How to Choose What Service to Sell: 4 Questions

All right. Here we go. Last week, a guy asked me on LinkedIn for my advice on what product he should offer to get the most new clients. He shared with me that he wants to attract electricians and wants to help them out, and he’s trying to decide between offering a website in a day service, or should he offer something with SEO? What service is going to attract the most new customers for him? In this episode, you’ll discover what I shared with him, why I shared it with him, why you need to know this, and how to apply it to your own business so you can evaluate your next product or service that you want to put in the world to sell.

Welcome to the Digital Nomad Entrepreneur podcast, everyone. My name is Eric. I am a full time digital nomad entrepreneur. I’ve been traveling full time for over three years, living in 15 countries, 35 Airbnbs, living out of carry on luggage while doing this with my wife and our four teenagers, having an amazing experience but needing to grow my business along the way. And I’ll tell you right now, it’s challenging. It’s not always easy. We are in a challenging season right now in my business. We’ve got some tough decisions that we have to make, and you know, we could always use more leads. And so we’re constantly testing things and evaluating and pivoting because it’s a challenge. It’s a slugfest. I don’t care what anybody says. There are frameworks that make it easier. There are definitely systems that help. There are best practices. But at the end of the day, you don’t know what you don’t know. And so what I’m trying to do with this podcast is share with you what I have been learning from experience on the road, in the trenches, as they say. So it is possible to travel full time to explore the world and also be building a true business, not just having a remote job, not just having a job that you own, but truly building a business.

And so I’m so glad that you are listening to the podcast. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much for being here. Now, today, I’ve got four parts to our outline. First, I’m going to talk with you on how to choose a product to sell, what the advice was that I shared with this young man on LinkedIn. And so we’re going to unpack that. And then I’ve got a special invitation for you to something that has been by personal invitation only. But I’ve decided in this podcast episode to open it up to anyone and everyone. So I’m going to share that with you. And then I’m going to share this week’s leadership tip of the week. Your leadership capacity is the capacity of your business. So every single week I am going to share at least one leadership nugget, if you will, towards the end of the podcast. And then for those of you that want to know more about the travel side of this lifestyle, the digital nomad side of having a location independent business, I’m going to wrap things up with a travel update. I used to share the travel update kind of at the beginning, but then I got some feedback from folks that they are not traveling, they don’t plan to travel, and they feel kind of off, you know, they just kind of had to listen through that until we get into the meat and potatoes. So I moved that to the end of the podcast and I appreciate the feedback.

In fact, if you’ve ever got feedback, reach out, let me know. Email me, Eric at DNEPodcast.com. Again, Eric, and DNE stands for Digital Nomad Entrepreneur. DNEPodcast.com. Also make sure that that is in the show notes. Let me know if you have some constructive criticism. And you know, after listening to the podcast, if it’s beneficial to you, helpful, inspiring, empowers you or equips you in any way, would you leave a review? That’s all I ask. That’s the price of admission for today, is a review.

All right. So let’s go ahead and get into how do we choose a product? How do we choose a widget to take to the market, a product, a service? Well, I’m going to talk from example. And in the examples, I’m going to talk about digital products, because that’s what most people that are going to have a remote business are going to provide. They’re going to provide some type of digital service, a digital product, a SaaS, and all kinds of ways to refer to these things. But generally it’s some type of digital service. It could even be digital remote coaching, or fractional CFO, CMO, it could be project management. There’s all kinds of things that can be done, especially in today’s world wide connectivity and economy. So I’m going to focus on that. You don’t have to have digital, though. You can very much have a remote business even if you have a brick and mortar location. You don’t have to be the one there to have that business. But like I’m saying, for this, let’s unpack this when it comes to choosing a digital product, a digital service to sell.

So the first thing that I asked the guy is, well, what’s the real problem you want to solve? If the problem you’re wanting to solve is more money for you, the vast majority of business owners can smell that, and it feels yucky. And people don’t want to work with people like that. And they’re going to dismiss you. And you’re not going to be adding value to people. And so you’re going to get some gigs, you’re going to get some work, but you’re never going to be fulfilled. Your clients aren’t going to be fulfilled. And it’s a big waste. So if you just want money, the best way to get money is go get a job. Like, you know, just if that’s your end goal, if you want money, go get a job. And if you want a job that pays better, get some skills and go get a better job. But if you want to create something that adds value to the world, if there is a problem that drives you nuts and you want to solve it, you want to see this eliminated for people, then that’s the thing you need to focus on. What is the problem you want to solve?

