I hear novel ideas all the time.
They are neat, fun, unique, likely to spread.
I love them.
Yet I often ask What is the Business Case?
What is the value?
Where is the monetisation? (direct or indirect)
Cash flow is key to survival.
Otherwise your idea’s not going to last in the long run.
(and thats not a cool idea).
What is personality?
Google ‘definition of personality’ returns “the complex of all the attributes–behavioral, temperamental, emotional and mental–that characterize a unique individual; “their different …”
Essentially personality is what makes us different and unique.
Big businesses try to stamp out personality to keep regimented systems for franchises, to reassure customers, to get the right cogs doing what they need to.
Yet more often than not a loyalty between organisations is between people, not the brands.
It’s people behind every company and every interaction and with people comes their personality.
We shouldn’t shy away from that, we should embrace it, what are the personalities behind our business? and how can we leverage that? (and in term keep them happy).
I was thinking this as I bought a coffee from Cafe Monet, in Newmarket.
I wandered in and 3 people were in there and they all said hey anton, morning anton, etc to (as I instantly became aware) Anton the barista.
Anton looked up and said ‘hey buddy’ to me, and carried on talking to various people, within 30 seconds you could tell he was the personality behind the cafe and the reason people kept coming back.
It was like everyone was friends, a real sense of community.
I daresay his 10% extra effort with every customer leads to 80% (or higher) return rates.
I’ll definitely be going back to say hi to Anton and grab a coffee (plus the coffee isn’t half bad).
The question is, what personalities do we have? and how can we embrace them?
Not many rules I follow.
However 80/20 rules is one that I pay attention to.
The argument is 20% of causes lead to 80% of consequences.
(Note: its not strictly 80/20 it can be 90/10)
Examples are:
Smart thinking.
I always throw this around every few months, see what else I’m doing wrong, or where improvements can be made.
Some examples i’ve found:
Once you’ve identified a link, what can you do to improve that 20%? How can you look after your clients that drive 80% of our profit? Can you modify your call behaviour to lower the 10% that make up 90% of your bill?
Give it a shot, it’s not only fun, it’s quite interesting to see the results.
Have you already done it? share your results I’m always intrigued…
It’s true.
Really You can do what YOU want.
But chances are it’s you holding yourself back?
Your saying no it’s not Ben, it’s this and this. A lot will say time. A lot will say money.
Stop making excuses. You can make time. Start with 5 minutes a day. Work up to 60 minutes.
Look at how you can reduce the time for other tasks, do you really need to do so and so.
Believe me you can find enough time to start doing what you really love.
Secondly money, it can be a barrier, but its not infallible.
For under $100 you can:
The barriers to virtually everything are getting destroyed, the chances for excuses are getting less and less.
If there is something you really want to do it, bite the bullet and jump in the deep end, do not let yourself or others talk you out of it.
I think we are at a tipping point.
Where all these contextual factors, tip the scales, in favour of Micro Businesses.
Kind of like Small is the New Big.
So what am I talking about? I believe the future is in micro niches, dominated by micro businesses, run by 1 or maybe 2/3 people.
It fits in with a few other trends I have noticed:
The idea of micro businesses;
Think about it, how many people do you know have multiple projects on the go, or have a full time job and a venture on the side growing.
The time is now.
What business ideas do you have that you know would make money and have virtually zero setup costs? What’s stopping you?
Go out, start them, learn, build and most of all have fun.
Keep sowing.
Keep meeting new people, keep blogging, keep the conversations going.
The return will come.
New Marketing isn’t about create x get x.
It’s not a strict formula.
You need to keep investing, and the rewards will come and like your investment they will compound.
This week, as a result of conversations have around my brand some neat things have happend:
Wow today marks 6 months of blogging.
From 1 post a week, to 3 posts a week, to a post a business day. (91 in total).
I just want to thank YOU for reading now, last week and those that were here 3 months ago.
And if you came across the blog at the start, take a bow, pat yourself on the back.
It has now reached a point where the blog receives more attention (in time) than my input. Yay!
I have been wondering whether to increase to two posts a day.
And I have decided no.
That stimulates quantity and dilutes my message.
So I will continue with one post a business day. For now at least.
Thanks again! I really really appreciate all the feedback, comments, support, tweets, emails from all of you.
It is just as important to celebrate the small wins as the big ones.
Leadership is powerful.
Pioneering, Revolution, Change
Magical.
However leadership is lonely.
You are at the front, carving a new path, and have to endure the flak.
It’s a hard hard battle.
You need to persevere,
Through these hurdles.
To change.
Obama will be reflecting on this today (and realising)
Perseverance is genius.
