Business Logs

The Decisionmakers and Sucking Down

Sunday, March 19th, 2006 by MR

Venture capitalist and 9rules member Guy Kawasaki just wrote about The Art of Sucking Down, which essentially is how everyone needs to respect those who have power over certain aspects of our lives. Don’t piss-off waiters because they handle your food, did you see “Waiting”? Don’t yell at people at the airplane ticket counter because they control where your baggage goes and who you’ll sit next to. Basically Guy is saying that you shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds you, or else that hand won’t feed you anymore.

I think this can be applied to decision-making as well, because how often do people totally unconnected with a certain problem still assert their opinion on the situation? If you have a boss who knows nothing about databases, why should he or she be the one to tell your database architect that switching to DB2 is a good idea when you’re perfectly happy with MySQL? Sucking down can be considered the ability to identify who has more power or is more informed and then just letting them do what they know how to do. Don’t micromanage a project you couldn’t explain in detail. Don’t supersede your employees which undermines their trust. Don’t upset people who have their hands deep inside of your daily life, because they’re the ones that can do the little things that throw off the big things.

At Jason Fried’s keynote with Jim Coudal, Jason talked about how the majority of the people who complain about their products (either via email, or by trolling in their blog entry comments) are the ones who use the free versions of 37signals products. The people who are paying 1 or more monthly fees don’t complain, because they feel as though they’re getting $100 value per month for $14, or whatever it is and love 37signals. If you’re using a product for free but still feel the need to complain, I think you need to learn The Art of Sucking Down :)

Reader Comments

11 Responses to “The Decisionmakers and Sucking Down”

Jonathan Snook Says:

Hmmm, I’d ‘complain’ about a product in hopes that it’d improve to the point where I’d actually pay for it. Why would I pay for something I didn’t like? The whole point of the free version is to evaluate it so that as your needs grow, you’re willing to pay for the value it provides.

Take for example Time Tracking. For the longest time, Basecamp didn’t have it in there. If that feature was important to me, I’d complain that it wasn’t in there and wouldn’t pay for it until it was. They add the feature, I see the value, I pay, I stop complaining. :)

March 19th, 2006 at 3:25 pm

Craig Ogg Says:

Or perhaps there is a simpler explanation: the people using the free version haven’t found enough value to pay for it. Hence the complaints.

March 19th, 2006 at 9:14 pm

Mike Rundle Says:

Guys, I totally agree and it’s odd that I didn’t think of that explanation before. I think there are two things going on here:

1: People are complaining because they don’t see the value, thus they stay at the free plan.

2: Or maybe they’re biting the hand that feeds them.

Great call on #1 though, I totally missed that side of things.

March 19th, 2006 at 10:17 pm

Su Says:

I don’t have anything to add, other than that my immediate reaction to Fried’s comment was exactly the same as above. That statement sounds meaningful in isolation, but seems based on certain assumptions that are dangerous to accept without examination.
Of course, this is based on the assumption from your summary that it wasn’t looked into, so…

March 19th, 2006 at 11:14 pm

Robert Wetzlmayr Says:

The debate “complaints on a free service” partly misses the point.

Those who complain with expertise backed arguments add value to the product, because they *care*. They a part of your QA team.

It’s the stilent freeriders who are more likely to just leave the desk once they are fed up by features they miss or errors that annoy them, than the ones who put weaknesses of your product right into your face.

March 20th, 2006 at 1:54 am

Dennis Bullock Says:

I agree….that is sort of like being dinged on a review regarding the elements that are perks that you are giving your cusotmers, the cream, the extra 25% in the 125% your are laying out.

March 20th, 2006 at 3:20 pm