Re:And if only 1% of those people...
by jacquesm on Sunday September 27, 2009 @06:52PM
(#847366)
The reverse of this is vapourware, marketing without a product behind it.
Kudos to the guy for trying, but sometimes it is better to anticipate a less than stellar showing and to plan accordingly.
What will strike consumers fancy is a very difficult and sometimes impossible to answer question. Some stuff that you see and think can't possibly sell will make someone a millionaire, another has a great and well thought out product but nobody needs it.
Most products end somewhere in the middle. Even the largest companies still struggle with this, occasionally their 'focus groups' get it so wrong it isn't even funny.
If you're in the 'brick & mortar' side of things then you will have learned the hard way that too little inventory is just as lethal as too much, to hit that sweet spot is quite hard.
A buddy of mine trades goods that he buys in bulk at bankruptcy auctions, the diversity of the goods is huge, as is the pricing. Every time he bids on a lot he has to make a gut call on how fast he'll be able to turn that stuff over, if he misjudges several times in a row it can seriously hurt his business. He has one golden rule that came out of doing this for a while: It's better to have money in your pocket than stuff you bought that you can't sell.
So he errs well on the side of caution, is prepared to let others get away with 'great deals' simply because he builds in a level of cushioning that he needs to maintain his balance. If he can't get it at the right price, he's better off without it.
It's hard, even with hindsight to tell the musician from the example how he could have done better, I've had some contact with a 'name' artist that produces his own CDs, his method is to go for the long term relationship with his customers, including samples, mailing lists and so on.
By the time his CDs are pressed he knows exactly how many he will sell short term and how many will take up space for some time to come.
Selling music of an unknown artist through a newspaper ad seems to be a mismatch of medium, chances are that through a better medium he'd have been able to move much more of his inventory.
Kudos to the guy for trying, but sometimes it is better to anticipate a less than stellar showing and to plan accordingly.
What will strike consumers fancy is a very difficult and sometimes impossible to answer question. Some stuff that you see and think can't possibly sell will make someone a millionaire, another has a great and well thought out product but nobody needs it.
Most products end somewhere in the middle. Even the largest companies still struggle with this, occasionally their 'focus groups' get it so wrong it isn't even funny.
If you're in the 'brick & mortar' side of things then you will have learned the hard way that too little inventory is just as lethal as too much, to hit that sweet spot is quite hard.
A buddy of mine trades goods that he buys in bulk at bankruptcy auctions, the diversity of the goods is huge, as is the pricing. Every time he bids on a lot he has to make a gut call on how fast he'll be able to turn that stuff over, if he misjudges several times in a row it can seriously hurt his business. He has one golden rule that came out of doing this for a while: It's better to have money in your pocket than stuff you bought that you can't sell.
So he errs well on the side of caution, is prepared to let others get away with 'great deals' simply because he builds in a level of cushioning that he needs to maintain his balance. If he can't get it at the right price, he's better off without it.
It's hard, even with hindsight to tell the musician from the example how he could have done better, I've had some contact with a 'name' artist that produces his own CDs, his method is to go for the long term relationship with his customers, including samples, mailing lists and so on.
By the time his CDs are pressed he knows exactly how many he will sell short term and how many will take up space for some time to come.
Selling music of an unknown artist through a newspaper ad seems to be a mismatch of medium, chances are that through a better medium he'd have been able to move much more of his inventory.