Insight: Selling your CD the hard way

[CyanJaguar]

So you just had 1,000 of your CDs delivered to your door. You have the professional thing going: full color inserts, shrinkwrapped, bar coded, etc. Now you have to come up with a way to move 1,000 CDs of unknown material, from an unknown artist, and sales at your gigs are not nearly what they could be.

Well, fret not, because its simple (but not easy)

KNOW THE NUMBERS GAME

Empirical data says that for every offering,

20 % will always buy,
20 % will never buy,
and you have to sell the other 60%

say that you are completely inept at selling, you would only need to approach 5,000 people to sell your 1,000 CDs.

If you are not that optimistic, there is another school of thought that says that: Your success rate at selling will be 10% of all approached. I.E, you'll sell one CD for every 10 attempts you make at selling.

Assuming this model, you would have to attempt 10,000 sales.

THE 80/20 RULE
The 80/20 rule says that 80 % of your sales will come from 20% of your customers, So, actively look for the 20% in your area that will carry 80% of your 1000. Go to stores, rich people, entrepreneurs, etc.

Selling will not be easy. the first thing I learned is that selling is the highest paid hardwork and the lowest paid easy work. If you spend $3000 printing and marketing 1000 copies of your CD, and you sell each copy for $10, you stand to make a $7,000 profit. Multiply that for every 1000 CDs you sell and it adds up quick.

[RSM1000]

Sounds good to me!

You know what's nice, anyone can put their product up for sale and amazon.com with a full page of information, sample listenings and even customer reviews!

Gigs ultimately serve the purpose of self-advertising.

Also - radio stations are a good way, just tell them if they play it to give out the name and say you can order it from amazon.com!

You sound really professional when your stuff is on amazon - because people don't know it's that easy to put it up!

[Gidge]

Originally posted by CyanJaguar
20 % will always buy,
20 % will never buy,
and you have to sell the other 80%

wouldnt that be 60%?

[CyanJaguar]

making sure ya'll were paying attention

Thanks for pointing it out, Gidge, I'll edit it if you dont mind.

[Gidge]

business formulas are great for some businesses, but selling CD's may not be one of them.......

you can approach all the people you want, you wont sell too many people a crappy CD.......

the PROVEN way to sell CD's is to target a small area and play,play,play....build a fan base, build a following and slowly expand the area.....if you are rockin' the house you sell CD's......

[CyanJaguar]

Originally posted by Gidge
business formulas are great for some businesses, but selling CD's may not be one of them.......

you can approach all the people you want, you wont sell too many people a crappy CD.......

the PROVEN way to sell CD's is to target a small area and play,play,play....build a fan base, build a following and slowly expand the area.....if you are rockin' the house you sell CD's......

The numbers dont lie. 20% will always buy, regardless of what you are selling.

I dont know that your PROVEN way is so proven. There are a countless artists going that route who are not selling a darn thing.

[Gidge]

so you're saying a band plays a club and 100 people show up......the band sucks, but 20 people are gonna buy a CD?

[Toki987]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by CyanJaguar
20 % will always buy,
20 % will never buy,
and you have to sell the other 80%


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

KNOW THE NUMBERS GAME

Empirical data says that for every offering,

20 % will always buy,
20 % will never buy,
and you have to sell the other 60%
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


I know what the information your basing this on is inferring. However, You can`t mix people and the object for sale in the same formula.
20% of the PEOPLE will always buy
20% of the PEOPLE will never buy
so that means that 100% of the PEOPLE will have to be "pitched" to entice them to buy in order for 20% to back out, and 20% to buy on persauded impulse . That still leaves you with 80% of your product to run a "pitch" on to another population of people, and again the rules will apply so you will have to have the 100% presentation of remaining product. so based on this assumption....

