My company manufactures a product that can be DIY. I don't know how to tell my customers how easy or difficult it is. How does one determine the difficulty factor of a project? On the TV show a number is ususally associated with the project. I'm primarily interested in the grade descriptions and grading system used to determine the grade given. A weblink or other document would be helpful. Thanks, JohnKal@cfl.rr.com
that rating system is usually relative, as far as I know. It's kind of like telling the doctor on a scale of 1 to 10 how bad your thumb hurts when you smack it with the hammer.
You may want to contact any of the persons that have purchased the product and ask for their input. Then based on their skills and their replies, create a rating for it based on that.
What your Company can do, is get ahold of Handyman Magazine and offer free products to "testers"... (Yea, I've tested quite a few products for them, and gave them my evaluations on the ease of the product, and many other criterias, I've even given them updates on peducts I have used and have been going on a few years and have gotten back to them on thier viability as the endurance of products also...(One glue that I used, a polyurethane base didnt last as long as it was 'supposed to', so the failure of it went into my 'updated' evaluation also).
Then, they may even advertise it in thier magazine if its a worth while product for a fee of course, but, you get the benefiet of a National Magazine and many handymen/women who read and use the products, and by word of mouth, it gets either great reviews or lousy ones...
what I would suggest to a manufacturer is to rent some warehouse space, put up some banners, provide some free eats, and advertise for product testers with handyman skills. do several of these, changing the requirements each time so you get several different levels of ability.
test your folks coming in with a 12 or 20 question list... check the hand and power tools you own... check what projects you have done... what you would like... how many hospital visits have you had... do you know what an inspector does.. that sort of thing.
then turn 'em loose on frames or jigs or partial projects using your project or system and see if any of them get any of it right, using the instructions you will put on your web site.
which of course implies you need to get an outside contractor to use your product to be a back-check on what you've decided is correct in-house. you MAY be surprised... .
then you have a quick 3 to 5 question survey of the handy (or exposed non-handy) folk before the food and coupons are handed out.
the more market testing you do, the better, but to get an idea of how easy this really is, how to market to the DIY crowd, and whether you have to tune up your act before going in the stores, any is much better than none.
oh, and have some REAL construction folks on hand to assist and evaluate as the tests are underway... walking around, asking, poking, looking, filling out their own reports afterwards.
in my business, we have a bunch of office-tower guys dream up an alleged product, a bunch of engineers pulsing the vendors, and internal evangelists selling the thing up. what happens when it gets listed with regulators and released? many times, not even a thud as it falls in free space.
there is no substitute for taking a new toy outside and seeing if anybody will play with it.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: swschrad,
sig: if this is a new economy, how come they still want my old-fashioned money?
