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Back to #400 The Stubborn Genius of James Dyson, with David Senra.

How Did James Dyson Sell the Dual Cyclone?

David Senra says James Dyson sold the Dual Cyclone by telling the story of how the vacuum was made. Once a product is beautiful, the way to sell it is to educate people on how it is made, how it is designed, and why it is designed. People buy stories.

Walk into a store and six vacuum cleaners sit in a row. Five look very similar. The sixth looks strange and has no bag, so it catches the eye. Hanging from the handle is a story leaflet, a small booklet of a couple of hundred words about the Dual Cyclone. Dyson reckoned that if people were going to spend 200 pounds on a cleaner invented, engineered, and designed by one person who was personally accountable for every one sold, they had a right to know who he was. Being a bloke who made and cared about vacuum cleaners was a selling point. Retailers hung one booklet on every Dyson in the shop. Customers read the story, and then they bought the vacuum cleaner.

Examples of people buying stories go back 200 years in the history of entrepreneurship.

Grokipedia·David Senra·James Dyson

Transcript

#400 The Stubborn Genius of James Dyson ·

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  1. What Is James Dyson's Business Philosophy?David Senra, reading James Dyson's two autobiographies, says the business philosophy is difference and retention of total control.
  2. Why Does James Dyson Skip Experts and Just Build?David Senra says James Dyson learned from Jeremy Fry to skip the calculations and the experts and just build, and Senra thinks the habit is now foundational…
  3. Why Did James Dyson Become So Competitive?David Senra, reading James Dyson, says the loss of Dyson's father made him very competitive, and the response became a principle he kept: difference for its…
  4. Why Does James Dyson Refuse to Sell a Half-finished Product?David Senra, reading James Dyson, says selling a half-finished product dooms a project from the start.
  5. Why Does James Dyson Refuse to Copy What Already Exists?David Senra, reading James Dyson, says Dyson refuses to copy what already exists because following the herd is more dangerous than building something better.
  6. Why Did James Dyson Start His Own University?David Senra says James Dyson started a university of his own because he was not getting anywhere with the education system in his quest to raise the number…
  7. How Many Prototypes Did James Dyson Build?David Senra says James Dyson built 5,127 prototypes of the world's first cyclonic vacuum cleaner, and that it took 14 years. A clever person does not do that.
  8. Why Did James Dyson Build the Vacuum Himself?David Senra says James Dyson dropped licensing and built the vacuum himself after almost all of the license agreements failed and precious time was wasted.
  9. How Did the Dual Cyclone Lead to Later Dyson Inventions?David Senra, reading James Dyson, says the Dual Cyclone led to later Dyson inventions because developing that first vacuum cleaner over the next dozen years…
  10. What Kind of People Does James Dyson Admire?David Senra says the people James Dyson admires are obsessive, impractical, product-driven enthusiasts, and Dyson belongs in that group.
  11. Why Didn't James Dyson Sell His Company?David Senra reads James Dyson's reason for refusing to sell once the company succeeded. Dyson did not set up the company to make money.

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