-: Welcome to Place, Part 2.
I wanna talk now about what are the drivers
of this decision?
What factors should you take into consideration
when you're thinking about should you use direct markets,
should you use indirect markets,
or should you use both?
And when and under what circumstances
is each a good fit for you?
So first of all,
you want to think about who's buying?
Where and when do they wanna buy?
Are they willing to wait?
Do they want it right now?
You know, if they can wait, mailing it might work.
If they want it right now
and they want it from you,
you may need to do it via, you know, a farm stand.
In many cases, the fewer customers that you have,
more likely to buy, that you'll want to sell direct,
and if there are many of them,
then selling indirect might be a good reason,
and think about why that might be.
So both it takes more effort per person to sell direct,
but you get more money,
more of the overall final price
that you get all of it when you go direct,
so those are some reasons for that.
So another way of thinking about that is,
back to the idea
of the commodity-differentiated product continuum.
Things that are more differentiated,
you're more likely to sell them direct.
That if there's a lot of nuance, if they're alternative,
you wanna be able to tell the story,
as well as there will be fewer folks
that will wanna buy that,
so that's much more likely direct.
Whereas, if you sell a more sort of standardized thing,
it's probably not worth your time to sell it direct,
that you need to be more in the high-volume business,
and selling indirect would probably be best.
One thing that works in favor now is that
the internet and such,
really helps you to find folks that,
all those algorithms and stuff that if they like,
you know, there's a lot of data about,
well, if they like X, Y, Z,
then they're gonna want what you sell.
And if they don't, they're not,
so, you know, there's a lot of ability
to hone in and find folks.
Think about too, what kind of infrastructure do you need?
So think back to the farmer,
if you're selling direct, you're gonna need boxes,
you're gonna need tables, you're gonna need signage.
If you're selling indirect,
you're probably gonna need the delivery truck,
a loading dock,
pallets, and things like that.
As well as what resources do you have?
Do you have the human time to go and sell?
Should their time be better spent
selling to individuals
versus to selling to accounts?
Do you have the right technology?
Can you receive and process orders
from an indirect buyer?
Do you have the equipment and infrastructure?
Plus, how is your time best spent?
Does it make sense
for you to put a whole bunch of things into boxes
and put labels on them?
Or are you better off sort of managing the overall business,
and maybe paying somebody to do that work for you?
So the key things to consider are,
how do you best meet the needs of your customers?
Can they find you?
Can you effectively reach them?
What's the most efficient use of your time
and your business' resources?
So you want to think about,
"Do I do it myself or do I find help?"
Because it takes a lot of cost to do it all yourself,
you have to distribute, you have to advertise,
you have to sell, you have to do some customer service.
So who does this best?
What's the best returns to your time?
Do you do it yourself
or do you work with a partner that can do it for you?
Note that if you do it yourself, again,
all these tasks can be done in ways that you want them to,
you have the control,
and you are the best advocate
and the best salesperson for your good.
If you use an intermediary,
yes, they do wanna sell your good,
but they're not as motivated,
they don't know about it as much,
they're frankly, not gonna do as good of a job
of selling that good,
but most likely they can sell a whole lot more of it.
So what's efficient?
What's the best use of your time?
When is it time to change?
That many businesses find they start direct
and then they sort of,
either add or change completely over to indirect.
And one way of thinking about it is
if you want to engage a distributor or another partner,
they're much more wanna work with you of,
"I have very few that buy this,
please, take it to consumers."
Or, "I already have a base, I already have a brand,
I have folks out there who want to buy, who are buying,
I just don't have time, and the scope, and the resources
to reach all of them efficiently.
I'm bringing you the business,
I'm bringing current customers,
and together, we can help find future ones."
That's the end of Part 2.
Please watch Part 3.