Product steam locomotive. A locomotive product: what it is and how to find it correctly. How to find your locomotive product

21.12.2023

Many marketing techniques are similar to each other. They are called by different words, but the essence is the same. And sometimes, a supposedly new, modern technique goes back to the era of merchants and shopkeepers, and is even found in fairy tales.
Today we’ll talk about a well-known marketing ploy, which is often called a “locomotive product.”

The locomotive is the one that drags. The product that is being bought, and... “in addition” to which you force (or convincingly suggest, which in this case is not so important) to buy some other goods (which, as a rule, were deposited on warehouse).

If you remember, during the Soviet administrative-command system and planned economy, such “trailers for a locomotive” were quite common, and when buying a scarce product, you definitely had to buy something stamped in addition. For example, along with “The Count of Monte Cristo,” Brezhnev’s “Malaya Zemlya” was sure to go.

Give your loved one a locomotive
“Locomotives” are still actively used today, and their use can be more or less obvious. A clear case is a copula. For example, as part of a gift set.

There are many holidays, and buying a New Year's box as a gift in a perfumery store, for example, has already become commonplace for many. If you look closely at such a set, it usually becomes clear that some product there is a “locomotive”, and some are attractive to the buyer solely within the set, and otherwise they would hardly be purchased.

However, sometimes the “locomotive” turns out to be the set itself, i.e. a systemic effect is triggered: elements individually are not valuable, but in the system they are. Moreover, beautiful gift wrapping is also part of this system.
Think: can you produce such sets? (Of course, it is not necessary to combine only goods, you can also combine services, you can combine goods with services). Pay special attention to the context (a set for a holiday? a set for convenience? a set for prestige?), packaging and name, which should correspond to this context.

The locomotive unwinds the spiral
Another typical use of a “locomotive” is to use it to spin a sales spiral. This is when one purchase (seemingly profitable and cheap) inevitably entails another (more expensive): getting on a camel costs $1, getting back down costs $10.

Of course, you shouldn’t stoop to such a level, but take the principle itself into account. It is constantly used by, for example, IKEA: buy a cabinet, and then buy drawers and even furniture handles separately for it. Buy a Gillette razor - you “sign up” to buy blades specifically for this machine. And so on.
Does your business have the opportunity to sell such products? No?

What if existing goods/services are “split” and made into two from one product: a cheap one and an expensive one – so that the total price exceeds the price of the “source” product?

What if the first product is simply given as a gift, and the price for the second is slightly increased? Yes, yes, the same “get one ski as a gift” trick.
Again, you shouldn’t stoop to such a primitive anecdotal level. But if you are selling skis, and the seller always remembers to offer poles, gloves, and, say, a ski cap in addition to the skis (which, in general, people don’t really buy...) - then this is also a sales spiral.

Product – separately, locomotive – separately
The “locomotive” can be a part of the product - in this case it must be given a collectible value. Cheap chewing gums are valuable not in themselves, but - for the target audience, of course - for their inserts.

McDonald's also always comes with a toy for children's lunches. Books look better on the shelf if they are published within the same series. Finally, remember that designer clothes are also produced in “collections”!

Perhaps, in your assortment it is possible to give symbolic, collectible value to product lines? Think about it.

The locomotive is us
Finally, a separate case is when you yourself are a locomotive for others, i.e. stand at the beginning of the sales spiral. In this case, you need to sell not to clients, but to other companies - those that follow you in this spiral. Sell the advantage they get by using you as a “locomotive”. For example, if you sell airline tickets, it would be logical to advertise hotels on your website. It’s worth offering them this option!

Think: who are you also “dragging” behind you? It is likely that such companies will exist. Suggest they get more clients!

So, perceive your assortment comprehensively, launch “locomotives”, use the advantages of the assortment to cover its shortcomings. And success will come!

P.S. If you want to learn as much as possible about sales and increase your profits many times over, very much.
will allow you to identify bottlenecks through which your profits flow away.

