Author Archives: NWarner

Testing Your Own Marketing Bridge

No Comments
July 28  |  Marketing Bridge  |   NWarner
Norton Warner

By Norton E. Warner

Advertisers sometimes buy advertising with the idea of testing the ad medium. There is nothing wrong with testing. A successful enterprise continually evaluates expenditures. Remember, however, that advertising may test your marketing bridge more than it does the medium.

Former president of Procter & Gamble, Howard J. Morgens once pointed out, “No amount of advertising can force people to buy things they do not want. Advertising cannot sell a poor product. It might induce people to try it once, but it cannot build an enduring business on such a product.” Nor can advertising build an enduring business with a poor or ineffective marketing bridge. Continue Reading

Vision, Leadership and Winning Strategy

No Comments
June 30  |  Norton's Book  |   NWarner
Norton Warner

A practical, dynamic, creative entrepreneurial vision is rare. Vision begets innovation and is a prerequisite to leadership. If you have a precise vision for your business, it can be your greatest competitive advantage.

Your competitors who have no vision will find themselves chasing yours. Running after your vision, your imagination, your innovations and your leadership, they will forever be in your dust, months, maybe years, behind you.   Continue Reading

First the Goal, Then the Means

No Comments
June 1  |  Business, Norton's Book  |   NWarner
Norton Warner

Your strategy begins with a goal. Corporate consultant Peter Drucker claims that “the best way to predict the future is to create it.” Your goals predict the future of your enterprise. When you establish goals and commit yourself to them, you become a slave to the master you have created. Once you swear allegiance to your company’s vision, you’ll have the means to accomplish it. The information, personnel, opportunities, and resources you need will become available to you. It’s like magic, and it unleashes power that you—the magician—never knew you had.

Napoleon Hill, one of the first to codify the principles of personal achievement, called this mysterious power The Law of Cosmic Habit Force. Hill’s premise is that once you decide on a goal of any kind, you “send your little men out” and they bring back the information and resources necessary to accomplish it. Continue Reading

Norton’s Notes: Advertising: Investment or Expense?

No Comments
May 1  |  Advertising  |   NWarner
Norton Warner

If a prospective customer enters your business and is greeted like royalty and made to feel important, and if she leaves having been treated as she feels she deserves, you are on your way to creating a lifelong customer and a positive center of influence. Clearly, the advertising that brought her to you was an investment.

If, on the other hand, she was attracted by your advertising but is met with indifference or even hostility, you’ve lost your investment in potential long term profits. If she is treated as if she is imposing on an employee who’s stocking shelves or having a personal conversation—and leaves feeling scorned or unappreciated—you’ve lost a potential lifelong customer who then becomes a negative center of influence. Your advertising becomes an expense and you have nothing to show for it. Continue Reading