TES 015 - How to Create a Blockbuster Idea

Hey there, real quick before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience live. It is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. Hey there, Mel Abraham here, the author of the new book the Entrepreneur's Solution and the founder of Business Breakthrough Academy, where we teach you how to design a business and create a life, a life of financial freedom and peace of mind. And welcome to this episode of the Entrepreneur Solutions show. And I'm real excited about this episode because we start to step up the three phases of business life and we get to the second stage in phase one, talking about ideation. How do we create ideas that resonate with an audience, resonate with a marketplace? How do we test them? How do we evaluate them? How do we understand them? And in this session specifically, we're going to talk about the evaluation of an idea. How do you look at the idea and have a guidebook that you can download if you go to the Link, which is melabraham.com session015. Or if you happen to be away from your, your computer, you happen to be running, or you'd be at the gym or you're driving and you can't get to the computer, go ahead and text mylegacy. Mylegacy. One word, no spaces to 38470. So after this brief introduction, we'll be right back and we'll talk about how do you evaluate an idea so it resonates with your marketplace and connects with your customers. See you back here soon.

Welcome to the Entrepreneur Solution, where highly successful entrepreneur Mel Abraham becomes your entrepreneurial mentor. Here, Mel reveals his business building strategies and even gets a chance to answer your questions. Mel Abraham, a CPA by education, but an entrepreneur by exhilaration and a true believer in the entrepreneurial way of life. It's through entrepreneurship that we create community, support society and live our dreams.

It's where possibility meets reality again and you can have the life and lifestyle you want. One of freedom, peace of mind. Welcome to this episode of the Entrepreneur's Solution where it's time for you to be bold, dream big, and live life your way.

Hey there, Mel Abraham. Here. And welcome back to this episode of the Entrepreneur's Solution Show. Great to have you back. We're going to really dive in today. We're going to start to move up the think up stage. Remember, we have the, the three phase process of business life. Think up, get up and reach up. And we're still in the think up phase. We spent a fair amount of time in the first stage of think up, which is the decide stage, which really is one of the most important things that you can consider is what are the choices you're going to make, what are the decisions you're going to make? Where are you going to show up? How are you going to show up? What are you going to stand for? All of those identity vision decisions become really important because they feed and they inform everything else in the model. And so that's why we spent so much time in it. And yet it was also governed by, right at the bottom, this whole concept of customer promise. What is it you're giving them? What is it you're providing to them? How is the value provided? What kind of transformation and what kind of shift and change in their life do they get by working with you, your products and your services? So we want to know that that's the overarching umbrella always. So we're now focused on ideation. Entrepreneurs have tremendous ideas, and most of the time the challenge isn't not having an idea. The challenge is having too many ideas. And so how do we evaluate them? And in this ideation phase, we're going to talk about a variety of things. One is the evaluation of the idea. How do you look at an idea to figure out whether it's something that should be chased after, something that we should continue moving towards, that we should dedicate some time and resources to? Then the actual selection of the idea.

How do we select which ideas we're going to go after first or which ideas we're going to go after at all? Then the value creation phase, which is how do I take that idea and make sure that it is permeating and creating value for those out there? Remember, the concept of business is really about value creation. Creating value for those that are involved in your business, whether it's your team, your customers, yourself. How does this idea create value? Who's the market? How do we select the market? Do we understand the market? Then once we get this information.

