Category: startup info

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are applying for unemployment right now, and in the state of Texas the Texas Workforce Commission's website is woefully out of date.

Many are denied claims because of this outdated technology, and the same goes for veterans who gave their eyesight, life or a limb in service of their country.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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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.

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How Elon Musk Uses The Power of 1st Principle Thinking

Credit: Tech Insider/Recode/NASA

While Amazon & eBay are killing it in the ecom sphere, Elon Musk is crushing it in a real life Tony Stark way.

Musk co-founded PayPal, created and owns Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and The Boring Company that's working on hyperloop trains to go from New York to Washington in 29 minutes.

So how does a private citizen compete with NASA and launch his own rocket into space?

It starts with rejecting everything you've ever learned. Doubting the conclusions about everything concerning a problem you're trying to solve until all you're left with is the distilled truth.

Most companies in the beginning have experimental phases, where intrinsic motivation and curiosity drives most of their innovation.

But what happens over time? Processes form and management becomes to afraid to mess with an existing system, and so that system stagnates.

Breaking even becomes the benchmark instead of pioneering or breaking ground in a new field.

Elon Musk turned the space industry on its head by applying first principle thinking, instead of getting stuck thinking about things in the same way.

Are you familiar with invisible rules?

While that sounds a bit abstract invisible rules affect us every day.

These are the habits and behaviors that are so ingrained they exist as almost an invisible constitution or charter we unconsciously follow in business and in personal endeavors.

When something challenges habitual ways of thinking about an established mode of acting many get defensive and stand up for...their own limitations.

First principle thinking is one of the best ways to undo these invisible rules that limit our ability to innovate.

First principle thinking reverse-engineers complex problems and frees our minds to creative possibility. Sometimes called “reasoning from first principles,” the concept is to break down complex problems into simple elements and then reassemble them from the ground up.

It’s one of the best ways to learn how to think for yourself and unlock your own creative potential, and move from linear to non-linear results exponentially as Elon Musk has done.

In early 2002, Musk founded the company that would be known as Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, with over a $100 million of the money received from the PayPal sale. Musk's goal was to make spaceflight cheaper by a factor of 10.

SpaceX's end goal is to bring economies to scale for colonizing Mars. Musk said that SpaceX won't file for an initial public offering until the "Mars Colonial Transporter" is flying regularly.

When PayPal was sold to eBay, Musk went to the beach in Rio de Janeiro but he wasn't just there for the scenery; he was reading Fundamentals of Rocket Propulsion.

Elon Musk spotted the trend that despite everything else getting smaller and cheaper like computers and smart phones, rockets get more expensive without improving.

Musk went to Russia to see if he could get rockets any cheaper than the American ones which were a stunning $130,000,000 dollars.

He met with many Russian officials, drank lots of vodka but even trying to grab a decommissioned intercontinental ballistic missile (missiles de-armed of weapons) the cheapest he could find was $20 million.

It was also pretty slim pickings if you're looking for a venture capitalist to fund your trip to Mars so the real life inspiration for Marvel's Iron Man had to regroup.

By the way, the Iron Man filmmaker Jon Favreau inspired Elon Musk to make tech that was only in a comic book to become a reality:

"I think it's important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy," Musk said in an interview with Kevin Rose.

"The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy," he said. "[With analogy] we are doing this because it's like something else that was done, or it is like what other people are doing. [With first principles] you boil things down to the most fundamental truths … and then reason up from there."

Elon used first principle thinking to overcome the road block that progress creates, meaning processes are created by definition to look backwards and not be questioned.

After failing to get affordable rockets from Russia, on the way back to America, Elon Musk told the aerospace consultant who accompanied him there that,"I think we can build a rocket ourselves."

Elon Musk decided to ignore everything he knew and that the public knows about the process of sending a rocket into space (via NASA).

Rather than tackle this from a 30,000 view, Musk went microscopic and broke apart the physics involved in sending a rocket into space.

Tesla's founder examined what rockets are made out of:

Titanium, copper, carbon fibers and aerospace-grade aluminum alloys.

Then, still using first principle thinking he researched what the cost of these materials is on a commodity market and discovered that the materials of a rocket costs around 2% of the selling price.

This was due in large part to the outsourcing within the space industry for all the work in building the individual parts for cutting the metal and shaping the atoms.

Musk decided to set up shop with vertical integration owning the entire process of manufacturing and launching rockets.

SpaceX manufactures around 80% of their own rocket components and does some pretty innovative sourcing for their raw materials.

One SpaceX employee bought theodolite, which is used to track and align rockets, for $25,000 on eBay after finding out the new version cost too much.

This type of first principle thinking was used across the board for SpaceX.

Instead of using expensive materials for handles of hatches, they used spare parts from bathroom stall latches.

SpaceX avoided paying through the nose for astronaut custom-built harnesses and used race-car safety belts.

They swapped out specialty onboard computers that range in price up to $1 million dollars with the same type of computer that you're using in an ATM for only $5,000.

The way of thinking by analogy, following old established-process-based routines would have you think, well if NASA can't use the same rocket twice, I doubt anyone else can.

