Lesson #3: The Best Product is the One that Sells Itself

“Developing and marketing a product are like left and right feet,” says Popeil. “They both have to work for the product to succeed.”

Popeil considers himself an inventor first and a marketer second. In his more than forty years in business, there is rarely a product that Popeil has tried to sell that either he or his father did not create themselves. By putting his own time and energy into making the product, Popeil has been able to reveal to his viewers a true passion behind the products he is selling. Indeed, it is this fact that he believes has help set himself apart from his competitors. According to Popeil, when product development and sales are separated, the negative results will speak for themselves.

“If you have that passion, it is conveyed through marketing,” says Popeil. “People see it. I get up before them and show them something new and wonderful.” But, it is a passion that only comes from having put so much effort into making the product in the first place. He may be one of the greatest salesmen there is, but Popeil says he probably could not sell a product like insurance. “It’s something that I didn’t create. When I create something, I believe in it, and I am very passionate about it.”

The home and kitchen gadget industry is a difficult one in which to stand out. But, the reason so many of his competitors failed is because they took what Popeil calls the “spaghetti approach.” They “throw a lot of stuff against the wall and hope something sticks. The failure rate is dependent solely on what you’re throwing up against the wall.” That has never been Popeil’s style. Rather, he says, “I’m willing to make a serious investment in an idea and take two to two and one-half years of my life to create it, to get behind it and understand it and take it to the marketplace.”

Popeil never separated product development from marketing because, in his mind, the product that sold best was the one that sold itself. In his infomercials, he was simply there to help it along. However, that did not mean that Popeil went ahead and tried to create every whacky idea that came into his head. Granted he had some failures – the combined portable garbage and stool among them – but by and large, Popeil had a unique knack for reading his customers.

“First, I see what is needed in the marketplace,” he says. “The next thing is I ask what’s out there. What you don’t want to do is come up with a product and then find out that someone is successfully marketing a good product and can take business away.”

Popeil is a practical man and his products arise from a practical need that he sees in the market. Once, after noticing a bald spot on the back of his head, Popeil decided to do something about it. And so, he created his famous spray-on hair. “If you create a product that’s needed in the marketplace,” he says, “people are going to buy it. It’s so easy for me to sell my products because the market exists.”



Lesson #3: The Best Product is the One that Sells Itself

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