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Exclusivity

Thursday, December 27th, 2007

Exclusivity - Pricing, Business, StartupsSeth Godin has a great post on being exclusive, and how if you haven’t looked at it for your business – you should.

I have long been a believer in targeting products and businesses to an individual consumer.  Not in the sense of making everything personalized, but by nailing down a target market so tightly that it can be embodied by one person.

The same has been said about writing a book.  I have heard that if you write for a group of people, you will fall short of your mark, everytime.  But if you write for one person who embodies all those that you will be marketing too, you will hit dead on.  By trying to write to a group of people, you skew your message.  It isn’t a focused sales presentation – it is a train wreck of sales points that don’t really shine in one direction.

Likewise, in LIMITING the people who can partake in your product or service, you can focus all your efforts in one single push.  You don’t need product variations, an employee roster as long as your arm, or a billing structure that is terribly nuanced.  All you need is a good, solid sales target and expertise to go along with it.

Aside from your own marketing efforts, flip to the side of being the customer.  How much fun is it to be an insider?  Won’t you do anything to get that inside advantage that others around you don’t have?

That is the effect of exclusivity.

Price accordingly.  Market succinctly.  And exclude indefinitely.

27.12.2007 Features Comments

Time Management Quotes

Monday, December 24th, 2007

Here are some of my favorite time management quotes.  ‘Tis the season to not have enough time and run around like your pants are on fire..

“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”
– H. Jackson Brown

“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.”
– Michael Altshuler

“A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times.”
– Baltasar Gracian

“Many people seem to think that success in one area can compensate for failure in other areas. But can it really?…True effectiveness requires balance.”
– Stephen Covey

“Never let yesterday use up today.”
– Richard H. Nelson

Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.
– William Penn

The common man is not concerned about the passage of time, the man of talent is driven by it.
– Shoppenhauer

Time = life; therefore, waste your time and waste of your life, or master your time and master your life.
– Alan Lakein

Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week.
– Charles Richards

The key is in not spending time, but in investing it.
– Stephen R. Covey

Ordinary people think merely of spending time. Great people think of using it.
– Author Unknown

Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much can be done if we are always doing.
– Thomas Jefferson

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

A man who dares to waste one hour of life has not discovered the value of life.
– Charles Darwin

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.
– Benjamin Franklin

Once you have mastered time, you will understand how true it is that most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year – and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade!
– Anthony Robbins

A man who dares to waste one hour of life has not discovered the value of life.
– Charles Darwin

It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste time.
– Henry Ford

Having kids has been a fantastic thing for me. It’s meant that I’m a little more balanced. In my twenties I worked massively, hardly took vacation at all. Now, I, with the help of my wife, I’m always making sure I’ve got a good balance of how I spend my time.
– Bill Gates

You can do so much in 10 minutes’ time .Ten minutes, once gone, are gone for good.. Divide your life into 10-minute units and sacrifice as few of them as possible in meaningless activity.
– Ingvar Kamprad

Time is our most precious asset, we should invest it wisely.
– Michael Levy

24.12.2007 quirky Comments

10 Ways To Get Ink

Wednesday, December 19th, 2007

Self Promotion37signals has an amazing post about ways to get people to notice you and/or your product. I have to put this up there as one of the best posts I have read all year.

It details what it takes to launch a product or a business, in purely white-hat terms. No longer is it about whoever has the bigger advertising budget. It’s about who can connect with the most people, on an intimate level.

It doesn’t matter whether you are launching a Freelancing Ebook (fantastic ebook by the way), a basket weaving tutorial for dummies, or a brand new sports product; it’s the relationships that you have with your clients that will lead to your current and future success.

You can go all kinds of directions with this conversation. It might be that your product relies heavily on your own professional network. Or maybe it focuses on some need that hasn’t been met yet. Or maybe it is taking an existing product and making it better. No matter what, you need to realize that your commitment to your customers extends beyond the time it takes to process their credit card.

I have about 5 years experience in online marketing, two degrees, two companies, and read countless books on business, and Matt from 37 Signals has summed it all up in 500 words.

Here are the subpoints of the 37signals post:

  • Provide something of value
  • Know your hook
  • Stand for something
  • Get your face out there
  • Try to build real, sustainable relationships
  • It’s the message, not the amount you spend on it
  • Give stuff away for free
  • Ride the wave
  • Be in it for the long haul
  • Be undeniably good

My favorite is, “Try to build real, sustainable relationships.”

To me, that’s what business is about – relationships. If you don’t have relationships, you won’t have revenue. And without revenue, you don’t have a business.

Besides, meeting people and pursuing relationships with them is what makes business fun. It isn’t you against the world! It’s everyone pushing forward for a common good. Revenue has a way of just fitting into the picture.

ps. Seth Godin commented as well.

19.12.2007 Features Comments

I Need Your Help

Monday, December 17th, 2007

I have a question for you.

What if:

  • You had nearly unlimited resources
  • You could PRINT anything in the world, as long as it was on some sort of paper (not tshirts, patches, etc)
  • You had employees at your disposal.

What markets would you get into? What new, innovational ideas could you come up with.

I am thinking of successes such as moo cards, shutterfly, naked & angry (its a clothes site), and threadless.

What I am going to do is give you guys a week, organize the replies into a poll form, and allow you to vote on them. The winner will get an Amazon gift card and I might bring them on as a consultant. We will see depending on the ideas, though :0)

* There has to be more than 15 submissions for any prizes to be awarded. This little contest is based on community support…

17.12.2007 business Comments

How To Get Laser-Like Focus

Wednesday, December 12th, 2007

One of my big issues is focus.  So many good business ideas, and so little time… How does one keep a high level of productivity and time management?

Dumb Little Man has a great post on how to achieve laser like focus.  They are:

  • Eliminate distractions and plan your day (or week)
  • Use visual reminders such as sticky notes (web based or not)
  • Find a way to get interested or make it fun
  • Set mini-deadlines (this works well for me)
  • Take frequent breaks (thank God I have a window in my office)
  • Stay relaxed and realize it isn’t life or death.

Here’s a few I want to add to the list:

  • Use some of the MS office features to remind you of things, such as setting up reminders in your email app.
  • Use a task list and refer to it religiously.
  • Realize that doing nothing is always a viable alternative :0)
  • Start building a ‘tips’ folder.  This can be helpful for lines of code, tips to do things more efficiently, etc.  It can come in handy.

12.12.2007 entrepreneur tip Comments

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