To Boldy Go Where No Marketing Has Gone Before

I am diabetic type I (insulin dependant) and have been so for 15 years. Each day I am supposed to use a meter to measure my blood sugar and record it into a "log book". The doctor then uses the book to determine my progress or to adjust the medication.

The nurse recently gave me a couple new free log books. The meter companies give them away like candy (ok sugar-free candy).

Imagine my surprise when I begin using it and every few pages there is an ad for one diabetic product or another. Coupons are even included which I would actually use. Absolutely brilliant marketing. Commercials have reached my LOG BOOK!

Why?

Where else are you going to be able to get your AD before the eyes of 100% of your target market; diabetics?

If the companies would have put ads in a magazine, the average of diabetics that would see it would be exactly the national average of diabetics; about 7% of the population.

Man if I would have thought of that I would be charging these companies a fortune to advertise because now 100% of their advertising dollars are used to reach 100% of their target market. Such a deal!

It is exactly like putting an ad for color prints inbetween shots on a digital camera. Or think of a printer that printed a coupon for 1/2 off your next ink cartridge at Staples at the end of the cartridge. Wow, the possibilites are endless.

As I always say, know they customer to the point of almost knowing their name. Then only advertise to them; not the rest of the world.

For more information on marketing, check out this great site: http://www.psychotactics.com/marketing-strategy

Whatever the Mind of Man Can Conceive...

When I first got my last job I was so excited. I used to ride the train with a good friend of mine and he asked me one day, "How is it going at the new job?"

I said, "Great! I am getting paid to think".

He says, "That's funny, I get paid NOT to think!"

Three years after he said it, I can see why he said it.

Businesses that are growing require a huge inflow of ideas to turn to cash. It is a SIMPLE process. Think of good ideas based-off business experience and turn it into cash as fast as you can. Refine the idea. Do it over and over and over. It's the nature of business.

However, once a business matures, the "ideas to cash" process turns to these policies or rules instead:

1) Do what you are told. We are the experts and we didn't think of it, so how could you have. (untrained, inexperienced managers stating this)
2) If you think of ideas to improve profits, write them down and put them in the suggestion box (in other words, trash!).
3) Ideas cost too much to implement. (when, in fact, they cost too much to not implement.)
4) We need to take that idea through the RFQ, RFI, blah blah process to determine its advantage to the company's bottom line. (in other words, bury it in paperwork).

The basis of Napoleon Hill's book "Think and Grow Rich" is "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve."



Always encourage these ideas to flow from your employees, friends and family and develop them FAST! Don't turn this money generating machine (the human mind) into, well, a robot.

Scare Yourself To Riches

I'm reading a book called, The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich. I'll cover many points from this book in the future but the one that stands out the most is the ability to push your comfort-zone everyday. In other words, do something daily that you fear doing.

Timothy Ferriss gives the example of asking a member of the opposite sex for their phone number. For me it is dealing with difficult customer interactions. It's taking every call even though I know some will lead to my blood pressure rising. It's also not being mister nice guy.

Why does he suggest doing these things that make you uncomfortable? Because it puts you in a catagory that 99% of the population is not in - success or the ability to achieve great things JUST BECAUSE YOU TRIED!

I will give you an example. Who do you think is going to be more successful and richer: a saleman that is not afraid to knock on any door in the city or someone selling ads on their blog that has never talked to a single person or had face time with one customer?

Both can be successful but the second is not pushing their fear limits daily. It is too comfortable.

There is nothing wrong with comfort but the problem with it is you are competing with 98 other comfortable people for that same dollar. Where if you were pushing the limits each time you interact with someone, there is likely NO ONE TO COMPETE AGAINST.

People are asking me if x business would be successful. I now ask, "Does it scare you to do it?"

If so, get ready for the riches.

Lost Billions

I was reflecting on the company I used to work for and had a thought...Their business inexperience cost billions in lost knowledge.

The company is composed of about 5000 offices all over the world and I worked at the head office for Canada, which employed approximately 200 people before I left. It had went through 10 or so years of extreme growth and never documented one successful action. It was my job to interview employees about their day to day business processes.

Some of the questions I would ask were, "Why do you do it that way? Is there a better way to do it? Faster? Uses less time, paper, etc."

Deer in the headlights look, ALWAYS!

Once you snapped your fingers they would usually answer, "Well we have always done it that way and I was told to do it that way. Yes there is better ways to do it but we are only trained and ordered to do it this way."

Upon investigation (I'm a good detective that always asks WHY IS IT DONE THAT WAY?) I find out that when the company was composed of 5 people or so, the now manager of a huge department set it up that way just to cope with the growth.

In other words, it was the only solution they could come up with on the fly...and this inefficient, expensive method of handling business remains to this day -- only repeated thousands of times per day instead of a few.

So the difficulty now is, the person that invented this method is now in charge! She insists it only be done that way and refuses all suggestions to do it better/faster/cheaper.

After years of interviews, it just got to be ridiculous. Here was a company that had 200 thinking employees, that worked with a completely out-of-date system, that could have designed a system that was 90% more efficient being told to forget about thinking about improvements and certainly DO NOT change things.

The most amazing part is, when I would interview the person that actually designed the system in the first place, they had no idea why they did it that way. They didn't know if it was a legal (regulatory) issue, head-office issue or it was the only colour paper they had at their desk that day.

One instance is they have 2 to 3 people photocopying papers ALL DAY just to have a record. Day after day for over 10 years. Imagine the costs! When I researched it, this entire action was not necessary, it was merely someones miss-interpretation of a legal recommendation. And even after they know this fact, it still goes on just because that's the way we do it, so it must be right.

Bottom line is, if the company would have encouraged improvements, documented them and quickly trained others on it, it would have made/saved them BILLIONS across 5000 offices.

How does this apply to my business? I document my system. I document the policies and why they were made. I look for improvements. I am not going to lose the knowledge and thus future billions the way they did.

Some Good Articles About Business Stages

Charting Your Business Timeline by Entrepreneur Magazine.

Day of Rest

Even the worst workaholic requires a rest now and then. Why? It recharges your batteries.

I used to train for bike races all year round until someone told me I needed a rest now and then. I said, if I rest, I get out of the groove. They said, if you don't rest you are not getting 1/2 the benefit of training, which is recovery. Operating on GO GO GO is actually very damaging to your body AND mind. I remember I used to use the mantra, "Time to Rest When Your Dead" whenever I would feel like stopping. Big mistake. Without the recovery you have no time to rebuild for the next battle and may just end up dead.

This morning I woke up with VERY sore hands and knees from a few days of 16 hour renovations. I was going to work for a few hours to get caught up but ended up kicking back watching TV and sitting outside in my lovely yard.

Man, talk about relief. I needed it, I know I needed it and finally didn't feel the guilt of not working 100% of the time.

So rememeber, rest and reflect now and then or go down in flames.

Business Board

I can highly recommend the following webboard to help you get advice and answers to your questions:

Richdad Community.