I wish I could tell you that all the ideas on this site were my inventions and I am some kind of marketing and business genius. The truth is, I am only a collector of ideas and proven concepts, and I rarely invent anything. I collect and apply notions that are known to reliably work rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. Reinventing the wheel requires you to be a genius, and even then, it carries with it a high probability of failure. I am no genius and I truly want you to succeed, so I prefer to closely follow and apply the concepts that made others very successful.
The powerful marketing concepts and ideas on this site are the inventions of great business leaders and marketers. No doubt you will also benefit from the treasure trove of these proven business building ideas!
Of course there is a place for creativity and new invention but this should certainly come after you have first mastered the basics. This site contains many of those basics. Some come from my own experiences but most come from people who have been “giants” in the life of many marketing professionals. In no particular order, I would like to acknowledge:
-Al Ries and Jack Trout (“Positioning the battle for your mind”)
-Simon Sinek (“Start with why”)
-Rich Horwath (“Deep Dive”)
-Geoffrey A. Moore (“Crossing the chasm”)
-Allan Dib (“The 1-page marketing plan”)
-Pamela Wilson (“Master content strategy”)
-W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne (“Blue Ocean strategy”)
-Jack Welch (“Winning”)
-Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick (“The art of social media”)
-Sanjay K. Dhar (Professor of Marketing at University of Chicago Booth School of Business)
-James C. Anderson, James A. Narus, and Wouter van Rossum (Article: “Customer value propositions in business markets” – Harvard Business Review)
-Diana O’Brien, Andy Main, Suzanne Kounkel and Anthony R. Stephan (Article: “Purpose is everything”)
-Sally Blount and Paul Leinwand (Article: “Why are we here?”)
-Robert E. Quinn and Anjan V. Thakor (Article: “Creating a Purpose-Driven Organization”)
-Kindra Hall (Article: “Make your mission matter”)
-Mark Bonchek (Article: “How to build a strategic narrative”)
-Aaron Agius (Article: “7 statistics that prove email marketing isn’t dead”)
-Brandon Turner (Article: “These 9 SEO tips are all you’ll ever need to rank in Google”)
One of them has been personal mentor to me, while others have been inspirational thought leaders to me through publications and other works they have produced.
I am certain that I have left other people out. When you collect ideas over a period of many years it can sometimes become a blur when trying to recall where one originated. For that I apologize in advance.
Implementing these proven concepts is by far the best way for a small business to go from knowing nothing about marketing to creating and executing robust marketing strategies for its business. Please enjoy the ideas on this site!
Xavier Rousseau
Founder of Barouf