The Idea Seed of your business – page 1 of the first 8 pages

June 30, 2009 by Janet Beckers
Filed under: Internet Basics, Where to Start

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Last week I shared the titles of the first 8 pages of my business diary. Under these 8 headings I list strategies to grow your business. If you concentrate on these 8 titles, and nothing else, your business will thrive.

In this article, let’s talk about the most important step in your business planning. This is the step that most entrepreneurs spend much of their time thinking and talking about (especially at dinner parties) but rarely enough time researching!

The idea which will become the seed your business will grow from.

If you’re like me, and like most entrepreneurs, you have no shortage of ideas. Everywhere you look you see business ideas. The challenge is choosing one and sticking with it, instead of going off at a tangent and following the next “bright shiny object” which is another “glittering seed”.

So how do you choose?

Let Your Customers Choose

The most common thing I see is people who come to me and say

“I have a great idea for an ebook / membership site / widget, let’s get started. How do I create the product and sell it?”

WRONG QUESTION.

I can so relate to this because this is exactly how I was for years.

HERE IS THE CORRECT QUESTION

“Who is my target market and what are their biggest frustrations?”

Your idea may not be what your target market wants. But if you get to know them, you may find that your idea is close to the mark but needs to be tweaked to solve their problems.

A business is purely and simply solving people’s problems. Your idea needs to solve a problem big enough for people to pay for the solution.

How to see if there is a demand for your idea

Brainstorm who your target market is. Something broad like women is not good enough. Women over 40 is not enough. Women over 40 who want to run a business from home is getting closer. Women over 40 who want to run a business from home based around their passion for health and natural therapies but have no idea where to start is getting much closer. Do you see the power of specifics?

Online research:

first of all, brainstorm as many keywords as you can on your topic
Go to www.wordtracker.com and research how many people are searching on these terms and how many competitors you have
Check out Google’s keyword suggestions to brainstorm keywords
Pat Marcello recommends SEO Book for keyword research

Now…..

Search on Google for your keywords and check out EVERY site on the first 2 pages.
Make notes (I suggest you start a spreadsheet) on what the sites are like, what products are sold, what forums you find, who has products you may refer to your future customers etc
Go to forums where your target market hangs out and see what questions they ask
Join Facebook groups on your topic and see what people discuss
Search in twitter for your keywords and see what is discussed.

This takes time but is absolutely essential if you don’t want to waste your time creating a product that no-one wants. Don’t be tempted to do this half way, get impatient and just go ahead and create the product / web site anyway. The majority of entrepreneurs on the Internet do that and I am sure that is why there are so many people who try and fail on the Internet. They just put all their energy into a project that was never going to work because there was no demand.

Did I say, don’t short cut this step?

Offline research

20090329-img_0131 If you can go to where your target market is offline and talk to them face-to-face, make sure you do. The insights you will get into their frustrations is priceless. As a guide, when I was researching for Wonderful Web Women I wanted to get insights into what my target market wanted. Here’s how I found them.

My target market? Women who want to create success on the Internet but want to learn from successful women. They need successful role models.
Where do they hang out? Internet Marketing Conferences
Where can I get their attention? A captive audience waiting in the line in the women’s toilets at lunch time! I kid you not. That’s where I did most of my research.

So, where does your target market hang out?

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