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Remedy #1 for product launches/start ups: Part 2

Guest post by: Neil Mahoney

Article Overview: Beware of these 3 serious errors: 1. Incorrectly identifying your prospects' real & recognized needs 2. Failure to properly & precisely position your product 3. Overestimating/Underestimating the size of the market -- both in units & dollars

Remedy #1 for product launches/start ups: Part 2

In our most-recent article, which discussed how to avoid the many dangers involved in product launches and start ups, we detailed the 8 critical actions necessary to assure that you identify the real & recognized needs of your key prospects. One thing that needs to be emphasized is that in trying to identify these real and recognized needs, and then expressing them clearly to these same prospects, you want to be sure you're talking their language - the jargon that's used in their industry -- not in yours. This is very important at the early stage of the process:

• when you're preparing the questionnaires you'll be using to learn their real and recognized wants and needs

• when you're evaluating the responses you get from them

Moving on to developing your pithy, persuasive Positioning Statement, here are the major factors you must consider:

1. Your Positioning Statement should be phrased in the language your prospects readily understand

2. The strongest statements begin with "The only. . ." and use no more than 20 words

Before trying to learn your prospect's real & recognized wants and needs, identify your top sales opportunities - those 3 or 4 top markets that will account for most of the industry's sales -- or at least that part you can compete for -- assuming you can meet their real & recognized wants and needs.

Once you've done that and learned your prospects' wants and needs through detailed research, then:

A. Prioritize them in the order of your prospects' preferences - not yours.

B. Evaluate your strengths and weaknesses, in the order of your prospects' most-wanted benefits, and in relation to those of your competition.

C. Itemize your proven strengths according to your prospects' recognized and expressed preferences. The list of their top4 or5 preferences should focus on the most important ones -- keep it short.

D. Remember, benefits are what persuade prospects to buy. Features come second, they are important mainly because they demonstrate your ability to deliver the benefits you promise.

E. Also remember, a benefit that is highly important to your prospects, even though you may only have marginal superiority over competition, will result in greater sales than a benefit in which you have great superiority, but is less important to your prospects.

F. Express your strengths in terms of customer benefits - followed by features.

G. Develop your short, powerful Positioning Statement, which should begin with "The only. . ."

H. While one statement is best, tailor it to suit your top markets, if necessary.

I. Use it everywhere you can - Mission Statements, Elevator Pitches, Ad Campaigns, Publicity, Sales Materials, Direct Mail, Websites, etc.

J. Lastly and just as importantly: One of the most-common errors that is made with product launches and start ups, is overestimating or underestimating the size of your markets - both in units and in dollars.

MISREADING THE SIZE OF THE MARKET - both as to the number of prospects and the number of units that could be purchased - happens commonly even when using data provided by authoritative sources:

• Professional Associations - most industry associations are comprised of a small percent of all the companies or professionals who serve the market. However, they tend to represent the larger ones - the 20% who account for 80% of the business. If you use them to size your market universe, you'll underestimate the number of firms in the market considerably. If you use them as indicative of the amount of business the average firms do, you'll greatly overestimate the dollar value of the market.

• Government Data - while it's official, it can often be misleading. They often size the market using different measurement standards. When I was Publisher of a Manufacturing Management magazine we had greater large-plant coverage than the government reported. The reason: The government uses payroll ID numbers to calculate the number of plants in an area. If a company has multiple plants in the same area with the same payroll ID numbers, they'll be under-reported.

• Yellow Pages - if the market you're addressing can be well-defined and you can be sure the category you're specifying won't include related businesses, the National Yellow Pages can give you a reliable estimate.

OVERESTIMATING REVENUE POTENTIAL - can be simply & quickly stated. DON'T TAKE PRICE SHEETS AT FACE VALUE. Talk to customers, past & present

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Article Tags: amp, critical actions, detailed research, jargon, positioning statement, prioritize, product launches, prospects, questionnaires, recent article, s sales, sales opportunities, start ups, strengths and weaknesses, ups



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