“Selling like hot cakes”

Where does the expression “selling like hot cakes” actually come from? And more importantly, what can we learn from it before this becomes a nonsensical piece about bread?

Four things we know about rolls:

• Virtually everyone eats bread, so the demand is already there.
• Rolls are nicer when they are warm.
• It takes more energy to sell them hot than cold.
• They sell better when they’re warm.

Lesson 1: the question must already be there

The first point is the one that everyone overlooks. Warm rolls sell well because people want bread. The warmth makes an existing demand more appealing; it does not create that demand.

Marketing translation: advertising amplifies what is already there. If there is no demonstrable interest in what you are selling, running a campaign is an expensive way to find that out. You can figure that out much more cheaply by talking to customers or by testing your offer on a small scale.

Lesson 2: sell what people want, not what is easy for you to supply

Cold rolls are simpler. No oven, no timing, no fuss. And precisely for that reason they sell less well.

Much of what is on offer is structured around what the provider finds convenient to deliver, rather than what the customer actually wants. This can be recognised by offerings that are organised according to the internal structure instead of the customer's problem. Anyone who has to figure out which department deals with their query has already been put to work before becoming a customer.

Lesson 3: the effort is the distinction

If everyone is selling cold and you are selling warm, then that extra energy is precisely your advantage. Not because warm is objectively better, but because the rest aren't doing it.

That also applies to the things in marketing that are called “too much work”: a separate ad for every problem, a quote that describes the customer's situation instead of your own service, a case study page including the basis for comparison rather than just a percentage. Each one more work, each one rare, and therefore effective.

The question that remains

Do you sell hot or cold rolls? And do you sell rolls at all, or something for which demand still has to be created?

If the answer to that last question is uncertain, that is no reason not to advertise. It is, however, a reason to find that answer first, because that determines whether your campaign will capitalise on existing demand or has to create it. These are two different campaigns with two different benchmarks, and confusing the two is the most costly mistake in this business.