Welcome back.
Today we are continuing our conversation all about how to start a
successful skill- or knowledge-based online business.
This series is all about how you can monetize your own unique skill- or
knowledge. We all have unique skills and knowledge to share with the world,
and there are people out there right now who need the knowledge that you already
have and will pay you for it. If you're new here,
thanks so much for joining me today. My name is Rachel Harrison-Sund.
Over the next few weeks,
I'm going to be teaching you everything you need to know about how to start your
own successful skill- or knowledge-based online business.
Please do subscribe and don't forget to hit the bell;
that way you can be notified when every single video in this 5-part series is
going to be released over the next few weeks. Last week,
in the first video of the series,
we talked about what you actually need to start an online business,
as well as all those things that you don't need--things that are really going to
do nothing more than waste your time and money.
I also introduced a simple 4-step framework for creating a successful skill- or
knowledge-based online business launch:
step one being to uncover your profitable idea; step two,
attracting your ideal customers; step three, creating your irresistible offer;
and step four to set up your infrastructure and launch your irresistible offer.
If you missed that first video,
make sure you go back and watch that one first so that you're not missing
anything important today. We're talking about step one of that framework:
how to uncover your profitable idea. Even if you already have an idea,
this process is going to help you validate it.
And even if you already have an existing business but you're struggling to make
money,
this validation process can help you clarify your offer so that your target
market is more eager to buy, so don't skip this video,
even if you already have an existing business.
The first stage in uncovering your profitable idea is brainstorming potential
ideas. As I already said, you might already have one, but if you don't,
this is how you're going to generate a list of ideas and then choose one to
test. When brainstorming ideas,
you want to consider both acquired skills and acquired knowledge.
Do you have a particular skill that you've developed over time that not everyone
else has? For example, do you know how to ballroom dance?
Are you a skilled woodworker? A writer? Are you great at math?
Similarly,
do you have acquired knowledge about a particular subject that not everyone has?
Do you know the ins and outs of real estate?
Do you understand how blockchain works?
Do you know how to manage teams of people?
A few other questions you can ask yourself here are:
what are a few things that come very naturally to you or that just
come easily to you?
What have you been told that you're good at by family or friends or bosses or
teachers from either adulthood or childhood?
What do other people come to you for help with?
What were you really good at as a child?
You want to try to come up with as many ideas as you can,
without worrying about their viability as business ideas at this point.
You want to get a free flow of ideas going without the sound of that negative
inner voice chiming in and blocking the flow.
You know that voice I'm talking about--the one that's just in your ear going,
"you know,
no one's ever going to pay you for that." Just shut that voice up for now.
We'll get to that later.
It's also very important to remind yourself at this stage that you don't need to
be an absolute expert in any of these areas.
This is a common trap for entrepreneurs considering new business ideas--thinking
that they have to know absolutely everything there is to know about a topic
otherwise you and your product or service will be of no use to anyone.
This is untrue.
While obviously you do need a solid understanding of whatever your given idea
is, you don't need to know absolutely everything.
All you need are viable solutions to specific problems.
I'll use my own business as an example here.
I teach people how to generate passive income on the Kindle Direct
Publishing platform.
I don't know absolutely everything there is to know about KDP and my methods
aren't the only methods that exist, but I know what worked for me,
so that's what I teach. I've been able to get results for myself and others,
and that is what matters here.
This is the way that you should be thinking about your own skills and knowledge.
You don't need to be an absolute master.
You just need to be further along on your path than those who are coming to you
for help.
Once you've got a list of at least 10 or so skills or areas of knowledge that
you possess, it's time to do the preliminary assessment.
See if any of them are monetizable. For each idea on your checklist,
you want to see if you can come up with three to five potential product or
service ideas.
Ideally you're looking for an idea that can be monetized in multiple ways.
Could your offer include an ebook or a physical book?
Could it be a digital course? A live or virtual workshop? One-on-one coaching?
Group coaching? A live event or a summit?
Are there any opportunities for any affiliate income?
After you've gone through this exercise,
you want to choose the idea that you're most excited about and that you think
has the most potential to make money over the long haul,
and then move on to the validation stage. Now it's time to valid your idea.
This is the most important phase in uncovering your profitable idea because it
can potentially save you months of wasted effort and hundreds,
maybe even thousands, of dollars.
Skipping this step could mean the difference between a raging success and a
spectacular flop. In the last video, which you can check out here,
I told you about my gluten-free meal planning service flop.
I spent hundreds of dollars registering that business,
months of time creating a website, weeks of meal plans, logo,
blog articles,
only to have it all fly right out the window once I realized--too late--no one
was actually going to pay me for this service. Don't let this be you.
Front-load this work now so that you can validate your idea in the beginning and
save yourself from an epic flop like mine down the line.
If you already have a business that's struggling to make money,
this validation step can help you clarify your offer so that you can start
It could give you some ideas for new offers or just help you tweak your
existing one so that it becomes more appealing to your target market.
Let's get into what that looks like.
First it's time for some preliminary market research. To start off,
you want to have a little bit of a nose around to see if other,
similar businesses exist. If so, this is a good sign.
It proves people are already paying for this idea.
Don't fall into the trap of dropping the idea simply because someone else is
already doing it.
