Marketing Strategies to Put Yourself Out of Business
 by: Charlie Cook

Want to learn how to lose a billion dollars?

Just follow the marketing strategies used by GM, Ford and Daimler Chrysler. Yes, some of the largest corporations in the world are missing some basic tenants of marketing and it’s worth taking a look at what they’re doing wrong so you don’t make the same mistakes. You don’t want the following headline written about your company.

“GM Hits Billion Dollar pot hole” – Miami Herald “GM shares fell to a 12 year low.” – New York Times

What are some of the most glaring mistakes a handful of car companies are making?

1. Discount Pricing

GM and Ford offer free loans and rebates worth thousands of dollars to prompt people to buy their vehicles. Good idea?

When you need to resort to bribing people to buy your products or services, it’s a sign that something is terribly wrong. The idea is to provide value, help your prospects understand the perceived value and charge enough to make a reasonable profit. When you start discounting your product as a means to get people to buy it you’ve entered an endless downward cycle.

The next time a prospect buys, they’ll want an even larger discount and there will always be somebody who will undercut you on price. Eventually you’ll end up like GM, losing lots, maybe not billions, but enough to threaten the life of your business.

2. Making Products People Don’t Want

According to the New York Times, “General Motors and Ford have swerved off course for a far more basic reason: not enough people like their cars.” Whoops!

The objective is to market a product or service people want.

3. Not Paying Attention to What People Want

If you want to make money you’d pay attention to what your prospects want? Right?

In the case of Daimler Chrysler you’d be wrong. At the Detroit Auto Show crowds loved the two-seat 8 foot long “Smart Car”. So logically Daimler Chrysler decided not to sell it in the United States despite booming sales in Europe for years. Zap, a Santa Rosa CA firm, saw an opportunity especially with rising gas prices and went direct to the European Daimler dealers to buy the cars. Surprise! Ten thousand U.S. buyers put themselves on a list to order over $55 million worth of cars in just a few months.

Avoid discount pricing, provide products and services your prospects want and you can avoid losing a billion or instead make 55 million. I don’t know about you but if I lose ten thousand dollars I get upset and when I make a million in a year I’m pretty happy.

2005 © In Mind Communications, LLC. All rights reserved.

About The Author

2005 © In Mind Communications, LLC. All rights reserved.

The author, Charlie Cook, helps service professionals, small business owners and marketing professionals attract more clients and be more successful. Sign up to receive the Free Marketing Plan eBook, ‘7 Steps to get more clients and grow your business’ at http://www.marketingforsuccess.com

ccook@marketingforsuccess.com

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Dodge Magnum RT 2006 Car Review
 by: Andrew Kier

The new Magnum is a great looking car that will get your neighbors talking as you rumble around the block. The unique styling of the Magnum will also attract gawkers in the form of 18-22 year old guys pointing for their friends to “check that out”. And a few people will approach you as you are filling up the gas tank to ask, “Does it really have a Hemi?”, with only a vague notion that it somehow makes the car better.

The Magnum is offered with many different engine sizes (either a 6-cylinder or 8-cylinder) with your choice of horsepower output of 190, 250, 340 and 425. The price of the vehicle also corresponds with the engine size starting at $30,345 to the expensive STR-8 model for $37,320. A big part of the mystique around this car is the Hemi engine. The Hemi is short for hemispherical combustion chamber, which creates more efficient fuel burning and allows larger valves for better airflow. Basically, it produces more power than an engine with its displacement would normally produce. (There are also drawbacks to the Hemi, which is why it isn’t the only engine that Chrysler produces).

The interior of the car looks much more expensive than you’d expect for the price of the Magnum. Since Mercedes bought Chrysler, the Dodge vehicles I’ve sampled have had a sharp improvement in interior quality. While on the road, the car is very solid and the seats are comfortable even on long highway runs.

As much as I like the looks, after driving it a while I really have to question the design concept that the Magnum offers. It is a station wagon built to transport a lot of people and a lot of stuff. But mating this with a powerful engine with the taught racing-like suspension is uncomfortable for both. It is like having a Corvette tow a small trailer, and you are in the trailer and the Corvette driver is 15 years-old, pushing the car to its limits. (Only an actual Corvette has a much more comfortable suspension than the Magnum). Even driving on smooth roads, the steering is very darty and difficult to control. And with a large car, all that weaving and road feedback is exaggerated for the passengers and everything you’ve stored in the back.

I like having a navigation system, but figuring out how to use it with the steering wheel controls made me frequently refer to the user’s manual. In spite of the high horsepower and low-end torque I played with when starting from a full stop, the RT model I drove averaged 20 MPG on the higway.

What I presume to be the target market for this car, those 18-22 year-old guys that I mentioned, will probably love this car. And as much as I love driving sports cars, the darty steering and sharp suspension make it too uncomfortable without any spectacular payoff. The 0-60 sprint is fun for a little while, but I’d pass on buying a Magnum as a daily driving vehicle.

About The Author

Andrew Kier is a car fanatic that grew up near Motor City and has been writing for automotive magazines since 1992. He shares his two decades of car comparison experience with recent models. More of his articles are available at http://cars.real-solution-center.com.

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