Lean Marketing Provocations

Here are a selection of provocations for Lean Marketers. Many of the principles are timeless but all of these quotables are original. So if you wish to share any of these please be sure to credit with a link to http://www.leanmarketing.co.uk and thanks for doing so. We’ll also add to this page from time to time – so book mark it now and check back often.

Provocation 1: The more you think you already know – the less you can learn.

Provocation 2: Make friends with people who are cooler and more successful than you – it compels you to raise your game.

Provocation 3: Playing safe is a loser’s strategy. If you want the high fruit you’ve got to shake the tree. Risk your ego – be bold.

Provocation 4: The faster I fail, the quicker I learn. Don’t wait until everything is 100% perfect – take action and improve as you go!

Provocation 5: 3 questions for entrepreneurs to answer: What entitles you to be in business? What makes you special? Why you and not them?

Provocation 6: Positioning Secret: Stand for something or stand against something. If you stay in the middle then you stand for nothing.

Provocation 7: If it doesn’t make or save you money and it’s not essential to your business then stop doing it. Now!

Provocation 8: Feelgood Marketing: doing stuff you know doesn’t work because it feels better than doing nothing.

Provocation 9: Eliminate Marketing Waste: If you can’t measure it – you really shouldn’t be doing it.

Provocation 10: Re-Branding: If you already have a recognisable brand – stick with it! Anything else is just marketing masturbation.

Provocation 11: Lean Marketing in 4 steps: Eliminate (waste). Simplify (process). Automate (systems). Repeat (success).

Provocation 12: 3 Rs of Lean Marketing: Remove (activity). Reduce (complexity). Repeat (success).

Provocation 13: attrACTION: Wishing is not a strategy. Know what you want and take responsibility for your actions. That’s a strategy.

Provocation 14: Laziness is a virtue. Make it your daily mission to stop doing anything that doesn’t bring a reward.

Provocation 15: Don’t over-engineer a solution. There’s almost always an easy way and a hard way. Pick the easy one.

Provocation 16: When you achieve a great victory some people will try to knock you down. Ignore them – your fans are waiting.

Provocation 17: Only your best should be good enough for you. Don’t accept second rate service from yourself!

Provocation 18: Compounding: incremental improvement is worth it. If you only improve 1% a day you’ll be 100% better in 70 days.

Provocation 19: Every action has a cost. Which actions steal your time and money without paying back?

Provocation 20: If you’re tired of coming up against a brick wall build a ladder.

Provocation 21: Success Secret: Strive to create more value than you consume.

Provocation 22: Talking is not the same as doing. So stop squawking and start walking.

Provocation 23: People don’t care about your business. They care about what it can do for them. Now.

Provocation 24: JVs: Never under-estimate the amount by which your partners are likely to over-estimate.

Provocation 25: Focus on doing 1 or 2 things exceptionally well. Ignore the rest it doesn’t matter.

Provocation 26: Recreational Marketing: doing stuff just because you enjoy doing it. Get a hobby!

Provocation 27: Ask for more favours. If you had just one person do you a favour each day how would life be better?

Provocation 28: Try saying no to everything for a whole week. Don’t share this tip with the people you ask for favours.

Provocation 29: Edit your business and life. What can you do without?

Provocation 30: Get more done: Stop Starting and Start Stopping!

Provocation 31: Creativity is often over-rated. Sometimes success calls for a bit of humble productivity.

Provocation 32: Keep your enemies close – then feed them bad information.

Provocation 33: Competitors: If you can’t join them – beat them!

Provocation 34: Your business should make your life better.

Provocation 35: Selflessness is over-rated. You can’t help anyone if you don’t help yourself first.

Provocation 36: Selfishness is under-rated. If you don’t gain then why are you doing it?

Provocation 37: Learn from great people but don’t worship them. Nobody’s that great except you!

Provocation 38: You can dwell on the past. You can dream of the future. But you can only do anything about either now.

Provocation 39: Build your business so it can be sold easily. That includes being able to sack yourself!

Provocation 40: Always have a reason why you’re doing something. If you don’t have one – don’t do it.

Provocation 41: What are you tolerating in your business right now? It’s time to be intolerant.

Provocation 42: Don’t recruit if you can outsource.

Provocation 43: Always know what your service or product is really worth to the client. Don’t charge more or less than this.

Provocation 44: Stop accepting incoming calls. Don’t even divert them. Just leave a message with your email address.

Provocation 45: No publicity is bad publicity.

Provocation 46: CRM: 20% of your customers will be causing 80% of your problems. Find them. Sack them.

Provocation 47: CRM: 80% of your customers will be generating 20% of your income. Find them. Ignore them.

Provocation 48: CRM: 20% of your customers will be generating 80% of your income. Find them. Love them.

Provocation 49: Moving from “Why I can’t!” to “Why can’t I?” is just a matter of where you put yourself.

Provocation 50: Hard work will only get you so far. Work hard to set things in place so you no longer have to.

Provocation 51: If you’re the star of your business then you don’t have a business. You have a time bomb. Become dispensable.

Provocation 52: Give your mobile email gadget to your kids! Grownups don’t have time to email their friends when they should be working.

Provocation 53: Unless you’re expecting a call or making a call – turn your mobile phone off. Everything can wait.

Provocation 54: Emergencies: 80% of so-called emergencies can wait. And, if you wait long enough they stop being emergencies.

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