What's the name of the third person to fly the Atlantic Ocean solo? If you didn't know that Bert Hinkler was the second person to fly the Atlantic, you might figure you had no chance at all to know the name of the third person. But you do. It's Amelia Earhart. Now, is Amelia known as the third person to fly the Atlantic Ocean solo, or as the first woman to do so? After Heineken became a big success, the people at Anheuser-Busch could have said, "We should bring in an imported beer, too." But they didn't. Instead they said, "If there's a market for a high-priced imported beer, maybe there's a market for a high-priced domestic beer" And so they started to promote Michelob, the first high-priced domestic beer, which shortly thereafter out-sold Heineken two to one. (Anheuser-Busch also brought in an imported beer, Carlsberg, which has a very good reputation in Europe. In the United States, however, the me-too Carlsberg never went anywhere.) Miller Lite was the first domestic light. It took an importer five years to say, "if there's a market for a domestic light beer, maybe there's a market for an imported light beer." The result was Amstel Light, which became the largest-selling imported light beer. If you didn't get into the prospect's mind first, don't give up hope. Find a new category you can be first in. It's not as difficult as you might think. After IBM became a big success in computers, everybody and his brother jumped into the field. Burroughs, Control Data, General Electric, Honeywell, RCA, Sperry. Snow White and the seven dwarfs, they were called. Which dwarf grew up to become a worldwide powerhouse, with 126,000 employees and sales of $14 billion, a company often dubbed "the second largest computer company in the world?" None of them. The most successful computer company of the seventies and eighties, next to IBM, was Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). IBM was first in computers. DEC was first in minicomputers. Many other computer companies became rich and famous by following a simple principle: If you can't be first in a category, set up a new category you can be first in. Tandem was first in fault-tolerant computers and built a $1.9 billion business. So Stratus stepped down with the first fault-tolerant minicomputer. Are the laws of marketing difficult? No, they are quite simple. Workingthings out in practice is another matter, however. Cray Research went over the top with the first supercomputer. So Convexput two and two together and launched the first mini supercomputer. Sometimes you can also turn an also-ran into a winer by inventing a new category. Commodore was just another manufacturer of home personal computers that wasn't going anywhere until it positioned the Amiga as the first multimedia computer. There are many different ways to be first. Dell got into the crowded personal computer field by being the first to sell computers by phone. When you launch a new product, the first question to ask yourself is not "how is this new product better than the competition?" but "First what?" In other words, what category is this new product first in? Charles Schwab didn't open a better brokerage firm. He opened the first dis-count broker. This is counter to classic marketing thinking, which is brand oriented: How do I get people to prefer my brand? Forget the brand. Think categories. Prospects are on the defensive when it comes to brands. Everyone talks about why their brand is better. But prospects have an open mind when it comes to categories. Everyone is interested in what's new. Few people are interested in what's better. When you're the first in a new category, promote the category. In essence, you have no competition. DEC told its prospects why they ought to buy a mini-computer, not a DEC minicomputer. In the early days, Hertz sold rent-a-car service. Coca-Cola sold refreshment. Marketing programs of both companies were more effective back then.
Lifestyle Design
Much like DEC and "minicomputers," I created the term "lifestyle design" and debuted it in The 4-Hour Workweek. Here's how it first appeared, with a few paragraphs removed: The New Rich (NR) are those who abandon the deferred-life plan [save and retire after 20-40 years] and create luxury lifestyles in the present using the currency of the New Rich: time and mobility. This is an art and a science we will refer to as Lifestyle Design (LD)... $1,000,000 in the bank isn't the fantasy. The fantasy is the lifestyle of complete freedom it supposedly allows. The question is then, how can one achieve the millionaire lifestyle of complete freedom without first having $1,000,000? Tools and principles follow, like geo-arbitrage, email triage, luxury travel workaround, and "mini-retirements" (another term I created), etc. 'Lifestyle design' represented a new and concise label for something that previously required a few sentences. I made no attempt to trademark or protect it. Instead, I propagated it as widely as possible as quickly as possible, seeded it in media interviews, conference keynotes, articles, etc. I wanted it to enter the popular vernacular, and to have organic communities of "lifestyle designers" sprout up online and all over the world. Once The 4-Hour Workweek was parodied by Jay Leno and The Office, it had arrived. The side effect was that—at least for the first year—whenever "lifestyle design" was used or defined by someone, my name or The 4-Hour Workweek were mentioned as well. This was because I owned the mindshare, the mental "category" not the trademark. Now, of course, it's out in the wild, all grown up, and has taken on a life of its own. At the time of this writing, there are ~14.6 million or ~585K Google search results for "lifestyle design" depending on whether you omit or use quotation marks.
Contexts
- #tim-ferriss