I was about 8 years old and my mom was driving me back from a friend’s birthday party. Transformers was pretty big back then, so all I wanted at the time was that new transformer toy. I drive by a billboard and I read, “Optimus Prime action-figure now for $2.00”. Stupid kid that I was, didn’t think twice and the next thing I know I’m dragging my mom into the nearest Toy shop. The toy was nowhere near $2.00. Which cruel human being did this? Why? I walked in there, all ready for my new $2.00 toy, which ended up being $25.00. I was so excited, I was in the shop already, and so this one time, my mom gave in. Funny how that ended up happening.

I passed by that same billboard on the way home and looked more carefully. It read “Now for $2.00 less”I get it now… smart move….

Everything a company does is to make sure that customers want to buy their product. They make use of intensive marketing and advertisement strategies to manipulate the psychology of the customer to achieve their end goal.

What I spoke about earlier; that’s anchoring. People see what they want to see. And usually, the first piece of information that they get, that’s what makes a customer’s decision. Now as a company, you need to capitalize on that. So all I saw was the big bold $2.00, and that’s all the information I had. It’s like when you walk buy a shop in a mall, and you see this:

And then you walk into the store. They’ve hooked you now, and there’s no turning back. When you go to look for the clothes that are 50% off, it’s a lousy table with handful of clothes you’d never wear. But you’re there, 20% off, 30% off, might as well pick up a few things.

And these strategies can scale to a whole new level. A classmate of mine; Chloe, had an interesting take on apple’s latest releases: the IPhone X and the 8. Apple has made perfect use of something known as the decoy effect. This is when a company throws in a subsidiary offer in-order to make the what they want you to buy look more attractive.  The IPhone 8 is pretty great, and is a notable improvement from the previous IPhone, but is it worth queuing up for? Personally, no. But then there’s the IPhone X. You compare that to the 8, and you have the phone selling out in a matter of minutes. Why get the 8 when you can get the X? exactly what Apple wants you to think.

Companies use powerful and clever marketing strategies to sway customers into buying their products. Their methods are intelligent, cunning and incredibly powerful. All-in-all; there is a whole lot more to advertisement than what meets the eye. And that ewhole lot more, is your brain.

Word Count: 450

References:

1. Carron, C. (n.d.). IPhone X: will YOU buy it? – Chloe Carron’s Blog. Retrieved November 13, 2017, from https://blogs.ubc.ca/ccarron/2017/10/29/iphone-x-will-you-buy-it/
2. Lewis, T. (2016, February 10). 9 sneaky psychology tricks companies use to get you to buy stuff. Retrieved November 13, 2017, from http://www.businessinsider.com/9-sneaky-psychology-tricks-companies-use-to-get-you-to-buy-stuff-2016-2/#priming-1

Business is full of failures. Failure is inevitable, but it’s also good. You learn from it, grow from it and ultimately, it helps you find the path that will lead to your business’s success. Now that you know that the outcomes of your early business expeditions is most likely failure, you as an entrepreneur need to know how to deal with it. One of the main changes a company can bring when reviving itself from a failure, is altering its strategy.

“What’s the point of business school then?, Aren’t we taught methods to not fail?” And the answer is, no one can really prepare you to do that. Your business is as successful as the decisions you make. Every company has a vision for it, which never changes. It has its own image, its own target audience, its on personality, and its own ideal path to success. And starting a company, how do you know what the right decisions to all these unknowns are? You learn from your mistakes, understand your company,so that finally you understand these unknowns, and the strategy to use to implement the vision you have for your company.

A company needs a well defined road map. The central vision of the company, with a thorough understanding of its market, defines the strategy that the company uses to base its decision trail on.

Let’s look at Airbnb. Airbnb is a norm now, with millions of users, but its taken a lot for Airbnb to get to this point. In an interview with Brian Chesky, he talks about how when the company just started, every investor was against it. No one thought there was a market for a stranger to stay in another stranger’s house. But the founder’s had a vision, and as Brian Chesky said, he kept relaunching the company after it failed, again and again, till he found thew right formula for his company, understood the strategic path to follow, and the rest is history.

Once your company is defined, it will use smaller strategies for sustained success. Let’s look at something as specific as Muji’s expansion into Canada. Muji has defined its identity as a company, and is well established to its market. It’s plan is for slow expansion, opening 7-8 stores in all of Canada over the next 5 years. Its strategic expansion plan, shows its understanding of Canadian markets, and how best to grow its revenue and business.

In conclusion, strategy is central to a companies success. It’s a direct tie to the vision of the company, and because of its specificity to a company, it’s going to take more than a few failures to figure out what works. So I guess the lesson is: Perseverance is key….hmm..

Word count: 448

References:

G. (2015, November 30). Retrieved October 29, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W608u6sBFpo

How to Create Simple Business Strategy. (2017, April 14). Retrieved October 29, 2017, from https://www.jcount.com/how-to-create-simple-business-strategy/

R. (2014, September 30). Muji plans 7 or 8 Canadian stores over the next 5 years, senior executive says. Retrieved October 29, 2017, from http://business.financialpost.com/news/retail-marketing/muji-canada-stores

Watkins, M. D. (2017, March 21). Demystifying Strategy: The What, Who, How, and Why. Retrieved October 29, 2017, from https://hbr.org/2007/09/demystifying-strategy-the-what

Every now and then, the world is lucky enough to a see leader emerge, who’s ideas change humanity for good. The world looks up to them, and their actions impact people across the globe. With Elon Musk’s crusade to advance human civilization, he is one such visionary, who’s work will impact people across the globe and be remembered through time. With so many people in the world trying to make a mark, what makes Musk stand out?

