Duct Tape Marketing

2007-06-05

Yesterday I started reading Duct Tape Marketing by John Jantsch. This book is seriously great! As the owner of a small business, I keep getting ideas in my mind about how to improve it's marketing while reading it.

I've never actually read a Marketing book before. I've always focused on reading programming and entrepreneurial books before. I've realized though that if I want to get serious about supporting myself through my own businesses I have to learn how to market, because as Jantsch says, "every business is actually a marketing business." (pg xi)

My plan as I know it so far:

If I want to eat food, I need to convince other people to give me money. People only exchange money for value, so I need to show them how my business is valuable to them. If I just make something that is valuable, it's not good enough, because noone will know that I've made it and they will think whatever I've made is generic crap. That's why I need to market what I've made. To show people what I make is good stuff and they can get my good stuff by giving me money.

Then I can go buy a bagel.

Takeaways:

• You cannot survive on your technical skill alone!
• People will not find you unless you market yourself.