People & Compound Damage

No doubt your new start up will face issues. Many of them will be people related. Some will be things simply not getting done or not working once you press the on switch. If issues arise and remain unresolved within 24 hours you will start to suffer Compound Damage. This is particularly the case with suppliers and staff. All things in life compound, it is just natures way.  Consider this with all problems and general stuff ups.

If you ignore them they will go away, along with your business.

Mind your language – Hyperbole

Light, Low fat, no fat, fat free, rain forest alliance, low carb, high protein, calcium enriched, fair trade, retail partnership, heart foundation approved, recycled packing, reduced packing, no msg, low salt, low sodium, 5 star energy rating, green energy, eco, carbon offset, carbon free, carbon neutral, low sugar, no sugar, no trans fat, recycled materials, as seen on TV, television first, world premier, made for TV, made fresh, frozen fresh, real, all natural, nothing artificial, easy opening, 25% off, 10% extra, free, no added colors or flavours, diet, bite size, king size, sugar free, caffeine free, may contain nuts, dolphin safe, premium, value, gluten free, Low GI, lowers cholesterol, imported, made locally, no added sugar, made locally from imported ingredients, Australian owned, vitamin enriched, concentrated, biodegradable, recommended daily intake, enjoy responsibly….

Enough.

We’ve all read this oxymoronic language. But when we are using any of these words in our marketing we should step back and ask why?

Are we trying to ‘clean up’ our stuff?

Turns out most times people use these words to sell stuff, they are trying to ‘de-bad’ (from the startup blog dictionary) something. A banana doesn’t need any descriptors – we already know it’s biodegradable, easy opening, no artificial colors and isn’t passed it’s used by date just by looking at it. The point for startups is this – if we are using language of this ilk, we must ensure it is authentic.  If not, people will see right through it and will spread the ‘truth’ for us.

Digital Footprints – the power of

Recently I took a photo in New York of something I thought to be particularly interesting. I uploaded it to twitpic and posted it on my twitter page. The net result was approx 100 views of the image. Here it is below:

Fast forward 2 months and the image is ‘re-tweeted’ back to me from someone else after it has made the rounds and it now has more than 38,000 views. Holy Wow. (You can click the image to see the current view count)

How did it get 38,000+ views after only 100 people cared when I first posted it? Well the answer is simple, it’s digital, which means its footprint stays forever – the digital footprint. And when someone more influential on the web than me share’s it, it spreads in a compound fashion. Sure it got shared, call it viral, call it what you please. But the thing of true power here is the digital footprint. It wasn’t an instant in market reaction. The spreading happened 2 months after the launch. Not the day it went to air, like a TV advertisement.

The lesson for startups and marketers is simple. The real power of digital media is the footprint it leaves, the permanency, and the ability for people to catch up. This is something traditional media (newspapers, radio, billboards, Tv) just don’t have.

Don’t be shit

This is brilliant piece of communication from Rory. It just resonates with me, and I’m sure it will with you.

Thankyou Rory.

Radvertising – James Boag

Here’s some more radvertising from local Tasmanian beer brand James Boag. Watch it, then I’ll tell you why it is radvertising:

Sure, it’s very entertaining, even funny. But as I’ve said many times before this isn’t why is ‘radvertising’, it’s because the creative idea is inextricably linked to the product…

• Brand Heritage evident in the visuals and story
• The core idea of ‘special water’ relates strongly to the brand and it’s Point of Difference
• It’s conversation worthy, which means it’ll spread digitally, like it is right here on startup blog
• And yes, it’s a joy to watch

The only negative, if there is one, is the potential for it to do a ‘category job’ for all beers Tasmanian, but that is inherent in their proposition and difficult to avoid.

The lessons for startups trying to create ‘radvertising’ is simple, make sure your ‘creative idea’ is linked the actual product.

The Feedback Trap

I recently heard an interview with the Drummer from band Midnight Oil, Rob Hurst. He was asked how he felt about a particular record which made it to number 1 on the US charts. His response was this:

‘We were too busy touring, putting on shows to follow the bands progress.”

