Saturday, December 1, 2007

Fortune

Just saw at Martin Varsavsky blog a curious link on Fortune 25 most powerful business people.

Very insightful. 1 women and a lot of technological people.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

internet

During last BBW class Martin explained us two main concepts of internet information tracking. Since the terms were new for me, I decided toput a note on this.

There are two main concepts of information tracking - pinging and crawling.

Crawling is what Google does - indexation the change in Internet. To provide personalized advertizing, forexample, Google datacenter machines register the changes made evey second. If you ned thoroughness, you take this method, which has two main disadvantages: expensive (computer consumes a lot of energy) and perception issue (they are spying).

Pinging idea was used by David Sifry for Technocraty - blog searching engine. The source of change reports to a server automatically if he made a change and want it to appear in search results of the server's engine. You go for it if you need speed.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

BBW last class

Just went from one of my favourite classes (I even dedicated a separate blog to this topic. I have a bunch of insights from this class also, but will revise and post them later.

What I have to say.

First, we were talking about Martin´s current business Fon a lot. I even used 15 minutes of free Fon access to send the results of 2nd round of investments. And Martin brought a Fonera to each of his student as a gift. Well, I can ensure that they will have the first fonera in Russia, cause the first thig I'm going to do is to connect my father's appartment to ADSL and guess which router I will use? Quite a good reason to get into several countries at least to get first early adopters.

And second. Recently Martin has written about ASUS Eee PC - open-office linux-based portative PC with 4Gb flash memory. It is really nice, taking into account that in China it is sold at the equivalent of 180 eur (around 350 usd at Amazon in the US). What I have to say about it? User-friendly, fast, compact (a bit heavy - almost as heavy as Sony Vaio i've revcently borrowed from my friend to use). But the biggest discover for me is Linux, which is quite friendly (as my friend told me - until you open the console:). I feel like they were cheating on me about the only possibility for user - MS!

Well, hoping to get my Acer back as soon as possible (it is like renting an appartment forme when you use someone's laptop). And come back with results of last class soon.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

hate full stops in the heading (full stop here!)

My proofreader's past poisons my life - I can't read cheap books and newspapers cause I pay too much attention to details of layout and formatting; that distracts me from the content. And more important - while making ppt's of presentations I usually kill my group by paying the attention to "unsufficient details". Like full stops in headings - I hate this and I have this hate in my proofreader's DNA.

Seth Godin just posted the list of eye tracking rules. Now I'm going to use them during my next arguments. Unfortunately, this doesn't solve the full-stop issue, but allows to avoid other discussions (as logo positioning and picture backgrounds).

Here is the list (in alphabetical order):

* Ads in the top and left portions of a page will receive the most eye fixation.
* Ads placed next to the best content are seen more often.
* Bigger images get more attention.
* Clean, clear faces in images attract more eye fixation.
* Fancy formatting and fonts are ignored.
* Formatting can draw attention.
* Headings draw the eye.
* Initial eye movement focuses on the upper left corner of the page.
* Large blocks of text are avoided.
* Lists hold reader attention longer.
* Navigation tools work better when placed at the top of the page.
* One-column formats perform better in eye-fixation than multi-column formats.
* People generally scan lower portions of the page.
* Readers ignore banners.
* Shorter paragraphs perform better than long ones.
* Show numbers as numerals.
* Text ads were viewed mostly intently of all types tested.
* Text attracts attention before graphics.
* Type size influences viewing behavior.
* Users initially look at the top left and upper portion of the page before moving down and to the right.
* Users only look at a sub headline if it interests them.
* Users spend a lot of time looking at buttons and menus.
* White space is good.

Source:
Seth Godin shortlist.
Visual hosting blog explanation.
My russian post and translation.

Friday, November 16, 2007

story of success

Today is one-year anniversary of Russian regional (meaning it is not from Moscow) company "Sila uma" (Force of mind). Their weblog must read for russian speaking entrepreneurs as a success story and a resultof thoughtful markting.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

education

It's very important for people to have their first education at home.
Bibi Russell, the founder of Bibi Production (Bangladesh) during 2nd Social Responibility Forum at IE.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

little triumph

Our Venture Lab project has just qualified for semi-finals in IOP day (investment oriented project). In a week we're going to present the business to comission.

