Sales v. marketing

Sales sells what's on the truck.

Marketing determines what should be on the truck, and where the truck should go.

And both need to understand - directly or through research - what is selling, what is not, and why.

A $3 latte worth $506,628???

It is if:

• You save that $3 a day and invest it weekly in the stock market
• You're in your 20s, and continue this for 40 years
• The stock market matches its historical average return of 10%

The power of compounding is amazing. Do the math, here; if you're not familiar with financial calculations, start with 0 for your Present Value (assume you have nothing now); enter 40 Years (if you're in your 20s), compound your interest rate Annually, at a 10% Rate, your Contribution is that weekly $21 saved by not buying the daily latte (discipline counts: you must do this each and every week; set up an automatic contribution into an index fund). Finally, push the Future button.

So, millennials, ask your self each morning, how much is that $3 latte worth?

Knowledge matters.

A 400-year advantage

In "Google Maps announces a 400-year advantage over Apple Maps," blogger Mike Dobson writes

If you go back over this blog and follow my recounting of the history of Google's attempts at developing a quality mapping service, you will notice that they initially tried to automate the entire process and failed miserably, as has Apple. Google learned that you cannot take the human out of the equation. While the mathematics of mapping appear relatively straight forward, I can assure you that if you take the informed human observer who possess local and cartographic knowledge out of the equation that you will produce...a failed system (emphasis added).

A blow-dry bar???

Walking back from dinner, I noticed a scad of young women in a recently renovated store front. But there was seemingly nothing there...

"Oh," my wife said, "that's the new blow-dry bar that just opened up."

Huh?

Questions

Do you ask questions?

Or give answers?

Which do you think is more likely to be successful?

Experience matters.

Selling trust

At a Meetup group sponsored by I Love Marketing (lots of good tips and videos), we listened to a local entrepreneur who has developed a 6-figure home cleaning business. She has built both a loyal clientele and workforce by delivering consistently superior results and is able to charge a premium - heck, who hasn't gone through multiple cleaning ladies (this tends to be a female dominated profession) and thus is willing to pay for reliable results.

A cardinal sin

I (try to) regularly attend a variety of Meetup (*see below for a description) groups, for learning and professional and social networking. Basically, you can find a group of people who have similar interests: books, kids, art, food, sports - something for almost everyone.

Mostly, I appreciate deeply the effort of the organizers, and I have no issue if they personally benefit.

What I abhor, though,

How to write compelling copy

Read. A lot.

Write. Often.

Edit. Ruthlessly.

Have someone else read it and give you honest feedback.

Experience matters.

Buying v selling

Who doesn't like buying? The excitement of acquiring something something new creates a mild euphoria in the human species. Yet, we hate to be "sold" to: we turn off very quickly the minute we feel we are being "closed?" Why?

Get out of the building

I've read about Lean Startup Marketing, so when the local entrepreneurs Meetup group offered a chance to learn from those who had undergone the three day process, I took it.

The concept is straightforward:

Do you have a dog's resilience?

Yesterday, our dog ate something he shouldn't have, and had, um, shall we say, serious indigestion. We spent a good part of the day nursing him back to health. He was one sad puppy - loss of bodily fluids does that to you.

Today? Yesterday doesn't exist. He's back to doing his job, which is mainly to be cute, friendly and affectionate.

Dogs live in the present. Jane McGrath in a piece for Animal Planet writes it is because they "they don't have the power of episodic memory, or the ability to remember particular events in the past."

Radical v incremental innovation

Innovation, writes Patrick Thibodeau, "is the most abused word in tech." A Google search yields 108 million entries and, without even trying, I found more than 20 articles published in the last 24 hours.

Part of the confusion is that few distinguish between radical and incremental innovation. Radical innovations, like the steam engine, the cotton gin, the telephone, the automobile, the computer (quick quiz: when was the first programmable computer invented? - see the end of the post), and penicillin change the structures of societies.