Three months to design and make the product. One month to put together the customer list for a direct marketing approach. Another month to design and print brochures, creation of PDF based forms for orders, write letters and then send out sample products. Guess what – I didn’t sell a single piece of that product – and I have no regrets.
Think of everything you do as an experiment. If things work out – great. If not, then what did you learn.
Whatever happens, the market is right. You can complain about customers not understanding the design or the great value for money or your great service, however, if they aren’t buying it is because you need to sell them something else.
The trick is to limit the cost of your failures. Don’t bet the whole company on a new product, hedge your bets a bit. Dip your toes in the water, learn how things work, see what customers really want and then sell it to them.
Even big companies hedge their bets. For example major mining or oil and gas companies form joint ventures with other major companies. The reason they do this is that some projects are so big that failure would bankrupt the company.
Think about trialling your products and limit your exposure to what you can afford. But remember the old saying that if you aren’t failing every now and then you aren’t trying hard enough.
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