Learning Scarcity from Seth Godin

I've come into a difficult place with my project development. A lull as it were. My crowdfunding campaign has not taken off as quickly as I had naively hoped and I'm severely sleep deprived as my youngest daughter is waking up every two hours and i can't bring myself to change the cycle. So, i am in a rut. Stuck being my own worst enemy. After a weekend of utter melancolie, nursing a bruised ego, and trying to purge the emotional albatross so that I could begin to see clearly and resume targeted goal setting, I seem to have emerged on the other side of the abyss.

 

I completed things today that were utterly necessary for our construction company. I ordered some swag over the weekend so that i can start getting the visual identification of my brand into the hands of local folks who will be purchasing my products and i have really addressed where the weak points in my campaign are. I need to continue to hustle relentlessly and not fear the backlash or haters that are starting to come out of the woodwork.This weekend I was greeted by a bunch of emails from the old guard of local growers and purchasers in my community telling me how my model won't work and how non of them can get the sales they are looking for. Realizing I'm going to have to build the system from the ground up while trying to bring people's skill sets together rather than continue this counter culture of mildly accessed local food.

So rather than spiral down. I will move forward and on that note, to anyone reading this I am sending much love and fortune your way. just because.

And i will end with a couple points taken from Seth Godin's blog post on Scarcity

Principle 1: Use the internet to form a queue. If you have a scarce product, you almost certainly know it's scarce in advance. Instead of taxing customers by wasting their time, reward the early shoppers by taking orders online. A month before sale date, for example, tell them it's coming. If you sell out before ship date, that's great, because next time people will be even quicker to order when they hear about what you've got. (And you can do this in the real world, too--postcards with numbers or even playing cards work just fine.)

A hot band that regularly sells out on the road, for example, could put a VIP serial number inside every CD or t-shirt they sell. Use that to pre-order your tix.

Principle 2: Give the early adopters a reward. In the case of Apple, I would have made the first 100,000 phones a different color. Then, instead of the buyer being a hero for ten seconds, he gets to be a hero for a year.

Principle 3: Treat different customers differently. Apple, for example, knows how to contact every single existing customer. Why not offer VIP status to big spenders? Or to those that make a lot of calls? Let them cut the line. It's not fair? What's fair mean? I can't think of anything more fair than treating the people who treat you well, better.

Principle 4: When things happen in real time, you're way more likely to screw up. One of the giant advantages of the Net is that you can fix things before the whole world notices. Try to do your rollout in small sections, so you can fix mistakes before you hurt the very people you're trying to embrace.

Principle 5: Give your early adopters a forum to celebrate. A place to brag or demonstrate or show off or share insights and ideas. Amplify the heroes, which is far better than amplifying the pain of standing in line.