"and if only one percent of those people..."

Sep 28, 2009

I got this story from Derek Sivers, about a musician who bought a quarter-page ad in a big magazine. The magazine had a circulation of a million readers:

The musician had pressed up 10,000 copies of his CD in anticipation of 10,000 orders that were sure to come through that week.

He kept saying, “If only one percent of the people reading this magazine buy my CD… that’ll be 10,000 copies! And that’s only one percent!”

He bought 10,000 padded mailers and mailing labels. He converted his garage into a big mailing center.

He kept saying, “Maybe we can get like 10 percent! That’s 100,000! But worst case scenario, if only 1 percent… that’s still awesome!”

The magazine issue came out, and… Nothing. He bought an issue. There was his ad. But the orders were not coming in! Was something wrong? No. He tested it. Everything was working.

Over the next few weeks he received four orders. Total CDs sold: FOUR.

My friend telling the story ends it with the best line:

“He forgot there was a number lower than one percent.”

Heh. If one percent of the people who read my blog bought my prints, I’d be richer than the Andy Warhol Foundation by now…

[Backstory: About Hugh. E-mail Hugh. Work with Hugh. Twitter. Cartoon Archive. Newsletter. Book.. Interview One. Interview Two. EVIL PLANS. Limited Edition Prints. Essential Reading: “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About ‘Cube Grenades’ But Were Afraid To Ask.”]

17 Comments

Oldest

Newest Most Voted

Inline Feedbacks

View all comments

Jen

15 years ago

Heh. Great post.

EC (Lisa) Stewart

15 years ago

So damn true.

Eric Garland

15 years ago

We refer to this as “Chinese Mathematics,” the logical conclusion that if you get into the market there, you’re guaranteed to be rich, since it’s A BILLION PEOPLE!!!!111

Never was it asked, “Will those people buy a product not from China? Do they prefer their own products?”

I hear less Chinese math these days.

Dan

15 years ago

China has 1.3+ billion people. Even half a percent is a lot….

John T Unger

15 years ago

Ha! I’ve made that same mistake before, more than once. Love the last line… that really sums up the downfall of fantasy math.

Berry

15 years ago

This is a common mistake of lots who have never been in business, etc. They have no idea exactly how ineffective (especially print) advertising is.

I have been reading gapingvoid for 3 years. The more I read the closer I get to buying a print (note he only really started doing them this way a year ago.) I will at some point. The point being that it sure does take a lot of different factors and points of contact blah blah blah to get someone to buy from you… and ONE print ad, ONE time- is rarely the factor.

Dagfinn

15 years ago

…and from the 7 comments left including this one I guess you won’t run out of prints in a hurry… Even if the ARE excellent. I’ll be back.

Editor

Hugh MacLeod

15 years ago

Reply to Dagfinn

Eh. Dagfinn, I sell plenty of prints. I really have nothing to complain about…

Charlie Broadway

15 years ago

This points to the simple fact that you have to offer something the public likes and will pay money for. I am always amused when some actor or director says that a movie flopped because it wasn’t marketed correctly or didn’t receive enough promotion. Yet, we hear of those crazy word-of-mouth phenoms that put the lie to all that such as the Harry Potter craze.

If it is good and you put it out there, you will sell. If it isn’t good, you are simply screwed. Start over.

Great post.

David Everitt-Carlson

15 years ago

A blog with a podcast might have worked better than a print ad for music. If you did radio ads for your prints would anybody by them? The medium is certainly ‘part’ of the message…

Michael

15 years ago

Well, this is true of course. The more people see your ‘thing’ the more will act or participate or buy. It is just a numbers game.

Some work better than others depending on the audience of course. If you sell fish and to promote to Japanese you will get more responses than if you promote to the Chicago bulls.

Japanese like fish.

Bruce Lynn

15 years ago

This type of analysis was the bedrock of wacky dot-com business plans. The fundamental flaw was applying pre-Internet management instincts to Internet numbers. People saw the big numbers and then thought even at a small fraction of usual response/conversion/close rates, they would make lots of money. What they didn’t account for is that the denominator can get just as big in the world of the Internet making the fractions very tiny. Nonetheless, you still see this nonsensical analysis not only in naive, wishful-thinking start-up business plans, but also in big corporates. The big guys are obsessed with spreadsheets that easily fall prey to simplicistic assumptions devoid of connection to real world dynamics.

Robin Dickinson

15 years ago

Hugh, in my industry they are called “Magic Numbers”.

My crap test for ANY business idea is to test it against three simple rules about people:

1) nobody gives a sh!t;
2) people can’t change – even if they want to;
3) it’s a fight against laziness.

Now, let’s make a product that sells!

Cheers,

Robin

Melonie Gallegos

15 years ago

Analytics, projections and business planning aside there’s a simple issue that is glaring to me, the medium. Magazines are not the best sales channel for music (particularly if nobody has heard the music or of the artist). I’d have projected 0 sales on that one. He did good at 4.

Jeremy Newton

15 years ago

Personally, I am holding out for a desert manhattan or Marfa style print or perhaps even a commissioned print if I hold out long enough.

Hugh, I hope that 1% of your readers do eventually buy a print.

You can’t fault the musician for dreaming big. He was just unaware of how big his dream actually was.

ochuko

15 years ago

Maybe the number of people needed to complete the 1% do not have the avenue of making payments for your product even when they have the money.

For instance, more than 200Million people can’t pay for goods online cos they don’t have and therefore can’t use a credit card.

Influence measurement is recipient-led, not creator-led « Infuse

14 years ago

[…] reminds me of a Hugh Macleod post, which explains why it ain’t necessarily so. One percent impact from 256 billion influence […]

Other stories you might like

Are you ready to work with us?