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Old 08-31-2012, 01:53 PM   #29 (permalink)
shovel
Master EcoModder
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
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Anybody who's started a business necessarily has to be that business' biggest fan, and defend their business against attacks whether legitimate or baseless. I can't blame the company president for arriving in defense of her business.

It is important to be aware that while some people respect testimonials, others do not. Possibly because of the era in which I was raised, or the nature of my experiences in this world I've come to understand that all marketing claims are outright lies. Sting-free sunburn ointment stings like hell. You still have to do a lot of old fashioned scrubbing when you use Scrubbing Bubbles bathroom cleaner. No movie has ever "Blown Me Away!", whatever that even means. - even claims that aren't outright lies are usually stupid, of course the 2013 BMW is the "Best BMW Yet®" .. why would you make it worse than last year's?

You want to sell me a product? Underwhelm me. Tell me, with absolute certainty, the least I can possibly expect from it. Let the product surprise me by outperforming my expectations. THAT would blow me away. Whatever that means.

The company I work for, for example, makes amplifiers. We'll tell you it makes 45 watts per channel on the box because that's the absolute minimum the design might make - but the individual device you receive will always outperform the ratings you expected. The problem we face is that people are so accustomed to being lied to by everyone else that they have no idea what a correctly measured standard is. They will wonder why our 45 watt amplifier is $400 when a 500 watt amplifier is $12.55 .. a watt's a watt, right?

A 18% improvement from one tank of gas to the next under utterly uncontrolled circumstances clearly indicates that the stick-on, universal plastic thingie causes all cars driven under all conditions to improve by 18% right? Those silly automotive engineers on whom we depend with our very lives to design braking systems and collision safety systems which work well, sure can't seem to get aerodynamics figured out....

If you want to sell this product to us, don't put testimonials on your site. To a skeptic, testimonials have the opposite effect that you want, we actually avoid products marketed by testimonial because we associate them with bogus claims and failures to perform. Instead, offer extremely modest claims. Approach us with the truth. Your customers are your friends, and one doesn't BS one's friends. Perform coast-down tests with the vehicles you have access to, publish your results and methodology - including failures. This will build trust, and trust builds business.

As I said in a prior post, this like many other unicorns probably can actually work under the right conditions and where a problem actually exists in need of correction. It can also serve as a conversation starter, and all fact-based conversations on the topic of resource conservation can be a good thing (nevermind the fuel the UPS truck burns delivering these petroleum-based-plastic objects to us, and the fuel the barge burns while carrying neodymium here from South America... )

If I had a vote, which I don't, it continues to be that this stays in the unicorn corral until such time as it proves itself with more than mere verbal testimonials and pretty simulations.
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Last edited by shovel; 08-31-2012 at 02:00 PM..
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