October 2007 – Page 3

How To Dress For Seminars

I went to a seminar after work two days ago.
About a quarter of the attendees
were in suits or blazers and
the rest were very casual.

An interesting thing happened
at the end of the seminar,
all the suits were talking to each other,
exchanging business cards.
There wasn’t a single casual dresser
in the group.

Why?
Because the suits knew
while the primary reason to attend
was to hear the presenter,
the secondary was to network, and
networking while looking one’s best
is more effective.

Prune Juice Sales

About a decade ago,
I pushed the beverage company
I was working for
to get into prune juice
(they resisted).

My thoughts were that
with the baby boomers aging and
the digestive issues that come with that,
prune juice sales would soar.

Classic, classic mistake.
Instead of focussing on the problem,
I focussed on the solution.

Prune juice isn’t booming
but sales of products
with probiotic cultures are.

Unbundling The Bundle

In the past,
to help the sales of a less marketable product,
we’d bundle it with a popular product.
Or to increase sales,
we’d offer BOGO (buy one, get one free).

Unfortunately bundling isn’t as successful
as it once was.

I was in a store on Saturday and
there was a BOGO sale.
Customer after customer insisted on
paying the BOGO price for a single purchase.
The clerk would say no and
the customers got irritated.
Some walked away from the sale completely.

Seth Godin explains
why bundling is no longer effective.

Answer Your Own Question

Over the weekend,
I was looking for an answer
to a very specific question.

I posted on several on-line groups,
emailed the world,
made phone calls.
Difficult to find the answer.
Took me about 14 hours of asking.
Then when I found it and
successfully applied it to my situation,
I posted the answer everywhere
I posted the question.

Why?

Sharing this knowledge
was a thank you for being able
to ask the question.

Repetitive Delays

I recently consulted at a business
that delayed its launch by a month…
for two years.

At first, the delays meant something.
There was disappointment by
investors, staff, media, prospective patrons,
and then the excitement rebuilt.
It made the papers.
It was talked about.

Two years later… not so much.
Now the deadlines not only meant nothing,
but were expected.
There was no push to meet them
because they “could always be moved.”

Set a deadline and meet it.
Move drop dead dates only when absolutely necessary.

Out Of The Trash

Working on the low budget promotional plan
for my May book launch and
one of the questions I ask myself is…
“How best to keep this item out of the trash?”

As long as the promotional vehicle
is out of the garbage,
it has a shot at being effective.

Accomplishing that could be as simple as
putting a motivational quote on the postcard
or financial ratios on the back of a business card.

It requires a little more money
but a lot more creativity.

Sucking The Greatness Out

Want great ideas,
great products,
great employees?
Then don’t punish concept failures.

Gil Schwartz in the April edition
of Men’s Health writes
“Managers who punish well-intentioned failure
eventually suck the greatness out
of their people.”

There really is no need for the big stick.
The people brave enough
to head a risky project,
are usually the same people
harshest on themselves.

Plus looking like a jacka$$
in front of the company
is punishment enough.

Hugh’s One Thing

Hugh at Gaping Void
talks about his one thing…

“One of the smartest moves I ever made
was to figure out that making money
indirectly off the cartoons
was far easier than trying
to make the money directly.
If I could teach gapingvoid readers just one thing,
that would be it.”

There are opportunities to make improvements,
to build wealth in every industry,
you merely have to uncover it.

Cast Your Hook

One of my favorite phrases is
“If you don’t buy a ticket, you can’t win.”

I feel better when I have
a possibility of having things happen.

Since deciding to focus on writing,
I’ve always had a contest entry,
a manuscript to be edited or
query letter out there.
If I didn’t, I knew I had no chance of being published.

Ovid put it more elegantly
“Let your hook be always cast,
in the pool where you least expect it,
there will be a fish.”

Send out a sales letter today.
Give your product a chance.

Be Unpredictable

We all have our routines.
We buy the same coffee
at the same Starbucks
at the same time.

But routines can be dangerous
because if all you are known for
is completing a certain type of task
or providing a certain product,
that is all you will be considered for.

In Stanley Bing’s “Sun Tzu Was A Sissy”,
he points out…
“Your enemy is presenting you
with new options and challenges every day.
If you respond in a wholly expected way each time,
you will become predictable,
and a predictable enemy is much easier to defeat
than one who treats his adversaries
to a surprise on a regular basis.”