There's plenty of room in the market for anyone that can differentiate
Pepsi did not stop themselves from entering the cola space just because Coke was
already there.
You will likely have something to your offer that your competitors don't.
For example,
I'm not the only one on YouTube who talks about low-content publishing,
but many people gravitate toward me because of my design-centered approach and
because I don't hype up the opportunity as some "get rich quick" scheme.
I'm very real about the amount of time and effort low-content publishing takes.
Others might gravitate towards some of my competitors because of their robust
knowledge about ads, or maybe they just prefer their personality over mine.
That's fine. There's room for us all. Whatever the case,
I really believe that there is room for everyone.
It's just about finding that unique take that you can offer that will set you
apart. If you don't see anything similar currently in existence,
either you have a really innovative idea on your hands or there's a reason that
it doesn't already exist, which is because there's just no market for it.
Either way,
you're going to want to rely heavily on the next portion of the validation stage
that we're going to be talking about in a couple of minutes so that you can be
sure your idea is viable.
Next you're going to think about your ideal customers--who exactly is in
your target market and why would they pay for some of the product or service
ideas that you came up with in the previous step.
Don't just think about demographics here.
It's not enough just to say "North American women" or "North American moms
between the ages of 25 and 35." This is useful information to have,
but it doesn't get to the heart of who they really are or why they might be
interested in your offers. You want to ask yourself some questions like,
what are their most important values? What are their hobbies and interests?
Where do they hang out, offline and online? What are their biggest life goals?
What are their biggest struggles right now? Their biggest challenges, obstacles,
pain points when it comes to whatever your idea is?
What product or service could you offer that would solve those biggest pain
points? What transformation are they ultimately looking for?
How could you help them achieve that transformation?
Most of what you come up with, or a lot of it anyway,
in the stage is going to be based on some assumptions. Don't worry.
You're going to be testing those assumptions out in the next step.
Your goal right now is to just start painting a picture of who your market is so
that you can start connecting with them in real life.
Once you've started painting this picture,
it's time to speak to real members of this market so that you can complete that
picture and fully validate your idea.
This is by far the most important step of the entire process: having real,
one-on-one conversations with members of your target market--your ideal
customers. During this step,
it's extremely important to find people who actually a part of your target
market to speak with about your idea.
Asking friends or family members who aren't part of your target market isn't
going to cut it here.
This isn't going to get you an accurate assessment of your idea.
Friends and family come with major biases.
They might be likely to just tell you what you want to hear in order to prevent
hurt feelings,
or they might even just shoot your idea down in an attempt to protect you from
failure. I think, most importantly,
your friends and family just don't know what it's like to be your ideal
customer.
If they're not experiencing the same challenges or obstacles or pain points that
your ideal customers share,
they're not going to have any understanding of the impact your product or
service can ultimately have on their lives.
Find out where your target market hangs out, either in person or online,
and ask to have a brief 15- to 30-minute conversation with them over
Zoom.
You want to pull out your ideal customer profile that you created in the last
step and ask them the same questions that you asked yourself about them. Again,
what are their most important values? What are their hobbies? Interests?
Where do they hang out? Where are they online?
What are their biggest life goals? Their biggest fears, challenges, obstacles,
pain points, all as it relates to your overall idea.
If you could offer them a dream solution to their biggest problem,
what would that look like?
Is there a particular transformation they're looking for? Include
any questions that you think are relevant to your particular idea.
You also want to run a few of your product or service ideas past them and ask if
they resonate.
Ask them if they'd purchase this product or service if it was available
to them right now. When you do that, you're looking for a solid yes.
Not a maybe or probably, or not really sure. If you get a solid yes,
from a good handful of the people you speak with,
you know you're on the right track. Also,
if similar products or services already exist,
ask them why they haven't purchased any of those solutions already or,
if they have purchased any of them, what were their experiences with them?
What did they like? What did they not like? How could they have been improved?
Trust me when I say that you will be so glad you had these
conversations. Every time I've done this,
the result has been absolute gold.
Once you've had these conversations,
revisit your ideal customer profile to fill in any of those blanks and make any
necessary revisions.
At the end of this stage you should have a solid business idea,
a few potential product or service ideas,
and a fairly comprehensive understanding of exactly who your ideal customers are
and where to find them.
This is an incredible foundation on which to start building your business,
and we're going to keep adding to that foundation in the next step.
In the next video, you're going to start attracting your ideal customers,
magnet style,
so that you've got a pool of potential buyers at hand once your offer is ready.
You're going to be using the best free marketing methods available as well as
positioning yourself as a trusted authority in the space you're about to enter,
which is going to benefit you greatly when launch time finally arrives.
If you're enjoying the series so far,
and have decided that now is the time to create your own skill- or
knowledge-based online business, download my brand new free guide, "The 4-Step,
'No Time to Waste' Online Business StartUp Blueprint" that I've left a link to
down in the description below. In it,
you're going to find everything we talked about today,
as well as what I cover in this entire series in written form so that you can
reference it whenever and wherever you want. If you like this video,
please hit the "Like" button, subscribe,
and of course share it with anyone you know who's thinking about starting their
own skill-or knowledge-based online business. Thank you so much for watching.
We will see you next week.