The Problem with Penguins: Stand Out in a Crowded Marketplace by Packaging Your BIG Idea - Brossura

Bishop, Bill

Brossura

ISBN 10: 1450212042 ISBN 13: 9781450212045

Casa editrice: iUniverse, 2010

Riassunto

Would you like to attract more high-quality customers and make a lot more money? If so, The Problem with Penguins, written by Bill Bishop, author of the bestseller How to Sell a Lobster, can help you with your penguin problem! Learn how to stand out in a crowded marketplace by effectively branding and packaging your BIG Idea. In his trademark fun and entertaining style, Bishop explains: Why most companies will never stand out in their marketplace, and how to avoid a similar fate; Innovative methods to create a BIG Idea, something new, better, and different, even in the most traditional companies, industries and product/service categories; A step-by-step process to brand and package your BIG Idea; How to develop BIG promotional ideas to attract more high-quality prospects; Twenty-first Century "packaged" marketing techniques to sell your BIG Idea easier, faster, and for more money; Strategies to bring your BIG Idea to market faster and easier, while overcoming inertia, procrastination, and negative thinking; plus Dozens of real life examples of successful BIG Ideas created by entrepreneurs in many different industries. Start today to build a great business and stand out from the other penguins in your industry!

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The Problem with Penguins

Stand Out in a Crowded Marketplace by Packaging Your BIG IdeaBy Bill Bishop

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Bill Bishop
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-1204-5

Contents

PREFACE: 4,000 BIG IDEAS........................................................................................xixINTRODUCTION: The Problem With Penguins.........................................................................xxiChapter 1: The Manchurian Marketer: Why BIG Idea Penguins Are A Rare Bird......................................3Chapter 2: No More Egg Rolls: Getting Focused on Your #1 Customer Type.........................................9Chapter 3: The Gourmet Penguin: Make More Money Selling An Up-Scale Package....................................13Chapter 4: Turning The Tables: Getting More Ideal Customers Knocking On Your Door..............................19Chapter 5: Being John Malkovich: See The World Through Your Customer's Eyes....................................29Chapter 6: The Peak Benefit: Discover What Your Customers Really Want..........................................33Chapter 7: The Transformation Economy: Tap Into A Well Of Endless Big Ideas....................................39Chapter 8: The Three Cs: Three Benefits Not Provided By Most Penguins..........................................47Chapter 9: The Value Pyramid: Play A Bigger Role in The Economy................................................55Chapter 10: The Final Five Percent: Why Packaging Is So Important...............................................63Chapter 11: The Clock Is Ticking: Creating A Theme For Your BIG Idea............................................71Chapter 12: Focusing The Mind: Name Your Brand And They Will Come...............................................81Chapter 13: The Concept Tornado: Packaging Your Ideas And Concepts..............................................89Chapter 14: Cosmic Taxi: Packaging An Unexpected Experience.....................................................93Chapter 15: The Two Restaurants: Building Trust With Beautiful Design...........................................99Chapter 16: The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man: Packaging An Icon You Can't Get Out of Your Head.....................105Chapter 17: The Magnetic Marketer: Why You Need To Stop Knocking On Doors.......................................111Chapter 18: Creating A Mystery: Make Your Prospects Curious About You...........................................115Chapter 19: Something New: Get Your Prospects Excited About You.................................................119Chapter 20: Popularity And Scarcity: Make Your Prospects Feel Safe and Afraid...................................125Chapter 21: The Free Value Strategy: Make Prospects Come Out Of Their Bunker....................................129Chapter 22: Buying Bocce Balls: Why Three Is Better Than One....................................................133Chapter 23: No More Maybe World: Creating A Sense Of Urgency....................................................137Chapter 24: The Road Of Good Intentions: Observing The Ethical Imperative.......................................141Chapter 25: The BIG Idea Adventure: Saying Goodbye To Your Penguin Friends......................................145Chapter 26: The New Factory: Making The Transition To Your BIG Idea.............................................151Chapter 27: Rising And Passing Away: Why You Will Always Need New BIG Ideas.....................................155Suggested Additional Reading....................................................................................159Glossary of Terms...............................................................................................161Acknowledgements................................................................................................165

Chapter One

The Manchurian Marketer: Why BIG Idea Penguins Are A Rare Bird

To stand out from the other penguins, you need a BIG Idea. Not just any idea, a really BIG Idea. It's not enough to be different, you have to be a lot different.

