Here’s the simple technique: He convinced the owner of the little convenience store within the Times Magazine office building to purchase his product. A writer at Times Magazine tried his product and then ended up writing a small story about it! How cool is that?! In other words, Clint strategically placed his product at that store with the hopes of getting media exposure. And it worked! Brilliant!

Here’s why I love this story:

1) As a product entrepreneur, you should always try to be selling your product. So in the case of Clint, he was actually receiving an order from the store regardless of the media exposure. Why not try and get media exposure and make some money at the same time?

2) When you work at an office building, you tend to buy stuff at the store. Especially if you work long hours. So it actually makes sense that the writer was able to try out his product quickly and easily.

3) This idea was unique and clever. As a product entrepreneur, you should always be thinking creatively about how to get the word out about your product. Out-of-the-box thinking when it comes to business is ALWAYS a great way to go!

Now…I have no idea if this technique will work for you or if Clint actually tortured the writer into writing an article about his product . Either way, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you start thinking differently! Start brainstorming and coming up with new and interesting ways to get the word out about your product…get creative! This is your time to shine. Who knows…you could be the next million dollar product success story!

To Your Success,

Karen Waksman

So what do you do when your product falls into one of these categories? Should you give up? NO WAY!

As a Sales Professional, I’m constantly having to deal with this issue. And truly competition doesn’t scares me. Why? Because I know that I can uniquely position MOST products to make them more interesting to buyers. It usually takes some serious effort, research and brainpower, but when dealing with competition you have to get creative.

If you’d like to learn more about one of my techniques I use to uniquely position a product, please click here to read the article that I wrote about the subject for About.com!

To Your Success,

Karen Waksman

1. The Dieline: A quality blog that helps with great packaging ideas.

2. HOW Design Blog: This is a longstanding graphic design magazine. Great information!

3. DesignBoom: A little over the top with all of the pictures, but the packaging design stuff is great.

4. Dexigner: A European blog (there are a bunch of great ones) focus on the packaging design and graphic design areas. Great content!

5. Packaging Designer: The name kind of says it all here. It’s a great industry hub.

6. Designer Daily: A great one to put in your brain! The how-to’s are great too.

7. Lovely Package: All about packaging. Great finds here daily.

8. Core77: A blog that deals more with product design, but returns to important packaging design themes often. A great place to find designers as well.

9. Coudal Partners: has an amazing link to a bunch of museums and much more.

10. BrandNew: has a great focus on logo work.

If you like any of the blogs listed above, we HIGHLY recommend adding their RSS feed to your feed reader. An RSS Feed is like subscribing to a magazine. It enables you to receive all of their great content without having to search for the information on a one off basis.

A good example is if you have a gmail account, go to greader.com once you’ve logged into your gmail account. Then go to the site you want to subscribe to and find the “RSS” icon, that means, typically the orange square with three little white concentric arcs in it. Click on it, and if it doesn’t prompt you to select google reader (or your RSS reader of choice), then you can right click on the icon, copy the link, then, paste it into Google Reader at the top left where it says “Add” then, bang! It’ll just publish straight to your google reader every time they write something new!

You can even make a folder in Google Reader just for packaging! That way, if you don’t want to read about packaging for a while, you can get access to all of that great information in one place!!

Bonus design thinking blogs

37Signals: I’ll just warn you, these humans are actually brilliant. Their products are too.

PSFK: Highly recommend their RSS feed, as the website can be a bit of a firehose (over-stimulating).

Smashing Magazine: Wow!

Here’s the link: How Product Associations Can Help Your Business

To your success.

Karen Waksman

Here’s the link!

https://s3.amazonaws.com/P4PPodcasts/small+vs+big+retail.m4a

The podcast is 5 minutes long. I hope it provides value. And if you like the podcast format, please let me know! I’m always trying to offer quality information in an effective and efficient way.

To Your Success,

Karen Waksman

Find Buyers: In the case of my student, her product was in a store in Des Moines, IA. So my first question to her was…who do you know in Des Moines, IA? I asked her to reach out to family, friends, coworkers or anyone she can think of and ask them to support! At this point, you need all the help you can get, so don’t be shy! Get the word out and ask them to buy your product!

Go Online: The next option I gave her was to research all of the top bloggers in the area near the store and ask them to review her product. The idea behind this is to steer people to the store to buy product from a trusted source. If the blogger likes her product, then people locally might be more inclined to buy! Offering a freebie or some special offer to those customers might help drive sales as well. And make sure that your offer is for a limited time so that you can generate those sales quickly!

Local Newspapers: Reaching out to the local newspapers in the area is another great option. Taking an advertisement out with a special offer to drive sales and traffic to the stores will help people become aware of your product!

If you don’t have the cash to pay for an advertisement then another option is to write a press release. Or find a community newspaper writer to review your product. Again, any way that you can get the word out about your product in an efficient manner is the right way to go!

