✅ The Keys to Fixing and Pricing Your Offer

Hi there, Solopreneur! 

😀 Welcome to issue #22 of Solopreneur Doorway, a weekly newsletter that helps solopreneurs turn their skills into solutions people buy.

This week’s issue is a 4-minute read.

I hope you’re healthy and your week is rolling on the right path!

How are you feeling about tackling your big solo biz goals and projects for 2024?

Are you making progress?

I’m curious to know what you’re tackling, so drop me a note and keep me in the loop. I want you to succeed in 2024! (erik@thinkaday.com)

A key project on my 2024 list is crafting for you a helpful and easy-to-use solopreneur guide. 

The guide is a ‘go to’ reference tool to help you identify and fix common solopreneur challenges in these areas:

• strategy

• product development

• product pricing

• operations

• social media

• virtual assistant

• finance

The guide will be available soon. I’ll send a few readers the early edition.

If you want to be on that ‘early’ list, drop me a note.

This week’s Solopreneur Doorway issue is Part I of a special two-part series that addresses the #1 response from the reader poll I presented in issue #20.

Fixing your product offering and pricing.

If you have specific questions about either topic, drop me a note, and I’m happy to answer it: erik@thinkaday.com

Fixing Your Product Offering (so that people buy it)

Whether your solo biz is digital or brick and mortar the steps you take to build (and fix) your product-service offer start with two key questions:

• ✅ Does it have a strong product market fit?

• 📈 Is there demand for it?

✅ Product-Market Fit

When you begin crafting your product/offer it’s natural to start building something that YOU like.

You had challenges fixing a specific issue or learning a particular skill so you jump in and start to build a product that fixed YOUR challenge.

You do this for two reasons:

• You understand the problem

• You know how to fix it

😕 This feels like the right path, right? It’s usually not.

Here’s the rub:

While your product might be amazing, there may not be a market for it. I often see solopreneurs work months on cool-looking digital courses, e-books, masterclasses, and freelance offers. The products and offers look incredible, yet they linger on the shelves for a long, long time.

It’s no fun to spend your time and money on a product or service that only YOU would buy.

Here are three proven ways to tackle your product-market fit challenge.

• 📊 Market research

• 📉 Competitor analysis

• ➡️ Customer transition

I empathize that customer research is at the forefront of every product-fit recommendation. Enough already, right?

🛑 The challenge is this: you can’t build anything for your customers without conducting “a little” market research.

Thank goodness there are a bevy of free market research tools you can use to get smarter on the key trends, challenges, and obstacles your customers want to fix.

I’m a big fan of reading Amazon book reviews, blog posts, Reddit conversations, and LinkedIn comments. Each of these demonstrates the frustrations and obstacles folks experience when they want to fix a particular challenge.

When you read ‘between the lines’ in these places, you’ll quickly have a list of issues that merit your attention as you craft your offer or product.

I also suggest reading the comments in YouTube videos that are within your industry.

It’s amazing how folks will compliment (and critique) a particular video. Use those comments to your benefit.

📉 Your competitors are essential to your product-market fit analysis.

The only way you’ll carve out a unique space and attract buyers is to differentiate yourself from your competition.

I understand that differentiation sounds complicated. It doesn’t have to be.

Start by looking at the websites, products, LinkedIn profiles, offers, landing pages, and videos your competition offers.

🚫 If your product is identical on too many levels, it’s a warning sign! The only way to win in a sandbox of identical offers is on price, and that’s a tough, tough road.

Instead, create a quick list of the gaps in your competitor’s offers. The gaps might be in product features, expertise or customer transformation. I assure you no competitor has a magical product for all customers.

👀 Look closely, and you’ll find the gaps.

➡️ Lastly, make sure your product or service facilitates your customer’s positive transition. You can create a simple flow chart or map to understand how your product service takes your client from zero to hero and puts them at the top of the mountain.

Be sure that your offer targets the pain point (bad web site, poor copywriting, ugly graphic design, etc.) and gives your client a CLEAR understanding of where they’ll land after they work with you.

🔍 If your client transition is foggy or tough to see customers won’t ring your cash register.

📈 Is there Demand for Your Product?

Lastly, it’s time to measure customer demand.

You don’t need to review Econ 101 and start graphing your supply and demand curves (yes, they’re cool and helpful down the road).

Instead, I suggest you go live and ‘build your product’ in public.

LinkedIn is a 24/7 live experiment with offers, trials, and new solutions.

Every day someone posts, “Here’s what I’m building” and “Would you buy this if I built it?”

If you’re ok putting your offer on stage and risking the polite ‘feedback’ (or not), you’ll learn a ton about how and where your offer has strengths and weaknesses.

Another approach I like is to email the folks who follow you, read your blog posts, and demonstrate a positive vibe for you and your business.

❤️ While their advice might come from the heart and carry a bias, they’ll give you the straight scoop on your product’s pros and cons.

Show them your MVP (minimal viable product) and ask them for feedback.

Tell them the problem you want to solve and give them a chance to try the product for free.

🔑Takeaway(s)

• Determine if your product or service has a strong market fit

• Determine the market demand for your product or service

• Pull together ‘a little’ market research; yes, more is better if you can do it

• Analyze your competition

• Build the product in public

Remember the Reid Hoffman quote from the last issue:

“If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.”

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🔑Stay curious and keep opening doors.

-Erik

Erik, Chief Strategy Fi