In today’s reallly quick, four-minutes-to-read post:

A great point about how we overcomplicate business startups by going about it bass-ackwards;

How to do it right instead;

A feature of some of my very favorite “Bros”;

Not one, but THREE ways to test a market BEFORE wasting a buttload of cash developing a product no one wants.

Ready?

How easy is it really to start a small business?

It’s waaaay easy. I mean almost stupid-simple.

It’s EASY to start a small biz if you’re making money from the get-go.

What’s HARD is putting a lot of effort into products, inventory, a storefront…

…then finding out that you don’t have a winner!

It Only Takes Two Things to Make a Business

Those two things are:

1. Access to a thing of value
2. A way to communicate with people that value it

…that’s IT! Everything else that we do in business is geared toward doing one or the other of those two things better.

Think about it for a sec: have you ever sold anything through a classified ad? Or nowadays via eBay or a Craigslist post?

If you’ve ever sold your car or tv or an old weight bench on Craigslist, you probably weren’t thinking of it as a business. You just wanted to get rid of some stuff. So you hung out a shingle and waited to see if someone nibbled.

I’ll bet you didn’t even feel like a pushy salesperson, or a slick businessperson. You’re just a regular guy or gal that wants money more than the stuff you have, or have access to… and were willing to throw out a line and see what you reeled in.

You had access of something that was of value (not to you maybe, but to someone) and you had a way to communicate with folks that wanted it. Then somebody called you, came and took your old mountain bike off your hands.

And gave you money for it. 😉

That’s a business transaction.

Making a single profitable transaction into a small business is as simple as lather, rinse, repeat.

That is, you just analyze what worked once… and see if you can make it work again and again.

Testing Your Target Market: “The W’s”

Couldja make a living at this? Could you find out where to get new and used mountain bikes cheap and connect with people that buy mountain bikes?

Heh… only one way to find out.

Test.

First, find out if people will actually buy something.  I do this by actually selling to them, whether I own it yet or not.

Then, find out how to connect with more of the folks that buy that thing.

Then find where to get it cheaply if it’s a product. Or how to produce it for less than you can get for it.

If what you’re selling is a service, you either provide the service yourself or hook up someone that will.

Either way, before getting in too deep… before committing your time, your resources, your emotional investment… simply Find Out The W’s:

What people Want

Why they Want it

Where to find them

hoW to connect with them

When to contact them

… and see if you really have a winner.

Let’s imagine that you’re thinking about jumping in a body of water. How do we know if it’s warm? Or how deep?

Simple. You simply ‘get your feet wet’. You dip your toe and consider the results before jumping in all the way.

Testing the Market is Cheap and Easier on your Emotions

 Last year, my son Pierce and I took a teeeny tiny investment of $62.66 and had some signs made for a small business idea.

Look how simple:

We described the service:

Screen Repair… Windows and Screen doors

We gave our Unique Selling Proposition:

“We come to you!”

And we gave our contact information; the cell phone number that I was using at the time.

Check it out… While we were yet putting these bad boys out (I think we were on sign number four), my phone rang. The profit from that one, first customer recouped our entire ad budget.

There ya have a winner.  😉

We recently had our first $500 profit day in this little enterprise. Not shabby for a side venture started primarily to teach my son entrepreneurship and independence.

In my upcoming book, Get Paid TODAY: What Most Folks Don’t Know About Making a Small Business Profitable Instantly, I walk the reader through how we also got scads of free advertising and connected with large customers like real estate management companies and window cleaning companies to become their sole provider.

But I digress. Back to the topic at hand:

Using Free or Cheap Methods to Learn and Test Your Market

In the service business example above, Pierce and I used physical signs because it was a local market that we were breaking into. If it had been a product to ship, or a service that we could render at a distance, we would certainly have used more internet marketing.

We DID also put up a simple places page on Google, a Facebook fan page, place listings on Fixr.com and Craigslist.com… all FREE advertising, mind you. SO our total invested amount in the fledgling biz was what you might spend on a family dinner at a modest restaurant.

After we proved the concept, we invested in more advertising… you can read more details on this blog… but the point is that we had money in pocket, bird in hand, cash in fist… before we really began to swing for the fences.

What if our little experiment had failed?

Well, shucks. Then we’d be out about $62.66 and a couple hours’ work.

Beats the tar out of buying up inventory and equipment… signing a lease… hiring employees… THEN finding out our idea was a dud.

Other Ways to Test the Market for FREE- Almost

My Bros over at StartupBros.com have got a very cheap 3 step process to test the market for a product or service delivered by internet, you should check it out BEFORE investing a ton of time and money into developing your product. Most you will spend is about fifty bucks.

Three Steps to Validate Your Small Business Idea FREE- Almost

I’ve also got a totally different 3 step plan that I’ve used to validate… or rule out… all kinds of biz opp ideas too. Check it out here:

Three Steps to Validate Your Bizness Idea FREE-Almost

Heh… notice any SIMILARITY between those two titles? It’s because I blatantly stole the title from Startup Bros.

Not to worry, Steppers.. the Bros are cool with it 😉

Dude… Seriously? You STOLE our freakin’ title?

Check out each post. They are two totally different ways to test your intended market, and they cost about the same: cheap or free.

Allrighty Steppers! Back to the trenches, where I’ll be finishing my next bestseller, Get Paid TODAY: What Most Folks Don’t Know About Making a Small Business Profitable Instantly.

Keep Stepping,

Kurt