Musk turned this whole fallacy on its head.

This approach of first principle thinking truly reached the pinnacle of rocket science innovation when Elon Musk's SpaceX designed rockets to be re-usable.

And did so successfully not just theoretically.

Falcon 9 is a reusable, two-stage rocket designed and manufactured by SpaceX for the reliable and safe transport of people and payloads into Earth orbit and beyond. Falcon 9 is the world's first orbital class reusable rocket.

[Source:SpaceX.com]

Today's blog isn't about hero-worshipping Elon Musk - it's a tale told about how to learn from what's already working but in a way that even defies this sentence.

When you talk about reverse engineering a sales funnel or an existing business model, and making improvements on it, or the poster boy formula in blogging or YouTube it's a way of learning from what's already working without really learning.

Shifting to first principle thinking means taking apart a process, forgetting what you already know about it and seeing if there is a non-linear way to make the leap to new ideas.

Even our keyboards are flawed, if you look at the top row of keys you'll see it's designed to spell out "typewriter" to sell more typewriters not for an ergonomic method of typing the alphabet into words efficiently.

But it's a process, it's just "the way things are" so we accept it.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Elon Musk didn't. And his results speak for themselves.

Musk cherry-picked the best, brightest avionics engineers -many formerly at NASA- and gave them the freedom to build rockets instead of push paper, get stuck in procedure and never see their dreams materialize.

Musk hosts a regular Friday lunch where anyone can ask questions about where SpaceX is going.

So the next time you're faced with a wall you can't seem to break down to either solve a problem, innovate a product, design a new marketing strategy or invent a solution - try first principle thinking.

You may just find a winner.

What something you're trying to solve for right now?

Comment below!

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Nerd Batman: Business Profile of Dean Kamen

Meet Dean Kamen the inventor of the Segway and the iBOT -- a motorized wheelchair that climbs stairs. Stephen Colbert took one for a spin. He lives on a island powered by wind & solar and holds over 1,000 patents.

The iBot was revealed in 1999. The IBOT™ is a battery-powered wheelchair built from sensors, microprocessors and gyroscopes that can climb stairs and stand upright on two wheels, empowering handicapped people to see and move at eye-level.

Kamen was already being paid for his ideas as a teenager; he built light and sound systems for local bands and museums. He was earning $60,000 -more than both of his parents- before even graduating high school.

Kamen went to college at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, but dropped out in 1976 before graduating because of his invention of an insulin pump called AutoSyringe.

He sold this invention to the health care company, Baxter International making him a millionaire.

That's a pretty fast start, I mean, aside from children who just inherent millions of dollars, for a self-made millionaire it's pretty impressive.

I dropped out of college to work at Facebook for a few years before going back and finishing my degree in Geography but perhaps it would have paid off to invest in the list of inventions I've created but never followed up with.

World Health Organization stats show there's are 900 million people worldwide without a supply of clean drinking water and 3.5 million people die every year due to diseases in unsanitary water they drink. Despite the fact that over two-thirds of our planet's surface is covered with water, only 1% of it is potable.

Dean decided to tackle this problem with the invention of the Slingshot - a vapor distillation system powered by a Stirling engine. It's about the size of a mini fridge and can run off any combustable fuel even animal dung.

Credit: Coca-Cola's Site

The Slingshot uses less electricity than a hair dryer and can purify water from any source whether that's ocean salt water, sewage, urine, polluted groundwater and more. One device can produce clean drinking water for up to 100 people a day.

Slingshot was successfully tested for a month in a village in Honduras 2006. While the initial devices cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, Kamen is hoping that in the future there will be increased economies of scale to drive down the cost to $2,000 each.

Meantime, he struck up a deal with Coca-Cola: Kamen would build a better soda fountain for Coca-Cola and in return Coke is using their global distribution network to distribute the Slingshot to water-scarce countries.

Coke got together with 10 international organizations and started distributing the Slingshot in 2013 as part of their Ekocenter kiosks.

These kiosks are solar powered shipping containers that provide impoverished communities with safe drinking water, internet access and items like mosquito repellant as well as first-aid kits (and of course Coke for sale).

By 2017 there are 150 Ekocenters in 8 countries, most of them run sustainably by women entrepreneurs, providing 78.1 million liters of clean drinking water.

A Multimillionaire With A Conscience

In an interview with Tech Crunch, Kamen talked about the conversations he has with the youth:

"You asked what keeps me up at night. There will be a never ending set of potential catastrophes that confront humanity and the way we will avoid succumbing to those catastrophes is well-educated kids that have the appropriate perspective and judgment as to how to use that education and their technology for good."

Covid rocked the nation with countless jobs lost, economy plunges, and stores everywhere requiring face masks to buy groceries or shop at any retail establishment.

Dean and the airplane maker Boeing gave New Hampshire more than half a million face masks.

Boeing's 737-700 aircraft flew around 540,000 medical-grade face masks from China to Manchester-Boston Regional airport, as part of a deal Kamen coordinated, who brought 91,000 pounds of personal protective equipment to the state the previous weekend.

