If you’re a marketer who sells a product or who wants to sell a product at some point, I want to run an idea by you that you may not have considered. You might want to consider deliberately selling less of your product. You might be surprised at how good a lower sales volume can be for business.
We’re always inclined to think that more is better. What if I told you selling less is better? If you haven’t clicked away by now, I’d like you to consider how this can be a fantastic benefit to you and your business.
Less is More
First, let’s look at the fundamental management benefits of selling less. Fewer sales means less traffic to worry about. That in turn, means fewer product inquiries and less of a drain on your time. It means fewer complaints and returns, chargebacks and other nonsense. Selling less of your product makes a lot of things simpler!
Less Means Higher Profit Margins
How can selling less actually be more profitable? It’s simple, really. How do marketers most often increase their exposure? Most of us use affiliate networks like Clickbank and others. This can greatly expand your reach. It also exposes you to all sorts of hassle. First, you have to pay your affiliates. Not that they haven’t earned it. They have. If I conduct a campaign for an affiliate vendor and bring in a sale, I sure expect to earn a commission. That said, what do you earn when someone sells your product for you? You earn half as much in most cases. Or less.
It’s not like you’re calling people on the phone one at a time. Internet marketing is pretty scalable. It’s true that by offering an affiliate program, you’re able to tap into the trust that other marketers have built with their audiences. It’s true that affiliate marketing expands your reach. No doubt about it. It also means you have to support all those sales, all those affiliates, etc…for half the profit. This post isn’t anti-affiliate marketing. I do affiliate marketing myself. It’s just something to consider, and I’d love your thoughts on it!
Less is More Consistent
Most products sold online in this space have a pretty quick burnout period. There is a big spike when most of the profit is earned, and then it goes to a trickle. There are exceptions, but 99% of the time this is how it plays out. So how to prevent this? Sell less. You never experience total market saturation. This means you can quietly sell a product more consistently over time. I like big spikes in income. I also like steady sales over time. It’s an angle to consider.
Less Produces Scarcity
What happens when someone can only buy a product directly from you and it’s not offered anywhere else? When you do this, you bypass the whole phenomenon of people bouncing around trying to get a “deal” on your product. Regardless of how unrealistic it is, many consumers remain convinced that if they buy from the right affiliate, they’ll get a better deal. Many more still feel that buying through an affiliate means they’re paying more. Regardless of how inaccurate this is with your offering, the sentiment is there in the mind of the consumer. You have the ability to bypass all of that by simply saying this product is not available anywhere else.
There’s another fine benefit to scarcity when it’s played right…you can charge more. It’s a proven fact in marketing…scarcity rocks! By controlling availability, value rises in the mind of the consumer. When played right in your copy, this works with both physical and digital products.
How to Sell Less
One great way to sell less is to simply market your product on your own. Keep it simple. Don’t take on any affiliates. Don’t put your product on Clickbank, Neverblue or anywhere else. Another way to achieve fewer sales is to simply raise your price. This seems like the most obvious statement in the world until you look at the fact that most marketers avoid this. I wonder why. It’s because they’re locked into the “more is better” mentality. Raise your price and watch sales disappear. It’s a beautiful thing! You will most likely sell less. Actually if you hit a sweet spot, raising your price can increase sales but that is something we’re trying to avoid here! If that happens, I submit the right thing to do is to raise your price even more! Trust me, if you charge enough, sales will drop 
Why on earth would you do this? A couple reasons:
- One, by doing this you’ll sell less product, and you will therefore decrease all the headaches mentioned earlier.
- Two, let’s do the math. Let’s say you sell an info product for $100 and sell 100 copies in a month. That’s $10k. Raise your price to $150, and see what happens. Let’s say you lose 20% of your sales. Disaster? Far from it. Look at the facts: If you sell only 80 copies at $150, you make $12k. Which do you want…$10k or $12k? Even if you lose 30% of your sales, you’re STILL up $500. And you have fewer headaches.
Think of the fact that when you charge more, the people who buy it value it more. That’s a good thing, right? They are also statistically more likely to appreciate it and put it into action. If you have a good product, this is what you want, correct? More is NOT always better!
I’d love your thoughts on this. I don’t mean this to argue that releasing your product to affiliates and managing an affiliate network is a bad idea. Far from it. Maximum market penetration is a worthy goal in a lot of instances, but it’s essential to not ASSUME it’s the right thing to do. In a lot of cases, taking steps to deliberately sell less of your product is the perfect strategy.
