I was recently doing some research for another upcoming book, and had the good fortune of finding this book amongst my collection, and I hadn’t read it yet – a rare thing for me. I LOVED IT!
Guy Kawasaki for the un-initiated, is a self described renegade business strategist, and charismatic Macintosh evangelist (we all can’t be perfect can we). Kawasaki has written a take-no-prisoners battle plan to help companies get and keep the upper hand. This book could almost be called a battle-plan for radio too!
The best business strategy, Guy believes, is to actively take on your competition, and diminish any advantages they have.
He has four strategies to do this, and he shows you how by taking you from the initial groundwork to how to be innovate and take risks.
He begins, for example, on how to do effective, useful research: Which competitors do prospective customers use, and why? I totally agree with this for any business, especially radio and radio clients and the competition.
Next, Why do your customers buy from you?
I found the “Create a comprehensive profile of all your competitors” an interesting but positive thing to do to find out what they do differently, what you do better and more than that – where you can imporve.
Kawaski explains how to use that research into practice to ensure that you are making life as easy as possible for your consumer.
Small measures can make a big difference: if your product needs a battery, for example, include one – don’t make your customer find one.
Now I equated this to creating a simpler process to writing ad copy for the customer – write the ad, voice it and send the script and the audio file to them to help win them across the line with your script – not a full produced spot – but a rough demo so they get an inkling of what the ad might sound like. Most don’t have an imagination for audio like we do – so this is a simple thing to show them how radio would work for them.
The next best thing in the book: When your customer is unhappy, accept responsibility and ask how they would like the problem fixed. Great advice.
Over-all, yet another interesting, informative book from Mr. Kawasaki, especially from the “little guy’s” point of view.
His writing and chapters provide simple exercises designed to shake your out of your “we’ve always done it this way” rut.
The short interviews were interewsting and engaging, particularly those from outside the business world.
The edition I was reading was an old one – and there are newer versions out there – mine was from WHOA! 1995!
I have since checked it against newer editions and there are some minor differences in many of the chapters – so don’t read an old one like me – grab a newer version and you will still be amazed at what is relevant, and ethically the right thing to do to gain an audience for your station.
