Lessons
Lesson Info
Test & Iterate
So now you have determined what your product or virtual service, maybe you've determined a price. Now it's up to us to start marketing it. So for me, before I put any money behind the marketing of the product, I first marketed this product to my current list. In my current audience. We had an overwhelming response from that. And then I took the money from the sales of the initial response and I use those dollars to put into additional marketing, right? So as you can see, I didn't have to spend tons of money to test this out. It was really more just my time and energy right to test out this specific, um knew this potential revenue stream. And then from there I took the money that I earn to put into additional marketing right to put into additional marketing because now I have a product that I know, at least there's a group of people that want. I have a price. I've made some dollars from it. I'm going to take a piece of that money that I've earned and put it back into re and reinvested i...
nto marketing, right? And I did this through facebook ads and instagram ads and was able to scale from there. So that was my simple step by step process that you literally could do for yourself as well as you're determining um or as you're starting to create this additional revenue stream, once you've launched this new revenue stream, how do you know if it's working right? Obviously you'll know if there's money coming in right? Essentially, there's money coming in, which is one great sign, but really taking some time in looking over your numbers, right? Taking some time every week and saying, okay, this is how much money this revenue stream bringing, this is how much money this revenue stream bringing in, right? I think it's really important to see which revenue streams are bringing in the most money, but also how much is it costing you too um to deliver this product or to deliver this service? So one of the things I know when I launched a new revenue stream, I looked at all the revenue streams that my business had and I was able to say, okay, this new revenue stream is not only bringing in the most money, but it also has some of the higher, highest profit margins, because there's less time required because there's less time for me to deliver the product or service. Um and people are happier, right? So I'm actually going to focus more on this product because this product is actually making me more money and requiring less um overall expenses on our part and less overall time. So that could literally be an activity where you're sitting down and saying okay for me to keep my sandwich shop open, right, you know what, it has to be opened so many hours a week, I have to have so many staff on um in the store, I have to have a certain amount of products being delivered, etcetera, etcetera. Right? But now that I'm launching this and this is this is super random, but this, you know, sandwich delivery service, it only takes a couple of people to package the delivery kits. I need less staff in my store and I'm able to sell these at a higher price because they're getting enough product to make multiple sandwiches, right? So you could literally sit down and look at those numbers. Okay, so it costs, you know, I'm charging, you know, $40 for this sandwich delivery service, but it's actually only costing me $5 to get the product together and and in our time. So literally just looking through at each revenue stream each product and determining what, what are the, what are the profit margins? What are the gross sales, where the the expenses, what is, what is the cost of goods, What are the costs to get these products out the door? And that's how you can really determine which revenue streams, which products, which services are most successful in your business. And this will also give you great indicator of where you need to double down. We need to put your energy and where you need to put your efforts. What if you launch this new revenue stream and you're like, you know what, this is just not working right? I think the next thing you want to do is kind of just go back to the drawing board. Don't give up. Maybe once again talk to your audience and see why are they not buying? Right, What is it that is happening? That maybe this is not working? Maybe you maybe you skip the step, right? Maybe you didn't ask your audience if this is what they want. A lot of times as business owners, we just assume that people want things a lot of times they don't. So I would go back to my audience and say, hey, we've launched this new product or service. We realize, you know, you thought about buying or you didn't buy. What was the reason why? Right? And maybe just one small tweak is all you need to get this revenue stream off the ground. I think if after this and you still feel like this product or service isn't working, you can kind of go back to the drawing board again and just kind of brainstorm to those initial ideas that we had all the initial products or services that we considered adding to the list. And worst case scenario, if you feel like your heart is just no longer in it, right? Maybe it's time to completely shift. Maybe it's time to look for a different product or service to sell. Um, or maybe it's time just to move on to the next iteration in your career. And there's nothing wrong with that, There's nothing wrong with that.