443 Will Your Big Idea Make You Money?

If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/443 Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  Episode number 443, will your big idea make you money?

• 0:08Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:34Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. I get this a lot, guys. I get so many people coming to me saying, "Hey, Lewis, I've got this big idea. Will you check it out? Will you let me know if you think it's gonna be amazing? It's gonna make me so much money." I just know it. And they've been saying this for six months or a year, and they've never actually tested it to see if people would actually pay for that big idea. They sit on it. They need it to be perfect looking. They need to have the design right. They need to have all the pieces in place. And I just feel like that's a big mistake, especially in this time of day. Because with the internet and with how everything is evolving and shifting and moving so quickly, your big idea might be great right now, but in a year, it might be old and dead,

• 1:19Lewis Howes?

  and new technologies have come in, or new needs have come in for people, and it's not a big idea anymore. So we're talking about how do we make sure we understand it is profitable right now, so you can get it out as quickly as possible? We're covering the four-step process for figuring out if your idea will be profitable. We also have a quiz at the end. You'll go to the show notes, lewishowes.com/443, and there will be a free quiz that you'll walk through to make sure that your idea is profitable. So, without further ado, here is the four-step process for figuring out if you have a profitable idea.

• 2:07Lewis Howes?

  What's up everyone? This is episode number 443. Will your big idea make you money? Oh man, I get so many people coming to me with big ideas all the time. Louis, what do you think out of this idea? Louis, this is gonna make me a lot of money. And a lot of the times, they're not gonna make them anything. There's a few reasons why they're not gonna make them anything, and they're gonna struggle along the process. And in this episode, we have a four-part process to walk you through and guide you through a journey of figuring out if your big idea will actually be profitable and will actually make you money, or if it's gonna be a waste of your time and lose you money. So make sure to watch this entire thing, share it with your friends.

• 2:52Lewis Howes?

  And if this is the first time you're here, the previous episode 440, we talked about the top 10 ways to make money online. So make sure to watch that one as well, and then come back to this one. Now, no matter how excited you are about this, and you've told a few friends, and they said, "Yes, this is gonna be awesome. It's gonna be huge. It's gonna make you millions." It's not gonna work unless you test this. I had a guy come to me a few weeks ago and say, "Louis, I've got this big idea." And he showed me an image of it, and he was like, "You gotta sign an NDA first for me to show you it. Uh, it's gonna blow up. It's gonna be massive." And the idea sounded interesting, but to be honest, he'd been working on this for over a year, and he had never even launched it out there or had anyone buy it

• 3:37Lewis Howes?

  or even tested to see if it was actually going to work. So I don't care how big the idea is. There is no such thing as a million-dollar idea. Only million-dollar executions. A mentor of mine told me that years ago, and it's stuck with me. So I don't care how big the idea is, how great you think it is, how much money you think it's gonna make. It's not gonna make you a dime if you don't test it first to make sure it works, and also if you don't execute it the right way. So we're gonna cover the four-part process for how to make sure that your idea is actually going to be profitable, and make sure that it's something that you should actually launch, or something that you should completely forget and go back to the drawing board. The first thing is to do your research. That's right.

• 4:21Lewis Howes?

  Most people don't do this. They think they have the best idea. And then there's like, let's launch this, let's figure it out. Do the research in your space. See who else has products, services, courses, whatever it may be around the topic that you're thinking about. Make sure you figure out, see what's working, what's missing in your space. Do people actually need this thing? Or is this just an idea that you came up with? And since you came up with it, your ego is telling you it's the greatest thing in the world. If there's not a need for this thing, then it's not gonna work. Number two is to make an outline. And make an outline that's detailed about how you're going to teach this to other people. And think about, if I can't explain this

• 5:06Lewis Howes?

  in one sentence of what it is, who it's for, and how it's going to help those individuals. If it's confusing in one sentence, if you're like, well, it's this thing and this thing and this thing and all these things combined, and it's gonna help them with this and this and this. I'm lost, I'm confused. The more clear you are in your story, in your messaging, the easier it will be to sell your idea. So really get clear and have a detailed outline of what it is, who it's for, and how it's gonna help them. Number three, test out teaching your idea to friends or a few target customers. So you wanna get this going, you wanna get some feedback, you wanna make sure that it's actually going to serve your audience. But you wanna test it first

