My top 10 highlights from the book:
1. Marketing is really just a form of communication. We had to educate our customers to the uses of our products.
2. The public does not know what is possible, but we do. So instead of doing a lot of market research, we refine our thinking on a product and its use and try to create a market for it by educating and communicating with the public.
3. Tenacity, perseverance, and optimism are traits that have been handed down to me through the family genes.
4. I don't mind saying that even then, as a young man, I felt that somehow I had a role to play in the future.
5. One must prepare the groundwork among the customers before you can expect success in the marketplace. It is a time-honored Japanese gardening technique to prepare a tree for transplanting by slowly and carefully binding the roots over a period of time, bit by bit, to prepare the tree for the shock of the change it is about to experience. This process, called Nemawashi, takes time and patience, but it rewards you, if it is done properly, with a healthy transplanted tree. Advertising and promotion for a brand-new, innovative product is just as important.
6. An American company called Regency, put out a radio a few months before ours, but the company gave up without putting much effort into marketing it. As the first in the field, they might have capitalized on their position and created a tremendous market for their product, as we did. But they apparently judged mistakenly that there was no future in this business and gave up.
5. One must prepare the groundwork among the customers before you can expect success in the marketplace. It is a time-honored Japanese gardening technique to prepare a tree for transplanting by slowly and carefully binding the roots over a period of time, bit by bit, to prepare the tree for the shock of the change it is about to experience. This process, called Nemawashi, takes time and patience, but it rewards you, if it is done properly, with a healthy transplanted tree. Advertising and promotion for a brand-new, innovative product is just as important.
6. An American company called Regency, put out a radio a few months before ours, but the company gave up without putting much effort into marketing it. As the first in the field, they might have capitalized on their position and created a tremendous market for their product, as we did. But they apparently judged mistakenly that there was no future in this business and gave up.
7. I was taken with the thought that a man born in such a small out of the way place could build such a huge highly technical company with a fine worldwide reputation.
8. Norio Ohga, who had been a vocal arts student at the Tokyo University of Arts when he saw our first audio tape recorder back in 1950. He was a great champion of the tape recorder, but he was severe with us because he didn't think our early machine was good enough. He was right, of course; our first machine was rather primitive. We invited him to be a paid critic even while he was still in school. His ideas were very challenging.
9. Unite your total strength to be devoted to the construction for the future. Keep pace with the progress of the world.
10. I am reminded of the story of the two shoe salesmen who visited an underdeveloped country. One cabled his office, no prospect of sales because nobody wears shoes here. The other salesman cabled, send stock immediately, inhabitants barefooted and desperately need shoes.
Listen to #386 Akio Morita: Founder of Sony on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or the Web.