Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Is Site Traffic & Sign-Ups Enough To Confirm You’ve Got a Growth Business?

Without patiently testing for actual business that offers an invaluable service, entrepreneurs sometimes get caught up in the number of signups or on the thousands of site visitors who checkout their site and think that’s enough reason to build a business.  And some VC’s throw millions of dollars on these hunches.

Monday, August 12, 2013

Founders Under 40™ Group: Solo-Founders Tip

Entrepreneurship is hard work and it can be harder if you work by yourself so we put together some useful tips to help you get through or until you find your co-founders and advisers. Remember there’s nothing wrong with being a solo-founder. Either you are not ready, you haven’t found the one, or you just like working by yourself initially. Below are some tips to handle yourself. 

 

What drives you: If you’ve chosen to pursue this path. You better make sure it’s on  the right path. Here’s what I mean. Take some time to know what makes you happy and what doesn’t. What are you willing to sacrifice for your dream. Next, make effort to test your ideas and question if the market you’re chasing is big enough to attract other founders and financial assistance. And get a good ROI. 

 

We all need friends: There are times you will be lonely, frustrated, and discourage so it is important you have someone or someplace to go to recharge yourself. Joining a group like Founders Under 40 Group is a perfect place. You can interact freely or vent or rant opening on their un-moderated open forum on M’s Push Magazine, pushmgazine.bjmannyst.com   or  ask for advice on their social networks or upgrade to get access to more personal attention. Go out for dinner, go see a movie, go to a public events, etc. 

 

Always Give thanks: always be grateful even though your business ideas has hit a dead-end or it’s growing so fast. What I always do is remind myself that somewhere in the world someone would kill to have half of what I have. So stop the self pity party or the God complex.  Be grateful for your successes in life. 

 

Personal Development: This one is really up to you. Your life is a journey and in that journey you grow by reaction or grow by choice. It means pickup a book, watch biography video of people you admin and develop yourself. The school of life never stops. 

 

Mind & Body: When you take away your car, money,house, children, sex, etc. all that you can take full control of is your mind & body. Feed it good food so you can continue to get good things out of it.

 

 

*Written by the Founder of Founders Under 40 Group. The fastest growing unconventional founders community in the world.

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Finding The Decision Maker - Shared by BJ Mannyst



As sales people, we are trained to ruthlessly seek out the decision maker and focus all our efforts on that individual.  Whether it’s to understand their needs, provide insight, pitch a solution, our focus is on finding the decision maker and locking in on that individual.


We’re trained to ask pointed questions like, “Are you the decision maker?”  There’s only one answer that a customer will give to that question–it’s “Yes,”  or the variant, “Yes, I’m involved in making the decision.”  As a side note, do we ever expect the customer to say, “No, I just had idle time on my hands and thought it would be interesting to spend it with a sales person on something I have no interest in.”
But as I review many sales situations, finding the decision maker (s) is a critical issue.  Too often, we can’t find the decision maker (s) or we can’t get access to them. 

Here are some challenges I see sales people facing:


We focus our efforts through our friends/buddies (Read — the wrong people):  This is one of the biggest sales errors I encounter.  We tend to focus our sales efforts through the people we have always worked with, the people that have been our friends, and sponsors in the past.  While these are great relationships to nurture, and they may give some insights on the sales situation, if they aren’t important in the decision making process, we may be wasting our time.


We try to find “the” decision maker:  In larger organizations, more people may be involved in the decision and even more people can stop a decision.  We need to make sure we’ve determined who is involved in each decision, the nature of their involvement, what the personal win for them is, their attitudes toward us and the alternatives, and how they exercise power and influence.  We also need to understand who influences them.  In truth, we are dealing with a network of people having varying stakes in the decision, but all of whom are involved and who we must engage.  Ignoring them, focusing on the person who seem most senior or has the biggest title puts us at great risk to fail.


