One year ago I began working full time creating software for live show control. I say creating, but since it’s my company and I’m the only employee, “creating” really means “coding, supporting, marketing, documenting, designing, testing, managing” and any other list of business verbs you might want to apply.
I love it. If you’d asked me five years ago if I had any interest in business, I’d have said “No. Hell no.” But five years ago I didn’t have the first clue what “business” meant. The word felt vaguely dirty, tainted with self-interest and full of mysterious people called “managers” who, if they had any function at all, were (I assumed) perversely situated to obstruct the people who actually accomplished things.
I don’t pretend now to have more than the second or perhaps the third clue about business, but I’ve made it far enough past my first impressions to feel a kind giddy delight at escaping that nonsense. The creative forces in play are in every way peers to those that inspire designers or engineers. The satisfaction of elegance and efficiency is the same. To manage complexity well is a thrill, whether the complexity is built out of people or electrons.
This post was about marketing, right?
Right. The point of all that intro was to make it clear: I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’ve only been at this for a few years. I reserve the right to be wrong in what I’m about to say.
Then why are you wasting my time?
Well, I don’t think I am. I think I may want to revise some of these ideas later, but I’m comfortable with the core.
Why?
These ideas are working for me.
Define “working”.
Also, here’s a very incomplete list of where this product is used.
Alright, you’ve got, like, seven minutes.
Thanks.
Okay. Here’s what I know about marketing so far:
Fuck Sexy Umbrellas
Not like you’re thinking, sicko.
Half my background is in theater. Specifically, acting. At some point back there I had an audition class for TV commercials. A class where they told us to pick a noun and an adjective out of a hat, with the instructions to say that noun to the camera in a way described by that adjective. I picked: “sexy” and “umbrella”. Then I got 10 seconds to go say “umbrella” at the camera in a sexy way. All in the name of honing those money-earning, commercial-shooting skills so I wouldn’t flat-out starve trying to make a living as a piss-poor actor.
Fuck that. I used to think I hated marketing. You know why? Because of sexy umbrellas. Sexy umbrellas represent everything I hate about modern marketing. I don’t want people to buy shit they don’t need. I don’t want to lie to people for money. And I don’t want anyone else doing that to me.
I’m pretty sure most ideas I have about marketing are a reaction against sexy umbrellas. It leads directly to rule #1, which is:
Trust is the trump card.
It’s not hard to find information anymore. But it is hard to find information you can trust. Almost everyone is trying to sell you umbrellas, which means almost everyone is lying to you.
If I can trust you, you are special. If I can trust you, our relationship will last.
Discover ways to be surprisingly trustworthy.
Make your mistakes visible.
You know how you can tell if someone can be trusted? Because you see them making mistakes.
An exceptionally trustworthy person will even bring a hidden mistake to your attention—one you might never have known about. Telling the truth even when you don’t have to is good evidence that you’re trustworthy.
It hurts to do this. Get over it. Focus on why you’re doing it. The pain is temporary. The trust is long-term.
Your customers are your sales force.
View every interaction as a chance to recruit a new salesman. Surprise is a good tactic for this: “What can I do here that would be literally remarkable?”
I provide startlingly good customer service, and I let my customers tell their friends. That’s about it. Aside from my website, that’s my marketing.
Do not “make” a sale.
You can make a product. You can not make a sale. You can bully a sale, but you can not make one.
A pressured sale is a mediocre sale at best, and a disaster at worst. I have customers who have used a free version of my product for years. For professional productions. Some of them will never need to purchase an upgrade. That’s fine. They’re still my unpaid sales force. Others will, one day, need an extra feature. In that case, it’s not even that they’re on a fence; they’re floating over my yard. They’ll drop right in when the time is right.
Conference booths are not worth what you pay for them.
In other words, they’re not worthless, but they’re not even remotely worth what they’ll cost you. People will come to you if your software is compelling. If your software isn’t compelling, no amount of gasbagging at a conference booth is going to help that.
Will there be exceptions to this rule? Sure. But be damned sure you know you’re paying for an exception.
Do not advertise.
