Apple's roadmap not golden for Microsoft

As I plowed through my Monday morning readings today I noticed a couple of articles about how Apple's Ipads destroyed every other tablet, including Microsoft's surface, during the huge US sales weekend that was. I'm not entirely surprised that there were images floating around of empty Microsoft stores, while people no doubt lined up to save 5% on the latest iPad or iPhone, because they haven't really given the general consumer something to get excited about.

Microsoft has always been associated as a business-y brand, so their addition of a touch pad keyboard to their good looking tablet will probably skew more towards corporate partners and small-business owners rather than the app loving market that eats up anything Apple craps out.

But where I think Microsoft has really failed is in giving people something new and different to experience which is really how Apple has built themselves to their current dominance. They have an opening because Apple is clearly running out of ways to wow people and have reached the point where they are not innovating as much. Whoever comes up with the next big thing - think iPod 7-10 years ago - will turn into the next Apple, and I think that could have been Microsoft. They have the money and the brain-power to get there, but they lack the creativity to push them over the edge. Instead of taking a leap and trying something extraordinary they just bought a copy of the map that Apple created for being a funky tech company and followed it.

Touchscreen phone? Check. Cool tablet? Check. Stores? Check.

Everything exactly as Apple did. Their marketing has always been pretty suspect, so though it's not all that surprising to see their distribution/penetration model be less-than-inspiring, it is disappointing. I still hold out hope for them as I am definitely not an Apple-lover like the majority of people, but what they really need to beat Apple is innovation. Innovative ideas for products AND full-scale-marketing.

If they really want to beat Apple they have to be the first one to launch the product that replaces peoples phones, tablets and laptops all in one.

Crying wolf

How often do you see a car advertisement that doesn't tout "Best Deals of the Year", "Sale on Now" or "Now is the time to buy". In fact, there is even a radio ad playing right now that i've heard multiple times that goes a little something like this:

"Sometimes with all the car ads saying "Now is the time to buy" it can be tough to know when the best time is to buy. But this time we mean it, now is the time to get to your Mazda dealer!"

Really? That's what you came up with?

People are completely numb and dull to these car advertising tactics nowadays - they are old and played out. The car companies have cried wolf one too many times and the consumer is onto their tactics. Maybe these have worked in the past but if a company like GM or Chrysler want to actually start gaining traction in the market place maybe they should take a drastic look at their marketing/promotions ideas and come up with something creative for once instead of the tired, old status quo.

The new age consumer is much more cogniscent of marketing, especially old school tactics that companies have been running out for decades. I can't wait for the follow up commercial that touts "Employee pricing on now".

"But people come to our lots when we say sale"

Well maybe you should start from the bottom up and start creating better cars that people enjoy, don't get frustrated with, and will tell all their friends about. Create a long term sales, marketing and production strategy instead of letting your production/design fully determine the marketing strategy.

Just a thought. But what do I know, i'm only a consumer.

Boxing Day....Month??? Year?????

I remember the good old days, when Boxing Day in Canada meant companies heavily discounting prices on all the crappy products that they were trying to get rid of all year but just couldn't. Cue the red tag, red pen, or any other type of redness that can be used to demonstrate a slashing of prices. What? You mean our 8-track/vinyl/cd player all in one didn't move? Mark it down 75 percent and call it a doorcrasher. Then shmucks would line up at the door starting early in the morning and make a run for that 8-track/vinyl/cd 3-in-1 combo they had their eyes on for the last 2 days when the flyer was delivered to their home. I had the pleasure of working in a retail environment on a number of boxing days, that is neither here nor there so i'll save those stories for another time.

What unfortunately has happened with boxing day is companies have captured consumers attention and wallets on that specific day and are now trying to bottle it up and unleash it for longer and longer and now are starting earlier and earlier. Therefore they will eventually erode all the hard work that Boxing Day put into building itself up to being the ultimate shopping day of the year. Now maybe this works better for retailers because they get a longer length of increased sales from customers looking for deals during "Boxing Week" but when you start advertising "Pre-Boxing Day Sales", well, your customers will catch on eventually.

People will either start holding back all their major purchases till "Boxing Month" or they will realize that not everything can be discounted all the time and will theorize that maybe your margins are a little too high and future advertising for boxing day sales will be completely lost in the clutter of regular flyers and regular advertising.

Either way it will be interesting to see how far in front of and behind the 26th of December retailers can move. I look forward to when Boxing Day sales outpace the first Christmas commercial of the year which usually comes around about September 1st.

ABC

Forgot to include this with the last post I made. Amazing monologue by Alec Baldwin that i'm sure most salesman have seen.



What will our generation's Glengarry Glen Ross a-typical salesperson look/act like?

Will salesmen Always Be Closing?

I finished reading Chris Anderson's Free a few weeks back and although the book wasn't quite as great a read as I was hoping for it did the job of making my brain whirr away with thoughts and started me thinking on many spinoffs of "Free".

One of the chief thoughts that has been swirling around in my head over the last little while is "What does the future hold for salespeople?"

