Sales
I Might Have a Go Myself
Ringing them would have meant standing in his own hallway being right about the wrong thing. Letter No. 134 from Ben B. Tilley, on competing with the customer himself.
The Letters & Archive
Every letter, newest first. One lesson at a time, told as a story, hidden in a riddle, sealed with a verse.
Sales
The Cart With the Barrels
One shop sold him a horse and the other sold him Christmas morning. Letter No. 133 from Ben B. Tilley, on serving the customer who is buying for somebody else.
Marketing
The Habits of the Hungry Year
Success hands you the result with no itemised bill. Letter No. 132 from Ben B. Tilley, on why the practices that built a business are the ones that quietly begin to cost it.
Pricing
The Bell He Had Never Cast
He was chosen for the very admission his rival thought he could not afford to make. Letter No. 131 from Ben B. Tilley, on pricing work you have never done.
Marketing
The Clear Evening
A clear evening is a mythical animal. Letter No. 130 from Ben B. Tilley, on why willing customers never begin, and the size of the step you put in their way.
Pricing
The Good Iron on the Axle
And what can you do on the price? Letter No. 129 from Ben B. Tilley, on the question asked at the handshake, and why it costs you more than the money.
Sales
The Woman Who Works the End
Within the year it was a thing they had bought and did not really use. Letter No. 128 from Ben B. Tilley, on the difference between who signs and who lives with it.
Sales
The Wall Has Moved
He joined himself for ever to the worst quarter of an hour of her year. Letter No. 127 from Ben B. Tilley, on being called in after somebody else has botched it.
Sales
March, Two Years, the Extension
It does not arrive as a rejection. It arrives as nothing. Letter No. 126 from Ben B. Tilley, on the enquiry that is not a no but a not yet.
Pricing
Three Gates
One smith asked a yes-or-no question and got a no. The other asked a which-one question and got a gate. Letter No. 125 from Ben B. Tilley, on giving a customer something to choose between.
Pricing
The Christening Cup
A price never lands in an empty head. Letter No. 124 from Ben B. Tilley, on choosing what your price gets compared with, before the customer chooses for you.
Sales
The Thirty Who Pay the Rent
A builder buying eleven thousand pounds of timber a year waited behind a man buying a fence post, on principle. Letter No. 123 from Ben B. Tilley, on the few who pay for the many.
Sales
Shut the Case
He left with a maybe he had personally manufactured out of a yes. Letter No. 122 from Ben B. Tilley, on the forty seconds after agreement and why everything else reopens the door.
Sales
Most People Ask Me That
He was helped by an expert in the expert's language, and every helpful question told him what he did not know. Letter No. 121 from Ben B. Tilley, on making it safe not to know.
Marketing
And What Is It You Do?
One gave the stranger a noun to nod at. The other gave him a picture to carry home. Letter No. 120 from Ben B. Tilley, on the commonest question in trade and the answer that produces nothing.
Sales
Sent Before Six
The reminder was the last contact they ever had, which means the final impression was a request for money he had been slow to ask for. Letter No. 119 from Ben B. Tilley, on the invoice.
Pricing
The Cousin's Gate
The half-price gate was the generous one on paper, and the only one that cost anybody a friendship. Letter No. 118 from Ben B. Tilley, on what to charge people you know.
Marketing
The Smear on the Hall Paint
Behind the wall the work was faultless, and she never saw behind the wall. Letter No. 117 from Ben B. Tilley, on the evidence a customer actually has.
Pricing
Six Shillings for a Locking Door
One sold forty minutes and one sold the door. Letter No. 116 from Ben B. Tilley, on why the hourly rate makes every customer stand in the hall counting.
Marketing
The Second Saturday in May
A door that is always open is a door nobody needs to go through today. Letter No. 115 from Ben B. Tilley, on giving the town a date.
Marketing
The Cider at the Farm Gate
The best cider in the county, three miles up a flooded lane, drunk by forty households. Letter No. 114 from Ben B. Tilley, on being where the want is when the want is there.
Pricing
Rot Behind the Boards
He took a piece of ordinary bad luck and converted it into a story about his character. Letter No. 113 from Ben B. Tilley, on telling a customer the cost has risen.
Sales
The Shallow Keel
By the end of half an hour it was no longer about the keel. Letter No. 112 from Ben B. Tilley, on disagreeing with a customer without making it a contest.
Marketing
Three Lines Against Her Name
She arrived as a returning customer and was converted, over one polite call, into an enquiry. Letter No. 111 from Ben B. Tilley, on remembering what you were told.
Marketing
Four Doors Either Side
He spent a fortnight on ladders in plain view of every household in the street, and left no name on the thing. Letter No. 110 from Ben B. Tilley, on the job as the advertisement.
