Yesterday in between the seven (two) afterschool activities I was juggling I ran home with the kids to feed them. After whipping up a delicious meal of hot dogs both my children whined “We don’t like hot dogs!!!”
WTF You Don’t Like Hot Dogs?!!! I screamed (in my head).
What I actually said through gritted teeth was “I showed you what I was buying for dinner in the grocery store – why didn’t you say anything then?”
You may be wondering what my hot dog situation has to do with you so let me quickly make the connection before you move off the page:
Your inner circle can often act like my kids and it can be confusing. You float a new idea for a product or service to your immediate circle and everyone tells you its great!
They tell you that:
You’re amazing!
It will fly off the virtual shelves!
People will just eat it up!
And then you work really hard, build that product and no one buys it. So what happened?
Most likely your inner circle peeps didn’t want to hurt your feelings or weren’t seriously considering consuming the product. In concept it sounded good but when they had to actually hand money over for it – not so much.
It wasn’t until the hot dog was actually in front of my kids that they seriously considered it as an option for their bellies. And when they did seriously consider it, the answer they came to was that hot dogs were not a great option for them.
Fortunately for me I am their mother and said “eat it anyway.”
In your case, you can’t do that to your peeps. You can’t force them to buy something they don’t want or if you do I can’t imagine you feel very good about it in the morning. (I slept fine last night by the way.)
So how do you get people to seriously consider a product before you invest time and effort in creating it?
You ask them to buy it before you create it. And you make sure there are enough people who want your hot dogs (product) that it feels fun and exciting to make it.
The bonus to selling your product BEFORE you build it is that :
- You build it a lot faster when paying customers are waiting for it
- You build with joy in your heart that people are waiting breathlessly for your brilliance.
This is one of the reasons I love Crowdfunding so much. If your campaign succeeds you win because now your product is funded and you know who your buyers are. If your campaign fails you win because you haven’t built something people don’t want.
Win- Win!
Blatant self promotion: If you’d like to learn more about crowdfunding you can grab the first chapter of my book about crowdfunding here for free: http://pattylennon.wpengine.com/crowdfundingbookdownload/
Or you can pay money for the whole book here: http://www.TheCrowdfundingBook.com
So, watcha thinkin? Got a hot dog your ready to sell?
Thanks for being here and reading my message. I want you to stay connected with me so that I can share all future communications with you.
Please enter your name and email below to join my community.
Success! Thank you for joining. You'll receive a confirmation in a while.
