Lesson #1 – Make sure you ask for the business. I have just watched a beggar collect at least worth of donations in the last half hour with a sign that says – “I am saving up for a hooker, weed, wine and a steak dinner.” Not one of the people bothered to read his sign and know what they were even donating for. Not the family man with his wife and children, not the group of older people probably in their 80s, not the business man in the suit, nobody. The beggar obviously learned the power of asking, no matter what.
The proceeding was getting delayed for a very simple procedural bottleneck. The copies of the contract had to be signed by all parties concerned and because the documents were voluminous the deal was taking time. The owners of India world were getting emotional as they felt they were giving away their baby for adoption. Finally, the press meets started about an hour late. Boy, did it create a sensation. 5 million for a few web portals! The next morning at the Mumbai airport I bought copies of all the dailies and reveled in seeing the large banner headlines about the deal.
1) Be a member of an affiliate union (AFTRA, AEA, AGVA, AGMA or ACTRA) for one year and work at least one part with a principal role (five lines of dialog-most commercials qualify you).
People are buying the experience and the perception of the brand. I am sitting here writing this article in a busy Starbucks and people watching when I could be in the quiet and seclusion of my nice hotel room. The person in the seat next to me is listening to music on an iPod when they could obviously do it for free in the Square with a less expensive cup of coffee. The gentleman in the big living room type chair is reading a novel. People want the experience. Understand your customer and the value they want, and the money will become less important. The big three U.S. auto manufacturers give huge rebates, and imports are still kicking their butts. It’s not about the money.
Around this time, I discovered the benefits of news dissemination through global wire services. I regularly kept in touch with senior people in Reuters, Bloomberg and Dow Jones Newswires. The challenge was that these organizations hire hard-nosed professionals who were not interested in irrelevant talk. Plus, they wanted to be the first with the news, counted in seconds! I tailor-made press releases specifically catering to a global audience. Our visibility increased considerably after that in international media. We also distributed our news releases through PRNewswire in the use.
However, their prices seem competitive, do not they? You must pay more “organic” section of facial care products, “Green” store not found you? Solution of this apparent paradox is that the big-name skin care product manufacturers use cheap ingredients. Because these materials are so cheap and easy to get them, they do not mark their products very much, for commercial gain. If you only knew how their relatively low-cost super goop skin care cream tube, you will be shocked by how much you should pay the retail counter.
Lesson #5 – The money is in the niche. Watching traffic go by in San Francisco makes you understand the wide array of cultures, diversity and multitude of options people desire in their choices. I often watch in amazement as many dealers are led by advertising agencies to spend vast sums of money trying to be everything to everyone with a generic non-benefit driven message.
Facts about the heavily advertised and marketed skin care products are less than perfect. The big name, big money selling cosmetics makers of inferior products. That’s why they spend so much money, if you want to advertise your facial care offerings. Their products carry some hefty price tags that they do so they can enjoy very high profit margins. A large part of these profits and then put right back into the companies so that they can engage in fierce competition between each other, brand, advertising, hiring celebrities to do the advertising and marketing, etc. If they lowered their profit margins, and thus reduced their advertising budgets, they want to be going on business or at least close many of its offices.