Marketing your competitor.

Common practice would make you believe that you should NEVER talk about your competitor.

Yeah, why would you make your prospect think about an alternative?

That's true. Quick impulsive buying should be made easy, and prospects should be streamlined into customers.

However, when it comes to B2B marketing, people are offered choice and tend to make more rational decisions. Your prospects will make their own research.

- "We have no direct competitor" means your service is so stupid nobody ever thought of providing it. Or some tried and are not here any more. If your service is worth it, then people will want to compete with you.

- "Well, I think there's XX that's been around for years. But they suck." Come on, if they suck, they would not have been around for years.

Market your competitors and be upfront about it when asked.

XX is a respectable company, and the service they provide is interesting. Truly they serve a huge market - that's the same as ours. We think we are better than them at YYYY, and offer greater value for money. That mostly come because we developped R&D specifically for customers like you... and further more, we offer the flexibility of a small company.

Competitors success can help you make a case for your business.

Their argumentation can help convert a prospect into a customer, and making comparisons with your products can make them YOUR customer.

Zoom out.

Your life sucks.
You're stuck again on a task and it's going nowhere.
You don't have the information, you don't know what you're supposed to do, you don't even know if what you're being asked is remotely feasible. That is, if the e-mail you received was proper english, and not a vague one-liner saying that somebody needs something for yesterday.
You wonder if you should take some work home, and you wonder how your boss will react.

Zoom out!
As you zoom out, google-earth style, you see yourself, sitting at your desk.
You look preoccupied and you wonder about the enormous consequences of the mistakes you'll make.
Zoom out again, and you'll see hundreds of people doing the same thing as you do in your organization... and somehow, they make it through the day, or even through their professional life...
Zoom out again, and you see the earth, just a speck of dust in the universe.

We do NOT matter.
Whatever we do, we do not matter.
Yes, you'll have a great product that will make you rich. Then what?
Yes, there are hundreds of marketing millionaires writing their blogs. So what?
Americans have an ancient:
"Life is a bitch. You marry one, then you die."
You're nothing. Face it, you don't matter.
The butterfly effect is a marketing trick to make you feel important.
Off course, you're unique, like everyone else.

Now zoom in.
When you zoom in, you see people running everywhere like ants.
But you're not. You're smiling because you know you don't matter. You've accepted that fact.
Now that you have chosen to accept your insignificance, you can start to enjoy.
You can go back home and enjoy some quality time. Go back to work because you love it.
As you zoom in, you see that bubble that surrounds you, that is filled with your zen power.

You let things that do not matter, truly slide.
And now time freezes. Life moves in slow motion.
You see your colleagues, friends running endlessly, and you're comfortably  lying in your peace bubble.

Then expand.
Your peace bubble gives you confidence.
People love it. They trust you. You trust them. Your bubbles connect.
ou don't leave in an empty bubble. You share yours with the ones you trust.

Smile. Freeze time. You do not matter.

Reply rates on dating websites : Marketing is everywhere.

Yes, Marketing is everywhere. That would be a given for a marketing millionaire mindset.
So what happens when you go on a dating website?

You try to market yourself as a decent single person, and you want to optimize your chance of success by choosing the right target and presenting yourself the best way.

OkCupid gave access to great studies on the dating behaviour and  success rates (reply rates) by races... which is clearly a taboo subject. At least, here, in France.

Without further unnecessary explanations... here is the data for the number crunchers like me.

How women reply.

How men reply.

I won't say much about those numbers.
I just would like to tell you that those samples have been done with representative samples, and that numbers really make sense to me - though it is for a US population.

I guess we all came to the same conclusions and saw how shockingly explainable those numbers are.

Just to remind you that a statistics can't lie. Those are just numbers.

The manga industry. A proven benchmark for customer satisfaction.

Naruto. Bleach. Prince of tennis. All those mangas are world famous manga.
I, myself, am a true fan of what now is part of the japanese pop-culture: the manga litterature (40% of manga litterature).

Here, in the western part of the world, we only get to see the success stories... But many struggling mangakas (manga authors) are clinging to their passions, and fight everyday to get published.

Let's take a look at how a comic can be born from an idea to a multi-million marketing success story.

The birthplace of manga successes are magazines.
Editors look at different manuscripts, and decide what ideas, concepts could be published as a one-shot in their magazine. It is a self-containing story of 20-30 pages, that will put the audience in a new universe and give that new idea a test bench for future development.
- The editors of the magazine will bring in their experience to make sure that the manga fits into the editorial line ( shounen- manga for boys, shoujo - manga for girls, seinen - manga for adults), and collect all the feedback from the editorial commitee to rewrite the story or to add specific elements. ("Add a cute animal for comic relief", "Make the sword bigger, teenagers like huge swords").
-The magazine has a questionnaire, to rank the comics, and understand which characters are popular or not. It is absolutely frequent to modify one's character behavior, or to discontinue it if the audience presses for it. The amount of feedback coming from the questionnaires is humongous.

If the one-shot scored pretty well, then the magazine could go for serialization - which means that every week a new chapter will be published in the magazine. This is a whole new adventure for the manga writer.
- He has to keep up at least 2 chapters in advance from publishing to incorporate editorial feedback, and get some alternative chapters with intense dramatical comebacks to publish if the audience does not rank the series well.
- The mangaka can then employ assistants to help him draw the background, ink the characters and fine-tune some details, so that the author can focus on the plot and the characters - the core business.
- Once again, serialization is not definitive success, and if success is not rapidly met, then it means the series is discontinued as well.

