Here’s an interesting link from www.vcplan.com describing the 8 characteristics of success. Let’s check them out.

1. Passion - It all starts with passion. You must love what you are doing.
2. Work - Nothing is gained without hard work. Whatever it is you do, you need to work hard at it.
3. Focus - Stay focused on your objectives. It’s difficult to be excellent at a thousand things, but you can be the best at one.
4. Persist - Everyone fails at some point. To be successful, you need to keep going.
5. Ideas - Keep that brain working and be observant. You never know where the next good idea will come from.
6. Good - Be good at what you do. As the old timers say, practice makes perfect.
7. Push - It’s great when you have someone that can push you or motivate you, but it’s even better when you can push yourself. If you are having trouble with this, then you probably need to do something that you are more passionate about.
8. Serve - Remember, you’re here to help other people. Whatever you do, it’s not about you, it’s about the people that you are serving.

Did I leave something off the list? Comment below or email me at edwardviator@evil-marketer.com

Check out this article then come back here so we can discuss…

Ready?

So what does this mean for you evil marketers out there? Not only should you think about contingencies (come on, they released electronic versions of their books, and didn’t have the foresight to see that they could be pirated?!), you should also look at it from the side of the competition. Big companies anger their customers all the time. This could be a huge opportunity for your little known brand to step up to the plate and knock it out of the park.

If you notice a competitor doing something annoying, you can really set yourself apart by leveraging this and taking an opposite action (and of course, don’t forget to announce it to the world). Barnes and Noble and Borders both use a customer loyalty card. However, Barnes and Noble charges for theirs while Borders doesn’t. Guess which one I have in wallet? My favorite book store, Half-Price Books doesn’t even offer a customer loyalty card, but that’s probably a different discussion.