10 questions that are guaranteed help your business succeed.

In yesterday's blog we asked you whether or not you thought it was a good idea to really get under the skin of your market in order to give your business the very best chances of success?

We have already had plenty of folk come back and agree, but a lot have said they also are not sure how to do it or how to get hold of the right people to ask them questions - all of which is perfectly normal.

Here's the good news. If you learn some very basic rules about approaching potential buyers and asking for their help and input, you will be very happily surprised at how much people are prepared to help. Think of it this way, you are asking them to help you make a better product or service for them, so why wouldn't they?

I won't try to cover the rules in this blog because it would take ages and they are all covered elsewhere on our site or in the book. 

However what I do want to cover in this entry is the information you want to get and the questions you want answered. There are only 10, not more and very rarely less. You want answers to all of them, because when you start to combine the information you get from different questions, it pretty much gives you all the information you need to know whether or not you have a business idea that will work. The questions are listed below.

1. How many buyers are there in the market?
2. When is the market, is it mature, established and growing, new or not emerged yet?
3. Who are the buyers - (in B2B this means companies and individual roles in the companies)
4. Why will they buy your product?
5. How often will they buy your product?
6. How much will they pay for your product?
7. What do they expect your product to do for them?
8. What is the outcome they are looking for from your product?
9. What is your competition?
10. Where and how will they buy?

To explain the colour coding before I go on. Question one in red is a desktop research question that you do at the start and the end because the number of buyers you think there are before you start will be different when you finish. 

The questions highlighted in blue are the most important. These are the questions that tell what the market's motivation to buy is and what it is they really want to buy from you. (This is not about your product, but what your product does for your customer - the real reason they buy)

If the answers to these ten questions when you ask a reasonable sample of your market are all positive then you probably have a business. If they are not you may have to change and adapt your idea, but you know what, at that point in time, you probably know more about what the market wants than anyone else.

I hope this helps, because I know from lots and lots of experience that if you do not do this, you risk your savings in a very big way. 

There is one more blog in this brief series that I'll post on Monday. In the meantime have a great weekend everyone.