Marketing

What do folding sweaters and writing proposals for consulting work have in common?

The narrower your focus, the bigger your audience: it doesn’t sound right, does it?

Accustomed to the idea of mass-media, we assume that material with the broadest appeal will be read by the most people.  But the internet and social media may invert that relationship: because people can pick and choose what they want to see, they’re more likely to look at material which focuses on their interests than at more generic content.

Back in 1998, whilst working for the now ailing Japanese electronics giant Sony (whose ailing, I should point out, has nothing to do with my having worked there and everything to do with my having left), I applied for a sales position. Asked to make a presentation to my erstwhile colleagues I duly delivered what I considered to be a stirring case for us dramatically increasing television sales that year. This would, I explained, be achieved partly as a result of the football world cup in France, but mainly because of my hitherto-untapped brilliance as a salesman.