D
o you want to create entirely new markets? Or do you
want to dominate an existing market but dont have the
marketing budget to compete with the big players? Do
you want to inspire customers so that they build your brand for you?
You can do all of the above and more.
It simply requires you to treat thinking creatively
more seriously in your business. There is no one formula
to achieve marketing success, but there are strategies
that work better than others. Marketing Without Money
teaches you the stealth marketing techniques used by
Australias top twenty entrepreneurs. Learn how they create
outstanding value for their customers, engage people
in their cause and do it all creatively and provocatively.
Things that unsuccessful entrepreneurs fail to do.
Even if you have little or no start-up funding, even
if you are facing strongly entrenched competitors, you
nevertheless have the opportunity to steal the market using
IN THIS SUMMARY
innovation and creativity. This summary will show you how
to generate and implement business, product and service
Create Outstanding Value
Market the Cause, Not the Product
is the leader. You will learn how to substitute creative
How to be Seriously Creative
brainpower for money. By using your mind to crack the
Start valufacturing today
market, you will be able to create your own future, instead
concepts to create new markets in which your company
of being led to it by others. Now, thats one proposition no
business can afford to ignore.
E s s e n t ia l B usine ss Kn owledge F or High A ch ie vers
SELECTED AS ESSENTIAL READING FOR BUSINESS PEOPLE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Lyons is a renowned expert and author
in Marketing. Lyons was founder, CEO and then
Executive Chairman of the leading national
strategic research and marketing company,
Marketshare, which he sold to a public company
in 2000.
Edward de Bono is the worlds most respected
authority on creative and cognitive thinking in
business. Widely regarded as the leading writer and
speaker on the topic of thinking, De Bono is the
author of sixty-five books, translated into thirty-five
languages. He has recently been named one of the
most influential people in the history of humanity.
CREATE OUTSTANDING VALUE
The single most important focus in your
business should be the creation of outstanding
value for your customers. You will always have
the opportunity to create further value for a
customer; people are never satisfied with the value
they currently have and are always looking for
something better. The good news is that there
are countless ways to create new and exceeding
levels of value for your customers. But to be a
successful creator of value, you must focus your
companys effort.
FOCUSED VALUE
You will never be able to please every segment
of the market. Businesses that try to be all things
to all people are inevitably undermined by more
focused competitors. You can create outstanding
value for your customers by using these four steps
to focus your product or service offering:
1. DECIDE ON YOUR SPECIFIC CAUSE
One of the biggest mistakes made by
entrepreneurs is entering a market where there
are already many similar competitors and then
imitating their competitors strategies, policies and
procedures.
Avoid this by first choosing a group of potential
customers to whom you think you could provide
outstanding value. Ask yourself if you would
be able to supply a product or service package
offering better value than any of the existing
competitors. If you dont feel passionate, almost
fanatic, about improving that product or service,
then you are not connected to the cause and
should not enter that market.
2. ENSURE PROFITABLE DELIVERY
There are an unlimited number of ways you
can provide outstanding value. You could lower
prices, provide better quality, shorter delivery time
etc. New companies do it all the time, but many
are still unsuccessful. They havent worked out
how to profitably deliver that extra value. Before
you take your offering to the market, you must
work out how you can extract a premium from the
extra value you have created for your customer.
3. CONSOLIDATE A SUSTAINABLE POSITION
Once you have decided where you will create
outstanding value, your business must be able to
protect or monopolise the value you deliver. To
do this, develop an efficient system or formula for
value creation and delivery. Build your companys
reputation so that it becomes famous for its
value delivery in your focused area of expertise.
Your value bundle should be improved over time
through the addition of other values. The aim for
your business is to create a value monopoly.
4. DECIDE BETWEEN CUSTOMISED VS.
STANDARDISED
Will you be rigidly standardised (like
McDonalds) so that your products or services
are delivered at exactly the same level of quality
and design for every customer? Or will you have
a highly customised business design (like a top
restaurant) where each product or service is
delivered according to each customers needs and
expectations? You may be somewhere in between.
But whatever level of customisation you calculate
to be most profitable for your business, make sure
it is consistent across that product category. That
will be the level of customisation your business will
be famous for as long as you stick to it.