Facebook: I just read a statistic that 1 in 8 people in the world are on Facebook! Insanity! So another suggestion I gave her was to consider posting a highly targeted advertisement to the people in Des Moines, IA! Did you know that 390,000 people are on Facebook in Des Moines, IA? At $0.01 Cost Per Click, my student would be able to get the word out ASAP. And if she could figure out a creative way to get people to the store to buy, then she might be able to get sales going quickly!

There are many ways to drive sales and traffic to a particular store, but I just wanted to give you some ideas to help you get started. And if you have any additional suggestions that have worked well for you, please comment below.

At the end of the day, when selling to chain stores, you have to do whatever you can do to help generate sales. It’s not just up to the retailer to sell your product! Most people think you can put a product in a store and then the product will sell itself. Sometimes it will, but most of the time, you need to help push sales along until the product builds momentum.

And that is why most buyers will want to know in advance what your marketing strategies will be to help drive traffic. Buyers are looking for partners, people who are serious about their product and will help generate revenue quickly. So my recommendation is do whatever you can to help them win!

To Your Success,

Karen Waksman

Let’s use Wei-Shin Lai (creator of SleepPhones) as an example. Wei-Shin and her husband developed a headphone that can be used comfortably while sleeping. It’s actually an awesome product! Take a look at their website: www.sleephones.com. Wei-Shin is a doctor and created the SleepPhones product out of necessity. She was having trouble sleeping and wanted to use headphones to relax. But all of the headphones available in the stores today were really uncomfortable to sleep in. And that is how the SleepPhones product was born!

Here’s why I mention Wei-Shin. She believed in her product and wanted to get her product into chain stores. So she scoured the web to get information on how to do so and found me. Now, on a side note, this is not a shameless plug of my book…truly. I’m just trying to make a point here (whether it’s getting help from me or someone else is truly irrelevant) just get support from somewhere!

And that’s what she did. She read my book and contacted me with specific question about her product. And then she was off to go and make things happen. Now I should mention that Wei-Shin hired a Manufacturers Rep to help her initially. But as time progressed, she realized that she needed to step things up on her own in order to generate additional revenue as well.

By the way, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this from people. They create a product and then they start working with a Manufacturers Rep and then they wait. And it’s torture! Because all they want to do is quit their full time job and make a living out of their brilliant product idea. But they can’t until the Manufacturers Rep pulls through. But what if the Manufactures Rep doesn’t make anything happen? Well, that is the entire premise as to why I do what I do. Give people options so that they can empower themselves to take life on!

Anyhow, here’s what happened with Wei-Shin. As of recently, she surpassed her Manufacturers Rep by getting an order and major interest from several big chain stores within a matter of months. Now I’m not saying this is typical, but it happened because a non-sales person took action and wouldn’t give up! Why can she do it and not you?

She didn’t hustle anyone. She just understood that it is possible to sell to chain stores without being a sales person. She realized that retail buyers don’t need to like you personally or be sold by you. Buyers truly just care about finding great products and generating revenue for their stores.

Additionally, Wei-Shin actually took the time to develop quality packaging and marketing material prior to approaching these retail buyers. Something most people do not do. So she took the time to set herself up for success and then approached chain store buyers when she was ready. She did the necessary research, contacted the appropriate chain store buyer and committed to not giving up. Yeah!

So, how can a non-sales person sell to chain stores? Take the time to develop your marketing message and your packaging. And get support from someone in the business that can help you walk you through the necessary steps to succeed. And always be on the lookout for a good Manufacturer’s Rep. Any way to generate revenue for your product is the right way to go. Bottom line – be tenacious and committed. That is how Wei-Shin did it and so can you!

To your success,

Karen Waksman

P.S. Please support Wei-Shin, a fellow inventor/product entrepreneur, and purchase her products!!! We are all in this together!

Coloring for packaging is a combination of math, science and art. And there are a plethora of options for colorizing your designs, but keeping it simple for a first time packager will always serve you well. So in this post, we will discuss a very simple strategy to help you win.

A simple way to figure out coloring is to research and find out if there are certain colors that your industry is utilizing consistently. In other words, are your competitors dominating colors such as Red, or Green, etc? If so, then pick a color that is similar to your competitors but customize it to give your product an edge. Why? Because a big brand has probably done extensive research on what coloring is important for your marketplace, so follow the bandwagon. HOWEVER, make sure you find your own unique twist!

Pantone, the color leader, makes a great informational kit each year with hot colors and trends. So take a look at Pantone to figure out which variations of color to use in your packaging. Additionally, you can utilize Pantone to figure out what color trends are hot this year and utilize those options as well.

If you are having trouble figuring out trends and competition, then another option is to do a quick Google search! Just search for your product type in Google Images to get a quick look at what your industry is currently utilizing. This will help you figure out grouping of “popular colors” that your competitors have.

In terms of picking colors, once you have a feeling generally as to what hue you’d like (hue means ‘main color type,’ ie green). Adobe provides an amazing tool called Kuler.com that can show you how to take a single color and find perfectly what other colors will go with the main color you selected. It’s an amazing free tool.

