57 Meditations on Kicking @$$ in Business and Life"4.8/5 stars" on Amazon
“Alienate the Non-Prospect” to Truly Dominate Your Market
Tweet CommentIs attracting people to your product always a good idea?
No!
No, attracting potential customers isn’t always a good idea because there is a cost to attracting certain prospects.
Apple is ok alienating 80%+ of computer prospects (represented by PC/Windows guy on the left) in order to attract hipper prospects like the Mac Guy (on right).
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Sunday, December 9th, 2012
My Recent Speech On “Personal Branding” For AMA @ ING Cafe
Tweet CommentI gave a speech on Personal Branding to the American Marketing Association (San Francisco) (thanks, Brian Kerr!) on Nov. 20th at the ING Direct Cafe.
Some of you asked for the slides of the show.
Here’s the Powerpoint slide show via Slideshare and then below that are some notes from the speech:
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Monday, July 23rd, 2012
A Long List Of Words In Our Brains That Brands Own
Tweet CommentThe average American knows about 12,000 words (though Shakespeare was said to have had known 66,000) — the best brands are ones that own the most market share of a couple of those words.
CNN owns “news” in my brain. When I think of “reggae,” it’s Bob Marley — he owns it. There’s an awesome analysis of this in Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind (they discuss the concept of ladders (product categories) in your brain with room for just a handful of rungs (brands) — it’s the primary reason I voted it one of the Top 20 Best Business Books Of All Time!).
Who cares? Well, if your business wants market share of something, you have to decide which words you are going to try to “own” in my brain. …
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Monday, September 26th, 2011
5 Basic Rules To Consider Before Naming Your Product
Tweet CommentI re-read the must-read marketing book Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind (#13 on my 20 Best Business Books Of All Time list) over the summer.
It inspired this simple list of naming tips (which I think is a good foll0w-up to 5 Tips On How To Name Your Brand To Be As Dominant As Kleenex).
How To Name A Product: 5 Basic Rules To Consider
1) Include Your Prospect’s Major Benefit (Or Pain & Urgency)
Close-Up Toothpaste shows a clear benefit about making your teeth look better.
Shake ‘n Bake (for cooking chicken) tells you the two simple steps — you shake (the herbs) and you bake (the chicken) — to make tasty chicken.
You may also consider the pain or urgency that your customer has.
For example, if you have dandruff and you want to address the flakes on your shoulders as well as shampoo your hair, Head & Shoulders shampoo is a darn good name.
2) Be Almost, But Not Quite, Generic
Microsoft names its product because it focused on “micro”-computer “soft”ware.
Kentucky Fried Chicken is self-explanatory. People Magazine is pretty good too.
But don’t go too generic, warns the book Positioning: “Lite” beer from Miller was the industry leader but it lost its brand positioning when other beers co-opted the name (Bud Light, Coors Light, etc.).
The law sided with those competitors since “Lite” is generic and so similar to “Light” (as in opposite of heavy).
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Saturday, February 19th, 2011
The 20 Best Business Books Of All Time
Tweet 3 CommentsMy brother-in-law Rich recently asked me for my favorite business book. I had a tough time answering because a slew of book titles raced through my mind.
Well, make room on your bookshelf because I dove in and came up with 20 top business books below:
The Best Business Books Of All Time
1) Poor Charlie’s Almanack
If I had to pick just one business book for folks to read, it would be this illustrated tome by Charlie Munger — Warren Buffett’s long-time right-hand man — with its folksy and entertaining tales of business and life (see Charlie Munger Quotes for a taste).
There’s plenty of Buffett tips in here too so you get two-for-one! …
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