And if you don’t think this is how business works, I would encourage you to watch any Genesis story of any brand or any business owner that you like. Their shows are out there. You know, I’m familiar, of course, because I’m from the United States, but the businesses that built America, for example, for one, and there’s all kinds of these shows that explore and unpack the Genesis story behind brands. And all of them, and I’m not exaggerating, all of them, time and time and time again, they share in the narrative of that brand, of that business, that the owner, the founder, saw a problem and came up with a solution for that problem. And you can do the same thing, even if it’s a problem other people are solving. You can come up with a unique framework, a unique approach. You can come up with a way that you know how to do it and you just repackage it, to be honest, put it in some new packaging.

My son is very much into Rubik’s Cube right now, and he’s going to be doing some Rubik’s Cube competition as we’re here in the United Kingdom. And he’s very excited and he’s always watching, you know, cube heads on YouTube solve Rubik’s Cubes. And he’s been gathering and collecting different Rubik’s cubes. And they’re not all from the trademark brand named Rubik’s. He’s getting cubes from all kinds of places. And you know, they look a little bit different, but they function the exact same. They have different colors, but they function the exact same way. There’s one that he wants now that actually has technology in it that would connect to his iPad and would track accurately, you know, the number of moves, how long it takes him to solve it. And if you need coaching on solving it, it knows. I mean, it’s crazy what’s happening in Rubik’s Cube. But none of these things are, it’s a Rubik’s Cube. Like, it’s not something brand new. But he sees this one and, oh, it’s, he got one now that is white, but you know, obviously the colored squares. The Rubik’s Cube I had growing up, it was black plastic with colored stickers on it. That’s what it is. He’s got something like that. But now he’s got a white one, he’s got a pyramid shaped one, he’s got a two by two, he’s got a three by three.

So don’t think, well, there’s no new way to offer copywriting. There’s no new way to offer web design. There’s no new way to offer SEO. Put a different color on it. Give it its own unique name that you came up with, and bam, you’ve got something. In fact, you’ve got something that’s proven to already work, and people like new and improved things. So you’ve got a new and improved product to take to the market if you want to solve a problem that that product would fix. If that product wouldn’t solve it, then don’t do it. So the first thing you have to ask yourself is, what’s the problem you want to solve?

All right. So with this young guy, I was like, well, wait a minute. You know, because he was saying, well, should I be offering website design in a day? Or should I offer like an AI service to help answer their phone and manage their calendar? And I’m like, well, those are two completely different problems. You know, one is their web presence and the other is lead generation. What’s the problem you’re wanting to solve? So, my dear listener, my friend, my question for you is this. What’s the problem you want to solve in the world? All right. What’s the problem you want to solve in the world? And if you’re already in business, are you solving that problem? If not, maybe it’s time for a pivot. Maybe that’s why you’re bored with your business. Maybe that’s why you’re struggling. Maybe that’s why you’re starting to feel burnt out and tired. Because you’ve got this business, you’ve got this thing, and it’s doing something, but it’s not really solving the problem that you want to solve in the world. So what’s the problem you want to solve?

Number two. Who do you want to solve it for? All right. Who do you want to solve it for? Yeah. And the specifics here matter. You know, back to this guy that asked me this question on LinkedIn. Do you want to solve this problem? Let’s say it’s lead generation. Let’s say he says, I want to help electricians with their lead generation and appointment setting. Okay. What kind of electrician? Commercial electrician or residential electrician? Because they have a completely different pathway to sell their service. All right. Like, you know, it is totally, completely different. And so you’ve got to be specific. Who do you want to solve it for? And with this also, it’s got to be, can they pay you enough to solve it? And you’ve got to start out solving the problem for people that have money. All right. If you’re just like, you know, I want to help people get started doing something from scratch, and if those people don’t have money, you’re not going to have a business. So are you, you know, solving a problem for somebody that can afford to pay you a profitable margin, a profitable amount? Can they afford to pay you enough? And do you know enough about them? Have you really narrowed down specifically to who you’re wanting to solve for?

