How to go from Idea to Cash?

[This article is an except from one of my guides: from idea to profit]

TRUTH TRUTH: you don’t need to do anything revolutionary that’s so creative that’s out of the box.

A creative idea could be just taking an existing offer that you’re able to execute better.

I don’t want you to think that “I am not a genius so I don’t have any ideas”. Everyone have ideas — you may not be aware of them because you feel that it’s not “creative” enough. But in fact, the definition of creativity is very board.

I’ve always love the cash-flowing boring business like storage units or real estate. You don’t have to go looking for something that’s no one on the planet has ever had that thought before. Instead, you want to look at something that is a way in which this could be done better or differently. Or how to approach something in a unique different way e.g. a simpler way to achieve the same effect.

So you’re constantly getting ideas from daily life.

Let’s dive into the types of ideas — generally there are 2 types:

1. problem solving ideas

Such as offer a solution for an existing issue or problem that people are facing.

if I’m losing weight in life and I have a meal plan for the month that helped me lost 5 pounds without starving — that meal plan is a problem solving

if I want more clients, 3 more ways how I could sell more of this or I have an idea on what I could be upselling as a new product offering my business.

A lot of people’s incubation ideas is solving their own problems versus solving problems for the market place. That’s actually a good place to start because the world is flat now and if you have a problem, and you solved it. Most likely there are people in similar situation that want to solve the same problem, so your solution can provide insights and guide them to how they can solve their problem.

1. execution ideas

Such as I’ve found a better way to make it quicker, make it easier, make it faster, make it better for the customers.

There’s a saying that ideas are worthless until being executed. A good idea may be worth $100, but a well-executed idea is worth $1 million.

So execution could be worth a lot of money in business. The coaching business is growing year by year because more people are paying to be guided in the execution and implementation phase.

Beware of the shiny object idea pattern

Here the usual pattern:

I have an idea, and it seems like that’s a great idea that’s going to make me money. So I really want to dive into that right away immediately because just the creativity has been flowing. And then after a few days or a few weeks, I started doubting myself: is this really a good idea? Why no one is paying attention or buying on this? Why it is more difficult than I have expected? Perhaps it isn’t a good idea? Perhaps it isn’t suitable for me? The creative juices seem to used up soon and I felt a lack of motivation and inspiration to keep going on this idea. I may either judge that this is not a good idea to begin with, or this is not a profitable idea anyway so I should discontinue with it. And soon enough, I would find another “interesting” idea to start with…. And so the pattern repeats itself.

Is that you as well?

I’m sure I’m not the only one with shiny object syndrome!

That pattern could keep us trapped in the idea phase (which is the easiest phase) and never really get to the nurturing, creation, monetisation phase. The result is that after a few times, we could be doubting and losing confident in ourselves and our ideas — they don’t seem to make money or yield results for us! It’s not the idea’s fault, but it’s a problem of execution.

So let’s begin with: how do we approach an idea!

How to approach an idea — the “incubation” phase

In this phase, we focus on:

• solving one specific problem
• specifically who you’re serving

What I’ve observed of myself and many entrepreneurs is that we are a very creative bunch. 90% of the business is created from an idea of “I think this will do good for others!” or “I need this but couldn’t find it in the market so I’m going to provide this!” — being creative is NOT the challenge and not an issue for us.

What really keep us stuck is that once we come up with an idea, now what? How do we deal with the idea?

Most of us would just jump right in and start implementing it.

Because we are so creative, before this idea 1 gets any results, idea 2+ 3 could be born in our minds. And it could be new creativity related to idea 1 or completely new different ideas. This distracts us, splits our attention and spreads us thinner, until we gave up on idea 1.

Here’s how to break the spell:

Imagine ideas as seeds — it has the potential to grow into a tree or a flower, but it requires nurturing, attention, nutrition and time. It has the potential to make money for us, but we’re not nurturing it right –

If you catch yourself asking: how to make this idea work for me?

This is not a great question because it implies that your success depends on this idea.