Kamen got the face masks from manufacturers in China through his company DEKA Research and Development, Corp.

Kamen's Secret Bat Cave

Credit: Spectrum.ieee

Like Batman, Dean Kamen has his own secret layer, a private island he owns off the coast of Connecticut (though officially in New York state) called North Dumpling Island.

Dean has a charred, yellowing copy of North Dumpling’s ancient constitution, a nearly verbatim match with the U.S. Constitution, and his own currency which is more of a joke, measured in units of Pi (3.14159).

Kamen's island is a success story for Zero-Net energy - it's completely sustainable using renewable energy.

Using a combination of wind and solar energy and heavy usage of LED lights, the island works independently of regional electrical grids. There is even a lighthouse, a replica of Stonehenge, and a “navy” consisting of one amphibious vehicle.

Photo: Kevin Cooley

No one knows who built this replication of Stonehenge, it was there when Kamen bought the island. The official vehicle of Dean Kamen’s island nation is, you guessed it, a Segway.

The rockstar inventor flies around in a souped-up Enstrom 480 helicopter between North Dumpling and his main residence, a majestic house in Manchester, N.H., near his Deka Research and Development Corp. in a row of refurbished mill buildings.

Credit: Spectrum

To coordinate the different sources, Kamen designed an intelligent system that knows, down to an individual solar panel or light source, how much energy is being produced and consumed on the island.

Kamen's LED lights are pretty sweet.They wash over the island in colors which cycle through the rainbow (and they can be set to a disco beat, but that’s another story). Just as amazing is the system’s engineering marvel that lets Kamen control every circuit on his island empire from anywhere in the world.

Photo: Kevin Cooley

The Stirling engine is the backup generator on the island, a 193-year-old design modified by Kamen to meet his needs.

Kamen believes in the future that almost everyone should have some means of locally generating electric power. It’s the only logical solution for an overtaxed, under maintained national grid that’s vulnerable to any disruption, be it an ice storm or a terrorist attack.

I think what I find interesting about Kamen - I mean there are a 1000 interesting things but to hone in on one - is that he is still down to earth, less of a holier-than-thou titan more of a nerd Batman, often dressed in denim.

"It's not about technology it's about people and stories," Kamen said in an appeal to the heart.

He recounts how DARPA approached him asking how is it that when a soldier gets hurt in battle, they get top of the line surgery civilians wouldn't get but if they lose an arm or leg they get the same wooden stick with a hook on the end that was given to them in the Civil War a century ago?

DARPA asked Kamen to build something that could interface between machines and humans, Kamen disbelievingly said (paraphrasing), "I think they were watching too much Terminator films."

Yet 15 months later, Dean Kamen had a working model where a soldier who lost his arm in the services, was able to use a robotic arm to pick up a grape (it's quit amazing) in this Ted Talk:

What do you think Kamen should invent next?

. . .

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Mapping the Future With Drone-Powered Reforestation

While the incredible developments in Cellular Architecture are paving the way for the future of biotech, another company is tackling deforestation on a whole new level.

Dendra, formerly known as Biocarbon Engineering, has developed a system of drones that replant trees. They received 2.5 million in funding with some promising projects on the way.

But first, let's examine why cutting down millions of trees everyday is worth investigating solutions to. What are the real effects of clear cutting forests?

Deforestation has side effects that many are not aware of, and it is a rampant issue today that is degrading the biome we rely on to survive.

It's not good for business when your business is located on a river delta that's getting deforested and your mangrove trees aren't there to break the wind and rain if a hurricane or cyclone hits.

Did you know the Amazon actually puts water into the atmosphere? The rainforests pump something like 20 billion tons of water into the atmosphere daily. This means less forests = more drought.

More drought means more massive migrations from coastal cities into inner urban areas, which means higher rents, less capacity and options for when you want to pick out your new house and a huge strain on basic resources for every city that coastal city refugees flee to.

This may mean increased profits for the real estate sector but everyone else will have to also deal with artificially inflated mortgage rates and scarcity.

Deforestation releases more CO2 than cars which average 14% of all carbon emissions, while deforestation contributes to 15% of carbon emissions. This is because when trees are cut down they release the CO2 they were storing back into the air.

Drought, increased green house gasses, erosion, less protection against cyclones and flooding (trees stop floods from over taking a field) - clearly the cons outweigh the pros.

But there is some nice innovation in drone technology that will help remedy the loss of trees.Let's dive into what Dendra is doing with drones and deforestation.

The Dendra system uses satellite and drone-collected data to find out the best location to plant a tree. The planting drones then fire a biodegradable seedpod into the ground with pressurized air at each predetermined spots.

The speed these are fired is around 120 seedpods per minute. The seedpods are filled with a germinated seed, nutrients, and other vital components.

These penetrate the ground, and, activated by moisture, will grow into healthy trees.

What kind of numbers are we talking about for the amount of trees that can be planted?

