bwagy, the blog of Ben Young

No.  As I’ve said before you’re always wrong.  You just want to be less wrong than your competition.  I may just be slightly more right than you… at least for now.

#20 Get clarity around your model
Decide early on, is this going to be a business I grow? or all about me? (ie this business is only ever going to be me). That reflects your company direction, decisions, operating model… future planning. Note you can change your mind about this, but at least have a direction initially.

#21 Build a board of directors
Build a board of directors, family, friends, clients, those who have an intrinsic interest in your business. Report to them cashflow, sales, metrics. Just having to report to someone will remind you of what you’re doing.

#22 Diversify revenue
Diversify your revenue streams, never have all your eggs in one basket, ebooks, retainers, speaking, courses, hourly work.

Starting without fanfare is a bit daunting and quite scary.

Shouldn’t I be shouting from the rooftops about what I’m doing?

Yes and no.

Shout from the rooftops once you’ve tested your product with paying customers AND they think it’s awesome.

However who starts off like that? Starting without fanfare lets you operate under the radar, quietly refine and build your business.

It also means you have market potential rather than converting a market that is fatigued by your shouting.

A good analogy is the franchise, do you think they rolled out hundreds of McDonalds then figured out how to make a convenient meal?

Have been fatigued with mainstream media for quite some time.

I can’t watch one hour of the news without pointing out an inaccuracy.

The common ones are:

• Distortion of statistics, establishing causation or correlation in statistics where there is no link.  (My #1 gripe). (Does no news network ever have a statistician validate numbers?!?!!)
• Misquoting, taking a 5 second sound bite out of a larger conversation.  Using this you can slur a story anyway you want.
• Hearsay reported as fact.
• Blatant delivering a press release as news (ie human interest story solved by a new product).

Media should be fined for misrepresentation, I am happy for them to say their ‘may’ be a link between these or to say rumour has it.  But be honest, say what it is.  Otherwise you should get fined for it.

And lets be honest they’re never going to report news saying it’s based on hearsay.  As you will realise it’s rubbish – or is that just the definition of mainstream media in the 21st century?

What do you think?

Everyone has an opinion but….BUT it is only as valid as you let it be.

The past few weeks I’ve had the pleasure of partaking in the RadioWammo show on KiwiFM.

It’s been a lot of fun and we are going to to continue doing it.  But I just wanted to let you know you can:

• Listen on the radio (if in NZ). Visit KiwiFM for the local frequency.
• You can watch via ustream (available globally).
• You can even listen online (available globally).
• Then afterwards it goes up on YouTube – so here’s a playlist where you can get the latest ones.

Tune in 0910 NZT (watch my twitter Monday mornings).

Once we have the time I will organise a centralised website to collate all the media so you can subscribe in one place – but please listen, love to hear your comments.

I have embedded the past three weeks below:

Ben Young on TEDx & Unconferencing 5-10-09 Radio Wammo Show, Kiwi FM

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07yqgy-fg4w

Ben Young on Tipping Buses drivers & Free Broadband 28-9-09 Radio Wammo Show, Kiwi FM

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dd6eiZ23D4

Ben Young Ideas Primer 21-9-09 Radio Wammo Show, Kiwi FM

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hddMLdgvXk

The past weekend I attending my third unconference.

It was a real blast, instead of the normal conference where you are there to listen, at an unconference you are there to engage.

And it’s through the engagement that REAL learning can evolve, it’s that experience, discussion back and forth.  In contrast at a normal conference you go to listen then apply.

So what is an unconference? Simple there is no agenda, you turn up and the attendees just add their own topics.

A session is more a discussion than a speech, the topic is set, a discussion point is created and you go from there.

Hang on does it actually work? Yes.  Amazingly it does.  Topics are self selected, so by definition only something someone really wants to talk about and you get to pick which sessions you attend (versus sit through a boring session awaiting the next good one).

What I suggest is that you set up your own unconference, for your industry, company or network.  Invite internal/external people from right across the board and let them go.  The less agenda the better 😉

I attended a small rural high school so often there weren’t enough teaching resources for us, we had to self teach some topics with support once a week or fortnight.

In particular I struggled with calculus, it would make my brain spin, give me headaches. You see I was developing new knowledge (in probably the most inefficient way).

This is what change is about, by definition it is all new, and that’s where the pain lies.

So what can you do about it? Well to ease the pain you can get someone experienced to coach or lead you through it.

A tutor, a consultant, a mentor.

People learn up to four times faster with a teacher than without.

So that’s what I did, got a tutor, who helped me understand calculus, naturally my learning accelerated.

Acknowledge that change is painful, keep taking the steps to the end goal (perseverance is genius) and get help to make the process much easier.

There is never any shame in asking for help….

As many of you will know by now, yesterday an earthquake set off a Tsunami in the Pacific.

Yesterday in Auckland we awoke to Tsunami warnings, a tense hour or so  before reports confirmed that the swell wasn’t going to be big enough to cause significant damage.  Ok crisis averted.

However Samoa wasn’t so well off… the death toll is at 100….for now.

What a lot of people don’t realise is that some of the worlds worst poverty is experienced in the pacific (literally hours flight from New Zealand).   You can read more on Poverty in the Pacific over at Oxfam.

