Re: Idea for a business... not entirely OT.

Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[..]
Edison didn't sell electricity at the start of that enterprise (or so
I've heard) - he sold light, driven by electricity.

Of course.

Hardly `of course'. He could have chosen all sorts of ways of selling
what he had. He sold lighting.

It's standard marketing, customers buy 'benefits'.

How about thinking about:

Sell the ability to do things.

Don't sell a box: sell a working computer system set up to do X, Y, and
Z with support for a year (optional extra?) to keep it all nice?

Something like that?

That was something that had crossed my mind.

The problem is that the support is what'd give your PCs their `unique
selling point', but also that's the part that could easily take all your
time. Working out a way to provide useful support without chewing up
all your time is the tricky bit - hence the (optional extra?).

Yes, indeed, although it does give an edge to the idea, it also has
quite big cons too.

[..]
Indeed, that was my own thinking behind this.

Point is: not the setting up of what's needful, but selling of it.

Yes, I got that.

I do know about that all too well. I spent the last few years being
forced, yes forced, to sell products to customers that *I* knew they
didn't need. It's just about the single reason why I don't want to work
in the motor trade anymore. I hated it.

I'm no salesman so I can't suggest how to actually *do* what I suggest -
but I bet you could get it to work if you're someone who *can* sell.

That's the problem for me, I'm someone that can strip a computer to
bits, and rebuild it, but a salesman I'm not.

Ah. Nor me.

I think the worst I ever saw was 'stealth' selling, I just couldn't do
it, at least not without feeling bad about it. Anyway, I have no problem
taking money off someone who comes to buy a product, and actually asks
for it because it's what they want, but to push something on them, no,
that's not me.

Cheers.

--
Andy Hewitt
<http://web.me.com/andrewhewitt1/>
.

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