Most start-ups have a core mission that relates to how that company makes or is going to make money. For instance a software start-up often consists of a team of coders and very little else, much like the TV-show “Silicon Valley”. In this company everyone is focused on the product-side of things, building the product, fixing the product, improving the product and so on. There is a group of people and they are all focused on the same thing, which is the company’s “raison d’etre” or reason to exist. This is often due to necessity, with limited resources available a company has to strictly prioritize how they spend what little they have in order to obtain the maximum effect. This often leads to the founder(s) of the company filling a range of roles from administration, accounting/financing, sales, marketing, product strategy, development, operations and delivery. This is rarely a good plan in the long-run because as I once heard someone say “Multi-tasking: The art of doing twice as much as you should, half as well as you could“.
When the company starts to get more resources, it will trend towards a higher degree of specialization within the core functions. As a result of this, a need will emerge for support functions. In order for those who make the product to maximize the amount they can make, they must specialize in manufacturing, in order for salespeople to sell as much as possible they must focus on their area, and so on. This means that tasks that must be done in order for the company to run smoothly, such as invoicing and ensuring that suppliers are paid have to be handled by someone else. Thus, one starts to hire people to fill the support functions.
In the sexual market place, this same effect can be seen among many men at varying stages of their journey. When one first finds the manosphere there is an arsenal of content one can consume and utilize in order to improve one’s sexual market value. There are game tips, style tips, weightlifting tips, diet tips, grooming tips, and many others. Within each of these there are differing perspectives and both for strategy, tactics and methodology.
The 8Ps of Sexual Market Value
The debate about “what women want” is seemingly never-ending, however the core thesis of sexual market value is hypergamy, which can be shortly summarized as women always seeking a better deal. If one views sexual market value as being a relative metric on a bell-curve, as I’ve previously argued, then it follows that in order for a man to maximize the market to which he has access, he must be 1 – 2 standard deviations above the mean. The core functions are those focus areas that contribute greatly to his sexual market value when his performance within them is average or higher.
If a man has the biology, capacity, ability and tenacity to become an extreme outlier in one area of the important sexual market metrics, he can then largely compensate for being 1 standard deviation or two below the mean in others. An ugly man on the Forbes 500 list, a broke man who has perfect 10 appearance, a fat man who is the most popular musician and similar trade-offs. However, one should not build a model based on extreme outliers, as the underlying assumption is that one is an extreme outlier, something for which the probability is very low. Furthermore, in order to become an extreme outlier due to the finite amount of time and resources one has, necessitates neglect of other important areas of life.
To utilize the delineation of functions that I outlined as core in the introduction to this essay, the core sexual market functions are manufacturing, marketing and sales. The manufacturing process consists of the work a man undertakes in order to build himself as a product capable of competing within the sexual market place. The resource utilization across product characteristics will differ somewhat based on starting point, market valuation of characteristics and other requirements external to the man. An example of the first, if one has a physique that is already in the top 1% of men, then perhaps one could stand to reduce the attention to physique in favor of other areas. An example of the second, if you are in a market that does not value wealth, focusing on attaining wealth should not be your first choice. An example of the third, if alcohol is banned where you live, selecting club-game as your foundation is probably unwise.
The distinction between marketing and sales is in many ways a fluid one, however for the purpose of this essay marketing is defined as the four Ps in the marketing mix, Place, Product, Price and Promotion. The promotion aspects are the marketing communication strategies and techniques that you will utilize in order to build a brand in the market. The Price aspect is focused on accurately identifying the sexual market value of women that find your product enticing at your current value. I’ve spoken of the price aspect in prior writings, but concretely it deals with how enticing the offer of sex or a relationship with you will be to a woman’s sense of hypergamy. If you are a male 8 or 9, then 5s and 6s should be highly interested in your offer, while female 9s or 10s would be luke-warm at best.
