Somehow advertising in every form — TV, radio, print, internet — has really turned me off lately. Maybe the economy has made it all sound more desperate but every ad is the same. All the marketing copy I read might as well be written by the same person. Long unswayed by marketing, I remained impressed for a time — especially when I was trying to start my own company — when a new whole-grain-snack or locally-made-T-shirt or retro-fixed-gear-bike start-up company branded itself in that differently modern, wholesome and understated way. No longer.
In a post on the French-language blog Not Just Another Translation Blog, Laurent talks about translation agencies with blogs and asks weather this new openness is just a marketing ploy or weather it signals an authentic altruistic effort to share their knowledge with the masses. My reply in the comments field, briefly, is No, true altruism doesn’t exist in business.
I’ve thought about that reply since. Sounds like capatalism burnout (or maybe a new sales ploy based on hyper-honesty). Either way I’ve reconsidered and already come up with two examples where those that sold best were not trying to sell at all. (and you won’t be surprised if you’ve read me before that they’re both about bikes!)
To anyone involved in the DIY side of bicycles, Sheldon Brown is a household name. The inveterate tinkerer was also a prolific writer. He wrote about bike building, bike maintenance, bike parts, and bike humor. He contributed thousands of posts to cycling forums to help those of us who couldn’t figure out why our Italian bottom bracket wouldn’t thread into our British bike frame.
Sheldon Brown blogged before blogs existed. His website was a frequently updated encylopedia of bike knowledge. As the guru of biking how-to, he put the small Massachusetts bike shop that employed him on the map for an international audience.
Even after his death last year, Sheldon’s site rises to the top of Google’s rating system because so many others on the internet have pointed to him as the expert. He gave good advice. He gave free advice, and most of all, honest advice. And people knew his advice was entirely separate from the products in his store. And many of us felt compelled to buy from his higher-priced store because it came with the gift of his expertise.
Back in 2001, I wrote to Sheldon in the hopes he’d tell me if the e-bay asking price of a bicycle was fair. Despite receiving thousands of emails a day, he wrote back in 10 minutes to say, “If it’s your size, grab it!” I did.
I met Peter Reich briefly at an open-house in his hole-in-the-wall shop near the Gowanus Canal. Peter designed and has been building the Swift Folder bike for 15 years now. Error Ink. describes Peter’s world pretty well.
I don’t know for sure but after having met Peter I was certain someone talked him into holding an open house. He was one of the most reluctant salesman ever. Otherwise very likeable, getting information about his concept and the details of his bikes was like pulling teeth. Every sentence was uttered in mild tones and with the utmost humility. Just spending 30 minutes at his shop, it was clear he never tried to sell a single bike and still, there was a 6-month waiting list for his hand-built machines.
I don’t know if the old adage of “love what you do and the money will follow” is always true. I do know that I DON’T want to buy from someone who tries to sell me something. I want to buy from that person who is so engrossed in their work they haven’t given a moment’s thought to how to sell it. In short the best marketing comes not from the person who builds the bike or does the translation for that matter, but from others.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Corinne McKay // May 27, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Glenn, my husband loves Sheldon Brown too! He put a new drive train on our tandem bike using the late Sheldon’s advice…but I digress! I totally agree with you; the second I start to feel sales pressure, I feel a compelling urge to run the other way, so I try to treat my own prospective clients in the same way. Maybe it’s because I spent a year in Asia where business is done a little differently, but I feel it’s important to always give the client a way out while allowing them to save face. In my own case, I always say something like “feel free to call a few other translators or translation companies and get some other quotes, because it’s true, translation is expensive and you want to make sure that you’re going with an option you’re really happy with.” If I lose some work to higher-pressure salespeople, I’m actually OK with that because I never, ever want to feel like I’m trying to back people into a corner when they do business with me. Thanks for the great post!
2 Glenn // May 28, 2009 at 9:40 am
Corinne,
Thanks for the comment. You hit the nail on the head. Translation is expensive. I know many of us in the industry are very quick to jump on people who claim it should be cheaper — because we’re trying to make a living wage and meanwhile seeing the prices driven down all the time.
But we have to take a look from the outside once in a while and admit to our clients, yes, translation is a slow and careful process if done correctly, and can seem very expensive. Ten sheets of paper can cost $500! You can get a lot with that kind of money. But then when you compare one translator or service against another and see that for a penny or two more per word, the quality is sufficiently better, it starts to make sense.
But I remember walking into a frame shop for the first time to get a couple prints done and being quoted in the hundreds of dollars. My reaction was to go to the next frame shop. Then, once I saw the work involved and that they were generally all in the same price range, I could start comparing quality.
And I agree completely that customers have to educate themselves, not be pressured. And they have to be told whether the service is right for them.
For example, when I was at a big agency and a student would walk in to have a birth certificate translated for school, I usually just recommended he go directly to a freelancer and gave him some names. Because it didn’t make sense for the student to pay the agency’s minimum charge, and it didn’t make sense for us to spend time on a small job like that when we had much bigger clients.
3 Vero // May 28, 2009 at 1:40 pm
I think of marketing in any industry kind of like ambiance in a restaurant. It’s nice if it’s done right and it can put you in the mood to spend more, but it really is separate from the product you are going to consume and (potentially) come back for.
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