Now, it doesn’t have to be niched down. I’m not advocating for you have to have a niche like, oh, I solve all of the world’s problems for commercial electricians. That’s not what I’m saying. Don’t hear anything I’m not saying. What I’m advocating for is you need to know what the problem is that you’re going to solve and exactly who you’re going to solve it for. We at my digital marketing agency, we solve marketing challenges. We come alongside business owners who are struggling because they keep trying, as much as a buddy of mine says it, you know, they’re trying random acts of marketing and just trying to see what sticks. They’re frustrated because they’re not getting results. We come alongside them. We build a marketing strategy top to bottom, front to back, and then we help them deploy it, and they actually manage it. Instead of a lot of digital marketing agencies, they want people to hire them to manage their marketing. That’s not all we do. We create a strategy and then we equip and train and empower the business to manage their own marketing. And then we help provide accountability and assistance. And so that is us. And for me, does it matter if you’re a commercial electrician or a residential electrician? Their marketing, even though it’s vastly different tactics, they both fit into our framework. Any and every business fits into our marketing framework. So I don’t really care. You just have to have enough money to pay us, that’s all. And you have to be willing to use the service, because when you do, your business is going to grow. And that’s what we want.

I am passionate to help business owners increase their revenue and profits so they have more margin to do philanthropy. That’s what I want. I want to see businesses be successful so there’s more money out there from these businesses that they can donate to causes that they’re passionate about. It’s up to them about the cause. Just, you know, I think, why not? Somebody needs to help these business owners who want to be generous have the margin to be generous. So that’s the problem we’re trying to solve, and we help small businesses do that.

So, number one, what’s the problem you want to solve? Number two, who do you want to solve it for? Number three, what can solve this problem with the minimal effective effort? Okay, or the minimum effective dose, if you will. You know, this morning I had a crushing headache. And why would I take 2000 milligrams of ibuprofen when 200 was all I was going to need? Okay. So, doctors and medications, you don’t want to take more than you need. Same is true with our products and services. Too many times we overload our products and services because we feel like we have to justify the cost. When you feel like you have to justify the cost, you don’t believe in the value you’re providing. And so you have to be really, really careful with that, because if not, what happens is you start thinking you have to do all of these extra things just to beef it up, to make it sound impressive. Well, if that’s the case, then you’re selling features and not the benefit. If you have to add features to your product, to your marketing, to what you’re selling, if you have to add things to it, then you feel like people are only buying from you because of a list of features. That’s not what makes people buy. People buy because there is a benefit. And so you have to sell the benefit. So why would you sell? Let’s say you’re going to sell a service where you help people post to their Google business profile. Look, you only need to post to your Google business profile, 99% of the time, once a week. So why would you sell a service where you’re posting twice a week? There’s no additional benefit. The business isn’t going to go further, faster. And SEO rankings, like, you’re doubling the amount of effort to get the same result. That’s stupid. Like, it doesn’t make any sense. If it takes twice, then you’ve got to do it twice. But if it only takes once, and this isn’t will, because it makes my product look better, well, that’s just really stupid. Okay? That’s kind of vain. You’re doubling your work. You’re going to charge double. Okay, you know? Yeah, it just doesn’t make any sense.

So you have to know. Let’s get back. Let’s revisit this. Let’s walk through them again, and we’ll get to number four. Number one, what’s the problem you want to solve? Number two, whom do you want to solve it for? Who is solving this problem, specifically? Three, what can solve this problem with the minimal effective dose? And then four and final here is, don’t worry if you can’t make it. All right. And by that I don’t mean make it in business. I mean, if you have a problem you want to solve, and you know of a solution that can solve it, and you understand what that solution needs to look like, and its minimal effective dose, don’t worry if you’re not the one that can actually produce the service, produce the widget. All right. If you decide you want to sell websites, you don’t have to learn how to build websites. Real estate agents don’t sell the houses they build. You do not have to learn how to do this.