The customer doesn’t know how they will make a decision:  Unless you sell products and services that customers buy frequently, there’s a high probability they may not know how to buy.  They may not have the right people involved in the decision making process, the decision may be beyond their capabilities, responsibilities, or authority.  Often, sales people can provide great value in helping the customer organize to address an opportunity, make a decision, and buy.


Decision making is being pushed higher in the organization.  More an more, final decisions are being pushed higher in the organization.  Sometimes, unbelievably high.  As an example, not long ago, I had a conversation with the frustrated CMO of a Fortune 100 organization—he was the very top marketing guy in the company and managed a very large team of marketing and product managers.  His “signature authority” was limited to $50,000.  Despite his very senior level, he had to take many decisions to the CFO, the CEO, or even the board.


This poses a number of challenges to sales people.  We may simply (even with all our cleverest techniques) may not have access to the top decision makers.  We may “win” the decision at lower levels, but now we have to train the customer on how to sell up the food chain.  Many of our customers might be very uncomfortable with this.  They may lack the confidence, they may feel as though they are putting themselves at risk, or they may just do a bad job.  If we are to get a decision, we need to prepare our customers to be able to “sell” their decision to their executive teams.


Another thing may happen, the people we are working with may just run out of steam.  Going back to my friend, the CMO, he was very frustrated and was sharing his frustrations with me.  He had an outstanding proposal for some marketing programs from an agency.  They would cost several hundred thousand, but he was convinced they would produce great return.  He had the money in his budget to make the investment.  However, to get the decision approved, he would have to spend time with the CFO, the CEO, and 3 members of the board.  Rich told me, “I just don’t have the time or energy to get this thing done.  While I think the program will produce great results, the hassle of getting a decision made it just too big.  This is a tough position—we may have little recourse, but we have to convince them to take action, then work with them to prepare them to sell the decision.  Often, that requires us understanding what is important to the people they have to convince and shaping the arguments to address those issues.


There are lots of vetoer’s:  This is an unfortunate reality—there may be more people empowered with stopping something than making a decision and taking action.  We may not be able to identify all of them, but it’s dangerous to ignore them.  We may not have to convince them, we may just need to have them not exercise their veto rights.


So what’s a sales person to do?  Finding and engaging all the people involved in the decision making process is critical to moving business opportunities further.  It’s probably not as simple as “calling higher.”  As my CMO friend would point out, he reported to the CEO and was virtually as high up the food chain as he could get, but he still had constraints that he had to operate within.


There are many people involved in the decision making process, we need to engage many of them, we need to understand how power and influence will be exercised and invest more time (though not exclusively) in those with great power and influence for the specific decision we want made.
We have to prepare our customers to “sell” within the organization.  There will be decision-makers we simply will not be able to reach, so we have to prepare our customers to sell within their organization.
It’s no use ignoring this or trying to deny this.  Getting decisions made is getting more difficult.  It’s our job to navigate the process and help the customer with their decision-making process.


*Written by a Different Author: David B.













Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Founders Under 40™ Group: Qualities of a Bad Boss

 


I know lots of times we emphasize the qualities of great boss. We spend our life worshiping and admiring our heroes. Dissecting every aspect of their character and how they became a success. Some of us imitate them. While it's great, most times we fail to identify the qualities of a bad manager and how it might be a reason for growing inefficiencies.  

So the following is a list:

 ------------------------------

 

Indecisive: constantly asking for more and more information, seeking more opinions and options.  

 

Information Secrecy: Hording information and treating employees like children. Thinking that people would not be able to comprehend  

 

Secrecy: "We can’t tell the staff," is something I hear managers say repeatedly. They defend this position with the argument that staff will be distracted, confused or simply unable to comprehend what is happening in the business. If you treat employees like children, they will behave that way -- which means trouble. If you treat them like adults, they may just respond likewise. Very few matters in business must remain confidential and good managers can identify those easily. The lover of secrecy has trouble being honest and is afraid of letting peers have the information they need to challenge him. He would rather defend his position than advance the mission. Secrets make companies political, anxious and full of  distrust. 

