I’m not having a bad day or feeling particularly negative. This statement is known as Sturgeon’s Revelation (or law). Theodore Sturgeon was a science fiction writer and critic. When faced with criticism that most scifi work was not worth watching or reading, he opined this ‘revelation’ that in fact 90% of just about everything is ‘crap’ or ‘crud’ depending on your sensibilities.
I’m not sure there are statistics to back this up, but there is a concept behind this revelation that goes way beyond numbers. It lies in the definition of ‘crap’. To poorly paraphrase a well known adage, “‘Crap’, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.” We generally define something as ‘crap’ when it does not intersect with our tastes or expectations. In some cases this is an indication of poor quality, in others a subject matter that does not resonate with us.
So what does this mean for business? If 90% of what you do as a business is considered ‘crap’ by the general public, how do you effectively bring a product or service to market? (BTW, Sturgeon died in 1985 – before the Internet exponentially increased the ease of access we have to all the ‘crap’ that exists, so I’m guessing his 90% is now closer to 98.5%)
To start, you eliminate the elements you can. The most obvious is quality control. If you can be sure that your product or service meets expected quality standards, you can reduce the number of people who will dismiss you because your product does not perform properly. Better yet, create a system for capturing and evaluating customer feedback on your products so you can know that your offerings meet the quality expectation.
The next step, is making sure you are relevant to your core audience. I risked alienating part of my audience on this post by talking about science fiction in the first paragraph. This is a marketing blog that focuses on effective messaging, not an outlet for alien theorists. Conversely, anyone who reads this after searching for Ted Sturgeon (or aliens) may consider this post to be crap because after a quick mention, it really has nothing to do with sci-fi.
Success in this step requires carefully managing your brand and your messaging. At the same time you must cultivate an audience who finds what you say, do, and offer as relevant, and credible. When you’ve done this and offer a quality product, you will shift the crap-o-meter to a much more favorable outcome.
Too many businesses rush to market not considering who their core audience is and how to create messages that will resonate with them. They are then surprised when they get less than enthusiastic feedback. Worse yet, negative feedback may cause them to give up or change their strategy without determining whether there was a core group of prospects and customers who actually enjoyed what was offered.
So it all comes back to creating a strategy that puts your business in front of those who want and need it. When you do that, you’ll not be considered crap at all.
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