O MANNY's

IF YOU DON’T READ ANY FURTHER, MAKE SURE TO READ THIS SECTION: IMPROVING WORKFLOW EFFICIENCY

Key

Basic Consideration Before & After Creation of Workflows

(Sample Content. The full eBook is below. Enjoy!)

Using Intent Analysis, Quality Traffic, Quality Work-flow, Quality Leads, Quality Delivery

Your service business deserves efficiency in business operations and marketing, I welcome the opportunity to hear your sales & marketing challenges or inefficiencies [mannyo_linkedin(at)foundersunder40.com]. Specifically, I welcome tech b2b/b2c service businesses who want someone to take a look at their service business and bounce ideas. Thanks

Marketing inefficiencies is like sex with a pillow when two beautiful consensual women are ready to rock-your-world. Marketing inefficiency is doing Facebook ads, LinkedIn ads, Google ads and thinking that’s all the marketing you need. Marketing inefficiencies is following the crowd instead of figuring out what works best for your organization and customers.

Let me share a brief story about a small and growing commercial service organization, doing $5 Million of revenue a year for the past decade, that simply failed to adapt their marketing. 

In the past, most of their business leads came from trade-shows, cold-calling, b2b door-to-door, the occasional flyer on cars tactics, etc. They’ve always seem to do random bunch of things and gotten leads as if it were a miracle. Today, that is not the case, due to the growing competition, review sites, lack-of-differentiation, technology, social change, and lack of modern expertise they are no longer operating.
They have neglected to evolve their processes because they got complacent. They thought things would never change therefore they could keep doing the same things. The take away is that social & economic change is always happening on a micro-macro level and it is important to keep evolving or you will slowly go extinct.

I bet you do know of a business today that does email marketing, content marketing, search engine marketing, video marketing, mobile marketing, event marketing, etc to get to quality-ready-to-buy leads or in some cases stay engage with their customers?
I believe there’s a high chance you said yes!


Do you know that most businesses still struggle with marketing even if they constantly measure, monitor, and adjust?


Do you also know that not many have automated their marketing effort, or adopted agile marketing, machine learning, analytic, data-driven marketing, predictive marketing?


One thing I want to tell you, apart from the subject matter, is that there are many technology tools like machine learning, AI, image recognition, personalization, that will offer, in my opinion, short-term efficient benefit to the early-mid adopters.

The root cause of marketing inefficiencies sometimes is not tools like social media or email, it is likely failure to address fundamentals.So let’s attack marketing inefficiencies however be prepared to handle new inefficiencies.

There are fundamental reasons so many service-based businesses try traditional and digital marketing only to experience little to no success, and state marketing or advertising “is a waste.”  What some of you and businesses don’t realize is that not only does ROI takes the right: time,money, and effort. It also takes getting the whole marketing mix, marketing strategy, workflow, messages, IT systems, target, lead generation processes, traffic, problem, etc right

For a moment you might be thinking hasn’t someone or a company like SalesForce / Marketo/ Hubspot/ Oracle / etc. covered this topic before? Or Why would you want to read this content instead of googling all day long for educational material? My unconventional side would say, "I don’t write and educate like everyone". And my conventional side would say, because I’m not overly educated and exposed to this subject, I can provide a fresh and simpler view for people not too tech literate. And because setting up and maintaining automation systems should not be taking lightly if you value your bottom line.


I present these information due to the fact the world, organizations, founders need ways to analyze which approaches help them acquire opportunities and which ones are just a waste. Also helping anyone to maintain the relationships they already have.


Like many of you, you may have delayed full scale marketing automation or delayed exploring the new ways of doing business because you weren’t ready or because it involve a lot of headaches.


The reality today is that without some form of marketing automation you are just leaving your business future success to chance or to unproven processes. Just hoping your marketing and your sales will hit home runs when you stepup to bat is just childs talk, all fantasy.  