Think about it this way. Let's say the temperature in your room is 72 degrees Fahrenheit, and someone turns up the heat to 73 degrees. That is a different temperature, but do you notice it? Probably not. There isn't enough of a difference.

Many business people make this mistake. They do something different, but it's only a little bit different. They change the color of their product or they offer improved credit terms. But these additions and changes aren't enough. To the untrained eye, they still look like the other penguins.

But what if someone increased the temperature to 90 degrees? Would you notice the difference? Of course you would. It would be a lot hotter! You'd start sweating, you'd take off your sweater and say: "Hey, who turned up the temperature? It's boiling in here."

So that's what you need to do. If you want people to notice you, you need to turn up the heat, and do something really different. That's what I call a BIG Idea.

Being Brainwashed: Coming up with a BIG Idea can be tough, but not for the reasons you might think. It's not because you lack creativity or imagination. It's not because you're not smart. It's because you're brainwashed. You've been brainwashed to think first about your products and services.

Not convinced? Take this simple test. Write down your elevator speech. What do you say if someone asks about your business? Keep it to one or two sentences. Now read it out loud. Is it about your products or services? Typically, people say something like: "I'm a financial advisor" or "I'm a dentist" or "We sell computers." They tell you about their product or service.

But what else would you say? It seems logical to tell people about your products and services because that's what you do. But it's a problem because the other penguins in your industry are telling exactly the same elevator speech about their products and services. That's why no one can tell you apart from the other penguins. Not only do you look alike, you also sound alike.

But there's an even bigger problem. It's not just what you say, it's also how you think. When you think about your business, you always think first about your product or service. That's always the starting point. So when you try to come up with a BIG Idea-something new, better or different-it's really hard because your brain always starts with your product or service.

You then think about how to make your product bigger, smaller, faster, slower, prettier. These efforts aren't a total waste of time-it's always good to make your product better-but typically the changes are small ones-like turning up the temperature to 73 degrees. It's not enough. You still look like the other penguins.

You could try to get your BIG Idea from other penguins. You could go to conferences and learn from other people in your industry. If someone has a good idea, you could copy it. There is nothing wrong with that either, except it won't help you with the penguin problem. Most of the ideas you will get from other penguins will be small incremental ideas of the 73 degree variety. In addition, copying what other penguins are already doing doesn't put you ahead of the curve, and help you stand out as unique. It just makes you a follower.

So how do you break out of this trap? How do you stop thinking first about your products and services, and come up with a unique Big Idea?

You begin by thinking about someone else-namely your customer. I know this sounds radical, but it works. Instead of thinking first about you and your products/services, you turn things around and think first about your customers.

That probably sounds like the most obvious advice ever. You're thinking: "I bought this book and that's all I get? Think about my customers first? What a rip-off!" But hold on, it's not as easy as you think because you've been brainwashed and you don't know it. And before you protest, keep in mind that one of the sure signs of brainwashing is that the victim doesn't know they've been brainwashed.

Do you remember the movie The Manchurian Candidate? It's about a candidate for president who has been brainwashed by bad guys to kill another candidate for president. It's a creepy movie. But the key point is: He doesn't know he is brainwashed. He doesn't know he is following instructions programmed into his brain by someone else.

Everyday I meet business people who have been brainwashed by 200 years of the industrial revolution. Their bodies are living in the 21st Century, but their brains are programmed for the 19th Century, and they don't know it!

Since the beginning of the 19th Century, business has been all about products and services. To succeed, you followed a simple formula. Think of a product. Build a machine to make it. Then sell the product.

It was easy. Think of product. Build a machine to make it. Sell the product. Make a lot of money. Buy a big house. Hire servants.

Lots of people got rich following this formula. Then they applied it to services. Think of a service. Build a machine to deliver it. (A machine made of people this time). Sell the service. Make a lot of money. Buy a big house. Hire servants.