I'm really happy cause the work done is great.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

tools vs aims

People sometimes get lost between understanding the aim itself and the tool. The tool is just something that can get you to the aim, not the tool defines the aim, but vice versa.

Recently I subscribed to a rss from making presentation community in russian. I can see the trend of copying those fancy styles from western presentatios - pictures with a shortslogan on the slide. To be hones, I still prefer to have presentation only forthe sake of illustration of my words. Or sometimes when I don't have a time to get ready or don't have passion to tell people - this is the case when I put some schemes in PPT.

What I can also see, that some of consulting companies just buy techniques and then copy-paste slides from other presentation. Because nobody is going to pay you for several drops of essence, they need oceans of information, spreadsheets, fancy tools.

I really want to find a place where I can distill and deliver - I really love this formula from my entrepreneurship professor Julio de Castro. Cause the tools is not that really matters, it is how good you can use them. Or even the result of using them.

Anyway, while people buy tools but not the results, this marketwill exist. And of course it is easier to just copy and paste. Forget about reputation, they only tend to speak about it.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

can't stop, really)

Since I have a break with my entrepreneurship project, one more thing to be posted.

The theories often come to my mind during my MBA studies are:

1. Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
2. Sunk cost theory.
3. Customer oriented behavior.

Will develop the idea later.

Friday, November 9, 2007

English

Studying in multinational environment has its advantages and disadvantages. Main advantage is diversity. But sacrifice is the level of English.

You need to express yourself. You care about letting people know your idea. You talk to the guys from 37 different nationalities. And different levels of English, of course.

Well, I've got fluency and freedom of expression, but grammar went down obviously. And since the speed of thoughts now is incredible - I'm fixing everything I need, there is no time for revision.

Put the grammar note on todolist and sighed when was looking at her grammar book.

Dream Yacht

I worked a bit and added some explanation about one of my classes - building businedss workshop with Martin Varsavsky. Please, consider, that business idea I develop is no more than class exercise and I put as much efforts for it as necessary. In real life the overall aproach is also implemented, but the depth of details and work are at another level.

All the updates are in Building Eureka blog.

what a small world!

Playing with social networks actually shows you how the world is small and connected. What really differs Xing from other nets I use is that they show the whole conection chain between existing connections and a person. Even when I had 1 connection (guy whom I met randomly in friends feed of my livejournal friend and afterwards met in Munich when I visited Friedrichshafen Outdoor trade show), all my IE contacts were connected with him through network. Random guy with my IE network! Well, Xing is the first system I saw that shows the whole chain (not like "somebody from your friend's network"). And even when I find my ex-colleagues from Norway, they are somehow connected with my IE contacts. Lovely!

By now:
Xing - 19 connections within 4 days (most from my university, 1 ex-colleague, 1 poutdoor contact, 1 from groups I added).
Odnoklassniki (Classmates) - 104 connections within 7 days.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

to sell or not to sell

Talking to potential buyers about your company is the only way to know how much is worth. There´s nothing wrong with that as we all need to make informed decisions.

Martin Varsavsky quotation

Small business success.

Three things you need:
1) the ability to abandon a plan when it doesn't work,
2) the confidence to do the right thing even when it costs you money in the short run, and
3) enough belief in other people that you don't try to do everything yourself.

seth godin quotation

x-posted to building eureka blog

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

first result of netvibes feeding

I really liked the post of Seth Godin.


I was at a gala a few weeks ago (featuring no less than ten speakers). At least 80% of them began their talk by saying, "I know you're hungry, but..." or "I know it's late, but..." or "I know you want to go home, but..." and then apologized for giving a speech.

If your speech needs to be prefaced by an apology...

don't give it.

That's why they call it giving a speech. It's a gift. If you have to apologize, it's no longer a gift, is it?