Like you, we wanted to improve more and grow more. Plus, we wanted to educate others before jumping in. If you are a service business that has thoughts and questions on this subject or marketing, contact us or use the form provided below.

IMPORTANT & NOT TO SCARE YOU!

KNOW KEY SIMPLE THINGS SO YOU DON’T GET TOO EXCITED

• Not every marketing automation solution are easy to use
• Not everyone will know how to use it well
• Experts may be required
• Commitment required for ROI
• Training may be required
• Experimentation required
• SaaS comfort required
• Basic to major maintenance required (depends on hosting model)
• Use may require compliance with third party like GDPR, ISP, Email Servers, Security, etc,
• Requires pre and post planning
• Requires good accurate tracking
• Requires good timezone management (if global)
• Requires good coordinating and permissions systems
• Requires good project management
• Requires good communication
• Software is only as good as the people setting it up, managing it and refining it to ensure the desired outcomes are produced
• Comfort trusting others with your data, plans, and client info (if not self hosted)
• Comfort with data and analytics
• Comfort with database clean up and maintenance
• Comfort with segmenting and profiling
• Understanding of unsubscribing users a.k.a DO NOT EMAIL LIST
• Understanding and managing bounce email
• Understanding responsive html email
• Understanding, optional, APIs. 
• Understanding of customer lifecycle
• Understanding and comfort with social, local, global, and
• mobile (SoLoGoMo)
• Understand that marketing automation is a tool not a strategy.
• Understand that it will not help you produce content that lead to sales
• It will not help you with quality of content or messages
• Understand the difference between full marketing automation and single-purpose automation
• Understand that automation tool is not similar to a plane’s auto pilot it still needs a pilot.
• It will require an investment of time and more time if you don’t get immediate help
• It will not fix your marketing, branding, personality, credibility, service, etc
• It may require integration with other software or equipment
• Do you understand the risks, benefits, fixed cost and variable cost?
• Do you need to learn some coding or are simple tools to help you?
• Do you understand providers service level agreement and technical support conditions?
• Do you know how active is providers community?
• Do they have service partners?
• Do they use third party products and / or services?
• Do you know if they are stable enough to invest your time with them?

If you have written content, sent email, wrote descriptions, created headings, titles, or even spoken at an event, you might have forgotten the benefit of using the right words. Steve Jobs could be speaking to a room full of general consumers, I’m sure there are some words he would avoid saying so that he would not  scare people from buying goods and some words that will reassure people they are making a good decision.

The thing about modern consumers is that they **scan more often than they read things** thoroughly. They will scan the back of a book, a can of  beans, magazines, articles, packaging, ad, landing page, instructional manual, even legal agreement when they are about to use Facebook or other services.

**The point is the right words that grabs their attention will either get them to consider you over the competitions. And the wrong words will just not appeal to some. For example, the words “fast-sport-car” suggest a little bit of thrill while a words like, safe-reliable-sports-utility-vehicle suggest good for families and quality conscious consumers.**

So in the world of content marketing, email marketing, social media, SEO, press release and pretty much any medium you can shape the opinion and thoughts of someone else.

It is important to have a keyword game plan (PLEASE USE FOR GOOD).



**IMPORTANT NOTE**: Anyone who might consider applying the insights in this content / ebook should realize that there is an art and science to this. You may have to consider culture, age group, city, current events, meanings, confusions, sensitivity, educational level, religions, experiences, etc.. So please get help from people who know marketing, content, dealing with your target audience. This content is made possible by the kind support of BJ MANNYST & FOUNDERS UNDER 40 GROUP



And FYI, both have no desire  to support groups that promote hate. We just played with the words. ENJOY!

I will bet you that in an organization of thousands of employees, majority of employees will be indifferent to how their company generates the leads that then convert to paying clients which then pays their salaries.
I say this because the people that have to hunt for sales are facing more stress, pressure, change, and urgency to deliver the results. It’s even several times harder if you are a freelancer, small business owner, solopreneur, mompreneur, independent rep, professional service provider.

