The Four Hundred Who Know You

Dear friend,

The riddle first, as ever. Your century today, and the difficulty is that both of them are starting with nothing at all.

Two firms begin the selfsame week,
No name, no work, no soul to speak.
One builds a front for half a year,
One tells four hundred people plain.
By autumn one has ten, one none.
What did the second dare to say?

Hold your answer. Story time.

The Story

Two people started in the same trade in the same month, and their skill, all together now, was equally good. Neither had a customer, a testimonial, or anybody at all who knew what they now did.

The first set about being ready. There was a great deal to do: the name, the material, the page, the photographs of work he had not yet done, the wording of what he offered. It took months, and none of it was foolish, and at the end of it he had a business that looked entirely respectable and had never spoken to a human being.

When he finally began telling people, he told strangers, because strangers are less embarrassing than the people who know you.

That is the part worth naming plainly, since it decides more first years than any amount of strategy. Telling a stranger that you have started something costs nothing, because a stranger has no previous version of you to compare it with. Telling your former colleagues, your neighbours, the man you used to work under, is a different matter entirely: they knew you before, they may think it a foolish idea, and if it fails they will see that too. So he wrote to nobody who had ever met him, and spent his savings advertising to people who had no reason to believe a word of it.

The second wrote to four hundred people who already knew her, in the first fortnight, before she had a page worth showing.

The message was four lines and had no salesmanship in it whatever. Here is what I am now doing. Here is exactly the sort of problem I am good at. I am not asking you for work, but if you ever hear of somebody with that trouble, I would be glad if you thought of me. And if you would like to know how it goes, I will write occasionally.

Eleven people replied within a week and three of them had the problem themselves.

Those first three were the whole foundation, and not because of the money, which was modest. They gave her the two things that cannot be manufactured and cannot be bought: work to point at, and people willing to say she had done it well. Which meant that by the autumn, when she finally built the respectable front, she had something true to put on it.

And note what she risked, which is the only real cost in this letter. She told people who knew her, plainly, what she was attempting, before it had worked. That is uncomfortable, and it is why so few do it, and it is also why it works: a person who has told four hundred acquaintances what they are doing is considerably more likely to still be doing it in a year.

The Lesson, Since You've Earned It

Your first customers come from people who already know you, and the reason most people start with strangers is embarrassment rather than strategy. A stranger must be persuaded that you exist, that you are competent and that you are honest, at your own expense, over months. Somebody who has already worked with you or lived near you has settled all three, and requires only one piece of information, which is what you do now.

So the first task in a new trade is not the name, the page or the photographs. It is a list of everybody who knows you and a short message telling them what you have started, and it is worth doing before you are ready, since being ready takes half a year and the list does not improve while you wait.

The message wants care of a particular kind. Say specifically what problem you solve rather than what you are called, since nobody can refer a job title. Ask for nothing directly, which removes the awkwardness on both sides and is also more effective, as the chandler could have told you. And offer to keep them informed, which quietly turns a one-off announcement into the beginning of the list you will need for the next decade.

Then use the first three jobs for what they are actually worth. The money is not the point at that stage. Evidence is: photographs, a witness statement in the customer's own words, and a permission to name them. Charge properly all the same, since a first customer at a discount is a customer who will expect the discount forever and whose testimonial says less.

Three questions, and the first is a list rather than a thought:

1. How many people already know you? Write them all down: former colleagues, old customers, neighbours, the people from every job you have held. Nearly everyone is startled by the number, and nearly everyone has been treating that list as unusable out of shyness.
2. What are your four lines? What you now do, the exact problem you are good at, the no-obligation sentence, and the offer to keep them posted. Write them today, in plain speech, without any of the language you would use on a website.
3. What will you take from the first three jobs? Decide before you start: the photographs, the three questions for a witness statement, the permission to use their name. Those are worth more than the fee and they are gone if you do not ask at the time.

The Answer to the Riddle

What did the second dare to say?

That she had started, to people who had known her when she had not. Her rival spent six months building a respectable front because a respectable front can be built in private, and every day of it was a day of avoiding the one conversation that would have brought him work. She had no page, no photographs and no testimonials, and she had four hundred people who already believed she was competent, which is the thing the page and the photographs and the testimonials are all laboriously trying to establish.

The verse:

The stranger costs you months and pounds
To learn what these four hundred know.
Write plainly what you now go round
And do. Then let the first three show.

Until next time. Go and write down everybody who knows you, and send them your four lines this week, ready or not.

P.S. This applies just as much to a trade of twenty years that has quietly changed what it does. A great many people are still sending you the sort of work you stopped wanting in 2019, because you changed the business and never told the four hundred, and they are recommending you accurately for the wrong thing.

Also in the archive: The Stallholder's Letters, The Coming Soon Page and The Collab.