Two drone pilots, piloting 10 drones can plant 400,000 trees per day. If this was expanded to 400 teams then planting 10 billion trees each year would be feasible.

There is more than one company out there making waves in this field, Droneseed is another one also using Drone tech to 10X tree planting abilities.

Flash Forest as Newsweek reports, is also using drones to replant forests and combat the increased carbon in our atmosphere due to deforestation. Their drones shoot vessels into the dirt.

Each vessel contains three germinated seeds as well as other species which support the area, a fungus called mycorrhizae which helps plants to develop, fertilizers, and other "secret" ingredients.

Are you an Angel Investor? Perhaps you may want to invest in one of these companies on the cutting edge of reforestation. Here's Flash Forest's kickstarter page.

What other promising companies helping with deforestation have you heard of?

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Microbots: The Future of Biotech

Credit: Newsweek

Entrepreneurs are at it again with an incredible new development: The Soft Tissue Autonomous Robot (STAR). It's a robot that sutures soft tissue with built in dexterity and AI learning abilities.

Just the size of a small vitamin capsule, a robotic cylinder is hooked onto the end of a catheter. It's inserted at the base of the heart and using a motorized drive system this microbot cruises to a patient's leaking heart valve.

The robotic cylinder moves along side the ventricular wall, locating the damaged valve near the top of the ventricle using both touch sensors and vision.

After that the microbot gets into position by the leaking valve while a surgeon launches the minuscule stopper from this tiny robot which stops the leak.

If Elon Musk wants to take us to Mars, we'll need innovative solutions like robotic surgeons for the journey through space in case of injuries.

Right now there is more of a proliferation of cobots - robots that work with surgeons instead of replace them - but eventually much of these operations will be done by autonomous robots that work faster and learn quicker than humans.

Entrepreneurs aren't the only ones who see the huge potential of the microbot industry; Google's parent company Alphabet partnered with Johnson & Johnson to create surgical robots.

This partnership is called Verb Surgical, and their robotic surgeons hit the market this year with the goal to democratize surgery.

One of the side affects of mass production, when larger companies get involved, is the price is driven down making this one day a quite affordable procedure cheaper than the insanely expensive hospital bills Americans have to pay for routine medical work.

Bionaut's Microscopic Robot Surgeon

Ever heard of Bionaut? I haven't either yet this Israeli startup is making waves right now in the bio tech world. Their robot is nearly microscopic in size and speeds through tissue at 60 centimeters per hour.

Credit: https://www.bionautlabs.com

Bionaut's microbot is precise and uses magnetic fields to guide its path through the body. It's remote controlled to deliver cancer treating drugs at the precise location cancerous cells spring up.

This offers a huge advantage to traditional system-wide treatment of chemotherapy which kills off so much of healthy immune system defenses, because the robotic surgeon targets only where the cancer pops up.

Credit: https://www.bionautlabs.com/

While my stance on self-driving cars won't change (we deserve our own autonomy for where we go and when, giving this up is tantamount to a civil liberty - altho public transit or having it an option for Lyft or Uber is great) it does seem like a great idea to automate surgery when possible.

According to the scientific journal Nature, mistakes by clinicians lead to more than 200,000 US deaths each year. I've had my experience with doctors making mistakes in hospitals too.

Luckily not with any surgeries, still it's a powerful argument for supervised microbot surgeries to be in our future some day.

A 10 Year Plan

Autonomous surgery would also help rural areas that also suffer from food deserts and lack of access to surgeons.

Realistically, it's going to take another 10 years to get to the point of full autonomy because where robots fail and humans are more efficient is when something unexpected happens.

Whether a blood vessel is located in a place it wasn't supposed to be, or a new reaction during surgery happens, robots can't adapt yet as well as human surgeons who have more contextual knowledge and experience.

The DaVinci surgical system has already been using robotic arms to assist with minimally invasive surgeries with 3D high definition views of the surgical area since 1995.

Being able to stack new tools onto an existing system like the DaVinci one, will make the transition smoother, since it's already a stable platform with over a decade of proven results.

Would you trust a robot surgeon to operate on you?

. . .

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The Next Big Break in the Internet of Things

Credit: Wikipedia

AI is huge right now, it's at the forefront of redefining business and how we live our lives. Last blog's article on Direct Mail still holds true for it being a great marketing technique with little competition but let's fast forward.

It's January 2028 and you're walking in downtown New York City, the vaccine has been released and life has returned to normal. You hail an autonomous Lyft car, driven by robots and GPS sensors and step in.

As you head towards the pizza place you're meeting your friend for lunch at, he's a fellow startup founder, you realize you forgot your blazer.

It's cold in New York City right now plus you like dressing up when you go out. Shortly after realizing you forgot your blazer you find a leather jacket online you really like.

The leather comes from stem cell grown fabric, so no animal cruelty was involved and no rain forest was cut down to provide grazing fields for the cows that in 2020 would have been killed and skinned for your leather jack.

Super.

You add the leather jacket to your shopping cart and redirect your thoughts towards the meeting with your fellow business owner friend.

