The Strategy Daddy

It’s the late 1940s. Joe suddenly finds himself out of a job. 2 months go by and he is still out of luck without a job. Bills are piling up. There is little money to buy bread. The only thing he has is an old printer at home that he and his wife use to publish a free Christian newsletter as a hobby.

Being in a desperate position, Joe realizes that his only hope is to make major money with his printer. He and his wife decide to print customized envelopes for small businesses. They figure that all they need is one or two orders to bring in some quick cash. And envelopes is one thing that businesses use everyday, thus, if they played the cards right, they would earn repeat business every month. It would mean the end of all their money problems! Continue reading “Joe Hits Gold”

Dan works many a years in a company as a financial analyst. But one day, he is fired. He searches for another replacement job for weeks. But with no luck.

Frustrated, he decides to be his own boss and open his own business. But his new business idea confuses many. Its nothing remotely related to finance and spread sheets. Out of the blue, Dan decides to launch an auto-service business.

He buys the equipment and announces to the world that his “Dan’s Oil Changes” is open for business. But the start is slow. He doesn’t get many customers. That all soon changes when Dan changes his marketing strategy. Continue reading “Killer Auto-Service Strategy”

This will be a short post.  I had the pleasure of spending the last week with the Wizard of Ads in Austin, TX.  I reconnected with some old friends and made some new ones.  I encourage you to check out Wizard Academy and take a class.  It was amazing to be surrounded by a group of people who love and understand marketing as they do.  I have a couple of sites you should check out.

Check out the classes at Wizardacademy.org.

Learn about the Wizard and the partners at RHW.com

Also, I learned this week that Ankesh is publishing a second book!  More to come on this.

George Safford Parker was getting fed up of the unreliable ink pens that were available in the market, so he decides to make his own pens. He forms the Parker Pen company with another partner. During the next century, the Parker Pen company sees everything: from 2 world wars to the great depression. But they still show stellar growth year after year. New pens are invented constantly. The company sells its pens in all corners of the world. The pens are available everywhere. They are available on racks in all kinds of stores: from grocery stores to drug stores and even in discount stores.  The good times couldn’t last though… Continue reading “Pen Rumblings”

Kate starts a babysitting service in her town. She realizes that she can’t afford to advertise. She has no money. But she won’t grow rich if no one knows about her. So Kate draws up a strategic plan to advertise her business for free.

Her goal is simple: to get as many people to spread the word about her services. Her plan is two pronged. Continue reading “Babysitting Dynasty”

Competing with Cheaper Copycats

Henry drops out of college in September 2002 to start his own video-editing company. To buy equipment at a low cost, he logs onto ebay.com. But soon discovers that no one is selling the equipment he wants.

So Henry finds a video equipment company that carries the products he wants. On a whim, he posts an auction for that same product the day he receives it. Eight bids and seven days later, Henry sells the video equipment for a small profit. He soon does some calculations and figures that he can make more money buying and selling hard-to-find video equipment on ebay.com than by starting his own video- editing business.

His calculations prove to be correct and Henry ends up selling 70 different types of video equipment for a grand total of $500,000 in gross sales within 1 year. But others get a sniff of his success and try to copy his system. Continue reading “Competing with Cheaper Copy-Cats”

The US elections are over. However, Becky is still a bit tizzy with all the free publicity she received because of the elections.

Becky owns an steakhouse.   About 2 months before the elections, Becky starts a contest at her restaurant that generates some free publicity for her.

All diners are given a choice of 2 ketchups they can use with their meals: The Heinz or the W ketchup. John Kerry’s wife, Tereza Heinz Kerry is the heiress of the company that makes Heinz ketchup. While W ketchup is made by a republican supporter who didn’t want to eat the Heinz ketchup and support the democrats. Continue reading “Leveraging the elections”

D. H. is a consumer researcher. He conducts an experiment on telemarketing that is quite noteworthy.  Callers call residents in a neighbourhood and ask if they would allow a representative  to their homes to sell them cookies. All the residents are told over the phone that proceeds from the sale of cookies would go towards the supply of meals for the needy.

This standard solicitation approach generates a mere 18% agreement. 18 out of 100 people agree to see a representative at their homes.

D. H. then tweaks the telemarketing script a bit. Continue reading “The telemarketing experiment”

Here is a story about a fast growing restaurant chain.  They grew to over 400 restaurants in 20 short years. Over the years, they have fine-tuned a system that makes sure that they generate a lot of buzz before they open for business in a new town. They make sure that they are a success even before they open up.

How do they do that?

Some time before opening, This restaurant will join the Chamber of Commerce in the town. By being a member, they gain access to all the other members. Then, they send a note to all the members of the Chamber of Commerce, inviting them to come for a free meal before it opens up to the rest of the town.

Many of these members, who are business owners and have a good standing in the community, show up for the free meal. It almost becomes like a Chambers get together. The restaurant does its best in impressing these businessmen and women. They provide great food and a terrific service. And they create a festive mood by decorating the restaurant.

As a result, the night makes a killer impression and gets the whole town talking about the new restaurant. It become a hit restaurant in the new town even before they open up for business.

Action Summary:

°    Give away samples of your product freely to generate a buzz. It’s worth one night’s worth of free food to create a buzz.

°    Reach the influential people of the society. Impress people who are well respected in the society, or are well respected in their field of business, and word about your products will spread.

°    Gather people to an event and give them a memorable day, and they’ll become loyal to you.

Henry drops out of college in September 2002 to start his own video-editing company. To buy equipment at a low cost, he logs onto ebay.com. But soon discovers that no one is selling the equipment he wants. So Henry finds a video equipment company that carries the products he wants. On a whim, he posts an auction for that same product the day he receives it. Eight bids and seven days later, Henry sells the video equipment for a small profit. He soon does some calculations and figures that he can make more money buying and selling hard-to-find video equipment than by starting his own video- editing business. Continue reading “Competing with Cheaper Copycats”