So I, Manny, and the BJ Mannyst team (marketing service provider) thought lets just put together a really simple lead generating ideas for service providers.

We also realized that the more simple it is the likelihood it would create more competition in the marketplace. Clearly, it’s still a mysterious mapping procedure to precisely know what factors lead to quality leads.
Maybe the A.I, Machine Learning, Marketing Automation can help get to more gold treasure chests instead of the still unpredictable outcome situations.

There’s a lot of milkshake happening around the world,…everyone loves milkshakes. As many have noticed, most founders don’t just want any milkshake. They are looking for the best milkshake that will give them access to mentors, angels, venture capitalist, experts, talent, friends and connections. Okay, If you haven’t figured it out, milkshake is just our fun-dumb-ass word for community. Like the music goes, “My milkshake brings all the. . .”.

If you haven’t notice online communities are all the rage. Maybe it’s because since wireless technology and social media our offline communities are not really like neighborhood-loving-get=to-really-know-you places anymore. It’s more like you do you, do your own tribe, and maybe when there’s an emergence we can do each other.
 
And when we do come together like for a cause, it’s f#%@# awesome at least for the right ones. . .like fighting to make sure men keep making more money than women. (Insert LOL). What is really been said here is that online communities are becoming powerful and invaluable to address social-economic desires. Plus, in our tech craze world, lonely, mentel health crisis world we all need a place to call home. Where you can consume the milkshake of your choice and not f%&&# feel guilty.

Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase announced a new alliance in early 2018. In the last two years the formation of alliances has grown. The need and demand for forming alliances and being a part of a business / founders community is becoming a norm. Everywhere you go you will notice how technology, politics, money, environmental, culture, communities,values, gender, ideology are just disrupting everything at a much rapid pace. And the reality for many founders and business managers is that it gets tougher to hold your ground, maintain relationships, find better contacts, etc while continuing to build healthy traction for yourself, your family, your team, and your business. 


The solution, I have come to realize, is the strong need to form good alliances and be in the right communities.


I, BJ Mannyst (marketing services) team + Founders Under 40™ Group (unconventional founders community) have put this invaluable resource together to quickly help start-ups, founders, freelancers, professional service providers, small medium businesses, etc quickly identify, associate, belong, and form lasting healthy alliances.



It’s a simple resource for making alliances & communities work for you & your business.

As always if you need further help with marketing your service business or your founder journey, contact us.

How founders can create alliances and belong to communities from Manny of BJ Mannyst

Usually times like these, end of years, are a great time to reflect and do better in the future. I’m betting everyone and every business wants to sell better in 2019 , 2020 and forever. So I, Founders Under 40 Group team, BJ Mannyst team took sometime to assess what is working, what to keep doing, and what to start experimenting with to help stay competitive.


But I also,note, that i'm fearful that most modest businesses will not have the next generation expertise like expertise in industrial 4.0 to stay competitive. I do fear if you or your freelancer biz / gig biz/ smb business are not highly tech savvy and educated in tech there’s a chance growth might stall for many.




In the near future, there will be solutions providers like Amazons Web Services, Google, Microsoft, etc who are going to dominate more IAAS (Infrastructure As A Service), PAAS(Platform As A Service) but what then happens in five years is that the advance-profitable-tech businesses become more lucrative for a few and less tech/ old tech businesses get turned into commodities. Just as companies like Uber have commodity-fy car transportation.



In the end what I’m saying is to take the time today to see what functions of your business  is essential, which once are true competitive advantages and what parts can you delegated, what can be evolved because industrial 4.0 evolution is going to happen. In the mean time here are my thoughts, other people's thoughts and tips for selling and marketing better 2020 and forever.

The reality is not many consumers care what their favorite brand stands for or what it’s founders say or are involve in. The founder of a real estate empire can be womanizer and a slave driver - - - And yet most consumers can separate the founder from the product. And there are always going to be some who will not stand for it. The example that comes to mind is Tiger Woods and the numerous women he had consensual sex with while married. No harm done but some companies pull their sponsorship dollars.