Advertising is a cousin of brainwashing, and we all know it. I’m not saying brainwashing can’t work. I’m pretty sure it does. But I’m also pretty sure you’re not the Coca-Cola company, which means you’re not big enough to brainwash anyone. So don’t mimic the brainwashers. Even if you’re big enough to try: don’t mimic the brainwashers. Your money is more powerful elsewhere, building something truthful and trustworthy.
If you don’t count some ill-advised trips to conferences, I have spent zero dollars on advertising. I have paid Google no money for search results. No SEO has optimized my website. I have no plans to advertise, ever.
It’s always personal.
The illusion of companies has died. We’re not fooled by that idea anymore. We know a “company” isn’t a real thing. We know it has no point of view. It has no wishes. It has no feelings. A company makes nothing, accomplishes nothing, cares about nothing, and can provide you with nothing. “Company” is a stand-in term for a specific group of people. And it is those people, not the illusory “company”, that make things, accomplish things, care about things. Only a human being can have a perspective. And we’ve figured this out.
The illusion of the company as a living creature with an “official” point of view is a lie. We’re going for trust here. Drop the lie. Be personal.
16 Comments
While the advice is appreciated, this post primarily just makes me envious. It’s good to see that the kind of business I want to run really can do well.
Good points! Too many people/companies are afraid of transparency these days. Sometimes hiding things may be necessary in the short term (like working on a secret project), but in many cases, it’s not, especially if the motivation is to trick people, or take unfair advantage. It’s refreshing to see these kinds of details out in the open.
So, have you gotten around to that “hiring a second person” part yet? :)
You’re no advertising stance seems a little weird to me. If you’ve never tried it, how do you know your company wouldn’t do better with it?
@Ellen: Not yet, but hopefully soon.
@George: You’re right, it is a little weird. I probably should have stated it “you don’t have to advertise”, or “Advertise as a last resort”. I think my particular market is a poor fit for generic search queries. It’s a tiny market, and the efficient way in is through the social networks, not through casting a net across the entire interweb. But you’re right, it’s not totally fair to say “don’t advertise ever”. Even if I create a more general product, though, I would expect to be extremely hesitant to throw money at Google before I’ve tried the non-advertising route.
That makes sense with a product like yours. After I posted the comment I looked at your product more in-depth and realized it doesn’t really lend itself to many cost-effective advertising solutions. PPC campaigns for an expensive, niche product like this would probably not work particularly well. And traditional ads in industry publications & websites all basically fall under your section about conference booths.
Now, if you don’t advertise, ever, how can you find attract your customers to try out your product? I assume you can’t just say word of mouth, because it will take longer time than purely doing advertising.
I for one, love the fact that I can spend $5 a day driving people I want to target to my site using google AdSense.
1. Well written. (Means: pleasure to read)
2. in the last bit: maybe “brand” is a better word than “company”? “Company” is also the place of manufacturing, the fact many people work together there and so on. There are some nice things about they physicality of “company”. Loading a “brand” with values… on the other hand… but maybe “brand” is not the right word either. What is a better word? One that makes it clearer what you mean?
“I don’t want people to buy shit they don’t need. I don’t want to lie to people for money. And I don’t want anyone else doing that to me.” Strange how that’s an uncommon sentiment, isn’t it? Nonetheless, from one Carl to another (and one considering doing the same in the near future), congratulations on the success!
Emphatic denials of the value of trade shows and advertising seem out of plaace for a “company” of one. I hope companies who wish to grow beyond that size do not follow that advice.
Tony
I don’t actually know that advertising is a “cousin of brainwashing”. I do know that advertising is usually an important part of public relations, aka “communicating with relevant people”. Being proud of knowing nothing about SEO is a little like being proud of refusing to use computers. Probably there is a happy medium between deliberate complete ignorance and wasting time chasing diminishing returns. Anybody who sells software for a living and deliberately disdains the multi-functional tool that is AdWords is not someone I would bet on. Ignorance is always present in business, but deliberate ignorance usually does not go unpunished indefinitely.
Companies actually can be essentially living creatures, just as humans are actually societies of cells (mostly bacteria — not even human) who have both selfish interests and activities, and aggregate behavior that we accept as a new, larger “individual”. If you want your software to survive you (many programmers do not), then designing a company as an entity that is independent of the people in it is certainly a strategy to consider. Can I “trust” that I can still get support for your product if you’re hit by a bus? If you believe that a company “isn’t a real thing”, then you inspire little trust in that regard at all, despite your protestations of the importance of trust.
