Author: k

When I’m drafting up a business plan
or trying to understand a new-to-me industry,
I often use Porter’s Five Forces as a checklist.

The five forces affecting any company or industry are;

Potential Entrants
Profitable industries draw competitors.
Are there barriers to entry such as high capital costs or government policies?

Competitive Rivalry
More competitors in a shrinking marketing will affect profitability.

Substitutes
Can and do customers switch easily between substitute products?

The Bargaining Power Of Buyers
The less buyers there are, the more control they have.

and

The Bargaining Power Of Suppliers
Again, less suppliers, more control they have.

I listened to a two hour discussion
between a factory worker and his young protege.
The older man had been with the company
for over 20 years.
He knew just about everything from
the number of gallons per hour
each employee was required to produce
to
the minimum safe distance
a floor worker could stand away
from the machines.

The only piece of information he didn’t know?
What the product was.

Seriously.
He had no idea.

Yes, he could have been working
on a top secret product,
but after years spent on plant floors,
I think it more likely no one ever told him.

What a waste.
He could have spent the last two decades
coming up with product improvements.

My first novel, Breach Of Trust, launched May 1st.
My second novel, Invisible, will launch February 1st.
Because each of these products is unique,
the transition of marketing resources
between the two is easier.
Marketing the new novel
does not supercede the other.
There can even be overlap.

Marketing a replacement product
is more challenging.
What I do is
have maintenance marketing only
in the transition period.

How long should the transition period be?
It depends on the average product turnover.
I like to give it at least a month.

A month in a customer’s mind
is forever,
long enough to forget
that you marketed the old product
as being the “best ever”.

Have you ever seen an invention
and thought “I could have come up with that?”
Odds are,
that is untrue.

The reason no one thought of that invention before
was because that entrepreneur had the unique combination
of skills and insights
to uncover it.

On ChurchOfTheCustomer,
David Vinjamuri, author of Accidental Branding,
talks about how most successful entrepreneurs
came to realize that
“he or she was uniquely position to solve a problem.”

Does that mean you’re out of luck?
No.
Because you also are in a unique position
to solve a problem.
You simply haven’t uncovered the problem yet.

I wanted to add business quotations
to a couple of my sites.
I am constantly collecting quotations and
thought others would enjoy them also.

I had a choice when setting up.
I could incorporate the quotations
into my established sites or
I could build a new site and link to it
(via the handy dandy widget on the sidebar).

One lesson I had drummed into me
during my time at
a certain beverage company
(number 4 on the
Brandz Top 100 Most Powerful brands listing)
was when in doubt,
separate.

Why?
Because now I’m building
two brands instead of one.

When you develop a product,
think
“can this be run independently?”
and
“how can this be designed in?”