The Inside Track · Issue #7
Make it easy to say yes.
In March 2012 a small Los Angeles start-up put a funny, plain-spoken video on YouTube. It cost $4,500. Within 48 hours, some 12,000 people had signed up.
The product was razor blades. The real product was an easy first yes. This week: how a start-up and a giant lowered the cost of saying yes, and how you can do the same for under $5k. If your sales feel harder than they should, the problem is often not the offer but the size of the first step you are asking for.
Steal like a giant
Dollar Shave Club: a $4,500 video
The campaign. Dollar Shave Club launched with a video starring its founder, Michael Dubin, in which he told viewers, in plain words, what they would get and what it cost. The clip was directed by Lucia Aniello, a friend of Dubin's. The company spent just $4,500 on it. Some 12,000 people signed up in the first 48 hours, and the video racked up 4.75 million views in three months. Aside from some Google ads, the company reported no other marketing. [1]
Why it worked. As I read it, three things carried it: a specific customer (people who felt they were overpaying for blades), a clear price, and a founder who sounded like a person rather than a brand. Lucia Aniello estimated that a comparably polished video would cost most companies about $50,000. This one cost $4,500. [1]
The insight. Nobody was asked to 'consider' anything. The video said who it was for, what was wrong with the alternative, the price and the one thing to do next. Clarity did the work that a big budget usually does.
The small-business version (under $5k)
- Write a 60-second script. Who it is for, what annoys them about the usual option, your price, and one action. Read it aloud. If you stumble, cut the line. Aim for plain words and one idea per sentence.
- Shoot it on a phone. Spend on audio and light rather than gear: a lapel mic and a window will do. Allow $500 to $1,500 all in, including a freelance editor if you need one.
- Give it one home. Put it at the top of a single page with a single button. No menu, no distractions.
- Spend a little to test it. Put $500 to $1,000 into search ads pointed at that page, and count sign-ups after 48 hours. Keep what works, rewrite what doesn't.
Edge of the world
The glue that nobody wanted
Around 1968 a 3M scientist, Spencer Silver, was trying to make a super-strong adhesive and made a weak, removable one instead. He spent about five years looking for a use for it. [2]
A colleague, Art Fry, eventually used it to stop paper bookmarks falling out of his church hymn book. The Post-it note was born, but early market tests in several major cities had mixed success, and 3M nearly stopped making it. [2]
Then 3M changed the question. In 1978, in what became known as the Boise Blitz, it gave free samples to offices in Boise, Idaho. More than 90 per cent of the people who tried the samples said they would buy. [2][3] National launch followed in 1980. [3]
The lesson. People struggle to want something they have not felt. The product had not changed. The first step had.
Most owners ask customers to decide first and experience later: sign the proposal, pay the deposit, trust the brochure. Boise reversed the order. Let people experience a small, real piece of the result, and the decision gets easy. If your offer is a service, the sample might be a 20-minute diagnostic, a one-page review of their current numbers, or a paid pilot with a clear finish line.
Three quick wins
- Rewrite your opening line. On your home page and in your next proposal, state who it is for, what it costs and what to do next, in under 30 words. Read it to someone outside your industry and ask what they would do next.
- Offer a smaller first yes. Contact your last five lost leads with a low-risk starting point: a trial, a sample, a small paid pilot. Ask which one they would have taken. You are not selling again, you are learning what the real barrier was.
- Ask what almost stopped them. Call three recent customers: 'What nearly made you say no?' Write the answers down in their words and use them in your copy, because customers trust the words of other customers.
Said best
“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.”
Peter Drucker, Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973) [4]
Dollar Shave Club knew its buyer well enough to say the right thing in 60 seconds. 3M found its buyers by putting the product in their hands.
Both removed the guesswork for the customer. Where in your business is the customer still guessing? Drucker's point is that when you understand the buyer deeply, the selling gets lighter, because the offer already fits. A clear video and a free sample are two ways of showing that you do.
The Monday move
Write down the cheapest, lowest-risk first step a stranger could take with you. It should take under an hour, cost them little or nothing, and give them a real taste of the result.
Then put it in front of ten real prospects by Friday, by phone or in person if you can. Note which ones say yes, which hesitate, and the exact words they use when they do. Those words are your next headline.
If you'd like fresh eyes on what your first yes should be, book a free 30-minute call.
Here's to your growth,
Kevin
Kevin D’Ambros-Smith · Founder, Simple-Growth
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