What he says is basically:
1. Develop a niche, and this is probably easier if you target women.
2. Sell an emotional experience, not features.
3. Tell stories because software is boring.
4. Profit!!!
Redirect 301 /features.html http://example.com/benefits
Surely ...?
Something I learned in the course of raising and homeschooling a couple of special needs kids:
Emotion is a form of memory. People who lack much in the way of affect are terrible at making snap decisions. They lack a "gut feeling" to go on. That "gut feeling" is a shorthand way for the brain/body to store info and make decisions quickly. I have one son that is very emotional and capable of making snap decisions. I have one son who has little affect and can't make snap decisions. So I think using "emotional appeal" is a form of shorthand to communicate value to the audience. I don't think I can explain it better than that, but I really think it doesn't deserve the bad rap it gets. Emotional appeal is not some sort of illogical, shallow, silly means to make a decision. It is an alternate means, but not necessarily any less information-dense than scads and scads of logical analysis. In fact, it is probably more information dense (a la "a picture's worth a thousand words" -- "a gut feeling is worth hours and hours of study and analysis") and that is likely why it contains power to sell so much more effectively.
Peace.
Edit: Utterly baffled by the downvote. No one needs to upvote me, but some thoughts as to what the issue is would be appreciated. Thanks.
I'd actually go even farther than that. I would say that many times, people make decisions based on emotion (and "gut feelings"), but justify the decisions to themselves and others with logical analysis.
In other words, most decisions are emotional and not logical, however much people disagree.
Easy way to see the truth of this in many situations - lots of times, people make up their minds, and there is literally nothing you can say or do that will change it. This would not be true if their decision was a rational one (something you think, but which is unfalsifiable, is a belief and not a rational decision).
Emotional heuristics aren't cognitively worthless, and they're not even that bad, but they definitely have their own biases that you need to adjust for. Our emotional intuitions are largely shaped more by evolution than by our own values and preferences. If emotions were great cognitive tools, we wouldn't need to discover rationality.
Eh, that works for your market.
3. Tell stories because software is boring.
Now we're getting somewhere, this is universally applicable.
Watch Patrick's talk. Particularly the Google slide.
† "Fear" is one my industry has used to great effect; "egotism" is another one.
http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/03/26/software-for-underserved...
I had been waiting for the video to come out -- they usually use them to promote the Business of Software conference. So, let me make my one plug: go to the Business of Software conference. It was one of the highlights of my professional career, and I got advice and inspiration that directly helped get AR launched the following month. This talk barely gets in the ballpark of quality of some of the presentations -- and the real reason to go isn't the presentations, but to meet people who doing great things in software. (More than once I found myself asking "Who the heck let me sit at this table?! This guy bootstrapped a business which sells nuclear power plant control software and now has N employees and Y million revenue. I make bingo cards for a living!")
Thanks for the praise by the way.
Sounds like a fun conference, but I'm cheap: $2000+ plus travel plus hotel, plus lost time is a lot of money. Conferences always seem like a much better deal if you get invited as a speaker. You get a super-power-bonus for your own networking, because people recognize you from you talk, you get a speaker badge, and so on, and plus, you don't have to pay so much (or anything if it goes well). I pretty much stopped going to conferences where I'm not speaking.
So I'd prefer to sit next to you, Patrick ;-)
This totally fubared my joke timing, so I had spent the entire night prior to this speech practicing, going so far as to do so over lunch in my hotel room, to the amusement of the cleaning lady who also needed the room. I didn't stop being terrified out of my freaking mind until "swan dive", which was the moment that I knew I had the crowd.
I am impressed how well you pulled it off. It is hard enough to write, memorize and deliver a 7.5 minute speech. Then to add a sadistic constraint like autoadvancing slides, that raises the bar. But you nailed it. Hats off.
Even if you're super prepared and you know your material is good, if you don't give presentations on a regular basis your reptilian brain just sits there screaming THEY ARE GOING TO KILL YOU to your autonomic nervous system. It happens to me almost every time I give a presentation (about twice a year), even though I really enjoy giving presentations and I am completely not nervous at all consciously.
When you're in an audience, do you want to kill a speaker? I know that when I'm in an audience, I (a) don't care at all; (b) switch off if the speaker is bad; (c) actually want to hear the information being giving them (and don't mind if the speaker is bad - and probably rooting for them if they are).
http://www.amazon.com/Why-She-Buys-Strategy-Consumers/dp/030...
It goes into the more general evolutionary psychology behind why anyone buys anything. I particularly enjoyed his early anecdote about what early humans would think if you tried to explain to them our concepts of 'money' and 'shopping'.
http://www.amazon.com/Spent-Sex-Evolution-Consumer-Behavior/...
*Caveat: I haven't read many other books about consumer behavior, so I can't say how good this is relatively speaking.
Patio11 would probably suggest putting a question about benefits and experiences during usage in there too.
So... what kind of easy to create image can I put up to show how things work in a more 'human' way? I like the spareness of the design and I'm not paying for a designer until I start making steady money so "go pay a design guy a lot of money" is not a good answer.
Alternatively, a youngish mother playing with her child. Again, hand-drawn callout: "My mom is a published author."
Edit: or a clip like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...
