Ep 128: THIS IS A LIE Great Products Don't Sell Themselves

“Great products sell themselves” sounds comforting until you’re staring at shelves of inventory that refuse to move. I'm pulling that myth apart and replacing it with a real-world 3 phase framework I use to sell at scale.

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Welcome And The Big Myth

0:00

Welcome to the Ali D Show. Okay, everybody, today's episode is going to be fabulous, and I'm really excited to talk to you about this, 'cause I know this is the question that everybody has on their mind, and it's something that I feel like our industry for a long time got fooled into believing this little question. Actually, it's not even a question, it's a comment. It's a statement. But it really does express how most people approach selling products, and why most likely you are not selling the amount of products that you think you should be selling or you want to be selling. So here's the deal. How many of you have heard this statement? "Great products sell themselves." Okay, raise your hand if you're over there like, "Yep, I actually have heard this a zillion times. This is, you know, what everybody tells me. Like, if you just create a great product or you curate the right products, they're gonna sell themselves. If you build it, they will come," right? Which sounds fabulous, and it sounds amazing, but here is the truth of the matter. And listen, I've sold millions of dollars worth of product, okay? We, we are actually currently moving thousands and thousands of units per month through my warehouse. Let me tell you, I wish they sold themselves. Okay? This would be a heck of a lot easier. But the truth of the matter is, is that's, that's not reality, right? Great products don't sell themselves. So how do you actually sell more of your great products? How do you actually make inventory fly off the shelves like hotcakes? How do you fricking do this? This is the million-dollar question. This is what we're gonna be breaking down in today's episode. So if you are here for this, I want you to be like, "Yeah, girl, let's fricking go," 'cause I'm gonna be breaking down three specific things that have to be in place, okay? And I'm gonna go through each one of these ex- things and explain why, and really it takes all of them, okay? So it's not like you can just master one of these or even two. You need all three in place for you to really start making a splash in the industry. And what this will do is it actually will put you in that category of one zone that everybody wants to be in. Because when you are a category of one, guess what? You have no competition. You're not looking around wondering what other people are doing. You're, you're literally at the top of the, the barrel. I don't know if that's the right expression here, but you are at the top, and everybody else is trying to get to it where you are. But when you do these three things, it won't matter. No one can catch you because you have built a category of one, something that only you can provide, something that only you and your brand can give to your customers. And when you do this, you guys, the world is your oyster. This is going to be the whole key. So let me get into these three things. Start taking notes or save this, um, podcast. You know, click the little save button. Do whatever you need to do because I want you to come back to it and listen to it. This is gonna be a really, really juicy one, you guys. So the

Build A Category Of One

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first thing I need you to understand about becoming a category

Be Seen: Capture Niche Attention

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of one and not letting that dumb product sell themselves things get into your head anymore, the first thing we need to get you to do is be seen, okay? So the market is obviously crowded. There is a lot of noise. People say it's oversaturated. People say, "Oh my gosh, I don't know. How am I gonna stand out? How am I gonna, you know, get anyone to pay attention to me?" Here is the deal. At the end of the day, you need to be seen not because you are fighting for customers, you're fighting for attention And this is the first step in actually building a business that's going to make you wildly successful, okay? It's not about just fighting to get a customer. That's very low-level thinking, and that is not going to actually bring in your customers, which is so weird, right? You're like, "Well, if all my focus is on getting more customers, that's how I'm gonna get more customers." No, no, no, no, no, ma'am. All your focus needs to be on getting the attention of your ideal customer first. That's it, okay? You should not care about going viral to the masses. You should only care about being known in your niche. So right now, I want you to think about your business. Where are you so focused on just selling a product as opposed to capturing the attention of your ideal customer, which is totally different, right? When I teach my clients this, this is what actually turns their business from crickets to all of a sudden people paying them and paying attention to them, okay? You have to switch your focus here. You win attention in your niche, your inventory will start to move faster. This is like, this is like an A plus B equals C equation, okay? So there's no- nowhere on the planet where if you don't get more attention, the sales will eventually follow. But so many people are just focused on, like, "How do I sell another T-shirt? How do I sell another necklace? How do I sell one more candle? What can I do to get an order today?" Instead, you just need to focus on, "How can I be getting the attention of my ideal customer?" That's it, okay? So that is the first thing you need to think about when you're wanting to build a category of one. Switch your focus to this mentality. Go look at some of my brand's pages. You'll see exactly how we do this. Go look at the Ally D brand Instagram page, okay? Or go look at the Rodeo Ranch, it's rodeo.ranch Instagram page. You will see this in real life. This is one of the main pillars of all of our content, is just getting our ideal customer's attention, and that's content specific, right? So that, that, that's a strategy that works within content. But this is, this is a blanket statement whether you are trying to reach retailers, right, like maybe you wanna get into the wholesale game. How are you going to capture the attention of your ideal customer instead of just focus on getting another wholesale account? We gotta get their attention first. So this may be even going into, like, your booth design or your showroom design or what your emails look like. How are you setting your business up to be a category of one instead of blending in with everybody else, which is where you will feel ignored, okay? You have to be seen. You have to capture their attention. That is first and foremost. So after we've done that step and we've captured your ideal customer's attention, we move into our second thing that must be in place for your business to blow up and for your products to move like hotcakes, okay?

