hi I’m Evan Carmichael welcome to
another edition of ask Evan in today’s
episode I’m going to answer question
from one of my form readers who is
trying to launch a sports directory and
he wants to know if it’s a good idea and
if you should charge a monthly fee for
the service or not so basically what the
directory is is a listing of different
sports classes that you can sign up for
and they’ll show information about the
school maps and basically try to be a
lead generation service for these
different sports academies and is
wondering again is it a good idea and
can you charge your monthly fee for and
I guess how much as well so in terms of
is it a good idea my recommendations for
you is start talking to potential
customers so I do this baseball here
what i would do start talking to these
guys right stop this force academy’s see
how they’re doing it now do they do a
lot of promotion online do they need a
lot of help doing this or not is this a
major pain for them or not right if
you’re trying to make money as an
entrepreneur you want to attack
somebody’s pain right people will pay
you money to get rid of their pain so if
there’s a pain if there’s a big problem
then it’s much easier to get money from
companies I like that it’s targeting b2b
because if you can show a tangible
benefit to them then they’re going to
use you for a long time and the only
going to increase the number of orders
that they work with you through but I
would definitely make sure by talking to
them this figure out is there a paint or
not all right if they don’t have a pain
in this area then on to a new company
right onto a different business idea so
start talking about pain next line up
you know I’d say five to ten of these
guys and launched a beta version so test
it with them find out what information
do you need from them to make it work
how can you integrate it into their
website and their systems to make it
work and you’ll find a whole bunch of
other features that they need that you
didn’t think of at the start and if
you’re not in that business and it’s
hard for you to have everything planned
out at the start and even if you are in
the business it’s still really hard
so the best ways to get feedback from
your potential customers so I definitely
lined up five to ten guys beta version
free just get some feedback and make
sure you can help them grow their
business from here you’ll figure out if
there’s a market or not for your service
right if the beta users really like it
and it’s become an important part of
their business you got a market if the
beta users aren’t really using it
they’re not getting a lot of business
time with their not for in a lot of
value they stopped answering emails
maybe not a market for you and either
you know we work to make sure you’re
actually addressing the pain or again
onto this different business idea so
this test will give you a lot of ideas
if you’re going to have an opportunity
to sell or not if you determine that you
do have a market so it does work they
like it they find it important in their
business the next thing you asked about
can you charge your monthly fee there’s
a different couple different ways you
can look at pricing on this one okay the
first you have your monthly fee so
dollars per month and that can work it
can be effective but for a startup
business it’s often hard to do because
you don’t have a track record right if
you’re a directory you’re trying to
track traffic to your website your new
you don’t have a history you don’t have
a whole bunch of traffic you don’t have
all that momentum built up that another
website with ten years of being online
might have so it’s hard to justify to
somebody hey you know pay us 300 bucks a
month or whatever you’re going to try to
charge when you don’t have a lot of
traffic coming your website you don’t
have customers for them so what I might
want to do is if you’re going to charge
a fee if its monthly or annual fee try
to give them a guaranteed number minimum
number of customers so what you’re going
to be doing is tracking orders right
you’re having people who want to sign up
for these classes book online through
your system so guarantee them a minimum
number so that puts you on the spot you
gotta deliver but if you’re not
delivering you know they’re gonna
they’re going to drop but it’s also not
a good service you know that you’re
providing so I would definitely try to
put some kind of minimum number on here
especially at the start a couple other
ways you might be able to price this out
is you could do
a commission for every sale so every
time somebody signs up they get they
have to pay you a commission for doing
it or for a lead so it may not be
signing up right away through your
website but it could be passing a
contact information name address
whatever it is on to the school and you
sell that lead I would definitely look
though at a freemium model and I think
this could work for your business and
basically freemium what it means is you
have something at a free base level and
then you should show so much value that
they want to upgrade to the next package
so Evernote Dropbox some great examples
of Freeman models so for a directory
point of view you can have everybody
have a free basic listing and that will
also help you with your SEO traffic
because the more content you have up
there the better then what you need to
figure out is how can you take those
free guys and upsell them on the extra
benefits package where they’re going to
pay you either commission or they’re
going to pay you a monthly fee or annual
fee to be listed on your website so
that’s where you’ll figure out you know
what are those pain points by beta
testing in by figuring out your market
you’ll know what the difference is
between the free model and where people
will actually pay if you don’t know the
difference then you’re not really to
start talking about pricing yet you got
to figure out these three steps first to
really understand your market so I hope
that helps that’s what I would do if you
guys liked the video please give it a
thumbs up below and I’d also love to
hear you guys have to think if you want
to leave a comment under the video and
stay tuned for next episode
