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The 4 Ideas in the Connection Economy

When Seth Godin talks, marketers listen. And luckily for marketers, Godin has a lot to say. He’s wrote 18 books and runs a well-respected marketing blog, posting his musings about everyday. He’s probably given close to 1,000 talks, one of which we’re featuring today.

Godin was the keynote speaker at the 2013 Inbound conference. In this talk, he discussed that businesses are leaving the industrial economy and entering the connection economy.

The Four Ideas in the Connection Economy

Godin believes that humans aren’t very good at following instructions. Instead, we’re very good at connecting, as a species we’re one of the best in the world. We’ve been programmed to follow instruction at a young age, starting with school, where children are taught to obey and take instruction. He says:

“The industrialists invented the educational system because they needed cheap labor. Cheap, obedient labor, people who would sit still and do what they are told.”

He believes that we’re leaving the industrial economy and entering the connection economy. There are four pillars in the connection economy:

Coordination – Before you can market anything, you need to coordinate a group of people to carry it out.

Trust – This takes times and effort, but earning trust with consumers is a must in the connection economy.

Permission – Based on his permission marketing approach, Godin says you need to deliver anticipated, personal, and relevant messages to people who want to get them. It’s a privilege to talk to people who will listen to you.

Exchange of ideas – Godin says that you’ll learn more from people at the conference than the speakers. He says, “what happens when we create an environment of connection, we create enormous value by combining all four of these things (coordination, trust, permission, exchange of ideas) into a network of people who want to pay attention to one another.”

The four ideas are based on two principles:

Generosity – Because no one wants to trust or connect with a selfish person.

Art – Because we don’t want to connect to someone who’s going to do just what they did yesterday. It’s the work of a human being doing something real and personal that might not work. Many listening to Godin just want bullet points, or a map of what to do. Godin says whenever he lists bullet points on one of his blog posts, social media shares go through the roof. But Godin won’t give bullet points during this talk, saying “the minute someone gives you a map, is the minute it’s not art anymore.”

You gain connection by earning it. You don’t earn connection with discounts or clever copy, you earn it by being generous and being an artist.

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7 LAWS of the UNIVERSE

The universe operates according to laws. Understanding the universal laws is discovering the source of all #health, #wealth, #happiness, #joy, profound #peace, #assurance and #fulfillment. 

The Law of Divine Oneness - Everything is connected to everything else. What we think, say, do and believe will have a corresponding effect on others and the universe around us. Law of Vibration - Everything in the Universe moves, vibrates and travels in circular patterns, the same principles of vibration in the physical world apply to our thoughts, feelings, desires and wills in the Etheric world. Each sound, thing, and even thought has its own vibrational frequency, unique unto itself.

Law of Action - Must be employed in order for us to manifest things on earth. We must engage in actions that supports our thoughts dreams, emotions and words Law of Cause and Effect - Nothing happens by chance or outside the Universal Laws. Every Action (including thought) has a reaction or consequence "We reap what we sow" The Law Of Abundance - The Law Of Abundance can best be understood by looking at the continual growth and unlimited resources available within our Universe. It is continuously producing and multiplying effortlessly through the power of the above Universal Laws, the abundance of which is determined only by the kind and quality of the seed or energy projected. Law of Attraction - Demonstrates how we create the things, events and people that come into our lives Our thoughts, feelings, words, and actions produce energies which, in turn attract like energies. Negative energies attract negative energies and positive energies attract positive energies. Law of Relativity - Each person will receive as series of problems (Tests of Initiation/Lessons) for the purpose of strengthening the light within each of these tests/lessons to be a challenge and remain connected to our hearts when proceeding to solve the problems. This law also teaches us to compare our problems to others problem into its proper perspective. No matter how bad we perceive our situation to be, There is always someone who is in a worse position. Its all relative. Tag someone to share these laws with.

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Why Immigrants Make Great Entrepreneurs

They’ve often overcome a lot of hardships. A business setback is nothing. By Adrian Furnham

Outsiders face a tough struggle fitting into a new culture. They must figure out how to deal with, and overcome, frustration, loneliness and a steep learning curve.

And that’s why immigrants make such great entrepreneurs—they’re once again outsiders facing many of the same kinds of obstacles. Been there, done that.

I’ve been studying immigrants for over a decade, trying to figure out what makes so many of them go into business for themselves in the West—at higher rates than natives do—and succeed, too. The Kauffman Foundation’s annual Index of Startup Activity shows that immigrants were almost twice as likely as native-born to start new businesses in the U.S. in 2016. Almost 30% of all new entrepreneurs were immigrants, Kauffman says. A report from the Partnership for a New American Economy found that in 2016, 40.2% of Fortune 500 firms had “at least one founder who either immigrated to the United States or was the child of immigrants.”

I’m not surprised. What I’ve found is that immigrants not only have the qualities that help any entrepreneurs succeed—including aggressiveness and creative thinking—but they get a big boost because many of the skills they picked up coping with a new world are transferable to the entrepreneurial world.

My research is based largely on many conversations with entrepreneurs. In addition, I teach at a university that attracts vast numbers of overseas students. And finally, I bring my own perspective to the research: I am a migrant who grew up in Africa.

One caveat: These are broad stereotypes. Obviously, not all immigrants are entrepreneurial role models. And clearly, plenty of natives are. But there are reasons why so many immigrants forge an entrepreneurial path. It is worth identifying the likely factors—both to help understand the immigrant experience and what they can bring to their new economies, as well as to better identify what makes anybody thrive as an entrepreneur.

Lands of opportunity: The vast majority of migrants (as opposed to refugees) move to improve the economic and educational status of themselves and their families. When they arrive, they are aggressive about taking advantage of the stable economic system and respect for law and order, things they often can’t count on back home. Natives are more likely to take those for granted and not push to make the most of opportunities.