Be Wanted: Manufacture Real Demand

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You need to, number two, be wanted Okay, sit with this for a second. You have to be wanted. For people to buy your products for their stores or for themselves, you must be wanted. They have to care. So what does that mean for you? How do you become wanted? Okay, this... I, I love talking about this so much 'cause it's so juicy. Your job is to create demand for your products. This is how you become wanted. You have to manufacture demand, you guys. This is not something that naturally occurs in the universe. You manufacture it, and every single successful brand manufactures their demand. And I don't mean, like, manufactures as in makes, makes it up. I mean manufactures as in they create the demand. Ooh, yes. You are in control of this. And this is also probably not only the most important thing you will learn how to do as a brand owner and as a business owner, but it is also the hardest thing you will do. And I have clients that have worked on manufacturing their demand for multiple months, and then once they nail this, holy Crayola crappers, it's like the floodgates open. But people just try to, like, shove product down people's throats all the time on social media and all the time online, and there's no demand, so it's like, ew, I don't wanna buy your stuff. Like, back it up, sister. Like, this is too forceful, right? It feels too forced and pushed and, and, like, salesy. Your job is to get it to be their idea, and I'm gonna talk a little bit more about this, but what I... I wanna make a, a very important differentiator here. Demand is not urgency, okay? These are two separate things. So this does not mean create, like, a false sense of urgency like, oh, like, things are selling out so fast, like, lying to people about how fast your products are moving so they think that it's, like, something that they need to buy too and creating, like, false urgency, false FOMO. That's not what this is, okay? There's a lot of brands guilty of that. It doesn't fricking work. Demand is different than urgency. Demand is an internal emotion that someone gets because you invoke that emotion in them in the way that you are presenting your product. So how do we do this? You do this by placing the product very simply and very bluntly into their lifestyle in your content, okay? If we're going back to talking about social media, of course, this applies across the board, but it's kind of like the easiest example for people to see because they can kind of visualize what this could look like in content, for example So you do it by putting your products into their lifestyle in a way that feels very simple, very seamless, very non-salesy, and very, uh, like purposeful So when, when you do this, guess what happens? Your customer feels seen, and it creates desire for your product. And when you can learn how to create desire for your product by really honing in on the type of lifestyle imagery and content you need to be putting out there into the universe to have them feel seen, to have them feel that desire and the demand, it all happens naturally. Like, it just unfolds in the most beautiful way. But this is sales psychology, and people just think... This is why it drives me insane when people are just like, "Just be more consistent. Just post three times a day." Like, okay, cool. Like, that's good for you to practice, but if you're not learning how to actually post content that, that triggers that desire and demand within them and you're just posting, like, random new arrivals, m- random, like, new product drops or, like, you know, no thought into this and you haven't really thought about the desire and the demand side yet, then your products are gonna have no connection to your ideal customer, and it's gonna flop. Your messaging is gonna flop. Your launches are gonna flop. Your sales are gonna flop. You're gonna feel invisible. Your website's not gonna have any sales. You're gonna have no traffic. It's because you have not manufactured the demand for your product yet. And again, this is your number one job as the business owner. And why does nobody talk about this? Like, this drives me insane. Like, this is the whole freaking key here, right? Like, it's supply and demand. It's basic economics. And this is coming from someone who refused to ever take a business class or an economics class. And if I understand this as someone who's never even, like, been in a business class, you need to understand this too. It's how I've sold millions of dollars worth of product, from creating demand, not from, like, watching some weirdo internet gal telling me to do a, uh, a trend or, like, to use this next hook in trending audio. It's gonna blow up. Ah. No. It's learning how to create demand. And the more you lean into learning this skill, which is what we talk about all the time in here, in my, in my programs, in my trainings with my clients, the more you learn this, the bigger you're gonna get. This is the whole freaking key here. I have a whole... By the way, if you're not... if you don't know this yet, I have a free 10-day challenge coming up called Go Big, okay? We're gonna be breaking down all the things you need to understand so you can have your best fourth quarter ever. It talks... We, we're gonna talk about all this stuff. I'm gonna teach you very in-depth on everything you need to learn to understand what it takes to go big. So if you're not in that yet, just go to alideceo.com/gobig, or go to my Instagram page. You can DM me, or you'll see, like, um, on pretty much all of my reels right now, you just comment the word big, and I'll DM you the link. But it's... Or I think it's in my link in bio too. It's just alideceo.com/gobig Okay? That's the name of the challenge. It's free. So go claim your free seat in there so we can talk about this even more. We're, we're gonna have a Zoom call and then, um, some Telegram. It's gonna be fabulous. But this is what it takes, right? You guys have to learn how to do this. You have to learn how to manufacture demand. And I feel like sometimes when, when we use the word manufacture demand, it feels like a little like, um... Like I said before, it feels like a little bit of, I don't know, fakey fakey. But that's not what I'm, that's not what I mean by manufacture demand. I mean, like, literally you need to get into the fricking lab, okay? You need to get into your dis- demand lab, and you need to put the pieces together. You need to get into, like, the zone where you're like, "How do I create demand? What does my ideal customer want, and how can I align my products with exactly what they want out of life?" Oh my God, I get so excited 'cause this is the whole key, you guys. This is the whole key, okay? So again, you have to be wanted, right? So the first thing we talked about is you have to be seen. We gotta get their attention first. Then you need to be wanted. You have to create the demand, okay?

