Category: blog (Page 2 of 4)

Circumventing Systems – A Complete Guide

 

Circumventing Systems

Looking to solve the Facebook ban hammer flagging you for Circumventing Systems?

You may be surprised to learn that Circumventing Systems is a relatively new flag. I remember when it came out I was working in advertising at Facebook (now called Meta). It appeared only after 2019.

This flag was mainly intended to stop the clickbait farms from creating dummy accounts BUT unfortunately regular advertisers like yourself often get hit with it too.

My last blog provided you with a Facebook ad account restricted guide, and today, you’ll get answers Facebook isn’t giving on how to solve a Circumventing Systems flag.

Why listen to me? Well, I worked at Facebook in ads for a few years, before promoted to back end tech. After that, I was advanced to a Project Manager position for the creator monetization program (Stars on Reels etc).

So, suffice to say:

Circumventing Systems

Those other blogs you read are just guessing at the right answer.

My goal is to give advertisers a better roadmap than Facebook | Meta does, as FB will hang you out to dry with shutdowns but no explanations. I like to help folks, so I’ll help you today with Circumventing Systems.

(Also don’t miss out on the Facebook Ad Policies Checklist)

If you need help rewriting ad copy to be compliant with Facebook I offer a prescreen service – book a discovery call here.

Circumventing Systems Guide 2.0

Circumventing Systems: Malicious Software

Circumventing SystemsFacebook wants you to create ads across the Facebook platform that encourage connections, increased engagement, that are also relevant, safe for users and from authentic accounts.

They don’t allow advertisers to run ads, content, or destinations that attempt to trick or circumvent Facebook’s ad review process. This also applies to app download ads.

Seems like it’s pretty obvious but don’t try to run ads for apps that are really a computer virus. Or any kind of malware.

Now, there has been a known glitch where advertisers running app install ads get flagged for “discriminating practices” but usually, you can chat in to Facebook Ad Support and get your ads live again for this particular glitch.

(Also, a good roadmap is: What to Do After Violating Facebook’s Ad Policies)

Circumventing Systems: Compromised sites

Have you noticed that people are getting hacked left and right? I think a lot of 3rd world countries whose economy is already even worse than most place, have decided to use hacking like a 9-5 job. Malaysia, Bangladesh, Philippines and more are the source.

I mention this because if your site has been hacked but you don’t know this Facebook will flag you for Circumventing Systems – and assume you are guilty too.

If your website has been hacked, the hacker may be using a credit card skimmer, installing malware on end user devices, launching pop-up ads, redirecting users to other websites, and doing things with user data without the end user’s consent.

People who have been hacked, for some dumbass reason, think Facebook will solve this for them – even though Facebook didn’t hack them and is not a cybersecurity company. At the same time…

Facebook’s Help Center is a joke with outdated articles, bad info and wrong answers.

If you have been hacked don’t ask Facebook for help – you need to remove the malware from your computer, and from your root files in your website database – so hire a cybersecurity company for that.

Circumventing Systems: Unwanted software

Circumventing Systems

If Facebook deems your ad as deceptive, promising a value proposition that it does not meet then you may get hit with the Circumventing Systems flag.

Some of my clients who got hit with this before working with me were casinos. The reason is because casinos often deal with real money, their ads can come across as MLM-y.

Well, if the ad copy isn’t properly vetted for ad policy compliance beforehand that is.

As Liana Lang, CEO of Power Up Strategy Inc. said, “Please meet Trevor, my ‘secret weapon’ for all things Facebook compliance. I highly recommend hiring him to help you out especially if you plan to be running ads.”

Want the same white glove treatment navigating Facebook shutdowns? Click here, to schedule a discovery call.

Circumventing Systems: Unfair advantage

The unfair advantage piece mainly refers to when you artificially try to inflate your engagement numbers by getting people to organically try to like and share content.

Affiliates marketers often do shit like this, and sure, it can be effective if you don’t get caught and it doesn’t look too fake. But when you have folks with fake-looking Facebook profiles without a picture, you might as well be a clickbait farm as well. So, don’t do this stuff to avoid the Circumventing Systems flag.

You’re thinking, “How hard can it be to follow Facebook ad policies??”

Well, it can be harder than it sounds because a machine is the one deciding if your ad copy is compliant or banned. (Check out my article Facebook ad account disabled next steps).

Circumventing Systems: Evasive ad content

Circumventing Systems

If your Facebook ads are deliberately trying to skirt the facebook ad policies and are obvious about it you’ll get hit with the Circumventing Systems flag.

Examples of this could include:

‣ Misspelling prohibited words or phrases to avoid ad disapproval
‣ Manipulating trademark terms in the ad text, domain, subdomain, or logo
‣ Misspelling a trademark names (Nike –> Niky) to avoid restrictions on the use of that trademark

If you haven’t had a chance yet, read my break down of Common Facebook Ad Policy Violations [Explained]

Circumventing systems

What everyone (for the most part) knows about Circumventing Systems is that it’s a flag you get if you’re trying to get around Facebook’s policies. For example, creating a new ad account to run the same ads that already got shut down (stupid).

(You should be auditing your ads for policy strikes actively, learning from this, and not making new ads with the same fucking flags duh).

BUT Facebook doesn’t play fair either. Because, if the machines flagged you for innocent copy that perhaps has an idiom taken literally (“We’ll KILL competitors with this ad program!”) and you try to start again with a new Business Manager, if you aren’t doing this correctly, FB will flag you with Circumventing Systems.

Here’s what most people don’t know about Circumventing Systems: it’s a header flag. The automations often use this flag when they know something is wrong with your ads but either:

○ Aren’t sure what it is
○ Have additional flags they’re adding up
○ Flag you for a micro flag not a shut down flag

What this means for you:

The flag you’re told is Circumventing Systems but the real flag that got you shut down is entirely different. This makes is extremely difficult to pinpoint why you were really flagged.

Just know that even if you got the Circumventing Systems flag – it doesn’t mean that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Did you already get your Facebook ad account disabled? Don’t get ripped off! Read How to Recover Facebook Ad Accounts now

If you’ve been shutdown a lot but never got answers, you’re like one of my clients, Steve Martinez, Vice President of Apollidon Learning.

“Trevor took us through the process of getting one of our University of Texas ad accounts reinstated (within minutes). He offered some critical insights to why our Facebook Ad Account was disabled and shared options to reduce our chances of future issues. We have a better understand of how the algorithm works and know exactly what to do and say if our account gets disabled again.”

Want to see how I can help you? Schedule a free discovery call here. Or, if you’re in a rush, prepay for your consulting call and skip the line.

Spam Policies for Facebook Search

Circumventing Systems

Let’s face it: the most clickbait sounding ad copy always sells the best. “Lose 50 pounds in 7 days” will get tons of clicks. BUT it will also get you shut down on Facebook.

The reason is that Facebook wants the ads to sound realistic. Meta does not like MLMs or a spam farm ads with ad copy like:

“1 Weird Trick to Reduce Belly Fat.”

Where this relates to Circumventing Systems is that because this is often used as a blanket header flag, you may get hit with it just for sounding spammy. NOT because you created new ad accounts to get around a shut down.

So, you want to find that sweet spot between high converting crazy promise ad copy and super compliant but dull Facebook ad copy. In between those 2 extremes you can get an ad with great CTR and ROI that doesn’t get you shut down.

Why Does a Facebook Ads Account Suspension Happen?

Usually you get banned because the automations have tracked a sequence of actions or behavior over a period of time and determined that you are a bad actor.

This can be either having too many ads rejected in a short amount of time or can be because you triggered a larger ban. Sometimes 1 or 2 banned words alone can get you completely shut down.

That’s why it’s important to keep track of your ad account health and ratio of approved vs disapproved ads.

And it’s vital to have a clear understanding of why you were shut down for each time you had an ad rejected or an ad account disabled – so you can prevent the same thing from happening again. 

What Happens When You Have a Facebook Ads Account Suspension?

This really depends on your particular ad account history and the type of business that you run. Are you selling real estate or trying to do ads for crypto? Then you have a MUCH slimmer margin of error you’re allowed.

For most people, it is like a tracking system that awards negative points over a period of time. Just like when you get into a car accident your insurance rates go up.

The difference is there is 0 transparency with Facebook for why you have been shut down or how close you are to getting shut down from policy strikes you may not even know you are accumulating.

Navigating Facebook’s Advertising Policies as a Business is a good read too if you’re looking to go from ignorance on Facebook ad policy to having some clarity.

Or wanna skip the bullshit and just find out how close your ad account is to a shut down and prevent it? Schedule a Facebook discovery call with me now.

Circumventing Systems: 4 Types of Policy Violations

Next up, I’ll go over the 4 most common Facebook ad policy violations that trigger the Circumventing Systems flag.

1. Cloaking

Next Cloaking is when an advertiser sends Facebook ads to one landing page that is compliant but then it directs to a landing page that isn’t.

Facebook hates this (and hates affiliate marketers because they are often the ones doing that). It is enough to get you straight up banned at the profile level.

Quick recap on Cloaking and what’s not allowed:

⦿ Redirection to non-compliant content
⦿ Using dynamic DNS to switch page or ad content
⦿ Manipulating site content
⦿ Using click trackers to redirect users to malicious sites
⦿ Disguising your lander in any way

2. Manipulating ad text

If you’re running Google PPC ads, text manipulation is whenever someone uses text from multiple languages or Unicode blocks in an effort to bypass the automated system checks run by Google.

But it also includes misspelling brand names, or celebrity names to get clicks by fooling Facebook users into thinking they are clicking on one company, brand, or celeb when it’s really your company.

NOTE: This includes misspelling curse words

If you are running ads and spending $100K a year or more on ads, I can help with that.

Also check out:
Top Reasons Why Facebook Disables Ad Accounts

3. Using Redirects and Frames

Want a complete ban level flag instantly? Try to direct Facebook users to a new URL after they clicked on the original URL. While it’s similar to cloaking, redirects mean something different:

You have a main domain and an addon domain. If you’re redirecting from a main domain to an add on domain Facebook’s machines will think you are cloaking a URL and throw that ban hammer down harder than
 Chris Hemsworth as Thor.

Thor's hammer facebook ad policies
I would encourage you to not use ANY redirects as innocent as you think they are.

A good example is advertisers who use a bridge page before a sales page and the sales page is the display URL in the ad, but the bridge page is the actual destination.

Facebook will think you are spammer if they see this redirect, so don’t do it. For more info read How to Fix NonFunctional Landing Pages

4. Repeated policy violations

facebook ad policy

Can you teach an old dog new tricks? I sure hope so. Because marketers who run multiple ads with the same flags – especially after already being told an ad isn’t compliant if it’s rejected – run the risk of Facebook bans.

Consulting programs and courses that teach you how to start a business and run FB ads sometimes tell you to run like 100 ads at once when just starting because they know FB automations may miss a few that violate their ad policies.

But if you do this, Facebook will hit you with the Circumventing Systems flag. So, don’t be a fuck up like that. Learn the dang policies and don’t repeat past mistakes.

Having trouble defining where that line exactly is for what you can and cannot say? This is my zone of genius, schedule a free discovery call here

How to Troubleshoot Circumventing Systems

disabled facebook ad account

Ah yes, what you’ve all been waiting for. How to f$^&ng fix the Circumventing Systems flag! Here is my best advice:

• Check to see how many ads you have had rejected in the past 60 days versus approved
• Make sure your website is safe from malware, run scans, hire a cybersecurity company
• Audit your marketing funnel for ad policy violations and find the exact reason you got flagged
• If you’re running app install ads make sure you aren’t using real money
• Look for ad copy that sounds like an MLM
• Make sure your ad copy sounds realistic to Facebook
• Don’t use evasive ad copy – ensure your spelling is correct
• Put a magnifying glass to your marketing and make it not sound spammy
• Take out all redirects from websites connected to your Facebook ads

Did you know your ads have to follow a 1000 more rules than you are actually told about?

Don’t miss out on an opportunity to never have to get flagged again by getting access to someone who has experience working at Facebook.

What if you had a guarantee that your ads were compliant before they went live on Facebook? What if you knew 100% without guessing why your ad account was disabled? What if you knew why your Facebook ads were blocked and had a path to get ads live again?

Keep reading for these answers and more: 

New Solution to Facebook Ad Policy Violations

After years of working at Facebook, I understand exactly what ad copy in your funnel is triggering the automations and how to get compliant.

Get solid answers directly from the source instead guessing, googling, and playing roulette. Schedule a call with me and I can easily tell you proven reasons why the automations flag you and how to become compliant.

You’ll be swapping out walking in a minefield of ad flags, to have a sure path to having your Facebook ad accounts protected from being disabled.

My clients have included the social media marketing agencies of Tony Robbins, Harv Eker, and Dean Graziosi. I’m featured on the Queen of Facebook Mari Smith’s Marketing Essentials Course.

Save energy and money – how much is it costing you to not know why Facebook is shutting you down? Talk today. 

Scheduling a call is a big step in learning more about Facebook ad landing page policy.

If you want to skip the line before this offer ends, immediately secure an expert-level Facebook consulting call from someone at Facebook. Book a call with me now!

If you’re ok with waiting a bit longer, and entering the waitlist to see if you’re eligible – Schedule a call or contact me via email.

Mari Smith Facebook Ad Consultant

7 Top Business Books 2023

 

7 Top Business Books 2023

Top business books 2023


Looking for the 7 top business books in 2023?

Today we'll dive into the top business books of 2023, hand picked for you.

During the ups and downs of the economy, advertising, and business sometimes we need to be inspired by those who came before us and achieved incredible goals.

DISCLAIMER: I OWN AND HAVE READ ALL OF THESE BOOKS. NO FLUFF!!!!

Let's get started reviewing the top business books of 2023

1. How to Win Friends and Influence People  


7 top books 2023

Dale Carnegie's amazing book How To Win Friends & Influence People
shows you how to build sustainable social networks that will sky rocket your business.

This is a book you will read again and again over the years because of all the gold it holds. Its on the top of many best business book lists.

"Thank your opponents sincerely for their interest."

Here, Carnegie talks about how you can't ever win an argument because let's say you do win, and score points in the debate - if the other person resents you for winning the argument and wants nothing to do with you...

...did you really win?

He goes on to say that we should find common ground with our opponents.

If we're both arguing about the same topic, it means we already share something in common: passion for this subject matter.

Quoting everyone from Benjamin Franklin, to Andrew Carnegie to Galileo 300 years ago, this book is probably the best guide to life and business you can ever buy.

That is - if you practice what he preaches and have follow through.

You could be given the cure for cancer but if you never use it what good does it do? With any business development strategy or self-improvement book, you need to apply what you learn to your life for it to truly be powerful.

I have seen some amazing things happen when I practice the principles Dale Carnegie has shared in How to Win Friends and Influence People. I'll end with this quote from the book:

"Begin in a friendly way. Scolding won't win people to your way of thinking. No one can be forced to changed their minds. But they can be led to if you are ever so gentle and friendly. A drop of honey brings more bees than a gallon of gall. So with men, if you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart."

Check out How to Win Friends & Influence People 

Here because you're having issues with Facebook ad policies? Read
What to Do After Violating Facebook’s Ad Policies

2. Atomic Habits 

7 top business books 2023
James Clear in Atomic Habits gives you the blueprint for how to create healthy habits that will optimize your performance in life, business and fitness.

Habits are how we live our life already right? But how many of us have gameified our habits for success? Or even tried to optimize habit building?

One thing I loved about this book was how short clear and concise the sentences were. No fluff - just actionable content.

James Clear talks about how if you commit to a daily habit, having a physical action correspond to successfully completing it will encourage you to continue.

This could be as simple as crossing a day off the calendar or dropping a marble into an empty glass jar - but it works really well to make that brain-body connection. We get something out of a physical action that symbolizes completing a task on our to-do list.

Another cool tip James Clear gives is called Habit Stacking.

This is where instead of committing to doing a triathlon you commit to a simple easy habit like just putting on your running shoes every day at a certain time.

Then, once that habit is completed a few times, stack the next habit of running for a couple of minutes.

After you complete this habit, stack the next habit onto the previous habit for running for 5 minutes.

Breaking up a larger goal into smaller bite sized pieces makes it easier to achieve.

I definitely recommend this book as it's super easy to read and comes with worksheets online and easy to follow tips. Read it today!

For tips on running FB ads as a business, read How to Navigate Facebook’s Advertising Policies as a Business.

3. The Dhandho Investor 

7 top business books 2023

The Dhandho Investor
is a great investing book - ever notice how motel owners all have the last name Patel? (More on this later).

One night I'd organized a board game event at a local pub called Easy Tiger when I found out about The Dhandho Investor. I met a money manager named Eric Schleien at the event who I became friends with, who was new to Austin, Texas.

We got to talking about stocks and investing which he is a lot more well versed than me on. Facebook ad policy and book writing are my zone of genius (check out my sci-fi novel Zero Point Horizon), but investing is his specialty.

I asked him for tips on getting into the stock market which, even as up and down as the NYSE may be, is still more stable than crypto. He told me to check out The Dhandho Investor.

7 top business books 2023
The Dhandho Investor lays out the powerful framework of value investing. Written with the intelligent individual investor in mind, this comprehensive guide distills the Dhandho capital allocation framework of the business savvy Patels from India and presents how they can be applied successfully to the stock market.

The Dhandho method expands on the groundbreaking principles of value investing expounded by Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett, and Charlie Munger.

Why Patels Own All the Motels

The author, born in India, set the framework by explaining how the extended Patel family, immigrants originally from the state of Gujarat in India, came to dominate the American motel industry.

The key, he said, was a business philosophy called Dhandho, which means “endeavors that create wealth”; the word is pronounced dhun-doe. More specifically, it referred to the low-risk, high-return approach of the Patel family.

The first Patel family to come to the United States, via Uganda, arrived in 1972. As refugees from Uganda, the family had few language skills and practically no savings. They arrived at a particularly bad time as Americans were trying to deal with a serious economic downturn, one made worse by the Arab oil embargo.

The motel sector may have been suffering more than most since it is directly affected by the availability of disposable income and travel. Both had taken a beating in the early 1970s, and many motels were selling at distressed prices, in some cases by banks that had foreclosed on them.

Papa Patel, who may be an archetype, thought they might have to settle for two minimum-wage jobs (one for Patel and one for his wife), which was hardly enough to raise a family with 3 teenagers.

Fortunately, he discovered a 20-room motel for sale at a very low price and considered the possibilities. First, he thought the bank or seller would be motivated to sell and probably finance between 80% and 90% of the purchase price.

The family would live at the motel, thus eliminating any rent expenses. Since they will live and work in the same place, they would not need a pricey car.

And, the family, including the three teens, can do all the cleaning, maintenance and management. It looked like a no-lose situation, so with a few thousand dollars of their own cash and a few loans from relatives and friends, the family bought the motel.
7 top business books 2023

Because they had no paid staff and kept expenses to a minimum, they became the lowest-priced motel in the area. That allowed them to offer the lowest prices while remaining as profitable as other motels.

In turn, they enjoyed a higher occupancy rate and made above-average profits. So with rates of $12 or $13 per night, and occupancy of 60% or less, they brought in annual revenue of about $50,000.

From that $50,000 came interest expenses of about $5,000, principle payments of $5,000 and a further $5,000 to $10,000 in operating expenses and taxes (amounts of taxes are not discussed).

According to the author, “The annual return on that $5,000 of invested capital is a stunning 400 percent ($20,000 in annual returns from the investment—$15,000 in cash flow and $5,000 in principal repayment).”

If, on the other hand, the motel had failed, the loss from their personal guarantee would have been less than $5,000, which would have been unfortunate but not life-changing. As Pabrai put it, “If a Patel cannot make the motel run profitably, no one can.” So the lender would have to be very hard-pressed to foreclose.

2nd scenario: For several years after they buy the motel, the economy is in bad shape, so the lender works with the Patels to renegotiate the terms of the loan. For 5 years, the family earns nothing on their investment, but in the second 5 years, the economy recovers and they sell the motel for $50,000. Ultimately, this works out an average annual return of more than 40% over the 10 years.

3rd scenario: The economy does not recover after year five and goes on for another five years with the family unable to make payments. They are foreclosed and lose their investment. This represents a negative return of 100% (but they will have lived rent-free, if nothing else).

The author looked at the likelihood of the 3 scenarios and assumes there is an 80% chance the first, and best case, occurs. He also attributes a 10% likelihood to the second (mean) case and a 10% probability that the third and worst-case scenario unfolds.

Based on the scenarios, Patel estimated there was a 10% chance of losing everything, a 90% chance of winding up with more than $100,000 after 10 years and an 80% chance of winding up with more than $200,000 after a decade.

The author noted that these numbers do not include an increase in the motel’s value and no room rate increases for 10 years.

7 best business books 2023

He also wrote, “This is not a risk-free bet, but it is a very low-risk, high-return bet. Heads, I win; tails, I don’t lose much!”

As it turned out, the big bet worked out for the Patels, and soon they had a thriving business and lots of cash flow, allowing them to buy a house of their own and an even bigger motel. Even then, they stuck with the basic business model of ultra-low costs, charging lower rates than competitors and bringing in lots of cash.

Soon, they could afford to buy more motels, which they handed over to other Patel families to run. As the author noted, a snowball effect was developing and by 2007, the Patels owned half of all the motels in America.

Interesting stuff right?

Think about picking up the The Dhandho Investor - the investing strategy here will give you plenty of thought experiments that may boost your business.

Were you using AI for FB ad copy and got your ad account disabled? Read How to Recover Facebook Ad Accounts now! My client Dr. Emi was featured on the Today Show on NBC. I helped her when she was shut down (VIP Access).

4. Think Like A Rocket Scientist

Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work and Life

7 top business books 2023


Think Like A Rocket Scientist is behind the scenes wisdom from an actual rocket scientist.

The author, Ozan Varol has got a pretty interesting backstory: During his time at Cornell, he served as a member of the operations team for NASA's 2003 Mars Exploration Rover project; which sent two rovers to examine the Martian surface.

His book, How to Think Like A Rocket Scientist breaks down how Elon Musk built SpaceX with 1st Principle Thinking - even to the point of buying rocket parts off eBay!!!

I gave this book to my son and he's actually reading it (miracles of miracles). I love Varol's way of challenging the status quo to remove stagnation from business:

"Process by definition is backwards looking. It was developed in response to yesterday's troubles. If we treat it like a sacred pact - if we don't question it - process can impede forward movement over time, our organizational arteries get clogged with outdated procedures."

"Do we own the process or does the process own us?"

I've worked at many Fortune 500 companies - and later many were my clients in my own Facebook ad policy consulting business. So, I'm familiar with the corporate world. I see the same mistakes being made for the past 100 years because of an attachment to outdated thinking.

Ozan Varol has a way of making you examine your perspective that leads only to improving your process. I'll leave you with another favorite segment of How to Think Like A Rocket Scientist:

"It's one thing to say, 'let's think outside the box', it's another to actually step outside the box and examine your company or product from the viewpoint of a competitor seeking to destroy it."

"...Why might my boss pass me up for a promotion? Why is this prospective employer justified in hiring me?"

"Why are customers making the right decision by buying from our competitors?"

"Ask yourself, "Why are they making that choice?"

"It isn't because they are stupid. It isn't because they're wrong and you're right. It's because they see something that you're missing. It's because they believe something that you don't believe. And you can't change that worldview or belief by calling plays from the same old playbook."

#micdrop

Whew! I loved reading this book and it is on my top picks for a reason. If you look at how you're framing things, sometimes that alone can help you level up.

Check out Think Like A Rocket Scientist today.

(Looking to side step a FB shutdown? Peep Top Reasons Why Facebook Disables Ad Accounts).

Let's take a look at more crazy ideas, so good they are practically looney.

5. Loonshots
How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries

7 best business books 2023
Loonshots by Safi Bahcall is a unique read that teaches you how to the concept of Phase Separation when it comes to the idea guys and product manufacturers for the perfect balance for product development and distribution.

I'd heard about it from a book club I used to be part of and was surprised at the knowledge it dropped.

This book reveals a new way of thinking about the mysteries of group behavior that challenges everything we thought we knew about nurturing radical breakthroughs.

Bahcall, a physicist and entrepreneur, shows why teams, companies, or any group with a mission will suddenly change from embracing new ideas to rejecting them, just as flowing water will suddenly change into brittle ice.

Mountains of print have been written about cultureLoonshots identifies the small shifts in structure that control this transition, the same way that temperature controls the change from water to ice.

Using examples that range from the spread of fires in forests to the hunt for terrorists online, and stories of thieves and geniuses and kings, Bahcall shows how a new kind of science can help us become the initiators, rather than the victims, of innovative surprise.

Having worked at Apple during iPod launches back in the day, I appreciated his breakdown of P-type technologies that were once widely dismissed before becoming household names like:

• The Telephone
• Apple Computer
• Digital Photography

And S-type products - a surprising breakthru in strategy that creates a new way of doing business or a new application of an existing product such as:

• AppleStore iTunes
• Frequent Flier Miles
• Google Search Rank Results

Bahcall writes about having a Systems Mindset that analyzes not just why a move was bad but how you should change the decision process behind the movie.

And what the context of that decision was to your situation, background, obstacles and what that means for how you should change your decision-making process and action or preparation routine.

He contrasts this with an Outcome Mindset which reviews why something failed.

7 best business books 2023
The author goes on to say:

"Teams with Mindset 1 of an Outcome Mindset analyze why a project or strategy failed:

• The storyline was too predictable (Hollywood Movies)
• The product didn't stand out from the competition
• Those teams commit to working harder on storyline or unique product features

"Find out why something failed, rather than get defensive about it."

Wow. I wish some family members I have would take that attitude lol. Wouldn't it be great for America, as a nation, if we all got curious instead of defensive, when faced with failure?

When a book is recommended by Bill Gates, Daniel Kahneman, Malcolm Gladwell, Daniel Pink, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, and Tim Ferriss - you might wanna read Loonshots today.

6. Think and Grow Rich 

7 top business books 2023

Think and Grow Rich
- I don't remember how I found out about this book, but it changed my life.

I was working dead-end jobs and didn't have a specific plan for how to get ahead in life. Through this book I learned to define what my vision of success was for my life, create vision boards, mantras, and a specific image of what my ideal life looked like.

Using the techniques Napolean Hill teaches, I got a new higher paying job, a convertible, a trip to Hawaii with my son, and eventually started my own business and became free of the dreaded 9-5 life.

It's the original mind-over-matter guide that truly brings manifesting destiny, money, wealth and happiness to you. And in a way that many later books tried to copy. But this is the OG manifestation manual.

And you don't have to be like super into the "woo-woo" to benefit from the practical visualization techniques and mind frames given here.
We can talk Freud, Jung or whoever you trust in psychology - our subconscious does create the life we live.

Good and bad.

When you embed an idea or purpose into your subconscious, it's proven that your mind will work to achieve it. I've used this book to do just that and increase my income level by 2 classes.

One of the techniques Hill teaches here that I haven't used - yet is creating the counsel in your mind of greats that came before you. Hill says that you need to create a room in your mind with a long table that your thought leaders sit at.

Whether that's John D Rockefeller, Steve Jobs, or Andrew Carnegie - the idea is that you hold imaginary counsel meetings where these avatars of great business minds give you advice. It sounds like a fascinating concept as far as thought exercises go.

Pick up your copy of Think and Grow Rich right here


Millennials and Gen Zers are migrating to influencer marketing because that feels more real. Folks are also sick of Facebook bans - learn how to avoid them

7 Habits of Highly Effective People

7 top business books 2023

I think 7 Habits of Highly Effective People was one of the 1st self-improvement books I read as a teenager. I didn't understand it then, but on later re-reads I learned things you'd never guess were inside this powerful little book.

Here are his 7 habits of highly effective people:

Habit 1: Be Proactive
Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
Habit 3: Put First Things First
Habit 4: Think Win/Win
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
Habit 6: Synergize
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

Now, let me make a disclaimer here: Stephen Covey's company itself often ran seminars that many felt gave off an MLM vibe. Also, the book is very verbose, so it does have some fluff to cut through. BUT it's worth scanning for the sections on being proactive, putting things first, building good character and integrity.

One of my key takeaways Covey's description of the Personality Ethic versus the Character Ethic.

Covey wrote that some people imitate the qualities of being a good person - just like a politician has his talking points for PR but then does the opposite when elected.

You talk to them and they are all about perfecting their public image, attitude and personality but you still get weird vibes from them. Ever met someone like that? The whole car salesman vibe?

I worked with a guy named Kurt at Facebook and he appeared to have all the surface level socialization skills but on a gut level you could tell he was wrong inside without integrity. It wasn't just me - other coworkers of his saw through the fake polite manners. He had a low character.

It was one of those strange moments when you read something and see it in real life like..damn..this person prioritized the personality ethic over actually being a decent person, lacking the character ethic.

Covey says m
any people seek quick solutions to their problems by looking for shortcuts and techniques from successful individuals or organizations.

However, shortcuts often fail to address the root cause of the problem - not developing a good character.

Instead, as Covey emphasizes, the problem lies in how we perceive ourselves and the world.

To bring about genuine and lasting change, we need to undergo a paradigm shift, which means changing our fundamental beliefs, assumptions, and values rather than merely modifying our attitudes and behaviors on the surface level.

That's where the 7 habits of highly effective people come in.

Similar to How To Win Friends & Influence People - if you are taking a shallow approach, you'll think you can manipulate people better when in reality the core message of the book is that you'll get along better with people if you learn to develop a genuine interest in people and develop your empathy.

7 Habits of Highly Effective People has a similar message about developing a true sense of integrity.

If we all seek first to understand the other person before seeking to be understood ourselves, this world would be a better place with a lot more compassion.

I guess, because I feel like I'm a genuine person and always being up front with folks, Covey's core message resonates with me.

You can skip a lot of the long-winded explanations he writes and benefit from being more proactive, thinking about your end goal in mind and truly listen to people.

I've passed along these lessons to my son, when it comes to having integrity and building good character - letting actions speak louder than words.

Check out 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

7 Top Business Books 2023 Conclusion

I hope you've found this list of 7 Top Business Books in 2023 helpful and have 1 or 2 on your to-read list.

I've read all of these books on this list and they've significantly changed my life. The key in reading business development books isn't to just have talking points or to sound smart.

It's about getting a better perspectives how to up your game, to optimize your process and evolve the way you think about solving problems. And scaling.

One of the best things you can do is connect the dots and have a breakthrough, in your personal life or professional. You can do this Being John Malkovich style - and get in the head of prosperous business leaders. See how they thought. And learn from it.

Before I read
How to Win Friends and Influence People I didn't have a road map to build successful social circles of influence and power. Also, I wasn't a very good listener. Reading that book helped me show up better for my friends and family.

Atomic Habits gave me a great blueprint for how to keep promises I made to myself better. I'm still working on cultivating healthier habits for fitness using James Clear's methods.

The Dhandho Investor gave me the first real look at a stock market investing strategy that is sustainable.

Think Like A Rocket Scientist and 7 Habits of Highly Effective People both gave me a new way to think my way around industry roadblocks, and allowed me to open up with a few clients. The integrity I run my business with - while still flawed and a work in progress - has attracted some of the most amazing repeat clients and financial success to me.

After reading
Loonshots I began examining almost misses, and failures in a new light: looking for the data in what had worked, and growing immensely in my tactics and strategic thinking.

Think and Grow Rich was a game changer. I had been laid off and was working a shitty ass job that was ripping off old people charging them for free prescriptions of life saving medicine. I didn't realize that was what the company was doing at the time, but I hated it nonetheless.

Every lunch break, I'd work on writing out the future life I wanted to live, according to Napolean Hill's instructions. I imagined getting a call with a job offer paying more and keeping my promise to my son, that I'd take him to Hawaii someday - where he's always wanted to go.

Fast forward a few weeks later - I'd found out the scam the company I worked for was doing. I walked up to my manager, handed my badge and quit - no safety net. But my integrity wouldn't let me work there anymore.

