I am a huge fan of Seth Godin (if you couldn’t have guessed). Here is his blog post from today:
“The answer is simple”
from Seth’s Blog by Seth Godin
…is always more effective a response than, “well, it’s complicated.”
One challenge analysts face is that their answers are often a lot more complicated than the simplistic (and wrong) fables that are peddled by those that would mislead and deceive. Same thing is true for many non-profits doing important work.
We’re not going to have a lot of luck persuading masses of semi-interested people to seek out and embrace complicated answers, but we can take two steps to lead to better information exchange:
- Take complicated overall answers and make them simple steps instead. Teach complexity over time, simply.
- Teach a few people, the committed, to embrace the idea of complexity. That’s what a great college education does, for example. That’s what makes someone a statesman instead of a demagogue. Embracing complexity is a scarce trait, worth acquiring. But until your customers/voters/employees do, I think the first strategy is essential.
You can’t sell complicated to someone who came to you to buy simple.
It really illustrates the point I was trying to make. Giving free bread sticks out is simple. Getting people to give you their contact information and using it profitably is complicated. That is what I was trying to point out without saying directly.
Less than 40% of your customers are going to ignore your attempts to get their information, usually it is closer to 10%. Now from those if you have a customer who comes in more often to fill out a questionnaire to get free bread sticks, then heck, give them the 22 cents worth of products.
What you do with the data gets complicated. There is work there. You need to determine where they live and the marketing you are going to do.
So, do I have a simple answer? Nope. There isn’t one. Don’t buy simple.