Perfect Pitch, by Steven Tomlinson

I found this dramatic reading in Richard Florida's, The Rise of the Creative Class. It is reprinted here, with permission, and offered in tribute to a life cut short. Steven Phillips you were much more valuable than a website. I was looking forward to spending the rest of my life with you. I love you.

Perfect Pitch

© 2000 by Steven Tomlinson

The Pitch

For almost a decade, we’ve been offering our customers a deal that’s literally too good to be true. “If you’ve got one brilliant idea, you can roll the dice for a shot at immortality.” For almost a decade, we’ve been talking to talented, driven people. We’ve been talking big money, fast, with no sweat. Limitless, exponential growth. Perfect security. And the envy and admiration of the Big Boys and all the lesser mortals who don’t have the guts or the brains to play. We’ve been talking about our satisfied customers – start-up stars and dot.Commandants – and millions of the best and the brightest have been listening. They’ve seen the vision, they’ve caught the fever and they’ve bought into our non-diversified Deferred-Life Plan.

We’ve got great brand recognition. [Projected slide: IPO] Read Upside. Red Herring. Pick up anything at the airport. Our message is everywhere [Slide: Improved Professional Outlook] – “if you’re not rich by now, you must be dumb or lazy. Or maybe you don’t know the right people. Because once you’re on the right team, it’s just a matter of catching the money as it falls from Heaven.”

We’ve got buzz. [Slide: Impress Peers Overnight] Almost everyone knows someone who knows someone who’s hit the jackpot. And the stories of instant wealth are always streaming through our wireless broadband peer-to-peer network, gathering decimal places along the way.

And we’ve got soul. In fact we’ve got hundreds of thousands of souls. We’ve got the souls of people who put their lives on hold to pursue a dream. [Slide: Instant Permanent Optimism] We’re holding their souls in escrow while they chase after sparkling visions of pure happiness. Because what we’re really selling is fantasy. And the great thing about fantasy is the customer does all the work. The customer designs it. The customer builds it. We’re just the ASP. In fact, the customer is the product. That’s why fantasy is good business.

And that’s why we have to do whatever it takes to defend our market share in the face of recent developments. People won’t buy into the Deferred-Life Plan unless they see the payoff – and suddenly it’s a tough sell. We’re having trouble closing deals – and unless we adapt our pitch, some of our best customers may pull out and go with the competition. Now no one’s forecasting an epidemic of intellectual honesty, but the customers are asking questions – [Slide: Is The Party Over?] – so we need to have answers.

The Market

Remember, we can divide the market into three segments. [Slide: Spectrum graph] Over here we’ve got people with passion. People on a mission from God. People who actually believe in what they’re doing because they love it. People curing diseases and fighting injustice and writing poetry and making the world a better place, even if it means working for free. Forget these people. We can’t afford them.

Over here we’ve got people with drive. Greedy people – people who wouldn’t know passion if it crashed their server – mercenaries, chasing the herd from one gold rush to another, trampling each other on the way. Forget these people. We’ve got them locked up.

I want to talk about these people. [Points to middle of the graph] Reasonable people. People with passion and drive. Here’s a guy who starts with passion – an idea, something useful and beautiful. It comes to him late one night and fills him with joy, because it’s cool. And he’s sure that other people will want this cool thing – so he starts a little business – and sure enough some people want it. So the business grows, and that means more people and investors and the market. And when the herd gets involved – cool isn’t enough. It’s got to be hot. It’s got to be The Next Big Thing. And so our guy with the cool idea is suddenly riding the buzz of the next big, hot, scalable thing and people he’s seen in magazines are talking to him – promising fame and more money than he and his family could ever spend. And surely the prospect of that security is worth some overtime.

So he’s ready to sacrifice. We offer him stock in Deferred-Life, and he makes a rational calculation, and as long as his upside fantasy covers the costs, he buys in – he outsources his fulfillment, and he shifts from cool to hot. And from here on, he’s driven. His vital signs follow the NASDAQ, his vision clouds, and before long he’s making bets with his life that even the craziest VCs wouldn’t touch. And we’ve got him. So we focus our efforts right here. On this calculation. Ignore the bears. We simply put the costs and benefits in perspective, and the customer sees that he needs us now more than ever.

The Plan

Strategy 1. Denial. The simplest strategy is to focus on the fundamentals. Shine the spotlight on some hot prospects and watch the soul-searching evaporate. So what if the market’s moody. Blame it on the Fed. Blame it on sunspots. Blame it on Florida. Nothing’s really changed. Technology rules. So e-commerce is having a rough adolescence. Why worry? Biotech and soft cells and code-morphing optical microsystems are just around the corner. [Slide: Nanotechnology] Miniaturization is the next big thing – and you can’t win if you don’t keep playing. Keep in mind, we’re talking about desperate customers who can barely afford the minimum monthly payments on their maxed-out self-delusion. We’re offering to bump up the limit. And they’ll buy it, because they can’t afford the alternative.

Strategy 2. Sunk Costs. They’re having unauthorized fantasies about a simpler life, but we’re going to remind them what’s at stake. We’re going to rattle their golden handcuffs until we’ve dispelled all doubt. There is no exit strategy. They’ve invested too many sleepless nights and frayed nerves and lost opportunities. They’ve sold their friends and family on Deferred-Life. And they’re fully vested in our definition of success. “If you crap out now, you lose everything – money, respect, and your Elite Status in our Preferred-Customer program. Of course, the successful people may still be polite to you, but they won’t pay quite so much attention – they’ll always be looking over your shoulder.” We have to remind our customers of the penalty for early withdrawal. They’ll conclude for themselves that [Slide: Survival] is the next big thing. And here’s the secret to our success: If fear is your dividend, your shareholders always reinvest.

Strategy 3. Speed. Fear’s great, but frenzy is better. And that’s the real problem with this slump. No frenzy. When the market cools, our customers have time on their hands. Real time. And real time means real reflection. What am I doing? Am I crazy? What does it all mean? And believe me, reflection is the last thing we want. People reflecting in real time recover their passions. They look around and see – real people, real needs – and they may do something surprising. Real time is bad, bad for business. So we’re going to punch the accelerator. Get the wheels spinning again. Fast. Get people back on autopilot. Always on. 24/7. Focused on success, filtering out irrelevant information, impervious to surprise. Deferred-Life customers like speed, because the less they think, the better they feel.

The Payoff

So, the NASDAQ’s down, everyone’s holding their breath, and our competition smells blood. They’re betting that our customers are ready to switch back to reality. They’re going to start phoning at dinner time with their best pitch. [Slide: Important Personal Opportunity] “Do you remember how it all started? How exciting it is to have a good idea? Something cool? Purpose, meaning, a mission that your idea could make someone’s life better? Now that the fog has lifted, do you see where you are? How far you’ve drifted from where you started? Well, for a limited time only, you can come back. Back to passion. Back to people and balance. Back to your life. It’s just as good as you remember.” It’s great marketing – it’s retro, it appeals to self-doubt. It’s good. So we’ve got to be better.

I’d say it’s time to pay some big dividends. Let’s bundle our services and offer our customers a new package deal of fear and fantasy. They’ll double down because they’re in too deep – and we’ll pack up their loyal souls and their frozen assets and ride the bear to the Next Big Thing. And what might that be? Does it matter? As long as it’s not REALITY, we’ll be just fine.