Next, Mr. Taylor announces it’s time for Multiplication Bingo. As Mr. Taylor reads off a problem (“20 divided by 5”), the kids scour their boards, chips in hand, looking for 4’s. One girl is literally shaking with excitement. Another has her hands clasped in a prayer position. I find myself wanting to play. You know you’re in a good classroom if you have to stop yourself from raising your hand.
My reaction, which hasn't changed, from 11 months ago:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1267630
The full article:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2010/01/what-makes...
1. great teachers tended to set big goals for their students
2. perpetually looking for ways to improve their effectiveness
3. avidly recruited students and their families into the process
4. maintained focus, ensuring that everything they did contributed to student learning
5. planned exhaustively and purposefully by working backward from the desired outcome
6. worked relentlessly, refusing to surrender
--
Translating these to the world of entrepreneurs we can say:
1. set big goals for yourself
2. perpetually look or ways to improve your effectiveness
3. avidly recruit workers and partners into the process
4. maintain focus, ensuring that everything you do contributes to your goals
5. plan exhaustively and purposefully by working backward from the desired outcome
6. work relentlessly, do not surrender
Great video, thanks for posting.
Of course, the true measure of public speaking is how many people act on the message. :) Would be interested to know what feedback patio11 has received on that front.
Are the slides available somewhere? Couldn't find them on his site.
My favorite comment after the speech: "Honestly, when you got up on stage, I thought 'Oh cripes, an engineer with no social skills.' Little did I know it was all part of the act!"
Hah, the joke is on you, sucker :)
(Joking aside: this is the best speech I've given in my life by a factor of "lots" judging by audience reaction, but I did competitive public speaking for most of a decade. It isn't totally anomalous that I'd be decent at it.)
I found you engaging and fresh in your approach (but I don't see that many presentations so what do I know) but to be uber-critical you spoke a bit too quickly at times. Usually this is an indication of nervousness but you appear to suggest (above) you have so much experience that this wouldn't be a problem.
Incidentally I suck at public speaking and tend to make nervous quips and self-deprecate (which tends to make one look worse) like you did with your "10 second [...] shoulda practised [...]" interlude. Did I mention that I'm a bit too heavy on the negative critique usually too ...
Couple of points/queries:
Is the colour of the guys you're selling software to relevant? You specify that they're white guys but I wasn't sure if this is a specific comment on demographics of people who buy software or if it was something else?
Second, knowing when a battle was doesn't make you intelligent though it might make you knowledgeable or nerdy. That aside Google don't appear to sell themselves on the issue of their customers presenting themselves as knowledgeable. Surely the benefit they sell most is simply "not wasting time looking for stuff" (Bing do the same, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLV_MTvshGg).
BoS has some of the best speakers in the business. Some you will have heard of - Seth Godin, Joel Spolsky, Geoffrey Moore - some you won't have heard from even if you have heard of them - Peldi at Balsamiq for example. http://businessofsoftware.org/prevyear.aspx
Patrick only had 7 minutes 30 seconds but he rocked the house. He will be back this year we hope.
s/understate/overstate/What I meant was Patrick was totally awesome and the video doesn't do his talk proper justice.
Just wondering, how many times you practice it? (I'm guessing at least 5 times)
http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/10/15/lessons-learned-at-busin...
I couldn't give you a specific number, but whenever I've given a ~5 minute talk, I'm sure I ran through it at least a couple dozen times. Even if you have every single word written down and perfect, there are all kinds of details (timing, tone, etc) to be worked out -- and in reality, I do a lot of minor editing as I practice. That effort is the difference between a dull talk with a lot of um-ing and uh-ing, and an engaging one that the audience might remember.
Alternatively a direct link to the 70MB M4V (H264 & AAC) source (so you can avoid Flash, even though Blip.tv has HTML5 I think): http://blip.tv/file/get/Businessofsoftware-PatrickMcKenzieMa...
It's a video called "Patrick McKenzie. Marketing to minorities".
Title of the talk was "Software for underserved markets", he talks about women. It's quite short (<10 minutes) and full with wit and energy. Great fun to watch.
However, it brought up some interesting questions for me. How many people can truly create software for the sole purpose of selling it? Unless he really likes Bingo cards, he worked on this software not out of love but love for money.
This isn't a bash, I'm insanely curious actually. The more I think about it, the more I know that I cannot create software for women because I have absolutely no interests that would coincide with an underserved market. Maybe I'm just not creative enough? And honestly, for me to create an awesome product, I'd have to be invested in it somehow.
I certainly don't love bingo. I do really care about teaching and helping teachers. I also love running a business, both the actual mechanics of doing it and what it does for my life.
You almost certainly have interests which coincide with an underserved market, since you're a human and not a walking cliche of asocial geeky engineer who likes D&D and Firefly.
While a little far-fetched, it does help keep everything in perspective although it serves the young guy demographic a bit more.
That makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time.
http://businessofsoftware.org/
Thanks.
http://vimeo.com/2723800 (17:53)
I certainly learned something, already rethinking a few parts of our messaging.
I don't anymore.
We can see how genuine he is.
Good job Patrick!
But that is easier said than done. I have no clue how to achieve that (I'm still in "sell features" mindset). I would like to hear is there are any good examples of software product or server which does that well.