The clothing store's AI connects with your iPhone, Samsung or Android's AI and reroutes the autonomous self driving Lyft car.

You now arrive at the clothing store, pulling up right in front of the front doors. You get out and go to a terminal like an ATM but bigger just to the left of the front doors.

Opening an app on your phone you hold the screen facing scanners on a digital display and check in. Within 2 minutes a sales rep comes out with your new leather jacket.

It fits perfectly as the store has an online profile for you with all your sizes 3D body scanned with a Wii sensor from your phone. Your shoes also have weight sensors that adjust as you gain or lose weight.

There was no line at the store and the cost of the jacket was automatically deducted from your bank account as soon as the sales rep handed it to you, because sensors tracked the process from online to storefront coordinated with your payment profile with the store and Lyft.

Additionally, running on an automation, the store's marketing department already knows this is your first purchase and by the time you get home from lunch there's a coupon QR code emailed to you for 20% off your next purchase.

The store's inventory automatically updates, as there are also sensors built into the clothes rack your jacket hun on and sends an order fulfillment email based on existing supply and demand for this product.

Back up inventory is already on the way from the warehouse as this jacket has been trending this year.

The Internet of Things

As much as that may sound futuristic, it isn't that far off from where we are right now due to advances in AI and the increased prevalence and efficiency of the Internet of Things (IoT).

Smart toasters, smart NEST Wi-Fi-enabled thermostats (who once tried to recruit me to work for them) and fitness collars for dogs are just a few examples of IoTs

If you're not familiar, here's Wired's explanation of what the Internet of Things is and does:

"In the broadest sense, the term IoT encompasses everything connected to the internet, but it is increasingly being used to define objects that "talk" to each other. "Simply, the Internet of Things is made up of devices – from simple sensors to smartphones and wearables – connected together," Matthew Evans, the IoT program head at techUK, says."

"By combining these connected devices with automated systems, it is possible to "gather information, analyse it and create an action" to help someone with a particular task, or learn from a process. In reality, this ranges from smart mirrors to beacons in shops and beyond."

Smart Checkouts

The vast majority of people are not aware of some of the newest tech that has arrived and automatic checkouts have already been created.

January 2018 Amazon released the first Amazon Go store in Seattle, Washington. In 2019, they released 7 more stores and plan for 3,000 Go stores by 2021.

Credit: Wikipedia

So how does it work? Essentially, you walk in, get what you want and are automatically charged for it - no cashier, no self-check out of scanning things yourself. Just stroll in, grab what you need and peace out.

From the Wiki on Amazon Go:

The Amazon Go app for iOS and Android links to their Amazon account and is the primary method of paying for items at the store, alongside cash at certain locations. The app is required to enter the store, which has turnstiles that scan a QR code generated on the app.

The app allows users to add others to their Amazon account, so a family's purchases can be charged to the same bill. The ceiling of the store has multiple cameras and store shelves have weight sensors, to detect which item(s) a customer took.

Credit: Wikipedia

If a customer takes an item off the shelf, it will be added to the customer's virtual cart. Similarly, if a customer places an item back on the shelf, it is removed from the customer's virtual cart.

What Are the Implications of Automated Checkout?

Retailers will save billions on employee wages they have to shell out, as well as benefits, training managers and more.

There will be less space needed without cashier stations as well so that adds to store's real estate to stock more products in the same amount of space. But Business.org reports a few drawbacks.

At the same time, if a UPC doesn't scan correctly or an item isn't provided that was there last week or you just can't find something - customer service will take a hit.

There may be a way to jerry rig the system to increase theft as well through burner phones or if a thief stole your phone and you didn't have a screen lock on it.

The lack of one-on-one interaction is probably the biggest loss in my opinion. I enjoy interacting with cashiers, waitresses, baristas and more - it's a good way to break the covid cabin fever now and even in normal times humanizes the buying process and adds some social spark to the day.

What do you think?

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How A Haiku Changed How I Thought About Everything

Credit: Artly Snuff

Furu ike ya
kawazu tobikomu
mizu no oto

"Breaking the silence

Of an ancient pond,

A frog jumped into water —

A deep resonance."

I saw this haiku and it struck me as such a contrast to the chaos spinning around us all right now.

Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) composed it at a haiku gathering in 1686, and while many haiku poets at the time were focused on the sound of frogs croaking, depicted in poems, Basho chose to focus on the sound of water.

The thing is, this 16th century poet wasn't seeing a pond or the frog.He made the world of silence which was broken by a small creature in his mind.

There was something about this utter simplicity, free of the complications of today's world that struck me. It felt like the places our minds go is sometimes limited by pre-existing narratives. Invisible prisons we make in thought-form.

The habits of familiar neural pathways dictate to us what we should be thinking about and in what way we should think about the creations of our own mind.

What Many of Us Have Decided...

The way we choose to think about the world, ourselves and what's possible write the script for our future actions. What is possible always remains to be seen yet many of us have already decided what we can and can't do.

This is especially relevant in the art of innovation in workplace. Time are changing so rapidly now, the structure of society, commerce, socializing, economics, city planning and more is all being re-written on the fly.