HOW TO ANTICIPATE NEW OPPORTUNITIES
The more you can anticipate a customers need,
or the value of a product to a customer, the more
profitable your business will be. The problem is
that most people cant tell us what they want or
need until its available on the market. However,
there are four types of values where you can
uncover brilliant opportunities.
1. Convenience value: products that make our lives
easier.
2. Quality of life value: products that provide us
with a better family, social and work life.
SELECTED AS ESSENTIAL READING FOR BUSINESS PEOPLE
6. HARVEST YOUR THINKING
Once you are reaching the end of your
brainstorming or creative thinking session, you
can harvest your thoughts by categorising them as
follows:
Specific ideas. You can see the value of
these ideas right away and they can be applied
immediately.
Beginnings of ideas. There is something new and
interesting about the idea that should be thought
about further.
Concepts. Extract the concept behind your ideas,
to find alternative ways to implement that
concept in the future.
Changes. Identify the changes that are occurring
in your thinking, approaches or concepts, so that
you can track it over time.
Once you have categorised your ideas, you can
select the ones that best suit what you are looking
for at that point in time and then store the others
for the future. For example, you may want a big
idea with a big risk if you are a small company
trying to enter an overseas market. All your ideas
that dont suit this profile can be kept for use when
you are ready to implement your next idea.
7. TREAT YOUR IDEAS
It is rare for a new idea to be ready for
implementation in its current format. Often it
will need to undergo some kind of treatment,
modification or improvement. The best kind of
treatment will make your idea simpler and less
expensive to put into practice. Specific ways to
treat your ideas include:
Shaping it to fit real-world constraints of
technology, budget and legality
Tailoring it to fit within the resources available in
your organisation
Strengthening it to expand the range of benefits
it will deliver
Correcting its faults to address any areas of
potential failure
Differentiating more clearly between this new
idea and previous ideas or the current status quo
money have done so because of their skill in
developing and implementing better concepts.
One way all of us can develop better concepts is
through the creation of a Concept R&D group.
The role of the Concept R&D group within
your company is to treat the development of
concepts as a serious priority. This group would
be concerned not only with major strategic
concepts, but also with ideas affecting every
area of the organisation from production to
advertising to accounting. There are four main
functions that should be undertaken by your
Concept R&D group:
1. CATALOGUING CONCEPTS
It is essential for any business to extract, isolate
and define current and past concepts.
By identifying the traditional notions used by you
and your competitors, you will find it easier to
move your business away from the concepts that
are dying out in your industry, towards those that
are emerging.
2. GENERATING CONCEPTS
Next, your group can generate new concepts by:
Pinpointing specific areas where new concepts
are needed inside your company. Anywhere
there is a bottleneck, high-costs area or source of
competitive disadvantage is a suitable area to
target for change.
Perceiving changes and developments in the
outside world. Such changes will often require
your business to implement defensive concepts
to protect your market share.
Reviewing existing concepts. Even your most
successful concepts should not escape review.
Positive change should never be limited to areas
that are underperforming.
3. DEVELOPING CONCEPTS
The success of a new concept within your
company will rely on the way it is developed once
it has been thought up. One way to ensure the best
utilisation of the concept is to put your Concept
R&D group in charge of securing the contracts,
information, technology and people to facilitate its
development in the real world.
8. CREATE A CONCEPT R&D GROUP
4. TESTING CONCEPTS
Every business started with a concept.
Entrepreneurs that have penetrated markets without
A concept that is not tested and implemented
is a wasted concept. Ensure your business doesnt
SELECTED AS ESSENTIAL READING FOR BUSINESS PEOPLE
BECOME A CAUSE CHAMPION
DICK SMITH THE ULTIMATE CAUSE
CHAMPION
Dick Smith has a winning formula for
designing, building and then selling start-up
businesses. In thirty short years, Smith has created
an entirely new category of business not once,
not twice, but three times. Each new business
is created on the basis that it will be the market
leader, not a follower. While many start-ups
offer products that are only slightly different
to competitors in terms of price, quality or
convenience, Smith prefers to reinvent the race
entirely. He creates a new race where he is the
sole competitor. In this new market, its almost
impossible for late entrants to outpace him.
