Elegant Solutions

I am a residential architect. I have the idea to sell my
house plans via the web. My wife says, "You want to sell plans and there
are a million other sites out there? How are they going to find us? How are you
going to drive people to our site? How are you going to compete with the
well-established ones? How are you going to find out what house plans sell the
best? We only have 200 house plans. It's a lot of work and too big of a risk.
Your houses are regional (Northeast) and they are not great designs."

In the scope of it, she raises a lot of good points
which I was aware of but, excitement overtook me. So, I switched to "How To
Design Your Own Home CD". Then my wife says, "Fine, that's ok, but you
can only sell it for $15.95. Do you know how many you have to sell for us to
make money?"

As you can see, I am an expert on homes in the
Northeast. But I need an expert like yourself. I don't mind hard work, I
just want to go in the right direction.

So how do I ask for help?

Thank you very much,

Peter

I read his letter several times. I decided I
wanted to help "Peter" so I gave a lot of thought as to how I should
answer him. I sent him a fax which contains, what I consider, a brilliant
"Elegant Solution". My fax said:

Dear Peter,

There is no way I or anyone else can help you
with your marketing unless you are willing to divorce or murder your wife.

Gary C. Halbert

You know, I can hear a bunch of you laughing at my
advice... and... I must admit it is somewhat humorous. But, you know what else?
It's dead on correct.