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This article is not for everyone

Let's label it as "practical advice for a small business owner with up to 50 employees and sales of up to 400 million rubles (~ 10 million euros) who wants his sales to grow by 5% per month or more."

Why am I talking about sales growth while many are struggling to keep from falling? Because there are never as many sales as you want. There are either sales or they are not. If they exist, then there are many of them.

Do you know that heady feeling of an owner whose business sales are growing? Is there a recruitment of new employees, territorial development, growth of opportunities, material and other wealth...?

Have you already felt this calm confidence that you are on the right path, everything is going “as it should”, wishes are coming true one after another, possibilities are ahead of dreams, so much so that it takes your breath away...?

To experience these feelings, you need to have sales growth of more than 5% per month. Better - from 5% to 15% (60-180% per year). More - this is already at the limit of growth opportunities and can be destructive for business. The company simply will not have time to grow.

Anything less leads in the other direction. It will be the same business owner, but only filled with different feelings. Uncertainty and fear fill his life. Sales first slow down their growth, and then fall. He physically feels how business resources are melting, uncovered obligations are increasing, living space is decreasing...

Sound familiar? Which of these two options do you prefer? First? Then let's talk about how to ensure sales growth.

The article does not contain new ideas. Rather, these are simple, almost obvious truths. True, they cost me a dear price: in order to understand and assimilate them, I ruined three of my businesses and lost more than $300 thousand, which deserved better use. But now other businesses can easily grow. Everything is so simple that it seems obvious and eludes understanding. However, let's take everything in order.

I started my career as an engineer at a large machine-building enterprise in a provincial city. This initially shaped me production mindset. Then I made a career as a leader, top manager, business consultant, business owner... I moved to the capital... But my way of thinking continued to be production. How does a production worker think? His area of attention is aimed at creating a product, solving a problem, completing a task... And where should he look to have good sales? On clients, their interests and needs...

Do you feel the difference? A business owner with a production mindset initially looks in the opposite direction to good sales. Here is the first truth for you. We bet you passed it and didn’t even notice? Now stop and read it again. Preferably - out loud.

An owner with a production mindset initially looks in the opposite direction to good sales.

Have you ever tried walking backwards? You probably tried it as a child, and it was uncomfortable. Even if they tried to peek in the mirror. It’s still inconvenient. But this is just walking. How to sell if you are looking in the other direction? The vast majority of small business owners have a production mindset. There are many reasons. These are echoes of the planned economy of socialism. And because it’s easier this way. Producing is much easier than selling.

You can produce whatever the business owner wants, if it is technically possible and there are enough resources. And you can only sell what buyers want to buy.

Do you want to know what kind of thinking you have: a manufacturer or a salesperson? Then answer two simple questions:

1. Who are the clients of your business?

2. How are you different from your competitors?

If you are the person for whom this article was written, then your answers will sound something like this:

1. We can serve everyone who contacts us

2. Our difference from competitors is high professionalism (quality, responsibility...) and an individual approach to each client.

Did you guess right? Then listen to your diagnosis: you have a production mindset.

The first answer suggests that you don't know your customers. From the point of view of a production worker, the answer is correct. For any product you can come up with many possible uses. With a microscope you can not only hammer nails, but also light a fire using a sunbeam, and even look at microbes. From the seller's point of view, your answer is incorrect. You can't try to sell your product to everyone. You can sell only to specific potential customers, who can somehow be distinguished from the crowd, get in touch with them and offer a purchase.

The second answer says that you have a product, but no unique product. An individual approach to a client is not a product, but your attitude to work. This is the same as a restaurant owner stating that their restaurant is distinguished by the fact that the cooks wash their hands before work and can prepare any dish from the menu upon the customer’s order. A product is what you do. The restaurant is dedicated to entertaining and feeding guests with food prepared to order. And the product is what they buy from you. Something that only you have.

