Thoughts on selling your new product

You’ve worked tirelessly to create a product, and you’re continuing to work tirelessly to build it into a business. Now comes the time that you must sell the product to customers. The not so old adage “If you build it they will come” won’t take you far. You must get your product out there in front of people on your own.

Have no fear! By now you know your product better than anyone, besides some of your teammates perhaps. Which means most of the battle of sales has already been won. The hard part is starting and cultivating the relationships with your customers.

Firstly, before you can even hope to begin A/B testing, or tracking metrics to guide business decisions, or whatever other “marketing advice” you’ve been hearing, you must get your product in front of the eyes of potential customers. How? Well there are no one-size-fits-all answers here. It depends what your product is and who you wish to sell it to.

If it is a physical, consumable product then the first thing to do is to get people to taste it. Prepare to spend money to give out free product to anyone with a voice who would be willing to try it. People are your greatest allies and assets, so treat them well. Word of mouth is the most effective advertising.

You can let the product speak for itself, but give the product freely and supply some suggestions as to what it will be like. Lead your testers but do not stifle their own thought processes or else the message you’re wishing for them to spread will be muddied. Advertisements are easily ignored.