Michael S. Winicki
May 17, 2002, 09:08 AM
We’re all looking for it…the ultimate target group of consumers that will or can:
1. Want our products or services.
2. Afford our products or services.
3. Not easily wooed by competitors.
4. Can be easily identified and accessed.
5. The cost of acquiring those customers is much less than the total lifetime profit they’ll yield.
The problem is, as we know, finding this group.
We think about markets…we think about products—and try to merge the two together in perfect union.
I think this is virtually impossible using thought alone. It’s sort of like ‘flight’. We can fly, but only with mechanical assistance. Same thing with developing a successful business through the activity of selling a product or service to a target group of consumers…we can’t do it through thought alone.
Think of companies that control their markets as perfectly as anyone could—companies like Microsoft.
I posted here once before the story of how Microsoft often went to trade shows with multitudes of different products to the point their booth looked more like something that belonged in a flea market. While their competition would show one or two products, Microsoft would pump out many…always hoping to strike gold with one or two. We all see Microsoft’s successes but what about the failures? They are out there. Remember “Bob”? There are plenty more that aren’t or weren’t quite as visible as ‘Bob’, but they are there.
Not too far from where I live is a ‘Consumer product’ museum where on display are hundreds of failed consumer products (there is also a book out there on this museum). Huge companies like Proctor and Gamble will launch many products. These products have passed through many channels and even been tested on focus groups to the point that P&G has faith in the ultimate success in the product. Yet the market rebels.
The question becomes if these large companies can’t guarantee the success of their products and end up having to launch many in order to have one or two winners what makes us think we can be instantly successful with one or two products…and even worse we can promote or kill these products without adequately testing them?
The truth is we can’t…never could, never will.
Lets look at smaller examples than Microsoft or P&G.
We often talk about Ben Suarez and his story, chronicled in his book, “7 Steps To Freedom”. And in the book, Mr. Suarez talks at length about what he went through to get his company launched. And it’s not some ‘feel-good’ story. It took a lot of money and a lot of testing. And quite truthfully, all of the product ideas Ben Suarez had at the beginning, crashed & burned. It took an idea from Gary Halbert, and much prodding to get Ben Suarez to test the idea. The rest as they say is history but that is not to say, Ben Suarez has not had many product failures since then because he has but he kept testing new ideas hoping to find that one or two that took off. But the fact remains, Ben Suarez never envisioned selling ‘Astrology’ related products at the very beginning. He went with what he thought were good products but the market said NO.
Was Gary Halbert’s astrology idea a stroke of genius? From reading “7 Steps” it appears that Gary looked at the market and thought Astrology products would work. Let’s look at Gary Halbert’s story. He admits himself that he tried marketing a variety of products, which failed miserably, before he hit a home run with his famous ‘Nancy’ letter. But even this was not a clear thought in the middle of the night but Gary found a story of some older woman that was doing something similar and Gary took the idea and rolled it out to the masses. And even since the ‘Nancy’ letter, Gary has tried marketing various other ideas that never took off.
My former mentor, Mr. Johnny Berguson, of the large mail order/catalog company Kingdom Inc. started his company with the idea of selling audio programs on horse training. But due to an incredible error by card-deck printing company, Johnny ended up selling tons of blank audiocassettes…completely by accident. Today, Kingdom Inc. is the largest seller of blank audiocassettes and high-speed duplicators in the world to the religious market.
Land’s End, which recently was sold to Sears for more than a billion dollars was started by someone that was marketing boating supplies by catalog. Guess what? Land’s End started putting some apparel also and it took off--big time! But that wouldn’t have happened if they weren’t in business to begin with and it happened almost by accident.
Ted Nicholas certainly didn’t know for sure if his book, “How to Form a Corporation for $50” was going to be a winner or not until he spent a little money and ran a small ad in the “Wall Street Journal”.
J. Peterman didn’t know marketing his famous ‘Duster’ would be financially lucrative until he placed some small ads. And get this, the first ads he placed in newspapers failed completely. It was only after he placed a small ad in the “New Yorker” that he really started seeing some return.
My point is that finding your ‘ultimate market’ is quite often different than getting an instant brilliant moment. Quite often it is done accidentally or through ‘dumb luck’. And it seems you have to have a multitude of product ideas in order for one or two to have any chance at life. As much as we like to think differently, the ultimate success of our products really isn’t up to us. All we can do is allocate some needed resources and let the market decide. The problems I see with many people are:
1. They don’t allocate the needed resources to the project. Instead they try to do everything without spending a single dime.
2. They don’t have a variety of products or services to test. If the one they have doesn’t pan out, they’re dead in the water.
3. Of course you can overspend testing a product or service. You ignore what the market tells you and continue pressing on. But I see number 1 and number 2 happen much more frequently than this one.
Are you waiting for that ‘Brilliant’ moment or are you grabbing the bull by the horns and trying different things, different concepts? Truthfully we really don’t know what will work or what won’t.