Be Remembered: Repeat To Get Sales

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And then the third step is you must be remembered. You could be seen and you could be wanted, but if you're, if you aren't able to be remembered, you're going to lose out on the very important part of the purchasing journey. And here's what I mean You guys know, or maybe you don't know, maybe you're hearing this for the first time or listening to the podcast for the first time. What's up, first-timers? This is something I talk about all the time. It takes someone six to seven times of seeing your product before they actually buy. And you know what, sister? I would argue even more these days. I would argue it could take seven to 10 times, right? Six to seven times was the norm. There is so much fricking noise out there and so many distractions, and people have the attention span of a squirrel these days, including myself. I'm putting myself in this category, which is why I believe it takes someone even closer to seven to 10 times of seeing something before they actually buy. So they need to see your products over and over and over and over again before they're like, "Oh my God, I forgot I wanted to buy that thing," right? This is not like a, a, a, you know, we're trying to trick them or anything. This is like, it's literally like just a mental thing. People may get your email and they're like, "Oh, that's so cute." And then, like, the daughter's, like, calling from the kitchen. They just spilled their m- their milk all over the floor, right? So it's like, "Oh, can't buy it right now. I gotta go clean up this milk mess," right? And then maybe, like, they see it on your story and they're like, "Oh my gosh, I love that," and they click on your, your Instagram story and then the phone dies, right? Like, there's all these things that can happen, but you have to understand that in order for, for you to get the buy, nine times out of 10 it's not gonna be when they first find you or discover you, when they, when you first get their attention, or even when you start building up that demand, okay? Now's the third step where you have to be remembered. You gotta put your products in front of them over and over and over again. So many brands, and this is probably you too, and that's why I'm telling you this, so you can audit yourself and go, "Oh, dang. Okay, I fall into this category. Oops" So many brands give up on a product way too fast. You don't even give yourself a chance to be remembered. So you're taking yourself out of the arena. Like, you're walking in the arena. You got your sparkly gladiator outfit on. You're creating demand. The audience is paying attention. And then, like, maybe only a couple people buy and you're like, "Dang. Okay. Oh, well. I'm leaving the arena." Oh, no, no, no, no. You gotta take laps around that sucker. You gotta take... You gotta show your outfit time and time in your sparkly glitter, and then you gotta get out there and you gotta be like, "Hey, I'm gonna be fighting back in the arena again. Come see me." Like, you gotta really, really give yourself a chance to be remembered so people buy from you. You want people to pay attention to you, you want them to pay you, you've got to give yourself a chance to get, to get in the game and stay in the arena. This is why repeating the same messaging over, and over, and over again is so important. Oh, my gosh, it's so important. It's how people are going to remember you. People say, I hope I don't butcher this, "Marketing is not saying one thing a hundred different ways, it's saying the same thing a hundred times." Okay? It's literally that over, and over, and over again. So let's just give an example. Like let's say you sell candles. You want your house to smell like the Ritz Carlton? Cool. Here's the candle. Right? So we've, we are giving them the demand, the desire. They want their house to smell like the Ritz Carlton lo- lobby, right? Let's like, like a super fancy hotel lobby. You want your house to smell like the Ritz Carlton lobby? This is the candle for you. Okay, cool. No one buys. Cool. We're gonna show it again. You want your house to smell like the ho- the Ritz Carlton lobby? This is the candle for you. We're repeating the same messages over and o- We're not gonna all of a sudden say, you know, "Oh, you want your house to smell like the lobby of Ritz Carlton?" We're not gonna then say, "You want your house to, um, smell like flowers and tulips?" No. You gotta say the same message 'cause that was the demand. That's how you create de- demand and desire. You hone in. If your ideal customer is someone who wants their house to smell luxurious and rich, and like they want their friends to come over and they're gonna walk in and go, "Oh my God, this person must have a lot of money. It smells like the Ritz Carlton in here," right? And that's what your ideal customer desires... By the way, let me be clear. Not everybody desires that, okay? You gotta figure out what your ideal customer desires. Some people want their house to, to