2:21pm
Saint Paul
*|FNAME|* I recently again was reminded by a well-meaning marketer:
“People don’t want a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole.”
Stupid. And here’s why.
Yes, I understand the phrase is meant to remind us that we are selling the sexy outcomes of our product or service, not the item or method itself.
So, we think further, they probably don’t really want the hole, either.
They want to hang something. Maybe a towel rack, or a new light, or a sex swing.
But let’s look at the phrase again.
We’re not at all considering the size of the drill bit.
And the bit is what determines the size of the hole.
Instead, we’re discussing a quarter-inch drill.
That’s a small drill.
Tiny.
Ridiculously tiny.
Like, a drill that’s even smaller than this:
So when we repeat that line, “people don’t want a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole,” we’re basically saying “they don’t know what they want, but I do.”
And we’re wrong.
Because a drill that small won’t create a hole that large. But a drill that size could have its uses that we haven’t considered.
And if marketers insist on giving people what we think they want, instead of what they tell us they want (via sales), we’re doing everyone a disservice.
Find out what people want.
What they pay for.
And then sell them more of that, with good sales copy.
Love you,
Jeffrey