| International
Marketing Strategies Embrace Change
By
Gary Scott
The weather is like business.
First everything looks perfect, wonderful, you can't lose. Then there is so much
turmoil, hot one day, cold the next. This is why we need international marketing
strategies that embrace change.
That cold can be bitter, even
deadly, both in mountain weather and business.
As I update this message for
example many business hotshots of a decade ago are being tried for fraud and sentenced
to jail.
Martha Stewart was just set free
from jail. This may seem like a terrible new phenomenon, but its not.
International Marketing Strategies
Story
You can understand this better
by sharing a true story about a young executive, (just 25 years old), his business
and his shares.
Young and earnest, he worked
his heart out for four years. Almost sacrificed his family (ended up divorced)
trying to build a financial future. But he thought it worth the stress. The stock
market had been rising for decades. The bull market was all he knew, shares rising,
IPO's were coming out every day-almost guaranteed success.
His industry was in a hot sector
and his company, near the top, had gone public. His compensation was generous,
including stock options, 50,000 shares at a dollar each. The shares were trading
for $20. He was just 24 years old and already a millionaire!
But he was troubled. His industry
was so hot that competition had become fierce. Good employees were jumping job
to job, grabbing larger salaries, bigger options, better compensation as they
moved. His hapless company (and competitors too) were paying so much for talent
there was no way they could be profitable.
Yet the young man was one of
the few who remained loyal, working hard despite his fears about the firm's lack
of profit. He pushed down his common sense and relied on what everyone said. "In
this industry profit doesn't have to be made right away," he had been told
again and again. So he just kept plunging away waiting for those shares to rise
even more.
Then the market collapsed. A
new experience for him. The sudden drop caused a run on his company shares and
soon his and many other similar firms which were starved for operating cash collapsed.
The entire industry tanked and
his company went broke. He ended up not only unemployed but with no money and
in debt. His stock options weren't worth the paper they were printed on.
Which dot.com did this guy work
for you ask? Or was it a software firm? This has to be high tech of the late 1990s.
Right?
International Marketing Strategies
History
Wrong. The hottest industry in
1968 was the overseas mutual fund business led by three huge concerns (IOS, Gramco
and USIS). I was that young man starting at age 21 with USIS when they had eight
employees. Within four years they had over 2000 employees and at age 25 my stock
options were worth one million dollars (which was a lot of money then). In 1969
the U.S. stock market (after nearly 20 bull years) collapsed along with the U.S.
dollar. This brought down an entire industry. Within two years all three of the
big firms (none of which were making a profit, all of which were throwing tons
of cash at gaining market share) were bust.
International Marketing Strategies
Imbalance
Profits didn't matter it had
been said. Just survive and grow through tight labor, job hopping employees, super
inflated stock markets, small investor nervousness, etc.
Sound familiar? All these factors
were the same in the dot.com and high tech industry as they were in the overseas
fund business then.
I am sharing this early history
because though I lost my first fortune and a job, I have never lost the lesson.
International Marketing Strategies
Lesson
The lesson was that some things
never change and it pays to run opposite the crowd because though some things
never change other things always change!
All the things happening in business
now happened to me over 30 years ago and they have happened before that again
and again. So the more things change the more they remain the same.
None of this stuff is new! We
can predict what is coming. Yet it is so easy to blind ourselves. Denial is the
medical term used. So my job in the international marketing department is to offer
this continual reminder.
International Marketing Strategies
and Business Need Change
There are always ways to make
money even in the toughest of times, but there are also forces that will rob you
of every penny you have when times look the best.
The reality is that there is
no such thing as good and bad times for business. All times can be good or bad
depending on whether your business is adapting to change.
International Marketing Trends
Embrace Change
I was thinking about change as
I walked through our farm one day.
The forest's silence was cut by sweet songs of a waterfall that rose on a warm
mountain air. Blackberries and dew, glistened like purple diamonds and golden
leaves floated in the air. Summer's ripe wardrobe offered its richest plumes and
claimed joy in its plump fullness even as it began to fade in the specters of
fall.
This was at Little
Horse Creek in deep woods. Though the equinox was weeks away and the leaves
were still green, the first hints of orange were seen. There was an inexplicable
feeling. Autumn was coming, some little morning crispness, a mourning in the wind,
some added silence in the air announced change.
Such are the cycles of life and
change. That's life and we baby boomers (as we approach our sixties) are beginning
to know more and more what this is all about!
International Marketing Strategies
Article On Change
A recent article in USA Today
entitled "Maturing boomers smack the silver ceiling", tells how boomers,
now in their fifties, who are hit with pink slips, find it harder to find new
jobs because they are perceived as too old.
The same front page also declares,
"U.S. Taps Social Security Reserves." Boomers shiver, thinking about
retirement and social security that might be delayed or not even be there.
We must (as has always been the
reality in this relative universe we create) always move forward into the unknowing
and yet the unknown is what most investors and businesses fear most (a good book
to read about this is "Who Moved My Cheese". See WhoMovedMyCheese.com
The message of this book is embrace change!
So whatever you are doing today
in love, life, business or investing, ask yourself what new things can you see
that have changed. How can you do something about this that will make your life
(and the lives of all around) better!
Do this and you will always have
good International Marketing Ideas, international business, and investing!
Gary
The Gary Scott website goals
are to provide stimulating ideas and useful resources about international business,
overseas investing and global health secrets to help you live a healthier, more
affluent and fulfilling life. As part of this process we offer links to our friends
and readers and sources of information around the world.
This message's link for international
marketing ideas on change is WindsOfChange.net
The site shares wisdom from groups
like the Islamic Sufis, Jewish Hasidim and eastern Zen Masters, highlight the
acts of good and decent people, laugh at humorous events, and point to amazing
discoveries that could benefit humanity.
The photo above comes from a
site that uses international marketing ideas about organic change at SeedsOfChange.com
Read more at
GaryScott.com |