smell like, you know, Christmas year-round. They want that cozy, comfortable, down-home farmhouse re- you know, real life cozy vibes. Maybe they want it to smell like their grandmother's cooking. Okay? Like maybe they want it to smell like a fricking five-star resort. Those are all different ideal customers. It's why it's so important you have to figure out the desires of your specific ideal customer, 'cause I could sell the same candle 10 different ways with 10 different desires, and it could literally be the exact same smell. Okay? So you have to figure out what is the messaging that works for your audience. That's what the demand is. And then you have to repeat that message over, and over, and over again in your content, in your stories, in your emails, in your website, in your ads. What- wherever you are speaking about your products, you have to do it over, and over, and over. You cannot give up so easy, guys. You cannot post once or twice about something and not get sales, and then cry about it and be done with that product. And especially if you're in the early stages, you guys, you guys got to talk about this stuff way fricking more. Way more. So many of you come to me and you're like, "Yeah, well, I had a launch, and, you know, I, I launched, like, a few new things, and nobody really bought on launch day, and so then, like, I just moved on." I'm like, what? Like, okay, cool. Like, if, if you're just getting started and products don't sell on launch day, you better be talking about those products for the next 14 days after launch day with the same exact enthusiasm as launch day. Like, this is reality. It's your job to create excitement, enthusiasm, demand, desire, to be remembered, to be seen. It's your job to create all this as the business owner. You cannot just throw products out into the marketplace and just hope they sell themselves. And that's what so many of you are doing. Because I think no one's been in your head that's actually done this and, like, saying, "No, this is what it really takes." Okay? This is what it really takes to move millions of dollars worth of product. You guys, I am, like, so obsessed with my products and having them out into the world all the time. Like, I don't give up on things. Like, n- now I've, like, I've crossed over into the zone where, like, if, if a product doesn't do well, I can kind of know what was the, what was the issue and why it didn't do well. Like, I have enough data and demand and all the things to, like, have more discernment at this stage of my business as someone who's sold millions of dollars worth of product. But if you're still trying to reach 10K, 20K months, and you haven't got there yet, you're missing these points. Okay? You're missing getting the attention from your customer. You're missing manufacturing the demand. You're missing the repeat messaging that it takes for you to be remembered so people can actually cross over and buy from you. Because, again, it takes six or seven times, right? So if you're only doing it once and no one buys, or twice and only one person buys, or three times and, like, maybe two people buy, like, you gotta get over the hump. You gotta get out there six, seven, 10 times of talking about the item with the right ideal customers and the right messaging. You guys, it is a formula. So what I don't want to happen is I don't want this to feel overwhelming. I want this to feel empowering. Do you feel overwhelmed right now? I feel like I'm, like, being very forceful on this. I'm like, whoa, Ali, chill out. But it's so important. Like, I have so much passion behind this because I know this is what's gonna make you a millionaire, like, understanding this exact concept This is what's going to allow your business to move into the category of one zone, no matter what you sell. Okay? I sell T-shirts mainly, though that is shifting. Do you guys know, like, there's... Like, when I first started, there wasn't a lot of T-shirt people out there at all, actually. Like, it was very, um, it was a very new thing. But now, like, how many people out there sell graphic tees, right? So now we're shifting even more into a category of one to get myself even more demand, get myself to the eight-figure business owner mark, right? Because what got me here is not gonna get me there So same thing for you. You wanna be in a category of one? You wanna have no competition because you've broken through the noise, leaving everyone else in the fricking dust? You've gotta figure out these three things, okay? This is how products actually sell. So I hope you like this episode. I'm sorry if I was, like, a little bit dramatic. I'm like, I'm having, like, the vibes over here that I just, like, yelled at you for 23 minutes straight. Did it feel that way? I don't know. I hope not, 'cause I'm not meaning to yell at you, but I'm just very, very passionate about this subject and you learning how to create de- demand because this is the whole thing. This is the whole fricking key here, you guys. Ah! I'm so excited. Okay, don't forget.

