How I take new businesses to market
You know my favorite part of business...
It’s the thrill of selling a new offer.
Coming up with an idea out of thin air, or dialing in on exactly what the market wants to buy right now.
It’s that moment where you say, “Yes… we can offer this." You whip something together really fast... and then you sell it.
Gosh, it’s thrilling!
Dopamine hits to the brain to the max!
In this article, I’m going to walk through how I like to take new ideas to market.
How I Take New Ideas to Market
First off… I should say that “new idea” is arbitrary.
As I’ve written in other posts, most of my ideas are actually stolen or modeled after others.
Yet, I say “new idea” as in something that I have landed on and I have decided fits the mold as an opportunity for me to pursue at this time in my life.
So… I’ve decided I want to pursue something…
What’s next?
First, Evaluate the Opportunity
I’ve learned the hard way that if I start everything right away… well, that’s bad news bears.
My advisor once gave me advice that I’ve found very useful.
“If it’s a good idea today, it will be a good idea 30 days from now. Give yourself 30 days before jumping into anything.”
This rule most often holds true, although I don’t consider “waffling on an idea for a long time” as part of the 30 days.
So if I eventually decide I am going to commit… then I commit.
I just wait 30 days on totally new ideas out of left field.
Other reading on this topic:
Put Together the Offer FAST!
The next thing I do is create an offer.
This is typically a slide deck I can show to someone to try and sell the idea.
I typically am doing nothing operational at this point. Everything is focused on getting the sale in the door, and I assume I will figure out the rest once it happens.
I like to create this deck in like 2-3 days max.
Reach Out to People!
The next thing I do is start reaching out and figuring out who in my network I could sell this to right away.
That’s an exciting moment as I pour through all of my past contacts.
This is a great way to get things off the ground... but it’s not scalable.
Typically, I can find at least one person in my network or past customer base to buy what I am offering. I try and ride this as much as I can while I wait for marketing to ramp up.
Find a Marketing or Distribution Channel
To be honest, by the time I hit this stage, I will have hopefully not even had to think about how I am going to market it.
Whenever I select opportunities, I try to think through what the distribution or marketing strategy is going to be when I pick it.
To me, distribution/marketing is just as important as the business idea.
Great ideas suck if you don’t have a good method for getting to the ideal customers.
Once I find that marketing channel or decide on it, then I start going all in this.
My Go-To First Marketing Channels
ABM Podcasting:
I typically recommend ABM-based podcasting to a lot of people in B2B as a first marketing strategy because it enables you to network with tons of your ideal customers.
This helps you learn customers inside and out and really understand their problems. ABM podcasting is like free consulting and customer development interviews while creating amazing content at the same time.
Cold Email:
I love cold email whenever I am launching something that is Greenfield into the market. This is where cold email is good.
It’s terrible for commoditized offers in mature industries because there are too many options and you just look like spam.
But when you have a new Blue Sky or non-commoditized product in the market, cold email is a great go-to-market solution because you are simply educating the world that your product exists.
Just get out there and go
This article was short.
There were not many steps.
That is the point.
Don’t overthink it.
Just go.