From the Desk of John Kumpunen:

In a VillageEconomy, there was no need for marketing. There was the blacksmith, the seamstress, the storekeeper. It was a closed loop, everybody knew everybody and everybody gave their business to one another.

Then along came the Gutenbergs and the Henry Fords and the other industrial titans with some serious mass production skills. Cranking out products like there is no tomorrow (one well-to-do lady shrieked: “Ohmigod, it’s the same coffee table everywhere”). Industrialists needed armies of predictable workers. Public schools were set up to train, test, and discipline predictable clock-punching factory workers. People were taught to read so they’d be better consumers. “Respect and honor are paid to the principles of industrialism, and reverence is offered its founders and leaders”. —Ewen

And before long, the affluent CityEconomy was full of all kinds of products. But excess is not success. Too many products fighting for the consumer attention. We’re now in a crisis of overproduction and choking from excess. Somebody counted 437 different mp3 players. And 20,000 brands of beer? Do we really need that many brands of beer (since 15% of us Homer Simpsons drink 85% of all the beer)?

Michael Masterson’s ETR reported that 95% of books out there sell fewer than 100 copies. I had no idea. A recent guest on Coast to Coast openly confessed he had written 165 books. Shocking. Like Stephen King. How about just ONE really good book? Thankfully, Steve Jobs spaces the new iPods at least 4-6 months apart! Four-month planned obsolescence I can take LOL.

But really. Just too many of everything. That’s why we need marketing. To differentiate, to stand out from the masses. Even if it’s only for a short product life cycle … or 4 minutes on Oprah.

Given that we are in a crisis of overproduction, with too many products fighting for consumers’ discretionary income … take that as your new baseline for marketing.

1. Base your thinking on the notion that you are marketing in a world of obscene excess. Even if you have no direct competitors, there are hundreds of other places where the family would rather spend their money than on your product. Every single day they’re being choked by 3,000 sales pitches in one form or another.

All CityEconomies are flooded with products. Less than 1% of them will ever rise to Seth Godin’s Domain of Excellence — products that are ranked so good, people rave about them and they sell themselves. They’re on CNN, CNBC, and Oprah. Very few make it to the A-list.

2. As an inventor/designer myself with umpteen prototypes per project, it takes a big boy to say: “My product sucks, I need to improve it, and make it so good it sells itself” . We tend to become so wrapped our own designs, it’s very difficult to step back and rethink from scratch.

It takes even a bigger boy to admit your service sucks because people aren’t raving about it. Because your inbox isn’t filled with Thank-You notes. Because they don’t send you tons of unsolicited testimonials.

… but, in these days of choking super-competition, it is an extremely healthy operational baseline. Assume failure (and statistically you’re right) and figure out what you would have done differently. What would have made you the new Google?

Start from there. If it is a good B-list product or service (you get a few unsolicited testimonials), make it into an A-list product by improving it, by educating your target audience, and by communicating your USP better, and by simply asking a million questions from our buyers. Just one of these tactics increased one website sales 10x in 6 months.

assume that you are going to fail (not necessarily because you suck, but) simply because your target audience is being choked by the same-old-same-old

now think what would have made a difference — more education, more face-to-face, more grab, more honesty, less greed … what would have made you the talk of the town and created a line-up of life-time customers?

WOM-selling: what would have made your customers rave about your service or products?

There is no magical formula. You need to smoke the peace-pipe with your customers, ask them a million questions and somewhere between their lies, their trying to please you, and their honest answers is the the Product, the Mind-share Positioning, and the Tested Selling Sentence that rock their world.

Authentic marketing is not the art of selling what you make but knowing what to make. It is the art of identifying and understanding customer needs and creating solutions that deliver satisfaction to the customers, profits to the producers and benefits for the stakeholders. — Philip Kotler

Sales and marketing services with over 217+ ways to bring your product from B-list to A-list product. To get started, please fill out this preliminary no-obligation form.

P.S., The Paris “Plays Dumb” Hilton rule of marketing is: Don’t be boring and dress cute wherever you go. Life is too short to blend in..