Do you know what you want to sell?

Often I ask business owners, “What do you want to sell?”  More often than not, they say “everything and anything!”   I find that for most business owners, this is the worst thing they can do or say.  Not having a strategy means that no one is on the same page and there’s no plan to accomplish a goal.

Suppose you own a software company that has a calendar application as a service (SaaS).  Now let’s say that you have 3 products that are $0 (free), $5, and $10 per month.   Based on my experience you’ll likely tell me you want to sell the $10 per month because it’s the highest.  OK, so what’s your plan to do that?  Is the $10 one loaded with features? Is the marketing team committed to this? Sales? The Product Manager? The Programmers?

It’s even possible that the one you would want to sell is the $5 one.  I don’t know enough yet, but do you? Perhaps the $10 is an anchor price point, that makes the $5 plan look more valuable?   When it comes to strategies, there are good and bad strategies.  But having no strategy? That's as bad as it gets.

As a business owner or senior manager, this isn’t just about you.  If you manage a team of employees or work with outside vendors, they need to know your strategy and how to support it too.  For example, if you’re hiring an outside agency to develop your website, you would want them to draw attention artistically to lead customers to whichever product you want to sell.  If you don’t do this in your marketing, the customer could then get confused and maybe not buy anything!  

Perhaps you have a sales consultant who answers the phone or does outbound calling getting people to sign up.  Do they have a script that leads them to the preferred product you want to sell? Or do they just bounce around hoping they can get the customer to sign up to anything they can talk them into?  Which sounds like a better road to success?

The strategy of what you want to sell isn’t something to take lightly, either.  It could be a billion-dollar decision.  Wendy’s thinks so, anyway. They are hoping to get to $1B of revenue growth by offering breakfast.   Why have they decided that breakfast is what they want to sell? Besides extending Wendy’s hours to sell more during a day, breakfast is also a habit.  Many people have the same breakfast every day, as part of a normal routine.  They’d be horrified to do that at lunch or dinner but breakfast is accepted. And when you advertise or do anything for breakfast, you’re getting a 5-7x return vs. doing that for lunch or dinner.

So, Wendy’s is going big into breakfast.  They know what they want to sell. And with that strategy, everyone needs to be aware and following the same plan. 

For starters, Wendy’s needed to focus on planning a breakfast menu.  Teams of chefs worked on creating the right food to get the right product.  Franchisees needed to be aware of the changes they’d need to make – from new equipment to hiring additional employees.  The marketing and advertising teams need to be aware that breakfast needs to be highlighted on their menu, advertising, and other marketing collateral.  And so on.  If they want success, this can’t all happen by accident.

This is the same as in your business.  So what do you want to sell, and why? 

This is another in a series of Linkedin articles that delves into the mystical and magical world of product and pricing and their impact on profits. I welcome your comments and feedback. Let's get a dialog going -- do you have a good story to share? Please do so!

I work as a consultant helping companies maximize profits through better marketing, selling and pricing. If your sales and profits are out of whack – or you don’t know where to begin - we should talk! I've worked with some of the biggest corporations and smallest individual businesses out there. I’m also a small business owner myself. Contact me.  You can read more about my work at my LinkedIn profile or at my website: https://www.dukeofprofit.com