In the restaurant example, this is the answer to the question “why do customers come to this restaurant? What do they find there that they don’t find in other restaurants?” If there is no product, then there is nothing to trade. Where will sales come from if there are no customers and nothing to offer them?

It's possible that your current sales are a fluke. The client was running somewhere and accidentally bumped into you. At the same time, you held in your hands what interested him, and he bought it. Then he asked for something else, you did it. It remained that way. You don’t know where to look for other clients, so you wait in the aisle in case someone else runs past. To reassure yourself, you say something about how your service is so great that clients come only through recommendations. Of course, they come based on recommendations. Because you most likely simply do not have other channels of communication with potential clients. Unclear? Let me explain with a simple example.

Let's say that you are a math teacher at school who has decided to earn extra money by giving private lessons.

Who and what will you teach? After reflection, we came to the conclusion that your high qualifications allow you to teach mathematics to students throughout the entire high school course from elementary school to graduates.

That’s what you write in the ad: “I teach mathematics to high school students.”

If you are well prepared and understand higher mathematics, write “I teach mathematics to high school students and university students.”

If you are a mathematical genius, you can come up with something like “I teach everyone mathematics, create courses for universities, write textbooks to order...”

Do you think you will find customers for such an ad? Of course not. Because there is no product and no clients for whom it is intended.

A product is something that solves the Client’s problem and/or makes him feel better.

The product of a tutor is to prepare for exams, catch up with a class after illness, pass a test, and the like. If we reformulate the sentence to “I help high school students prepare for passing mathematics exams at college,” then the service immediately turns into a specific tangible Product, and it is immediately clear where to look for potential clients: go to school, look for rich parents whose children are going to enroll in Institute, but have poor training. Is the principle clear? Then let's make one more conclusion

The same product can be sold to different categories of customers in the form of different Products.

For example, the same mathematics teacher can prepare for college, coach for passing tests, restore preparation after illness... The buyer never buys a product, he always buys a Product. It is impossible to sell one product to everyone. But you can turn one product into many different Products for different categories of customers. And sell your Product to each client. The greater the potential of a product, the more products can be created based on it.

It is at this point that the division of labor between the producer and the seller begins. The task of a manufacturer is to create a product. The seller’s task is to turn the product into a Product and sell it to a specific client. The production worker's attention zone ends at the product border.

The dream of any manufacturer is to create an ideal product that sells itself. Yes, he sells in such a way that he forms a queue of people who want to buy it, and he, the production worker, gets the opportunity to personally decide who to sell his goods to and who not. It is impossible to create such a product, since even the best product still needs to be promoted and sold. But the manufacturer doesn’t like to sell and doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to run after customers, he wants the customers to run after him. Therefore, he firmly believes that an ideal self-selling product exists in nature and is constantly trying to create such a product. If the next product he creates does not sell itself, the production worker abandons it and tries to create the next ideal product.

The external sign of such a business is few people, many goods. There are small sales for each product, but there is no systematic work to promote and find customers. At this time, the owner himself is passionate about creating the next new ideal product, on which he has high hopes.

Just like in a poor large family - there are a lot of children, everyone is brought up somehow, the younger ones wear out the clothes of the older ones, and the parents are busy continuing to give birth to the next. They hope that someday a genius will be born who will be able to grow up on his own, make a career and bring fame and wealth to the family.

Have you seen such businesses? Well, of course we saw it. Most small businesses are built on a production principle. Because there are more owners with a production mindset than owners with a sales mindset.

To achieve sales growth, you need to go beyond the production approach and do the salesperson's job.

The seller’s task is to turn a product into a product for specific customers, find those who need it, get in touch with them, make an offer and sell. To make a sale at all, you need to go through the following path: Client-Product-Promotion-Sale. To achieve stable sales growth in a small business, this is not enough. We need a Product-Steam Locomotive (I know that steam locomotives have long been outdated and replaced by locomotives, but the old word “steam locomotive” sounds much better), which will create stable demand and pull the company towards growth and development.