And THIS is what leadership is all about.
Swearing is a short cut.
Jerry Seinfeld said swearing is a short cut for comedians to get a laugh. So he didn’t swear during his acts.
They are a short cut for expressing yourself (some say lazy).
They are also a short cut for getting your point across.
You will not hear me swear much, if at all.
On the odd occaision you may, when I really want to drive a point home.
Keeps people on their toes and lets them know when I really mean it.
A bookstore with a difference.
Mix traditional bookstore + Amazon = a bookstore for the 21st century.
Normal bookstore.
Build an online store (or co-brand Amazon) using recommendations & reviews off Amazon for use IN the store.
Consumers are not stupid, they know they can get books online cheaper, we go to the bookstore for the experience and we want it now (not in 2-3 days).
If that’s what we want why not enrich that experience?
Provide recommendations and honest reviews of the books, provided by customers.
You can then model purchases, and when someone purchases one book give them an instant 20% off certificate to buy another one, or to give to their friends.
You can see that bookstores are far from reaching their potential.
What else would you do?
(I’m thinking blogs, communities, facebook, online ordering)
Sometimes (in fact more often than not) it’s best to let others do the talking.
Instead of you selling, get your clients to sell for you.
Instead of explaining benefits, let your results speak for themselves.
Instead of explaining who you are, let others do that for you
Interesting approach, you should try it.
I am setting up a ‘What people are saying’ page (in progress).
Where I have asked a wide range of people to answer the question,
Ben is?
As (like you) I am many things to different people.
Feel free to jump in by tweeting with #bwagy or posting in comments or emailing me.
Otherwise give it a go yourself, let someone else do the talking.
You get the picture of customers becoming evangelists and some ways of doing this.
It was on this and Julian of [business:ProWorkflow] tweeting this:
“Talk, Blog, Syndicate, SEO, Tweet, and build a solid product. Then look after users and they’ll become evangelists.”
(in response to my query about his marketing strategy)
This later popped up on his blog.
Intrigued, I thought I’d ask him a few questions.
Share the numbers with you guys.
What’s the ROI of turning customers into evangelists?
Julian shares 25% of new sales a month are through referrals.
25% that’s 1 in 4!
In a competitive market like Project Management, referrals are gold.
They have stimulated this through:
“Fanatical support. Fast and reliable on all support requests. We invest time into training account holders. Always have an approachable, friendly manner, unlike many US based cold, slow support teams. Response time – typically instant or less than an hour. “
He also shares that “when customers cancel, we always wish them the best and keep in touch, many come back again later” (Marketing after the fact?)
By looking after their users, they’ve had customers changing projects or jobs and getting the new team to use it.
Great huh? Nice sweet spot. Something to strive for.
If you’re already here, what can you do better?
Provide your customers with tools to help them spread the word,
If your customers are already evangelists, give them the tools to help them evangelise.
Sometimes you need to destroy, abolish, smash, obliterate an idea, a project
Just so you can unlock the new possibilities.
Retaining old systems, structures, ways of thinking hinders the move forward.
Thinking inside the square that has already been created stimulates limited thinking, lower horizons.
If you have an idea, something you want to move forward with and there are barriers in the way.
Get rid of them completely. Destroy them. Remove them from your systems.
I am constantly destroying something, this didn’t work, flag it, be dynamic and keep moving.
For example I regularly delete old blog drafts, it frees up space for new posts and directions.
It is human nature to put things into boxes.
We need them there so that we can relate and understand something in relation to everything else we know.
What box are you in?
What box have others put you in?
Are you happy with them? Identify some boxes…
Wait.
Why do we need to be in a box? Our name is enough. We need Ben Young. We need Nike. We need Alibaba.
Build a brand, let that be what defines you, avoid boxes, build your brand.
You need to ask, How can I build our company brand so that people ask for us not our box category?
Why do I have Monday Ideas Post?
Firstly it fulfills my criteria of being, short, snappy digestible bites that make you think.
It has a dual edge though.
As an entrepreneur (or just someone that questions everything?) I come up with ideas all the time, as I’m sure a lot of my readers do or at least someone you know.
Quite often we will hold these ideas close to heart, not express them, only to regret it.
Or we lose focus with every new idea.
This is the dual edge, Monday Ideas Post also let’s me have an outlet for ideas I come up with so I can remain focused but also as an opportunity for discussion.
It’s about making you think just as much as its about making me think.
So
What outlet do you have? How do you get ideas out there? What do you do to find out if your idea is rubbish so you can remain focused or move onto the next great thing?
(Hint: like any muscle, the more you exercise this part of your brain, the better you will get at it)