How could you [successfully] "Sell Ice to An Eskimo"?

Marketing
1

It’s a great question, for two reasons:

  1. It gives you fresh eyes on a sales process.
  2. It forces you to be objective.

Especially if you are finding it hard to sell your window cleaning services to your local marketplace, and you sometimes feel like [I]you are trying to sell ice to Eskimos[/I], this will be a valuable exercise.

Here are a few methods that I believe have merit:

[B]Food[/B]

[INDENT]Fun shaped ice-cubes for parties
Triple-purified for health reasons[/INDENT]

[B]Igloos[/B]

[INDENT]Preformed for quick and easy building
Colored for design variety, and light manipulation within the igloo living space
Extra strength/thick
Preformed for a variety of easy-to-assemble floorplans?
[/INDENT]
[B]Ice Statues[/B]

[INDENT]Life-sized rainforest animals, like tigers, elephants, and giraffes (bring the rainforest to your arctic home)
Figurines for interior decoration[/INDENT]

[I]Any other thoughts?[/I]

2

Cool exercise Kevin! I recently actually took some advice and took a step back to try and see my

Would it be ok if I repost this to my blog? I’ll give you link credit of course, if so which URL(s) do you want the link to go to? I’ll bloke quote it to so no need to worry of duplicate content either.

Marketing our own services can be difficult because we tend to see our selves through entirely different lenses than our customers do.

3

I’m a little confused by the wording above, but of course, go for it.

4

Here is great.

I believe you can select the exact post even, to specify the location on the page.

5

Sorry for explaining that poorly, heres the link, How to sell ice to an Eskimo | Get on page one of Google

I used Kevin Dubrosky as the resource

6

Cool!

Here is the official “How To Sell Ice To An Eskimo” video link.

7

Well, I would first focus on the target market. In this case
Eskimos.

What do I know about Eskimos? Squat

So I tippy-tap on my keyboard to find out who I am
dealing with.

Here is how I would sell ice to an Eskimo…

I wouldn’t because they don’t need it

That is a VITAL marketing lesson. Don’t try to sell
to those who don’t want or need what you got, or
get something to sell the need or want.

We’re also dealing with a type of people who do
not go shopping a lot. They are very hands on,
live off the earth types.

They have all the pure ice they need

This is an exercise in futility

Great, now I am hungry for salmon. Thanks Kevin :smiley:

8

As usual Kevin you teach us to think outside the box or igloo. :wink:

9

i would go outside the box and try to sell them yellow ice :smiley:

10

Interesting response Tony. What exactly was out of the
box about Kevin’s examples?

Do you think that Eskimos want jungle ice figures or
the purified fun shaped ice cubes? :confused:

What would lead you to think that?

It may sound like I am being a wanger here but I
really do not think you are grasping reality.

None of what he listed would sell. Is not the point
of marketing/advertising to sell something?

Don’t agree to agree or you will never get anywhere.

I REALLY hope this comes across as me being a realist
and not an a-hole. If I am going too far someone
PLEASE slap me… lightly :smiley:

11

You know what, I passed by that the first time and it
did not register. The second time was pretty damn
funny :smiley:

12

I see.

Unfortunately, you are missing the point, Paul.

If you don’t want to play my game, that’s cool.

Are you really trying to turn this thread into some kind of “reality check”, though?

Please - chill out. It’s an exercise, and I know you have some creative juices inside your head that would help people engage this topic.

I am not encouraging people to invest $5000 in an ice-retailing outlet in Iqaluit. This is an exercise, and conjecture. Of course.

WCR is a window cleaning community, not an Arctic retail community!

Please play along. If you don’t want to play that’s fine.

Hiding, though, in the name of “reality”, is just silly.

13

Here is an interesting post, and book on this very subject.

I wonder if anyone has ever tried to so this in the real world (the selling ice to Eskimos thing)…

14

[B]Ice Sculptures[/B] would be one form of ice an eskimo might want to actually pay for.

15

And here is another brief and insightful little article on this topic.

Conjecture is a great exercise, because it forces you to create, whether bad or good ideas come out of it.

The truth is, the best way to get a bunch of great ideas is to come up with a whole whack of bad ones, and the good ones will pop up unannounced.

The idea is to simply keep creating. It’s part of the process.

Anyway - sorry about the slight tangent…

16

I am trying to play Kevin, but the rules are fantasy.

Why not take something realistic and have us brainstorm. Like
how could a flower shop bring in more people or how could
a Cuban deli increase the lunch crowd.

Don’t be threatened by me so much Kevin. You are the better
marketer. I just can’t see how brainstorming about something
that would never work is fun or mind opening.

Let me see what you (and others) REALLY have in the thought tank

I am SOOOOO in that ‘game’

17

Really? C’mon Doug you’re reaching.

18

For me Paul it was a great example of selling to people who already have the ability or resources to do the service themselves.
The people I sell to have the money to buy the products and do what I do (maybe not as well) but I can by thinking outside the box get them to part w/ their money to pay me to do that work instead. I do this by selling them on the idea that they are to busy or it’s to dangerous for them, etc.
Eskimos may not have the time to (or equipment) to make ice sculptures or anhy of the other suggestions Kevin proposed. You might not have seen the benefit to his post but many of us did. Differing perspectives I guess.

19

Er, me again. How “many” of you did exactly like it?

Your answer is still sorta not making sense.

So you are saying that because an Eskimo who
would never carve an ice statue would buy an ice
statue to save himself possible harm?

Why use nonsense as an example when there are
a million real life examples to use?

You compare an Eskimo who will not buy ice to a
rich homeowner who sure the hell is not washing her
own windows :confused:

You have not had an ‘out of the box’ answer to my
question (or Kevin’s). In fact you answered nothing…

You patronize Kevin (and anyone else who does not like
me) and that’s fine. You are not high on the popular
list yourself. (just sayin)

Try not to be so obvious, please.

I will push Kevin to do better than this because he
can do better.

If he wants to be the best he will earn it

20

He’s baaack.