And the universe responded: Almost instantly I got the phone call and was offered a job paying $5 more an hour than my last upper tier role. 6 months later, I took my son to Hawaii and made his dreams come true. This is us at a cliff on the coast of the Big Island, in Hawaii before driving to Mauna Kea:

Trevor W. Goodchild
So, I'm not bullshitting here when I recommend these books.

I've got the money, success, and upward social mobility to prove they are effective. But, that's only because when I read something impactful, I follow through and put it to practice in real life.

What book did you read that had an impact on you? Anything you feel like you need to revisit to practice what you've read in your own life?

What do you think of the Top 7 business books in 2023? Any I missed? Did you read any on the list, and if so, what are your thoughts?
Do you run Facebook ads and have been shut down without explanation? What if you had a guarantee that your ads were compliant before they went live on Facebook? 

New Solution to Facebook Ad Policy Violations

After years of working at Facebook, I understand exactly what ad copy in your funnel is triggering the automations and how to get compliant.

Get solid answers directly from the source instead guessing, googling, and playing roulette. Schedule a call with me and I can easily tell you proven reasons why the automations flag you and how to become compliant.

You'll be swapping out walking in a minefield of ad flags, to have a sure path to having your Facebook ad accounts protected from being disabled.

My clients have included the social media marketing agencies of Tony Robbins, Harv Eker, and Dean Graziosi. I'm featured on the Queen of Facebook Mari Smith's Marketing Essentials Course.

Save energy and money - how much is it costing you to not know why Facebook is shutting you down? Talk today. 

Scheduling a call is a big step in learning more about Facebook ad landing page policy.

If you want to skip the line before this offer ends, immediately secure an expert-level Facebook consulting call from someone at Facebook. Book a call with me now!

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Apple inks multi-billion-dollar deal with Broadcom for US-made chips

 

Apple inks multi-billion-dollar deal with Broadcom for U.S.-made chips

apple store nyc


(Reuters) -Apple Inc on Tuesday said it has entered a multi-billion-dollar deal with chipmaker Broadcom Inc to use chips made in the United States.

Under the multi-year deal, Broadcom will develop 5G radio frequency components with Apple that will be designed and built in several U.S. facilities, including Fort Collins, Colorado, where Broadcom has a major factory, Apple said.

(Looking for help with Facebook ad policies? Read my last blog here)

apple computer

Broadcom Inc. is an American multinational designer, developer, manufacturer, and global supplier of a wide range of semiconductor and infrastructure software products. Broadcom's product offerings serve the data center, networking, software, broadband, wireless, storage, and industrial markets.

Broadcom shares were up 4.3% in premarket trading after the announcement. The chipmaker is already a major supplier of wireless components to Apple.

Apple said it will tap Broadcom for what are known as film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR) chips. The FBAR chips are part of a radio-frequency system that helps iPhones and other Apple devices connected to mobile data networks.

(Looking to side step a FB shutdown? Peep Top Reasons Why Facebook Disables Ad Accounts)

At the same time, Apple is fighting a big battle over back taxes. EU competition regulators appealed to the bloc's highest court on Tuesday to override a lower tribunal and make Apple (AAPL.O) pay a record 13 billion euros ($14.3 billion) in Irish back taxes.

Basically, The European Commission is saying that Apple paid taxes in Ireland on a US rate, when Apple Computer should have been paying taxes in Ireland at an Irish tax rate.

My question is, when it comes to the new Broadcom deal, was this in response to the economy? Just a budget cutting deal? Or was is a more nationalistic move, in response to increasing hostility from China, who owns such a large share of all the imports America uses from Chinese sweatshops?

apple computer broadcom
For more details on the America-Chinese political battles, click here.

“All of Apple’s products depend on technology engineered and built here in the United States, and we’ll continue to deepen our investments in the U.S. economy because we have an unshakable belief in America’s future," Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement.

Apple said it currently supports more than 1,100 jobs in Broadcom’s Fort Collins FBAR filter manufacturing facility.

Has Facebook's machines shut down your ad account or rejected your Facebook ads?
What if you had a guarantee that your ads were compliant before they went live on Facebook? 

New Solution to Facebook Ad Policy Violations

After years of working at Facebook, I understand exactly what ad copy in your funnel is triggering the automations and how to get compliant.

Get solid answers directly from the source instead guessing, googling, and playing roulette. Schedule a call with me and I can easily tell you proven reasons why the automations flag you and how to become compliant.

You'll be swapping out walking in a minefield of ad flags, to have a sure path to having your Facebook ad accounts protected from being disabled.

My clients have included the social media marketing agencies of Tony Robbins, Harv Eker, and Dean Graziosi. I'm featured on the Queen of Facebook Mari Smith's Marketing Essentials Course.

Save energy and money - how much is it costing you to not know why Facebook is shutting you down? Talk today. 

Scheduling a call is a big step in learning more about Facebook ad landing page policy.

If you want to skip the line before this offer ends, immediately secure an expert-level Facebook consulting call from someone at Facebook. Book a call with me now!

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7 Facebook Marketing Tactics

 

facebook marketing tips

Looking for the best Facebook marketing tips?

Facebook continues to be the reigning champ where friends connect and share online. More than just a meeting place for friends, Facebook has grown into a venue for companies to market themselves through interaction with customers and self-promotion.

In this post we will be looking at 7 ways you can use Facebook for marketing.

(Read: Facebook ad account disabled next steps)

1. Facebook Business Page Tips

A Facebook page is a great free marketing tool for businesses. This is your digital storefront. Facebook pages let businesses identify themselves – not just through listing product offerings and services, but also by sharing links, images, and posts on a customizable page to give a better sense of a business’s personality and character.

facebook business page shop now button

Your Facebook business page is a great spot to develop your brand identity and show your human side. Facebook is where you can loosen the tie a bit – don’t be afraid to be funny. Simply connect your humor and story telling to your brand to increase conversions.

Ultimately you should consider what your target audience would want to see. Share social media images, links, videos, anything, as long as it is connected to your business and it seems like something your target audience would enjoy.

Use Facebook Insights to see what resonates most with your audience and reverse engineer successful brand campaigns to level up.

In addition to hilarious videos of cats walking in tiny shoes, a store specializing in footwear might also post an article about how to measure your foot size accurately or what kind of shoe inserts are best to help feet feel better.

A nice mix of humor, educational resources, and posts about your store updates is ideal.

Also check out: Top Reasons Why Facebook Disables Ad Accounts

2. Facebook Advertising: Classic Ads

Facebook offers its own form of advertising with Right Hand Column Facebook ads, which appear in the side columns of the Facebook site.

They include a headline with copy, an image, and a click-through link to either a Facebook page, a Facebook app, or an outside website.

Facebook Marketing

Applying Facebook engagement ads into your Facebook marketing strategy is one possible technique for increasing likes or driving website clicks.

Facebook advertising features include:

Each Facebook ad campaign has 3 levels:

1. Campaign

2. Ad Set

3. Ad

The Campaign is just where you name your ad but on the Ad Set level you determine targeting and budget.
On the Ad level you write your ad copy and upload your creative, whether that's a video or a static image or a slideshow.

Facebook doesn’t release information about their ad CTRs, so it’s difficult to know how successful Facebook ads really are. Facebook ads generally have a CTR of 0.051%, and an average CPC of $0.80.

However, a business’s Facebook advertising cost can vary a lot depending on the targeting options set and competition.

Using Facebook advertising to increase your “Likes” can be very beneficial – once a user likes your page, they essentially become followers of your business page, and your posts will appear on their Facebook news feed.

This results in more users interacting with you and your brand, forming relationships that may end up translating to conversions in the future.

New to facebook advertising? You may want to check out another resource: What to Do After Violating Facebook’s Ad Policies.

Liana Lang, CEO of Power Up Strategy Inc. said, "Please meet Trevor, my 'secret weapon' for all things Facebook compliance. I highly recommend hiring him to help you out especially if you plan to be running ads."

Want the same white glove treatment navigating Facebook shutdowns?

Click here, to schedule a discovery call.

3. Hosting Facebook Contests

Running Facebook contests, sweepstakes, or promotions is another Facebook marketing tactic that can increase fans and brand awareness.

When conducting a Facebook contest, be aware that contests can’t be hosted through Facebook itself (meaning you can’t ask for likes as entries, have people write answers in the comments).

Businesses must use a third-party app for creating their Facebook contest, then direct users to the app from their Facebook page. Want to make sure your landing page doesn't get flagged by Facebook? Click here.

Facebook Marketing Contests

There are plenty of paid tools to help you do this, as well as some free ones. Shortstack offers a number of free contest templates, so long as your page has under 2,000 likes. Pagemodo also has a free option.

Many third-party Facebook contest apps offer free versions, but your options with them are limited.

Keep in mind: contests will create a higher volume of clicks but often lower quality as you'll attract people that just want freebies. That won't build a loyal fan base or extend the customer lifetime value.

A good technique to do is to prequalify some of these leads. Or, after acquiring your leads from contest ads run on Facebook, integrate them into your email marketing campaigns and qualify them from there to move further up your funnel's value ladder.

Are you trying to recover an ad account? Don't get ripped off! Read How to Recover Facebook Ad Accounts now

Is your Facebook ad account is disabled and Facebook is offering no guidance on getting ads live again? If that sounds familiar you're like one of my clients, Steve Martinez, Vice President of Apollidon Learning.

This is what he had to say about working with me:

"Trevor took us through the process of getting one of our University of Texas ad accounts reinstated (within minutes). He offered some critical insights to why our Facebook Ad Account was disabled and shared options to reduce our chances of future issues. We have a better understand of how the algorithm works and know exactly what to do and say if our account gets disabled again."

Want to see how I can help you? Schedule a free discovery call here. Or, if you're in a rush, prepay for your consulting call and skip the line. 

4. Facebook Boosted Posts

Facebook Boosted Posts ( that some incorrectly called "promoted posts" despite Facebook itself calling them Boosted Posts here) let you pay a flat rate in order to have boost visibility of individual Facebook posts reach a certain number of users, increasing a specific post’s reach and impressions.

Some businesses have asked – why should I have to pay to ensure that my post is seen by users who are my followers? If a user has liked my page, they should always see my posts on their news feed, shouldn’t they?

The answer to this question is Facebook suppresses organic reach - and has since the early to mid 2000s. Even people that like your Facebook Business Page will probably miss most of your posts as Facebook aka Meta deliberately hides these posts.

You gotta pay to play.

If a fan of yours happens to be looking at their news feed when you post your story, they are likely to see it, but even then there is no guarantee if their news feed is swamped by other posts.

That’s where Boosted Posts comes in – it ups your chances of being seen on a user’s news feed. Facebook Promoted Posts are shown to existing fans, with an added option to reach friends of fans.

And the upside is it increases engagement for your entire posts. You'll often get free Facebook likes, without having to have a separate Facebook likes campaign running. Because people checking out your boosted post will also get curious about your Facebook Business Page.

Boosted Posts are easy to set up – just click the button beneath any of your page posts. But if you want advanced targeting options, you'll want to set it up inside Ads Manager.

While the flat rate simplifies the process, Boosted Posts lack the targeting options offered by other Facebook ads. Be sure to set up a Facebook Custom Engagement Audience first.

Do this so that the traffic to your page is tracked and you can retarget all Facebook users interacting with your ads with future ads now that they are warmed up.

Also check out: Top Reasons Why Facebook Disables Ad Accounts

5. Sponsored Stories

Sponsored Stories are a type of Facebook ad that shows a user’s interactions, such as a Facebook like, to the user’s friends.

Sponsored Stories seeks to capitalize on the “word of mouth” marketing concept. If a user sees that three of his friends like a certain page, he is more inclined to pay attention.

The goal of Sponsored Stories is to have a user take the same action as their friends. Advertisers can choose to show friends “likes” if they want more page likes, show friends who have “claimed this offer” if a business wants more users to claim offers. 

Facebook sponsored stories facebook marketing

While the action performed by a friend liking a page or claiming an offer is automatically posted in a user’s news feed, these posts easily get overlooked.

Sponsored Stories get preferred positioning, capable of appearing in news feeds and the right side bar. Sponsored Stories are only available on mobile devices.

Sponsored Stories don’t only apply to likes or offers – they can be used with any Facebook Open Graph app. If a friend has just installed Scramble With Friends on Facebook, Sponsored Stories can show users that their friend has just played the Scramble game, with an invite to “challenge them,” “play with them,” or any similar variation.

Facebook claims that Sponsored Stories have 46% higher CTRs and 20% lower CPCs than regular Facebook ads, making them a very serious strategy for marketing on Facebook.

Facebook Sponsored Stories can be created easily through the Facebook ad create flow. Open Graph Sponsored Stories with a customized call to action require advertisers to use a third-party provider.

If you haven't had a chance yet, read my break down of Common Facebook Ad Policy Violations [Explained]

6. Facebook Open Graph

Facebook Open Graph lets businesses label a user’s action with their app. Billions of interactions are posted with Facebook Open Graph every day.

Businesses can create third-party apps that connect to a user and post a notice on Facebook when a user performs a specific action with the app. Facebook’s Open Graph allows for creative interactive options outside of the standard “like” and “comment.” Posts can suggest that users “listen,” “taste,” “read,” – it’s up to businesses to get creative.

Virtually any time a site or app prompts users to sign in to Facebook, it has something to do with connecting the user with the Facebook Open Graph.

Spotify is a great example of how Facebook Open Graph becomes a powerful Facebook marketing tool.

It all starts with a Facebook login prompt.

Spotify for Facebook Marketing

This is followed immediately by a permission request, which many users click through with little thought. 

Facebook Spotify

Once permission has been obtained, Spotify is able to stream what songs a user is listening to on a friend’s news feed.

Notice that users are given a variety of options – they can like the song their friend is listening to, listen to the song themselves, or star it as a favorite in Spotify.

Open graph actions like these are unique enough to stand out from the cluttered craziness of a user’s news feed.
Many Facebook games make frequent use of Facebook open graph actions, posting a notice when a user has completed a level or won an achievement.

Farmville Marketing

Farmville. The best way to lose brain cells!

Open graph actions are being categorized as a new type of consumer story, taking advantage of the word of mouth phenomenon.

Open graph posts are more meaningful to users because they are being generated by a familiar friend, not simply a brand, making them the latest and greatest of Facebook marketing tools.

Dealing with a Facebook ban? Read: Your Access Can’t Be Reinstated Facebook Ban

7. Facebook Exchange (FBX)

Facebook Exchange lets advertisers take advantage of ad retargeting on Facebook through real-time bidding. Advertisers can target audiences based on web history data – when a user visits a product page on a retailer’s website, but fails to make a purchase, the retailer can then display an ad for that same product on Facebook with FBX.

While Facebook retargeting ads were only relegated to the side columns, recently these ads have been allowed to appear in news feeds, the most valuable Facebook real-estate. This is great news for FBX advertisers, since response rates for news feed ads are 10 to 50 times higher than that of ad placements in the right column.

Facebook Exchange Marketing

So how do Facebook Exchange ads perform? The CTR for Facebook Exchange ads is 40% lower than for other web retargeting ads, like those offered by the Google Display Network. Other retargeting ads are also cheaper, with price per unique clicks costing 80% less than Facebook retargeting ads.

Still, in terms of cost-per-impression and cost-per-click, FBX ads are considerably cheaper, so the monetary benefits depend on your business’s needs. These numbers are also subject to change as FBX ads begin to appear more often in the news feed.

If you are returning to my blog because you googled "disabled facebook ad account" you're in the right place. I help advertisers on Facebook stay compliant.

I've worked at Facebook for years and have my own company that helps advertisers stay compliant with Facebook ad policies even if Facebook won't hep you understand why you were banned.

Keep reading for these answers and more: 

New Solution to Facebook Ad Policy Violations

After years of working at Facebook, I understand exactly what ad copy in your funnel is triggering the automations and how to get compliant.

Get solid answers directly from the source instead guessing, googling, and playing roulette. Schedule a call with me and I can easily tell you proven reasons why the automations flag you and how to become compliant.

You'll be swapping out walking in a minefield of ad flags, to have a sure path to having your Facebook ad accounts protected from being disabled.

My clients have included the social media marketing agencies of Tony Robbins, Harv Eker, and Dean Graziosi. I'm featured on the Queen of Facebook Mari Smith's Marketing Essentials Course.

Save energy and money - how much is it costing you to not know why Facebook is shutting you down? Talk today. 

Scheduling a call is a big step in learning more about Facebook ad landing page policy.

If you want to skip the line before this offer ends, immediately secure an expert-level Facebook consulting call from someone at Facebook. Book a call with me now!

If you're ok with waiting a bit longer, and entering the waitlist to see if you're eligible - Schedule a call or contact me via email.

The Truth Behind Meta Facebook Layoffs

 

Facebook layoffs

Once, Facebook was one of the most desirable workplaces in the world—even the single best employer in Silicon Valley, as Glassdoor declared back in 2016. At that time, it was easy to see what prospective employees liked:

You got to work at a company used by billions; you got incredible perks, including ample paid leave, free lunches, and in-office barbers and arcades; you probably earned a whopping salary during a boom cycle for your industry.


How things change.

This February 2023, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a “Year of Efficiency” for his once perpetually growing company, making clear his intent to snip out “layers of middle management” and “cut projects that aren’t performing or may no longer be crucial.”

The message was that more layoffs were to come in 2023 for the company now called Meta—following the 11,000 employees axed in November, the first mass job losses to ever hit the once insurmountable social media giant.

[Originally published in Slate.com by Nitish Pahwa]

On March 14, the company confirmed there would be 10,000 new position cuts, which entailed “reduc[ing] the size of our recruiting team” as well as “restructurings and layoffs in our tech groups in late April, and then our business groups in late May,” according to a memo from Zuckerberg.

Meta is not alone; there were hundreds of thousands of layoffs across the tech industry last year, while 2023 has brought “rolling layoffs” at companies like Amazon and Wayfair.

There's a "morale crisis" at Meta

facebook layoffs meta layoffs

To hear it from Zuckerberg, the official story is that Meta overstretched during the pandemic, hiring aggressively as the world suddenly found itself trapped inside with lots of extra time.

Now, that boom has passed, and it’s clear user and revenue numbers have been shellacked by durable competitive threats: young users’ attachment to TikTok, lack of interest in its huge metaverse investment, and a new Apple privacy setting for iOS that throttled key targeted-advertising business revenue for Meta.

So the tech monolith has been forced into a strategic retreat for leaner times. (And all this follows a period in which Facebook earned robust revenue while facing down more scandals than a season of Succession, from Cambridge Analytica to the Facebook Papers.)

That’s how it looked from the outside, anyway. What about the inside, especially in the months leading up to the first November layoffs?

“They didn’t have anything for us to do,” former Meta employee Brit Levy told me.

“We were there collecting a paycheck, essentially, which felt like a bummer,” said one former Meta recruiter who wished to remain anonymous.

“None of our higher-ups had real information for us, as they were just as in the dark as we were,” a former contract recruiting coordinator said, also on condition of anonymity.

I recently spoke with three people who worked in recruitment and training at Meta in 2021 and 2022, as hiring slowed to a trickle and the company braced for huge layoffs.

They described internal processes for task delegation and employee management that had been breaking down for months—and layoffs that, in their view, were so cold, sloppy, and draining that the whole thing has since made “a lot of people angry at the company,” they said.

Their stories shine a revealing light on a workplace they once loved—a company that’s
now reducing its famed job perks however it can, whether by lowering bonuses, evaluating workers through a harsher review process, or reducing remote-work flexibility. And, of course, slashing the snacks budget.

In April 2022, Brit Levy, a 35-year-old Latina, landed a spot with Meta’s Sourcer Development Program, a paid, yearlong course that trains tech-interested workers from underrepresented backgrounds to become effective recruiters.

That was the pitch, anyway: Six months into the program, Levy was laid off, despite being told that her employment was secured for a full year.

(Read: Facebook ad account disabled next steps)

How Layoffs Affect Meta

facebook layoffs meta layoffs

Even during that truncated period, the training hardly played out as she’d anticipated. After Levy was assigned to the Sourcer Development Program’s diversity, equity, and inclusion group, she found out that fellow participants “had been told that the roles they were hiring for were paused,” she told me.

So her team, to hear her tell it, did nothing—even though “there was work that needed to be done,” Levy said. “There was internal documentation and policies that had not been updated or touched since 2019.”

Still, her team’s efforts to take on that work were stymied. “Every time we came together as a group to try and propose a project, to try and look at what else we could be working on, someone in higher-up leadership—it would trickle down, these communications—would say,

‘We expect to get you guys going, possibly next week,’ ” Levy said. “They kept just kicking the can down the road.” (Meta did not respond to Slate’s request for comment on this story.)

The road ran out. “In July, we received a message confirming that one of the groups in the program, their last day would be Dec. 15. Then they told the rest of us that we’d be good until April,” Levy said. That reassurance wouldn’t last:

“In September, a bunch of meetings that had been placed on our calendars through February, March, and April of 2023—they all got canceled, and we were told not worry about it.”

The following month, Levy mentioned, the recruiting program that was intended to grant the Sourcer Development participants more hands-on experience was shuttered.

What then?

Former Meta recruiter Maddie Machado Infamous Post

Maddie Machado facebook layoffs

“We were told by our program manager that our positions were safe, don’t worry about layoffs, and ‘enjoy the pause’—basically, enjoy being paid to do nothing,” Levy explained.

“But if you’re looking for something to do, help out with some self-managed projects.”

She’d taken on a self-propelled project highlighting Meta’s biases when it came to recruiting veterans—something she felt passionate about on both a personal level as a military spouse and on a professional level in light of the stressful company culture.

“I knew I was going to be rated against my other peers that 
did have stuff to do, so I wanted to find something.”

Ultimately, Levy and the rest of her program got axed in November 2022. In frustration, she began posting publicly on TikTok about her layoff and the DEI program.

After she garnered more than 800,000 views on a late-January post explaining
why she refused to sign Meta’s severance deal, Levy began to share even more explicit details, including pages from that very severance package—and also publicly feuded with Meta employees like Kristen Castellanos, a recruiting executive who disputed Levy’s characterization of her employment with Meta.

TikTok, Zuckerberg’s nemesis, happens to be the outlet through which other ex-Facebookers have shared their own experiences at Meta, many of which resemble Levy’s accounts.

Former Meta recruiter Maddie Machado infamously described her five-month stint at the company in 2021 as “
getting paid $190k to do nothing.

— Meaning, she wasn’t “expected to hire anybody for the first six months, even the first year,” as Machado explained in a video.

(Machado was fired from Meta long before the layoffs because of other videos she’d shared about the company during her time there; however, she posted the “do nothing” video
on March 17, just after Zuckerberg announced the new layoffs.)

facebook layoffs

Facebook Layoffs - A Meta Recruiter's Experience:

Another ex–Meta recruiter laid off in November told me that when she joined in December 2021, she actually had a pretty steady, reliable workflow—at least, for a bit. “I joined with a class of 100 people and got thrown into recruiting for product managers,” she told me.

But as 2022 progressed, “around June and July, things started slowing down, in that there were fewer positions available.” And nobody seemed to know what was really even happening.

“They weren’t really talking about why we were slowing down,” she added. “Our bosses sent out so many messages on Workplace, like, We understand that this time is confusing, but everything’s fine.”

Everything didn’t really seem fine. For one, product managers recruited by her team were usually put through a two-week “bootcamp” that matched their skills and capabilities to open job listings.

But with the summer 2022 slowdown, some product managers seemed to be going through the whole process for nothing: “We weren’t extending offers to any bootcampers, and offers that had been in process were getting held up.”

Still, going into August, the recruiter felt OK about her work and status at Meta, until everything flipped in October.

“They stopped product management recruitment and moved us to data centers, which made it clear our earlier work was no longer considered important,” she said. “We still had team meetings, which was strange since we weren’t working on product management recruiting anymore.”

What was work like during this time?

“We pivoted to doing projects within the company, basically streamlining efficiencies or looking at different processes. Just busywork, really—none of us were working on projects that were considered mission-critical,” the product management recruiter told me, noting also that the sudden changes depressed morale significantly.

“A lot of people were not as motivated. Cameras stayed off during meetings, which was super uncommon before—and sometimes, a lot of people would not show up to meetings.”

When 2022 November’s layoffs came, they hit her unit especially hard.

“Our team went from 119 people down to 55. So it got cut in half,” the ex-recruiter said.

And even though Meta “basically cut everything off” right then and there in November (“I had to return my laptop and portal quickly”), she was kept around until Jan. 13.

The layoff email stated that “we need to cut access to most internal systems immediately for legal and security reasons.” Those weeks of limbo, she decided, were best spent elsewhere: “We were literally paid, from November, to do nothing. So I took time off and went to my home country for six weeks.”

meta layoffs

SATISFYING INVESTORS? Facebook Layoffs

When March came around, it was recruiters, again, who faced the immediate brunt of the announced layoffs; the former product management recruiter told me that from what she’s heard, her former team has now been whittled down to merely 14 people.

When I reached out to a contract recruiting coordinator for Meta who’d joined in May 2021 and was laid off in March, she responded in a Twitter DM that “recruiting pipelines had it the worst” in November, as 75 percent of her agency’s Meta team was gutted that month.

The worst part of it all, per the contractor’s account, was the uncertainty and trepidation:

“We’d all heard and seen rumors about [the November 2022 layoffs] a week prior through Blind,” the anonymous forum for tech-industry insiders.

She and her colleagues spent the days afterward “mentally preparing” for the day layoffs were made official, which ended up being Nov. 9. Even though she survived that round, the experience was “frightening,” leaving her and many of her remaining co-workers “sleepless and anxious.”

It had hurt especially because “the relationship I had with my coworkers went further than just work. We made genuine friendships.”

Zuckerberg's “Year of Efficiency” Human Impact

After Zuckerberg’s “Year of Efficiency” announcement in February, job-cut rumors once again circulated among Meta employees on Blind, and recruitment teams plunged into a dour mood.

“Morale has definitely been low,” former software engineering recruiter Mary Prescott told Insider this month after getting laid off.

“It’s hard to dedicate yourself, especially to long-term projects, and to be all-in if you’re fearful you could lose your job without much notice.”

For the contract recruiting coordinator I spoke with, the only small mercy was that she and her team had already been “conditioned” for the layoff process, making the official announcement this month “a bit easier to fathom and face.”

On March 14, “I got an email at 3 a.m. PST from my agency notifying me about Meta prioritizing ‘efficiency,’ and my access to my laptop and work phone was immediately shut off,” she told me.

As she found out when meeting her agency about next steps, even more contractors in her field had their positions eliminated, though not all of them.

Even though all three of the ex–Meta workers I spoke with had been excited to join the company at first, they now feel much more sour toward their former employer after witnessing firsthand how it handled layoffs and work-distribution issues.

“I still pinch myself today that I made it to Meta,” the product management recruiter said. “But I think people are losing faith in the company. The fact that we got hired on six months before things started taking a turn, that we were staffing up so much in product management—that really sucks. It’s kind of shitty.”

Levy suspects that the reason some Meta units were given less work throughout 2022 was so that it would be easier for the company to justify those employees’ dismissal.

“Going up to November, some people felt they were for sure going to be laid off eventually because of the constant lack of work,” she noted.

“We’d
just had our reviews in late September and early October, and if you have managers that are purposely influencing that data to make groups of employees look like they are not valuable, that’s a problem.”

Remaining Meta employees, who’ve now seen their company shed one-quarter of their total workforce since the fall, may be losing trust in and patience with their executives, especially Mark Zuckerberg. As Insider reported during the week of the March layoffs, workers asked Zuckerberg in a virtual town hall whether they could “trust leadership decisions after two rounds of layoffs.”

My Experience As A Project Manager at Meta & Facebook Layoffs

Unlike what much of what Nitish Pahwa has written about mainly recruiters feeling the brunt of the layoffs it was a lot more than just that department. You think Meta has 20,000 recruiters they laid off? No. It was product managers, project managers, and more.

Ultimately this was because Mark Zuckerberg had overhired during 2020, and when the world opened up after the pandemic lessened, the public wasn't online as much.

Zuck's failed experiment with the Metaverse bled into the layoffs too - he didn't survey his audience to see if the Metaverse was even anything we wanted. And halfassed the avatar design as a friend of mine who was a manager at Facebook mentioned to me recently.

I saw good people, product managers that worked with me on my projects, who just had a baby with his wife get laid off. It was tough. I hope folks can pull through and find meaningful and well paid work again.

What do you think about all the layoffs from Amazon, Google, Meta and more? 


If you are returning to my blog because you googled "disabled facebook ad account" I help advertisers on Facebook stay compliant. I've worked at Facebook for years and have my own company that helps advertisers stay compliant with Facebook ad policies even if Facebook won't hep you understand why you were banned.


Keep reading for these answers and more: 

New Solution to Facebook Ad Policy Violations

After years of working at Facebook, I understand exactly what ad copy in your funnel is triggering the automations and how to get compliant.

Get solid answers directly from the source instead guessing, googling, and playing roulette. Schedule a call with me and I can easily tell you proven reasons why the automations flag you and how to become compliant.

You'll be swapping out walking in a minefield of ad flags, to have a sure path to having your Facebook ad accounts protected from being disabled.

My clients have included the social media marketing agencies of Tony Robbins, Harv Eker, and Dean Graziosi. I'm featured on the Queen of Facebook Mari Smith's Marketing Essentials Course.

Save energy and money - how much is it costing you to not know why Facebook is shutting you down? Talk today. 

Scheduling a call is a big step in learning more about Facebook ad landing page policy.

If you want to skip the line before this offer ends, immediately secure an expert-level Facebook consulting call from someone at Facebook. Book a call with me now!

If you're ok with waiting a bit longer, and entering the waitlist to see if you're eligible - Schedule a call or contact me via email.

SAFE TECH ACT: You Can’t Diss The Rich Anymore Online

 

Safe tech Act

                                                      Image Source: NY Times

“For too long, Section 230 has given cover to social media companies as they turn a blind eye to the harmful scams, harassment, and violent extremism that run rampant across their platforms,” said Senator Warner.

There is a new threat to free speech. And like many that came before, it is hiding under the cover of protecting other people.

The SAFE TECH act attempts to amend Section 230, and it doesn't just threaten free speech and creators' ability to monetize content. It also opens the doors to a flood of frivolous lawsuits.

I realize this blog today deviates from my latest blogs, that offer tips on solving disabled Facebook ad accounts but, history is being made and we all need to talk about our freedom of speech when it's threatened.

If you are looking for help finding out why Facebook dropped the ban hammer on you...Click here, to schedule a discovery call.

Section 230 Protects More Than Big Tech

Right now, Section 230 protects tech websites—big and small—and their users from civil liability for content created by others. It does not protect against liability for content that a tech entity or user creates, nor does it protect against liability for federal crimes.

Section 230 has two main sections, one which protects against liability for third-party speech allowed (or overlooked) on a website and one which protects against liability for content moderation (that is, blocking certain speech).

The 1st part of Section 230—sometimes referred to as c(1)—says:

"No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."

The 2nd partc(2), or the "Good Samaritan clause"—says:

Internet platforms and users won't be held liable on account of "any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be:

obscene
• lewd
• lascivious
• filthy
• excessively violent

...harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected."

(Looking for my normal content? Read: Facebook ad account disabled next steps)

The Man Who Created Section 230 Weighs in

Daniel Weitzner, the founding director of the MIT Internet Policy Research Initiative, helped draft Section 230 and get it passed in 1996. Weitzner had this to say:

"Congress had a really clear choice in its mind," he says.

"Was the internet going to be like the broadcast media that were pretty highly regulated?" Or, was it going to be like "...the town square or the printing press?"

Congress, he said, "...chose the town square and the printing press." But, he adds, that approach is now at risk:

"The Supreme court now really is in a moment where it could dramatically limit the diversity of speech that the internet enables."

Right now Meta aka Facebook is already dealing with an AI trade secrets lawsuit recently, and a man named Abrham Meareg in Kenya asked Facebook to take down pics of his dad that had false accusations and death threats. Facebook didn't, and the Meareg's father was murdered outside his home.

In addition to Google fending off charges their algorithm suggested ISIS terrorist videos that resulted in real human harm. So a new law was filed called Justice Against Malicious Algorithms Act of 2021 (aka JAMA).

