Although candy businesses can be lucrative, investors often feel more comfortable purchasing vitamin and painkiller businesses. Painkillers are items that people have an urgent need for. Even in times of economic downturn, people will do whatever they can to make painkiller purchases. Hence, businesses that provide painkillers are more economically stable.

Supplements, gym memberships, healthier food items, cruelty-free cosmetics, sustainably sourced coffee, and budgeting apps are all great examples of vitamins.

 

Many businesses fall into the Vitamin category and can easily be upgraded or downgraded into the respective category. Vitamin businesses tend to be more valuable than Candy businesses because of the ability to market the “Should” behind the product or service the business provides.

When economic insecurity arises, customers behave differently with Vitamin-type products and services rather than Candy-type products and services. For example, a customer may forgo eating out so they can save money for their gym membership. Another example would be a customer making a selection at the department store to pay a higher amount for a cruelty free lipstick versus the alternative.

Painkiller-type businesses have the highest company valuations out of these three categories.

Say Yes! Enterprises recently encountered an interesting example of a painkiller business when the owner of a chicken coop door company reached out for a business valuation and acquisition discussion.

Most chicken coop doors are manual. This means a farmer or farmhand must get up early in the morning and return to the chicken coop multiple times a day to let chickens in and out.

An automatic door is convenient, but it is more than a luxury. On chicken farms, chickens are products, so they need protection, just as a jeweler would protect diamonds. This door can close at the push of a button if predators (like foxes or wolves) are sighted on the farm. Statistically, farmers who have to run out to the coop to manually close a door lose more chickens each year. The problem-solving function for businesses is so high that people choose this product over the competition. Even if they do not want to pay for it, this automatic door kills the serious pain of losing valuable chickens.

Think about essential products and services you use, what could you go without? What do you absolutely need?

At that time, that industry was in the candy field. It was a purchase that many people wanted to make, but curiosity would not win out if a person had to choose between paying their bills and buying a DNA kit. Over time, the industry became a vitamin by promoting at-home DNA kits that detected biological markers for diseases such as arthritis, breast cancer, and Alzheimer’s.

With that shift in marketing, DNA testing grew in importance. Rather than being an activity for the curious, these products became something that could add value to or even save a person’s life. Doctors started encouraging patients to get tested. People who did not care about their ancestry started to look into at-home DNA kits.

Still, people do not need to know if they have a predisposition to cancer. This is something that people should do, but, like a vitamin, this type of purchase is often sacrificed for painkillers.

Today, there are many painkiller business models within the at-home DNA industry. A painkiller delivers an effective solution to a current problem. Diseases that a person may grapple with in the future are not current problems. Maladies that a person can’t find answers to right now is a current problem that diminishes the quality of life.

According to the CDC, digestive health problems are the chief complaint for 30.7 million physician and emergency room visits each year. Beyond these 30.7 million visits, there are tens of millions of people who suffer in silence.

At-home DNA companies have solved this pain by offering DNA tests that alert people to food allergies, sensitivities, and intolerances. Now, DNA kits are needed for millions of people who are not concerned about ancestry or risk of disease. These DNA kits that were something to buy on a whim at first are now sought out by people who are desperate to solve a health problem.

Small changes in this business process and marketing transformed a candy business into a painkiller. It did not take a large change in the type of product to change the position in the market for these companies. Instead, the companies increased their understanding of the customer’s needs and offered services that better met those needs.

With few exceptions to the rule, most businesses do not jump from being a candy to being a painkiller. It is much easier to make the journey in steps. If you’re a candy now, focus on becoming a vitamin first. Once you have become a vitamin, work to become a painkiller.

The key to transitioning from one category to the next is to make small pivots that make your business more important to the customer. This does not require a total overhaul of your business. At each transition, you need to create more awareness and more urgency in your marketing. The product or service may not have to change. Instead, a business needs to change the way customers think about the product.

With the true example of DNA kits, the companies are still selling the same DNA kits processed in the same labs. Rather than changing to a different business, the kit companies have pivoted to provide information that is more important to customers.

Scarcity is also a great tool for transitioning from a candy to a vitamin.

As SYE founder Chritstopher Wick explains, “I remember two Christmases ago. I sold a very popular product on e-commerce; blankets. We sold thousands of blankets, and it was just one blanket. It wasn't fancy. It didn't do any tricks. It was just a blanket with a really beautiful design. That's absolutely a candy. We were selling a bunch of them because of scarcity.”

The blanket was often advertised with urgent phrases such as “only 20 left” and “only 50 left.” Humans have a natural fear of missing out, so telling customers that there is only a little of something left or a limited time to act on an offer creates scarcity that makes customers feel like they should act now.

The key to changing from a candy to a vitamin to a painkiller is changing the positioning, messaging and marketing around your product or service. There are only rare occasions when a business needs to change the product or service offering to make this transformation.

Centering marketing around scarcity, important causes, features, and benefits helps customers to see why they should or need to purchase a product. How can you position what you do? How can you make your message important?

For help planning your journey from candy to vitamin or from vitamin to painkiller, contact Say Yes! Enterprises.