I’m impulsive to say the least when I get a new business idea. I realise I need to rein in my entrepreneurial sprint reaction and come up with a new way to test business ideas
My dormant list of domain names OR “The Cabinet of Curiously Failed Million Dollar Dreams”, as I like to call it, is testament to the ideas I’ve had over the years.
Here’s how it goes, an idea pings into my head, it’s a shiny new object and I need to start to run with it, like a gazelle bounding over the savanna. The domain name will be purchased, the website developed. I’ll write processes to scale an idea that has no traction yet.
I’ve come up for breath too many times after spending 2-3 days on a build only to launch to the sound of crickets.
It’s like an addiction to shiny new ideas, I’ve done it dozens of times, I’ve wasted too much time and money on new business ideas that go nowhere. I desperately need a new way to test business ideas.
A New Idea Just Happened
As you may or may not know I offer WordPress care plans for my clients, I look after backups, updates, monitoring and fix the site if it crashes, has errors or is hacked, it’s a great productized service, I have it down to an art with processes and procedures.
One of my care plan clients (a web designer I work with) asks me, can I white label my care plan for her clients?
I give it some thought, yes I can customise my reports to use her logo and branding colours, yes I can send emails from her domain name as if I’m part of her team, yes I can add a new area to my helpdesk for alerts and messages that looks like it’s part of her business.
I setup her clients in the new white labelled fashion and everything is great, that’s when the idea worm took hold.
I bet I can setup a new domain name, hire a team and offer white label services to solopreneur web designers and web developers. I’ll offer a done for you service that takes very little time from the professional and gives them a relatively passive income steam – awesome sauce. If I can find 2083 customers that’s a million dollar business.
I’m looking at domain names before you know it and the cycle starts again.
STOP!
“STOP!” I shouted at myself in my office in reality I shouted “Stop it you stupid F!*ck*~g idiot you are doing it again!”.
Just because one person asks for something it does not a business build.
Things I learned this week #1345 when you replace characters in a swear word with other characters that is called a grawlix.
My New Mantra
I will not buy a domain name today …
This mantra allows me to buy one in the future just not today 🙂
I need A Test Methodology
I’ve realised when I get into this mode I need a way to test my hypothesis. I’ve read all the Lean Startup books, I know about minimum viable products so why don’t I apply that to my new ideas.
Here’s My Methodology
- Build out a minimum viable service
- Build a Client Persona
- Cold reach out to at least 100 people meeting this client persona
- If I can sell to 1 person I give myself permission to run and let the wind blow through my entrepreneurial hair.
Minimum Viable Service
I’m in the service business game, but if it was a product the same thing applies.
How can I white label my care plan service doing the very least amount of work so it can be implemented if I get a sale?
Easy, sell it as a service under the NeilMatthews.com umbrella using my existing tools and techniques, use the lessoned learned by my first white labelling.
Nothing to build here, it all already exists.
Build A Customer Profile
I know, I know this is old hat, but it’s not something I’ve really looked into, build a potential customer persona and reach out to those people as potential clients for the new service.
So Jenny is a self employed web designer. She uses WordPress to make amazing looking websites. She is a designer not a developer and works with other self employed developers when she needs custom coding beyond her skills.
Jenny suffers from the feast and famine cycle of freelancer work and is looking to flatten that curve with some recurring passive income. She’s thought of info products and hosting, if only there was another way to make passive income.
Selling To A Cold Customer
A lot of my business ideas revolve around the idea that I can sell it do you (my dear readers) via my email list.
This works to a certain degree but I burnt through my list pretty quickly, a lot of the times and I don’t reach the business levels of success I need to make this new idea work.
My new methodology involves being able to sell to a cold audience, not an existing one. If I can do that it opens me up to paid advertising and scaling my new business idea beyond my current audience.
Linked In Prospecting
I’ve found a tool called LinkedIn Sales navigator, it allows me to find people on LinkedIn who meet my client persona.
I’m going to reach out to 100 people on linked in to test my idea and also my messaging I can split test and see what works or does not work. The messages I use for successful sales can be used in my copy in my website build, if and only if my cold selling works.
So I’ve signed up for a free trial of LinkedIn Navigator, this is a pretty nifty tool that presents me with a list of contacts based upon a search I’ve created namely:
- Company size – self employed
- Geography – united kingdom (I’m speaking to my people first)
- Job Title – web designer
That search meets my persona of Jenny perfectly.
Work In Progress
So I’m looking for and reaching out to 10 people per day, I’m sending a manually crafted and personalised LinkedIn Message
It’s not scalable but it tests my idea perfectly and proves if there is a need for white labelled care plans for solopreneur web designers and developers.
Wrap up – My New
I’ve spent about an hour setting up the service and there will be a 30 minutes per day prospecting, pretty low rate of effort at the moment.
You may or may not hear more about my white label care plans, but one things for sure I’m testing in depth before I start work on that website.
So WLCarePlan.com is available I see …
Photo by joel herzog on Unsplash It’s a Gazelle running FFS it’s a metaphor for me running with a new idea.