How do you decide on the core services your business should offer?
What factors and input influences your decision? And how to you determine when to add, alter or discontinue a service?
These are some pretty weighty decision, no? Some might they’re the most important determine factors driving your business. And these decisions certainly have a HUGE impact on how you market your business (which is what we’re all about here, right?)
But when it comes to evaluating services, both new and old, things can get dicey pretty darn quick. More than a few business owners struggle with this tricky proposition.

No Hypocrite Here…

But wait, don’t the suggestions above contradict my last post? Didn’t I ramble on forever about how YOU are your Minimum Viable Product?
Yes. But no. Let me explain…
My last post was a warning about the dangers “inventing” new services, and repackaging old services as a ploy to jump-start your marketing. When instead, your focus should be the unique value you provide your clients.
So even if you are the VALUE in your business, you still provide a tangible service. And there’s an issue here far too many business owners don’t think about until it’s too late…
What happens when your marketplace evolves?
For example, an existing service becomes obsolete: Faxing, once a communication revelation, is now a relic of a bygone era.
And in turn the market demands a new service: Email is now by far the most dominate and heavily relied upon business communication format.

The Dangers of Falling Behind the Marketplace

Imagine marketing a “faxing focused” business in an “email driven” market? Sounds like a perfect recipe for total failure, huh?
And where would such an exercise in futility leave you? Certainly not top of mind with your ideal clients. And likely lagging further and further behind your competitors, at an exponentially growing rate.

So How do You Gage Your Marketplace?

So the question is: How do you know? How do read your marketplace, take its temperate so to speak, and know when it’s time to set the wheels of change in motion?
The answer?

Just Ask

Expert marketing coach and author, Ryan Levesque, contends there’s a treasure trove of market data out there ripe for the taking. In fact, he wrote the book on it. Literally.
Levesque’s 2015 book, Ask, reveals the resounding success he achieved (for both his business and consulting for clients), simply surveying prospects and clients, and then marketing solutions back to them.
If you think about it, it’s genius. When it comes to grappling with reoccurring problems and consistent needs: Who knows better knows better than your consumers?
“We’re constantly struggling with problem X.”
“We’re always hamstrung by need Y.”
Now imagine the marketing campaigns you could launch, and the sale copy you could craft with this kind of consumer data in hand?

The Challenges of Predicting Needs & Wants

When you’re trying to judge your marketplace, what do you do? Make your best effort to read broader market trends? Interpret competitor’s actions. Or rely on the prognostications of so-called industry “experts?”
Bottom line: Trying to develop services in a vacuum is all guesswork and gambling on predictions. And even so-called “expert” predictions are so often DEAD WRONG.

The Sad Tale of the Segway

In his book, Originals, author and Wharton School of Business professor, Adam Grant, relates the unfortunate account of the Segway.
The Segway was conceived by Dean Kaman, a successful inventor with a fistful of lucrative patents to his credit. A self-propelled two-wheeled stand up scooter or sorts, the Segway was predicted to revolutionize urban travel. Kaman predicated sales would exceed 10,000 units per month when theSegway reached the marketplace.

Investors Went GAGA!

Apple chief, Steve Jobs, offer Kaman $60 million for an initial stake in the company. Kaman turned him down, but Job’s was so convinced of the Segway’s revolutionary potential, he offered to become an unpaid advisor.
Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, insisted on getting involved after he was first introduced to the Segway.
And famed Silicon Valley investor, John Doerr, an original Google backer, poured in $80 million. The rarely off-target Doerr predicted the company would be the fast ever to reach a billion dollar valuation.

But the Segway Failed

A decade and half and hundreds of millions of dollars later, the Segway has sold a grand total of 30,000 units.
Why?
Driven by his obsessive security concerns, convinced someone might steal his idea, Kaman kept the Segway under strict lock-and-key. He only revealed his plans to select few technical collaborators and very high-level potential investors.
Nary a single potential consumer was ever shown the product, let alone queried on their feelings about whether or not it might be useful in daily life. So when the Segway hit the general market, nobody knew what to do with it. And today it remains a novelty item, the frequent butt of jokes, languishing in very limited use.

Rather Than Guess, Just Ask

So why not do as Levesque suggests, and go straight to the horse’s mouth? Simply ask your prospects and client how you can fulfill their needs and solve their problems.
And in fact, there’s perfect vehicle for doing just that: Surveys.
Formulate a list or relevant questions, and put them to your current and potential clients.

Best of All: Conducting Surveys is EASY!

These days, running a survey is easier than ever. There are a variety of survey methods at your disposal. From quick and dirty to detailed and formal.
Here are three simple options…
Email Survey
Have an email contact list for prospects and clients? Put together a short list of questions and blast it out. Of course there’s no guarantee of reply. But you likely to be surprised by the strength of the response.
Social Media Survey
Have a decent following on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Google+? Pose survey questions on those platforms.
Scores of business owners have answered countless questions and settled a myriad points of indecision thanks to the real time, real world customer data social media interactions can supply.
Another interesting by-product of social media surveys are the conversations the questions frequently simulate. Participants often generate solution far beyond the scope or your original thought process.
And the ongoing discourse acts as natural refinement and editorial process.
Survey Tools
Now if you want something more formal, there are a bevy of free and paid online survey tools at your disposal. Ranging from stock simple to involved and elaborate, you can create just about any kind of survey you can dream up.
Here are a few tools currently available:
Google Forms
With Google Forms, a total FREE tool, you can create high quality surveys that look and respond every bit like a profession survey. And the interface is SUPER user-friendly. If you wrangle Google Docs, you shouldn’t have any trouble with Google Form. On the downside, Google Forms don’t allow for a lot of text formatting. Your surveys are going to look and feel pretty generic.
Survey Monkey
By far the biggest and most popular online survey tool, Survey Monkey offers free and paid versions. The free version allows you to email up to a 10 question survey to as many as 100 recipients at a time, and includes most of the formatting tools and options baked into the paid version. Paid accounts range in price from $25 to $85 per month, with month-to-month options, and offer all sorts of cool bells and whistles.
Other Options
Here a few other survey tools…
SurveyGizmo
Typeform
Client Heartbeat

The Hard Part: Formulating the RIGHT Questions

As the old adage goes: Garbage in, garbage out. Of course the same goes for surveys.
The intentions behind your survey, how you design it, and the questions you ask all have a HUGE impact on the quality of the data you gather.
But that’s a topic for another day… So stay tuned for my next post!

In the Meantime…

How has client and prospect feedback and input impacted your business? Drop by my Google+ page and share your experiences.