THE DREAM IN ACTION

I spent the last 2 hours relaxing at a tea shop in a market called Tea City in Zhong Shan Park, Shanghai. As I read (4 Hour Work Week) the man running the shop (Wu Jin) prepared and poured tea in the typical Chinese fashion. My goal was to read, relax and have tea. The shop I chose delivered perfectly. I also learned a very valuable lesson about underselling your competition from this shop owner.

As I walked through the market all the tea shops were essentially the same. 1 or 2 workers per shop waiting to prepare your tea. Each shop had tea products ranging from tea sets, pots, containers, and tea itself. They all basically offered the same thing so how was a customer supposed to choose which shop to go to?  Well, I made my decision based on where I thought I could relax the most and with all the vendors practically yelling at you as you walk by, I didn’t see that I would be able to relax very easily. The vendors all yelling for your business was the offline equivalent of spam. So, I chose the vendor that didn’t yell at me, the one who didn’t spam me. I chose the shop where the vendor was sitting peacefully in the back reading and wouldn’t scream at me. He differentiated himself by underselling. This was a valuable lesson.

With all products and service roughly the same it was difficult to differentiate from shop to shop. I was very happy to find one shop out of 30+ shops that was inviting and could deliver a moment of relaxation. This is a less is more situation. The same principle may be applied to a guy trying to pick up a girl in a bar. If the guy in the bar doesn’t hit on the beautiful girl in the corner but instead gets her attention and waits for her interest to bring her to him, he will likely have a better chance. Hubspot always preaches the importance and value of inbound marketing and this is classic inbound marketing. Create a good product and let the customer come to you. Put out the right “vibe” and wait for her to come to you. Save your energy and your budget by not spamming the customer.

Then, 2 hours into it, I had plenty of tea, was very relaxed, had a chance to read, and decided to buy about 500RMB worth of tea products. I got 2 hand carved tea containers, 2 different Oolong teas, and traditional wooden Chinese tea tools.

I should also say that I didn’t even get charged for the tea that I drank, only for the products I purchased. In the future when I recommend the Tea City to friends I will definitely point them back to Wu Jin’s shop. By underselling his competition Wu Jin differentiated himself perfectly and got quite a bit of business. You should try the same.