The Art of Non-Conformity: Unconventional Strategies for Life, Work, and Travel

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Image by whalt

Here’s an idea: if you sell something, think about why people don’t buy from you.

I don’t mean the unqualified people – there are always good reasons why people should not give you money.

But for the qualified prospects — people for whom your product or service is a good fit — why don’t they buy?

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Image by moal

Marketers tend to deliberately over-hype their products in an attempt to break through a crowded marketplace. In an environment where we receive 3,000 advertising messages on an average day, the idea is to be bigger and better – but if that’s too difficult, the theory goes, we can at least be noisier.

I’m coming out with my second information product exactly one week from today, and instead of trying to sell you on it, I thought I’d tell you why not to buy it.

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Image by Alex O.

A while back I wrote about “insane business strategies,” or things you can do to pump up a lagging small business.

I decided to ask for additional contributions to the article using Peter Shankman’s awesome Help a Reporter Out service. If you’re a journalist or “expert source” on something, HARO helps connect these two groups together through several daily lists of queries.

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Image by SummerTX

I read an interesting article about Applebee’s last week. Personally, I don’t like Applebee’s or its numerous imitators – not eating burgers, chicken tenders, or something they call “riblets” kind of limits the menu of the average Americana-themed restaurant for me – but I enjoyed the analysis of how these kinds of places are trying to survive in an economically challenging environment.

My favorite part was when the CEO was asked why Applebee’s and IHOP (also owned by the company) don’t have healthier choices on their menu. People are more health-conscious than ever, right?

“What people want and what they say they want are different,” she said, and as much as I wanted to disagree, I couldn’t.

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Image by Armel

I have survived as an entrepreneur for 10 years not because I am inherently good at most aspects of running a business. I am a terrible salesperson, I get bored easily, I don’t like busy-work or higher math, and I have the classic ADD personality.

None of this is tremendously helpful in business, and in a lot of ways, it’s made things more difficult than they are for other, more balanced people.

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