Weekly Digest #9 [Success, Marketing Trends, Habits, Artificial Intelligence & Spending]

A snapshot of article summaries that we enjoyed reading ( Dec 31— Jan 5)

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
— Winston S. Churchill

Laws of Success: The first law says that performance drives success but when performance is not measurable, networks drive success. In areas where standards are not defined as art, networks matter. Networks are carefully and aggressively built a series of meaningful connections. The 2nd law says success is unbounded whereas performance is bounded. At the top of any field, there is no divergence in quality. However, the rewards for being the first are disproportionately higher to being second. It helps to not only be the best but also look the part. The 3rd law says fitness multiplied by previous success is future success. Fitness is the same as quality and success in the future is contingent on success in the past. People like things that others seem to like and acquiring an aura of previous success is powerful. The 4th law says that team success requires diversity and balance however a single individual will receive the credit for the group’s achievement. Nobel prizes can have not more than 3 recipients no matter how many people contribute to the work. The 5th law says that success can come at any time as long as we are persistent. Success is a zero-sum game as sometimes there is only room for one at the top. Whatever your own inclination when it comes to getting ahead, it’s good to know how the game is played.

Marketing Trends: It’s difficult to predict which methods will connect with consumers most effectively in the ever-changing landscape of marketing. Just when marketers believe they understand their audience, a new technology /behavior /audience alters everything. Given the recent changes and shifts in the marketing space, here are the top marketing trends to look for in 2019. First is The Marketing Funnel is Shifting- The current marketing funnel accepts anyone, assessing them for profitability and rejecting them if they’re deemed unfit. Rather than opening up a marketing funnel that swallows whoever it can, businesses are starting to efficiently leverage content to target niche audiences. The 2nd trend talks about Content Being the King. The goal is not to simply put content in front of people and hope they respond to it, but rather to encourage them to share and engage with it. Content — whether it’s an article on an outlet or a video on social media — opens the door for two way communication. The third trend — Chatbots Aren’t Going Anywhere. Customer service is essential, but not everyone feels comfortable talking to a real person on the phone or has the time to do it over email. That’s what makes chatbots so convenient. These are little AI helpers integrated into websites that can answer questions and fulfill requests quickly and many can accomplish this without sacrificing personality. The 4th trend — AI Continues to Grow. It makes data analysis more efficient, can target potential leads rapidly and can perform tasks that humans struggle with. Sometimes it takes the form of advanced machine learning, but even Netflix’s recommendation system that suggests new TV shows to watch is technically AI. 5th trend — People Are Cautious About Security. Talk about your security with customers. What makes it better than others? In an economy where people are rightfully cautious about hacks, leaks, and theft, they will favor establishments that can promise them the safest business experience. 6th trend — Voice Search Is Getting Louder. Not only does voice searching make it easier to find information online without pulling out a device; people love it because it reduces their screen time. Next year, make sure you’re optimized for voice searches. The 7th trend is — Vertical Video is on the Rise. People watch countless hours of video every day, and YouTube is the largest search engine after its sibling Google. Whether it’s on Facebook, Instagram or some other platform, the video is not going anywhere. However, people do not always like turning their mobile devices to the side. Your social media strategy needs to keep vertical-form IGTV videos in mind. The 8th trend is — Focus on Gen Z. Gen Z is getting older, which means they are beginning to enter the workforce and possess buying power. they seek authenticity, and they prefer socially responsible businesses. They’re growing up in a scary world and a struggling economy, so they’re more likely to turn to companies that make the world a better place. The 9th trend — Visual Searches Are Taking Off. Google has long enabled reverse-image searches but new camera technology makes it possible for people to take a picture of something in the real world and find information about it. The 10th trend is — Influencers Have Different Identities. Companies previously relied on celebrities to convince people that products are worth buying, but consumers are now leaning toward their peers. Next year, adjust your influencer marketing strategy according to who your audience is most likely to respond to. Marketing is becoming increasingly complex, so it’s practical for marketers to keep their eyes on emerging technologies, methods and patterns.

Better Habits: Everyone wants to cultivate better habits, develop better accountability and a clearer vision for their life but few want to work to make those habits a reality. The first thing is to think really small — Atomic Habits. The book Atomic Habits talks about small habits that make a huge difference in your life. Thinking big is great but thinking small is easier because once one gets started, it is easier to build on the base. The second thing is to create a physical reminder. A physical totem can make the habit or standard you’re trying to hold yourself to into something more than an idea and that helps a lot. The third thing is to lay out your supplies in front of you. If you wish to practice running in the morning, keeping a pair of running shoes besides your bed will help create stickiness. You’ll be less likely to take the easier path out if it’s embarrassingly simple to do the thing you want to do. Piggyback new habits on old habits. It’s easy to maintain the new habit if it helps to ride on an ingrained habit that’s part of your routine. Surround yourself with good people. If you want to have better habits, find better friends. Commit yourself to a challenge. Deciding what we want to do, determining our own habits and making the right choices is exhausting. Giving the ownership to someone is a way to narrow our focus and put everything to commitment. Make it interesting. A certain amount of reward helps to make the habit stick for a longer duration. It’s about the ritual. Once the habit is formed, the ritual takes over. It doesn’t have to be an everyday thing. What matters is the results should average out. Focus on yourself and make it about your identity. Cultivating habits or commitments foundational to your identity has an advantage. Keep it simple. Atomic Habits that are manageable, make a difference to a long way in making a difference and help build momentum. When you mess up, pick yourself up and revert to the system. You’ll have a better group harmony if you keep going back to it. These guidelines can help in achieving the goals for the new year.

