Hi, Andrew A little tip from the vault... Q: "Ramit, how do you know if an Indian restaurant has good food or not?" A: I will tell you. 1. Log onto Yelp
2. Search for "Indian Restaurants" around your area
3. IGNORE ALL WHITE PEOPLE'S COMMENTS
3. Read whatever Indian people have to say Over years of testing, I have realized that non-Indian people have the most useless feedback for Indian restaurants. Yes, "John_bally03," we know you like Chicken Tikka Masala, Garlic Naan, and you think Indian waiters are rude. I SIMPLY WANT TO KNOW IF THE RESTAURANT USES 3X OR 18,000 AS MUCH GHEE AS MY MOM USES. Right now, every Indian person is cackling out loud, and every non-Indian person, in a confused attempt to feel useful, is going to Yelp to see if "John_bally03" is a real person. Today, I want to talk about how to find a profitable idea using SUPER-SPECIFIC targeting. This works for earning money. It works for finding good ethnic restaurants. And it works to help you spend less time and focus on people who will help you grow, not waste your time and hold you back. * * * The "Missed-the-Deadline Whiners" When I've launched Earn1K in the past, we carefully study what works and what doesn't and we do a "post-mortem" of our best insights. Here's one of the most interesting. No matter what, a certain amount of people miss the deadline. WITHOUT FAIL, I always get a bunch of customer requests after it closes...Waa ....can I still get in?...Waa....I wasn't checking emails blah blah... I just reply: Sorry, I would have loved to have had you, but the course is now closed. Do you know why? If someone couldn't get their act together after NEARLY 20 EMAILS, there is an extremely good chance they wont follow through with the course. In fact, I can quantify this. When I offered my ebook, "Ramit's 2007 Guide to Kicking Ass," a TON of people complained about Paypal. "Ramit," they said, "Paypal is evil. Plus (some other useless excuse). Can I mail a check?" So I spent hours finding a PO Box they could mail to. Out of 1,000+ purchasers, guess how many people actually mailed in a check? ONE. It would have been a far better use of my time to focus on the customers I loved -- the ones who were sane and non-entitled -- rather than wasting my time on people who claimed they would do one thing, but didn't. How many times do we confront this? We work with people who demand we lower our rates...or tell us their 14-year-old son could do it "for free"...or they simply don't give us the respect we deserve. Today is part 2 of a 3-step process you can follow to start earning money on the side YESTERDAY: Niche it down - The Two-Qualifier Method
TODAY: Make sure it's profitable - The Pay Certainty Technique
TOMORROW: Get inside their heads - The Briefcase Technique Today's post on the Pay Certainty Technique will show you how to... - Instantly test the basic profitability of your idea
- Ensure you don't waste 6 months of your life pursuing a worthless idea
- Help you dig deeper into your customers' heads
You need to be more specific than you ever thought possible The first step is to be ultra-specific. Since 95% of people will never understand this, when you do, you get a disproportionate advantage over them.
Yesterday, I asked you to respond with your results of the Two-Qualifier method exercise. I'm going to show you how to take a potential target market ("women!") and get super-specific.
Why is this important? Because the more specific you are, the better you can serve your clients...and the more you can charge. That's why I can charge $1,500/hour. That's also why I have students who can charge $100/hour when their competitors can only charge $20/hour.
So, the Two-Qualifier Method is a proven way to niche down your idea:
[QUALIFIER 1] -- [QUALIFIER 2] who need (YOUR SERVICE)
Example: Working parents in the San Francisco Bay area who want (tutoring for their high school kids). Perfect. I would go one step further and say "ASIAN working parents" or "Working MOTHERS." See how specific you can get?
Now for the results:
The Loser:
It was hard to pick a loser because so many of them sucked. The most common problem was not naming the service and being way too broad. For example: "Stoner college students who need freshly baked cookies and brownies." - Mathew Yes, that was a real answer I got. Thank you, Matthew, for adding to the intellectual rigor of this discussion. Let's look at another contribution that seemed reasonable, but actually wasn't. "Bay Area female with income of 80-120K income who need personal training." - Jessie Seems OK, but do you see the problem with this? - How old is the woman? (A 22-year-old woman and a 45-year-old woman have almost nothing in common fitness-wise.)
