What do services actually deliver?
Marketing is the art of making you want what you don’t need.
Sales is the art of making you buy what you don’t want.
Harsh, but a grain of truth in there somewhere?
In our wonderful ‘post industrial’ ‘service economy’ it seems the idea of doing something that is actually directly useful is pretty passé. It’s an uncomfortable conclusion that’s been knocking about in my head for some time. I’m constantly being badgered by people trying to sell me services – and, for the life of me – I can’t see the actual real value in most of them: especially as most of them are services supposedly to enhance other services which didn’t help in the first place. What do I mean by this? Well, let’s take an example, from the point of view of a company making something useful, like asprin. And before you start in, I have nothing particular against the good folks who do web optimisation – it’s just an example that works nicely. And they're always emailing me touting for business!
So, you want a brilliantly optimised website? Before you answer, think on this. How many five-year-olds run up to their parents and tell them, breathless with excitement, ‘when I grow up, I want a brilliantly optimised website’. How many companies have “TO HAVE THE BEST OPTIMISED WEBSITE IN THE WORLD” as their mission statement? I’d be surprised if there were any. I’d suggest you don’t want an optimised website – you have been persuaded you need one to ‘improve your search engine rankings’. By the very people who are about to charge you for doing the optimisation.
So, let’s now jump to the search engines. I’ll leave out the whole problematic area of who can (or can’t) actually influence your position on the search rankings in a meaningful way. You obviously want to be top of page one. Don’t you? Are you sure? Think on – when you’re at the supermarket checkout you can’t say “sorry, I’ve got no money, but my website is on page one of Google”. Clearly nonsense: but you have been persuaded you need to be high up to ‘drive more traffic to your website’. By the people who are about to charge you for AdWords (or whatever).
But now we’re talking! More traffic to your website! Yay! Surely I don’t have a problem with that? Of course I do. More traffic means paying more: bigger servers, more bandwidth, more security and all the hullabaloo that goes with it. Plus page impressions are not Legal Tender – you can’t use these to pay for your groceries either. But you have been persuaded that more hits on your site will mean more customers, and that has to be good.
More customers! Great! Result! We’re on our way at last! Not so fast there… Leaving out the whole vexed question as to whether more traffic through your website actually means anything useful at all, they're not customers quite yet. At best they are inquiries. Trouble is, a lot of these inquiries will be just for comparative pricing, specification fishing or any of a host of other unprofitable things. But, all being well, you might actually get some new customers.
Aren’t customers great? Customers are the lifeblood of the business, so more has to be better, right? Just remember that more customers will make your overheads rocket. More phone lines (and people to answer them), more staff chasing late payments, more pre & post-sales support – the list is endless (and expensive). But surely we’ve now reached the goal: more sales?
Sorry, not there yet. More customer may indeed result in more sales: but it comes at a heavy price: more wrangling with suppliers, more shouting at delivery companies, more staff to hire (and manage), bigger premises – the list goes on and on. And it’s all expensive, and has a horrid impact on your cashflow, so you now have even less money in your pocket to buy that loaf of bread from the corner shop. But you have been persuaded that more sales will lead to bigger profits, and that’s the Holy Grail.
Not quite. Profit does not equal cash, and a healthy balance sheet still isn’t Legal Tender. But you have been persuaded that big profit = big salary. And, to be fair, a lot of the time that is indeed the case. So you now have lots of money. Case closed.
Not really. Nobody (OK, most people don't) gets their kicks looking at big figures on their salary slip. You can’t eat coins or wear banknotes (although I expect Lady Gaga has tried). So money is nothing more than another service we don’t want but have been persuaded we need.
But money buys stuff: so, at last, we have got to the things we actually want. Like a nice home, food in the larder and a decent holiday once in a while.
What’s my point? Just that the company trying to sell you web optimisation (in this example) is eight long steps away from anything you actually want. In order to benefit YOU this whole chain has to function perfectly, otherwise they are just an unjustified cost burden on your business.
So, although these services can contribute to your success, they CANNOT directly deliver anything you or your business actually wants, because they are just too far removed. And I would be a lot less terse with them if they acknowledge that the next time they phone me up.