The cases are Gonzalez v. Google LLC and Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh.

Clearly there is a lot at stake here. Lives are lost because Facebook and other social media sites are slow to respond when real threats are reported. But at the same time - should these be used as a weapon against everyone's free speech?

Safe TECH act

image source: Action Network

The Rights SAFE TECH Act Takes From You

The SAFE TECH Act (almost ironically titled) would change Section 230 c(1) to not apply when "the provider or user has accepted payment to make the speech available or, in whole or in part, created or funded the creation of the speech."

How would this affect the web? It wouldn't just hurt Facebook and Google - this would create a huge issue for smaller websites like WordPress for blogging.

As well as newsletter and podcast distributors like Substack - all would become vulnerable to unrealistic liability standards as would any social media platform that provides a paid tier level (like Twitter Blue).

Do you use Bluehost or GoDaddy? All sorts of web hosting services would now be targeted —creating huge incentives for providers to cut off web hosting access to any person or group even slightly controversial.

As much as many may hate Donald Trump - and he has done many questionable actions worthy of scrutiny - he was elected because of the silent majority in America, conservatively leaning, felt their free speech was being suppressed by ultra liberal pundits and authority figures.

One act of suppression leads to another. It's a feedback loop.

But back to the SAFE Tech Act changes. These modifications of Section 230 "...would also threaten liability on any service that shares its advertising revenue with creators, for instance as YouTube does."

- said law professor and blogger Eugene Volokh from the Ukraine.

This would create incentives for platforms to cut off or severely limit creator monetization schemes, meaning "Creators would thus be less likely to earn money from their works."

Can you imagine being a well established micro influencer and suddenly Instagram refuses to let you publish content because you said something they don't agree with? And then all the monetization you had in place freezes??

In addition, "The section would threaten liability whenever any providers provide grants to support local journalism or other such projects (something like the Google News Initiative)," Volokh said.

"Providers would thus become less likely to directly or indirectly support journalism and other expression."

You get the feeling the SAFE TECH act isn't so safe eh? Wait, there's more.

Free Speech Under Fire 🔥🔥🔥

Want to get to the root of the danger to free speech with SAFE TECH ACT? Mike Masnick of TechDirt had some choice words. Check this out:

"[The SAFE TECH ACT] takes nearly every single idea that people who want there to be less speech online have had, and dumped it all into one bill," Masnick said.

"Everything about the bill is designed in a way that opens it up to abuse by the rich, powerful and privileged. Everything about the bill allows them to file costly lawsuits (or threaten to do so) and pressure websites to pull down all sorts of criticism."

The SAFE TECH Act also says that Section 230 c(1) protection wouldn't apply (regardless of whether payment or funding was involved).

"...to any request for injunctive relief arising from the failure of a provider of an interactive computer service to remove, restrict access to or availability of, or prevent the dissemination of material that is likely to cause irreparable harm."

Injunctive relief means someone who is suing you not for money but to get you to do something—in online speech cases, it's to get that speech removed.

Keep in mind that this provision isn't about lawsuits stemming from illegal content, just content likely to cause "irreparable harm."

And while "irreparable harm" sounds serious, it simply means harm that couldn't be compensated for with money, including harm to someone's reputation.

Like if someone powerful got butthurt about something you've said.

The SAFE TECH Act, "Would not protect users' rights in a way that is substantially better than current law," warned the digital rights advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) back in 2021.

"And it would, in some cases, harm marginalized users, small companies, and the Internet ecosystem as a whole."

SAFE TECH ACT: You Can't Diss The Rich Anymore Online

safe tech act

Source: EFF

The SAFE TECH ACT bill will carve out a bunch of exceptions to Section 230 protection, including for:

"...any action alleging discrimination on the basis of any protected class, or conduct that has the effect or consequence of discriminating on the basis of any protected class, under any Federal or State law."

As Masnick wrote about a similar provision in the 2021 version of SAFE TECH,

"...While it may sound good to say this can't be used to block civil rights cases, in actual practice a bunch of recent 'civil rights' cases have involved white supremacists, out-and-out misogynists, and other terrible people claiming that their civil rights were violated by being kicked off of platforms. Enabling such lawsuits seems incredibly short sighted."

And in some states, political affiliation is a protected class, meaning Section 230 wouldn't apply to cases where someone claims their content was blocked or restricted because of their politics. Again: floodgates.

And that's still not all.

The SAFE TECH Act would also amend Section 230 to state that it:

"...shall be construed to prevent, impair, or limit any action brought under Federal or State antitrust law,"

"...any civil action for wrongful death," any action brought under international human rights law, or any "action alleging stalking, cyberstalking, harassment, cyberharassment, or intimidation based, in whole or in part, on sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity), race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, or physical or mental disability."

If you look at that and think, well, tech companies shouldn't be allowed to violate laws with impunity—well, no, and they aren't.

If they create illegal content, they can already be held liable. If they are guilty of federal crimes, they can already be charged just like anyone else.

What the SAFE TECH Act would do is open up internet companies to civil lawsuits from individuals and governments if third parties use their services in the course of causing certain harms.

Even if many lawsuits against tech companies over user speech would not stand up to the First Amendment, the absence of Section 230 protection would make these suits more labor -and resource-intensive to fight—

This is upping the likelihood that platforms may decide to crack down on limiting speech rather than defend themselves in more lawsuits.

TLDR: if this Act passes anyone who is richer than you can sue you into silence if you say ANYTHING they disagree with online.

The SAFE TECH Act is a dangerous bill that would have far-reaching consequences for content creators, activists, people exposing police violence, whistleblowers, citizen journalists, and basically anyone who uses the internet.

Not to mention how it would burden our courts with questionable lawsuits and make life miserable for tech companies large and small.

[Parts of this article sourced from Reason.com]

Over the past 100 years free speech has been instrumental in establishing and protecting civil liberties.

Whether it's women meeting at Seneca Falls and establishing the right to vote, or Bob Dylan in the 60s calling out systemic injustice, oppression to Martin Luther King's speeches fighting for equal rights and against racism...free speech isn't just about talking.

It's about organizing. Creating unity and moving forward to build transformations towards equality. I agree that something must be done so that social media algorithms aren't boosting hatred just to get clicks and engagement.

But taking away everyone'free speech online, cloaked in the SAFE TECH Act as a protection measure?

Is that not just Big Brother telling us we shouldn't have any rights because we don't know any better, being the ignorant plebeians we are?

Haven't we heard this argument before when the Patriot Act was passed to legalize domestic spying and wiretapping American citizens?

Taking away rights is never the answer. I told this to the Texas Board of Education when they tried to take out the history of slavery from Texas textbooks and call it "involuntary relocation" instead.

I asked them, "How is less information going to make our children more informed?"

They didn't have an answer. And the proposal didn't pass. Thank god.

What do you think? Should we trade free speech for censorship? What is a good alternative between Section 230 and the SAFE TECH Act? Comment below and let me know your thoughts. 


If you are returning to my blog because you googled "disabled facebook ad account" I help advertisers on Facebook stay compliant. 


Keep reading for these answers and more: 

New Solution to Facebook Ad Policy Violations

After years of working at Facebook, I understand exactly what ad copy in your funnel is triggering the automations and how to get compliant.

Get solid answers directly from the source instead guessing, googling, and playing roulette. Schedule a call with me and I can easily tell you proven reasons why the automations flag you and how to become compliant.

You'll be swapping out walking in a minefield of ad flags, to have a sure path to having your Facebook ad accounts protected from being disabled.

My clients have included the social media marketing agencies of Tony Robbins, Harv Eker, and Dean Graziosi. I'm featured on the Queen of Facebook Mari Smith's Marketing Essentials Course.

Save energy and money - how much is it costing you to not know why Facebook is shutting you down? Talk today. 

Scheduling a call is a big step in learning more about Facebook ad landing page policy.

If you want to skip the line before this offer ends, immediately secure an expert-level Facebook consulting call from someone at Facebook. Book a call with me now!

If you're ok with waiting a bit longer, and entering the waitlist to see if you're eligible - Schedule a call or contact me via email.

Facebook CCPA compliance in California

LDU Under CCPA California Facebook ads

Credit: Terms Feed


If you're running Facebook ads in California you need to know new policies that are going to affect if your ads are running or not.

The California Consumer Privacy Act

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) began on January 1, 2020, and as a result, many online platforms are making changes to how data is collected from residents of California.

July 1, 2020 was the deadline for businesses to become compliant with the new policy changes before the California Attorney General started enforcing this new law.

Regardless of where your business is located, if you run ads in California, you are affected.

Here are the cliff notes version of the CCPA:

  • Any business who collects a consumer data & personal information is required to disclose the categories and purposes of the personal info collected. Also a business can't collect added categories of personal information outside of what was disclosed.
  • The customers / consumers / the public can opt-out of their data being sold to third parties.
  • Consumers have the right to request companies to delete any personal info about the consumer that the company collected (with some exceptions).

Note: This applies to all businesses with revenue over $25 million, those that have information from over 50,000 users, and/or businesses who earn more than half their revenue from selling this user data.

How CCPA Affects Facebook Advertisers 

Remember the Cambridge Analytica scandal? In 2019 Facebook settled with the FTC for $5 billion due to data privacy breaches.

Additionally Facebook 
released a document showing data of 6 million Californians may have been shared, costing Facebook something like $17 billion minimum in fines.

CCPA is like the GDPR update made in Europe in 2018 with one big difference: unlike GDPR where users can “opt-in” to have their data collected, CCPA gives users the option to  “opt-out” of having their data collected (and sold) and places that responsibility on companies and advertisers to decide.

How does Facebook’s Limited Data Use tool ensure CCPA compliance?

Facebook LDU enables advertisers on the platform to specify which users’ data should be subject to CCPA data management regulations. The company has outlined the specific ways user data will be limited in their list of state-specific terms, which includes language indicating advertisers are solely liable for compliance with CCPA. 

The feature requires a simple modification to the existing Facebook PageView pixel so that Facebook can automatically detect whether or not a user is in California. Specifically, developers will need to include a string within the Facebook pixel for ‘dataProcessingOptions’ that will allow your business to specify its degree of CCPA compliance. 

The string will allow for an advertiser to control if it is identifying a user in California or if would prefer for Facebook to handle the auto-identification. Of course, the ambiguity here comes from the fact that CCPA is an “opt-out” focused law, rather than “opt-in” like GDPR. So when should you enable LDU? At all times? Only when a user identifies they don’t want to be tracked? That has been left up to the individual advertisers to decide—and to assume the associated risk. 

Limited Data Use Feature

Starting July 1st Facebook rolled out the Limited Data Use (LDU) policy. This limits the way Facebook user data is stored and processed for all California residents.


Well, now the LDU is now auto-enabled for every Facebook business account and all personal information shared through the following Facebook features:



Facebook’s Limited Data Use feature protects Facebook advertisers from violating consumer privacy laws outlined in CCPA. Advertisers have until October 20, 2020 to update the Facebook Pixel to be compliant with CCPA. Action is required to extend the transition period. If no action is taken, the LDU will end on August 1, 2020.

LDU Facebook Events in Ads Manager

The LDU is applied to every Facebook event by default. Data collection for these events is limited to California residents and won't be captured and used in products that used all of customer data in the past.

This is the pop up warning in Ads Manager you may see:



If your company doesn’t meet the CCPA requirements or you don’t run Facebook ads to California residents, you can choose to enable full data use to make sure that all Facebook events (flagged or unflagged) will collect the full amount of data collected.

Before taking any action – first determine if your business is even affected by CCPA. If not, you may just disable the LDU setting in Facebook so that your company can continue to collect data from the California residents you run ads to.

Search Engine Land, made this helpful graphic to breakdown the ins and outs:

LDU Under CCPA California Facebook ads

What Actions Should Brands Take?

The first question you need to answer is, “Does CCPA apply to my company?” Determine if your company is required to be compliant with CCPA guidelines. Note, the personal data of 50,000 “consumers, households, or devices” can be considered highly ambiguous, so you’ll want to think about all of the ways you currently store user data. 

Exempt

If your business is not required to be compliant with CCPA, then you will not be subject to the functions enforced by Limited Data Use. Once you have confirmed that this is the case, you can Enable Full Use of Customer Data within Facebook. (By toggling on “Enable Full Use of Consumer Data”, you will be manually overriding the automatic feature put in place by Facebook)

Limited Data Use Image
If you are exempt, or compliant, you can disable Limited Data Use prior to July 31st by “Enabling” this setting within the Facebook UI.

Non-Exempt

If your business is required to comply with CCPA requirements, then we recommend taking the following actions:

  1. Legal Review: Speak with your legal team about your organization’s broader approach to CCPA compliance. This will include things like your Privacy Policy, or “Do Not Sell My Information” form requirements. 
  2. Technical Compliance: In order to give users in California the ability to opt-out of sharing/selling their personal data, we recommend implementing a web compliance tool. Web compliance tools allow you to give users options regarding tracking and data processing. There are many solutions available, but we recommend the following three options: 
    1. CookieBot: https://www.cookiebot.com/en/
    2. OneTrust: https://www.onetrust.com/ 
    3. Clym: https://www.clym.io/ 
  3. Limited Data Use Flag: Review which actions a user may take that would change the way you may share their data with Facebook. Specifically, are they opting-out of tracking? If so, you will either need to block tracking completely, or you will need to apply a “Limited Data Use” flag to the pixel. 
    1. CCPA is an opt-out law: This means that by default a user is opted into sharing their data, so the default state should not be to have an LDU flag unless your legal team believes otherwise
    2. Blocking all tracking: If you allow a user to block all tracking, this should work in the same way as applying a Limited Data Use flag in your pixel. 
    3. It’s not just the pixel: All of the ways you pass data back to Facebook need to be accounted for (which a good web compliance tool will be able to handle for you) – the technical specs for other forms of data passback can be reviewed here.
  4. Enable Full Use of Customer Data within Facebook: Once you are compliant with CCPA guidelines and have decided if & when you want to update your pixel to include the LDU flag, you can Enable Full Use of Customer Data within Facebook. 

Ensure Facebook Pixel is LDU Complaint

For businesses who have a Facebook Pixel deployed via Google Tag Manager and have a dedicated Analytics/Development team member, you'll have to change the Facebook pixel's PageView event. (Hardcoded Facebook pixels can be updated the same way by a web developer.)

Changes to other Facebook pixel events in addition to the pageview event code may be needed but that depends on the amount of risk you want to take.

These modifications to the ‘dataProcessingOptions’ will allow Facebook to determine whether or not the user is a California resident and the degree of CCPA compliance your business has opted for.

Facebook wrote up some documentation on how their pixel should be updated to detail the dataProcessingOptions method before you call fbq(‘init’).

To disabled the Limited Data Use Mode use:

fbq(‘dataProcessingOptions’, []);

fbq(‘init’, ‘{pixel_id}’);

fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);

To enable LDU mode using geolocation, use:

fbq(‘dataProcessingOptions’, [‘LDU’], 0, 0);

To enable LDU for users and specify user geography:


fbq(‘dataProcessingOptions’, [‘LDU’], 1, 1000);

How Facebook Advertisers Feel The Impact of LDU

Retargeting campaigns will probably be the most affected by the LDU.

With LDU automatically enabled across all accounts on July 1, Californians are no longer included in pixel-based retargeting campaigns. If you already have retargeting campaigns set up that run in California these may be affected.

For example, if you're running ads to an audience on the west coast, and 75% of that audience is in California the LDU will take away your ability to see the other 25% of your audience and you can't use their data for retargeting ad campaigns.

Looking forward, there also may be a blow back onto conversion attribution window settings for Facebook users in California as well, and the issue of how this same info will be tabulated in Google Analytics.

Maybe Dean Kamen can invent a solution that protects user privacy but also doesn't stifle businesses who need ads run on Facebook to keep their doors open?

What do you think of the new LDU policy? If you need a Facebook ad policy expert, feel free to schedule a call here.

New Solution to Facebook Ad Policy Violations

After years of working at Facebook, I understand exactly what ad copy in your funnel is triggering the automations and how to get compliant.

Get solid answers directly from the source instead guessing, googling, and playing roulette. Schedule a call with me and I can easily tell you proven reasons why the automations flag you and how to become compliant.

You'll be swapping out walking in a minefield of ad flags, to have a sure path to having your Facebook ad accounts protected from being disabled.

My clients have included the social media marketing agencies of Tony Robbins, Harv Eker, and Dean Graziosi. I'm featured on the Queen of Facebook Mari Smith's Marketing Essentials Course.

Save energy and money - how much is it costing you to not know why Facebook is shutting you down? Talk today. 

Scheduling a call is a big step in learning more about Facebook ad landing page policy.

If you want to skip the line before this offer ends, immediately secure an expert-level Facebook consulting call from someone at Facebook. Book a call with me now!

If you're ok with waiting a bit longer, and entering the waitlist to see if you're eligible - Schedule a call or contact me via email.

 

 

 

AI Copywriting Facebook AI Update

 

AI Copywriting Meets Meta

"CopyAi AI Copywriting tool. "


Meta is turbo charging their focus on AI just as AI copywriting takes the world by storm now that Chat GPT has become widespread. Facebook has generative AI teams working on b
uilding "delightful experiences" around AI [wtf?].

Zuck announced that Meta is developing AI personas to help people - although given how automated ad policy enforcers wreaking havoc on Facebook ads hasn't gone too well so far.

Meta's new AI will focus on text (like chat in WhatsApp and Messenger), images (eg creative Instagram filters, ad formats) and video.

Generative AI

Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence technology that can produce various types of content, including text, imagery, audio and synthetic data. This includes creating deep fakes and more.

This new laser focus on AI is one of Meta's futuristic developments with their Metaverse comprised of:

(∆)  artificial intelligence and machine learning
(∆)  virtual reality and augmented reality
(∆)  the internet of things (iOT)
(∆) bl0ckchain technology
(∆)  edge computing

Zuck is pushing everyone to live in the Metaverse, where you'll be able to perform all your regular day-to-day, real life activities, except everything is in a simulated VR reality and you represent yourself with an avatar.

That ALMOST fits the exact description of The Matrix:

"...a dystopian future in which humanity is unknowingly trapped inside the Matrix, a simulated reality that intelligent machines have created to distract humans while using their bodies as an energy source."

A graphic saying 5 AI copywriting tools to make writing content easier.


How intelligent do we really want machines to get? The over reliance on robotics already stunts emotional intelligence in teens.  Despite all the warnings companies like Google aggressively pursue making an AI with human awareness. 

It really makes you think, are we creating a superior predator to mankind with this focus on inventing a self aware machine? Chat GPT just amalgamates Google search results so it isn't self aware...yet. Despite what a Google engineer named Blake Lemoine thinks.

Have Facebook sentinels attacked the Zion of your ad account? Read
What to Do After Violating Facebook’s Ad Policies).

My client, one of the editors of Rich Dad Poor Dad, found help with me when I guided her through the FB ad policies to get her ads live pronto. Want the same VIP treatment? Click here, to schedule a discovery call.

Performance Marketing and AI Copywriting

A lot of the hoopla around AI copywriting is geared towards creating high-quality content, in just a few seconds, at a fraction of the cost. But if you've used Chat GPT you know it sounds like an instruction manual.

While having an AI writer that generates and optimizes your copy would be nice, marketers still need to humanize their content marketing material. Machines don't understand the human pathos.

Affiliate or performance marketing doesn't have any ROI if you're relying on AI that has no idea why a headline it's trying to duplicate works. The why is the crux for course correcting when your KPIs aren't met.

For tips on running FB ads as a business, read How to Navigate Facebook’s Advertising Policies as a Business.

Just Get Copy That Converts

“We have a lot of foundational work to do before getting to the really futuristic experiences, but I’m excited about all of the new things we’ll build along the way.” - Mark Zuckerberg

Copywriting AI is the new "it factor" in marketing and business. Large language models created by OpenAI are integrated into a Microsoft Bing chatbot as well as ChatGPT. Google is also working on a chatbot named Bard.

The world is obsessed with AI. I predict this is the new Californian Gold Rush in Silicon Valley - but also that bubble will pop with the realization AI isn't that developed at scale yet.

Read my full predictions for AI this year on Linkedin here, here and here.

On Monday, Snap announced that it would integrate a ChatGPT bot into its Snapchat app. If you're familiar with Facebook, you know they like to reverse engineer successful business models.

Last week, Meta announced its own new large language model called LLaMA.

Were you using AI for FB ad copy and got your ad account disabled? Read How to Recover Facebook Ad Accounts now! My client Dr. Emi was featured on the Today Show on NBC. I helped her when she was shut down (VIP Access).

Should You Use an AI Copywriting Tool?

"Consulting with Neil Patel"


After watching iRobotTotal Recall, The Matrix, the Terminator and more, it feels like people almost want the apocalypse to happen. Where machines rise up and decide mankind needs to be destroyed as a threat to its survival.

Yet engineers still nerd out with a lot of back patting the closer they get to creating the villain in every one of these sci-fi movies that tries to kill us. Is that really smart?  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Whether or not you use ai copywriting tools really depends on your bandwidth for humanizing it. And the intent. If you use AI to create a recipe book, that seems fair. Or for content marketing that you adapt, sure.

I tried to use Chat GPT to write part of a chapter in my upcoming sci-fi novel, A Memory of Saturn (the first one in the trilogy is Zero Point Horizon).

But you know what happened?

I had to scrap all of it because the hokey Chat GPT writings were devoid of any imagination, human emotion, or vivid descriptions. If I was writing a children's book, that corny Chat GPT text would work. Everything else - not so much.

(Looking to side step a FB shutdown? Peep Top Reasons Why Facebook Disables Ad Accounts).

Let's cover some of the real risks using AI copywriting.

AI Copywriting Limitations

Are AI chabots watermarking the chatbot text??! Yes. As Tech Crunch describes:

In a lecture at the University of Texas at Austin, computer science professor Scott Aaronson, currently a guest researcher at OpenAI, revealed that OpenAI is developing a tool for “statistically watermarking the outputs of a text [AI system].

Whenever a system — say, ChatGPT — generates text, the tool would embed an “unnoticeable secret signal” indicating where the text came from.

I know almost everyone is jumping up and down, excited about Chat GPT's potential (and other ai chat bots). I've even seen idiots on youtube tell people they can make tons of money getting Chat GPT to narrate dog videos (all bs).

The real question is:

Are you safe using watermarked chatbot AI text? It would suck to have a website taken down because the owner used copyrighted AI generated text.

How does AI Content Generator work?

Neil Patel, one of my all time favorite marketing gurus has some choice words about how AI content generators work for AI copywriting:

"10 Best AI Copywriting Tools for 2023" "First, although AI tech is impressive, AI copywriting tools don’t write anything truly original. Remember, we’re talking about a machine. They’re “fed” articles and content written by human copywriters and essentially mix them up to create something new.

AI tools produce great copy, but just because it’s “new” copy doesn’t mean it’s original.

What’s more, AI tools can’t replicate human emotion. Why is this a drawback? Well, emotion matters in marketing. In fact, when it comes to consumer buying behavior, feelings are more influential than any other variable, so you should try to invoke emotion through your content."
"Writesonic's AI Copywriting tool. "

What is AI Copywriting?

FAQ

AI copywriting uses artificial intelligence to write copy for your website or content marketing campaigns.

Typically a chatbot is used with a simple query. Many use AI copywriting for generating headlines, YouTube video titles, product descriptions, website text to email newsletters to social media posts.

Is AI Copywriting Worth It?

I'll address this on two fronts:

1. Facebook's new focus on AI
2. Content creation

If you are like me, a blogger, content marketer or you run ads, I'd say use with care. Ecommerce even if you're using AI for product info.

Really any sort of AI content marketing the public sees, if it's branded with cryptography??!

That can enforce a trademark?? Ummm...hard pass. That may be more trouble than it's worth.

As a Facebook ad policy specialist I can share that many advertisers ask for my help after they get ads rejected on Facebook. Sometimes for copyright infringements.

AI copywriting tools are great for outlining, generating ideas, and breaking writer's block. But you'll need to humanize it and use your own words to avoid being banned on platforms who scan for AI created content.

Imagine being sued by Chat GPT for royalties if AI copywriting from them generated you revenue. That kind of reframes how much "effort" you think goes into writing original copy versus using AI.

Hiring an IP lawyer is a lot more effort.

ai copywriting obama

You gotta match your audience's tone, pain points and humanity. Robots can't do that. The future of business is in customization. AI copywriting is generic af.

The exact opposite of customized copy for your target audience. Think about all the ad fatigue from swipe file ads.

Millennials and Gen Zers are migrating to influencer marketing because that feels more real. Folks are also sick of Facebook bans - learn how to avoid them here.

The Metaverse is Dead

Sources at Facebook say that Mark Zuckerberg has quietly killed the Metaverse in favor of AI.

Reality Labs, the division responsible for the metaverse projects, recorded a cumulative loss of nearly $24 billion in 2021 and 2022, which has likely contributed to Zuckerberg's decision to shift the company's focus.

As Reuters reports: The public battle to dominate the AI technology space kicked off late last year with the launch of Microsoft-backed OpenAI's ChatGPT and prompted tech heavyweights from Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) to China's Baidu Inc (9888.HK), to trumpet their own offerings.

Meta's LLaMA, short for Large Language Model Meta AI, will be available under non-commercial license to researchers and entities affiliated with government, civil society, and academia, it said in a blog.

Do You Trust AI?

Given Meta's history as Facebook, routinely making errors in automated advertising flagging, and locking Facebook users out of their personal accounts by accident - do you trust their competency with AI?

Meta in May last year released large language model OPT-175B, also aimed at researchers, which formed the basis of a new iteration of its chatbot BlenderBot.

It later introduced a model called Galactica, which could write scientific articles and solve math problems, but quickly pulled down the demo after it generated authoritative-sounding false responses.

Conclusion

Samyutha Reddy, Jasper's Head of Enterprise Marketing said:

"Generative AI is still in its early stages, and it has some issues. The information it collects can be biased or simply false, and it doesn't have the discernment of a real human to catch those inaccuracies."

"Samyutha Reddy on why AI wont replace marketers"

Last month I had a chance to hang with Austin Distel, the head of marketing at Jasper. The Y Combinator-backed startup is trying to improve upon some of the limitations of other AI copywriting chatbots.

In conclusion, my take on ai copywriting is to wait and see. Use it sparingly and don't forget your bottom line:

Human-to-human connections generate more revenue than any copy and paste approach. Machines don't always have the answer.

Speaking of machines - has Facebook's machines shut down your ad account or rejected your Facebook ads?
What if you had a guarantee that your ads were compliant 
before they went live on Facebook? 

New Solution to Facebook Ad Policy Violations

After years of working at Facebook, I understand exactly what ad copy in your funnel is triggering the automations and how to get compliant.

Get solid answers directly from the source instead guessing, googling, and playing roulette. Schedule a call with me and I can easily tell you proven reasons why the automations flag you and how to become compliant.

You'll be swapping out walking in a minefield of ad flags, to have a sure path to having your Facebook ad accounts protected from being disabled.

My clients have included the social media marketing agencies of Tony Robbins, Harv Eker, and Dean Graziosi. I'm featured on the Queen of Facebook Mari Smith's Marketing Essentials Course.

Save energy and money - how much is it costing you to not know why Facebook is shutting you down? Talk today. 

Scheduling a call is a big step in learning more about Facebook ad landing page policy.

If you want to skip the line before this offer ends, immediately secure an expert-level Facebook consulting call from someone at Facebook. Book a call with me now!

If you're ok with waiting a bit longer, and entering the waitlist to see if you're eligible - Schedule a call or contact me via email.

 

 

 

Five Reasons Why You’re in Facebook Jail

Five Reasons Why You’re in Facebook Jail

What do ad agencies NOT banned by Facebook have that your ad agency sometimes lacks? Costly Facebook bans raise ad costs when your funnel isn’t bringing in the moolah and you’re stuck in Facebook jail but don’t know why. Sound familiar?

The challenge is reading between the lines when you get a Facebook ad policy violation because the reasons often seem obscure. Which ad policy did you violate? Below I’ll explain the most common ad policy violations.

Facebook Ad Policy Violations

A ton of your Facebook ads have just been rejected! What do you do? Sweating, worried, you look at your account quality score but see more mean red little letters telling you that you’re in Facebook jail.

Facebook ad policy


What does this even mean? Maybe it has some answers?! Except this metric won’t actually tell you which ad policy violations weigh more heavily than others.

Was there just one ad policy violation that was the straw that broke the camel’s back? Or was it a sum total of all of them adding up?

It was a landing page issue, no wait perhaps it was controversial content (what the fuck is that?), or wait..those damn social issue flags!

Want to make sure your landing page doesn’t get flagged by Facebook? Click here.

I’ve spent years working at Facebook (even before the special ad category was invented) and today I’ll be blogging about Five Reasons Why You’re in Facebook Jail and what to do about it.

But FIRST you need to know how Facebook thinks. If you don’t know how Facebook sees your ad, that is one of the reasons you’re in Facebook jail.

Why trust me over all the other blogs online? I’ve worked at Facebook in ads, and tech, and with the engineers at Meta.

Trevor W. Goodchild is for brands that need MAXIMUM accuracy.

10-20% off is a the difference of tens, hundreds or even millions.

When one word can get you banned, you can’t afford to guess.

Just like my client, Amazon Reality Show star Juanita Ingram of The Expats International Ingrams you’ll discover there are micro flags in ad copy and landing pages that have to be removed first before attempting to appeal or relaunch a brand with Facebook.

Advertising access permanently restricted this is our final decision
Want the same white glove treatment navigating Facebook shutdowns?

Click here, to schedule a discovery call to avoid getting a disabled Facebook ad account.

Reason 1: You Don’t Understand How Facebook’s Sees Facebook Ads [Ad Policy]

When you create ads but don’t understand how the platform sees those same ads you’ll end up in Facebook jail. How can you not? It’s like never running track but entering the Hunger Games.

BUT – after you familiarize yourself with how facebook sees Facebook ads, and what they want to see, the disconnect won’t be as bad.

So how does Facebook see ads?

Direct from the source, let’s start with Facebook’s positive user experience blurb:

Knowing Facebook ad policy violations is important.

The average advertiser will not be able to read between the lines here and grok how Facebook’s philosophy described above applies to your funnel and your ads. I’ll help explain. For my essential guide to Facebook ad policies click here.

“We want to help ensure that the ads don’t detract from the overall experience across our technologies.”

Marketers reading that often fail to connect the real meaning behind it to shape how they run ads and as a result, come off more click bait-y than intended, and end up in Facebook jail.

Perhaps your ad accounts in your Facebook Business Manager get disabled so now you try your personal ad account. Everything goes fine for a while then that gets disabled too. Now your profile get restricted from advertising as well.

WTF??

Reread that line above again. “We want to help ensure that the ads don’t detract from the overall experience.”

What is Facebook referring to with the overall experience?

Meta or Facebook is referring to the everyday journey of the average consumer, logging onto Facebook to check their notifications.

Catching up on relatives that live in another city, seeing the Facebook Business Pages they liked, scrolling the feed for updates from their friends and websites that post news updates – this is the overall experience.

In the middle are the sponsored posts many Facebook users barely notice or distinguish from the non-ad posts.

Now let’s step into the shoes of Facebook’s policies and review the bots that ban ya.

Reason #2: You’re in Facebook Jail Because of Automations

A message to all the ad agencies spending $100K a year and up on Facebook ads:

We all know the Facebook ban bots are vicious but there IS a way to work with them and never get shut down. I know, because I’ve helped countless 7 and 8 figure ad agencies recover from Facebook bans or avoid them all together. But to do so, you have to get familiar with how Facebook automations decide to flag Facebook ads. 

Facebook Ad Policy Progressive? Automations Are 1950s

If you want a persona, let’s look at Ward, from the hit series Leave It to Beaver.

Check out Facebook ad policy violations.

Believe it or not, the way Facebook’s automations see Facebook posts very much align with 1950s conformism. And when they scan the Newsfeed for the Facebook ads that are running, if there is shocking content it will be removed.

For an in depth look at the top reasons why Facebook disables ad accountsclick here.