Our collective fear of public speaking has created a host of awkward situations and events. It's pretty simple: Be brief. Or don't come at all. Don't do anything you need to apologize for.

(and brief means sixty seconds, usually. That's enough to say hi, to say thanks and to move on.)


Seth Godin, Nov 07, 2007 16:37:46 GMT

tech notes

Well, you really understand the opportunity when you need it. I become aware of RSS idea a year and a half ago when bumped into discussion of its necessity. I started using it a year ago when during our Informational System class we mentioned it. At that time I was choosing between downloading feed with a special program or having it online. Since I didn't have connection at home, I went for FeedDaemon - to download and then read later. At that time it seemed to be a perfect thing - I had all my feeds atr one place, read them when I had time. I wondered: why people need online rss-combiners.

My laptop now is on mainteinance (to make a long story short, I had a flaw at the top cover and went to service for a change, they promised to fix it during one month, when the block got stuck, when they decided to change the screen because of spots and now they are waiting for a motherboard - I don'tknow really why, but the laptop is 2 months delayed). I'm using my friend's machine - she was very kind to borrowit to me until December. And I really can't using a lot of programs - the capacity doesn't allow me. I gave up Outlook (to export messages then and to sort - too much time), stopped using Skype for calls (I rarely used it, mostly for messenging), reordered all the links and folders I use, but it's getting messy, because it is just not my laptop!!!

Since my networks are not requiring that my time, now I decided to build my rss feed place. Thanx to Marin Varsavsky, whose class again inspiredme to do one more crazy thing online. I really need the easy updateness on news. Later on I will duplicate all the feeds to my FeedDaemon, but now...

Welcome to the wonderful world of netvibes.com.

networking again

With all networking activities the main thing is consistency. If you're building a network,youneed to do it regularly and on contstnt basis, since you stop, the processgoes backwards. Within 3 days I built 2 networks - private and business. Or, let say, started building that. I'm going to cut my activities within facebook (after december, when I come back to Russia) and russian nets and pay attention to LinkedIn and Xing.

The steps to build it are the following:
1. Register and check ytour closest network - University and Business School.
2. Check network of each member added you. Add those you know.
3. Check groups, choose, be a member.
4. Participate.

Now I'm at 4th stage with Xing.
;)

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

social networks

I'm playing with social networks now. There is a huge variety of ones, with different aims and coverage, but all of them require a lot of time and don't use in full.

I've understood several stages of relationships with the net:
1. Awareness - somebody lets a person know, may be describes main features and advantages.
2. Interface test - here a person registers for a network (by invitation or through automatic process) and makes first steps on the building networks through checking invited friend's connections.
3. Network building - (s)he uses search tools, matching possibilities, checks colleagues, classmates.
4. Additional services check - the most useful and user-frienly are adopted, others are ignored.
5. Network modration - after a certain effort the network is updated automatically. User just moderates it.
6. Intensive use of the network - most of users rarely come to this stage.

The aims of creating a social network are the following:
1. Stay in touch with friends - network here is an interactive adressbook or messenger.
2. Active participationin social life - creating and attending different networks, groups.
3. Job search engine.
4. Professional network creation - for knowledge sharing.

Well, each of the type has its own target users, I can't say that my nets are not important. some of them are not just developped to be useful.

Most probable trends are:
1. Entertainment (social life) nets will merge, since it is hard to manage several ones.
2. Professional nets are on contrary will intimidate and increase entrance barriers due to the level of sharing of information rise.

I participate in the following nets:
* Facebook - social, entertainment, mostly to stay in touch with my IE classmates and spanish friends.
* LinkedIn - social+professional, since most of the contacts business related (IE + some external).
* Xing - entered today, job search + professional.
* MoiKrug - russian net, started as a contact book, now I use for professional purposes - job search + stay in touch with russian professionals.
* Odnoklassniki.Ru (Classmates) - I'm using it since two days ago. Curious to find elementary school classmates and see them now. While surfing thru it, I understood that I started forgetting even university friends. Just to stay in touch.
* Vkontakte - russian clone (copycat?) of facebook (even design). Non developped forme, just in case, cause I have a good friend there. Plus, making an experiment of networking building.

