Over the past few months our firm has created new client relationships with many organic, nutricutical and natural food and supplement companies. It’s always exciting to start new relationships.

My business plan did not call for us to focus in the “healthy living space” but here we are working with some of the top players in this vertical market.Fun stuff.

I come out of the computer software and hardware industry and the one thing that industry does well is sell solutions.  I can site example after example where we created software and hardware combinations to complete a solution.

Back in the day, (people always use that term…) I was involved in vertical marketing proof of delivery systems  in the early 1990’s. While the systems  were indeed document imaging and document management systems, we were not successful until we spun a story around the solution and not the product. We solved a problem and did not sell a software. I solved the problem of a trucking or shipping company getting paid faster because we could prove the load had been delivered and signed off in the same day. It was nearly revolutionary at the time.

Fast forward to today and I find myself in the middle of a market where very few companies sell solutuons, but rather they sell products.

Stop it.

Consumers want an outcome, not a product. Nobody cares about the product it’s self, they care about the outcome.

Dont sell me a meal replacement shake… solve my problem; help me loose weight!

Dont sell me organic cocoa nut sweetened with cocoa nut sugar, sell me the satisfaction and delight of a hot cup of cocoa on a cold winter day that is delicious and warms me up from being out in the cold sledding or shoveling snow.

Dont sell me a organic antacid, teach me how to buy an antacid that gets rid of my discomfort and wont make toxic.

Stop pushing ingredirents and teach me why it makes me feel better, look better, have more enery, helps me have better sex, or some other solution to the problems I face in my day to day life.

Get over your ingreidents, forget about the 30% off, free shipping, and great packaging, teach me how to solve a problem and I am yours.

Want to get attention, pay attention to the needs of the buyer.

Until next time, stay connected!