All right. I was working with a guy yesterday on the vision, mission, core values of his business. Totally thrilled for this guy, is such a unique thing. And as we were talking, we actually stumbled onto another product, another productized service, and I am pumped about this, and I haven’t been able to shake it. And so I’ve added it to my list of, maybe I want to sell that one day. But it is a service that is going to solve a problem that I have in my business and that I know others have in their business. And there isn’t a great solution for this. So here is a service that’s going to solve a problem, other people have this problem, people can afford to pay what I would need to sell this for, I understand what the minimal effective effort is to get this thing to work, but I literally don’t have the skill set to make it. This guy I was working with yesterday, he’s a master coder. I may end up hiring his company to create this for me so that I can go out and sell it. Don’t worry if you can’t make the service. Well, I want to help businesses with lead gen, but I don’t know how to do lead gen. Well, find somebody that does that, that you can pay to do it. You go sell the service.

This is why there are two things you need to always be studying. Leadership and sales. Leadership and sales. These are the two things you need to be studying at all times. You should always have something you’re doing that is increasing your leadership skills and your understanding of sales. Because as you do that, you’re going to naturally be learning about business, you’re going to be learning about human psychology and behavior, you’re going to be learning about taking products to the market, qualifying products, product market alignment, all these things you need to know. And you might, you know, people get overwhelmed, like, I don’t know what thing to study. Study leadership, study sales. And when you’re done reading a book on leadership and sales, go find another leadership book and another sales book. Or have a leadership podcast and a sales podcast. Just learn those two things. Just explore those two topics, and you are going to pick up all the things you need to know to grow a great business.

All right. So four things I told this guy, and that I’m telling you for your business. If you want to know, and you’re trying to decide, what’s the widget you should sell? Or maybe you already have a business, or you’re thinking about bringing on another vertical, another product. What is the problem you’re trying to solve? You have to clearly be able to say that down to the very root essence. And here’s what, when I go to people and I’m like, what’s the problem you want to solve? They tell me. Why do you want to solve that? Okay, what’s causing that problem? Because maybe the problem you want to solve can’t be solved by tackling the problem, because what you’ve really identified may just be a symptom. This happens a lot. A lot of people, they just identify symptoms and they try to then treat the symptom. Okay? You really have to understand what the problem is. So really wrestle with this. What’s the problem you think you’re trying to solve? Is it a problem, or is it a symptom of a problem? So you’ve got to dig into that. What’s the problem you’re going to solve? Who are you going to solve it for? What’s the minimal effective dose to solve the problem? And don’t worry if you’re not the one that makes the product. In fact, you probably shouldn’t even be making it.

Now, if you are like, man, there’s so much in that and I’d love to be able to get more help with this. I’ve done something. I’m in a mastermind group with other business owners, and honestly, they’re like, yeah, don’t do that, don’t do that. And I have it, and I’ve been thinking about doing it for months, and I just can’t shake it. And I’ve just decided I’m going to do it, because I want to and I can. I have a weekly group of people. Every, right now it’s every Thursday, and I think it’s at 12 noon East Coast time. I really should know that already. In fact, I’m going to look at my calendar real quick because I want to make sure I have this right. No, I take that back. It’s not. See, this is why I’m so glad I looked. It’s at 9 a.m. East Coast USA time, 2 p.m. UK time. So it’s at 2 p.m. UK time, Greenwich Mean Time, zero Greenwich Mean Time, and 9 a.m. on East Coast USA time. I’ve got a group that every week we meet. And it’s open office hours. It’s ask me anything about business, any topic, anything, we explore. And so it is, though, a pay service. You’ve got to pay to have the link, and it’s 19 USD a month.

I do this at 19 USD a month because it’s mostly, no, not mostly, it’s all people that are still in launch phase. You know, they’re either in the ideation stage where they’re coming up with their ideas, some of them are in weekend warrior stage where they still have a 9 to 5 job, but they’re working on their side hustle, and some of them have just gone to the all-in phase, that this is their thing and it’s the only thing they’re doing. And a few have started the team builder, they may not have a full time team, but they’ve got some freelancers and stuff like that. So these are folks that tend to be in the first three phases of an online business start up. The three phases most people go through is the ideation, weekend warrior, all in. Right, let me start over so you’re not confused. Ideation, where you’re just dreaming of the idea, you’re trying to figure out what you want to take to market. Then weekend warrior, you still have your job, but you’ve got this thing you’re starting to work on in the evenings, in the weekend. Then you go to all in, that this becomes your full time thing. From there you normally go to team builder. From team builder, you go to C-suite. From C-suite you go to legacy. Now, you don’t have to go through that. You can go from ideation to team builder. All right. That is a great leap. That is probably a preferable path. That is the fastest path to success. 95% of people don’t do it because they don’t think of it. It doesn’t feel logical to them, even though it’s the fastest route. And that’s okay. Most people go at the pace of ideation, weekend warrior, all in, team builder, C-suite, and legacy.