Free Challenge And Coaching Options

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Go join Go Big. It is my free 10-day challenge, and we start on August 10th. So it's August 1st right now when I'm recording this. Oh my God, it's August 1st, you guys. What? Where did the time go? Okay, so we're getting closer and closer to fourth quarter. So Go Big, my free 10-day challenge, I'm gonna give you all the info you need to en- ensure that you're gonna have your best fourth quarter ever, 'cause I fricking want you to blow up. There is no excuse anymore. We're gonna learn how to do this. You're gonna learn how to create demand. You're gonna learn how to be seen. You're gonna learn how to do exactly what you need to do to be remembered, and then boomskies, you're gonna hear the cha-chings day and night, okay? I'm so freaking excited for you. If you feel like right now you are ready for more help with me, I have opened up some two-week private coaching intensives. These sell out really fast. I'm not BSing you and just creating fake urgency here. Okay, my two-week intensives are gold, and I can't do them all the time. Like, I can do them usually, like, once a quarter, 'cause they are intensives. Like, I'm very much in your business. We'll have a Zoom call where we'll go over exactly what's happening in your business right now, and I will give you the exact plan by the end of the call of what you need to implement to start to skyrocket your results, okay? Like, it's gonna be very fricking crystal clear. And then we're gonna spend two weeks in Telegram together as you implement the plan in case you need support. I'm just a voice note away. "Hey, Ali, I'm working on X, Y, and Z. Can you look at this and tell me if I'm doing it right?" 'Cause I don't wanna just give you the info and then, like, throw you into the fire and be like, "Good luck out there." So I do have a few two-week intensive slots that I've opened. Again, it's August 1st. DM me on Instagram if you are interested in one of these two-week intensives. They will blow your mind. They will change your life. People will tell me we've done more in two weeks than they've done in years in their business, and I get it, but, um, it's because I'm so fricking good at this, you guys. Like, this is my gift. I truly believe this is my gift, and I live for it. As you can tell, I have so much passion around it. I'm so excited about it. So get in the free challenge or get into my DMs, and let's get you inside a two-week intensive if you are ready to fricking roll right now and you wanna make big moves happen and you want my expertise. We can do that, okay? I love you guys so much. I hope you enjoyed this

Subscribe Share And Final Thoughts

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episode. Don't forget to subscribe. Share the podcast with your buddies. My whole goal here is to make sure that all the product business owners on the planet have all the information they need to also sell millions of dollars worth of product. It's my joy. I love doing it. Okay, talk to you later