When I was a young kid I knew I was going to be a successful entrepreneur, but I had no idea what type of business I was going to open up or what type or product or service I would be offering. Although the mere determination to be successful in business is essential, at some point you will still need to figure out what type of product or service you will be selling. Many people are constantly asking me, “Hey Joe, what type of business should I get into? What type of product should I develop?”
There really is no need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to deciding what type of business you are looking to get into. What I usually do is take a look at what is already out there to see what products or services have already been proven to be successful. This means it should be a product or service that consumers already want and have already been buying. More than likely, this type of product or service has already had significant marketing and advertising dollars invested into promoting it to the broader consumer public. Then, what I do is study the product or service and determine what it is lacking. How can I improve this product or service?
For our own business me and my wife would go to trade shows throughout Asia just looking at the products that were already out there. We were looking at how we could modify the products so they would fit our Hawaii tourist niche. When we found an interesting product we asked ourselves how we could make this into a Hawaii product. What did we need to do? Do we need to incorporate a hula dancer somewhere on the product? Did we need to put the word “aloha” on it? Maybe we just needed to add some hibiscus to make it look tropical.
Many times, we tend to overcomplicate things when the solution is usually quite simple. You do not need to invent the next biggest product to be successful in business. The problem arises when you become discouraged because you may not have the creativity to come up with some type of groundbreaking product. Of course, this means you will never end up choosing a product at all which means you will not have clarity on exactly how much money you will need to invest to start your business.
Really all you need is to have awareness of your own life. What I mean by this is take note of your own geographic location and the specific demographic you understand and have access to. This will help lead you to the right product or service for your business model. Just remember that you do not have to come up with something totally new, you just have to make sure you add value to what is already proven to be successful. Don’t make it harder than it needs to be.
Also, remember that success is never an accident.
Joe Berardy
info@joeberardy.com
joeberardy.com
Ideas2Action Entrepreneurial Course