Market research is a key success factor in the manga business.
- The audience age, gender and preference can be tracked with questionnaires, as well as sales volumes and mobile phones views.
- Dojinshi (amateur made manga) are fan made, and they use famous manga characters in alternative storylines. These give extensive information to the editors to know what series or concepts are trending at the moment. This is what has been coined as the read/write culture.
The magazine editors, even if they have copyright ownership, do not sue any of those fans. Those Dojinshi create a huge fan-base, that will in any case, come back to the original work when new stuff is available.

Manga is at the core of japanese culture
Even if manga magazines and comics are a mass-market in japan (Everybody loves manga!!), it is shrinking. Mobile phone views are skyrocketing for anime (comics made into animations), voice-overs for anime are becoming popular idols and opening end ending themes can appear in the charts.
Some are even made into drama... (with real actors!).
All the media fuel from that specific industry, which has become a huge ambassador and money-maker for Japan.

So what are the marketing learnings?
1) Listen to the customer
2) Make a prototype accordingly to what you heard.
3) If the customer does not like, back to step 1) or do something else.
4) If he likes it, make some more. back to step 3)

By the end of step 5, you should be a manga marketing millionaire.
Too bad for me, even if I took lessons, I can't draw that well.
Worth mentioning that only 2% of manga authors make a living out of it - but some can become cash cows : Dragon ball is now a multibillion-dollar international franchise comprising movies, games, and cards — debuted as an installment in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1984.

Flow theory. Achieve mindfulness

Apathy (also called impassivity or perfunctoriness) is a state of indifference, or the suppression of emotions such as concern, excitement, motivation and passion. An apathetic individual has an absence of interest or concern to emotional, social, or physical life. They may also exhibit an insensibility or sluggishness.
Boredom is an emotional state experienced during periods lacking activity or when individuals are uninterested in the opportunities surrounding them.
Relaxation occurs during an activity that helps a person to relax
Worry is an emotion in which a person feels anxious or concerned about a real or imagined issue, ranging from personal issues such as health or finances to broader issues such as environmental pollution and social or technological change.
Control : Overlearning is a pedagogical concept according to which newly acquired skills should be practiced well beyond the point of initial mastery, leading to automaticity. Once one has overlearned a task, one's skill level is higher than the challenge level for that task.
Anxiety is considered to be a normal reaction to stress. It may help a person to deal with a difficult situation, for example at work or at school, by prompting one to cope with it. When anxiety becomes excessive, it may fall under the classification of an anxiety disorder.
Arousal is important in regulating consciousness, attention, and information processing. It is crucial for motivating certain behaviours, such as mobility, the pursuit of nutrition, the fight-or-flight response and sexual activity.
Flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.
(excerpts from wikipedia)

Components of flow

Csíkszentmihályi identifies the following nine factors as accompanying an experience of flow:

1. Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one's skill set and abilities). Moreover, the challenge level and skill level should both be high.
2. Concentrating, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).
3. A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness the merging of action and awareness.
4. Distorted sense of time, one's subjective experience of time is altered.
5. Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).
6. Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult).
7. A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.
8. The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.
9. People become absorbed in their activity, and focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself, action awareness merging.

(Wikipedia as well)

Flow is also something you want to experience to get your working day go by faster.
(Not from wikipedia)

Everybody can get rich, so they say.

First, let me remind you of my objective - Being a millionaire at 30.

Evaluating all my asset, I have bought a few stocks 2 years ago, and the crisis struck. Should I also tell you that I borrowed that money?

Left with only 60% of that, a smile is still on my face.

As well I invested some money in some ventures, and also some companies I founded. No return yet, and some were epic fails. However a smile is still on my face. -well it's close to a grin though-.

Happily I get my payroll from Airbus every month and I get paid for a great job. I also get to travel sometimes...

But nothing that gets me to become a millionaire before 30, or so it seems.

I am currently 27 - so what methods are left?

The Latte factor.

David Bach made that method famous. If you spend $5 per day on a cafe latte, you're enjoying every day. But if you invest it on a fund with a 10% return, guess what... You're a millionaire by the time you retire.

That's the easiest way to become a millionaire, so it seems. However, the payoff seems to be available only in the long run.

Win it

Don't count on it. Not gutsy enough to borrow 100 000 dollars go to vegas and put it all on "black".

Marry it, inherit it.

I'll also discard those methods. I don't think any of those would be classy ways to get to be a millionaire. I want to have something to show for it.

Trade hours for dollars, trade ideas for millions.

That's one hell of a method. You get an idea, then you license it to big companies, and wait at home for the royalties to come in. I like this method... but getting the idea is difficult, and achieving real dollar returns is uncredibly hard - at least, the first time.

Millionaire at 30, is not a simple money achievement.

It is a quest for freedom.

Getting information for decision

2 hours.

Important Airbus meeting, and I have to meet an expert.

Two issues on my mind:

- How to get the information to make the proper decision

- How not to loose credibility

There are some simple recipes that can get you prepared right on time.

Write down what you know

Make mind maps and throw down some keywords that come up to your mind. That will give you something to start with.

Find the reference document

Use your corporate intranet or internet to find out more about the subject from what you already have. Keep focus on getting the overall knowledge and a feel for the subject, rather than drilling down into the details.

Talk to the right people

Find people you know, with whom you can talk freely. Make sure they welcome the stupidest questions so that you can talk freely and get the most of it.

Find out the latest news.

Google news and people. They give you the freshest topics. Good to know and those will give the impression that you follow the subject.

Get conversation starters

Make sure you have some questions that will keep the conversation going and will help you get the right information.

Use images

"You mean, it's like building a house and the walls are made of plastic?" when you talk about composite structures will help you get a better understanding and find interesting questions.

Re-use information

Re-formulate or make assumtions using the answers you have. It is unlikely anyone will contradict oneself.

Wrap it up and run away

Make sure your messages have passed and that you're going to report the right ones to your boss. And run-away before you look like a fool.