bwagy, the blog of Ben Young

This week has been a bit of a video week for me, so I thought I’d share my favourite one, it’s called Smile & Move. Hard to describe, just watch.

Given the huge amount of fun I had last time with Pay What You Want Marketing Advice  I have decided to bring it back for good.

Why did I do it as an experiment? To limit my downside of course.  As I found there was no downside, it was all a challenge and hugely fun.  So now it’s back…

For those who are new the gist is:

You email me with your problems, questions, questions on strategy.

Anything Internet Marketing related.

Who is this suited for? Any kind of business, maybe your a small business who hasn’t ventured online, a tourism business, owner operator, b2b, b2c….

You probably have made cuts of your marketing expenditure.

And so you should if it has questionable returns.

BUT with internet marketing you can measure your returns. Down to the dollar.

If you know how.

So to help clear misreprentations about it and encourage spending in internet marketing I am doing this.

The catch? Well the catch is I ask you to pay me what you think my information to help you out is worth to you. If its worth nothing pay nothing, if its worth $250 pay that. Up to you, no pressure, my aim is to help you.

I just want to repeat that, my aim is to help you!

Basically you email me ben@bwagy.com with the subject line ‘pay what you want’, I give you a hand, you pay me what you think it’s worth via paypal.  It is probably the best way to get advice from me without committing to a contract.

Please note a few things:

1) Give me some background information about your company, clients (in the email).  I can clear up to several thousand emails in a busy week so if you have all the information in the email helps me out (vs a web address for more info).

2) If I help you, could you post feedback in the comments below (good or bad, mostly good Im sure)

3) Forward to friends this post to help them out.

This article on Avon (the direct sales company which recruits people to sell their cosmetics product for them) came through my inbox Avon experiencing strong growth.

In New Zealand over the past few weeks 1,500 people have signed up to sell their products!

This on top of a 27% increase in sales so far this year.

Their model (from a potential sales persons point of view) is we help you build your income.

To the recipient you get catered at home service to sell you the products you actually want.

No need to go to a store, deal with a rude staff member, battle the crowds.

Stay at home and let someone you know come to you and help you with your cosmetic problems.

I wonder what’s next, bloggers selling avon products? An Avon video blog? Wonder if they have affiliate sales…. huge opportunity for growth.

The query is then, they are soaring in a downturn, what happened when times were good? Or have they always done well and are just now doing better.  

Either way if you can position yourself to cater directly to your markets needs and by doing so deliver real tangible value, it’s not hard to sell.

They’ll only steer you from your course.

Listen to those that get it, talk with them, help them spread your ideas.

By pandering to those that have no motivation than to drag you down, you end up where they want you to be.  And that’s not cool.

So forget the critics!

A completely unknown benefit of pursuing your dreams is that of the hidden business angels.

These are people who are successful in their own right, who take a fancy to what you do, and offer a hand.

Whereby it be business advice, a dead arm when you need it (keep you grounded) or hey I think you slipped up here.

They listen without assuming, provide real advice without catches, genuine people who want to help.

This is just my post to say thanks to those that have done so with me and those that do so for others.

You are all legends.

Giving away stuff for free is such a joy.

• Advice
• Coffees
• Ebooks
• Connections
• Services & time

It is so relieving; not stressing about making a few bucks on an ebook, or negotiating rates for a hour long meeting.  Worrying I am not getting enough money. I don’t make any money off this and never intend to do so, I do it for fun. 

By deciding this is what I do for free.  This is where i make money and this is where I don’t.

It let’s me get those things done, no stress, then focus on those that make me money.

The crucial thing is the free doesn’t destroy business value, it forces you to focus on areas where you extract additional value.

What barriers can you destroy? To unlock what you have and just give it away for free? Be it reports, knowledge, ideas, systems…

Unlocking these expands your presence in your market and thus your opportunity to maximise the cashflow opportunities.

Some guidelines for internet entrepreneurs developing their early stage marketing strategy:

