Category Archives: Marketing

The KEY to success in this world. It will surprise you. How to get the next big idea.

concepts, Entrepreneurship, Inspiration, Marketing, The World, , , ,

What is the key to success? I think the key is DOTS….let me explain.

You need to recognize dots. Put yourself in a position to see dots. Remember dots. But most importantly connect the dots creatively. Once created these connected dots can be acted with to create something new. Of course success is more than just dots, but dots are the key that unlock the whole thing.

This is the blog I have been thinking of writing for months now, and I finally am getting it done for you to read.

So what are dots, well dots are ideas, facts, and thoughts. Dots are EVERYWHERE, there are many dots in everything you see and touch. In the world of products you can ask: Why is something made like that? How did they make it? How is it marketed? How is it given to the customer? In the world of human relations you can ask: What motivates that person? What is important about they way they do that? How do they spend their time? Why did that person do that?

The basic questions that you need to ask are:

  • Why is this important?
  • How did this come to exist?
  • What can be done with this?
  • How can this be done better?
  • Who could use this?

Most people spend their whole life going around, surrounded by these dots but almost never thinking about them. They don’t think about the why, or the how of the things that surround them. I have ALWAYS been someone who sees these ideas and concepts and I have “collected” thousands of dots in my mind. I much rather watch an educational show on TV then entertainment. I watch to see what leaders do. When I am in public, I watch the way that people move and interact, and try to figure out what is important for them. I spend huge amounts of time on the internet trying to figure out how stuff works.

Most people see success as money so I spend a lot of time figuring out how money and business works. One thing that I just totally love to do is to go to shows, you know the kind were businesses set up these 10”x10” square boots and try to get people to see the vision of their idea. I can not get enough of these shows. I go to everything, from the state fair to the home shows, to CES in Vegas, to the small local business expos with 30 people there. You get more dots each time. Sometimes you get very little of value but other times it is huge.

I also watch commercials. I like to see products marketed, and I think about how effective that form of appeal is working, who the target is and if what I see will work. The worst thing is when they repeat the same commercial over and over, I can’t stand that. So the key is to keep your mind open, always be looking around.

It is important to remember these ideas, I usually have a great memory and do much if it in my head, but I also make lists, and more recently write blogs. I have always written, I have 10 page “blogs” that I wrote about many things before blogs were even invented. When you get a few parts of an idea then put it together, write it down and label it for easy retrieval in the future.

Once you have a ton of dots you can start to see how they can connect. This is the hard part, it takes creativity, and looking out of the box. You see a want over hear and then a solution over there. Once you start thinking like this you will start to see how poor many things are done. It is often hard for me not to complain about something, but I am only doing it because I see how it could be so much better, and have much more potential. Often, now, I don’t bother trying to help, because most people don’t listen anyway, and most of those that do will never act on it. Here is an example: One idea I often have is that a buffet is going to have to fill you up, so they may as well fill you up with soda, because it is cheap and very filling, yet about half of the buffets I go to charge extra for soda and many people there do not buy it, so they then fill up on meat and other expensive foods. So I did research on this and found that almost all the successful buffets include soda, and the ones that don’t often fail. This one simple thing determines the success of a buffet restaurant more than almost anything yet when you explain it clearly to a buffet owner they don’t get it and just think I am complaining.

One bad thing about having a creative mind is that before you get a chance to do much with an idea you get another idea that makes you excited. I have had so many ideas that I have had to suppress or let go simply because I knew that if I would go after it, I would be distracted from the idea I am working on now. What a creative person like me needs is a partner that can get these things done and run with it after I create the ideas. This is what most of the rich and successful people do. Look at Bill Gates, or Warren Buffet. Warren looks at a business idea and can see in a few minutes the potential or lack of it, he then makes a decision, buys it then connects it with his business model, and his leaders and they run it and turn it into something much more successful.

What I want to do more than anything in life is help people reach their potential, but I can never do this unless I am very successful. So the plan for me to reach this is to implement my ideas. I have spent much of my life collecting dots, and then creating new creative structures with these dots. The problem is that I have lacked the resources to do much with these great ideas that I have come up with. Other times I just see something as obvious but not worth fixing.

One recent example of this is my idea to “recycle” the heat from clothes dryers. People always want to save energy, and recently this has been taken to a new level. So I have always thought that when you dry clothes you are creating all this hot air and just venting it outside. Why do people do that? How could it be done better. So a year ago I simply unhooked the dryer from the vent. It quickly made the house hotter, and allowed for me to save on my heating bill, but quickly lint started to form. So then I decided to hook up the airhose to a cloth laundry bag, about the size of a king pillow case, that had a cinch cord on it. And “Ah Ha” it worked. I now can dry my clothes and not waste the heat. When the cloths are drying the bag blows up and a nice warm smell fills the house. Of course, during the summer I want the heat to go outside, so I simply hook it back up to the vent. This is an example of a way to do something better, that most people have not thought of. This is also an idea that could be a huge business or product for someone, but I have too much on my plate right now.

Another idea that I am doing right now is the idea of allowing computers to be sold by charities as a fundraiser. It solves two needs at once. It solves the need of my computer company to sell more products, but it also solves the need of charities to have a better product to sell. We have started it recently to limited success. There are finer points that will need to be figured out, but in just a few months I hope this idea will make a ton of money.