Pricing
A Fifth Off the First
He had told every new customer what he thought his work was worth, which was a fifth less than he was asking. Letter No. 109 from Ben B. Tilley, on the first-time offer.
Sales
How Many Pints Were Drawn
His barrels went into a dark place and were never seen again until an order came in smaller. Letter No. 108 from Ben B. Tilley, on what happens after you deliver.
Sales
Unless I Hear Otherwise
She had no idea any of it had happened, and she was right not to. Letter No. 107 from Ben B. Tilley, on the decisions your work waits on and the dates they never carry.
Marketing
The Doubled Rim
He copied what could be seen from six feet away, and left out the hour he could not explain. Letter No. 106 from Ben B. Tilley, on being imitated.
Marketing
The Year the Tide Came In
He had not had a good year. He had had a year off, paid for handsomely. Letter No. 105 from Ben B. Tilley, on what prosperity hides and what to do with it.
Sales
Notice at Michaelmas
She would have told you she could not afford to lose them. She could not afford to keep them. Letter No. 104 from Ben B. Tilley, on ending with a customer of long standing.
Pricing
And What Comes Back For It
The extra work was an intention rather than an undertaking, and intentions do not survive a busy quarter. Letter No. 103 from Ben B. Tilley, on being asked for a better rate.
Marketing
Hoyle at the Far End of the Market
Both glovers lost the same sale. One lost it into a closing door and the other into a name. Letter No. 102 from Ben B. Tilley, on sending work away well.
Sales
The Man Who Was Not There
She was persuaded at three in the afternoon and could not reproduce a word of it at eight. Letter No. 101 from Ben B. Tilley, on the person who decides and never met you.
Pricing
The Millwright's Two Pounds
The knowing took twenty years and the doing takes a lad a week, and he was giving away the first. Letter No. 100 from Ben B. Tilley, on charging for the diagnosis.
Marketing
The Four Hundred Who Know You
Telling a stranger costs nothing. Telling the people who knew you before is the hard part, and the profitable one. Letter No. 99 from Ben B. Tilley, on the first customers.
Marketing
The Parted Seam
Being right cost him four shillings saved and forty pounds of trade. Letter No. 98 from Ben B. Tilley, on the only occasion when your character can actually be demonstrated.
Sales
Booked Until March
The six weeks would not have lost her. The apology did. Letter No. 97 from Ben B. Tilley, on saying your lead time as a fact rather than a failing.
Marketing
The Boy Minding the Shop
Every one of them was lost at the last step by a lad doing exactly what he had been told. Letter No. 96 from Ben B. Tilley, on who delivers your marketing when you are out.
Sales
Your Sister on the Lane
She said she certainly would, and meant it entirely, and did nothing at all. Letter No. 95 from Ben B. Tilley, on asking for one person rather than anybody.
Pricing
The Weaver's Four Sentences
He bought the sentence a trade never recovers from, in order to avoid an awkward letter. Letter No. 94 from Ben B. Tilley, on raising the price or thinning the cloth.
Sales
The Six Weeks Before Starting
Doubt after a decision is a different animal from doubt before one, and worse. Letter No. 93 from Ben B. Tilley, on the stretch nearly every trade leaves unattended.
Sales
Boots in the Same Ditch
He was right about the fall, right about the depth, and had arranged the afternoon so that being right was something to be resisted. Letter No. 92 from Ben B. Tilley, on where you stand.
Marketing
What They Did, Not Why
Every one of them said price, sincerely, and not one of them was right. Letter No. 91 from Ben B. Tilley, on asking a question people cannot answer.
Sales
One Pot in Seven
He collected a small sample and mistook it for a verdict. Letter No. 90 from Ben B. Tilley, on knowing your ratio, and what an empty pot actually means.
Marketing
Twenty Strangers
He had never worked out how many customers he needed, so the target was everybody, forever. Letter No. 89 from Ben B. Tilley, on the sum that takes four minutes.
Marketing
The Leaking Coach
The handbills did not fail. They worked perfectly, and delivered several hundred witnesses to a fault he meant to fix in spring. Letter No. 88 from Ben B. Tilley, on the order of the work.
Marketing
Set Aside at Nine in the Evening
She was not comparing anybody. She was looking for a reason to stop looking. Letter No. 87 from Ben B. Tilley, on being eliminated rather than beaten.
Marketing
The Name Above the Door
Anybody can say they intend to stay, which is why saying it is worth nothing. Letter No. 86 from Ben B. Tilley, on the expense that answers the question nobody asks aloud.
Sales
Ten Days After
He waited six months so as not to press, and by then he was writing to a stranger. Letter No. 85 from Ben B. Tilley, on the fortnight most trades waste out of good manners.