Rather, we need to view each ideas as an assumption and what we can do in this “incubation” phase are:

• talking with others about it, looking for feedback
• doing the minimal to see if it works just like doing experiment testing out assumptions
• examining the idea 360 degrees and looking at what I really like about it and what I don’t like so much about it
• researching about resources that it may need to grow into a tree and reflecting on whether I can provide or find those

All the while detaching from the idea — so I’m just looking and examining the idea, but I don’t have to make it work. It’s a fascinating assumptions, but I need to test it first — what about this? What about that? I’d be analysing it, adding to it or stripping things away.

And in the process of such testing, I can see whether it would sprout, I’m giving it a change to grow and take life, but I’m not forcing myself to make it grow because that’s not something we can control (but I’ve seen that many entrepreneurs just keep pushing and forcing a seed ideas to grow, if it doesn’t, they blame it on themselves to fail to let it take life…).

There’s really no time limit for the seed idea to sprout — some may germinate in just a week, some may take a month or even months.

So this is how I approach ideas: if it doesn’t sprout in 3 months, I move on, I don’t force it to germinate and I don’t blame myself or consider myself a failure for not making it work. I’ll just put it aside for now, and maybe in the future, it will sprout or I’ll take a second look and know exactly how to grow it.

PRO TIPS: Never really throw away the ideas that don’t sprout now. Keep a good record of them. And review sometimes, you’ll be amazed and surprised how much money is hidden in the plain sight! What I do is I’ll regularly review my journal (where I record all the ideas) and I would usually find 1–2 that previously I didn’t know how to do with it, now that I have more experience or have developed new abilities, I can pull this out and finish it up.

Like different plants, seed ideas can be seasonal. A seed idea may not sprout in spring but it may sprout in winter.

Sometimes, we may not be able to fully flush out an idea at the first time. Most likely, the first inspiration has many gaps and missing parts and is just a general concept that needs to be furnished and nurtured.

I have ideas that are years ago and I pulled it out just a week ago and put it on sell — made $590 immediately with no extra efforts.

Here’s how you can discuss with others about an idea in the incubation phase:

• let others to help you flush out the idea: ask “how would you execute that? How to approach it?” — if you’re not really sure yet or haven’t really thought about it in details, well keep thinking about it!
• let others to identify gaps that you may not realise: ask “do you see this working for [target clients]? What question you may have if you are they?”
• help to flush out the idea: ask “has others provided similar solution on this? If so, what is the different between your idea and other solution?”
• help to nurture the idea: ask “what do I really like about this idea, and what I don’t like / hesitate about this idea?”
• If I’ve implemented and executed on an idea and it doesn’t sprout, ask “why it didn’t sprout? Any other ways I can try or do right now to help it take life?” If not, I’ll set it aside for now.

I would try to nurture the idea in the incubation phase but I wouldn’t attach to it or to its outcome. I would examine it 360 and approach it from all different directions and angles, but don’t put too much importance on an idea.

TRUTH TRUTH: we all have more ideas than we ever have time for.

So when you put too much importance on an idea, you’re probably operating from scarcity — deep down you don’t think you’ll have more than enough ideas to be rich or be whoever you want to be. That’s why you hold onto one idea as if it’s the only chance. Rather, we want to sit down and examine an idea to see:

• if it’s the right fit for you?
• Compared to other ideas that you have, is this a good enough idea that is worth your time, efforts and focus?
• Would it get you closer to what you want?
• Will this work? Will the ideas succeed?

More in the list of filtering questions to ask to select the right idea

There are many ideas and it doesn’t mean you need to act on each one of it.

If you have no idea but you want to start a business, what can you do?

Ask this question: what is the problem that I can solve?

Too many people start talking way too much about what’s included, what’s the price, what’s the things they can offer and what they have…. PEOPLE JUST DON’T CARE.

What they’re interested in is how it’s relevant to them.

