I came across a great article posted by Michael Lev-Ram in Business 2.0 in its latest issue. “Two centuries of contrarian thinkers” presented a comprehensive collection of contrarian thoughts of contrarian thinkers of recent two centuries.
Article started with the inspiring thought from Henry Ford: ‘Remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, and not with it.’ Really inspiring to young entrepreneurs to withstand and struggle against the challenges. Those who withstand the challenges, and lives through that, they win.

1. Cisco cashed from the insightful thought of Samuel Brannan (1819-1889) - ‘The real money’s in the shovels, not the gold.‘ Cisco sells the routers and switches for Internet backbone.

2. Aaron Montgomery Ward (1844-1913), who founded the world’s first mail-order business suggests to “Cut out the middleman” - thats how all successful online marketplaces like Amazon.com, eBay.com, alibaba.com and many others offer the services, entirely redefining the meaning of markets.

3. HP makes more money selling ink cartridges than selling printers. In Europe, Mobile companies makes money on calls giving mobiles free. King Camp Gillette (1855-1932) knew to win the market by “Selling the razors cheap and the blades dear.”

4. Henry Ford (1863-1947) believed in his thought “Create a mass market for mass-produced goods” and doubled the standard industrial wage and laid the foundation for today’s consumer society: assembly-line production of goods made by workers paid just enough to afford them.

5. Leo Burnett (1891-1971) knew “Image is everything“. That’s a true for everyone today, but when advertising pioneer Burnett got his start, most ads consisted of wordy product descriptions. Burnett created such enduring icons as Tony the Tiger and the Pillsbury Doughboy and proved it’s the picture, not the prose, that really captures the consumer’s attention.

6. Learn from Juan Trippe (1899-1981), how to “cater to coach class.” In the 1940s, when air travel was still reserved for industrialists, movie stars and royalty, Pan Am’s Trippe started selling “tourist class” tickets for his newly expanded air routes. He paved the way for mass tourism and generations of discount airlines, from Laker Airways to JetBlue.

8. If the customer loyalty is hight, the insightful thought of Mary Kay Ash (1919-2001) works well - Sales teams sell more than salespeople. The founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics put a feminine twist on the multilevel marketing model pioneered by Amway. She championed cooperation, not competition, and brought more than a million women into the workforce to compete for her annual top sales prize: a pink Cadiallac.

Definitely inspiring thoughts for Entrepreneurs!!!
If you enjoyed reading my posts, then please Subscribe to My RSS feed.