Diversification is admission of ignorance

B2B, ideal customer, Marketing, messaging, prioritizing, Product Management, segmentation, single target market

A few posts back I had written a post on how giving too many choices actually reduces the chance of success.

I used to hear a lot of gurus in the stock market talk about being focused with not more than 10-15 stocks to get the best returns. If you read the Wealth Creation studies by Raamdeo Aggarwal, he gives a lot of examples of how being focused can give much higher returns. If you want average returns then you can just take an Index ETF.

The other day I was listening to an interview of Garrett Gunderson with Joe Polish on YouTube. And he happened to mention this term in passing and it kind of stuck with me. Garrett has written a very nice book Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths that are Destroying your Prosperity.

Even in marketing if you try to do too many things trying to see which will succeed is because you are not sure of yourself either on your offering or on your market or a whole lot of other things. Most of the time we try to do multiple things at the testing stage to see what sticks and what falls. But once you start seeing what sticks you need to start improving on that. You can’t be testing multiple variables simultaneously. It never works.

You cannot be testing multiple offerings in different markets and also seeing which message works. I have done this at different times and flopped badly. Sometimes these were done because I fell in love with multiple brands and thought I could get them launched at the same time but then eventually realized I could not do justice to all of them. It was definitely my ignorance then. At other times I was in a tight spot and had to somehow get something moving and thought at least if a try so many things simultaneously, I will be able to get success somewhere.

Eventually I have come down to some very specific things for B2B marketing. I need to identify only one target market and niche it as much as possible when I am launching a new product / service. If your segmentation is done well and then you get your database / list based on that you have already come a long way. After that you test your messaging.

The 80/20 that I have been talking about in the last few posts is exactly the opposite of diversification. Its about focus and the knowledge which comes from focus. Like the image above, a few colors in a pattern can give a good look but putting too many colors on the same rug, assuming some one will like some color is ignorance.

Whether its finance or marketing or even other areas of your life you can spread your self, diversify and be shallow and ignorant or go deep, focus and be knowledgeable and get great results.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Prioritizing the top 3 or 4 for your financial freedom

compounding, Financial Independence, Karma, prioritizing

I have spent so many posts on talking about how you can hit financial freedom. Today I will give you the 80/20 of what I think are the key things I have learnt over the last few years.

The compounding equation – Sum = Principal*(1+(Rate of Interest)/100)^Number of years. Since the 80/20 is fractal prioritizing on the Rate of Interest and Number of Years is critical. Compounding works both ways. If you have taken a loan it works against you and if you have invested, it works for you. The earlier you start your journey to utilize this equation the richer you will become, faster
Taxes – Be an honest tax payer, pay what is due and in full. However utilize all the avenues the government gives to save on taxes.
Always look at increasing your earning capability – so that you can hit your goals for financial freedom faster. Scrimping your way to financial freedom is a long arduous journey.
Always give charity. Its good Karma. In some countries the government also encourages you to give charity by giving tax benefits – refer to point 2 above.

There’s so much depth in understanding just these 4 statements that complete books have been written just to cover these topics.

Since the topic is about prioritizing I will keep the post short. Just focus on these 4 statements and keep finding within them the areas where small effort can give huge returns . Again small hinges move large doors.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem

Prioritizing top 2 or 3 – challenges -2

differentiation, execution, Marketing, Marketing Ecosystem, Methodologies, prioritizing, Product Management, route to market, segmentation, single target market

Yesterday I wrote about the issues which come up in prioritizing the top 2 or 3 for me, in my day-to-day life. This post will talk about the top 3 things in marketing that you need to address and the challenges which come up in real life situations because of revenue pressures.

In marketing if you summarize the issues with respect to lead generation or getting business then they would be

Getting footfalls (incase of a store) or hits on your website or people coming to your webinar
Cost of various media to get you the traffic
Cost of converting the footfall into a buying public

Perry Marshall calls this the Traffic, Economics, Conversion combination. Within each of these three you can do a prioritization of the next top 3. Like I mentioned earlier 80/20 is fractal, so there’s always an 80/20 within an 80/20 forever, you just need to identify it. That will help you dramatically. I am amazed the amount of leverage I keep getting once I recognize the 80/20 in anything. Like I have been saying – small hinges move large doors.

Now something outside this equation is Reference customers. I would like to put this in category of itself, provided you already have a running business, because this can change the game in your favor dramatically.

Now every marketer would understand the things which I have listed above. But what happens is that there is pressure from sales for leads and while you start testing one item and things are not working out, you start analysing all the issues. In the meanwhile because there’s a pressure on revenue you try something in the short term to boost the revenues and the spiral starts and things go out of control.

During this time someone from delivery comes up with another product and sales being sales, they always want new products to take to the market and suddenly you are being pushed to launch the new product in the market.

The companies who do good in marketing are the ones who ensure that they don’t mess up the prioritization, focus on it to keep things running smoothly and then look at new product launches or sales pressures. Chances are if you have a system than the system will incorporate the failures that can take place and have a place to learn from them.

Master these priorities and you could be way ahead in your marketing.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Prioritizing the top 2 or 3 – the challenge

Habits, prioritizing

In my previous post I worte about how the 80/20 rule is fractal and how you can go narrower to identify those few things which if done consistently can produce massive benefits.

Inspite of my knowing this whole basis of producing amazing results by focusing on a few things, I still get side tracked – whether its my daily activities or my marketing plans.

While there are multiple reasons in my everyday life, its again just a few hinges which move me away dramatically from my set plan for the day and my top 3 would be

Suddenly called meetings by internal and external customers – which not only take up time, because there is no agenda fixed in advance they also end up you not having all the answers, but also ends up aligning one more set of meetings. If there are flare-ups as part of these meetings, then you also end up getting into meetings with your team members immediately to figure out a solution
Lack of sleep – this is another big one. If I don’t get at the least seven to 8 hours of sleep in the night, then my productivity and creativity levels both are at a low all through the day and which makes me sluggish in doing everything.. A double whammy in this is if I have slept late and then got up late but without my 7+ hours of sleep. Then not only am I sluggish, I am also running behind schedule on multiple things which gets me to skip through essential morning routines, which is even more counter productive. Being responsible to teams in different time zones across the world, this is a situation which occurs very often.
Phone calls

Identifying the issues that are derailing you is the first step. Building guard-rails is the next. For the first two I have not been able to figure out really well defined ways to solve. For the third I am becoming more successful on a daily basis. I keep my phone on vibration and don’t pick a call whose number I don’t recognise, as starters. In addition I try to get down to ding calls only after I have finished my top priorities of the day are.

Tomorrow we will look at things which sidetrack the prioritized marketing plans

I would love to hear from you if you have found ways to handle the first 2 challenges that I have listed. Pls put them in the comments below.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!