The Science of Communicating & Marketing Your Business

Part 3 ended with Mr. Locke going to a prospect meeting. To make things a little easier to read, Mr. Locke's article will be in standard text, my responses in italics.

Well, uh, okay. I appreciate the hyperbole. And I have been in meetings with my friend, KBar, in which he passed me a note "Will somebody please reboot the clue server?" That line about "...all of them doing a fair job of convincing me they're really quite important..." makes me chuckle.

Anyway, the CEO wastes no time getting down to brass tacks. "So what do consumers really want?" she asks.

Ah, yes. I've heard that asked in many ways at different times in many places.

Sh?t, I dunno. I got nothin here. I panic. Am I really supposed to know the answer to this? How come nobody told me? Oh wait, I know! But seeing as how she's a woman and all, I figure I better just give her the second half.

I never spare that second half thing. If they ask and I'm there on their nickel, they get it all.

"Faster horses," I say with Total Confidence.

I don't remember you introducing Total Confidence. When did they come into the room?

Across the room, someone drops a pin. Everybody hears it. They are all staring at me, dumbfounded.

Maybe Total Confidence dropped the pin?

"You can't be serious," she finally says. I'm thinking: how did she know?

I get that a lot, too.

"No, really. Faster horses." I'm sticking to my guns on this one.

Good for you. And?

"Do you have any notion of our market?" she asks, I figure rhetorically. She isn't really looking what you'd call "swayed" by my argument. "Most of our customers have never even seen a horse! For this you want us to pay you ten thousand dollars?"

Wait a second. US$10,000? And this is from nine (9) years ago? I've got to up my rates.

Right about then I'm thinking you can keep your money, where's the f?cking exit? But then I remember that I am, after all, a Professional.

Fortunately I don't work under that premise.

"It's a metaphor," I say. That always gets em. And indeed, everyone sorta sits up a little and a few tentatively pick up pens, as if to give the impression that, if they were to hear anything potentially profound at this juncture, they might just be inclined to make a note or two.

You forgot to add that they all start to look at you expectorantly.

I'm racking my brain. J?s?s, how did I manage to get myself into this? Horses, horses, let's see... But nothing's coming to me.

Yes, but this is what they pay you the big bucks for, me the medium-sized bucks.

"Are you implying," ventures one particularly unctuous minion, "that the speed of online transactions gates our ability to deliver total customer satisfaction?"

Okay. You got me. I'm rolling on the floor. This is another one of those things I've heard different ways at different times in different places.

Say what? Bad as the horses were, this is worse. I have no f?cking idea what he's talking about.

Fortunately, neither does he nor does anyone else in the room. But by cracky, he's got that "convincing me they're really quite important in their own unique way" thing down, though, doesn't he?

"...well sure, that, but also the whole Portal thing..." I say, as if, yes, yes, it's coming to me now... Pens are poised.

(more to follow...)

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Links for this post:

• Chris Locke's Faster Horses!
• The Conversations with the Past blog arc