So there you are: the merchandise manager for a boring product. How usually have you caught yourself gazing longingly at one of those iPhones, Kindles, or various other such highly desirable product and though to yourself “Now why couldn’t I function as Product Manager for a very good product that way?” I have one message for you – get over it. As it happens there are other product manager that are accountable for products that are even less cool than yours and they are doing some pretty amazing things to create their products successful…

How One Goes About Buying Bullets
I’m sure there are some of you available that have quite strong feelings about guns and such 30-30 ammo for sale. Let’s put those feelings aside for a couple minutes and have a closer go through the dilemma of, what else, bullets. If you are not a devoted survivalist or hunter, you most likely haven’t purchased bullets before.

As it happens that folks really value what gun they buy. However, bullets are almost an afterthought purchase. Sorry about that bullet product managers. Rob Walker at the New York Times got enthusiastic about the product conundrum when he researched a company called Alliant Techsystems (ATK)Building The Better Bullet (Brand)
Another line of bullets that ATK brought out was called Fusion. With the product line the merchandise managers at ATK were targeting (sorry!) the 25-35-year-old deer hunters. In order to catch their eye, the business created a fresh “aggressive” box design and even went as far as to add a foil label. They basically pimped the box.

Those two products gave the ATK product managers the knowledge that they needed to be able to gain the confidence that they needed to be able to do their biggest product launch to date. They recently rolled out a fresh line of bullets for duck hunters called Black Cloud. These times they are showing that they know what needs to be done to show a commodity product right into a must-have product.

ATK has partnered with a favorite TV personality (in duck hunting circles): Phil Robertson who is recognized as the “Duck Commander” ;.They’ve also gone ahead and made a couple of “viral videos” to be able to build some buzz around their new ammo. Just showing that bullets also play a role in the 21st Century, they’ve gone as far as to generate their individual social networking site called StormChasersNetwork.

Simply to top things off, they have also ensure that the box for the Black Cloud product virtually jumps from the shelf. They dressed it up in a brilliant color scheme that is designed to catch a hunter’s attention and remind him of the very first light of day (which is the greatest time to be hunting ducks).

What All Of This Means For You
I can’t say for many what kind of product you are accountable for managing. However, I will bet that it’s probably a little bit more interesting when compared to a commodity product just like a bullet. In reality, no matter how boring you could find it, it’s probably a whole lot more interesting when compared to a bullet.

With a little luck this story about how the merchandise managers at ATK could actually see beyond the straightforward proven fact that they were faced with trying to sell more of a commodity product that the other bullet makers should inspire you. What the ATK product managers did was to step within their customer’s shoes and identify how they start to see the world. When they knew this, it became clear about what they needed to do.

Take some time considering not what your product does, but rather what your visitors is going to do with your product. This could point just how forward for tips on how to turn your boring commodity-like product into something that’ll lose just like a (what else?) bullet.