I met three immigrant entrepreneurs recently who had become friends through business. They all said the same thing: They were amazed by the quality of free education, by the benefits of the infrastructure and most of all the lack of awareness by the natives of how lucky they were. As one said, “As long as you are prepared to work hard and take some risks, it is easy to succeed in this country.”

Rolling with punches: All entrepreneurs experience failure and rejection, but outsiders are often better prepared to not be devastated by hard times, because they have already faced harder times than most people can imagine. They’ve left behind friends, family and support networks. Then they enter an unfamiliar nation full of complex bureaucracy, discrimination and other hurdles. Having already faced hardship, immigrants look at business setbacks as less traumatic, leaving them less likely to buckle and break in the face of adversity.

I have met a few entrepreneurs, for instance, who were thrown out of Uganda by Idi Amin. They arrived in cold, indifferent Britain with what they could carry—and used the strength they gained from that disruption to persist in hard times. Coping with difficulties made me, says one of those immigrants, now in charge of a successful business.

They had no capital, and no experience of British law and customs. One, who ran a number of bakeries in Africa, said he had to get a menial job in a local bakery to learn British tastes and preferences. The locals didn’t like bread and cakes as sweet as he expected, and freshness was all important. But he was fine with the setback. He adapted his recipes, started a small bakery and now owns a large chain.

Watching social cues. Because outsiders fear making a faux pas in a new world, they become adept at picking up cues that signal mistrust and misunderstanding. Similarly, they become good at reading people, and noticing the relationships between groups they do business with. That potentially makes them more shrewd and more perceptive in situations such as negotiations or sales pitches.

One entrepreneur told me that he was astonished that everything in markets and shops was openly priced. He came from a culture where everything was negotiated—in his words, the difference between the mall and the bazaar, where people must learn to haggle, charm and persuade. People in his home country needed to observe customers closely to figure out how rich they were, whether they were serious, and whether they knew how to play the game. He believed that skill had served him well when negotiating deals in his adopted country.

A different network: In some sense, immigrants don’t have the array of local networks that natives do. But they often can substitute that broad network with a much deeper network: co- nationals. These earlier migrants are in many ways more supportive of their entrepreneurial successors than the networks that are available to native entrepreneurs. The earlier migrants offer financial support—including loans and discounts on products and services—as well as insights about local practices and people. Networking with this support group gives new immigrants a relatively safe environment to build interpersonal skills as well as learn crucial skills they need.

It also offers them a way to simply survive difficult times, giving them breathing room to become entrepreneurs. Often a whole family shares a large, run down, cold and damp house with three other large families in the same position. They share everything and learn from one another.

Seeing with fresh eyes: Because immigrants learn about their new home culture, and its rules of language and etiquette, from the outside, they often have perspectives that natives don’t have. They see possibilities and opportunities that natives don’t see, and find new ways to be creative. They bring new flavors, musical sounds, cultural tastes to their new land. They also bring new ideas about selling, managing, customer service, technology and more. Confronting a problem with a fresh perspective is a huge advantage. Immigrants come by that naturally.

Dr. Furnham is a professor of psychology at University College London.

Appeared in the November 27, 2017, Wall Street Journal, print edition as 'Why Immigrants Make Such Good Entrepreneurs.' Email: reports@wsj.com.

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Özgüven ve Başarı mutluluk getirir mi?

Özgüven; sosyal bilimlerde en fazla araştırılan konuların başında geliyor ama tanımı hala tartışmalı.

Peki özgüvenli olmak ne anlama gelir? Özgüven, mutluluğu ve başarıyı nasıl etkiler?

ÖZGÜVEN VE SUÇ

1970’lerde özgüvenin, her zaman iyi bir şey olduğu varsayıldı ve ‘Özgüvenli Çocuk Yetiştirme Hareketi’ başladı.

Ama araştırmacılar, hapishanedeki suçluları analiz edince fark etti ki; mahkumların çoğunun özgüveni oldukça yüksek.

Ardından hemen “Özgüven ile suç arasında bir ilişki mi var?” sorusu akıllara geldi.

Acaba özgüven, tahmin edildiği karar iyi bir şey değil miydi?

ÖZGÜVEN VE NARSİSİM

Araştırmalar derinleşince fark edildi ki, özgüvenin tanımı yanlış yapılmış.

Özgüven kavramıyla narsisim (buna yükseklik kompleksi de diyebiliriz) karıştırılmış.

Suçluların çoğunun aslında özgüveni yüksek değil, sadece yükseklik kompleksleri olduğu anlaşıldı.

Yani aslında mahkumların çoğu özünde, kendilerine güvenmiyor ve değersizlik duygusu hissediyor. Bunu da narsisim ile kapatıyor. Yani, narsisim, aslında özgüven eksikliği.

Bunun ardından özgüven yeniden tanımlandı.

ÖZGÜVENİN DOĞRU TANIMI

Özgüven; kendinle barışık olma halidir.

Peki, kimler kendiyle barışık olur? Kendilerini olduğu gibi kabul edenler. Peki, kimler kendini olduğu gibi kabul eder. Ailesi tarafından koşulsuz kabul görenler. Aile çocuğu koşulsuz kabul edince, çocuk da kendini değerli görüyor ve kabul etmeye başlıyor.

O zaman çocukta özgüveni geliştirmek için, onu olduğu gibi kabul etmek gerekiyor. Bu bağlamda da özgüvenin, en büyük temeli ‘özdeğer’. Yani, “Ben, ben olduğum için değerliyim duygusu.” Ama özgüvenin, tek temeli bu değil.

YETERLİLİK

Özgüvenin bir temeli daha var. O da ‘yeterlilik’.

Aslında yeterlilik de ikiye ayrılıyor.

Bir tanesi “hayatta yaşadığım sorunları çözebilirim” inancı.

Diğeri de bir alanda yeterli olma durumu.

Birincisine ‘özyeterlilik’, ikincisine ise sadece ‘bir alanda yeterlilik’ diyebiliriz.

