50,000 satisfied customers.

With that sort of value for $, very hard to beat.

At the end of the day, its all over delivering value to the customer.

Can have the best website in the world with all the bells and whistles, but if you cant even deliver on the primary need, then I think, not even the best marketing advice can help you.

I think being focused, being genuine and sincere would be effective if that’s what your audience goes for. In the case of the world of education, I think being professional and qualified is often seen to be more important than being genuinely keen in teaching and imparting knowledge. You can’t be granted tenure at a university as a professor if you don’t have a PhD – even if you do know more than the average professor on the block.

Good point there. I think what you mean would be originality and rawness versus a highly packaged product. Perhaps the definition of Real could be repropositioned as Amateur?

Thanks for the comment and the link. I believe Seth’s point above is that slickness and polish has a certain impact only up to a certain point. Beyond that, it may be a case of marginal returns (eg a 1 billion dollar house versus a 2 billion dollar house).

Having read another good book – The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb – I am also a little sceptical about the chart above.

Thanks for your support! We are trying to differentiate ourselves from the others by adopting original approaches as far as possible. It is a challenge trying to lead the pack all the time, but we can’t stop trying.

If the definition of slick is something manufactured, then I’d agree. But I believe that real and remarkable (done with high quality) need not be exclusive. Many pieces of literature are real and written powerfully.

I wonder though, about the graph. Does increased slickness inevitably lead to declining perception?

Your competitors are all gearing up to get their share of the pie. I’m very impressed with NHB for coming up with quite a number of good marketing ideas and campaigns and keeping up with the times. Others are also catching to the ideas. 🙂