If your niche was a neighborhood and your business was a bulding on the block, what would it look like? I think mine would be clean and cool looking on the outside, maybe some nice shutters and good parking. On the inside though, the walls would be bare, the shelves empty, and the tables chair-less! Does your house look the same?
Somehow I’ve erected a house, walked around the neighborhood of online entrepreneurs, I’ve talked with them, dug into some of their hangouts, befriended a few with my ideas and even built a product! I love this town. I’ve shared a few visions like many of you have but still jostle around. It’s surprisingly easy to glaze over execution while exploring entrepreneur town. Correction, it’s surprisingly easy to glaze over execution forever while in entrepreneur town. Get out.
This story isn’t new…
It’s pretty cyclical to be thinking about this, but experience, connections, and mindset change as you attempt to wrangle websites and online business. The entire mental landscape, the networking, and the infrastructure for presenting services as products (and products in general) change over time, and so, re-approaching this topic isn’t as silly as it seems.
Your skills = products, and you have to figure that out on your own. How?
In short: Ask and Act
- Ask: What skills do I have that can be etched into specific product offerings?…think about it, examine it, ask friends, clients, anyone about it. We all have something inside us.
- Do: Once that’s done, and you’ve procrastinated long enough and done enough mental backflips to give this a shot, create package offerings on those particular topics…okay now put a specific price on it, and worksheets for what’s involved for that package. Now learn how to sell them. (here’s an awesome e-book I’m working through on the language of selling online, NetMasters Writing Course, free PDF)
BUT WHAT ABOUT EVERYTHING ELSE I’M SO GOOD AT!!
My people skills, my extra knowledge, my pizazz, all my other ideas, there’s too many other things!
This is what goes though my head and I slow to a crawl in business execution because of it. Corbett Barr set me straight in how to view these thoughts saying…”those are the secret sauce that have people raving to come back and tell people about you” … you don’t stop providing all those other services or bits of knowledge, they are value adds in your specific BUYABLE service offerings. They are the nuances about you that have people continue to use you, follow you, and want to be part of what you’re doing.
Don’t let everything you have to offer, or the thought that you have nothing specific to offer stop you from turning your services into more. Push that thought aside, create targeted packages, and try to sell them. Period. You have to get focused and act. What do you have to lose? Your other ideas aren’t going anywhere, once again, action is more important than the perfect plan.
BUT WHAT ABOUT GETTING TRAFFIC!
Despite knowing how to launch a survey or guest post everywhere, or tweak content for traffic and exposure, there’s nothing really tangible for people to buy repeatably, there’s not much to get behind so going through the traffic producing effort makes no sense yet. I can start up all the social network conversations I want, but for what? I like people an all but still…execute more.
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE TECHNICAL HURDLES
I don’t have those, but if you do, e-mail me rob@itarsenal.com.
Putting the cart before the horse?… it often seems backwards..maybe because you have a house up, and see other houses and talk with other people and are tricked into thinking there’s other things to be working on, when really there’s not. Build products, sell them. Offering service packages, sell them. Buy others products, sell them. Get awesome at that, see what you love about that.
I keep stunting my growth because…there’s not really anything to bring people to. It’s like a home with no chairs…I can bring them all in, but where are they going to sit? It feels empty…I’m stopping that to execute.
This has been an execution state of mind post.