Just simplified your message to go straight to the problem that you can solve, e.g. “if you’re in business, this is gonna make you more sales”, “This is gonna get you more clients on autopilot”, “If you’re looking for love, this is going to help you find your ideal partner”, “If you’re looking to lose weight, this is going to help you lose weight fast without eating less”.

A lot of people are dancing around the target of what it’s actually doing — that’s poor communication. People are scrolling and deciding whether your stuff is worth their attention in a split of a second. Go straight to the point!

What’s at the heart of the matter of what my audience really wants? And that you can help them solve?

If your offer isn’t speaking to that, then it needs to.

How to turn idea to cash? — the “validation” phase

The whole purpose of the validation phase is to make sure you have problem — offer — customers alignment. That you’re solving a real problem that the target customers are willing to pay for, not just an imaginary problem that you think people would need a solution for.

And in this phase, you don’t even need to have the full digital product or offer built out yet.

In this phase, we focus on:

• testing whether we have offer — customers alignment?
• testing the way of delivery
• collecting data and feedback on the idea mini-execution

How to validate any idea?

Focus on actions, not opinions, not thoughts, but actions.

Behaviour will tell you everything. So you test it with behavior. People’s behaviors do not lie. And the internet is right at your fingertips to give you so many opportunities to test behaviors.

I put the idea out there, and I was watching the audience watching their engagement. Are they paying attention? Are they asking question? What kind of behavioral feedback are they giving you?

All that matters or the validation of an idea is in the profit or the sales. It doesn’t matter if someone tells you how much they love the idea, if they’re not paying for it or buying it, you don’t have real validation.

And if your mom and aunt pays you to support your idea, that’s not real validation as well.

Real validation of any idea is when someone who doesn’t know you pays you when you offer the idea. Even if you have an audience of just 100 people, or 300 people, you can still launch a beta version of the idea offer, and see if anyone pays you.

If you have an idea, you really want to ask yourself : with the offer I have, is it solving a problem people are willing to pay for?

Well, you won’t know until you put it out there and get a sale. And you got to do that in 90 days or less.

E.g. I invested in ETFs and achieved 8–12% compounded annually with less than 60 mins a year. I’m going to take 10 people and walk through how to start investing in ETFs that makes you money and that allows you to sleep soundly at night: how to choose which ETFs to invest in, when to buy, how much to invest, when to sell, how to rebalance etc. So I’m going to take 10 people through this 6 weeks of livestream training and walk through everything in my passive investment system. You’re going to learn how to make money work for you to make you more money each year. I’m going to be selling this as a $2000 program but for these first 10 people for $100.

If you have congruent audience they should find your offer relevant. People will buy and sign up for that — that’s when you have a validated idea when you are in the right market messaging the right people and offering what’s relevant to them.

My list of ways to test behaviours

Test your idea quickly and for Free before you invest your time, effort, energy into it further:

• build an opt-in landing page
• make a little video
• create a little PDF
• teach a 20 minute live training
• make a little ad to a little landing page
• create a sales page
• go for a hot-seat Q&A on the topic relevant to your offer
• send an email to your list about it (if you have one)

If no one buys, what now?

If you have an idea to cook a dessert or a dish, let’s say an apple pie. And in the process, something is off, you wouldn’t just drop the idea to cook an apple pie. You may analyse to see if the oven temperature is right, whether you’ve over-cooked it, whether you need to add 1 more egg etc. And in the process, you would also take the bits and pieces to try the taste. If you don’t like the apple taste, you could turn it into an orange pie or try other fruits. If you can’t do an apple pie or if you don’t have an oven, you could be thinking of other dessert that you like that doesn’t involve oven-cooking. That’s how we should approach business or money making idea as well.

Even if an idea fails, you don’t need to throw it all away. There are a lot of valuable data and experience from it still. You can keep the core ingredients and just switch the “fruits” on top and test it.

Example 1: I’ve seen entrepreneurs making another $100k launching exactly the same digital product that was selling just $1,000 odds at the time but to a different audience — minimal extra work required because the content is the same, but they add $100k to the top line just like that.