This study, if you will, this data, if you will, the last phase is to resign. Resign. Either to let it go or to redesign the idea before we launch it. So those are the phases. But in this video, we're going to spend some time understanding the evaluation phase of ideas and what it takes. And when we talk about evaluation, what we're really going to be dealing with is a couple of different elements. One is the inputs that, that go into the idea. The second is the marketplace that we might be looking at. The third is the outputs, the things that come out of it, the outcomes that come out of it. And the fourth is the obstacles, those things that might stand in your way or that you may have to navigate through or have challenges with in dealing with that. And so when we can deal with the inputs, the market, the outputs or outcomes and the obstacles, and we have a definitive clarity and understanding of where we stand in those places, now all of a sudden the idea starts to make a little more sense, depending on the answers to the questions that we need to ask. And I'm going to give you the questions here, but let's go through the model or the framework for this first. And as I said, what we want to do is we want to take an idea and say, okay, I have an idea, but an idea in and of itself is not a business. So how do I move it from idea to business? And so there's a process we go through and there's some things to evaluate and some things to consider, some questions to ask and answer, some data and studying and surveying that might need to be done to truly understand this. So let's deal with the first piece, which is the inputs. The inputs and the inputs are dealing with three primary elements. That's the time. How much time is it going to take? Not only how much time is it going to take from you, how much time is it going to take from other people, from vendors, from contractors, from your staff, from your team. You may have an existing business already and you have this new idea, but in order to go after and chase that new idea, you're going to need to take some time away from other places of the business. What effect does that have? How much time does it take out of your life? How much time it going to take to move it to marketplace successfully? How much time is it going to take to get you to profit successfully? So all these questions that we need to answer in the input stage of this, and then people, unless you intend to do it yourself, which my suggestion is to consider at least as you grow to scale away from the things that are non cores, as we talked about in prior videos and trainings, is that what people do, you need, what mentors do you need? What colleagues do you need, what contractors do you need, what team do you need, what virtual assistants do you need, what digital needs do you have? What people do you need? And really list and detail that out. So you understand this, because in order for your idea to have life, we need resources. And this is what this is all about. And the last is money. How much is it going to cost? Do you have the reserve funds to do that? Do you have the resources to do that? You know, are you going to mortgage the house to do this? Which I'm not sure I would suggest doing that. And I know some entrepreneurs will do that. They might, you know, pull out of their retirement accounts, which, again, I don't suggest. There's other ways to fund businesses and ideas, and we can look at those, but the question is not how to fund it yet. The question is, what are the needs? What's the money that needs to go in so we can get the money out, so we can serve the purpose, so we can create the things that we want to create? And so that's the input stage. And we have a number of questions that will help you detail and get clarity on some of these that I'll go through after we get through this model. The second stage is this concept of the market. Well, who's our customers? Who are the customers? Where are they? How do we access them? Then understanding that there may be customers, but how big is the market? And realizing that the market size matters. And it's not about the total market size, it's about the market size that you have the ability to access. I call it market sifting. To understand who you have access to and then how do you get access to them? Can you get to the market? Do you have a list? Do you have customers? Do you have access to the market? It's great to know that there's a market out there, but if I cannot get in the gates, if I cannot get in the room with them, then knowing that the market exists with no access doesn't necessarily help me until I get access to doing that. So that's the market phase of this. Then we move into, from the market phase, we start to look at the outcomes. What are the things that come out of this? If we really, if we really take this idea and allow it to spur life, to have life, to grow, to really come to fruition, what happens? And you know, one of the things we need to think about is profits, cash flow. Clearly, an idea has to be able to generate enough profits to make sense. It may not Be your primary purpose at times. Because we may be talking about making a difference and a business of meaning and impact, but still we need the profits so we can serve the purpose. And to look at it in a holistic kind of zen way and not worry about the money, I think is a mistake. So let's call a spade a spade. The money matters. And so what are the profits that might be derived from this idea? And then looking at the idea, is this a one hit wonder or is there some potential for growth? Is there an ability to build on it, to stack on it, to layer on it, to create something that is a franchise or something that has legs and can run? Or is this just like, let me hit the market and get what I can and get out? You know, when you look at suites of products, Apple comes to mind where they have the nano and they have the ipod and they have the iPhone and they have the touch and they have the itunes store and they have all the different computers, There are a suite of products that when you talk to an Apple