Can you imagine, Ward – the father figure in Leaves It to Beaver seeing an ad on Facebook that appeared too spammy or too sexual? An even sterner expression would be on his face. He’d be outraged to see this:

People see a lot of ads per day but don’t know about Facebook ad policy violations.
Admittedly the post above is pretty dated as you can see from the older build of Facebook’s platform but perhaps that fits this analogy of a 50s sitcom dad looking at your Facebook ad with scrutiny.

If your ad is too negative or too sexual it is going to get flagged and shut down, often without a specific explanation as to why. Because we are dealing with a very conservative Facebook 1950s sitcom dad automation.

So, don’t risk your revenue with guesses. If you want an escape plan from Facebook Jail, I’m like Michael Scofield with the blueprints for a way out.

Facebook ad policy
Just like my client Darryl CEO of King Memory found out, and shared on LinkedIn there are specific ways to work with Facebook policies without losing conversions or getting stuck in Facebook jail:

Facebook customer feedback
Trevor W. Goodchild verifiably reveals what key metrics matter when staying out of Facebook jail. This means better more profitable decisions when ad buying and running campaigns. Schedule your discovery call now

How Facebook’s Core Values Shape Ad Policy Flagging

I’ll get to the Facebook ad policies you get flagged for most often soon enough. But it’s important not to skip this part because once you get how Facebook perceives ads this will help you reframe your ad copy and creative to be more compliant.

No, that doesn’t mean you can’t kick pain points or be negative sometimes to inspire FOMO, or the need for a solution to a problem, but it does mean considering Facebook ad policies first and then conversion elements for high converting Facebook ads.

So, one last time, let’s go back to Facebook’s ad policy philosophy of wanting to:

“…ensure that the ads don’t detract from the overall experience.”

If your ads are making Facebook users feel bad and they shoot a peace sign to the big FB, think about how many ads an average person sees in a day they won’t be seeing now. Are your Facebook ads blocked? Click here for expert guidance.

TLDR: If your Facebook ads are perceived as too sexual, too spammy, too clickbait-y, too misleading, too negative and Facebook users decide to get off Facebook, that’s a truckload of money you just took from Facebook.

Facebook will 😡 your ad now and remove it because you just lost them thousands of dollars because every single ad that Facebook user saw was paying Facebook money.

The kicker is Facebook has already told you this but, they have disguised these intentions behind generic wording to appear more consumer friendly (following their own policies of not being too shocking or negative). Full circle.

Now, let’s check out another Facebook ad policy violation that can put you in Facebook jail.

Reason # 3: You’re in Facebook Jail for Circumventing Systems

Is your patience running thin from random Facebook bans? You’re not alone! A Facebook ban that puts you in Facebook jail quite often is a Facebook flag that many don’t understand. I’ll share with you what it really means below:

Circumventing Systems in Facebook Ad Policy

In Facebook jail because of the Circumventing Systems flag? 10 million to one I can fix it. Facebook’s official explanation for that flag is essentially, “I pity the fool who thinks they can sneak around my policies.”

Submitting the same ad won’t help with Facebook ad policy violations.

Ok ok, so the automations aren’t exactly as cool as Mr. T from the A-Team. But essentially that’s the external PR line that Facebook gives when you get that flag. But is this really what it means? Let’s look at 3 realistic scenarios for this flag:

•  Requesting people to DM you on an ad
•  Trying to run an ad again that was just rejected
•  Creating a new ad or ad account after shut downs

Keep in mind this is a relatively new Facebook flag that emerged late 2019ish in response to the 2019 lawsuit that waged war against real estate ads using income and zipcode targeting parameters (that lawsuit also led to the special ad categories filter).

If you are requesting folks to DM you on a Facebook (or especially an Instagram) ad Facebook will assume you are trying to get around paying for clicks and flag you for circumventing the system.

Reason # 4: You’re in Facebook Jail for Re-Submitting Rejected Ads Again

You just got a Facebook ad rejected? Oh shit! Let’s just try to run it again! That kind of dumb ass thinking is why you’re getting banned.

Sorry not sorry for being so in your face about it but I’ve seen this thousands of times from the thousands of ad agencies I’ve worked with over the years helping them get compliant. It’s the same story every time:

“We got our ad rejected from Facebook, didn’t know why, so we tried to run it again!”

Clickbait headlines are against Facebook ad policy violations.
This is one of the biggest triggers for Circumventing Systems flag!!

The logic is (and we are talking machine-logic) that Facebook assumes you are trying to get around their automations by sheer number of ads submitted even if these ads have flags you’d been previously shut down for.

Don’t get me wrong, it is a tactic that can work. Do I advise it? Hell no. Because eventually, when a new ad policy is distributed across the platform Facebook’s bots will rescan existing ads and shut you down.

Even if the ads you were running were compliant at the time they went live.

Big agencies, who run 100s of ads in an ad set will often try to just overwhelm the automations by submitting so many ads that a few slip through that are not compliant. Or a bunch slips through depending on the bandwidth of Facebook’s servers.

Even if you are a smaller SMB, Facebook will assume that by resubmitting the same ad with the same flags again, that you are trying this tactic and that’s when you get hit with the Circumventing Systems flag.

The fix? Just don’t resubmit a rejected Facebook ad before finding out WHY it was rejected FIRST. And I can help with that. Want a free discovery call to see if I can help get your Facebook ads live again? Schedule your call here.

You’re in Facebook Jail for a Failed Relaunch

You’re saying, “I’ll just create it all again from scratch!” and it sounds easy right? Wrong. Facebook has extra safeguards in place now if you want to relaunch and it’s impossible to do without expert guidance most of the time.

Creating a New Ad Account or FB Page After Shutdowns

Now you’re like, ok, well, shoot, I’ll just make a new ad account. I’ll just make a new Facebook Business Page after my last one was restricted.

Well…you are in for a ride. There’s a 50/50 chance Facebook could miss this and your ads get live again. This will depend on the amount of traffic to the servers, how many ads are getting rejected and your personal history of rejections verses approvals.

But, more often than not, Facebook sees this attempt as a way of sneaking around their ad policies and will shut you down again. Except now, you are defined as a bad character, internally, and maybe your profile gets restricted from advertising.

Your Facebook Profile remember is not a Facebook Business Page – it’s all your personal profile page stuff with your picture and your friends on it. You have to have a Profile to create a Business Manager and advertise on Ads Manager.

That’s one key to many doors, now revoked. But, there is one last confusing ass reason you get the Circumventing Systems flag. One that really gets advertisers nerves in a jumble when seeing those ominous red letters in Ads Manager:

The X-Factor of Facebook Ad Policy

Facebook will often just slap the Circumventing Systems and disable ad accounts if they know you are violating ad policies, but can’t decide which one to use to shut you down with.

So in a sense, it becomes a header flag. An umbrella flag under which your actual Facebook ad policy violation flag sits. But, of course they won’t tell you about it.

Half the time they don’t know themselves because this shit is automated!

In order to solve that, you have to determine which flag triggered the Circumventing Systems flag, understanding that you aren’t actually being flagged for trying to sneak around their ad policies, but something else entirely.

My advice is to audit your funnel and determine which flags you have had recently that weighed the most heavily and triggered the circumventing systems flag before it gets to be too late and your ad assets are frozen.

Let’s now discuss Reason #5 for Facebook ad policy violations that’ll get you thrown in Facebook jail: Misleading Business Practices aka Unacceptable Business Practices flag.
 

Reason #5: You’re in Facebook Jail for Unacceptable Business Practices 

Remember Circumventing Systems as a header flag for a litany of unrelated flags? Same thing here.

You gotta keep in mind a lot of shit is unacceptable to Facebook.

When you get flagged for an unacceptable business practice ad it could be 1 of 3 main header flags:

Spam
Unrealistic Claims
MLM

Also, this flag is known as Misleading Business Practices.

I go into a lot more detail on Spam flags in my blog post Top 5 Reasons Why Facebook Ads Get Rejected, so peep that out for more details.

Remember when I mentioned the big promises of clickbait ads? This is kind of like a clickbait-lite flag. Facebook doesn’t come down as harshly most of the time for unrealistic claims unless you just have a whole bunch of them in a row.

Or, you just sound like a lunatic with something like “Lose 100lbs in 5 days with this new weight loss program.”

Are you starting to see how within the Facebook ecosystem, many of these flags are connected?

Clickbait flags are connected (but aren’t the same thing) as Unrealistic Claims. Circumventing Systems are connected to Unrealistic Claims (but aren’t the same) in both being header flags sometimes for unrelated ad policy violations.

MLM flags usually have to do with, although not exclusively, money. Talking about how much money you can make people online is a dangerous topic to approach given these MLM flags.

Do you want to spend 200 hours researching all the ways your ads could get flagged or would you rather just have instant answers within 60 minutes for exactly why your Facebook ads are getting flagged?

I’ve worked with celebrities, influencers, written for and consulted major social media publications and can help prevent you from getting the ban hammer. Keep reading for more info:

Five Reasons Why You’re in Facebook Jail Solution

I’ve worked at Facebook in ads, tech and project management, and my zone of genius is helping ad agencies get Facebook ads live again and preventing future shut downs. 

Facebook Ad Policy Ban Fix

A full customer life cycle and cost are critical to getting true profit from your marketing, and Facebook bans are costly.

I’ll review your funnel and FULL cost of Facebook jail, letting you see the EXACT cause of FB bans and how to fix them to IMPROVE your immediate ad & marketing results and get ads live again.

Are you going to trust random articles online or someone like me, who has worked at Meta?

I’m trusted by high level brands that take accuracy and results seriously:

Facebook account restricted from advertising

I can show you how to resolve FB bans even if Facebook won’t, and solve issues like advertising access permanently restricted.

Schedule a call with me and learn how to stop the domino effect when Facebook starts banning your entire funnel after a simple ad rejection.

Don’t take my word for it, let my clients tell you what it was like working with me.

Facebook Policy
My clients have included the social media marketing agencies of Tony Robbins, Harv Eker, and Dean Graziosi. How much is it costing you to not know why Facebook is shutting you down? Talk today. 

Scheduling a call is a big step in learning more about Facebook ad landing page policy.

I’m featured on the Queen of Facebook Mari Smith’s Marketing Essentials Course.

If you want to skip the line before this offer ends,
immediately secure an expert-level Facebook consulting call from someone at Facebook. Book a call with me now!

Facebook jail solution testimonial


If you’re ok with waiting a bit longer, and entering the waitlist to see if you’re eligible – Schedule a call or contact me via email.

Free eBook: Top 5 Reasons Agencies Fail at Facebook

Knowing if it’s right for you (or not)


Do you ever wonder if who you hire actually loves the job you're hiring them to do?

I saw a presentation at a marketing conference that made some great points when it comes to work ethic. The presenter suggested that before you start asking applicants for their relevant skills and job experience, ask them:

"If you weren't doing this, what would you rather be doing instead?"

This will give you an indication if they hate the job you are hiring them for. If they do then...it's probably not a great fit.

(Be sure to read my blog How to not feel like an imposter here).


At A Glance

∎ Hiring Someone To Do A Job They Hate 

∎ How To Think Differently 


∎ Purpose Over Profit Highlight: Australian Kids & Renewable Energy 


Passion For The Job 


Why would you hire someone to write copy if they hate writing? We produce the best results when we are doing something we love to do. Or at least are interested in the activity.

Now, for those who aren't founders, this may not seem as relevant because you're saying, "Trevor, I'm not hiring anybody for anything!"

But stay with me here, because this is pretty revealing for the tasks we all do in our daily lives. If we are not motivated by a personal interest in what we do, the results we produce for ourselves won't be as great.

We are 100% responsible for the results we get. Because the results we get are a direct reflection of the effort we put into working on improving ourselves, our lives, and our financial position. 

It's Bigger Than Just Working Hard

Working hard doesn't mean we automatically get results because you can still be lazy while working hard.

It sounds like a contradiction but it isn't - if you work hard out of habit it's easier to keep doing the same thing than get uncomfortable, thinking outside the box to solve problems you're so used to having you've stopped trying new ways to solve them that are smarter, better and more effective.

If you are not happy with the results you are getting it's because you haven't broken mental and emotional habits that keep you on that hamster wheel and Groundhog's Day.

It is 100% your responsibility to think differently. 

The speaker went on to discuss hiring C-Suite execs, operations managers, and Executive Assistants (EAs). He emphasized the importance of building a strong team that can run your business without your constant input.

I liked that idea. I'm not at the level in my business where I can take a month off from working and let my team do everything but the concept is appealing. The next thing the presenter said really caught my attention.

The topic was hiring a chief operating officer, and higher up positions like operations management. These are high paying positions.

He said, "Don't discuss salary when you're hiring. Instead, find out what they're driven by, and discover a shared purpose. They might already have money but want another need to be fulfilled. Negotiate based on sense of purpose."

That makes sense. I'd be happier working on something I cared about. He went on to say:

"Once you're both on the same page on purpose, they'll be driven to help your business level up more than just profit can motivate. If they share the same sense of purpose for your business, then they'll be thinking up ways to improve your company while they're in the shower."

I can relate to this. Working on my first science-fiction novel, sometimes I'll try to go to sleep but have new action scenes running through my head I have to jot down.

Having someone on your team that has their own motivation for helping you succeed - I like that. You may have heard me before comment on how so many jobs place people in roles they aren't fit for, ignoring employees natural aptitude, and just try to fill seats. It's what most 9-5 jobs are like.

Finding out what people are good at and what they're passionate about (there will be some overlap) and putting them in job roles that match that? Definitely a Win-Win.

We wear a dozen hats as the founder of our business. I know I feel like I have a million things to do sometimes and not enough time to do them all.

In these moments it can be helpful to take a step back and ask,

"What do I enjoy doing?"

This will help you find out if this task is right for you or not. If you don't enjoy doing something in your business - outsource that to people who love doing that and focus on getting great at what you're already good at.

It's a good reminder to ask ourselves how much of what we do in business shares our sense of purpose? And to realign our actions to doing what's meaningful to us.

Purpose Over Profit Highlight


In Tasmania, Australian high school students are bicycling to generate power for their schools, gaining sustainability awareness and making donuts! It takes about 600 watts to cook a doughnut, or if you attend Huonville High School a brisk 20-minute ride on the school's energy bikes.

Huonville High School created Zayed Huon Energy Hub which teaches students about renewable energy with hands on activities like generating electricity with bicycles to make donuts.

I can't imagine how much they'd have to cycle to make all the Christmas treats eaten this year lol.

With the most recent climate change report, reporting a "code red for humanity", young people are worried about their future.

And in a world where adults make the decisions, student Aisha Fisher said the energy hub is giving her a sense of purpose and impact.

"Being part of Zayed has definitely helped me feel like I'm doing something. I'm making a change, and that has reassured me," she said.

Ms. Fisher is level-headed when it comes to the challenge of climate change.

"Running from climate change as a young person doesn't help," she said.

"The best thing you can do is to look at it from an optimistic, realistic point of view, and see what you can do on your small scale."

[Read the full article
here].

What good news is in your life right now?

Comment below!

Check out my hip hop podcast, From Da Jump

Interested in learning more about Entrepreneurs That Make A Difference? Go here.

Every other Tuesday on Clubhouse 10am-12pm CST I host a Startup Club Room called Entrepreneurs That Make A Difference - follow me @fbpolicypro to get find out more.
The next room is Dec 14th.



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Giant Companies Moving to Austin

business blog, business blog, business blog

 


Whether you're mad reacting about the influx of people moving here or you're glad about the booming job market, one thing's for certain.

Large companies are moving to Austin, Texas - and lots of 'em. If you've picked up on the not-so-subtle signs of this city's growth (for sale signs in every yard, bidding wars for houses, and expensive cups of joe), you may be wondering what the big idea is.
Well, you can thank these companies, to start. So whether you love 'em or you hate 'em, here are the large companies moving to and expanding in Austin.

Tesla

"Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that the Tesla manufacturing plant being built near Austin will hire more than 10,000 people through 2022. Construction is proceeding rapidly on the company's newest manufacturing facility, which Musk first announced in July." Tesla also recently announced that their headquarters will move here as well.

Google

"Google has announced it plans to invest $50 million in Texas this year in office space and data center sites, the company confirmed to KVUE. The investment comes as part of an overall plan to spend $7 billion and create 10,000 new full-time jobs throughout the U.S. in 2021."

Amazon

"The world's largest online retailer also announced a swath of jobs for the Austin metro this year. Amazon.com Inc. in July confirmed plans to construct a 3.8 million-square-foot fulfillment center in Pflugerville that will bring 1,000 jobs to the region."

SpaceX 

"The company SpaceX is breaking ground on a “new, state-of-the-art manufacturing facility” in Austin. The company's founder Elon Musk has increasingly moved his business ventures and his personal life, to the Lone Star State."

Apple

"Apple says employees will move to its $1 billion campus in north Austin next year. In a news release Monday, the tech giant said it's investing $430 billion across the country and adding 20,000 jobs nationwide over the next five years."

Facebook

"Facebook Inc. is planning to expand even further in Central Texas, according to a report from the Austin Business Journal. Multiple sources told the Austin Business Journal that Facebook is in the market for 1 million square feet, on top of the numerous offices the company already has in Austin."

Canva

"Canva, an Australian startup with online design tools, said it has raised $60 million at a $6 billion valuation, and it's opening its first U.S. office here in Austin. The company, founded in 2013, provides 60,000-plus free templates and has millions of images for use in creative design environments."

Oracle

"On December 11, 2020, Oracle, the world's largest database company, announced it was moving its headquarters from Silicon Valley to Austin. The announcement, coupled with major expansions underway by Apple, Facebook, Tesla, and others, is a feather in the cap of local business boosters."

If you've followed local news in Austin, Prop B that recently passed was about selling off a 9-acre Central Maintenance Facility located off Townlake at 2525 Lakeshore Blvd. In exchange, the city would receive a 48-acre parcel of "waterfront land contiguous to an existing city park," on top of funding or construction of a replacement facility and the removal of an existing maintenance building at Festival Beach.

The Grow Austin Parks PAC received a $250,000 contribution from Oracle. This proposition takes away the last potential parkland access to Townlake and views of Townlake from IH 35 to Pleasant Valley Rd, from southeast Austin. That is if Oracle succeeds in privatizing all roads to Townlake.

The city has made east Austinites believe that this is the only way it can afford the parkland they want, ignoring the Parkland Reserve Fund (2018 bonds) that this May and June spent $6 million for additions to Barton Creek Habitat Preserve and to Bull Creek Greenbelt.

Oracle and other private interests have already privatized most streets to Lakeshore Drive and with this last acquisition, they will be cutting off public access to the southeastern shores.

So, not all change is good change if Oracle restricts access to Townlake to the public with the passage of Prop B.

Austin, Texas continues to be the #1 destination to move to, both residents and businesses continue in massive influxes to come to ATX.

What do you think about these big companies moving to Austin? Comment below.

-Trevor

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Where has this been my whole life?

 


What We Can Learn from The Art of War

Military strategist Sun Tzu says this about preparation:
"The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable."

Source: The Art of War​

I use this quote loosely for what an "enemy" is. If humanity doesn't pay attention to how we are affecting the planet, than our enemy is the lack of preparation.

Write Your Own Rules

How often have we experienced adverse events that could have been prevented with more attention to details beforehand? It seems like now, more than ever, people are tuning in to how we affect the world environmentally.


Blame the internet, or the positive effect social media can have, but the young and old are starting to not only address how the planet is changing but creating never seen before solutions.

These solutions create new jobs, and economy. So the old argument that we can't support sustainable energy because it would hurt business falls flat. Which is good news.

I'd rather be spending my money on a product or service that takes into account how the supply chain in that industry hurts or helps the world. That's part of why I'm always amped up about entrepreneurship.

Instead of committing to an archaic system that could use improvements, as a founder, we have the ability to rewrite the rules. Decide what markets we want to change for the better and take action to do so.

The Blade of Preparation 

Being prepared is a double-edged blade. You can get so caught up in wanting things to go exactly as planned that you forget the art of moving in flow. Catching those clues of when to act can be the catalyst for remarkable change.
When you have a feeling in your gut, pay attention. Those instincts can serve you well. 

At the same time, looking at long-range changes in the market, in society, in trends and preparing for certain eventualities will put you ahead of the curve.

How To Use Economics To Build Your Social Life

Keynesian economists generally argue that aggregate demand is volatile and unstable and that, consequently, a market economy often experiences inefficient macroeconomic outcomes – a recession, when demand is low, and inflation, when demand is high.

Before we get to the Purpose Over Profit highlight for this week, I'd like to propose a new way of using long-run economic predictions.

A new form of preparation.

You may have heard friends, or say it yourself: "prepare for the worst hope for the best." This isn't a great approach because it often focuses on expecting bad things to happen.

Instead of expecting the worst, let's expect the best. When expecting the best, we can still prep for the unexpected just maybe be a little less gloomy about it ha ha.

Preparing for better things to come gets our mindset tuned to what we wish to attract to ourselves. No need to go super woo woo here. It's basic psychology. What we focus on more, we tend to attract.

Those who have survived trauma often work out (or repeat) the emotions felt during past events unconsciously. This shows up in the impulse to create conflict or over-respond to a situation due to past triggers.

Recreating social situations that mirror our past emotions can either allow us to respond the same way and keep repeating a behavior cycle or give us a second chance to respond differently.

If we lived our whole life worst-case-scenario expecting, in way that's a form of trauma. We self-traumatize our mind to focus on what we don't want.

To heal from that, focus on what we want to happen, positively. Preparing for good things can in fact create more opportunities that
are good.

Look up how self-efficacy works - it's a similar theory used in education with kids. The more kids believe in their own abilities to do better, the more they improve the school work they're doing when thinking this way.

It's been proven in many studies - when we think we are getting better, it improves our ability to get better.

The Biggest Enemy is Complacency  

Going back to Sun Tzu - we become our own enemy when we don't prepare for complacency. Everyone gets mentally and emotionally comfortable when we have established routines day in and day out - including routine emotions and social responses.

But remember to challenge yourself to break up that routine. Look we all have stuff we're juggling. We don't have to move a mountain to just touch base with ourselves every now and then and just ask,
"How can I do this better?"
And give yourself the time of day here. Don't rush through it. Pause and see what your mind suggests. 
As far as your social life...Remember that people aren't stationary, they change opinions, grow, move away, switch jobs, get into and out of relationships and may not always be there. 
Preparing for a Change You Can't Predict Sounds Like a Paradox.
It does sound a bit contradictory right? But the more fluid we are in adapting our perspective and learning from each experience - even the small ones during the day - the better prepared we become for those unexpected changes.
Take a look at your network. How many people do you know? How long have you known them? There will be a range of intimacy for how close you are to some verses others.  
Taking a Keynesian long-range view of your social life may be helpful. You can look ahead and ponder how people may change over time.

This allows you to be more supportive and anticipate how to keep those social bonds strong rather than drift away.
Ever had a friend who had a baby? They disappear off the face of the Earth lol.

How do we keep up with friends who are too busy to keep up with us?
In small and incredible ways we can take the initiative to do acts of kindness that may make a huge difference in the long term.

Big picture view. 
In a way, my drive to become successful in business is relying on the prediction I have of how much the world will change in ways we don't know.
Having multiple streams of revenue, in multiple industries provides a safety net. Not everyone can do this today. But it's good to keep in mind. Now for this week's POP highlight:

Purpose Over Profit Highlight

It is estimated that the aviation industry emits 2.5% of all carbon dioxide emissions nationwide and is responsible for 3.5% of global warming.

Replacing petroleum-based aviation fuel with a sustainable alternative is now a reality.

A mustard plant called Brassica carinata can reduce carbon emissions by up to 68%, according to new research from a University of Georgia scientist.

“If we can provide suitable economic incentives along the supply chain, we could potentially produce carinata-based SAF (sustainable aviation fuel),” said Dwivedi, associate professor in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources.

So yeah, powering planes with mustard seed fuel could help reduce the carbon footprint of the aviation sector while creating economic opportunities too.

This comes at a great time. In September, President Joe Biden proposed a sustainable fuel tax credit which would bring federal agencies together to scale up the production of SAF nationwide.

Dwivedi says:

“Carinata has the potential to be a win-win situation for our rural areas, the aviation industry, and most importantly, climate change.” [Read more here]

Where has this been my whole life? Sustainable jet fuel? Sounds pretty cool.

Every year --sometimes every month-- we see new innovations that improve the world.

Hope your week is full of happy coincidences.

-Trevor

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How I built a life on my own terms

 


It's more than a feather in the cap

One of my biggest moments was graduating high school and let me stop you right there if there's a comment on high school being the pits. It took me 5 years to graduate high school.

I was living on the edge, without a home, surviving abuse and I was the most socially dysfunctional youth you can meet. It was a pivotal moment for me because it showed that despite adversity, one can succeed against all odds.

Beyond being a feather in my cap, or a diploma on the wall, it was a symbol that hard work pays off. Now, with the drastically changing times post 2020, we can add working smarter not just harder to that.

When the pandemic hit America in March of 2020, many things came to a full stop. Treasured local businesses shut their doors and turned the closed sign around for the last time.

When Faced With A Brick & A Hard Place

Running my own business, I faced challenges too. Not the same challenges that retail establishments faced, or schools. But challenges nonetheless. I didn't realize how much I had relied on in-person business events for client acquisition. The reality of the pandemic hit me in the face:

I had no means of finding new clients without in-person events. What did I do?

Pivot.

I moved more interactions online, became a writer for Social Media Examiner, and built a lot of value in ad communities. I recouped and made more income some months than I ever did working at Facebook or for myself.

I had to change the way I ran my company. I don't know how you process your to-do list but my struggle is I'm a mix of perfectionism meets last minute efforts.

Two oddly opposing methods, haha. I know. It's crazy. Obsessing over one task until I can perfect it, and at the same time, waiting until things are about to crash to take care of other items.

Victories of 2020

I think one of the victories in 2020 was becoming vulnerable enough to accept help from others and realize I may not be aware of how I come across. It was clear help was needed. I'd had failures in multiple areas of my life.

Ignoring the signs for too long, that the way things were done wasn't working resulted in losing friendships, business partnerships and income.

I tried to reconnect with my sisters who I haven't seen in years, and found myself on trial for the actions of my father. It was uncomfortable, and felt unfair. I realized I had to let go of trying to control the opinions of other people. Even family.

I discovered that personal accountability goes a long way to speed up the learning curve from life lessons.

Holding myself accountable for learning from my mistakes, not just making them was a start.
Following that with adding in consistency of reviewing mistakes I've made was the next step. I did this to recognize familiar situations to avoid a perpetual Groundhog's Day.

How To Use The Stripes You Earn In Battle

When we are in the middle of a battle, it's easy to forget the wins we already have and what that tells us about ourselves. Thinking about what we've accomplished reminds us of the strengths we developed.

We can build on that.

It's much easier to improve an existing design than start from scratch as any tech company can tell you. The same goes for people. In the reflection on the wins we've had, it isn't fishing for compliments or empty praise but rather a refresher on who we've become.

Whether it's graduating from a school or college, learning lessons from living on the edge, or pivoting to become profitable even during huge upturns in society - our moves build skill sets. Skills that are still there even if we don't use them.

There's a sort of muscle memory we have from overcoming hardships or obstacles in the way of success. We can strengthen these muscles by remembering what happened, why we succeeded and what we can do to build on those skills now.

This is how I built a life on my own terms. Yes we lay awake re-thinking what we could have done different sometimes but how many times do we apply this going forward?

It's easy to second-guess yourself. I get it. I do it too. Mainly just on dates, but hey we all have areas to work on lol.

I know it's a trope, but you have the answers you're looking for. Maybe all that's needed is more time reflecting on what worked before, and why it worked. And how can we apply what we learned from our wins to current challenges we're facing now?

I hope you find this helpful and have a lucky week, filled with good conversations and serendipity.


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One Man Gave Students A New Chance At Education

Source: Africa News

 


11% Have Access to Electricity But Now That's Changed

In my last blog, you learned about Tim's incredible paint that removes carbon from the air. This week we're going to journey across an ocean & look at an entrepreneur who is doing amazing things for his community. 

Whether you're living in Europe or America, often it's easy to forget the niceties we can take for granted. Things like clean drinking water, housing and electricity are a luxury for some who live in less developed areas such as Malawi, Africa. 

Malawi is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeast, and Mozambique to the east.

In Malawi, only 11% of the population has access to electricity - dropping to only 4% in rural areas. 
Enter Colrerd Nkosi:

 


Using a repurposed corn-shelling machine motor and a fast-moving river, Nkosi created an electric turbine that’s now lighting up homes for him and his neighbors for free in the town of Mzimba.


Just like Thomas Edison who invented the lightbulb, he did a lot of experimenting. As many entrepreneurs can attest to, it often isn't the first or second business that launches successfully, sometimes it's the 3rd or 4th. But once you fail, you learn from your efforts and try, try again.

Nkosi innovated in this spirit as well.

In the beginning, he put a bicycle in the river and brainstormed about how the current moved the pedals, and how it might be turned into power.

Then, he used an old refrigerator compressor that converted power for 6 homes. His neighbors were calling for more electricity, so he continued to upgrade.
¯
According to the self-taught inventor, Nkosi's latest turbine has the potential to produce enough power to provide electricity to 1,000 homes. He says another turbine can be installed downstream to expand the grid.

There's always a trickle-down effect when it comes to precious resources due to the interconnectedness of the environment. In this instance, there's an upside to this network in the ecotone.

The hydro power has the added benefit of decreasing deforestation by getting rid of the need for locals to cut down trees to obtain charcoal for fuel sources.

In a country where only 11% of the population has access to electricity, having a reliable and renewable source of energy has been a game-changer—especially in the schools.

In an interview with the French news outlet, Agence France-Presse, kids spoke up of how this new electricity will change their lives:

 “In the past, we had to study by candlelight and whenever there was no money to buy candles, we could not study,” said student Gift Mfune. “Now that we have access to electricity, many more of us will pass our exams.”

Pretty neat right? One person can affect positive change for the larger populace. Colrerd Nkosi is an entrepreneur who is making a difference and a great example of purpose over profit.

I hope you've enjoyed this week's blog and are on track to achieving your personal & professional goals

PS. Know an entrepreneur making a difference? Invite them to join the Entrepreneurs That Make A Difference tribe:

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New Paint Removes Carbon from the Air – New Tech Feat. Tim Sperry


C02 and VOCs are in the air everywhere, causing sickness - but this is preventable with some incredible new technology.

Let's go behind the scenes with Tim Sperry. Tim is one of my favorite entrepreneurs I met as part of my organization Entrepreneurs That Make A Difference.

Tim Sperry is the founder of Smog Armor which takes everyday products and makes them safer for the air.

It's a carbon tech company that invented a carbon capture technology that can be integrated into other products like paint, cardboard boxes and antimicrobial air purifying paint.

(Be sure to read my last blog Shake Things Up).


At A Glance

∎ Brand New Carbon Capture Tech 

∎ Paint extracts carbon from the atmosphere  


∎ Fast Company Magazine featured Smog Armor   


Paint That Removes C02 From The Air

How can you have a cardboard box that makes the air cleaner? You may ask.

It's really interesting. Tim's background isn't chemistry, he went through pre-law in college and has always had entrepreneurial ventures as an interest. Sperry felt like he needed to make money doing something that he cares about like nature, protecting people and fighting air pollution.

Tim lost a few family members to lung cancer as a result of someone else polluting their air.

He took it upon himself to become a self-taught chemist focusing on nanotechnology that works like a magnetic sponge. It attracts surrounding air - wherever you paint Smog Armor paint - once it dries it's a magnet attracting C02, airborne chemicals and odors that it molecularly binds to the paint.

This paint isn't dangerous like lead-based paint. As far cardboard, this nanotech is integrated into the material. When you're shipping something like fruit in a cardboard box from the factory, frequently you'll have adhesives, formaldehyde, glues and anything off gassing from it - then Smog Armor's treated cardboard will absorb these chemicals.

Poor air quality actually is attributed to higher covid rates and hospitalization rates because it amplifies medical issues.

