Monday Morning Memo for November 28, 2005 by Roy H. Williams

What Are You Offering?

Businesses don't fail due to reaching the wrong people.

Businesses fail when they say the wrong things.

And they say the wrong things when they believe what the public tells them.

Conduct a survey. Ask the public to describe in detail the kind of place they'd like to shop. Then build that place, exactly as described, and see if they ever show up.

Experience tells us they won't.

We'll use furniture stores as an example. People say they want a store where they can look at all the different styles of furniture, see all the different patterns and colors of fabric and grains of wood and colors of wood stain, and then have their own ‘dream furniture' made according to their choices. Today you'll find that furniture store on every corner. "And we'll even show you on a computer monitor exactly what your new sofa will look like! Want to see it in another fabric? Click this button. Another color of wood? Click this button. And we'll deliver it to your home, direct from the factory! You'll be buying factory direct!"

His real name is Jim McIngvale. They call him Mattress Mac. Twenty-five years ago he dove headlong into the furniture business with just five thousand dollars. It's all he had. This year that furniture store will do nearly 200 million dollars in a single location, placing it among the most successful stores in the world.

Jim occasionally buys a day of my time to pick my brain and bounce ideas off me. I should be paying him.

During our last visit, I asked my friend if I could share the secret of his success with you. Graciously, he allowed it: As simple as this may sound, Jim's 200 million dollar secret is immediate delivery. When people buy new furniture, they want to see it in their home immediately. "Buy it today and we'll deliver it tonight," is Jim's angle. He doesn't do special orders. "If you see it, we've got it." Remember all those people who said they wanted to pick from a large selection of fabrics and wood grains? Tell them you'll deliver their new sofa in 8 to 12 weeks. Then Jim will show them something entirely different but offer to deliver it immediately. Guess who usually wins?

What people say they would do is rarely what they will actually do. This is what makes it foolish to put too much faith in surveys. We don't know ourselves as well as we think.

Ask any real estate agent. The homes people buy are never the ones they described to the agent when they got in the car. Not even close.

Now let's talk about you. Chances are, you've been reaching the right people all along. You've just been saying the wrong things. Some ads are like waving raw meat in front of hungry dogs. Most ads are lectures, explaining to these same dogs all the joys of organic popcorn.

Do you have a tasty message to deliver to the world? Or are you expecting your ad writers to apply a thick layer of creativity to hide the fact that you have nothing to say?

Truthfully, what percentage of your ads say anything worth hearing?

Sholem Asch was right when he said, "Writing comes more easily if you have something to say." But Morris Hite said it brazenly, "If you have a good selling idea, your secretary can write your ad for you."

We're here if you need us.

Roy H. Williams

PS - Look to the far left of this memo and you'll see this week's featured product. Selling Customers Their Way is a wonderful DVD featuring my partner, Jeffrey Eisenberg, and Wizard Academy board member Dr. Richard Grant, a consulting psychologist. If you read the product description at WizardAcademyPress.com, be sure to download a sample. It's fun viewing.

Comments

[John Clifford]

Very interesting article and one that I can substantiate based upon owning a retail business for almost ten years... what the customer wants and what the customer SAYS he wants are two different things.

I have one nit to pick, however. That single-location furniture store that has $200M in annual sales? That's at least $550k per day, every day of the year, including everything but Christmas Day and New Year's Day. Hmmm... half-a-mil' in sales each and every day is $40k per hour in sales for a 12-hour day. That's $800 in sales every single minute. We're talking 30 Ethan Allen-category couches an hour, or 20 expensive dining room tables in that same hour. The local Costco here doesn't do that kind of business. Neither does the 12-aisle grocery store.

I'm not buying it.

[Frank Ferrao]

Hey Steve Ray,

your book is a booklet and the rest is a CD, why dont u sell the booklet as a pdf and the audio as a download for ipod.. or just put it on audible.com

imagination in marketing hmmm intersting idea.

cheers
frank