“a jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.”

A praise for someone who is skillful in many skills instead of being a master at one.

"Jack of all trades" has become somewhat of an insult, but it didn’t begin as one. Far from letting it deter their path, some entrepreneurs swear that being a jack of all trades is necessary.

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Why Being A Jack Of All Trades Is Essential For Success

Category design is a business strategy in which it focuses on creating a new marketing category instead of creating a "better" product in an already existing category.
Basically, by establishing a new niche that is free of competition, your company has an excellent chance of dominating it.

Category Design

<ol>
<li>When you start a category of your own, you're basically designing your own space. You're not just another game player, you're the innovator of that space. You define it and set the rules of the game. This tactic enables you to attract the perfect audience and get to know your customers before anybody else has a chance.</li>
<li>Different market categories usually have a what we call "category king" who take up around 74% of the market cap.</li>
<li>Category design makes people see the markets with a fresh perspective because you're offering a new way of doing things.</li>
</ol>

The 3 Reasons Why Category Design Is an Important Strategy

<ul>
<li>Think thoroughly about what problems you're solving.</li>
<li>Make people aware of that problem. Make them aware of the reasons why that problem isn't being solved, why nobody else is capable of solving it, why you're the person who understands the problem, and the one who understands how to solve it.</li>
</ul>

How To Approach Category Design

Great entrepreneurs don't stop at product, company, or category. They go to the next step, which is category design.

Category creation is an important strategy in modern marketing. It is an innovative business strategy that will create a unique company, an unrivaled product, and an entirely new market space at the same time. 

We hear it all the time: companies pitching themselves as the Uber of this and the Amazon of that. But rather than going after someone else’s domain, shouldn’t you create your own? Category design author Kevin Maney explains.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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On Inside Intercom you'll hear the team from Intercom interview makers and do-ers from the worlds of product management, design, startups and marketing.

Inside Intercom

Kevin Maney on designing your own category

The existence of competition in the market allows for companies to become motivated to increase their profits. It may feel like playing the game of tug of war, however, it is much more complex than that.It's not about being the biggest company, but rather, profitability.

Competition and Profitability

In order to become a profitable company, we must consider the forces that influence profits:<ol><li>Buyers who'd like to pay less but get more</li><li>Suppliers who'd like to earn more but ship less</li><li>Substitutes who don't seem like competition but are</li><li>New entrants who come into the market with competitive pricing making rivals spend more; and</li><li>Existing rivals</li></ol>These five forces define every industry's structure and shape companies' future. By understanding how these five forces work, you'll be able to create more competitive strategies and increase your profits.

The 5 Competitive Forces

Competition makes markets strive to earn more than their counterpart, here, we listed the five forces that influence the competitive market.

Michael Porter’s theory has shaped a generation of academic research and business practice. Understanding the competitive forces, and their underlying causes, reveals the roots of an industry’s current profitability while providing a framework for anticipating and influencing competition (and profitability) over time. A healthy industry structure should be as much a competitive concern to strategists as their company’s own position. Understanding industry structure is also essential to effective strategic positioning. Defending against the competitive forces and shaping them in a company’s favor are crucial to strategy. --------------------------------------------------------------------- At Harvard Business Review, we believe in management. If the world’s organizations and institutions were run more effectively, if our leaders made better decisions, if people worked more productively, we believe that all of us — employees, bosses, customers, our families, and the people our businesses affect — would be better off. So we try to arm our readers with ideas that help them become smarter, more creative, and more courageous in their work. We enlist the foremost experts in a wide range of topics, including career planning, strategy, leadership, work-life balance, negotiations, innovation, and managing teams. Harvard Business Review empowers professionals around the world to lead themselves and their organizations more effectively and to make a positive impact. Sign up for Newsletters: https://hbr.org/email-newsletters Follow us: https://hbr.org/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/harvard-business-review https://www.facebook.com/HBR/ https://twitter.com/HarvardBiz https://www.instagram.com/harvard_business_review

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Michael Porter’s theory has shaped a generation of academic research and business practice.