For two hundred years, this formula worked. One generation passed on the formula to the next. They said, "Son (or Daughter), if you want to get rich, follow this formula. Think of a product or service. Build a machine to make it. Sell this product or service. Make a lot of money. Buy a big house. Hire servants." What could be easier?

And then people stopped saying it out loud. The formula was so successful and so well known that no one needed to say it anymore. It was what it was-a universal truth. At that point, everyone's brains were fully washed.

But then the world changed. Someone invented the personal computer, and then the World Wide Web. Trade barriers fell and we had a global economy. Regulations that kept industries separate from each other were eliminated. The market was flooded with more and more competitors.

This increase in competition made it essential to come up with a BIG Idea, but the brainwashing made it hard because everyone started with step one of the old formula: think of a product or service-which made it almost impossible to come up with something that hadn't been done already.

In the old days, if you made a product-let's say bobby pins-you were the only person making them. So you had the market to yourself. You could just keep running the machine day and night, year after year, making the same bobby pins. In no time, you were living in the big house getting waited on by servants.

But eventually, other people living in little houses with no servants pulled together enough money to build their own machines, and they started making bobby pins too. Suddenly, you had competition. Then people in other countries got in the bobby pin business. They hired people to work dirt cheap. So the price of bobby pins dropped and dropped.

Afraid you might have to sell the house and let go of the servants, you looked for another product. You considered zippers. But there were already two hundred companies in the zipper market. What about lava lamps? No, that was a crowded market too. How about mouse pads? No, same problem. Everywhere you looked, other penguins had beaten you to it.

My point is this: The world has changed. There are a lot of penguins out there, and if you want to come up with a BIG Idea that is a lot different, you have to use a new thinking process. If you don't de-program yourself, and cast off 200 years of product-first thinking, it will be extremely hard for you to come up with a BIG Idea. The old product-first mindset will simply smother your creativity.

Apple is a great example of a company that de-programmed itself. For two decades the company enjoyed a modest level of success with its fantastic computers (I'm a Mac user from day one). But for those 20 years, it was a small player in the overall computer market. But one day, Steve Jobs and his team broke away from product-first (computer-first) thinking, and started focusing first on their customer. When they made that simple change in perspective, they had lots of amazing Big Ideas-namely iTunes, the iPod and the iPhone-which dramatically increased their sales and differentiated them from the other computer companies. The key lesson is: If Apple had stay mired in product-first thinking, they would have never come up with these innovations. The ironic thing is: By creating and selling Big Ideas-that don't look anything like computers-they now also sell a lot more computers.

So let's learn from the former penguins at Apple. If you want to turn up the temperature to 90 degrees, and come up with something really hot, forget about your products and services-even forget about your industry- and begin your thinking with a new starting point: namely, your #1 Customer Type.

Chapter Two

No More Egg Rolls: Getting Focused on Your #1 Customer Type

Most business owners have too many different kinds of customers. They sell their products and services to anyone. For example, they might sell their widgets to dog catchers, family doctors, and sanitation workers. It doesn't matter to them who the customer is as long as they sell something.

But this lack of focus is a big problem for them. For one thing, they spread themselves too thin. They try to play too many games at once. It's like they try to play hockey and football at the same time. It's confusing and difficult. They also never become a specialist in the eyes of their customers: They look like a jack of all trades. They look like the Chinese restaurant that advertises tax return services in the window. You can munch on egg rolls while they work out your tax refund. It's just a little nutty.

But there's a bigger problem. Having too many different kinds of customers means you don't really know any of your customers very well. You're just selling stuff. You aren't investigating your market in detail. You're not thinking about what your customers might need that isn't being offered in the marketplace. As such, it's unlikely you will come up with a Big Idea.

So you need to get focused. You need to decide whom you really want to work with. In our case, we decided years ago that we wanted to work with entrepreneurs, specifically small business owners and salespeople. We didn't want to work anymore with large corporations, associations, or the government.

That was the best decision we ever made. Since that time, we've worked with thousands of business owners and salespeople in dozens of industries. We've become experts in helping them get more customers and make more money. This focus on our #1 Customer Type has given us an in-depth understanding of entrepreneurs: their goals and special challenges. This understanding has enabled us to come up with dozens of BIG Ideas that have been very profitable.

