Did you listen to Episode 22, work on your detailed pricing model, and discover that no one can afford you or your product? Is your labor intensive product not a good fit for a business model? Does that mean you have to start from square one with a whole new business idea? Not necessarily. Don't automatically assume you need to reinvent the wheel.
By brainstorming ways to turns Products into Services, or Services into Products, you may be able to price yourself back into the marketplace. Or, if your business is running smoothly without much involvement from you, it may be time to branch out. Thinking in terms of complimentary products and services might help.
Lets take a product example first. You are a fantastic knitter with mad skills. But when you use the pricing formula discussed in Episode 22, your products would have to be priced well above what the market can bear. You might begin to think you need to find a new product to sell, but not so fast. Think in terms of related services and related products as an outlet for your knitting talent. For instance, could you create new knitting patterns to sell? Could you teach knitting classes? What about creating knitting training videos or tutorials. Perhaps you could you write an ebook about knitting. Maybe as you have been fueling your knitting hobby you have found some rare and largely undiscovered sources for eco-friendly fabulous knitting yarn. Could you source out and sell these fabulous knitting supplies that you know your equally as devoted knitting-loving friends would adore? What about a monthly subscription box service dedicated to knitters, providing new patterns and fabulous finds to your subscribers each month? By thinking about services or products related to your passion, you may just find yourself a new business!
Let's say you are in the service industry and own a restaurant. Could you begin to bottle a favorite sauce that customers are always asking about? That would be a related product for your service industry. Is your restaurant slow during certain hours? Maybe a cooking class would be the perfect thing to offer during those times.
Many service-based businesses offer very customized services for their clients. These customized services are exactly what some customers are looking for, but they can be a bit pricey for others. Could you make a more DIY product for those customers that don't need complete customization? For example BrandID creates beautiful customized websites and branding for customers who need a site tailored just for them. But for those customers that are just starting out, identityshoppe.com offers a DIY version of a customized website. Both of these services are owned by the same woman, but by creating a high cost highly customizable service and a lower-cost DIY version, she can keep customers in the sales loop and offer the perfect fit for each client.
If you have a hit a wall and your pricing model just won't work for your products or services, brainstorm related products and services to create a viable business model.
If you have a viable business model, don't under-estimate the power of focus. Now may not be the time to brainstorm related products and services, you may just need to buckle down and focus on your viable business at hand.
$100 Start Up by Chris Guillebeau is a great resource for this topic. (This is an affiliate link, but I would not recommend this book if I hadn't already read it and found it useful!)
Are you going to make any changes to your business plan or model after listening to this episode? We'd love to hear about it in the comments!
-Sarah
