Here’s a good example to get you thinking
A lady called Cindy Cashman saw an interesting idea a few years ago that took her fancy. The idea was for a book with the title “Everything men know about women.”
The book was over 100 pages long and inside there was nothing but blank pages. Cindy liked the fun nature of the book but she didn’t like the idea of having to work really hard to try and make a few sales.
So she began looking for hidden markets that would allow her to sell huge amounts of her book with very little effort.
The outcome was interesting.
Cindy ignored completely traditional book shops as she realised her book would be competing with tens of thousands of other books for sale.
Instead Cindy approached businesses like women’s clothing shops and got them to display her book next to the cash register. Women shopping at these stores would pick up the book because of the catchy title, laugh when they saw it was totally blank inside and would then buy a whole bunch to give as gifts to people they knew. Cindy kept the price very affordable and sold over a million copies of her book over the next few years.
Cindy had discovered a ‘hidden market’ for her book and it made her a lot of money.
Sometimes the way you find a hidden market is to find out how your clients and customers ‘use’ your product or service. A good example is an appliance shop that sends out a lovely little pot plant with a hand written thank you card to every client who makes a major purchase from them. In this case they are using pot plants as a way to say ‘thank you’ to a new customer. (And they get a ton of repeat and referral business by doing this.) There is a hidden market here for a smart garden centre or florist. They could offer a simple service where for an affordable fee they will deliver a lovely pot plant and hand written thank you to new clients of a variety of different businesses that sell big ticket products.
Look at your own business. Where is the hidden market for what you sell that you are not tapping into right now?
“Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.” – Demosthenes