Many business owners lament on their perceived hopeless future given the restrictions put in place to protect public safety - which the debate is still rampant on how this is being done.

The entrepreneurs, like myself, will glibly say, "Pivot, adapt, now is the time!" but I think we forget sometimes that not everyone thinks like an entrepreneur.

Many entrepreneurs don't think like an entrepreneur - they still have the ingrained corporate life dictating what they are capable of and where they see or don't see possibilities.

And to be fair, not every industry can adapt as easily. Dine in restaurants that don't just provide food, but the ambiance and the lived experience of being there.

You can't exactly translate this to curbside pick ups and e-commerce store fronts online. In the last blog I interviewed Josh Brown, owner of Genuine Joe Coffeehouse and we talked of his struggles to stay in business.

I suggested selling whole coffee beans in bulk online, and he talked about the strong community that keeps him afloat needs to be able to walk up and order at the shop.

That's part of what Genuine Joe provides and there is a lot more involved in pivoting to selling whole beans in 1 pound bags online, including the margins for the cost of shipping.

I think my suggestion made too many assumptions without thinking about this model of business more.

I also feel many of us in the startup world take mindset for granted. It's easy for a lot of us to say, "Just pivot, and adapt!" because of how we think and are trained to think.

It's not easy to rewrite the way a mind works or thinks about things, in order to see more opportunities, as it seems to some of us already well adapted to this lifestyle.

The Art of Headspace

Creating space inside our minds to grow and re-examine thought patterns and habits will not only help us grow in business but also develop our perception.

Each year, since I started actively working on cultivating and deepening the field of vision and perceptive powers of who I am, who others are, how they see the world, themselves, me and our interdependent relations it's like lifting a veil.

Each year more is seen. The eyes perceive more depth to each situation, more context is noticed for how and why things come to be the way they are.

This frees me to improve, move the needle on personal and professional goals. This past week alone, I launched 2 new businesses, after starting an e-commerce business 2 weeks ago.

Basho's Frog haiku was said to have been created when Basho’s Zen master, Boncho, visited him. According to legend, the master asked Basho a koan-like question (which is a riddle without an answer).

Basho, decided not to answer directly or even try to. He replied instead with “a frog jumps into, the sound of water.”

Life doesn't always make sense. There isn't always a linear pathway to solutions to customer dilemmas or to our own lives and their meandering pathways into the future.

How we choose to think about a problem has just as much power to solve it as the effort we make to create solutions. (Here's an interesting montage of Basho's journey)

This is true everywhere for everyone but it isn't the default go to method for problem solving.

Things get much easier when we can think about how we are thinking and shift perspectives. This is why it's good to bounce ideas off associates and friends and family.

It may not even be what they say, but how they say it, or the way they choose to look at something that triggers that "ah ha" moment for us.

How We Think About How We Think

The Frog Haiku is something that stopped my scrolling this morning and made me think about how I think and the value in changing perspectives to achieve enlightenment.

Enlightenment in the sense of realizing new things that our perception had missed before which can improve our business and enjoyment of life.

Just a few thoughts to marinate on Monday. Hope the rest of your week goes well. Any favorite poems or writings that changed your perspective recently?

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Coping With Lockdown: Oil Plummets, Retailers Close for Thanksgiving

While Customer Service may be undergoing a makeover in light of recent protests, Target and Walmart are staying closed for Christmas this year. Dick’s Sporting Goods is also closing for Thanksgiving.

2020 is a year unlike any other with more rapid changes to business and the world as we know it.

The biggest shopping events of the year will take on a new tone now, as crowds are prohibited from gathering due to the rapid spread of the Corona Virus with over 16 million new cases globally.

Giant retailers are encouraging consumers to shop earlier online for the holidays and promise to start sales earlier as well, according to Target's blog.

Context is everything right now, this 2019 seemingly normal picture of what life was like shopping pre-C19 now, will trigger many emotionally, seeing people without masks at the checkout:

The year is flying by at super sonic speeds despite the feeling that time is dragging by extra slow, stuck at home and feeling cabin feverish.

The speed of major events that keep happening is making it hard to feel like we have had enough time to savor the moments, as each day can bring new challenges when adapting to life on lockdown.

This coming Monday U.S. Senate Republicans are expected to reveal a new $1 trillion coronavirus aid package. This could add more economic stimulus and perhaps even indicate a bull market trend for big oil who has been suffering losses due to reduced travel during the pandemic.

Per Reuters:

Brent crude LCOc1 lost 81 cents, or 1.9%, to $42.53 a barrel by 11:13 a.m. EDT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 fell 65 cents, or 1.6%, to $40.64 a barrel.

Following the closures of consulates in Houston and Chendu, investors worried about relations between China and the United States and have retreated to safe havens, such as gold and bonds.
Is big oil partially responsible for Americans getting stimulus checks?

This is a good question, as the oil industry hasn't shirked donating millions to politicians in exchange for political favors in the past. This is part of what killed the electric car before Elon Musk brought it back through better brand definition and audience targeting.

