Episode 51: Diagnosing the real reason for lagging product sales

10/03/22 • 45 min

We all face periods when we feel like trashing our businesses and giving up. This occurs when you have tried a strategy and committed significant resources or juggling an excessive number of responsibilities, but your sales remain flat or fluctuate erratically. So you might be scratching your head now, wondering what you're doing wrong.

This is the episode for you if that description fits your experience.

In this episode, I will examine five potential causes for your inconsistent sales. In a nutshell, they are as follows:

A lack of vision
Doing it on your own
Doing many things and not focusing on the things actually driving sales
Having a complicated business model and bloated product assortment
Complicated marketing and sales channels

You will leave this episode with a firm grasp of where you went wrong and what you need to do to make things right. You'll appreciate the value of vision, a coach or mentor, and how less means more in product assortment and marketing.

Episode highlights

[02:00] The value of a vision
[08:24] The value of sharpness and decisiveness in decision making
[09:35] Why you shouldn't go solo
[21:47] Why you should prioritize a few activities
[26:35] Product cannibalism and how to avoid it
[26:50] How a bloated product assortment chocks and drowns your business
[27:14] How more products don't always equate to more money
[36:00] How multiple marketing channels harm your business

Get in touch!

Get Maureen's free training, Maximize Your Product Sales.

Subscribe and rate our podcast on iTunes here.

Android users can subscribe and rate our podcast on Spotify.

Join our incredible community - Product Entrepreneurs Who Scale

Learn how Maureen can help you grow your brand at any stage.

Connect with Maureen on Instagram.

This is the episode for you if that description fits your experience.

In this episode, I will examine five potential causes for your inconsistent sales. In a nutshell, they are as follows:

A lack of vision
Doing it on your own
Doing many things and not focusing on the things actually driving sales
Having a complicated business model and bloated product assortment
Complicated marketing and sales channels

Episode highlights

[02:00] The value of a vision
[08:24] The value of sharpness and decisiveness in decision making
[09:35] Why you shouldn't go solo
[21:47] Why you should prioritize a few activities
[26:35] Product cannibalism and how to avoid it
[26:50] How a bloated product assortment chocks and drowns your business
[27:14] How more products don't always equate to more money
[36:00] How multiple marketing channels harm your business

Get in touch!

Get Maureen's free training, Maximize Your Product Sales.

Subscribe and rate our podcast on iTunes here.

Android users can subscribe and rate our podcast on Spotify.

Join our incredible community - Product Entrepreneurs Who Scale

Learn how Maureen can help you grow your brand at any stage.

Connect with Maureen on Instagram.

Previous Episode

Episode 50: Using e-commerce Quizzes to Decrease Your Customer Acquisition Cost with Gen Furukawa

Marketers' longtime reliance on third-party consumer data is fast becoming obsolete. For example, advertising on social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook, where targeting audiences can yield highly successful campaigns, has always been a cornerstone of the direct-to-consumer marketing strategy.

However, it is more important than ever to create direct connections with consumers in light of iOS14's restrictions on third-party cookies for tracking, Chrome's deprecation of third-party cookies in browsers beginning in 2022, and the General Data Protection Regulation.

That's why it's perfect timing that Gen Furukawa will be on the podcast today. He is here to share a more legitimate, effective, and cheaper alternative to better understand your customers and cater to their specific needs.

Gen has been in the e-commerce space for 10+ years, with the last seven years in the e-commerce SaaS environment. Before Prehook, Gen was part of the founding team and VP of Jungle Scout, the leading software for Amazon sellers. He also hosts the e-commerce marketing podcast, Cart Overflow, where he shares what the best brand operators, agencies, and tech platforms are doing to grow their e-commerce revenue.

In this episode, Gen emphasizes three quiz benefits of e-commerce quizzes:

They reduce customer acquisition cost
The end of third-party cookies and increase in data protection
Personalization attracts customers

By the end of this episode, you will learn how to leverage quizzes in your direct-to-consumer business, whether or not a quiz is suitable for your brand, and how to create one. In addition, you will gain priceless insights on how to achieve personalization at scale, why fastest-growing direct-to-consumer brands use quizzes, how to promote them, and tips to increase their opt-in rate.

Episode Highlights

[01:45] Prehook's founder story
[04:04] How to tell if your business needs a quiz
[05:32] Three reasons why the fastest-growing direct-to-consumer brands leverage quizzes
[05:40] The value of personalization
[07:21] How to achieve personalization at scale
[10:37] How to set up a quiz
[13:07] Ways used to promote quizzes
[14:33] Tips to increase the opt-in rate for quizzes
[18:49] What is zero-party data?
[21:55] Gen's advice for growing e-commerce businesses

Quotes

"I think the brands that might not benefit much from quizzes might be like a single SKU brand. So product where it's like, alright, you get one product. The decision is easy. It's more focused on can the merchant sell the product or not?"

