It’s about the packaging, isn’t it?
We say it’s not. We say the substance is all that matters.
But the way in which a product communicates itself is what wins us over.
Reminds me of the different ways you can frame a product or service that Donald Miller outlined in Story Brand – and how much clarity is important.
Of course, you have to have a decent product.
The problem is that what is “decent,” “good,” and “great” is subjective.
I mean, do you remember that Van Gogh never sold a painting?
Want to sell me?
If you can get my attention, you might have a chance.
This is a Bible story in my family, a foundational myth—it explains everything you need to know about my father’s business and about my own. Though he was selling rubies and sapphires and I am selling Clooney, Pitt, and Damon, the trick is the same: packaging. You might have the greatest talent in the world, but it doesn’t matter if you can’t sell it. Am I Richard Rodgers, Stephen Sondheim, Saul Bellow, Ernest Hemingway? No. I can’t write a novel. I can’t write a play. I can’t write a song. But I can help the artist get that book or song or play noticed by the public. And that’s packaging. When you dig through all the craziness of my life, you’ll see that I’m just a guy from the Bronx who knows how to attract a crowd. I can get people to notice the sapphire, so it’s not lying in a cellar where it might be found in a hundred years, long after the man who mined it has died. That is my talent. If I had been around with Van Gogh or Melville, they would not have had to wait so long for fame.
–Jerry Weintraub and Rich Cohen, When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead
