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Benefits should be
recognized by end users and distributors in two to five seconds. How do
you know you have an obvious benefit? When you can give it to someone and
they immediately recognize the benefit without you telling them anything.
The more you have to explain your idea, the less obvious the benefit is.
Why is an obvious
benefit important? Unless you can afford a big advertising and marketing
campaign, your product will need to sell on a shelf without anyone offering a
big sales presentation. The product needs to sell itself.
The degree of
obviousness the benefit has is a subjective question, so I’ve listed six
success stories where the product sold itself. Compare the power of your
benefit to the power of the benefits listed below. You may even want to get
samples of the following products and have people evaluate how obvious your
product’s benefit is compared to theirs.
Spanx, Body Shaping
Undergarments
Sara Blakely did amateur
comedy is her spare time and one night before going on stage, she put on some
cream colored pants, but everything she put on under them showed lines.
She had already decided to wear open toed shoes, so she couldn’t wear panty
hose either. Out of options, Blakely cut off the feet of her panty hose
and went on stage. The legs kept on rolling up on her, but she realized
that she was onto a great idea – footless panty hose. Seven years later
Spanx was on its way to becoming $150 million business. Her product line
had greatly expanded beyond footless panty hose to a whole line of body shaping
undergarments, not girdles, but enough to firm so that many users claim they
loose two inches when wearing them. Spanx comes in a variety of shapes,
that run from the bra line to the thigh, and the smooth out the look over all
undergarments as well as shaping up the body so it looks its very best in
almost any outfit.
Blakely actually had a
very difficult time convincing manufacturers (who were all men) that women
would want her product. After hearing no many times, she finally met one
manufacturer who initially told her no, but after showing the product to his
daughters, he called Blakely back and told her although he personally thought
the idea was strange, his daughters thought it was the greatest idea they had
ever seen.
Panty lines are a
problem that most, if not all, women have faced. Also, many women are
always searching for ways to look their best. When presented with a
product that can cover up panty lines, even with open toed shoes, and at the
same time shape up their bodies, women instantly understand the benefit.
It is this instant recognition of the benefit, along with edgy and effective
marketing and packaging, which has turned Spanx into the huge success it is
today.
Lashpro, Curl Those
Eyelashes
Staying on the theme of
high fashion, our second inventor, Stephanie Kellar pick a product area,
eyelash curlers, where products had not changed much since the original eyelash
curler was introduced in the 1920s. These eyelash curlers could pinch
women’s faces and were cumbersome and awkward to use. A second problem
was that the eyelash curler was small and could easily over curl the
eyelashes. Keller reinvented the product, moving the curler away from the
face and adding a much larger curling surface to minimize the risk of over
curling the eyelashes. Kellar introduced the product, which retails for
about $20.00 and quickly sold to 50 high end stores like Henri Bendel and
Nordstrom.
Kellar’s success came
very quickly because people saw the benefit immediately, which existed
primarily because the current products didn’t work well. When your
product solves a problem that people know they have, they are quick to see the
benefit.
Electotrack, Plugs Every
8 feet
Holiday outdoor lights
require lots of extension cords, but do they need to? Kevin O’Rourke, an
electrical contractor didn’t think so, instead all you need is one cord with
plugs every eight feet or so and then one electrical cord can do the work of
20. Then in a flash O’Rourke licensed his idea just months after he had
his patents in place and a full working prototype. The Electrotrack
sells for $69.95 in stores like Ace Hardware, Lowe’s Target and has been
featured several times on QVC.
Once again, the benefit
is strong because the need is strong, the other products just do not work well
and people recognized a solution immediately.
Mountain Boards – Snow
Boards with Wheels
Jason Lee and Patrick
McConnell didn’t get their benefit from solving a problem; their benefit from
giving users exactly what they wanted: extreme danger. Adding big wheels onto a
snowboard, and then calling it a Mountain Board, with the mobility to go down
the mountain at unheard of speeds was just what your everyday crazy snowboarder
was looking for in the tamer summer months. They launched the product
after the year’s snow melted away had over a million dollars of sales before
the year was over.
