The Riddle of the Two Pie Men

Dear friend,

Before I tell you the story, I'll give you the riddle. Sit with it. Don't scroll ahead. The people who scroll ahead are the same people who buy Facebook ads before they know who they're talking to, and I can't help those people. Nobody can.

Here it is:

Two men bake pies of equal skill,
One grows rich, one pays no bill.
The poor man's crust is light as air,
The rich man's pie is barely fair.
What did the rich man have to sell
That mattered more than baking well?

Got a guess? Good. Hold onto it.

The Story

Years ago, in a market town I won't name because half of you would drive there looking for it, there were two pie men.

The first pie man was an artist. Hot water crust you could hear crack from across the square. Fillings he'd spend all week on. He set up his stall on the high street, right where the footfall was, and he put up a sign that listed every award he'd ever won. He priced fair. He smiled at everyone.

He sold eleven pies a day. On a good day.

The second pie man could barely cook. His pastry was honest but nothing more. He didn't set up on the high street at all. Instead, every morning, he wheeled his cart half a mile out of town, up a hill, to the gates of the quarry.

Because at half past twelve, three hundred quarrymen came through those gates. Hungry. Cold. Paid on Fridays and starving every day of the week. And there was nothing else to eat for a mile in any direction.

He sold out by one o'clock. Every day. For thirty years.

The Lesson, Since You've Earned It

The first pie man believed the game was the pie. The second pie man knew the game was the crowd.

Ask any room of business owners what advantage they'd want above all others and they'll say a better product, a better price, a better logo, a better website. All wrong. The only advantage worth having is a starving crowd: a group of people with a burning problem, money in their pocket, and nowhere else convenient to spend it.

Everything else is decoration on a pie nobody ordered.

Now, here's where I stop being charming and start being useful. Three questions, and if you can't answer them, close this letter and answer them before you spend another pound on marketing:

1. Who is already hungry? Not who could want what you sell. Who is losing sleep, losing money, or losing patience right now, today, without it?
2. Where do they walk past every day? The quarry gate. The Facebook group. The industry newsletter. The search term they type at 11pm. Your job is not to build a stall and hope. Your job is to find the gate and stand at it.
3. What's the nearest alternative, and how far away is it? The second pie man didn't beat competition. He picked a spot where competition didn't exist. Positioning is not a paragraph on your website. It's a decision about where to park the cart.

The Answer to the Riddle

What did the rich man have to sell that mattered more than baking well?

Nothing. That's the trick of it. He didn't have something more to sell. He had somewhere better to stand.

A closing verse, because I promised you poems and I'm a man of my word:

The market does not crown the best,
It crowns the one who's placed.
So find the hungry, skip the rest,
And let no crumb be wasted.

Until next time. Go find your quarry gate.

---

P.S. If you read this whole letter and your first thought was "but my pastry really is better," read it again. Slower this time.