What happens when your customer gets your stuff after they’ve bought it? Are you certain they’ll love it? You can’t please everyone but if even you know what you’re offering is flawed, you’re in trouble. If you’re feeling a little unsure about what a buyer’s reaction will be, it’s time to take a second look at what you’re selling.

This image shows a whole and a cut lemon.

No one likes to be sold a lemon. Unless that’s what you were trying to buy in the first place, I guess. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If something is really good, while it won’t exactly sell itself, it can stand on it’s own merits and make the job of promoting it that much easier. Products, services or stores that are unprofessional or otherwise disappointing not only discourages people from writing positive reviews and giving you good word of mouth, it can also create negative customer experience which could lead in a variety of detrimental directions.

Always make sure stuff is as good as it can be before you offer it for sale.

For authors, this may mean that you need to additional editing and revision to make sure your book is the best book it can be. For a webstore, this may mean not selling items that you know are defective and clearly disclosing all items flaws on antiques and collectibles. For a service provider, this can mean making sure you’re always meeting and exceeding what you promised your clients.

This may not seem like a marketing issue but it is. All the promotion in the world can’t help you if you’ve got a faulty product. You’d just be wasting your time and spinning your wheels trying to promote something that’s anything less than it’s best.

Your goal isn’t just to get someone to buy your stuff this one time. What good does a single sale do you? What you really want is to convert every single buyer into a lifetime customer and you do that by making sure you’re selling something they’re likely to be glad they purchased. That, more than anything else, will be what brings them back to buy from you in the future and spread the word about what you have.