I started a business. It made me want to drink copious quantities, smoke myself into oblivion and hit my head against a brick wall. Instead I wrote a blog.
Site Launch Day: 6
User Count: 35
Going right: Got a good review for a product.
Going wrong: Reviewer said they hadn't actually tried the product yet.
Comment: Was pathetically grateful for any review at all.
Actually plenty of people like being told what to do. S&M Submissives. Brainwashed disciples. Insecure depressives. But I aspire to being classed in none of those categories.
So when I informed my boyfriend yesterday that I felt like eating a packet of crisps (pregnant woman's prerogative) and he told me categorically that I shouldn't get them after last pregnancy's experience of big butt syndrome, I found myself all of a sudden 20 minutes later sitting in the depths of the Swedish forest eating the most ginormous packet of Cheese Doodles...the cheesey wafery bits ground under my nails, the E-packed cheese powder caked round my mouth and in between my teeth and 7 cheese doodles melting on my tongue sticking to the top of the roof of my mouth. The birds twittered, the leafy sunlight dappled my skin and the bag was finished within quarter of an hour. Heaven.
And then I went home and told him :)
"But why?" he said. "And why now are you telling me if it was supposed to be secret?"
"Because you SHOULD know by now that the word SHOULD, SHOULD be banned." I said. "Telling me what to do means that you don't have enough respect to treat me as an adult to make my own decisions."
"And eating an entire bag of cheese doodles just to prove that to me is the behavior of a grown up? I told you not to because you will be miserable when you get fat and have to exercise to get slim again. I don't want you to go through what you went through last time, because I love you." He said.
"Having children ruins your body and I'm not complaining about the sacrifice I have to make - the pain, the back ache, the saggy tits, the sleep deprivation and the split pelvis. My butt might be big for a while, and it might make me unhappy to have to work it off in a year's time, but it's still my decision to make. If you just have to suffer a bigger butt than you find attractive, then that's your sacrifice. I DESERVE those cheese doodles."
What does this mean for a business? Well for one, that you should never tell your prospective clients what they SHOULD be thinking or they SHOULD be doing. Although you might possibly get away with telling them a tongue-in-cheek "SHOULD NOT".
"You should absolutely not eat this delicious packet of cheese doodles. It will cause you immense pleasure and relatively less weight gain. "
Or you could just let them do what they want without selling yourself at all.
"You may or may not eat this packet of cheese doodles. Here it is, if you want to buy it. Or not. Whatever."
Or you could try and balance out a little temptation with a little product placement on the LinkedIn "Snack discussion Forum"
"Cheese doodles. Not the kind of snack you want to be addicted to...but you can have the first packet...for FREE...."
Me? I plumped for what they call the "Freemium" model combined with an open review system to allow users to give stinkingly honest feedback. The beta testers get products for free, and then get to say what they like. Very scary.
Why did I do it this way? Multiple choice:
A) Because no matter how much I considered it, I couldn't see myself trying to do the hard sales (I'm not a saleswoman either). The products and services needed to be good enough to stand on their own two feet, or if they were shit, users had every right to say it.
Or
B) Because I hate being told what to do.
(BTW, that entire cheese doodle conversation was made up. I never told him. He's sitting there at his computer now reading my blog wondering whether I did indeed eat an entire bag of cheese doodles. I guess you'll never know, honey, will you :))))