So there I was, 100 units of my new product on the shelf but not moving very fast. Didn't understand what I had done wrong and had no idea what to do next.

So I went into a period of sulking and self denial. I learning (the hard way!) another valuable lesson. When you hit a brick wall and your business stalls : START TALKING ABOUT IT.

There were probably plenty of people around I could have discussed the issues with but I was so embaressed that I didn't want to tell anyone I 'had failed' RESULT? Wasted time.

By chance I got a call from a guy in the USA who had seen the original UK product review and wanted to buy a unit. I sold him one and he thought it was fantastic. So he said 'haven't you got an American distributor?'. (Remember I had thought the whole world would buy from me via the internet!). I said 'No'. He said 'We'll you'll never sell any quantity in the US without a distributor, Americans are very reserved and like to buy 'locally''. A month later my new friend Warren had actually set up a company from scratch with a small range of products (including mine) and finally I began to sell a little more product than I had before.

Turns out that Warren was very well known in the US audio forums and by reputation alone he was able to sell a number of my little audio units very quickly by some soft marketing within the forums. Another lesson learned : UNDERSTAND YOUR ROUTE TO MARKET.