(Özgüveni oluşturan üçüncü unsur da özerkliktir. Dikkat ederseniz üçü de ‘öz’ kelimesiyle başlıyor.)

Peki, özgüvenin hangi boyutu (özdeğer ve yeterlilik), başarı ve mutluluk açısından daha önemli?

ARAŞTIRMA

Özgüven konusunda dünyada otorite olan Prof. Morris Rosenberg bu soruyu yanıtlamak için bir araştırma tasarlıyor. Özgüveni ikiye ayırıyor: genel özgüven ve özel özgüven.

(Genel özgüven, benim yukarıda bahsettiğim özdeğere; özel özgüven ise yeterliliğe denk geliyor.)

Bir grup öğrencinin özdeğer ve akademik alandaki yeterliliklerini ölçüyor. Daha sonra özgüvenin, okul başarısı ve mutlulukla ilişkisine bakıyor.

Ortaya çok net bir sonuç çıkıyor.

SONUÇLAR

Özdeğerin, başarıyla ilişkisi sadece %25. Yeterliliğin, başarıyla ilişkisi ise %49.

Yani, bir kişi değersiz hissetmesine rağmen yeterli hissediyorsa, başarılı olabiliyor.

Prof. Rosenberg, özdeğerin ve yeterliliğin mutlulukla ilişkisine bakıyor. Bu sefer tam tersi bir tablo ortaya çıkıyor.

Özdeğerin, mutlulukla ilişkisi %50. Yeterliliğin mutlulukla ilişkisi sadece ve sadece %10.

Yani bir kişinin bir alanda çok başarılı olması, onun mutlu olacağı anlamına gelmiyor.

Kısacası, mutluluğun temelinde, bir alanda yeterli olmak değil, özdeğer yatıyor.

SONUÇ

Başarının mutluluk getirmediğini biliyorduk ama artık elimizde araştırma sonuçları var.

Bir çocuğun bir alanda yeterli ve dolayısıyla başarılı olması, onun mutlu olacağı anlamına gelmez.

Bir çocuğun mutlu olması için gerekli olan tek şey aslında onun değerli hissetmesi.

Onun için de ailenin onu koşulsuz kabul etmesi gerekir.

Aileler ilk önce, çocuğunun özdeğer duygusunu geliştirmeli. Özyeterlilik ise daha sonra gelmeli.

Kısacası, başarıya bağlı bir mutluluk değil, mutluluğa bağlı bir başarı geliştirilmeli.

Dr. Özgür Bolat

kaynak: Huzurlu Aile

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50 Time Saving Tips for Small Businesses

As a small business owner, free time is probably not something you have a whole lot of. What you do have a lot of are tasks to accomplish and deadlines to meet. So how can you better accomplish these tasks in a shorter amount of time?

Below are 50 time saving tips to help you save time throughout your workday.

1. Set Goals

Each morning, write out a detailed to-do list of the things you want to accomplish that day.

2. Create a Plan

Figure out when and how you’ll accomplish each item on your daily list – will you need help, supplies, etc.?

3. Prioritize by Importance

It’s inevitable that sometimes you’ll have to cut items off your to-do list, so decide early what the most important items are and prioritize.

4. Prioritize by Urgency

You’ll need to get to those projects that have urgent deadlines so leave the ones that are due next week for later.

5. Break Down Large Tasks

If your list includes some overwhelming items, break them down into smaller, more manageable tasks.

6. Be Realistic

Don’t expect to accomplish everything in an hour. Know your limitations and your abilities.

7. Track Your Time

In order to better understand how you really spend your time, take a few days and write down everything you do and how long it takes. Include breaks, email, social media and everything else, so that you’ll find out what your biggest time wasters are.

8. Set Deadlines

Need some motivation to complete a project? Set a deadline for yourself and tell others about it so they can help hold you accountable.

9. Keep One Eye on the Clock

You don’t want to constantly obsess about time, but you also don’t want to let the day get away from you because you weren’t paying attention. Stay on track.

10. Set Reminders

If you have a deadline or meeting coming up, set a reminder on your phone that will go off shortly before.

11. Schedule Breaks

Everyone needs to take breaks throughout the day, so make sure to account for them when scheduling your tasks for the day.

12. Schedule Time for Email and Social Media

Email and social media can be big time wasters. Don’t respond to every email as it comes in and don’t leave Facebook or Twitter open all day. Instead, schedule a short block or two throughout the day to accomplish these tasks.

13. Use a Central Social Media Management System

If you use social media for marketing purposes, you likely have more than one account. Using a central dashboard like HootSuite can help you avoid going back and forth between sites, and even allows you to schedule posts throughout the day so you don’t need to constantly sign back on.

14. Avoid Distractions

Aside from social media and email, there are a number of other distractions that can cause you to waste time throughout the day. If you work at home, turn off the TV. If you work in an office, take a different route to the water cooler to avoid chatty co-workers.

15. Stick to One Task at a Time

Multi-tasking can sound like a time saver, but it isn’t. Focus on one task, complete it and then move on.

16. Batch Tasks

It can be helpful to do similar tasks consecutively. For example, make all your phone calls for the day back-to-back.

17. Incentivize Tasks

When you have a really difficult task to complete, give yourself a reward for completing it. It can be as simple as taking a break.

18. Focus on Results

You should have an idea about why you are doing each task on your list. Ask yourself how each item will impact your company and focus on results.

19. Don’t Stress Over Unimportant Details

If something doesn’t have a big impact on your business, don’t stress about it. Perfectionism can be a big time waster.

20. Create Good Habits

Create a habit of sorting files regularly, responding to emails in a timely manner and quickly accomplishing any other tasks that show up on your to-do list so that it quickly becomes routine.

21. Eliminate the Non-Essential

Remove items that no longer serve a purpose to your mission, both physically and electronically.

22. Use Email Filters and Archives

Use email filters and archives so that you don’t spend hours looking for a particular message. Your email program most likely offers easy tools to keep all your communications organized, so make wise use of those features.