Lee and McConnell knew
what daredevils wanted, because they were daredevils themselves. They
went for a fast and furious product that their target customers immediately
related to. The main benefit is that the Mountain Board gives daredevils
more opportunity to live out their creed all year round, namely, that we could
live or die, but we’ll have fun in the meantime.
The Clean Shower – a
Household Name
Robert Black was a
retired chemist who lived in Florida, where the water is bad and leaves a
crusty film on the shower wall. Black didn’t mind, but his wife did, and
she was after him all the time to come up with a solution that would keep the
shower clean. Black worked for a few years and then had a solution, a
simple spray that could be used after a shower that kept the shower walls
perfectly clean. Black took the product out on his own and was selling
over $100 million per year before he was bought out by Proctor and Gamble.
Black learned that what
counts for an obvious benefit is not so much the product itself, but rather how
end users perceive the problem that the product is going to solve. If the
product addresses a problem that is known and important to users, you will have
a product that will communicate a strong benefit to end users.
The Java Jacket – One of
My Favorite Stories
When Jay Sorenson bought
coffee in convenient stores and coffee shops it was always too hot to hold in a
single disposable cup. He noticed that many people used two cups so that
they handle the coffee without burning their hands. Sorenson then came up
with the original idea for the little piece of corrugated cardboard that fits
over a coffee cup and keeps your hand cool. The benefit is obvious to the
end users, but Sorenson didn’t need to sell the product to end users, but to
convenient stores and coffee shops. Furthermore, his customers
(convenient stores and coffee shops) didn’t sell the product to end users – they
gave the product away for free. How could Sorenson convince his potential
customers to buy from him? He had to find the benefit that made sense for
his potential customers. His Java Jacket was only half the cost of an
empty coffee cup, so his customers could cut their costs from a double cup down
to a Java Jacket and single cup. That benefit is obvious, easy to
understand and important. Shortly after introducing the product Sorenson
was selling over $16 million per year.
Don’t always assume the
benefit is just for the end user. Benefits to the distribution channel
can be just as important, and just as powerful. Better packaging, better
terms, easier to handle product lines are all important benefits to the
distribution channel and companies spend as much time looking for advantages in
the distribution channel as they do looking for advantages for end users.
CD and DVD repairs
Have you ever had a CD
or DVD skip or play a very distorted sound or picture. Well that can be
easily repaired because rarely is the electronic signal distorted, instead the
optical layer is damaged. Repair the optical layer and that $15 to $20 CD
or DVD is as good as new. Daniel Henry knew that and he put together the
very first optical repair kit called Wipe Out and he was ready to roll.
But at first sales were a huge dud. A great benefit and people wouldn’t
buy. Why – they didn’t know CDs and DVDs could be repaired. They thought it was
a hoax. Once again pointing out it the obvious benefit is not because of
the product, but because of the end users perceptions either of your product or
their problem.
Henry bounced back by
running a major publicity program to editors of key magazines, sending out free
samples and telling editors to try and repair their damaged CDs and DVDs. They
tried the product, it worked and the praised the product widely in print
–leading to big sales of Wipe Out. With endorsements on the package
consumers started to believe and the product was a big hit.
How to Proceed
When you start to evaluate
whether or not your product has a truly obvious benefit, don’t concentrate on
the product, concentrate on the problem or situation the product
addresses. Ask people if they experience the problem you are addressing,
and see how they describe. Eric Teng, who created the Garlic Twist, a new and
easier way to mince garlic, started out by asking people if they ever used a
garlic press, the old fashion way to mince garlic, and if they did how they
felt it worked and what they thought could be done to improve the
product. When one person after another complained about the press, Teng
knew he had a winner, and his product’s sales of over $600,000 a year
demonstrate that the Garlic Twists benefit is indeed truly obvious.
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