So, you’re not in tech, you don’t wanna raise money from investors, therefore product-market fit is unimportant. Just gotta sell as much as possible of your shit and all your problems will be solved, right?
I used to think the same.
But the truth is not all sales are created equal. Some sales actually hurt your business. And the irony is…
If you’re really smart and hard working, you can even get to 7-figures dragging a giant weight on your shoulders. It will be HARD, but you can do it, if you’re crazy enough. And that’s not actually a good thing, because it leaves your business in a precarious situation.
And if you want to scale further, you’ll actually have to face reality and fix all the problems you swept under the “just get more sales” rug anyway.
So here’s why you should NAIL it first… before scaling.
— You’ll discover who your ideal clients are, those who actually benefit from what you do, and hence you can laser-focus your marketing on them.
— You’ll know whose voices you need to listen to and which ones you should ignore when it comes to improving the service.
— You’ll have a much easier time selling, because you’ll be CONVINCED your audience can get giant results FAST.
— When you do scale, it will be EASY and FAST rather than HARD and SLOW.
— And finally, you’ll avoid situations when 20-30% of your revenue can be wiped over night due to churners.
MJ calls product-market fit building a productocracy. That’s what it is. You need something that’s so good, that you don’t struggle to retain (or acquire) customers. Doesn’t just mean word-of-mouth… certainly word of mouth can be part of it. But the point is that what you’re selling is so different that it’s instantly attractive, even to a cold audience that first hears it and doesn’t know who you are.
Anyone can build a business to $5M in revenue… in 20-30 years. That’s nothing to be proud of. It means your business is shit, if it took that long. It means you have no differentiation. It means you don’t stand out at all. You’re just business as usual and you rely on your “network” and “referrals” to grow.
This is your typical lawyer, accountant, and quite frankly small business. Low margins, hard to scale, needs your network and connections to get clients… ask yourself why?
Why does a millionaire lawyer in his 70s need his damn network to make his money? I’ll tell you why — because the truth is, there is no reason to buy his shit other than the “reputation” he has built.
Take away his name, and literarily ANYONE else would be saying the same things he does.
If you rely only on reputation and your network to grow, you’re masking a much bigger underlying problem — lack of product-market fit, or otherwise said you’re not really needed by anyone. That’s why most small businesses suck, and most small business owners are brokies. That’s why investors don’t want to invest in small businesses. Because even if you pour millions into a small business, what they sell is so sucky, so undifferentiated, if you just remove their logo, you’ll find out they’re exactly like every other provider.
The shortcut to all this is of course putting your energy on solving PROBLEMS for a specific NICHE via a unique OFFER to help them achieve a TRANSFORMATION. Which is what I call my NPOT Methodology.
This is the “HOW” you’re missing behind providing value and achieving product-market fit. And no you can’t interview your customers about WHAT you sell them, what your offer should be.
You interview customers about PROBLEMS and the TRANSFORMATION they want. Then YOU create the OFFER to solve that, because you’re the EXPERT. There are many big heads who will go around “uh oh, what do you need? What shall I build for you?” — NOTHING! The answer is always nothing. Your clients have no clue how to solve their own problems — if they did, guess what? They wouldn’t need ya!
Continue reading here: NOTABLE! - MARKETING - Does your Agency have the foundations to scale to $1M+?
I used to think the same.
But the truth is not all sales are created equal. Some sales actually hurt your business. And the irony is…
If you’re really smart and hard working, you can even get to 7-figures dragging a giant weight on your shoulders. It will be HARD, but you can do it, if you’re crazy enough. And that’s not actually a good thing, because it leaves your business in a precarious situation.
And if you want to scale further, you’ll actually have to face reality and fix all the problems you swept under the “just get more sales” rug anyway.
So here’s why you should NAIL it first… before scaling.
— You’ll discover who your ideal clients are, those who actually benefit from what you do, and hence you can laser-focus your marketing on them.
— You’ll know whose voices you need to listen to and which ones you should ignore when it comes to improving the service.
— You’ll have a much easier time selling, because you’ll be CONVINCED your audience can get giant results FAST.
— When you do scale, it will be EASY and FAST rather than HARD and SLOW.
— And finally, you’ll avoid situations when 20-30% of your revenue can be wiped over night due to churners.
MJ calls product-market fit building a productocracy. That’s what it is. You need something that’s so good, that you don’t struggle to retain (or acquire) customers. Doesn’t just mean word-of-mouth… certainly word of mouth can be part of it. But the point is that what you’re selling is so different that it’s instantly attractive, even to a cold audience that first hears it and doesn’t know who you are.
Anyone can build a business to $5M in revenue… in 20-30 years. That’s nothing to be proud of. It means your business is shit, if it took that long. It means you have no differentiation. It means you don’t stand out at all. You’re just business as usual and you rely on your “network” and “referrals” to grow.
This is your typical lawyer, accountant, and quite frankly small business. Low margins, hard to scale, needs your network and connections to get clients… ask yourself why?
Why does a millionaire lawyer in his 70s need his damn network to make his money? I’ll tell you why — because the truth is, there is no reason to buy his shit other than the “reputation” he has built.
Take away his name, and literarily ANYONE else would be saying the same things he does.
If you rely only on reputation and your network to grow, you’re masking a much bigger underlying problem — lack of product-market fit, or otherwise said you’re not really needed by anyone. That’s why most small businesses suck, and most small business owners are brokies. That’s why investors don’t want to invest in small businesses. Because even if you pour millions into a small business, what they sell is so sucky, so undifferentiated, if you just remove their logo, you’ll find out they’re exactly like every other provider.
The shortcut to all this is of course putting your energy on solving PROBLEMS for a specific NICHE via a unique OFFER to help them achieve a TRANSFORMATION. Which is what I call my NPOT Methodology.
This is the “HOW” you’re missing behind providing value and achieving product-market fit. And no you can’t interview your customers about WHAT you sell them, what your offer should be.
You interview customers about PROBLEMS and the TRANSFORMATION they want. Then YOU create the OFFER to solve that, because you’re the EXPERT. There are many big heads who will go around “uh oh, what do you need? What shall I build for you?” — NOTHING! The answer is always nothing. Your clients have no clue how to solve their own problems — if they did, guess what? They wouldn’t need ya!
Continue reading here: NOTABLE! - MARKETING - Does your Agency have the foundations to scale to $1M+?
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum:
Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.