• SEO is about branding, it takes time, it does pay off, but don’t expect overnight success.  Expect months of hard work to recreate the apparent look of overnight success.
• PPC is great if you can sustain it.  Often you are developing or creating a segment of which it is hard to get a return on this initially.  If you are in the rare stance of breaking even or making a profit (whilst in startup mode) go horizontal, invest in MSN, in Yahoo.  Get their lower competition marketplaces to help you drive profit.
• Viral tactics are just as the term describes, tactics.  They help provide a short term boost, or add the icing to the cake.  Realise this and use it to your advantage.  Solid business growth still comes from delivering insane value to your customers and looking after them.
• Marketing results always take double the amount of time that you predicted, it takes time to refine your strategy, make the technological changes, talk to all developed parties.  However picking up the phone and calling your existing clients can be done today.
• Focus on building brand name searches, measure the numbers of visit by your brand, focus on pushing that.  No one can compete when people are motivated to look for you.
• Do not skimp on metrics, use Google Analytics, capture all that you can (helps for future analysis) but focus on the key metrics that drive your business today.  Match them to business objectives and real dollars in the hand. 
• Blogging will be your #1 Marketing Tool if you use it wisely, so only blog if you’re going to do a good job of it.
• Communities are fantastic but like blogging require a lot of work, if you are time poor this may not be your best approach.  It is better to not do it at all than do it miserably.
• The best people you can hire (if you need hire at all) come from referrals, they don’t need splashy websites to sell themselves, their clients sell them.
• Free is good, creating a product that people marvel you charge so low for it is better.  Case in point Basecamp.
• Stick to your strategy, it will naturally evolve over time but if you quit because you don’t get instant results you are following the path to mediocrity.
• ALWAYS (and I mean ALWAYS) question those that provide marketing advice, it helps you understand their thinking and helps them learn about you.
• Once you have your strategy get onto it, there are a thousand ways to skin a cat, focus on yours.  Marketing fads come and go.

And finally….Stop procrastinating and start now!  Many entrepreneurs know what they need to do, they just don’t do it, like this blog I just do it, not spend all my time talking ….

Running early for a client meeting a fortnight ago I pondered Twitter business models, so here are the results of that brain storm.

Models seen in action:

• Simple sales channel:  Push special twitter sales via twitter, coupons, don’t dilute keep them timely, relevant
• Customer Service:  Answer questions via twitter, talk to clients
• New Product Development:  Get ideas from your market, market research, watch the conversation.  Sure you can run focus groups but how relevant are they really, get unbiased reviews from real users of your product whilst they use it.  Fast & real time
• Networking & relationship building:  Using the networking model to meet people on a local or global scale, help draw people to your website, ensure that you can convert on your website.
• Building a niche audience:  To pour qualified prospects into your sales channel.

Potential Models I have yet to see utilised:

• Sell subscription to your network:  Have a free network of tweets, then charge for private access which includes coaching, marketing help, health etc.  (Used by the protect updates feature).
• Provide free data:  Users can take a new action to generate some dollars (ie free weather, txt for hourly forecast or traffic reports).
• Extra service layer:  Provide dm reminders of appointments, or account balances, notifications of specials.  Perfect for service based industries like mobile, banking, auction sites.
• Sponsorship:  Sponsor some twitterers to join in their conversation, or to mention your account, or to generate a conversation with them.  Like endorsement good to be seen with the right people.
• Gaming:  Provide a text like game, interacts with your brand, charge for upgrades.

The loose platform for conversations has huge huge potential, it is just narrowing down the kind of conversations you can build or extend a business off.

Just before you reach your goal, there is a state of chaos, where lots of things are on the go, you’re never sure if you will make it, but you keep pushing through, incredibly you do.  Return back to normal.  Wake up two weeks later again to find yourself doing it again.  Face it, it’s reality.  If your in the muck now, keep at it, all those baby steps add up.

What you do today WILL reflect on you in ten years.

So why would you settle for less than a great post or project?

My theory is life too short to repeat the same stuff over and over may as well get it right the first time round.  

Whilst I have still tripped and fallen it has been a marvelous attitude.

EIR for short, an entrepreneur in residence is what Venture Capital firms seek, they invite an entrepreneur in to help them put together a solid idea.  

Very smart, identify a real go getter whom you want to work with, invite them in.

My question is why are only venture capitalists doing this?

I think big companies should hire entrepreneurs, to come in, sit in their organisation for a few months, bring their outside in view and generate real change within the organisation.

Act as a your own venture capitalist in your industry..

I’d love to see that, hey we hired Guy Kawasaki to come sit in our offices for 3 months, help us come up with some game changing ideas.

From my point of view that would be real fun but also a good way to hear ideas from the edge, observations on how to improve, or just a different point of view.

Really want some culture change? Hire a dozen entrepreneurs seed them in different divisions.

Like Airlines need bums on seats so do cafes.

In fact airlines are getting almost anything to get you on the planes at the moment, combining deals, deep discounting, rewarding frequent flyers.

Cafes locally on the other hand aren’t doing much.

They need bums on seats, drinking coffees, eating muffins, chatting with their friends.  If you see two cafes one empty and the other half full people tend to go for the half full one.  Social acceptance et al.

This is why wifi in Cafes should be ubiquitous, it is in some parts of the world, but not all.  And it should be free.  If you know a cafe owner tap them on the shoulder and whisper the secret to them.

Wifi will bring in clientele who will browse their email, maybe do some work, chat to their friends, use their smart phones to access the wifi.  Thus increasing those buying your overpriced muffins and coffee.  Cafes are about the experience, round the experience off for me when in the middle of the business day I want some time out from the office.

They are bums on seats, which makes your cafe more attractive vs being empty.

