The Product Path To Sales During A Recession- Recession Response
A five-stage framework for launching new products when revenue is tight. Start with a cheap beta version to test demand with early adopters, refine based on feedback, then build the core offer. Once it works, create derivative products like workbooks or video courses, then scale through licensing or certification.
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I'm going to introduce you to a concept called the product path, and, uh, it's— I have it drawn out. I want to get a nice graphic made for you, but there's probably the most urgency of anything I can share with you is around this right now. It's how do we introduce new offerings, and if your core offering has been compromised because of all that's going on, can you introduce a new offering that stays within your core competency but is new. How do you go about it? Well, there's, uh, 5 distinct stages in the product path. And if you can't see as well, covering it off to you, the first stage is beta. And I think many businesses skip this and we go past the core concept, we go to core offer right away. We say, what can we offer our customers, and then start making the offering. So we skip those 2 steps, which can compromise both, uh, us financially because we're making an investment in something that may not be successful but also it does not allow us to optimize the product. The beta is— and I wrote examples down here as an author, what I do— but the goal of the beta— here's the goals— the goal of the beta is validation. And basically you reach out to your prospect base, whoever it may be. And if you're a brand new business, you have a prospect base, it's just the community of people that you have access to. And if you don't even have a community, it's making a public notice, like by doing a YouTube video or something. To an established community that can then find you. But it's getting the word out in the best way you can to make an offer around the idea or core concepts that you have. Saying, for example, for me, I may say, here's just one of the concepts I made on a single piece of paper. You know, I documented the business crisis trend. I'm gonna be introducing a beta group where we are going to investigate the trend and we're gonna walk through it together collectively and I'm going to give you coaching each step of the way. Now, I don't have this perfected yet, far from it. I just know the core essence of what it's going to be and how it's going to serve you. If you're interested in joining the beta group, you can join at a significant discount of what I'm going to be offering it for. So I'm going to offer it for, and I'd say, you know, for example, it has to be integral and real. But, you know, in this example, say I'm going to charge $1,000 for this training or something. But if you're willing to join the beta group, It's only going to be $200. The tradeoff is it's going to be bumpy and there's going to be bruises because it's not perfected. But my commitment is for it to be impactful to you. Additionally, as a beta member, if you decide to proceed, I ask that you act as the initial board of advisors. I'm going to ask you for critical feedback, how I can improve it and deliver those improvements to you. So that's the trade if you'd like to join. And that's how you position a beta. The power of a beta is that you validate your concept in the first place. If people are not willing to open their wallets, it's that what you need to judge. It's not like, oh, I can't wait to have this, this is great. Don't judge people on their words, judge them on their wallets, their action. If they're not willing to buy it, you don't have something that's even convincing in concept. Now you have to deliver it at a discount, uh, because there is a trade-off. It is not perfected, it may not work out well, so you have to offer it where it overcomes that resistance or fear of making investment with no return. Strategy here is inoculation, meaning be very honest with the customers of what's good and what's bad. Offer it at a discount, we explained, and you invite them in as board of advisors. Next is called the core concept. The core concept is the refinement of your offering, and here we want to iterate, meaning keep on changing and modifying based on the feedback you get. You want to test out new ideas, and you also want to start the consolidation. Ultimately, 90% of our offering is not delivering much benefit, but a small percentage, maybe 10%, is delivering, you know, the 90% benefit. So we want to consolidate down to that. Just as an example, as an author, the initial thing is like— this is actually a perfect example— is ideal modeling, or idea modeling, I should say. I have an idea, idea, and here's the idea as an example. This is something I've modeled out, very simple. It didn't take long to do this, and I see what the reception is among a beta group. Then we go to the core competency. As an author, actually delivering a speech on a concept is excellent because you have to consolidate the core concept, and it's a testing platform because every time you speak, you're getting feedback either direct or just through people's reactions to see what's working, what's not working. So that's what happens. And again, this is just an example of how an author like me goes through it. The core offer, that's the third stage here, is where we start investing in our offering. The nice thing is you generated some income from your beta group and you also have a referral base. If you've served this beta group well, they are now your first customers. That is powerful when selling to the subsequent customers at the core price that you can point back to testimonials. So this is your core offering, um, and where you're going to invest in perfecting it and delivering the full package. This is also a monetization opportunity. So for an author, this is writing the book. So Profit First, my beta was actually an article in the Wall Street Journal. I then started delivering it as a presentation and a speech. I then converted to a core offering, which is the book. And what this does is allows you to build your brand positioning. It allows you to really deliver on the key promise and to identify that, stand out on it. And it's also monetization as a source of regular, now recurring income. The fourth stage is derivative offers. Once you have a core offer that's successfully in the market, what are all the variants you can offer on it? So, uh, you know, supplements, I'm thinking as an author now for a book could be supplemental stuff, workbooks, uh, merchandise, even wearables, uh, video training and so forth. What are the derivatives? Once you have your core offering out in the market and people are consuming it, you validate, you move to the next level, which is derivative offerings. This is the expansion is the goal. And it's revenue growth, it's further positioning, it's also niche targets. I remember talking with Brian Smith, I interviewed him extensively for my book Surge around how he grew UGG. And it was about once he had the core offering done, the UGG boot for surfers, it was about expanding it into all different markets, hockey, skiing, and so forth. Then we hit the fourth, I'm sorry, the fifth and final stage, which is scaling. Scaling is a movement opportunity. And what I mean here is that you can achieve permanence. That's the goal and strategy here. And the techniques to do this may be licensing, um, community certification, but it's where the greater community now is motivated, engaged in promoting and spreading the word. They're invested in a successful outcome. So we start here at stage 1. You don't have to go all the way to stage 5, but this is how a product path builds from, um, validation, monetarily right from the get-go to ultimately a core offering. And then you can have an opportunity to expand on that revenue stream by doing derivatives and ultimately scaling opportunities. This is called the product path. I know I kind of raced through it, but I hope it helps you. I think this is what's needed most right now because many businesses don't know what to create and you can just ideate. And I have another training on how to create ideas and generate new thoughts, but you need to beta test them first. Hope this helps. For more tips like this, you can go to recessionresponse.com. It's a page I set up specifically for what we're experiencing right now. Or if you want more content, go to mikemotorbike.com. It's Mike Michalowicz, but mikemotorbike.com. And make sure you subscribe. I'm sending out additional content to help you via email. I'm wishing you tremendous success. This is the opportunity for small business to stand up, step forward, and kick some ass.
