First for nothing
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View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) “Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.” —Gertrude Stein Google wasn’t the first internet search engine. It was Archie, built by a student at McGill University in 1990.
The first smartphone was made by Blackberry or Palm (depending on how you define the word smartphone).
The first personal PC was made by MITS, sold by mail order and shipped as a kit that you had to assemble yourself.
The first to put pineapple on pizza was a little diner in southern Ontario called the Satellite Restaurant.
And none of that matters to you right now.
Being first in any of those examples doesn’t shape your buying decisions today.
It can’t. Because most of those first-to-market companies cited aren’t even around anymore.
And it’s doubtful that being first in any of those examples would have influenced your buying decisions back when these were new ideas, either.
New things tend to take a while to catch on. If anything, being first only has meaning in hindsight if your product or idea goes on to be successful. Even there though, the track record is spotty.
And yet many people ignore this when they write copy for their new product or service, proudly declaring they are “The world’s first…”
You’ve seen that cliché before: about 45.9 million times, according to Google.
It treats the ideas of being first as though it’s a benefit when it’s just a feature. And not even a compelling one.
All it does is reveal that you like talking about yourself more than you like listening to your customer.
No one cares who got there first.
What they care about is how well you can solve a problem better than what’s out there right now. Master that and you earn a customer for life.
Very best, Patrick http://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=|URL:ARCHIVE_LINK_SHORT| Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=|URL:ARCHIVE_LINK_SHORT|) http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?url=|URL:ARCHIVE_LINK_SHORT|&mini=true&title=|URL:MC_SUBJECT| Share (http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?url=|URL:ARCHIVE_LINK_SHORT|&mini=true&title=|URL:MC_SUBJECT|)
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