Ep. 155 Why Great Products Don't Sell (And What Actually Makes Brands Stand Out)

I was talking to a founder and she was telling me, "Hey, I'm really struggling to win right now. Like, I have the best product on the market and I cannot win." That her products, her ingredients are significantly better, right? Cuz everyone says that cleanest, healthiest, — the best, — best. Yeah. Everyone is using these terms. And so, one, for one, she's in a very crowded space. And I'm looking at it and I'm like, "Yeah, this is really cool, but I would never look at this and say, I'm going to buy this." Nowadays, it's not good enough just to be good.

you have all the good. Like you're checking the boxes when you're talking about the natural ingredients and how it's good for families and kids and whatever. Like you're good, but like that is now just table stakes. Having a good product is just table stakes. — People want to know like why they should spend their money on something for their kid. How is this going to be worth it? — Yo, what's going on everybody? Welcome to the Unstoppable Marketer podcast. With me as always is Mark Goldheart, my co-host. How are you Mark Goldart? — I'm great. Tired.

— Tired. — We got a newborn. — That's true. That's just all you needed to say. — It's a little rough right now. — Is he not a great sleeper? — I mean, he's fine, but he's — typical sleeper. — Five weeks. Yeah. Like — three hours on. — Yeah. You know, he's — 20 minutes off. — A few times. — Yeah. — But we love him. — Is he still in the room with you guys? — Oh, yeah. — Yeah. — Yeah. — When does that stop for you guys? Uh, too late. Probably. — Okay. — I don't know. — I can't even remember what it was for us. — 18 months. — Really? — Probably. — Maybe I need to ask my wife.

I feel like bassinet. — We are maybe like five months, — but maybe I'm way wrong. — We're not co-sleepers, but we have like this bassinet that's like right. — Yeah. Yeah. Like sits next to your wife. — To her side. Yeah. — Yeah. That's how we were, too. My wife remembers a lot of stuff like that, and I do not. Well, it goes by fast. — So, I wonder I wonder like I I I wouldn't actually be surprised if she's like, "Oh, yeah, we're like we're like 18 months, too." But in my brain, it's like four or five months, maybe. Maybe even less. Three to five months would be my guess.

— Yeah. When Once it's over, it's over and then you forget. — Kids are liking liking him. — Oh, yeah. Yeah. He's uh — No jealousy. — Nope. — That's nice. — No, he's a fan favorite. It helps that our three-year-old thinks that it's her baby. — Yeah. Um, — but man, it's just the we're just in the death march of summer. — Yeah. One of the thing, in fact, we were just talking, this may be our last episode for the summer. — Yeah. — Because life is crazy between family and summer and client work and people taking vacations and other people having to feel like this is that time everyone's taking vacations, so we're doing a lot more than we than we normally do, — you know?

— Yes. — So, it's feeling — summer's always a little weird. — Yeah. And I just remember the slowest time in e-commerce. — We do always take a break, I'm pretty sure, in the summer. And I didn't even think about it. This might be the last episode. — Not forever. — Yeah, — but for now, — we'll see. Um, — just a little break. — Yeah, tiny little break. — But the good news — The good news is this one right now. — Yeah, this is going to be a banger. — Yeah, — we're going to talk about what everyone is probably struggling to do right now. — Yes. Um, I think I'm just going to use this example.

I was talking to a founder and she was telling me, "Hey, I'm really struggling to win right now. Like sales, like I have I have the best product on the market. Um, and I cannot win." and she referenced a couple competitors who had almost an identical product, but she says, "Hey, for let's say it's in the the health and beauty world, that her products, her ingredients are significantly better." Which is always a challenging thing to say, right? Because everyone says that cleanest, healthiest, — the best, — best, most natural, you know, so — organic.

— Yeah. everyone is using these terms and so one for one she's in a very crowded space. Um and so as as we're walking through her numbers and we're talking and and I'm looking at it and I'm like yeah this is really cool but I would never look at this and say I'm going to buy this just because to me it looks very similar to other things and I know about these two brands that do it who have more clout. They've been around longer so I'm going to just naturally trust these brands for example. So, I asked her the question. I said, 'What why are you doing this?

Like, what made you decide to do this? And she was like, "Oh, I don't know anything about marketing. I don't know anything about product development." I'm like, "Okay, that's fine, but what like what was the rationale behind this?" And she was like, "Oh, I'm actually a uh, you know, we're making stuff up. I'm actually actually a nutritional therapist. Um, I have all of these degrees. I deal with people who have these chronic illnesses. And so I and especially in the kids space and so I needed to build something I as after doing all this research after seeing thousands of patients there was nothing that solved these patients problems.

