Simplify chemistry…Something old…
Simplify chemistry…By visualizing it
The idea that chemistry is uber technical is nonsense. The fact is, it’s pretty darn logical. If you think about it at its most basic level, it’s almost mechanical in how it tends to work. Here’s a simple example: the water hardness that we deal with every day.
Water is a solvent. Simply put that means it has the ability to dissolve most solids. Since much of the bedrock that water flows through is limestone, that material (calcium chloride) is dissolved by it and ends up as hardness. We remove that hardness with the use of salt (sodium chloride) in a water softener.
It works because sodium in that salt is more soluble than the calcium molecule of the calcium chloride. It also has a stronger magnetic type attraction to the chloride molicule than calcium does. That’s why the calcium swaps it’s place in the softener. The water enters containing dissolved calcium chloride and exits with dissolved sodium chloride. The water that’s backwashed contains the calcium chloride and the soft water flowing out of it is now essentially weak salt water.
Chemistry is all around us. Heat accelerates every chemical reaction. We know sugar dissolves faster in hot coffee faster than in ice tea. Perspiration allows evaporation that cools us on a hot day. Examples are everywhere, and we understand them in logical versus mysteriously academic ways. And that’s why the better way to approach chemistry is visualizing its’ mechanics and not its’ math.
Something old …nd maybe forgotten
It’s funny how we’re prone to stop doing what’s worked well in the past. Perhaps it’s forgetfulness or maybe a bit of hubris. Either way it’s a mistake that can cost us opportunities and profits. Take that simple demo we did in our early days to sell oven cleaner. We sprayed it on a nice warm door and presto showed the buyer just how easy having a clean oven really was. Net result: a nice additional sale that repeated itself month after month without much effort.
Or perhaps it was the degreaser demo you did on
a quarry tile square that you topped off by taking your nice white handkerchief and wiping that tile to show there was no remaining soil. The chef was happy because he liked the non-slippery floor, and the owner liked the look of a once again bright red tile floor that eventually revealed the clean grout instead of a nasty black greasy strip.
Frankly whether it’s our hubristic pride or forgetfulness, there’s no excuse for not doing demos. The fact it’s still one of the most effective means to add sales to existing accounts and it’s often exactly the key to break into that new account that’s so far resisted all our efforts to sweet talk them into joining our world.