So for those that are in those first three stages trying to get their feet under them, that’s why I do weekly open office hours. It’s a way for me to give back, to give to those that are just starting out. But I also, it’s, you’ve got to be ready to invest. You’ve got to be able to put a little, it’s, you are always going to want to have a coach. I pay for coaching. I currently right now pay about $1,000 a month for a coach. And so coaching is important. Okay? You’re always going to want to have a coach, and most people can’t start at $2,000 a month or more. And so I do this, but it’s, you know, it’s one to many, you’re going to be in a group. But here’s a benefit. Even if you don’t have a question, you get to hear the question that others have that you will one day have, or that you have and you think you answered it. So you’re going to get to hear the questions and answers of others. I ask others how they would answer, you know, somebody may ask a question, you may have a different experience, a different perspective, and that’s great. I love having those different perspectives. And if you miss a call, then, we just started last week posting the transcript and the video inside a community area. So for 19 USD a month, you really get access to, on the spot, like, weekly Q&A where you can ask a question, where you can learn from the questions others are asking, where you can start to find some accountability and help moving your business forward, getting momentum to make things happen.

And so if you are interested in that, just reach out to me. Send me an email, Eric at DNEPodcast.com, connect with me on LinkedIn and message me on LinkedIn. Go to EricDingler.com, and I have gotten rid of that website and I just forward that domain name right now to LinkedIn. So if you go to EricDingler.com it just forwards to LinkedIn, and then connect with me, make sure we’re connected, and send me a message there and I’ll get you access to it. Okay. And with that, you get, I have two online communities in the same platform, so you get access to the paid one, and because you pay, you get access into the free community where there’s channels in there for people to ask questions and share things on running remote businesses. And that’s a free community. If you just want to be in the free community, you can do that. You can join the free community. Just go to community.DNEPodcast.com and you can enroll in the free community. I put all those links in the show notes.

All right. So this week’s leadership tip of the week. Remember, your leadership capacity is the capacity of your business. Your business will never grow beyond your ability, your skills of leadership and to lead it. And today’s leadership tip of the week is, you never stop looking through your leadership lens. You need to develop a lens that you filter decisions through. You need to kind of have a pair of leadership glasses on all the time that influence and color your decisions. You need to constantly be making decisions through your leadership lens, and there’s a few ways to do that. One, make sure you’re always learning leadership, like I talked about earlier. But this is where you need to have a clear and compelling vision, mission, and core values. You need to have some personal leadership axioms. You know, I share several of these. If you’ve been a regular listener, or as you become a regular listener, you’re going to hear me talk about consider the third option. You’re going to hear me talk about the principle behind the practice. You’re going to hear me talk about what’s memorable is portable. And constantly, a vision leaks. Vision leaks, say it over and over again. You know, these are leadership truths, leadership axioms that I have embraced. And they have just become part of my nature because I repeated them over and over and over again until they just literally became part of what I was. Not literally, but figuratively became part of my DNA. And now, as I’m making decisions and wrestling through things, these are always the lenses that I’m looking through. I’m looking through my leadership lens. So you need to develop, and then never stop looking through, your leadership lens.

And for me, when I’m trying to build a new, I guess, habit, if you will, or new skill set, I used to hear things like this and go, oh yeah, that’s really, really good. And then I would forget the very next day. So I have a list of things. It’s generally 2 to 3 things on this list that I am trying to remember. I want to do that, like, oh, I heard this idea, I want to implement it. But because it’s not something that is like, oh, I’m going to, you know, I’m going to start running. All right. So you get an app, you put some time on your calendar, like, that’s kind of easy. All right. Not easy to stick with, but it’s one way to build that type of habit. Okay. It’s different when it’s a thought that you want to begin to have naturally. Okay. You know, I have been too much jumping to solving problems when my team brings them to me, instead of asking them, you know, well, what do you think we should do? What are three options you think we should consider here? Which one do you think we should do? And so, you know, I was struggling with that. So I wrote down on my list that I read through every morning, 1-3-1, that was reminding me, you know, for every one problem, I want to know the three options, and what’s the one we should do. And I want my team to think this way.