 

Oversensitivity: "I know she’s always late, but if I raise the subject, she’ll be hurt."  An inability to be direct and honest with staff is a critical warning sign. Can your   manager see a problem, address it headlong and move on? If not, problems won’t get resolved, they’ll grow. When managers say staff is too sensitive, they are usually  describing themselves. Wilting violets don’t make great leaders. Weed them out. Interestingly, secrecy and over-sensitivity almost always travel together. They are a bias against honesty. 

 

Love of procedure: Managers who cleave to the rule book, to points of order and    who refer to colleagues by their titles have forgotten that rules and processes exist to expedite business, not ritualize it. Love of procedure often masks a fatal inability to  prioritize -- a tendency to polish the silver while the house is burning. 

 

Preference for weak candidates: We interviewed three job candidates for a new position. One was clearly too junior, the other rubbed everyone up the wrong way and the third stood head and shoulders above the rest. Who did our manager want to hire? The junior. She felt threatened by the super-competent manager and hadn’t the confidence to know that you must always hire people smarter than yourself. 

 

Focus on small tasks: Another senior salesperson I hired always produced the most perfect charts, forecasts and spreadsheets. She was always on time, her data completely up-to-date. She would always volunteer for projects in which she had no core expertise -- marketing plans, financial forecasts, meetings with bank managers, the office move. It was all displacement activity to hide the fact that she could not do her real job. 

 

Allergy to deadlines: A deadline is a commitment. The manager who cannot set, and stick to deadlines, cannot honor commitments. A failure to set and meet  deadlines also means that no one can ever feel a true sense of achievement. You  can’t celebrate milestones if there aren’t any. 

 

Inability to hire former employees: I hired a head of sales once with (apparently) a luminous reputation. But, as we staffed up, he never attracted any candidates from his old company. He’d worked in sales for twenty years -- hadn’t he mentored anyone who’d want to work with him again? Every good manager has alumni, eager to join the team again; if they don’t, smell a rat. 

 

Addiction to consultants: A common -- but expensive -- way to put off making decisions is to hire consultants who can recommend several alternatives. While they’re figuring these out, managers don’t have to do anything. And when the consultant’s choices are presented, the ensuing debates can often absorb hours, days, months. Meanwhile, your organization is poorer but it isn’t any smarter. When the consultant leaves, he takes your money and his increased expertise out  the door with him. 

 

Long hours: In my experience, bad managers work very long hours. They think this  is a brand of heroism but it is probably the single biggest hallmark of incompetence. To work effectively, you must prioritize and you must pace yourself. The manager who boasts of late nights, early mornings and no time off cannot manage himself so you’d better not let him manage anyone else. 

 

Any one of these behaviors should sound a warning bell. More than two -- sound the alarm!

 

*written by a different author

Monday, August 5, 2013

Founders Under 40™ Group: Qualities of a Good Leader

 


According to a poll on Founders Under 40™ Group, inspiring leadership is the number one reason why someone would work for a start-up or company. So I, Founder of Founders Under 40™ decided to find out what are qualities of a good leader.

*(The list below was written by a different author.) 

 

 

  • They collaborate rather than grandstand.

Extraordinary bosses realize that success doesn't have to entail only individual accomplishment. They redefine that emotionally-packed word "success" so that wealth, position, and fame are no longer what really matters. They realize that group success is entirely consistent with individual accomplishment.

 

  • They build communities rather than platoons.

Extraordinary bosses focus on the basic wants and needs of the community and the desire to move from what exists now to what is possible. This creates a groundswell of activity as more and more people feel included and want to help. This allows them to tackle problems at the core, in order to make change happen.

 

  • They create new realities.

