competition.
6. Industry: Go out there in a broader way to showcase your products/services in conferences, trade shows and magazines. Do it bigger than sampling but don’t go full scale yet.

After going through these six steps and collecting a lot of information, focus on your product or service in four different realms. Continually ask these four questions:

1. More: What can we provide more or better to give value?
2. Less: What can we do less of to take away the friction of them using our product?
3. Interface: What can we do at the contact points with the customer to allow them to utilize it better?
4. Cost: How can we be more economic with what it is that we are creating?

— Begin Transcript —

Hey there, I’m Mel Abraham, the author of the number 1 best-selling book The Entrepreneur’s Solution and the founder of Business Breakthrough Academy, where we teach you how to design a business and create a life: A life of financial freedom and peace of mind.

And welcome back to this episode of The Entrepreneur’s Solution show and I’m really excited for this one. I just got back from a five day conference, speaking and presenting and talking with entrepreneurs in some of the things that they’re challenged with.

One of the questions that came up was

• How do you test a market?
• What do you look for?
• What are the things that you change?
• How do you test your product?

And so in this show, we’re going to dig down into the framework or the things that you want to look at to make sure that your product, your service and your market are prepared for that marriage.

• To really maximize the value.
• To maximize what it is you’re doing.
• To maximize what you come out of.

And again, like every other episode this one has a downloadable guidebook that takes you through the process, takes you through the framework, takes you through the questions. It’s a workbook that you get a chance to download and work through this. I want you to do this with me instead of just sitting back and listening to it.

The more active you are, the more you put into it; the more you’re going to get out of it. The more we’re going to chip, change and shift your business and change the trajectory of your life. So, if you want to download that book, go to MelAbraham.com/session024. And if you happen to be at the gym or running because a lot of people listen to my podcast or my shows running or at the gym or driving and you can’t download it right away, go ahead and just text MYLEGACY one-word no-spaces, MYLEGACY to 38470. It will send you a reminder text with the link on it.

And so, when we come back after this brief introduction, we’re going to dig right into the whole element of testing the market, product and service. See you soon. Bye.

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Hey there, welcome back. I’m Mel Abraham, the author of the number 1 best-selling book, The Entrepreneur’s Solution and the founder of Business Breakthrough Academy. And welcome back to this Entrepreneur’s Solution episode and we’re going to continue on our journey. We’ve been still working on the main framework of business where I focus on this concept of:

• Think Up: Which is about the decisions you make, the ideas you have and the modeling.
• The Get Up Phase: Which is about plan, structure and financing.
• And then the Reach Up Phase: Which is about the launch, the scale and maybe your exit. The transition or the end game that you’re looking at, if you will.

And remember that all of these phases are under the umbrella of what’s your customer promise?

What is the promise you’re making:

• To your marketplace,
• To your customer,
• In fact to your team,
• To your employees,
• To your vendors,
• To the world?

What is that customer promise and making sure that you design the business in that same context?

And as we left off in the last episodes, we’ve actually talked about ideation. We talked about the evaluation of ideas. We talked about the selection of the ideas giving you a process of selecting and evaluating ideas and what to look for. The concept of us looking at value creation and that we live in a value exchange economy and for us to truly be successful, to truly thrive, to truly expand and grow our business and grow our impact, we need to be value providers.

This is not about selling products and services. It’s about creating value in other people’s lives. And value from the perspective of

• What transformation do we create?
• How do we transition and shift their life to a whole different ball game?

That’s how we stay in business. That’s how we increase the value to our customers and increase the value to us and create cash flow. Because people are willing to pay for that transformation in life and so we’re going to do that through products and services but we need to be clear and very, very distinct in the value we create. We’re going to dig deeper into that when we get into the model phase of this whole framework.

And we talked about the market selection, how to select the market? And now, what we’re really looking at is this last piece of ideation which is the resign and redesign process. And in this process, it’s about us taking and testing our product.

This is one of the biggest mistakes that entrepreneurs make, is that they have an idea they believe it’s a great idea. They go in. They put all this money in, all this investment, all this time into the idea. They develop the prototypes, they go out and they buy the products they haven’t made. And they go out to the marketplace and the market doesn’t buy it.