23. Limit Meetings

Meetings can be essential, but they can also turn into time wasters if they go on too long or happen too frequently. Accept and schedule only important meetings.

24. Hire a Virtual Assistant

Virtual assistants can help you with mundane daily tasks like email, bookkeeping, scheduling and research. Consider getting yourself some help if you need it.

25. Utilize a Project Management Platform

Services like Basecamp offer your team a way to communicate in groups, set deadlines and share and edit files without having to keep up with several different email threads.

26. Keep Projects in One Place

For both completed projects and those still in progress, have one folder or area where you know you can find them.

27. Avoid Rush Hour

If you commute or have to travel for meetings, take traffic and construction into account so as to not waste time en route.

28. Have Virtual Meetings

Avoid traveling when possible and instead consider the use of programs like Skypeor GoToMeeting.

29. Automate Payroll

Rather than manually tracking hours and expenses, invest in a payroll system that will do all the work for you.

30. Take Notes

Keep a notebook with you at all times to jot down notes and ideas or use an app such as Evernote to store ideas, images and more so you don’t spend time trying to think of them later.

31. Take Advantage of Technology

There are so many time saving and organizational apps and services available such as Dropbox, which lets you bring your photos, docs and videos anywhere . Find the ones that work for you.

32. Don’t Get Carried Away

Attempting to master and utilize too many productivity applications and services at once can be a time waster. Don’t use so many of them that you spend more time on them than you save.

33. Delegate

Ask your team to take on tasks that you don’t have time for or those with which you know they’d do a good job.

34. Invest in Accounting Software

Keeping endless spreadsheets can lead to a lot of headaches and wasted time. Keep all your account information organized in one place.

35. Keep an Organized Workspace

Don’t spend hours rifling through your desk looking for a particular document when you could just implement a filing system and find it in seconds.

36. Back Up Your Files

Whether by external hard drive, hard copies or online backup, create backups of all your important files in case of a computer meltdown. Consider an online service like Carbonite or Mozy for this purpose.

37. Keep Templates for Commonly-Used Forms

Don’t spend time writing the same paragraphs over and over again when you could have a general template saved. Just go in and make a few updates each time you use it instead of starting from scratch.

38. Utilize Shortcuts

Use keyboard and browser shortcuts and keep all your commonly used programs in an easily accessible location on your desktop.

39. Automate Expenses

Make use of automatic bill pay services whenever possible to avoid late payments and time spent actually paying bills each month.

40. Use a Cloud-Based Calendar

Calendar apps can keep you updated on important meetings and deadlines and don’t take long to update. Consider using Google Calendar for this purpose.

41. Have a Collaboration System

Whether you use a platform like Basecamp or Google Docs or stick to more traditional methods, you should have a set system for collaboration so that your team doesn’t get confused and unorganized.

42. Say “No”

Don’t take on tasks just because someone asks you to. If you don’t have the time and it won’t help your business, don’t do it.

43. Make the Most of Down Time

Time spent in waiting rooms, on the subway or even on long elevator rides could be used to update your calendar, write notes or accomplish other simple tasks.

44. Clean Up Old Files

Ridding your computer of old files can not only keep you from having to wade through them while looking for more relevant files, but it can also speed up your computer and save you from a fate of endless loading pages.

45. Use Mobile Apps

There are mobile productivity apps, mobile calendar apps, mobile list apps – all of which can help you accomplish tasks and save time while not in front of a computer.

46. Know Your Habits

If you’re an early bird, get your most important tasks out of the way early. If you’re a night owl, don’t force yourself to turn in big projects in the morning. Play to your strengths.

47. Shorten Your Workday

In a blog post on Freelance Folder, Lexi Rodrigo explains that cutting time off your workday will force you to accomplish more within the time allotted.

48. Leave Room for the Unexpected

Things you didn’t plan for will come up throughout the day. Take this into account when making your to-do list.

49. Have Quiet Hours

If you work in an office, put a “do not disturb” sign on your door while you’re working on an important task. If you work from home, silence your phone for that time. If distractions come up when you’re in the zone, you can lose your concentration and end up spending way more time than necessary.

50. Don’t Over-Schedule

You might be overly optimistic in the morning about how much you can get done that day. But creating a too-full list is only going to overwhelm you later in the day.

If you implement even just a few of the time saving tips listed above, you will start to notice a difference in your workday and your productivity – and you may even notice that you have a little more free time.

Annie Pilon is a staff writer for Small Business Trends, covering entrepreneur profiles and feature stories. She is a freelance writer specializing in marketing, social media, and creative topics. When she’s not writing for her various freelance projects or her personal blog Wattlebird, she can be found exploring all that her home state of Michigan has to offer.

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Advertising Doesn’t Sell…

The purpose of advertising is to sell products.

No, the purpose of advertising is to build name awareness.

No, the purpose of advertising is to generate traffic!

Last week I had the honor of participating in the South Carolina Broadcaster’s Association Annual Convention, a gathering of the best television and radio salespeople in South Carolina. I shared a tool we call the Why Advertise checklist. This is a simple tool that helps you identify the goals, desires, and expectations of prospects when creating an advertising strategy for them.

The Why Advertise checklist is the culmination of more than 30 years of broadcast sales experience and input from hundreds of thousands of advertisers; a list of 32 reasons advertisers have shared when discussing why they would want/need to advertise.

We broke into group discussion to ‘role play’ the process of taking a prospect through the list and asking questions for further understanding. It was fun to witness the lively discussion, the sharing of opinions and the questions being posed.

And then it happened. I asked, “What’s the most important item on the Why Advertise checklist?” This group–; with varying experience from 6 months to 40 years of selling skill development– couldn’t agree on the single most important purpose of advertising. How can this be in a room filled with professional advertising sales people?

If you search Amazon, you’ll find 71,558 books on the subject of advertising. An impressive array of experts and authors share their knowledge. The thought provoking questions are:

Is it science? Is it art? Is it measurable? Is it qualitative? Is it quantitative? Is it psychology? Is it manipulation?

