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How To Start Up And Drive A Successful Home Business
Marketing Is A Challenge – To Say The Least
Product or Service, Qualified Prospects and making contact are essentially the 3 most important elements of any successful business, be it home based, brick & mortar or Internet.
For the sake of this article we will focus on how to choose the right Product or service find the right prospect and then present it in a desirable way.
You Must Fill A Need
First off, there must be a need for your product of service. It doesn’t do any good to offer a product that no one wants. There probably wouldn’t be much demand for white washing Elephants or Alligator Dentistry so don’t go into these fields. Entrepreneur Magazine lists 'find a need and fill it' as Rule #1 for business start-ups and we couldn’t agree more.
What product appeals to the general public? Do not cater to a small segment unless your product is unique enough to fill the niche without being eaten up by the competition. You must investigate who has a need for your product then target that qualified prospect.
Develop Your Own Product
A few years ago we invented a carpet care product. There are dozens of products on the market manufactured by very large companies. Our approach was to produce a product so unique from the rest and with so many benefits, the prospect could not resist it. We settled on a product that utilized static attraction to lift the dirt from the carpet in one third the time as other products.
Who could use it? We investigated the market and found out health care facilities had to clean on a regular bases and their environment could not be compromised. This presented a perfect need for our product. In health care facilities they can not use hot water extraction on a continues bases so our very low moisture system found its niche.
Contact The Prospects
It was just a matter of setting up a campaign of letters, phone calls, supplying samples, and follow ups to convert the prospect to a customer. Because we were a small home based business, we didn’t have a budget to do a lot of advertising. We took the personal approach and every prospect within one hundred miles got a live product demonstration. Over the course of a few months we drove our income from zero to over one hundred thousand.
It also became apparent that, it took high energy to drive the whole project. The more energy that went in, the more income came out. There must be a law of physics or something that governs this approach to marketing because it works.
Each segment of the system or marketing ploy is a challenge in the making.
1. The Product. Just any old product won’t work. It has to be beneficial to the prospect. Chances are, he/she is already using a product that is doing the job, but you must convince him/her your product is worth changing to because it is going to make their life much easer. What benefits would be valued so highly that the prospect would be willing to change. How about cost, if the product will save them untold hours in labor or safety, or decreased damage to their facility? Your product has to be unique enough to make the prospect want to change.
2. The Qualified Prospect. There is no need to try to sell a carpet care product to a facility with no carpet or lamps to the blind. It’s that simple. Stick to approaching people who need your product and leave the others for another product and another day. We had a guy who’s job was to set up demonstrations for us. He wouldn’t bother to find out if they had a need or not, his objective was to get as many appointments for us as possible. Consequently, half of the people we went to see had no interest. They just said yes to get rid of our appointment set up man. I had to fire him because he would not listen to the person if they were a suspect or prospect. It cost us a lot of time and money before I ratified the problem. Always Qualify the person before commencing into a sales strategy.
3. The contact. This is where you get their attention. A well written letter or flyer gets their attention, and leads then to the sale. If more convincing is needed, direct the copy toward accepting something free, like a sample or more information. Some people respond well from copy alone, but most want more proof before they make a buying decision.
Not Everyone Is Easily Convinced
Los Vegas Casinos are notaries for using labor intensive, environmentally damaging products. Their hard headiness in accepting change called on hours of late night demonstrations before they could see the benefits in making any change. Some times you have to do what is necessary to convert the prospect into a customer.
You And Your Customer Are A Marriage
Just because you now have a customer, don’t thing he/she can’t be wooed away by some other merchant. That’s right, you and the customer are married. Like any marriage, you have to do your part to stay in the union. Your have to woo the customer, do a little extra, give a little and most of all learn to drip honey from the lip when in conversation. That’s right, sweet talk the customer, remember, you’re married.
The right Product, The right Prospect and the right marketing approach will make you a very successful and wealthy person. Follow the rules and good luck.
Happy Trails.