Extraordinary bosses create a sense that all things are possible. Everyone who's ever faced a daunting challenge knows how important it is to be around somebody who can communicate what seems impossible and see the essence of hope in a haystack of adversity, allowing a business to break through into new markets.

 

  • They laugh at problems (and themselves).

Extraordinary bosses use humor put worries into perspective, so that we can laugh at ourselves and the situation before tackling hard work. The ability to tell the right joke at the right time reduces office stress and builds camaraderie, which is a real advantage in today's intense, fast-paced work environments.

 

  • They help others visualize a better future.

Extraordinary bosses don't just have a vision of the future. They also have a rare ability to understand and channel the desires and needs of other people. They listen as much as they talk and thus create a shared vision that motivates everybody, not just the boss. They point to a place that we know is better and give us the courage to get there.

 

  • They avidly explore new ideas.

Extraordinary bosses are always willing to be part of the first test to make sure that a project will succeed. They guide people into new territory, without hogging the limelight. They have a great sense of timing and know when to wait until the kinks have been worked out... without waiting too long.

 

  • They mentor and coach.

Extraordinary bosses know how to listen and give good advice at just the right time. Because they haven't sailed through life, they know what it's like to overcome intense obstacles and challenges. Most importantly, they're willing to let go when you're competent to make your own decisions without them.

 

  • They use stories to inspire.

Extraordinary bosses know that a good story can move people to places where no  PowerPoint can take them. They know that stories help people understand how problems can be, and should be, solved. They use stories to close the distance that  voicemail, e-mails and texting create between us.

 

  • They integrate pieces into wholeness.

Extraordinary bosses have the ability to see all sides of a situation and allow conflicting parties to not only be heard but acknowledged. They can gather a group and find ways that individuals can work together. They have an uncanny way of "slicing the pie" so that while every piece may not be identical, everyone feels treated with fairness  and respect.

 

  • They tell the truth, even when inconvenient.

Extraordinary bosses do not change their minds just to pacify someone, although they are not averse to adjusting their opinions if that will enable a conflict to push towards resolution. They do not "beat around the bush," so you always know where you  stand. They treat you as an adult who can handle the truth rather than a child who  must be protected from it.

 

  • They act before they have ALL the answers.

Extraordinary bosses can tolerate and moderate the conflicts that inevitably show up before the creative process comes into full bloom. They enjoy being involved in the  thick of arguments, thus allowing problems and dissent to be resolved more quickly  so that the creative process can move forward.

 

  • They create a climate of trust.

Extraordinary bosses know that trust is the glue that holds an organization together. Their commitment to build trust creates a counter force to the deception and political game-playing that makes so many offices difficult places to work. They know that trusting, and being trusted, is the best way to ensure that everyone in the organizations wins.

 

  • They make peace between factions.

Extraordinary bosses cannot be swayed to side with one group or individual against another but instead work to preserve the integrity of the whole system. Peacemakers  teach us that peace is a state of mind and that it's still possible to be happy even in the midst of turmoil and chaos.

 

 

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Has Your Tech Business Taking A Marketing Health Check?

A lot of  times many entrepreneurs and founders spends hours on developing the tech product without truly understanding the pain of their potential target. And hit a road block and suddenly they start running around looking for marketing specialist / community manager to help fine-tune their strategy and breakthrough the competitive market.

I attend a few hackatons and know that Tech guys know very well how to identify a problem but most time they lack the marketing & business sense to see the dimensions of the execution.
My advice, especially tech founders, prior to development go out and engage your prospects openly. Mid way conduct a marketing health check-up.

If you don’t have a marketing team member, BJ Mannyst, Founders Under 40 Group marketing service provider, has develop a free 24 Hours marketing check-up toolkit & service that might help. 
It also can help senior marketing managers of multi-million companies.
The benefit is that it keeps on track and helps you catch problems sooner.
Free BJ Mannyst 24hrs marketing health check-up kit

***Please note this is no longer a Free Offer. Updated June 2019. We still can assess your overall service business marketing and make suggestion at an agreed fee. Please contact us or email.

