Want to end up in the right box?

communication, decor, beauty and drink.
What follows is a list of items, I want you to place in the appropriate category cellphone, curtain, beer, shampoo, letter, stamp, desk, soap, hairspray, coke, make-up, pen, elephant. Elephant?
Yes, elephant. Now unless you consider an elephant part of your office furniture you probably had a little problem putting it into a slot. Read on and all will be explained.
According to American entrepreneur, author and public speaker, Seth Godin, when I meet you or come across your company or product or restaurant or website, I desperately need to put it into an existing category.
This is because the mental cost of inventing a new category for every new thing I see is too high.
Babies, who have all the time in the world, spend endless hours of exploration creating categories.
This starts out as primarily “food” and “non-food” by tasting everything, but they get a little more complex over the next dozen years or so.
Then life gets busy and we no longer have time to explore and make new mental boxes, so we use the old ones.
This the way humans survive the daily exposure to new experience and situations.
With the vast volume of information and products yelling for our limited attention putting things into neat, little, mental boxes helps me cope with my day.
Categorising allows me to make snap judgments, to decide what to do in a situation.
Doctors use it to arrive at a diagnosis. You are wheeled into casualty cradling your arm at the wrong angle to the rest of you, well it’s probably broken.
This saves time and allows instant access to the thought pattern “this is how you treat a broken arm”.
Sure your categories may not always be accurate but most of the time they work rather well.
Our minds run along at a pace that far exceeds that of our mouth, continually making judgments, compartmentalising and filing the universe through which we walk on a daily basis.
Watch your thoughts next time you drive . . . good/bad driver, pretty/ugly lady, new/old car, latest model . . . you get the idea.
When I see your product or meet you I am asking a tirade of mental questions.
What is this thing? What are you like? Are you friendly or not? Can I trust you?
This is happening at a phenomenal rate and suddenly bamm there you go stuck in the little mental box that allows me to handle you.
This does not really seem fair now does it? Unfortunately for you and me that is the way it is.
It gets even easier if you tell me how to categorise you and your product. Do you remember when the iPhone first came out?
Well, if you ever watched the late co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc. Steve Jobs introduction of the iPhone (it’s on YouTube) he tells you precisely how to categorise it.
He said that Apple was launching a new iPod, a new phone, and a breakthrough internet communication device. Then he does the big reveal, that there are not three separate devices but just one.
Because of his great set-up you already knew where to categorise the new product (communication, music, and trendy). You did not have to work out where to put it, he did it for you.
So think about your product. Look at the packaging, the advertising, and the product itself.
Does it fit into the categories you want people to put it in? Does the packaging scream “cheap” when you are trying to hit the top end of the market?
Is categorising fair? Probably not and you can always refuse to be categorised.
You can rebel against the narrowness of categories, that the box is too small for you.
You can decry that you were never meant to be put in a box. Guess what, people will put you in a box anyway, possibly the wrong one.
Daipers probably make great floor mops, they are super absorbent, hold lots of liquid, but I warrant that no diaper company wants that to happen.
Want to end up in the right box? Then tell me which one you want to be in, make the labelling easy to read.
Oh and one last thing, if you are still trying to find a category for this column then stick it under the file of “really cool column that will challenge and inspire me to do better business”.
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