Rock Through the Window

Driving a billboard around town attracts attention.  Sometimes good, sometimes well...

Yesterday we stopped off at the gas station. Here in Oregon we are not allowed by law to pump our our fuel. As usual we let the gentleman know how much we needed and a conversation ensued about what a RocLok was. Here's the interesting part, instead of wanting to know more about our product the attendant's immediate comment was "how about gluing the rock to the top of the car so you don't get locked out of your vehicle?"  Obviously meant as sarcasm I made the mistake of engaging, joking that having a rock on the hood of your car might takes away from the hiding aspect of the product. To which he retorted

"yeah, and they would probably take it off and throw it through the window!" 

The throw it through the window comment seems to be by far the thing we hear the most from people when they first see the RocLok. When people first started coining this phrase I admit it irritated me. Personally I've never had a house window broken out by a rock and don't often hear about cat burglars running around town breaking into homes with rocks. Still this among all other possible comments is the most popular, hands down! So I've come to embrace it and adopted the old if you can't beat them join them theory. 

However, hearing this yesterday I started to think, what does this answer say about people's psyche's? Where does this reluctance to accept something new come from? I'm guilty of it and from the numerous trade show appearances we've made over the years, it seems most people are.  What compels us to want to run away or hide behind sarcasm instead of taking 2 mins to learn about something new?

For me, I think it is that deep fear of being sold to.  I fear that if I learn about something, I might be "tricked" into buying it. So really I guess it's my own fear about lacking  the will power not to purchase an item that drives my reaction. 

Now that the roles are reversed I have to remember that everyone has their own reason to be adverse to learning about a new product.  Perhaps that is why television sales are so successful.  No interaction with another person, no fear of having to say no, or getting into a debate about why you don't need the thing they are trying to sell you. You can make an "informed decision" in your pajamas from the security of your own home. Even better if the sales person on the tube annoys you, just change the channel!

Still it's hard to accept this truth when you are trying to grab attention for your new product  If you push too hard people push back with reasons why they don't need it, if you don't push enough noone knows you exist.  It's really a balancing act and after 3 years of learning what works and what doesn't I've found out first hand what an art form sales and marketing really is. All I know is that instead of getting frustrated when someone suggests our rocks should be shaped like a dog turd, or annoyed every time someone proudly announces "they'll just steal my rock!" I just have to remember that they are just deflecting their discomfort with being sold to and it has nothing to do with the merit of my product.  At least that is what I'll keep telling myself.