Marketing
The Notice at the Orchard Gate
Every word of it was true and every word of it was aggrieved. Letter No. 84 from Ben B. Tilley, on the notice that teaches people exactly what is normal.
Marketing
The Yellow Wheels
You can see a cart coming a good half mile before you can see the man driving it. Letter No. 83 from Ben B. Tilley, on the one mark you keep for thirty years.
Marketing
The Words She Typed
The customer who fails to find you leaves no trace at all. Letter No. 82 from Ben B. Tilley, on writing in the language of the person who needs you.
Marketing
Lettuces and Apple Trees
An apple tree failing to fruit in year two is not evidence about apple trees. Letter No. 81 from Ben B. Tilley, on the two jobs of marketing and judging each by its own harvest.
Marketing
The Box of Offcuts
Nobody has ever crossed a room to tell a friend that a job was done properly. Letter No. 80 from Ben B. Tilley, on giving people something to say.
Marketing
Crossing the Square
Both asked five times a year. The trouble was that for one of them, five times a year was every time. Letter No. 79 from Ben B. Tilley, on the proportion of your appearances that are asks.
Marketing
There Is One of Me
He rented an office by the hour and used the plural for three years. Letter No. 78 from Ben B. Tilley, on leading with the thing you have been apologising for.
Marketing
The Bell on the Far Bank
One bought a second boat. One spent eleven shillings on a board, a bell and a bench. Letter No. 77 from Ben B. Tilley, on the complaint that is never really about time.
Sales
The Hay in the Field
One sold a better February. One asked what a wet week costs and waited. Letter No. 76 from Ben B. Tilley, on what a customer already stands to lose.
Marketing
There Is No Crowd
Four hundred people, four hundred kitchens, and one woman holding a telephone. Letter No. 75 from Ben B. Tilley, on writing to one person and sending it to everybody.
Marketing
One of Their Own
He wrote about their business correctly and about their week not at all. Letter No. 74 from Ben B. Tilley, on the difference between learning a trade and joining one.
Pricing
Three Names on the Wall
Same wheat, same stones, three names painted on the wall. Letter No. 73 from Ben B. Tilley, on why an unnamed thing can only ever be compared on price.
Marketing
Read It Aloud at Home
He had stopped showing his own work to his wife, and could not have said when it started. Letter No. 72 from Ben B. Tilley, on the four-second test and what it saves you.
Pricing
Three Tables
Same three tables, same prices, same customer, and three pounds a sale in the difference. Letter No. 71 from Ben B. Tilley, on the order in which you show things.
Marketing
Ninety Facts
She did not write the best line in her own material. She found it. Letter No. 70 from Ben B. Tilley, on going to look rather than sitting down to think.
Marketing
The Cart in the Frost
One offered terms, one sent his cart and left before he could be thanked. Letter No. 69 from Ben B. Tilley, on giving first, and why the absence of the ask is the whole mechanism.
Sales
Let Them Try It
She was not weighing his argument against his rival's. Letter No. 68 from Ben B. Tilley, on the doubt that no sentence can reach, and the small real piece of work that ends it.
Marketing
Four Sides at the Horse Fair
Nobody read all four sides, and that was never the point. Letter No. 67 from Ben B. Tilley, on telling the whole story, and why the fault you admit sells the rest.
Marketing
Everyone Does It, Nobody Says It
Why would we write that down, everyone does it. Letter No. 66 from Ben B. Tilley, on the ordinary care nobody has ever described, and why the first to say it owns it.
Sales
The Buttons and the Book
He said he would think it over, meant it, and did not. Letter No. 65 from Ben B. Tilley, on the smallest true thing a customer can do before they leave the room.
Pricing
The Fourth Lever
He took a hundred off, then fifty more, and she still did not buy. Letter No. 64 from Ben B. Tilley, on the four things a buyer is weighing, none of which is your price.
Marketing
The Well on the Ridge
Two diggers, the same spade, and one of them working where nobody was thirsty. Letter No. 63 from Ben B. Tilley, on why choosing where to dig beats every other advantage.
Marketing
Everyone Liked It
Two rivals sent notes saying they wished they had thought of it. He got four enquiries. Letter No. 62 from Ben B. Tilley, on the difference between being admired and being paid.
Sales
April and October
Nobody has ever thought about a chimney. Letter No. 61 from Ben B. Tilley, on selling the arrangement rather than the occasion, and starting the year already half full.
Marketing
The Chair You Cannot Fill
He read the monthly reports the way a man reads a document in a language he does not speak. Letter No. 60 from Ben B. Tilley, on what cannot be handed over at any fee.
Marketing
The Half Hour in October
Eleven people came, two of them his own relations. Letter No. 59 from Ben B. Tilley, on becoming the answer to a question that gets asked when you are not in the room.