This thought has been percolating because as is noted in the book, there are so many sources of free information these days and this dearth of info is only getting larger and larger as the internet continues to increase in popularity and more and more people have access to it. You combine that with a younger generation that grows up online reading forums, wikis, and interacting with discussion groups and online friends and you start to see why salesperson could be an interesting occupation to watch the development of down the road. What is a salesperson possibly going to tell people that they haven't already been able to find out on their own or from someone else online?

I, in fact, am a perfect example of this. If i'm looking for something specifically the first thing I will do is go online to try to find it. I'll check out specs, prices, and shop around. One such purchase I made recently was a portable sound dock for an ipod player. I search Future Shop, Best Buy, and London Drugs' websites comparing prices and features, reading the odd review that I could find on products that matched my needs. Once I had finished this part of the purchase cycle, I merely walked into the store, grabbed the product and marched up to the counter. In and out in 2 minutes.

But electronic retail stores aren't the only example of a possible death of the salesman. On the evening news last night they ran a story on how more and more people are using online stock trading tools to do their trading for them instead of using a stock broker. Will this effect the industry? I should think so. Granted stock traders provide a lot more value than people probably give them credit for as they research deep into potential companies to invest in, talk to the owners, and provide personalized recommendations to match your investing style. But more and more people are going to be doing their own research and using eTrade or another online brokerage to make their trades. Some people may not have much luck using this method and therefore end up back in the arms of an awaiting broker, but those that do have success could greatly influence the movement of the stock market as opposed to the traditional powers of brokerages to provide upward and downward momentum on specific stocks based on what they put their word/clients into. Somewhere down the road instead of seeing "Cannacord Capital forecasts targets of $30.00 per share for so and so corp" you may see "Facebook member ChunkyMonkey53 forecasts an increase of $1 per share by the end of the year according to their status update".

At the same time, if you've ever been on the BullBoards on Stockhouse you will realize how much crap there is out there and how it can be tough to trust the majority of information you read on some of these sites. Hence the role of a broker to de-crapify this information and make sure you get the appropriate facts you need.

Recently I even purchased a pre-sale condominium and to be honest, aside from writing up the contract, I'm not sure what the salesperson did to sell me. I found out all the information online, I looked through their display suite on my own, I talked to the bank on my own. So how much value are they really providing to be getting a major cut of the money that the company is getting off me.

Well now that this is seemingly spinning into a rant i'll close off here. My brother is a salesperson, and i've been a salesperson in the past, but I don't know if I would encourage my children to get into the profession in the future. It could be one of those things a few generations down the road that our great grandchildren miss out on, just like stamps, home phones, and paperback books.

Salesperson Species

Every once in a while I have the joy of dealing with a salesperson coming into my company's office and pitching me a new service/product/business. As a result I have been able to determine two major species of salesperson.

Professional Rex

This person will show up dressed sharp. Whether it is the more relaxed salesperson look of jeans with a sharp shirt and blazer or a full out suit this person reeks of someone who is successful at their job. They realize that this life is their profession and your first impression of them is an important part of moving you to a sale. This person will also have done some research on your company, probably by visiting your website. That being said, they typically haven't gone too in depth into your company and can't really talk the talk with you.

Stereotypicus Salespernicus

This guy arrives at your office in a somewhat professional outfit and typically rolls in with a coffee in their hand. They reek.......of smoke, you can smell it from across the boardroom table, seriously. It happens again and again to me. It's shocking and immediately gives off the aura of them being one level below the professional salesperson. Now this isn't to mean that this salesperson is any worse at their job than the Professional Rex, but they have to do a lot more work to do the sale. Also they are usually much less prepared, including not having a business card and choosing to wing the appointment which becomes obvious immediately.

Now there are various categories of salesperson that fall below each species, but that is for another time when i've thought about the various people. I just find it interesting that you can lump the majority of salespeople into these two species. And for reference, if I can smell the smoke on a salesperson from across the table I immediately start to become questionable about the product/service they are selling.

Why are Bentleys so expensive?

They have style, tradition, and exclusiveness going for them, along with top of the line parts and performance. But here is one reason that they don't advertise...




I wouldn't be surprised if this video starts getting some pretty good viral action going for itself. Who doesn't enjoy watching an incredibly committed crackhead attempting to break into a luxury car at 3 in the morning.

But that being said, this is the kind of video that brands dream about people posting to youtube. They didn't have to do anything and their customer is happy and bragging to all of his no-doubt equally rich friends about how his Bentley can't be stolen. It's interesting to think about how a brand can utilize such great social marketing material such as this video. In Bentley's case, a page on their website where their customers can upload videos/pictures/stories of their favourite Bentley moments, like Tim Horton's did with everycup.ca, would not fit their upscale, posh brand image. But wouldn't a marketing video made up of amateur videos such as this one showing off the cars' impressive unknown characteristics be a great in-house sales tool? Or a great way to go even more viral?

Oh and here is what the car looked like after that fellows repeated attempts to gain entry.