Following trends to higher earningsWritten by Stan Rosenzweig
Following trends to higher earnings By Stan Rosenzweig copyright 2004, all rights reserved.Here are two ways to spot marketing trends that can lead you to new financial opportunities and three lessons you can apply: Trend spotter #1: Read 10 year and 20 year old books about trends. Learn from history. History repeats itself. Trend spotter #2: Read newspapers. In 1982, in his bestseller Megatrends, John Naisbitt showed himself as a student of history by quoting an even earlier management consultant, Mary Parker Follett, who, in 1904, identified a key concept in determining trends and market directions. She created "the law of situation", a concept used today to reinvent businesses faced with key strengths in an eroding market. Had railroads recognized law of situation and understood that they were really in transportation business, said Naisbitt, they might have survived migration of shipping from rail to trucks, even to air. Naisbitt calls railroads great lesson for business, but there are clearer lessons for information age. Take telephony. I think great lesson for us all comes not from railroads, but from telecommunications; specifically, from Western Union. Most of us know of Alexander G. Bell's historic telephone utterance on March 10, 1876, "Watson! Quick! Get your tail in here." But do you know other important, but less than famous quote? It seems that only one short year later, Gardiner Greene Hubbard, Bell's future father-in-law and financial partner, offered whole shebang to Western Union Telegraph Company? As you know, Western Union was as strong and powerful back then as they come, just like railroads. According to Sidney H. Aronson, contributor to "The Social Impact of The Telephone", MIT Press, 1977 (another oldie, but goodie, history), Hubbard was turned down cold by Western Union's president William Orton with words, "What use could this company make of an electrical toy?" Now that's a quote worth remembering. Don't be too hard on old Orton, though. He wasn't exactly asleep at switch. Western Union was very successful under Orton. They were virtual Microsoft of 19th century. In fact, by time Bell and Hubbard had happened along, Western Union had wired up whole country and already had developed a new technology to carry written facsimiles of messages (fax). This, evidently, was for those who wouldn't learn Morse code and wanted a graphical user Windows-like interface. Undeterred, Bell went on lecture circuit talking up his concept for a great information superhighway of time, that could be used by just about anyone without too much training. Naisbitt was right about railroad and several other things, but he got it wrong a few times, too. He predicted a high-tech backlash, fueled by need for people to be together, a concept he called "high touch". "People will want to be with people", he said and he predicted that home offices, electronic shopping and teleconferencing would not succeed.
| | Top 10 Marketing PitfallsWritten by Stuart Reid
You are free to use this article in any format without restrictions except resource-box at end MUST be included. Please use a live link if possible :-)Also available in HTML at: http://www.netpreneurnow.com/articles/pitfalls.html Available via email at: pitfalls@netpreneurnow.com Ten Marketing Pitfalls By Stuart Reid If you want to make it BIG in Internet Marketing you need avoid some common mistakes. Here's a list of top ten Pitfalls that catch out beginner Marketers (and many established ones too!). The problem is you don't realise you have fallen into one of these holes until someone points it out. Marketers tend to be stubborn and suffer from tunnel vision - hopefully these may help you kick a few bad habits... 1. Procrastination Putting things off is a killer where this career this is concerned. You NEED a plan and some kind of time management system in place. Prioritize your tasks and keep lists of everything that needs doing. And no matter how much you don't feel like doing something just get it out of way and NEVER leave it untill next day! TIP: Use post-it notes. They are low-tech but work great :-) 2. Striving for Perfection You'll likely never have a "perfect" website or product but you know what? It doesn't matter! It's important you get started as soon as you can and make your site "live". You can tweak things as you go along and improvements WILL come later - but if you try to get everything "right" before you start then you'll never start. TIP: Update your site daily in little ways, it saves doing everything at once and search-engines it too. 3. Wasting Money This one is important. Especially if you don't have money to burn! Don't get caught up jumping from opportunity to opportunity or buying everything that lands in your inbox. You'll be surprised how much you can get for free. Trust me - you don't need half stuff you see online. Try to control your emotions and think before you buy. Write a list of pros and cons, and make sure that product or service is essential to YOU. TIP: Look for reviews by people without a vested interest in product and ask questions in forums. 4. Not Spending Enough Unfortunately you have to spend a little. It won't be much starting out, but you will need more as you grow. For a start you'll need a domain, a host, an autoresponder - but these are pretty affordable these days. The bulk of your expenses will be on promotion, usually ezine ads or pay-per-click. If you're paying someone to create your product or you're buying resell rights then this is another expense (but you can start with free affiliate programs). TIP: Keep your "Internet Income" separate and re-invest. You'll be glad you did later. 5. Wrong Markets This is a tricky one. If you are dead set on conquering a certain market you could end up on a long and expensive journey that is doomed to failure. Do some research first. A so-called "niche" market is a good find but only if this niche will spend money! Other markets, like Internet Marketing, are very busy BUT Internet Marketers spend money - and drive to make money is a strong human emotion. There's a lot of them around!
|
