How waiting patiently in a queue could help you sell more 3D Prints...

This article was taken from my weekly Friday Factory newsletter, where I share experience-based tips and strategies to help over 11,000 readers with 3D printing businesses, sell more 3D printed products...

I’ll just get straight to it.

?With the world “economic winter” we’re in right now, you’ll probably agree we business owners simply cannot afford to be on the “losing side”.?

?Because there’s a lot of business “help” out there, but virtually none of it relates to the specific pros and cons associated with a business utilizing 3D printing.?

?And even less of it by someone who's repeatedly done what they’re talking about both for their own and others…

?To kick-off, I wanted to share a short story with you that illustrates something that a lot of people get wrong.

Hopefully keeping this in mind will help you save more money and/or make money or simply make better decisions faster, in your business.

A few months back in summer 2020 (between the first and second wave), my wife and I took our kids to a theme park. They’d only just opened after putting in loads of COVID restrictions, and we were lucky to get tickets.

Walking around, it was clear they were running at very limited capacity, and the queues for the rides seemed way longer than usual.?

Wasn’t long before my 5-year-old daughter excitedly dragged me to stand in line for a ride, on one of those big swinging wood-style pirate ships, and we found ourselves in like, the longest queue ever…

That’s because we were spaced out 2 meters between everyone. Combine that with the ride attendant frantically having to anti-bac spray the ride down between each round of passengers, and at first sight, it seemed like we were going to be in the queue for about, well, forever.

Now I’m a numbers guy. That might sound boring, but I like to make most of my decisions with basic maths.?

I’m pretty analytical and I like to know the cost/benefit ratio when comparing anything it often annoys my team when they ask me about a simple decision.

So as soon as we joined the queue, I wanted to have a rough idea of how long we’re gonna be waiting. That’s just me, maybe you’re the same - or maybe you think I’m nuts.?

Either way, there’s a powerful point to this story…

(1) So first I count the seats (or capacity they’re using) for the ride. It holds about 18 people. Then I count how many people are in the queue. Which is 45 - that leaves me knowing where we are in the queue (right at the back) and so we’re going to be on the 3rd “session” from now.?

Now to work out a rough time estimate - (2) I just need to know how long each ride session lasts, including the attendant walking around to spray all the seats, etc.?

So over the next few minutes, I covertly time him from my solitary place at the back of the queue to get my data.?

No no, don’t think creepy guy staring with a stopwatch - I liked to think more like James Bond on reconnaissance.?

...except instead of a martini in hand, I was standing next to a small girl already asking about going to the toilet and when lunch would be.?

(Really?! Like we’ve literally just got in the queue...)

Anyway, while I’m timing the attendant. You know, so I know how long I’m gonna be here waiting, another family joins the queue behind us.?

After about 90 seconds the guy, whom I’m gonna assume was dad, angrily and loudly says:?

“This is ridiculous, he’s letting like 10 people on at a time, and looking at the number of people it’s gonna take about an hour from here to get on…”?

His wife nods in agreement, and about 2 minutes after they’ve just joined the queue they drag their two disappointed kids away, presumably to go on and not go on some other ride in the park.

Now here I want to point out, that I wasn’t judging the guy. He was in fact, thinking along the same lines I was, except for one vital difference (which you might have guessed).?

So just shortly after he left, I had my final statistic - everyone got off the ride and I now knew how long each “session” took, which was about 5 minutes (and way less time than the guy before assumed with his calculation).

And from all that, I knew our waiting time was gonna be approx 3 x 5 mins, 15 mins from now.?

Yeah, quite a long time, but not unbearable. And definitely nowhere near the 1-hour estimation, the other guy had.?

Now you might be thinking - so what, what does it matter if you now know you’ll be on the ride in 15 minutes? Well, for a few important reasons:

I felt happy enough that (3) the 15 mins waiting time was worth the 5 mins of ride time. If I really did think we’d have been there an hour, I’d probably have reacted just like the other guy and then tried to advise my daughter so she could make her own decision...

We therefore would have made an accurate decision based on data, instead of guessing.

And so, most importantly...

Because we had a good idea, we didn’t throw away time working on the wrong thing like the other guy. You just know he’s gonna take that same biased decision-making philosophy to each ride they go to, and his poor family is going to suffer and miss out on loads of stuff they would have otherwise loved to have gone on.

And you know what? I see this in business all the time. People have the right intentions, but they make decisions based on the wrong (or incomplete) metrics.?

So they spend way too much time, working on the wrong stuff.

They don’t take a few moments to focus on the actual numbers, the data - like what the market is telling them, before making unfortunately an emotional decision that negatively impacts their business and their lives.?

And I often find, that how you make one decision is how you make most decisions.?

I see it with people with their 3D printing-based businesses so often. For example, they guess what they think the customer wants, instead of getting super clear on it.

They guess their next move, instead of solving the problems they're facing in sequence (I’ll address the huge importance of sequence in the next posts).?

So I’ll leave you with this; take the emotions away, don’t hang on to “old ways” for no reason, and likewise don’t chase unproven ways. You’ll waste time and effort working on the wrong things.?

Anyway, I’m out of time for this week, so I hope this has given you some food for thought about how you make decisions based on your business.?

Thanks for reading this far!

If you found this post helpful, please do take a second to hit comment.

I’d appreciate hearing if you found it useful to you and your business.

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