Understanding the competitive forces, and their underlying causes, reveals the roots of an industry’s current profitability while providing a framework for anticipating and influencing competition (and profitability) over time. A healthy industry structure should be as much a competitive concern to strategists as their company’s own position. Understanding industry structure is also essential to effective strategic positioning. Defending against the competitive forces and shaping them in a company’s favor are crucial to strategy.

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At Harvard Business Review, we believe in management. If the world’s organizations and institutions were run more effectively, if our leaders made better decisions, if people worked more productively, we believe that all of us — employees, bosses, customers, our families, and the people our businesses affect — would be better off. So we try to arm our readers with ideas that help them become smarter, more creative, and more courageous in their work. We enlist the foremost experts in a wide range of topics, including career planning, strategy, leadership, work-life balance, negotiations, innovation, and managing teams. Harvard Business Review empowers professionals around the world to lead themselves and their organizations more effectively and to make a positive impact.
 
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At Harvard Business Review, we believe in management. If the world’s organizations and institutions were run more effectively, if our leaders made better decisions, if people worked more productively, we believe that all of us — employees, bosses, customers, our families, and the people our businesses affect — would be better off. We try to arm our readers with ideas that help them become smarter, more creative, and more courageous in their work. 

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The Explainer: The 5 Forces That Make Companies Successful

Historically, design has been an afterthought in the business world. It applied only to aesthetics and resulted in companies creating solutions that failed to meet their customers' real needs. Early examples of human-centric design:<ul><li>In the early 1900s, Charles and Ray Eames practised "learning by doing", exploring a range of needs and limitations before designing their famous Eames chairs.</li><li>In the 1960s, dressmaker Jean Muir considered how her clothes felt to wear and how they looked to others.</li></ul> Both developed a deep understanding of their users' lives and unmet needs.

The history of design thinking

The term "design thinking" was coined in the 1990s by David Kelley and Tim Brown of IDEO, with Roger Martin. Design thinking is an ideology supported by a process.<ul><li>The Design thinking ideology states that a hands-on, user-centric approach to problem-solving will lead to innovation, differentiation, and competitive advantage.</li><li>The design thinking process defines the hands-on, user-centric approach in six distinct phases.</li></ul>

Design thinking definition

The overall flow of the framework<ol><li>Understand</li><li>Explore</li><li>Materialize</li></ol> Within the larger framework are 6 phases:<ol><li>Empathise: Research what your users do, say, think, and feel.</li><li>Define: Combine your research to identify where your users' problems exist, then highlight opportunities for innovation.</li><li>Ideate: Brainstorm a large range of crazy ideas that address unmet user needs.</li><li>Prototype. Build actual, tactile representations of a subset of your ideas to help find what works and what does not.</li><li>Test: Return to your users for feedback.</li><li>Implement: Your solution should touch the lives of your end-users.</li></ol>

The design-thinking framework

<ul><li>The user-centred process starts with user data, creates design artefacts that address real user needs, then test those ideas with real users.</li><li>It leverages collective expertise and establishes a shared language and buy-in from your team.</li><li>It encourages innovation by exploring multiple avenues for the same problem.</li></ul>

The advantage of the framework

The design-thinking framework should not be seen as a step-by-step recipe for success. Instead, it should be used as scaffolding to support you. Take the framework and tweak it as needed. <ul><li>Each phase should be iterative and cyclical, not linear. Only when the wireframes are prototyped can you get a real representation of your design. Then you can assess if your solution really works.</li><li>Repeat phases: It can be necessary to do an exercise within a phase several times to get to the desired outcome.</li></ul>

Flexible framework

The nature of design thinking makes it scalable. The guide created can be used regardless of expertise, and mitigate the range of design talent while increasing the probability of success. Design thinking applies to product design as well as societal, environmental, and economical issues.

Scalability - think bigger

Collection of Top design frameworks adopted by world’s leading brands for product and user experience innovation

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Design Frameworks

Historically, design has only been used to touch up a product’s aesthetics. It resulted in solutions that failed to meet customers’ needs. Design-thinking remedies this by approaching products from a human-centric viewpoint.

What is design thinking and why should you care? History and background plus a quick overview and visualization of 6 phases of the design thinking process.

