Selling Stuff People MUST Buy

The number one thing I would say I learned too late in business is that it is much easier to build a successful business when you are selling something people must buy, compared to selling something that is nice to have or completely discretionary.

I really wish I had understood this lesson twelve years ago when I first started, but there were many things I did not know back then. I had heard versions of this idea over and over throughout the years, but I did not truly learn it or internalize it until the past two and a half to three years.

If you read this newsletter and actually internalize the lesson, I think you can save yourself an enormous amount of time and effort while getting a much bigger and better result than you otherwise would.

I know most people reading this are not going to do that. But for the few who will, really, really pay attention to what I am about to say.

There are certain things that people must buy legally.

There are other things they functionally have to buy if they want to operate a normal life or a successful business.

There are also things that fall somewhere between a complete necessity and a purely discretionary purchase.

In other words, the need to buy exists on a spectrum.

At one end, you have things people are legally required to purchase. After that, you have things they may not legally need, but practically cannot operate without.

Then you have things that solve serious and expensive problems. At the other end, you have products and services that are simply nice to have.

The closer your offer is to the must-buy side of that spectrum, the easier you are making things for yourself.

If you can position yourself as the seller of something people already have to buy, you have an enormous advantage.

They have to buy it from someone.

You do not need to convince them that the entire category is valuable.

You do not need to educate them from the beginning or explain why the product exists.

They already know what it is.

They already understand why they need it.

In many cases, they are already buying it.

You only need to convince them to buy it from you.

This is a huge, huge advantage compared to selling something people do not understand, do not urgently need, or could easily live without.

A good example of this in the B2C world would be auto insurance and home insurance.

If you want to legally drive a car in most of the United States, you need auto insurance or another approved form of financial responsibility. You are going to buy that coverage from someone.

If you want to finance the purchase of a home, your mortgage lender will almost always require homeowners insurance. Once again, you are going to buy it from someone.

The buyer does not need to be convinced that auto insurance or homeowners insurance is a real category. The demand already exists. Your job is to convince them that you are the person or company they should buy it from.

Food is another obvious example.

If you do not want to starve, you need to eat. You are going to get your food from somewhere. Of course, that does not mean every restaurant, grocery brand, or food company will be successful.

People need food, but they do not need your specific food business.

That is an important distinction.

The category itself may be mandatory while your individual offer is still optional.

You still need a good offer, good economics, good distribution, and a reason for the customer to choose you.

But you are starting with the massive advantage of selling into demand that already exists.

That is very, very powerful.

What are some examples in the B2B world?

Anything related to taxes, payroll, accounting, compliance, insurance, payment processing, cybersecurity, or legal requirements can fall somewhere on the must-buy spectrum.

Businesses need to file and pay taxes.

They need to stay compliant with the laws and regulations that apply to their industry.

They need to pay employees, collect payments, protect customer information, and maintain basic financial records.

In many of these cases, failing to buy the service creates penalties, legal problems, operational problems, or serious financial risk.

But there are also things businesses may not legally need, yet functionally have to use if they want to compete and succeed. A good example is email marketing for e-commerce brands.

There is no law saying that an e-commerce company has to do email marketing. Nobody is going to arrest the owner because they did not set up abandoned-cart emails.

But if an established e-commerce brand has meaningful website traffic, customers, and an email list, it functionally has to use email marketing if it wants to maximize its revenue.

Why?

Because most people who visit an e-commerce website do not buy during their first visit.

Some add products to their cart and leave.

Some look at a product several times before buying.

Some purchase once but never return because the company does not follow up with them.

Some customers would happily buy again if the business reminded them about a new product, a promotion, or an item related to something they previously purchased.

Email allows the brand to follow up with all of those people.

It can recover abandoned carts, convert interested visitors, generate repeat purchases, announce new products, promote sales, educate customers, and increase the total amount of money each customer spends over time.

The company already paid to acquire the traffic or customer. Without email marketing, it is often allowing a large percentage of that value to disappear.

So no, email marketing is not legally mandatory.

But for an established e-commerce business that wants to operate properly and compete with everyone else in the market, it can be functionally mandatory.

That is why there are so many successful e-commerce email marketing agencies. They are not selling some random service that nobody understands. They are helping businesses recover and generate revenue that would otherwise be lost.

One idea I used to get psyched about was the entire Red Ocean versus Blue Ocean debate.

You would hear that you needed to find some completely new opportunity where there was no competition. You needed to find a blue ocean.

That sounded so good to me when I was younger.

Now, I think it is some of the dumbest fucking advice I have ever heard.

You know what a red ocean signifies?

Demand.

That is why there is so much competition.

That is why so many people are selling in that market.

That is why so many customers are already spending money there.

Then someone will say: “Oh my God, Matt, the market is too saturated.”

Most of the time, that is just cope and a skill issue.

It is easier to say that a market is saturated than to admit that your offer is not good enough, your marketing is not good enough, your sales process is not good enough, or you have not developed a reason for customers to choose you.

Competition does not mean there is no opportunity.

It means you need to be better.

You need a stronger offer.

You need better positioning.

You need to understand the customer more deeply.

You need to market and sell more effectively.

You need to find a part of the market you can serve better than the alternatives.

I would much rather compete in a market where customers are already spending billions of dollars than enter some so-called blue ocean where I have to educate people, create the demand, and convince them that the thing I am selling has value in the first place.

Of course, competition is not automatically good.

A market can have high demand but terrible margins, expensive customer acquisition, difficult regulation, or powerful incumbents.

You still need to evaluate the economics and determine whether you can compete.

But I would rather solve those problems than have to invent demand from nothing.

The good news is that if you are in marketing or almost any kind of B2B service, the skills you developed while running your current business can usually be transferred into a red ocean market with significant existing demand.

Even if you made the same mistake I did and are not currently selling something people must buy, it is often very easy to transition.

I am not saying you should shut down your entire business tomorrow or do anything reckless. Especially if you provide a service like Facebook ads, cold email, content, sales, funnels, or email marketing, you may not even need to change the service itself.

You may only need to change who you provide it to.

You can take the exact same skill and use it to help clients sell products and services that customers already need.

When you help clients sell things people must buy, your own service is also more likely to succeed.

The client has an easier time generating demand.

Their prospects already understand the category.

Their offer solves a real, existing need.

That makes your advertising, outreach, sales process, content, and marketing more effective.

You are no longer trying to use great marketing to compensate for an offer nobody wants.

You are applying great marketing to demand that already exists.

If I were you and wanted actual action steps, I would do the following:

The central idea is simple.

The easiest demand to capture is demand that already exists.

It is much easier to convince someone to buy from you than it is to convince them that they need to buy the entire category in the first place.

You still need to execute.

You still need to compete.

You still need a strong offer, good marketing, effective sales, and excellent fulfillment.

But selling something people must buy removes one of the hardest problems in business.

You no longer have to create the underlying demand.

You only have to win it.

Talk Later,

Matt