This came my way during the week, made me think…

Many years ago in a small Indian village, a farmer had the misfortune of owing a large sum of money to a village moneylender. The moneylender, who was old and ugly, fancied the farmer’s beautiful daughter. So he proposed a bargain. He said he would forgo the farmer’s debt if he could marry his daughter. Both the farmer and his daughter were horrified by the proposal.

So the cunning money-lender suggested that they let providence decide the matter. He told them that he would put a black pebble and a white pebble into an empty money bag. Then the girl would have to pick one pebble from the bag. If she picked the black pebble, she would become his wife and her father’s debt would be forgive n. If she picked the white pebble she need not marry him and her father’s debt would still be forgiven. But if she refused to pick a pebble, her father would be thrown into jail.

All the villagers were standing on a pebble strewn path in the farmer’s field. As they talked, the moneylender bent over to pick up two pebbles. As he picked them up, the sharp-eyed girl noticed that he had picked up two black pebbles and put them into the bag. He then asked the girl to pick a pebble from the bag. Now, imagine you were standing in the field. What would you have done if you were the girl? If you had to advise her, what would you have told her?

Careful analysis would produce three possibilities:

1. The girl should refuse to take a pebble.

2. The girl should show that there were two black pebbles in the bag and expose the money-lender as a cheat.

3. The girl should pick a black pebble and sacrifice herself in order to save her father from his debt and imprisonment.

Take a moment to ponder over the story. The above story is used with the hope that it will make us appreciate the difference between lateral and logical thinking. The girl’s dilemma can not be solved with traditional logical thinking. Think of the consequences if she chooses the above logical answers. What would you recommend to the girl to do? Well, what she did was this:

The girl put her hand into the moneybag and drew out a pebble. Without looking at it, she fumbled and let it fall onto the pebble-strewn path where it immediately became lost among all the other pebbles. “Oh, how clumsy of me,” she said. “But never mind, if you look into the bag for the one that is left, you will be able to tell which pebble I picked.” Since the remaining pebble is black, it must be assumed that she had picked the white one. And since the money-lender dared not admit his dishonesty, the girl changed what seemed an impossible situation into an extremely advantageous one.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Most complex problems do have a solution. It is only that we don’t attempt to think.

Try some lateral thinking…:)

I was at a business networking function this week and in a light-hearted conversation amongst a mainly female group of attendees, the subject tuned to endorphins.

One of the group, Sally Symonds who is a healthy life mentor (www.sallysymonds.com), commented that chocolate is an aphrodisiac and that the same endorphins were found in bananas. Sally added that laughter stimulated endorphins and suggested laughter was also an aphrodisiac (which probably explains why women say they like men who make them laugh…). A female colleague says, “Serve me bananas with chocolate and champagne and watch out any sexy men nearby”.

Being truly masculine, I wanted my two-bob’s worth and added a typically inane male comment about how men were far more easily read than women. (You do know that men find women quite difficult to read, don’t you?) I said that men were asleep, drunk or thinking about sex so were universally predictable. As you would imagine, the barbs started to fly and I was duly condemned for my cynicism. It did serve to keep the conversation flowing though…

In jest, I challenged Sally to write a blog article about the subject and in thinking about how to write it, I decided to look a little deeper into human behaviours and our fundamental motivations.

I will always remember a conversation with my late father who, until late in his career when he switched professions and started a successful mail order book business distributing political and economic titles, was a G.P. He said his reason for retiring from medicine was that he just couldn’t help the majority of patients he saw in his surgery.

He said patients fell into two categories, those he could help medically, and those he couldn’t. Of those he could help medically, half presented with cases that would go away even if left untreated. Aliments like the common cold for which he could prescribe antibiotics so it would go away in a week; or, if left alone, would go away in seven days.

Those he couldn’t help either had problems relating to money, or problems relation to relationships with others. Most he said, were suffering from a lack of physical intimacy with their partners. Invariably that problem was caused by tension about money. Boiled down, they had issues with sex and money.

As a professional marketer, I well understand that people react far more quickly, and spend money more readily, to overcome problems than they do on things that provide pleasure.

To quickly illustrate my point, in one of my workshops I ask if, given the choice, people would spend their very last $1,000 fixing their car’s gearbox so they can get to work, or on a short holiday. The vast majority (over 80%) say they would fix the gearbox and save again for the holiday.

I know from my readings and own tests that the three most profitable market niches are health, relationships (invariably sex again) and success (almost always translated as make more money).

From a Sally’s perspective, it’s about endorphins and how to be happy and fulfilled. From a doctor, it’ about sex and money. From a marketer, it’ about health, relationships and success.

I’d say they’re all pretty much the same things!

This conclusion begs the questions: Which are YOU selling, and how can you profit from this?

Everyone remembers Kevin Costner’s film, ‘Field of Dreams’ where Costner is encouraged to build a baseball field on his corn farm based on the promise that ‘if you build it, they will come’.

For some reason people seem to think that if they build a website, people will magically manage to find it.

Sadly, almost nothing could be further from the truth.

This is a problem we see almost weekly, where someone decides to launch a new business on the web and spend all of their available funds building a website and have nothing left to promote it.

Then they come back to us and ask why their site isn’t visible on the major search engines.

If I can impart one key message for anyone building a website, that message would be this:

Generating traffic requires time, effort and expense.

There are three ways to generate traffic to a website. They are:

1. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) which involves the correct use of keywords both in your copy and page structure (on page optimisation), and the generation of back links from other sites (offpage optimisation).
2. Search Engine Advertising which involves the placement of adverts on Google, Yahoo, Facebook and other sites.
3. Offline promotion which is anything you do that doesn’t involve the Internet.

While you can do all of this yourself, you still need to study what you’re doing and take advise from people who know. Time equally money so if you do chose to do it yourself, be aware that there is still a cost involved. If you do chose to do it yourself, here are a couple of resources on SEO and Internet Advertising you might like to refer to:

• Search Engine Optimisation training: John Hacking’s course, SEO Uni
• Internet Advertising using Google’s AdWords program: Perry Marshall’s ‘Definitive Guide to Using Google AdWords‘

If you prefer to have someone just do it for you, then you can talk with us. Use our Contact form, or call 1300 884 757.