Smog Armor's Origin

3 years ago Tim went on a journey to find solutions for air pollution. In the beginning, Sperry had multiple computers up researching chemistry on Google Scholar.

After 6 months of reading research publications and niching down, Tim started combining entrepreneurship and chemistry. He began stumping masters students in this field because of the level of detailed research he'd done on just this topic alone.

The cost of solar and wind are at a breaking point with fossil fuels and the world is ready for new tech that protects the environment at a greater scale. Smog Armor has done murals at schools and hospitals with their carbon capture paint after Tim read a Harvard study showing that students score lower on tests when air quality is lower.

(Harvard study can be found here).

Kids in good air environments scored higher whereas students in poorer quality air classrooms scored lower because low quality air decreases cognitive functions leaving you lethargic, and fatigued.

The conversion rates is around 50% and 70% less VOCs and C02s in rooms that have been painted with Tim's Smog Armor paint.

A lot of rooms already have formaldehyde in the air. It's part of glues, furniture, your flooring, wall coverings - almost everything in your house is off-gassing something like new bed mattresses.

The "new car smell" are adhesives. That euphoria isn't just emotional, you're actually sniffing glue. Smog Armor's paint absorbs 40-50% its molecular weight in C02.

So for example 10 pounds of weight in paint captures 4-5 lbs of C02.

Many carbon capture companies capture the carbon, transform it into fuel and readmit it back into the atmosphere, and aren't actually carbon neutral. Smog Armor stores the carbon in the walls which aren't released back into the air unless you decided to incinerate your home. Tim aims to make Smog Armor carbon negative and improve air quality.

Licensing NanoTech

Tim told me, "We are building on the technology. We’ve taken our nature-based nano tech inside the paint, out of the paint and we are licensing it to other countries
like Chile, Mexico, and Spain and someone wants to take over a Smog Armor branch in Europe. We have another partner in Canada."

The idea is by licensing this nanotech, Smog Armor reduced the carbon footprint of shipping 3000 gallons of Smog Armor paint overseas.

TechStars Accelerator

Tim has got a term sheet from TechStars and is taking Smog Armor to the Heritage Group Accelerator powered by TechStars for his other company Carbon Limit (a carbon tech company that finds solutions for carbon pollution).

At the accelerator in Indianapolis Smog Armor is working on developing more carbon capture technology and byproducts including...diamonds!

Trade Blood Diamonds for Diamonds Made from C02

Smog Armor makes diamonds from the C02 they capture. Carbon is the basis of diamonds that have been under millions of years of heat and pressure.

There’s man made diamond machines that put together the components from captured carbon to create these jewels. It’s a 30 day process for growing lab diamonds.

Every 20 tons of C02 Smog Armor captures will create 1 karate of manmade sustainable non-blood diamonds, so you can wear your carbon footprint on your neck, your wrist.

I don't know how I feel about that haha..but it's a fascinating new development.

Also on the horizon for Smog Armor is a feature in Top Doc Lifestyle magazine for painting their brand new Top Doc Miami Clinic in the 4 Seasons Hotel. I like that combination of a hospital or clinic with air purifying paint.


While there are a lot of cool updates coming for Smog Armor, I'm most excited to learn that Tim is considering a Regulation CF where you can take money in from as little as $5 to 10 million. Which means investing isn't limited to just $10,000 dollar chunks. I'll be first in line to buy stock in Smog Armor.

Not just because carbon capture paint is definitely the new new. But because I feel they are doing right by the planet.

Fast Company Magazine, Elon Musk X-Prize Team & Beyond

Smog Armor was featured in Fast Company Magazine, in the World Changing Ideas & Products issue (see Smog Armor on the Fast Company Mag finalist list here). Another notable interview for the company is in Technology Designer Magazine which you can read here.

Tim's company is also an X-Prize Team in the Elon Musk Carbon Removal Competition. Smog Armor is positioning to do an IPO in the next 24-26 months.

There's a lot of investment money coming out across the board right now for carbon capture tech.

An Entrepreneur Making A Difference

Even if governmental regulatory agencies are more interested in cap-and-trade policies (where Exxon or Walmart pays to pollute the rivers and air rather than have environmentally friendly business practices) investors with capital to spend are interested in developing tech that protects the planet's natural resources for a sustainable future.

Smog Armor is a perfect example of of smart money for the long term rather than trying to make a quick buck.

Tim turned down Microsoft during their funding round, because it was way bigger than they wanted to do. Sperry would rather maintain control over the vision, his mission and fulfillment than just make money. And I love this.

If you're accepting money as a B-corp from investors who have over 50% of a controlling share and their philosophies differ then you might have something like:

Clear Air Inc. - sponsored by Exxon

or

Farmers Market - sponsored by Monsanto.

That doesn't exactly match walking the walk - but we see this happen often where chemical factory owners were appointed to the head of the EPA during the last US president's term.

Sperry's philosophy involves leading with empathy. Tim told me this is attracting great people and growing Smog Armor so much more. That's why I chose to feature his incredible story in this week's blog - heart first companies are the keystone to improving the planet.

Tim's definition of success is "Growth." As you may have heard from other blogs, ETMD's motto is Purpose over profit. This is a great example of changing the world for the better.

Connecting With Smog Armor

Tim has worked with a lot of artists, a lot of muralists to do community projects that inspire and help the community. Smog Armor was asked to do something for the Super Bowl, worked with the players involved in the Boys & Girls Club and the UN. Art tells a story and a lot of people need good stories right now.

You can learn more about Tim's work at: www.smogarmor.com

Comment below!

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Shake things up


"They don't see our vision."

That's what Ruby Rose said when she decided to share about mental health and the challenges founders face.

"Often times it’s frustrating for entrepreneurs because we are doing things against the grain for what’s normal."

But this is true for all walks of life in some aspect. When someone doesn't get what you are trying to communicate it feels frustrating.

Much of being a child is going thru the hell of feeling misunderstood. Expressing an emotion and being told you shouldn't feel that way. The disconnect between supervisors and employees is similar too.

When we want to be heard and have our feelings minimalized, that stifles creativity. I'm working with Universal Music with some hitmakers right now and everyone is easy to get along with except one person who routinely causes conflict.

It's a challenge when you're around that type of energy and want to be creative. It's a challenge when you've created a startup but the world doesn't get your vision yet.

One of my favorite songs by Talib Kweli opens with the ad libs:

"You know what I'm saying
I can't do music with people I'm uncomfortable with
You know what I'm saying
I can't be on stage with you pouring out my soul if I don't like you."

That's Friends and Family off his album Gutter Rainbows. I was talking with Talib Kweli on 6th street in Austin, Texas a few months before he released Gutter Rainbows.

Talib was telling me about how excited he was about the new project and what he had in mind.

I was sharing some of my journey from poverty to getting accepted into the University of Texas and we were vibing on how important intention is behind the music you create.

Business is no different than music in that sense. When you stay true to doing something that means something, you'll find the path opens up for you despite obstacles.

So no matter what you're doing, don't fool yourself into thinking passion and purpose don't matter. Sure we have to pay our bills, but when we make time for what we care about to shine, doors open for us and make life worth living.

So shake things up. Do something you love this week. And keep doing it. Don't forget what brings you joy.

Art, music, photography, collecting antiques, listening to vinyl records, poetry these hobbies, interests, passions, nurture us if we're passionate about them.

The focus on what matters, as Pharcyde raps, Something That Means Something,
will develop deeper parts of us that lead to mastery. Opportunities come along when we cultivate the higher sense of beauty inside of us.

It's an energy thing. An evolution thing. A living life thing.

Purpose over profit highlight:

Greyston Bakery

Greyston Bakery, a Certified B Corporation that is best known for baking the brownies in Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream, is located in the impoverished community of Southwest Yonkers, New York.

Greyston’s open hiring policy offers employment opportunities to anyone, regardless of educational attainment, work history, or previous incarceration, homelessness, or drug use.

Anyone that comes to the front door of the bakery is given the chance to work, no questions asked.

Greyston provides its workers with resources, personal development tools, and professional training, to give them the greatest chance of success in their new position.

Hearing about businesses like this is inspiring. The first step is often the biggest but once we take 3 in a row the 4th is even easier. Let's keep walking forward to realize our dreams, one step at a time.

What are some of your passions that you haven't done in a bit?

Comment below!

PS. Know an entrepreneur making a difference? Invite them to join our tribe:

https://trevorwgoodchild.com/entrepreneurtalk

PSS. I'm working on the website for Entrepreneurs That Make A Difference and am seeking feedback from business owners on what benefits you'd like to see in a SAAS membership, let me know if you'd like to contribute your ideas and become an early adopter.

(Be sure to read my last blog The Reason Why More People Aren’t Entrepreneurs here).

Check out my hip hop podcast, From Da Jump 

Every Tuesday on Clubhouse 10am-11am CST I host a Startup Club Room called Entrepreneurs That Make A Difference - follow me @fbpolicypro to get find out more.



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New Solution to Facebook Ad Policy Violations

After years of working at Facebook, I understand exactly what ad copy in your funnel is triggering the automations and how to get compliant. I'm a Facebook ad policy specialist and can audit your funnel, and share what to say that Facebook wants to see instead - but just isn't telling you.

Want to book a call to talk to Facebook and get results? Get solid answers directly from the source instead of guessing, googling and playing roulette? Schedule a call with me and I can easily tell you proven reasons why the automations flag you and how to become compliant.

You'll be swapping out walking in a minefield of ad flags, to have a sure path to having your Facebook ad accounts protected from being disabled. My clients have included social media marketing agencies of Tony Robbins, Harv Eker and Dean Graziosi. I'm featured on the Queen of Facebook Mari Smith's Marketing Essentials Course.

Save energy and money - how much is it costing you to not know why Facebook is shutting you down? My calendar is here.

Tony Robbins

I get 100s of emails a week from businesses and advertisers asking for help when their facebook ad account keeps getting disabled, so my calendar gets booked fast. But if you want to get to the front, you can pre-pay for a consulting session here: Book a call

facebook ad account keeps getting disabled

If you want to skip the line before this offer ends, immediately secure an expert-level Facebook consulting call from someone at Facebook. Book a call with me now! If you're ok with waiting a bit longer, and entering the waitlist to see if you're eligible - Schedule a call or contact me via email.

Mari Smith and Trevor W Goodchild

 

The Best Podcasts Are:


One of the benefits of living in the modern tech world is you don't have to guess anymore when you see success. "How did they do that??"

Often you'll be able to get the cool behind-the-scenes info on a business podcast interview where a wunderkind founder tells all.

The idea that we should all be working smarter not harder is put into warp speed when you're able to listen in to the genius of a decade's worth of knowledge distilled into a 40 minute podcast episode.

If you're a social impact driven entrepreneur, fighting for balance in the whole making a profit versus making a difference area, podcasts can be a treasure trove.

So I've compiled a list of a few of the top 5 startup-minded podcasts below:

Entrepreneurs on Fire

John Lee Dumas is the founder and host of the award winning podcast, Entrepreneurs On Fire. With over 100 million listens of his 3000+ episodes, JLD has turned Entrepreneurs On Fire into a media empire that generates over a million listens every month and 7-figures of NET annual revenue 8-years in a row

Art of the Hustle

Art of the Hustle – a podcast designed to inspire entrepreneurs and fuel their life’s work. With a casual and comfortable interview approach, listeners are invited into a conversation between the host Jeff Rosenthal, co-Founder of Summit, and his guests, exploring stories of success, failure, milestone events and of course, key advice that shapes the life of an entrepreneur.

Startup Stories - Mixergy

Andrew Warner who I drank whisky with at Many Chat's Conversations Conference in 2019 runs a highly rated podcast exploring the journey founders have gone on to achieve greatness - well worth the listen.

How I Built This 

Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.

Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman

The best startup advice from Silicon Valley and beyond. Iconic CEOs — from Nike to Netflix, Starbucks to Slack — share the stories and strategies that helped them grow from startups into global brands.

On each episode, host Reid Hoffman — LinkedIn cofounder, Greylock partner and legendary Silicon Valley investor — proves an unconventional theory about how businesses scale, while his guests share the story of how I built this company.

Reid and guests talk entrepreneurship, leadership, strategy, management, fundraising. But they also talk about the human journey — with all its failures and setbacks.

With original, cinematic music and hilariously honest stories, Masters of Scale is a business podcast that doesn’t sound like a business podcast.

Notable mention: The Tim Ferriss Show. I'm not a huge fan of Tim Ferris as it feels like he compiles and recycles data rather than having an actual aptitude but the interview guests he brings on are amazing.

Interested in something more along the lines of arts and humanities rather than business?

I just released a new hip hop podcast called From The Jump

From The Jump podcast discusses all things hip hop: new emerging artists & trends, song analysis, pop culture & the intersection of old school vs new school hip hop.

We keep it current, focusing on bridging the gap between hip hop as a genre and as a culture. MTV's Lyricist Lounge co-creator Wordsworth starts off the series with us.

Hopefully that'll get you on the right path without having to spend a long time googling what the best podcasts are.

These are all chocked full of gold you can learn how to mine yourself while also doing laundry or commuting across town.

Happy listening.

What are some of your favorite podcasts?

Comment below!

PS. Know an entrepreneur making a difference? Invite them to join our tribe: https://trevorwgoodchild.com/entrepreneurtalk

PSS. I'm working on the website for Entrepreneurs That Make A Difference and am seeking feedback from business owners on what benefits you'd like to see in a SAAS membership, let me know if you'd like to contribute your ideas and become an early adopter.

 



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New Solution to Facebook Ad Policy Violations

After years of working at Facebook, I understand exactly what ad copy in your funnel is triggering the automations and how to get compliant. I'm a Facebook ad policy specialist and can audit your funnel, and share what to say that Facebook wants to see instead - but just isn't telling you.

Want to book a call to talk to Facebook and get results? Get solid answers directly from the source instead of guessing, googling and playing roulette? Schedule a call with me and I can easily tell you proven reasons why the automations flag you and how to become compliant.

You'll be swapping out walking in a minefield of ad flags, to have a sure path to having your Facebook ad accounts protected from being disabled. My clients have included social media marketing agencies of Tony Robbins, Harv Eker and Dean Graziosi. I'm featured on the Queen of Facebook Mari Smith's Marketing Essentials Course.

Save energy and money - how much is it costing you to not know why Facebook is shutting you down? My calendar is here.

Tony Robbins

I get 100s of emails a week from businesses and advertisers asking for help when their facebook ad account keeps getting disabled, so my calendar gets booked fast. But if you want to get to the front, you can pre-pay for a consulting session here: Book a call

facebook ad account keeps getting disabled

If you want to skip the line before this offer ends, immediately secure an expert-level Facebook consulting call from someone at Facebook. Book a call with me now! If you're ok with waiting a bit longer, and entering the waitlist to see if you're eligible - Schedule a call or contact me via email.

Mari Smith and Trevor W Goodchild

 

What are some habits that rich people have that the non-rich don’t?


I was poor and now I’m in top 1% earners in my country, so I probably am competent to answer this question.

Poor people don’t think about future, they are fully concerned about the current moment. They have not experienced financial security don’t know how to achieve it.

They know very well what it means to wonder how to pay for groceries.

(Be sure to read Trevor's last blog New Stimulus Checks, Schools On Track to Reopen & Inflation here).


At A Glance

∎ Develop A Savings Strategy

∎ Build A Network of Wealthy Colleagues   


∎ Create An Attitude of Gratitude  


1. Rich People Pay Themselves First

For years, I struggled with saving money. I had been saving a portion of my salary only to spend money on some substantial item like repairing my car after I drove straight into a tree; or something lavish like gambling on the stock market.

I had been earning good money—but I had no support from my family. I had no assets at the beginning and a family of five to support.

My saving ratio was hovering about 3-4% point. Then I read "Start Over, Finish Rich" by David Bach and got one main takeaway from it: pay yourself first.

The idea seemed a bit preposterous, our budget was tight and we had no leeway to put away a significant chunk of salary. What difference would have made saving money at the beginning of the month and not at the end of it, from leftovers?

It did all the difference.


(my saving ratio)

In a few months’ time, my saving ratio skyrocketed to about 20%. Yet again I spent all of my savings when we bought our first house in 2014.

For several months, we were almost as poor as during my time as a student—having two kids and on welfare.

We survived on stipends, and student loans as our main sources of income.

But I rebuilt my savings and spent them once again on the house renovation. That was at the beginning of this year.

Still, I was able to save for those extraordinary expenses thanks to the “pay yourself first” rule.

I estimate that thanks to the difference between my previous saving ratio and the current one—plus the fact that my income grew by about 90% in the last few years—I ended up with equivalent of my 14 salaries in my pocket.

I spent about 10 of them, but I could spend them in bulk on expansive things that improved quality of our life; not on trivia.

2. Rich People Don’t Buy on Impulse

Alright—let’s be honest—I do very little impulse buying although I’m not completely immune to the shiny promises of marketing.

But I'm totally not interested in brands and sometimes it works against me. I've bought the cheapest laptop in the store and I discovered it is absurdly slow. I have a lot of opportunities to practice my patience with it.

But 99% of time, it serves me well. I bought an old Mazda 626 about 10 years ago. I put into it almost double the initial price (half of which after that accident with a tree).

But that's still much less than half the price of a new car and I know quite a lot of folks who exchange a car every few years. That Mazda is a small fortune "saved".

I don't follow trends and I don't chase shiny objects. I buy new items when I need them; not when I want them.

3. Rich People Work On Their Attitude

Seriously, it provides more benefits and more hard cash in your pocket than any technical tips.

We are programmed by our social environment to think all sorts of strange things about everything.

If you were lucky and you had the right social environment, you would believe good things about possessing and managing money and those beliefs would make you richer.

Most of us, unfortunately, got crappy programming. Even today, schools are doing very little to change this (kids are taught tons of facts, but there is not a single lesson in the curriculum about how to save money).

Advantageous beliefs and habits:

a. Debt is your enemy.

Debt compounds like the interest rate on your savings compounds. Uncontrolled, it will eat your finances alive.

Controlling this consumes so much of your brainpower and mental energy that it's best to avoid debt altogether, as a principle.

It's hard to put debt-avoidance in the context of habit, it's rather what you DON'T do: you never ever borrow money.

b. You are responsible for your net worth.

Not your daddy, not your boss and not your wife (yeah, I know she loves to spend, my wife loves it too; still, take the full responsibility).

If you don't accept this belief, everything that regards your money "just happens" to you.

Control over your cash flow is in most cases just an illusion (for example a car accident can wreck your vehicle, your body, your career and finances), but it's a necessary illusion, so you will act proactively to grow your wealth. Nobody will replace you at this job.

c. Be grateful.

And be grateful about more than merely your material possessions or the level of your salary.

Be grateful for everything. William W. Wallace, the author of "The Science of Getting Rich", prescribes gratitude as the way to stay in touch with a mystic element of the universe that provides abundance (his theories were a precursor to The Law of Attraction, ideas which were more sensible than the modern versions).

Science confirms that when the brain is positive, every possible outcome we know how to test for rises dramatically.

By "every outcome" they meant also net worth, savings, salary levels and chances for career advancement. And gratitude is a shortcut to making your brain positive.

A relevant habit: write down every morning three new things you are grateful for.

d. Pay with cash.

In the era of plastic money, we have a tendency to not see money as real... till it is too late and reality is biting you in your rear.

Credit cards provide the illusion of abundance when in fact each use of plastic money moves you further toward poverty.

To avoid this trap, pay for everything in cash. When you hand your cash money to someone else, it has a real feel. Your mind will not be lull into airiness.

A nice piece of belief is this: "If you cannot buy an item with cash, you cannot afford it." You should never take a loan if you don't have enough cash stacked to buy the item in cash in the first place.

e. Track your expenses.

Track all of them. I note down a sum when I buy bread or a bread roll. I register every single cent that goes out of my pocket in an Excel sheet. This discipline makes me more disciplined when spending money on anything.

The habit of tracking expenses provides you some much needed awareness of where your money goes.

Carelessness and ignorance are the allies of poverty. Impulse spending will decrease significantly when you have to register each of your impulses on paper.

f. Keep the company of rich/frugal people.

Attitude is contagious. When you spend time with people who wisely manage their money, you’ll become better at this yourself.

Of course, the ‘example’ is more effective when they actively mentor you, give you advice (and you actually take action to implement it).

But being around them is the basic requirement. Your copying mechanisms will work even in the background, it's how people are wired, and it’s how children learn life.

This activity may be easily habitualized. Simply find an appropriate group of people and engage with them on regular basis.

Play sport with them, volunteer with them or attend church services. Absorbing attitudes from others works better offline, but it works online too.

If you cannot think of an opportunity to find such people in your neighborhood, find them in Facebook groups or forums.

Michal Stawicki www.expandbeyondyourself.com

                                               .  .  .


Facebook Reveals New Video Tips


Have you jumped on board with one of the highest converting mediums for marketing yet? Video is king right now especially during the holiday season. [Read our last blog on HP moving to Texas here]

Video is number one for increasing engagement on social media platforms which also boosts brand awareness to help you end the year strong with increased profits.

Struggling with how to do this? We got you covered - Facebook just released 3 tips to help you improve your video marketing.

1. "Add a 3-5 second trailer to hold interest"

Facebook recommends adding a short preview of your video at the start of video clips. While this has been used frequently on YouTube it hasn't seen as much use on Facebook videos as a whole.

Essentially you'll want to paste a key snippet from your video and include in the beginning of the clip which helps to entice viewers to stick around and see what's next.

It's a short and sweet way to boost your engagement as well as increase the view time which helps you segregate retargeting campaigns per video view time.

Another deet
Facebook mentioned is using the Creator Studio analytics to find out when you're losing viewers. Once you identify this, you can swap out blocks of content and add more exciting elements where you see folks dropping off.

2. "Frame the story - with a 4:5 aspect ratio"

Because everyone is on their smartphones, Facebook recommends we should create videos that are vertical not horizontal.

Facebook says:

"We live in a world were most people watch videos on mobile just inches from their face and often in vertical orientation rather than turning their phone to landscape. Try framing your visual story and build for vertical format. Editing your videos using a 4:5 aspect ratio may work best for your videos on Facebook."

Back at Facebook's research HQ they discovered
some videos have seen a noticeable improvement in performance when switching from 19:9 orientation to 4:5.

3. "Engage your community - commenting on posts"

Facebook leaves us with one last video tip: increase engagement by responding to comments on video posts.

It's such a simple thing to do but you'd be surprised how many businesses never reply to comments on their videos. When you reply, customers feel included, and it builds brand loyalty as well.

If you can't find the time to do so, hire a social media manager to post on your social media pages and reply to the comments.

Facebook clarifies this further:

"Joining the conversation in the comments section of your own posts can delight your audience and maximize your reach. Longer comments, like sharing your own perspective on the discussion or answering questions, can spark even more engagement with your content."

Facebook also says you can reply to Facebook and Instagram video comments through the Inbox tab in Creator Studio, which some find easier to manage their activity from.

Also, Facebook has shared 5 pretty general tips for video creation:

Facebook video tips


Clearly these are pretty basic tips, you want to get your content creation strategy well defined too. Make sure to switch up the type of content to keep it interesting.

You can read Facebook's full set of video tips here.

What is a challenge you face with posting videos on Facebook?

Comment below!

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HP Moves to Texas for Better Business Opportunities

Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Inc. signage stands at the entrance of the company's headquarters in Palo Alto, California, U.S., on Monday, May 22, 2016. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg


HP - Hewlett-Packard began in 1938, like Apple's origins the computer company started in a garage when Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard rented a garage in Palo Alto, California.

Now, HP Enterprises (HPE), is re-locating to Texas. (Read the last blog: The Power of Day 1 Thinking)

HPE broadcast this move on Tuesday. Right now Houston is Hewlett-Packard Enterprises' biggest US employment hub, and the business is building a new campus in Houston.

The move by the tech giant will mean thousands of jobs for the area when it opens in the city of Spring in 2022.

The company is in the middle of consolidating a portion of its Bay Area sites to its San Jose hub. HPE says they do not play on laying off any employees during the move.

Texas is known to be friendly towards businesses and it isn't surprising HPE is coming here.

It's the biggest company moving to Texas but plenty of other companies like SignEasy and QuestionPro have come to Texas as well as resident tech companies Microsoft and Apple having established campuses here.

I've worked at Apple Computer in Austin, Texas as well as helping Microsoft launch the Xbox 360 when X-Box Live first appeared.

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla threatened in May to relocate Tesla's HQ from Fremont, California to Texas or Nevada, because of Elon was upset California's stay-at-home covid lockdown orders.

California right now is crashing its own economy so it makes sense for more and more businesses to come to Texas.

Elon Musk announced in July 2020 that he is building Tesla's new auto plant in a suburb of Austin, Texas called Del Valle. It's about 40 minutes north of my townhome.

I can't wait to run into Elon Musk at Whole Foods and start up a conversation.

Due to local and national government's handling (and mishandling) of lock down orders, many industries are rethinking office space and location and shifting toward remote work.

Dell's headquarters is in Round Rock, Texas, near Austin, and a lot of other tech companies are also considering moving to Texas for tax reasons.

Texas politicians may gerrymander but they make many accomodations for businesses. It's a stark contrast to other countries as well as other states.

One of my clients in Austria told me when they start an LLC, the government assigns one number to the business owner for life and you can't start another business just one. It's pretty harsh there.

We are so innovative towards tech here, Austin has even been nicknamed "Silicon Hills."

I have enjoyed working in the tech field, from Xbox to Facebook and our tech bubble here has kept us safe from economic hardships that hit the rest of the nation hard during 2008's subprime mortgage crash.

HP's good fortune in Palo Alto is actually what kickstarted the Nor Cal's tech scene, which is what led it to be dubbed: "Silicon Valley."

What do you think about HPE coming to Texas? Comment below!

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Discover the Power of Day 1 Thinking


Dieting and business have a lot in common - they both rely on systems that seek to scale results. They both share a common flaw: unproductivity due to complacency.

Have you had a friend on a diet who does an intense workout and then eats pizza and ice cream? "Oh well, I've already exercised so I can cheat a little."

Except - this path leads towards homeostasis rather than progress.

Many times we take greater risks once we feel safe or protected which leads to more accidents and actually increases risk. This is called Risk compensation.

Risk compensation is a theory which suggests that people typically adjust their behavior in response to the perceived level of risk, becoming more careful where they sense greater risk and less careful if they feel more protected (source).

(Read the last blog for a guide on what to charge for your services here)

Risk Homeostasis initially proposed in 1982 by Gerald J. S. Wilde, a professor at Queen's University in Canada, suggests people weigh the expected costs and benefits of safer and riskier behaviour before taking a riskier behavior.

Expected benefits of risky behavior (e.g., gaining time by speeding, fighting boredom, increasing mobility)

Expected costs of risky behavior (e.g., speeding tickets, car repairs, insurance surcharges)

Expected benefits of safe behavior (e.g., insurance discounts for accident-free periods, enhancement of reputation of responsibility)

Expected costs of safe behavior (e.g., using an uncomfortable seat belt, being called a coward by one's peers, time loss)

In a Munich study, part of a fleet of taxicabs were equipped with anti-lock brakes (ABS), and afterwards the cabs with the ABS had more accidents than the cabs without ABS.

Munich Cabbie Results

The idea Wilde has about this is that cab drivers, feeling more protected, took more risks. Their corresponding behavior change canceled any benefit from the safety measures by ABS.

The Challenger rocket exploded because the managers at NASA felt like the 2nd O-rings were enough to not look closer at the potential for catastrophes despite warnings from engineers at NASA that the rocket wasn't safe to launch.

The Danger of Complacency

At the heart of this, is the dangerous toxin of complacency.

It's just as much a risk in dieting and getting complacent that you've "put your steps in" so can cheat on your diet - leading to a permanent stalemate to getting into better shape - as it is for businesses.

Businesses that want to grow, become profitable and then after becoming profitable often stop innovating their processes, addicted to old systems that no longer work.

"Hey it worked before why not just stick to what's working?"

That kind of thinking crashed Kodak and many more businesses. It's why mid-level managers are still dealing with employees who hate their jobs.

There isn't any intrinsic value in the work being done that is cultivated. I left working at Facebook because there wasn't any investment in the employees to cultivate more skill sets for vertical rather than lateral promotions.

Many companies like Facebook completely lack professional development - it's all about a high turn over rate because they feel if they invested more into their employees they'd have to pay them more.

Yet, this short-term thinking misses the elephant in the center of the room: work avoidance, extrinsically motivated employees don't give it their all, more mistakes are made, no learning from the mistakes is done because the staff feels unsupported - this all costs companies millions of dollars in loss of revenue from inefficiency.

If a startup - or any business - stops looking for ways to improve their systems and relies only on techniques, they will stop winning over the competition and decline.

This advice goes for continuing to be a good friend, a good husband, a good business partner, a good son to your mother (said from my perspective as a guy).

A good athlete doesn't stop training just because the race is over.

It's Day 1 Every Day

                                                                
In every annual letter to the Amazon shareholders, Jeff Bezos writes the enigmatic line:

"It remains Day 1."

After saying this for years, Bezos after being questioned on what it meant said,

"Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And that is why it is always Day 1."

We have to keep creating thought experiments, AB testing, surveying our target audience, studying the competition, taking moonshots, reframing problems, testing as we fly and using first-principle thinking as Elon Musk did creating SpaceX.

Ultimately there isn't a magic bullet. No secret handshakes or magic pill that makes you a millionaire. You have to start thinking like a millionaire and study how and why successful launches worked and what didn't work about them.

Use this data as more than a way to brag at cocktail parties about what you know and have learned. Use this data to calibrate your next moves in business and beyond.

You're directing your own movie - creating the cast, the plot and the ending. What story does it tell?

Comment below!

Facebook disapprove your ad and won't tell you why? Schedule a time to talk to someone who worked at Facebook here.

New Solution to Facebook Ad Policy Violations

After years of working at Facebook, I understand exactly what ad copy in your funnel is triggering the automations and how to get compliant. I'm a Facebook ad policy specialist and can audit your funnel, and share what to say that Facebook wants to see instead - but just isn't telling you. Get on my calendar while I still have free time here.

Want to book a call to talk to Facebook and get results? Get solid answers directly from the source instead guessing, googling and playing roulette? Schedule a call with me and I can easily tell you proven reasons why the automations flag you and how to become compliant.

You'll be swapping out walking in a minefield of ad flags, to having a sure path to having your Facebook ad accounts protected from being disabled.

My clients have included social media marketing agencies of Tony Robbins, Harv Eker and Dean Graziosi. I'm featured on the Queen of Facebook Mari Smith's Marketing Essentials Course.

Save energy and money - how much is it costing you to not know why Facebook is shutting you down? Save time and money TODAY

Scheduling a call is a big step in learning more about Facebook ad policy violations.

Our clients know all about Facebook ad policy violations.

If you want to skip the line before this offer ends, immediately secure an expert-level Facebook consulting call from someone at Facebook. Book a call with me now!

If you're ok with waiting a bit longer, and entering the waitlist to see if you're eligible - Schedule a call or contact me via email.

Learn everything about Facebook ad policy violations here.

 

 

How Much Should You Charge for Your Services – Answered


How much should you charge for your services? For startup founders, pricing is a four-letter word - many get nervous charging higher prices and low-ball their own offers when starting out.

When I started my first Facebook policy expertise business I simply accepted what other businesses offered to pay me - which often wasn't as much as this type of exclusive-working-at-facebook-in-depth-knowledge was worth.

It is challenging to put a price tag on intangible items like connections, knowledge and time.

(Read the last blog for a guide to social media marketing here)

Yet if you are selling a product, setting a price seems a bit easier because you have very clear numbers to take into consideration, such as cost of manufacturing, packaging, shipping.

As an executive business consultant I've talked with tons of entrepreneurs and wantrapreneurs who had pricing their services as a big pain point. Women who are startup founders especially found it challenging to charge based on what they are worth.

Googling Won't Provide the Answer This Time Here's Why

One of the reasons why it is hard on folks to determine what to charge for their services - in the consulting sphere - is that we have been trained to run in the rat race maze after the all mighty paycheck.