It sounded as though serving the fans they already had was more important than gaining new ones. And guess what happens when we do that? Our reputation grows and more fans arrive, they find us because we are delivering something special to those who already appreciate what we are doing.

The formula for success is to continue to focus on delivering good stuff to those who already believe in you. To improve our delivery to them. Just like Midnight Oil was continuing to perfect the live performance of it’s songs. They weren’t worrying if their songs were good enough, they weren’t focused on external feedback from sources like sales revenue or chart positions. They ignored all feedback, except that from existing fans (customers). They didn’t get caught in the feedback trap.

So what are the feedback traps of the modern entrepreneur?
-    Website traffic
-    Google analytics
-    Facebook friends
-    Twitter follows
-    AC Nielsen data
-    Market share statistics
-    (Insert feedback mechanism here)

These tools can be useful, but they also tempt us to change tack.  They tempt us into believing we are strategically wrong, because the feedback is so instant. Where as the benefits of our strategy is never so instant. Strategy takes time to work, it takes belief and patience, more over it takes ‘the real feedback’ cycle to spread before we can truly know if we have something. And the real feedback cycle is what our current customers have to say, and if they spread the word.

Startups out there – don’t fall into the feedback trap.

Humans aren’t resources

Something I put on twitter referring to any business I ever run, including rentoid.com – which is certainly worth sharing with my startup blog readers:

1 versus millions

It’s easy for us to be taken by the one in a billion websites like Facebook, Youtube and the like and think we need millions to make what we do work. The reality for most of our businesses is that we don’t need huge crowds, just a handful of good loyal people who dig what we do.
Sure some of us do need the zillions, like my business rentoid.com does… but the large majority of us don’t. We don’t need global awareness and brand recognition. What we need is a small group of dedicated fans, much like what Kevin Kelly has espoused in 1000 true fans.

But it’s often hard to get our heads around this, to believe this could really be all we need in the social media millions focus. So here’s what we ought do. This about how long it takes to have a decent conversation with 1, 10 or even 100 people. To imagine lining up 100 people, all of which are interested in what you do. To imagine them all in your living room or backyard at a BBQ. Your house would be very full, very busy, and chatting to all 100 people individually would take a week or so. In the real world it’s a lot of people.

And the internet is ‘the real world’….

The real world we are doing business in, not a virtual one. The real world where each customer matters and is always the start of our journey towards potentially millions.

Digital Mentors

It’s never been easier to be mentored on a specific subject, from experts, for free. There are even live feedback mechanisms from other interested experts. It’s called blogging and you may think this is a ridiculous entry giving you’re reading one right now.

It’s only ridiculous if we fail to leverage the blogosphere to it’s full potential. Many of us don’t. We’ve got to get involved. Not be passive, ask questions, link, re-post and share with our crew.

The real power of such social media is dialogue. My favourite blog has 25,000+ readers a day. The publisher has his email address listed on it. When I email him a question he gets back to me within a day or two with an answer, a link, a blog entry or if I’m really lucky a free PDF copy of his latest book.

In fact some of my most valued mentors are colleagues I know in a similar space, or mind frame who write excellent blogs in their own right. I trust and value their opinion and so they are mentors to me also – even though – better that, they are half my age. Like Ross, Steve and Ben. Who are all as good or better than any celebrity business blogger you follow.

Go on, ask me a question!

No 1 reason being an employee sucks

The number one reason being an employee sucks is this:

You can’t sell your job.

No matter how good you are at what you do,

-    you don’t own your output
-    you are building other peoples brands and empire
-    you are at the risk of hierarchy
-    you are not servant to customers, but wage earners (the fundamental issue)

What this means is that as an employee you are not serving those who actually pay your wages – your consumers. Instead you become servant to people who are best at ‘internal politics’. So for you to succeed in this environment, you too must excel at internal politics. Which takes you always for important real world skills entrepreneurs develop. And then the final reality is that at some point in your ‘employee career’ someone will not like you, and dispose of you. At this point you instantly lose any good will or employee equity which was built. Even if you are a stock holder, you still have no decision making authority.

The point is, if you want to build assets, being an employee makes it difficult because you lack control. If you want control, then you must have the courage to build something independently, like entrepreneurs do.