- Original Poster
- #1
I haven't been a member on this forum for long, but I would say within a couple of days I had noticed some trends when it comes to getting products out to market which I find puzzling to say the least. This is a tongue in cheek light hearted little ditty that MAY help, so don't get all snotty with me if you disagree with any of it - it is merely food for thought 
The advent of the internet is a wonderful thing, there is no doubt about it, but there is the common perception that new entrepreneurs simply have a brilliant business idea then slap it out onto the net with a website and the money rolls in soon after. Dream on.
When it doesn't roll in as anticipated, then other sales methods are tried like brochures, flyers, telesales, hopping on one leg, busking outside the Odeon, it matters not, because the results are still the same - not a lot.
I class all of these sales methods as the "ZIG ZAG Sales Plan"TM because they start with very good intentions, fail, then return to start position and then try something else, which doesn't work, so back we go . . . . . . . .
And the reason WHY they don't work is because that one vital component in the whole business process has been leapfrogged or bypassed and it's called "Marketing". Now this isn't any form of black art or Voodoo, it doesn't need Lark's Tongues and Crow's Feet boiling in a cauldron while dancing naked and chanting ancient mystic texts, it is all about asking some simple fundamental questions, using the power of common sense coupled with a Degree In The Bleeding Obvious from the school of Logical Thinking. Crikey, where's that?
It's all very well for example designing a new Widget, but who is going to buy it?
Question One: "Who is going to buy it?"
Answer One: "The people who are likely to want it!"
Is it a universal product for every man, woman and child on the planet? It is for industrial or domestic use? Those two questions have chopped out several BILLION people you don't need to contact and you have automatically saved money by not aligning your sales activities for those objectives. You then ask more and more similar questions to narrow down the field of people that actually are going to buy your Widget because they have a clearly defined need for it. Let's give it a name then; "Segmenting" has a nice ring to it, so we'll use that. "I like Marketing now, it has saved me time and money". Ooer missus.
Question Two: "How will I sell it?"
Answer Two: "The way people want to buy it!"
What? Is he mad? :| Think about it. What quantity is your buyer going to purchase your Widget? One at a time, or millions at a time? If the buyer only needs one which lasts a lifetime, what are you doing telling them they must buy at least a 1,000? Maybe you need a distributor who buys the 1,000s and sell them one at a time to the end buyer. Not everyone has a computer (well they might, but using it properly is another matter), many don't TRUST t'internet so there is another hurdle to overcome. Some people wil only do business face-to-face on a warm handshake, so does your business plan account for this. Ask away reader, ask away.
Question Three: "How much should I sell it for?"
Answer Three: "What it is worth!"
This really is a loaded question because the answers are convoluted, but bear with me. You could of course mimic your competitor's pricing. "Haven't got any" you say. OK, then what are the BENEFITS to your buyer? Balance that against what it has cost you to make and how well you did your "Segmenting" bit above. Is it a lifestyle product bestowing status upon your buyer? Is it a product that lurks under the kitchen sink doing it's job unattended in perpetuity? The variables are endless, so I won't expand on this - that is your job dear reader and how I make my living by helping others succeed.
"There is a forest of competitors out there, all selling at the same price, should I be concerned?" If you are a wimp, then yes you should and give up now. What might set your Widget apart from the others? Price? Only if you can get it into your head that you have to be MORE efficient and with a strict consistancy than your competitors in making that product for less money at the same overheads and margins as they probably have. I know so many companies that naively believed they were super efficient enough to do that, but their names are beautifully carved onto the tombstones of insolvency history. It can be done, but it is a rocky road.
Price isn't everything though, so the cute cookies do their homework about their competitors and if they are good, will find the chinks to attack through. Quality. I don't just mean the finished article standards, I mean Quality from the entire organisation. What is the point of having stunning sales figures, while at the same time losing it out of the back door through poor "customer service". Don't answer your phone, don't reply to emails, send out erroneous invoices, fail to meet delivery deadlines, etc., etc., and goodbye customer. Excellent, they are available to buy your Widget and get none of those problems from you. Hopefully. Incidentally, this is another part of Marketing, in that it is the end of the closed loop that you initially created and a measurement of how well you did your Marketing to begin with, because the internal marketing of your business is equally as important.
