Biznik Blog

“WHRRRRRR CHUG CHUG WHRMMMMMMM.” The big brown door groaned out a protest as our brand-spanking-new garage door opener *yanked* it up and along its track to rest quietly above our heads.

This was winter in the 80’s–maybe 1985–and my aunt, uncle and cousins had come over on a Sunday to play trivial pursuit, get sugar-high on peanut butter bars and listen to my dad tell weird stories about his weird life and that weird time he *swears* he was abducted by mustache-wearing aliens.

My cousin Michelle and I weren’t having it though. We’d heard all the weird stories before and didn’t know enough about Reaganomics to be much use at trivia. So we scarfed down some sugary goodness and snuck downstairs to play with Mom and Dad’s new toy.

“Whoa, cool!” Michelle said when she saw it for the first time. And I had to agree, the shiny new electric garage door opener *was* cool. It was all shiny metal, blue plastic and grease.

*And it was just begging us to play with it.*

“Here, let me show you.” I said in my little eight-year-old voice. I clambered up onto a rickety chair and stretched up on my tippy toes to push the button. I had to push hard to get the bright red light to flash, but when I did the whole room rumbled.

“WHRRRRRR CHUG CHUG WHRMMMMMMM” our life-changing new technology went. It gave us a clear view of the snowy street and sent us both into ecstatic fits.

“WOW!! AWESOME! LET ME, LET ME!,” Michelle screamed amidst the giggles. For the next half hour we switched off back and forth. We opened and closed and opened and closed and opened and closed the door, balancing precariously on that wobbly little chair every time.

And then we stopped.

Michelle was stretching up and pushing hard on the button again when her foot slipped. She tumbled and gave a strangled shout.

*And then I saw the blood.*

Michelle was crying from shock than from pain. I ran upstairs to get my Uncle and wondered why I hadn’t noticed the 12-inch rotary saw blade propped up against the wall right under our new “toy.”

The finger had come off clean just under the knuckle closest to the fingernail. My dad searched around franticly for it, packed it in ice and rushed off in his big brown Lincoln Town Car to meet up with Michelle and her dad at the hospital. I stayed home with mom and stared at the bloody saw blade, wondering again how we managed to miss the dang thing.

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“Alright, Haddad. You’ve freaked us out, now what the hell does this have to do with Web 2.0?”
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Good question.

Now I *love* podcasting, blogging, web video, web audio, dynamic web pages, social networking, Pay-Per-Click and all the other symptoms of the evolving web.

But sometimes I think business folks get so caught up in the shiny new technology that they lose sight of the powerful basics.

And as Michelle and I (OK, mostly Michelle) learned way back in ‘85, getting hypnotized by “radical new technology” and ignoring the fundamental truths about your environment (like a big honking saw blade right underneath you) can be more than a little bit dangerous.

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So here’s the real message of today’s newsletter.
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If you’re in business today you *need* to a part of the web. You *need* to be aware of the radical changes that are happening online. And you *need* to make some hard choices about how you’re going to take advantage of the opportunities to start *real* conversations with your customers and sell your business like never before.

But you also *need* to realize that the medium is *not* the message and that *what* you say to your audience is always going to be more important than *how* you say it.

Which means coming up with a strong offer, developing a powerful Unique Selling Proposition and laying out in no uncertain terms the *reasons why* your customers should work with you.

Oh, and since you’re undoubtedly dying to know, the good doctors at that hospital in Massachusetts managed to put my poor cousin back together again and she has just a tiny little scar to remind her of her run in with the garage door opener and the saw blade.

Comments? Questions? Harsh Invectives? Head on over to the Hard Working Words Blog (http://www.haddadink.com/blog).

Chris Haddad is a Direct Response Copywriter and Strategic Marketing Wonk Based In Seattle Washington (which means he sells stuff with words.)

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 15th, 2007 at 1:08 pm and is filed under News. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.