Too much to listen and too little time...
My rating: ★★★★★ (5/5)
Pointers:
- 3:30 – Marketing is an exact science…
- 4:00 – Marketing and Sales are two completely different things.
- 4:24 – The Laws of Marketing. One law says that if you look at any market then 3 or 4 players control 80% of it.
- 4:58 – If you invert that you can get an idea about how to segment the market in a better way.
- 7:15 – Marketing is not fluff, it’s really a set of very core rules and if you violate those rules that would be like a physicist who claims that there is no gravity. He can claim there is no gravity but gravity is going to affect him anyway.
- 7:46 – You have to know these rules because if you don’t your results will be predictably bad.
- 8:21 – The stronger the marketing the weaker the sell-engine can be.
- 9:56 – Don’t try to sell something that you wouldn’t buy yourself.
- 11:46 – If someone is lying to you, your subconscious will know and you will feel uneasy.
- 13:56 – If you invert that: if someone is absolutely truthful to you all the time then you will want to be close to that person as much of the time as you possibly can[1].
- 16:30 – P&G is an example of truthfulness.
- 17:40 – If you don’t have a compelling value-proposition then there is no point in pitching that.
- 18:57 – Whatever you come up with (assuming is truthful and is a value-proposition) the real litmus test is when you put it in front of costumers. Pay very close attention to the feedback you get from them.
- 20:08 – An anecdote about “what actually works is not what you actually came up with.”
- 22:32 – Pay attention to demographics.
- 24:32 – About Amar Bhide’s book “The Origin and Evolution of New Businesses.”
- 27:50 – An anecdote about: Arbitraging opportunities or value-propositions is easier than coming up with or inventing an enduring compelling value-proposition.
- 32:59 – An anecdote about the importance and added value that simple and totally known things can bring.
- 36:00 – On cloning and copying the best and sensible practices and ideas.
- 41:00 – When looking at competitive advantages there are two facets: (i)trying to be ahead of the pack in a red-queen-effect; (ii)trying to build the advantage one tiny piece at a time.
- 43:00 – One of the most expensive things that can happen to a company is bad hires.
- 44:20 – On cloning Buffett.
- 45:50 – Anecdote on copying best ideas no matter where you find them: hand-written and dedicated letters instead of generic on-line and in-bulk correspondence.
- 50:54 – Cialdini’s book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion and the reciprocity effect.
- 57:39 -- How to spend and optimize your time when pitching an idea.
- 1:01:07 – Q&A
- 1:01:57 – When cloning you’re always behind (unless you leapfrog), so how can you get an advantage from it?
- 1:03:47 – Cloning is very powerful because there is room for more than one… and then you put your own stamp on it.
- 1:05:25 – About his lunch with Buffett.
- 1:07:08 – On the inner scorecard.
- 1:09:05 – On how to treat your customers and get feedback.
- 1:11:15 – On when to go to the market with a new product.
- 1:13:18 – On Mental Models and how to pick stocks.
Listen to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up_WSmf1XDw
NOTES:
[1]Even though I’m a follower of Pabrai’s teaching, I need to mention the downside of this advice which is: the halo effect, Liking/Loving and Disliking-Hating Tendency, certainty bias, romance of leadership, etc.
