Mark Cuban's speech at Blog World Expo contained several funny anecdotes, but my favorite was his story about one of his first business ventures. He sold powdered milk. As Mark explained it, he thought it tasted as good as regular milk, you could store it longer, it just seemed to have a lot of benefits. He even sold some... to his parents.

I dug through Mark's blog archives and found an old post referencing the story. It's an excellent post over all about the need for just one success in business, and why it is worth it to keep trying.

In basketball you have to shoot 50pct. If you make an extra 10 shots per hundred, you are an All-Star. In baseball you have to get a hit 30 pct of the time. If you get an extra 10 hits per hundred at bats, you are on the cover of every magazine, lead off every SportsCenter and make the Hall of Fame.

In Business, the odds are a little different. You don't have to break the Mendoza line (hitting .200). In fact, it doesnt matter how many times you strike out. In business, to be a success, you only have to be right once.

One single solitary time and you are set for life. That's the beauty of the business world.

The post is a great motivational story, so go read the whole thing.

See article.

I've been thinking about frequency.
I've been thinking about frequency.
I've been thinking about frequency.

Clearly, you didn't need the repetition in order to get the point of that first sentence. In fact, the repetition probably made it less likely you read it.

So why does frequency work so well in marketing? Why did candidates spend more than two billion dollars on the last election... that's about $10 a voter. Clearly, the information could have been transmitted a lot more cheaply than that.

It starts with the fact that ten percent (!) of voters polled acknowledged that they decided who to vote for on the day they voted. Wow. Why wait that long? Surely the voter had some sort of inkling long before that.

I think people are full. They have too much to do, too much on their plates, no room for new ideas, new tasks and new challenges (or at least they think they're full). So when all those ads are hurled at them, they ignore them. They ignore them because they can, and because they don't perceive that they have a problem that the ad will help them solve.

And then suddenly, election day arrives (or you run out of flour or need to hire a consultant or fly on a plane to Singapore or whatever). And now you have a problem. You don't know how to choose. So you let some ideas in. You're momentarily unfull, and then, when you're full again, you go back to ignoring the world.

But who do you let in? Which ideas get a shot?

You've probably guessed already. It's the ideas that were in line, patiently waiting. The ideas that earned their place in line because of those ads you say you ignored. You don't consciously remember them, of course, but they were there all along, laying the groundwork, just waiting until you were unfull.

So, all marketing analyses that ignore time are wrong. There's a big difference between a message that arrives when I'm full and when I'm unfull. And there is a big difference between a first impression and tenth one. Even if I can't remember the first nine.

Halloween costumes are 70% off today.

Last week, some of them were worth a crazed drive through traffic and a possible parking ticket.

The costumes didn't change, of course--the moment did.

In the right moment, something goes from ordinary to precious. From everyday to essential.

Jake Wolf started his landscape business after posting “Landscape design student needs your home for portfolio development” on a local yahoo group. Within a week of his post he received 30 calls and had lined up enough work to quit his job.

Jake’s plan for 2007 is to have 100 customers signed up for his monthly fertilizing and pesticide program. Here are his plans for signing that first 100:

My plan for signing up 100 new customers by the spring rush.

1. Send out a thank you email to all existing customers and alert them to my plans for next year.
2. Join as many local online groups as possible. Many allow new members to introduce themselves.
3. Call up landscapers who don’t have pesticide licenses and work out an affiliate deal with them to take care of their fertilizing and pesticide applications.
4. Start writing an email gardening newsletter and heavily focus on local needs and resources.
5. Offer free gardening classes just like a Tupperware party with someone hosting and bringing several friends over. Trust me, this beats giving free estimates.
6. Film educational gardening clips using local people and host them on youtube.com. Include links to the most recent one in every email signature.
7. Forget the website, almost no one visits the current one. Get listed in free local directories instead.
8. Say hi to every neighbor of existing and new clients. Pesticide laws require neighbor notification. Why not knock on their door and say hi?
9. Offer a travel savings discount to your customers if they help you get more work on their block.
10. Say something new and always include a call to action. Everyone already knows landscapers cut lawns, mulch, top soil, prune, snow removal, bored yet, insect control, fertilize, retaining walls, mickey mouse, landscape design, irrigation, ponds, pavers, oy this is too much and this is only half of it!

Jake will make his 100 new clients. How do I know? Look at the list. He’s actually ‘doing’ things to grow his business. He’s not just sitting by the phone.
More ideas soon. In the meantime, click on the “comments” link and leave your favorite way to advertise.

cheap advertising, marketing

Last week, I was running from one meeting to another in the city when I passed an old friend on the street. "No time to talk, sorry!" I said as I hustled off.

When we connected by email a bit later, he said he hoped I had a good meeting, and that it was worth the hustle.

I couldn't remember where I had been headed.

It seemed important at the time.

I've got two takeaways for you:

• the first is that a lot of our day is spent doing stuff that seems urgent but really isn't.
• and the second is that most people buy most things in a state of urgency, not relaxation. We pay what we pay when we buy what we buy because right then, in that moment, it's not just important, it's vital.