Effective Business Models: Since businesses thrive on profit, one of the crucial questions you must ask yourself at the outset is how to grow your user base to build revenue. Both of these issues are covered under the umbrella term “business model.” While a lot of business models exist, four of them are worth studying in the context of today’s marketplace. First — The on-demand model. This model works on the real-time provision of goods and services. Technology is considered to be its single major propeller, as technology serves as a fillip to its core pre-conditions, which include cost-effectiveness and speed. The on-demand model is not just convenient for consumers but also to businesses. It’s especially suitable for platform businesses that utilize already established an infrastructure to solve a problem and aids in scaling up. Uber is a great example of this model. The Second Model is The Freemium Model. It is mostly adopted by tech products when they group features into basic. and advanced products. The purpose of this model is to promote the basic features for free, where anyone/everyone would be able to use them, but grant only premium users access to the advanced ones. LinkedIn is a great example of this model. This model works on a 5 percent rule — that is, 5 percent of paying customers support the remaining 95 percent of free users. The third model — Shopping Annuity. This mode enables customers to earn from their own current spending. Consumers actually earn money when purchasing everyday items, such as paper towels, toilet paper, toothpaste, razors and so on. It can be a very compelling model that fits well into the e-commerce space. The Fourth Model — The Virtual Goods Model. This model creates revenue by giving users the sense that they are gaining real value from purchasing a virtual good. If you’re going to create a widely appealing app or game, then this model is one that you’ll want to consider, as people will want to purchase virtual goods that make their experience with a fascinating product more fun.

Paying Bills and Wealth: It is common to believe that high income is directly correlated to wealth. The rich are rich because they earn a lot of money. However, in many cases, it is not really the case. As we earn more money, our savings potential increases but it doesn’t translate necessarily into an increase in the savings rate. High salaries are deceptive as they come with the expectation that spending money earns more money. Earning high salaries boxes us into a lifestyle that drains a majority of our wealth systematically through debt. The author provides a couple of examples of doctors and business executives. Doctors amass debt due to the high cost of medical school. The tendency to amass debt and expensive lifestyles because they have worked so hard is common. Business executives also live in cultures driven by high incomes. Promotions and additional levels of responsibilities in business bring an expectation of success. This culture of looking successful drives a wicked cycle of consumption leading to high consumption lifestyles supplemented through high income, eventually causing erosion of the earned income. Lifestyle inflation is spending the extra dough earned to fund our lifestyle. High-income optimism is something we all fall susceptible to in life. A high income consuming lifestyle with the assumption that nothing will ever change. It is important to think about retirement and unforeseen contingencies. It takes a tremendous amount of discipline to curb our spending when the money is right there. Wearing expensive suits and driving nice cars makes us look successful. The spending entitlement that creeps in our psyche after earning high incomes by spending money on education, working long hours and shouldering stress is detrimental to our finances. The moral of the story is that it is easy to get rich due to high income but it is important to escape the draining culture of spending.

AI and the strength of tech companies: Machine Learning is the most important trend today in the technology industry. As the basic block of ML is data, it is quite common to hear companies with large amounts of data getting stronger. ML replaces handwritten logical steps with automatically detected patterns in data and works much better for a very broad class of questions. Hence it is easy to imagine a virtuous cycle of more data creating a winner. There is a fear that the strong companies are getting stronger along with countries with a large population and permissive attitudes to centralized use of data. But it is nuanced and needs data which is specific to the problem you are aiming to solve. ML is a generalizable technology but applications that can be built with it cannot be generalized. Both the applications you build and the data sets you need are very specific to the task you are trying to solve. Hence ML implementation will be widely distributed. Larger companies in an industry will benefit from the availability of data but it won’t mean they will have a competitive advantage. The reason being there will be various possibilities of data analysis, uniqueness and where the right point of aggregation would be situated. For an ML company, there are two questions related to the data that need to solve a real-world problem. The first would be how to get your first data to train your models to get your first customer. The second question would be how much data would be required. Some data would be proprietary and unique to the business which gives them the advantage some data might apply to a use case that is found in many companies and industries and some data would not be required as the product would have already started functioning smoothly. This results in diffusion of machine learning. Diffusion leads to asking questions on go to market strategy, marketing reach and value of the problem. Diffusion also results in all types of startups that can build things pretty quickly

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The link to the original articles is hyperlinked in the title of each summary.