Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

We are not normal people

justinjackson.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 137 posts

Re: We are not normal people

#61

Post by mijustin »

janj wrote: post #31
ryanio wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you think this article was scummy? Probably not, it provided some real value and insight. And guess what, it was a piece of content marketing for his new book. I was pleasantly surprised at the end with his CTA (call-to-action). Marketing is just finding a way to communicate your value proposition to your target market. Yes, there are plenty of scummy ways out there -- but some awesome real-world examples come fr…

Maybe I'm just too cynical a person but I thought his CTA was awkward and couldn't help thinking about how giving his readers 'homework' was a great marketing technique to automatically place him in a mentor position in the minds of his readers, helping his readers justify buying his book. But I get your point. This wasn't a scummy piece of marketing and I found it through a very neutral channel.

Hey, original author here.

I appreciate your perspective. Which CTA, specifically did you find awkward?

(As a side-note: I've had other posts with similar traffic and same landing URL. This one outperformed them by quite a bit. The launch list itself grew 2x)

Re: We are not normal people

#62

Post by fibbery »

sillysaurus2 wrote: post #22
jiggy2011 wrote: post #15

"increasing the technical challenge while creating a product does not increase the chance for more sales" This is true to a point, but if your strongest suite is your raw technical ability then it may be best for you to pursue problems that have remained unsolved because of technical challenges that have put others off. A significant technical barrier is also nice to have if it means you can get the market before you…

Even a mediocre implementation of something "impossible" can make a lot of impact. See bitcoin. Bitcoin was perhaps the worst possible example you could have chosen... The implementation was the opposite of mediocre; its code predicted and solved implementation problems that no one realized were problems, except Satoshi. And on a technical level, the client has only experienced one problem that had to be rolled back.…

Would Twitter v1 count?

Re: We are not normal people

#63

Post by workhere-io »

widdershins wrote: post #51
workhere-io wrote: post #20

If I have to walk over to the computer, I’ve already wasted too much time. Wouldn't the point of scheduling software be that, unlike his current phone solution, he doesn't have to do something when a customer schedules a time? Ideally he'd enter his work hours and holidays into the scheduling system, and customers could schedule a time without interrupting his workflow. Then he'd only need to look at his iPad once in…

Barber: "Almost all my bookings happen on the phone, or via text message."

That's the point: If the barber has a lot of younger customers, the reason that most of the bookings happen on the phone or via text message is that the barber doesn't have a good website set up with a decent booking system that the customers could use instead of the phone.

What OP could have told the barber is this: "We'll put up a system that enables your customers to schedule a time automatically - that way you'll only have to schedule times manually in the 20% of cases or so when a customer prefers to call rather than use the website".

It's not rocket science - plenty of barbers have such a system.

Re: We are not normal people

#64

Post by kowdermeister »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #15

"increasing the technical challenge while creating a product does not increase the chance for more sales" This is true to a point, but if your strongest suite is your raw technical ability then it may be best for you to pursue problems that have remained unsolved because of technical challenges that have put others off. A significant technical barrier is also nice to have if it means you can get the market before you…

I argue with that point too :) My biggest problem now is getting money. After that another and another, but not he mentioned.

Re: We are not normal people

#65

Post by janj »

mijustin wrote: post #61
janj wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm just too cynical a person but I thought his CTA was awkward and couldn't help thinking about how giving his readers 'homework' was a great marketing technique to automatically place him in a mentor position in the minds of his readers, helping his readers justify buying his book. But I get your point. This wasn't a scummy piece of marketing and I found it through a very neutral channel.

Hey, original author here. I appreciate your perspective. Which CTA, specifically did you find awkward? (As a side-note: I've had other posts with similar traffic and same landing URL. This one outperformed them by quite a bit. The launch list itself grew 2x)

It was the homework assignment. You might not have intended it this way but I saw it as you asserting yourself as a credible teacher before earning it.

I did enjoy your article and have given you my email in hopes that I gain some valuable insight. I have always been very skeptical about sales and marketing but have tried to be open to its value. My wife has a more neutral view and can sometimes soften my stance on it.

Re: We are not normal people

#67

Post by mijustin »

janj wrote: post #65
mijustin wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, original author here. I appreciate your perspective. Which CTA, specifically did you find awkward? (As a side-note: I've had other posts with similar traffic and same landing URL. This one outperformed them by quite a bit. The launch list itself grew 2x)

It was the homework assignment. You might not have intended it this way but I saw it as you asserting yourself as a credible teacher before earning it. I did enjoy your article and have given you my email in hopes that I gain some valuable insight. I have always been very skeptical about sales and marketing but have tried to be open to its value. My wife has a more neutral view and can sometimes soften my stance on i…

Cool, thanks. I appreciate your honesty.

Re: We are not normal people

#68

Post by badman_ting »

jsaxton86 wrote: post #26
Pxtl wrote: post #18

On the barber anecdote, I think something that a lot of software solutions miss is how fast and flexible paper is. It's ready for you the instant you need it, and you can draw arbitrary shapes quickly and easily in addition to text. We're still feeling out getting this convenience into user's hands. Keyboarded platforms suck for drawing/using standing up, tablets suck for typing. Ultimately, the only thing I could of…

Does the barber need arbitrary shapes in this case? It looks like his pain point was that he was walking to a computer. Perhaps having a tablet by his phone could fix this problem? It could be as easy as the paper calendar solution, but since it's all being done electronically, you could allow people to schedule appointments online and such.

> Does the barber need arbitrary shapes in this case?

But why is the default assumption that the barber needs software, and we must prove out that he doesn't? The barber just wants to note some info and get on with things.

Re: We are not normal people

#69

Post by grahamburger »

janj wrote: post #21

I'm one of those developers who thinks that marketing in general is 'scummy' and this article has done nothing to change that perception. I'm willing to acknowledge that there can exist marketing that is not scummy but it's hard for me to think of real world examples. Can someone describe for me the difference between scummy marketing and, I guess I'll call it 'ethical' marketing? I love building things that people e…

Marketing is anything you do to help people find and use that awesome product you're building. It doesn't do anyone any good if they don't know that it exists.

Re: We are not normal people

#70

Post by tanzam75 »

epx wrote: post #19

Sometimes a software puts the business in a cast. Me and my friends used to go to a cafeteria every day. Every day we needed to reach for change money, etc. We suggested the cashier to create a "pre-paid" account for every person so we could pay once a month, in advance, with credit card. He/she could not do it because "the system does not implement this". In another epoch, I went every day to the same restaurant, at…

ERP software is notorious for doing this.

Many a growing company has found itself forced to change its business processes to align with the SAP way of doing things, instead of the other way around.

At the top end of the scale, companies are large enough to write custom software. At the bottom end of the scale, you can't yet justify buying software, so a lot of processes are still done manually.

It's in the middle that you tend to get squeezed. You're too big to do things on paper, but you don't have the in-house development talent to customize the software to fit your needs.

Post reply on HN