Is your product addictive?

While I certainly would never advocate the practice of drug dealing, nevertheless this area recently got me thinking about sales. And interestingly, how we can apply some of the aspects of dealing in illicit substances to the wider selling world.

Illicit and legal drugs are extremely valuable commodities in Australia and both fulfil a rampant social demand.

Pharmaceuticals are a multibillion dollar a year industry, making it one of the largest and most lucrative markets and we can only speculate what the illicit drug industry is really worth.

To pretend the illicit drug trade doesn’t exist or to simply plead ignorance to its depth and influence is perilous.

The garden variety peddler on the street isn’t all that bright yet they’re street smart, usually desperate and blatant risk takers. However, the more senior players run the business concealed behind a cloak of anonymity and commercial rigor.

Dealers are adept at surrounding themselves with like-minded people and often focus on a niche with the aim to foster repeat business and referrals. Knowing the addictive qualities of their product dealers often provide free samples to establish buy-in. Prices rise and decline based on market forces.

Not too dissimilar to a traditional business, however, there’s no tax. “Wouldn’t that be nice?!” many of us taxpaying citizens snarl.

The bottom line is this: drugs are addictive! What a blatantly obvious insight. Drugs are an extreme example of how a product should perform. If only the average business could harness those addictive qualities in a positive sense.
What’s interesting about drug dealers is more successful characters don’t use the drug themselves, knowing it’s detrimental effects on health and wellbeing. They also treat their product with respect and understand the psychological value it has to people who buy it.

They will invariably focus on a specific type of clientele and rarely step outside that. A process is engaged for profiling customers, when they get lazy or too cocky, a swift demise ensues. They also research to determine the markets demand and their competitor’s quality and price.

The product they choose to sell is usually in demand and they frequently know in advance how the market will react to a particular product. When demand for a product declines, they don’t hang on long, rather swiftly move onto something more relevant and profitable.

In contrast, less flourishing dealers habitually use the drug themselves which erodes their profit margins. Greed driven they compromise the product by cutting it with cheap substances to increase yields, thus diluting quality.

They sell their product to anyone and have no profiling process. Little research is applied, they sell what they can get and usually at the higher end of the market knowing the customer is unlikely to come back again. Essentially, they don’t value their customers or the relationship.

The money that flows through the illicit drugs space is staggering, it’s also an industry that has endured longer than most and I can’t see that changing anytime soon.

Despite their toxicity and public menace the successful operators are smart. Just ensure you’re using those insights for good instead of evil.

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Trent Leyshan is the founder and CEO of BOOM Sales! a leading sales training and sales development specialist. He is also the creator of The NAKED Salesman, BOOMOLOGY! RetroService, and the Empathy Selling Process.