How many times have you heard the saying, “This product or service is so freaking great, it just sells itself.” We’ve heard this expression before and it’s left a lot of us small business owners wondering, is this really true?
What does it actually mean that ‘good products sell themselves?’
It comes from the idea that when you have a product that’s well made or service that clearly shows its value meets the needs of customers so they buy more of it.
So if you’ve ever thought that your product or service is just so amazing that the sales will come … trust me when I say this: You are so not alone.
Do good products or services REALLY sell themselves?
I have seen so many entrepreneurs who have been thinking this way about their products/services and then this turns into, “I’ll just keep doing what I’ve been doing and eventually because my product is so great and it’s so amazing, sales will take off.”
But here’s the truth: We are not in the same place that we were 5 years ago. We are not even in the same place that we were in two years ago.
We are in a post pandemic, AI tool-driven, shaky economic world. People are cautious about how they spend their money. The way that they’re making purchases has completely shifted because of all of these things surrounding our financial abilities.
And if your business is doing all the right marketing things, you know your products or services are a great fit with your customers. You know that these things are working, but your sales aren’t happening.
It’s not because your product or services aren’t good enough. Because you can have the best coaching program, you can have the most beautiful handmade product that you’re selling on Etsy. You could have the smartest and most effective service in your local area, but people who are buying today … they need more than just proof that it’s good enough.
It’s because we’ve all got this thing in our pocket that we can pull up information and ask questions all the time. So we go into information overload.
And because we’re constantly online like that, our attention spans get shorter and while we’re online with our short attention spans, we’re being bombarded with ads every place we scroll.
That means when someone actually does make a purchase, they’re buying more than just the thing itself. They’re buying the trust that comes with working with your business and your customers want to know, “Is this actually gonna solve my problem?” Without the trust, without them knowing the best stuff your products or services can do, even your best offer can fall flat.
What worked before with our marketing doesn’t work right now, that’s our tough reality that we’re in.
And the tactics that got us here, the strategies that you used, the skills that you learned to get you here a few years ago aren’t working the same way today.
Like posting on Facebook three times a day — Remember when they told us to do that? Algorithms are going to bury you if nobody’s engaging. So you’re posting and nobody’s seeing it.
Are you stuffing tons of keywords into your blog post, hoping that Google picks this up? Google’s new algorithm has switched. They’re ranking ‘helpful people – first content’ instead of just a whole bunch of keywords scattered in your copy.
Are you sending an email once a month? People need more consistent story driven touch points that they’ll act upon. They need to hear more from you than just once a month because this marketing game has changed.
And if your business is just clinging to what you used to use before, THIS is why you’re still stuck. This is why you’re not seeing sales.
What’s working with marketing right now?
The good news is this doesn’t mean that you have to throw away everything that you’ve been working on, all of the marketing plans that you’ve put in place, your marketing messages, all of your branding work, everything that you’ve done.
What it means is that you need to start learning new skills, something that I refer to as Reskilling.
And when you learn how to adapt your marketing to what’s working right now, that’s when you’re going to start seeing momentum. That’s when you’re going to start seeing a shift happen.
Learning new skills or reskilling looks like this:
- Understanding that AI tools are a helper for you to help you save some time, like writing copy, but it’s not a replacement for your voice. Reskilling is learning how to use ChatGPT to ask the right questions to connect with your customers.
- Learning how to use a program like Canva to learn image editing. Adding improved images to your social posts can give you more options to connect with customers.
- Re-skilling can help you learn the tools to focus on specific social platforms like learning how to edit videos or be more effective with adding in scheduling tools.
All of those things combined is what reskilling is all about. It’s about learning new skills to build momentum for your business that creates a stronger connection and not just adds more noise online.
Marketing today in this new economy is less of your business posting messages that say, “Hey, my products/services are really, really good. Click on the Buy Here button now!” AND do more marketing like a handshake at a networking meeting. It’s a way of meeting somebody and saying, this is who I am, this is how my business can help you and this is why you can trust my product or service.
And I get it. I’m sure your products or services are absolutely amazing. But if you are waiting for sales to just come to you, you’re going to be waiting a long time in this marketing environment.
Because buyers today need more than just knowing it’s a quality product. They need your business to connect with them. They need to get clarity about what your product or service does and how it’s going to help them and they need to trust your business.
So if you’ve been holding onto a belief that a good product is just going to sell itself and that you can just keep doing what you’ve been doing before and the sales will just roll in, I want you to rethink that.
Without adapting, without changing the way that you interact with your customers and the way that they’re actually making their decisions, you’re going to get stuck in this cycle of crickets.
Because the truth is your business deserves to be seen and more importantly, it deserves to be trusted to make more sales.
How to figure your marketing out
To get you started, I created a free workbook for you to see how this can work for your business. It’s called Uncover What’s Not Working and Refresh Your Marketing Messages workbook.
It’s not just a bunch of plug-n-play prompts. It’s going to help you move through this process to pay attention to what’s working with your marketing, what’s not working and then how to take action.
Download the free workbook, start small, test out these four marketing-changing prompts and see what new ideas that they can spark in you. And you when you’re ready to take action and adapt to what’s going on around you, you will experience momentum and a boost for your marketing messages.
