Friction is Bad

Some time ago I read a story (which may or may not have been true) about an employer who called multiple job applicants to the office for a morning interview. As time passed and the employer didn’t interview anyone, some of the applicants got tired of waiting and left. At the end of the day, only one applicant remained. That applicant got the job.

• The person who told the story thought that it demonstrated that perseverance pays off.
• Most of the readers thought that it demonstrated that the employer was a jerk and that the work environment was probably toxic.

If this were to happen in real life, the employer would paradoxically lose out on the BEST candidates who had better things to do than sit around an office all day.

Why?

Because people avoid friction. If job applicants can obtain jobs without playing silly games, they will.

Friction is bad.

The evolution of fingerprint capture

When I started in the biometric industry 30 years ago, many police agencies were capturing fingerprints by putting ink on a person’s fingers and rolling/slapping the prints on a card.

That was messy and time-consuming, so companies like Digital Biometrics and Identix developed “livescan” devices, which did not require ANY ink and which let police agencies capture fingerprints by rolling/slapping the prints on a glass platen. This process could require a minute or two for the livescan operator to capture all fourteen images.

That’s a long time.

As I’ve previously noted, it was TOO long for some people in the federal government, who began asking in 2004 if technology could capture a complete set of fingerprints in 15 seconds.

20 years later, we can capture fingerprints (at least 8 of them) in a couple of seconds.

How?

By avoiding friction. Rather than forcing people to place their fingerprints on a card or a platen, “contactless” technology lets the “wave” (or “fly”) their fingers over a capture device, or hold their fingerprints in front of a smartphone camera.

Friction is bad.

The sound of silence

Despite what lyricists say, silence is NOT your old friend.

When a prospect wants to find out about your biometric solution, how does silence help you?

Let’s say that a prospect hears that MegaCorp offers a biometric solution, but MegaCorp’s blog and social media haven’t posted anything lately.

What are the chances that the prospect will search far and wide to find out about MegaCorp’s biometric solution?

Actually, the chances are better that the prospect won’t search at all, and will turn to the competitors who are NOT silent.

Are you going to look for the information that is easily available, or the information that is hard to obtain?

Friction is bad.

Eating my own wildebeest food

I’m trying to reduce friction in Bredemarket’s own practices.

While I still use landing pages for some thing that require further explanation for some prospects, I’m trying to avoid them in some instances.

I’m working on a marketing campaign for a client, and my first “draft 0.5” of the campaign was loaded with friction.

• The prospect had to open an email.
• In the email, the prospect had to click on a landing page.
• On the landing page, the prospect had to fill out a form to book a meeting.

Huge numbers of people drop out of the process at every step. So why not eliminate a step, and let the prospect book a meeting in a form embedded in the email?

Friction is bad.

And I’m applying this same principle to this post.

If your identity/biometric firm is desperate for content to convert prospects into paying customers, why don’t you schedule a free 30-minute meeting with Bredemarket to discuss your needs and what I can offer?

Incidentally, while I often repurpose blog content on Bredemarket’s social media channels, this post WON’T be one of them. I can’t embed a Calendly form into an Instagram or LinkedIn post.

And I can’t embed YouTube videos either.