Finding consistent answers to these questions proves difficult. Advertising is all of those things.

To understand the how and why to advertise, it’s critical to determine the purpose. Even with expert opinions, it is difficult to find consensus. (That’s probably why there are 32 reasons on the Why Advertise checklist).

I believe if you take away all the fluff, pontification, and theoretical discussion and boil it down to one simple concept, the purpose of advertising is: To be known before you are needed. There are a lot of sub layers and statements that can spin from that, but at the very core, in all its simplicity, the purpose of advertising is to make a product or service known before it’s needed. Logically, you have no chance of buying a product or service if you don’t know it exists.

People respond to needs, not ads.

I think that’s worth repeating, People respond to needs, not ads. We call the discovery of these needs “triggering events.” Something happens that causes you to need a particular product or service.

You have a car accident. Suddenly you need car repair, towing services, medical attention. You weren’t “shopping” for any of those as you were driving along, but then the triggering event happened, and suddenly you had a need.

The magic and power of advertising is instantly recognizable once a need has been discovered. When you discover a need, you search the “card file” in your mind of potential products or vendors that can meet those needs. Consistent, long-term advertising puts those names in your mental contact list.You rarely even know they are there, until you have a need.

The flow of buying looks like this:

Discover a Need (triggering event)

Evaluate Options (review your mental card file of what you know)

Resolve Doubts (compare options based on what you know about them)

Buy (make your selection)

Sadly, many times I have set myself up for failure by allowing clients to believe the job of advertising was to sell. It’s not. The job of advertising is to make products and services known before they are needed so when consumers are in the “evaluate options” phase of the buying cycle, your client has a “chance” at earning their business.

Advertising can make the connection, but the client has to make the sale. If you don’t clarify that, and set the expectations properly, you’re likely to hear these words at some point in your career: “I tried advertising once, and it didn’t work.”

The question I posed to the SCBA members was actually a trick question. In the exercise of the Why Advertise checklist, the most important reason on the list is the one the CLIENT SELECTS. That’s the reason most important to them. When they make their selection from the list, it gives you an opportunity to ask questions to clarify their needs, wants, and desires. It allows you to set expectations about what advertising can and cannot do for them. Teaching your clients the purpose of advertising, how to advertise, and what to expect when they advertise is an advanced consulting skill that can set you apart as an expert.

Think Big, Make Big Things Happen!

the author of this post, Jeff Schmidt is EVP and Partner with Chris Lytle at Sparque, Inc.

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(via A Few Things Every Entrepreneur Should Know About Communication | Sheepless)

I would argue, and often have, that while money, technology and innovation (I’ll come back to this) are considered more glamorous and therefore more important, communication is the single most critical factor in the success of any endeavor.

Communication is what transforms an idea into a vision, defines how it’s different, explains why it will work, and engages people in helping make it a reality. Communication is what keeps your vision alive, whether you are in the room explaining it to someone, or they are thinking about it in places far from where you’ve ever been or will ever go.

By communication, I don’t mean the numbing volume of information and opinions from self-appointed experts that complicate everything about business today, nor do I mean our media-and-marketing-driven habit of reducing everything to an over-simplified formula and pretending that it has meaning and application to real life.  I refer to something very specific that lives in between those two extremes.

Communication is a system, and like all systems, it is perfectly designed to produce the results it produces. Your choice is to tinker only with the parts and cover essentially the same ground endlessly, or map and integrate the whole, and watch your efforts magnify, creating real, lasting transformation.

Designed as a system, communication is power and energy and infectious potential – demonstrated more than stated, acting as a circulatory system for any organization, creating a flow of relevant information and inspiration to all the people who need and want to act in service of a shared goal.

I have spent my entire life thinking about communication -– words, pictures, thoughts, beliefs and action. What is most important to me now is to use what I’ve learned to help people and organizations with the courage to create new models of change and a contribution to life beyond their own walls. And I love entrepreneurs – of any size.

My plan is to include an overview here, then write about each point in more depth over the next few months. So here goes.

1. Rectify the language. Dead language won’t inspire a living organization, and too much of our language has been murdered by our addiction to buzzwords and argot. I used to think that when I read a business document it was my fault I had to read it three times before I could decode it, but then I woke up to the fact that the vast majority of them don’t say anything. What you may think you gain by impressing someone with your mastery of business jargon is lost in translation. Use unworn words that have traction, that inspire action. Unworn words do NOT include “brand, sustainability, innovation, CSR” and all the other words you currently think you can’t live without.

2. Skip the mission, vision, values formula. Someone will tell you, if they haven’t already, that you must have all those things, and that there is a proper way to write them. But by following the formula, you become formulaic, and that simply doesn’t work for an entrepreneur.

3. Mind the gap. This is a huge one, but for now, I’ll just say that until you become deeply aware of your audience, who they are, what they think, what they want and how they’re different from you, the distance between what you intend to say and what is understood will never be breached.

4. Don’t be afraid to use your body to get ahead in business. There are about 100 million neurons in our guts, so the notion of using your gut to make decisions is not just a figure of speech. Pay attention to how you feel. Be aware of your body. Notice when you feel uncomfortable with an idea or a proposition. It’s far less likely you’ll be confused about decisions if you use both your brain and your instinct to make them, and it’s more proof that traditional problem solving won’t solve our problems.

5. Make reality perception. Not vice versa. It’s so much easier to communicate brilliantly when you tell the truth and still have something interesting to say.

6. Clarity and brevity do not come naturally to people with a mission. Please refer to point number 3.

7. When in doubt, learn from nature. Go outside, and establish a deep relationship with the natural world. She can teach you everything you need to know if you listen.

8. There is no triple bottom line. This is a human construct that was helpful in getting businesses to think about the multiple dimensions that should be measured, but it has become an excuse to separate profits from people and planet. The nature of a bottom line is that there can be only one. We either get it right and survive or we don’t.

