The Well on the Ridge

Dear friend,

The riddle first, as the tradition demands. Back in the old town, in the third dry summer, when the river is low and the price of a bucket has become a subject of conversation.

Two well-men sink two equal wells,
Same spade, same skill, same tale each tells.
One digs the valley, green and wet,
One digs the ridge where none is yet.
Same water found, same depth, same day.
Why did one starve and one hold sway?

Hold your answer. Story time.

The Story

Two well-diggers in the town I've never named, and their wells, in the old chorus, were equally sound. Same tools, same reading of the ground, same forty feet.

The first worked the valley, which is where a sensible man works. Good soft digging, easy carting, pleasant company, and the water lay close to the surface, so a well could be sunk in three days rather than a fortnight.

The trouble was that everybody in the valley already had water. There was a stream at the bottom of every second field and a spring behind the church, and a farmer down there considering a well was considering a convenience: a nice thing, a saving of ten minutes' walk, the sort of purchase a man turns over for two years and mentions to his wife each spring.

So the first well-digger became a very good persuader, because he had to. He sharpened his patter, cut his price, offered terms, and threw in the stone surround for nothing. He worked harder at the selling of wells than any man in the county, and he sold perhaps nine a year, each one dragged out of somebody who had not needed it and had to be talked into wanting it.

The second went up onto the ridge, where the digging was rock, the carting was miserable, and every well took a fortnight and broke his tools.

Up there, nobody had water. Every farm sent a cart down to the river twice a day, which cost a man and a horse and three hours, and in that third dry summer the river had dropped so far that they were going further still.

He did no persuading whatsoever. He had no patter, because he never needed one. He arrived, said he could put water on the ridge in a fortnight, named his price, which was a third higher than his rival's, and was asked when he could start. Nobody haggled. Nobody asked for the stone surround. One farmer walked over from the next ridge to ask him to come when he was done, having heard about it from a carter.

Here is the part that ought to be underlined. The second man was the poorer craftsman of the two. His wells were rougher and took four times as long, and had the two of them been set side by side in the valley, the first would have beaten him every time on skill, speed and price. It made no difference at all. He was digging where the water was wanted.

And in the fourth year, when the rains came back and the ridge was still dry as bone, he was still working, because a ridge does not stop being a ridge.

The Lesson, Since You've Earned It

Choosing where to dig beats every other advantage you can have, and it is the only one most trades never consider. Ask a man what would help him most and he will name his craft, his price, his premises, his patter, his advertisement. All of those matter, and every one of them is a smaller lever than the question of whether the people you are standing in front of already want what you have. Skill can be improved. Selling can be learned. Thirst cannot be manufactured, and the trade that spends its life trying is the one that ends up cheap, tired and clever.

Note the exact shape of the valley man's mistake, because it is the common one and it looks like diligence from the inside. He was not in a bad trade. He was in a good trade among people whose problem was already solved well enough, and every improvement he made was an improvement to the wrong half of the arithmetic. Sharper words, keener prices and better craft applied to people with no thirst produce a man who works twice as hard for nine wells a year and calls it a difficult market.

So the question to ask before any of the others is not what shall I sell, nor how shall I say it, but who is already going to some trouble about this. Trouble is the tell. Somebody carting water twice a day, somebody doing it badly by hand, somebody paying a rival too much, somebody who has tried twice and failed: all of them have declared the want before you arrived. This is where the ache and the crowded end point in the same direction, and it is why the letter on those subjects is worth more to you than any amount of work on your words.

And expect the ridge to be unpleasant, since that is precisely why it is empty. Harder ground, worse carting, longer jobs, further to travel. The discomfort is not an argument against it; it is the reason your competitors are all down in the valley being charming at one another.

Three questions, and answer the first by looking rather than thinking:

1. Who is already going to trouble about the thing you fix? Find the people spending time, money or worry on it right now, badly. List them by name if you can. Every one of them has already answered the only question that decides whether you will spend your life persuading.
2. How much of your effort goes into creating want rather than meeting it? Look honestly at your last ten sales. If most of them needed talking into, you are in the valley, and no improvement to your talking will change the ground you are standing on.
3. Where is your ridge, and what makes it unpleasant? Name the customers or the work you have avoided because it is awkward, far, technical or unglamorous. Then ask whether the awkwardness is why nobody is serving them, and whether that awkwardness is something you could simply decide to bear.

The Answer to the Riddle

Why did one starve?

Because he sold a convenience to people who were comfortable, and his rival sold relief to people carting water twice a day, and no amount of craft closes that gap. Give the valley man every advantage he asked for, better tools, faster digging, a lower price and a finer tongue, and he still sells nine wells a year, because the ground beneath his customers is wet. The second man had one advantage and needed no others: he stood where people were thirsty.

The verse:

Sharpen your spade, and cut your rate,
And charm them at the farmhouse gate.
It shifts no wells where streams run free.
Go dig the ridge. That's all. That's me.

Until next time. Go and find who is already going to trouble about the thing you fix, and take your spade there before you spend another hour on your patter.

P.S. And if you are already in the valley with a good trade and settled customers, do not burn the cart. Keep the nine wells, and spend one day a fortnight on the ridge until you know whether the thirst is real. Nobody in this business has ever been made poorer by a fortnight of looking.

Also in the archive: The Riddle of the Two Pie Men, The Crowded End and The Cider at the Farm Gate.