Most of the remarkable experiences I’ve had with people (and companies) were small ingredient moments that added up to a high quality relationship. In this talk, ad man Rory Sutherland reminds us that detail-level significance is actually more useful than the so-called “big idea” with a likewise big budget.
Nick McKay Was Late For The Dance
Nick McKay was preparing to leave the house to chaperone a school dance with his wife when he realized he’d forgotten to take his sportcoat to the dry cleaners. It was covered in lint and he couldn’t stand to bare it, so he hacked together a solution: a toilet paper tube covered in strips of masking tape, held in his hands with a twisted metal coat hangar. It was crude but it worked. The next day he and his wife launched their accidental product as the Lint Pic-Up under the name of Helmac Products (Hel for his wife’s name of Helen, Mac for McKay). Since that day in 1956, Helmac (now Evercare) has sold the majority of the lint rollers in America. I am never without one.
As it turns out McKay wasn’t just a keen inventor, he was also a paragon of restraint. Even as Helmac created and dominated the lint roller market, he sloughed off advice to bring all forms of manufacturing the rollers in house. “He still dominates that market — over 60% share worldwide,” says Ed Zimmer in a comment on a Edd Tury post from April of 1993. “Yet he still buys from the same plastics molder that helped him when he was starting. Nick is expert in lint remover marketing and technology. He’s perfectly content to let his supplier — and friend — be the expert in plastics.”
(Photo by mag3737)
- Bill Shaner, president of Save-A-Lot discount grocery in the Wall Street Journal this week
Don’t let your head explode, but: keeping it simple comes in many forms. A few examples:
- Save-A-Lot keeps it simple while providing low-priced (usually private-label) food. Few options across a useful range of stuff that normal people need every day. This is a mile wide and an inch deep.
- Justblinds.com (one of my favorite places to find wood blinds at low prices with great service, don’t let the dour website fool you) goes the other direction. They are an inch wide and mile deep. They sell one main thing but it is customized to the nth degree.
Both work even though they are almost categorically opposed models; neither could borrow each other’s strategy.
How to Respond To Criticism Effectively
It’s refreshing to find honesty in business. Cinevate, the company that makes tools for cinemotographers, took a few jabs in the chin when Cinema 5D reviewed one of its camera rigs. The review gave Cinevate’s stuff low ratings and made comments about the quality of the product. Less than two days later, Cinevates’s president responded with the video above. Even if you have no interest in camera rigs (neither do I), I recommend watching all 11 minutes. It is a valuable display of how leaders can respond to criticism.
Few people realize that honesty can be used as both a cure and a weapon. If you are willing to digest the feedback you receive, you put yourself in the position to improve. Sometimes what’s needed to be fixed is internal, sometimes it’s external.
More:
- Cinevate’s president’s blog
- Cinevate’s rather awesome About Us page
Advertising positioning formula madlib, courtesy of a recent Zara deck on a launch plan for a new line.
