Build Your Work to Your Customers Needs

Do you have the best product ever invented?  Did you design it from scratch? Is this the best of its kind product, high quality, low cost, and stuffed with extras?  There could be only one problem you failed to consider. Does it meet your client’s needs?

You can design, build, and market great inventions; however, if you do not meet the needs of your customers, your sales will probably come from a discount store, if even there.  You must give your customers what they know they require.  If you have a product that is so revolutionary the average client does not understand the concept or its capabilities, then you know what your first marketing has to be. Teach everyone.

Start your patents and copyrights to protect your ownership. Copyrights could be as easy as putting a copy of your work and records into an envelope, mailing it to yourself, and then saving the packet unopened.  This is your proof as to when you came up with ideas or wrote things.  The fact that the envelope was postmarked and unopened is proof in most courts as to when you did the work.

Now, not many customers? Not sure who they are? Not hard.  Figure out who would use your product and go to where they gather. How hard is that? Not very. Most cities have a chamber of commerce, a Better Business Bureau or some other group of business people.  There is usually some after-hours meeting where, on occasion everyone gets together to say hi and talk with everyone else.  Everyone exchanges business cards and although this is not the place for a presentation, it is an excellent place to get leads that you can call or visit later and talk more in-depth.

The most significant part of starting a new product is getting it out in front of the right people and showing them how this new tool will make their life easier.  Doing this also makes your life easier because you are getting the word out to the right people. 

Thank you for being with me today.  I hope to be with you again tomorrow.

Author: Mike Balof

A retired Air Force Master Sergeant, Mike used to lay in bed at night and worry about what would happen if his plant closed or found himself without a job. One day his plant closed. Rather than panic and hysteria (OK, maybe a little) Mike found himself carried away on the adventure of his life. Mike started with the best job he ever had working at Home Depot. He spent 8 years working with job seekers at a local workforce center, helping them to find employment. He then started his own company developing courses, writing books and urging others to follow their own paths into the future. Mike holds a Master of Arts in Adult Education and Training and a Bachelor of Business Management, earned through the University of Phoenix and an AAS degree in Electronics Systems Technology from the Community College of the Air Force. Mike is a member of the Delta Mu Delta Business Honor Society. View all posts by Mike Balof