26th
Product or Sales - Which is Harder
I was part of an intriguing conversation several nights ago where the question came up: “Is getting the product right more difficult than ramping up sales and marketing?”
At first I vehemently defended the product as the hardest thing to get right. Creating a market-specific product that is the best at its specific task, and fills a big enough market need, is no ordinary challenge. We can all be one of many solutions for a problem, and we can surely create a very-niche product that has will produce < $1 million sales. But, creating a product that truly stands above others that thousands of companies, or millions of people, have to purchase, is an inordinate challenge.
Yet, building a great product is only the first step. A great product will produce great word-of-mouth, but how do you tell those first evangelists about your product? How do you effectively communicate your product’s value? How do you provide customers with first-class service and grow their accounts? Not easy, either.
A great product is the first step, but it’s not the only step.
