January 2010 – client k

Corporate Pissing Matches

Big companies are often run
by folks with big egos.
Get two big egos together
and eventually
that relationship will end up in a pissing match.

The latest pissing match is between
Amazon and
one of their key business partners
Macmillan.
Amazon has pulled all Macmillan titles
from sale.

Amazon affiliates are sad.
Macmillan authors are sad.
Other online booksellers
and other publishers are not.

The savvy ones are taking advantage,
using these few days
(pissing matches last days at the most)
to grow their business
and their market share.

Some day in the future,
your industry leader will also
become distracted
with a pissing match.
Are you prepared to take advantage
of it?

What Is The Greatest Risk You’ve Ever Taken?

Forbes has a wonderful article
on the greatest risks
successful people
have ever taken.

Many of the enterpreneurs
have forgoing compensation
during building years
as their greatest risk.
Not only their compensation
but everyone on their team.

Co-founder of Flickr Caterina Fake’s team
went without salary for two years.

50 people in Tim Westergren’s Pandora Radio
deferred salary for over two years.

Would you give up two years of salary
to make your business a success?
Do you believe in it enough
to ask others to do the same?

What is the biggest risk
you’ve ever taken?

A software company
recently launched a new program
aimed at assisting insurance brokers.
The program was slightly superior
to the others out there.
However,
the interface was so new and different,
it required initial training to use.

The brokers didn’t have time
for training.
Although they wanted the improvements,
the improvements weren’t important enough
to them
to warrant changing their habits.
They had choice.

They tried the system once,
didn’t like that first experience,
and then switched to a competing system.

The average person
(and I am certainly an average person)
is lazy,
wants instant results,
and has choice.

If your prospects have to learn
how to use your product
before they get results,
your product has to be
so good, so innovative, so status boosting, etc
that it is their ONLY choice.

Focus On One Target Market

Tim Berry has a list
of 10 tips
for starting a business quickly.

His #1 marketing message?
“The most important concept
in marketing is focusing
on a well-defined target market.”

I agree.
The world is big.
Trying to compete everywhere
with start up resources
will result in your business
making no impact.

Focus, dominate, expand.
That was how
many of the global businesses today
were founded.

Tomorrow’s Leaders

When I was in high school,
a teacher once told me
‘you’re one of tomorrow’s leaders.’

I was a bit irked
(I was a teenager,
everything irked me)
because I wasn’t waiting for tomorrow
to lead.
I already considered myself a leader.

A family member mentioned
that her son really wanted to skate
but she wanted him to wait
until he was older.
I asked her if they made skates in his size.
Her answer was ‘yes.’

One of the romance sites
did a poll of
what era readers
would most want to live in.
The results were split
between the past and the future.
There was only one vote for today
(and that was mine).

The past is fixed.
You can’t do anything about it.

The future is based on the past
and the present.

That means you should concentrate
on today.
Don’t wait to lead.
Don’t wait to learn new skills.
Do it now.

Blue-Sky’ing

One of the projects
I was working on
died a swift death on the weekend
(I prefer swift ends to projects,
rather than long drawn out pain).
This project didn’t work at all.

Which is kind of exciting
because there is absolutely no baggage
left for me to cling to.

I’m looking at…

blue sky.

Blue-sky’ing is a wonderful part
of a new project.
It is when everything is possible.
There are no established processes
or mindsets or emotional history
to contend with.

It can be scary
but it is also very, very exciting.
It is also rare.

If you’re looking at blue sky,
treasure this moment.

2010 – The Year Of The Relationship

Susan Gunelius
at Entrepreneur.com
has her list of
top 10 marketing trends for 2010.

Many of her top 10 trends
center around relationships.
There are tactics for forging them
(social media/online video & mobile marketing),
and
there are guidelines for keeping them
(transparency and trust/less interruption, more value).

Relationships aren’t anything new
in business.
Those in sales
know that people buy
based on relationships.

What is new
is WHEN this relationship is forged.
It is now being built
long before the prospect
even expresses interest in the product.

I like to think of it as
a relationship from birth.

Pain And Pleasure And Marketing

One of the ‘rules’
in marketing
is that people move away from pain
and toward pleasure
so you market your product
as reducing pain
or increasing pleasure.

The Taser booth
at the Consumer Electronics Show
was a clear example
that all rules can be broken.

People (they were all males) lined up
to serve as the guinea pigs
during the Taser demonstration
(it was one of the most popular demonstrations
at the show).
The volunteers were tasered with enough force
that they fell to their knees.

‘Course you could argue
that the pain of not knowing
what being tasered was like
surpassed
the pleasure of not having
X volts of electricity
shot through your body.

One former guinea pig in the audience
told me
“You have to try it
at least once in your life.”

I passed on the opportunity
but many, many people didn’t.

Remember To Invoice

During her Consumer Electronics Show presentation
at the AMEX booth,
Anita Campbell reminded
business owners to invoice.

It seems like a silly reminder
except that,
as Anita relates,
20% of small business owners
have forgotten to invoice customers.

That is revenue
that you and your team
have worked hard
to sell in
and provide.

Collect upon it
(and use the cash to grow).

Google Profiles

One of the biggest pet peeves of authors
is having a common name
with someone else.
It means during Google Searches,
that author’s website
may not make the first page.

Duct Tape Marketing’s John Jantsch
during his presentation at the AMEX booth
on day 3 of the Consumer Electronics Show
insisted that every business
should be set up
on Google Profiles..

I agree.
It is fast (took me less than 2 minutes).
It is free.
It works.
Search for Kimber Chin
(in the U.S.)
and you’ll see my site at the bottom
of page one.

A perfect solution for authors
and for other businesses!

Month: January 2010