So the current situation with Dolce & Gabbana founders is another example how values and money conflicts in reality. As a person who markets, helps manage a fast growing founders community, and assist founders, I wanted to help myself and fellow founders learn from Dolce Gabbana founders.

Original Title: Should startup founders look for employees who have no dreams of their own?


[Hello VCs, Founders, Employees, and Angels. I recently came across this content which was originally written by a different author. If anyone is interested in sharing their thoughts about the idea of profiling the ideal employees for startups, that would be awesome. P.S. Just sharing the article not sure who wrote it. ] - Manny of Founders Under 40 Group (www.foundersunder40.com)



Many founders lament the struggles of finding and retaining staff that are just as passionate and committed to the startup as they are. In fact, losing a foundational employee is often perceived as betrayal – an understandable reaction when you consider the arduous ‘trial and error’ process of recruitment that founders undergo in the early stages of their venture.



But based on many interviews and casual discussions with bootstrapped startups, it appears some founders feel quite possessive of their employees, with one describing an employee departure as “inconsiderate” and “leaving a big hole in the business”. Other sentiments include “they clearly didn’t understand what a startup is about, it’s hard work with little return for a long time” and “it’s such a shame because if they stayed, they’d know that the benefits outweigh the interim struggle, they would have been rewarded substantially”.

I'm curious to know from the founders and venture capitalist if they sit in meetings wondering if this founders team's  E.i. is off the charts, . . .we better not let this bastard get away?


Logic tells me it might just be one other way to evaluate a founder. But how would they even do this evaluation anyway?


Based on what I've read  it seems observation might be the only way to find out. I guess it would consist of the following.

I was just wondering how much does likeability play a role in which founders get funded and which don’t?


Are likeable founders more successful than non-likeable founders?  I’m not really sure. I was hoping some VCs, founders, employees and the general public would be able to answer that via a new platform.



Obviously a VC not liking a founder might include: their questionable character, bad work ethics, questionable past, an unethical moral compass, lack of signs of significant accomplishment, lack of community involvement, no financial discipline, etc. . .those are clear deal breakers.



Like I mentioned, there are many factors that play into whether people generally like you or dislike you.  In this age of growing social tensions it could be your:


 gender, religion, skin, school, background, education level, breath, personality, beauty, height, dress,  sexiness, etc. 

Almost every founder is going to go through terrifying moments when they have to let their baby operate fully without their presence. The fact is there are steps to take to ease the transaction.


Founders want to know they can travel the world and leave the operation to capable and trustworthy people. After all, most founders have made some serious sacrifices just to get to a point of putting normal hours instead of extreme hours like Elon Musk. Wait a minute,. . . I believe Elon has five boys and still puts in sixty hours work week.


The point here is to build a business that can run great with or without you.

It’s always great to want to be founder or person that changes the world however the question many founders fail to ask is…is the business for the better of the world or as a founder are you just creating new problems?


The truth is, there’s no founder on this planet that doesn’t aspire to change something, create something, or tweak things except maybe you were a small cannabis dealer. However since the time of innovations, entrepreneurs have been altering the world with their creations with a huge blind optimism. Some founders have made life some-how better but one sometimes wonder why do we still face the same social & economic problems that were present in the stone age, bronze age, dark age, religious age, industrial age, etc. The purpose of this exploratory content is to see if founders do really change the world for the better or just change it.


We still live in a world of have mores and have nots. We live in a world whose foundation is based on the co-existence of opposites but what if founders could fulfill people’s desires with little downside to a person’s life? Love, ecstasy, fantasy, all delivered in a matrix like world. Clearly would be a better world.


Simply using STEM to eradicate factors that cause human suffering around the world. “Instead, as of this century we have manage to create kings and queens out of founders who still haven’t figure how to change the world or solve problems without a lot of side-effects.” says, Manny of Founders Under 40™ Group