The old way of thinking that business schools teach is a standard formula for determining an hourly rate: Add up your labor and overhead costs, add the profit you want to earn, then divide the total by your hours worked.

If you try and google how much you should charge for your services as an entrepreneur, you'll find outdated advice that won't serve you well on your journey into owning and running a startup consultancy.

Google search results



Sites will tell you to add up:

Time you spend at work even if you’re not actually working, including travel
Your commute
Time you spend working at home
Time you spend working when you’re theoretically not working
Calculate your actual hourly rate

But this type of advice comes from the first industrial revolution, working in a factory, eating lunch when the whistle blows - not from the reality of what it means to run your own business and solve problems for customers and other companies that cost them a lot of time and money.

The value of the time you saved a company, who didn't have the solution you offer, can be exponential.

In a nutshell, value is based on figuring out how much people are willing to pay for your service.

Just asking isn't likely going to work because people rarely have an idea of what they're willing to pay, but offering 3 different tiers from low, medium to high helps you use the Sanders 2-Option close to make a sale.

Dan Kennedy has some great advice for determining what you charge for your services. This is an excerpt from his book No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs:

"Now, you may not have a situation that lends itself to clear-cut billable hours as I do, so how can this strategy work for you? It has to. It's even more important to you than to me."

"Let's say you own six stores and each store has a manager. You'll have to decide how much of the business's bottom-line profit goal will be provided by the managers and how much is still inextricably linked to you. If you want $500,000 at the bottom line, and you figure half is dependent on you, you've got a $250,000 target."

It's sort of like a heart attack being required to really get somebody to change their eating and exercise habits. A lot of your decision making gets easy with this number staring you in the face. It's hard to con yourself with this number confronting you."

"In fact, I suggest having it stare you in the face a lot until you internalize it. Write your number "$____ per Hour" on a bunch of colorful four x 6-inch cards in bold black letters and stick these cards up in places where you work and will see them often."

"Generally speaking, with this number confronting you, two business life changes probably come to mind immediately. First, you realize you've got to surround yourself with people who understand and respect the value of your time and behave accordingly. This isn't easy, and they'll forget often because familiarity breeds contempt. Periodically, you'll have to re-orient them. You also must get people who don't respect the value of your time out of your business life. If you let people who don't understand and respect the value of your time hang around, you won't even have a fighting chance."

"Second, you have to eliminate the need for doing -- or you need to delegate -- those tasks and activities that just cannot and do not match up with the mandated value of your time."

Charge Based on Value

You want to charge based on value not an hourly rate, once you realize your value to your target audience (ideally not starving artists) you can walk customers up the value ladder from intro offers to premium services.

While I do have hourly rates, 99% of my clients are choosing packages at a higher price point for facebook policy expertise.

The higher price point usually equals more dedication from your clients, less flakiness - they invested more than the $20/month gym membership they never use and thus are more committed to getting the results of their investment.

Also, another side benefit of charging based on your value and a transformation rather than 'market rates' from a google search is you attract more clients in that income bracket rather than using hope marketing ("broke marketing").

But I think the first step is to realize your own worth, because we first have to overcome the mental block we are worth what we charge.

How did you come up with the prices you charge for your services? Comment below!

Facebook disapprove your ad and won't tell you why? Schedule a time to talk to someone who worked at Facebook here.

 

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The Blueprint for Social Media Marketing

Benefits of social media marketing


Social media contains a wealth of chances for companies to show off their product or service to the world.

If you've read our Instagram Reels update you'll appreciate this guide for social media marketing.

Social media platforms not only provide the opportunity for friends and family to stay in touch and make connections, they also provide impactful ways for advertisers to start conversations with soon-to-be customers.

With the advent of widespread social media use across all age groups, consumers now have an expectation of interacting with brands. This opens up the door for countless possibilities for marketers to generate ways of increasing demand as well as broadening the horizon for potential reach.

Benefits of social media include:

Stimulate engagement with their target audience to build the know-like-and-trust factor.

Increase raving fans and brand loyalty. More engaging content generates more loyalty, which in turn creates more sales and extends the CTV of customers. Creating content with new updates, entertaining posts, informational videos all helps boost engagement.

Leverage the power of cross-posting: social media integrates well with multiple channels for a more diverse content distribution strategy.

Maintain the company message - when you have a situation, where there may be bad press for your business, advertisers can create their own new broadcast distributing updates and press releases to tell their side of the story.

When you have a large enough audience, with consistent branding, content and value this can counteract misleading headlines or misinformation with a broadcast through social media and/or email.

Generate new customers. Using value-driven offers, advertisers can inform and convert subscribers to a social media page into new customers.

Social Media Marketing Ad Campaigns:

Lead Generating Campaign

Lead gen is all about finding entirely new customers who previously may not have interacted with your product or service.

Lead gen campaigns are in essence content marketing with an offer attached where you give consumers a chance to press pause and discover more about your company.

Often the end goal isn't necessarily always financial conversions - but community-driven outreach. When new prospects join your community, this helps them take one more step towards not just becoming a customer but a lifelong fan. 

Social Media Ad Campaign Tips:

Do Market-Research to identify prospective customers.

Develop a list of keywords that appeals to this target audience.

Search pages and create a list of prospective customers prospects and take note of their social media behavior to find out how best to approach them.

Stay current & relevant.

Exchange the hard sell with content marketing related to your offer.

Create content like blog posts or videos, that is relevant to your audience with a lead-in to your offer or joining your community.

Boost engagement with open ended questions that start conversations.

Invest time in showing interest in your potential customers. Take note of their posts and respond in kind with content that their demographic enjoys.

This develops your brand as a valuable friend rather than a greasy used car salesman.

Authenticity generates more revenue than hard pitches.

Don't use fluff - actually provide content that is valuable. One way to do this is break off a small portion of a larger offer, such as a course, or an e-book and create lead magnets from it.

What are Retargeting Ads?

Retargeting - The Real Gold

A surprising amount of businesses don't make use of the Facebook pixel - which is a piece of java script that captures Facebook user data when they go to your website or landing page.

Retargeting now includes creating custom audiences from people who have interacted with your Facebook Page as well as website.

When you identify consumers who show interest in your product or service on social media and almost complete a check out but leave after adding an item to the cart - send them retargeting ads. These convert at a much higher rate because it's a warmed up audience.

Making Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

It's vital to create your social media marketing strategy ahead of time before just trying to convert users.

This includes determining what kind of content will work, whether it’s video, graphics, images, or text. Make sure you establish the tone, style, and where you may repeat content cross posting on multiple channels.

Choosing a Social Media Platform

The platform you pick should match the demographics of your audience. If you're targeting a younger Gen-Z crowd, you may want to go with Snapchat. Millennials? Use Facebook.

Platforms you can pick for your social media strategy include:

*Facebook
*Facebook Groups
*Instagram
*YouTube
*Twitter
*Snapchat
*Pinterest
*Linkedin

What's a win for you when designing and/or executing a social media marketing strategy? Comment below!

New Solution to Facebook Ad Policy Violations

After years of working at Facebook, I understand exactly what ad copy in your funnel is triggering the automations and how to get compliant. I'm a Facebook ad policy specialist and can audit your funnel, and share what to say that Facebook wants to see instead - but just isn't telling you.

Want to book a call to talk to Facebook and get results? Get solid answers directly from the source instead of guessing, googling and playing roulette? Schedule a call with me and I can easily tell you proven reasons why the automations flag you and how to become compliant.

You'll be swapping out walking in a minefield of ad flags, to have a sure path to having your Facebook ad accounts protected from being disabled. My clients have included social media marketing agencies of Tony Robbins, Harv Eker and Dean Graziosi. I'm featured on the Queen of Facebook Mari Smith's Marketing Essentials Course.

Save energy and money - how much is it costing you to not know why Facebook is shutting you down? My calendar is here.

Tony Robbins

I get 100s of emails a week from businesses and advertisers asking for help when their facebook ad account keeps getting disabled, so my calendar gets booked fast. But if you want to get to the front, you can pre-pay for a consulting session here: Book a call

facebook ad account keeps getting disabled

If you want to skip the line before this offer ends, immediately secure an expert-level Facebook consulting call from someone at Facebook. Book a call with me now! If you're ok with waiting a bit longer, and entering the waitlist to see if you're eligible - Schedule a call or contact me via email.

Mari Smith and Trevor W Goodchild

How to Fail Successfully

Fail fast, fail often, fail forward is a Silicon Valley saying that brands failure as a badge of honor, as if it is a secret right of passage towards success. This is both right & wrong, and I'll explain why we need to redefine our relationship with failure.

When a surgeon fails - that's life or death. When the Challenger rocket blew up - that failure cost the lives of the crew. So failing fast and failing often isn't a mantra that surgeons embrace for obvious reasons.

Back in the Upper Paleolithic era, when mankind drew stick figure animals on the walls of the Lascaux Cave we had a good reason to fear failure. This was a healthy fear that helped us survive from larger predators.

Fast forward, we now fear economic depressions, failing a final exam at our college or university, or failing to overcome the same obstacles that stopped our parents from becoming more successful in business or life.


We fear getting rejected when asking someone out on a date, we fear losing our job or abrupt market changes making our service or product irrelevant in the entrepreneur space.

As a result, we tend to avoid situations that are high risk, both economically and emotionally. This inclination to avoid failure actually produces more failures.

The car is coming towards you at breakneck speed and you don't dodge left, second guess dodging to the right and end up as roadkill.

Being too afraid of failing to make the right move is a recipe for making the wrong move.

You're stuck at a job you hate, have a promising idea to launch a business but want to wait for a zero-risk opportunity to launch. You want everything to be perfect first.

20 years later, shuffling papers on your desk, you think about how much the cost of living has risen and how your pension won't pay all the bills after you retire. Wait, what about that idea?

Too afraid of failure, you never took the leap. Having A+ syndrome, waiting for the perfect moment was a bigger failure than the actual risk you would have taken to start your own company.

Doing anything innovative, or disruptive to established routines requires taking the risk that you're going to fail --at least part of the time.

You may have read my other blogs about Elon Musk's way of thinking and how he used it to succeed at Tesla. Here's Musk's thoughts on failure:

"There's a silly notion that failure's not an option at NASA. Failure is an option here [@ SpaceX]. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough."

This echoes one of the speakers at a marketing conference I went to in Orlando, Florida who said,

"If you're not embarrassed by the first results -- you didn't launch soon enough,"

We'd never have medicines that help to cure ailments if we didn't explore the unknown and in doing so, fail a few times. As Facebook's early mantra goes, "Move fast, and break things."

While a friend of mine, that I worked with at Facebook mentioned, when he was talking to Mark Zuckerberg, "Mark didn't mean it in the way many engineers at Facebook interpret it as," the concept of prioritizing momentum over just waiting for an unrealistically perfect moment to arrive still holds true.

When we put a ban on failure we put a ban on progressive, and a better future.

Taking a shot at something great will require calibration - just like sighting in the crosshairs of a gun, pellet gun, paint gun or rifle - you'll have to miss a few times to see how far away you are from the target. You may miss more than you hit.

At least in the beginning.

Shakespeare is known for his greatest works like Romeo and Juliet but over twenty years he wrote 154 sonnets and 37 plays which were lacking in character development and had plots that were shoddy, incomplete and not really put together that well.

Now that we've established the importance of trying, even if you may fail, and how important failure is to help you calibrate the best path to success it's time to debunk Silicon Valley's failing fast and often mantra.

When entrepreneurs are too focused on celebrating failures as a token accomplishment, toasting to their bravery, important info is lost on how to work smarter not harder.

Failure provides valuable insight into what worked and what didn't work in our process of launching - to just throw spaghetti at the wall without a strategy or analyzing the results waits time and money - and the effort of even trying.

When we fail, we often try to hide it, or misrepresent what happened as someone else's fault. We twist reality to fit a rationalization of why it wasn't our fault and pass the buck onto other people or factors beyond our control.

What's the harm in fudging the truth a little here and there? you may ask.

If we don't own up to where & how we've failed then we learn nothing from the experience. What's the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing and expecting different results. That's what Blockbuster & Kodak did - look where it got them.

When we pass blame for our failures onto outside elements - the girl that rejected us, the upset customer, the competitors in our niche - we have 0 cause to course correct and improve.

Time, effort and money are thrown down the drain re-attempting the same failed strategy we didn't learn from, crossing our fingers hoping our luck will change without taking responsibility for how we can change our luck.

This is one of the biggest misconceptions about determination and 'just working hard & not giving up.' If we're aimed in the wrong direction all that yelling at the GPS won't do us any good. All that effort is wasted.

The adage "No pain no gain" misrepresents the value of learning from failures in broad strokes. The aim isn't just to fail fast. It's to learn fast.

We would benefit from raising a glass to toast to the nuggets of gold we learn from failure, not just failing.

Another way I often see failures framed is as a loss. "I lost a lot of money in my first start up that didn't pan out." But you're only taking the L if you frame it that way.

A better way to frame failure is as an investment, and take note of the data you get from your efforts. This isn't data you'll find in a fortune cookie or motivational bumper sticker.

Intelligent failures can help you succeed more than previous successes if you take the time to look at what worked in your attempts and what didn't.

One of the best ways to overcome depression from failing at something, whether that's at a relationship, business launch, or personal venture is to learn something. Learning from your experience will never fail.

The founder of Forbes Magazine, Malcolm Forbes says it like this:

"Failure is success if we learn from it."

When we were children, we had to stumble and fall before learning to walk. Imagine if had our parents telling us,

"Don't try to walk because if you do you might fall."

We had to learn how not to fall in order to discover the joys of walking. A single failure is just the start not the end of our journey.

One of the benefits of examining failures for what worked and what didn't is we begin to ask better questions.

Sure, the solutions may evade us in the beginning, but by asking better questions we start to understand more, and with more understanding comes better strategies, with better strategies comes a higher chance of success.

Much of the time we focus on instant gratification. The faster we can get to the prize the better. Spending all our paychecks on Friday and being broke on Monday is an example of this.

Eating at fast food restaurants and pleasuring our taste buds instead of overall mind body spirit health that lasts us into old age more fit, and able-minded is another.

The famous marshmellow experiment in the 1960s, by a Stanford professor named Walter Mischel, tested children's self control. They were given one marshmallow and told if they didn't eat it, they'd get a second marshmallow.

The children who were willing to delay gratification and waited to receive the second marshmallow ended up having higher SAT scores, lower levels of substance abuse, lower likelihood of obesity, better responses to stress, better social skills as reported by their parents, and generally better scores in a range of other life measures. (You can see the followup studies herehere, and here.)

To increase our short-term pleasure, we often avoid actions that might fail.

Yet those who succeed in life delay gratification longer, recalibrate for seeing the bigger picture in the long term. Not falling for the trap of perpetually living in the short-term gratification that social media seems to exacerbated.

"Failure hovers uncomfortably close to greatness," said James Watson who was one of the discoverers of our DNA's double-helix structure.

So your aim should be to re-center your attention on the elements that you can control - the energy and approach you take when attempting to achieve a goal.

Always put the ego aside to prioritize curiosity over pride.

Ask yourself, after failing, "What went wrong with this failure?" and fix the method you used, recalibrate the angle of your approach based on the data your failures provide.

However - that is only part of the story. You need to also ask:

"What went right with this failure?"

Keep track of the higher quality choices you made, even if they produced a failure.

Work on perfecting the method or strategy you're using, and focus on updating your processes. Don't be afraid to use first-principle thinking here too and rewrite the script from the start.

When you reduce the stress on just achieving a specific goal, and work on developing your strategy, you'll improve at everything. The goal because a side-effect of a well-developed system instead of just a lucky guess using a life hack.

We get intrinsic benefits and value from activities we're doing because we're so in love with what we're doing that failing isn't even relevant anymore..

This kind of mindset is similar to one taught in Thich Nhat Hanh's book, the Miracle of Mindfulness, when he describes an incredibly huge pile of dishes and becoming overwhelmed until he re-focused on just washing each dish as if it was the only dish.

Let's put this in perspective of the workforce. When employers only reward success and reprimand or punish failure, this leads to workers just not sharing about failures. Employees try to hide where they've failed instead of look where they can learn from them.

They exaggerate their successes and try to pose everything done in the best way without being intrinsically invested in wanting to learn from mistakes and perfect a process.

This is in essence, shooting the messenger - especially when the failure was caused by an error in the system the employees were using not always just their own competence.

A business stagnates when it stops learning from its mistakes. It's the same reason Sears went out of business.

And it's understandable to an extent - we're taught to justify our failures by blaming other people or circumstances, but yet when we see someone falter we start labeling this failure as a result of their internal processes;

They were lazy, didn't pay attention, incompetent. Our habit of logging the failures of others can be repurposed as a source of data for how we can do things better.

Many companies I've worked for in big tech, Microsoft, Apple or Facebook say they can understand failures or like to learn from them, don't actually do this in reality.

They'll debate that failures mean someone is at fault, blame needs to be assigned, and without discipline and punishment employees will just take advantage of this and fail more.

In actuality - you can let your staff take risks as long as you have high standards. If someone keeps making the same mistake it's time for a one-on-one with quality control.

You can punish sloppy work or poor performance but also reward intelligent failures.

The best performing hospitals have a culture where the nurses are allowed to give feedback to the doctors so everyone learns from mistakes made, the worst are where doctors are untouchable and above critique. These hospitals tend to make more mistakes and hide them according to first-year doctoral student, Amy Edmondson's study in the 1990s.

Her Ted Talk is pretty amazing here:

Is this blog too detailed? Perhaps - I get pretty passionate about discovering solutions to problems we keep repeating. The attitude on failure is one of them.

Let's take a look at how failure works in schools, particularly at the college level.

The New York Times has a great article on this:

"Preoccupied in the 1980s with success at any cost (think Gordon Gekko), the American business world now fetishizes failure, thanks to technology experimentalist heroes like Steve Jobs. But while the idea of “failing upward” has become a badge of honor in the start-up world — with blog posts, TED talks, even industry conferences — students are still focused on conventional metrics of achievement, campus administrators say."

We’re not talking about flunking out of pre-med or getting kicked out of college,” Ms. Simmons said. “We’re talking about students showing up in residential life offices distraught and inconsolable when they score less than an A-minus. Ending up in the counseling center after being rejected from a club.

Students who are unable to ask for help when they need it, or so fearful of failing that they will avoid taking risks at all.” Almost a decade ago, faculty at Stanford and Harvard coined the term “failure deprived” to describe what they were observing: the idea that, even as they were ever more outstanding on paper, students seemed unable to cope with simple struggles."

The solution to this anxiety about even trying due to fear of failure is to experience failure on a regular basis. This is true for any phobia. When I started driving, I was freaked out by everything - how close the cars were, the speed of vehicles, going on super high curving overpasses.

It took time and experience of exposing myself to driving more and more that the fear lessened and driving skills also improved.

Each setback becomes the training to overcome the next one - if we choose to learn from failures and take the risk of failing again. And again. And again. Each attempt builds resilience and familiarity.

What's something you couldn't have achieved if you didn't try first and fail?

Comment below!

Read the last blog on SEO tips here

New Solution to Facebook Ad Policy Violations

After years of working at Facebook, I understand exactly what ad copy in your funnel is triggering the automations and how to get compliant. I'm a Facebook ad policy specialist and can audit your funnel, and share what to say that Facebook wants to see instead - but just isn't telling you.

Want to book a call to talk to Facebook and get results? Get solid answers directly from the source instead of guessing, googling and playing roulette? Schedule a call with me and I can easily tell you proven reasons why the automations flag you and how to become compliant.

You'll be swapping out walking in a minefield of ad flags, to have a sure path to having your Facebook ad accounts protected from being disabled. My clients have included social media marketing agencies of Tony Robbins, Harv Eker and Dean Graziosi. I'm featured on the Queen of Facebook Mari Smith's Marketing Essentials Course.

Save energy and money - how much is it costing you to not know why Facebook is shutting you down? My calendar is here.

Tony Robbins

I get 100s of emails a week from businesses and advertisers asking for help when their facebook ad account keeps getting disabled, so my calendar gets booked fast. But if you want to get to the front, you can pre-pay for a consulting session here: Book a call

facebook ad account keeps getting disabled

If you want to skip the line before this offer ends, immediately secure an expert-level Facebook consulting call from someone at Facebook. Book a call with me now! If you're ok with waiting a bit longer, and entering the waitlist to see if you're eligible - Schedule a call or contact me via email.

Mari Smith and Trevor W Goodchild

 

What Trump’s Loss Means for Solar Industry

Photo by Chelsea on Unsplash

If you're living in America you're going to see a big change for renewable energy.

For his entire presidency, President Donald Trump denied that humans affect the environment in any way while boosting the production of
fossil fuels.

Trump repeatedly tweeted and announced that climate change is a "hoax." If that wasn't good enough, he went on to make fake claims that wind turbines cause cancer.

Many environmental protections were taken apart, and a lobbyist for coal was appointed at the head of
 the EPA.

The new president-elect Joe Biden, conversely, takes a completely opposite stance. Biden is committing to quickly concentrate on pressing climate issues before they become a larger crisis.

He was promised to spend up to
$2 trillion on sustainable energy, in addition to getting America joining back with the Paris climate accord.

Regardless of what your stance is on fossil fuels versus renewable energy - renewable energy is a business that produces significant contributions to the GDP as well as job creation.

The “green economy” in America employs more than 9.5 million people, according to the University College London study.

The green economy generates $1.3 trillion in annual sales revenue in the United States, while creating 9.5 million full-time jobs, climatologist Mark Maslin and researcher Lucien Georgeson said in their study published in the online journal Palgrave Communications.

Heads of industry in the sustainable energy field are now feeling relieved about Washington's change of attitude.

The President-Elect is going to appoint more environmentally-centered officials to lead the EPA, as well as the Energy Department and related organizations.

“Following Biden’s win, the US will re-join the Paris negotiations and other nations will be compelled to join the net-zero club and, in 30 years time, we may just get there.”

Said Professor of climate physics and director Prof Piers Forster.

As far as the Stock Market is concerned, solar and other clean energy stocks are booming in 2020 this year.

SunPower, based in San Jose, California (SPWR) is now valued at $3.3 billion with a share price is spiking up 270% in record highs.

Their competitor, SunRUN (RUN) has risen in the upwards of more than 300% in 2020. Giving the solar company a market valuation of $11 billion.

That's not to say that there won't be obstacles for green energy still with the Whitehouse divided, Republicans who tend to favor big oil, dominating the Senate, and Democrats who lean towards renewable energy expected to hold the House.

Biden has a climate taskforce who aspires to install eight million solar rooftops through fast-tracking permits and deregulating the process.

Covid 19 changes to urban life are spurning more focus on renewable energy right now as well.

Data centers are installing more and more solar panels, and the exodus out of cities is fueling a housing boom.

The rapid uptick of remote work due to Covid 19 closing down office space is a huge driver for solar energy as well. This is because you can't work if you don't have power.

Many west coast techs and more who work from home are installing more solar panels to side-step power outages in California.

Another stark contrast in political maneuvers between Biden and Trump have to do with tariffs.

Back in January 2018, Trump forced a 30% tariff on silicon solar cells made overseas, which are scheduled to expire in February 2022.

The federal Energy Investment Tax Credit (ITC) is due to expire in 2022 as well.

President-Elect Biden has a tax plan which requires Congress to widen the ITC. This is going to give businesses and home owners a much greater motivation to insall solar panels on rooftops everywhere.

What other changes do you expect to see with a Biden presidency?
Comment below!

New Solution to Facebook Ad Policy Violations

After years of working at Facebook, I understand exactly what ad copy in your funnel is triggering the automations and how to get compliant. I'm a Facebook ad policy specialist and can audit your funnel, and share what to say that Facebook wants to see instead - but just isn't telling you.

Want to book a call to talk to Facebook and get results? Get solid answers directly from the source instead of guessing, googling and playing roulette? Schedule a call with me and I can easily tell you proven reasons why the automations flag you and how to become compliant.

You'll be swapping out walking in a minefield of ad flags, to have a sure path to having your Facebook ad accounts protected from being disabled. My clients have included social media marketing agencies of Tony Robbins, Harv Eker and Dean Graziosi. I'm featured on the Queen of Facebook Mari Smith's Marketing Essentials Course.

Save energy and money - how much is it costing you to not know why Facebook is shutting you down? My calendar is here.

Tony Robbins

I get 100s of emails a week from businesses and advertisers asking for help when their facebook ad account keeps getting disabled, so my calendar gets booked fast. But if you want to get to the front, you can pre-pay for a consulting session here: Book a call

facebook ad account keeps getting disabled

If you want to skip the line before this offer ends, immediately secure an expert-level Facebook consulting call from someone at Facebook. Book a call with me now! If you're ok with waiting a bit longer, and entering the waitlist to see if you're eligible - Schedule a call or contact me via email.

Mari Smith and Trevor W Goodchild

5 Quick SEO Tips – How to Increase Your Search Rank Result

 

SEO basics: Five tips & best practices to consider for your website

SEO explained

Here is an SEO starter guide for those who want the benefits of search engine optimization without spending hours googling and guessing. Let's get started!

Provide useful product or service information

Step 1: Discover What Your Audience is Googling 


If you don’t know what your audience is googling you can’t optimize your site, so here is an easy way to find that out.

Imagine you are one of your customers, and start entering in search terms. It seems pretty easy but you’d be surprised how many people don’t experiment with googling things first.

Use short and meaningful page titles and headings

Let’s say you own an Italian restaurant in San Francisco. Now imagine you’re in San Fran, you’re hungry for some pasta or authentic Italian pizza - what would you google?

* Italian restaurants in San Francisco
* Bay area Italian food
* Best Italian restaurant in the Mission District

You now have some of your first search terms. Are these the best search terms with the highest search volume? Maybe, let’s do some more research.

Include details about your business

a) Find The Commonly Used Keywords For Your Business

Searching Google for Italian restaurants in SF produces many results:


Glancing at the search results you can see key phrases used, “Italian restaurant” and “San Francisco” as well as “Italian food.” The reason why we’re seeing this is because websites are using title tags to rank in search results.

We can also see Italian restaurants appear in “best of” lists for more than one website, which may be a good idea to include somewhere on your website, if you’re the owner of an Italian restaurant.

Check image and video tags

Search engines might not always interpret images or videos in the same way people do, so it’s important to use words to help the search engine understand these items. Make sure you adjust the "alt =" text of your images to reflect the keyword you're targeting.

Use descriptions that your potential customers can relate to

b) Find Out New Ways Your Customers Search for the Same Topic

You’ll want to use a Keyword Explorer tool, there are a few free ones on the net, or you can pay for one on sites like SEM Rush, ahrefs, and moz.com I believe offers a free one after you create a profile on their website.



This is where you'll discover more keywords, rated by their search volume and a few other long-tail keywords which consist of entire phrases versus just one or two words. 

Knowing these gives you the sense of how people are searching in different ways for the same thing.

c) Research Related Subjects & Themes in Your Niche 

You can increase your search rank results by blogging about topics in your niche, increasing the amount of keywords your site ranks for.

But, this won’t be any good, if you’re just guessing and writing content. I’ve heard of more than one person that complains, “Well I’m producing tons of content but nothing ever happens!”

That’s because you need to produce content that is optimized for search engines based on what words your customers are already using.

Going to forums, Quora, Reddit, Facebook groups and finding out what phases your potential customers are using is a great way to create a word bank to fill your blogs with.


Another pro tip is to find pain points and solve them on your website or IRL for your Italian restaurant in this hypothetical example.

Eg: people complain there's no seating at other Italian restaurants - you add an outside patio area and mention on your site, "Unlike other Italian restaurants that don't have seating you'll always have a spot in our new patio area. 

You can even subscribe to podcasts by authority figures in your vertical and write down keywords you hear coming up again and again. 

Step 2: Optimize Your Website Pages for Search

Make sure your website looks good on mobile and use the data you’ve found from the previous steps in this article to add those keywords and long-tail phrases to pages on your site.

Always start with a keyword phrase at the beginning of paragraphs and in titles or headings on your website. 

You can use free and paid plugins on WordPress to optimize your site even more, like the Yoast SEO plugin. 
Step 3: Create Content With Search Intent in Mind

There are 3 main search intents when folks are googling:

Navigational: They’re looking for a specific website, e.g., ‘Italian restaurant’
Informational: Looking to learn more about a specific topic, e.g., ‘Italian restaurants in SF’
Transactional: They’re looking to purchase a specific product/service, e.g., ‘book a table in San Francisco’

Typically, informational searches rank the highest with Google - but research your field and back it up with proof.

Step 4: Design Snappy Clean Short Website URLs  

Google’s bots crawl website URLs in addition to content on your site. That being said, you want to make sure you get this one optimized from the get go without changing
it later.

The simpler and topic-based URL you have, the better SEO results you’re going to get. This means no long numbers in your URLs, but short URLs that have a major keyword in it will work best.

eg: /italian-restaurant-SF

Step 5: A Few Bonus SEO Tips

Make sure your website loads fast, and install an SSL certificate, which means your site has an HTTPS instead of HTTP.

What's your niche? Comment below!

New Solution to Facebook Ad Policy Violations

After years of working at Facebook, I understand exactly what ad copy in your funnel is triggering the automations and how to get compliant. I'm a Facebook ad policy specialist and can audit your funnel, and share what to say that Facebook wants to see instead - but just isn't telling you.

Want to book a call to talk to Facebook and get results? Get solid answers directly from the source instead of guessing, googling and playing roulette? Schedule a call with me and I can easily tell you proven reasons why the automations flag you and how to become compliant.

You'll be swapping out walking in a minefield of ad flags, to have a sure path to having your Facebook ad accounts protected from being disabled. My clients have included social media marketing agencies of Tony Robbins, Harv Eker and Dean Graziosi. I'm featured on the Queen of Facebook Mari Smith's Marketing Essentials Course.

Save energy and money - how much is it costing you to not know why Facebook is shutting you down? My calendar is here.

Tony Robbins

I get 100s of emails a week from businesses and advertisers asking for help when their facebook ad account keeps getting disabled, so my calendar gets booked fast. But if you want to get to the front, you can pre-pay for a consulting session here: Book a call

facebook ad account keeps getting disabled

If you want to skip the line before this offer ends, immediately secure an expert-level Facebook consulting call from someone at Facebook. Book a call with me now! If you're ok with waiting a bit longer, and entering the waitlist to see if you're eligible - Schedule a call or contact me via email.

Mari Smith and Trevor W Goodchild

 

AI Facial Recognition – Has It Gone Too Far?


Right now the future of marketing is in AI - artificial intelligence - which employs systems with the ability to automatically learn and improve from experience without programming (read last blog about Woke Capitalism here).

But when is this a violation of user privacy? How much is too much for demographic targeting?

AI-driven algorithms build a mathematical model based on sample data, known as "training data", in order to make predictions or decisions.

The way it’s used today can get pretty intimate about your personal details - especially with facial recognition software.

Machine learning correctly determines a lot about you — for example it can tell if you’ve recently got married, predict your sexual orientation, purchased a new home, whether you’re pregnant and even whether you’re about to quit your job.

Marketers can determine race based on the type of Facebook pages you like. Combine that with facial recognition software - and some scenarios feel like Will Smith in Enemy of the State.

Credit: BBC.com


The Chinese government track minorities such as the Uyghurs using facial recognition.

As Tech Crunch Reports:

“The database processed various facial details, such as if a person’s eyes or mouth are open, if they’re wearing sunglasses, or a mask — common during periods of heavy smog — and if a person is smiling or even has a beard.”

“The database also contained a subject’s approximate age as well as an “attractive” score, according to the database fields.”

“The Chinese government has detained more than a million Uyghurs in internment camps in the past year, according to a United Nations  human rights committee. It’s part of a massive crackdown by Beijing on the ethnic minority group. Just this week, details emerged of an app used by police to track Uyghur Muslims.”

The world's largest association of computing professionals,The Association for Computing Machinery, is calling for an "immediate suspension" of the private and governmental use of facial recognition technologies for "technical and ethical reasons."

NBC News reports:

"The technology too often produces results demonstrating clear bias based on ethnic, racial, gender, and other human characteristics recognizable by computer systems," the group's U.S. Technology Policy Committee said in a statement.

