How to Monetize Ideas
Very few good ideas are ever monetized. They either drown amongst a lot of other, mostly bad, ideas, or they emerge not fully metamorphosed - crystalline, fragile constructions that blow apart in a light breeze.
Here’s how to can turn a good idea into very good money (or at least know that it’s not such a good idea):
• Assess the size of the audience. Do you have sufficient mass so that even 1 percent of the total constitute significant business? The “World” is never your audience. Who really might have pragmatic applicability for your product?
• Assess the quality of your reach. Do you have a highly popular web site, lists of people who know you and trust you (or, better, who have purchased before), a blog, a newsletter, speaking appearance, alliance partners and so on so that your product can be projected?
• Assess the medium. Are you considering a form and format that is ideal for learning and use? Does the medium add or detract from your value? (Example: “Talking heads” on video rarely constitute popular products.)
• Assess your brand. Are you sufficiently well known that many people will purchase merely on the strength of your name and renown? (Too many unknown people think the easy way to money is with a product. Even good products languish when people don’t trust you and/or have never heard of you.)
• Assess your price point. People believe they get what the pay for. Are you maximizing your price based on perceived value? It’s as much work to make a £10,000 sale as a £1,000 sale, so why not make the former? The key is profit, not numbers of sales.
• Assess whether this is long-term business potential. I believe that any new venture should reach six figures in a maximum of two years. Selling £25,000 the first year probably means much less than that in profit in terms of amortizing development and other costs, and the second year will probably bring even less.
• Assess your ego and motives. Are you doing this because others have done it, or because you want a “book” or a “CD” or just passive income, or are you really providing value to others in varying ways that extends their effectiveness?
• Assess the market. Is this fresh and new, or derivative? Do you really have new intellectual property, or is this the “Seventeen Habits of Teams Pursing Black Swans that Moved Cheese for the Soul”?
© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.
Here’s how to can turn a good idea into very good money (or at least know that it’s not such a good idea):
• Assess the size of the audience. Do you have sufficient mass so that even 1 percent of the total constitute significant business? The “World” is never your audience. Who really might have pragmatic applicability for your product?
• Assess the quality of your reach. Do you have a highly popular web site, lists of people who know you and trust you (or, better, who have purchased before), a blog, a newsletter, speaking appearance, alliance partners and so on so that your product can be projected?
• Assess the medium. Are you considering a form and format that is ideal for learning and use? Does the medium add or detract from your value? (Example: “Talking heads” on video rarely constitute popular products.)
• Assess your brand. Are you sufficiently well known that many people will purchase merely on the strength of your name and renown? (Too many unknown people think the easy way to money is with a product. Even good products languish when people don’t trust you and/or have never heard of you.)
• Assess your price point. People believe they get what the pay for. Are you maximizing your price based on perceived value? It’s as much work to make a £10,000 sale as a £1,000 sale, so why not make the former? The key is profit, not numbers of sales.
• Assess whether this is long-term business potential. I believe that any new venture should reach six figures in a maximum of two years. Selling £25,000 the first year probably means much less than that in profit in terms of amortizing development and other costs, and the second year will probably bring even less.
• Assess your ego and motives. Are you doing this because others have done it, or because you want a “book” or a “CD” or just passive income, or are you really providing value to others in varying ways that extends their effectiveness?
• Assess the market. Is this fresh and new, or derivative? Do you really have new intellectual property, or is this the “Seventeen Habits of Teams Pursing Black Swans that Moved Cheese for the Soul”?
© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment