This is indeed a beautiful song by Dr. John, but it doesn’t have to be like this in business or in life. Synchronicity in these cases is of paramount importance and a major factor for success.

Allow me to share an experience with you that has to do with the above ie. the synchronicity of time, place and mood state. As every Saturday morning, I took my kids to the swimming pool for their swimming class. After they got into the water, I rushed together with the rest of the parents in the cafeteria for grabbing my morning coffee when I noticed the below booklets on the bench.

The 2 different booklets included the first 3 chapters of the books from Paula Hawkins and Veronica Roth respectively. What a simple move that embraces all aspects of good sampling

1. In the right place: the swimming pool is packed throughout the day with parents of young kids. In other words Psichogios Editions have very efficiently identified where their Target Group is.
2. At the right timing, as the people in this target group have at least 40′ before their kids finish training
3. At a sweet mood state, as the consumers are relaxed and available for this 40′ interval. Therefore they are receptive on reading the booklet or in other words accept the sample.

I also liked this move, as it reminded me a bit of Amazon’s way of working. Amazon obvious reason for success is low price due to non existence of a bricks and mortar store. Besides that, it was Amazon that brought the bookstore to consumers and not the other way around. This is exactly what happened here as the booklet/book sample went straight to the consumer without having him to visit a bookstore. Psichogios brought a small portion of their store directly to the consumer. You know what they say, the hardest customer is the one not entering your store.

I leave you with a final remark about synergies – a key notion for every leader in the broader sense. Psichogios Editions used cleverly multimedia; the QR code featured on Veronica Roth’s book sample cover (Insurgent – ελλ. Ανταρσία), pointed to the trailer from the movie based on the book. In this way they visualized the content of the book and facilitated possible lapsed readers who would still enjoy reading books but for some reason have stopped doing so. In this sense Psichogios provoked anticipation to them for the story of the book with the aid of an expensive marketing tool (like the movie trailer is) that serves as an advertising copy for the book as well (but the movie producer has paid for).

To cut the long story short, if customers don’t enter your store, think about the right time / occasion / location and get the store to them.

It’s exactly like the popular Mohamed and the Mountain proverb in Greece.