How To Guarantee Your Product Will Be A Hit

How To Guarantee Your Product Will Be A Hit

Inventor At Work / Product Hit Guarantee

In the old days (I’m referring to just a few years ago) we would create a project or service and then try to sell it. We would develop a product and try to convince people they had the problem our product was the solution for.

Now we have to create a remarkable product or service that solves an existing problem.

The first step in any marketing or creation plan (after seeking out an existing problem, of course) is to not just write why our product is the remarkable solution, but show that it is.

In the past we could stay in our dark rooms, write a book, give it to a publisher, and then rely on the publisher to market the book and hope it hits the NYT bestseller list.

In the past we could dream up an awesome product at our desks, contact manufacturers in China, have them build it, send it to us and then hope people would buy it.

Now the publisher doesn’t do the marketing. Now few go knocking on doors.

We can’t stay in our quiet dark room anymore.

Now books gets sold before their written. Now we have a preorder list of 1,200 before we build the product.

The way to guarantee your product will be a hit once it reaches the market is to guarantee your product will be a hit before you build it. You do that by building a tribe of believers, of backers, of supporters.

Instead of putting a book out there and hoping people bite, you can blog about the book before it’s written, create a network centered around the message of your book, then you get a book proposal based on the feedback and impact you already have. You are able to show it will be a bestseller.

Kickstarter works because people have a tribe of supporters that will pay to have them build their inventions because one of their perks is that they will get weekly updates, exclusive promos, and special thank-yous. Not to mention, they simply believe in the maker, the artist, (you?). But those artists have worked hard for their trust, not just hard on the product.

We’re no longer in an age when we can rely on others to sell what we create. Sure, create for the sake of creating, because it’s fun, because there’s no better opportunity we have in life. But if you are looking to make an income off your creation,  doesn’t it make sense to guarantee your product will be a hit before you create it?

 

Stay Positive & We Have The Tools, Now Use’m

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What Comes After “The Next Big Thing”

Awesome. Now what’s next?

I noted yesterday that the more you know, the more original you can be and in being original, with a bit of intuition, you can create the next big thing.

(As I was writing this, a commercial came on for the new galaxy SIII and the final words on the screen were “The Next Big Thing Is Here”.)

What’s after that then? What are your plans now that you made the next big thing? So you made an awesome book-page-open-holder or you found a way to connect the photos taken from one person’s phone with all the other friends immediately after taking it. Now what?

You have two options.

1. You can cash out and do your best to make the money last.

2. You can use the cash from your creation to start working on the next big thing.

One decade ago choosing number one was viable. Not only would you make a lot of money from creating the next big thing, but it would be a long time before the next big thing trumped yours and cut your cash flow.

But in a world that people are making something bigger and better than the person next to them every day, option one just isn’t an option anymore.

That leaves option two. And option two takes dedication, creativity and more hard work as you invent more of the next big things. Which is perfect not just for your tribe, but for your passion, for your income, for your life and the world we live in.

This idea, this concept, this law that guides what is successful couldn’t be a better one for us. It ignores those who only create something that is cheap, that is an imitation, that is only meant to fulfill option one and that has no art in it.

 

Stay Positive & Hallelujah

Garth E. Beyer

The Imagination Generation

Previous generations had it easy didn’t they? Much easier than us anyway.

They didn’t have electronics to take them to a new world. They didn’t have the ability to Google all the things they love, the items they didn’t have or even focus on working hard to get them. They had a simple life. Hard, yes. But simple.

Our generation and any hereafter can Google more and further than our imaginations could previously take us. We Google surreal images, pictures representative of predictive futuristic consumerism. We now Google thinking it will help, yet we do very little or nothing that blogs suggest, that articles advise, that pictures inspire, that the world needs. We waste our time Googling for two reasons.

1. We seek safety, security and the knowledge that “everything is alright”. The same reason, in fact, as why you check Twitter and Facebook 20 times a day to see that everything is okay, nothing serious has happened. We never think that maybe, if something serious were to happen, if our security was breached, if we felt unsafe, that we may just feel it and know? Do we really think Googling, checking News, Twitter feed and Facebook will really be the primary acknowledgment that we are in trouble? No.

(It does good to take a moment to realize that this process is what has put us in trouble)

2. Our imaginations have been released, but not far enough. We search and stretch our minds as far as the web will let us extend them and then we feel like we got there ourselves, accomplished. We feel that since we imagined it, that it is real, attainable and easily reached. The ability to see and understand that which would not be attainable without the web is creating a surge of jobs not filled, inventions not made, and ideas not created. It is as though whatever is on the web is as far as the mind can reach, but this is false.

What you can Google, discover on Twitter, view and share on Facebook can well be used as a bridge to a further discovery. They are not your destinations, they are someone else’s and this means that there is a calling upon you to take what you view and learn to improve it, make it better, and most importantly add your imagination to it.

Or you can simply avoid this roadblock and let your imagination run as wild as possible. Of course, by doing this you will only find out that you can actually go further than what is proposed on the web, what can be dreamt of, created and achieved by another.

 

Stay Positive & It’s Sort Of A Win-Win

Garth E. Beyer