Can You Sell Your Own Perfume Successfully, Even If You Have No Sales Ability At All?

Suppose you are making your own perfume but you have absolutely NO sales ability. Can you develop a successful business SELLING perfume if you simply CANNOT SELL? The answer is ... "maybe". Here are my thoughts.

First of all, your perfume is going to have to be GOOD! And by "good" I mean that OTHERS (not just your family and friends) must be DRAWN to it. Your fragrance will have to "sell itself" when absolute strangers encounter it. But having a perfume that is really great is only a starting point. Your perfume that can "sell itself" can't really sell until SOMEONE goes out and sells it. But that someone DOES NOT have to be you.

Recently two major perfume manufacturers merged and some of the world's top perfumers found themselves out of work. Now certainly these people could, on their own, make wonderful fragrances ... but I'm betting that they won't (or most of them won't) try to go it alone making and selling their own perfume. More likely, they will continue to work, one way or another, on MAKING perfume -- just as you may be doing.

The ability to sell successfully is a special skill, gift, art or trade, just as the ability to make beautiful perfume is a special skill, gift, art or trade. Both, to an extent, can be learned. But the key to it is the MOTIVATION (or PASSION!) Some people are motivated to sell things. They love to do it. They love to watch sales curves rise and the money roll in. They live and breath sales -- and marketing -- and deals -- and building effective sales organizations. They are a special breed of people and they are WORTH a lot of money because they can MAKE a lot of money for you -- if your perfume is really good.

And, as in any marriage, the numbers aren't necessarily 50-50. They can be 10-90 or 90-10, depending on who has the reputation, who has the track record, who is contributing what. But 10% of a successful business can give you, the perfumer, a lot more money than 90% of a business that goes nowhere. Think in terms of what you GET from the deal, not how the deal LOOKS.

In short, if you are a talented perfumer and want to make money selling your perfume but have absolutely no sales ability, think in terms of working with someone who may know nothing about making perfume but can quickly learn what needs to be learned to sell it ... and who will put just as much into selling it as you are putting into making it.

It won't be easy to find such a person and you might encounter a few failures along the way. But the "right" person to work with will be enthusiastic about your perfume and, rather than asking you for a fee up front for their work (always a negative!) will talk about -- and demonstrate -- what they can do for you.

And, oh yes, you will need a feeling of good rapport with this person. You must feel free to offer suggestions -- and be willing to take suggestions. You and this other person must be able to listen to each other, you must share certain core values, and you must be able to establish a mutual respect.

Now that's a formula for successful perfume sales, even if you can't sell at all!