For Sale: baby shoes, never worn

Whether you’re selling real estate on the beaches of Cabo for half a million dollars or a $10 e-book online, your sales message always needs to be backed by a BIG Idea.

Explaining what a Big Idea is can be tricky, but the goal of today’s email is to close that gap just a little, by looking at the concept through an unconventional lens.

Many have tried to explain the Big Idea concept. But in my humble opinion, no one captures its essence better than the legendary David Ogilvy.

Ogilvy created a checklist to determine if an idea qualified as a BIG IDEA:

1. Did it make me gasp when I first saw it?

2. Do I wish I had thought of it myself?

3. Is it unique?

4. Does it fit the strategy to perfection?

5. Could it be used for 30 years?

While reflecting on these five questions recently, I couldn’t help but think of Hemingway’s six-word story. It doesn’t check every Ogilvy box, but it captures something profound about Big Ideas: their ability to evoke strong emotion and spark endless imagination.

According to some accounts, Hemingway was sitting at a café with fellow writers when they bet him to write the shortest story in the world. So he took a napkin, scribbled down a six words line, and handed it back to them:

“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

That story stayed with me. I couldn’t stop repeating it in my mind, and every time, its power became clearer. In those six words, there’s a lesson about what makes a Big Idea resonate with the reader: emotion, curiosity, and room for the audience’s imagination.

When I first read the story, I imagined a black-and-white photograph: a young man, covered in coal dust, standing on the streets of Berlin. He clutches his baby’s perfectly clean shoes. The desperation in his face tells the whole story, but so does the piece of cardboard he’s holding in his other hand: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

I felt jealousy (why didn’t I come up with that?), awe, and sadness all at once.

But here’s the thing: the way I imagined the story is unique to me. It’s shaped by the context in which I first heard it. Without that context those six words might spark an entirely different reaction.

For example, imagine seeing the same line in a retail ad: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” In that case, it’s just a clearance sale. A deal, not a tragedy.

What Hemingway’s story demonstrates is that a Big Idea should provoke thought, evoke emotion, and linger in the minds of your audience, whether for six days, six months, or six years.

As Ogilvy’s checklist reminds us of the perfect BIG Idea concept, Hemingway’s six words show us another truth: even if it isn’t perfect by every metric, an idea that resonates deeply is always worth pursuing.

Now, let me hit you with another idea, not quite as big, but an idea nonetheless.

If you know someone looking for help with copywriting or scriptwriting, I currently have an open spot for a client, and I offer a generous referral fee. So, if you send them my way, you could make a few bucks along the way.