• 5:50Lewis Howes?

  before you launch it out into the world. So, find a few friends, offer the service, give them the product, walk them through the solution, whatever it may be for your big idea. Get feedback. If they said this was the biggest thing they've ever seen, this is a hit, I will pay a certain amount of money for this, then you might have something to keep working on. So make sure you test out your idea. That's number three. Number four is to launch it with a live event. Now, this could be with a webinar, or Facebook Live, a YouTube Live. This could also be a Kickstarter campaign. Where you're gonna launch it, and you're gonna either teach, or share part of it, and then sell the product or service at the end. So you're not gonna give them everything if you're teaching them in a course or a product.

• 6:34Lewis Howes?

  You wanna give them kind of a teaser of what this will be. And then say, "Hey guys, I'm gonna deliver this to you in the future. Pay me now, and then in the future, I'm gonna deliver this to you." Just like you do on Kickstarter. You sign up for the product, sometimes a year or two in advance before you get it, to say, "Hey, this is something I'm interested in. This is something I want, and I'm willing to take out my credit card and pay you for it right now." Even though I'm not gonna get it until maybe months, maybe years down the line, like most Kickstarter campaigns. So you can do it on Kickstarter. You could try this with a webinar, which is where I like to test things. I'll do a live webinar. I'll give a, uh, an hour-long teaching or training of what part of the solution is.

• 7:17Lewis Howes?

  And then if people want the entire solution, they'll pay upfront. It gives me a week or two to develop the training or the product. And then I'll deliver the product a few weeks down the line when I'm ready to deliver it. But first, I'm getting proof of concept. I'm getting people saying, "Yes, Lewis, here's some money. I want this solution for my life. I want this product in my life." And I'm willing to pay you upfront for it to, to get it down the line. I understand I'm not gonna receive it right now, and that's okay. But when you can do that, when you can get people to pay you before they even get a dime, then you know you're on to something. Then you know that your idea is profitable, and it's something that you should go in full steam ahead.

• 8:02Lewis Howes?

  So think about launching something first, making sure you get great feedback, and making sure you get paid for your idea before you even have to create the entire thing. So you've got a big idea. Now will it make you money? This was a four-part process to discovering if it would make you money by doing the research and going through these steps. We've also given you a quiz. There is a link at the show notes, lewishouse.com/443 to get a full quiz on if your idea is actually profitable. You're going to go through a few different questions and at the end it will tell you if your idea is profitable. Very powerful. Go to the show notes to check out this quiz.

• 8:47Lewis Howes?

  It's completely free. Check it out right now. Here's the thing, guys. I want you to follow this process. Do the quiz, follow this four-part process as well in this video because so many people come to me and ask me, is my idea going to be great? I've got a big idea. And then they sit on it for six months, a year, sometimes a year and a half before they do anything. Your job is to get something out of your mind and into the world as quickly as possible to see if it's actually going to be profitable. If you're holding on to all these different ideas and you wait a year because you're like, I don't know if it's going to be ready or I don't know if I feel ready to launch it or it's got to be perfect first, you're wasting your time and opportunities.

• 9:30Lewis Howes?

  So take action now on this four-part process and go through the quiz. Launch the idea, see if people actually like it. If they don't, it's not a big idea anymore. You can let it go. You can move on to allowing your mind to dream, to imagine about some other solutions that you can offer into the world. So do this as fast as possible. Go through the process and see if your big idea is actually going to be profitable. And in next week's video, we're going to be talking about how to build a massive social media following and also how to attract millions of followers to your website. So if you're looking to build a massive following either on your website or social media, then make sure to subscribe to this video and also over on iTunes to get notified of

• 10:15Lewis Howes?

  when the next episode comes out. Leave a comment below as well and let me know what your big idea is and I'll give you feedback if I think it's going to be profitable myself. Again, thank you guys so much for being here. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.

• 11:27Lewis Howes?

  Again, thank you guys so much for being here. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.