So I built it. — And you're like wow. — And so I jumped on her Instagram and on her website and I I said hey the only place I can see maybe a quarter of this story is on your about uh section of your website which — most people don't go to. — Nobody goes to. And so I just asked, "Why aren't you doing like why aren't you talking about this?" Cuz once she told me her story and all that stuff, I was like, "Oh, all of a sudden I'm immediately going to tell my wife about this brand because it was the type of stuff my wife would buy." — Mhm. — So immediately I texted my wife like, "Hey, go check this out." Right.

But it was because all of a sudden I had understood this person is an expert in this world and she's gone through all this pain and suffering or other people that she's worked with have gone through pain and suffering. My my conversation I ended up having with her was, you know, we we're in such a uh there's so much going on on the internet right now. So, no longer is competition like Nike versus Adidas or New Balance. It's Nike versus content creators who are getting more attention than Nike, right? So, your competitor isn't just Adidas. Your competitor is Jake Paul who gets attention for athletes, — right?

I mean, your competitor. I mean, — well, yeah. The way I would, yeah, I like I don't disagree with what you're saying, but the way I would frame this paradigm shift is, and I, you know, you've talked about this before on the podcast, too. It's more of traditional advertising. You had your TV shows, for example, and then you had commercials. — Mhm. And so, but now what do people do at night? Well, they might watch TV show. They might be on Netflix. They might be on their phone. They might be — Yeah. — on a walk. Like there's five, six, seven different places for them now to consume media.

— Yes. — Where in the past there was one. It was the newspaper, — TV, radio. — TV, radio or so three, sorry. But mainly like TV would be like your big advertisements of, — you know, what we considered like advertising back, you know, when we were growing up. — But now it's everywhere. So now you're competing with So like with Nike, so like to your point, I just think it's — the mediums that you're competing in now. It's like you're now competing with Nike and Facebook. Like Facebook is no longer just — Yes. — a bunch of mom paw shops back in 2014 who jumped on it.

— Yeah. Yeah. You're you're com you're you're trying to compete with everybody all the time and the attention of people whose attention is divided between five different apps, three different streaming platforms. — Totally. — Five different sporting events. — Yeah. — You know, and 100%. — Whatever else is going on. — Yeah. So we say this all the time like it's well and so and then you you take that and then you add the fact that it's never been easier to start a business anyone does — never had more competition. — Yes. So it's like 2016 2012 whatever you want to call it never easier to stand out because of the mediums.

— Yeah. If you I mean if you were an early adopter on Instagram you were an influencer. — Never easy. Exactly. Never easier to stand out. Never harder to start a business. — Yeah. — And then it's flipped right now. 2026. Never easier to start a business. Never harder to stand out. So anyways, — remember blogs? — Yeah, — that was a medium, too. — Dude, I remember there was a girl in my high school who like I'm not going to say her name, but she is a famous influencer. — Was she a blogger? — Tens of millions of followers. Tens of millions. Makes tens of millions.

I mean, wildly rich. — Okay. And if you would have known her in high school and somebody would have been like she is going to be this as a as just joint high school — just because she was like introverted. — Yes, she was introverted. She was odd. Once again, I'm talking I'm I'm high school from a high schooler's perspective, right? — And she is so wildly successful because she was a very early adopter and she's done a great job. That doesn't like she has obviously just cuz she early adopted but then she has elongated it right to elongate that career is is a lot — and guess what it takes something to be an early adopter or something% so there's not — most people didn't do it you they did — I didn't so anyways anyways so I'm telling this I tell this woman I said listen you're like nowadays it's not good enough just to be good you have all the good like you're checking the boxes when you're talking about the natural ingredients and how it's good for families and kids and whatever.

Like you're good, but like that is now just table stakes. Having a good product is just table stakes. You need to add the different piece to it. So what makes you stand out? What makes you different? And I was telling her, I'm like, a lot of people think it has to be the product. Like, oh, it has to be a a snapback hat that makes it easier to snap. Like it's not always a re like a new invention. Yeah, — it can be difference in several things. And in her case, it was the difference in the why and the story. — Hey, I'm an expert in this field. This is why you should listen to me.

