Joe's Hotdogs video segment 5 of 9

Click on the title to watch the video on YouTube.

Once you get up there, you see other people – other people apparently enjoying themselves. That’s a sign.

Sometimes, all you need is to see or to know that there are other people like you (sometimes not like you) who are enjoying an experience – so much that you become interested in trying that experience. All that many consumers need to know is that there are third parties interested in what the seller offers, rather than being persuaded that they themselves should be the pioneer to try out the product.

Another lesson to learn from this story is that, sometimes, authenticity and uniqueness are themselves strong selling points. Homemade relish from locally-grown cucumbers might be all that some people need to get them to order a hotdog.

The relish isn’t necessarily claimed to be the best relish in the world, and it isn't necessarily award-winning relish, and nobody ever said that locally grown cucumbers are anything special. However, the novelty or uniqueness of homemade relish from locally-grown cucumbers is a draw for some folks. Authenticity is, generally, a draw for business. People like to buy the real thing.

If you can present what you are offering as the real thing, authentic or heritage or, in some way or another, attractive because of its novelty or specialness, then you do not need to convince the buyer that it is the best relish, or the best anything else, or that it is the cheapest. You don’t have to offer a guarantee or a warranty in some cases. Just the idea that it's authentic, that it's original, is enough.

I didn’t mention that the relish was good, but you ordered a hotdog, didn’t you? A veggie dog, that is. You read that the relish was homemade, which has an air of authenticity about it, and locally grown cucumbers sound like something special, too.