Learn This or Run Out of Business
Ford lost $350 million in 1960’s due to this foolish mistake. It is a foolish mistake indeed. They would have probably earned $350 million if they only avoided this mistake but that’s already a history now.
In September 5, 1957, Ford launched their overhyped so called “The Car of Future” Ford Edsel which failed terribly and they had to stop it’s production causing them to lose $350 Million in the 1960's.
That’s worth more that $3 Billion in 2021.
Here’s what ford did that caused them to fail miserably:
They looked at the market and saw that people were upgrading to other brands in the medium range market. Ford wanted to get more retention on this medium price range market so they did their research and went to make an ugly, overhyped, overpriced, terribly timed and terribly made car.
Just a classic example of a bad research here.
The main objectives of Ford Edsel was to sell more ford cars in the medium price bracket and get more retention of ford upgraders. They wanted people to buy more ford cars.
Yes, that’s every business’s goal. To sell more of their product. But if they don’t do proper market research and learn what their market actually wants then they’ll fail miserably just like ford did.
And guess what, most of them won’t be as large as ford, and they won’t be able to overcome the loss from this failure and certainly run out of business.
Ford just wanted to sell their cars more but they never researched if their market actually wanted such a car with useless feature that had no value propositions than the rest.
And their market never needed those flashy features they thought would make them sales and failed miserably.
If you want your business to be always a success, the first and foremost thing that you need to do is conduct a proper market research.
You need to know what your market actually needs and then create the product that fulfills your market’s needs.
Always tune into the ‘W.I.I.F.M’ radio before trying to create any product you think you want to sell.
‘W.I.I.F.M’ stands for What’s In It For Me, and that is the question that your market always asks themselves when you showcase a product or service in front of them.
If they find no value what so ever then they’ll just ignore your product and oh my that’s a sure flop.
David .L Deutsch one of the greatest A-list copywriter said to ask this two word question and you’ll never fail again in your business.
It’s a simple two word question:
“So What?”
And this is what your prospect/customer/market is always asking themselves whenever they see any product or service out there. And if it doesn’t fulfill their internal desires, wants or needs than you’ll just join the ‘Edsel Museum’.
So always and always conduct a proper research before ever thinking about a product.
In fact, if you research your target market deep enough you’ll come with a product idea that solves their problem and fills the gaps that were not fulfilled before.
Gary Halbert — One of the greatest copywriter to ever live also mentioned in his book ‘The Boron Letters’ to always conduct the market research first and then create the product later.
Even if you had no product idea before, you’ll come up with a strong idea about a perfect product when you complete the research.
You’ll be able to create the product that your market needs, not the one that you want to sell.
This way you’ll never run out of business or should I say you’ll always create a successful business that’s long lasting and the one that your market will love.
Good Luck
-Prabesh Khanal
Direct-Response Copywriter