And when you all of a sudden you go from — Well, that goes back to features and benefits. — Yeah. — Right. And then why the why like I know. So the benefits and the why of a story like the story behind a brand, those are emotional connections that you can make with people. Yeah. where features can be. — Yeah. — But it depends on your ICP. Yeah. So, we say this all the time like when we're when we're talking with certain clients that are operating in certain types of like product verticals. — Mhm. — There are certain ones where you just want to go features.

Like that's literally what matters the most. Like it does not matter if you talk about oh I'm like a great one would be uh stuff in like the kids space. — Mh. A lot of people will just talk about like, well, I'm a mom or a dad, too. It's like, yeah, so is most people, — right? — You know, like, people want to know like why they should spend their money on something for their kids — that might be even more expensive. — Yeah. Yeah. — How is this going to be worth it? — Yeah, for sure. — Cuz like we can already see clothes like we know what clothes look good and don't look good.

— Totally. Yeah. 100%. So, yeah. I mean I mean re really at the at the end of the day um I lost my train of thought. What was what was I about to say? — You're just saying the why of her story was not showcased anywhere even though it was the most compelling thing about her. — Yes. — Her brand. — Exactly. Yes. — Yeah. It all of a sudden takes it so that her why becomes the differentiator. And so now you have this world of all these brands that are selling better for you products and that don't stand out at all. Right? And now all of a sudden it starts to shrink that world because this person is a valued expert in that field that I am now interested in understanding what she's doing.

— Yeah. Don't underestimate in the age of AI that people still want human connection. — Totally. — And that's why that story matters so much is — and when you're an expert there's validation there too, right? — Well, and people are willing to I think this goes with anything in life. That's the reason why people are willing to stop and buy lemonade at a lemonade stand from kids. — What do you mean? — They are willing to pay a premium for something that where the product may or may not be the best if there is an emotional — Yeah. — connection or like — experience.

— Oh, I'm also helping this person do something. — Yeah. — So, with with that story of like, hey, this person actually cares like this person cares like this kid on the street cares that they're doing something. — Yeah. you know, maybe, you know, they don't have like a grand vision, but it's like, hey, I'm going to stop and I'm going to get something because I can make a difference in this kid's life, but also this kid cares about what they're doing. So, like, it's okay if it — Yeah. — It's just a starting point. — Totally. — So, I'm willing to pay a premium to help a kid.

— Yeah. — And I'm also willing to pay a premium when the company aligns with my values and my life and I know that they care behind the scenes. It's not just, hey, we're uh — a big corporation. — Yeah, we're big corporation. Like, we get it. We're all trying to make money, — but we're Proctor and Gamble. This is what we're doing. — Yeah. But it's like, I'd rather buy from them than — Yeah. That's also — the Proctor and Gamble sellout over there. — That's a really big trend, too, right? Like this people want to support smaller stuff. So, yeah. I think that brands um a lot of times you you may have a product that you think, "Oh my gosh, this is so good.

This is such a great product, but I'm not selling. I'm not selling." It's nine times out of 10 it's a distribution issue. And distribution not might not necessarily mean I can't get it in front of the right eyes. It just means that you're not putting the right message to get in front of the right eyes. And so I think that um like I said, I think you can come up with differentiators by a product. So like what's a let's think of like what's what's a product feature that no like can you think of a good like a good standout thing? Um yeah, it's like brand new invention like a Squatty Potty.

— Well, not brand new, but like you can talk about Birkenstocks. They have a unique feature about them. Yeah. — Because of the the quirk. — Yeah. And then everybody's kind of copied them. Yeah. — Yeah. — Yeah. I think you're right. Tom Shoes. — Tom Shoes had a unique selling feature. — Yeah. They had a that was more of like a a unique selling feature point, right? This you know, buy one locally help other people. Kick — purple mattress. — Yeah. these people that come up with a new thing that people haven't seen before, — right? Purple has mattress that is cooling technology.

Kizik has shoes that you can — slide into and not have to tie and they help pregnant women and old people and young people, you know, young kids. — Um, so product, that's the that's the hardest one, I think, but the easiest one to conceptualize. Oh, if I just create something different, then that's product market fit, right? The second one is the the actual message and the why, which is what we just talked about with this girl, right? She's created a product that there probably dozens of products like that, but she has the medical accolades, the experience of dealing with kids who struggle with those kinds of things.

