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Geoff Ficke - ArticlesGeoff Ficke has been a serial entrepreneur for almost 50 years. As a small boy, earning his spending money doing odd jobs in the neighborhood, he learned the value of selling himself, offering service and value for money.
After putting himself through the University of Kentucky (B.A. Broadcast Journalism, 1969) and serving in the United States Marine Corp, Mr. Ficke commenced a career in the cosmetic industry. After rising to National Sales Manager for Vidal Sassoon Hair Care at age 28, he then launched a number of ventures, including Rubigo Cosmetics, Parfums Pierre Wulff Paris, Le Bain Couture and Fashion Fragrance. Geoff Ficke and his consulting firm, Duquesa Marketing, Inc. (www.duquesamarketing.com) has assisted businesses large and small, domestic and international, entrepreneurs, inventors and students in new product development, capital formation, licensing, marketing, sales and business plans and successful implementation of his customized strategies. He is a Senior Fellow at the Page Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, Business School, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. 10 Commandments You Must Follow to Define a Novel Product Marketing NicheConsider each of these 10 Commandments when evaluating your new product or business idea. If you can shape the idea to include one or more of these keys you will have an exponentially greater chance to successfully sell into the contemporary marketplace. College Interns Can Be an Excellent Free or Low Cost Asset to EntrepreneursAn excellent win-win for entrepreneurs and students is an internship relationship. In the current economic malaise paid internships have been drastically curtailed. The need, however, for students to gain resume enhancing experience has never been greater. They will work for little, and in some cases for close to nothing, in terms of compensation in order to gain real business experience. The Venerable Polaroid Instant Photo System Soared before It SunkStudebaker, Montgomery Ward, Beeman’s Gum, TWA and Polaroid are just a few examples of great brands and businesses that have gone the way of the dodo bird. Successful businesses, those with long term growth and future upside, constantly strive to reinvent themselves. New products, new channels of distribution, new product applications and novel, fresh features and benefits are essential to avoid slow demise and ultimate extinction.
The Lesson of “I, Pencil” An Essay on Economic Freedom for the AgesFree men, working in a system that honors private property rights, rule of law, and maximum amounts of individual freedom will always produce a quality of life superior to any that can be generated from leaden socialist states. How an Ingenious Footwear Idea Snatched Defeat from the Jaws of Victory!Having a wonderful new product, service or concept that is market ready but not moving on the project is such a waste. I phoned the designer we originally consulted with and asked him if he knew about the competitive product that had beaten him to market and secured his niche. After browbeating the competitor’s product as being inferior, he could only state that he was working on a better version of his original concept. He could offer no timeline on when the brand would launch. A Marketing Axiom: You’re Never the Greatest, Only the Latest!The franchise that Chen Yu had painstakingly built rather quickly began to weaken and decline. Chen Yu is a classic example of a Company that fell from being among the greatest to just the latest, an also ran. Successful brands are constantly updating, refreshing and responding to current market conditions to avoid this fate. The Flight Delay That Resulted in Launching a $100 Million Gift BusinessThe Vera Bradley story is distinctly American. Two ladies, stranded in an airport, utilized their powers of observation to identify an opportunity. Unlike most people, they not only identified an unfilled niche in the marketplace, but they had the drive and talent to fill that niche with product that the consumer market craves to this day. We Plan Exact Vacation Routes But Often Start a New Business with No Road MapThere is no magic bullet or elixir that entrepreneurs can access in order to insure they will succeed. However, there are things they can do that will absolutely insure failure. A key lesson for any person seeking to launch a new product or new business is to take every precaution to minimize negatives that can be reasonably controlled by planning, research and performing due diligence. The Man Who Invented Modern Athletic Shoes Inadvertently Revolutionized Commerce and SportsIn his home workshop, Bill Bowerman was a constant tinkerer. While seeking to craft a novel performance running shoe, he had the idea to impound his wife’s waffle iron and use the griddle to score the soles of prototype training shoes he was experimenting with. How An Immigrant With Just a Few Canaries Builds a Vast FortuneThat a small inventory of itinerant German canaries could be the starting point for a world-wide business empire, still thriving after 90 years, is testimony to the genius of the American system of capitalism, and one particular immigrant’s courage and willingness to use that system to his advantage. A version of this story has been repeated endless times, with many varying degrees of success over the history of the United States.
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