Showing posts with label Snake Oil Salesman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Snake Oil Salesman. Show all posts

October 25, 2019

Sizzle Is Not Steak

There was an interesting quote in the Wall Street Journal the other day.

It was about how the stock brokers all too often hawked hot stocks to their unsuspecting and foolish clients:
You sold the sizzle, not the steak!

Wow, isn't this all too often what happens with products and services in the marketplace?

People get you hyped up on all the excitement of something.

The latest and greatest widget or whatever. 

It's gonna revolutionize the world!

Even when the thing itself may not be all that it's cracked up to be.

Or in fact, it may be a complete dud!

But whatever sells goes, unfortunately, whether it's right or wrong

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle. 

Doesn't that sizzle really make you want to buy the steak?

The Greater Fool Theory in full blossom. ;-)

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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May 12, 2017

Left-Handed Screwdriver

So I'm not so sure what is so funny about a left-handed screwdriver...

Except of course that there is no such thing!

The same screwdrivers work in both the left and rights hands. 

Duh!

But that's what it is with some people that like to call what they are doing innovation or out-of-the-box thinking.

When really, what's new to them is just regurgitation of "what's old is what's new!"

We can't just work harder, rather we need breakthrough thinking to work smarter. 

But how many times do you really see smarter happening versus just a different flavor of the month introduced to score points or mark some victory laps. 

Real innovation or transformation means making a new way to screw things together and not just screwing it with a different hand.


Yes, most innovation is really individual small steps that end up in aggregate, making a great leap for mankind. 

Occasionally, someone really does invent the smartphone--now that was smart!

Be careful buying that left-handed screwdriver or into that new methodology for accomplishing great things until you know that it really isn't more snake oil sold from someone's bullsh*t soapbox--and that it is from someone with a very big mouth and a very little brain. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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