She has a story. So, you do it through the content you produce. I'm selling pretty much the same thing everyone else is, but my content is what's going to make me stand out as the differentiator. — And then I think um a third way uh not that we need to get into this one is is through your audience. So I I bring this one up all the time. When we had Chris Hall on from the uh on the podcast, he he was the CMO over at Bruce Bolt, which is a baseball glove company. And I remember on the podcast, batting gloves. — Batting gloves. Yeah. Sorry. — Batting gloves.

— Batting gloves. Thank you. I remember when I had him on the podcast. We had him on the podcast. I was like, "Okay, so you're like marketing to little league, you know, and he's like, "No, — travel teams. — We do not market to little leaguers." Which, like, why wouldn't you want little leaguers buying your baseball gloves? And he says, "We market to travel ball baseball players because they have the money. They're not necessarily they have the money, but they spend money. like they're already spending so much money to get their kids to play baseball year round that they're always buying the nicest bats, they're buying the nicest mits, they're buying the nicest training materials, so they're going to buy these things.

And not only that, but those people are a lot more I remember he said something, those people are very superstitious. Baseball players are so superstitious so that if they do well in their gloves, they will never not buy hit Bruce Batting gloves because that's how I hit home runs. and they start to like establish those connections. So, I thought that was so cool. Like, Dad Gang is another one. — Also, they're all trendy, too. So, like — totally — you get one kid on the team wearing them and then the whole team wears it and then the next team wears it.

— Yeah. But dad gang, the hat company is another one, right? Like they're not going after moms. They could come up with a mom gang, but they're going after new dads and they're selling hats and they're they've I think I just saw that they did like Forbes just did something on those guys. They I can't remember sold $100 million worth of hats. Not in a year, but I think total, which is just stupid. You know, $35 price point, $42 price point or something like that. — But the why behind this is their story. — It's the audience. This is who this is who you — But the story I would argue the story going back to point to the story creates the audience.

— Yeah, very much so. — Yeah. — This podcast is brought to you by BFF Creative. BFF Creative is a software that meets services. any marketing collateral you need, whether that's ads, emails, print designs, or social media. All you have to do is submit a request, and one of BFF Creatives qualified designers will create a design for you, and it'll be completed in 2 to 3 days. BFF Creative allows you to submit as many requests and as many revisions as you can with just one monthly fee. And the best part is that it's monthtomonth. No contracts, no hidden fees, no nothing.

And if you use promo code unstoppable30, you'll get 30% off for your first month on us. Just go to bfffcreative.co, pick your plan, and sign up today. — So yeah, I I — I think it does because it's like what I what do you identify with and is it worth it? Like why is it worth it for people? Like why would you ever buy a hat from a company? Yeah. — There's really like five reasons why you do it. Maybe two reasons actually. It's a sports team, right? Or it's something that I you identify with. — Yeah. — On a personal very personal level. — Yeah. — That's it.

— And maybe maybe sometimes for a specific physical activity. — When I when I say hats, I'm speaking ba like baseball hats. Like you're not — Yeah. — Like I'm not talking like cowboy hats and like hunting. — Well, I mean like golf. Like sometimes you have a certain hat for golf, — sometimes a certain hat for tennis. But — even the ones you wear for golf like you're wearing the brand that you — I think that that's so many brands I think never get off the ground because they cannot go they don't go through an exercise to understand how to differentiate themselves.

They think that the product and the idea alone is going to do it and that's just not enough because everyone else is doing it. Unless you're a new inventor and you're coming up with something just crazy that's going to blow people's mind, you're going to come up with the right story and the right message to differentiate yourself, whether that's through the content or through the audience or through both. — And nine out of 10 times you already have the story, you're just not saying it. — Yeah. And and this girl's her reason why I'm like, why don't you do this?

And she's like, oh, I just thought people were sick of hearing it. And I'm like, what do you you know, I don't even see it. And she's like, yeah, well, I've just told it over and over again. And I'm like, but but we get that way as founders, you know, people are sick of hearing from me and brands. — Yeah, totally. — You know, like like we work with brands that are in the nine figures and a lot of times you're like, why are you like you guys have a story and like we don't even talk about it anymore? — You want to know what's one of the craziest things as we've dealt with?

So we've we've been we've been dealing with brands that have never made a penny to brands that are doing nine figures. We have not dealt with a 10 figureure brand yet. 10 figure is a billion, right? No, — no. Yeah. No, no. We haven't We have not dealt with — We haven't dealt with billion dollar — 10 figures, — but we've dealt with nine figure brands. What will always what surprises me is that when you go and talk and name drop one of those brands and like, "Oh, have you ever heard of Soando? They do. They're one of the biggest women's clothing lines.