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Cheryl Heller is CEO of Heller Communication Design, Chair of the new Masters Program in Design for Social Innovation at SVA in New York City, and Board Chair of PopTech. She designs communication – as a system first, and then as integrated, efficient programs of messages and experiences that engage, inspire, and entertain essential audiences.

Illustrations by Jacqueline Bos.

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Seth Godin on Marketing in The Connection Economy (click this link if ‘play’ button above does not work)

When Seth Godin talks, marketers listen. And luckily for marketers, Godin has a lot to say. He’s wrote 18 books and runs a well-respected marketing blog, posting his musings about everyday. He’s probably given close to 1,000 talks, one of which we’re featuring today.

Godin was the keynote speaker at the 2013 Inbound conference. In this talk, he discussed that businesses are leaving the industrial economy and entering the connection economy.

The Four Ideas in the Connection Economy

Godin believes that humans aren’t very good at following instructions. Instead, we’re very good at connecting, as a species we’re one of the best in the world. We’ve been programmed to follow instruction at a young age, starting with school, where children are taught to obey and take instruction. He says:

“The industrialists invented the educational system because they needed cheap labor. Cheap, obedient labor, people who would sit still and do what they are told.”

He believes that we’re leaving the industrial economy and entering the connection economy. There are four pillars in the connection economy:

Coordination – Before you can market anything, you need to coordinate a group of people to carry it out.

Trust – This takes times and effort, but earning trust with consumers is a must in the connection economy.

Permission – Based on his permission marketing approach, Godin says you need to deliver anticipated, personal, and relevant messages to people who want to get them. It’s a privilege to talk to people who will listen to you.

Exchange of ideas – Godin says that you’ll learn more from people at the conference than the speakers. He says, “what happens when we create an enviornment of connection, we create enormous value by combining all four of these things (coordination, trust, permission, exchange of ideas) into a network of people who want to pay attention to one another.”

The four ideas are based on two principles:

Generosity – Because no one wants to trust or connect with a selfish person.

Art – Because we don’t want to connect to someone who’s going to do just what they did yesterday. It’s the work of a human being doing something real and personal that might not work. Many listening to Godin just want bullet points, or a map of what to do. Godin says whenever he lists bullet points on one of his blog posts, social media shares go through the roof. But Godin won’t give bullet points during this talk, saying “the minute someone gives you a map, is the minute it’s not art anymore.”

You gain connection by earning it. You don’t earn connection with discounts or clever copy, you earn it by being generous and being an artist.

We’ve only scratched the surface of his talk. The video above contains his entire keynote.

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‘You Need Editors, Not Brand Managers'

: Marketing Legend Seth Godin on the Future of Branded Content

Seth Godin is the godfather of modern marketing—or, at least, the type of modern marketing we all want to be doing.

In 1999, Godin published Permission Marketing, and, in every way, it was a revelation. At a time when Bill Clinton was still in office, TLC’s “No Scrubs” was a #1 hit, and eToys.com was about to IPO, Godin released a practical guide to how brands could leverage the incredible connectivity of the web to engage consumers by seeking permission to do so. His creation of the concept of of permission marketing—which posited that marketing should be as anticipated, personal, and relevant, rather than interruptive—continues to echo in darn near every marketing brainstorm today.

Permission Marketing was Godin’s third book. Since then, he’s published 19 more while posting daily to his blog—which remains one of the industry’s must-read sites—and launching successful entrepreneurial ventures like Yoyodyne and Squidoo.

I caught up with Godin to get his take on the present and future of content marketing.

Everyone who interviews you describes it as this amazing, life-changing experience. What do you think makes you such a good interview?

I don’t think I change anybody’s life. I think sometimes people decide to change their own life, and if I can be present for that, that’s a nice thing to do.

Why do you think you have that influence on people, then?

Well, I think that showing up every day for 10 years or more in a row gives people a hint as to what it is you’re actually trying to accomplish. There’s a mindset by some people who do content marketing that you give a couple of times, and then it’s all about the getting. And I’m not interested in the getting—I’m just trying to make a change in the universe that we can all be pleased with.

You give a lot: You’re a prolific writer with your books, and also on your blog. Do you see your blog as a form of content marketing for everything else you do?

Not if you define marketing the way old-school marketers do, which is a chance to make noise in the world to sell more stuff. I define marketing differently. Most of the people who read my blog have never bought anything from me, and that’s fine.

But then there’s the whole obsession now with tying content to revenues—in other words, tracking whether people who are consuming your content will eventually buy something from you, and putting a hard number on each piece of content you create. Do you think that’s misguided?

Oh, I think there’s no question it’s misguided. It’s been shown over and over again to be misguided—that in a world of zero marginal cost, being trusted is the single most urgent way to build a business. You don’t get trusted if you’re constantly measuring and tweaking and manipulating so that someone will buy from you.

I don’t have any problem with measurements, per se; I’m just saying that most of the time when organizations start to measure stuff, they then seek to industrialize it, to poke it into a piece of software, to hire ever cheaper people to do it.

The challenge that we have when we industrialize content is we are asking people who don’t care to work their way through a bunch of checklists to make a number go up, as opposed to being human beings connecting with other human beings.

How does a brand care? How do you build an infrastructure where you have people who care create content?

Well, a brand can’t care. All that can care is people. So if someone in your organization—and it doesn’t have to be the CEO—decides they’d rather work in a place where you care, they can start caring. They can hire people who care, they can reward people who care, and they can do work that demonstrates that they care. What we find is that the more people care, ironically, the better they do compared to the industrialized systems of folks who don’t care and are just doing it for the money.

It seems also that that risk/reward system for caring at most brands is a little messed up. It’s a lot safer to just create one blog post a week, or one blog post a month, than it is to create 10 or 15. Because so many brands are risk-averse—if you make a mistake, your job is on the line.