- What kind of personal training? Be more specific and targeted with your market.
- What do they really want? Do they want to lose the spare tire? Do they want toned arms? Do they want to gain muscle? Train for a marathon?
The Winner:
There were also a lot of good ones. I picked two. "French-speaking expatriates in Tokyo who want to improve their Japanese language ability." - Aurelien [French-speaking expatriates] -- [in Tokyo] who need (Japanese language tutoring). LOVE IT. Super-specific and a very well-defined market that you can easily find. The next winner: "Laval University academics with research funding that need help building a website." - Kevin [Laval University academics] -- [research funding] who need (help building a website). See how clear those are? There is no doubt about who their target market is. Okay, now that logistics are done, let's get to the material. Once you've identified a potential target market, how do you know it's profitable BEFORE you start?
Make your ideas pay Now that you have an idea and a niche market, the next step is to get inside your customers' heads -- and make sure you have a profitable idea using the Pay Certainty Technique. This technique ensures that you have potential customers who are willing and able to pay you.
Introducing The "Pay Certainty" Framework
The problem with having so many ideas is you're just not sure which will pay off. And nobody wants to spend 9 months pursuing a futile idea -- only to discover you've made $0.46 in Adsense money -- so we get stuck before we even start.
When you apply the "Pay Certainty" Framework, you can quickly "score" ideas to see if they have any real possibility of ever paying off -- BEFORE you ever spend any time developing them.
Here's how it works.
Take each of your ideas and write them on a piece of paper. Next to each idea, write down who would pay you for your service.
You should have a page that looks something like this: | IDEA | Who Would Pay? | | Social media consultant for law firms | Law partner | | Motivational consultant | 20-somethings looking for new jobs | | Freelance nonprofit fundraiser | Nonprofit executive directors | | Music instructor | Parents of ambitious children | Great. Now apply the "Pay Certainty" Framework. For each person who would potentially pay you, ask yourself: 1. Do they have the ABILITY to pay? Do they actually have money?
2. Do they have the WILLINGNESS to pay? Do they want to pay? This lets you instantly eliminate half of your ideas...that would not have earned you a dime. Example: The "Pay Certainty" Framework in action on some examples "Chicago law firms with 3-10 lawyers who want help managing and maintaining their firms' hardware and software assets." - Mathew - ABILITY to pay: YES, lawyers swim in money - WILLINGNESS to pay: NO, they don't pay freelancers and are ultra-conservative - VERDICT: ELIMINATE "24-45 year old, middle income families who need help on budgeting." - Angi - ABILITY to pay: UM NO - WILLINGNESS to pay: NOT IN THIS LIFETIME - VERDICT: ELIMINATE WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE "Music instructor for ambitious children -- client is mother" - ABILITY to pay: Yes. Parents of ambitious, successful children tend to be more affluent than those of average children -WILLINGNESS to pay: Yes. Parents will spend virtually anything to ensure their child is successful, well-rounded, and gets into a top college - VERDICT: GREAT IDEA. PURSUE! The "Pay Certainty" Framework lets you rapidly eliminate bad ideas that would have never earned you a cent, and focus on the most promising ideas...ones that will almost certainly earn you significant amounts of money on the side. This technique is powerful in helping you get control of your many ideas and escape "Analysis Paralysis." But it just scratches the surface of the advanced techniques I teach in Earn1k. You'll learn step-by-step, foolproof strategies to "stress-test" your idea before you invest your valuable time in them. You'll learn how to identify "weakly successful" ideas -- ideas that are seemingly profitable, but will never bring in enough to really make it worth your time. And you'll learn subtle positioning tactics to triple the value of your idea...so it's irresistible to your customers. This is all part of the Earn1k course. TO DO TODAY 1) Using the Pay Certainty Technique, submit a REVISED idea that passes the Pay Certainty test. Show me what it used to be, and how you've improved it. 2) "Be the expert" and leave your thoughts on one other persons revised idea.
Submit your idea here: http://earn1k.com/privatelist/finding-a-profitable-idea/ -Ramit P.S. Stick around, I have some cool stuff coming your way : ) | I Will Teach You To Be Rich
2269 Chestnut St Suite 160
San Francisco, California 94123
United States | | |
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