Design Thinking 101

Organisations grow when they develop a base of customers. Businesses profits and political ideas become movements because they built and shaped a group of people by what they do. This is the most important thing an organisation does and the only part you can't outsource.

Growing a customer base

It's doubtful that the first product or service you develop will be precisely what potential customers want. Failure fuels new projects. It is a way to figure out what customers don't want. Most of the time, the innovations an organisation brings to the market is not immediately adopted. Of course, you will have early adopters, but most customers prefer to wait.

Failure moves projects forward

The paradox: Organisations need to be agile and willing to pivot as they engage with an invisible or sceptical market. But, at the same time, ideas don't spread through a market at once. That is why it is important to identify your smallest viable audience. By seeing them and serving them, you can refine your product while establishing conditions for growth.

The smallest viable audience

<ol><li>Your core audience starts to spread to word. You've built the network effect into your offering so that it works better when people tell their friends and colleagues. For example, Twitter and the ice bucket challenge.</li><li>Your success at serving this small but viable audience gives you the team, cash flow, and social proof to find a different set of customers.</li></ol> The hard work of customer development is finding a reason for your customers to bring new customers.

Growth comes from two places

A collection of Insights from marketing mogul's best books, blogs and videos

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In most pyramids, the top gets the attention, but the foundation is most important. In marketing, the base of the pyramid is INTENTION. Intention comes with design thinking.<ul><li>Who is it for/what is it for?</li><li>Have you identified the smallest viable audience and built a product that works wonderfully for this audience?</li><li>Your story is linked with your intention. A story works when it becomes your audience's story.</li></ul>

The base of the pyramid

The parts of the pyramid:<ul><li>Intention is the base of the pyramid and the most important.</li><li>Retention comes next. Existing customers are worth more than new ones.</li><li>Remarkability. The conversations that happen because of your work. People will only talk about your work because they believe it will help their goals.</li><li>Permission. The privilege of delivering personal and relevant messages to the people who want them. This is a future asset.</li><li>Tactics, words, and images. What is your narrative that engages with people? Where is their status? What sort of affiliation do they desire?</li></ul>

Modern marketing pyramid

The pyramid of modern marketing

This strategy helps to persuade. Use a list of three to convey the main point, such as three words or complex phrases sorted by bullet points: Ways to use this sales technique:<ul><li>Identify three pain points of your prospect.</li><li>List three end-picture benefits of your product.</li><li>Mention three of your top customers.</li></ul> Why it works:People like patterns. Three is a quick pattern any person can find. Anything over three causes scepticism from your prospect.

The 1-2-3 Close

This sales technique takes the skill of storytelling and applies it to a journey similar to yours to show that their challenges are solvable. How to use this technique:<ul><li>Identify your prospect's job title, responsibilities, and industry.</li><li>Consider a customer contact or account similar to the situation.</li><li>Find one pain point the customer had that your prospect can relate to.</li><li>Tell the story in a way that lays out the problem and then the solution.</li></ul> Why it works:Research shows that when our characteristics are similar to a character in a story, we identify with the character, which drives persuasion.

The Similarity Close

Instead of stating what your company can do, show your prospects that your product works for others. Ways to use this technique:<ul><li>Link out to a written or video customer testimonial for your prospect to view.</li><li>Include a customer quote with their company name and job title.</li><li>Tell a story about a customer using the BAB or PAS cold email formulas.</li></ul> Why it works:Research showed that third-party reviews of a product are 12 times more trusted than a company's product descriptions.

The Testimonial Close

Instead of focusing solely on facts and figures, consider thinking about feelings.Applications for this sales technique:<ul><li>Send your congratulations for recent personal or company accomplishments.</li><li>Let them know you're thinking of them by passing along articles they would enjoy.</li><li>Find a commonality, such as having the same birthday, initials, or alma mater.</li></ul>Why it works:People are driven by emotion. A study showed that 95% of our purchase decisions take place unconsciously.

The Emotion Close

Humour breaks out from the stale selling techniques by showing you have a sense of wit.How to use humour in action:<ul><li>Use a funny gif in your email.</li><li>Do research on a social media account to find your prospects unique interest and reference it in a funny way.</li><li>Use self-deprecating humour to show your awareness.</li></ul>Why it works:Funny people are likeable. Humour puts people into a relaxed mood.

