Dewey's Reflective Thinking for challenging solopreneurs' assumptions

Chris finally got her course going.

It was a bit of a challenge.

After the problems with the checkout page.

After the fixes based on the bad review.

Now she is looking at low enrollment numbers.

The webinars got great reviews. Everyone was excited to dive deeper into the topics she presented.

Then, not many people signed up.

Chris is staring at the analytics dashboard, her mind already running ahead to chase a solution.

Then she has a thought. What if she lowers the price?

Challenge your assumptions with Dewey's Reflective Thinking.

Step 1. Why saves the day everyday.

Chris stopped herself before letting the autopilot take over. She took a deep breath and asked herself. "Why would I think about lowering the price?".

She remembered when someone else had told her they used that method, like it was the norm. Could the usual solution be the best solution for this one case?

What makes her think it's the only solution?

She kept asking herself "why" for each answer she gave. Time and time again.

Why did she assume what she did?

Step 2. If not this, then what?

Once she decided she was happy with how deep she'd dug, she moved on to brainstorming other possibilities. The general rule is to answer at least "why" five times.

When she was done, she listed a few more possible issues. And with them, one strategy for each — should that one be the solution.

The list included communication of value, price, offer, and so on.

Which one was the real reason for the low sales?

Step 3. Don't just go for the first solution you see.

Dropping the price is a one-way ticket, so Chris decided to test an option she could come back from.

She added a "Premium" option with extra perks, as well as a "Trial Plan."

We'll have to wait and see what the results say.

Step 4: Verify your number and always have one!

Before waiting the required amount of time, Chris wrote down the current number of students enrolled (we'll call this value pre_test_enrollment) and the monthly rate of enrollment up to this point (we'll call this value monthly_enrollment_rate).

The test would be a success if after one month:

latest_tot_enrollment > pre_test_enrollment + monthly_enrollment_rate

What if it's better but still not quite good enough?

It doesn't say anywhere that it had to be the one issue causing the low enrollment (you should use reflective thinking and ask yourself, "Why would you think that?" ). There could be a bunch of issues piling up.

Chris managed to avoid a costly mistake, and he's got a few strategies ready to try out.

Good luck to her.

And good luck to you too.