When you admit a negative, the prospect will give you a positive (88).So if you are to succeed, you must have an idea or attribute of your own to focus your efforts around. Since Crest owned cavities, other toothpastes avoided cavities and jumped on other attributes like taste, whitening, breath protection (85).For every attribute, there is an opposite, effective attribute.It’s a battle of perceptions, not products or services. Marketing is a game of mental warfare.There are three things to sacrifice: product line, target market, and constant change (77).You have to give up something in order to get something.If you want to be successful today, you have to narrow the focus in order to build a position in the prospect’s mind. Invariably, the leader in any category is the brand that is not line extended (72).The next day the same company is spread thin over many products and is losing money. One day a company is tightly focused on a single product that is highly profitable.There’s an irresistible pressure to extend the equity of the brand (68).Marketing effects take place over an extended period of time (62).Categories are dividing, not combining.Synergy and its kissing cousin corporate alliance are the buzzwords in the boardrooms of America. Instead of understanding this concept of division, many corporate leaders hold the naive belief that categories are combining.Over time, a category will divide and become two or more categories (56).You must present yourself as the alternative. If you’re shooting for second place, your strategy is determined by the leader (50).In the long run, every market becomes a two-horse race (44).The strategy to use depends on which rung you occupy on the ladder (38).Two companies cannot own the same word in the prospect’s mind (34).You can’t position yourself as an honest politician, because nobody is willing to take the opposite position. You can’t narrow the focus with quality or any other idea that doesn’t have proponents for the opposite point of view.You can’t stand for something if you chase after everything. You become stronger when you reduce the scope of your operations. The essence of marketing is narrowing the focus.The most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the prospect’s mind (26).All that exists in the world of marketing are perceptions in the minds of the customer or prospect. Marketing is not a battle of products, it’s a battle of perceptions (18).You can’t change a mind once a mind is made up.The problem is getting the idea or concept into the prospects’ mind (15) Someone has an idea or concept he or she believes will revolutionize an industry, as well it may. Thousands of would-be entrepreneurs are tripped up every year by this law.If marketing is a battle of perception, not product, then the mind takes precedence over the marketplace. The law of the mind follows from the law of perception.It’s better to be first in the mind, than first in the marketplace (14).When you’re the first in a new category, promote the category.This is counter to classic marketing thinking, which is brand oriented: How do I get people to prefer my brand? Forget the brand.If you can’t be first in a category, set up a new category you can be first in (10).Marketing is a battle of perceptions, not products (8).The basic issue in marketing is creating a category you can be first in… It’s much easier to get into the mind first than to try to convince someone you have a better product than the one that did get there first (3).Many people believe that the basic issue in marketing is convincing prospects that you have a better product or service.It’s better to be first than it is to be better (2).
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