Do not expect Distributors to Create Demand for You

You have just created a fantastic product and you are very excited about the growth. You believe the product will explode. So you spend a lot of time talking to distributors so that they can carry your product. They are good distributors. They carry many American products that sell well. They sell in millions. Month after month, no sales for your product. You were wondering, why? Is my product not good? Does nobody want my product?

Many new entrepreneurs make the mistake of misunderstanding the role of distributors. As the name said, they are distributors. They distribute things. When people ask for the specific product, and they have it, they will sell it to them. That’s it. That is their role. While you as a start-up entrepreneur have a different expectation. You expect them to do the marketing for you. You expect them to promote your product. You expect them to learn your product and sell for you. You expect them to spend a lot of their money and resources to sell your product. None of the above happened. There is no shortcut here. When your product is still new, you must do your marketing, you must do your sales. You must do your promotion. Get a lot of users to use your product. Make your own sales. Distributors will only be useful when your product is already well known. When a lot of people wants your product then the role of distributors will come in. Do not make the mistake of expecting them to do the work for you at the beginning. No shortcut here. That is why you must have enough budget for sales and marketing. In the USA normally the budget for marketing is a few times the budget for product development. In Malaysia, chances are the marketing budget is the leftover budget, if that is still available. Do not make this mistake. It will set you back many months or years.

There are many things that you need to watch out. After all that we will still make mistakes. This is the nature of entrepreneurship. We try something new, the new angle of approach, the new model of business, new technology and in some cases new products. It is OK. At least we have avoided the typical mistakes or the mistakes that we could avoid. This will give us the extra breathing time, the short extra time that will help us realize our dream.