Mind Games: The Importance of Psychological Preparation in Product Planning and Market Exploring

written by Dhriti Mukherjee Pipil

Business is nothing but a mind game played by the founder to convince their target clients to purchase the offered Product, and services to earn money. Hence, it is essential to understand the following Mind Game.

So, Let's start understanding the mind game.

A Product must be offered to your client in three forms:

1. Physical /Tangible Form

2. Subjective/ Intangible Form

3. Services After Sale

It is written in many books and websites, but how will you use this knowledge?

Let's imagine you are an Indian and reside in America. You are working there and come to India once a year. Being an Indian, you can not have your lunch and dinner without Haldi/Turmeric, even in America. So, you look for Turmeric in the market, and unfortunately, you can not find any...

So, what will be the next option? When you return to India to meet your family members, You will buy a good number of Haldi packets from a known shopkeeper or known brand. Perhaps you may prefer a known shopkeeper who will offer you more discounts due to your bulk purchase and can take the pain of delivering the packet to your home so that your family members can despatch it to your foreign address.

Here, in this whole passage, you need a bulk number of Haldi packets because it's your necessity, but you prefer a known shopkeeper or known brand.

Why?

Think about it.

You want to ensure that all packets are filled with good-quality and perfect quantity of Haldi, packaged flawlessly. Fundamentally, you have trust in the delivery of the Shopkeeper. It is an Intangible or the subjective form of Product delivered by the Shopkeeper.

In conclusion, when he agrees to provide you with a discount or delivers the following lots to your home, it is an example of "service after sale".

Now think, being a customer of Haldi, this is the perfect Shopkeeper you want; what are the forms of Product you must offer to them to make them a regular customer?

Stage 2:

If you have been able to decide on all forms of the products, you are ready to deliver to your customer. Now, focus on these points:

1. Availability of the Product or raw materials of the products in the nearby areas or your countries.

2. If it is in abundance, then, study the consistency of quality and delivery time.

Stage 3:

If you've completed the process of ensuring the availability of the Product and timely delivery of the Product with consistent quality, you need to look for the market. 

When you research the market, your Product must fall into either one among two categories. 

1. The buyers' market is ready to accept your Product, which means you need to focus on marketing your Standard Product. In this case, you identify buyers' markets nationally and internationally and start building your products. Here, you have to play the game in quantity, which means as many as you can sell, you can keep maintaining the low price. 

2. The buyers' market is not ready to accept your Product, which indicates you need to Customize your Product as per demand. 

Suppose you have figured out that your Product requires customization before launching in the buyers' market in the very next step. In that case, you have to understand whether customization is Mandatory or Voluntary. Indicating, that sometimes the founder must tweak their Product to adjust to the climate, culture, religious faith, etc. However, on the other hand, the founder sometimes gets satisfied to provide something that enhances the experience of the buyers, so it is voluntary but necessary to survive the competition. 

Stage 4:

So, now you have carefully studied the buyers' market, which means you should know about these basic facts, such as:-

• Population in Urban or Rural

• Literacy level, tastes and preferences of the population

• Climate

• Transport Facilities 

• Government's approach towards foreign products (in the case of the International market)

If you have done this much homework, now it's time to check the Tariff (for the Foreign Market), which will give you an idea about the Market Access of the Foreign market. 

Stage 5: 

Lastly, before approaching any client in the national or international market, you must plan the services you will offer after the sale. This can be an extra discount or a personal meeting monthly to retain your customer. 

Product Planning and Market Exploring: The whole process must consider the buyer's emotional perspective towards the Product. If it is not unlocked, finding a so-called permanent (long-term) client and market will remain a difficult task to achieve.

If you are Bengali, you can refer to this video, which is made in Bengali only