The humor close

Either this or that. A simplified process can lessen overwhelming decisions.How to use this sales technique:<ul><li>List two times you could schedule a call.</li><li>Offer a free trial or schedule a demo.</li><li>Ask if you should reach out later or let it be.</li></ul>Why it works:A study suggests that limiting options can lead to more creativity. With fewer options, we can expand our thought processes.

The Alternative Close

It can feel very persuasive when someone shows that they understand your point of view. Ways to use this sales technique:<ul><li>Suggest ways to solve their problems by researching articles they have shared.</li><li>If your competitor has problems, reach out to your prospects to help ease their situation.</li></ul>Why it works:A Harvard Business School report that empathy increases sales persuasion when you show a prospect the use in what you're selling. By going beyond to solve their problems, you'll earn their respect.

The Empathy Close

Expert tips on how to tap into the human psyche and turn potential customers into actual ones

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Understand yourself and those around you.

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How to Sell Anything

Different sales techniques will resonate with various audiences. Trying different techniques can help to see what resonates with your audience.

Sales techniques for email that practice the power of persuasion, backed by science. Includes examples and how-to suggestions.

7 Sales Techniques With Proven Success

Prospects, or potential customers, are the fuel for the sales pipeline. Every prospect represents a possible sale, making it important to grow your base of prospects.
Prospecting is used to expand the size of the potential customer base. Sales reps will reach out to leads and nurture them into opportunities, using techniques such as making calls, direct mail, networking events, and connecting on social platforms.

Sales prospecting

<h4>The sales process moves from cold leads → to warm opportunities → to hot deals. Prospecting is what happens in-between.</h4>
<ul>
<li>Sales and marketing source leads. Leads are unqualified prospects and come from marketing or sales.</li>
<li>Sales qualify leads into prospects. Sales get to know leads and decide if they're a good fit (qualified) to become a prospect.</li>
<li>Sales nurture prospects into opportunities. Sales make prospects more interested in the sale, turning them into "opportunities."</li>
<li>Sales close opportunities into deals.</li>
</ul>

The stages of the sale prospecting process

<ol><li>Follow the prospect before you connect with them.</li><li>Find them in groups. Join and engage in groups where your prospect is active.</li><li>Hype them up. Follow the prospect's activity and help to up engagement.</li></ol>

How to find new sales prospects

We need to study prospects and be relevant when we reach out to them.
Steps to find an authentic common ground that gives traction to the relationship:
<ul>
<li>Lean on customer relationship management (CRM). CRM technology helps to keep all your interactions with your prospects at your fingertips - the email you sent, notes from all your meetings, the pitch deck.</li>
<li>Research your way into their world. If it's a publicly-traded company, read their investor reports.</li>
<li>Find the channel that sticks. If the prospect doesn't answer the phone, try to connect on LinkedIn. Be as relevant as you can.</li>
</ul>

How to approach a new sales prospect

Questions to help you qualify a prospect:
Is this the right person?
<ul>
<li>Does the prospect match your ideal customer profile?</li>
<li>Are they interested in your product?</li>
<li>Can they influence the deal or even decide to purchase?</li>
</ul>
Is this the right company?
<ul>
<li>Is it in your territory?</li>
<li>Is the industry a good fit?</li>
<li>What’s the size of their organisation? </li>
</ul>
Is this the right project?
<ul>
<li>Is the department funded to pay your price?</li>
<li>Will the project be a priority for the company?</li>
<li>Will the team be using the product for the right use case that will create an impact?</li>
</ul>

How to qualify a sales prospect

You won't get far with prospects by repeating the same general information on your company's website. To go deep with them, you'll need to learn their accent and become knowledgeable about their lives at work. Learn about specific industry trends, their companies and their lives.

