Stop Selling Everything: The Argument for Successful Single-Product Ecommerce Businesses

May 16, 2023

Stop selling encyclopedias.

To be a master of all is to be a master of none. When you try to sell your customers a product or products that solve for everything under the sun, you ultimately help them solve nothing.

Creator CEOs know selling a single product that addresses (or better yet, solves) the concerns or issues your customers have is the way to build and scale a million dollar business.

When we say stop selling encyclopedias, we mean that they contain too much information to be useful to the reader. Unlike Creator CEOs, a hobbyist creator attempts to solve every issue their customers face. They don’t carve out a niche and pour their heart into it.

Law 3 of “18 Laws of a Creator CEO” is just this – Stop Selling Encyclopedias. There are 17 other laws all Creator CEOs abide by, and you can become one yourself when you snag your own copy of “18 Laws of a Creator CEO”. 

Let’s dive deeper into Law 3 and how you can take steps to achieve or maintain Creator CEO status.

Why should you stop selling encyclopedias?

Consider your own behaviors when it comes to looking for a solution to a concern or issue you’re facing: You aren’t looking for vague, catch-all solutions. You want answers – the answer that will help you address whatever it is you’re facing.

Encyclopedias are the vague, catch-all solution. They contain too much information to be useful, and they don’t actively solve a problem. Rather, they regurgitate information that you can’t act on. Hobbyist creators are like encyclopedias – they sell you information, products, or services that appear helpful but, in actuality, don’t help the customer solve that problem. These products are often long-winded and convoluted. 

A Creator CEO recognizes that concise, straightforward products, services, and information are what their customers want. By customers, we don’t mean followers – we mean people who actively pay for your products and services.

What should you sell instead?

The key to building and scaling a successful ecommerce business is to solve a single problem for our customers and do so really, really well. Then, once you take off running, rinse and repeat with new issues and new solutions.

Your customers are smart and savvy. In the digital age, we expect immediate results – and we expect them to be good. Your customers don’t want hours upon hours of video courses or hundred-plus page documents they have to sift through. Course creators, content creators, or other ecommerce entrepreneurs alike should not – and can not, for the sake of their business – fall into the trap of being everything to everyone.

Creator CEOs hone in on a unique value proposition and deliver a solution tailored to your customer’s needs.

Put the law of “We Will Not Sell Encyclopedias” into practice

How does one avoid becoming the hobbyist encyclopedia variety and run their business like a Creator CEO? Here’s how you can practice this law:

  • Write out 5 specific problems your audience faces: Then brainstorm a course, an ebook, a training, a service, etc. that you could create to solve each problem. Determine the one problem that they are struggling with the most and focus on creating the solution to that problem.

  • Commit to continuous improvement: You do not need to solve every problem right away. Solve the initial problem, then keep working to solve the next one with a second offer. You can always come back and improve or iterate off of what’s already working.

The way to truly become a Creator CEO, however, is to embody all 18 laws. To snag your own copy of “18 Laws of a Creator CEO”, click here. Then, tweet us @samcartapp and tell us which law is your favorite.

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