Features of the Product-Steam Locomotive:

1. Solving specific problems of specific categories of clients

2. Uniqueness and difference from others

3. Clear benefit (better and more profitable than competitors by 30% or more)

All growing companies have their own unique Product - Steam Locomotive, which is the basis of their growth.

Having Product-Locomotive, sellers know where and what kind of clients to look for, what to offer them, how to separate themselves from competitors and what convincing arguments to use to conclude a deal. I immediately foresee the question: why pay so much attention to the Product if a good seller can sell anything? You're right. Maybe. But there are few good sellers, and they do not like to sell bad goods. The Steam Locomotive product is easier to sell and easier to make money on. Therefore, any seller can sell it. And a good one will sell a lot of it and make a lot of money from it.

To understand the situation, imagine a bear hunt. A good hunter can kill a bear without a gun. For example, with a homemade spear. Maybe. But with great effort and at the risk of life. You can't get more than one bear a day this way. And a hunter with this method of hunting will not last long. Sooner or later some bear will maul him to death or severe injury. What if you give the hunter a long-range rifle with powerful ammunition (Product Locomotive) and a helicopter (promotion)? Then one hunter will shoot tens and hundreds of bears a day without any risk. There won't be enough bears.

If you were a good hunter and had a choice between two companies - one hunting with a spear, and the other hunting from a helicopter? Where will you go? Where can you earn more? What follows from this? To increase sales, you need to find your Product-Locomotive and build a chain of Customer-Product-Promotion-Sales. On this path, two news await you: bad and good.

The bad news is that you cannot entrust the task of creating a Steam Locomotive Product to your salespeople or outsource it to external experts. They won't make it. Only the owner personally can create a Steam Locomotive Product in a small business! Only he is capable of creating the magic of a Product out of his vision, the chaos of a nascent business and many incomprehensible little things.

It is very difficult for one person to do this: you need to simultaneously perform the functions of a salesperson and a production worker. And this requires completely different and poorly compatible character traits. Therefore, every rapidly growing business usually has two founding partners: the Salesperson and the Production Manager. One creates, the other sells. One looks inside the business, the other looks at clients. If you are lucky enough to have such a partnership, read no further. Thank your good fortune and do something nice for your partner. But not everyone is so lucky. Most small business owners are single.

If you are a manufacturer without a sales partner, then there is very little hope that you will find a sales partner. There are few of them and there won’t be enough for everyone. Yes, they feel good without you. The production worker has only one choice - to solve the problem of creating the Product and organizing sales himself. This is inconvenient, psychologically uncomfortable and very labor-intensive. The hardest thing is to allow yourself to make mistakes and come to terms with the fact that you will often look inadequate and sell worse than a real seller. The consolation is that even if you do a mediocre job, you can increase sales in your business, attract more resources to it, and then be able to hire real salespeople who will sell for you and better than you.

The good news is: if you already have a small business, then most likely, You also already have a locomotive product. You just don't know about it yet. If it weren't for him, your business would have died a long time ago. Invite experts to your place and you will be surprised at the number of business mistakes they will discover. But your business still somehow exists. The main reason for such vitality is that somewhere in the depths of the heap of your goods and services, Product-Locomotive is gathering dust alone. On a subconscious level, you feel it and from time to time you take it out and sell it, but on a conscious level, you don’t know it and don’t promote it.

A sign of the presence of such an unconscious Product-locomotive: the owner trades well, but the assistants trade poorly. Therefore, the business operates in a pulsating mode - while the owner is engaged in sales, they are there. As soon as he gets distracted by other things, sales freeze. What does a business look like without a Steam Locomotive Product? Just hard, hopeless work of the owner, who stupidly works harder than all his competitors for less money. But even in this case, the verdict is not final.