Credit: Zbynek Burival

The more money consumers have, the more likely they'll use that money to break the monotony of staying at home all the time and splurge on trips, drive more and oil companies benefit from this.

The oil industry is doing everything they can to find a way to survive right now as the margins for refined oil products have dropped into negative areas:

Source: IEA

To be fair, trading divisions can make money even when prices dip by exploiting choppy market moves.

Is it possible that these fossil fuel companies, out of self interest, are pulling the strings they have to pull to nudge politicians towards printing more Monopoly money out?

When the Terminator can become the governor of California and someone who is illiterate, unable to read at all can become president in 2016 - who is to say what's possible these days...

There is still the larger question of where we go from here, for a long term plan. There are greater things at stake micro and macro level.

I haven't been able to see my son for a long time, since Christmas in 2019 as the pandemic hit and the fear that either one of us is asymptomatic keeps his mother from allowing visitation. Will I ever see him again?

Many families are experiencing strife due to how things are panning out, unable to go back to work because daycares aren't open and schools are closed to only virtual classes.

Oil based capitalism is literally the backbone of much of America's economy. When the bottom drops out as the flow of petrodollars halts there are new problems: where do we put all this oil?

Three quarters of the world's storage capacity have already been reached and the limits were tapped back in May 2020 this year as The Petroleum Economist reports.

Another side effect is that Exxon, Shell, BP, and a handful of others — who are much better positioned to survive this crisis than smaller producers — are using the crisis to try to roll back environmental regulations.

So perhaps not quite the benevolent saviors their PR agents would have us believe they are. While it's easy to say things like, just go green with wind, solar and hydroelectric energy sources this ignores how entrenched oil as a commodity is in the stability of existing markets for the global economy.

One of the newest coping mechanisms of fossil fuelers is Russia may agree to a three-way arrangement with Saudi Arabia and the U.S. to limit output to halt the downward slide of oil product prices.

Previously, Putin was resisting any concessions in a stand-off with Saudi Arabia since Moscow pulled out of a supply-limit agreement with OPEC over demands for deeper cuts in output.

But the reality is this industry has to prepare for challenging times, low oil prices, and learn how to adapt like the rest of us to the rapidly evolving situation with the corona virus.

There is no doubt that political alignments are being reworked, and arrangements are being made to consolidate in the interests of the most powerful forces at work in the world.

I'd like to see the same desperate winner take all driving unstoppable force the fossil fuel industry has right now, also coming from renewable energy providers.

In the aftermath of the pandemic, there will be new winners and losers. I would like to see a more sustainable business model from green energy that creates new markets for both investors and consumers.

What changes would you like to see after C19? Comment below!

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The 5 Traits of Emotionally Intelligent Business Leaders

Credit: Morning Brew

In the unprecedented changes we all face right now, it is sometimes unavoidable that workplace stress may rise. If you're keeping up with my blog you're employing top level SEO tips now but still may be getting stressed at work.

The usual suspects are interoffice politics conflicts, changes to how work is done or departmental shifts and of course new changes in technology (we can video chat now but still can't get the computer to load fast).

According to National Center for Biotechnology:

"Stress-inducing management practices included unrealistic demands, lack of support, unfair treatment, low decision latitude, lack of appreciation, effort–reward imbalance, conflicting roles, lack of transparency and poor communication."

While businesses can't control global pandemics, interpersonal conflict can be managed more effectively. Work-related stress is decreased the higher the emotional intelligence is of those most affected.

What is Emotional Intelligence, Exactly?

But before we dive into skill sets, let's get on the same page on what exactly Emotional IQ is.

According to dictionary.com Emotional intelligence is defined as:

Psychology Today defines Emotional Intelligence as:

Emotional intelligence is generally said to include at least three skills: emotional awareness, or the ability to identify and name one’s own emotions; the ability to harness those emotions and apply them to tasks like thinking and problem solving; and the ability to manage emotions, which includes both regulating one’s own emotions when necessary and helping others to do the same.

Why Is Emotional IQ Important In Business?

Whether you're the CEO of a company, a mid-level manager, or an employee, those who are high in emotional intelligence are better able to manage their emotions and the emotions of others around them.

This adds tools which allow them to be more effective managing pressure at work.

Below you'll discover:

5 ways that emotionally intelligent people handle work-related stress better

1. Amygdala Reactions Traded for Neocortex Responses

Ever been told to think before you speak, and thought, "What a novel concept, I'll do that of course!" and find yourself blurting something out later that you didn't intend to?

Emotions run much faster than thoughts and in certain moments like during road rage, we can literally see red when they overwhelm us.

On average, it takes around 6 seconds for our "thinking brain" also known as the frontal neocortex, to receive the same info that our "feeling brain" or amygdala gets first. You can see how this may cause a problem when attempting to respond reasonably right?

What happens often when we overreact is that there is a surge of emotions that is bigger than is really appropriate for the situation that floods our body.

