Why Knowing Nothing Is Great For Business

A few years back we were asked to develop a web site for a client who manages a resort. Now, we’d never developed a resort web site and I started by looking at other resort web sites and seeing what they did.

That was okay, but with any benchmarking there can be a risk of becoming the same.

But then my wife stepped in

Then my wife stepped in with this:

“Why don’t you sit behind me and see what I do when I book a resort holiday.”

That was a great idea. Because I didn’t know what a resort web site needed what better way to see how a customer acts than by watching one in action.

So I followed what Mel (my wife) did and learnt from that. She did the exact same thing a larger group of people we studied did a few months later.

1. Used a search engine to find a potential site
2. Looked for the rates
3. Left if the rates weren’t very quickly found
4. Looked at the ‘Accommodation’ and then the ‘Location’ page
5. Sent in an enquiry
6. Booked only if a response was forthcoming very quickly (within an hour)

It didn’t matter…..

It didn’t matter that I didn’t know what to put on a resort web site. Because all I had to do to find out is what all marketing is about – find out what your customer wants and give it to them.

Nowadays we have a lot of resort clients. And we still research the target market to ensure that we only put on the site what the customer wants.

And that’s why knowing nothing (and knowing you know nothing!) is good for business.