What Comes First? Sales, Branding or the Product

What comes first? I have had this argument regularly for the last 25 years.

With sales, marketing, technical, and services departments. In fact, with every department director I can think of.

As a junior engineer, my sales director gave me my first “commercial awareness” ticking off; “first, you sell it”.

The 21st Century – Your Product is Your Branding

Not long ago, you could create a brand with advertising. Pure Brand Advertising.

Now, you can only create a brand with people, with a community. With a crowd of people that say your stuff is good.

You need buyers on ebay voting you as good. Good reviewers on Amazon. 5 star feedback, social media likes, up ticks, votes

What you think and say no longer matters.

Your brand is what the customers say it is. The crowd uses your product, and they decide

The product creates the experience,

The experience creates the reputation,

The reputation creates the brand

Dave Trott

Your product must do your advertising, your sales and your branding

I know sales and marketing directors who are confused and saddened by this new age

Think of it as an oyster,

You start with a piece of grit, and build a pearl round it,

People buy the pearl, they don’t buy the grit,

But no grit, no pearl

Dave Trott

So, please. Product first.

In the Beginning, I was an Engineer

I engineered solutions to problems. I built things. By training, by aptitude, by inclination. I did the maths. I ensured bridges built did not fall in the river. Style was an alien word to me. I did not do colours. I engineered.

My First Client

I delivered a product to my first client. A tele-robotics upgrade. A robot and a fancy joystick. Great tele-presence robotics. For cutting up radioactive boxes. High end gear. Superb function and utility.

But the operators did not like it.

“I have to think about it”
“It is distracting”
“Gets in the way”
“Makes me nervous”
“Too much funny business”

My first product ended in my bin. Client was annoyed. “It is about my operators and their job, not about your product”.

Great engineering failed my users

Always Develop with Style

That moment, I became a stylist. A product Stylist. Styling my products for ease of use. Where the operator retains his train of thought, his flow, his focus, his concentration, his attention. My product designs must be invisible to the user, while he works.

Always style for your user, and the user’s task.

Elements of Style – circa 1900

My first style lesson was – please write clearly

Write to and for your audience
Do not say more than is necessary;
confine yourself to what the user needs, to understand what is happening
Omit Needless Words
Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should have no unnecessary words, a paragraph no un-ncecessary sentences. Every word must tell.

To improve styling skills, practice, practice, practice

Develop a Personal Style

My favorite style is minimalism. I favour brevity. I keep things simple. I am simplicity driven. In writing, taking pictures, coding, building websites, apps or even fashion. Minimalism is a most effective style.

Nevertheless, always style with a purpose. Style for your User and his tasks

Product Style Pyramid

First rule of product style – please be useful

First comes content and utility, of course,
Style for readability and usability even when developing
Remember the product’s identity, narrative and iconography
Finally, focus on the aesthetics to shape a personality, an affect, an emotion
Dont open a shop unless you like to smile – Chinese Proverb

Style basics have not changed in 100 years. The human eye and the hand are a constant. Style has evolved though, check Kathy Sierra’s Cognitive Seduction.

Category: Product Design

Product First