That is the definition of a pillar I found online just now.

That says it well!-

If you didn’t read my blog post where I introduced the 3 Pillars of Success you won’t know what I mean when I talk about the 3 Pillars of Success and how they are the ONLY things you need to succeed and how they guarantee success.

You should go read it now because a lot of what I do and say over the next year or two will be clearer by understanding the Pillars.

Remember that each of the Pillars is important, none more than another, because you need all three to have true and lasting success.

The Product Pillar

The Product Pillar is the Pillar that, in many ways, is…
the foundation Pillar.

This is because, without the Product Pillar, there is no need for the other Pillars; having them is completely worthless without the Product Pillar.

Stated simply:

A strong Product Pillar requires you to have enough quality Product that people are interested in buying to sustain the business over the long-term.

In some rare case, you may have only one Product but in the vast majority of cases you will need to continually have more Products; without that you can have some initial success or be a “one hit wonder” but you haven’t built a life changing business.

Before I go on, let me be clear though when I talk about the Product Pillar. I am talking about have Products; a steady stream of them over time.

But… when I use the term Product it has lots of meanings.

Here are some examples of what I mean when I say Products:

1. Digital products you have created yourself (or have created specifically for you)

2. Digital products you own and have Resell Rights and, possibly, Private Label Rights; Giveaway Rights too.

3. Digital services you provide

4. Digital products for which you are an affiliate

5-8. Physical products of all the above

As you can see the options for products are huge.

This is good for you as you’ll be able to have a stream of products.

This is bad for you because you need to make sure you don’t lose focus or market Products that won’t sell well.

The 3 Criteria of a Strong Product Pillar

There are 3 success criteria to keep in mind though if you expect to get a strong Product Pillar, your Products must:

1. Have a Market of Ready and Willing Buyers

First, and most importantly, you MUST have products people want to buy. Without that you cannot achieve even a weak Pillar.

This can take some time and research but is well worth it. Do this right and don’t rush through this. Remember the saying “act in haste, regret at your leisure.”

If you don’t know how to do that don’t worry, we’ll be looking at, in the upcoming months, how to find the right products until you’re almost sick of it

2. Be of a level of Quality that Greatly Exceeds What Your Buyers Expect

After you know what products people are buying you need to make sure the Products you are selling are Quality products.

Unless you are Saks, Neiman Marcus or Lord & Taylor, these products don’t have to be the absolute best quality but the value of what you provide (and quality is one measure of value) must be exceptional for what you are charging, whether what you charge is $27 or $997.

Strive to provide a minimum value of 10 times the cost of product.

Beware of focusing on low price (and low quality) because that makes it very hard to succeed and even harder to maintain a business over time.

Most (all?) businesses that compete on price alone fail eventually, some a quick death and others a long slow death.

A Tale of Two Giants

Here is aside about the dangers of focusing on pricing and not changing with the times. It isn’t critical to our discussion but you might find it interesting, if not then skip down to the third criterion.

Let me give a good example from the past 10-15 years by looking at what happened to both K-mart and to Target.

Originally they both strong brands with low priced, average quality products. Over time they struggled because their margins were low and as competitors like Wal-Mart came in they had trouble making a profit with ever lowering prices.

Their reputations dropped.

Basically, the only people who shopped at their stores were either people with very little money or people who we very frugal (sometimes foolishly so).

Eventually it got so bad that they were in danger of going out of business.

Target decided to change their focus, their quality and their reputation and, after years of hard work, Target is now enjoying great success.

K-mart, on the other hand, tried to remain what they were and, not unexpectedly, got the same results they had been getting or worse.

Eventually, Sears bought them but that’s hurt Sears more than anything else.

Why the different results?

First you need to know that companies, including your company, even if your company is just you, develop a brand.

The basis of a company’s brand is this: a promise to it’s customers to deliver it’s Products at a certain level of quality.

Eventually, a brand becomes the public perception of how well the company has delivered on it’s promise. In addition, it’s a promise that the experience it provided to it’s customers in the past will be provided to them in the future.

Good experience within expectations, good brand. Bad experience, bad brand.

The problem is that times change. New competitors come into the market, new attitudes are introduced, economic swings happen, catastrophic events play a part and all this means a company must reinvent itself on a periodic basis to keep up with changes in consumer tastes and competitive activity; this reinvigorates the brand and keeps sales growth happening.

Standing still is not a good way to keep a business alive!

This is where Kmart failed.

First, they started out competing on price alone, never a winning long-term solution.

Then their brand started to weaken as quality suffered and customer experience went from adequate to bad.

Their sales started dropping, causing further drops in quality and customer satisfaction and yet their executives just “kept on keepin’ on”, like they knew better than the marketplace, and bankruptcy was the result.

Target on the other hand looked at what was happening, took stock of themselves and decided on a change.

They no longer compete on price alone. They improved their quality and raised their prices.

They also worked hard on changing the perception of their company from one who provides almost shoddy products at rock bottom prices to a company with decent to good quality and great value for the money.

The key shift was the move from great prices to great value.

The focus went from price to experience.

Do not miss that important point, the focus went from price to experience (and value).

To be successful, long-term, you MUST focus on providing great value and customer experience. It really doesn’t matter what the price is, within reason.

Why pay 3, 4 or 5 times more for a cup of coffee at Starbucks? Not the coffee and not the price but the value of the experience.

So you need to have the expected level of quality in every product or your reputation, and maybe your business, will suffer greatly.

3. Have enough new products over time.

The third criterion you need for success is to have a continuous supply of products.

Having just one or just a few products may get you some success but it isn’t the type of life changing, lifelong success that the Product Pillar is all about.

If you look at virtually all successful companies online or offline they are always coming out with new products to sell to their existing customers as well as to attract new customers.

Focus on one desirable, quality product at a time, make it successful, get it on autopilot and do that again and again and you will have a mountain of a Product Pillar.

The Bottom Line (pun intended!)

To sum up, success in the Product Pillar requires a never ending stream of high quality, high value products. Nothing more and nothing less.

We’ll be discussing this again in the future and going deep into Products and how to achieve a super strength Product Pillar.

Add any comments, questions, feedback, disagreements and anything else below.

Talk soon,

David
The “Shameless” (but “Ethical”) Marketer

O.Y. To help you strengthen you Product Pillar, download your free quality report and audio from here:
http://www.StreetGuideToResellRights.com/blog/free-stuff/ArticleMarketing.zip

This post from: Street Guide to Resell Rights. To read more post like this, head over to Street Guide to Resell Rights

The Product Pillar – The Foundation of Success