Create Winning Products

"Great Products are Important to Long-Term Success"

If you have great products that are in high demand, you have to screw up a lot of other facets of your business to mess up your company.

Its hard to fail if you have winning products. Hard but not impossible.

The bottom line is, if you are going to invest time and resources in your business, you have to invest in your products.

I have seen first hand the absolutely remarkable turn-around in a company that happens when you improve the product. I have also experienced the limited success that comes from doing everything else right except fixing the product.

Believe me, it is always a lot easier and a lot more fun when you have a great products and do everything else right.

Lets break the product down into two components. One component is the actual product or service itself. If you are selling cars, it's the car. If you are a dentist, it's the dentistry you perform.

The other component is everything else including the helpful sales staff, the customer service team, the warranty you provide, the extra stuff that you throw in that your competitors doesn't. These things are very important but the product itself has to be exemplary for any of it to matter in the long-run.

As long as you are adequate in all the other areas, you will be successful if you have winning products. Most customers aren't used to dealing with companies that provide superior customer service. If your customer service isn't superior yet, you can still effectively turn-around the company. Then as you grow, you enhance the other product elements.

Look at some of the large companies you are familiar with. Companies like Google, Toyota, Southwest Airlines. As of this writing, these companies do well because they have winning products.

Look at some of the companies that struggle. The U.S. automotive market is one example. They had a lot of products in low demand, customers weren't buying their cars plus they were handicapped by other business issues as well.

The sixty-four thousand dollar question is, what do I do about it? You have to ask yourself a couple of questions first. What is wrong with my products and why aren't people buying it? We usually have some sense of what is wrong with our products, but maybe not a complete sense. So you need to make sure you have a complete understanding of the problems you have.

Then you have to determine, can they be fixed? Is there anything we can do to fix it? If the answer is yes, go ahead and do what it takes to fix it. If it takes a year or two years, so be it. Just get it fixed.

The hard part is if there is little you can do to fix or improve your products. It happens. The fix may require more money then you have available. You may have a competitor in the field that already has the number one position locked up.

In any case your options are very limited. If that's the case, type up your resume and go somewhere else. You don't want to fight a battle you can't win.

If that's not possible then you are going to have to be creative. Sometimes there are solutions that are just not obvious right now. In the radio industry all formats are taken in large markets like Los Angeles. Usually there are several radio stations with the same format. Every now and then someone comes along with something new. In the sixties it was top forty radio. In the seventies it was "Hot Hits". In the nineties it was urban-hip hop. At the turn of the century it was Spanish formats that took over. At some point in time, someone had a great idea and carved out a new niche.

If you are lucky, there will be something just over the horizon that you will be able to capitalize on. Then again you may have to create the winning product yourself starting from scratch. In a lot of cases, I believe the answer is there somewhere, you just have to find it.

You have to realize that not everything has been invented yet. Look at the automotive industry. It took about 80 years before anyone thought about putting a convenient cup holder in a car. There must be something about your industry or your market that hasn't been invented.

There is an old saying in business that holds true today and will hold true into the future, "Find a need and fill it". Fill it with winning products.

What is it about your business or industry that your customers would like to have. What need do they have. How do you find out? You ask them. "How could my product serve your needs better"? "How could my product do a better job of solving a problem you have"?

After all that is what it is all about. Your customer is going to buy your product to fill a need or fix a problem that he or she is having. Your goal is to find out how to do that better.

If you are in construction, can you get the job done better, quicker at a lower cost. If you design web applications, will they grow as the business grows. If you are in marketing, can you clearly explain concepts?

Your winning products or service has to be better then anyone else. If not, then there is no reason to buy from you.