The 8 Most Dangerous Words In Internet Marketing (Part 1)
By Anna Johnson on September 25th, 2008Eight little words. Words, said together, that you’ve heard many, many times before. Words that you’ve probably said yourself. That you may find yourself saying again. Without knowing how dangerous they are… how they can virtually kill your business before you even start it… how they can even a business that’s been profitable for years…
What eight little words?
These: ‘I have a great idea for a product.’
Huh? What’s wrong with saying that? Isn’t it fantastic that you’ve got a great idea for a product?
No, it’s not.
Businesses don’t make money because they ‘have a great idea for a product’. They make money because they have ‘a great product that a sufficiently large market wants’.
You see, there are essentially two approaches to product development and business.
The first is to come up with a new product, create it and then try to sell it… based on the belief – whether delusional, arrogant or both – that enough people will buy it. This is an enormously risky approach to product development and business, because you simply have no evidence that people will buy your product. As many a failed inventor and ‘entrepreneur’ can attest.
But, I hear you cry, what about 3M’s Post-it notes, and numerous technological products, not to mention books, movies, music and other artistic creations… These didn’t have any guaranteed markets before they were produced and marketed?
Okay – yes, you can create a product – without any indications of a market – that ends up being a hit. But it’s extremely risky! Are you willing to stake the future of your business – perhaps your entire financial future – on a product that may, possibly, in your wildest hopes, be successful?
Do you think 3M’s whole future rested on Post-it notes? I don’t think so.
Do you think movie studios invest everything they’ve got into one, untested, film?
Not these days, and not the big ones.
Do you think most aspiring authors abandon all other income sources (like their day jobs) in the hopes that their book will be a bestseller? Not *most*. Everyone’s got to eat, right?
Yet, for some reason, many entrepreneurs – people who are supposed to understand business – are prepared to risk their companies on products with absolutely no proof that they’ll sell.
Please don’t get me wrong. I support innovation… I admire visionaries who create solutions that no ‘focus group’ could ever dream up… But I think it’s foolhardy to be a pioneer – unless you have another secure income source that you can fall back on if your ‘great idea for a product’ bombs.
So what’s the second – less risky – approach to business? I’ll reveal all in tomorrow’s issue of Kikabink News…
