We went hard on finding your zone of genius last week.

You articulated the activities that leverage your skills and strengths into nearly effortless work.

It’s an intentionally internally-focused exercise to triangulate what lights you up, without the noise of whether or not you see a market for it.

You now know your ‘secret sauce’.

Now, we want to figure out if that secret sauce is monetizable.

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Let’s take an extreme example and say you identified your genius zone as being able to solve a Rubik’s cube.

Great. It’s an impressive skill.

One that might come naturally to you, requires some heightened intelligence and it’s something that people marvel at when you do it.

But what larger problem are you solving when you complete a Rubik’s cube?

Unfortunately, there isn’t one, and our path to monetization ends here.

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You can find out if your genius zone has monetization potential by answering two simple questions:

• What is the transformation that comes out of work in your genius zone?
• Who has a problem that requires that transformation?

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For the first example:

Genius zone: Solving a Rubik’s cube

Transformation: An unfinished puzzle —> a completed puzzle

Who requires this transformation? No one. Here’s our dead end.

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Now, let’s take another example:

Genius zone: Spotting operational inefficiencies

Transformation: Clunky operation —> prioritized list of improvements

Who requires this transformation:

• Physical goods: Factories, refineries, manufacturers
• Transportation: airlines, freighters, ride-shares
• Professional services: law firms, consulting firms, accounting firms
• Functional departments: IT, procurement, product, sales
• … the list is likely indefinite

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Your genius zone likely falls somewhere in between these two examples.

For reflection:

• Can you articulate the transformation that comes out of your ‘genius’ work?
• Can you think of at least 3 types of client profiles that require that transformation?

From there, we can start to explore viability and positioning.

💡

-Wes