As I writing this, I have been in four industries working in a business development role. Let put this first aside, that every strategy, every business model and every engagement process, they all not right or wrong. Every business activity mentioned is correct in their own specific business environment but not applicable in others.
(Note: going forward, in this context the word 'Product' also include Service)
Pricing:
The first point to consider is the economic price of the product. 'General Products' with massive demand and with generic demographic are usually can be set at a low price as we can sell the products at the high volume of units. On the other side, 'Special Products' are for a niche market that is actually saleable but the prices are usually high because of the efforts to put in to serve for a small demand with the low volume of sale units.
Market Segment:
General Products are publicly known as consumer products and Special Products are known as premium or industry products. General Products are sold daily to the consumer from various economic levels of income. Special Products are not usually saleable every day, they are sold to the individual from a high economic level of income or to the organization.
Product Design:
General Products are usually simple in design as long they are usable. Furthermore, these products are made of cheap materials (or have been purchase in bulk) because these products are for short term use and meant to be thrown away. However, Special Products are made with high-quality expensive materials and made to last, and particularly for the individual customer, the products are beautifully designed.
Core Marketing:
General Products are marketed as commercial advertisements through mainstream television networks. Special Products are marketed by organizing product launching ceremonies in the events with invitations or as advertisements in premium magazines.
Sales Process:
This is the most critical point for me to emphasize, for General Products the prices are openly visible on their website or at the stores, however, for Special Products, some are shown with their price and some need to ask for the quotation first.
Special Product for high profile individual is usually selling their brand name or that status that the customer wants to be associated with. On the other half, Special Product for the organization (or not for status symbol purposes), they don't declare their product to close with that limited market of high paying paymasters (government or big corporation). These deals usually can be close with two formats; (i) Meeting: where there are multiple face-to-face discussions will be conducted to negotiate the offer and price between the seller and the buyer (ii) Tendering process: is a method of filtering down the offers via paper proposals from various companies, this is usually to avoid lobbying with the purchasing organization's internal personnel just for his personal benefits only.
With the General Products, we can be lenient with the closing rate, but with the Special Products, the closing rate needs to be 100% or in other words "very targeted". This is because the General Products market are massive and their focus is ensuring a proper distribution that reaches various places or outlets. And the businesses with Special Products, they already have a very clear with their particular potential customers before they launch these Special Products.
Competitive Landscape:
Companies that sell General Products are known for their brands that grow with the consumer since they are young. The General Products companies are in the industries that are only for the long-established ones will survive to capture the huge size of the market share with their ability to sell at low prices. However, they can be destroyed by the disruptor company that is able to keep up with the social behaviour and offer the more reliable products to the same market that are ready to move on with the new way that can improve their lives on the same price range.
Special Products businesses are usually at high risk with the limited market funnel. But.. they can have a high reward if successfully able to close the deal. This type of company is competitive as mention in the sales process, they not revealing each other offer price, however, the good thing is there are not many players in the particular industry or market. Furthermore, not everyone can execute in these businesses as they need highly skilled workforces.
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