Know-How Exchange : Other

The distribution business isn't much different than any other business. It all starts with identifying your target audience -- the people most likely to become your cusotmers -- and then getting to know what makes them tick better than anybody else in the business.

Never forget that it's the customers who pay your bills. If you are not delivering a benefit they think is important, they're not going to be your customers for long.

If I were in your shoes, I'd interview at least a dozen prospective customers. Prepare a short list of the most important questions, then set up interviews and ask, listen, and take detailed notes. Don't try to sell them anything or convince them of anything. Just ask, listen and take notes.

Then, when you've finished 12-15 good interviews, go back and read/analyze your notes. Look for common threads, anomalies ... any opportunity to grab onto an unmet need that you can satisfy.

Use that to articulate a positioning statement or value proposition for your business. Make it competitive, unique, benefit-oriented, and real/believable. That positioning statement will become the cornerstone of your marketing strategy, and it will guide development of plans for every area of the marketing mix.

Hope this helps. You need to go through this process before you even begin to think about buying products, creating a catalog, or any of the operational items. After all, if you don't know who your target audience is and what will get them to buy from you, it really doesn't matter what items you can source for them, does it?

Two words:

Drop-shipping. Ebay.

(Okay, maybe that was THREE words.)