Pricing
The Crowded End
A fifth of the customers had never mentioned the price at all. Letter No. 58 from Ben B. Tilley, on the end of the market you wandered into without deciding anything.
Sales
The Demonstration
Forty people held for twenty minutes, thanked warmly, and released into a field with a hog roast. Letter No. 57 from Ben B. Tilley, on the sentence that turns wanting into buying.
Marketing
What You May Spend
One firm bids forty pounds for a customer worth a thousand, and loses every week. Letter No. 56 from Ben B. Tilley, on the number that sets the ceiling on everything you can do.
Sales
The Cooper and the Single Gate
Nine barrels in ten through one gate, then six weeks' notice after forty years. Letter No. 55 from Ben B. Tilley, on why the most dangerous number in business is one.
Marketing
The Nine Headlines
Same policy, same price, same postage, and one line changed nine times. Letter No. 54 from Ben B. Tilley, on writing to somebody instead of to a category.
Marketing
The Sign Nobody Read
Five shopfronts, five signs, and not one of them read by anybody. Letter No. 53 from Ben B. Tilley, on studying your rivals to find the thing none of them will say.
Marketing
The Price of an Hour
Two owners work the same eleven hours on the same Tuesday, and only one of them chose what for. Letter No. 52 from Ben B. Tilley, on who is buying your day and at what rate.
Sales
Aspirin and Vitamins
Everyone agreed it was exactly what they should be doing, and nobody bought it this month. Letter No. 51 from Ben B. Tilley, on selling the cure rather than the prevention.
Marketing
Show It Rough
Nine months in an empty room, then three sales in October. Letter No. 50 from Ben B. Tilley, on why the unshown thing cannot fail, and what that comfort costs.
Marketing
Ninety-One Letters
Two firms start the same January. One runs the same six weeks four times over three years. Letter No. 49 from Ben B. Tilley, on why the flat part is the price, not the failure.
Marketing
The Potter Who Made Fewer Things
One potter rises at three to double his output. One cuts sixty lines to nine and keeps her hours. Letter No. 48 from Ben B. Tilley, on what scale actually means for a small trade.
Pricing
By Friday, Please
A Wednesday night, a Saturday, and two quiet customers who were moved without being asked. Letter No. 47 from Ben B. Tilley, on what a rush job costs and who actually pays it.
Marketing
The Seedsman's Sentence
A man buying seed for eleven acres is not risking eight shillings, he is risking the year. Letter No. 46 from Ben B. Tilley, on guarantees that cover what is actually feared.
Sales
The Second Rung
A delighted customer asks what else you do, and the honest answer is nothing. Letter No. 45 from Ben B. Tilley, on the sale you lose after you have already won.
Pricing
The Carrier Who Charged Half
A stranger arrives at the wharf charging half, and one carrier matches him by Friday. Letter No. 44 from Ben B. Tilley, on price wars and the value nobody has been told about.
Pricing
While You're Here
Twelve small favours, none unreasonable, adding up to four days and a rushed finish. Letter No. 43 from Ben B. Tilley, on the extras nobody prices and who really pays for them.
Marketing
The Free Guide
Nine hundred downloads, forty readers, and a list full of people who liked the subject. Letter No. 42 from Ben B. Tilley, on the gift that is used before bedtime.
Marketing
The Six Channels
Ten hours a week divided by six, and five hundred hours a year producing nothing. Letter No. 41 from Ben B. Tilley, on why being everywhere is advice for firms with staff.
Sales
The Fourteen-Page Proposal
Two firms answer the same request. One sends a book with the price on page twelve, one sends a page read standing up. Letter No. 40 from Ben B. Tilley, on writing to be decided upon.
Marketing
The Ones Who Went Quiet
Forty pounds a head for strangers, while a hundred and eighty old customers sat unopened in a file. Letter No. 39 from Ben B. Tilley, on the cheapest list you already own.
Marketing
The Ad That Worked
Forty pounds a day, sales at twelve pounds each, and a man with a coal fire in his head. Letter No. 38 from Ben B. Tilley, on why the winning advertisement dies the week you promote it.
Pricing
The Price Behind the Form
Nine tabs open at ten at night, and one of them says contact us for a personalised quote. Letter No. 37 from Ben B. Tilley, on what a hidden price actually hides.
Sales
The Quick Call
Two consultants give the same free hour. One hands over the answers, one hands over the problem. Letter No. 36 from Ben B. Tilley, on why the generous call so rarely sells.
Marketing
The Quiet Month
Two landscapers, one silent December, and the nine-second question asked in August. Letter No. 35 from Ben B. Tilley, on why the trough is a decision, not a season.
Clip this coupon
Get the next letter before anyone else
Fill in your address below and the next Tilley letter comes straight to you, free of charge, no salesman will call.
The postbox is not yet connected. One letter at a time when it is, no more.