Categories
Business School

How to Sell Like Heisenberg

Selling meth is very bad. Let me just get that out of the way from the get go. But how the main character of Breaking Bad, Walter White- A.K.A. Heisenberg, SOLD meth was pretty damn good. Sometimes, you need to look past the actual product to learn important lessons. Keep this in mind when reading this post. Proceed at your own discretion.

Heisenberg taught me more about selling a product than any other movie, documentary, training program, or T.V. show (including The Apprentice or Shark Tank). In this post I’m going to share with you how you can sell your product like the fictitious legend himself.

Heisenberg followed 5 Rules that allowed him to sell the most powerful product his industry had ever seen. I’m going to explain each rule in detail and how you can implement each one with your products.

Rule #1: Quality is Everything

There would be no Heisenberg if his product were not of superior quality. He took pride in offering the best product the market had ever seen. He was a chemist and knew his product better than anyone else. He took production seriously and didn’t just rely on marketing and sales.

At one point his distributors argued that in his market, difference in quality doesn’t matter. Heisenberg knew better. He knew if his customers tried his product once, they would never go back to any of the competing products.

Real World Example: Wellness Formula is the only thing I will take when I feel sick or feel I’m about to get sick. It’s an all-natural herbal and vitamin complex that has proven to me over and over again, it works.

I never believed in any of these voodoo, all-natural solutions before. I went straight to the antibiotics in the past. But one day, Nicole was feeling very sick and the gentleman at the health food store recommended it. I took his advice because he swore about its effectiveness like it was a miracle drug. He was right and we’ve been hooked ever since.

I’ve never seen an ad for Wellness Formula in my life but I’ve never recommended something more than I have with Wellness Formula. I must have told at least 30 people about it. 

Wellness

Offer a superior product and the sales will take care of itself.

Rule #2: Hard Work is How it’s Done

Heisenberg didn’t just sit on his ass. He wasn’t just an ideas man and talked about what an amazing product he wanted to build. He got into his radioactive suit and got to work. He worked harder on his product than anyone involved in his business.

Real World Example: When Nicole and were working on The $100 MBA before the community went live, we worked like machines every single day for 3 months. Just straight-up hustle. I think we had a total of 3 days off during that run.

We wanted to offer a product where people would say, “I love this place. It’s so worth it.” We knew that if we didn’t put in the work, we would end up with an OK product and an OK product wasn’t going to cut it. Here is a shot of us on our last day of shooting our courses before the launch.

Crazy

If you want to sell a superior product then hard work is the price you’re going to have to pay.

Rule #3: Your Brand Matters

Everyone knew Heisenberg’s product instantly. It was the only crystal meth that that had a blue tinge. The color wasn’t intentional but he kept it blue because he knew his customers wanted ‘the blue stuff’ and it was synonymous with his quality of product.

Real World Example: Over the last 128 years Coca-Cola has maintained they’re branding. They learned the hard way the significance of their strong brand in 1985. They made the mistake with changing their branding to “The New Coke” briefly in April of that year and quickly returned to their original branding 3 short months later after an uproar from their customers.

Coca-Cola customers wanted “The Real Thing” not some New Coke crap. So they made sure they gave them what they wanted.

coke

What’s your signature? What is something once seen or heard, has people thinking of you?

Rule #4: Don’t Underprice Yourself

Heisenberg never underpriced or undersold his product. He knew what his product was worth and never compromised. He knew if he was patient, his customers would buy his product at the price he is asking for.

Real World Example: One of most successful cruise lines is Windstar Cruises. Never heard of them? That’s probably because they don’t actively advertise like other major cruise lines, like Carnival or Norwegian. They don’t have to.

They also cost about 10 times as much. But they don’t care. They do very well because they offer a superior product. So when cheesy musical performances and 1,000 people lining up at buffets aren’t going to cut it for you and you want the ultimate cruise experience, you’re going to look for Windstar. They are rank as one of the most profitable cruise lines in the world because they don’t undersell their product.

wind_star_4

Sometimes at the start, we want our product to sell so badly we underprice ourselves. Don’t make this mistake.

Rule #5: Always Plan for Growth

Heisenberg always looked to the future. He always looked at how he could expand and grow his business. He always thought big and planned for it. He started out in an RV but he soon outgrew it.

He knew from the start his superior product was going to be huge and that he needed to plan for success. He knew that thinking small would keep him small.

Real World Example: When Dollar Shave Club first launched with their hilarious Internet video commercial, they were shocked at the response of the market. Everyone wanted to be a part of their shaving blade movement. They almost couldn’t handle all the orders they received.

Luckily they planed for this and had an emergency expansion plan in place.

They quickly had to expand their business and hire more people to help fulfill the huge volume of orders they received and continued to receive after their launch.

Always plan for success. If you don’t expect to be successful then why are you in business in the first place?

Final Words

Your products, your offerings are what define your business. No one cares about your witty headlines if you can’t deliver the goods. Just think about your favorite products. Why do you love them? Probably because they are better than any other of their kind. Take extra care with your products and they will take care of you.

And remember, hugs are better than drugs.

Want a Free $100 MBA Course + fresh & hot goodies like this one? 

YES, PLEASE!