The book
Why don’t people move when the solution is right in front of them? Because you are trying to sell something you cannot sell: a decision that someone else has to make. This book follows that question from a kitchen table in the Netherlands to a call centre in Manila, and arrives at a model everyone already knows.
You can read chapter 1 in full, for free. Not an extract, not the first page. The whole chapter.
The claim
What fuel, oxygen and heat do for fire, stake, trust and urgency do for a decision.
Three conditions make it possible. Only an event makes it real. With wood we call that a spark; with people, a moment of decision.
The contents
Two parts. From the discovery to the method: why people do not move of their own accord, and how you design the conditions in which they do.
Why people do not move of their own accord.
Eight steps, and why the order decides everything.
Not a promotion. Not an introductory price. This is what it costs.
Nineteen chapters, 575 pages, twenty years of practice. Epub and pdf, straight to your inbox, no account with anyone.
Part I is free. If that does nothing for you, don’t buy the rest.
From chapter 19
In the nineties I worked at British Rail on the Eurostar project. I was allowed to shadow the marketing director as part of my studies.
What struck me was about photographs. Newspaper stories about Eurostar regularly ran a picture of the Shuttle — the car-carrying train, a completely different product. Including on critical pieces.
So I asked why we didn’t correct it.
“I don’t want too many people wanting to travel on Eurostar. We won’t have enough capacity at the start.”
I nodded. Because that sounded logical. You have a limited number of seats, you don’t want to create demand you can’t serve.
There was no stupidity in that answer at all. And it was completely wrong.
At the opening they were counting on ten million passengers a year by 1998. In 1995 it was 2.9 million. That ten million was reached — in 2013.
Meanwhile carriages were built for two services that never ran. Not a single paying passenger. In 2000 they were sold to a railway company in Canada.
On one side someone holding back demand for fear of too little capacity. On the other, capacity built for trains that never left. The same wrong assumption, running both ways at once.
FIRE INSIGHT
Not the wrong step.
The wrong order.
People first have to know dát something exists. Then understand wat it does. Then be able to ervaren whether it works. And only then are they willing to betalen.
Four steps. You can’t skip one. Eurostar skipped the first two, out of fear of the fourth.
The figures in this piece are public and sourced at the back of the book. What I saw in London and what was said to me there is my own recollection.
Ordering
Part I is and stays free. If you want the other twelve chapters, this is the way.
E-book · epub and pdf
Paperback · autumn 2026
Company edition · price on request
The Dutch paperback falls under the Dutch fixed book price act. Discounts are not permitted by law, except on orders of 100 copies or more.
The e-book
All nineteen chapters, plus the summary at the back. Epub and pdf, in your inbox straight after payment. Twelve ninety-nine, and it stays that way.
Payment runs through Mollie — card, PayPal or iDEAL, whatever is normal where you are. I never see your details. If something doesn’t work, email me and I’ll send the book manually.
The paperback
I’ll be straight about where this stands.
The manuscript is finished. It is with the editor. After that it goes to the designer and only then to the printer.
So I know what the book is, but not yet when it lands on your doormat. And I’m not going to take money for something I can’t date.
What I do want to know is how many people want it. The first print run depends on that, and too small a run means months waiting for a reprint.
Hence this list. It is the oldest way of publishing there is: people subscribe in advance, and then it gets printed.
On this page I am applying what chapter 7 describes.
I’m not asking you for a decision. I’m asking you for the smallest possible first step — one you can still walk away from tomorrow.
Your name on a list. No payment, no obligation, and one email when the book is ready.
If you change your mind then, that is fine. The fuel wasn’t there, and there is nothing to force about that.
Free · Part I complete
Chapter 1 is on this site. You get Part I complete as an e-book, all seven chapters: the complete model, the four trust questions, the fourth match and the design flaw.
And as soon as the whole book is ready, you hear first.
Next
Henk asks the first of the four questions and works out which of the three is missing. It costs nothing and takes three minutes.
FIRE INSIGHT
Waiting is the safest decision there is.Chapter 14 · Heat