In all three of his start-ups, Smith achieved this
via a two-fold strategy: he narrowed the focus of his
product offering while enhancing the overall value.
In Dick Smith Electronics, he did this by focusing
on selling electronic componentry while offering
knowledgeable advice within his retail stores. Ten
years after he started Dick Smith Electronics, Smith
sold the company to Woolworths for $25 million.
Smiths next cause was related to his passion for
Australia and the wide range of natural experiences
available to people within this country. Australian
Geographic magazine was born. Smith took the best
ideas from the Alaskan and Canadian geographic
magazines and combined them with the top class
subscription system from Readers Digest magazine.
His was the first business to combine the
Australian Geographic magazine with Australian
Geographic retail outlets that sold related products.
The result was a totally new experience for readers
and shoppers. A few years later, Smith sold
Australian Geographic to Fairfax for a massive $42
million.
In 1999 Smith created the cause for which he
is most famous Fighting Back For Australia,
symbolised by his new company, Dick Smith Foods.
Smith connected his product with a powerful cause
- the future of Australia and our childrens jobs.
While other food companies promote the
superior benefits of their products, Smith has
tied the purchase of his product to patriotism. To
buy any other product is un-Australian. Smith is
perceived as a national hero, because customers
feel a powerful connection to his cause. Within
four short years, using a marketing budget that
would be a fraction of that spent by competitors,
Dick Smith Foods has been able to challenge
Australias strongest brands.
Positioning yourself as a cause champion is one
of the most cost-effective marketing techniques you
can use. On the surface, it may seem like successful
entrepreneurs such as Dick Smith or Richard
Branson have a natural ability to passionately
champion their cause. However, this ability arises
more as a result of their passion about their cause
rather than any innate skill in public speaking.
Weve all been touched by people who speak
with passion. They tell such a powerful story about
their cause that their target audience becomes
interested and involved. A powerful story told with
passion is a hard combination to resist.
But watch out for the mistake made by many
entrepreneurs and big companies, who pick a
cause or passion that revolves around the products
they are already offering. Its a huge mistake.
You will diminish the credibility of your cause
champion. You will not tap into what your target
market are really interested in.
Instead, your first step should be to recognise
that your target audience are preoccupied with their
own unique set of interests, concerns and needs.
The only way you will capture their attention is if
your issues closely coincide with theirs.
GENERATING POSITIVE WORD OF MOUTH
Positive word of mouth is the most powerful
way you can make your cause and product famous.
Generate word of mouth and build your reputation
as a cause champion using these three simple
stealth marketing techniques.
1. CREATE TALK-WORTHY CONTENT
At all times, you should be focused on
talking about your cause, not your product. Your
customers want to talk to others about things
they can get passionate about. People rarely get
passionate about a product. When you start talking
with empathy and knowledge about the cause, not
the product, you are establishing yourself and your
company as an authority on the subject. Once
your audience is sold on your cause, you can be
certain your solution will be too.
If you are the first company to provide a
solution to a cause, its highly likely that youll lead
the market for a very long time. The first mover
advantage does pay off.
2. PROVOKE PEOPLE
If you were to walk around the city wearing
a tailcoat on a hot summer day, you will naturally
SELECTED AS ESSENTIAL READING FOR BUSINESS PEOPLE
gain the attention of those around you. You will
have provoked their interest. They will be trying
to work out why you are dressed differently, and
actively trying to understand your logic. People
might then start to notice that you have a sign on
your back that says Cool Tails, with your address
and telephone number.
This great provocation conveys two high impact
messages firstly, that the tailcoats are designed
to be cool in summer; secondly, they are available
in the area. Just by being dramatically different to
your competitors, you will find yourself the centre
of attention. Invest your time in identifying ways
you could be different. The difference must be
noticeable and worthwhile for people to tell their
friends. The more noticeable the difference, the
greater the returns.
3. SET UP A CHALLENGE
Give your audience a challenge to bring out
their competitive spirit. Paul Cave, founder of
BridgeClimb, gives people the ultimate challenge.