Well, when building, networks require a certain effort and a lot of time. When buit, they save time through providing quick answers and help a lot if correctly used.

As my friend Mauricio says, network should work, when it worths the time spent for building it.

Friday, October 26, 2007

fabrizio salvador

Two quick quotes from one of my favorite professor's class:

Sunk cost is irrelevant for future decisions (everyon knows, but tends to forget).

and

You don't make money if youalways say yes. Raise your ability to say no.

Monday, October 15, 2007

two weeks of no classes is over

I mostly spent my time for spanish classes and our project financial calculations.

Waiting for new ideas from school discussions.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Daniel Porot

One of the greates things our Career Center did is getting Daniel Porot (porot.com) to our class.
Playing with his career guide I've found a wonderful exercise.
List the talents you have.

Mine are listed below:
1. Challenge myself
2. Make fun of
3. Negotiate
4. Discover
5. Present
6. Set goal
7. Coach
8. Keep going
9. Analyze
10. Put into words
11. Balance
12. Structure
13. Manage resources
14. Repair
15. Organize oneself

upd. have done it forthe second time

1. Make fun of
2. Customize
3. Coach
4. Negotiate
5. Balance
6. Communicate
7. Analyze
8. Develop
9. Present
10. Explore
11. Put into words
12. Find a solution
13. Improvise
14. Keep going
15. Find instruments

resilence to criticism

One of the biggest mistake of entrepreneurs is having pink glasses when reviewing own business and idea. I'm the best, others are sucks. Or I have a unique proposition, nobody can give this to you. This leads many of businesses to a failure.

Then a person becomes professional, he/she tends to be more resistant to critical views. In my humble opinion, professional is the person who can still open his/her mind to a new information or view rather then pushing own idea. It's ok to have a stron belief into own idea - that's a reason why you have it. In the same time critical review of the idea can improve it a lot.

Many people understand this position in their own manner. Recently I've seen several examples of making a public access to the document asking for idea/presentation/business evaluation. Wow! Those people are open to criticism, I thought. But then I've read all the comments and authors reaction to them. Resistance. Normal reaction is 'Tastes differ' (universal answer to someone's opinion), or 'What can YOU say to me?'. The person posted the document for discussion therefore has a different aim. Instead of asking for an opinion he/she asks for approval, bragging.

I'm not good in listening criticism to my job. I take everything too personal and prefer to blame person who gives criticism of lacking critique skills. Sometimes it is true, but not all the times although I prefer to exaggerate a lot and count all the cases of criticism I don't like to the lack of skills. And I'm also awful in giving criticism meaning that I try to find weaknesses without mentioning strenghs. When I don't like one job from the person I tend to perceive other his/her jobs in a worse way.

So, here are some rules and exersises I use to be less critique resilent and give a good criticism.

While asking for a critique:
1. Try to evaluate your job without bias. Think about target audience - what are their interests and do they find benefits in your message. Do they have an answer on the question 'What's in it for me?' Make a list of their interests and answer if your documents brings your idea to fit them.
2. Count to 10 after making suggestion about criticism given. Think about the person's interest of giving this critique to you. Is there good sense in his/her comment? What will change if you make suggested chnges? Are they for good or for bad.
3. Remember, those comments are about your document/idea, not about yourself. They doesn't reflect your skills/talent in full, just a small piece incarnated into this document/idea.

While giving the criticism.
1. Evaluate the job, not the person who made it.
2. Make a list of strenghts and weaknesses. Try to provide an even quantity of comments on each part. If you can't provide one of the parts, think deeper.
3. Think out the words you're making criticism. While making criticism, ask yourself about your interests. And interests of a person asking for criticism.
4. Never give criticism when not asked. In ideal world give criticism only if they have paid for it)))

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

market research use

Here is the link between three key indicators we can withdraw in marketing research.
Brand awareness should lead to purchase intention and this, therefore, should translate itself into marketshare. By identifying the problem, we can find the right tool fot solving the problem.