And they'll be like, "No, — most people don't know." — And so we And then we're like, "I'm so s Everyone's heard my story. Everyone's already heard it." And we're talking I'm, you know, you're talking to a brand that's done a million dollars, but then the person who, you know, the brand that's doing 600 million, no, you know, no one's heard of them. It's just It's just funny. — Most Yeah, it is funny. It is funny because even if you are big and successful, nobody knows who you are. — Yeah. Unless you are a billiondoll company, — there's very few and even then there's a lot of billion dollar companies that people don't know about.

— You are very much probably not a household name. — Like you got to think — cuz even Dr. Squatch I don't know cuz didn't they sell to Unilever for like 1.4? — It's not a household name. — There are people I still talk to who are most reference Dr. watch and they'll be like, "What?" — I think Yeah, I think they're in like Walmart now. And — same thing with Poppy. Poppy just sold for I want to say like 1.8 to — billion to Pepsi. — Yeah. Yeah. — Who's Poppy? You know, — it's it's interesting. Like don't think you have if you've said a story until you're blue in the face.

If you if you think that you're still wrong. — Yeah. — You haven't said it enough. Who's that? Simon. Is it Simon Synynic? — Yeah. Start with Y. — Yeah. I hate that guy. Drives me bonkers. — But only because it's been — repeated to you so many times. — Yeah. But like But he's been doing that. — He's been doing that. — Start with Y for 20 years. 15 years. — Like And that guy's been telling — he's still probably getting booked for TED talks. — Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure he's grow I bet he grows year over year. I bet he's not in down years. It's like I still see him everywhere because he says the same four stories over and over and over again.

So, — well, if you want to get deep here, every great story is just a repeated theme. — Yeah. — So, if you think people have heard it, the answer is guess what? Yeah, they probably have. — Yeah. — But people like to hear the same stories over and over and over again — and they probably don't remember a certain part of it or, you know, whatever. So yeah, I think I I think I don't really have much more to say about it, but I just think the idea is I think a lot of us — Well, the action item is you got to sit down and if you feel like you're not breaking through — Yes.

— the noise. Just talk to yourself and try to figure out what is it that makes you unique, your story, your brand — unique. write product content slashssage and audience — and guess what if there isn't anything — then think about liquid death — but liquid death didn't content — that's what I mean though is like there was nothing unique about the product there's nothing unique about those — I mean I don't know those I'm not this on an individual level I'm not talking — those guys aren't unique I'm just saying — there wasn't this like big story that everyone was talking about with them other than just like, oh, they're crazy.

— Yeah. Yeah. — Like they're off the wall. — Yeah. That's such a good one. — So, if there's nothing unique about you, then you've — Yeah. — you're going to be you're cooked. Unless you look to a liquid death and think about — Yeah. It's a water company that's a billion dollar brand. — How How do you do what they did — with whatever you're selling? Like, how do you just get attention? — The most basic product ever. And if you're too scared and to be a little shameless, — yeah, — it's probably not gonna work out for you. Yeah, I'm just we're just being honest.

— But go through the exercise, product, content, messaging, audience. — Start writing things down. See where you differentiate and don't just do it with yourself. Maybe start with yourself, but you eventually have to start asking the people that you're working with around it because you need other people to be like, "No, that's not different." You know? So, and then key in on that thing that makes you different. Good is table stakes. Different is the hardest part about business. — It is. — Okay, guys. We probably won't see you for — a month, — the next four weeks.

We love you. Thank you for listening. And if we're back sooner than that, — that means life is easier for us. — July is just always crazy. — July is crazy — cuz we're always out of town, too. — July 4th. — Fourth of July coming up. By the time you listen to it, you'll — God bless our troops and gentlemen. — Start your engines. — Start your engines. — All right. See you guys. Bye. Thank you for listening to the Unstoppable Marketer podcast. If there's a brand, campaign, strategy, or marketing tactic that you want us to review, please DM me at the Trevor Crump on Instagram or Tik Tok or at the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast.

And of course, if you got value from this episode or if you like it whatsoever, please make sure you're subscribing, you're liking, you're following, and for sure go leave us a review to let us know that we're doing a good job. We will see you guys next time.