I can tell you right now that you will find a way to tackle all these problems. I know this because of the way you respond to criticisms of your work. There's n

I can tell you right now that you will find a way to tackle all these problems. I know this because of the way you respond to criticisms of your work. There's not a single hint of defensiveness in your response. Kudos to you for seeking solutions, not defending mistakes! - On quantifying the benefits This goes back to that fundamental challenge of deciding how you want to sell. IMO — and this is just me — trying to quantify aspects like feel is a fool's errand. Feel is experience; communicate experience. How do you do that? I would focus on producing materials that appeal to the senses. Photos and video, primarily. Find ways to communicate the experience of using your product. Create visual associates with environments and traditions that your target buyer will identify with. - On competitors I like that you've recognized the problems with that copy. I would make an effort to acknowledge that your product is different than what these other companies produce. You want to create the feeling that there's something better out there, but you don't want to insult the buyer's historical judgement. Focus on creating confidence, even when talking about competitors. > If a person loves any knife they have, then it's a good knife. You have to find a way to work this statement in to your copy. It is a garage door sized gateway to selling against your competitor's weaknesses. Your knives are designed to be experience; to be loved. - On education I'd break all this stuff up. 1) Knives 101 should not start with any content dedicated to knocking competitors. I would move that copy to a separate document titled something like "What's different about these knives?" Then speak to the differences. Use language that speaks positively about your knives, but avoids explicit negative statements about competitors. Speak to the absence of the positive attributes your knives possess in your competitors' products. 2) When authoring your site's education materials, start from an outline and drill down in to details. As the details emerge, a structure should appear. You'll find lots of "one of these things is not like the other" moments. The content will naturally organize itself. 3) Don't overdo the education portion on your marketing site. Maybe you need a separate resource for education. I've been fortunate to work with some really incredible marketers, and any time I insisted that I needed to educate someone, I got shut down. Hard. I know it's a passion, but you may need to break it out in order for your marketing site to be effective. - On markets Maybe selling to chefs and home buyers is similar, but they strike me as very different. I would imagine that a chef is going to have a much greater depth of knowledge and feel for what they want. A chef will probably want to shop by steel type, because they will already be familiar with at least some of the types. Your ability to execute on both through a single site will stretch the limits of simplicity. My business is business procurement. Care to venture what the the sell through rate would be if we sent a consumer through our business procurement process in order to buy something? I'm not sure if negative sell through rates are possible, but we'd give it a good run! Likewise with professionals (chefs) vs home buyers. I would expect that the pro is going to come to the table with far more knowledge than a home buyer. They're not going to be compelled by an authenticity play. This is a tool for them. They're likely to know what they want and will value the ability to quickly find what they're looking for at a good price. You'll know whether I'm overstating the difference. You should make that judgement call though. - On pedigree and tradition Anyone who finds the pedigree and tradition elements of your product bullshit-y is not your buyer. They might speak loudly, but they're irrelevant. Based on the feel of your site, I'm guessing that you don't care to be Walmart or Target. The people who don't give a shit about pedigree and tradition are going to buy a knife at a retailer. They'll never value the qualitative aspects of your product, so you should discard their detractions. - On videos I think you're headed the right direction. I don't have any specific recommendations for you, unfortunately. The "Man at Arms" katana video is the most relevant thing I've seen to traditional Japanese forging techniques, but it's not at all appropriate for your site. Too bad the "The Birth Of A Tool" video isn't traditional Japanese. That's exactly the kind of video I would shoot for when selling to consumers. I think your overall idea and product selection is really spectacular. One of my brother-in-law's went to Le Cordon Bleu and is building a career in fine dining, so I have some exposure to his knife obsession :) If you'd like to keep in touch, feel free to email me. My domain is bradlanders.com, and my email is [my first name] @ bradlanders.com.