MBA in a Box
January 31, 2008 by admin
Filed under Books, Human Resources, Leadership, Management, Marketing, Strategy
Practical Ideas From The Best Brains in Business
Joel Kurtzman (09100)
At one level, business isn’t as difficult to master as the business schools and other sellers of educational courses would have you believe. To be successful in business, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist. In fact, if you want to be well rounded and successful, there are ten key areas you’ll need to have some knowledge and expertise in:
1. Innovation
Always keep refininig and improving the product or service you sell.
2. Sustainability
Businesses must do more than make money — thye must contribute.
3. Accounting
For capital markets to exist, accurate financial information is required.
4. Strategy
For companies, strategy is all about direction and thinking clearly.
5. Managing
Good managers learn more from the people they manage than they teach.
6. Human Resources
Smart businesses stay that way by sharing knowledge between people.
7. Leadership
Self-improvement is the foundation on which successful leadership is built.
8. Marketing
Marketing and advertising are long-term investments, not expenses.
9. Communication
Communication can mean the difference between success and failure.
10. Execution
The best way to learn is to study the slip-ups of others and avoid them.
I have asked some of the best minds in business to put down some of their best thoughts. I have asked them to be candid, open, and opinionated. I have asked them to tackle the subjects they love from perspectives that they know work. I have asked them to give readers a glimpse of how they think about what they do. My goal is to help readers shift their vantage points, shake up their thinking, and stretch their minds.
–Joel Kurtzman
Creating Win-Win Situations through Advertising
January 31, 2008 by admin
Filed under Negotiation, Persuasion, Sales
(16423) Dave Lakhani says:
The key to good advertising is to find your own message and drive it home. You won’t do that by using bits and pieces of your competitor’s ads. Instead, you have to tell the story only you can tell. You want ads that are so distinctive a competitor couldn’t come along and insert their logo instead of yours and run the same ads themselves.
Profitable and persuasive ads follow two straightforward steps:
1. Develop ads that interrupt and tell a persuasive story in and of themselves. First and foremost keep in mind that you’re trying to tell a story that will gently interrupt, persuade and then compel the audience to take some action. To grab attention, you need a headline that compels you to read or hear more. The body of the ad should then be a one-on-one conversation that tells an interesting story, answers questions and provides motivation to either learn more or take action. Persuasive ads use words and images to create dynamic pictures in the minds of prospective customers. They dramatize what the results will be if you do not use the product or service offered, and do so congruently rather than reading like a shopping list flung together for convenience. Great ads focus on one idea or one action item, and have a clear and concise call to take the next logical action. Persuasive ads have a rhythm and pace that figuartively lifts prospective customers and compels them to take action.
2. Measure the effectiveness of your ads. Pure and simple, the only measure of how well your ads are working is how much more or less business you have this year compared with last year. The only way you can track this is by measuring what sales are generated by which specific ads. To do this:
It really doesn’t matter how you track your ads as long as you actually do it. There is no substitute for good information. By tracking what makes some of your offers more persuasive than others, you gradually learn how to make your ads more persuasive. This will be far more profitable for you over a number of years than anything you could ever achieve by copying what your competitors are doing.