I think the fear is, without a doubt, present. It turns out that, in most organizations, it’s warrantless fear, but we’re humans and we can’t help it. The number of people who have actually lost their job because they’ve created content that showed they care is very, very small. But we play into the whole industrialist mindset and act as if our job is on the line.

There’s the famous content marketing success story of Oreo’s tweet at the Super Bowl. People tell that story as if it’s the greatest thing that ever happened. They leave out that it took dozens of people to work on it, when it should have been one person who loved Oreo cookies. And it didn’t actually sell that many more Oreo cookies.

There are constantly trends and fads on the Internet, and people make a good living amplifying them. But I think that industrialized content marketing is one of those fads, and it will end up where they all do: petered out because human beings are too smart to fall for its appeal.

You coined the term “permission marketing.” Has it evolved the way you expected it to in the years since?

I think that I was naïve in thinking that it would stay true to the intent of anticipating personal, relevant messages. Many, many corporations use it as a legal loophole to spam.

The Museum of Modern Art sent me more than 18 announcements in the three days leading up to Christmas 2014. Now, I don’t think very many people, as much as they might be into modern art, really wanted to hear from the museum 18 times in three days, right? But that’s what the privacy policy says, so they did it because some brand manager probably figured, “Well, it’s going to be a whole another year before Christmas goes around. Might as well do it; it doesn’t cost me.”

The problem is, of course, it does cost. What it costs is reputation and trust.

What do you think content that builds trust looks like?

I think that it’s human, it’s personal, it’s relevant, it isn’t greedy, and it doesn’t trick people. If the recipient knew what the sender knows, would she still be happy? If the answer to that question is yes, then it’s likely it’s going to build trust.

A few years ago you said that content marketing is the only marketing left. Does that still hold?

Well, the kind of content marketing I’m talking about is people talking about something they care about.

Marketing in 1965 was the same thing as advertising. We called it marketing, but it was advertising. As advertising has faded away, marketers have tried to turn the Internet into advertising. My argument is: Real content marketing isn’t repurposed advertising, it is making something worth talking about.

It always struck me that the beauty of the Internet is that you can pretty easily create something amazing that’s worth talking about, and then distribute it to thousands or millions of people. But brands have, for the most part, done a pretty poor job of building owned digital media properties.

See, you are absolutely right here. When I think about how much money someone like Gillette spends, the question is: Why doesn’t Gillette just build the most important online magazine for men, one that’s more important and more read than GQ or Esquire? Because in a zero-marginal-cost world, it’s cheaper than ever for them to do that.

Or why didn’t Random House and Simon & Schuster start a search engine? Because after all, that’s what they wanted to do: organize the world’s information. They could have been Google—they were there, they knew how, and they chose not to.

I think part of the challenge is that we have to redefine what business we’re in. I think that most big companies come from the business of either knowing how to use TV advertising to build a mass-market product, or knowing how to build factories to build average stuff for average people. I think we have to shift to a different way of thinking.

If you were trying to build a brand media property—if you were Gillette—how would you build it? Would you just give some really smart people the resources and creative freedom to go out and make great content?

I think the most important thing is to have an office that’s not in your building. I think what kills brands who try to be interesting is to have meetings where they’re not saying to senior management, “How can we be more interesting?” Instead, they’re saying, “How can we play this more safely?” That’s not what happens when you want to make a hit TV show or a website that people care about. You need editors, not brand managers, who will push the envelope to make the thing go forward.

So one easy way to do that is to set people up in an office down the street, only visit them once a month, and give them really significant metrics—not about pageviews, but about mattering. And give them the resources—not too much, just enough—to go do work that matters.

What metrics do you think best measures the fact that you’re doing work that matters?

I think the only one that I care about is: Will people miss you if you are gone?

That’s a pretty good one. Is there any particular way to measure that?

We’ve got lots of people who are good at statistics and surveys. It’s pretty easy to figure out how to do an intent analysis, how to read what people say about you, and how to ask them. Once you’ve created something that people would miss, like, say, Harley Davidson, it’s pretty easy to figure it out.

I think your blog certainly qualifies as something people will miss, and part of that is because you’re such a prolific writer. What’s your secret?

I don’t have a secret. I just write like I talk. I think almost anyone can do it, but most people aren’t diligent enough for our trade. You know, I blogged for three or five or ten years, depending on how you measure it, with almost no one reading my work. If you show up—the same way we get good at walking, the same way we get good at talking—you can get good at it.

Let’s go back a little bit to the ideal brand newsroom—or whatever you want to call it—where you set up people up in an office and give them creative freedom. That kind of feels impossible at a lot of brands right now, simply because there isn’t that attitude towards content within the organization. How can marketers who agree with your vision convince people to make that kind of commitment?

I think that if you want to keep whining about the decline of advertising and the stress that retailers are being exposed to, by all means, feel free. If you want to find a way out of where you are stuck, you may have to do something that’s uncomfortable, that’s organizationally difficult, and worst of all, that is frightening. And I don’t know how to tell you how to do it, other than to point out that it might be frightening.

Any advice on talking points marketers can give higher ups—maybe some lines of reasoning?

Yeah, see, I don’t think that’s why they’re not doing it. I don’t think we can litigate and argue and debate our way out of this one. My new book, What to Do When It’s Your Turn, is all about the fact that what we get paid to do for a living is to expose ourselves to fear. That’s our job. If the people we work for aren’t up to that, then maybe we should go work somewhere else.

That’s pretty good advice. You talk a lot about making art. Do you think brands can make art?

I think that humans in almost any job can make art. What I mean by art is the human act of doing something that connects us to someone else. We see great brands, which are nothing but human beings doing things under the same name, do something that feels like art all the time. It doesn’t have to be a luxury good, it doesn’t have to be a physical good. If it’s something that makes us sit up and notice it because we care, it probably qualifies as some form of art.

That’s really interesting, the idea that the sponsorship of a brand doesn’t tarnish the work you do. That’s often how it’s presented in the media.