Example 2: I’ve done a giveaway before on IG and it wasn’t well-received, when I repeat the same on Facebook, it worked very well!

PRO TIPS: we don’t need to have the ALL OR NOTHING approach to ideas. All or nothing means if you’re just looking at an idea, it’s going to be either implemented successfully or not, or you’re going to say yes or no to the idea. That’s not how ideas work. We can keep playing with it in the incubation / validation phase until it sprouts and shows sign of life itself.

If someone buys, what’s next?

You’re freaking excited now that your idea is validated, now what?

When you’re testing the idea, data should be collected.

Now you need to look at the date — if only 1 of your audience converts out of 10,000 audience, you may want to rethink about whether this is an idea worth pursuing.

It’s all contextual and you don’t want to pursue an idea simply because 1 person is buying it.

If you get low number of sales, it could be either:

1. you have a great offer but you communicated or marketed it poorly -> if so, you want to dwell on your messaging and try again to see if more people would buy
2. you have a poor offer and no matter how good you are at marketing, it’s going to be hard to sell, -> if so, it could indicate that no one wants this, a lot of times people just have bad ideas because they’re trying to solve a problem that people don’t want to pay to get solved.
3. you have a mis-alignment in your offer and audience. Your audience is not interested in this offer but they could be interested in other offers that are more relevant to them -> if so, you want to get to know your audience better to see what’re the problem they have that you can solve

Really look at the data — If you have less than 20% conversion rate on the landing page, that’s my first red flag about the idea — maybe this isn’t something people want.

Not just looking at the data to see if an idea is worth investing in, but also you can reflect for yourself on the delivery of the idea (since you would at least get 1 sales under your belt for an idea to be validated). How was the delivery of the offer like?

For example, I really like doing Q&A and not just one-sided delivery / teaching. When I know I’m going to be teaching, I would show up more seriously but in Q&A my energy is more fun and energetic. So you can also observe the different energies that you bring in the mode of delivery. That’s also worth noting when you’re testing with an idea.

Just like if we are tasting something new and what we’ve never tasted before, the only way to know whether we like it or whether it’s for us is by trying.

And then the more things you try, the more you would know immediately what suits you and what doesn’t, what works for you and what doesn’t, what you like and dislike.

PRO TIPS: You can also make adjustments along the way. Although we may start out following the “traditional” or “common” wisdom of how to do a thing, they’re not universal truth but only opinion based on other people’s experience. While they may have some value, I don’t really believe in them and tend to do something contrary or different in my testing phase (perhaps I’m just rebellious LOL), but the point is you don’t need to be bound or limited by what other people say (or even what I teach). Having an experimental mindset will help a lot in your entrepreneur journey.

PRO TIPS: to aid decision making, I would use a pen and paper and rate the different aspects of an idea on a scale of 1–10, forcing myself to give a more accurate and specific ranking rather than just a general comments. E.g. how difficult was it for me to execute? how much time it takes? How much conversion I get? How much interests it generates?

A lot of people jump into an idea too fast but in the validation phase you really want to get some solid proof, data and works if you want to turn an idea to cash, because we’re going to invest our efforts, time and money into it, we need to think in business terms — how much time / cost per leads? If I invest my time, efforts, money into other ideas, would it give me a better ROI (return on investment)? If I repeat and scale the idea, how’s the delivery energy look like for me? Do I like and enjoy it? If I could change anything about this idea, what 1–3 things I would change?

So we want to throw in these questions to help us connect the dots about the idea before we go all in.

P.S. Do you want to build a side business that replaces 9–5 salary in a matter of months as well? I know the way to do it, speak with me whenever you’re ready so that I can get to know you more and help you come up with a realistic idea and plan step by step how to do that exactly

More resources:

“I want to start selling services or products on social media but not sure how to start…”

“I don’t know where to find more clients…”

“I have some ideas but not sure how to turn it into a business…”

“I don’t know how to talk like a powerful authority and thought leader to attract my target customers….”