I wrote a note to the Strand bookstore, inquiring about an old set of encyclopedias. Here’s the entire response:
Dear Customer
Thank you for your recent order/inquiry.
Unfortunately, the title(s) you requested are not in stock. Please
consider the search completed.
Thank you again for thinking of Strand Book Store.
Strand Bookstore.
Oh. Well, see you later.
At the same time, political candidates are viewing even the slightest gesture on your part (an encouraging email, for example) as proof that you want to receive daily fundraising emails for the next two years.
There’s a middle ground, one that is not computer-decided. It’s based on a human being treating another human being the way they’d like to be treated. And it’s easy to see how just about any organization, at just about any scale ought to be able to make thoughtful decisions about setting expectations and then meeting them. (and doing it profitably.)
The Strand walked away from hundreds of dollars of orders, all because they couldn’t write a more encouraging standardized note.
Political campaigns extinguish plenty of goodwill because they instantly move from 0 to 60 miles per hour.
Permission has never meant ‘access to my email.’ It’s a privilege, one that you earn or lose.
April 9, 2007
There are now three cities confirmed for May: Philadelphia, Chicago and now, New York. Details are here.
Durian is a fruit from Southeast Asia that can be charitably described as smelling like stale baby vomit. It is also revered by millions and served with pride in many Thai and Malaysian households. Most of all, it’s a great way to learn about marketing.
Songpol Somsri, a scientist fascinated by the durian, has spent decades cross-breeding more than 90 varieties of Durian and come up with a stinkless variety. No odor.
This is what most marketers do. They listen to complaints from non-customers ("why don’t you buy from us?") address them and wait for the market to grow. After all, if the people who don’t eat Durian don’t eat it because of the smell, then removing the smell ought to dramatically increase the size of your market.
Except this almost never works.
Non-durian eaters don’t have a ‘durian problem’. They aren’t standing by, fruitless, impatiently waiting for Songpol Somsri to figure out how to make a stinkless one. Nope. They’ve got cantaloupes and kiwis and all manner of other fruits to keep them busy.
The feedback you get from non-consumers is rarely useful, because the objection they give is the reason they don’t buy from you, not the thing that will cause them to affirmatively choose you.
Will stinkless durian revolutionize the marketplace? Possibly. I’ve been wrong before. But if I were a durian farmer, I’d work hard to make durian stinkier.
A florist dropped off a few dozen flowers at my house. The card had our name on it, but nothing was printed, there was no way to tell which florist brought them by.
I can just see the discussion at headquarters. "We’ve been getting way too many customer complaints. People get the flowers and they’re not happy with them, so they call and want a refund or replacement. It takes a lot of time and hassle."
"I know! Let’s just take our name and phone number off the card."
Sort of like having heavier than usual call volume, or hiding your contact info somewhere deep on your website.
April 7, 2007
Eric points us to Jott.
You call a toll free number from your cell phone, leave yourself a message and it types it and emails it to you. Perfect for creating to do lists.
Even cooler, you import a bunch of friends or colleagues and you can send them all an email at once via your cellphone.
I have no clue how they make money, but as we say online, they’ll figure it out later.
BONUS: Phoebe points us to this very cool, very cheap way to make a website. I will probably steal this idea one day, but wanted to be fair and point out that this is where it came from.
April 6, 2007
Happy to announce New York for May 29 in the morning. (details here). There are only 120 seats in this theatre.
And Rajesh is working with a few people to set up a gig in Silicon Valley. If you think you might be able to help sponsor the event (by guaranteeing a set number of people, for example, or getting your company involved), drop a line to deepika.
Thanks!
Ultimately, The Dip is a marketing book, because the thesis is that being seen as best in the world, whatever ‘best’ and whatever ‘world’ means, is the single greatest contributor to success in marketing. There are three reasons why this is more important than ever:
SELECTION: Getting into Harvard or being crowned Miss America are valuable achievements for just one reason: they make it easy for everyone to see you won. Someone adds value by performing a selection process, and the lucky ones who get picked, the anointed, win. The marketplace values this because we’re too busy to do the selecting ourselves.
ACCESS: Because of the web, we don’t have to limit our choices to the Yellow Pages or who’s nearby or who was recommended by a friend. As a result, with far more choices, we can pick the very best choice, not the most convenient one.
PYRAMIDS: Many systems only work when there are a lot of entries but just a few winners. Whether it’s the US Open or the economics of the local gym, it’s the effort and expense of the non-winners that supports the benefits of the winners. These pyramids are getting more common because of the winner-take-all nature of our world. Digg wouldn’t work if there were only a few stories a day submitted. It’s the stories that don’t make the front page that make the front page winners succeed.
If you haven’t seen Mark Hurst’s new book, you should check it out. If you’re using RSS, then your friends need it. If you’re not, then you do, but first, subscribe to my RSS feed!
You can get a free pass to the Future of Online Advertising conference if you’re one of the first five to email Ryan.
Guy Kawasaki posted about the Effort Effect last month. It’s a good recommendation, the book makes a lot of sense.
Federico points out scientific research that proves my thesis about Powerpoint.
Scientists (different ones) have discovered that only a single gene is responsible for the difference in size between a dachsund and a great dane.
Have you noticed that some Google results now include StumbleUpon reviews via a prominent little icon?
Have you ever recommended a doctor?
On what basis?
Did you do an analysis of the outcomes of his treatments along a wide range of patients and compare those outcomes to similar doctors in the same community?
Or was it based on his bedside manner or even how polite his receptionist was?
And what about the accounting firm or law firm or personal trainer you were talking about the other day?
Is it possible that people recommend a Mac so often because of things that having nothing to do with a side-by-side analysis of the speed of data entry in Word?
All a rhetorical way of pointing out that businesses (and people) do two things. Most of focus on just one (at least when we’re doing the task at hand) which is the task at hand. But, there’s something else that’s far more important, something disconnected from what’s produced but certainly related: how you made the customer feel.
How’s this for a 98% rule: By a factor of three, what you do is not nearly as important as how it makes people feel.
If you buy that, then the question is this: why do you spend almost all your time on the wrong thing?