And so it used to be, I used to read through my mission, vision, and core values every day until they just became part of me. And then I would learn a leadership principle. Oh, my goodness, you know, what gets repeated gets remembered, that’s really, really good. Vision leaks, so that’s something I want to remember. Consider the third option, the principle behind the practice. And I would write those down and I would just read them morning after morning. And it was, until it got to the point where I was no longer going, wow, I really didn’t remember that, I’ve got to do better at that, I’ve got to do it. Eventually, reading those over and over and over, I would suddenly at some point realize that I had gone from, I need to remember doing that, to, I did that three times yesterday, I did that twice yesterday, oh, I did that yesterday. Okay, this is now here. Oh, I’ve retold that to two people this week. And once I got confident that that had become part of my DNA, I’d scratch it out. And then I would always have something else I would want to add. Or a week or two would go by and I would see something new and go, oh gosh, I want to learn that. And so I added it too. And I’ve done that, to this day I’ve done that for over ten years. I do it to this day. So there are things, you know, I want to learn, write it down, have a list, remind yourself. Okay? Otherwise, you’re going to hear something and go, oh, you know, I’m going to do that, but then you’re going to forget. So that’s how you can develop your leadership lens and never stop looking through it.

So travel update, real quick, because we’re already at 36 minutes here, for those that care. Okay, for those that care. As I’m recording this, we are still in Liverpool having a great time here, and I just want to take a second. I am really enjoying my co-working space here. The co-working space is called DoES Liverpool. If you’re ever in Liverpool, check it out, DoES Liverpool. It’s both a co-working space and a makerspace, which is really cool. So the way, as you have access to your co-working space, you know, your desk, whichever plan you choose, you know, flex desk or a fixed desk, you also get access to the tools in the makerspace. So you can use the 3D printer, you can use the laser engraver, you can use the sublimation printer. So, you know, I’ve printed some things with the 3D printer, somebody used the laser engraver and etched something for us on a piece of wood. I’ve got a project that I’m going to do here before we leave to improve my laptop stand, my portable laptop stand. I’m going to add my logo. I’m going to use the printer here. I got a new jacket and I want to put my company logo on it, so I can print that while I’m here, and they’ve got all the instructions. It’s a great group and they’re just here to help you, and you just ask for help and they help you do it. They have so much more here than those few things I listed.

So yeah, that’s the update from here. We’re still here. It’s warming up, which is good. And we’re enjoying, my wife and I are enjoying going out about once every other week and going and finding a new pub and trying a new, different beer. So we’re just enjoying that. And these amazing, cool pubs we’re finding, and we’re meeting new people and just having a really great experience. Our kids have got connected into community through the church while we’ve been here. We’ve been going to Hillsong Liverpool, and just a great wee community there. We’ve become friends with a family, we’ve been over their house twice already. We go to their house because they have a big house and they have four kids and we have four kids. And their four kids are younger, but you know, eight kids, all right, four adults, our little townhouse isn’t big enough for us, so they have us over to their house, which is just something that happens as we explore. I know a lot of people that are digital nomads, they talk about the loneliness side of this lifestyle, and we just haven’t experienced that. And nine out of ten times we find community via a church where we’re at, or even the co-working space. Now, often the co-working space is just where I find community, but sometimes it extends because of the makerspace. Here, my wife and kids have been coming to the makerspace, and our daughter has learned how to sew, our 14 year old, and she’s making some clothes here, and she’s working on it. She made a pair of shorts and this week she’s going to start working on a dress. And so we’re just having a great time. So that’s what’s been happening here.

If you want to know more about the travel side of digital nomads, I would encourage you to check out my wife’s podcast, the Digital Nomad Family Podcast. You can also follow us on Instagram at Family of. All right, my friend. Well, thank you very much for listening to this point of the episode. I look forward to reading your review, or a rating on Spotify, and maybe an email from you. We’d love to help you get connected into the open office hours and get to know you through that, and be able to add value to you and speak into your business and help you with your business. It’d be a great honor. So reach out to me about open office hours. And so until next time, make sure that you give yourself permission to chase the big dream. Make sure you’re leading with courage. And safe travels.

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