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focus

Flank the devil

It can be tempting to respond directly when you feel attacked. Perhaps by a competitor trying to “steal” your customers by drastically undercutting your prices. But to respond in kind is to rush headfirst into battle against someone who wants you to fight on their terms.

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?

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.

Focus on the most likely outcomes

It’s easy to panic and imagine the worst-case scenarios for any project we embark on. And it’s just as easy to fantasize about the very best outcomes. But it’s a little more difficult, yet profoundly more important, to analyze the most likely best and worst cases.