How To Sell An Idea?: 10 Ways on Selling Your Idea and How to Improve It

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Marketing is a fast-growing field in which selling your idea becomes more important day by day. Nowadays, having an idea is essential but knowing how to sell it is more significant than that. It is basically because of that if no one hears about your idea, it will be disappeared before anyone uses it. In this article, you will get some thoughts on how to sell your idea. There are 10 tips to follow.

Make sure you have a purpose to sell an idea:

You should have a purpose, first. Your idea should serve something beneficial so that people think it is useful. Your idea will be more important than others when you have a purpose. This purpose can serve anything that you want: solving a problem, helping people, developing old ideas, etc. 

All the big companies start with an idea and purpose. Think about Google. Its main purpose was to solve the problem of knowledge. There was a lot of information going on the internet and Google organized all of them. Shazam put an end to the problem “I can’t remember this song.” With this app, you could find the song wherever you’ve heard about it. 

Having a purpose will help you promote your idea as well. When you have a goal, your idea will spread more quickly. If people like your purpose, they will talk about it more and your idea will be known.

Make research to sell an idea:

Make sure your idea hasn’t already been used by others. If your idea is already used, you might still use your idea but there is a huge possibility that the first ones who got your idea will be ahead of you. You can get a new idea or you can develop what has been done before. Hence, you can keep your idea and still get a good result. 

If your idea is not thought of by anyone else before, you still need to research. You should gather information about your idea. Therefore, you can know your market. You should know the market’s needs and what they are looking for. When you gather information, it is easier to speak their language.

It is also important to make your research to know about production. When you have an idea, it is essential to know how to make it come to life. If you learn about production, you will be closer to making your idea real.

Also, it will help you to show that you know all about your idea. Hence, making research is significant to sell your idea. 

Do some legal work to sell an idea:

You should make your idea, legally your own. For instance, if you will publish a book, you should own the copywrites. You need to know the legal steps. To do that, you can consult a lawyer and make more research. Also, to sell your idea, it should be legal. You should be sure that it does not break any law.

Ask the right questions:

Asking the right questions is essential to selling your idea. Your questions should involve:

• What is my reason to start this business?
• Who will benefit from my idea?
• What do I need to start my business?
• Do I like what I do? Is it worth my time?
• Which industry might take my idea?
• How much profit will I make from this industry?
• Who are my competitors and why am I different from them?

See if your idea works:

Testing your idea is crucial before putting it to work. You need to see if your idea is valuable or not. Testing your idea depends on it. For example, if you are writing a book, making some friends or family read it would be good. If you have the opportunity to make it read to a professional, that is even better. 

Testing is not as hard as it sounds. You can easily ask the opinions of the people who are close to you. Ask if they see your idea as worthy enough to sell it. If they say yes to the idea, great! If they say no, you can reconsider it.

They might say yes and still, make some suggestions to change it or add some new ideas. In any case, it is important to get their opinion to sell your idea. To get more information about how to test your idea, you can check the video below.

Know Your Target:

To sell your idea, you should know your target. What ages do you address? Which regions do you plan to sell this idea to? Which gender is aimed at this idea? By asking these questions, you will determine your target.

The first thing to do to know your target is to decide on the geography. You need to know in which places you will use your product. You might set up face-to-face meetings with local companies and it is always effective. Thus, choosing the location is important.

Even though you can set up online meetings with other companies, face-to-face meetings are always more influential. 

The second thing to know is that size of the companies matter. Large companies might be good to work with but they are also hard to convince. Small companies are better to start with. They generally don’t have too much to do on their list and have more time for new ideas.

They also are easier to deal with when it comes to bureaucracy. You need to decide on the size of companies you want to work with to sell your idea. 

The third thing to know is companies’ policy. Some companies are more likely to give chances to newcomers than others. That’s why you need to make research about the companies before trying to sell your idea to them.

Fourthly, you should know that similar products are important. If your product is similar to companies’ other products, they might be more interested in your idea. Your idea should not compete with theirs, of course. In that case, they might not accept your idea.

- Knowing about your buyers will help you, as well. You should research the buyers.

- What do the buyers want from you?

- Who is their target?

- What are their upsides and downsides?

By asking these questions and researching them, you will get more information about your buyer. Hence you will know how to sell your idea. 

