#25: Here's a thought...

An occasional series in which a review of recent posts on MyVenturePad reveals the following nuggets:

Three little piggies went to market
Marketing is all about stories. There’s the story of how it started, the invention of whatever it is you’re selling, or the invention of your business itself, the story of the brand, the packaging, the formula, or whatever. There’s the story of how the customer finds the solution. There’s the story of how the customer problem is solved.

Let’s hear it for Big Tony
Zipper’s Beachfront Restaurant is a little off the beaten path, and there’s nothing fancy about it other than the great ocean view courtesy of Mother Nature. The restaurant’s owner, Tony Magdaleno (aka “Big Tony”) is a mini-celebrity. During a recent visit to Zipper's, I decided to ask Big Tony to share his business secret for success with me. “Most business comes from word-of-mouth, and I never forget a face,” he explained. “It is important to get repeat customers.”

The game’s afoot, Watson!
But there is something new afoot in urban life. And it starts with the mobile phone, a computer in our pocket or purse, that is with us at all times. Services like Twitter, Foursquare, and Outside.in are changing the way I use the city, and I am certain they are changing the way many of us use the cities we live in. And we are just at the very beginning. Think about what happens when we get true augmented reality services on our phones. Think about what happens when we get real social networking services on our phones. Think about what happens when we get new interfaces on our phones that don't require us to be looking down and typing when we are out and about.

Here's the deal
A solid lead nurturing program extends at a minimum across your average buying cycle and even beyond. Lead nurturing is about providing useful content your buyers find valuable because it helps them think about, evaluate and solve their problems to create desirable business outcomes.

Here’s a test
From my experience, one of the best way to create an innovation or differentiation for your business is to take something people already understand they may want and need and make it even easier to want, need and understand. In fact, the true test of this theory is when you can create something so simply brilliant that people can and do explain it to their friends with ease.

You know what “right” means, right?
It's not the nature of capitalism to need to teach people a lesson, it's the nature of being a human -- we just blame it on capitalism. In fact, smart marketers understand that the word 'right' in "The customer is always right" doesn't mean that they'd win in court or a debate. It means, "If you want the customer to remain a customer, you need to permit him to believe he's right."

Here a post, there a post
The best advice I ever received about blogging came from Jeremiah Owyang. He told me to take the first hour of my day and before I do anything else to read blogs and then blog. He also told me that a post should only take twice as long as an email of the same length. Some days you may not feel like you have much to say. Some posts will be better than others. But over time you will get better. This is the only reason I watch my stats. If my visits, subscribers and number of times people share my posts goes up, I’m doing a good job.