VIVA LE REVOLUTION!!!....#9

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 16:44:07 -0500

The Beatles - “We all want to change the world”
Recently I have been involved with a few pro-bono business relationships, that hopefully are going to convert at some point to profitable business relationships. But they have really got me thinking about who I am, what kind of business I want to design and run and how I want the world to see me:
HOW I WANT TO BE BRANDED and how I want to position myself in the marketplace. You can have all the advertising and marketing in the world but without a solid marketing plan, which involves many complex factors, you will be dead before you start.
I have been a student of marketing for a long time. But marketing is kinda like getting people to agree on pizza toppings. Someone will favor sausage, another person pepperoni, another bacon and anchovy. Which topping is the best? That’s kinda like asking which is better Coke or Pepsi. One cannot say definitively. You cannot control markets anymore than you can control the weather. That power is in the hands of the CONSUMER. (Marketing not the weather people!) What do people want? It’s like the weather in Chicago, ask them now and ten minutes from now and you will get two totally different answers.
So what’s a small business man like me to do to compete? You cannot control consumers or markets, or trends. You cannot re-invent the wheel. However you CAN control your market POSITION and you can also BRAND yourself/your product effectively so to make yourself more appealing to consumers, and in doing so, this places you in a better marketplace position than your competition. And by far the best thing you can do to compete, position, edge out the competition is that you CAN control the QUALITY of the product/service that you produce.
I hear a lot that people don’t care about quality anymore. That’s not true. Go to McDonald’s and have a hamburger and then go to Portillo’s and have a hamburger, and I GUARANTEE you that you WILL notice the difference in QUALITY. Some may prefer one over the other, there is no accounting for taste, but most will be able to tell the difference between a good burger and something that just fills the belly.
But this blog entry is not about STANDARDS of QUALITY, I will save that for a future entry. Today’s blog is about THE REVOLUTION - That to survive in a GLOBAL economy we have to reach down to something that has long been forgotten in this country and toss aside the old methods and some of the new methods of marketing to reconnect on a personal level with the Consumer.
I am reading this really great book called Punk Marketing. I got it in a trade on Swaptree.com. Check swaptree out, great CONCEPT! Like ebay for trading...anywho.
NO MARKETING BOOK has yet to speak to me like this one: PUNK MARKETING. Maybe it is a different kind of Kool-aid, but I get tired of drinking Fruit Punch all the time. I want to leave you today with the basic tenants of PUNK MARKETING’s Manifesto. And if you dig this, check out their website, you can get the book here: http://www.punkmarketing.com/
Til next time my few awesome loyal friends,
Peace and PY is love.
Scott
The PUNK MARKETING MANIFESTO
1.  AVOID RISK AND DIE
In times of change the greatest risk is to take none at all.
2.  WHY NOT ASK ‘WHY NOT?’
Assumptions are just that. Anything you assume is usually a half-truth or generalizations that once served a useful purpose but now hinders truly creative solutions.
3. TAKE A STRONG STAND
Trying to be all things to everyone on the planet inevitably results in meaning little of interest to just about anybody.
4. DON’T PANDER
Customers are important but they are not necessarily right.
5. GIVE UP CONTROL
Consumers now control brands. Smart marketers recognize this and embrace it rather than fight the powerful truth.
6. EXPOSE YOURSELF
A relationship of trust between brand and consumer, like that between two people, is built upon honesty.
7.  MAKE ENEMIES
All brands need to position themselves against an alternative.
8. LEAVE THEM WANTING MORE
AVOID THE TEMPTATION TO REVEAL ALL OF YOUR ASSETS AT ONCE. OR AS THE MASTERS HAVE SAID: YOU DON’T TEACH THEM EVERYTHING YOU KNOW. YOU TEACH THEM EVERYTHING THEY KNOW.
9. OUT THINK THE COMPETITION
Think smarter than the other dude. Do not be led into temptation by the fast buck and don’t try and outspend them.
10. DON’T BE SEDUCED BY TECHNOLOGY
The media is not the message anymore. The message is the message is the message.
11. KNOW WHO YOU ARE
If you don’t understand what it is that you are good at you might be tempted to try and be something you are not.
12. NO MORE MARKETING BULLSHIT
Get to the point. Express it clearly and simply. Einstein said — we believe he meant marketers: “Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler.”
13. DON’T LET OTHERS SET YOUR STANDARDS
Sorry to tell you this but good no longer means anything while mediocre does more harm than doing nothing.
14. USE THE TOOLS OF THE REVOLUTION
GO WRITE YOUR OWN MANIFESTO. REMIND YOURSELF OF ITS ARTICLES WHENEVER YOU LACK RESOLVE.

“gentlemen, Let’s Broaden our minds...”

VIVA LE REVOLUTION!!!....#9