So who is your #1 Customer Type?

To figure it out, make a list of all your different kinds of customers and then choose the best one. What type of customer do you love working with? Which one is the most enjoyable and the most profitable? Which ones don't you like working with? Eliminate them from your list.

Decidedly, it isn't easy at first to focus on just one type of customer. It's hard to give up the others. You think you're giving up opportunities. But in fact, the opposite is true. We have a client-a financial advisor-who decided to work exclusively with dentists. At the time he had about five dentists. Now he has over 300. By focusing on dentists, he was able to develop some great BIG Ideas, and was able to put all of his marketing time and money into one market. Now he is seen as the number one financial advisor for dentists.

Take your time with this decision. It's the most important decision you'll ever make in your business.

Chapter Three

The Gourmet Penguin: Make More Money Selling An Up-Scale Package

Would you like to charge more for your products and services? I'm sure you would. But maybe you think your customers won't pay more. Maybe you're afraid your customers will walk away and do business with your lower-priced competitors.

This is a natural fear, but it doesn't get you anywhere. If you're afraid to charge more, then you never will. And if you never do it, you will be stuck where you are. In fact, it's likely you will make less and less money as time goes by as increasing competition puts the squeeze on your prices and profit margins.

So how can you get out of this trap? How can you charge more without losing any customers? Better yet, how can you increase your prices and grow your customer base at the same time?

Before I give you my strategy for increasing prices, it's important to understand what I call The Wal-Mart Effect. We all know that Wal-Mart promises the lowest prices possible. They have built a worldwide empire on this promise. But these low prices are a mixed blessing. Although some consumers benefit from the bargains at Wal-Mart, small retailers are often driven out of business because they can't compete.

It is doubly sad because many of these retailers don't need to go out of business. They simply need to change their business, and do what Wal-Mart can't do: which is to provide a gourmet service. They need to provide a higher level of service, experience, and value than Wal-Mart. In other words, they need to stop trying to compete with Wal-Mart on price, and do something Wal-Mart can't do: They need to become gourmet retailers instead.

You might be thinking: That's fine, but I'm not in a retail business. Yes, but The Wal-Mart Effect is happening in every industry. Driven by e-commerce and globalization, companies in every industry are developing ways to deliver products and services over the Internet for the lowest prices possible. I call these Fast Food companies.

Many companies go crazy trying to compete with the Fast Food competitors in their industry. They think the only way is to lower their prices. But if they lower their prices they won't make a profit. So it's a Catch 22.

Thankfully there is a way out. They need to become Gourmet companies. They need to package BIG Ideas that take everything to higher level. And they need to charge a lot more money for this gourmet meal.

For example, let's say you have an insurance agency. You have watched while insurance carriers and banks have gone online to sell insurance directly to the public. They sell insurance products just like yours for lower prices. Customers simply fill out an online application and bingo: They get a policy.

You've thought about going online too, but you can't make it work. The upfront investment is huge, and your online competitors are much bigger, and much better capitalized.

So instead of chasing the Fast Food competition, I suggest you make a 180 degree turn, and become a Gourmet company. You develop a special program, for example, called The Safe & Sound Solution. You offer this program to your best customers, and charge $1,200. For this fee, you spend a lot of time with your clients to make sure they have identified all of their risks, and have an overall plan to protect themselves. You also photograph and assess the value of all their possessions in case they need to make a claim in the future. The program delivers significantly more value than any of your competitors are willing to provide for free.

The great thing is: Your customers won't say you are charging too much, and your new $1,200 program won't scare them away. That's because your program is simply an upscale option. You tell them you have two levels of service: fast food and gourmet. You can provide either a simple insurance transaction or they can hire you for the $1,200 gourmet package. It is up to them to choose what they want: fast food or gourmet.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Problem with Penguinsby Bill Bishop Copyright © 2010 by Bill Bishop. Excerpted by permission.
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Dettagli dell'edizione

• Editore: iUniverse
• Data di pubblicazione: 2010
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 1450212042
• ISBN 13: 9781450212045
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 196
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: non disponibile