Mind Control Coming...Who is Going to Protect You.

It's just a matter of time before your mind and body becomes a slave to certain institutions. The use of influence and propaganda to sway people would not be necessarily. Whom ever has the technology could simply rule the world easily.
"In April, when researchers from Harvard Medical School published the rat video on YouTube, they were demonstrating the creation of a brain-to-brain interface formed between human and vermin. Basically, the human could concentrate on a specific idea and—via something called transcranial focused ultrasound, or FUS—an impulse would be sent to excite the part of the rat’s brain that controls tail movement. The experiment worked 94 percent of the time, with a thought taking about 1.5 seconds to travel from human to rat."
I don't see much upside to this technology other than to feed powerful people and institutions, who like to be Gods, with more power.  Some application could be you take over the mind of politicians to do questionable injustice. Have oil nations leaders, OPEC, sell their oil cheaper. Have people buy a Nokia phone instead of a Apple iPhone. 
It reminds me of military unmanned air drones. A nation with the technology reduces it's own casualties because others can not attack or stop a superior weapon there's a possibility of unimaginable abuse of power. 
"The chip maker Intel (INTC) and researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have done some very promising work around mind-reading with humans. They can ask a person to think about a specific object and can then determine—90 percent of the time—what that object is by watching brain activity on an fMRI machine. So far, the vocabulary for the tests is limited to about 1,000 words, and the subjects are merely picking between a couple of words at a time, but their success rate is good enough to conceive of people being able to turn a smartphone or a TV on and off via thoughts alone."
For marketer this will be the greatest technology since the television. Television is a tool that systematically told you how to think, what to wear, who is judging you, what others have, etc.  With a mind reading technology, marketers can find out what material or message is really working. We can find out why it's working. Marketer might simply send a signal directly to your brain to stop buying Colgate and start buying Crest. 

I would like to hear your thoughts and any emerging companies or individuals focusing on brain reading or brain control. 
*Founders & Founders Under 40 Group members can join this open forum on.
http://pushmagazine.bjmannyst.com



Will You Be the Master of Your Future & Digital Life in 2030?

Around the world millions and millions of people are updating their Facebook page at this moment. Some are sharing pictures of their late night badass adventures to the recent birth of their nephew. Most have filled out all the data fields that media companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon are constantly inventing clever ways to obtain . ..like the “Your Profile is 60% Complete. People with profile pictures have more friends” 

So you delete, some bad judgement pictures, but how do you know if Facebook and Google are not keeping it indefinitely for as long as they want. Because when you think about it, with time and data you can truly begin to profile a person’s behaviour and predict what someone's desires and fears are.  Like in chess if you know every probable and likely move of your opponent you own them.

As more and more become attached to technology, I wonder if the future will likely belong to the machines and our lives will be ruled by machines. Cars, all transportation, manufacturing and services are automated. Eventually with time full control of ones life could be managed by Intelligent Machines.

It will start with, what I call, “Humans Who Govern Super Machines” to “Super Machine Who Govern Other Machines Who Govern Us” 

So I would  like to hear your vision of the future

Saturday, August 3, 2013

Know Your Leadership Style Before You Hire

 

*Written by Daniel G.

Visionary. This style is most appropriate when an organization needs a new direction. Its goal is to move people towards a new set of shared dreams. “Visionary leaders articulate where a group is going, but not how it will get there –setting people free to innovate, experiment, take calculated risks,” write Mr. G and  his coauthors.

Coaching. This oneononestyle focuses on developing individuals, showing them how to improve their performance, and helping to connect their goals to the goals of the organization. Coaching works best, Mr. G writes, “with employees who show initiative and want more professional development.” But it can backfire if it’s perceived as “micromanaging” an employee, and undermines his or her self-confidence.