He challenges people to prove to themselves that
they too, can climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Climbers then refer other friends to BridgeClimb
simply by challenging them to make the climb.
The target audience is engaged in the cause
- this is what sustains word of mouth referrals.
Once the person referred takes up the cause, they
will purchase the product as a natural progression.
Then they will refer others to the cause and the
process will snowball as the number of people
advocating your cause grows faster and faster.
BUILD A REPLICABLE FACTORY
When you find a winning formula for creating
outstanding value, your biggest challenge is then
building a system to replicate it to the larger
market. Accountants, lawyers and consultants
have all struggled to achieve this because of their
reliance on the knowledge of their professions.
You can overcome this challenge by building
a replicable factory using the following three-step
strategy:
1. Narrow the focus. You will already have
narrowed the focus of the value you offer to a
select target market. Similarly, when developing
your formula to deliver that value, you should
narrow the focus of what you provide.
2. Simplify the delivery process. Brainstorm ways
in which your business can streamline its value
delivery formula. Some common ways business
delivery processes can be simplified is via their
sales strategy. Telephone or internet sales are
often just as good as face-to-face selling.
Technology can now be used to handle almost
all of your delivery process. The remainder,
which cannot be delivered using technology,
can be outsourced or simply not offered by your
company.
FLIGHT CENTRE A REPLICABLE DISCOUNTED
FLIGHTS FACTORY
Flight Centre is based on one of the simplest
retail models around. Its principles can be applied
to your business, regardless of industry or size.
The Flight Centre model revolves around selling
uniformly discounted flights. Since most travel
agencies generalise in selling everything, they
become famous for nothing.
Flight Centre differentiated itself by being the
first to put prices in its windows. Each store has an
unrelenting focus on providing value to customers
while still making a strong profit. Efficiencies
discovered in one store are communicated to
others. This narrow focus allowed Flight Centre
to quickly replicate the way it delivered value to
customers in the very early stages of the business.
Flight Centre has become famous for recruiting
down to earth people and rewarding them better than
competitors. Its no coincidence that it was one of
the Top 10 employers to work for in 2002. Employee
performance is clearly measured and top performers
are openly praised across the company. Objectives
are set and each person who contributes to achieving
that outcome is championed. Flight Centre builds
its company structure to take advantage of human
nature, rather than working against it.
The 4,500 staff members work in teams of three
to seven (the Family) in one retail store. This store
co-ordinates its efforts with four to ten other stores
in a Village. Each Village is combined with their
support businesses to form a Tribe of 120 people.
The company then begins to feel more like the
normal social structure in which people feel most
comfortable. The result is that work becomes a more
integrated and enjoyable part of a persons life.
In just sixteen years, Flight Centre has opened
975 shops generating an after-tax yearly profit
of $62 million. Founder Graham Turner aims to
increase Flight Centres market share from 25% to
40% and become a global leader in the discounted
flights category. Quite a feat considering Turner
started the company as a veterinary science
graduate with no previous retailing experience.
SELECTED AS ESSENTIAL READING FOR BUSINESS PEOPLE
3. Recruit like-minded people to manage the
system. If you are aiming to build a replicable
system, you need people who are prepared to
follow that system and add value to improve it
over time. Even though you are looking for
people who will follow the rules, you also need
those who will challenge it when they see
change in the marketplace.
HOW TO BE SERIOUSLY CREATIVE
Many companies are serious about continually
creating outstanding value and creatively
championing their cause. But they dont know
how to start being creative. They dont know
the process of creative thinking. Their concepts
become poor copies of competitors. Thats why
creative thinking is the ultimate skill for any
successful entrepreneur or manager. Here are eight
steps you can take to nurture creative thought
within your business:
1. SEARCH FOR ALTERNATIVES, EVEN IF IT
DOESNT SEEM NECESSARY
Lead your mind in different directions by
asking yourself: is there another way of doing
things? What are all the alternatives? What can we
be doing better in this situation? When you are
generating alternatives, remember not to judge
them at the same time. Otherwise, your limited
range of alternatives will compromise the quality of
your end decision.
