“This is exactly how I ended up having to get stitches for the first and only time in my life.”
This spring, I had to sell a knife-sharpening gizmo. It was faster, cheaper, and easier to use than a whetstone.
But who cares?
There’s tiny demand for knife-sharpening gizmos of any kind, and it’s unlikely that many people will be swayed by a feature comparison.
What I needed to do was to expand the universe… to take it out of the small space of people who are looking for a better (or any) knife sharpener… and into the much bigger world of people who use kitchen knives but never give a thought to sharpening them.
So what to do?
I ended up telling a story involving a dull chef’s knife, a green bell pepper, and a cut that required four stitches. I created a problem in the reader’s mind where there wasn’t one.
“Dull knife? Yeah, I really don’t care.”
“Sliced-open finger? Geez, what can I do to make sure this won’t happen to me?”
In general, you don’t want to sell to people who are indifferent to the problem you claim to solve.
The only reason you ever would want to do this… is because you are very greedy. Because in most markets, the segment of indifferent prospects dwarfs the knife-sharpener connoisseurs. As Gene Schwartz wrote in Breakthrough Advertising:
“What do you have left [after you can’t talk about your product]? Your market, of course! And the distinct possibility that by broadening your appeal beyond price, product function or specific desire, you can reach the maximum limits of your full potential market; consolidate splinter appeals; and increase the sales of your product at a fantastic rate.”
That’s all on the topic of indifference for today…
Except, I want to ask if you consider yourself a marketing high-flier?
Because a lot of marketing high-fliers are joining my email newsletter these days. If you want to find out why, click here and try it for yourself.