What went wrong?

Like most small business owners, you fell in love with an idea before you tested the marketplace – a classic example of what I call developing a marketing plan in reverse. It’s much less risky to gather information about the market for your product before you dedicate significant resources towards developing it.

In order to ensure that the new products and services they launch stand the best possible chance for success, Corporate America employs a variety of marketing research techniques before investing time and resources in development. A little basic smarts and network know-how will allow you to do the same thing for yourself.

This is the first of a 3-part article where I’ll show you how you can learn from Corporate America to save you time, money, frustration and maybe even ultimately your business. So let’s get started.

Once you have a clear idea in mind for your new product or service, you’ll want to do what Corporate America commonly calls a “concept test”. In this kind of research, you’re going to have your target market consider your idea and tell you whether or not they’re interested in it, and most importantly, why.

First of all, you’ll need to sit down and clearly delineate exactly what your product or service is, including what features and benefits it will offer and how much it will cost. Typically, you’ll write 2 – 3 paragraphs describing your idea, making sure to clearly explain the benefits to the potential buyer. Really invest some time here and have other people read your description to make sure, A) your word choices are unambiguous and clear and, B) you’ve hit all the major highlights.

Congratulations! You now have a concept statement.

So now that you have a concept statement, what do you do with it? In part 2 and 3, I’ll walk you through step-by-step what to do with your concept statement to start testing it and what you should do with the results.