Preneur Marketing - The Blog of Entrepreneur Pete Williams

This weeks video is courtesy of Andrew Nesbitt and is one of the funniest things I have seen in a long time.

Gabriel Delahaye and Max Silvestri present an ad for their revolutionary program “Gabe and Max’s How To Get the Dreamlife of Your Dreams Using the Internet”.

For more exciting comedy, visit http://corporate-casual.com and http://maxsilvestri.com

A Dangerous Cocktail, originally uploaded by Preneur Marketing.

Fleur and Rodeo drv… It was always going to be a dangerous combination

…Please excuse any typos as this is being sent from my iPhone

Starting a business does not necessarily mean creating a new technology, or coming up with something radical that has never been done before, or inventing a new product or service from scratch. This is a common misconception. Many would-be entrepreneurs spend years trying to come up with an earth-shattering idea, when there are really opportunities all around them, every day. Many of the most successful business people all over the world have simply adapted an existing idea, implemented an existing product or service in their own way, or improved on somebody else’s creation.

Perhaps one of the greatest examples ever of leveraging an existing idea is always sexy Bill Gates and Microsoft. Gates has become one of the richest people in the world (his personal fortune is measured in the billions) based on somebody else’s idea. That’s right, the product that started it all for Bill — called DOS, which stands for disk operating system — was not an invention of Bill’s.

In 1980, IBM was building the first commercially viable personal computer, and they needed an operating system to run it. They approached Microsoft, who agreed to supply the software — the design for which they bought from Seattle Computer Products for around $50,000. There were several different computer companies and operating systems in the early days, but Microsoft and IBM went on to dominate the industry worldwide, thanks in a large part to DOS. Years later, Bill gates borrowed another idea from Apple computers. Microsoft brought out a new operating system called Windows, which used an icon-based system and a mouse instead of text commands to run a computer. Apple had been doing this for years, but it was a revolution for Microsoft users.

Coca-Cola started in the same way. Coke was invented by Dr John Pemberton in Atlanta in 1886. He made efforts to promote the drink, but it did not take off. During the first year, he sold an average of just nine drinks per day. He later sold the rights to the drink to businessman Asa Candler. By 1892, Candler’s flair for marketing had boosted sales nearly tenfold. Today Coca Cola operates in over 200 countries and has nearly 400 brands.

While travelling, Janine Allis saw that there was a hole in the Australian market for a healthy fast-food alternative. She often had trouble finding something healthy to eat or drink when she was in a hurry. She thought the American juice bar trend could be brought to Australia. When she came home, she developed a business plan and raised $250,000 through friends investing in her idea. She consulted nutritionists and naturopaths to come up with natural, healthy juice recipes. The first Boost store opened in Adelaide in 2000, and over the following six years more than 170 stores have opened throughout Australia and New Zealand. Janine found a great idea overseas, and successfully implemented it in Australia.

Richard Branson never invented anything in his business career. He has run a record label and an airline, opened music stores, released a brand of cola, and now offers financial services. None of these are new ideas. So why has he been so successful? Perhaps more than any other business person, Branson demonstrates what can be done with a bit of imagination, a lot of marketing, and putting your own personality into your business. His company name — Virgin — attracts attention instantly, and he is a shameless promoter, using sometimes outrageous publicity stunts to attract attention to his brand. He appeared in a wedding dress to open his bridal store, and he drove a tank down Fifth Avenue in New York to introduce Virgin Cola in America. Across all his products, the thing he is selling most is his brand, Virgin.

In 1948, brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald opened their hamburger restaurant in San Bernardino, California. Its success was based on its limited menu and rapid service. But are the McDonald brothers responsible for McDonald’s dominating the fast food market around the world? No, that honour goes to Ray Kroc, who sold milkshake mixers. Ray heard about the McDonald’s hamburger store, and how it ran eight milkshake mixers at a time. He jumped in his car and went to investigate. When he arrived, the store was doing a roaring trade, and Ray had never seen customers served so quickly. He immediately saw the potential of the store’s unique methods, and suggested to the brothers that they should open up more restaurants. When they asked him who could do that for them, he replied, ‘What about me?’

Ray opened the second McDonald’s restaurant in Illinois in 1955. There are now more than 30,000 McDonald’s restaurants in 119 countries around the world — all thanks to Ray! McDonald’s later added another innovation to the fast food world — the drive thru. This was an idea that had first been used by banks throughout the USA, with drive thru access to ATMs

Some of the largest and most successful companies in the world were started either by buying somebody else’s idea or simply creating a better way of doing something. There is nothing wrong with this — it is a common approach to business, and as you can see from these examples, it can be an extremely profitable one.

HEY, did you know i’m running a contest while I am away…
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In his book The Boron Letters, Gary Halbert writes about one of the lessons he teaches on selling. He asks his students, ‘If you and I both owned a hamburger stand and we were in a contest to sell the most hamburgers, what advantages would you most like to have on your side?’

The answers are predictable — the best meat, the best location, the lowest prices. Gary tells his students they can have all these advantages, but the advantage he wants will ensure that he whips the pants off them. What does he want? A starving crowd.

If you are looking for a new idea to start a business, ask yourself this simple question: what product or service will give me a starving crowd? Your aim as an entrepreneur should be to develop a product or service that people want. Success and profits will come much more easily if you leverage an existing demand, rather than trying to sell something that people aren’t interested in.

You must go fishing where the fish are. Develop a product for profitability. The best way to develop a venture is to find a market with money that has an unfilled need, then create a product or service that fills that need’s gap. One of my favourite examples is also incredibly simple: the hammer. You wouldn’t give a hammer a second thought today, but imagine what a revolution it was when it was invented. Imagine how much easier it became to join two pieces of wood together or hang a picture on a wall. These are the specific uses that a hammer is designed for. Without these a hammer is useless, and it came about because somebody asked, ‘What would be an easier way to hang a picture on a wall?’

What can you come up with that fills a specific need?

HEY, did you know i’m running a contest while I am away…
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To overcome a fear of failure, you must realise that there really is no such thing as failure. Success and failure are merely perceptions. Something that might look like a failure at the moment is only another step to your eventual success, or even the success itself.

Take the story of the now famous and hugely successful Post-it note. The adhesive used in Post-it notes was invented in 1968 by 3M researcher Spencer Silver. He was attempting to design a strong adhesive, but he actually ‘failed’ and the adhesive he developed was very weak. Dr Silver tried unsuccessfully for five years to find a use for his new adhesive. Arthur Fry, a new-product development researcher, attended one of Silver’s seminars, and he was intrigued by the strange adhesive. During his spare time Arthur Fry sang in a church choir, and it annoyed him that the bookmark in his hymn book would always fall out when he stood up to sing. One day he realised that he had found the perfect use for Dr Silver’s glue — it could be used to make a bookmark!

The original Post-it notes were used as bookmarks, and the remainder were shown to the 3M marketing department, but they rejected them as useless (a failure). Arthur Fry gave them to his secretary to dispose of, but she instead found what is now the classic use for them. Fry told her to distribute the remaining notes to all the executive secretaries in the 3M offices. When they ran out, she was inundated with calls for more. These calls were passed on to the marketing department, who finally got the idea. Initial prototypes were available in 1977, and by 1981, after a large sampling campaign, the product had been introduced around the world.

Everyone now knows and uses Post-it notes. This is a classic tale of a failure turned into a success. Post-it notes have been developed in a range of colours and designs for a variety of uses, and they can be found in offices, schools and homes all around the world.

HEY, did you know i’m running a contest while I am away…
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