In future posts, we will cover topics such as styling cues, mean line, lineweight, repetition, scale, shapes, and textures within an existing color scheme to differentiate you and your packaging from the rest of the pack. Be on the lookout for this information. But in the meantime, make sure you pick colors that make sense for your industry.

For instance, if your industry focuses on tween girls, then you will notice that pink will be a predominant color scheme amongst your competitors. Therefore, by following the trends and your competition, you will be able to choose the colors that make sense for your industry and product type. The good news is that you can take this information and personalize it for your own product without having to re-invent the wheel. All you have to do is find a way to stand out from your competition while still utilizing the basic color scheme commonly used by your industry.

Happy Packaging!

Guest Blogger: Fred Schechter
And Co-Author of ‘Packaging Your Product For Retail Made Easy‘

To begin, don’t think of your competition as the evil dark force, but a bunch of people who accidentally spend their entire time thinking up ideas for you to reference as you develop your business (this applies to EVERYTHING). In this case, we’re looking specifically at packaging.

First of all make a note of the top three competitors (at LEAST) hopefully there are much more than that you can look at. Then,, buy their product (don’t open it till you get home!!)

What you want to figure out is: how much your competition is spending on their packaging, how they are constructing their packaging, how they are protecting their product, what kind of ‘look’ your competitors are portraying, and how they are merchandising their product. These tips are great clues as to what the good and bad of your product sector will bring you.

To begin, bring home that competitor packaging you got and take pictures from every angle before opening them. Also measure the size of the external packaging (be kind and take the measurements in inches and mm not every place uses either and you want to bring them good information from the start.

Next VERY CAREFULLY (did I make that bold enough?) open the packaging. You want to see all the very little things that they use to package the product. Lay the packaging flat or however it is finished (if it’s vacuum formed, yes, it will not go flat for you.) Take more pictures and measurements. You want to get all this info straight to your manufacturers (see the next step).

How much are they spending? This seems like a pretty complex question, but it’s nowhere near that bad. First break down what kind of packaging your competition has, think about it in terms of the manufacturer and what they’ll be charging for something like that. The easiest go around there is to have a design exactly like that quoted at your favorite packaging house and see what they charge for that. Most of them will be rather forthcoming as they’d like your business and want to work with you, asking a few questions is OK, as it’ll give them an idea what you’re looking into and get you a better ballpark number of what they can generate.

Also, don’t just bring them 5 different styles and expect them to give you an exact answer on each (that’s a bit ridiculous) but if you have 2 styles similar to what you want to do and can show what you’re trying to do, they should be pretty helpful (remember, they want your business). Also remember, if they’ve helped you a ton, have reasonable prices, and want to work with you, it would probably be a good choice to work with those nice people! This will show you how the packaging is constructed and get you a ballpark on price to help you decide what to do. You should also have noted their product protection plan upon deconstruction.

Using this information you can weigh cost, design styles, and product protection to get you a good idea of how to package your product.

Happy Packaging!

Guest Blogger: Fred Schechter
And Co-Author of ‘Packaging Your Product For Retail Made Easy‘

1. Where is your product (the thing that’ll go in your packaging) being manufactured? If the answer is overseas, then having your product be packaged in the same area and shipped already in it’s final packaging could be your answer.

2. If your product is manufactured overseas, but is not assembled till it reaches you, then having packaging manufactured locally (at your distributor/assembler/fulfillment house) may be the answer.

3. If your packaging cannot ship flat ie there is thick Styrofoam and your shipping costs will outweigh your other costs, then domestic (manufacturing in your own country) may be the answer (unless the protection is required to be there of course).

4. If cost is your only driver and that comparison is key. Contact a shipping agent (an overseas freight company (with boats)) and ask them what the cost to “land” a shipping container or size approximately what you’ll need to ship will cost, then add that to the cost you will need to pay additionally to be made locally. Occasionally the shipping costs of cheap international packaging will be so much more that manufacturing domestically will be both cheaper and more effective. The main factors here are volume of product (both in numbers and sheer size), weight, and obviously price (fuel prices can factor in too).

5. Time frame can be key as well, do you need your packaging in the next week? Then boat freight (2 weeks China to the West coast of the U.S.A.) and a lead time may not be beneficial. On the other hand, if you product has a fold flat shipping box and doesn’t ship for another 6 months (plenty of time to package) then maybe the overseas route works for you.

In conclusion here are the questions that you’ll need to ask, to figure out where you should manufacture your shipping materials

1. Where is your product manufactured?

2. Where is your product assembled?

3. Where will your product need to be placed in the packaging (location)?

4. Can your packaging materials be shipped efficiently for a low price?

5. Does shipping your packaging to you overseas via air or water fit your timeline, or do you need it to be local?

Answering these questions should give you a pretty good idea of where you should search for the right packaging for your product. Be sure to search out at least 3 quotes domestically and internationally for a better picture of what your costs will come out at.

Happy Packaging

Guest Blogger: Fred Schechter
And Co-Author of ‘Packaging Your Product For Retail Made Easy‘