The quality of your product doesn't matter (that much) by Darren Hardy

Now I don’t like this fact. I would philosophically argue against this fact. But it is a fact… and the evidence is all around us.

Who makes the best-tasting hamburger in the world? Doubtful you’d anoint McDonald’s with that title, but they outsell everyone else by many billions of dollars.

What is the best wine in the world? Certainly Franzia (which comes in a box!) wouldn’t be your first or 100th guess, but it is the best selling.

What is the highest-quality bottled water? If you tested it, it certainly wouldn’t be Aquafina (owned by PepsiCo), Dasani (owned by Coca-Cola) or Poland Spring (owned by Nestle Waters), but those are the number 1, 2 and 3 best selling.

Nine times out of 10 it is not the best or highest-quality clothing line, automobile, restaurant, CPA firm, real estate agent, lawyer, furniture manufacturer, refrigerator, etc. that sells the most or becomes the biggest—it is the ones who market themselves the best.

This is the business axiom that I witness all around me every day:

The ultimate success of a product or service is 10% the quality of the product and 90% the quality of the marketing.

Now while I don’t necessarily LIKE that fact, as I believe the success of a product or service should be what’s most important and it should stand ENTIRELY on the value it delivers, that is just not how it works in reality.

Even if you are simply an individual in a sales organization this is true. It is not necessarily the best, the highest quality, highest class, most refined people that make it to the top… it is the ones who market themselves, network themselves, position themselves with credibility amongst their peers and demonstrate their growing and developing selves to the circle around them that end up at the top of the sales organization.

Now, let me also add this: If your product or service is bad… or even if you are bad, unethical or without integrity, no amount of marketing will make you or your product or service successful—especially in this day and age of Yelp, Twitter, Facebook and Google. You and your product or service reputation will die a certain and expedient viral death.

Here is a not so funny (literally) great example of this: When the greatly anticipated and greatly marketed movie, coming off the hit Borat by Sacha Baron Cohen, called Bruno was released; it had one of the biggest first day attendance statistics ever. But then people walked out of the theatre and Facebooked, Twittered, blogged to their friends how bad the movie was… the movie died that very day.

So the lesson is, yes you must create a high-value, quality product or service, but even more important to the ultimate success of it will be determined by how well it is marketed. Don’t forget to see the last 90% of the way through to success.

Even though I lack personal experience, I equate it to giving birth to a child. It takes nine months to gestate a child, which is like product development. But when the child is actually born you don’t just set it on the shelf and hope for the best. No, 90% of developing a successful child happens after birth. This is also the ratio of marketing to product development to create a successful product or service (loose analogy I admit, but gives you the picture nonetheless!).

For our August issue of our SUCCESS Audio Series (private SUCCESS partner product—not available for public sale) I interviewed two of today’s marketing wizards—Jay Abraham and Frank Kern. Let me pass on a couple of key tips they shared with me for your (free!) benefit:

1. The heart is closer to the wallet than the head is.

Right now write out a one- or two-sentence description of what you sell (pause your reading now). Is your description a solution… is it an emotional outcome? Or is what you wrote more of a description of your product or a functional benefit?

Peter Drucker said, “People buy with their hearts, not their minds”.

So, is your description trying to appeal to a prospect’s head or heart? Gotta redirect your efforts to the heart.

Homework: Write out the three most important solutions or emotional outcomes your product or service produces and start clarifying and focusing your messaging around that language.

2. Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

Now turn your emotional description into an irresistible headline. This alone could improve your results—not by 10%, 25% or 50%, but by 3, 5 or 10 times. Not just the headline as in a print ad, banner ad, Google Adword or even email. This headline is the attention-getter in every form of communication—prospecting call, sales presentation or stage presentation you do. The response to your headline needs to be: That’s me or… that’s what I need or… I’ve gotta to know what that is… NOT… So what?

Homework: Fashion three sensational headlines that fit your product, service, company, opportunity or presentation.

3. Results in Advance.

How can you help prospects in advance of them actually purchasing or paying for your product or service or getting into your business? What can you give them or help them with? Maybe it is as simple as education, research, a valuable report, connection to resources or other people, a tip from someone else in their industry, etc.

Homework: Think of three ways you can help your prospective clients get results in advance of them even purchasing your product—in a way that will make them want to come to you begging to buy because you have been so valuable in helping them get results—in advance. http://www.darrenhardy.success.com/

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