There is an old, grey, shabby house in my street in Zagreb. Like most houses in Zagreb, this one is from the golden era of socialism. It hasn’t been renovatet or repaired since it was built in late 50′s. Somewhere on the 2nd or 3rd floor, there is an appartment with old wooden shades covering half of a window. The rest of the window is covered by synthetic, lacy curtains long turned yellow.
Every day in the afternoon, a man is standing behind those shades and curtains and commenting on the newest political and social developments in Croatia. His voice is strong and firm and he sounds like a professional speaker.
Every day, he is giving the world his excellent, true and very critical analysis. If this was a movie, people would gather under his window and listen and discuss and start a change. But this is not a movie, and everybody just passes by thinking “Oh God, again that old lunatic!” and stays busy with their own life.
So all those thoughts – and guts to share them – will stay burried behind a dusty, sythetic curtain forever.
1 Tape it.
2 Put it on Youtube.
3 Get 1Mio hits.
4 Become the guys manager.
5 Become rich.
6 Start a news-show on TV, featuring new sights on politics.
7 Go into Politics.
8 Become President.
9 Get ousted by the bureaucrats who oppose change.
10 Retire.
11 Start writing books.
12 Make your own blog.
13 Report about your crazy neighbor.
14 Go to 1.
Oliver, You are a marketing genius! I love your tips!!! Do you have any tips for my image consulting company (www.wow-image.eu)? I need more customers! ;o)
Nesi
Nesi,
1. post links on blogs
2. make sure you have a perfect image yourself otherwise you are not credible
3. convince other people that they have a bad image (as female hygiene product brands convince women that they are “dirty”)
4. offer concrete examples that will show the customer 10% better than they think they are (which is 50% better than they actually are)
5. invent a new name for your business field. dont use “consultant”. According to Dilbert this word is made of “to con” and “to insult” and also suggests that you charge too much. use words like “optimize” since people do not believe they are bad until you convinced them, until then they will however believe they can optimize things. Also use words like “process” since that means for you that you can continue working with them forever, as opposed to a project which should end sometimes. Then you can recover from charging less then a consultant could do. call it something like “image optimization process expert”.
6. Show images of clean, color-coded/sorted closets on your website. No women has those, but wants them. make sure there are at least 40 pairs of shoes also. Women will think it gives them the excuse to buy more of them and hire you right away. “My image expert told me to buy more shoes!”
7. Show images of Japanese women on the website. People always associate them with being extremely well dressed
8. Make sure that they understand that the economic crisis will heat up the job market and that they have to look perfect to succeed, since brains and boobs won’t do the job anymore.
9. Show images of Milan, Tokyo, NY, Paris and London to show that you know how to dress in style and not like they dress in Guadalajara, Kärnten and Texas.
WOW! Thanks!
Nesi
I love you guys