Affiliative. This style emphasizes the importance of team work, and creates harmony in a group by connecting people to each other. Mr. G argues this approach is particularly valuable “when trying to heighten team harmony, increase morale, improve communication or repair broken trust in an organization.” But he warns against using it alone, since its emphasis on group praise can allow poor performance to go uncorrected. “Employees may perceive,” he writes, “that mediocrity is tolerated.”

Democratic. This style draws on people’s knowledge and skills, and creates a group commitment to the resulting goals. It works best when the direction the organization should take is unclear, and the leader needs to tap the collective wisdom of the group. Mr. G warns that this consensus-building approach can be disastrous in times of crisis, when urgent events demand quick decisions.

Pacesetting. In this style, the leader sets high standards for performance. He or she is “obsessive about doing things better and faster, and asks the same of everyone.” But Mr. G warns this style should be used sparingly, because it can undercut morale and make people feel as if they are failing. “Our data shows that, more often than not, pacesetting poisons the climate,” he writes.

 Commanding. This is classic model of “military” style leadership – probably the most often used, but the least often effective. Because it rarely involves praise and frequently employs criticism, it undercuts morale and job satisfaction. Mr. G argues it is only effective in a crisis, when an urgent turnaround is needed. Even   the modern military has come to recognize its limited usefulness.

 

*My thoughts: I believe been able to identify current business situation or stage and then adjust your leadership style is very important. Another way is to have in your management team individuals with a leadership style more in one type than others. or you can hire. Hope this is useful.

Some Social Media Objectives To Consider

Some social media objective and tactics ideas

  • Do you want to spread your content and expertise to new audiences?
  • Do you want to network with like-minded individuals and companies?
  • Do you want to build a community of evangelists?
  • Do you want to involve your customers and prospects in co-creation?
  • Do you want to automate the process of repurposing content?
  • Do you want to reach new audiences in the exact way they choose to  communicate?
  • Do you want to be seen as a thought leader in your industry?
  • Do you want ways to aggregate and filter content so you and your people can digest it?
  • Do you want to easily hear literally everything that’s being said online   about your brand, products, or industry in real time?
  • Do you want to be seen as a trusted source of information?

*Written by a different author

Friday, August 2, 2013

Better Value Proposition Development

Let’s define a value proposition

In its simplest terms, a value proposition is a positioning statement that describes for whom you do what uniquely well. It describes your target buyer, the problem you solve, and why you’re distinctly better than the alternatives.

One of the classic mistakes of building a value proposition is diving headlong into the solution definition phase before really understanding the problem you’re looking to solve. To understand whether it’s a problem worth solving, I  recommend exercising four U’s:

Is the problem unworkable? Does your solution fix a broken business process where there are real, measureable consequences to inaction? 

Is fixing the problem unavoidable? Is it driven by a mandate with implications associated with governance or regulatory control? For example, is it driven by a fundamental requirement for accounting or compliance? 

Is the problem urgent? Is it one of the top three priorities? In selling to enterprises, you’ll find it hard to command the attention and resources to get a deal done if you fall below this line. 

Is the problem underserved? Is there a conspicuous absence of valid solutions to the problem you’re looking to solve? Focus where there’s whitespace, not scorched earth.

Problems worth solving yield a decisive “yes” to the majority of these questions.

Next, ask yourself whether the problem is blatant and critical. Problems that are blatant and critical are far more acute that those that are latent and aspirational. Blatant and critical problems stand in the way of business. They put careers and reputations at risk and whiten knuckles. Latent problems are unacknowledged, which means they often require costly missionary selling. Aspirational problems are optional, which is the hardest of places for a B2B start-up to sell. Though in B2C, they can be drivers as people look for things like status or fashion.

Now that you’ve determined what problem you’re solving and validated its criticality, it’s time to define your solution. The most urgent question to ask is: What is your compelling breakthrough? 

 

*Written by another author

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