Week 7 Reading Reflection

After completing this week's reading from the Harvard Business Review I was most surprised by how much importance companies placed on an individual's identity and what products conformed to that identity instead of what decisions consumers made when spending their money. As detailed by the reading, consumer behavior is much more important than consumer identity. However I was not aware that companies used the latter metric so heavily during the last four decades.

I was most confused by the portion of the reading that focused on creating segmentations that conformed to what senior managers thought. While I understand that early statistical research conducted by private companies focused too much on consumer identity, I was unsure as to how that related to the marketing manager's reluctance to accept such data.

Given the opportunity to ask two questions to the author I would ask if the appropriate approach has been taken by modern companies in identifying consumer identity and how companies go about obtaining the statistical data they use to make informed marketing decisions.

I found the author's input was quite good and well supported by a variety of real-life scenarios. Overall a great article.

Free Money

Strategy:

Where to go?: The best way to find people to approach was definitely a very busy and public place. I choose the area near Turlington and Marston to give away my dollar bills.

Kinds of people to approach?: I decided to focus on people that were looking down and that were busy as this would provide the best experience in catching someone's attention. I also found it easier to speak with individuals that while walking, didn't seem to be in much of a rush so as to make it easier to hold a conversation.

Conversation Starter/Plan?: My initial plan was to try to incentivize people to provide feedback on the business idea stated in my other blog posts (OddJob - a CraigsList like phone app for College students) but due to reasons stated below (in the reflection) I decided to change my approach. My second idea was to give people the dollar bill under the context of a "social experiment" to see if they would pay the dollar bill forward to someone else. See my reflection for what I learned about each conversation idea.

Prediction: I predicted that out of 5 people only 1 or 2 people would actually take the dollar bill.

Encounters:

Note: Unfortunately the sound in my first video is not very good, but you should be able to hear me speak.

Reflection:

After completing this assignment I definitely gained some insight as to how to make it easier to sell a product or approach an individual with respect to a product. My first idea (getting people to provide feedback in return for a dollar) did not work well in reality. I think the main cause behind this was that people felt bad taking a dollar from someone trying to create a new business or further themselves. I then realized that it would be much easier to give someone a dollar (and have them keep it) if they felt good about taking the dollar. This proved to be true as I was able to convince 2 out of the 5 people to take the dollar under the context of them "helping" out by paying the dollar forward. If I could have given the dollar under the context of a non-for profit organization (imagine the non-for profit gives 2 dollar for every dollar I give) then it would have been even easier, in my opinion. I had predicted that it would be harder to give away a dollar and this proved to be true.

Feel free to leave feedback below!

Elevator Pitch No. 2

Overall I think that the feedback I received last time I did my elevator pitch was quite good. There was no feedback that I thought was wrong. I was however surprised that many people that left feedback thought I was relaxed throughout most of the pitch. I believe this applies to any presentation, but when you look back on yourself it's much easier to identify a specific moment during which you were nervous than it is for others to identify.

Based off the feedback from last time I tried to keep my hands at my sides and express myself as clearly as possible in order to make the pitch look natural.

Please let me know what I can improve this time around!