Friday, September 21, 2007

Two essays about startups.

How to make wealth
Why not to start a startup

Both by Paul Graham.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Building business workshop class

A piece of advice to entrepreneurs.

Know the price of everything. Every moment of entrepreneur's life is making decisions of price and quality. Know the range of prices. Look into maarket capitalization of any company. Know the GDP of the countries you're connected with.

Guessing is the half of life of entrepreneur. If you obsessed with accurate numbers, you'd better be rocket engineer.

Spain is the most successful oof least ambitious countries in the world.

In business it's all about balancing content and emotions.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Building business workshop

I have just got the assignment for BBW of Martin Varsavsky to develop a business project. Since group work is not allowed, we're not presenting the one we have for venture lab.

I have limited time to find idea, discover business opportunity and develop a business plan (financials, marketing).

I openned a special weblog for this purpose to describe the process.

Welcome.
http://buildingeureka.blogspot.com/

Friday, September 14, 2007

Lovely!

Change management, Peter Gil.

Money is the margin you can make on the top of existing technology.

The window of opportunity is opened for a limited time. It's not enough to see the window, you need to know the way how to convert this opportunity to money quickly.

S-curve of product/team life cycle: there's no natural travel along the curve. Crisises are inevitable. But you can make proactive change to reduce initial investment stage and have a smaller payback period.

Teams roles: there are different models for group behavior description. One of them position individuals into 4 basic group according to their preferenses - explorers, organosers, controllers, advisers (tecnique developped by TMS). Positining yourself into this map means that 75% of people around you are different and perceive reality and make suggestions different.

Any strength taken into extreme is a weakness. Any strength you don't take advantage of is a weakness.


ps. Peter Gil is the owner of MDT (www.mdt.es)

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

DM

Since I'm taking two courses on decision making this term (one (msrketing strategy for DM) is finished, I posted some takaways and promised to post more), I'm going to elaborate on this topic.

We started with the very basics. One maim takaway from Drucker's article about DM is "A decision with no action is just a good intention".

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

marketing strategy for decision making game

Well, the first course of electives has just finished. 15 sessions in 5 days with market simulations. 6 groups competing in two markets, starting with 2 products (similar for each group, 2 different segments). We didn't manage well - I'm not experienced in those types of games, but we made several remarkable mistakes to be mentioned and got lot's of experience. Basically, we learned how to manage a company with small budgets and were recovering every time after crisises. At the same time we launched successfully the product to a new market (correct strategy, but rather low profitability).

Some ideas.
- When all the companies have the same products, the only difference can be made by the strategy is by advertising (influencing perceptions) and allocating salesforce. First is good for pull strategy (influencing ultimate consumer), second is for push (working with channels).
- When a company start launching differentiated brands, it is important to fit into segment needs/requirements (price is included). The closer the better.
- Products become obsolete, segment's requirements are changing, and marketing is all about managing perceptions.

Pricing strategy.
- Wrong pricing can kill very successfull brand (specially when it is become obsolete). The leading on the segment can turn to total loss with one wrong pricing decision. Our wrong-priced brand couldn' recover even after drop in price and remarkable (for us, not for competitors) budget.
- While launching totally new product pricing can be made upon estimates from the most similar products margins.

We also can have a remarkable market share, but low net contribution due to higher base cost and lower margin. We did it several times until discovered the problem. Common truth, but dramatic consequenses.

Managing small budgets:
- You always need to think in advance. Investing in rnd now will require a launch money. Is it possible to manage bigger brand portfolio with existing money? And with projected profits and budget? Sometimes we postponed launching and product become obsolete.
- It is better to have less brands but well positioned rather than to spread small budget among several promosing but not very profitable brands.

One more thing. We tended to create more advanced products that exceeded segments needs. Therefore we were less competitive on price (due to less margin). How could I forget about example of perfect tent - if you create tent with best materials and techs, it will cost you around 5000 eur (don't remember when and how we made those proximations), that's why producers normally go for simpler solutions.

One more remarque upon using marketing research data will follow if I can insert table.

