Are Your Products Bought or Sold?

Everyone, it seems, is spending a lot to get their message out: advertising, social media, collateral material, trade shows, websites, etc. It never stops.

The goal of all this activity is to connect with the marketplace so, at the moment of truth, our products are the ones that are ultimately chosen.

Something we might want to think about is whether people are merely acquiring what we produce? Or, are they being sold?

While this might sound like semantics, the difference is very real.

Everyone who buys your products is a buyer. But not every buyer is a customer.

We don't have relationships with buyers beyond the transaction itself.

Buyers do business with us because of a particular circumstance at a particular moment of time. Maybe it is the price; or availability; or blind luck that leads them to buy. Unfortunately, these same factors can easily change and they might not buy again.

Customers, on the other hand, are sold our products.

Customers have a relationship a connection- with us beyond simply the transaction. And if things change- as they inevitably will- it becomes easier to retain them.

May your products be sold, rather than just bought.