2. FOCUS YOUR THINKING
There are two types of focus you can use in
your business:
Area Focus. Focus on looking for ideas in a
particular area. This allows you to think about
anything at all in that particular area.
Purpose Focus. Focus on the reason or purpose
for the new ideas being generated. This could by
done via a Creative Hit-List where you list your
problems, situations that could be improved and
general focus areas. The benefit of the Creative
Hit-List is that everyone in your organisation
instantly becomes aware of the situations where
there is an urgent need to think creatively.
3. DEFINE AND THEN CHALLENGE
CURRENT IDEAS
Every new innovation or technological
breakthrough has come about because someone
dared to challenge the status quo. You can do the
same by defining your current mindset with this
checklist:
What are your dominating ideas? You need to
know which ideas are currently dominating your
thinking, so that even if you cant fully escape
them, at least you can recognise them and
consider new alternatives.
What are your assumptions? Articulate what your
assumptions are about your market, your
customers and your competitors, so that you can
challenge them.
What are your constraining factors? For example,
constraining factors within the airline industry
revolve around passenger safety.
Once you have defined your current way of
thinking, you can start to challenge yourself simply
by asking: what is the benefit to the company of
doing this? If there is no significant benefit, then
that action is not necessary and you should get
rid of it, or find alternatives which do provide you
with benefits.
4. CREATE IDEAS VIA RANDOM ENTRY
Random entry is one of the easiest ways to start
generating powerful new ideas. All you need to do
is pick a word at random and then use this word
to fuel your new ideas. The beauty of entering
random words into your brain is that it stimulates
your thinking in new directions you may not have
reached otherwise.
For example, your assigned purpose may be to
make cigarettes less harmful. You are then given
a random word: traffic light. From this word, you
could come up with the idea of printing a red band
near the end of the cigarette. When people reach
this band, they know they are at the section of the
cigarette where their cigarette smoke is at its most
harmful.
5. BE PROVOCATIVE
Come up with ideas that are deliberately
controversial, absurd or provocative. By using
provocation to jump outside your current
boundaries, you are providing movement to
concepts, without fear that they will be attacked.
For example, Dick Smith used provocative
thinking techniques to create Dickhead Matches as
a promotional tool for his bigger cause (persuading
people to buy Australian-made products).
SELECTED AS ESSENTIAL READING FOR BUSINESS PEOPLE
3. Distraction value: products that entertain or help
us escape from our everyday lives.
4. Self-importance value: products that make us
feel better about ourselves and generate
admiration from others.
Ask yourself how you can create outstanding
value in any of the above. This will help you
anticipate what people are going to want before
they know themselves.
MARKET THE CAUSE,
NOT THE PRODUCT
Charles Revson, founder of Revlon cosmetics
once said, In the factory we make cosmetics,
but in the drugstore we sell hope. Revson was a
marketing pioneer. He recognised the difference
between selling his product and selling his cause.
This insight meant that he focused all his resources
on creating that hope from his product packaging
and movie star endorsements to his retail
environment emphasising beauty and glamour.
His innovations form the basis for every marketing
strategy conducted by fashion houses around the
world today.
You can all apply this principle to your own
business by understanding the causes that are
most important to your customers. Understand
your customers priorities and values and you will
instantly command their attention. This sounds easy
but its rarely done. There are two reasons for this:
1. Businesses are often too centred on their product
or service. They do not make the effort to truly
understand their customers. They lock themselves
into trying to persuade customers to buy their
products, because they think its what they need.
Instead, they should be trying to understand the
causes important to their customers then creating
products or services to address those causes.
2. Businesses rarely take full advantage of the
media to promote their cause. While the media
are constantly searching for news and
information, organisations are often too busy
within their operational day-to-day tasks to fight
for their cause in the public domain. To appeal
to your customers, you need to start approaching
the media with potential stories about how your
cause is interesting to their audience. Ultimately,
customers are interested in themselves; both the
media, and your product or service, are means to
improve themselves and further their causes.