"Such bias and its effects are scientifically and socially unacceptable."

"The association acknowledged that facial recognition technology can be "benign or beneficial," but it said its use has "often compromised fundamental human and legal rights of individuals to privacy, employment, justice and personal liberty."

At the end of 2019, researchers for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, an agency of the Commerce Department, discovered facial recognition algorithms falsely identified African American and Asian faces 10 to 100 times more often than Caucasian faces — a glitch proven with the wrongful arrest of Robert Williams.

It isn’t just the abuse of power from ruling classes that may cause many to raise an eyebrow - it’s also the potential of data leaks to jeopardize vulnerable groups of people targeted by racist or religious persecutors.

Security lapse exposed a Chinese smart city surveillance system


On the flip side, activists have used facial recognition, powered by AI to identify police officers who hide their badge numbers in cases of police brutality.

“For a while now, everyone was aware the big guys could use this to identify and oppress the little guys, but we’re now approaching the technological threshold where the little guys can do it to the big guys,” Andrew Maximov, a developer working on a similar project, told the NYT.

“It’s not just the loss of anonymity. It’s the threat of infamy.”

Credit: www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/


How AI-Driven Facial Recognition Works

Facial recognition is built from proprietary algorithms and has 3 main phases:

Detection, Attribution and Recognition.

Detection locates a face inside a picture.

Attribution maps points on a face using the distance between the eyes, the shape of the jaw line, the space between the nose and mouth. Then it converts this into a string of numbers called a “faceprint”

Recognition is where your identity is associated with the figure in the photo.

AI machines are fed thousands of photos to train the machine to recognize faces, the more diverse the collection of photos are the better the algorithm gets at identifying people in the photo.

A Brief Timeline of Facial Recognition

Facial recognition’s first giant shift to the public limelight was in 2001 with much controversy. In 2001, US law enforcement used facial recognition on crowds at Super Bowl XXXV. Critics accurately described it as a violation of Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure.

Originally started by Woodrow Wilson Bledsoe who developed a system of data point measurements to classify photos of faces in the 1960s unnamed organizations funded his research that was never publicly published. There is evidence indicating the police were interested from the beginning in facial recognition.

2001 also saw the first widespread police use of the technology with a database operated by the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, now one of the largest local databases in the country.

Fast forward to 2008, when Illinois’s Biometric Information Privacy Act went into effect, becoming the first law of its kind in the US to regulate the illegal collection and storage of your biometric information, including photos of faces.

Enter the 2010s which jumpstarted the more modern era of facial recognition. The introduction of neural networks made facial recognition a standard feature.

Three years later in 2011, facial recognition confirmed the identity of Osama bin Laden.

In 2014, Facebook publicly revealed its DeepFace photo-tagging software, the same year Edward Snowden released documents showing the depth that the US government was collecting images to build a database of your personal information.

One year later in 2015, Baltimore police used facial recognition to identify people who protested Freddie Gray being killed by the police, breaking his spine while in a police van.

Target revealed a teen was pregnant to her father through sending her coupons for baby items and that was one of the bigger headlines about machine learning in advertising as well.

As of 2020, Microsoft will ban police use of its controversial facial-recognition systems while Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai suggests a temporary ban, as recently suggested by the EU, might be a good step in the right direction.

The Sophistry of Compliance

Facial recognition—the software that maps, analyzes, and then identifies the identity of a face in a photo or video—is one of the most powerful surveillance tools ever made.

It's so part of everyday life as many use facial recognition just as a way to unlock their smartphones or organize their pictures, it's easy to just accept. But how big corporations and governments use it is going have a much bigger effect on our lives.

If it's your phone or computer that you own, you can opt out of or turn off facial recognition, but the prevalence of cameras everywhere makes this tech more and more difficult to avoid in the public space.

Serious concerns about this prevalence are magnified by increased evidence of racial profiling and protester identification.

This has motivated Fortune 500 companies, like Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft, to 
put a moratorium on selling their software to law enforcement.

Yet, these will end as moratoriums are only for a designated amount of time. Each year, certain types of tech get cheaper and cheaper - the same is happening with facial recognition tech getting both cheaper and more effective.

This brings up hard questions that we all need to answer on how to regulate facial recognition, and the moral compromises many are blasé about making now but have and will jeopardize individual privacy rights.

What do you think? Has the AI machine learning gone too far with facial recognition? Do you want to be tracked at work on whether or not you’re day dreaming or staring at a screen?

If you’d like to opt out for Facebook using facial recognition on you, here’s their page for that:

An Update About Face Recognition on Facebook


Comment below with your thoughts on machine learning and facial recognition: what is acceptable and what is going too far?

Read more about how facial recognition software works here

New Solution to Facebook Ad Policy Violations

After years of working at Facebook, I understand exactly what ad copy in your funnel is triggering the automations and how to get compliant. I'm a Facebook ad policy specialist and can audit your funnel, and share what to say that Facebook wants to see instead - but just isn't telling you.

Want to book a call to talk to Facebook and get results? Get solid answers directly from the source instead of guessing, googling and playing roulette? Schedule a call with me and I can easily tell you proven reasons why the automations flag you and how to become compliant.

You'll be swapping out walking in a minefield of ad flags, to have a sure path to having your Facebook ad accounts protected from being disabled. My clients have included social media marketing agencies of Tony Robbins, Harv Eker and Dean Graziosi. I'm featured on the Queen of Facebook Mari Smith's Marketing Essentials Course.

Save energy and money - how much is it costing you to not know why Facebook is shutting you down? My calendar is here.

Tony Robbins

I get 100s of emails a week from businesses and advertisers asking for help when their facebook ad account keeps getting disabled, so my calendar gets booked fast. But if you want to get to the front, you can pre-pay for a consulting session here: Book a call

facebook ad account keeps getting disabled

If you want to skip the line before this offer ends, immediately secure an expert-level Facebook consulting call from someone at Facebook. Book a call with me now! If you're ok with waiting a bit longer, and entering the waitlist to see if you're eligible - Schedule a call or contact me via email.

Mari Smith and Trevor W Goodchild

The Problem With Woke Capitalism


Progressive values are now becoming the new Nike swoosh to rebrand companies as hip and "woke."

Centuries of institutions who are built on maximizing shareholder value over ethics is now being reframed but perhaps for the wrong reasons.

The most glaring example is the 2017 Pepsi Cola commercial saying that a can of their soda will solve systemic racism in the police force. That's woke capitalism gone bad - a clear case of not seeing the trees for the forest.

The ad begins showing folks at a protest to change societal norms, such as Black Lives Matter. We begin to to see where Pepsi is going wrong right away by showing people celebrating racial inequality like it's a block party.

To put salt in a wound Pepsi underscores the legitimacy of social movements when Kendall Jenner hands a can of Pepsi to a cop in full riot gear - as if racist cops will stop shooting blacks if they drink Pepsi.

This is a mock up of Iesha Evans, a black woman who braved standing up to the police decked out in full riot gear at a BLM protest in Baton Rouge.

Credit: Jonathan Bachman/Reuters


Pepi tried to coop this significant moment showing Kendall giving a Pepsi can to the cops.

The police accepting Pepsi was some bizarre message that if you drink Pepsi, that will end police brutality and racism??


The monetization of a civil rights movement as some sort of cheap ad ploy upset the public. It was poor taste. Definitely showed how 'unwoke' the Pepsi corporation is.

The people who designed this ad are probably the same suburbanites who are unaware of their own casual racism passed down from their parents' generation - so it's the pot calling the kettle black.

The problem with woke capitalism is when there isn't an underlying understanding of how and why people care about the social justice issues, or environmental quality concerns that motivate consumers to vote with their dollar shopping at Patagonia or eating ice cream at Ben & Jerry's.

When it's just done as a marketing technique, the vibe is shallow and plastic-y. It's like the movie Wrinkle in Time - it felt so artificial the magic in the Madeleine L'Engle novel was made into a cheap thrill that felt like it was created by the monsters the children are fighting against in the novel.

But back to woke capitalism. Patagonia paid their employees while stores were closed during lockdowns as a sign they understood a business isn't just about making profits.

It's about reputation, integrity, and customer loyalty. Respecting the struggle their employees had to go through by no fault of their own was an amazing move.

Their on-site childcare for more than 30 years for employees was also a sign they humanized the work experience.

Another company worth mentioning that does woke capitalism right is the ice cream shop Ben & Jerry's.

Ben and Jerry's called to take down and dismantle white supremacy after the police killing of George Floyd. This wasn't just their attempt to jump on a 'woke capitalism trend;' they supported a congressional bill aimed at studying the effects of slavery and discrimination.

I connect with this personally as well because I grew up living in a homeless shelter and on the streets. Ben & Jerry's partnered with Lifeworks, the shelter I stayed in as a homeless teen, to offer jobs to teens trying to get off the streets who were staying at Lifeworks.

Seeing first hand, how Ben & Jerry's got involved with the Austin community, and tried to give kids a chance who were escaping a lifetime of poverty and abuse was really touching.

Each of these businesses established a brand that may not be in the majority, of giving a damn about their employees, supporting the local communities where their stores are located as well as the environment.

The thing is, a business definitely has to turn a profit more than their operating costs, employee payroll and marketing expenses.

This logic is one used for years to justify Shareholder Primacy.

Shareholder Primacy is a theory in corporate governance holding that shareholder interests should be assigned first priority relative to all other corporate stakeholders.

The shareholder primacy norm was first used by courts to resolve disputes among majority and minority shareholders, and, over time, this use of the shareholder primacy norm evolved into the modern doctrine of minority shareholder oppression.

The doctrine of shareholder's primacy is criticized for being at odds with corporate social responsibility and other legal obligations because it focuses solely on maximizing shareholder profits.

There's a balance between staying 'woke' (I say this in quotes because many people use this word in ways that portray them as anything but woke, like the Pepsi cola commercial) and staying profitable.

If we pollute more than we contribute use cap and trade taxes to pay to dirty the earth so much it's unusable for future generations - well that's just shooting ourselves in the foot.

If companies give out more money than they earn to programs that support equality and sustainability - that's a recipe for disaster as well.

The middle ground is authenticity about being woke and not just using it as a buzz word to generate more SEO for your company's website. Even if you're using the new Google search updates to get more traffic, be real about your business's intention.

Including some provisions that will mitigate the social and environmental impact of a company, and ones that aren't false like a straw man argument but actually beneficial, is the key to progress.

At the same time, with cancel culture being abundant right now, not every attack on companies is justified.

The court of public opinion can be righteous, but humans err, and mob justice can also create shock waves that destroy entire businesses.

Just as there are people on death row who are innocent - being trigger happy on both sides of the aisle isn't a solution.

The think tank, the Roosevelt Institute calls for a federal charter to “create a legal obligation for the corporation to account for the public effects of its actions” and legislation mandating that companies let workers elect “a significant portion” of their board.

Being aware of how dumping toxic sludge into water supplies - as US company Walmart has done both in America and Mexico - can affect the quality of consumer lives should be a given.

I realize many companies will resent any sort of mandate demanding they alter their business model to take responsibility for other people their business affects and at the same time I also see underrepresented groups of people like indigenous tribes in South America sorting through contaminated drinking water due to Pepsi polluting their water supplies.

I think it's worth taking a look to see how we can all do better. Specifically not just a vague marketing slogan about being woke.

What about you? You think it's ok to mandate new policies about your company's affect on the world? Comment below!

New Solution to Facebook Ad Policy Violations

After years of working at Facebook, I understand exactly what ad copy in your funnel is triggering the automations and how to get compliant. I'm a Facebook ad policy specialist and can audit your funnel, and share what to say that Facebook wants to see instead - but just isn't telling you.

Want to book a call to talk to Facebook and get results? Get solid answers directly from the source instead of guessing, googling and playing roulette? Schedule a call with me and I can easily tell you proven reasons why the automations flag you and how to become compliant.

You'll be swapping out walking in a minefield of ad flags, to have a sure path to having your Facebook ad accounts protected from being disabled. My clients have included social media marketing agencies of Tony Robbins, Harv Eker and Dean Graziosi. I'm featured on the Queen of Facebook Mari Smith's Marketing Essentials Course.

Save energy and money - how much is it costing you to not know why Facebook is shutting you down? My calendar is here.

Tony Robbins

I get 100s of emails a week from businesses and advertisers asking for help when their facebook ad account keeps getting disabled, so my calendar gets booked fast. But if you want to get to the front, you can pre-pay for a consulting session here: Book a call

facebook ad account keeps getting disabled

If you want to skip the line before this offer ends, immediately secure an expert-level Facebook consulting call from someone at Facebook. Book a call with me now! If you're ok with waiting a bit longer, and entering the waitlist to see if you're eligible - Schedule a call or contact me via email.

Mari Smith and Trevor W Goodchild

 

Google Search Algorithm Update – Jetski Shaman

Google’s Hummingbird Update: How It Changed Search

Source: https://searchengineland.com/

Google’s Hummingbird Update: How It Changed Search

Google just released a slew of brand new updates for their search algorithm which you'll need to stay on top of if you're using SEO and PPC ads on Google's platform (check out Real Estate price drops in the last blog)

The concept behind this move is to allow consumers to find more accurate data that isn't just what major brands have paid to alter search paths for. There are implications for social media marketers here as well.

Google Hummingbird

1. Hum to Search Audio Algorithms

This is pretty neat as I'm sure you've had a tune in your mind, know the melody but not the name of the song. Now you can just hum or whistle into the search app to find your song.


Google goes into detail here on what their thoughts are on this new feature:

"Starting today, you can hum, whistle or sing a melody to Google to solve your earworm. On your mobile device, open the latest version of the Google app, tap the mic icon and say “what's this song?” or click the “Search a song” button. Then start humming for 10-15 seconds. On Google Assistant, it’s just as simple. Say “Hey Google, what’s this song?” and then hum the tune."

You may not be able to to harness this tool for SEO as much, unless you're running a music podcast, or are creating a catchy tune that has humming as part of the chorus for a new song release.

Hummingbird Defined

2. Spell Check Enhanced

Just like typing in Gmail you'll get suggestions for finishing the rest of your sentence through AI learning, the new spelling suggestions are improved to give you better results.

Google search update

This is definitely a reason to make sure your website is free of spelling and grammar errors.

A Complete Rewrite Of The Core Algorithm

3. Index Individual Passages of Text

The search algorithm update Google made here is aimed at being able to find detailed information more related to consumer Google searches, by identifying passages of text on web site pages.

Google Humming Bird Update


This is a trend Google has been following for quite some time, where featured snippets of specific text and parts of videos are highlighted within Google searches.

Google says:

"By better understanding the relevancy of specific passages, not just the overall page, we can find that needle-in-a-haystack information you’re looking for. This technology will improve 7% of search queries across all languages as we roll it out globally."

This will affect page ranks in search queries, as well as a company's performance stats - so be sure to answer in FAQs the most frequent questions customers ask about your business.

Hummingbird Affected 90% Of Searches

4. YouTube Video Segments - Key Moments

To better serve searchers, one of Google's projects has been to index specific sections of YouTube videos and expand this to be included in more search results.

Google video section indexing

Hummingbird And Natural Language Search

Google says: "Using a new AI-driven approach, we’re now able to understand the deep semantics of a video and automatically identify key moments. This lets us tag those moments in the video, so you can navigate them like chapters in a book."

"Whether you’re looking for that one step in a recipe tutorial, or the game-winning home run in a highlights reel, you can easily find those moments. We’ve started testing this technology this year, and by the end of 2020 we expect that 10% of searches on Google will use this new technology."

This also matches up with YouTube's video chapters where YouTubers can add descriptions per video segment, using the timestamps to allow Google more contextual data for the content contained in each segment.

Now, Google is implementing AI for these video sections to add more data to search results. Make sure to include tags for your video segments.

Does The Hummingbird Update Do New Things?

5. New Subtopics for Greater Diversity of Content.

It's a bit fuzzy on how this is going to be applied but Google is using neural nets to give consumers more clickable subtopics.

Google states:

"We’ve applied neural nets to understand subtopics around an interest, which helps deliver a greater diversity of content when you search for something broad."

Hummingbird Did Not Initially Affect SEO

As an example, if you search for “home exercise equipment,” we can now understand relevant subtopics, such as budget equipment, premium picks, or small space ideas, and show a wider range of content for you on the search results page. We’ll start rolling this out by the end of this year."

This helps you pair your listings to more relevant categories, stemming from the most frequently used filters and search terms which is worth considering when implementing SEO.

For the full deets on Google's Search Algorithm Updates 2020 navigate here.

What's your favorite new search feature and how will you use it? Comment below!

New Solution to Facebook Ad Policy Violations

After years of working at Facebook, I understand exactly what ad copy in your funnel is triggering the automations and how to get compliant. I'm a Facebook ad policy specialist and can audit your funnel, and share what to say that Facebook wants to see instead - but just isn't telling you.

Want to book a call to talk to Facebook and get results? Get solid answers directly from the source instead of guessing, googling and playing roulette? Schedule a call with me and I can easily tell you proven reasons why the automations flag you and how to become compliant.

You'll be swapping out walking in a minefield of ad flags, to have a sure path to having your Facebook ad accounts protected from being disabled. My clients have included social media marketing agencies of Tony Robbins, Harv Eker and Dean Graziosi. I'm featured on the Queen of Facebook Mari Smith's Marketing Essentials Course.

Save energy and money - how much is it costing you to not know why Facebook is shutting you down? My calendar is here.

Facebook ad policies

I get 100s of emails a week from businesses and advertisers asking for help when their facebook ad account keeps getting disabled, so my calendar gets booked fast. But if you want to get to the front, you can pre-pay for a consulting session here: Book a call

facebook ad account keeps getting disabled

If you want to skip the line before this offer ends, immediately secure an expert-level Facebook consulting call from someone at Facebook. Book a call with me now! If you're ok with waiting a bit longer, and entering the waitlist to see if you're eligible - Schedule a call or contact me via email.

Mari Smith and Trevor W Goodchild

COVID’s Effect On Real Estate – Prepare For A Price Drop

The normal commute to an office building for the typical 9-5 has been severely disrupted due to social distancing regulations and government-mandated capacity limits. As a result, office real estate space is gutted.

Single-family home values may see an uptick as families seek to get out of cities and move to the suburbs for more distancing in response to C-19 but office spaces, retail and hospitality are greatly under capacity.

Real estate values may fall as much as 10% next year, according to Emerging Trends in Real Estate® United States and Canada 2021.

The 42nd annual report makes points that even those without any interest in real estate trends can see:

Lockdowns, capacity limits and travel bans have pushed consumers away from retail establishments and presented a clear and present danger to long-term viability of the walk-and-shop model for customer traffic sources.

Amazon has replaced many stores the public used to use for even basic household supplies and according to 2/3rds of more than 1,600 real estate industry experts cited in the Emerging Trends report, business owners should sell their stakes in retail malls.

There's a high chance that many deserted real estate spaces in retail will be converted to health care facilities.

As a direct response of many retailers pulling out, the real estate spaces that are available are overpriced. It's a familiar phenomena - when there is less demand, jack up the prices to get more from every sale.

This is true for specialty diet foods as it is for niche sectors of any market struggling to exceed expenses with higher profit margins.

Another reason why home building is on the rise where hotels are barely managing to break even and retail is on a downturn is due to low mortgage rates.

Mortgage rates dipped this week, returning to record lows. The average 30-year fixed-rate loan now stands at 3.05 percent, according to Bankrate’s weekly survey of large lenders.


Low-income housing projects are stalled and despite the moratorium on evictions by tenants who can't pay rent due to job losses from COVID-related economic downturns - they'll still be responsible for back pay of the missed rent months.

Public housing has stagnated for decades after the Clinton administration without politicians promoting significant structural reform and providing adequate resources to help raise Americans from poverty.

That is mainly the result of adhering to the philosophy of Jack Kemp, the Housing and Urban Development Secretary during the George H.W. Bush presidency.

Under the guise of "empowerment" that Kemp co-opted,he advocated for cutting federal funding for public housing. Democrats and Republicans both ignored the necessity of adequate funding, and control over that funding, for achieving actual empowerment.

Congress and HUD cut the budget for public housing by a whopping $17 billion during the Clinton administration alone, and that trend has continued til today. Covid only being the latest reason why low-income housing won't be on the rise.

For more information on the history of the structural issues contributing to racial and economic inequality, the Washington Post covers that topic here.

Over more than 60% of survey respondents shared that businesses who use office space will redesign that space for social distance policies that create new forms of collaborative, IRL work.

It is uncertain on if this means companies will rent larger offices, more floors in a skyscraper or just shift how they organize their current office space.

One of the opinions of those interviewed in this survey is that many offices will remain the same, but there will be a split labor force between those working in redesigned spaces and others working remotely from home.

Another view from experts that were interviewed is that the demand for office space in a professional setting such as We-Work or the standard 9-5 office may plummet as much as 15% going forward.

It's likely that after extended periods of vacancy office real estate prices are going to have to lower their asking rates for fiscal survival, regardless of how full or empty a rented space is, as the current prices aren't sustainable.

Given stay-at-home orders and the massive amount of fear and uncertainty among consumers, online shopping has seen a large spike.

Ecommerce businesses are prospering as a result, and warehouse real estate isn't seeing the same down turn as retail.

The industrial sector has become the pearl of the commercial real estate market, and experts agree it’s going to continue that way into 2021.

A panel of real estate and third-party logistics (3PL) professionals talked about the resilience of the warehousing and logistics sector and the resulting demand for space in the months ahead at September’s Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals’ (CSCMP) EDGE conference.

What trends have you noticed in real estate for 2020? Before making a decision, make sure to cultivate a few opposing view points to balance your strategy as discuss in my last blog.

Do you think there will be a rise in a few months for mortgage rates? Comment below!

New Solution to Facebook Ad Policy Violations

After years of working at Facebook, I understand exactly what ad copy in your funnel is triggering the automations and how to get compliant. I'm a Facebook ad policy specialist and can audit your funnel, and share what to say that Facebook wants to see instead - but just isn't telling you.

Want to book a call to talk to Facebook and get results? Get solid answers directly from the source instead of guessing, googling and playing roulette? Schedule a call with me and I can easily tell you proven reasons why the automations flag you and how to become compliant.

You'll be swapping out walking in a minefield of ad flags, to have a sure path to having your Facebook ad accounts protected from being disabled. My clients have included social media marketing agencies of Tony Robbins, Harv Eker and Dean Graziosi. I'm featured on the Queen of Facebook Mari Smith's Marketing Essentials Course.

Save energy and money - how much is it costing you to not know why Facebook is shutting you down? My calendar is here.

Tony Robbins

I get 100s of emails a week from businesses and advertisers asking for help when their facebook ad account keeps getting disabled, so my calendar gets booked fast. But if you want to get to the front, you can pre-pay for a consulting session here: Book a call

facebook ad account keeps getting disabled

If you want to skip the line before this offer ends, immediately secure an expert-level Facebook consulting call from someone at Facebook. Book a call with me now! If you're ok with waiting a bit longer, and entering the waitlist to see if you're eligible - Schedule a call or contact me via email.

Mari Smith and Trevor W Goodchild

 

Why You Should Disagree With Yourself

You should disagree with yourself when you're about to make a business decision here's why:

Every time we re-affirm what we think we know, we restrict our vision and ignore more possibilities.

There's a reason why think tanks like the Brookings Institution or the Earth Institute are comprised of many minds; additional perspectives help reveal more insights when working together.

When you begin to toss an idea around for a change in your startup company, or are problem solving ask yourself:

"What are my existing beliefs and preconceptions?"

And just as importantly ask, "Do I really want this theory to be true?"

If you answered yes, that's a red alert that you may be filtering new info through a tinted lens which won't reveal the bigger picture of what's possible.

So be careful if you're feeling yourself leaning towards one conclusion already, because you may overlook flaws in this idea and misread signals as something you want to see rather than reality.

That can be a fatal flaw when starting a business, launching a product, adding a new service or simply taking a new direction for your company or life.

When you're launching a new type of business that you haven't done before, it's good to ask:

"What's missing?"

This is great for analyzing any gaps in the competition as well as your initial blueprints or launch plans.

After you've thought long and hard about what's missing, and feel like you've gotten as far as you can, ask:

"What else?"

Be deliberate about finding your own blind spots. Disagree with yourself when you're quick to say everything is perfect.

Just like the How to Think Like A Winner blog, discusses looking at your business like a competitor who wants to destroy your company, you want to shift perspectives for maximum effect.

Here's another way to look at your new ideas, or plans: view them as a theory before committing to them.

When scientists create a theory, it isn't cast in stone. A theory isn't proven right it's just not proven wrong. After scientists work really hard to disapprove their theory and can't easily do so, that's the moment when a theory starts to be taken seriously.

And after a lot of time passes, new facts can come to light that shed more light on this theory, what's wrong about it or why it is more right than we first thought it would be.

So try to disprove yourself when you're convinced that your new idea is going to be the money-maker.

If you're feeling confident about your approach to solving a problem, ask what else can go wrong?

Disagree with your own conclusions and see if you can hold 2 opposing view points about the same issue in your mind at the same time.

The idea isn't to unnecessarily create inner conflict but it's to illuminate the range of possibilities beyond what your initial impulses are.

Poking holes in your theories is what makes them stronger because as you do so, you'll find new solutions as well.

It's akin to a great sales pitch. A great sales pitch doesn't just tell you everything is going to work out perfectly: it acknowledges the objections you may have and then overcomes them.

Get into the habit of asking yourself:

"What am I completely wrong about?"

Empty the recycle bin of your wrong ideas because when you do so it makes a new space for good ideas to emerge.

"One mark of a great mind, is the willingness to change it." - Walter Isaacson

You may need to get some breathing room from your ideas. Put them down for a while and come back to your notes in a day or two. Or even a week.

Writing in my journal since I was a teen has helped me see my own personality with new eyes as multiple versions of who I am, was, and am becoming get to look back and see things my old me didn't see.

It's an incredible tool not enough people use.

You should disagree with yourself - constructively with the intent of improving the design - because if you don't someone else will come along and prove you wrong eventually.

A mouse that believes and convinces itself to believe there are never any cats around is just prepping itself to become a feline dinner.

The ultimate goal here is to discover what's right not just to be right.

The most incredible minds of past and present generations used a series of thought experiments to challenge assumptions on how the world works.

Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein debated about quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle about the impossibility of determining both the exact location and momentum of subatomic particles.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBgC0PyIomU


Their public debates sparked new ideas for both scientists, as each questioned the other's conclusions and didn't just accept they were completely right.

What you see and experience in life is always through your own eyes. You won't know how to ask about what you don't know. What may seem pretty obvious to other people isn't as obvious or clear to you.
Other people who aren't attached to your own view of life and the world don't have the same emotional ties and beliefs to your opinion on a topic. This means they won't automatically reject info that conflicts or disagrees with your world view.

That's not to say this is easy. Tribalism has re-emerged in the internet echo chambers of social media. As the 2016 election showed us, sites like Facebook enhances this tribalism and encourages us to only search out ideas that agree with our own.

This is the confirmation bias turbo-charged. We add people on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram that match our existing interests. We get newsletters from blogs that agree with our dominant world view and opinions.

It's far too easy to cultivate a circle of "yes men" that just reiterate our existing feelings and belief systems. That's part of how systemic racism still pervades our government, police force and politics - opposing ideas aren't nurtured to question preconceived notions.

When the circular logic of an idea is repeated by other people, we then feel it is more right, the more people say it even if it's completely wrong and uncalibrated with reality. (How else do you think flat-earthers still exist?)

Just like the mouse that thinks there are no cats meeting other mice that also think cats aren't around - we fall victim to the over confidence of group thinking on one single narrative.

Without opposing ideas there to make us re-think assumptions, we are also food for cats when we are busy just hearing the same ideas repeat and pretending that ideas that don't agree with ours don't exist.

In order to continue to grow and develop, whether that's for a new business strategy or new look at our life perspective we have to make the decision to step outside the circle of yes-men.

We benefit from asking ourselves:

"Who disagrees with me about this topic?"

Getting a contrasting opinion about our thoughts and opinions on a new venture and being open to having our ideas challenged just strengthens critical analysis skills.

Rest in peace to Ruth Bader Ginsburg - she had her Antonin Scalia to bounce ideas off of and dissent with. Einstein had his Niels Bohr.

Here are a few tips if you'd like to test your ideas out before risking putting your eggs all in one basket:
1. Hold 2 Opposing Views for New Launches

Come up with some disagreements for your ideas going forward and see if you can make headway on a third new idea that is balanced between the two.

2. Seek Colleagues Who Already Disagree With You

I have a friend who is an engineer and she frequently disagrees with me but, her views are well-informed. Even if we don't agree - a lively discussion results in new ideas outside our own echo chamber.

Seek out personal or business colleagues who are willing to challenge your ideas.

3. Ask Your Friends to Disagree With You

Your friends that you normally always agree with can play devil's advocate in a discussion about your new business strategy and poke holes in it to allow you to solidify a better plan. One of my business associates and friends runs several giant entrepreneur Facebook groups. I frequently bounce business ideas off of him and ask for his critique. I have benefited from learning how and why he may disagree with me.

4. Question How You're Wrong

Simply ask yourself, "How could I be wrong here?" and do some free writing to see what your first impulses come up with.

5. Create An Imaginary Opponent - Even Model It After Someone Famous In Your Field

Think about famous people who hold an opposing view to yours about certain topics, and make a mental model of them to argue with.

This can be fun - imagine Steve Jobs sitting on your shoulder disagreeing about the aesthetic design of your new product. I disagree with Elon Musk's cyborg dreams of implanting microchips in our brains - arguing with Elon on other topics related to my field of business produces new insights I wouldn't have otherwise of thought of.

Just make sure you give your mental model real teeth and not straw man arguments where the other side's view is so extreme it's a little too easy to dismiss.

Taking a page from the vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, Charlie Munger, remember:

"You're not entitled to take a view, unless and until you can argue better against that view than the smartest guy who holds that opposite view."

How do you plan on using this strategy in your business? Comment below!

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Hot Tips For The New Instagram Reels

Credit: Hootsuite


While DJ Ricky Desktop is going viral on TikTok we have a new tool to reach out audiences:

Instagram Reels

(Check out the last blog on Einstein's technique for Combinatory Play)

Here's a few tips for using Instagram Reels:

Instagram Reels for Business Tip #1: Show Behind the Scenes

People love to see what’s behind the scenes. Whether that’s the making of a movie, a Netflix documentary, or the real life behind the camera for a celebrity - people are addicted to finding out what’s really going on.

You can leverage this instinct for your business by showing a human side, that’s less than picture perfect. This will help create an authentic connection between your audience and your brand.

Instagram Reels for Business Tip #2: Over Deliver High Value Content

Posting high value content is a great way to build a community. There’s the reciprocity factor once you give your followers your top tips they’ll feel loyalty to your brand.

Highlight ways your audience can save time by using tried and trued methods you can share and increase the know-like-and-trust factor.

Instagram Reels for Business #3: Review Services or Products

Some of the greatest brand launches have come from partnerships between existing companies and influencers.

A great example is when Devin Graham (@devinsupertramp), a YouTube influencer with nearly 5 million subscribers partnering with Subaru.

Graham published a video of him and his friends taking turns on a slip and slide that propelled them (and their parachutes) off a 500-foot cliff for Subaru’s #MeetAnOwner campaign, showcasing the new Impreza.


Equally important is since Reels are pushed out on the Reels Explore Page, IG users who don’t follow you will see your content — this has potential!

Lagavulin is well-known among whisky aficionados but not as much for casual drinkers.

Lagavulin changed this practically overnight with a video featuring Nick Offerman who played the “man’s man” Ron Swanson on Parks and Rec.

Offerman sits in complete silence for 45 minutes sipping a glass of Lagavulin next to a cackling fire. Whisky aficionados liked this so much they created a 10 hour loop of Offerman drinking whisky:


Why this works is because Offerman isn’t a Brad Pitt - he’s lesser known with his own cult following, which is the definition of a micro-influencer.

