Vitamins are products that provide a customer peace of mind. You get no immediate results from taking a vitamin. The benefits (if any) are sometime in the future. Insurance is a vitamin product. Home security systems are a vitamin product. When selling vitamin products, timing is everything. Most home security systems are sold when the customer moves, or when a neighbour’s house is burglarized. Vitamins tend to be sold when the customer is experiencing lots of FUD.
Painkillers are products that remove a customer’s pain. If the benefit of removing the pain is higher than the opportunity cost of the painkiller, customers will buy the painkiller. To sell a painkiller, you have to find the customers with the pain you can solve, and can afford the painkiller. It is much easier to sell a painkiller than a vitamin.
At ActiveState we provided branded Perl distributions. We had a number of early customers who needed Y2K compliance for their software systems that included Perl. Our distributions and Y2K tests were a cheap way for them to continue using Perl. The product was a painkiller initially as the customers needed to comply. Later on the product became a vitamin, a nice thing to have to ensure their systems worked fine.
At Sxip Identity our enterprise identity products tended to be vitamins. Nice to have products, but not essential. Most of our sales happened when the customer had a pain. We had numerous discussions about were the customer pains where so that we could build painkillers. But as I reflected on the identity industry I realized that it had never had the profits of other IT industries. Identity products sold when they were painkillers, but customers were not excited to buy the products. I realized there was another product category. One that got customers excited.
Viagra is a product that allows customers do something they could not do before. Customers get excited about Viagra products! Viagra products change behaviour. Cost is not as critical in Viagra products. People can’t get enough of Viagra products. I would like my next venture to be around a Viagra product. The energy in a Viagra company is much more upbeat.
vitamins, painkillers or Viagra. What does your company sell? http://dickhardt.org/2010/01/vitamins-painkillers-and-viagra/
Great post from @dickhardt (I still giggle when I type that): Vitamins, painkillers or viagara…what do you sell? http://bit.ly/b72X6H
Product Categories: Vitamins, Painkillers and Viagra – Dick Hardt …: Products can be looked at falling into thre… http://bit.ly/coDp3a
Product Categories: Vitamins, Painkillers and Viagra – Dick Hardt … http://bit.ly/9qtcyq
GoogleもYahooもventure違うし、Viagraとまではいえんような。identity の世界から一歩引くのかな http://bit.ly/acYD79
Product Categories: Vitamins, Painkillers and Viagra – Dick Hardt …: Products can be looked at falling into thre… http://bit.ly/coDp3a
RT @stomita: GoogleもYahooもventure違うし、Viagraとまではいえんような。identity の世界から一歩引くのかな http://bit.ly/acYD79
machu: RT @stomita: GoogleもYahooもventure違うし、Viagraとまではいえんような。identity の世界から一歩引くのかな http://bit.ly/acYD79 http://ff.im/-f3o6G
Thought provoking article as always. I myself find it hard writing articles for my blog but you do a superb job here.
RT @dickhardt: Product Categories: Vitamins, Painkillers and Viagra http://bit.ly/aMEeIp
RT @dickhardt: Product Categories: Vitamins, Painkillers and Viagra http://bit.ly/aMEeIp
Ok, time for another post Dick! What are you up to these days?
RT @dickhardt: Product Categories: Vitamins, Painkillers and Viagra http://bit.ly/aMEeIp
RT @dickhardt: Product Categories: Vitamins, Painkillers and Viagra http://bit.ly/aMEeIp
new post today!
RT @dickhardt: Product Categories: Vitamins, Painkillers and Viagra http://bit.ly/aMEeIp
@cjwake @sachinrekhi see http://t.co/oeSWMdg for vitamins, painkillers & Viagra
RT @dickhardt: Product Categories: Vitamins, Painkillers and Viagra http://t.co/oY3nzbEZ