Thursday, September 6, 2007

marketing strategy decision making

The very first subject on electives for me is marketing strategy for decision making. We´re playing multyteams´game - market simulation. The very first round my team finished as the last one. Although we did quite a normal job (I can´t say that the job was good though) in terms of market contribution (at least it was positive and better than in previous perion), when being compared with others and with market figures (growth, for example), we showed the worst performance.

During my job as product manager I was always feeling that all product category´s growth is not enough, we can make it better by paying more attention, assigning more salesforce etc... But I just didn´t have any benchmarks - this information for different competitors is closed in Russian market.

Sometimes you need to run very fast just to stay at one place. But how fast should you run, you can understand only while looking on milestones.

back from vacations

I was on vacations last 5 weeks, that was very intensive (3 countries - Germany, Russia and Turkey), lots of events... and notes. Now I´m back to school, my laptop is on maintainance and I don´t have russian keyboard, that means my russian weblog is temporary pending, so I´m going to put everything I took notes on here.

Hold on!

Monday, July 30, 2007

just found at my friend's weblog



Source: www.oper.ru

The poster is one that every entrepreneur must have before thinking out his product. While listening in-class presentations I've caught slight feeling of understanding why most of the businesses are dead within 1st year. Every entrepreneur is sure that his\her project is unique and is by default successful.

Monday, July 23, 2007

Global warning.

Just came back from Friedrichshafen from Outdoor Trade Fair. I have a lot of notes, but need to work through them.

One the almost fiinished is about climate change impact. During our classes we discussed the possible incentives to businesses to pay attention to the problem of global warming. I've just had a talk to russian distributor and outdoor product developper, he told me that due to poor winter almost all russian retailers have now a huge amount on inventory. This can be translated to inventory holding costs, assortment obsolescence and therefore lowering margins for next year etc. So, to avoid those costs retailers should think in advance and invest into environmental projects.

Thinking further. Next year wholesaler will be suffering. Since retailers have huge stocks, they are going to lower their orders. The wholesalers' orders to suppliers also will lower. Moreover, due to poor sales (this year ducring Xmas the temperature was +7, snow covered the ground only in february, the season was closed in the end of march - no sales at all) retailers won't be able to pay in time. Therefore we have two more suffering parties.

The question now is if it is a global weather ternd or just a cyclical changes. Due to suffering now businesses are not willing to invest in environment. Moreover, this is classical prisoners' dilemma - if you confess and start investing while others stay silent, you're a loser. First mover disadvantage. And dilemma will be solved to unefficient no-no square until its players' asses will be fried.

That's why some institutions and organizations have recently appeared. One of them - European Outdoor Froup - started Association for Conversation. They're making environmental projects and collect money to do them. Members we selling goods during exhibition to invest. i will elaborate on this topic further.

5 strange facts about myself.

1. I love to drink kefir (russian sour milk) with salt and tomato juice. This is reminds me the taste of liquid when you finished tomato salad with yogurt or sour cream dressing.
2. I collect passanger coupons from all my flights (when they give a boarding pass and leave small right piece to me). By now I have 52.
3. I don't like reading books from the screen. Sometimes I print the text (two pages per sheet, double-sided). While reading I tear off page by page. And in the end of period of reading (I read in metro or train) I tear the read pages into 4 pieces. I have this habit since my job where I used a scratch paper to print articles. the information on the other side might be not for other people's eyes.
4. Being stressed for studies and work for a quite a long time I learnt self-fear management. Now I remain relaxed even in stress, but the only reminescence of it is stomack problem - I always have it when I supposed to be nervous.
5. I remember most of my sports accidents and like joking about them - that helps to avoid negative flashbacks.

