Business Strategy Trumps Great Product

The sad fact is that the best product rarely is the most successful product in the market. In fact some pretty crappy stuff outsells the best products available. Even sadder, the best product available may never make it to the customer as the inventor/owner/provider simply doesn't have a strategy to get to market and out compete the competitors.

My tea New Orleans based tea business was a great example. I initially intended to sell a vastly superior tea product to cafes around the city, replacing the God-awful stuff they sold and continue to sell. I failed completely as I didn't have a strategy to outcompete the nasty tea vendors. Lacking proper marketing skills, I was lucky enough to stumble upon a strategy that saved my amateur a$$.

Every cafe I visited agreed that my product was far better than the one they sold. But the one they sold made better sense for them for any number of reasons. Some claimed it was part of their coffee contract. Others were too busy to add yet another vendor to their list. many simply said what they had sold. Their customers didn't know the difference between good tea and lawn cuttings. That was my cue, the customer needed to be educated. I surveyed, discovered the key to success and crafted a plan to implement.

I opened a cafe to sell directly to customers. I had free tea Fridays to get attention and cups into hands. If a customer brought in a cup of the bad stuff from a competitor, I gave them a free cup on any day. Within a year the cafe was profitable and two months later my wholesale business turned a profit selling to the same cafes that slammed doors in my face. I had created a pull strategy where customers, having tried my tea in my cafe, demanded my product in their favorite coffe shops.

With our new strategy, we decided to replicate this success by establishing single cafes in numerous markets targeting our newly identified market segment. One night and one category 5 hurricane changed these plans. But the strategy was sound and we plan to reignite it soon.

My competitors had a strategy to get in and out-compete me, initially. That was a push strategy making it easy and/or cheap for the cafe owner to use them. I went with a pull strategy that made it impossible for the customer to avoid using me. Love to hear your stories of strategy to overcome obstacles.