If you’ve considered building a product—whether it’s a book, a course, an application, or a program—you’ve likely run into a fair amount of doubt and a number of questions early in the process.

“What if no one wants to buy this?” “How can I convince people it’s valuable?” “What if people don’t get it?”

All this after you likely struggled to find your big idea in the first place. And if you’re like many people reading this blog, you still don’t know what that idea is—and you’re pre-worrying about the questions above.

The good news (and there’s lots of good news in this post) is that the answers to these questions are all related. Once you figure out one important thing, the rest should follow.

It all starts with asking a different question.

And that question is…

What do people want to buy?

The problem with sales isn’t that people don’t want to buy. We all love buying.

So if you ask yourself what people want to buy first, you negate the need to sell. You just create what people want to buy.

Of course, that sounds scary. What if you don’t want to make what people want to buy?

Here again, you need to look at it differently.

People don’t want to buy products. They want to buy outcomes.

Or as David Ogilvy once said, “People don’t buy drills. They buy holes.”

You can build anything you want, as long as it gets people to the outcome that they want to buy.

Do they want to learn a new skill? You can teach that skill in the manner you choose to get them there.

Do they want to change a bad habit or behavioral pattern? You can help them through that shift in the best way you know how.

Do they never want to be frustrated by that friend of theirs again? You can guide them to respond differently however you see fit.

Do they want to reach a big goal? You can create a unique path to get them there based on what you’re really passionate about.

Do they want to change how they see themselves in the mirror? You can build the product that makes that happen.

Build your product to sell and you’ll never feel like you’re selling again. All you need to do is tell the truth, speak openly and honestly about what your product is designed to help your customers accomplish, and they’ll do the rest.

Your customers don’t have to fully understand your product to buy it. They don’t have to be taught why they thing you’ve created is valuable. The only thing they need to understand is that your product was designed to help them get what they want, become the person they want to become, or change something they’ve been meaning to change.

When you build a product to sell, you can count on customer excitement to help you spread the word. You can count on your sales copy all but writing itself. You can count on your advertising to stick. You can count on each sales conversation you have being productive.

Building to sell isn’t a jail sentence; it is, in fact, the way you set your business free.