While the second guy can probably start making sales right away, the first guy may end up bigger in the long run. It's not really about the product line they are selling, it's all about how they market it.

Niche Marketing at its best..second guy know's his job

From what you said. The first guy is just brainstorming with a lot of ideas. The second guy did the work, built the site, did the advertisement and is reaching his target to sell his products.

Awesome post Will! ^

This is pretty much marketing gold in a nutshell.

How to target a profitable market.

Of course guy number two should also promote skateboards with a trouser combo!

Quite frankly, I'm not very sure what to answer to this post. I'm sure you think that guy #2 would make more money, but I'm equally sure the WalMart family would disagree...

Conclusion: there's not enough info in your post to take any educated guess whatsoever.

I get the point of your post, but I think it's kinda 50/50 who would make more money in that situation. You could easily make the argument that the first guy is more diversified because he sells through more channels, whereas the skateboard guy might find that his product is more of a fad.

But to your point, I compete in a niche and do more of what the first guy does. I sell through Amazon, other channels, website, wholesale, I dropship for customers, etc. I was recently approached by a competitor who sells to the "higher end" segment of our market and had the opportunity to review his numbers/financials. And in this case, there was not more more in serving a specific market. There is something to be said for the snowball effect of owning a business.

Wait! Your post said "skaters" and the others are saying "skateboarders." So if the 2nd guy is trying to sell those kind of pants to skaters, they will never sell. What skater wants their pants down past their crouch when they are trying to do a double-axle jump! :-)

I think that the 2 "guys" will do just well. One will see a short term gain and the other one will see a long term gain from his efforts.

The guy selling trousers/pants wholesale to these resellers.

Well one is broad and one is linear in their "initial" approach but there's not enough statistics to say who's going to have a profitable business; there are too many variables that are not noted.

So me being me I'd say they'd both fail since I don't perceive a clear winner of profitability.

That is how most marketers think.... Go broad or go niche (linear) and they think this way because this is what they are taught and most think since this is the spectrum of what I'm taught then they must be the way.

Daniel Brown - PAL

What does Walmart have to do with trousers? Walmart has an entirely different business model.

The second guy will almost always beat the first one. And what's more, the second guy can sell more stuff to skaters and actually make a lot more money in the short and in the long run.

Ah I see the light...

Everyone seems to be overlooking that part. There's not really enough information here to know the answer, but enthusiasm will win out over brains in many cases.

The real secret of success is enthusiasm.
- Walter Chrysler

I studied the lives of great men and famous women, and I found that the men and women who got to the top were those who did the jobs they had in hand, with everything they had of energy and enthusiasm.
- Henry Truman

You can do anything if you have enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes rise to the stars. With it, there is accomplishment. Without it there are only alibis.
- Henry Ford

A mediocre idea that generates enthusiasm will go further than a great idea that inspires no one.
- Mary Kay Ash

Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Will asked,

Answer: Allen Says.

George Wright

Both guys have the potential.
One has a bigger possible market but it's very unfocused.
The other has a smaller niche market so he can put all his efforts into that market and thus succeed.

You can never please everybody so it's usually best to find the ideal niche for what you want to do BUT keep options open as you never know what other opportunities may come your way.

I suppose I'll get another email about this ridiculous "content curation software" that 6500+ losers have purchased to fill the Internet with additional junk blogs and make Google roll out another door slam soon.

That's exactly what the #1 guy would use as he "follows" the giant pack of clueless IMers trying to bulldog their way to alpha status.

Depends on how big the market is for skater pants I'd imagine.

And also how the first guy decides to promote. If he just sells trousers then he probably doesn't have a point of difference, so might find it hard to compete, but once he develops a brand, he could probably do okay mainstream.

I think guy #2 will be the most likely to succeed. He took action and has a product that can fill a very specific niche. He has the audience in front of him and can reach them if he markets himself the right way. Being very specific might lower his profits, but that does not mean he can't expand his offerings once clients purchase from him.

Guy #1 has a lot of potential to start with, but his idea is rather vague. Sure, he wants to use drop shipping, markets maybe and ebay. but there are a plethora of companies doing this. Large retail chains will be hard to overcome and if money isn't seen fast, he might ditch the idea. He may also be spreading himself too thin and trying to accomplish too much with choosing general trousers.

Monsanto?

Second guy has his audience really singled out. Since there is a trend in the type of pants you just described in certain social sectors - he's got the strongest chance for some solid branding - especially when the skateboarders get a hold of those ads. I'll take killer branding over a sears catalog effect any day of my life. But that's just me, right.

If you can't find the market, you can always create it.

BTW - seems like the second guy has at least some enthusiasm for his product even if not business enthusiasm. He had no questions about his target. That shows some closeness to the project at one end or another.

Is the second guy going to pay us to market his site and to get him ranked in google?

Many have said in this post that when the second guy will have limited potential because he sells only to skaters ( or skaboarders ). He selected a niche where he can get some nice videos into, where he know people, etc. But, once he made his main sales there, and it is clearly that he will succed into that, he can move to a wider niche. Well, it will be not very easy, but since he get his money by selling to the skaters, then he have enough time to find other venues or other niches, or even using the popularity he have among skaters to build a site for others.