The word “brand” is problematic. Is Bob Dylan a brand? Bob Dylan has been a multi-billion-dollar company over the course of the last 40 or 50 years. Is Apple under Tim Cook a brand, or is it the work of a half a dozen leaders who are pushing themselves to do something that they’re proud of?

Where do you draw the line? If you’re talking about big, impersonal, insensitive, historically large packaged goods companies, yeah, it’s going to be really hard for them to dig their way out of their reputation. But I don’t think it’s impossible.

There’s sort of a parallel there with the debate over the ethics and merits of native advertising. How do you feel about sponsored content?

There are two kinds of native content: There’s content I want to read and content I don’t. If you’re putting content I don’t [want to read] in front of me, it doesn’t really matter how much you got paid for it—I’m probably not happy.

How do you think that the connection economy will evolve in the next five years?

You know, part of the challenge of this search for the next big thing is it takes our eyes off of this big thing. I think that we will see changes that stun us and surprise us, and I’m not sure it matters. I think that we probably don’t want to wait for next thing, because the thing we’ve got right now is that important.

What’s the big thing right now?

Well, for the first time in the history of humanity, any human being with a hundred bucks has the ability in which any other one of the several billion people that are online. We can connect to people who are outside of our geographic region and we have the chance to do great work, and to do it in a way that makes an impact. I think that’s astonishing, and I couldn’t imagine a more positive and bigger change to our culture than the one we’re in right now.

Final question, and it’s a question I ask a lot: Who’s your favorite wizard?

Wow. I’ll confess that no one has ever asked me that. I think there are so many reasons why The Wizard of Oz is my favorite wizard, even though you might get that answer a lot. I can talk about it for hours.

I’d love to hear your opinion on it.

Well, the most important thing about that movie, is that it’s one of the only movies ever made in which the hero—the person who makes almost every decision, the person who propels the action forward, and the person who demonstrates the most bravery—is a young woman. It’s astonishing to me that it’s so rare for that to happen. It was 1939 and we’re still talking about how, 75 years ago, putting a woman in that situation was important.

The second thing I would say is that if you read the annotated Martin Gardner edition of the book, you learn an enormous amount of gossip, the background of the wizard himself, and what he stood for and what he didn’t stand for. I think his redemption at the end of the movie is extraordinary. It’s very, very rare that we find human beings who are willing to speak up and say, “You know, I was wrong. But I’m going to do the right thing now.”

This interview has been edited and condensed. By Joe Lazauskas.  Editor in Chief @ Contently. Tech and marketing journalist. 

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UNDERDOG DAY:

Honour the world’s greatest unsung heroes, runners up and unlikely winners who have pulled off the unexpected on Underdog Day! For those that may not know, an “underdog” is a person in a competition or other event who is popularly expected to lose or fail. The individual expected to win is called the favorite or top dog.

The History of Underdog Day

Originally, an underdog was a shipbuilder who stood in a dark pit and helped to saw planks of wood from beneath whilst the overdog, a supervisor of sorts, sawed the planks from above. The underdog got all dirty and covered in sawdust, yet the overdog got all of the credit for the hard work carried out. The first recorded uses of the term occurred in the second half of the nineteenth century; its first meaning was “the beaten dog in a fight”. An “underdog bet” was a bet on the underdog for which the odds were always considerably higher.

Established by Peter Moeller in 1976, Underdog Day is the time to honour all of life’s unrecognised hard-workers.

Nowadays, the underdog character has become quite popular in pop culture, from Forrest Gump to The Karate Kid. Famous unlikely winners, such as Britain’s Got Talent’s Susan Boyle or Paul Potts have also been especially liked for their underdog status. In fiction, some famous underdog winners include characters like Rocky Balboa or William Wallace in Braveheart–despite the rather thin or simply unlikely plots of both of these movies, they have both become cult classics, proving the status of the underdog character. In fact, mankind has always rooted for the underdog. Perhaps there is something central to the human experience that means we all feel a bit like our lives consist of collecting the sawdust of life, and so we dream about the prospect of one day emerging from this filthy, splintery mess victorious.It would seem that people find it much easier to identify with the imperfect underdogs whose accomplishments often go unnoticed than the heroes everyone talks about and revers. It is hard to identify with the perfect, infallible characters who always know exactly what they’re doing and make no mistakes, the simple reason for this being that that’s not what reality looks like. Nobody is perfect, so seeing people being presented as such can actually make us dislike them. And the truth is that a lot of those heroes would not be who they are, and would not have achieved what they’ achieved, if it wasn’t for their humble sidekicks, the underdogs. Imagine Batman without Robin, or Sherlock Holmes without Watson. Not quite the same, right?

How to Celebrate Underdog Day

One of the best ways to celebrate underdog day is to get together with friends and watch some movies that have famous underdogs in them, like the aforementioned Karate Kid, any of the Rocky movies, or Sherlock Holmes. Alternately, you could throw a fancy dress party where each of the participants has to dress up as a famous underdog, like Batman’s Robin, Robinson Crusoe’s man Friday,Forrest Gump, or Kung Fu Panda. Or perhaps Michael Jordan, if you can growl out his famous 2008 quote, “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed” anywhere close to as well as he did, sending shivers down the spines of everyone who has ever not tried something for fear of failure.

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Acknowledging the end of the year mentally gives you pause. It makes you reflect on what has transpired over the past 365 days, hopes realized and dreams lost; giant steps forward and devastating

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Does your business plan have holes? Do you even have a business plan? When was the last time you looked at it (last January when you created it)? Many aspects of a business plan are overlooked and

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What can business professionals — anyone with something to say or sell — learn from the field of Psychology?Simply said, “how to convert visitors into leads, and leads into customers.”One key to

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Probably the number one question I receive is “How do I get more customers?” Without a strong customer flow as a business owner you also don’t have a strong cash flow and that can cause anxiety and

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I always make the point that data is everywhere – and that a lot of it is free. Companies don’t necessarily have to build their own massive data repositories before starting with big data analytics.