A lot of people think that they can time the market for introducing a new product and service. If you can, more power to you because as the cliche goes, “Timing is everything.” The reality though is that despite the best efforts at timing, products or services sell if there is a demand for it no matter what the economy is or how deep a person is in debt. If the person has no money and still wants to get it, they will try and get it.
Take video game systems for instance. People use to spend hundreds of dollars for a gaming system and games if it were the latest and greatest and they felt they had to have it. There was a reason that Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft tried to time the release of their gaming systems at Christmas or at the latest, January. People’s minds are already primed for spending and being on the self-indulgent side.
Alas, for the near future I think those days are gone. People don’t have the money that use to and with large companies needing to be bailed out by governments, jobs being on the line, timing the release of products may not make a difference overall.
Movie producers and distributors have some success with timing releases in order to prevent film piracy. What could we do as business people to be more profitable and is there any hope in trying to time a release of product or introduction of a service?
The best thing to do is to start writing about what you are trying to sell and see if there is a market for it. If you are getting any kind of response and you have market penetration where people can actually read your press releases, your stories, your upcoming events, then you have a decent forum to see if there is any interest in the item.
You can also just go ahead and get the product on the market as soon as possible. If you have the budget to advertise the heck out of the product (say the latest and greatest iPod type of hand held music player) you may get some sales.
One of the reasons we are internationally in such a mess financially is that companies with their preprogrammed software trading tried to “time the market”. The problem is that everybody is trying to time the market so conventional wisdom as to when to buy or sell stock, commodities or even when to start selling stuffed teddy bears doesn’t quite work anymore.
So back to basics.
Have a good product, something that you think there will be a demand for, price it reasonably and get your distribution chain in place so you can start taking orders. All in all, once you get the details straightened out (not an easy thing to do obviously), it is easier than trying to time a market!
Kim Greenblatt
Kim Greenblatt, in his blog, profitable talks about timing markets.
Tags: Business, Kim Isaac Greenblatt, money, profitable, sales, time the market, timing