Here's the biggest business mistake you're making
You guys are sending in some pretty good questions, and I'm going to answer some of the best ones in the coming days. However, I have noticed one big theme running through the majority of the questions, and it is, quite frankly, why a lot of you guys aren't making any money.
Why is that? Because you're thinking about your business the wrong way, putting the product first instead of the customer.
I've received a significant amount of emails over the past few days, and they all say the same thing: "Mr. X, I have this product to sell, I own this website, how do I sell it?" Or even better, "I have a great product that sells itself, but no customers--can you help me?"
The hardest thing in the world to do is to try to sell a product to a group of customers who don't want it. The product itself is almost irrelevant. What's important are the end emotional results the customers want. The proper way to go about it is to find out everything you can about a market, then once you know what they want and respond to, write a sales letter or website, then create the product.
There are a lot of you guys out there trying to sell money-making products to a list of people who bought health products. This is no good--in order to be successful you have to sell the customer what they want, what they've already demonstrated they will buy.
If you happen to sell protein powders, the best customer to sell to is the guy who just bought some protein powder (like me).
If you have a book on how to play the guitar, the best customer is the person who just bought a book on how to play the guitar.
If you have an information product on how to lose weight, you want to sell to the person who's recently bought a book on how to lose weight.
If you can show someone how to make money online, then you want to sell to the person who has just purchased something that shows them how to make money online.
The biggest mistake most of you are making is trying to sell a product to someone who has not demonstrated any type of interest or buying behavior in that product category. What you want to do is find a group of trained buyers in your category of interest, then create or license a product to sell to them. Why "trained buyers?" Because they have already demonstrated they know how to buy the type of product you're selling.
The best place to look for trained buyers is in the SRDS (Standard Rate and Data Service) available at any library. The SRDS has all the commercially available mailing and email lists in the US and Canada. You would be amazed at how many categories of lists there are, and how much money people spend. The SRDS will tell you how big a list is, if it's a "buyers list" (and, unless you're an extremely sophisticated, deep pockets marketer you ONLY want to deal with buyers lists), and how many people recently bought.
SO... I'm going to assign you some "Mr. X homework." Your task is to go the library, find the SRDS and spend a day or two just looking through it, getting ideas for hot markets. This is also a very motivational exercise, as you'll get an idea of just how much money some people are making--for instance I recently saw a health list with 25,000 RECENT buyers of a supplement at $49 per bottle... that's $1,225,000.00 in gross sales. Not too shabby for a few months!
Thanks for the great questions, guys--keep 'em coming. Send them
to: marketingquestionsonly[at]michaelkimble.com
Let's get to it...
Mr. X.
Group M Marketing
Kimble and Kennedy Publishing
Why is that? Because you're thinking about your business the wrong way, putting the product first instead of the customer.
I've received a significant amount of emails over the past few days, and they all say the same thing: "Mr. X, I have this product to sell, I own this website, how do I sell it?" Or even better, "I have a great product that sells itself, but no customers--can you help me?"
The hardest thing in the world to do is to try to sell a product to a group of customers who don't want it. The product itself is almost irrelevant. What's important are the end emotional results the customers want. The proper way to go about it is to find out everything you can about a market, then once you know what they want and respond to, write a sales letter or website, then create the product.
There are a lot of you guys out there trying to sell money-making products to a list of people who bought health products. This is no good--in order to be successful you have to sell the customer what they want, what they've already demonstrated they will buy.
If you happen to sell protein powders, the best customer to sell to is the guy who just bought some protein powder (like me).
If you have a book on how to play the guitar, the best customer is the person who just bought a book on how to play the guitar.
If you have an information product on how to lose weight, you want to sell to the person who's recently bought a book on how to lose weight.
If you can show someone how to make money online, then you want to sell to the person who has just purchased something that shows them how to make money online.
The biggest mistake most of you are making is trying to sell a product to someone who has not demonstrated any type of interest or buying behavior in that product category. What you want to do is find a group of trained buyers in your category of interest, then create or license a product to sell to them. Why "trained buyers?" Because they have already demonstrated they know how to buy the type of product you're selling.
The best place to look for trained buyers is in the SRDS (Standard Rate and Data Service) available at any library. The SRDS has all the commercially available mailing and email lists in the US and Canada. You would be amazed at how many categories of lists there are, and how much money people spend. The SRDS will tell you how big a list is, if it's a "buyers list" (and, unless you're an extremely sophisticated, deep pockets marketer you ONLY want to deal with buyers lists), and how many people recently bought.
SO... I'm going to assign you some "Mr. X homework." Your task is to go the library, find the SRDS and spend a day or two just looking through it, getting ideas for hot markets. This is also a very motivational exercise, as you'll get an idea of just how much money some people are making--for instance I recently saw a health list with 25,000 RECENT buyers of a supplement at $49 per bottle... that's $1,225,000.00 in gross sales. Not too shabby for a few months!
Thanks for the great questions, guys--keep 'em coming. Send them
to: marketingquestionsonly[at]michaelkimble.com
Let's get to it...
Mr. X.
Group M Marketing
Kimble and Kennedy Publishing
