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In this weeks Badger Or Bust Ruth Badger joined the West London gadget company Mayhem. Once again, like Kilostate they were in an absolute state, you could say it was mayhem!
The boss, David seemed like a nice enough chap, but a bit bored and disinterested in his business and that seemed to be reflected in his staff.
They were trying to sell the A-bike, a lightweight folding bicycle. I was gob smacked that they thought the market for the bike was just kids – how about all those commuters I see on the train everyday with their Brompton Bikes.
Amazingly enough despite Badger pointing out they should sell the benefits, i.e. “the lightest smallest bike” their website still begins with the fact that it is a brainchild of Sir Clive Sinclair (which actually does impress me as I learnt to program on a Sinclair Spectrum) but he’s hardly a household name these days.
The A-bike is clearly a brilliant product, that should sell itself, even the worst salesperson in Mayhem managed to sell one to every bike shop she asked on the programme. So it seemed that the problem they had was simple that they had never actually asked anyone in the right market to buy one. It was also featured on the Gadget Show in November yet they didn’t seem to be using that to promote it.
Perhaps we didn’t see enough of the pitch but how did they not manage to get Evans Cycles to take some, many of their shops are near busy commuter rail stations (near the target market) and they already stock a range of folding bikes.
To top it all off the buyer from Hamleys (The Toy Shop in the UK) had apparently tried to buy a few months earlier and Mayhem had somehow turned him down!
Once again however once the team was set some goals and offered a financial reward they found some motivation and started selling.
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This blog is about business opportunities and ideas that I spot, think of or hear about and think are useful and interesting. It is intended to provide ideas and inspriation for you to help you find the right business idea for you to then grow it into a successful business.
[...] Here’s a couple of links I found about the programme: http://www.businessopportunitiesandideas.com/186/badger-or-bust-mayhem http://library.digiguide.com/lib/uk-tv-highlight/Badger+or+Bust-437 [...]
Sure the show was based on someone extremely dim, boring and predictable but I wouldnt be that hard on the Badger.
I mean she does know her sales and marketing vocab after all (must say “target audience”, must say “sales”, if can’t pull face) she finished 2nd on the apprentice and er I’m sure she has a very understated CV.
On the whole the programme was OK, but I did take it with pinch of salt. Saying that I do agree with you John in thinking the A-Bike is a wonderful idea and a truly revolutionary piece of kit. But don’t ask me to believe that SKY & BADGER produced a truly unbiased one hour documentary from over a weeks worth of footage…
Mark,
I’ve not been hard on the Badger…
I’m sure that much like Dragon’s Den the program is edited to make it as “interesting” as possible, they are after all producing entertainment, not a sales training video.
They do seem to miss things out on the show, but overall I think it will inspire people to try and market their products with a little more vigour.
Vinny,
You’d think that wouldn’t you, though I’m still struggling to find a supplier for some work simple I have…
I would agree it is certainly food for thought after watching a rerun it made me make a few more sales calls today lets hope they lead somewhere