bwagy, the blog of Ben Young

Please avoid specific industry terms, like ‘Ben Young Property’.  What if after 5 years you want to sell up? Or you find property isn’t your market.

By being too specific you box yourself into a corner.

You are far better off using something like bwagy, Nike or Starbucks that way over time you can evolve the brand to mean more than what you originally intended.

Create your own term then associate meaning to it, that way as your business evolves so can your brand.  Literal terms tend to halt this as they have literal meaning.  And there is nothing worse than putting a limit on your business from the get go.

What if Nike had been called ‘Fast Shoes’, could they have evolved into Basketball? Swimming? Fitnesss? I doubt it.

The first time you do something it’s hard.  The second and third time it gets easier.

The problem is as you repeat something the effectiveness wears off.

The first time someone does something remarkable everyone talks about it, the second time a little bit and the third time so so.

Really it is a race to be first.  The cool thing is that anybody can be first at something.  And that is remarkable.

No one should know your market better than you.

Otherwise you’ll end up with too much disconnect…

And if you’re disconnected your customers are going elsewhere.

Emails have gone out to those that opted-in and now I’m just letting you know.

There are only 63 signed and numbered pre-order copies available so you need to get in quick (they will go fast).

I have put together a bit of a video below:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaOTGA0Vp0k

For more info visit TheBestIdeasareFree.com to call dibs and ensure you get your copy.

(Update 3rd Aug 09: The book is now out, you can click the book cover to the left in the sidebar to get a copy off Amazon or visit www.thebestideasarefree.com thanks – Ben).

Having grown up in Queenstown, New Zealand I was exposed quite a bit to the tourism industry and how it works.

The cornerstone of it locally is the information centres.  There are a handful of them all vying for your attention.  As if they can get you in the door they can take 10% commission of all your bookings.

They are tremendous due to the competition they have realised the only way to compete is superior customer service, ensuring people will maximise their spending with you.

I’d like to see online information centres, you can browse in, talk (or chat) to a live help, then they redirect you to a service that will solve your problem.  If you end up doing business they take a commission.

This wouldn’t work mass market but certainly within certain high value niches.

Just a thought, there are millions struggling with one problem or another out there.

(Google is kind of doing this with search + adwords but there is room for the personal approach).

A few people messaged me yesterday when I mentioned if I hired someone here is what I would do (Obsess about your employees).

A common thread is that there can be a lot of dissent amongst employees, especially those that receive extra perks because they have a family vs those that don’t.  When some people put off having a family to have a career or unable to, bringing up these kind of issues would be very very difficult.

My idea would be to have a pool of perks (kind of an employee loyalty style programme) over time you receive these perks, you can swap as you please.  Thus if you choose something like day care you are giving up something else.  Not a be all end all solution but would allow employees to fairly allocate their own rewards.

(Oh and also you can get employees to make up their own perks or provide them within the scheme…)

Really obsess about your employees.  Look after them.

No seriously, the good guys aren’t hanging about, especially if you don’t look after them.

If I was hiring, things I’d offer are:

• Decent Health & Life Insurance
• Huge holidays, if you want to take 3 months off no pay, let’s figure out how to do that.
• Extra benefits for family guys
• Performance bonuses based on real business value that employees contribute
• Own time to build personal projects, whether related to business or not (including building personal brand, blogging, twitter)
• Flexible hours.  What are rigid schedules for? Deliver on time, don’t care whether you do 1 hour or 2 hours.
• Flexible location, if you can do the work from Cambodia whilst you do some travel, let’s make that happen
• Want to build a startup out of work hours? All good, maybe we can sort you out with some equity or loans to give you a helping hand.

Oh and of course a reasonable wage.

Maybe this sounds like a pipe dream or maybe providing a dream job scenario will attract dream employees…

Something we should all practice.

The Art of Objectivity.

It promotes mutual respect, encourages understanding and actually helps people to agree to disagree.

Sure peoples opinions may differ but do we have to dislike one another because of that?

As the web is showing us by flattening previous preconceptions (through twitter, blogging, social media), sure you may disagree on political views but on Rugby or Marketing or Traffic issues you share the same views.

Maybe there is something in an alternative view? It is worth a thought, or at least mutual respect.

The world would be such a better place if this was practiced more – or even taught in schools.  Now that would be amazing.