And the problem is that many times we fall in love with our baby. We fall in love with our product. We fall in love with our service. We believe it’s the best. We believe that there is no substitute. We believe all these things about what we provide and many of them may be true. But if we want to be a commercial success, it’s not what we believe is true in our own minds and in our own hearts. It’s what our market believes is true in their minds and in their hearts.

And so the one step that most entrepreneurs will forget or kind of pass over quickly or not give it the serious process, the serious time, the serious effort that is necessary is to test. Before you go in and invest so much money into products and design and all of the machine if you’re doing manufacturing. All of those costs, before you do that; how about we go out to the marketplace and say

• Hey, what do you want?
• What are you looking for?
• Will this work?
• Is this something you will buy?
• Are you willing to spend money on it?

There may be aspects of the market that go, “Yeah, I would love to have that.” But they’re not willing to pay for it which is just as bad as them not wanting it. So, the reality is that we need to test the product then we can resign ourselves to using the product differently or doing something different with it. Or we might even have to shudder it. We might have to put it aside and say, “Not now or not ever”.

And be that frank and that honest with us, with ourselves because if we don’t we’re going to go down this rabbit hole, this dark pit of money to try and prove to the market that this is the right thing that they need. And it clearly could be the right thing it just may be the wrong time. Or you could be in the wrong market. So, that’s why it’s important for us to design or to test.

Then we also need to look at the market and say, “What are they telling us?”

And if that means that we need to go back and redesign things then maybe we need to think about that and say, “All right, what is the valuable information that comes about from the marketplace in a way that I can then take that?”

I actually happen to be watching one of my favorite shows of all time is The Profit. Marcus Lemonis who is a phenomenal entrepreneur that comes from the same space as we do when we talk about: The Entrepreneur’s Solution and when I talk about business. He comes of place of serving people, of making a difference, of having an impact.

And he was working with a guy yesterday and talking with this guy. And they had a focus group with them. The person sitting there, listening to the focus group behind a mirror so they can’t see him and all he could do was argue against what the focus group is telling them. Let’s look at this.

Fact of the matter is that if you’re going to a focus group that is made up of your customers or your customer contingency or the market that you’re trying to approach and they’re giving you information rather than digging your heels and being defensive about what it is they’re saying and say, “They don’t know what they’re talking about or they’re”, he said, “Oh they’re fickle, and they’re emotional” and all kinds of adjectives that he used to describe them and justify his rationale for not making a change, for not making a decision to listen to what the market place is and ultimately what ends up happening in the show is Marcus Lemonis walks away from the business because he can’t work in an environment where the entrepreneur is not open-minded enough

• To listen to the market,
• To treat people with decency,
• To treat people with respect, and
• To understand that, “May be we have to rethink the way we do things and what it is we do”.

And so, the same thing goes for us. If we happen to be talking to a market, if we happen to be going into focus groups which I recommend you doing. Going into surveys and interviews and this direct research that we talked about in the previous episodes—going in there. If you’re going to go through that effort, listen to them. Listen to them. They’re telling you something about what’s important to them. And when you get that now we can tweak it and we can adjust it, alright?

So, I’m off my soapbox now. I think you get it, that it’s really important to listen to the market and what the market’s telling you and that we may have to redesign or scrap the product or service altogether or change the way we’re doing it and may be contrary to what we believe and that’s okay because we’re trying to serve the market.

To understand that as long as it doesn’t compromise our values, compromise our mission, we’re good. Don’t get so married to the path. Don’t get to married to exactly how you’re going to get there. Be married to the transformation you’re creating in people’s lives and then find the path that your customers are willing to digest it in. So, I hope that helps.

So, let’s keep going because I want to give you what I call the steps to testing the market and there’s effectively six steps, six things to do when you start to go about testing the market and the first is: To create a sample.

To create a prototype.

To do a test run

Whether it’s in the service business and you’re coming up with new service offerings. Think about, “Can I do this in a small way to put it out to the marketplace so I can get a feedback, so I can get information?” It’s not about, do you succeed or fail. It’s about the information that they give you in the process to allow you to make better choices and better decisions.

So, the first thing to do in testing the market is to create the prototype or create the sample to be able to put it out there in a way that we can get some feedback from the market.

