The Market is Always Right

Well folks, here it is. We've been tweaking and tuning for the last couple of months to get it right, but finally I am very proud to launch the first part of the Backwards Business programme, designed to help companies and entrepreneurs go to market with a way, better chance of success than normal. So far results from the 1st group of customers show -

1. 20% achieving exceptional results way ahead of their business plans
2. 31% seeing significant improvements on their previous performance
3. 19% are seeing improvement and expect further improvement as they apply more of Backwards Business.

The market is always right overview from timsandford

As always its best view in full screen. If you have any questions on the programme or how to access it let me know and I'll be happy to help.

By Tim Sandford

Failure is Good!

Last week my blog entries focused on market research and asking whether or not it is something you should consider before sinking your savings into a business.

I hope it provoked some positive thinking.

Today I would like to round off the brief series with a statement. Failure is good!

Just ask anyone who has ever succeeded. Thomas Edison even made a career of it and famously stated, Results? Why, man, I have gotten lots of results! If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is often a step forward....

Testing your business ideas on the market is exactly the same as inventing the light bulb and the more disruptive your business idea is the more you need to make sure you really understand the market dynamics and sentiments. If you don’t, be prepared for an expensive failure as opposed to a good one.

The ten questions approach I outlined last week is proven to work and help businesses quickly and relatively easily find out whether their idea is good, bad or most likely -  'Could be good, but needs some refining and tuning to fit what the market wants.'  You can do this many, many times quickly and easily. By listening to the market and working with it, the market will come with you. It is in the interests of the market to do so.

The best part about it is simply that it only really costs time and done right helps you discard the parts of your idea that won’t work in the market and really focus in on those that do – why not make sure to stack the odds in your favour, no one else will?

There will be a couple of case studies about this when the book and updated site launch at the beginning of next month, but the bottom is this, when we have done this in the past on more than one occasion, it has led to companies winning some very big contracts right at the point when they launch. 

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.