Question Four: "How do I achieve all that?"
Answer: "Telepathy!"
I am not joking and have never been more serious. No, actually it's more like the Vulcan Mind Meld that Mr Spock from Star Trek used to be honest more than outright telepathy, so I will explain. What you MUST do is work backwards from your Customer to you in a logical manner using the sales process as the route. Ask yourself "If I were my customer wanting to buy a Widget, how would I go about getting one?". What would trigger the need for a Widget? What would the buyer consider to be the priority in the purchase, be it price, quality and delivery (The three basics of Purchasing) and have I met all three criteria for my buyer? If I modify my Widget slightly, can I then sell it in another industry? Goodness me, some lateral thinking! What media will I use to enable the buyer to contact me to buy? Is it wise to be advertising brightly coloured Windsurfing Boards and wetsuits in the annual Residential Home Magazine? Errrrm, no.
You can fatten out the principles outlined above by carrying out the outdated but still useful "SWOT Analysis". Take an A4 sheet of paper and draw centrelines down the horizontal width and across the vertical half way so you have a large crucifix type cross from top to bottom and from side to side. In the top left hand panel write the word "Strengths", then in the top right hand panel write the word "WEAKNESSES", then in the bottom left panel write the word "OPPORTUNITIES" and lastly the words "THREATS". the first letter of these four words add up to S.W.O.T, the SWOT Analysis. Next you need to be brutal and 100% honest (for your sake) about the strengths and weaknesses your business has and if you have weaknesses then try to counter them or eliminate them using your strength, if not create an action plan to address your weakness, then draw a line from one to the other across the panes. Do the same with the opportunities and threats panels. Keep this sheet of paper as a record of your progress and the action plan for the future.
And so we come full circle in this little epilogue. I have condensed the Marketing down into the sort of package that is maybe a step in the right direction so the layman can grasp the basics and use Marketing as a sort of Satnav to use on the road to success in the business world, because from what I have seen so far even the old fashioned Road Atlas of marketing is not being used any more. Hence there is a stream of postings on here which begin with something like "I need telesales cos my sales is poor", "Email addresses needed urgently" and such-like.
The advent of the internet is a wonderful thing, there is no doubt about it, but there is the common perception that new entrepreneurs simply have a brilliant business idea then slap it out onto the net with a website and the money rolls in soon after. Dream on.
When it doesn't roll in as anticipated, then other sales methods are tried like brochures, flyers, telesales, hopping on one leg, busking outside the Odeon, it matters not, because the results are still the same - not a lot.
I class all of these sales methods as the "ZIG ZAG Sales Plan"TM because they start with very good intentions, fail, then return to start position and then try something else, which doesn't work, so back we go . . . . . . . .
And the reason WHY they don't work is because that one vital component in the whole business process has been leapfrogged or bypassed and it's called "Marketing". Now this isn't any form of black art or Voodoo, it doesn't need Lark's Tongues and Crow's Feet boiling in a cauldron while dancing naked and chanting ancient mystic texts, it is all about asking some simple fundamental questions, using the power of common sense coupled with a Degree In The Bleeding Obvious from the school of Logical Thinking. Crikey, where's that?
It's all very well for example designing a new Widget, but who is going to buy it?
Question One: "Who is going to buy it?"
Answer One: "The people who are likely to want it!"
Is it a universal product for every man, woman and child on the planet? It is for industrial or domestic use? Those two questions have chopped out several BILLION people you don't need to contact and you have automatically saved money by not aligning your sales activities for those objectives. You then ask more and more similar questions to narrow down the field of people that actually are going to buy your Widget because they have a clearly defined need for it. Let's give it a name then; "Segmenting" has a nice ring to it, so we'll use that. "I like Marketing now, it has saved me time and money". Ooer missus.
Question Two: "How will I sell it?"
Answer Two: "The way people want to buy it!"