owner, many times they don't just have one Apple product. I mean, I know I don't. So what is the potential for growth not only financially and business wise, but for you personally? Is this something that juices you? Is this something that energizes you? Is this something that's going to allow you to grow personally so you feel fulfilled? And we need to ask that question. Because if it's not, you may say, all right, the profits are great, but you may be miserable. And I've seen this happen many a time with entrepreneurs and business owners where what they thought was going to be a passionate pursuit turns into a painful, painful endeavor on an ongoing basis. And then the last is your lifestyle. And remember I said every business equation has lifestyle in it. Your lifestyle. What is the impact on your lifestyle to try and have this idea come to life? Does it suck the life out of you in the sense of resources, time away from your family, away from your health, away from what? What dynamics, what impact does it have on your lifestyle as it grows, as it's successful? What impacts can it have on your lifestyle? Be clear on that up front and don't go chasing an idea that you don't realize what it might do to you personally, your family, your friends, your lifestyle, your health? Always ask the question, how does this impact my lifestyle? And then what are the obstacles? This is the third stage. What are the obstacles? And the first is there might be competition, there might be other alternatives out there. What are those suitable alternatives? That people can say, well, I don't want you. I'm going to just keep using what I use. And that becomes something that you need to identify up front. And how you're going to navigate around that. How are you going to set yourself apart? How are you going to create that uniqueness which you're going to see as a theme comes over and over and over again? How do you create the distinction in the marketplace to do that? And what are your capabilities? This may be a great idea, but they're beyond your capabilities. And if they're not, if you don't have the capacity and capabilities to do it, then we need to either find them or just let it go. Because we can't take on stuff that starts to really drain the resources, drain the energy, and drain the other areas of life and business that are fueling us. And so we need to ask ourselves, what are our capabilities and do we have the capabilities to do this? And we need to be brutally honest about this. We can, look, we can blow smoke as much as we want, but the reality and the truth will come out in time. And so what are your capabilities? Do you have the capabilities to bring this idea to life? And if you don't, we go back up to the inputs and say, what do we need? Time, people, money, what do we need? But be clear about it. And then is it within your core strengths? Is this something that you should be doing? Is this part of your core business, your core strengths? Because if it's not in your core strengths or competencies, then you're going to have a lot more friction, a lot more challenge, and a lot more resistance in the process. So how do we either bring it into our core strengths or build our core strengths so it's encompassed in it? So that's the inputs, the market, the outcomes, and the obstacles. Those are the things that we need to consider. So how do we do this? One of the ways that I do it is through a checklist of questions. There's a number of questions that we're going to go through quickly here, but the guidebook will take you through these questions and more that I want you to download the guidebook and take it and use it every time you have an idea to download it and use it as a tool, as a template and as a checklist to allow you to evaluate your ideas, to see what makes sense and what may not make sense. So let's look at the questions, and here's what they are. The first question that I want to ask is, do I really want to do it? Do I want to do this? Does it energize me? Does it electrify me? Does it cause vibrancy? Does it stir me? Does it move me? And if it doesn't, then it's going to become drudgery. Trust me, I've been there and I've seen other people that are there. And then ask myself, well, if I want to do it, can I do it? This is the capabilities question. Do I have the capacity, time, energy, money to do it? Do I have the capabilities? Do I have the tools, the skills to do it? Which kind of goes to this next question of is it within my core strengths? And I'm going through these fast because I know the downloadable guide is here, but I want to just give you some perspective on these questions and then allow you to reflect on these, because these are not questions that you want to answer quickly. You want to reflect on them to make them real. Is it within my core strengths? What are my core strengths? We've gone through exercises on defining what the core strengths are. What are my core strengths? And can I articulate the idea, the solution, simply? Can I put it in a tweet, if you will? Can I put it in 10, 20, 25 words maximum, and explain to someone where they go, I get it and I see the value and I see why you are the one to provide it. If you can articulate it with that kind of level of clarity, now things may start to hit because if it's too complex, the market's not going to understand it, the market's not going to buy it. So we want to be able to articulate it, articulate it simply and clearly. What is the closest alternative? We talked about this in the obstacles stage. What's the closest alternative? Being clear about what the alternatives are and not be idealistic, Say I'm better than them, better than them. Isn't the selling point how be distinct, be clear, be specific. What's the closest alternative that might exist? And your alternatives may be different. For instance, if I want to go from west coast to east coast, my alternative is maybe different airlines. It could be Southwest, it could be United, it could be JetBlue, it could be a bunch of different airlines, or it also could be car, bus, train, what have you. So what are the alternative.