When I shared a link to this post on the MacSB mailing list, I introduced it as follows:
I really ought to have included something to this effect in the body of this post.
–
@tony Whether they follow that advice or not doesn’t matter to me so much as whether they seriously consider the possibility that those expenses might not be necessary. I am puzzled by your critique. I’m planning on hiring at least one and possibly two people in the coming year. The graph above indicates that this strategy has not been unhealthy for my company, and in particular has not prevented growth. So…yeah, I don’t think I understand your point.
@Ron I’d certainly consider my paragraph on advertising the most vulnerable to criticism. For one thing, it doesn’t make any distinction between different kinds of advertising. Targeted AdWords for a piece of software and billboards that give soft drinks sex appeal are not the same sort of creature. I hoped, by introducing this post as a tentative set of initial impressions, that these ideas wouldn’t be taken as my idea of undeniable fact, but as observations worth serious consideration. Because, hey, here’s a company that does not advertise. And it’s kicking ass. During a recession. I think that’s enough evidence to at least consider how that could be happening, and whether that lesson might apply to other situations. (It certainly works for Zappos.)
Re: Companies: the organizational systems that keep a group of people working in concert are, yes, absolutely essential. As I said right at the top, the mechanisms of business are fascinating, wonderful, necessary things. My frustration comes when those systems start aping a human being. When apologies are diluted because they come from the company, rather than from a person. When support personnel are drained of a perspective, and given a stone-faced company line. When, in other words, we play the game that I am talking to some kind of transcendent company entity, rather than talking to a human being that happens to work within a structure that empowers them, leads them, and, yes, has a plan if they get hit by a bus.
@Dan Hey man! Nice to hear from you! Drop me a line, I’d love to hear what you’re up to.
Wow. I knew there was a good reason why I had this post starred and ‘forced’ unread in my Reader. Something told me I had to read this at a later time. Which I did. And I’m very glad I did. I enjoyed your insights on trust and transparency in your ‘company’. It may not work for all companies but I agree that you chose your values well (and you’ve got the figures to prove it!).
Congrats on saying fuck that ye olde recession. You make me think I should have taken that offer more than a year ago, but glad you found the right person on the west coast :)
–nico
Seems like most people’s idea of marketing is all about lying or manipulation. That may be the way some business marketing is done but the best business marketing strategies involve helping people solve problems. Sorry if you don’t like the way I show you how you can solve your problem, but remember this. If you don’t have a problem that I can do anything about, you are also not a proper prospect for my goods or service. My job is not to convince you that you need more ice if you live in an igloo. You don’t have a problem of “ice shortage.” If I don’t have a heater or hand warmers… then I don’t need to be marketing to eskimos!
Well; I sort of stumbled on this post late on a Sunday evening here in Sweden; and it made me smile from ear to ear. Not really sure what to think; but it was a great read, so I’ve bookmarked your site to come back for more when my head clears a bit after a weekend sampling the falling down water.
Cheers
Beermatman
This is refreshing. I love the part where you discuss trust. You are never going to succeed in any form of business if you do not have the trust of your potential customers.
I know for a fact that many people buy from me based almost solely on the fact of trust. Are my services the cheapest in my industry? Hell no, not by a long shot!
But what my clients do know about me is that I am trustworthy, and will deliver what a I promise. I also don’t make promises I cannot keep, which is something that most “business people” do all of the time.
Thanks for the refreshing and unique look at being a businessman.
Chris I absolutely love this part:
“It’s not hard to find information anymore. But it is hard to find information you can trust. Almost everyone is trying to sell you umbrellas, which means almost everyone is lying to you.”
Seems like companies should invest resources into training clients how to be REAL people, not cut-throat slimy salespeople… not bullshitters just to get contracts.
If companies spent more money on building REAL PEOPLE, the whole world would be a better place. Until it’s not ALL ABOUT THE BOTTOM LINE, we’re gonna suffer from having too many crooks in this world.
Thanks for your insights. I’m actually still laughing my ass off!!
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