In 1988, Paul B. Brown published a book entitled ‘Marketing Masters: Lessons in the Art of Marketing from the Companies Who Do It Best.’ Sadly, the book is out of print.

Brown is a best-selling author who has written, co-written and “ghosted” numerous best-sellers including Customers for Life (with Carl Sewell) which continues to sell well almost 23 years after its initial publication.

Brown writes for The New York Times, The Conference Board Review and M.I.T.’s Sloan Management Review. He is also a former writer and editor for Business Week, Financial World, Forbes and Inc. However, he spends most of his time writing books both under his own name as well as a ghost writer; these have sold nearly 3 million copies worldwide.

In the attached article that Brown wrote in Forbes, he outlines six insights that are from Marketing Masters but ring true even today. These are:

1. You are always better off having a point of difference in your product.
2. There is great strength in size but there is also great weakness.
3. You cannot hire enough people so that you have all the good ideas.
4. Fifty isn’t fatal. (Don’t ignore the 50+ consumers).
5. You can’t use focus groups to create an idea.
6. The bigger you get, the more you lose touch with the consumers.

You can read Brown’s complete article here.

Visual courtesy: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ncaranti/