Product Development The Easy Way
Copyright 2006 Joe McVoy
Here's how to create successful new products if you've never had
an original idea in your life. I'm not very creative, so that's
the only way I could create any products at all. All I've done
is to create new products by improving on an existing product
that already sells well. By doing this I've sold over $39
Million of products to major retailers.
Improving on existing products takes most of the risk away. With
a totally new invention or completely new product, you don't
know at first whether it will sell. If you start with something
that sells well already and you make it a lot better, you don't
have that problem.
Here's a story that makes the point:
When I started my first business, my partner had a small screen
printing operation and we set up a joint venture together to
explore products I would create and sell and he would make. He
was selling souvenirs and a popular look at the time was to make
decals out of prismatic vinyl. (This a metallic material with a
pattern embossed into it to reflect light into rainbows.)
Though I started by selling souvenirs, before long I noticed
there were hundreds of companies starting to make stickers for
kids and they were collecting them. (Note how quick I was to see
this - after 100 other companies were already doing it!).
Most of these stickers were just traditional paper, so I decided
to try our prismatic material and see how it would sell. We put
a product line together of prismatic stickers on rolls and
started selling some gift shops.
Sales were incredible.....
They sold better than anything else in the store so we decided
to make some more - and amazingly, they sold well too.
The next step was to put these same stickers in packages to sell
to the major chains. Long story short, in another couple years
we were in Wal-Mart, Target, K-Mart, and about every other major
retailer and we were selling over $1.0 million of stickers every
month!
ANOTHER EXAMPLE
A few years later, I started another company selling school
supplies exclusively to the major chains. We came up with an
entire line of folders, notebooks, pens, pencils, 3 ring binders
all with the prismatic/holographic look.
All I did is take the look that worked on stickers and put it on
another kids product. And that's not all - I went to companies
who already knew how to make all these products and had them
made with our holographic look.
Result - another multimillion dollar success. This one even got
us the "Best New Vendor of the Year" award from Target's
stationery & school supply department.
AND ANOTHER
I wasn't done yet - I had also discovered that kids stickers
were sold to the medical market as give-aways for pediatricians,
dentists and others to give to kids when they came in to their
offices.
The products being sold at the time were all plain paper circles
just like the retail market had been 5 - 6 years earlier. This
time I started a mail order company to sell the prismatic look
stickers to medical offices.
Another success....
After we grew to having over 10,000 medical offices and
hospitals as customers, I sold this company to a larger
competitor.
All in all, 3 national businesses founded and grew from one
simple idea applied over and over.....make an existing product
better.
Start with this concept - make an existing product better. But
instead of depending on the consumer acceptance of the
improvements like I did with the examples I gave you, how about
making it cheaper too!
The examples above actually cost more than our competitors - in
some cases as much as 4 times as much as the paper products we
replaced. Retailers were initially very skeptical that the
products would sell because of that.
For example, a typical paper portfolio printed in full color
with attractive designs was selling for 59 - 69 cents for the
nice ones and as low as 29 - 39 cents for the budget models
without any art.
Our portfolio was to retail at $2.00!
Though they sold better than everything else, there was quite a
bit of initial buyer skepticism because of the price.
Here's how to make it a sure thing......
MAKE IT BETTER, FASTER & CHEAPER
When you make the changes to improve the product, do it for less
money, not more! And I don't mean just a little bit better
either - make it a lot better.
A couple examples will show you what I mean.
By watching the trends in my raw materials, I found out right
away when the prismatic and holographic materials started to be
made of paper instead of vinyl or polyester.
At the same time thin film technology appeared to make the
brighter film products much thinner to match the paper costs.
Using these new materials I introduced a seasonal product line
of Christmas address labels, gift tags and stickers. What made
these different was that while my earlier regular sticker
product was a 4" x 6" sheet of stickers retailing for $1.00, I
was now able to do a 8" x 10" sheet of stickers for the same
price!
This was over 3 times the stickers for the same price! What do
you think happened? If a small sheet sells well for $1.00, how
will a package 3 times the size do at the same price?
How about a $592,000 order from Wal-Mart?
ONE MORE...
This example is not about one of my products. It's from an
inventor I know in Canada who has a process for making plastic
and rubber products from recycled tires and scrap plastic.
He started first with those rubber protectors for ice skates.
The existing products on the market wore out fast because the
sharp ice skate blades kept cutting through the rubber blade
covers.
His product was actually more durable and lasted much longer.
But here's the best part:
Because he used scrap material he gets his raw materials for
free! Not only did he make a better product, but instead of a
$6.00 retail price, his product retailed for $2.00 and he put
all his competitors out of business!
THE BOTTOM LINE
You don't have to be an inventor to develop new products - in
fact, it's better if you aren't that smart. It's a lot easier to
take something that already is selling well and make it better -
and it's a lot more likely to be successful too.