Tips but no tricks 3

Oh boy, did I sound upset? Sorry about that; I hate when companies waste money. Anyhow, enough ranting. On with the task.

Do you have a plan? T. Boone Pickens says (actually his dad said it), "A fool with a plan can outsmart a genius with no plan." Insight and understanding are the accelerators for accomplishment. The insight and understanding must reside somewhere other than in your head and heart. They must be committed to paper, where everyone involved can see clear direction; where everyone involved has, or should have, a say. And clearly, if you are to receive approval on any kind of budget, a plan is a must. Marketing is like a road trip; if you know your destination, you punch the data into your GPS, or look in a map - depending on where you want to go, and where you are, these gizmos will guide you on the best ways to arrive. No map? No GPS? Well, there is always "just go for it." You may get there (assuming you know where 'there' is); then again, you may go around in circles burning gas (resources) as you seek your destination.

So, a plan. What do you do? Why do you do it? Who is it for? Why is it for these people? Who are you? What qualifies you to do this thing you do? Questions and more questions.

Initially you may want to ask if anyone cares about what you are doing or offering. Kind of takes us back to the better mouse trap story. Maybe even back to the issue of Chinese Marketing, where it is assumed that the proper strategy will sell anything to anyone regardless of want or buying ability. I won't go into detail about Chinese Marketing, but one of the ideas is great: If one could get each person in China to buy just one apple a day, you could potentially sell 1.3 billion apples daily; nice dream, eh? Great and detailed Excel spreadsheets will not necessarily get a product to market nor keep it there.

So we ask, What is the reason for our existence? What vaccum do we fill? What niche do we fill? What problem do we solve? Oh yes, and problems...

...did you know that it is never about producst or services and customers? Did you know that it is really about a perceived satisfaction to a perceived problem? People don't buy products or services, they buy what these things represent: I don't buy headache remedy because it is so exciting to have. When my body is out of balance at times it shows through a headache; I want my body back in balance, thus no headache, thus the remedy. As a business, I deal with advertising agencies because of the results I seek to obtain through their creative, their astute buys, etc. - I don't deal with an agency because I like people in the ad business.

What do you believe you satisfy, and who is the "Ed" who will be satisfied?