Category: entrepreneurship

Being real

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Here’s an excerpt from today’s business section of the Sunday Age. A respected Australian broadsheet newspaper.

 

Correction

“Oops. Last week the story headlined ‘No More Living on Borrowed Dreams’ said household credit card debt was $4 million. The correct figure is $41 billion. The mistake was made by the reporter (who also choked on his conflakes on Sunday morning).”

What I like about this paragraph is it’s real. It sounds like a person wrote it. Not a public affairs department. They admitted they made a silly error which in my view makes them more reputable and trustworthy. Rare in large media organizations.

Start up lesson: People trust people more than they trust corporations.

Two types of investment

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

There are only two types of investment which can be made:

Investments in money

Investments in time

The good news is that if we haven’t any money we can always invest our time. We can read books, read blogs, go meet people, study, get a job doing commission only sales, make business plans, practice public speaking, exercise, walk, play sport, help others, pray… Anything which gives us more knowledge…. anything which gives us more health…. anything which adds value to us as people.

 salvador-dali-clock.jpg

 

The more ‘time’ we invest, the more we become, the quicker the money will find us.

Inspire Log

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Not a new concept, but an inspire log is great tool entrepreneurs ought use.

Inspire Log

Definition: Little booklet, notepad, or document with pictures, words or quotes which help motivate us on a daily basis to stay the course.

It doesn’t have to be full of pictures of luxury homes or Ferrari’s. It’s whatever makes sense for you. Maybe it’s a picture of a clean environment, a cure for a disease, a vision of world peace, some words from your favourite leader. Anything!

Print it, but it in a folder or plastic pocket and look at it each morning and night.

Apparently it works.

Blog action day

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Blog action day is cool. Here’s why:

It’s simple way to unlock the power of the blogosphere. It’s for a really good cause. One that people are happy to help, but often don’t know how. It’s a start up which is an event.

Here’s the idea:

From www.blogactionday.org

“On October 15, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind – the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic.”

They already have almost 6000 blogs committed to it. Including this one.

 

Simple idea, simple to do, big impact.

Let’s hope it spreads.

How to run a consumer promotion

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

There’s no shortage of really crappy consumer promotions out there. I blogged recently about budget airline Jetstar’s poor attempt here.

 

Win a car. Win a holiday. Conditions apply. Buy 3 years worth of our product to enter… need I continue?

 

Here’s some tips on running an effective consumer promotion:

 

Make it simple to enter

Make it free to enter

Make it a race

Make the prize unique

Make the prize the ‘users’ choice

Make it benefit your brand & the entrants

Don’t ruin it with terms & conditions

 

And here’s an example of the above which we have done for rentoid.

 

Feel free to enter.

Theatre at transaction, again

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

‘God gave rock n roll to you’, but the rock band Kiss gave us much more than rock n roll – they gave us ‘theatre at transaction.’

It was the theatre Kiss gave us which in real terms transformed them from a band to a brand.

Consider the following classic KISS trademarks:

The face make up

The Logo

The clothing & boots

The flying Vee guitars

Gene Simmons breathing fire

Gene Simmons tongue

Gene Simmons vomiting fake blood

The intrigue, the mystery, the disgust….

 

These resulted in all sorts of spin offs like the Kiss dolls, Kiss comic books Kiss Coke bottles, the Kiss symphony orchestra concerts and even the Kiss army.

 

The gimmicks didn’t get them there alone, they had some great music. But maybe it was the above factors of the Kiss music experience that kept the band, sorry, ‘brand’ alive for the past 34 years!