bwagy, the blog of Ben Young

The world is full of interruptions, facebook, email, twitter, mobile, mail, tv.

They all rely on one thing that we give them.  Attention.

We can also take that away.

Attention is at the consumers disposal.  It always has been.  In the 21st century our attention is becoming increasingly scarce.

So you need to get permission.  Permission to send us a txt, permission to be in my twitter network, permission to send me an email.  

Guess what? I will only give you long term permission if you send me personalised and relevant experiences.

I have great news to share the NzHerald approached me a while back to republish the blog a few times a week.

Today the first post went live! The 12 Hour Startup.

I just want to tip my hat to you all for your readership, your ideas, your support.  It wouldn’t have gotten this far without it.

-Ben

I wanted to share with you an update I got on my loan I made via Kiva to a group of Bolivians, they were creating a small group to reloan the funds to other entrepreneurs.

I got this update November 20th last year:

“This is an update on your loan to MARANATHA 2 Group in Bolivia. I visited Lucy and her next-door neighbor Felipa, both members of the Maranatha group, one Friday afternoon in Montero, a small city of 100,000 in eastern Bolivia. Lucy was at the market when we arrived, so we sat under the shade of her mango tree to enjoy some homegrown
tamarinds with her husband while we waited. Lucy soon returned with bags full of produce to cook the night’s dinner.

Lucy sells meals from her home in the evenings, and she used her Kiva loan of 4,000 bolivianos (US $557) to buy a refrigerator and some ingredients to make her specialties: tripe and pig’s stomach. She also sells chicha and somó, a
popular drink made with boiled corn, sugar, cinnamon and clove. Her cooking must have quite a reputation, because her customers come from near and far just to get their hands on a plate. Sales are good, she tells me, and she’s planning to stick with the group for its next loan cycle (its fifth).

The smell of freshly baked bread wafts into Lucy’s yard. I follow my nose next door, where Felipa and her granddaughters are hard at work baking today’s batch of bread. Felipa, like Lucy, is a founding member of the Maranatha group and has participated in all four if its loan cycles. She started her business selling donuts and pan de arroz (bread made with rice flour and mashed yucca). Then she started making regular bread, and today she sells
several varieties of rolls, some sweet and some savory. I can’t resist trying one of her piping hot rolls, which is rich, white and fluffy with a sugary topping—very delicious.

Felipa used her Kiva loan of 1,800 bolivianos (US$257) to buy flour, lard, cheese and other ingredients to make bread. She works seven days a week and sells about 230 bolivianos’ (US$33) worth of bread each day, earning 60 bolivianos (US$8) in profits. She says she enjoys working with the group, since the women all know one another very well and everyone is responsible and punctual. She has taken out individual loans before, she tells me, but prefers the
group loan because it doesn’t involve so much paperwork. Like Lucy, Felipa plans to continue working with Maranatha in future loan cycles. Out of curiosity, I ask Felipa what Maranatha means, and she shrugs and laughs—neither she nor her loan officer, Julio Cesar, can remember who thought up the name or why. “

This made my week! 

I printed it off, emailed to my friends and reread over and over.

Not only had I been to Bolivia to La Paz (near Montero) but the average income is $1,100 usd/year (Source: World Bank, 2006) and…

Felipa is now making about 350 days * $8 = $2800 a year! In a country where 40% of the population ~ 3.7 million people live in extreme poverty providing entrepreneurs with micro loans enables them to excel.  

What really really gets me excited is the flow on affects, Felipa can employee, invest, increase consumption thus reinvesting in the local economy.  

In developing countries income can flow through the economy many times in a year (adding up to potentially $10,000/year to the GDP).  

Most importantly micro loans provide capability to those willing to give it a go who in turn inspire others around them.   

Given not all Kiva loans have updates, the ones that do are worth it, and best yet I got all my money back! (reinvested in other loans).  If your still here and haven’t loaned, why not? Hop over to Kiva.

I am a huge Kiva evangelist, enabling anybody anywhere to provide micro loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries.  The capital flows are very neat.

Imagine though getting knowledge flowing in a Kiva like system.

You match up entrepreneurs in developing countries with entrepreneurs in the western world.

For sure there are barriers such as language, technology use (at the other end), lack of context by information providers.

However these aside I think there is a real need.  The cross pollination would benefit both parties.

Imagine dedicating an hour a week to work with or chat with an entrepreneur on the other side of the world.  That would be a real dream.

Oh also it would enhance the catch up effect of developing countries.  Just a thought.

This is all about you, you are doing what you do, you know you can do better, but need some ideas that you can take the ball and run with.  

This is what I do all the time, it is second nature, it is automatic, so it’s my pleasure to share it with you.