Take care,
Mike Winicki
1. Want our products or services.
2. Afford our products or services.
3. Not easily wooed by competitors.
4. Can be easily identified and accessed.
5. The cost of acquiring those customers is much less than the total lifetime profit they’ll yield.
The problem is, as we know, finding this group.
We think about markets…we think about products—and try to merge the two together in perfect union.
I think this is virtually impossible using thought alone. It’s sort of like ‘flight’. We can fly, but only with mechanical assistance. Same thing with developing a successful business through the activity of selling a product or service to a target group of consumers…we can’t do it through thought alone.
Think of companies that control their markets as perfectly as anyone could—companies like Microsoft.
I posted here once before the story of how Microsoft often went to trade shows with multitudes of different products to the point their booth looked more like something that belonged in a flea market. While their competition would show one or two products, Microsoft would pump out many…always hoping to strike gold with one or two. We all see Microsoft’s successes but what about the failures? They are out there. Remember “Bob”? There are plenty more that aren’t or weren’t quite as visible as ‘Bob’, but they are there.
Not too far from where I live is a ‘Consumer product’ museum where on display are hundreds of failed consumer products (there is also a book out there on this museum). Huge companies like Proctor and Gamble will launch many products. These products have passed through many channels and even been tested on focus groups to the point that P&G has faith in the ultimate success in the product. Yet the market rebels.
The question becomes if these large companies can’t guarantee the success of their products and end up having to launch many in order to have one or two winners what makes us think we can be instantly successful with one or two products…and even worse we can promote or kill these products without adequately testing them?
The truth is we can’t…never could, never will.
Lets look at smaller examples than Microsoft or P&G.
We often talk about Ben Suarez and his story, chronicled in his book, “7 Steps To Freedom”. And in the book, Mr. Suarez talks at length about what he went through to get his company launched. And it’s not some ‘feel-good’ story. It took a lot of money and a lot of testing. And quite truthfully, all of the product ideas Ben Suarez had at the beginning, crashed & burned. It took an idea from Gary Halbert, and much prodding to get Ben Suarez to test the idea. The rest as they say is history but that is not to say, Ben Suarez has not had many product failures since then because he has but he kept testing new ideas hoping to find that one or two that took off. But the fact remains, Ben Suarez never envisioned selling ‘Astrology’ related products at the very beginning. He went with what he thought were good products but the market said NO.
Was Gary Halbert’s astrology idea a stroke of genius? From reading “7 Steps” it appears that Gary looked at the market and thought Astrology products would work. Let’s look at Gary Halbert’s story. He admits himself that he tried marketing a variety of products, which failed miserably, before he hit a home run with his famous ‘Nancy’ letter. But even this was not a clear thought in the middle of the night but Gary found a story of some older woman that was doing something similar and Gary took the idea and rolled it out to the masses. And even since the ‘Nancy’ letter, Gary has tried marketing various other ideas that never took off.
My former mentor, Mr. Johnny Berguson, of the large mail order/catalog company Kingdom Inc. started his company with the idea of selling audio programs on horse training. But due to an incredible error by card-deck printing company, Johnny ended up selling tons of blank audiocassettes…completely by accident. Today, Kingdom Inc. is the largest seller of blank audiocassettes and high-speed duplicators in the world to the religious market.
Land’s End, which recently was sold to Sears for more than a billion dollars was started by someone that was marketing boating supplies by catalog. Guess what? Land’s End started putting some apparel also and it took off--big time! But that wouldn’t have happened if they weren’t in business to begin with and it happened almost by accident.
Ted Nicholas certainly didn’t know for sure if his book, “How to Form a Corporation for $50” was going to be a winner or not until he spent a little money and ran a small ad in the “Wall Street Journal”.
J. Peterman didn’t know marketing his famous ‘Duster’ would be financially lucrative until he placed some small ads. And get this, the first ads he placed in newspapers failed completely. It was only after he placed a small ad in the “New Yorker” that he really started seeing some return.
My point is that finding your ‘ultimate market’ is quite often different than getting an instant brilliant moment. Quite often it is done accidentally or through ‘dumb luck’. And it seems you have to have a multitude of product ideas in order for one or two to have any chance at life. As much as we like to think differently, the ultimate success of our products really isn’t up to us. All we can do is allocate some needed resources and let the market decide. The problems I see with many people are:
1. They don’t allocate the needed resources to the project. Instead they try to do everything without spending a single dime.
2. They don’t have a variety of products or services to test. If the one they have doesn’t pan out, they’re dead in the water.
3. Of course you can overspend testing a product or service. You ignore what the market tells you and continue pressing on. But I see number 1 and number 2 happen much more frequently than this one.
Are you waiting for that ‘Brilliant’ moment or are you grabbing the bull by the horns and trying different things, different concepts? Truthfully we really don’t know what will work or what won’t.
Take care,
Mike Winicki