The product aspect is focused on understanding your product, the combination of tangible and intangible qualities, the product life-cycle, the positioning of your product in the market and similar forms of reasoning. Tangible parts of an offer are those things that are visually apparent, such as style, physique and height, while intangible qualities would be among others mindset and red pill knowledge. The place in the marketing mix is how the product will be provided to the customer, the key being distribution, and figuring out which channel is most suitable for the product. This also has implications for the product design itself, the promotion and the price. For instance, if one decides on online dating, having great pictures and verbal ability (promotion), being high enough value to stand out (price) and being high value (product) will affect the ability to succeed in the channel.
For the function of sales, there have been several proposed “4P” mixes, however my preferred one consists of Personalization, Perceived Value, Performance Value and Proof. Proof in this case refers to actual demonstrations of value, this can be from surveys, research or testimonials. For instance, the classic example of the man who shows up with an HB-10 on each arm, is a case of proof as the HB-10s are walking testimonials. Performance value refers to what the product actually does for the buyer, in other words, how it performs. It’s well and good to be able to talk a good game, and excite the buyer, but they need to be convinced through demonstrations of performance.
Perceived Value works to build anticipation and raises the expectations of a prospective buyer. This may be done through offering product samples, by giving the buyer a tour of your facilities, providing nice-looking, well-designed written proposals or various other means. The example from sexual market value would be grooming, being in shape, and generally looking well-put-together. Personalization is perhaps one of the most important of these four, and consists of tailoring your message to fit your buyer. The buyer has needs that must be satisfied, but the buyer also has a personal style and preferences for how to satisfy this need. In the Robert Greene sense, the reversal of this is that you must know whether a buyer will be receptive to your proposition.
Summary and Conclusions
One of the first pieces of advice I ever got for game was that you should identify the type of woman you are attracted to, then become the type of man to whom she would be attracted. This means tailoring your product and presentation to the market you want to operate in. This seems very obvious when someone points it out to you, but I’ve worked with many people who have poured a lot of resources into products without once asking the question “What is our market and who is the customer?”
In the Manosphere, there is a cyclical feedback system consisting of self-improvement (product improvement), marketing (product distribution) and sales (game). At varying times there has been a strong focus on one with the others being neglected, the prime example being the “Just learn game” phase. From my perspective, the first step is to always build a strong product, when the tide rises and lifts all boats, those that have holes in the hull sink. One can make the best product in the world and still face financial dire straits, as Steve Jobs demonstrated in his first tenure as CEO of Apple, when he got overly focused on making the perfect product and lost sight of sales. One can also put out the best marketing campaign ever designed, sell a ton of product, yet face bankruptcy a short time later if there are no repeat purchases or massive returns as a result of poor product quality.
The Synergy between what you’ve been told you’re buying (marketing), what you actually buy (sales) and what you actually get (product) is the salient factor in creating solid results. If one of the areas are lacking, then great performance in the other’s will not fully make up for the shortfall. Likewise, in the sexual market place regardless of your goals, if you have a great product but are bad at sales or vice versa you will not maximize your success.
The danger of a start-up, especially those founded by men with “engineering minds”, is that they become so utterly focused on making the product “perfect” that they never check to see if there is a market for it, or try to sell it. Then a few months or years later they are left with a half-finished product, and no funding. Likewise, men get stuck in cycles of self-improvement without ever making an approach (not getting market feedback), making tons of approaches with no success yet never asking if their product is bad, or if they know they have a great product, never questioning their sales technique. There are countless reasons for why products fail, the important thing is figuring out why a product is failing so that actions can be taken in order to rectify the problem.
A note:
I recently launched a Patreon page where I will be posting additional content every month for those who support me and I will do a Google Hangout for the highest tier Patrons (limited to 10 people).
I’ve also had some requests for consults, which I’ve declined up until now, but due to demand I’ve chosen to open up for doing some consults on request. For details please check out my Consulting and Patreon Page
As always you can buy my book Gendernomics at Amazon.com as both paperback and Kindle
