Tag: product releases

Planning For Best Case Scenarios

Over the last couple of day,
I’ve talked about
how we need to plan
for
best case,
worst case,
and
most likely scenarios.

I often get pushback
about having to plan for
best case scenarios.

In best case scenarios,
everything is going well.

Many people believe
all we have to do
is sit back
and
enjoy our success.

Except if we do that,
we won’t have success
to enjoy for very long.

Websites will go down
because we have too much traffic.
Inventory will run out
because we have too much sales.
Baddies will target
our products and our businesses.
The competition will
try to duplicate our success.
Etc. Etc.

We should have a plan
to deal
with all of that.

Plan for success also.

The saying is correct.
Success DOES change us.
Whether we want to change
or not.

Some Customers WANT Imperfect Products

One of my buddies
buys first versions
of games.

She knows
the games will have bugs
in them.
They won’t be perfect.

But she is willing
to tolerate those faults
to have the games first.

I have a weakness
for products
with small imperfections
in them.
Every object
in my house
has something wrong with it.

We are often told
we should perfect
our new products/services
as much as possible
before releasing them.

But there’s a market
for imperfect products/services.

And,
as Seth Godin
shares,

“If you want to leap forward,
you’ll need to ship things
before they’re perfect,
mostly to people
who want to buy them
before they are.”

Our products/services
don’t have to be perfect
to be viable.

More Product Releases Aren’t Necessarily Better

Writers are often told
the more books released,
the better.
Build that backlist quickly.
Produce more books.

Some writers then
release 3 books on the same day
and
they wonder
why their sales aren’t fantastic.

It might seem efficient
to release 3 books (products)
on the same day.
We can group tasks.
We can use the same advertising funds
to promote 3 books instead of merely 1.
We increase the odds
media and readers (prospects) notice the releases.

But we will be
competing with ourselves.
Sales will suffer.

A reader will likely only buy
1 book on that release day.
Choosing between the 3
might be difficult,
too difficult for some readers.
They might not buy a book at all.

Supporters will likely choose
1 book to promote.
I only share 1 social media post
for each friend
per day
to ensure I don’t overwhelm my followers.

And it is a dangerous strategy,
especially in our current always changing world.

Releasing 3 books on 1 day
means there’s only 1 release day,
1 big focus day,
not 3.
If something happens that day,
if the prospect is distracted,
we’ve lost that sale.

Book and product releases
need space and attention
to flourish.
Give each one
its own release day.