Permission to Buy Your Product

People need permission to buy your product.

Permission from themselves. Permission from their friends, family, religious communities, civic organizations, and sub-cultures. Permission from their peers, colleagues, coworkers, and superiors.

For most routine purchases, for purchases of well-respected brands, and for purchases that are considered to be a "reasonable" cost, this permission isn't usually a hang-up for consumers. Permission has already been granted, in the form of a generally accepted view that this is a "legitimate" purchase.

But for non-standard purchases, for large purchases, for purchases of little-known brands, and for purchases that carry a high "cost" (in terms of price, time, inconvenience, reputation, future success, etc.), permission from self or others isn't automatically guaranteed. And this permission is crucial; without it, the buyer feels like he or she must choose another brand, or abandon the purchase altogether.

Some examples:

• When a straight-A high school senior is considering an unheard-of college while his friends are applying to Ivy League schools, he needs permission to attend this obscure university. He needs permission from himself (that this school, though small, will provide him the best education he could find); permission from his friends (that they can accept that he has chosen an academically challenging college, although it does not have nearly the reputation of their own); and permission from future employers (that a degree from this university will enable him to get a good job in the future).


• When a mom is trying to take better care of the environment and beautify her home while being a good steward of the family's finances, she needs permission to buy the unfamiliar brand of weed killer that is 20% more expensive than the recognized brands but comes in the ergonomically-shaped green bottle with a name and package that sound environmentally friendly. If she is going to pay 20% extra for a brand she doesn't recognize, she first needs permission from herself and her family (by being sure that the product will work well and will be less harmful to the environment).


• When a husband wants to buy an expensive sports car, he needs permission from himself (that he deserves it, that the car is a good deal) and from his wife (that they have enough money to pay for the car, that the car gets good gas mileage, that the car will last the family a long time).

As a marketer, how do you provide this permission for consumers to buy your brand?

First, excellence. Second, communication.

The unknown university needs to be excellent in its academic quality, in the credentials of its professors, in the opportunities it provides to students, in the atmosphere on-campus, and in the success of its graduates. And it needs to communicate that excellence to prospective students, to the parents of prospective students, and to the general public.

The obscure "organic" weed killer needs to kill weeds effectively, and needs to do so with less environmental impact than the standard brands. And it needs to communicate to consumers - on its packaging, on its website, and in its advertising - exactly how its ingredients are better for the environment and how its performance compares to the leading brands.

The luxury sports car needs to provide an exceptional, enduring, and fuel-efficient driving experience. And it needs to communicate its performance, its ratings, its gas mileage, and its value through its marketing materials, advertising, and personal sales.

With your own brand - especially if you represent a new company, or a new product, or a new brand - be excellent, and communicate. Give people permission to buy your product.

How Many Workers Does It Take To...?

While my dad and I were out running yesterday morning, we passed by a group of Comcast workers who appeared to be working on the telephone lines. The entourage included seven Comcast trucks and vans, two Comcast men on ladders, and eleven other Comcast men standing in a group on the ground, observing the two men on the ladders.

[insert joke here: how many Comcast guys does it take to...?]

Now, I like to give folks the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps the eleven Comcast men on the ground were in training, and therefore were observing the two on the ladders for training purposes.

If, however, this was not a training exercise, then thirteen men seems like quite a large number for whatever repair work was occurring. Assuming that two ladders were required, with one man on each ladder, one man stabilizing each ladder, and one man to direct everything, five workers could be understandable. (My dad insists that three would have sufficed.)

But thirteen? Things were beginning to look like a Verizon commercial.

The lesson here? Don't send thirteen people to do a five-person job. Unless you expect that doubling or tripling the number of workers will result in work that is twice or three times better.

And if your organization is doing something that seems wasteful, even though it isn't, then communicate. Tell your customers (and potential customers) what is really happening, so that they may continue to see you as a company that is a good steward of its resources. If you are sending ten workers-in-training to observe a three-person job, send with them a sign that says, "Workers in Training." Or "Learning How to Serve You Better." Or something.

Be a good steward of your resources. And communicate with the public - especially when your actions could be misinterpreted.

Be wise. Happy New Year!

Communication and Intelligence

We seem to measure intelligence by communication.

Granted, the “standardized” and “objective” measures of human intelligence, such as IQ tests, focus heavily on math and logic and pattern recognition and spatial reasoning. But in our normal, everyday lives, when we meet someone new, don’t we automatically assess the person’s brainpower by what and how well he communicates? If we know nothing else about two people, don’t we attribute a greater mental faculty to him who speaks with the thoughtful grammar and extensive vocabulary of a character out of Pride and Prejudice seems to possess a greater mental faculty than to him who makes gratuitous use of profanities, favors slang and lazy pronunciation, and haphazardly inserts the word “like” into his statements? Or, when we hire someone to say, fix a computer problem, don’t we think him more intelligent if he converses with us and explains to us how the computer thinks and why the problem occurred, instead of getting frustrated in his explanations or talking incessantly and incomprehensibly about some technological “thing”?

Perhaps this subconscious judgment is justified. After all, a large and properly used vocabulary is a sign of a well-educated person. Good communication requires a specific type of intelligence – that of knowing one’s subject matter, certainly, and of reasoning logically, and of reading one’s audience and understanding how to relate to them. Perhaps communication is not a bad standard for an off-hand measurement of intelligence.

But then, what happens when we communicate with someone whose native language is different from our own? When I was in college, several of my friends and acquaintances were international students. They came from Taiwan, Germany, Nigeria, Colombia, and a few dozen other nations, to study in the U.S. Some of them had been speaking English their entire lives; some had learned basic English just before they arrived.

As much as I love other cultures and try to be loving toward everybody, I found myself naturally drawn to those international students who could speak English almost as fluently as I, a native speaker, could. It was easier to exchange jokes and stories from our childhoods and commentary on music when we could understand each other without many confused looks. Although I tried not to feel this way, it was easy for me to get frustrated or bored when I would talk to a new friend with halting English.

And then I started thinking. All of these international students must be EXTREMELY smart. To travel half-way around the globe to study at a university where all classes are taught in a foreign language and only a few others (if any) can speak one's native tongue, must require incredible intelligence and stamina (not to mention courage). Especially for our friends from countries like China and Japan, whose studies required them to learn an entirely new alphabet, in addition to a language. Most American students struggle to keep up with classes in their own language, let alone a foreign one.

Yet, before I considered this, it was so easy for me to feel condescending toward a fellow student whose English was more limited than my own. Why? What causes us to judge someone's intelligence based on the ease with which they can communicate? Is it ever justified? And when it is not justified, what do we do about it?

Questions to ponder....