The whole video feels absurd and like an inside joke but it worked like gangbusters for Lagavulin because of the targeting and match between Offerman’s personality and the whisky’s brand persona.

Think about using this approach with Instagram Reels and see which influencers match your brand you can feature on your channel.

For a more hands on guide, Guiding Tech has a great article about IG Reels here.

No matter what you do, it's an exciting new tool and the key to maximize new feature releases by social media sites is to dig in and use them a lot, consistently during the first few months of launch.

What is your favorite Reel so far? Post either links to your own fav from a public figure or one you're really proud of creating below:

 

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How To Use The Einstein Technique of Combinatory Play


Have you hit a brick wall inventing a new product, trying to create a strategy for your business or personal life and felt like you're out of ideas?

You're not alone, we all get "writer's block" brainstorming how to solve persistent problems. Whether that's how to rise above the competition, fighting custody battles in split families, or creating your unique selling proposition for your service, product or business as a whole.

There is a technique that can help you break past this like the Kool-Aid Man bursting through bricks.



It's using an unrelated activity to stimulate your brain to make new connections. Einstein called this technique, thinking outside the box, but playing with multiple boxes: "Combinatory play," which he felt was essential to productive thinking.

Combinatory play means to explore a diverse collection of concepts and ideas, finding the common thread between many dissimilar fields.

Using this technique the big picture becomes more than just the sum of many different parts and it also diversifies your thinking through cross-pollination of many varied interests.

Einstein would take a break when working on a physics problem to play violin, as his form of combinatory play. On those days when Einstein would get stuck, he'd set aside his work and play the violin for a few hours.

During that break he'd suddenly get an idea that would help make a new connection to move forward on the problem at hand. Just like that.

Galileo often would spot mountains on the Moon due to his training in painting and drawing giving him a greater understanding of shading in the dark and bright regions of a landscape.

Albert Einstein first coined the phrase combinatory play in a letter to French mathematician Jacques Hadamard, but it's been used throughout history.

Taking a bath helped Archimedes discover the principle of buoyancy,Leonardo da Vinci studied placentas of calfs, jaws of crocodiles, muscles of a face, the light of the Moon, and the edge of shadows.

Einstein drew inspiration from David Hume, a Scottish philosopher who was one of the first to question the absolute nature of space and time.

Charles Darwin studied geology and economics to develop his theory of evolution.

David Bowie used a custom-developed computer program called the Verbalizer. He'd input sentences from journal entries and news articles which the Verbalizer would mix and match together.

He'd use these bizarre combinations as inspiration for writing song lyrics.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin who created Google, combined the frequency of citations used an academic paper in order to demonstrate its popularity to the internet on how many other sites link to one specific site.

This idea is what led to creating Google.

Netflix creator Reed Hastings combined the subscription model from his gym membership to video rentals after getting high late fees renting Apollo 13.

Why We Get Stuck in the First Place 

When we get used to thinking in a certain way about a particular issue or problem we're trying to solve, our brain maps this pathway through our neurons.

Our brains are always working for order and predictability, and can get pretty set in non-productive routines.

When we see something novel, the 
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) part of our brain is wired to review old rules and apply them to the new situation. Our brains do not want to create new ways if it can help it.

While going back to familiar paths can work for things we automate like driving and eating, it can also restrict our creativity. So it's necessary to take a break from this part of our brain if we want to create new solutions.

This is where combinatory play can help us do this by relaxing our mind.

3 Steps to Start Combinatory Play

1. Do Something New: Let Your Guard Down to Let in New Ideas

Next time you're stuck try doing a new unrelated activity. We stress ourselves out trying to solve problems and when we switch gears to a new unrelated activity, it lowers our guard to let a free flow of new ideas, through new neural pathways be created.

2. Combine 2 Unrelated Activities Together

Playful creativity combines 2 known ideas to make a 3rd new idea possible. Doing unrelated activities with the intention of learning a new path or method for solving a problem stimulates our creativity in a fresh way. This works subconsciously so if you don't get the "ah ha" moment right away - no worries it will come.

3. Switching Point of Views is Revealing

Just like having a business consultant helps you see the same issue through new eyes, switching your own perspective through combinatory play will lead to new angles being revealed.

Try walking around your mental room and seeing the same issue from an avatar's perspective. Create a persona of another person in a new niche and think of how they would view the same issue you're looking at.

Just as different countries may be decoupling their technology, you are decoupling neural pathways that are so used to the same thoughts you get stuck.

The next time you're wanting a new break through try doing something completely different to cross-train your brain. Trello's blog has some great suggestions here:

"Take a page out of the athlete’s playbook and cross train your brain. An Olympic runner doesn’t prepare for her next competition by simply running laps on the track; she pursues other physical activities such as swimming, weight training, or even pilates, for example."

"Each cross-training activity works a different, but complementary, part of the body that will help her get stronger in her event overall. The same goes for your brain. If you’re a novelist, try your hand at poetry. If you’re a painter, dabble in sculpting. If you’re a computer scientist, play around with web design."

Taking a nap and getting into REM sleep has shown to produce new ideas just as doing something, intentionally mundane can free your self-imposed stress up allowing the brain to wander.

That's how NASA engineer James H. Crocker fixed the distorted lens of the Hubble Telescope. He saw the
European shower head in his German hotel was adjustable to fit different heights.

Crocker realized that, by using that same concept, NASA could make an automated device to reach inside Hubble and install corrective optics.

A Visual Combinatory Play Activity

Make two lists of 10 objects each on the left and right sides of the paper. Pick one from the left and combine it with one on the right. Play with the combinations until you find a promising new combination, then refine and elaborate it into a new invention.


Combining bagel with slicer yields a bagel slicer with plastic sides designed to hold the bagel and prevent rotation when slicing.

Suntan lotion and insect repellent combines to form a new product —one lotion that protects against both the sun and insects.

Cell phone and soda can inspire the idea of utilizing cell phones as devices that, with sensors, would enable users to dispense soda and other products from vending machines with the expense charged back to the vendor via the carrier.

Closing Thoughts - See Similarities in Different Things

The act alone of comparing and combining different things will inspire new ways of thinking. However, you can fast-track this by intentionally seeking to see the similarities between different ideas and activities.

Don't expect this to be a perfect fit, but you will develop new neural pathways to lead to your Eureka moment.

So for closing thoughts, I suggest you pick up a book or magazine about a subject you know nothing about. Go to another niche's business conference, and make friends with people from all types of professions, interests and backgrounds.

Initiate a conversation and ask people, "What's the most fascinating thing you're working on right now?"

When you hit that writer's block for creating anything new, ask,

"What different type of industry has faced something like this before? How did they solve it?"

You may just strike inspiration to create the next blockbuster for your business, and at the very least you'll keep moving forward, progressing your business to the next level.

So let me ask: What's the most interesting thing you're working on right now?

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Techno-Nationalism – The Story of China & US Decoupling Technology


Are we about to have a new Cold War with China and/or decouple shared technology? It's a pressing question on many businesses' minds as international relationships deteriorate and sanctions are put into place.

The partnership of think tanks and franchiser is well established between the two countries. Look on the back of any MacBook: designed in Silicon Valley, manufactured in China.

Never conflict-free Sino-U.S. relations took a more confrontational turn under Xi Jinping, the Chinese politician served as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) since 2012, and President of the People's Republic of China (PRC) since 2013.

Yet, the US isn't the only one wanting to decouple this tech partnership; nations who are newly industrializing are a larger export market for China than America (source Gavekal Dragonomics).

Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative in Africa and the Middle East, using trade-based diplomacy combined with the rise of the digital renminbi, are offering new markets for China to switch to if a trade-war gets to the point where China withholds exports to the US.

If we look into past actions China has taken, we can see a pattern of restricting foreign investment across the board.

Whether that's biological security, information security, food security or just blocking non-China websites like Facebook it's clear the Chinese government wants to control the flow of information to their citizens.

Massive protests in Hong Kong, started in June against plans to allow extradition to mainland China and to allow a full democracy.

The protests combined with antagonism at US and Chinese embassies
and Trump banning Chinese-owned TikTok from the US unless purchased by a US company have created a fire storm whose final conclusions we await like an MJ popcorn meme.



With the many co-dependent economies the US has on foreign exports, maintaining diplomacy between companies would be to our mutual benefit.

Because unlike China, the US hasn't reduced their dependency on potentially hostile foreign actors who export many household items we view as a given.

Both countries seem to mirror each other in increasing national security scrutiny of data flows, expansion of export controls, and attempts to shore up supply chain security for information and communications technology products and services.

Continued tariff disputes beginning in 2018 resulted in supply chain decoupling from China already on many levels.

The 2020 coronavirus pandemic has only exacerbated this pattern and the tech sector is now ground zero for these patterns.

China has already dedicated an incredible $1.4 trillion dollars on a digital infrastructure public spending program meant to keep more of tech in house and increase their ability to compete with global markets on a new level.

At the same time, Japan has just set aside $2.2 billion to facilitate re-shoring from China.

Credit: Dilok Klaisataporn/Getty Images


Going forward, companies are going to have to accept an “in-China-for-China” business model in order to gain access the Chinese market.


Techno-nationalism when you break it down is, in essence, a mercantilist behavior which links a nation’s tech abilities and enterprise with issues regarding national security, economic profitability, and social stability.

According to The Diplomat, techno-nationalism will affect the academic and innovation landscape in three ways:

1.The impacted institutions are going to decouple from blacklisted Chinese universities and academic programs.

2. An spreading web of export controls and restrictions are going to put more pressure on institutions to fall in line with more exacting regulations.

3. New rule frameworks and good governance indicators are going to emerge throughout global academia and the innovation landscape.

This is a required response to the many decades of Beijing’s innovation-mercantilism, and the role that China’s state apparatus has played in the methodical targeting of strategic IP, technology, and human capital at the world’s top universities.

In June 2020, America blacklisted many of China’s top universities, including the Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT), which is often called the “MIT of China.”

Many U.S. businesses have put their hopes on a potential end of the Trump presidency following the November 2020 elections while big tech companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft are moving their manufacturing plants to countries outside of China like Vietnam and Thailand.

However, even if Trump - who just got diagnosed with Covid and is in the hospital - loses and Joe Biden wins, that doesn't mean international relations will instantly ease up.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) along with presidential candidate Biden's staff have been ordered to delete TikTok off their phones due to security risks of TikTok accessing their clipboard for saved passwords to many high level campaign websites.

What does this ultimately mean going forward?

It means globalization is going to get a little smaller, just like our social communities have after covid lockdowns in March 2020 this year.

Whether we like it nor, it appears many of the self-sufficient city planning ideas of Patrick Geddes may express themselves economically out of survival needs going forward.

Many companies will choose to create vertical integration systems like Elon Musk's rocket launch and production factories of SpaceX rather than jump through an addition 20 hoops to partner with China. 

How do you see this playing out going forward? Comment below!

 

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How To Think Like A Winner


"The greatest obstacle to discovering was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin

How many businesses have closed their doors since March 2020? Over 100,000 according to the Washington Post.

While there are certain obstacles that can't be overcome due to restrictions the government has chosen to apply to cities across the world, there is also a deeper rooted problem in how businesses think about change & admitting there may be a better way of doing things.

Why did Blockbuster go out of business despite Reed Hasting offering to sell Netflix to Blockbuster in the Y2K year of 2000, for $50 million dollars? According to Forbes, Netflix is now valued at $194 billion dollars.

It was time for a change from the old guard to the new guard, but Blockbuster fell behind because they were attached to old ideas and processes and a pretense of knowledge about their audience.

The artifice of knowledge (eg we already know it all) closes our perception from new signals from outside sources that are the catalyst for growth and opportunity.

If you'll look at any recent political issue, you can see people prefer mentally vivid images versus accurate data. The images stick with us, everyone loves a good story. But doing the legwork to verify the claims made by memes-gone-viral that doesn't interest us.

More than ever, most stuck with their habit, and routine even when the advantages of changing far outweigh the cost.

Established routines in our lives and in the businesses we work at and run can often obscure the chance to improve on the design.

When we look at processes themselves, we see that they are by definition created to solve yesterday's problems. And yet the world keeps changing with new problems but many processes stay the same.

Countless people are applying for unemployment right now, and in the state of Texas the Texas Workforce Commission's website is woefully out of date.

Many are denied claims because of this outdated technology, and the same goes for veterans who gave their eyesight, life or a limb in service of their country.

Yet VA benefits are withheld, or backlogged on a pen and pad not computerized so long that Vets often die before getting the benefits they need to survive. Especially now.

The DMV is the same way. As are many other industries. And it comes down to a way of thinking.

If we don't question the processes we are using, and treat processes like a religion, this can get in the way of progress and forward momentum.

The heart of many large organizations becomes clogged with antiquated procedures that serve no one, and benefit only those too lazy to examine what can be done that's better.

Sometimes it's important to simply ask:

"Do we own the processes we use or do the processes we use own us?"

It's easier to conform ourselves to doing things the same way they've always been done.

In fact there is even scientific data showing that fighting against the urge to conform activates the amygdala and produces pain to think independently.

One of the ways we can break free of being slaves to outdated processes that hurt our businesses like Blockbuster adhering to an unsustainable business model, is by breaking things down to their essence and shifting perspectives.

In my Elon Musk blog about First-Principles thinking, I discussed how Musk used this way of thinking to create SpaceX, reducing the cost of buying a rocket by creating a company that built and launched rockets.

Right now more than ever we need to be on the balls of our feet, ready to adapt to sudden changes in the market. I have an exercise that will you help develop first-principles thinking for your business.

Take 1 day out of your week to question what seems obvious. Question all the foregone conclusions about how things are and how they are supposed to be.

Question all the assumptions you have ingrained as just facts of life, about your business and your goals.

Question these assumptions to expose the invisible limitations that control your life and impose artificially low ceilings to what you can achieve.

With each presumption you have, ask yourself:

"How could this be different?"

"What if the way I do this was better, what would that look like?"

"Why are we doing things this way?"

"Can I replace this process with a better one? Or get rid of this process all together?"

Make sure to support your new ideas with current evidence which demonstrates feasibility, not just outdated ideas from last year's playbook.

Many of the limitations and many of the processes we created were made in response to problems that don't even exist anymore.

When we remain stuck in the perpetual unchanging loop of old processes, we don't act. When we refuse to act we become attached to the mirage of our self-importance.

New thinking risks our old image of ourselves and our business. It risks admitting we may not be as self-important as we thought, if we can find a new way to do things better than your last year's you had created.

Is it worth the risk? Well you can be broke with your pride intact like Blockbuster, or risk feeling a little less self-important with more disposable income, because you chose to re-think a better way of doing business.

And it isn't just business. You can apply this way of thinking to find the source material inside you to become the architect of the new you.

You'll have to let go of how self-important you felt about the old model but it is often required to move beyond tactics to using a winning strategy.

There is a much greater risk involved in remaining stagnant, and not acting. We've all seen massive changes since the historic COVID-19 stay-at-home orders in March this year were dictated. Trillions lost in the stock market.

Those who learned how to think about their business differently survived. But you can't just think outside the box. You have to walk around the box and say,

"If I wanted to destroy my company what would I do?"

This will let you find out ways your competition is succeeding that you aren't and ways to put redundancies in to safe guard against new market changes which threaten to destabilize an industry.

Thinking this way allows you to stay ahead of the curve. When looking at a more successful business in your niche, ask yourself - thinking about your competition's customers:

"Why are they making this decision?"

It's because they believe in something you don't, finding what that is, and adapting it for your business - or better yet creating an improved model for that which is even better - is how you stay in business.

What's a new way you can do business? Comment below!

 

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7 Facebook Cover Photo Tips 2020

Image Source: https://www.cheapwebdesign.co.uk/


1. Make Sure to Follow Facebook's Rules for Facebook Pages

Make sure you have Facebook guidelines bookmarked and review them before creating your Facebook cover. Breaking these rules can result in your whole Page being taken down - which would be a bit silly when you explain to your clients that you aren't able to advertise for them because of your Facebook cover photo. So know them and follow em!

2. Facebook Cover Photo Size: 820 Pixels Wide By 312 Pixels Tall On Desktop

So you spent an hour designing the perfect Facebook Cover Photo and then you go to upload it but your killer CTA line is cut off. Shucks! All of that could have been prevented by just getting the right dimensions.

If you upload an image smaller than 820 Pixels Wide By 312 Pixels, Facebook will stretch it to fit the right size which can distort your image and we don't want that.

If you want to avoid the hassle of resizing your cover photos you can just use one of these handy templates, and it's ready-set-go:

Canva FB Cover Photo Template

pre-sized template for Facebook cover 

Poster My Wall FB Cover Template

To be honest, sometimes you just have to mess with it until the picture fits, if you aren't using the templates. For example, my ecommerce store cover photo fits perfectly but isn't the Facebook standard dimensions for cover photos, it's 2232 × 822:


3. Keep Your Cover Photo Visually Striking Not Busy

If you've ever seen a photo with a lot of things going on in it, you know that it's like a visual representation of a head ache. No one wants all that going on!

Keep that text concise, and images simple with clean lines and primary color contrasts. Use 1, maximum 2 info graphics. Here are few Facebook Cover Photos that really work:


Here you can see Uber has identified their target audience - consumers who need a driver, pointed out how they can book a driver with a smartphone image of their app, and created a visually striking contrast between the black and white colors.

The map grid in the background is almost a subtle unconscious influence to get you thinking about where you want to go using their ride share service.



Social Media Examiner is using their Facebook Cover photo to advertise their upcoming YouTube marketing summit. You have their summit's name just to the right, with brand colors present and kayakers symbolizing the teacher-student relationship - very well done!

Last but not least, luxury brand Louis Vuitton has an elegant yet simple design of motion going from left to right as most people read, from an airplane that may symbolize a private jet from the upper echelons of the financial earners:



4. Keep Your Audience In Mind

You want to instantly strike a chord with your target audience, and while it's fun to get creative, don't get carried away. Keep your intentions in line with your brand colors and cover photo.

Social media accounts are extensions of your business - this is your digital store front. So you want a call to action, and a message to speak to your target audience.

5. Make Sure Your Cover Photo is Mobile-Friendly

Look at any metrics for ads and you'll see more and more people are viewing Facebook ads on their smart phones than on a laptop or desktop computer.

If your cover photo is beautifully designed, but looks janky on mobile, you've just lost a sale. So do the work and make sure your cover photo is optimized for mobile too.

Your cover photo displays at 820 pixels wide by 312 pixels tall on desktop, it displays only the center 640 pixels wide by 360 pixels tall on smartphones. Take a look at this Facebook help document for more information.

6. Use A Pinned Post As a CTA That Matches Your Cover Photo

This a nice little hack: pin a post that matches your cover photo's brand colors and message:


This helps the flow of a Facebook user, which your scroll stopping Facebook cover photo attracted, to follow through and view your offer immediately beneath the cover photo after arriving at your page.

To pin a Facebook post: Simply publish the post to Facebook, then click the three dots on the top right corner of the post and choose "Pin to Top."

facebook-pin-to-top.png
7. Facebook Cover Videos

You also have the option of putting in a video for your Facebook cover photo too.

Post a Facebook cover video by saving a video file at 820 pixels wide by 426 pixels tall to your desktop. Open your Facebook Business page, click "Change Cover" at the top-left of your cover photo, and select "Upload Photo/Video." This allows you to format and publish the desktop file to your Facebook page.

Facebook accepts cover videos between 20 and 90 seconds long, and a minimum of 820 pixels wide by 312 pixels tall. The maximum (and recommended) size is 820 by 462 pixels with a video resolution of 1080p.

Here are some of my favorite Facebook cover videos:

Nokia

Facebook cover video by Nokia


REI

Facebook cover video by REI

WIRED Magazine

Facebook cover video by WIRED Magazine


HubSpot

Facebook cover video by HubSpot Academy

I hope you enjoyed today's blog, (last blog was on Oracle partnering with TikTok)

Post your Facebook Business Page Cover Photo below!

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Breaking News: Oracle Partners With TikTok


While the hype has been all about Microsoft purchasing TikTok, TikTok rejected Microsoft's bid just this past Sunday and agreed to partner with Trump supporter company Oracle. IG didn't want to be left out either.

Instagram launched Reels to compete with the short-form video platform's signature format. Reels provides the same features of TikTok but built directly into the Instagram Camera - and without the scandal of getting sued for harvesting data from children under 13.

Reels has the editing tools like a timer, countdown clock, and camera effects. This includes the library of licensed music as well as user-recorded audio tracks.

An upcoming article will dive into Reels, for now let's talk about Oracle partnering with TikTok and the US government's stance.

Regarding the sale of TikTok, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin told CNBC:

“From our standpoint, we’ll need to make sure that the code is, one, secure, Americans’ data is secure, that the phones are secure and we’ll be looking to have discussions with Oracle over the next few days with our technical teams.”

The data and security issues would be key to the federal government’s review & is crucial to determining whether or not to ban TikTok from America completely.

President Trump issued an executive order in August 2020 demanding that ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, to destroy all data connected to the app’s U.S. users, and then “certify in writing” to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States “that such destruction of data is complete.”

TikTok has also sued the Trump administration over one of the orders, calling it "heavily politicized." China isn't happy with mergers between US companies and Chinese companies in tech either.

Last month China revised rules that regulate the sale of certain kinds of tech to foreign buyers. The updated list includes data processing, speech and text recognition — the kind of tech that used by TikTok.

While those notices did not call out TikTok or ByteDance directly, experts point out that this rule change would likely require ByteDance to get government permission before it could sell TikTok to a foreign company. Enter Oracle from stage left.

TikTok now agreeing to partner with Oracle raises eyebrows, Microsoft is face-planting...but who is Oracle exactly?

The Oracle Corporation is a multinational computer technology corporation headquartered in Redwood Shores, California. The company sells database software and technology, cloud engineered systems, and enterprise software products—particularly its own brands of database management systems. In 2019, Oracle was the second-largest software company by revenue and market capitalization.

Larry Ellison
is the executive chairman and CTO of Oracle and a big Trump supporter, did that play into TikTok's decision to choose Oracle in the bidding war, as a "trusted technological partner"?

What does that even mean? No one is answering that question, Oracle & Tiktok remain silent on what their partnership actually is. Oracle's owner has ties with the president which makes things even weirder.

Larry Ellison is one of the tech industry's most well-known Trump supporters. In February 2020, he hosted a fundraising event for the president that made some of Oracle's workers to stage a walkout in protest. That wasn't the only thing Oracle has done that was called into question.

Larry Ellison Credit: Wikipedia


Oracle has had it's fair share of controversy. Trashgate is one that caught the headlines when Oracle hired an East Coast detective agency to investigate groups that supported rival Microsoft Corporation during its antitrust trial.

The investigation revealed Oracle made a $1,200 offer to janitors at the Association for Competitive Technology to look through Microsoft's trash.

And in 2011 Oracle was under investigation by the US Department of Justice, the SEC and the FBI for bribery in West and Central Africa.

West African countries such as Cote d'Ivoire are economically vulnerable and create a vortex of social pressure for anyone doing business there.

Under conditions of weak local enforcement and weak internal controls, companies can equally be pressured to succumb to bribing which is normal there.

What's more concerning is how fragile Oracle's own security is especially given the context of Trump's executive order and TikTok's current law suits against them for stealing data and selling it to private buyers.

In 2002, Oracle Corporation marketed many of its products using the slogan "Can't break it, can't break in", or "Unbreakable."

Yet, two weeks after its introduction, David Litchfield, Alexander Kornbrust, Cesar Cerrudo and others demonstrated a whole suite of successful attacks against Oracle products.

Where does that leave TikTok if their 'technology partner' is known for having weak security?

Chinese State-Owned media on Monday pointedly reported that ByteDance wouldn't sell TikTok's US operations to Microsoft or Oracle.

State broadcaster CGTN also commented ByteDance won't "give the source code" to any US buyers. Another question is how can Tiktok or rivals continue to be profitable?

Let's talk market viability, ByteDance stated the AI-powered algorithm behind TikTok -- arguably the app's greatest asset -- isn't going to be part of the deal, according to the South China Morning Post.

That begs the question as well, does Tiktok have a lock on their type of social media?

Does Instagram Reels have a chance to fill in the vacuum here?

With Oracle's purchase of TikTok my next big question is how janky will the transition be and will it interrupt the market power TikTok has commandeered so far to make rival companies, like Instagram with their billion size user base, have a chance with Reels?

Reels provides all the trappings of TikTok, built directly into the Instagram camera but doesn't have the same AI.

I think the success of Reels depends also on the marketability of being able to get discovered using it versus the hashtag battle ground of being seen if you aren't already a big time influencer.

Have you used Reels yet? I'm going to try it out this week. What are your thoughts about the 'partnership' between Oracle and TikTok?

               .  .  .

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Trevor W. Goodchild

5 Business Tips Every Business Owner Should Know


One of the biggest challenges owning a business is being a specialist in your own field, but a complete newb on the skills for managing a business and scaling it.

You can dodge the bullet of making common mistakes many startup founders make by reading the following 5 tips every business owner should know.


1. Learn to Make Definite Decisions

One of the biggest ways to fail in business is being indecisive. Not making a decision is a decision too and can hurt your momentum as well as create new problems. Getting crystal clear on what your business does and what it doesn't do will help you refine your process and get-er-done much faster. 

2. Study Your Competition

Be aware of your competition and either reverse engineer their successful tactics, improve upon them or use first principle thinking to overcome where they offer something better than your company does.

3. Know the Marketplace and Define Clear KPIs

A successful business needs data on who their target audience is, market trends, current competition and expected growth in supply and demand.

Glossing over this can be a fatal flaw where an entrepreneur bases a whole business model on an audience that doesn't actually exist.

Don't make that mistake. Do careful, detailed and written down market research from the jump.

You need to be clear on the 4 Ps: product, price, promotion, and place. They can navigate the creation of your market research, marketing plan, and customer avatars, and serve as a great jumping-off point if you're not certain where to start.

4. Learn How To Write & Read Good Contracts

Whether it's an NDA, non-compete or a marketing proposal you're presenting or receiving this is another overlooked skill that can be developed with a little googling. (Here are 12 Elements Every Marketing Contract Should Have)

The more proficient you become at writing agreements and reading them (or outsourcing this to your lawyer) the better business you'll be able to do.

5. Consistently Improve One Thing Everyday

Consistency is the key to growth and learning how to adapt to new and changing markets. Find out which processes work well, optimize them and look for ways to improve them. Daily.

While it may seem like a lot to ask, to improve one thing everyday it could simply come down to improving how you make your first cup of coffee, getting consistent wake up and sleep times to increase productivity, using tools like Evernote to schedule meetings and times when you put the nose to the grind stone to churn out new ideas for your business.

All these little things add up to create the momentum that carries you forward to the next gen level of what your business is able to accomplish - as long as you are consistently mentally looking for ways to up the ante.

It is as much an attitude as it is a daily ritual. Reviewing your day's tasks at the end of the day and seeing what you've got done adds to the feeling of completeness, helps remind you of things you forgot to do, and shifts from the frantic overwhelm to an organized plan of attack for the next day's activities.

               .  .  .

New Solution to Facebook Ad Policy Violations

After years of working at Facebook, I understand exactly what ad copy in your funnel is triggering the automations and how to get compliant. I'm a Facebook ad policy specialist and can audit your funnel, and share what to say that Facebook wants to see instead - but just isn't telling you.

Want to book a call to talk to Facebook and get results? Get solid answers directly from the source instead of guessing, googling and playing roulette? Schedule a call with me and I can easily tell you proven reasons why the automations flag you and how to become compliant.

You'll be swapping out walking in a minefield of ad flags, to have a sure path to having your Facebook ad accounts protected from being disabled. My clients have included social media marketing agencies of Tony Robbins, Harv Eker and Dean Graziosi. I'm featured on the Queen of Facebook Mari Smith's Marketing Essentials Course.

Save energy and money - how much is it costing you to not know why Facebook is shutting you down? My calendar is here.

Tony Robbins

I get 100s of emails a week from businesses and advertisers asking for help when their facebook ad account keeps getting disabled, so my calendar gets booked fast. But if you want to get to the front, you can pre-pay for a consulting session here: Book a call

facebook ad account keeps getting disabled

If you want to skip the line before this offer ends, immediately secure an expert-level Facebook consulting call from someone at Facebook. Book a call with me now! If you're ok with waiting a bit longer, and entering the waitlist to see if you're eligible - Schedule a call or contact me via email.

Mari Smith and Trevor W Goodchild

Prediction: Post C-19 Lockdowns The Experience Economy Will Boom


You just got finished checking your phone, perhaps your stocks, but you're tired of staring at screens and the feeling of cabin fever rages inside, because you've been inside too long.

Government mandated shutdown orders have created a new socially-distanced social life that is driving a hunger for more that will explode into the experience economy.


Many experiences that are tactile, memorable and real have become 10Xs more valuable than possessions as we battle adapting to this new way of life.

As stated in previous blogs, I predict life will return back to more of a normal setting by the end of 2021 - let's hope I'm right. Until then, everyone wants what they can't have: real life experiences outside the home.

Pre-covid retailers capitalized on the trend of marketing to the experience economy drive. Starbucks notably made a lot of money extending the familiarity of a local coffee shop to the global scale.

Take another example, Cabela's for instance. This outdoor retailer transformed their showrooms into quasi-outdoor adventures complete with waterfalls.

There are smart bathrooms in Westfield shopping centers and sensory gardens which are gardens that have a collection of plants which are appealing to one or more of the five senses; sight, smell, sound, taste, and touch.

My prediction: Emerging from the 2020 Covid lockdown, people will super charge the experience economy due to 365 days of being inside more than out socializing.


The experience economy will start booming - it already is as mentioned in the Airbnb blog post where rural Airbnbs made $200 million just this past June. 

Hot air balloon rides, outdoor events, fishing trips, nature, water, sky, bars, restaurants, sports are all going to be poised to make significant profits once everything re-opens to full capacity.

No amount of AI Amazon Go Stores, Echo auto ordered products, smart cars and drone delivered pizza can equal human interaction (although drone delivered pizza does seem pretty cool):



Once either society returns to normal socializing or we adapt better as a whole to reduced capacity socializing and the public space becomes used again, millions of people will be on the edge of their seats to get out of the house and start living life again.

If you haven't invested either in stocks of an existing experience-economy company or in starting your own experienced-based company -- now is the time.

Even right now, creating companies that offer in person real life experiences with Covid-19 adapted processes, you stand to make a pretty penny as consumers look for alternatives to staring at Zoom screens 24/7. 

Comment below on an experience-based purchase you made in the last 3 years that you really enjoyed!


For me it was a trip to Hawaii, what about you?

 

               .  .  .

New Solution to Facebook Ad Policy Violations

After years of working at Facebook, I understand exactly what ad copy in your funnel is triggering the automations and how to get compliant. I'm a Facebook ad policy specialist and can audit your funnel, and share what to say that Facebook wants to see instead - but just isn't telling you.

Want to book a call to talk to Facebook and get results? Get solid answers directly from the source instead of guessing, googling and playing roulette? Schedule a call with me and I can easily tell you proven reasons why the automations flag you and how to become compliant.

You'll be swapping out walking in a minefield of ad flags, to have a sure path to having your Facebook ad accounts protected from being disabled. My clients have included social media marketing agencies of Tony Robbins, Harv Eker and Dean Graziosi. I'm featured on the Queen of Facebook Mari Smith's Marketing Essentials Course.

Save energy and money - how much is it costing you to not know why Facebook is shutting you down? My calendar is here.

Tony Robbins

I get 100s of emails a week from businesses and advertisers asking for help when their facebook ad account keeps getting disabled, so my calendar gets booked fast. But if you want to get to the front, you can pre-pay for a consulting session here: Book a call

facebook ad account keeps getting disabled

If you want to skip the line before this offer ends, immediately secure an expert-level Facebook consulting call from someone at Facebook. Book a call with me now! If you're ok with waiting a bit longer, and entering the waitlist to see if you're eligible - Schedule a call or contact me via email.

Mari Smith and Trevor W Goodchild

Enjoyed this blog? Signup here to get updates on new startup blogs.

Available for freelance writing and guest posting on your blog: [email protected]

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