How Long Do I Stick With A Product That's Not Working?
Play • 9 min

In this episode, Russell and Alison answer the question "How long do you stick with a product that's not working?".

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---Transcript---

Russell Brunson:

Hey, good morning. Welcome back, everybody. We've got some more Q and A's from the e-com versus experts Smackdown today for the marketing speakers podcast. And today's question is one; I think a lot of you guys are probably wondering. My guess is if you created a product and you're trying to sell it, and no one's buying, when do you quit? We're always talking about don't be a quitter, but is there a time to quit? Is there a time to keep going? How does it work? The question is, how long do you stick with a product that's not working before you pivot and try something different?

This is a great question from the Smackdown. I think you guys will enjoy the answer, and hopefully, you'll learn a ton from both Allison and I. So with that said, I'm queuing up the theme song, and then we come back. You're going to find out how long do you actually stick with a product that's not working? And if it's not working, do you just give up? Or if there're other things you can do, like maybe I'm close, maybe like an inch away from success. So that's what this episode and this question is all about. I hope you enjoy it and I will see you guys soon.

Brent Coppieters:

All right. The next question is from Denise Smith; she says, how long should I stick with a product or strategy that is not working before I should pivot to a different product? What are some things you do when a product isn't working for you before you move on?

Russell:

Ooh, that's a really good question.

Alison Prince:

So good.

Russell:

That's a good one. I'll give some of my thoughts, and then I'm going to open until I find out more of what your product is, but there's two sides of this. I've seen people who have a product they wanted to create. They were passionate about it, they were obsessed with it, and then they created it, and it wasn't what the market wanted. And they kept trying and trying and trying to the point where they ended up losing everything. I literally had a friend when I first got started, he'd written this ebook, and it wasn't a very good ebook, and the topic wasn't good. He spent two years trying to sell it, and I asked him, why don't you just try to try something else? And he's like, I invested so much time and energy into this, I can't try anything else. And he never made success, and I haven't seen him now in a decade and a half.

But there's the other side too, where ClickFunnels like we built ClickFunnels. We launched it, and it was like crickets. Then I did it again and again, I spent… three or four, the sixth time is when it caught and started taking off. So there's kind of like that fine line of is this thing a dud? Marlon Sanders, if you guys know Marlin, he's one of the original OG's; he had a whole presentation. He did one time about dead ducks don't quack. He's like if you have a dead duck, it doesn't quack. You need to let it go. But you have to find out, is it a dead duck? Or is it just a duck that hasn't learned how to quack yet? So that's the question; I'd be curious to know, I don't know if you want to add anything to it, but I'm curious to know what the product is and where you are on the timeline because that might help us to give you very specific big feedback as opposed to.

Denise Smith:

I switched products, and I'm a big geek here. I switched products because I spent a year and a half doing exactly what your friend did. I put something out in the market I thought young people would need. It was, are you ready to be an entrepreneur? Millennials don't want us to tell them how to get organized. I kept saying they need it, and my husband kept saying, but they don't want help, but they need it. I spent so much time, and that was my problem is I spent a lot of time and energy there and a lot of money. I have now pivoted; I've started actually completely. I've gone into the health system like Tracy did this morning. I'm going in, and I'm now teaching because my real passion is teaching women my age, post-menopausal women, how to lose weight, the healthy way without all the crazy diets, and everything else.

That's where my passion is. My question is, I have that, and I will continuously show up on that because I'm crazy. But as I have products how long would I... And I'm just building it; I just started this week. If I put a cookbook out there, how long do I try to keep selling the cookbook before I just say, wow, no one wants this. And obviously, this time, I'm going to use the ask method. I'm asking before I just do. But, so that's my thing is how long do you keep not necessarily the overall program, but products within the program if they don't work? And by the way, my husband, I'm just going to be a geek here. I was trying to figure it out. My husband's like, you always say do what Russell says, so ask Russell. He don't mind, ask him.

Alison:

And here you go.

Russell:

I love it. One thing to think about, too, is you said the product didn't work, but the interesting thing is the product actually is fine. It's the positioning of the product. If you were to go back to that first business, my guess is you were trying to sell them what they needed but not what they wanted. I was the same thing with ClickFunnels. I was trying to sell initially, like what they need, like you guys need this, but that wasn't the messaging they wanted. I had to position it differently for them to be like, oh, I want that. But it wasn't me changing the entire product; it was changing the positioning. I've had multiple products where I've launched, and it bombed.

In fact, David Fry is a close friend of mine. He had a very interesting one. He had; it was actually a similar market he was trying to teach students how to get good grades, like getting into good colleges. He tried targeting students forever and messaging them towards students. And for years tried and finally just about to give up on it, and then he realized he's like the kids aren't the ones who care about getting good grades and going to college; it's the parents. So he took the same product; he didn't change the product at all; he just changed the sales letter, the messaging from, Hey, as a kid, you can get good grades to Hey, how would you like your kid to get better grades? How would you like your kid, and he started speaking the whole copy spoke to the parents and how this thing was going to help. He shifted that, shifted the ad, shifted the targeting, and boom, the whole thing blew up.

A lot of times, the product doesn't have to restart; it's just the positioning. How do we position this? If you think about this the way even this program, there's things people want, but there's also things you need. And so it's we talk about the things that you guys want, but then we're fulfilling also. We give you the stuff you want, but we're also giving you stuff that you need. It's like your parents used to give you ice cream if you eat your vegetables, or whatever. And so marketing is all about that. We want to deliver exactly what people need because we're educators; we're trainers like we love that.

But what do they want? We got to sugar coat it and position it in a way it shows off with the parts that they want. Then we can give them what they want, but then really serve with what they actually need. It's fascinating, does this program 2CCX alone? It's yes, everyone wants the funnel that's going to hit in the market but what most people actually need is the mindset stuff. So we're giving what you guys want. You're going to come in, you're going to learn funnels, and we're going to do challenge funnels, econ funnels. But man, we have momentum coaches because what you actually need is this. That's what people actually are keeping away. So we're sugar coating, and we're positioning in a way that we can get people in. That'd be my take on the old business.

If that one's done, I'm fine with that you moving on to this other one, but just the same thing's going to be true with this one is understanding that Hey, because you're going to be passionate about this. This is all the stuff you need, like, you need to go on a diet, and no one wants to go on a diet. You got to eat healthily, and no one wants to eat healthily. So it's like, Hey, how do we position this in a way that's exciting? Like this is what they actually are wanting. And then we can still give them everything they need, but we're positioning in a way that gets them excited to want to go and buy. Otherwise, they're not going to buy them.

Alison:

Did you guys just see what happened there? I was looking on the outsider. You have this amazing product. We saw it, we see it. And you're like, I'm just ready to trash it, and Russell's like, no, just tweak it a little bit. Instead of selling to the millennials or the kids or whatever, just sell to the parents. Just a little tweak, all this hard work that you've done, all the money that you've spent. That's awesome. You just switch it just a little bit.

Denise:

I'll do that.

Alison:

That's what happens in these hot seats in the 2CCX program. And some people are just like, ah, I spent all of this money, I can't do this anymore, and they want to ditch it. And I'm like no, that's still really good. You just have to change the positioning of who you're selling it to.

Russell:

Yeah.

Alison:

That was fun.

Denise:

I'm going to do both.

Russell:

Awesome.

Alison:

Thank you and tell your husband, hi.

Denise:

I will.

Brent:

Very cool. Oh, so good. Awesome.

Russell:

These are fun.

Alison:

I know, right.

Russell:

From now on, we're doing hot seats every day for the rest of our lives; this is way better than anything else; it was awesome.

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