Adjust the end to your means If you don’t have the resources, capabilities, or equipment necessary to make something that looks like it had an enormous budget, or which matches the prevailing trendy aesthetic, try something else.
Dear Charlie The task was to sell a German-made car in America, less than 15 years after the end of World War II. Oh, and it looked and drove nothing like the most popular cars of the day. So how do you introduce a new car in a hostile market dominated by giants?
Even if you lose, you win If there are red flags during the sales process, if the project seems doomed from the start, those issues won’t suddenly go away once there’s money, expectations, committees, and deadlines involved.
You can’t bully yourself to better marketing Frankly, entrepreneurs and creative types tend to bully themselves. Not because they don’t know what to do, but because they feel like they know exactly what they should be doing, but aren’t. Or can’t.
Don’t predict, prepare Nobody knows what happens next. No one’s predictions will be very accurate. We’ll look back and wonder how it wasn’t obvious, but nothing that seems obvious now is likely to be right.
You paid the fare—make sure you arrive The most important concept in strategy is commitment. Not a commitment to do the same thing forever. Not a stubborn resistance to change. But a commitment to truly give a direction your all.
Not lazy, but afraid Why do we put off marketing work we know we should be doing? The fact is, if we aren’t confident an action is going to create positive results, we won’t do it. We’ll procrastinate. We’ll avoid it. We’ll make excuses. It’s not because we’re lazy, it’s because we’re scared.