No doubt about it. The recession is not the primary reason things don't sell. If it were, nothing would be selling. We would not have winners and losers -- only losers.
  
Selling has to mean and be premised upon getting someone to buy. And this means the product has to have a visceral appeal. The manufacturer can put value into a product, but that value also has to be conveyed to the potential purchaser. Yet all too often, this part is neglected and we blame products for not selling when we really should be blaming companies for not selling them.
  
What's the appeal -- where's the excitement -- if you sell plain-vanilla products in a plain-vanilla way? Why should anyone buy copy-cat commodities -- especially if they come across like last year's copy-cat commodities? What's the attraction? There is none. If anything, there is negative attraction. Repulsion.
  
And you are not going to get off of this treadmill by complaining about deflation or the recession. The real need is to make a serious effort to develop innovative products -- one-of-a-kind value -- and to sell them in some singularly distinctive way. Get out of the rut and do something that will have out-of-the-ordinary appeal. And do it as though your company's life depends on it. It does.
  
Ogata Tomoyuki  
2020 Aim