Selecting a niche…. create a differentiation

differentiation, Marketing, Positioning, Product Management

Whenever you try to create a differentiation –  it is always with respect to a market.

The red egg differentiation will not matter to a person who does not eat eggs.

I talk multiple times about Joe Polish and Dean Jackson. The reason I am so impressed with them and their podcasts on ilovemarketing and morecheeselesswhiskers is because they explore this concept in so much depth.

You will hear a lot of marketing people talk about identifying a niche in the market, but fail to say the immediate statement after that. Is there a market in that niche

This is the most critical aspect when you decide to segment the market for a niche.

When I started my career in selling process control equipment, we had an amazing product which was also very expensive. Indian industry at that time was still new to the idea of micro processor based process control equipment.

Our product was very good good for controlling complex processes. However there were very few companies who really had the need for such a powerful equipment. And we didn’t have a range of products.

While there was a niche in the market for controlling complex processes, there was no market in the niche…. because there were very few companies with a need for such a product.

Eventually this product could not take leadership even though we came out with this amazing product much before anyone else.

So while finding a niche in the market is important, to be able to differentiate and stand out. You should always see if there’s a market for you in the niche.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!

Perception- III

differentiation, Marketing, Positioning, Product Management, Sales

These parts on marketing are short because I like to get a bite size idea across in the time while you wait in the line at Tim Hortons or Starbucks – max two minute read.

In the first post on this topic, I spoke about why perception about your product or service can make such a big difference in the premiums you command and the profitability you can make.

In the second post I wrote about the downside of taking a position in the market especially when there’s a major technology shift – from horse carriages to automotive.

One of the key agendas of marketing is to attract customers to you. But there’s an unsaid implication in that statement.

Marketing should help you attract the customers you want and repel those you don’t want.

Like the red egg above in the picture,  people who don’t like to have red eggs will get repulsed by it and will not buy it. However the people who love red eggs will go to any length to get them.

You may sell a much smaller volume than the white eggs, but you could be making much larger volume. So many iconic brands like Harley Davidson, Apple, don’t have a large market share in terms of volume but they lead in terms of profitability.

Whatever perception you want to create however cannot be at the cost of the quality of the products or services. Good marketing is not a substitute for a poor quality product.

If you have an excellent quality product or service and then you choose a narrow market and create a perception of being different then you can take home a much higher profit.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!

Always spring or autumn

Lifestyle, travel

I hate very hot weather and I cannot bear very cold weather either

So I have always had this fantasy that I will always stay in a country in which there is either Spring or autumn all 12 months of the year

My idea is to be in India between January to March, travel to Europe in the mediterranean region between April to June, live in Canada between July to September and travel to Australia between September and December.

On Sunday while talking to my brother , I learned a new word “snowbirds”. This is the term used for people in North America who travel in Winter, from north to states like Florida and other Southern States in the US

I didn’t realise that what I used to think as fantasy, was actually being worked on seriously by people in some parts of the world

So I started doing a little bit of research on these snowbirds and one piece of data which I saw on Google is that the population of Florida increases by about 5% during the Winter months in North America.

These people in most cases live in rented accommodations and cook their own food and maintain their lifestyle the way they do at their hometowns

That got me thinking. I live in India and I would not have the capability to drive my on vehicle with the caravan or RV to different continents to ensure that I was always living in spring or autumn.

The only solution I could think of was to have A matter to share properties In different countries at different points in time. So if there is someone who prefers Very hot summerThen they could take my house for a quarter while I live in their house varieties Spring or autumn.

I saw movie a few years back with Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz called Holiday. In this movie the two ladies – one from LA and one in UK, share their houses for 2 weeks 1 in Los Angeles and one in England.

I am not sure if this kind of us thing does seriously take place between different countries but I am intending to explore these options to realise my fantasies.

Do you know if this kind of a mechanism exists? Let me know your comments.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!

Advantage small investors – SIPs

Affirmative action, asset allocation, compounding, Financial Independence, Habits, Uncategorized

This is a continuation on my rant for doing Systematic Investment Plans (SIPs)

A lot of times I hear my friends , especially female friends say this….. my father / brother / husband invested in a specific stock Rs100,000/- and the stock has never recovered back and he lost so much money, so I will never invest.

I have literally had to coax people to understand the fallacy of the argument. Losing massive money is an outcome of getting in the market without doing your home work. If you listen someone else and do your investment or you see the stock market going up and you throw a dart at any name and buy the shares then you are inviting trouble.

First and foremost if you don’t understand about the ways companies work, operate, don’t get into the market on your own. There are so many ETFs which you can buy or MFs you can get. This helps spread the risk over multiple stocks.

Second even within these always ensure you are buying regularly in small tranches. By using the SIP facility you get to average over time as well as cost so even the fall in prices is actually an advantage for you.

Unlike big investors who have to look for a big price advantage to invest their millions or billions, for the small investor this is an advantage. They can enter the market at any time because the SIP will take care of any gyrations that the stocks go through and will end up with a very large core inthe long run.

The key is that you are not investing lump-sum, you are investing small amounts and you are investing systematically and you are letting compounding play its role in the long run, then your returns will be similar to the overall market

In the LONG TERM, and this is a very important point, in the long term the stock markets have given compounded returns in double digits. If you can spare small amounts of money every month for an extended period of time, its mi days boggling to the corpus you can create. In my earlier posts I have given ready to use charts to help you compute.

However if your time horizon is short then its better to put money in debt instruments so you are sure about your returns. These returns are small single digits but they are guaranteed.

Take your first step, start an SIP and get financial independence.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!