My original post on "Honking In the Tunnel", and the sales lessons learned from it, got a lot of attention at the end of last week, thanks in large part to the story getting picked up on a Los Angeles Times blog.
Well, there's a follow-up to those lessons learned. I had a reason to go back to Los Angeles for a business meeting yesterday, taking the same route, and heading home through the same tunnel.
But this time, I got out of my meeting early. Instead of the heavy rush hour 
traffic I encountered the last time, traffic on yesterday's trip was humming along pretty nicely (a brisk 35 miles per hour...on a L.A. freeway, that's equivalent to 115 miles per hour on the Autobohn in Germany). This time, we were all zipping through the tunnel...and nobody was honking in the tunnel. Not one car. It was a totally different feel, totally different attitude. No honking. None.
Here's the lesson for anyone in sales or business:
- You need people to "go slow" when it comes to getting involved in your sales message. If they're allowed to keep going at their normal speed, your message will get overlooked.
- You need people to "go slow" to figure out what's natural and fun and a little out-of-bounds about your product or service (or you) so that they will want to honk. If they're going to fast, they won't be in the frame of mind to do that. They'll keep on doing what they're doing, and probably not notice you (and they certainly won't think about honking).
- Realize that I was going through the same tunnel, with a similar group of cars, all equipped with the same noise-making equipment. There was just one small difference in the the whole equation: It was about an hour earlier in the day. My point here is that it may only take a small change to ruin a sales campaign or a business, or make it a raging success.
Getting people to honk is harder than it looks. But if it happens, the noise will be music to any sales professional's or business owner's ears.
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