Still, sitting on the fence with your business idea mama? I got you! It’s pretty scary when you’ve finally decided to take a leap and start your own online business. But the fear of not knowing if your idea will make you money is scary enough to stop most moms from venturing off into mompreneurship.
What if there was an easy way to conduct simple market research, the can validate your new online business idea in order to feel more confident when investing time and energy in a new online business. YUP! We’re going to go there. Keep reading as I help you flop proof your new online business idea.
Flush Out the Idea
Do you ever get an idea that you think is so amazing but when you actually share it with someone you quickly realize that there’s a lot of detail you forgot to work through? When all you have is an idea, it’s important to take the time and really flush it out!~ You know to work out the kinks…
I remember when I had the idea to start my coaching business I was so excited to hit the ground running but when I started discussing my idea with more experienced online business owners, I quickly realized that there were so many details I had forgotten to figure out! That turned out to be such a huge blessing because it forced me to take the time and get clear on my offer, message, and customer. Which in turn helped me with the second step.
Here’s what I want you to do: take a piece of paper out and think about your idea.
Write down your idea at the top of the page and flush out your idea. Here are some beginner questions to get you started: “What is the problem I’m solving? Who is my ideal customer? What am I selling? How am I delivering it? “
Start brain-dumping ideas on this brain dump sheet. The idea here is to get all the ideas floating around in that beautiful brain of yours and onto a paper. You can do this with a friend or a small group of people.
Sometimes talking it out with other people helps you see your idea with a fresh set of eyes.
Competitors
Once you've brainstormed your idea and you are crystal clear as to show you serve, what the problem is that you're solving and what your offer is it's time to start snooping. Don't worry I'll help you do this in the least creepy way possible.
I want you to Google other people that are selling the same type of offer as you. and I want you to take note of a few things. How are they showing up online? What are the services that they are offering? How are they pricing their offer? Do they have a social media presence? Are people engaging with them under their posts, if yes what are they saying? Sign up for their newsletter. What type of value are they offering to their audience?
Try to find at least three other businesses that are in the same type of business as yours. This will serve as your baseline when you're first starting out. There's no need to reinvent the wheel! Most probably there is someone already selling the same thing that you want to sell. Don’t let this discourage you! All this means that there are people willing to pay for a similar offer. That’s good news! This type of research can also help you see the gap and further customize your offer.
Validation
Will anyone want to buy what I have to offer? Why not ask them? No seriously ….This is the part where you get to connect with your ideal customer. I remember when I was starting out my coaching business I hopped on a few calls with people that I thought were my ideal customers to see where they were at. I asked them a bunch of questions but most importantly listened to their answers. The more in-depth you get with these validation calls the better your offer it's going to be. This is where you get to go inside your ideal customers had and pinpoint what their biggest struggle is.
You can ask him questions about what they've tried in the past, what their biggest obstacle is right now, what would solve their problem, how they feel about their struggle, and how much would they be willing to pay for the solution to their problem, what that solution would look like and how would they describe it….
This is a very important step when you are venturing off and starting a new business. So make sure you take the time to validate your idea properly. You can definitely do this by emailing out surveys as well but I find that connecting with 5 to 10 humans over the phone is so much more valuable oh and don't forget to take notes lots of notes you can always record the conversation and go back and transcribe but make sure you take notes because this will serve you later on with your marketing.
So there you have it! Three simple ways you can validate your new online business idea before investing time money or energy going forward with an idea that will flop!
If you feel like it and if you want to take this a bit further I have two awesome resources that can help you do that mama!
I created a startup blueprint guide that will walk you through the process that I discussed in this blog post as well as take it a few steps further. There is a bonus training video that will help you through the validation process.
If you want to get a copy all you need to do is click this link
Be well and keep dreaming
Comments