The Seven Deadly Sins of Not Marketing Your Own Product
| Category: Marketing | Date: 2003-03-31 |
To thrive in business you need a product or service to sell.
You have two basic choices, sell your own products or sell someone else's.
This is not a choice to be made lightly. All your valuable time and money spent from this moment on will be wasted if you have not made the correct choice.
Here's a little story that illustrates my point.
5 years ago I met a fascinating businessman who had, at the age of 28, left a six-figure income at a large corporation to join "the" hot direct sales company selling water purifiers, nutritional products, and many other products.
He had built an organization that was incredibly large and had sales in the high six-figures when things suddenly dried up on him. In less than 12-months, he was down to half of where he was just a few short months before.
The market dried up, many of his distributors left, his product line became diluted - the bottom dropped out of his business.
Next was a small start-up distributorship where he was given both a role in the corporation and a cut of the commissions. Let me tell you, this guy could market and sell, had a super business mind and was a great guy to be around.
A year later, the business upon which he based his future had gone under - seems the owners of the company had some very bad business practices.
I recently called up this friend only to find that he had been with no less than 3 other companies in the last few years - none of them allowing him to reach his goals.
This is but one story that demonstrates the pitfalls of relying on anyone else's products to help achieve your major career or financial goals. Selling other people's products definitely has its place - but it is essential to build a stable base for your company with your own product first.
What's the result of not leading with your own product...?
The 7 deadly sins, of course....
1. You sacrifice product ownership, control, quality and distribution for the convenience of having someone else worry about it
2. You let someone else control how you can market their product. Rules are put in place to limit your creativity and differentiation.
3. You place short-term financial interests ahead of longer term goals. You can't rely on your host company, no matter who they are, to still be in business in the same form even a few months from now. This is in exchange for the ease of getting into business fast.
4. You make the ultimate concession to give control of the powerful customer to someone else. It's the least you can do for someone to pay you just to sell their product?
5. You make the assumption that others have the same drive, determination, values, beliefs, goals, knowledge and intelligence as you have.
6. You place your reputation, trust, credibility and future ability to do business with your market into the hands of someone else.
7. You fall into the trap of thinking that creating your own product is more difficult and more costly than marketing and selling someone else's. That's not always the case.
Don't fall prey to the 7 deadly sins, consider your product. You can get your own product by:
- creating one (information products are super since they are simple to create, are in high demand, have high profit margins, little or no cost to distribute and are very low risk)
- purchase rights to someone else's product (this can be a good technique, but there are many gotcha's to watch out for)
- partner to create a product.
Next time you consider what your business will be based on, balance the temptation to jump-in and earn some quick cash with the 7-deadly sins.
About the Author
Jeff Smith
WARNING! Don't Even Think About Developing Your Own Infoproduct Until You Have Discovered the Blockbuster "Insider" Tips Found in Jeff Smith's Ultimate Information Entrepreneur's Success Package. Get the Exact Techniques You Need To Earn Maximum Profit From Your Information. Visit: infoproductcreator.com
webmaster@infoproductcreator.com
http://www.infoproductcreator.com
You have two basic choices, sell your own products or sell someone else's.
This is not a choice to be made lightly. All your valuable time and money spent from this moment on will be wasted if you have not made the correct choice.
Here's a little story that illustrates my point.
5 years ago I met a fascinating businessman who had, at the age of 28, left a six-figure income at a large corporation to join "the" hot direct sales company selling water purifiers, nutritional products, and many other products.
He had built an organization that was incredibly large and had sales in the high six-figures when things suddenly dried up on him. In less than 12-months, he was down to half of where he was just a few short months before.
The market dried up, many of his distributors left, his product line became diluted - the bottom dropped out of his business.
Next was a small start-up distributorship where he was given both a role in the corporation and a cut of the commissions. Let me tell you, this guy could market and sell, had a super business mind and was a great guy to be around.
A year later, the business upon which he based his future had gone under - seems the owners of the company had some very bad business practices.
I recently called up this friend only to find that he had been with no less than 3 other companies in the last few years - none of them allowing him to reach his goals.
This is but one story that demonstrates the pitfalls of relying on anyone else's products to help achieve your major career or financial goals. Selling other people's products definitely has its place - but it is essential to build a stable base for your company with your own product first.
What's the result of not leading with your own product...?
The 7 deadly sins, of course....
1. You sacrifice product ownership, control, quality and distribution for the convenience of having someone else worry about it
2. You let someone else control how you can market their product. Rules are put in place to limit your creativity and differentiation.
3. You place short-term financial interests ahead of longer term goals. You can't rely on your host company, no matter who they are, to still be in business in the same form even a few months from now. This is in exchange for the ease of getting into business fast.
4. You make the ultimate concession to give control of the powerful customer to someone else. It's the least you can do for someone to pay you just to sell their product?
5. You make the assumption that others have the same drive, determination, values, beliefs, goals, knowledge and intelligence as you have.
6. You place your reputation, trust, credibility and future ability to do business with your market into the hands of someone else.
7. You fall into the trap of thinking that creating your own product is more difficult and more costly than marketing and selling someone else's. That's not always the case.
Don't fall prey to the 7 deadly sins, consider your product. You can get your own product by:
- creating one (information products are super since they are simple to create, are in high demand, have high profit margins, little or no cost to distribute and are very low risk)
- purchase rights to someone else's product (this can be a good technique, but there are many gotcha's to watch out for)
- partner to create a product.
Next time you consider what your business will be based on, balance the temptation to jump-in and earn some quick cash with the 7-deadly sins.
About the Author
Jeff Smith
WARNING! Don't Even Think About Developing Your Own Infoproduct Until You Have Discovered the Blockbuster "Insider" Tips Found in Jeff Smith's Ultimate Information Entrepreneur's Success Package. Get the Exact Techniques You Need To Earn Maximum Profit From Your Information. Visit: infoproductcreator.com
webmaster@infoproductcreator.com
http://www.infoproductcreator.com
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