One of the most heart breaking things I see in the process of turning your purpose into prosperity is when conscious professionals start a biz that will never have the capacity for bringing enough income as to be financially sustainable for them.
Probably because I’ve failed many times myself, and the unbreakable faith that everything will turn out right of the Innocent archetype is no longer in the fore front as a Purposeful Ally for me anymore, but the thing is that I want to know before hand if what I’m dreaming of creating has any true substance backing it up.
So the question you need to answer is: “How can I know if what I want to create will be able to sustain me financially?” And by financially sustainable I mean that you will able to make a living by doing that activity that you love and is your purpose in life.
But in order to be able to answer that question, first we need to remember what’s the true purpose of money in our society.
Money is defined as something generally used and accepted as a way to pay for things and services.
And all that means is that, when you want something that you don’t have, you go look for someone who does have it, and then, both of you make an agreement to exchange the thing you want for some of your money.
Nothing more and nothing else.
So another way of wording the previous question would be: Is what I want to create something that people will be willing to pay for?
Answering this question is very important for those of us that don’t have the luxury of spending years in “trial and error” mode. Because, even if your idea passes de “viability test” I’ll give you below, there are no guarantees of success.
Build a biz that creates income for you, requires that you also put into place many different pieces to effectivetly make it work. That’s enough difficulty on itself to add the extra burden of trying out a biz idea that nobody cares about, don’t you agree?
So here I’ll give you three of the easiest, quickest and cheapest ways of finding out early on, if your biz idea has the potential for making the income you need.
- Viability question # 1: Does your biz idea fit into one of the 3 biggest problem categories?
There is a famous song in spanish that goes: “… there are 3 things in life: health, money and love. She who has all of them, be thankful to God…”
And the song is right!
Most of our worries, fears and frustrations fall into one of these 3 areas. So if your biz idea helps people solve a problem in one of those categories, the probability of your biz being successful increases. These 3 areas are what marketing guru Eben Pagan calls the 3 mega niches.
But not every body is motivated by their problems, and that’s why you also need to consider the following question…
- Viability question #2: Does you biz idea satisfy a strong desire or passion?
I looooove music.
Specifically anything that involves distorted electric guitars at hight volume. Recently I’ve discovered that the music I most listen to falls into the label of Progressive metal, who knew!.
But any way, the important piece of info for you here is this:
Since I have a passion for that music, I WANT to buy every single CD from my favorite artists. Yeah, it’s true that I can listen to it for free online, but that isn’t enough for me. And I know it doesn’t make sense, but since I’m so passionate about it…
…and that’s the whole point, If your biz delivers a product or service that your ideal clients are really passionate about, you have greater possibilities for turning it into a source of income.
- Viability questions # 3: Is there someone else out there successfully making a living doing something similar?
This is something you can do by simply researching online as if you were a client interested in that particular product or service. But there is a caviat here. Put a limit to the time you will spend online researching, or it could turn into a time consuming addiction.
That been said, it’s a great way to test your idea. Try to answer these questions: Are there many websites offering what I want to offer? How much are they charging for similar services and products?
And don’t be afraid of the so called “competition” out there. In fact, that’s good news! It means there are people out there already paying for what you want to offer.
And if you are in anyway like me and love to innovate, jot down all of your ideas, but leave them for a future moment (and product) once you have built a list of followers that know you and trust you.
Ok, so those are the 3 quickest ways of finding out if your idea is worth the effort, time, money and big hopes you’ll need to invest in testing it in the real world.
Now it’s your turn. Take this viability test and then, please come back and leave your comments below: Is your biz idea a good one or does it need some tweaking?
Namaste
Charo