(Note since this is possibly my longest post ever! I have got a pdf download so you can print it out)

1. Fundamentally you need to realise (and always focus) it’s all about people.  People like you and me. Telling others and ourselves stories.  
2. A good story enhances status, creates enjoyment, and benefits both the storyteller and the receiver.  It is not zero sum, a good story everyone benefits.
3. Word of mouth is the best referral a consumer can get.  No really, the BEST!
4. You are a storyteller, whether you want to be or not, in what you wear, how you speak, how you walk.  You are communicating to someone at some stage something.  (Stop and reread this).
5. Forget about parasite marketing, sustainable businesses are built on building products that help the purchaser.  If you can help your clients enough to create a worthy story you have an endless chain of word of mouth.
6. We have all heard, a bad experience results in 64 people hearing about it, a good experience leads to 8 hearing about it.  Sounds out of whack right? Wrong.  If I have a good experience with you I will repeat my purchase, if you keep looking after me, i will keep telling 8 people forever…. and everytime I make a purchase.  Marketing & Business is all about the long term.  If you can get a customer and keep them forever they will sell your products for you.  Easy.   Never forget this.  A good customer experience compounds over time.
7. Expecting a sale on the first interaction is short sighted.  Consumers like to wooed, taken for a dance, candlelight dinner.  If you can expose them to your brand several times in different avenues you are more likely to build a satisfied customer.  Remember every exposure is an opportunity to help explain your value proposition.  (Now reread #6).
8. Put yourself in your customers shoes, what am i gaining from this? what is the story i am telling myself? why am i motived to talk to others about your story? 
9. If it doesn’t feel right it often isn’t.  If you are too ashamed to tell those around you what you do, or people you admire, you probably shouldn’t be doing it.
10. People like you, people like the team behind your products, your loyal customers actually want to be their friends (although they realise they can’t) but utilise that.  Get your people to talk with customers, over the phone, twitter, blogs.  Expose the people behind the scenes.  The cross pollination between customers and staff is only going to benefit both parties.  Hint: it also creates a new ‘exclusive’ story for each of those loyal customers.
11. You are always wrong, you just need to be less wrong than your competitors.
12. Forget magic answers, they don’t exist, you know what you need to do.  So do it.  Obsess about customers, drive insane value, your marketing is sorted, now collect the cheques.
13. Cut back, you don’t need 20 channels, cut back to what you do exceedingly well, then get better at it, being the absolute bleeding edge best is far more important than scrapping a few extra dollars.  You will doubt yourself, but hang in there.
14. Bring the whole team together, encourage diversity, open discussions, new ideas, get them to take listening courses, involve them in strategic visions, they define your company to the outside world, so make sure they know what they are defining.
15. Mass advertising builds subconscious brand recognition, but word of mouth demands a purchasing decision.
16. Chase things that scare your organisation, chances are they scare your competitors too, that is signal enough that you at least need to explore it.

The biggest let down with firms trying to innovate is that they do not create the space for innovation to occur.

What happens when staff have new ideas? Who do they pitch to? Do they know who they should pitch to?

More often than not the ideas get squashed, as they threaten someone else.

To create a culture of innovation, ideas need to be open, shared, spared and rewarded.

Create a space for it to happen, have a Monday Ideas Post, a 12 hour startup day, a huge whiteboard in the middle of headquarters (like Google).

Once you have created that void, people will fill it and surprisingly fast.

Given the transitional environment at the moment I thought I would share the words of the new economy.

Obsess, obsession about your customers, how can i help them? how can i deliver insane value, how can i build their business?

Passion, what is my passion? am i fulfilling it? What are my employees passions and how can we utilise that? Do we have a team of passionate people?

Delicious, are your services delicious? are they the nicest in your category, if i was to eat your business would it be delicious?

Agility, we need to be leaner, fitter, agile in every sense.  Leveraging our resources to achieve results that we used to do with twice the resource base.

Manufacturing has been predominantly shifting offshore for well over a decade.

We all know this.

Companies know this.

Yet we are still shocked when another company decides to go offshore.

People do lose jobs, which is a hard jolt, ultimately in the long run (in theory) they will fill positions that deliver higher value to the economy.

At the moment jobs are going to go offshore at an alarming rate and it’s not going to stop.  Why? Companies are set up to make a profit for their owners, until that changes, companies will explore the most profitable solutions.

That aside, what I want to touch on is being proactive.

If this has been a trend for so long, why haven’t governments set up proactive departments? That seek out manufacturers, help them go offshore but also help them upskill their workers and maximise the opportunities for them.

This would be the smartest move for all.

Why try and stop the inevitable, be proactive, everyone wins.

I am a fan of the cafe, constantly hold meetings there, nice atmosphere, food, drink.

A strong message at the moment I keep talking about is using your existing organisation to sell yourself.

Cafes are a great example of this, some staff are proactive can recommend something nice to eat, the daily special, maybe they can make you what you want.  Majority of them though, stand behind the food, dish it out, then process your payment.

The difference here is, some staff are sales people, taking initiative to help the business.  The latter are like cogs in a machine, follow the system, collect the paycheck.

I have good news, the latter can be trained! Give them some sales training, reward sales or increases in customer satisfaction.  Your employees know your products / services better than most, remind them that helping produce sales is a win/win for all.  

The same goes for clients & users.  All three should be your top sales channels.  They COULD be selling for you! but only if you help provide the tools for them to do so.

