2 Ways To Know Your Product Will Sell

Responding to my “starving sales funnel” email from a few days back, Ashley writes:

Thanks Josh – this was actually just what I needed to be reminded of today. I think what I’ve built is great, the feedback on my free course/funnel has been really positive, but no ones bought my paid course yet and it’s obvious my real problem is simply numbers. My email list is a small 210 folks and not growing nearly as fast as I wish it would. My website traffic is really low – under 20 unique visits a day – and I’m struggling with increasing visitors.

Right now only about ~80 people have actually gone through my funnel. People have been quite responding positively to it but no one seems to be making the jump, so it’s either numbers or the way I’m presenting the course. Perhaps the people in my funnel are actually just not yet ready to move to the next level.

Anyways – I felt a little more hopeful after reading this email! Thanks.

This is a tough spot to be in—very discouraging.

There are a couple of possibilities here:

1. She has a great product that people will buy, and she just needs to ramp up her sales funnel.

2. There’s a problem with the product.

In Ashley’s case, I’m 90% sure that the problem is item #1.

A top-notch sales funnel might convert 1-3% of the people who go through it.

For a lot of entrepreneurs, they’ll probably see more like 0.5% to 1%.

The sales funnel “works” — just not all that well.

But if I were in Ashley’s shoes, I’d be looking to eliminate that second possibility as fast as humanly possible by asking the question:

“Is this product something my market really wants?”

There are a couple of ways to find out.

One is to look around and see if anyone else is offering something similar.

Competition in your market is a GOOD thing—there’s always room for a new take on an old idea.

The better option is to get out there, knock on doors (so to speak) and see if you can make a few sales the old fashioned way, selling one-on-one.

This is especially true when you’re getting “great feedback” but no one is buying.

You need to find out whether they’re blowing smoke, and why they’re not buying.

If you can make a few sales this way, you know that people will buy the product if they trust you and if they know what the product does.

Then it’s just a matter of building a sales funnel that replicates what you did to make those sales “by hand.”

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