Moving sales prospects to the next stage in the sales cycle

It's not about closing the deal but about closing every step of the deal. <ul><li>Obsess over the next step. End the conversation with a question. "Can we connect for five minutes after you've taken a look?"</li><li>Advance but qualify. Prospecting is about moving forward. Don't over-focus on a deal that won't be worth it. Ask at every stage if the prospect is still a fit.</li><li>Selling is a team sport. You won't have all the answers and need to lean on those who give you the information you need.</li></ul>

Keep the conversation moving

Grow your customer base by finding and nurturing new prospects with our sales prospecting guide.

How to Do Sales Prospecting the Right Way

Marketing is not a random exercise. Rather, marketing is effective when it is done with intent and planning. Start marketing by answering this question: What is your marketing for? All marketers make change happen. It can be trivial: marketers change non-customers into customers, but it is often much more profound. We help customers become the person they want to be. For example, Harley Davidson turns a specific group of people from disrespected outsiders into beloved insiders.

The purpose of marketing

Marketing is the act of going into the world with the intention to make a change happen. This means you're responsible. You're making the change and bringing it forward. That makes you responsible for the effects and side effects of what you do.

Marketers are responsible

Marketing gives you the leverage and the tools to make a change happen. Marketers can get under people's skin. They tell a story that spreads. They make stuff that people want to engage with. What do you want to change? From what state to what state, from what belief to what belief, from what status to what status?

Finding your true north

“Marketing is the generous act of helping someone solve a problem. Their problem. Marketing helps others become who they seek to become”. Seth makes a distinction between bad marketing and good marketing. My Favourite Software, Books, & Tools: ➤ HubSpot: https://bit.ly/3BvXqcd ➤ SEMrush: https://bit.ly/3y0xFP7 ➤ AppSumo: https://bit.ly/3eQ6O0r ➤ Bluehost: https://bit.ly/3xN36Ml ➤ Supermetrics: https://bit.ly/3gYYivH ➤ Fiverr: https://bit.ly/3hL1mxJ ➤ proprep: https://bit.ly/3B8EGiJ ➤ Get the Principle of Marketing book by Kotler: https://amzn.to/3z6iWCp ➤Try Amazon Prime Student FREE: https://amzn.to/3jv7rOp ➤Create a Free Amazon Business Account: https://amzn.to/3CAS6EW #sethgodin #marketingplan #marketing PS: Some of the links in this description are affiliate links. Affiliate commissions help fund videos like this one.

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A business plan is a guide that helps you outline and achieve your goals. It’s also a management tool that allows you to analyze results, make strategic decisions, and showcase how your business will operate, and grow.

The business plan

<ul><li>Without a business plan as a baseline, it will be far more difficult to track your progress, make adjustments, and have historical information readily available to reference when making difficult decisions. </li><li>Investors and loan providers need to know that you have a solid understanding of the trajectory of your business. You need to prove that there is an attainable and sustainable need for your solution, that you have a strong business strategy, and that your business can be financially stable. </li><li>By having a written business plan that you’re regularly reviewing, you can make confident decisions.</li></ul>

Why write a business plan?

<ul><li>Keep it short. Business plans should be short and concise. You want your business plan to be read. </li><li>Accommodate your investors, and keep explanations of your product simple and direct.</li><li>Test your business idea. Working through your business plan, and starting with a one-page pitch, can help you test the viability of your business idea long before launching.</li><li>Establish goals and objectives. You should know what you want to get out of your business upfront. </li><li>Don’t be intimidated. Did you know that the vast majority of business owners and entrepreneurs aren’t business experts? </li></ul>

5 tips to write a great business plan quickly and easily

<ul><li>Executive summary: An overview of your business and your plans. </li><li>Opportunity: What are you actually selling and how are you solving a problem (or “need”) for your market? </li><li>Execution: How are you going to take your opportunity and turn it into a business? </li><li>Company and management summary: Investors look for great teams in addition to great ideas. </li><li>Financial plan: Your business plan isn’t complete without a financial forecast. </li><li>Appendix: If you need more space for product images or additional information, use the appendix for those details. </li></ul>

Key components of a business plan

The executive summary of your business plan introduces your company, explains what you do, and lays out what you’re looking for from your readers. Structurally, it is the first chapter of your business plan. And while it’s the first thing that people will read, consider writing it last, because once you know the details of your business inside and out, you will be better prepared to write your executive summary. Ideally, the executive summary can act as a stand-alone document that covers the highlights of your detailed plan.