another edition of ask Evan in today’s
episode I’m going to answer question
from one of my form readers who is
trying to launch a sports directory and
he wants to know if it’s a good idea and
if you should charge a monthly fee for
the service or not so basically what the
directory is is a listing of different
sports classes that you can sign up for
and they’ll show information about the
school maps and basically try to be a
lead generation service for these
different sports academies and is
wondering again is it a good idea and
can you charge your monthly fee for and
I guess how much as well so in terms of
is it a good idea my recommendations for
you is start talking to potential
customers so I do this baseball here
what i would do start talking to these
guys right stop this force academy’s see
how they’re doing it now do they do a
lot of promotion online do they need a
lot of help doing this or not is this a
major pain for them or not right if
you’re trying to make money as an
entrepreneur you want to attack
somebody’s pain right people will pay
you money to get rid of their pain so if
there’s a pain if there’s a big problem
then it’s much easier to get money from
companies I like that it’s targeting b2b
because if you can show a tangible
benefit to them then they’re going to
use you for a long time and the only
going to increase the number of orders
that they work with you through but I
would definitely make sure by talking to
them this figure out is there a paint or
not all right if they don’t have a pain
in this area then on to a new company
right onto a different business idea so
start talking about pain next line up
you know I’d say five to ten of these
guys and launched a beta version so test
it with them find out what information
do you need from them to make it work
how can you integrate it into their
website and their systems to make it
work and you’ll find a whole bunch of
other features that they need that you
didn’t think of at the start and if
you’re not in that business and it’s
hard for you to have everything planned
out at the start and even if you are in
the business it’s still really hard
so the best ways to get feedback from
your potential customers so I definitely
lined up five to ten guys beta version
free just get some feedback and make
sure you can help them grow their
business from here you’ll figure out if
there’s a market or not for your service
right if the beta users really like it
and it’s become an important part of
their business you got a market if the
beta users aren’t really using it
they’re not getting a lot of business
time with their not for in a lot of
value they stopped answering emails
maybe not a market for you and either
you know we work to make sure you’re
actually addressing the pain or again
onto this different business idea so
this test will give you a lot of ideas
if you’re going to have an opportunity
to sell or not if you determine that you
do have a market so it does work they
like it they find it important in their
business the next thing you asked about
can you charge your monthly fee there’s
a different couple different ways you
can look at pricing on this one okay the
first you have your monthly fee so
dollars per month and that can work it
can be effective but for a startup
business it’s often hard to do because
you don’t have a track record right if
you’re a directory you’re trying to
track traffic to your website your new
you don’t have a history you don’t have
a whole bunch of traffic you don’t have
all that momentum built up that another
website with ten years of being online
might have so it’s hard to justify to
somebody hey you know pay us 300 bucks a
month or whatever you’re going to try to
charge when you don’t have a lot of
traffic coming your website you don’t
have customers for them so what I might
want to do is if you’re going to charge
a fee if its monthly or annual fee try
to give them a guaranteed number minimum
number of customers so what you’re going
to be doing is tracking orders right
you’re having people who want to sign up
for these classes book online through
your system so guarantee them a minimum
number so that puts you on the spot you
gotta deliver but if you’re not
delivering you know they’re gonna
they’re going to drop but it’s also not
a good service you know that you’re
providing so I would definitely try to
put some kind of minimum number on here
especially at the start a couple other
ways you might be able to price this out
is you could do
a commission for every sale so every
time somebody signs up they get they
have to pay you a commission for doing
it or for a lead so it may not be
signing up right away through your
website but it could be passing a
contact information name address
whatever it is on to the school and you
sell that lead I would definitely look
though at a freemium model and I think
this could work for your business and
basically freemium what it means is you
have something at a free base level and
then you should show so much value that
they want to upgrade to the next package
so Evernote Dropbox some great examples
of Freeman models so for a directory
point of view you can have everybody
have a free basic listing and that will
also help you with your SEO traffic
because the more content you have up
there the better then what you need to
figure out is how can you take those
free guys and upsell them on the extra
benefits package where they’re going to
pay you either commission or they’re
going to pay you a monthly fee or annual
fee to be listed on your website so
that’s where you’ll figure out you know
what are those pain points by beta
testing in by figuring out your market
you’ll know what the difference is
between the free model and where people
will actually pay if you don’t know the
difference then you’re not really to
start talking about pricing yet you got
to figure out these three steps first to
really understand your market so I hope
that helps that’s what I would do if you
guys liked the video please give it a
thumbs up below and I’d also love to
hear you guys have to think if you want
to leave a comment under the video and
stay tuned for next episode
Please follow and like us:
Be First to Comment