Lessons from Harvard and Google

Harvard Business School has a wonderful resource for all businesses, large and small. Access is absolutely free. I strongly recommend reading it regularly. Lots of useful stuff there. Here's the link http://hbswk.hbs.edu/index.jhtml Read one article and it will make you think and grope in your mind for answers. But the next article may just answer those questions. Professor Gerald Zaltman has written a book called “How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market”. That, as we all agree, is the holy grail. That’s where purchase decisions are made. The trick, says Professor Zaltman, is to look for relevant, basic emotions that have been overlooked by other brands in the category. Hmmm, you might think, as I did, what would be the relevant emotions my business could look for, stuff that my competition is overlooking? An article by Professor Mukti Khaire answers our question. She believes growth comes from by developing intangible social resources such as legitimacy, status, and reputation. Kind of answers the question, doesn’t it? Now what can you do that would confer these attributes to your business? I’ve always felt that Google answered this question best. Do stuff that benefits everybody; all your stakeholders which includes the community you do business in, be perceived as really good guys and keep it simple! Plastic bags are doing untold harm to our planet and your stakeholders are fast becoming more aware of this. Making available reusable fabric bags in any manner – whether you give them away as premiums, distribute them at trade shows and events or even sell them at cost –will get you the positive image attributes Prof Khaire talks about. Can you afford to do this? See how economical and attractive reusable cloth bags can be at http://www.badlani.com/bags Can a simple bag achieve this kind of impact? Ask yourself what you think of businesses that do a lot of common good even while promoting themselves. That will answer your question. So suppose you could afford just 1000 cotton bags, what visibility would that get you? Do the math. They get reused maybe 400 times each, and every time someone carries it around, it gets seen by a couple of hundred people. That’s 200 x 400 = 80,000 eyeballs. Per bag! Now multiply this by 1000. Great branding value, wouldn't you agree? Talk to us. We’ll work with you to plan an affordable and effective plan for your business.