Redefining Product Categories

Over a decade ago Starbuck's went from a niche market in Seattle to become a household name.   They did this by selling extraordinarily high quality, $3 cups of coffee in a world where a cup of Folg

I'm not saying that the US car manufacturers are small business.  They're not, they're very, very large.  However, I think that small companies can learn something from the miscalculations that Ford

Harvard Business Review had a great review of The Long Tail by Chris Anderson. Mr. Anderson posits two theories:

I would say that there are a number of traits that are typical for a good entrepreneur:

In marketing, a "whole product" is a generic product (sometimes called the "core product") augmented by everything that is needed for the customer to have an truly superior expe

In order to advertise your product in a way that communicates with your target customer, you need to understand their problems and make sure that you're delivering a solution.   Sma

Beware the market research company that does all types of market research.     Most companies don't actually do all types of Market Research at all, least not well.    And t

Credibility is an issue for all businesses, but it's especially critical for a small business (or relatively unknown company - especially in what most consumers believe to be a mature product marke

I'd thought that toilets were pretty much a commodity product and that most were purchased primarily on price.    But on a recent trip to Tokyo, Japan I experienced something that completely cha

A number of factors have combined to cause radio advertising sales to decline for the last several years in the United States.    But

In order to advertise effectively, a company must know how many of their customers, or potential customers fall within a standard population of 1000 people (or some measure of likelihood of bumping

Portions of this blog entry are taken out of a recent WSJ article by David Brooks article called “Demography is King”.    His art

Once a person knows something, it's hard to remember what it was like to not have that knowledge (or know-how).     In the book Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath, they describe the way that m

There is a fast growing movement to improve the reputations of many types of companies to have customers perceive them as doing more than just selling products and making a profit.    A growing