Business Growth Development Consultant

No matter how good your sales and marketing is, it will become ineffective in the long run if your products and services are a pile of tut.

Even Sir Alan Sugar, who’s been labelled himself for producing some questionable products said (and rather well) during one of the apprentice shows:

“I sent you out on a mission to France, to sell quality British products. I gave you a list of organic farmers, people who use tender love and care to create something special, that they take a pride in. And I wanted you to take that product and say “This is what us British produce, this is not mass-produced tut…” and what you do, is you go and buy a breeze block-load of bloody cheddar cheese!”

Your Product Or Service Is Not “Tut” Because YOU Think So

Just because you think your latest product or services is great or whizz bang doesn’t mean that your customers will agree and serving up any old tut because you think you can is not a strategy for growth.

Having the right product or service is AS essential as being good at selling and marketing.  It won’t be long before your customers find out that what you say is not the way and they will vote with their feet and leave.

If your constantly looking for new customers to fill this gap because your products or services don’t meet with your customers expectations then you are going to have a pretty tough life in business.

How To Avoiding Having “Tut” Products Or Services

The right product or service is one that that customers need, want or desire.  It has to fill a gap that is not currently being filled either well, or at all, and it must be done consistently.

Good sales and marketing can be an essential part of the innovation process as your market is usually the best source of ideas as they will be the ones that ultimately have the problems or desires that your innovations can address.

If you don’t treat them right, they are unlikely to tell you anything, especially ways that you can badly treat them again.

When you truly take the time to understand your market, opportunities will continue to open up before you, but failing to do so will close the door in your face.

It’s insulting to anybody to be fed a pack of lies about a product or service or presented with something that is just so ordinary and boring that its not worth their time and effort to be bothered with, so why would you do that ?

Why is it that so many companies think they can get away with supplying tut when the premise of business is based on serving your customer.  How long would a restaurant last if its food was tut, if the clothes you bought from the same shop kept falling apart because they were tut would you go back ?

Create Value Before Your Products And Services Becomes “Tut”

I remember working for a software company that charged premium (hefty) maintenance fees for an excellent product, yet customers were beginning to complain because they didn’t see any value in the maintenance fees as all they were getting was a CD with the latest revisions on it

So we decided to add some considerable value and made more effective use of the application and support engineers on the team by building in a series of regular visits and live project development assistance with customers on contract.  This enabled us to work more closely with the customer and was a win win for both of us.

People using the software got extra support and help to get projects done and we got to understand what worked and what didn’t and to build more effective case studies and stories which helped to sell more software and to keep more customers on maintenance contract while we delivered more value.

So lets stop trying to force feed customers with breeze block-loads of cheddar cheese products and services and start creating something with real substance and flavour that addresses the needs of a market today, something that suppliers and customers care about and are passionate about, something that will make your customers love you.  We all want to be loved.

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