Monday, July 16, 2007

more quotations from different classes

No classification. Just a list.
  • Negotiation class: Education is complicating your life to make one of the others better.
  • Ianna Contardo, Strategy: Drop your tools! (the resume of "Collapse of sensemaking in organizations: Mann Gulch case").
  • Jacob Hornik: "Competition is running faster than competitor."
  • Free markets online case (IS class?): ...without people who can sell a concept, ask for money and close deals, you are dead.
  • InfoSystems (guest speaker): News evolutioned to entertainment. Funny or horror, it is now no more than a way to amuse people. We're going to have news we'd like to hear. (Look at your friend-feed or remember last time you decided to maintain frendocite - F). It's scaring - to have only news you like. And boring most of times.
  • Cost accounting brain-washing (again, thanx for sharp eye of Mauricio): Normal costing is a costing system that traces direct costs to a cost object by using the actual quantities of direct-cost inputs and that allocates indirect costs based on budgeted indirect-costs rates times the actual quantities of the cost-allocation bases.
  • Org.behavior (Pino Bethencour): Leadership is a hard work. The price leader often pays is lonlyness.
  • Own note after 1st term: Perfectionism hurts.
  • All classes: tree main concepts: added value, CSR (in all aspects) and 'It depends' (as an answer to any questions).
  • OB: Gentelmen, that's a sad thing to mean nothing. Old Man, 12 angry men.
  • Marketing (first awful professor on this subject): Sales are the people implementing marketing hopes and dreams into reality. That's how it should be.

from other blog notes

I've got the perfect marketing professor finally. My russian professors were at most regular (except one pricing guy who was tough, but ok). And here I was disappointed, even started hating the subject.

http://www.billcarney.org/

This guy changed a lot. I've got a bunch of quotations from his classes. Here they are.
  • In our knowledge we have perception "the more the better". It depends upon whom this more belongs and how much they're paying for that.
  • You make money on similarities, but differences cost you money.
  • Approach to non-mutinational company - do product, do marketing idea and push everything to distributors - they should be interested in product distributio. Put marketing effort - promotion, sampling etc to them - you don't have time for that.Distributors know their markets. If you are ok to tell them what to do, you don't need them. Just go to the market and do it yourself.
  • Marketing strategy is a carefully designed plan of actions which aim is to elicit specific response of a specific target group of customers. Official, but according to the scheme Who-What-How.
  • Pricing is the marketing mix element by which you meet your financial obectives. Wrong price - unsatisfied consumer - lost profit - failed financial goal.
  • All your efforts should be done to customers who are sesitive to your core business values. First focus on the customers that is easier to obtain.
  • Salestaff compensation normally consists of 3 parts: base salary, comission, bonus. What the mix? Depends upon your target. Sales compensation is now used for manipulating. Base salary is a primary control - discipline, business practices etc. Comission which is a percentage from sales is a working icentive, the more you sell the more u get. And finally bonus is an appreciation of teamwork and collaboration. You as a manager define the mix since you know your staff better.

let's get it started

After another thoughtful weekend of packing my stuff, thinking out my future, watching several episodes of Sex and the City and having two big tomato salads with cheese and Greek yogurt and wild berries’ ice-cream (3% fat only!) I suddenly become inspired to start writing marketing plan report for one of asignaturas in my Spanish MBA.

Several hours of squeezing my way through papers Mauricio printed out for me (this guy has his brains tuned perfectly for music industry!), I’ve got the first impression of this report to be. The bees-thoughts found their way to bee-hive.

The report is about analyzing current situation for record labels faced the challenge from digital music distribution – all the talks about DRM (digital rights management), Steve Jobs and iPods. Reading through Sean Carton’s “will the Digital Music Industry Survive” I again got the mental itching for professional weblogs. From September great time starts for me – 4 months of electives in iMBA. Good food for brains.

To have a right mood for making report on music industry challenge, I decided to play one of the playlists Mauricio gave me. Since all my stuff is packed and moved to my friend’s apartment, the only available was in my computer’s music directory. Ironically, the one I wanted to listen – Cicada – was protected with DRM and I didn’t get the legal copy yet. So, now I’m with Hot Chips and their album “The Warning” (ripped from CD, by the way) thinking out the industry’s situation.

The only negative consequence of the making report (not counting spending my time and decision on making another weblog) is that now I terribly want iPod. Networking externalities are working. And I’m not involved in the network. Yet.