Happy new month, Friends!!

Wow, can you believe it’s December already? ! I mean, the same 2024 we got into which day is now ending in the next few days.

Anyways, in the world of business – in fact, in this life generally – great things can still happen for you this year. Don’t give up yet; 30 days is a lot. Even if it’s too short to achieve your goals, it’s long enough to get started or move forward towards your goals.

Instead of regretting that you didn’t launch that product as you planned or hoped this year, get to work now and start doing something on that product. If you can’t launch it this month, maybe you would in January or February and that makes 2025 NOT another year to procrastinate launching the product.

If you missed on your fitness goals this year, don’t wait till January to set another fitness resolution or do “new year new me.” Go (back) to the gym this week or create a simple home workout routine that fits your busy schedule.

My point is: whatever your goal is, start now instead of giving up and pushing it till next year. If you start now, by January you would’ve made some progress and will only continue what you’ve already started and not have to just start thinking of how to start.

That new year ginger would only help you go further in what you already started now.

So…to the lesson for today.

There’s a certain business model catching fire over the past few years that is proven to work but a lot of people are sleeping on.

I’m a big proponent of selling what people want instead of what people need, and this business model is basically built around researching, finding, creating and offering what people want.

This is a business model where product design and demand is driven by consumers rather than by brands and manufacturers.

Let me explain it in simple terms instead of going technical.

Have you noticed that you see a new product on the site or ad of Chinese brands like AliExpress and Temu, and you’re like “wow, I never thought of this; this would be so useful” or “this is so cool, I want it!”?

Maybe the product is simple but makes your life easier in one area. Chops your veggies faster; hangs your cutlery in a creative and protective but beautiful way; helps you hold your phone up without stress while you watch movies on it; turns your sofa into a mini bed for Netflix and chill and then a full bed for when you want to sleep; vacuum-cleans tight spaces brushes cannot reach in your car; allows you to pump your tyres by yourself in an emergency; interior decor piece that beautifies your room in the day but lights up and make your room look magical at night; etc.

It just seems like they magically knew a problem even you didn’t know you had or never imagined you needed, but there you have it. It’s right in front of you and you want it.

How do they come up with such nifty and smart but simple products?

The answer is C2M. That's the abbreviation for Consumer-to-Manufacturing.

This is a business model where brands or manufacturers collect a lot of data from consumers and use that to determine what people want, and then manufacture products based on what people want.

So because of the fact that it was based on what they know for sure that people want, once the product is brought into the market it goes viral and outsells.

And before you know it, there are various copycat brands of the same products and even nicer variants. 

The average human sees it and is like “Oh my, I need this!” Well, that’s because it was created based on data from people like you and I.

If several people already want or need it then tens of millions more people will want or need it when it’s brought to the market.

It’s simple but it has been the foundation of many countless products that have gone viral — an early example being selfie sticks.

Selfie became a thing and everybody wanted to take nice selfies. The only limit being that our hands are only long enough to capture a few objects in a frame.

But with a longer selfie stick, you can do beautiful group selfies and you can accommodate more of your environment in a selfie — great for when you’re in a beautiful place like a restaurant or resort, or some tourist site, and you want to show off the whole place while you’re also in the frame. The perfect selfie!

Someone saw the need for better and wider selfies in the market and created a product to meet that need. Before we knew it there were hundreds of different types of selfie sticks and almost everyone, especially women, bought at least one.

That’s just one example. 

What about those vegetable slicers that just look magical?! Onions or cucumbers that would take you two minutes to slice gets done in two seconds. There’s almost no woman who sees it that wouldn’t want it unless they don’t cook.

So how do you apply C2M principles to your small business?

As you can see, it’s nothing new. Chinese brands only doubled down on it and a nice name was later carved for it in the market and it has become a major business model around the world. It then became more popular and more widely adopted.

You don’t need to have the big budget for consumer research and data farming like these big companies have before you can do C2M. You just need to find smart ways to learn what your market wants.

The principles are very simple. You focus on consumers in your niche or industry, study them and find out what they want.

There are many tools online that you can use to listen to your industry. Social media is there – the easiest! But there are tools to find out searches and trends, that would show you what people are actively looking for.

I’ll discuss a few of these in my next email newsletter. It will be full of strategies and tools to help you apply the principles of C2M to grow your business faster in 2025. Do everything to not miss this email.

Till then, go start (or continue) working on that 2024 goal you are about to give up on or already gave up on, so that you can enter 2025 strong, while others would still be *thinking* of starting something....