What? Is he mad? :| Think about it. What quantity is your buyer going to purchase your Widget? One at a time, or millions at a time? If the buyer only needs one which lasts a lifetime, what are you doing telling them they must buy at least a 1,000? Maybe you need a distributor who buys the 1,000s and sell them one at a time to the end buyer. Not everyone has a computer (well they might, but using it properly is another matter), many don't TRUST t'internet so there is another hurdle to overcome. Some people wil only do business face-to-face on a warm handshake, so does your business plan account for this. Ask away reader, ask away.
Question Three: "How much should I sell it for?"
Answer Three: "What it is worth!"
This really is a loaded question because the answers are convoluted, but bear with me. You could of course mimic your competitor's pricing. "Haven't got any" you say. OK, then what are the BENEFITS to your buyer? Balance that against what it has cost you to make and how well you did your "Segmenting" bit above. Is it a lifestyle product bestowing status upon your buyer? Is it a product that lurks under the kitchen sink doing it's job unattended in perpetuity? The variables are endless, so I won't expand on this - that is your job dear reader and how I make my living by helping others succeed.
"There is a forest of competitors out there, all selling at the same price, should I be concerned?" If you are a wimp, then yes you should and give up now. What might set your Widget apart from the others? Price? Only if you can get it into your head that you have to be MORE efficient and with a strict consistancy than your competitors in making that product for less money at the same overheads and margins as they probably have. I know so many companies that naively believed they were super efficient enough to do that, but their names are beautifully carved onto the tombstones of insolvency history. It can be done, but it is a rocky road.
Price isn't everything though, so the cute cookies do their homework about their competitors and if they are good, will find the chinks to attack through. Quality. I don't just mean the finished article standards, I mean Quality from the entire organisation. What is the point of having stunning sales figures, while at the same time losing it out of the back door through poor "customer service". Don't answer your phone, don't reply to emails, send out erroneous invoices, fail to meet delivery deadlines, etc., etc., and goodbye customer. Excellent, they are available to buy your Widget and get none of those problems from you. Hopefully. Incidentally, this is another part of Marketing, in that it is the end of the closed loop that you initially created and a measurement of how well you did your Marketing to begin with, because the internal marketing of your business is equally as important.
Question Four: "How do I achieve all that?"
Answer: "Telepathy!"
I am not joking and have never been more serious. No, actually it's more like the Vulcan Mind Meld that Mr Spock from Star Trek used to be honest more than outright telepathy, so I will explain. What you MUST do is work backwards from your Customer to you in a logical manner using the sales process as the route. Ask yourself "If I were my customer wanting to buy a Widget, how would I go about getting one?". What would trigger the need for a Widget? What would the buyer consider to be the priority in the purchase, be it price, quality and delivery (The three basics of Purchasing) and have I met all three criteria for my buyer? If I modify my Widget slightly, can I then sell it in another industry? Goodness me, some lateral thinking! What media will I use to enable the buyer to contact me to buy? Is it wise to be advertising brightly coloured Windsurfing Boards and wetsuits in the annual Residential Home Magazine? Errrrm, no.
You can fatten out the principles outlined above by carrying out the outdated but still useful "SWOT Analysis". Take an A4 sheet of paper and draw centrelines down the horizontal width and across the vertical half way so you have a large crucifix type cross from top to bottom and from side to side. In the top left hand panel write the word "Strengths", then in the top right hand panel write the word "WEAKNESSES", then in the bottom left panel write the word "OPPORTUNITIES" and lastly the words "THREATS". the first letter of these four words add up to S.W.O.T, the SWOT Analysis. Next you need to be brutal and 100% honest (for your sake) about the strengths and weaknesses your business has and if you have weaknesses then try to counter them or eliminate them using your strength, if not create an action plan to address your weakness, then draw a line from one to the other across the panes. Do the same with the opportunities and threats panels. Keep this sheet of paper as a record of your progress and the action plan for the future.
And so we come full circle in this little epilogue. I have condensed the Marketing down into the sort of package that is maybe a step in the right direction so the layman can grasp the basics and use Marketing as a sort of Satnav to use on the road to success in the business world, because from what I have seen so far even the old fashioned Road Atlas of marketing is not being used any more. Hence there is a stream of postings on here which begin with something like "I need telesales cos my sales is poor", "Email addresses needed urgently" and such-like.
Last edited:
