How Can Your New Product Compete in the Marketplace?  
Make It Stand Out in a Crowd.

As an independent Product Developer, you must be sure that your product idea will be really different in a special way. Companies that are in business and are adding products to an existing product line have the luxury of developing a new product that may have slight improvements over an existing one. They already have distribution and brand awareness. They simply need to slip the new product into the lineup, and away they go.

You, on the other hand, are a one man (or woman) band. Your product must be able to stand out in a crowd. There are thousands of products out there competing for the consumer's precious dollar. Yours must be a people stopper--the one where the husband says, "Well, Gee Whiz--I'll be damned, Honey, come here and look at this! This mouse chase cat toy is a riot. Look at the cat going after that thing. I've never seen anything like it. You think we should get one for our cat? Let's do it!"

The Gee Whiz Factor can be accomplished in a variety of way. A few examples are:

1. Make Something Automatic That Used to be Manual--Things that happen automatically create a feeling of ease of use and of power (the remote unit for the TV is like having your own channel changing slave).

2. Combine Features of Several Products Into One Product--How about a machine that makes a salad for you and blends your favorite dressing, and puts it all together in a salad bowl?

3. Take a Known Product and Put a Dramatic New Twist on It--Millions of stepper-type exercise machines have been sold. How about one that is built like a scooter, where the stepping action actually propels you down the street?

4. Take a Known Product and Make it Out of a New Material--I designed a vegetable steamer out of a high-temperature nylon instead of steel--no rust, leaves don't fall off, the nylon lift handle is "no burn" and cradles the food. And, to top it off, if you accidentally let the water burn out, a bell goes off.

5. Take a New Technology Used in One Product and Apply It to Another Product--An example would be ultrasonic transducers that were developed for high-frequency speakers. Someone decided to use the rapid pulsations to pulverize water into fine mist and create a new type of humidifier.

6. Use Any Mechanism or Action That Creates a "Magical" Result--As an example, the "Magic Marinator," a dome shaped device with a plate underneath. You put your favorite fish or steak in a marinating liquid, put the dome on and push a button. A vacuum is drawn and --MAGIC--the steak is marinated in seconds rather than hours.

You see, in order to get the attention of a manufacturer, investor, store buyer or the consumers themselves, your product must stand above the rest in a unique way. You can figure this out if you try. Put your thinking cap on and let the Gee Whiz feature light up that amazing brain of yours.

The above article was excerpted from Ken Tarlow's MIND TO MONEY, a cassette tape/workbook package that can help you develop a new product from the idea stage to the marketplace. MIND TO MONEY may be ordered from the Dream Merchant at $59.95 plus $4.95 CA sales tax and$5 shipping and handling ($69.90 total). Send orders to the Dream Merchant, 2309 Torrance Blvd., Suite 104, Torrance, CA 90501.

      

         

            Previous
         
         

            
Index
         
         

            
         
         

            
Idea Help
         
         

            Next