1000 pieces
- 200 sold
= 800 pieces
then

800 pieces
- 160 sold
=640
then

640 pieces
-128 sold
=520

so this reflects to me that you have had to make 5 presentations of your product in order to sell half of it in compliance with "the numbers game" and with neutral attraction by the clients. This would reflect that the benefit of the "numbers game" is not a favorable return. Therefore the real benefit would have to come from expertise in sales or relying on the appeal of the product to the clients to induce them to consume the product.

Am I incorrect here? just curious..

[CyanJaguar]

Originally posted by Gidge
so you're saying a band plays a club and 100 people show up......the band sucks, but 20 people are gonna buy a CD?

If they Pitch the product to 100 people, then yes, but so many bands are so timid that they just leave the CDs on a table with a guy and hope that people buy.

[Toki987]

Originally posted by CyanJaguar
If they Pitch the product to 100 people, then yes, but so many bands are so timid that they just leave the CDs on a table with a guy and hope that people buy.

cool, your marketing background is apparent, you recognize the primary. It has to be pitched.

[CyanJaguar]

Toki,

I am not sure that I understood your original post, but to sell 1,000 CDs, you would have to pitch to 10,000 people max.

One thing I am learning from selling is that being overly aggressive is the exception, shyness and fear being the norm.

in selling, one has to have Balls of steel to thrive. That means not being afraid to put oneself in a situation where one can be mocked, shouted at, etc.

[Shailat]

So Cyan........

With your songwriting formulas and your selling formulas....have you hit the big time yet?

[CyanJaguar]

shailat,

I am still in school. I dont have time for music or selling just yet. After school, it will be just a matter of time

[okobd]

Now we're talkin my language! Hey Toki, I'll pitch you're work anyday!!
Somethin like this right? "Your gotta have this" "Why?" "Cause it's good, and you want it" oh and BTW "Did I mention everybody's got it?"
Fun Fun Fun...Now we need the product! Patience, I know.
-ok

[CyanJaguar]

you got it right okobd. Selling is FAB

I.E

Features
Advantages
Benefits.

If I were selling to someone at a show, one of my FABS might be:

You gotta have this CD. It has great melodies and deep lyrics (features)that reviewers say sound better than 90% of what you hear on radio(advantages) and will make you feel extremely good whenever you listen to it(benefit)

or,

Dude, this CD is autographed (feature) , only a few people are ever going to get an autographed copy (advantage) and since the artist just signed a major label deal, you'll be in a very exclusive and highy envied group who have the artiste's autograph (benefit)

Just thinking about it, I can see that there are many FAB ways to sell music.

[okobd]

Cyan,
Are you sure you ain't the PUSHA MAN?
come sell some loans with me and we'll figure out how to sell that autographed cd.
-ok

[CyanJaguar]

OKOBD,

I am very flattered but I cant right now. I still have a year to go on the MBA.

I'll come back and tell you first when I get my deal or job though, because your job offer/implicit vote of confidence has pushed my confidence to new, unimagined heights.

THANKS

[okobd]

Originally posted by CyanJaguar
OKOBD,

I am very flattered but I cant right now. I still have a year to go on the MBA.

I'll come back and tell you first when I get my deal or job though, because your job offer/implicit vote of confidence has pushed my confidence to new, unimagined heights.

THANKS

Awe shucks, It ain't nothin butta thing.(as the old man would say)
-joe

[thevirgin]

Well, I don't have "BALLS OF STEEL" but I do handle around 1000 calls a night at a local call center. Usually 60-75% cold calls so I know rejection well. You can imagine the details - swearing, air horns in the ear, people pretending to be interested in order to yank ones chain, spouses who step in and kill the sale at the last second, drunks.

In our case, most of the persuading is in getting the customer to state their objection so that we can counter it with FABs. We have to risk antagonizing people or we are only going to get the "lucky sales" - I find that they are more like 7% to 10% of the contacts that I actually get to pitch, not 20%. I wonder if this is due to prejudice against doing buisness with telemarketers.

I don't know what sales techniques I would use in a bar where a lot people have been drinking etc (except maybe wearing kevlar). I don't look intimidating enough to make some drunken jerk back down.