Prepare a presentation:

It’s time to show yourself. You should prepare a great presentation to sell your idea. You can use Decktopus to prepare a professional presentation.

There are some important points to making a professional presentation. These are:

• Don’t use too much writing on slides: Writings should only summarize what you are talking about for the audience to follow you. The focus of the audience should be on the presenter. There should be minimal writing on the slides. Therefore, the audience will listen to you and look at the slides less.
• Use 1 image for every slide: You should benefit from images. They will make your presentation look nice and more effective. However, using too many images will distract your audience. There should be 1 image for every slide.
• Keep it simple: Do not complicate things. Keep your presentation simple. It should be brief but also mention the significant points. Remember, simplicity is the key.
• Information about you: Introduce yourself. Let them know who you are and why you are here. Therefore, the audience will understand your purpose better. 
• Give the outline: Before starting your presentation, give the outline of what you will talk about so that the audience will be prepared for what’s coming. 
• Practice: You should practice the presentation before the time comes. You can make yourself a little sheet and keep it in your hands during the presentation. It should include the outline of the presentation and important points you will address during the presentation. That sheet will help your hands not be left unconfined. Also, it will help you remember significant points you need to make.

If your presentation fits all the articles above, you are good to go.

Marketing:

Enough people need to hear about your idea. For that, marketing is important. Here are some ideas on how to do marketing:

• Social Media: You should search that which social media platform is the most suitable for your market. Once you decide, you should open a social media platform and promote your idea. Use hashtags when you are posting. You can use hashtags for Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok. Also, give your posts to ads if you have the budget for it. Prices for ads are less for social media.
• SEO: You can use SEO for Google. SEO is an optimization for Google’s algorithm. If you do that optimization, your page/blog/posts/images will appear higher in the searches that are made in Google. You need to use keywords in your writing for SEO. You can look for SEO tutorials on Youtube to learn more about it.
• Infographics: You can use infographics for marketing. An infographic is a graphic visual representation of data, information, or knowledge. Its main purpose is to present information clearly and quickly. You might use infographics to give information about your product. They are easy to understand and people share them a lot.
• Videos: Post videos to sell your idea. Video marketing can be used in every field. It is easy to share and develop. You can create videos that give information about your product. Behind-the-scenes of your work, interviews with your staff, demos of your product, educational, etc. 

Use easy language in your videos for everyone to understand. When you are done with the video, share it on every social media platform as much as possible.

Host a giveaway:

Hosting social media contests or giveaways are important to sell your idea. It is an effective marketing strategy because it makes you get more followers and be heard by more people. You need a product to give but it doesn’t have to be so big. So it doesn’t mean you need a huge budget for it. 

There are different types of social media giveaways but the main idea is to ask participants to follow you, like, and tag some people under your post. Hence, your interaction will increase and your name will be known more.

Feedback:

Getting feedback from your customers is a good idea. They are the people who used your product and therefore know what needs to be better. You might use them to develop new marketing strategies. 

You can run surveys to get feedback. Ask how they learned about you, what they liked about the product, the reason why they are using your product, etc.

“The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing,” said Tom Fishburne.

Remember, you have a purpose to sell your idea. It is not only a product for you. It is a goal you need to achieve and it serves people. They need your idea, you don’t need them to buy.

Making the sale:

There are some crucial things to know about making the sale. One of them is setting realistic expectations. You shouldn’t expect too much payment from your first sale. The price of your product is pretty much certain in the market. Your sales expectations shouldn’t be too higher than that. 

You also need to decide on the way of your payment. For instance, it might be an up-front payment. Up-front payment is that money is taken before the development of the product begins. You might be paid by royalties.

Royalties are the payment that the licensor gets a percentage from the sale. You might take a %5 royalty from your sale or decide on a different percentage. That depends on your agreement with the company. 

Be patient:

It takes time to grow. You should be patient to sell your idea. It might even take years to get somewhere. You should wait to get what you want. 

To sum up, you should have a purpose to sell your idea. After that, you need to make research. Learn deep before you take an action.

Also, it is important to do the legal work and to ask the right questions. Then, you should test your idea, know your target and prepare a presentation. Remember that marketing is essential. At last, you need to decide how to make the sale and be patient during the process.

We’ve shared ways on how to sell your idea. Now, it’s your turn.

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