The solution is its salesware
‘I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’
Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll
The Wright Brothers couldn’t get venture-capital funding for the airplane.
Turned down again …
IBM thought the personal computer a toy.
For serious computing, you boys will need big iron
Facebook emerged out of a college dorm.
Want billions, kid? Put on some shoes
In each case, until the thing existed, nobody could buy it, and thus you virtually couldn’t sell it. To sell it, you need salesware, and the only good salesware in such cases is the thing itself.
The solution is its salesware.
At AHI, we invent new financial program, products, and participating Mission entrepreneurial entities (MEEs) that do not exist in the country where they’re needed. That’s our niche, our unique value. We observe a country’s housing finance ecosystem, describe it typologically and taxonomically, compare it with all the other countries and times and programs in our experience (of which the US is a rich source of experiences, since we’ve done more, for longer, with more variations – fifty states, baby! – than anybody else), and propose a sui generis new solution.
We constantly face the challenge of disbelief; in fact, we face the challenge that our listeners believe what we envision is impossible.
Croquet with hedgehogs and flamingos? Impossible!
A while ago, I was part of a five-year campaign to persuade the Powers That Be in
You’d think that information would be relevant. You’d think its value would be self-evident. You’d think that the principles involved would be self-explanatory.
You’d be wrong.
Instead, as I posted four years ago:
Unfortunately, we currently find ourselves in a position analogous to the aspiring author who received the following critique from Dr. Samuel Johnson:
Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good.
“And your tax credit’s no great shakes, either.”
In the
And that wall of complacency blocks us today, despite
Great logo, great concept
Now all we need is a program
In the twenty-plus years I’ve spent years banging my pointed head against this challenge, I’ve broken it down into a set of fears and a set of objections.
What if it doesn’t work?
I’ll list them quickly.
The fears
Most of these fears become worse in a large hierarchy, where you always have somebody above you scrutinizing your performance, somebody below you angling for your position, and somebody at your level competing for the boss’s favor.
I’m really trying to succeed you
Fear that it cannot be made. If the thing doesn’t exist, who could imagine that it could exist, or that we could be the ones to create it?
Fear of looking stupid. Right up there with embarrassment as a phobia of homo urbanis. Ever dream of being back at school, taking a test for which you’re not prepared? For some reason debilitating to the cause of experimentation, we’re paralyzed at the thought of being shown up for a fool.
Don’t wear this button
Fear of looking credulous. Maybe this is why; if you believe my spiel, and then I’m revealed as a charlatan, you look not just dumb but also naïve. The people whom we’re trying to pitch want at high cost to avoid looking bad before their bosses.
And it didn’t even taste good
Fear higher-ups will shoot it down. A distinction from the previous one; we make think it’s a great idea, but when you take it in to your boss, he or she may eviscerate it with withering phrases, and even though you secretly and truly believe, you will have displeased the boss, which is contra-indicated in organizational survival.
The boss didn’t like the proposal
Fear that counterparties won’t perform. This is the worst; this is the organization man’s nuclear meltdown. You buy my pitch; in fact, you believe it, you become passionate about it. You persuade your boss to back it. Now you’re rolling the whole organization forward, and even though I do everything I said I would, somebody else – some other ministry, a regulator, a large company on which the plan depends – abruptly changes its mind, and leaves you in the lurch.
I gave this party and nobody came …
Even worse, they don’t do the honorable thing and kill the deal outright; instead it gets lost in the mists of committees, and you can never get an answer. So you dangle, twisting slowly in the wind, while your credibility goes does the drain.
In any given case, some of these fears may be rational; they may even be right. To win the point, you have to allay the fears, which manifest themselves through vocalized objections.
The objections
By the way, if you’re pitching a product, and you don’t hear these objections, it means you have failed sufficiently to engage your prospect. You can’t overcome an objection that I don’t voice, so you must make me voice it. You want to keep the proposal going until people voice statements like these, either for themselves or for mythical offstage others.
“It’ll never work.” Sure it’s a failure of imagination, but can you really blame someone for voicing this, particularly when you come asking for a commitment of something valuable – money, time, reputation? Would you have spotted these guys as the world’s future billionaires?
Spot the world’s richest man?
“People won’t want it.” I think I heard it said that, after Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, a British aristocrat sniffed, “that’s all well and good for the Americans, but we have servants for carrying messages.” Never underestimate the complacency of people who have lived quite happily their entire lives without the widget you’re conceptualizing?
Would you have spotted Twitter?
“You can’t make any money on it.” Some things seem good ideas until the question arises of paying for them. Does anybody know how Twitter will actually make money?
Is it just a matter of sliding the pieces around?
“We tried that years ago and it failed.” Very common as a smokescreen, since it obscures what the past was and what anybody did about it, and hence provides nothing that would allow you to counter my prejudice.
You have no idea what happened before
It’s the only objection for which I have little patience, simply because today is by definition different from yesterday, and in a world where technology and networking are advancing at warp speed, a thing impossible even five years ago may be fully ripe now.
Take a look at our three introductory breakthroughs: the airplane, the personal computer, and a social media Web site. In each case, the thing invented was new, and its potential incomprehensible before it was created. In all three cases – and this, I think, is no coincidence – the thing itself depended on network effects to create a whole new ecosystem around it.
Ecosystems change and evolve. Heraclitus was right.
Get me the stage one capital, O lord
“If it were any good, somebody would have done it already.” This and its evil twin “Why you, why not somebody else?” are the last line of defense, combining all the previous skepticisms. It’s the objection I’ve heard (or not heard but perceived) for most of my career – and it’s the reason for this post, because my answer, forged over thirty-plus years, is simple:
The solution is its salesware
Don’t tell people that you have a marvelous solution the margin is too small to contain. Just write the solution and present it for inspection and proof.
If you show it, they can help you improve it
Don’t tell people how it could be created if only you had the money. Just create it.
Take the leap
Don’t explain how you’ll quit your job once you have the funding in hand. Just leap, and show you mean it. If you won’t bet on yourself, why should I bet on you?
Should I bet on you, Ray?
If you’re an expert, demonstrate it. Solve the problem, present the solution. Build the thing, then show the thing.
The solution is its salesware.
The solution is its salesware
Breaking through the walls of ignorance
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