The first law of marketing economics is that when you produce a product in a competitive environment, you also need to produce a market for that product. Otherwise, you better have a big warehouse.

The old saw about building a better mousetrap and people will beat a path to your door is claptrap, and, if you want to succeed with mousetraps, you better add a sales force, marketing research to identify your consumers, and advertising to reach all the mouse-haters. I also recommend a research and development department to keep your mousetrap up to date and to prevent product obsolesence caused by competition.

The need to produce a market is what I call the marketing imperative. What is not always understood in the raw cotton industry is that markets are produced.