|| Return to On The Road... ||
August 14, 1996
New York
New York is always a lively crowd. I grew up on the East Coast in suburbs of New York and Boston, were the pace was fast...fast, that is, compared to the pine trees of Paradise that I call home. My Paradise overlooks the Feather River canyon, flowing past my silent home. Far from the rush rush and hum of New York City.
But like the say, you can take the boy out of the city, but you can't take the city out of the boy. I'm still rush rushing around the woods, thinking of ways to make this Web work. Most of my neighbors live at a slower pace and think my rushing around is odd.
And it is...but in New York, it's normal. A city that never sleeps has no time for laying around. The ideas that come out of a New York crowd are amazing. Always someone with a new angle, someone with an idea. Because that's what we buy, the idea...the product or service is secondary.
Most people think the product or service is the most important part of the approach. But we buy the idea. Let me explore...
At this Web site, I listen to my audience. I get emails and feedback encouraging me to answer a question. But the question to be answered is the idea to be made...how can I form more ideas without selling them.
The product or service is the way you house the idea. Many visitors to my site are techies who create amazing Web sites ( a business I'm also in). But they don't know how to sell it, in fact many have been taught that selling is somehow evil or below them. Guess why they are comign to my site? Becuas with all the competition out there, they need a way to close the deal, to seal the door, to do what they hate to do.
The idea is, they need to sell Web sites. My reaction? Ask them what they need to know, interview them, and create the product, What You Absolutely Must Know To Sell A Web Site Volume I. Then I follow up with coaching services.
I've been lucky enough to work with some of the top direct marketers and copywriters in this country, but I come from the techie background. I know what problems they are running into from personal experience. And I'm trying to open up the doors to their idea with this product.
So what do I do? I start selling the product and creating on the fly, getting free feedback and input from the bset editors...the people who need the idea I'm selling. I need them as much as they need the product. I just trust their ideas to lead me to the products and services. Like the old Wall Street saying goes, buy on the idea (i.e., rumor), sell on the product or service (the news). Peace.