4 Criteria That Will Help You Find The Right Products To Sell

In last month’s Business Owner Deep Dive, we discussed the importance of customizing your business and choosing your Product Type. (You can find that article here!)

In that article, I asked you to write down your answer to the all-important question, “WHY?” Why did you create your business in the first place? Take a minute to look at what you wrote, and remind yourself of what’s driving you toward the life you truly desire.

With that motivation firmly in mind, let’s take the next step to dynamically transform your business.

Finding The Right Products To Sell

In Chapter 9 of my recent book The Truth: The Real Secret To Building A Business That Sets You Free, we discuss how to determine your Magical Mix Of Products. These are the products you need to offer to achieve the ultimate potential for your business and reach Personal Financial Freedom. We’ve broken down the process into Four Criteria that will help you determine what products you should keep, throw out or create.

The first step is making a list of  your past and present products. Do you have ideas floating around for future additions to your Product Suite? Add those to the list!

Time to Start Judging!

Evaluate each product on your list using these Four Criteria:

Criterion One: Impact

How does this product line up with the overall impact I want my business to have in the world? Is this product fundamental to my ultimate business goal?

Assign each product a rating from 0-10 for Impact. A rating of 10 means “This product is absolutely 100% necessary for my business to have the impact I want.” A rating of zero means forget it!

Don’t rate everything 10. Be honest so you can narrow your focus to what truly matters.

Criterion Two: Inspiration

How much does this product or service excite, motivate and inspire me personally? What inspires you the most? The least? What service you like to stop providing? Or start doing more of?

If there’s something in your business you don’t enjoy, but is vital to your business success, hope is not lost! The next criterion will help with this…

Criterion Three: Automation

How much does this product automatically market, sell and fulfill itself?

There are two important distinctions in this criterion:

Automation happens when a process can be handled exclusively by technology with little or no input from you.

Delegation, on the other hand, means you can hand over tasks to a person on your team or from an external source who can handle the process on your behalf.

On a scale of 0-10, how automated are your offerings? Again, not all products or services can be rated 10. You need to limit yourself to the tasks with the highest amount of return or that bring you the greatest sense of fulfillment.

Criterion Four: Profit

How Profitable or Unprofitable is this product? Does it make money or cost money? How is it helping you reach Freedom? Again, use a scale from 0-10 with 10 being “this is the most profitable product in my Product Suite without which the company’s profits would tank.” Did you discover a product that’s actually costing you money? Rate that one a zero!

Criterion Four might strike fear into your heart. But remember, we’re choosing action over fear. As you move through Cash Flow Cure, we’ll use pricing to determine how your product or service can help you achieve the Freedom you desire.

Calculating the Results

When you’ve evaluated each product using the Four Criteria, add your ratings together to calculate the total score for each.

For example, if you gave Product A an 8 for Impact, a 7 for Inspiration, a 4 for Automation and an 8 for Profit, that product will have a total score of 27.

Do this for each of your products, and compare the results. When you’re done, comment below to let me know what you learned about yourself, your business and your products using the Four Criteria process. Believe me, being honest about your Product Suite is a game changer!