I think this tidbit comes from advice given to salesmen, and I think its useful in that context but not true.<p>Bad salesmen get caught up in the product. Good ones usually focus on the person buying. Also, focusing on &quot;the hole&quot; gives a salesman more latitude to influence the buyer&#x27;s reference products, prices and general buying psychology. This last point is only really important because people do not often buy holes, they buy shovels. In a buyer&#x27;s mind, a shovel has price, some features, a lot of reference and comparison points. Holes don&#x27;t. The involve labour and blisters and shovels and no point of reference. This is useful to a salesman.<p>Basically, people will have completely divergent prices they would be willing to pay to get a hole, depending on the instrument used to dig one for which they will be paying. This is the principle at work when a user won&#x27;t pay a 99c for online content unless it meets some incredible standard, but will walk out of a newsagent with a stack of magazines without much of a fuss.<p>That&#x27;s why there is a fundamental difference between selling an &quot;online course&quot; and an ebook, even if the content is similar. Books have a price. $200 is a very very expensive book (ripoff!), online courses don&#x27;t have a defined price.<p>So... uhmmm I disagree sir!   (glove slap, pistols at dawn, onlooking maidens) People do buy shovels.