Executive summary

<ul><li>What are your business objectives?</li><li>What is your target market and how will you position yourself?</li><li>Who are the key players on your team?</li><li>What are your expectations for growth and how will you achieve it?</li><li>What are your funding requirements? </li></ul>

Key questions to answer with your executive summary

A good business plan will identify the target market segments and then provide some data to indicate how fast each segment is growing. When identifying target markets, a classic method is to use the TAM, SAM, and SOM breakdown:<ul><li>TAM: Your Total Available or Addressable Market (everyone you wish to reach with your product)</li><li>SAM: Your Segmented Addressable Market or Served Available Market (the portion of TAM you will target)</li><li>SOM: Your Share Of the Market (the subset of your SAM that you will realistically reach—particularly in the first few years of your business).</li></ul>

TAM, SAM, and SOM

Most business plans include market research and compare their features against their competition using a SWOT analysis. The most important thing to illustrate in this section of your business plan is how your solution is different or better than other offerings that a potential customer might consider. Investors will want to know what advantages you have over the competition and how you plan on differentiating yourself.One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make in their business plans is stating that they don’t have any competition.

Competition

The opportunity section of your business plan should provide enough information and data to prove that there is a need for your business and that you understand how to position yourself in a given market. To help you develop this section, try to answer these questions:<ul><li>Who is my typical customer? Who is my ideal customer? How will I target them?</li><li>What pain points do my customers have? How do they currently alleviate that pain point?</li><li>How does my solution solve their problem? </li><li>Who are my competitors? How does my solution differ from competitors?</li></ul>

Key questions to answer with your opportunity analysis

The marketing and sales plan section of your business plan details how you plan to reach your target market segments (also called target marketing), how you plan on selling to those target markets, what your pricing plan is, and what types of activities and partnerships you need to make your business a success.Before you even think about writing your marketing plan, you must have your target market well-defined and have your buyer persona(s) fleshed out. Without truly understanding who you are marketing to, a marketing plan will have little value.

Marketing and sales plan

A business plan is only a document on paper without a real path to get the work done, complete with a schedule, defined roles, and key responsibilities. Investors will want to see that you understand what needs to happen to make your plans a reality and that you are working on a realistic schedule. Start with a quick review of your milestones. Milestones are planned major goals.

Milestones and metrics

This section covers the functionality of your business. To help you develop this section, try to answer these questions:<ul><li>What marketing and operational channels are best for my business?</li><li>How will my pricing strategy differ from competitors?</li><li>What technology or services will you need to invest in?</li><li>What will my branding look like? What elements do I need to create?</li><li>What metrics do I need to track? What does success look like?</li><li>What milestones do I need to hit? What steps are necessary to reach them?</li></ul>

Key questions to answer with your execution

The company overview will most likely be the shortest section of your business plan. For a plan that you will share with people outside of your company, this section should include:<ul><li>Mission statement</li><li>Intellectual property</li><li>A review of your company’s legal structure and ownership</li><li>The business location</li><li>A brief history of the company if it’s an existing company.</li></ul>

Company overview

The company overview is meant to help you identify how you will operate, as well as what positions, departments, or other structures you need to implement. To help you develop this section, try to answer these questions:<ul><li>Who makes up my current team? What roles need to be filled?</li><li>What is my core mission? How does it affect business operations?</li><li>Do I need a physical location? Where should it be located?</li><li>What is my company structure? How will that change over time?</li></ul>

Key questions to answer with your company overview

Your financial plan is meant to help you understand what your expenses are, what it will take to be profitable, how much cash you need to keep on hand, and what you will be doing with any funding. You don’t need to have actual financial data at this point.To help you develop this section, try to answer these questions:<ul><li>What are your sales expectations for the next year?</li><li>What expenses are necessary to operate?</li><li>When will you become cash flow positive?</li><li>How much cash do you need upfront to fund growth?</li><li>How will you use the loans or investments? What funding is necessary for specific endeavors?</li></ul>

Financial plan

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Money & Investments

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