Sales is the art of making you buy what you don’t want.
Harsh, but a grain of truth in there somewhere?
In our wonderful ‘post industrial’ ‘service economy’ it seems the idea of doing something that is actually directly useful is pretty passé. It’s an uncomfortable conclusion that’s been knocking about in my head for some time. I’m constantly being badgered by people trying to sell me services – and, for the life of me – I can’t see the actual real value in most of them: especially as most of them are services supposedly to enhance other services which didn’t help in the first place. What do I mean by this? Well, let’s take an example, from the point of view of a company making something useful, like asprin. And before you start in, I have nothing particular against the good folks who do web optimisation – it’s just an example that works nicely. And they're always emailing me touting for business!
So, you want a brilliantly optimised website? Before you answer, think on this. How many five-year-olds run up to their parents and tell them, breathless with excitement, ‘when I grow up, I want a brilliantly optimised website’. How many companies have “TO HAVE THE BEST OPTIMISED WEBSITE IN THE WORLD” as their mission statement? I’d be surprised if there were any. I’d suggest you don’t want an optimised website – you have been persuaded you need one to ‘improve your search engine rankings’. By the very people who are about to charge you for doing the optimisation.
So, let’s now jump to the search engines. I’ll leave out the whole problematic area of who can (or can’t) actually influence your position on the search rankings in a meaningful way. You obviously want to be top of page one. Don’t you? Are you sure? Think on – when you’re at the supermarket checkout you can’t say “sorry, I’ve got no money, but my website is on page one of Google”. Clearly nonsense: but you have been persuaded you need to be high up to ‘drive more traffic to your website’. By the people who are about to charge you for AdWords (or whatever).
But now we’re talking! More traffic to your website! Yay! Surely I don’t have a problem with that? Of course I do. More traffic means paying more: bigger servers, more bandwidth, more security and all the hullabaloo that goes with it. Plus page impressions are not Legal Tender – you can’t use these to pay for your groceries either. But you have been persuaded that more hits on your site will mean more customers, and that has to be good.
More customers! Great! Result! We’re on our way at last! Not so fast there… Leaving out the whole vexed question as to whether more traffic through your website actually means anything useful at all, they're not customers quite yet. At best they are inquiries. Trouble is, a lot of these inquiries will be just for comparative pricing, specification fishing or any of a host of other unprofitable things. But, all being well, you might actually get some new customers.
Aren’t customers great? Customers are the lifeblood of the business, so more has to be better, right? Just remember that more customers will make your overheads rocket. More phone lines (and people to answer them), more staff chasing late payments, more pre & post-sales support – the list is endless (and expensive). But surely we’ve now reached the goal: more sales?
Sorry, not there yet. More customer may indeed result in more sales: but it comes at a heavy price: more wrangling with suppliers, more shouting at delivery companies, more staff to hire (and manage), bigger premises – the list goes on and on. And it’s all expensive, and has a horrid impact on your cashflow, so you now have even less money in your pocket to buy that loaf of bread from the corner shop. But you have been persuaded that more sales will lead to bigger profits, and that’s the Holy Grail.
Not quite. Profit does not equal cash, and a healthy balance sheet still isn’t Legal Tender. But you have been persuaded that big profit = big salary. And, to be fair, a lot of the time that is indeed the case. So you now have lots of money. Case closed.
Not really. Nobody (OK, most people don't) gets their kicks looking at big figures on their salary slip. You can’t eat coins or wear banknotes (although I expect Lady Gaga has tried). So money is nothing more than another service we don’t want but have been persuaded we need.
But money buys stuff: so, at last, we have got to the things we actually want. Like a nice home, food in the larder and a decent holiday once in a while.
What’s my point? Just that the company trying to sell you web optimisation (in this example) is eight long steps away from anything you actually want. In order to benefit YOU this whole chain has to function perfectly, otherwise they are just an unjustified cost burden on your business.
So, although these services can contribute to your success, they CANNOT directly deliver anything you or your business actually wants, because they are just too far removed. And I would be a lot less terse with them if they acknowledge that the next time they phone me up.
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