Are you torn between pursuing your passion or solving a problem when launching your business? On a thrilling new episode of the Black Entrepreneur Blueprint podcast, Jay dives deep into this age-old dilemma, revealing why solving problems often paves the smoothest path to entrepreneurial success.
In Episode #489, Jay serves up invaluable insights, guiding you through a carefully crafted blueprint that uncovers lucrative opportunities hiding in plain sight. You’ll discover the secrets to transforming everyday challenges into profitable ventures.
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BLACK ENTREPRENEUR BLUEPRINT SHOW NOTES – EPISODE # 489
Today I’m going to give you a blueprint to make money solving problems. This is going to be a hands-on activity so you may want to grab a pen and paper to take notes, or you can get the worksheet from the show notes which are on the website Black Entrepreneur Blueprint. Just look for episode # 489 and there will be a link to the worksheet.
Why solving a problem is the easiest way to make money?
- People want their problems solved
- The bigger the problem, the more you can charge
- They don’t care about who you are as long as you can help them
- It’s easier to identify people who have a problem and market to them (weight loss group)
- Problems can be solved by a physical or digital product or service (only six things you can sell)
Why following your passion is not as simple as solving a problem to make money?
- You may be passionate about something most people aren’t.
- Do you know how to monetize that passion (pinpoint & monetize Your Genius)
- For example: selling hot sauce is not solving a problem and is harder to market
Let’s Look at some examples of people making money by solving a problem:
Proactive – clears your skin. Revenues over 17 million in 2022.
Jenny Craig – lose weight. revenue was $483.0M in 2022.
Square – For years, many small businesses couldn’t afford clunky point-of-sale systems, which go for between $5,000 and $7,000, to accept credit and debit cards. That meant fewer sales for businesses and less convenience for customers. Square targeted small businesses directly, offering a POS system at a fraction of the cost using cloud storage and running on common smart devices. 17.5 billion in revenues in 2022 with over 5 billion in profits.
Shopify – makes e-commerce easy with websites and plug-ins designed specifically for e-commerce stores. generated around 5.6 billion U.S. dollars in total revenues in the fiscal year 2022.
Hello Fresh – food prep services to save time. Revenues of 8.1 billion in 2022.
1 Define your problem.
Find the problem that you actively want to solve, that you are best suited to solve, or can use somebody else’s solution and that has significant opportunity built in.
2 Know the competition.
Once you have your problem in place, odds are someone has tried to solve that same problem.
Look back at companies that have failed to address this problem and figure out why they failed. Did they try to take on too much, too quickly? Was their price point way off target? Did their idea just come too soon before the demand had matured?
You can use this information to not only avoid similar pitfalls but to take your business even further.
If there are still some active competitors in the space, take a hard look at what they offer and at what price. Maybe even have a friend purchase an item or use their service to see where they excel and where they fall short.
3 Build your brand story
Before you start to build your company, you need to define your problem and explain your solution.
This is the thing you’ll be telling investors, friends, partners, and people you network with. What is that burning hot idea inside you and how does your company solve that problem uniquely?
Find a way to tell your story in a way that you can repeat every day, without it ever growing old or stale. This is your passion.
Now you have a clearly defined problem, the factor that makes you stand out among the rest, and the motivation to get it done. These are the elemental first steps that countless so-called entrepreneurs have skipped, finding only failure.
NOW LET’S CREATE A BLUEPRINT TO MAKE MONEY SOLVING A PROBLEM
Take a sheet of paper and fold it in half twice to give you four squares.
In the top left box write “Your Problem and Your Solution.”
In the top right box write “Your problem and somebody else’s solution.”
In the bottom left box write “Somebody else’s problem and your solution.”
In the bottom right box write “Somebody else’s problem and somebody else’s solution.”
Your problem and your solution – What problem do you have that you can personally solve? (Glam Body Scrubs – The company’s founder, Tiffany Cartwright, started mixing skincare products after her daughter was born with eczema. Determined not to use harsh steroids, she started mixing jojoba, castor, and grape seed oils with amazingly successful results! BEB Episode # 350).
Your problem and somebody else’s solution – What problems do you have that you can’t solve but somebody else can? (You can’t build a website, so you contract with a company that does build websites and you market their services to others with an upcharge where you make money. They charge $350 to do the website and you play middleman and charge your customers $700 to build and manage the project for profit – project manager)
Somebody else’s problem and your solution – What problems can you personally solve that aren’t yours? What problems are you best suited to solve? (You are a fitness coach in good shape, and somebody wants to lose weight. You become the solution to their problem by becoming their fitness coach and charging them for your services). BBAElite.com e-commerce course – solving a problem.
Somebody else’s problem and somebody else’s solution – What problem can you identify that you don’t have and can’t solve, but somebody else can solve? (People who want to create a successful e-commerce website and I am a Shopify affiliate. I offer them the Shopify platform in exchange for earning a commission. This model is great for affiliate sales). Look at clickbank.com for affiliate products to sell.
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