Create a great product then sell it

One mentality is that with the right sales pitch and landing page you can sell ice to an eskimo. The problem is that you are selling to make a sale instead of selling to deliver a useful product to your clients. This can breed resentment or even worse allow a competitor to come along with something the client actually needs.
This video of Steve Jobs pontificating about the demise of Monopolistic companies like Xerox and IBM strikes a chord with small businesses as well. While the video discusses issues at very very large companies the thinking is applicable to all size businesses.

Sure Sales and Marketing are important and investing in good training, well designed branding, and a healthy internet presence will help you sell more product. The pitfall that Steve points out in this short video is that at the end of the day what people are buying is the product. If you focus on Sales and Marketing too much there is a possibility that the product will diminish in quality and effectiveness.

Published by Roger

Roger has been building websites since 1996 and had drunk the kool aid when it comes to living and breathing online culture. After spending time at Godaddy selling domain names and hosting he dabbled in telecom selling CDN services for Limelight Networks and Level 3. In 2009 he realized the best way he could help businesses was to start his own focused on building websites, getting traffic to visit, become customers, and then service them more effeciently. He obsesses over content strategy, ad testing, page load speed, online services, support efficiency, and where to go on vacation. He lives in Phoenix, AZ with his beautiful wife, Kate, and two dogs: Bonzai and Zeke. He wants to know about your business and how to help you get more customers and service the ones you have even better. Twitter | Google+ | LinkedIn