1. Look at how you generate sales now.
2. Then look at where you could be selling, give them a test.  

You’d be surprised at how effective alternative channels are.

Twitter has in my mind reached a tipping point.

Reason being? at a family function last night someone asked me about twitter, something happened this week and suddenly everyone knows about it.

I will check in a few months and see if indeed this week has been it.  It definitely is in conversations it wasn’t last week.

Radio mentions, Skittles, Tv, all these things have combined.

People all over the world are asking the ‘internet guy’ in their frame of reference, what is this twitter?

If you are  a brand who has exposed yourself to this internet guy you are ahead.  For me I highlighted Twitter with Vodafone & Telecom, brands they know.  If you haven’t made the leap you are already behind.

Now twitter has reached this, what is the next step? Monetisation.

Tip of everyones tongues.

And from my readings, observations and looking forward several steps, contextual advertising is the way to go.

Twitter bridges the gap between, locality, motivation, mood that Google doesn’t.

Live, response driven ads, are going to not only help the twitter experience, they will drive a lot of value to users.

Imagine an event being cancelled, a competitor can immediately place an ad saying hey we are still on, for all those that search for the event.  This is timely, relevant and reaches a motivated audience.

That is just one application, same can be for brand monitoring ie search for coca cola, coca cola has a special deal or competition running.

I would certainly pay for an advertisement to pop up everytime someone searched bwagy or ben young.

That’s friday thoughts, have a think, how would you leverage advertising on real time search?

(Note: by definition Google is post-search, it searches events that have already happened, certainly within the frame of reference of someone who wants information from within 15 mins ago).

Workshops & seminars are always great fun, you learn a lot, meet interesting people, get re-enthused with your business.

The real difficulty is taking that away and apply it to your business.

Tom started out by saying that he wasn’t there to introduce something new he was there to remind us of what we already knew when we started out in entrepreneurship but had lost sight of in the heat of the moment.

He was right.

They key points of the day were:
– Write thank you notes. Religiously.
– Small is nothing to be ashamed of.
– Good enough is not a term we should take lightly. We need to be using works like shock and awe.
– #1 word for this market is focus.
– Learn to listen. Not half listen. Really listen. (Hint: take a listening course).
– Adapt small changes which result in behavioural changes.
– The next five years are going to be the defining years of our careers. We need to act on it, not hide from the challenge.

The underlying theme of all this was, the small things matter, they matter now than ever before and this should be our focus.

You can download slides of Tom’s presentation from his blog:
http://www.tompeters.com/entries.php?note=010862.php

Also you can check out my exclusive interview with Tom on Youtube, Ben Young chats with Tom Peters.

The lighting wasn’t great, but audio is, so please listen as the content is mint.

It amazes me how many people ARE NOT doing this, so….

Do you:

1) Have an online business (or storefront)

2) Automated systems to sell your products?

Then you need to be investing in automating your business growth.

How you say?

Invest in:

1) Google Adwords / Yahoo Search Marketing: capture people already motivated in your product and sell to them.

2) Search Engine Optimisation, after above run a Search Engine Optimisation campaign to garner daily free traffic to drive sales.

After three months you will have a fair idea on growth off that and do exactly that.  Grow.

When you watch a movie it is a combination of thousands of different shots, all put together to create a story.

Stand alone they have not nearly as much value as they do together.

A classic example in an action film, is a 2 second shot showing a police car driving through people with one ring of the siren.

The very next shot shows the stars, either in an ambulance, or talking to police, or off to the side talking to one another.  Everything is safe now, it’s ok, what’s next?

That 2 second shot communicates, things have quietened down, everyone is safe (the police have arrived) we can slow down for a while.

Your interactions with your customers are exactly the same, you need to build them into an overall experience.

Tourist operators are fantastic at this, they decide what experience they want to have and ensure that all interactions help build it.

Another example is board rooms, often outside the board room are picture connotating success (mountains, graphs of success, newspaper clippings), the books you can read are on super yahcts, luxury cards, golf.  All things associated with success.  This is a priming tactic so that you walk into the board room thinking of being successful.

What is the story you want your customers to have? Define that, and work backwards.

Ps. Apologies if you never watch a movie the same again!

You know the 6 degrees of separation rule.

It is even smaller online.  In New Zealand apparently it’s 2 degrees of separation to everyone.  If two people are on Twitter or LinkedIn I would guess most people would be 2 maybe 3 degrees of separation (especially for larger networks).

I would like a quick app, I could load up my Twitter + LinkedIn (Facebook for others) and it analyses my networks and theirs (first level only).  

Then all i do is enter a name, it searches those, and lets me know who I know someone through.

It would be fantastic! At a conference I could put someones name in see if I know someone they do, instant conversation starter.  Someone pitching to me, same deal.

The world is all about relationships, someone please build this.  Give me this app now!

It would make social interactions such a breeze.

When did you last say thanks?

And really meant it?

Thanks shows appreciation.

Thanks shows you care.

Thanks shows you notice.

Thanks shows your human.

Thanks shows I’m important.  And that should be important to you.