The second step is: To show it. Once I’ve got the sample, once I’ve created the program, once I’ve done all of that show it.

• Take it to some of the market.
• Take it to some of the customers that you have.
• Take it to the some of the customers that you’re thinking of going after.

And see what they say. Let them touch it; let them feel it, let them experience it at a level that they will then give you valuable feedback.

Then the third is: What’s the pricing?

• What’s your customer willing to pay for it?
• If they like it, if they see the value in it, what value do they see?
• Are they willing to pay a dollar for it?
• Are they willing to pay a hundred dollars or ten thousand dollars?
• What’s the pricing that you can come into play?

Now remember many times entrepreneurs will try to work from a place of cost. “Well it cost me 20 dollars to make it and I want to make a certain amount of profitable margin, so I’m going to charge 30 dollars.”

That’s the wrong question to ask. It may still cost you 20 dollars to make it but if the market only values it at 15 dollars stop making it at 20 dollars because they’re not going to buy it at a place where you can make a profit. If the market, if you’re thinking of selling it for 30 dollars but the market values it at 50 dollars, sell it for 50 dollars.

What you want to focus on is the selling of the result; the selling of the value exchange. Not the cost structure in the process. I hope that that is clear to you. It’s a slight distinction but a huge difference when you think about it.

So we sample it, we get that prototype, we show it, we price it, then we ask questions. We ask questions, we listen to the market, we see

• What it is they like?
• What it is they don’t like?
• What it is they would like to do?
• What it is that maybe they’re thinking that is different?
• What would be a follow up or a follow up product or a process?
• How can we expand it?

All of those things, we need to ask questions. Then, we need to look at all our competition.

• What are they providing?
• How are they solving this issue or this problem or bringing that solution to market?
• What do, how do we compare to the marketplace?
• What is our distinction?

I’ve talked about uniqueness and distinction in many episodes and this again if you haven’t, in fact if you haven’t read the Blue Ocean Strategy get that book. That’s a book you need to read at least once a year—Blue Ocean Strategy.

And it allows you to start to work and figure out how do you find your uniqueness and distinction in the marketplace? Compare yourself to what is out there and go out there and see how you can position yourself uniquely and distinctly in the space.

• And how the other competitors are pricing their product?
• How they’re connecting with their customers?
• How they’re communicating with their customers?
• How they’re selling their product?
• And how they’re manufacturing their product?

Understand all those elements and then compare them to what it is you’re doing.

And then the last step is: I call it Industry. You could call it conferences. You could call it show-casing. You could call it any number of things but the bottom line is what I want you to do is go out there in a broader way. Go and showcase your product or service at conferences, at trade shows, out in the industry, in magazines. Go out there in a bigger way.

Now, we talked about sampling and showing it to your customers. That’s a small, a small kind of capacity of doing that. But now we’ve gotten more information. We understand pricing. We’ve gotten feedback from showing some of our customers and doing the sample. We’ve revamped the product and now we want to go out there in a broader way. Maybe not to the full market but out there in a way, that we can get a broader feedback from a broader base of customers. So showcase it to the industry, in trade shows, at conferences whatever your services are.

What’s going to happen with this and why is this important?

You go through these six steps you’re going to collect a lot of information. That lot of information then leads you to focusing on your product or service in four different realms. And it’s those four realms that you can sit back and say what do I do to change it, to redesign it, if you will, if I need to?

And the first realm is that of more. It is really focused on what can we do better or what can we do to give more value? And that’s the question that we need ask ourselves. As we sit looking at the prototype or looking at the product and looking at the feedback or looking at the service, what can you add to it cost-effectively that can make a huge difference in the value creation in your customers mind?

What can we do better and what can we provide more of?

And continually ask those questions. You’re actually going to ask these four elements on a continual basis on your products and services. The next is less.

What can we do less of?

And most of this is the negative. If for instance we’re not necessarily a green company, what can we do to have less of an impact on the environment, to have a better impact on the environment?

What can we do less of to take away the friction of them using our product, the challenge of using our product?

