The Hobbyist's Offering

Business Coaching | The Hobbyst

By: Santi Chacon

Business Coaching

What is Your Offering?

You need to know what you are going to offer.  What inspires you to stay up late and get up early? What inspires you to continue in light of challenging times? If you have an idea make sure you think it through.  Sit and brain storm or mind map it, visualize it from every angle possible and make your modifications.

Technology

My hope is that you have at least a decade of experience in an industry, in which will make your software valuable and insightful. If not I would settle for hundreds of interviews of industry experts and potential end users.

If you are going to offer a type of technology, focusing on core capabilities is important. Create and document your stages of development, at each stage make sure the software is functional enough to sell. Ensure you plan for key development areas based on what you discover to be a competitive strength in the market place. If your 'research' shows you that consumers want feature 'A' most; however, you are spending your time developing function 'B' you may want reconsider your strategy. Make sure that you don't focus on capabilities that consumers are not interested in, you risk the chance of creating a bottle neck for yourself. Understand that your competitors are in the middle of developing their next version of the software and that you could end up wasting valuable time and resources. 

VARS

If you are a reseller (this includes network marketers and franchisers) than the difficulties have already been thought through. Getting your hands on as much information as possible regarding your market and product or service is priority. Have long conversations with executives (or active up-line) in the organization you are reselling for and ask about their target market or market information so you can decide how to position yourself. There is no need to reinvent the wheel if you don't have to. 

Service

If you are offering a service that you put together based on your level of expertise, than most of your work is based on thinking things through.  Since you will ultimately sell concepts make sure that your ideas are well thought out.  Prepare several programs that you can take to potential customers. Document your thinking by going through the tedious steps of writing and re-writing your offering.

Conclusion

If time and finances allow it I would suggest taking your business on a test run before solidifying plans. You can offer your new services or products for free or at a discounted rate. You can do this until you  are confident that you can raise your prices or start charging people altogether. Your confidence should be based on your knowledge of the industry and customer feedback.