GERRY HARVEY - VALUE FOCUSED
ENTREPRENEUR
One of Australias most admired and successful
entrepreneurs, Gerry Harvey started with a
small business called Norman Ross (now Harvey
Norman) four decades ago. He still thinks he could
end up a failure Im looking around saying Ive
got all this knowledge, how can I exploit it? Now
if I dont exploit it over the next ten years Im
basically a failure. This underlies Harveys basic
business philosophy: he never stops looking for
opportunities.
As he has done over the past forty years,
Harvey continually experiments and learns new
ways to improve his value offering to customers.
He creates an environment to help people achieve
the best results for themselves. The Harvey Norman
culture constantly communicates to employees that
the company is trying to help them reach their
goals. Managers are given people to mentor. The
most talented people are given latitude to create
bold strategies. Everyone learns.
Gerry Harvey continues to test the best
management systems on his different businesses.
When Harvey Norman changed from being a
company-operated to a franchisee-operated system,
the result was explosive. Business growth reached
new levels because store managers owned a piece
of the business, but they were still provided with
the experience, wisdom and strength from the
head office.
Harvey Normans recent acquisition of
Rebel Sport was a different story. The problems
facing Rebel Sport are more easily fixed under a
company-operated system. Harvey aims to test a
number of changes on the company to eventually
produce a hybrid management system. Some
parts of the business might be operated by store
managers and other parts managed by head office.
He doesnt know the best formula yet, but in
testing small changes, Harvey is bound to reach the
right combination.
He can then replicate this across other stores
within the Rebel Sport business. As Gerry Harvey
says: I dont think you go out with a grand plan. If
people are good when they start a business, when
the opportunities come up they take thembut
very few want to take those opportunitiesthey get
comfortablethey dont want to grow to a huge
business. Clearly, you need to know yourself well
before you start your business.
SELECTED AS ESSENTIAL READING FOR BUSINESS PEOPLE
waste any of your potentially valuable concepts
simply by conducting a test with a small group of
people. If the concept doesnt produce the level
of benefits you expected, then the Concept R&D
group is responsible for creating a report to record
the lesson. If the concept does work, this should
also be recorded.
But in the end, the decision to use it should
rest with the people responsible for overall strategy
within your business. After all, they are the ones
that are best suited to weigh up the risks associated
with the concept in relation to the rest of your
business.
When you are forming your Concept R&D
group, strive to include one senior executive from
your business. The group should not be comprised
of purely creative people. Instead, there should
be a core group of people coming together from
different departments, with other semi-permanent
members who can choose to rotate in and out of
the group. If you want new concepts to be treated
seriously within your business, the group needs to
be given a formal name and structure.
By creating an emphasis on new concepts, you
will open up the barriers currently placed around
your organisation. In time, members of the Concept
R&D group will set up smaller concept groups
within their own areas. Once creative thinking has
become a source of competitive advantage in your
business, you will be operating within the same
league as Australias most successful entrepreneurs.
If a computer that generated new ideas were
sold on the market for $5 million, organisations
would rush to buy them. Consider then, the
unlimited value you have in your own mind to
create new ideas that could translate into great
businesses.
The good news is that creative thinking is
a skill you can develop. Once developed, it is
likely to be one of the most powerful forces of
competitive advantage within your organisation.
As with all skills, it simply requires patience and
practice. But once you have mastered the skill, you
will be able to call on it at any time.
START VALUFACTURING TODAY
At the end of the day, the success of your
business relies on your ability to create or
manufacture value. To valufacture. The most effective
way to do this is through your concepts. In our
current business environment, we are surrounded
by downsizing, acquisitions and consolidation.
Companies are concentrating on cutting costs. Of
course, this housekeeping and quality management
is important. But it should be the basis from which
you start work, not your sole focus.
The benefit for entrepreneurial businesses
is that this focus is likely to be diverting your
competitors attention away from finding new ways
to create outstanding value. That is where your
opportunity lies. Its a chance for your business
to capture the customers imagination. Its an
opportunity for creative thinkers to stand out in a
landscape of corporate bleakness.
Get your cause right. Make creativity the soul
of your business and develop winning concepts
then energetically follow-through. You will
create new markets and stamp your authority on
them using the media and your customers instead
of your money. You will have built a replicable
business that endures, because you wont have
bought your market. You will have won it.
