Brian Korte is an artist pioneering a new and fun medium. He builds mosaics – big pictures – out of LEGOs.

I can remember the time he told me he was working on his first one – a portrait of two of his friends who had recently married. With limited expectations, I took a look, and WOW! pretty darn cool!

What’s really interesting about his LEGO art, is that once you understand HOW he does it, unlike other forms of art that so often require freakish talent, most anyone could do this with his level of precision.

He has leveraged this sense of attainability to create a following of enthusiasts. Kids can (and do) actually help him complete his work.

Now he has built a growing business called Brickworkz out of this form of LEGO art, and by all indications, he’s doing quite well. You should have a look. He’s being commissioned to build his mosaics for individuals and businesses around the country, and he’s creating a growing buzz.

I mention this for two reasons. First, he’s a creative inspiration, and he’s succeeding at breaking into the crowded art community in a new and exciting way. It’s worth watching.

Second, and more to the point of this post, he wrote something recently that highlighted a phenomenon that has intrigued me for several years now as a marketer. It is a counter intuitive quirk of human nature that many of us marketers should recognize and exploit.

Let me set the stage for you. Brian’s at a show/exhibit in Chicago displaying his work, and yes – teaching others how to do exactly what he does. Remember – once you know his methodology, you too could produce Brian Korte caliber LEGO art.

He describes his workshop, and the resulting revelation, beautifully:

“The first “Intro to Mosaics” session I hosted was very informal…. So, I fielded questions, explaining the methods of mosaic building. This is one of those situations where free advice surprisingly does not mean you lose your stance among your market. Contrary to popular belief, if someone takes the time to explain all the technical and subtle nuances of brain surgery to you, you just gained a new appreciation and respect for the surgeon, and despite your new knowledge, you still want THAT GUY to do the operation. Why? We may never know. But education is never a wasted thing. It’s strange, but give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he still wants you to fish for him tomorrow. Hey, I’m not complaining. It’s paying the bills! ”

This is not the first time I’ve seen this phenomenon at work. I had a similar conversation with one of the Eisenberg brothers who founded Future Now. They are masters of online conversion, and they dispense their proprietary techniques in shocking detail in their books, newsletter and web site.

One day, while at one of the Future Now workshops gobbling up all that they had to say, I asked, “Why do you give away your secret recipes to people who could be potential buyers of your services?”

Eisenberg replied, “It is a universal law. The more you give it away, the more people want to buy it.”

A leap of faith? Yep. It’s not intuitive. But it works.

Sure, some trade secrets must remain in the vault. But a lot of what we in business consider our secrets may be put to more productive (and profitable) use if we shared them with the public.

I have a few thoughts on why this may be. When you openly share your secret how-to techniques:

1. You convey a sense of confidence that - try as I may, I can’t do it as well as you can. I now understand and appreciate what you do, so who better to hire to do it for me?
2. People gain an appreciation for what’s required in your field of expertise to be successful and conclude that it’s easier to outsource.
3. You become the authority. People trust those from whom they learn.
4. Even if you are not, you appear as the pioneer… the originator of the concepts you are sharing.

I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on this, but here’s my suggestion. Revisit what you regard as trade secrets, and consider publishing them for the world to see. It works.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 3rd, 2007 at 3:39 pm and is filed under Infinite Return Marketing, Real-Time Case Studies, Sales & Business Development, Marketing Principles, Customer Experience. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.