Other ideas that we have tried simply suffered from bad situations. One idea was that I saw a very nice a beautiful stone tile produced in a third world nation using cheap labor to make a great products. I also saw the need for these decorative products upscale homes and businesses. So we borrowed money and imported three containers of this stuff, spending a ton of money, because we had a tile distributor that saw the vision. But later on that distributor changed his mind. (I still think he would have had great success). So we looked for another vendor and finally found one, but this new vendor has not given our tile the proper promotion and it is buried in with hundreds of other products in a place that get limited exposure, so it has not sold. At the same time the real estate market crashes and the dollar dropped like a stone, making the tile cost more to import by 20%. I still think it is a great idea, and with the proper tweaking, it will be a huge success.

Now I have another great, and huge idea I am working on. I think, of all the ideas I have ever come up with it is the best, the one that will help the most people and be very successful. But once again I need the resources. I am working on that, I hope my business partner really comes through for me on this, because we need it, and people out there need this idea. More details on it when I have it all set in place.

So I hope you now see the important of this idea. I have been thinking about the how, why, and who along with how to make things better for as long as I can remember. I have memories when I was very small wondering these things. Most smart kids naturally wonder this, that is how their brain is wired, but many adults train their kids not to think that way, to just follow the rules, and don’t ask to many questions, and by 5 years old they learn this, and by 10 or so they are set in their ways for the rest of their life. So for most of you reading this, finding, collecting and connecting dots will not be easy for you. You probably have not been practicing your whole life. But it is very worthwhile to change, to start today.

90% of people just let life happen to them, they don’t plan and dream about the future, they don’t see what they can really do with their life, they have given up. I refuse to give up, I dream every day about how I can change the world. And I hope I have made you dream a bit, and start thinking about dots.

Jason Dragon
Jasondragon.com

The Secrets to Better Marketing

Entrepreneurship, Marketing, , , , , , ,

For the last week or so I have been thinking a lot about the idea of graphic design, and the image your company gives to the world.  What is clear is that SO MUCH of what is out there simply does not work and is very bad, there is plenty of room for improvement.

One thing is that the world has changed and people are hit with much more, but better targeted advertising.  But because there is so much more, so many people ignore it, so you really need to get right to the point.  I can not figure out what they are selling on at least half of the online ads that I see.  If you are a small company you don’t have the time to do this huge ad campaign where you spend a ton of time talking about something that is unrelated to your product.   Just simply tell people what you do, and what make you DIFFERENT from your competition.

The different thing is key, open up any phone book and almost all of the ads say the same things.  Like under plumbing they all have basically the same list of what they fix.  As a small business with a limited budget you need to look at what your competition is doing and basically say we do everything they do plus this and this that they don’t.  Focus on the differences.  Never say things that can’t be proved, or are total cliché like “Fastest Service” “Friendliest techs” or “Cheapest Prices”, everyone has heard this 1000’s of times and they just don’t get it.  You need to PROVE it.  Say “We are at your house in 20 minutes after you call” or “Our hourly rate is $45 while the average of our competition is $85”.  This will bring people to you.  If you don’t have any differences then maybe you need to change your business so you do.

If you are starting a company it is important to pick a name that is EASY for people to understand what you are doing.  Our new company we are in the process of making is called World Sales Team, because we are a team of sales people that will be located all over the world.  You chance at success is MUCH higher with a good name.  Also think about the future, you don’t want to be called a regional name if you plan to grow larger.  In most cases you also don’t want to have your personal name in the company name, it causes problems if you want to start over, or sell the company.  Also someone may have the same name and work for your competitor and that can cause issues.  Before you  name your new company make sure you can get the domain name, because people often look for you online.

Just as important as a name you want a good slogan, probably show your major benefit or your major difference.  If you make a product that has packaging you also need to be very clear and direct.  When you item is on the shelf you will only have a second or two to get someone attention and they will be far away, so make your text large, bold and to the point.

So I wrote all of this because I have been thinking about how to make my web sites more effective.  What I have seen that seems to work VERY well for the companies that use it is to create a video, talking about the company or the product.  I have seen VERY few companies actually do this, but every one that has is doing much better than their still counterparts.  To this effect I am learning video editing.  So far I am very bad at it, but I have just created some new videos and posted then on my youtube.

The next thing is that most web sites are either too much stuff or too little stuff.  I think the best website is one that has only a small amount of stuff, but that all the details are there somewhere, in an organized easy to find way.  That is what I have tried to do with my Emerald Computers website.  I don’t think I am there yet but it is getting better.  One of my biggest peeves is when I find something that I am interested in and the companies web site has almost no information.  I then search Google or somewhere and half the time I find negative stuff about that company, and they just lost my sale.  Please, if you want to make money, keep people there, tell them the whole story, let them go as deep as they want to.  Also put photos on the site, of people using your product.  I too need to follow this one much more.   If you have enough active customers then consider creating a forum for your customers to interact.

So here are my resolutions, make things much more to the point.  Have a clean website, but have more info there somewhere, remember content is king.  Put video online.  Put more graphics online.

I hope this helps you, please leave a comment.