Ryan McLean : Slightly Unconventional

The Death of The Bell Curve

Recently I have been listening to a lot of Seth Godin audiobooks whilst driving. They are packed with gold!

Today I was listening to Meatball Sundae, which discusses the way marketing has been turned on its head and how to thrive in the new world of marketing.

Traditional Bell Curve
The traditional bell curve looks just like the shape of a bell. Small at the start, peaking in the middle and then dropping down to become small again at the end. In the past only a few people would purchase the cheap (and crap) and a few people would pay for the best. Most people were in the middle paying average prices for average things (think Jeans West and Target)

The New Inverted Bell Curve
With the changes in the web the bell curve is now inverted with most people either buying the most expensive and the best or the cheapest.

If I want a new phone charger for my car I can get one for $1 posted…I wouldn’t pay an average price ($10-$20) we I can get almost the same quality for cheap.

If I don’t care about the brand then I am going to go for the cheapest.

Take the other side of the spectrum. A lot of people will pay in excess of $400 for a pair of Ksubi jeans. The style and brand of the jeans demand a premium and people are willing to pay for it.

What This Means For Me
For me it proves what I knew all along, no one wants average. People either want the best or the cheapest.

In sales this means I either need to be the cheapest (and let’s face it someone is always cheaper) or I need to find a way to be the best. I want to set the bar so high that other companies will fail to reach it.

If I drop my brand new iPhone in the toilet and then drive over it I can take it to the apple store and get a brand new only for a couple of hundred dollars. This is excellent service and it will take Samsung a long time to win my business back.

I am still not 100% sure how I can provide something so excellent that people would be happy to pay a premium, but I intend to spend this year figuring it out.

Maybe I could provide phenomenal service, or find a way to get pharmacies their products faster than ever before. Maybe I can find a way to become so integral in their business and leave such an aftertaste of satisfaction that they wouldn’t want to risk going elsewhere.

I don’t have all the answers, and in the regulated industry of pharmaceuticals it won’t be easy to find a clear way to win. But I believe it is something the market is lacking, and something I would love to provide to them.


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