My experience shows that anyone, I emphasize - any small business owner is able to find or create their own locomotive Product and move their business into a state of growth! Personally, you haven’t found it only because you haven’t looked yet. I hope you now understand this and begin your search immediately.

A locomotive product is a product sold at a reduced price to attract consumers. To spark the interest of the target audience, the locomotive product must have value in the eyes of the client.

There is usually no profit from the “locomotive”, so the main bet is on the “trailer”: a product with high margins. With a competent approach, the system gives results, since the seller manages to sell the main product at a premium. Naturally, losses in sales of the locomotive product are also compensated.

A striking example of a locomotive product is ice cream or hamburgers at McDonald's. It is important that the “locomotive” is in high demand at a low cost.

If necessary, not one, but two or more “cars” are attached to the locomotive product. How much the price of a “locomotive” can be reduced depends on earnings from the main product. When performing calculations, take into account the probability of selling the main product.

To work with “trailers” it is convenient to use technologies, down-sell and cross-sell. Having established sales, try to attract customers to a new product line, and after a while offer the target audience a VIP product or even exclusive products.

How not to burn out on a locomotive product?

Try to prevent your business competitors from repeating your promotion. Mindlessly dumping on the market is a sure step towards the death of the enterprise. It’s not a fact that your “locomotives” won’t be bought up cheaply by richer companies in order to make money on the product.

A completely different situation is emerging in the services market. No one is stopping you from coming up with a locomotive service. So, if we are talking about , the webmaster can offer a logo, selection of a semantic core or other “bunion” at a reduced cost.

If we talk about copywriting services, you can write at a discount or any other content, after ordering which you will most likely need additional materials (filling the entire site, for example).

The task of a small business is to obtain maximum income from sales. However, here we are faced with a dilemma: how to receive operating profits and reinvest them without inflating prices and without losing competitiveness? On the contrary, we are required to keep prices lower than our competitors and still make a profit.
It is believed that this scheme works effectively in increasing trade turnover, but for small commercial enterprises this is not feasible, as it requires large investments. Small businesses require different dumping schemes. We will consider one of the options for reducing prices to help you get more income below.

Modern marketing offers a completely new construction of the sales line, where one of the leading roles belongs to locomotive product . How should you choose it from the range you offer? This is the product that most interests the buyer, the market leader, preferably at low purchase prices.

So, from the popular goods, we choose the best one and dump the price, that is, we deliberately lower the price. You can even offer a locomotive product with zero margin, you can even go into the red if you know for sure that you will make up for it on other products. There are 2 schemes by which you can use a locomotive product:

1. 1) In order to upsell some additional options or expensive accessories. In this case, we simply attach “cars” to our “locomotive” with a rigid or soft link. If this is a phone, then you can additionally sell high-margin films, headphones and other additions to the mobile device. If it’s a car, you can offer it with other equipment, audio changes, etc.

2. 2) To transfer the buyer to another product. Transfer to another product can be indirect and direct. By indirect diagram, it is important to correctly calculate the location of the locomotive product. This is exactly how Ikea stores operate: “Come get our pillow for 99 rubles” and, as a rule, the trip for a pillow is not limited to it. Typically, items sold at a dumping price are located somewhere at the very back of the store, where it is difficult to simply get to and you need to go through as many departments as possible.

In small retail outlets, this scheme will work with straight working with the buyer. For example, our locomotive product is a bouquet of 10 roses for 200 rubles, asking the buyer who he wants to give it to (for example, a girl), we can offer in return a bouquet of 3 large roses, but for 250 rubles, as more graceful and attractive.

Thus, by finding out a person’s need and why exactly the locomotive product is being purchased, the client can be transferred to another, more expensive product or an additional sale of an accessory. In any of the two options, scripts for communicating with clients are important, namely how to communicate, what to say, when to sell. You can find out all this by clicking on the link that I put below, where I bring to your attention my presentation on the topic of selling scripts for online stores and for simple businesses.

