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How to Succeed in 2007
We asked 50 of the brightest minds in business how they do what they do - and how you can cash in on their advice in the year ahead.
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Reed Hastings
Reed Hastings
Co-founder and CEO, Netflix
Turn Your Biggest Weakness Into Your Greatest Asset
Truly brilliant marketing happens when you take something most people think of as a weakness and reposition it so people think of it as a strength. In the 1990s, Apple Computer was selling an Intel board that ran in a Mac to make it PC-compatible. It didn't work. Steve Jobs took that weakness - incompatibility - and with the "Think Different" campaign turned it into a statement of style. And under the covers, Apple kept improving it. With Netflix, the big weakness is that it takes a day to get your movie. If we talked about that, that would be ineffective. So what we talk about is no late fees, no due dates, and being aggressive on price. You focus their attention on features that are compelling, like allowing people to keep movies as long as they want. Most people always try to fix the product, which is a good thing. But brilliant marketing is taking the product you have and figuring out the right positioning.
 What do you think it will take in 2007 to succeed in business? E-mail the editors here.
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