Both guys have the same goal, but only the second guy strategy was exposed. We don't know what the first guy have in mind. It is not necessary to go to a niche to start selling trousers ,but maybe he will start selling inside his alcoholic support group, or yoga support group, or in a local shop, or to a specific type of people. In this way, he will get some profits so he can build up the business .

However, if the first guy goes directly for the whole market, without a specific target, he may succed as well. If he have a nice conversion rate he can buy traffic from adwords, msn, etc and he will make profits. With the money he can buy more advertising, goes to tv and earn more.

The second guy can do the same, even if he started from skaters, he can use the profits to advertise a non-skater website, despite he will do very well only with the skater market. I think it is big enough, if he can take a nice share. Going without target is harder, and there may not be enough money to continue the advertising, or it will be hard to find a focus. Ultimately, even if you go wide, you can have a focus on something and build from that on.

I think this was one of those trick questions, where everyone reads too fast and misses the actual question. There is zero information provided to answer your actual question. In fact, there is no possible way to answer your question, based on what you gave us to read.

We have no numbers at all, so how can we even start to discuss which model is the most profitable?


Did I win?

This is really about niche marketing

It's true, the best way to go is to always find the audience first. Then find products they would be interested in.

Second guy hands down. However... if the first guy was able to PROFIT $10,000 a month from his business... this isn't a bad proposition either.

The first guy is every person who thinks that he can make cool pants, but ultimately fails because he does something like focus on outsourcing instead of making sales.

The second guy is the one who started Volcom/Billabong/Burton/etc.

If you use the dropshipping method, you can't max the result, because you can't see the physical stuff directly. If a buy get broken stuff and you don't know, he/ she get dissapointed. If you don't have money much, you can consider this way.

If you have more money, I suggest you buy wholesale then sell it to your local market and also your country and its neighbour.

First of all, great post I must say. Now let us compare the story of two person : 1st Person has focused on large area to market his business whereas 2nd person has focused on specific niche. Well, for a long run in a business; guy #1 will go well, make his profit but will go slow in terms of earning money and the guy #2 will earn more money at very start of his business and will run much faster than the first one; but, in case of long run ; this guy will observe failure. Then, he would definitely need to extend his business range in wider areas.

Hi Will,

The first bloke needs to brush up on his research.

Has he never been to Fiji? Or Scotland?

This post is basically what marketing is all about, we need to focus our market, and make a unique product to ensure we can win a highly competitive market. The first guy will lose the business because his trousers is too general and he don't target any market at all. Even though the second guy is not an exactly promoting a good product, it doesn't matter as long as he have a specific market who will buy his product.

Iris Mountbatten: Trousers - YouTube

Definately the first one!
Dropshipping is a very good business model you can easily upscale if you outsource several tasks.

The only worry is cross border transactions which can really be a pain with refunds, taxes etc...
If you don't mind that it's definately the way to go.

I keep running accoss this thread but the question doesn't make sense.

It's like saying which tastes better apples or oranges? And then saying "apples" taste better because it's obvious.

Which company do you think makes more money and has more long term stability?

Amazon - big generic company that tries to sell to everybody.

Tap-Out - specialized clothing company narrowly targeting UFC and now trying (and failing) to grow outside of the "fighting" niche to the more general "fitness" niche.

Yes, niche marketing can be easier to get started in, but you are always limited by the size of your market. The more niche, the smaller the market and more limited your growth is.

If you want to start in a narrow niche, make sure it has room to grow into the larger niche it is a part of.

The UFC is already dropping rapidly in popularity and they are losing many of their "name" stars to age and retirement.

If the UFC can't revive more fan interest then Tap-Out will disappear in a hurry.

But Amazon will just stop selling UFC gear.

In my opinion the Second guy.... nowadays we need to target marketing in a clever way and it seems he has a better handle on his marketing...

As I said before. When the OP wrote the cases, he did not specified the start-up strategy in the first case. If he have no strategy to promote it and no money to advertise it then he will not be able even to start a business. However, if he have a strategy to go for an audience or another, and money to support advertising, some campaigns focused on dfferent kind of people, then he can succed.

The second one should have the same long-term goal: to grow and to rule his market. However, choosing a strategy on a category of people will help a lot. He has 2 choices: to build his brand around skaters or to have a neutral brand but to invest all his efforts to advertise to skaters. If the chose the first option he will have his name, logo, all branding efforts to sell more to skaters, he will own the niche sooner. But what if the market of skaters is not enough ? Maybe he can sell more stuff to skaters. If he want to get bigger, for a long time people will know that he is dedicated to scaters and will think more before buying. For example, you know that mercedes is a high end brand, you will never go to mercedes to buy an economic car. They had to build another brand for this. Fortunately, the first market is big enough to make a lot of profits. If he start from the begining to think to get a bigger market, but he want first to promtoe to skaters, it will be harder to own that market, but with the right involvement he can, but in the same time, he can go for another niche too, which he consider it is profitable and big enough. The guy in the first scenario can also select 1,2 or 3 niches to start to advertise in, while he can think at the market as a whole.