Smart Emmanuel: Could Persistence Be the Best Marketing Strategy?

In most of my over 16 years of entrepreneurship and active participation in sales, I’ve focused on product improvement and branding as the best way to win customers. However, sometime in 2019, I worked at Fastizers, and after carving what I believe was one of the best products to happen to the FMCG space in Nigeria – Nibit Mini Snack (owned by Fastizers), I realised that you can have a great product and still struggle. At the test launch, I realised the ugly truth that the best deal doesn’t always win. Many more factors determine if customers will accept a product. There’s nothing more heartbreaking than watching your product, which is far better than the available options, struggle while others enjoy great market share. The good news is I figured out how to turn the initial rejection of the product around and by day two of the test launch, the product was all over the market. By the end of the week, every distributor in the product segment wanted to buy the product. They were the same people that rejected it. And I didn’t spend any money to achieve this.

Recently, I tried to sell a highly profitable part of my business as I wanted to focus on other things, but I struggled deeply. Some of the potential buyers were my business partners, and when they refused to buy it, it left me shocked. I reduced the asking price by half, but they still refused to buy. The market rejected the product because they didn’t believe it was all I knew it was. They had had bad experiences, and they didn’t want to gamble or take the risk. Even my business partners, who had shared a lot of profit with me, refused to make purchases because they assumed I saw a challenge I was not disclosing and I wanted to sell them a bottled imp.

To prove a point, I sold it to another friend, who agreed to pay an initial amount and the rest over time. This friend found the business to be highly profitable and stress-free, making several multiples of the money paid within a few months. The same people who initially refused to buy saw the need after my friend’s success. These experiences reminded me that we should not be reluctant to convince potential buyers when we have a good product because this can significantly hinder our growth.

It’s important to note that when you have a good product or business, this is when you need to sell well, and sales is communication. To communicate perfectly, you have to do the hard job of removing all the hindrances to sales and all the objections from the prospects. This may seem unnecessary because you are certain of what you are selling, but what’s the point of having a great product that no one ever bought, and you never made money from? The process of selling is never the same, but what’s constant is asking the prospect why they think it’s not a good idea to buy; this will help you understand their challenges and address them. Also, forgive the prospects in advance. If everyone could see how beautiful your product is, they would buy it. They haven’t bought it yet because they haven’t fully understood your product or service. So you have to market it to them.

Sales is all about effective communication, where you help the customer see your product for what it is, not through the lens of their past experiences or assumptions. The key to achieving this is through patience, asking smart questions, and experiential marketing. These strategies will always work their magic.

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Feature Image by Alexander Suhorucov for Pexels