Every great business is based on salesmanship, and you have to learn how to do it if you’re going to succeed as an entrepreneur. Yes having good products might matter, but the trick is to make those products appealing and accessible to everyone regardless of financial differences of customers.
The message I am trying to pass in this post is simple; most business people are leaving a lot of money on the table and don’t even know it. They are limiting their revenue by forcing their goods to be contained to limited numbers of customers, due to outdated packaging or display. The cure for the marginal revenues is to ‘think beyond’ the factory package standard, especially for consumer products like beverages and foods.
Let me show you with a recent real-life example. My nephew had recently launched a wine shop and a beverage outlet. His early business plan focused solely on carton and wholesale sales, a fine but narrow plan. Nothing really wrong with the plan per se, but he was rejecting a big opportunity right in his face.
The shop’s location also opened up a great opportunity for the business to graduate from mere wholesale to include retailing. The shop has a large space in front of it where people can sit and sip a some cold beer or wine with friends in the evening. This was massive opportunity for more revenue just waiting to be harvested. Timing matter here, otherwise someone else can take advantage of it.
So, what did I do? I explained to my nephew to work on this principle and changed the strategic focus of his startup. Expectedly, he purchased a new fridge and arranged a nice little spot with plastic chairs and tables outside of his shop. His charming personality was in fact a bonus, because his friends and passerby could now buy and enjoy anything cold, from mineral to bottled water to wine. And that’s the brilliance of strategic selling, simple and adaptable. Smart business owners know that products can be repackaged and rebranded in smaller quantities to better serve customers and increase profits. This adaptability is frequently the difference between good and great business.
The simplicity and effective repackaging demonstrates the capacity of changing the way products are marketed and sold to more buyers for multiple profits from one underlying product. By incorporating a break and repackaging component to his wholesale business, he simply doubled his customers without introducing new products.
The lesson here is more general than for retail or drinks business. There’s no business accomplishment that doesn’t incorporate some imaginative thought about how things can be packaged or branded and presented to a different customer group. More frequently, the best opportunities demand no new products at all, just new ways of marketing old ones.
Remember, it’s not just about having the right products to generate the most revenue in the business, it’s about identifying and seizing opportunities to serve customers in a variety of ways. The clever business owners are constantly searching for new ways to get their products out there and more customers wanting them.
If you are a business owner looking for ways to supplement to increase sales, the lesson is obvious, check what you are re doing today and identify unrealized opportunity. Your next big stream of income could be just on the table staring you in the face and just waiting for you to tweak one or two products of your existing business stock.