The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
A man walks into a Ferrari dealership, approaches a salesperson, hands him a picture of a Ferrari Aurea GT and states “I’d like to buy that car today; here’s $15,000.”
The salesperson politely informs the man he is unable to meet the request because:
- It is Sunday and car sales are prohibited by state law;
- The model he desires does not exist as it is a concept car and the photo is nothing more than a 3D rendering;
- There is no viable alternative model Ferrari available for $15,000.
Thus he suggests the man visit a Toyota or Ford dealership tomorrow to find a used car that better matches his criteria.
Who here is being unreasonable? The customer anxious to spend $15,000 on a fictitious Ferrari or the salesperson unwilling to compromise in order to make a sale? Conventional wisdom would find the customer to be unreasonable, if not certifiably insane. And in all likelihood, the salesperson will enjoy a good laugh with his co-workers at the customer’s expense.
And that is the problem with conventional wisdom; it embraces the status quo and dismisses the unreasonable request, the wacky idea, the crazy concept or the nonsensical approach. Yet within these absurd notions we might derive future products, markets, industries or entire economies. Consider the following customer requests that would’ve been considered “unreasonable” at some point in the recent past:
- Free promotion and distribution of your media (Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo, Amazon Kindle).
- Delivery by a local dine-in only restaurant (DoorDash, GrubHub).
- Paying not by cash, check or credit card (PayPal, Venmo, Zelle)
- Having a stranger drive you somewhere in their car (Uber, Lyft).
- Staying overnight in a stranger’s home (VRBO, AirBnB)
- Buying socks in threes (LittleMissMatched).
You don’t have to meet an unreasonable request; in fact, most often it is likely in your best interests to decline it altogether. But if you have any desire to grow, advance, evolve or improve your product or service then at least give it some consideration. At a minimum ask what would have to change to meet the demand in the future—either fully or partially—and what would be the resultant benefit.
It might not be feasible to sell make-believe sports cars for $15K on Sundays, but what if we could _______?
