A BUSINESS FABLE FOR MODERN TIMES
BY DAVID STEIN
A man needs to have his watch fixed in a small town he’s visiting in pre-World War II Poland. He walks down the main street and finds a shop with a window full of timepieces. Inside, there’s an old Jewish rabbi bent over a book, lost in his studies. The man with the watch approaches the storekeeper, "I need to have my watch fixed."
"I’m sorry," the old man answers, "I can’t help you." He goes back to studying.
"What do you mean you can’t help me?" the man with the watch is angry, "Are you saying you don’t want my business?"
The old man glances up and says with a tired sigh, "Look, I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do."
"There’s nothing you can do?!" The guy with the watch is now livid. "This is a watch shop. My watch is broken. I want you to fix it, now!"
Without looking up, the old man says, "It’s not a watch shop."
"It’s not? Then what are all those timepieces doing in the window?"
"Look, mister," the old man answers, "If you performed circumcisions for a living, what would you put in the window?"
My point? When visitors come to your web site, is there any room for doubt about what you’re trying to sell them or why they should care? Granted the problem of a mohel (the man who performs Jewish circumcisions) trying to figure out what to put in his storefront is an extreme case, but the problemitself is one we all face nonetheless. Because you can bet that if a second mohel figures it out and opens up another store down the block, he’s going to put the first guy out of business. On the other hand, imagine if the mohel in the joke had been able to say, "Sure, I can fix your watch, and while you’re waiting, let me tell you about how important circumcision is to the future of the Jewish people." Okay, maybe a pitch like that is stretching things, but go with me for a moment and assume he did a really good job fixing that watch. The word-of-mouth advertising he’d earn for himself would be worth at least as much as what his competitor down the block spent trying to figure out the most tasteful way to make his storefront say I’m a mohel.
In my last column, I pointed out that Alta Vista’s decision to sell rankings on its search engine is one way that the realities of business competition will make the Net less and less the level playing field it is usually trumpeted to be. Other examples abound. Biztravel.com, for example, an on-line travel service once touted as a rising Silicon Alley star, is currently looking for a buyer, having succumbed to a combination of the airlines’ drastic reduction of sales commissions and their move to eliminate the middleman by selling tickets on web sites of their own.
How is Biztravel compensating? One way is by targeting its advertising and promotions even more tightly than before, looking for those customers to whom it can give compelling reasons not to go elsewhere for their travel-related needs. To put it another way, they’re trying to figure out how to become the travel industry version of the mohel who fixes watches. That way they don’t need to compete with the airlines who, like the mohel with the circumcision-related storefront, are trying to be nothing other than what they are: the place where people buy tickets so they can get on a plane to go from one place to another.
As the web becomes more and more crowded, and as big business increasingly competes with those smaller businesses that paved the way in terms of doing business on the web, successful web sites will be those that manage both to differentiate themselves and to make a difference in the lives of those who visit. That difference might be as simple as offering a small discount in return for filling out a client information form, or it might be as complex as allowing consumers to customize their purchases, the way car manufacturers are now doing. What matters is that you figure out what you have to offer and build a site that makes the offer compelling enough for people to keep coming back for more. Next issue: What are some of the strategies that have worked for others?
David Stein is president of Automatic On-Line System, a full service web design, marketing and maintenance company. He can be reached at (718) 361-3091 or by e-mail at internetdoctor@autoonline.net.