Products and Solutions

In the last week I'm proud to announce that this blog has been picked up by companies in Europe and the USA, and they'll be using certain posts in their own white papers and blogs. I feel like I've been syndicated, and it would be so much more exciting if I was actually getting paid, but it's still nice to be acknowledged and may I offer a big hearty hello and welcome to my new international readers. If you appreciate the irony that is British humour, you’re going to love it. If not, watching old Benny Hill clips is not going to give you the education you think you need, so don’t waste your time.

This week I found myself posed with a bit of a dilemma. A supplier showed me a new product of which they had already sold millions of units. Their client base was very impressive, and with offices in 4 different countries, one had to believe that things were going well for them. So what was the problem? I thought the product was – and I’ll choose my words carefully here – ordinary.

Yup, that just about sums it up – it was ordinary. Obviously it would be wrong for me to describe the product to you here but what you need to know is that I just couldn’t get inspired by this thing. It wasn’t that I was having a bad day or that I was not open to seeing new things, it’s just that I simply didn’t “get it”.

Now before you think that this is my effort to sound all “Dragon’s Den”, I should explain that it was what happened next that really opened my eyes.

The person presenting this thing to me told me about their success stories. She told me about the clients that had taken it on and how well it had been received by their customers. She pointed out that one had to look beyond the product and actually think about the solution instead.

This got me thinking. Have I become focussed on product? Despite having access to millions of items of merchandise, have I started to limit myself to only selling that which is readily available? It’s always a good idea to be self critical – it helps you look for those areas in which you can find room for improvement, and what better way than to look for new and interesting ways to help your customers.

But where to begin? You see, most people that I work with are not looking for a solution because they don’t think that they have a problem. They’re launching a product or going to an exhibition and they need merchandise. Their biggest problems are usually short lead times and low budgets, and those are problems that we can usually solve.

So how about this? What if, just for one day, you told yourself that your biggest problem was that you were not a multi millionaire, sipping champagne on your private yacht whilst customers queued up to buy your products and services? What if you still had to actually work for a living? Now how would you change that? If you improve upon the customer experience, they will come back and they will tell their friends too.

One easy way to do that is to look at what your customers already know, and then look at what they DON’T know. In most cases, that second question will yield a frightening answer. It’s not really all that scary though, because once you find out what they don’t know, all you have to do is find inventive ways to tell them.

That’s where we come in. We’ll take a look at your image and how your customers relate to you and then we’ll work with you to create a new and interesting campaign. We’ll go beyond mere product and look at a genuine solution – a way to put your business exactly where you want it to be.

Funny thing, but the more I type this, the more interested I am in that very ordinary product. With just five minutes of perspective, I can see thousands of possibilities for it. In fact, I think I’m going to give them a call……

Have a good week.