So how can they recover? When the standard was low to start off with.  With your support.

It is up to the rest of us to lend a helping hand (and I am proud to say the New Zealand government has made a long term commitment to providing aid – on top of our existing commitments to Samoa).

Now giving money isn’t always the best answer but for those of us that can’t help directly it is the best way of enabling those who can.

If you happen to be in Samoa, I suggest you share the story, blog about it, make this event ever so real for people around the world, that is the best way to get their support.

For the rest of us, please support the NZ Red Cross.

(Even $5 makes a difference.)

Having difficulty writing a proposal?

Remember the copy basics…

1. Here’s what I’ve got.
2. Here’s what it’ll do for you.
3. Here’s what I want you to do next.

Flesh this basic framework out…

Here’s a thought, when looking at any metric.

Quality over quantity.

Those that focus on quality don’t worry about the big numbers, they obsess on quality.  As a consequence they get the numbers.

Those that focus on quantity, aspire to be the former but end up with sub par results, as they focus on quantity over quality.

The funny thing is that the quality guys don’t care about the numbers but the latter do.

Paradox but rings true time and time again.

My grandma always used to say to me; there are two kinds of people in this world, those who do and those who don’t.

The same can be said when evaluating business opportunities, those that do them and those that talk.

The question is how can you tell which are serious and those that are just excited about an idea (and have no substance).

First thing is to look at their body language, when you ask the hard questions how do they respond? Do they fidget a lot, touch their face or kind of give a winded response. Chances are they have their doubts.

Also check up on their history, do they follow through on ideas or bounce from idea to idea?

What about boundaries and responsibilities? The hot air guys often juggle a lot and aren’t solid with boundaries.  Those that are seriously value yours and their time.  They also have no qualms about setting boundaries, goals.

Finally putting money on the line, can be a quick qualifier (but also a false one) so make sure this is in align with other positive signals.

I’m not saying you aren’t going to have a fruitful relationship (hey the second idea might be the winner) but throw caution into the wind, your time is way too valuable to waste.

What else do you use to separate the signal from the noise?

Paralysis kills business, procrastination is cited as one of the biggest regrets by owners of failed small business.

When you have a small team, procrastinating for a few hours can be a huge cost, as each person carries a larger impact on the bottom line.

What I suggest is develop some systems or processes to highlight when it is happening, then how to deal with it, much better to identify and deal with it now rather than tomorrow.

It doesn’t take long and is well worth your time investment….

#17 Client Obsession: Turning clients into your sales team
Your clients are your best sales people, so look after them, obsess about their business, recommend their product to others.

#18 Referrals build a solid business
Your #1 business driver should be referrals! Why? Once you have a tight client base who know how you operate, what you deliver, they will naturally attract similar clients.

#19 Remember to say NO
Say no to clients. Forget the ‘i need cash asap’ and do things you wouldn’t normally do, maintain your focus and instead in tough times innovate. You will find much more reward in innovation than taking work that you don’t like. It doesn’t build your core business, doesn’t pay well, and isn’t growing anything.

What does Ben do? Well that’s a very ambiguous question.

I am an author, a blogger and most prominently an entrepreneur.  Day to day I deliver Marketing Strategy to startups (which pays the bills).

However I am working on something new, slowly but surely, a new marketing business model.

As I work on it, the opportunity has arisen to work with me, in a marketing capacity.

My specialty is strategy, a unique arrangement of tactics to rapidly achieve goals.

The model (whilst still in development) will focus around:

• DIY: Whereby strategies are shared with you to implement yourself.  A cost effective (and smart to those that are committed) way of leveraging experienced intellectual property.
• Standardised Services: Hands on services to stimulate growth, whilst more pricey you buy the reassurance of having someone else responsible for objectives.
• Super High Level, Ultra NON-scalable, get me to turn up services.  This is going to be very limited as my time is super scarce.

With my continual focus on leverage, the smartest way to create the biggest impact is to provide services which can scale very quickly (and globally) overnight.  Thus the DIY component is of vital importance to me.

I need your feedback (to help me help you guys)

What I would like to do is poll you guys on firstly as the challenge for me is to figure out what intellectual property I hold from my experience that you can leverage.  As I live inside my own mind the best way is to ask you.

I have created a survey here, it is only five questions and shouldn’t take more than a minute to fill out.  The responses from will help me help you.  Any help or feedback you can provide would be incredibly valued.

Also you know what really gets me excited about this? The ability to leverage my knowledge to create massive change but also the second tier change it can create.

10% of any zero variable cost services bwagy offers I set aside for Kiva.  Over time I would like to build this pool of funds to form bwagy.org into a charitable trust – to help stimulate entrepreneurship around the world.  (Another form of my leverage focus). Thus a leveraging approach helps achieve this.

Get me in

Finally if you happen to be local and would like me to come in and speak with your organisation, provide an organisational hand grenade or just provide an independent view on your approach send me an email.

Please get in contact I really want to build something significant here of which you can be a part of.

Summary

• Am available to help your organisation, email me [email protected] and have a chat.
• Working on something new and need your feedback, please take the poll here.
• You can hire me to come talk to your organisation, email [email protected]

Thanks guys, please enjoy the weekend, -Ben