About 5 (ish) years ago I was invited to one of the first masterminds I had ever attended.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, this is usually a gathering of entrepreneurs in which everyone comes to the table with a problem and the group works in concert with each person to find solutions.
This problem-solving method is often referred to as a “hot seat” because one person is sitting and listening to feedback from everyone else in the room and sometimes it can feel a bit intense like having a fire lit under your… well, you know.
Anywho, there was one entrepreneur at this event who did a presentation of his new business idea which was focused on the ominous task of finding a good personal assistant and his presentation to the room was of an online class that people could buy to learn more about how to find the best assistant.
The idea was that the class would be sold for a moderate fee and would make money on upsells, memberships, etc.
But there was just one teeny-tiny problem that he didn’t see:
If someone needs an assistant it usually means that they are BUSY.
So if someone is already feeling like they have too much to do, why would they buy a course on how to find an assistant and find the time to go through the whole thing and then go out and find the assistant.
One of the people in the group after the presentation articulated this idea and said that if this entrepreneur could just be hired to find and train a perfect assistant for him, he’d pay 10 times what the price of the online course would charge.
Other people in the room agreed and so that entrepreneur changed the business model then and there to a done for you service that he charges top dollar for to this day.
Of course, had he not been in that group with us, who knows if he ever would have seen that opportunity and it’s very possible he could have wasted a year building out an online offering that didn’t really sell.
Right Idea.
Wrong Business.
Since that time I have attended many masterminds and also hosted my own and time and time again, I see similar stories.
We are too close to the offers we have and we may not be selling to the right people or using the words that get people to buy.
We may be trying to push a business boulder uphill only to have it come crashing back down on us when we actually don’t need to.
What I learned in that mastermind is that an outside eye can give you the inside track to success.
I’d love to see you in the lab.
Excelsior!
Artwork © Laura Pretto Vargas