It’s impossible to sell something no one wants. The only exception is when good old coercion is thrown into the sales process.
For instance, the government uses some form of “encouragement” to get people to pay their taxes(”Hey, pay your taxes or rot in jail!”) and school bullies use intimidation to get terrorized kids to pay a protection fee (”Hey, pay up or get smashed up!”.
Coercion apart, if nobody wants a given item, service, brand or concept that’s on offer, it’s not going to sell no matter what.
What’s an entrepreneur to do?
Stimulate demand.
Novel ideas, concepts, product or services technically have zero demand.
There was no group of people that wanted an airplane, a computer or a microwave. Yet, those innovations were sold and turned into big profitable industries.
Getting people to want something is how a product that nobody wants is sold.
There are many ways to stimulate the demand. The one that seems to work wonders is to shift the focus off the innovative concept, product and service to the problem that they solve.
How was the first ever iPod sold? By positioning it as small solution to a big problem: “1,000 songs in your pocket”. Millions of iPods sold so far prove the power of that simple tagline.
“What problem does this product or concept solve?” is the first question that an entrepreneur selling a product nobody wants should ask then focus his marketing efforts to bringing awareness of this problem to the target audience.
There will be one problem though…
People are suspicious. If they see one source publicizing a given problem and providing the solution in the same breath, they will smell a rat and ignore the message.
Business consultants have a bad reputation for this notion (think: management fads).
The secret is to let a credible third-party mention the problem and provide a solution.
That’s why word-of-mouth and publicity are the most powerful marketing tools to sell innovative concepts and products.
Selling a product nobody wants is a matter of selling a solution to a problem everybody has.
