Last week there was a question in this Forum about waiting for hits. I didn’t have time to look closely at it right then (grrrrr!), but when I did get around to looking closely at it, it set up echoes of other discussions we’ve had on this topic. This seems like a good time to bring it all up again.
The simple answer to Gary’s question is, as several people said, that he hasn’t EMS’d enough. Everyone knows, 39 is too few bills, and two years is too long a time to spread them over, to have a reasonable chance that one of them will be hit. But then That’ll Do Pig went into a little bit more detail (and he was even kind enough to mention me – yes, where *am* I when needed?), where he started talking about specific numbers. If the sitewide hit rate is 10 percent, then on average one bill out of every 10 will get hit.
Does this mean that we can tell someone just starting out, that they can simply EMS 10 bills, and then sit around and wait for a hit? I think that it doesn’t. For one thing, on average one bill will get hit *eventually*. The bare hit rates say nothing about how soon it will happen, and WG has some really long sleepers.
For another thing, the one-per-ten is only an average. What if this particular group of 10 is one of the groups that doesn’t score a hit? The new person will probably think that entering those 10 bills was just a waste of time.
And, for a third thing, the sitewide statistics may not be a good description of any individual Georger’s experience. Too much depends on individual circumstances – most importantly marking style, spending pattern, and location – and some of those individual circumstances can make a very large difference to people’s hit rates.
In fact, it’s sort of a catch22oid (if I may coin a term) – without knowing the person’s basic hit rate we can’t say how long they might wait for a hit, but until they get a hit we can’t estimate their basic hit rate.
So, I’m afraid I’d still go along with the old WG rule of thumb. Entering 100 bills in one month often does it.
If you enter 100 bills in your first month and still don’t get a hit, then enter 100 more the second month. It will be unlucky if you don’t get a hit by then, but it happens.
In fact, I’ve heard of people waiting 8 to 10 months.
CM
User Profile