I’ve gotten products that are so, in fact I actually ordered some push up exercise equipment that was so complicated to try and set up, that I never even used it. And so how do we take away some of the friction from them:

• Using our product,
• Reusing our product,
• Continually being a customers with us.

And how do we lessen any kind of waste or impact, negative impact on customers’ environment or the surroundings?

Then the third is the interface.

What can we do at the contact points with the customer to allow them to utilize it better?

How can we make doing business with us using our product, using our service easier, more efficient, more effective, more convenient?

Continually ask those questions. So you’ve gotten the feedback and then when we answer all these questions now we can sit back and say, “Hmm what’s next for the product?”

What’s this next stage of the product that’s going to satisfy and you can come out bigger, better and badder, if you will, of a product?

Then the last one is cost.

What is it that we can do that from a cost stand point that will reduce the cost to us and increase the profitability to our company and to the investors or to ourselves in that context?

How can we be more economic with what it is we’re creating, what it is we’re providing and more efficient in that, in that process?

So, when you look at these steps to testing your market, the first things first. Again, let me just reiterate.

• Create a sample.
• Show it to customers,
• Make sure you’ve priced it effectively.
• Ask questions and listen to the answers.
• Compare yourself to the industry and your competitors.
• Figure out your distinction and uniqueness, and
• See if that is something that expands your value greater and puts that chasm of difference between you and your competition.

Then take it out to the marketplace. Take it out to the marketplace, showcase it; put it out at trade shows. Go out to conferences, speak about it, write about it; see what the feedback is. Take all that information and ask yourself questions in four categories:

• What can I do more of?
• What can I do less of? Less of the damaging stuff.
• How can I make it more efficient and convenient? And
• How can I make it more economical?

When you do that, now when you take that product or service back out to the marketplace, you have hit it on all cylinders. This is not something that’s a one and done situation. You’re going to want to continually ask these questions as you continue to grow your business because what your customers need today may not be what they’re looking for tomorrow.

And if we continue asking these questions and getting the feedback and asking more or less interfacing cost on a regular basis, we will stay up with our customers and as we grow, they grow with us. As they grow, we grow with them. And that’s the key to long term success of your products and services.

So, I hope this helps you understand at least some of the steps. There’s a lot more we could do. But these are the basics, the fundamental steps that you can take to test your product, test your service and understand how the market is willing to digest it, what they see in it, where they see the value and what you can do to shift and change the value and the perception of values in your customers’ eyes and expand your reach in that process.

I hope you found this of value. If you found it of value, do me a favor. Make sure you share it with a friend. Let’s give them the gift of entrepreneurship. Let’s allow them to bring their dreams out of the darkness again and build on that.

And if you haven’t done so already, make sure you subscribe. You subscribe will make sure that you get access to all the tools and all of the training that I’m putting out on a regular basis. This is my way, my easy way of being your entrepreneurial mentor. As you’re trying to get into business, be in business, transcend where you are in business if you’ve plateaued.

And build a business that’s meaningful, profitable and purposeful that gives you a life of freedom in the process. If you got questions for me, I’ve gotten a lot of questions. In fact, the next episodes I’m going to answer some of those questions. But if you got questions for me, go ahead and go to AskMelNow.com and in there you will be able to leave me your questions and I’ll get a chance to answer them. I want to be there to support you and I want to be there to serve you as you grow and do the things that you’re trying to do.

Again, if you’re looking to get the downloadable workbook or guidebook in this, from this episode go to MelAbraham.com/session024 and if you can’t do that right now just text to 38470, text MYLEGACY one-word no-spaces, MYLEGACY to 38470. We will automatically send you a text back with the download link so you can make sure that you get all the tools to support you in your journey.

Again if we have, if you have anything let me know; I’m willing to help you in any way I possibly can. Reach out to me. I love hearing from the whole community. I love seeing you guys out there at some of these conferences and where I’m speaking. I’m going to try to keep you informed of where I am and hope that we can get together and get a chance to see each other. Love hearing from you, look forward to it.

And until we get a chance to see each other on the next episode,

May your vision be grand, your journey epic and your legacy significant!

See you soon. Cheers. Bye!!

— End Transcript —

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Like this? Please share it and help a few more people bring their dreams out of the darkness and give life to them again.  Cheers, Mel

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