Design - Common sense is not common

This is one of the designs that strike you as, " Shucks.!!! why did it not occur to me."

The Revolutionized Wrench provides exceptional user ergonomics, comfort, control and torque through an innovative design that offers a 500 percent larger surface area over traditional wrenches.

In addition to seven patents, the Revolutionized Wrench has received numerous industry awards and much media attention, including a commendation from the National Arthritis Foundation.

Check out the other cool award winning product designs here in Businessweek.

Everything about consultants

An interesting story about consultants:

A shepherd was herding his flock in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the shepherd, "If I tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?"

The shepherd looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing flock and calmly answers, "Sure. Why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his AT&T cell phone, surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo. The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany. Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with hundreds of complex formulas. He uploads all of this data via an email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response. Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the shepherd and says,

"You have exactly 1586 sheep."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my sheep." Says the shepherd. He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young! man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

"Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my sheep?" T

he young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"

"You're a consultant." says the shepherd.

"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required." answered the shepherd. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew; to a question I never asked; and you don't know crap about my business."

"…Now give me back my dog."

Tacts of Persuasion

This is an interesting piece that I read today morning. It’s about the art of persuasion in sales. It’s a real time experience in Turkey.

One of they key points that I have deducted from the anecdote is: Make your customer like you first. Then he will be more willing to like your product on your price. Don’t focus on the product and the pricing initially. Make friends with him and give him an impression that you are going to remain friends even if they don’t buy anything from you.


This reminds me of my friend Praveen’s dad’s line. It just got etched in my memory.
During our Engineering days, Praveen wanted to buy a 1955 four wheel drive open top JEEP.
Negotiations were going on between Praveen and the seller for over a week and they were haggling on the price range of around Rs.80,000. Praveen’s dad entered the negotiation to close it.
His approach was totally different. His key points were:
• We are good friends.
• I am going to walk away from the deal, if the price doesn’t suit me.
• We are going to be good friends, even if we don’t make the deal.

He stressed the last point repeatedly. “Sir, the jeep is not as important as our friendship. If we don’t buy this JEEP, we may buy another one. But we should not let this deal spoil our friendship.”
Once the relationship of friendship was raised so high, the seller felt obliged to be consistent with the relationship that was supposedly growing and came down to Rs.55,000.

That was the first time I saw a practical application of Persuasion.

Read the article here.