James Schramko here. Today, I’m chatting with John Lint from 10XPRO.io.
James: Hey, John!
John: Hey, everybody.
James: John, you’re an expert in courses and memberships.And I’ve seen a few customers in my time coaching, sometimes I get the question from people when their offer is just not converting. And sometimes I discover that they’ve got a passion, or they’re really interested in going out to the market with something that is an idea they’ve had.
But I’m interested, what sort of validation tests or market approaches have you seen work for course owners where their offer is going to convert better than if they just come up with an idea and then take it to the market?
John: Right, right. This is something that happens a lot, especially when someone is starting out. And you know, like you said, they have an idea, and they think “Hey, this is going to work. It’s going to be awesome. I’m pretty sure that, you know, nobody has done it before”.
James: Someone actually quoted that exact phrase the other day, that no one in the entire world is doing this.
John: Right?
James: For me, that is quite a warning sign.
John: Right.
James: And when you said it happens a lot, I’m talking about every single day. I have 500 members of SuperFastBusiness Membership, and every single day, our private discussion will be revolving around, they’re having trouble with their conversions. And quite often I’ll find that there’s no market research done.
John: Yeah.
James: And there’s not any file put together of what people in the market are already doing and how much they charge and what their offers are. And quite often, and this is probably the most disturbing one, there’s no proof. There’s no previous success stories or customers that they can use to validate their offer, therefore making trust a pretty difficult argument.
John: Yeah, exactly. And at the end of the day, it’s really about modeling what works. What you don’t want to do, you don’t want to be a pioneer. I mean, think about this. Apple, they did not invent the mobile phone. They were not the first ones to invent that. They just saw, “Oh, it looks like a lot of people are interested in the mobile phone. Yeah, we can make one that is probably going to be the best”.
And that’s what they did. And that’s what they do all the time. Right now, they just announced that they are going to launch this awesome cool thing called TV+, I think Apple TV+, or something like that. What is it? It’s just a competitor of Netflix. Why? Because Netflix, they basically took all the risks, they did everything.
Apple, they say, “looks like this is working, a lot of people are buying that. Therefore, we can probably make a lot of money. We’re going to model what works but we’re going to, obviously, do our own thing, our own flavor. We are going to be different”. But they’re not taking the race. They’re not just hoping that they’re going to be the only one in the market and things like that.
And I think that’s one of the biggest mistakes that people make when they try to build an online business. They try to look for those things, those, you know, golden nuggets that nobody has seen before.
James: The gap. It’s like Apple when they did the Walkman again, as the iPod. The point of difference was you had all these tunes in your pocket. So, it opened up the library. We’ve seen Facebook have taken a pretty, I guess, an imitative stance of Snapchat.
John: Yeah.
James: You know, Snapchat, showed them what people want and how they work. And then Facebook incorporated a lot of those things into stories, and so forth. So if you’re going to go out there and try and invent a category, you’re going to have to have deep pockets, and persevere. A lot of companies, even Amazon didn’t make any money for the first seven or eight years.
John: Right, exactly.
James: The most profitable guy on the planet ran his business for seven or eight years with no profit at all. And so it can be easier. Now, there are people out in the market who talk about just basically copying. And we’re not talking about that either. We’re not saying follow someone’s offer, and then replicate it exactly.
John: No.
James: Some people make an entire living off that message but I don’t agree with that at all. And as someone who’s had their site copied more than a few times-
John: Right.
James: I say, you got to find your point of difference but work with familiar territory.
John: Yeah, exactly. And it’s about you know, seeing, okay, this strategy works; or hey, I mean, this market looks like a lot of people like webinars or looks like a lot of people like videos, or hey, this is something that people are interested in. Great. You know that, you’re gathering that intelligence.
But now you need to sit back and say, “Okay, well, those guys are making money. Therefore, I can make money, too. How am I going to make money?” But the advantage by doing this is, that you’re not going to a market, you know, completely blind, where you hope that you’re going to make money. You already know that there is money, you have that proof already.
Yeah, okay. You can make money, great. How can I be different? What can I do? What else can I offer? How can I serve my customers better? and etc. That’s where, you know, the work happens. And that’s how you can maximize your chances of success.
James: Perfect. And it’s one of the modules in the training course that you’ve put together, right?
John: Yeah.
James: What’s the training course website?
John: Yeah, exactly. So it’s onlinecoursesystem.com. Very easy.
That’s where we teach you everything that you need to know about how to create, how to launch, and how to profit from an online course.
James: Love it. Check it out. And you also get access to the software that John runs that will help you build this entire thing much easier, much faster than what you could do if you try and figure it all out yourself.
It’s great to catch up. Thanks so much, John.
John: Thank you.
Booom!!!
Awesome episode as always James!
And yes John, pioneering is a sure fire way of almost always failing.
I think it’s similar to the idea of going outside your country and looking at what’s selling in other places and bringing it home. The beauty though of the internet world makes testing a lot faster and cost effective!
In fact, I share this thought with my own coaching clients that it’s a sin nowadays to be poor given all the information that we have and the resources as well.
I cannot recommend SFB enough for people who are still understanding how to find that offer that converts.
I call James my secret weapon when it comes to validating ideas. It’s what James would say “Almost unfair”.
Super happy member of SFB here!!
P.S.
Not a paid comment/testimonial.
Go ahead, please stalk my facebook profile all you want and find out that I am a real person!
Booom!!!
Awesome episode as always James!
And yes John, pioneering is a sure fire way of almost always failing.
I think it’s similar to the idea of going outside your country and looking at what’s selling in other places and bringing it home. The beauty though of the internet world makes testing a lot faster and cost effective!
In fact, I share this thought with my own coaching clients that it’s a sin nowadays to be poor given all the information that we have and the resources as well.
I cannot recommend SFB enough for people who are still understanding how to find that offer that converts.
I call James my secret weapon when it comes to validating ideas. It’s what James would say “Almost unfair”.
Super happy member of SFB here!!
P.S.
Not a paid comment/testimonial.
Go ahead, please stalk my facebook profile all you want and find out that I am a real person!