The assortment is the entire set of products that you sell. No matter how many product items you have - five or five thousand - they make up your assortment.

What is the wrong approach of new entrepreneurs to the assortment? “Let’s collect everything we know how to do or can buy, and we’ll sell it.”

What is the right approach? Building a sales chain and product line.

We will tell you about several types of products that are sure to be in the assortment line of any business.

1. Locomotive or front-end goods

This is an advantageous offer for potential clients. Locomotive goods are sold at minimal prices, sometimes even below cost. They are needed so that the client makes the first purchase - then you will sell him more profitable products for you (back-end). For example, a restaurant attracts customers by advertising inexpensive lunches, but makes money by selling expensive alcohol or desserts.

Important! A locomotive product is necessarily a product that is popular and/or very attractive to a potential customer.

If you sell some nonsense inexpensively, there will still be no demand for it. And the task of the front-end is to create demand.

More front-end examples: free first consultation at a medical center, high-speed Internet at a minimum rate for the first month, cheap dishes and textiles from Ikea.

Upsell is an increase in the amount of a sale. A classic example of an upsell is an increase in the average check when, instead of one product, the client buys a whole set. McDonald's offers a set lunch instead of a hamburger + fries combo. Lunch costs more, but the client receives ice cream as a gift, which means he saves money.

The same scheme works, say, in a hardware store, when instead of a netbook the seller convinces the client to buy a laptop - because it has more functions, although it costs more.

These are not very expensive goods, but with a high margin (markup). That is, the client doesn’t seem to pay that much, but you earn good money.

For example, in a furniture store, a buyer doubts between choosing an Italian and domestic kitchen set. The Italian one is more expensive, and the seller recommends choosing the Russian equivalent - cheap and high quality. At the same time, he earns more in domestic kitchens due to the high markup.

4. Status product

This is a very expensive product. Perhaps so expensive that no one will ever buy it. But the price of this product, as it were, “raises” you above the market, gives you status and shine, and attracts the attention of customers to you. In addition, the price of a status product helps to “sell” the price of other items - in comparison they seem not so high.

For example, every hotel has a presidential suite - an elite and ultra-expensive room. Cell phone manufacturers produce limited editions with precious stones.

These are items to be sold along with the main product. Perhaps they are not bought separately at all or bought less, but “in a company” they sell well and increase your average check.

The hairdresser can sell accessories, the developer can sell the finishing along with the apartment. Rarely does anyone eat potatoes alone at McDonald's, but together with a hamburger it is a very popular combination.

6. Alternative products

The client wants to have a choice. If you don’t give him such a choice, he may go to competitors, but you don’t want that. Therefore, several substitute items are added to the assortment.

Important! Maintain balance. Too much choice can confuse the buyer, and he will leave without purchasing. In an offline store, a good seller will cope with the problem of over-selection, but for the online space, losses can be very serious. Test this moment.

In a leather and fur store, fur coats and sheepskin coats can be substitutes. In a flower shop you can choose a bouquet or flowers in a pot. And we have alternative trainings: and. :)

An assortment line is a must for any project, it doesn’t matter whether you have opened a business or work as a private specialist. We hope our material will help those of you whose assortment is not yet in order.

/Material prepared by Stas Tishin/

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Thank you, as always everything is clear and to the point

Answer

Fedor, thank you for reading us.

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Here's what I got in terms of assortment

Vertical ruler:

Consultation
Educational materials
Free site audit
Free plan to improve and promote your website
Primary website optimization (internal optimization (creating a semantic core, writing texts, optimizing meta tags, linking, working with indexing errors) + registration in business directories) - one-time work
Website promotion in search engines - monthly work
Comprehensive work to attract leads - monthly work

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Creation of selling websites
Improving website usability indicators
contextual advertising
Organization of advertising campaigns on the Internet (on third-party sites)
Advertising on social networks

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