Sep
02
What Would You Do With a Golden Goose?
I need your advice. I have struggled with this question for many moons, and I am no closer to an answer now than I was last winter.
Here’s my problem: I have a piece of intellectual property, and I don’t how I should use it.
The property is a set of questions that I have developed and honed. I use the questions in market research. The questions are posed to coaching clients, are answered for marketing clients, and are used in marketing mastermind groups.
I call them “the golden questions,” because if you answer them, even a few of them, you are going to own your target market. (This assumes that you act properly on the question’s answers.)
So, this is extremely high-value material. But it’s just a small list of questions that fits on two pieces of paper! It’s not a big book of answers!
I am troubled because I don’t think my business is reaping the full value of this intellectual golden goose.
So what would you do in this situation, and why?
• Continue to use the questions as always (with clients and mastermind members) and keep them under lock and key, and a strong password?
• Give them away by writing a column about them on my Web site?
• Expand on each question, make it into a small product, and give the product away to people who subscribe to the Web site and as a bonus gift on top of coaching and marketing services?
• Expand on each question, make it into a small product, and make it available for purchase? If so, what would you price it at?
• Do something else with them.
Please give your thoughts in the comments below. Thank you!
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Comments
Larry,
Perhaps it could be more than one thing? It’s the start of your IP bank which you can dip into, re-purpose, and reformulate. I think a lot of us need to see and hear things numerous ways and in different forms before it really sinks in.
Hi Christine:
Very interesting. The bank analogy is thought-provoking. To use that: right now I feel like the questions are in my IP bank but earning a very low interest rate. On the other hand, it’s earning something. It hasn’t been gambled and lost.
Larry
Hi Larry, you can give them away as content and people will still need the support of you and your mastermind group. Giving away the goose that laid the golden egg is the only thing you can do if you want it to keep laying.
Hi Sarah:
Thanks. Very good point. If people value the questions, then they likely will value the help that’s needed to answer them.
Larry
How about make it a product. You can expand on each question, provide examples and make accompanying worksheets that people can print and fill out.
No idea on pricing it, but I’d personally pay somewhere between $20-$30 for that if it’d help me identify my target market without paying for full on coaching. Most people don’t know where to begin to do that, so I could see it helping people a lot.
I think you should consider the time/costs vs. benefits.
For instance, continuing as you are now costs you nothing, time or money-wise, in the present, but you don’t readily gain anything, either. To me, that’s clearly not the way to go.
Releasing the information in an informative column costs you time, but if you write a truly informative piece, you will probably gain clients and/or a larger following. You might be able to stretch out the information in a series, too, for maximum exposure.
Releasing the information in product form may cost you a lot time-wise (perhaps money-wise, upfront). You may or may not get a good result from your efforts. Making it a purchasable product or at least a product with a paid option will cost you more time to build, and people can be quite finicky with what they’ll pay for online, so you may not gain much more over a paid option vs. a free one.
I think your best bet is to write a column or series of columns, as unless you make quite the product out of a two-paged set of questions (in which case your time/money costs may become high), I’m not sure how many will be willing to pay for it, in which case your efforts go to some waste over two pages of questions.
Just some thoughts!
Larry
I agree with Naomi. I believe a product, like a book, could be organized around the questions. What you have discovered in coaching and examples from your coaching would be a part of that section/chapter. The person purchasing this product would get the benefit of the questions, your insights, and the ideas from those who have tried it before. You would give many people the benefit of the prior participants. That is what many coaching/how to books are conceived. I want an autographed copy.
Jim
Oh, valuable content wants to be shared… let the questions be the breadcrumbs that lead prospects to you.
How about using the questions to create a super-valuable complimentary e-course that you deliver via an email autoresponder series? You’ll be building a list when folks subscribe to the e-course. (And, added bonus, people will be more likely to tweet and otherwise spread the word if the content is free.)
While some people may be able to put the questions to immediate use, many will need/want more context and help. So, once you have a list, you can later extend offers for your premium-priced services (coaching, consulting, etc.).
You can also consider offering a paid webinar or teleseminar where you go into more detail about how to use the questions, share examples, scenarios, case studies, have Q&A, etc.
Sounds exciting, good luck!
Hi Everybody:
Your thoughts/ideas/perspectives on this are excellent and great appreciated. Jim, you definitely will get a signed copy!
I received one e-mail, too, and I want to share some of its suggestions.
– Expand on the questions with examples and insight. Make it a small ebook with workbook questions built in, not separate. Set the price for the ebook/workbook product at x dollars. Add an audio component that includes bonus commentary. Price the ebook/workbook/audio product at x + $10. To broaden my potential coaching customer base, use affiliates. Give them 50 percent. (What you think of those ideas?)
– Use the small size of the ebook as a selling point: state that the ebook hasn’t been fattened up for sales purposes. Say that this ebook has 25 pages YOU WILL ACTUALLY USE. (Any thoughts on that? Are ebooks oftentimes longer than necessary? Do the excess pages annoy you? Or not?)
Larry
@Larry I like the email suggestions you got. I don’t personally like audio much myself, but I know a lot of people do.
Great, great ideas here. Thank you!
I am going to expand on the questions and see where it leads me.
Larry