An entrepreneur has a clear and compelling vision of his goal. But having the ability to execute that vision, and being surrounded by people who will work to make this vision a reality that affects actual lives, that’s when people start to notice an entrepreneur. So I’m just drawing on the strongest example I can think of, and trying to deduce what he’s doing right.

Musk is of daring character. And with the entire outside world skeptical of his projects, how does he manage to keep his team motivated?  Simply put, an entrepreneur needs to stop caring about what other people think of his ideas. As an entrepreneur, you should consider it your duty, to share your vision with your customer, and provide real value to your customer from making your vision into a reality. You need to know why it is necessary to provide your customers your product.

In his biography and his speeches, Musk talks about how much he loves his work.  An entrepreneur’s chances of failing are pretty high, so he must work twice as hard as he needs to and should love what he’s doing. If an entrepreneur doesn’t love and recognize the importance of what he’s doing, he won’t have the patience and the perseverance to see his vision through to the end.

At times in your career, it will seem like every door is shutting on you, and you come damn close to failing. Only with absolute self-certainty and passion can you push through these times, to see your company successful to the end. Tesla, Space X: they’ve both come close to failing, but Musk’s perseverance trumped shitty circumstances to propel both companies to where they are today.

Upon looking at musk’s life story, you can see why everyone working for him follows him so blindly. Because Musk does all these things at such a high level everyday, people trust him, people believe in him, and most importantly, they follow him because they want to be like him.

In summary, with every endeavour Musk takes on, he seems to achieve the impossible. With every move he makes, he shatters the arguments of all skeptics. I may just be an undergraduate student, but when I read about Elon Musk, I always think the same thing: “Now that’s a leader”.

Word Count: 456

References:

Clifford, C. (2017, June 21). Elon Musk’s 3 best pieces of advice for how to be a great leader. Retrieved October 16, 2017, from https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/20/elon-musk-how-to-be-a-great-leader.html

Vance, A. (2016). Elon Musk: how the billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is shaping our future. London: Virgin Books.

Why Tesla CEO Elon Musk Is Among the World’s Greatest Leaders. (n.d.). Retrieved October 16, 2017, from http://fortune.com/2017/03/24/tesla-elon-musk-worlds-greatest-leaders/

Take just one minute, and think about a few big companies you can name off the tip of your tongue. Now if you had to think about one thing that all of them had in common, what would it be? Great Leadership? Sure. Good work environment? Absolutely.  But  the most important attribute that a successful company has, is being able to think ahead. Being able to create a different vision in the business which could make a change to daily life. The most important tool that a company can use to accelerate its future progress, boils down to a simple tool: Research & Development.

R&D, incorporates into a company, an influx of knowledge and technology. These are two important tools that can be used to improve the companies future services in whatever field. R&D helps locate weaknesses of a business, and also helps find innovative ideas across various relevant spectrums, to ultimately provide a service that is different and effective enough to improve their business.

Let‘s take a look at some of the giants in their respective industries. You’ve got Google, arguably one of the biggest tech companies in the world. What core product is the foundation of their company? It’s a search engine. By initially investing a large amount of R&D, with time, Google has created one of the most well known tools on the internet. This product founded the basis of its company, brought in advertisement deals from other companies, and started making revenue for future R&D. This is the foundation on which subsidiary projects like Chrome and Gmail.

Knowledge is the most powerful tool a company can possess. Take a look at Tesla. Elon Musk’s ground-breaking advances in transportation has built the pathway for one of the only successful car start-ups. Even in industries like Banking, Leasing and Law, investment in labour and entrepreneurial capital, is what forms the very base for the success of the company.

Big companies aside,
how do small, start-up companies and medium sized companies set aside the resources for R&D. As explained in the book, ‘Science, Technology and Innovation: Implications for Growth’, governments are starting to set aside money for these companies in order to quicken growth.

Let’s even try to understand this from a macro point of view, R&D, in the industrial world, causes progress across all industries. An important improvement to a service discovered by a single industry, can benefit another industry. So even if you look at the big picture, R&D is pretty crucial to advancement of the functioning world in general.

Conclusively, companies can hire a billion employees to try to sell their product. But if their product isn’t good, its not selling.

Word count: 444

Resources

1. Culture of Innovation: Tesla has triple the R&D of traditional automakers [Infographic]. (n.d.). Retrieved September 27, 2017, from https://evannex.com/blogs/news/innovation-culture-tesla-r-d-spending-versus-other-automakers
2. Dieter Bohn on May 29, 2015 at 12:15 p.m. (n.d.). Chasing the next billion with Sundar Pichai | Sundar’s Google: an exclusive look at the future of Google’s most important products. Retrieved September 27, 2017, from https://www.theverge.com/a/sundars-google/sundar-pichai-interview-google-io-2015
3. Mourdoukoutas, P. (2011, October 14). Google’s Two Secrets of Success. Retrieved September 27, 2017, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2011/10/13/googles-two-secrets-of-success/#b826756583d9
4. The Importance Of R&D To Innovation. (n.d.). Retrieved September 27, 2017, from http://www.incrementalinnovation.com/innovation-management-development/rd-to-innovation