Stacey Childs of discounderworld (a free monthly digital magazine profiling people from all over the world) interviewed me a while back on the changing consumer trends in relation to the media.

Visit discounderworld.com for a copy (it’s free!) or go to the discounderworld blog for a full transcript of the interview.  

I thought I’d pull out a couple of points:

The marketplace for media in general is evolving. What is different from ten years ago, what will be different in ten years?

Media has revolved around distribution. Whoever had the distribution had the market and whoever played the game right could get their content into the distribution. PR agencies are all about leveraging their networks to get your company into this locked distribution channel. The internet has unlocked these tight distribution channels. I have talked about it here:
/the-difference-between-traditional-and-new-media/ and here: /its-happened-to-music-now-for-books/ 

What will it be like in 10 years?

We are talking infinite channels for media. Blogs like PerezHilton are a prime example, not limited to text, photos or even video, they draw all media together. Something newspapers cannot do.

Ten years from now media will be distributed over infinite channels, the world is now a global village, we still consume ‘mainstream media’ but we invest more time in niche interests who deliver video, audio, text, experiences. Conversations are going to be the driving force of how media is distributed, if it’s worth talking about people will spread it. Traditionally all you had to do is overcome the hurdles (book publishers, pr agencies) to get the word out. Word of mouth will be the driving force of this.

We have seen this happen with music, slowly with books (but not yet) and increasingly with the news media. Twitter is a fantastic example of news spreading via conversations. It’s village gossip on a global scale. As Shakespeare would say ‘all the worlds a stage’.

What do you see as the reasons why some print magazines have failed and others have florished? In relation to differences in content, readership, marketing, adaptation to new technologies? (and anything else you think is important)

The number one reason print magazines have failed is the inability to derive significant revenues from their readership. In my opinion once distributions were locked the focus became how can we maximise profit? By changing the focus, journalists report on quantity not quality, advertising revenues are all about maximum dollars (not necessarily maximum value for advertisers). Once journalists start to change their mantra to compelling journalism to rewording press releases they lose their audience. which flows onto advertising and in turn the bottom line. See my blog posts above for more thoughts on this.

Do you think in the future, print magazines will exist? If no, why? If yes, what magazines do you think will be around? What will magazines have to do to still be in demand in say, 10 years?

Newspapers will exist in the future, but not in form we see now. People enjoy the tactile experience of sitting down, having a coffee, reading the paper. However the model needs to change in how newspapers deliver content. I forsee digital papers, where consumers purchase the right to use a newspaper reader, it looks just like a newspaper, feels like a newspaper, yet the content changes daily to reflect the latest news, it notices my interests and modifies the front page according to that. The Sky TV model is the current example I would compare it against. Newspapers will deliver photos, video, audio and combine these into enjoyable experiences for their users.

Those are just some snippets for the full interview click here.  

I have also uploaded my crib notes, which include above, the full interview and anything that may have been cut, rough but straight from the source.

Wind back to Sep 29th, 08, I wrote this post on Silence:

—

Silence

is scary huh?

People pause.  They don’t know what to do.

There is a void.

You instantly think you need to fill it.

What if you didn’t? What if you bought 30seconds of ad time during peak times and had nothing.  Absolutely nothing.

People would be in the kitchen during the ad break going “who turned the tv off?”, others would look up to see what was going on, they might even tune in.

Silence is polarising, we are so used to noise, we have no idea how to react.

—

In a world of continual noise, silence is deafening, oh no what to do? Hell we even equip ourselves with a cell phone at all times to avoid complete silence, time to ourselves.  The rare times are probably in the shower or exercise (although the ipod is typically providing some noise).

Take some time out, for some real silence, to relax, ponder the world.

You’ll find it much more compelling than you initially thought.

Shopping at a local supermarket on Sunday I received great service from a new checkout person.  It was at that moment I thought, why don’t they have a simple touch machine where after the transaction you can rate the service, 1 to 5 stars.  I would have loved to give her five stars.

Imagine that, a small touch screen device, where you can rate the service in a second.  The system then records the rating and at the end of the day the staff member gets their average rating.

Staff realise:

• They are instantly accountable
• Provides a benchmark to lift the bar
• Real time rankings by the hour (look at peaks and troughs during the day)

For the service provider:

• Instant feedback on staff
• Reward the best staff
• Compare satisfaction by time of day
• Get the real picture of what your customers think of your service
• Stimulate a cultural change in customer satisfaction, sending the right signals to staff and to customers

And for customers:

• Feel the respect for opinion
• Can reward outstanding service by giving five stars
• Feel valued
• Makes them consciously think about the level of customer service provided

Not sure on the cost but it would be worth a try! This one little thing could change the whole customer service experience.

(Extra for experts: You already realise people are doing this on twitter (see here) and will continue to do so.  Bit of a no brainer.  Embrace the change)