Elements that exist, the closest alternatives for this idea? And be broad. See what the choices are that your customer has. Does it truly serve a need or solve a problem?

What need? What problem does it solve? And is it a problem that the customer is willing to pay for that they really want solved. And can you do it uniquely? Which is the next question. Can you do it uniquely? Ask that question a lot. Because there needs to be market distinction out there. And some of the market distinction may come from this next question. Are you exploding, exploiting? Does it exploit new technologies, new opportunities, new things that exist that maybe didn't previously exist? And with technology these days, how fast it's moving, there's ways to provide services and do things for people that didn't exist before. And then ask yourself what the biggest obstacles are. Now, those obstacles may be psychological, in you, within you. They may be physical obstacles in the sense of plant, equipment and access. But what are the obstacles? Then? Once we have those defined, we can start to refine and define how we're going to tackle those obstacles or navigate around them. Can it make money really? I mean, really look at it and say, not some idealistic view of, I think this is the greatest idea since sliced bread, but can it really make money? Because if it can't make money, it won't be sustainable. It won't allow you to stay on purpose and continue to grow. So being clear about how it makes money, what kind of money it can make, what kind of growth it has becomes important. And then this is an interesting question that I want you to really reflect on and say, why are you the one that should be providing this? This is the question of, okay, great, it is solving a problem, but why are you the provider? Why is this the right solution for your marketplace? And then ask, what time, how long is it going to take from this idea to get it market ready? In other words, to the point where I can sell it to a customer so I can make sure, because that timeframe we're gonna have to fund, we're gonna have to deal with the time there, we're gonna have to deal with all of the resources during that time. And we need to understand that which comes to this other question of how long is it gonna take to become profitable? Your ideas many times are not profitable instantaneously because you've invested all this time and effort and resources and money to get them there. But ask yourself and look at this honestly and say, how long before you think you will be in positive cash flow in a place where it's going to generate profits so it can start to sustain itself? The longer that period is, the more risk you take on, the more uncertainty you take on, the more stress, the more friction and everything. So you need to be clear on that. Has this been tried before? Many times what we're creating is just a recreation of something that's been tried before. And then if that's truly the case, what are you doing differently? And why should this work differently when something else didn't, you know? So has it been tried before? And then this is a piece that I know a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners want to just kind of pass over. What tests are you going to run? Test it, test it, test it before you try to take it to market. Get the market data, get the market information that allows you to understand what the market's saying and what the market's telling you. And you put the ear to the wall and say, all right, I'm hearing you, so let me tweak it so it makes it more meaningful to the marketplace. Test it before you go out and do a full launch. And then are you aware of the market trends? Are you watching the market? Do you know what the market's asking for? Are you seeing the pain points in the market? Are you seeing the solutions in the market? Do you know what the trends are demographically, psychographically, geographically? What is going on? Because the more you understand about the trends and the industry and the market, the easier it will be to create a message and a positioning that resonates with them at a deep level. And then the last question that I think is the most important question that needs to be asked in every idea evaluation is, what impact will this have on my life and my lifestyle? What impact will it have on my life and my lifestyle? These are the questions that I use. This is the checklist of questions that I use when I'm evaluating an idea and depending on the answers. And a lot of them are subjective, so I'm not scoring them, but I'm looking at them saying, hmm, the stronger the answers, the more clear the answers. The more certain the answers to these questions are, the more likely I'm going to go after that idea. And where I find places of unclarity, lack of clarity or uncertainty, then maybe I'm not going to go after it, or I'm not going to go after it yet, because I need to do some things to.

Make it stronger, higher probability of success. So those are the questions that I want you to use. They're all in the guidebook. Download the guidebook and use this. Use this. Anytime you're trying to put something out to market, something that you're starting new, use it as a checklist and a guide for you to evaluate your ideas. Then it allows you all these questions fit in and help you understand the inputs, the market, the outcomes and the obstacles that you need to deal with to move your idea from the idea stage to a full business stage. And so I hope that this helps. I hope that this gives you an understanding or at least a framework for you to look at ideas and say, should I really go after this? And to give you a checklist to do this. And if you want to get the guidebook again, what you want to do is go to melabraham.com session015 that's melabraham.com session015 and if you like this, make sure you subscribe. Subscribe so you make sure that you get notified of every time I put a training up. We are doing these regularly. We are here. I want to be your entrepreneurial mentor. I want to give you access to the tools and the strategies and the tactics that I've used for three plus decades, 30 plus years as an entrepreneur, as an advisor to businesses. And this is one way to do that. So go ahead and subscribe. And why not while you're at it, share it with a friend and let's allow your friends to bring their dreams out of the darkness again and get them to live the entrepreneurial paradigm. And if you have a question for me, go ahead and go to askmelnow.com youm'll be able to leave your question for me. And those questions, I go through all the questions myself and many times they end up as part of the show. And I'll answer your question on the show to make sure that we're there to support you. And if you're not, again, if you're not at your desk or at your computer where you can write any of this down, just simply text mylegacy one word, no spaces mylegacy to 384 0. And until we get a chance to see each other again, may your vision be grand, your journey epic, and your legacy significant. See you soon. Cheers.

We hope you enjoyed this episode. Make sure you subscribe so you get access to all of Mel's business and success tips. And if you like this episode, share it with a friend. If you have a specific business or success question, you can ask it at www.askmelnow.com. remember, it's all about being bold, dreaming big and living life. Your.

The world needs you. Until the next episode, may your vision be grand, your journey epic, and your legacy significant.

And that's it for this episode of Building youg Money Machine, where we help you learn how to master your money. Eliminate financial stress and live a life of choice. If you found this valuable or helpful to you, here's what I'd love for you to do. If you do me a favor, go to Apple, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this podcast and rate and review the show. It helps us tremendously to keep us at the top of the list so we can continue to get this information and this message out to people. Because I truly believe that financial freedom is your birthright and I want to help each and every one of you claim it. Thanks so much.