"Once you're able to understand the customer challenges and their goals, you can bridge the gap from where they currently are to where their goals are. And that's where we can fill the gap with a quiz."

"Once you're layering on their needs, goals, challenges, all of a sudden, you can play to those more. And it impacts your messaging, what you're sending, when, and how."

"So when people ask, like, okay, what should I consider? What should I do in building the quiz? I think the first and most important thing is to define what your goals are. Like what data points are most interesting or helpful to you to improve your segmentation and set your targeting to be more specific?"

"What is the exchange of value between the merchant and the visitor? And how can you make it most compelling?"

"The quiz is more like an exchange or a conversation to enhance or improve the opt-in."

Connect with Gen Furukawa

Gen Furukawa's Company Website

Gen Furukawa's LinkedIn

Email: [email protected]. | Try Prehook free for 14 + 30 days if you mention Maureen in your email

Download Prehook on App Store or Shopify

Gen Furukawa's Podcast: Cart Overflow

Find out more!

Training: Uncap Your Growth & Bring in More Product Sales without Changing Your Branding or Packaging

Work With Us: Apply to Our Apprenticeship Program: Product Profit Lab

Connect with Maureen on Instagram: Maureenmwangiofficial

Join our incredible community - Product Entrepreneurs Who Scale

Subscribe and rate our podcast on iTunes here.

Android users can subscribe and rate our podcast on

Next Episode

Episode 52: How To Breakthrough to 6-figures in revenue per year.

Earnings are a great perk that come as a natural consequence of launching your business. Having a clear rationale for doing what you're doing can help you weather the inevitable storms that will inevitably arise as you build your business. And when your why is so strong that you're prepared to keep going even when everything else in your life suggests that you shouldn't, that's when you know you're on the right track.

This is what it's like building a six-figure business. It begins with understanding why you're setting it up in the first place—and that reason should be more than just the money.

Without a solid impetus, it's easy to find yourself repeatedly beginning and ending projects, resting in the middle of something important, or starting something new when it's not quite ready. Therefore, you don't get the result you want.

In this episode, Maureen explores every entrepreneur's steps to achieve their goals. The key steps she highlights include:

Establish what you want, not what you think you can do
Rely on your belief, not your ability
Be a rule breaker
Keep a concrete focus on what you want
Move beyond the resistance that constantly shows up

Episode Highlights

[2:47] Why you need to understand your 'why.'
[3:35] If one line of business is not successful yet, do not start another
[6:25] Understanding your different roles in your business
[12:49] How to identify and establish your goal
[15:34] Who you need to become to achieve your goal
[17:55] Why you need to make your business urgent
[22:00] What thoughts and beliefs are making you stuck?
[25:20] An exercise in understanding the beliefs you're accepting
[27:47] Getting started requires inner belief, not confidence
[33:00] Things that hold people back
[34:28] Identify rules to break
[43:50] Why you must concretely focus on what you want
[49:40] How to move past the resistance that shows up

Quotes

'Wherever you are right now, you are very successful... Many of us usually set some very audacious goals in our businesses, but we never understand what is expected and what is required of us to achieve that goal.'

'It's not about the money. Money is a byproduct of what you'll get when establishing your business.'

'When you have a hard why, you're willing to withstand the storms in your business.'

'Once you untether the identity of your business from you, then you start making decisions out of the company's interest and not your own interests.'

'The key to success is to become the person who has the thoughts and takes the actions to produce results over and over again.'

'Don't copy somebody's actions; copy the thoughts and feelings that person had when taking action.'

'If you don't feel successful right now, making 100K will not make you feel successful.'

'Don't establish a monetary goal based on what you think you can do; establish a monetary goal based on what you really want.'

'We prioritize what we value.'

'The success of your business hinges upon how fast you can bounce back up when you've bounced down.'

'All of us are scared, but we are choosing to move past our fears.'

'For you to create a different outcome and create a different result, you have to break a rule.'

'When you keep a focus of what you want, the universe conspires to bring it to you.'

'Discomfort is the price we pay for the goals that we want.'

'If you're willing to do what is required, everything else reveals itself.'

Find out more!

Download Free Guide: The Ultimate Product Brand Growth Guide

Work With Us: Book A Free Growth Strategy Call

Connect with Maureen on Instagram: Maureenmwangiofficial

Join our incredible community - Product Entrepreneurs Who Scale

Subscribe and rate our podcast on iTunes here.

Android users can subscribe and rate our podcast on Spotify.

Subscribe and rate our podcast on iTunes here.

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