While there are many ways to get rich (I know of seven), there’s fewer to creating a truly successful supplement company from the ground up. With all the laws governing the creating and sale of supplements, the previous entrepreneur path of making a product in your garage and selling it are long gone. By the way…
While it’s true you might make something in your garage today, your distribution methods are limited and it’s not a free for all (Wild West) like it once might have been. There will always been law breakers, cons and cheats but regulation is much better today than a decade ago. As a result…
There are ONLY three ways to create a successful supplement company:
1. Get lucky and make a better product than anybody else
This happens with almost every industry. You take an existing idea or product and make it better.
Look at Research in Motion (RIMM) that created the first Enterprise smart phone called the Blackberry. They were first to market such a device and it was #1 for many years. Since that time, Apple and many other hardware markets took that idea (smart phone) and made it better. They were not first to market but made a better product.
EAS was #1 for many years in ready to drink products and tasty mixable protein supplements. Since that time, many companies have made better tasting and higher quality products and taken over the #1 spot. While they still exist, they are not the same company.
This is a tough thing to do but it’s the best option for the consumer which is to …
Make a better product!
2. Use the law: Sue
If you can’t beat em, sue em!
Big companies with loads of money and less innovation who’ve held a #1 spot or never did but have the money necessary can sue their way to the top spot. You see this a lot with patent infringement or using certain words.
You rarely see small companies doing this because it would bankrupt them. But multi-billion dollar companies who can’t make a better product (resources, no know-how, no time, no incentive) will use the law to get rid of competition.
Let’s sue for usage of the word “milk.” This type of action is not helpful to the consumer at all. But it’s a way to damage the competition that is killing you. Find a legal weak spot and exploit it.
The consumer is ultimately the loser as a better product may disappear.
If you need a real-world example, look at Apple vs. Samsung. The Galaxy 3 smart phone is arguably a better phone (at least the consumer thinks so).
Instead of making a better phone, Apple sued for patent infringements on silly things like visual design like a rounded look and how apps looked.
They can’t seem to make a better phone so sue the competition. Some people refer to this as jumping the shark.
3. Use Fear
This is my personal favorite!
You don’t need to invest the time required to make a truly best-selling product that may take decades to materialize. You don’t need to spend millions in court trying to weasel your way to the top spot.
You can use the power of words and count on the consumer not to dig deep to create a sense of fear to entice people to use your product.
For Example:
What if I told you Product A might taste better and be less expensive but that it contained ingredients that could disrupt your digestive system and maybe even cause cancer!
I’d use all sorts of power words to persuade you to use my more expensive product and not very tasty but you’d be much healthier and not die from some type of cancer. I’d tell you how the industry as a whole was out to swindle your money but not us! We care! We have super smart people on staff with degrees and unlike those other companies who make crap in their unclean garages, we are a fully FDA certified!
Fact is … using fear is a tactic used by almost everybody who sells something. It just happens that I’m seeing method being used more and more when it comes to people’s health.
The solution is simple.
Be an informed consumer.
Before you rush off to buy bottled water (BPA free or not you are adding more plastic to the Earth) because you are told the proper pH of the best water is 9.5, check your local water reports. If your tap water is way off, maybe you do need a better source of water. But before you start believing that everything you consume (protein, foods, water) is in someway harmful, do your research.
They are counting on the fact that you do not.
Be Fit, Stay Strong!
Marc David – CPT