Around the time that I launched Online Business School, I was in the market for a new laptop. I had recently made a lot of money in a very short time and it was time to invest in a decent work computer.

Conveniently, around this time, the lovely people at Apple released the MacBook Air. Because the MacBook Air is the most beautiful computer in the history of the known universe, it was at the top of my shortlist. Frankly, it WAS my shortlist. The guy at the genius bar would’ve had to take the candy out of my young son’s mouth while SIMULTANEOUSLY PUNCHING ME IN THE EYE before I gave any serious thought to crossing the floor and buying something else.

The funny thing is, though, when I was thinking of buying one, everybody and their mother was trying to convince me not to. My husband, my Twitter peeps, techie friends, the whole shebanga.

They said that it didn’t have the right drives or something. That I’d need to buy peripherals. That it wouldn’t fit in the little envelope any more if I had to buy a bunch of shit to go with it.

So now I don’t have a MacBook Air, but I don’t have a different new computer either. I wanted the MacBook Air and nothing else would feel the same. Apple didn’t get my money, but neither did the other guy.

Why? Assumptions.

Don’t assume what your target demographic wants.

The three main arguments people gave me for why I shouldn’t buy this computer were:

a.) it doesn’t have drives and stuff, meaning I can’t load software or listen to music while I worked or whatever,
b.) it’s too expensive,
c.) something to do with hard drives or memory or something. Networks might have been mentioned.

The problems with their arguments:

a.) I don’t even know how to open the CD/DVD drive on the computer I have now, and I’ve had it for 16 months.
b.) I don’t care.
c.) I don’t even know what that means.

It’s kind of like me telling Jamie he shouldn’t buy that raincoat because it isn’t pink.

This is what the rest of the computer industry is doing. They’re taking a bunch of numbers — hard drive numbers and graphics card numbers and memory numbers and God knows what else — and they’re screaming them at me as if they should mean something to me. But they don’t mean anything to me.

I don’t understand them, so I keep the computer I have.

The computer industry tries harder and harder to drill the numbers into my head, and I just keep ignoring them. They start advertising in Good Housekeeping instead of just Playboy, and I’m ignoring them. They decide to capture the female market by offering it in pink, but I’m still confused and overwhelmed and scared I’ll make the wrong decision so — guess what! — I’m still ignoring them.

Apple comes along and says that owning a computer can be fun again and buying it doesn’t have to suck. Apple says that I don’t need to become a tech geek or study or learn new stuff just to get a lovely new computer. Apple says they love me and respect me just the way I am, thankyouverymuch. Well, out comes the wallet! I’m in! In theory…

Don’t assume financial independence is total independence.

I am the MacBook Air’s dream buyer. I am young enough that I still care what my friends, my blog readers, my Twitter followers think of me. I can buy whatever I want to and not have to worry about a husband bitching about the expense. And thousands of people have voluntarily signed up to read what I write on a daily basis. To be perfectly honest, I’m surprised Steve Jobs didn’t hand deliver my free laptop and then take me out for Pinot Grigio.

But.

While Apple’s marketing was pretty damn good, it wasn’t perfect. I’m the right age and I have the right amount of money and I have a publishing platform. But I also have a husband, and he didn’t think it was a wise choice. He thought there would be tech dramas and that he would be the guy who had to fix them. And while I don’t let him make my financial decisions, I encourage him to help when it comes to stuff like this. It’s my money. It’s my laptop. But it’s his head it’s on if the whole thing goes pear-shaped.

So right now Apple’s done one thing right and one thing wrong. They understand that I don’t care about the technical specs — right. They didn’t understand that I’m not the only one responsible for this decision — wrong. We’re even, and even doesn’t sell computers.

Don’t assume objections are insurmountable.

What could they have done to tip the scales and make me buy it?

They could’ve convinced me that my husband was wrong.

I’m not going to try and write copy for Apple’s next marketing campaign, but here’s a thought. What if they told me that my husband is not the omniscient genius I think he is, but a well meaning guy who doesn’t really understand exactly what I’m looking for in a notebook computer?

What if they explained to me that this is the computer for non-geeks? What if they told me that I wasn’t crazy, that the other guys were getting it wrong, and that I should trust myself to know what I want out of life and computers?

Then Apple and I have a common enemy — the mean old people who sell normal computers, or maybe my husband, depending on how you look at it — and I come away from the ad saying, “YES! You’re so right! They DO think I care about those things when I really don’t! You DO understand that all I want is a fun computer!”

I was so goddamned close to buying that computer that I could imagine what it smelled like. They could’ve had me. But instead, they assumed that a person with a techie husband wasn’t going to be sold, so they didn’t try.

How is this affecting YOUR business?

What should you be doing that you’re not because you think it’s not worth it?

This is especially applicable when we’re in an economic downturn. (I swear, if I hear “credit crunch” one more time I’m going to do something drastic.) We think everyone’s broke so we don’t market, we don’t revamp our copy, we don’t advertise, we don’t call up old clients, we don’t do anything.

We assume nobody’s buying.

And that’s probably the worst assumption of all.

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Tune in next time to find out how you can lie, cheat and steal your way to getting free market research so this doesn’t happen to your IttyBiz. You could even subscribe to this blog and I’ll send it to you while you sleep.