So that moment when someone cuts you off, then goes slower than the speed limit (can you feel yourself reacting even right now?) is triggering the emotional brain to react first, within 10 seconds you can stop the rollercoaster of reactions when you think about how much more your life is worth than getting even with the one who cut you off is worth. That's your neocortex reasoning out cost benefit analysis.

Credit: https://nba.uth.tmc.edu/neuroscience/m/s4/chapter06.html

Here's the key: if we don't react right away, our neocortex's thinking process is activated which helps us make better decisions weighing out multiple outcomes of different actions.

2. They Know When to Take 5 to Gain Perspective

The brain is going to do what the brain is going to do - but emotionally savvy workers and management understand when their stress levels reach a peaking point where self-control starts slipping.

Business leaders and workers that are emotionally intelligent - and actively working on tuning in to this - get a lot more out of emotional energy expended at work. They intuit when breaks are needed to get space between a situation and their reaction to it.

3. They Name Names - in a Good Way

Another feature of emotionally intelligent business owners is that they know sometimes it is best to name the emotions they are feeling. This takes the bite out of the insta-reaction mode.

It can also be humorous to name an overreaction out loud - and humor is a great diffuser of tense situations.

4. High Emotional IQ People Identify Triggers & Respond Calmly

You aren't able to de-escalate a tense situation if you don't know what is creating the tension. One of the huge benefits of having a higher emotional IQ is being able to ID specifically what is triggering tense reactions.
Knowledge is power: once you realize what is setting you off, instead of reacting with anger because you were caught off guard, you can stay calm, positive, use active listening and set boundaries.

5. Emotional Intelligence Lets You Know When to Open Up

There are two extremes you may see in the workplace:

a) A co-worker or employee tells you their entire life story the first time you meet

b) A boss or work colleague never reveals how they are feeling, you walk on tip toes or don't interact at all

Finding a balance between these extremes involves knowing when to open up and become vulnerable to increase work cohesion which also furthers productivity.

Having higher emotional intelligence allows one to be aware of interpersonal relationships and signals when to enforce the company standards uniformly and when to humanize an interaction with empathy and understanding.

Deadlines might not be met, sometimes projects don't go as planned, other moments the wrong person is blamed for results not being ideal because another person wasn't pulling their weight.

Cultivating the capacity to not respond the same way to all external stimuli, like a robot might, but sensing both when showing a little vulnerability yourself is appropriate and when being open to others sharing as well is a function of emotional intelligence.

This ultimately improves teamwork, creates tighter knit workplace communities and reduces stress in interpersonal interactions. Authenticity is more than a buzz word - it makes one more relatable as long as you walk the walk you talk.

How can you use this strategy in your business? What situations have you seen benefit from the features of emotional intelligence described in today's blog?
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How to Use SEO to Drive More Sales

One of the pain points small to medium sized businesses have (& even Fortune 500s in some industries) is not understanding what SEO is, and feeling it’s too technical.

Search Engine Optimization is in essence, how to get your website to rank on google searches when your prospects are searching for your product or service.

BUT there are even more benefits to keyword research that will be revealed below.

Keyword Optimization in a Nutshell

Let’s first get clear on the specifics of what SEO is:

Search Engine Optimization discovers which specific terms potential customers search google with to find a service or product.

How money is made through search terms is by including these same search terms on your website. This gets your website ranking higher on Google search results.

But – you need to know the exact phrases as well as words, and that’s just the beginning.

Beyond SEO

Finding those keyword terms is absolutely necessary to get your website content to rank higher on search engine ranking pages (SERPs). Also, you’ll want to be on page 1 of Google for search term search results because people rarely look beyond page one.

Yet, there is a level deeper you’ll want to go for maximum benefits:

Customer intentions when googling. When you know why your prospects are searching for things as part of the customer experience you expand your opportunity for upsells & downsells as well as where and how to build out new products and services.

For more info on how to improve your business by understanding the customer experience read this metrics blog here.

Making keyword research a regular habit you do for your business helps understand how your audience views the world, which enables your messaging to be more on point with better customization and personalization. This generates better trust in your business too!

Have you ever made a content map? I linked a nice Hubspot article to the words ‘content map’ to peep, it’s great to map out your blog content & social media posts ahead of time.

Integrating SEO into how you map out your content calendar will boost your business presence online and up your game by a whole bunch, as more of your audience will read your blog and consume your content when it is already planned with SEO in mind.

Bullet Point Your Search Terms

Step One: Brainstorm Likely Terms Your Audience Searches For
Just start thinking up the type of terms your audience may search for when looking to hire your type of service or buy your type of products, when Google searching.

It can be helpful to role play what you would do if you were a customer, or what you already do personally, when googling for a product. Write down those search terms. If you have a team, get their thoughts too. Think of how your customers may phrase things.

Step 2: Validate Search Terms With Reality
Go on Quora, google your keyword term plus forum or blog or articles and you’ll find where online conversations are happening about your topic. This will get you the exact words your customers are using.

For example, if you run a podcast or marketing firm search “podcast+board” or “marketing+forum” or vice versa, and you’ll find forums and bulletin boards where folks go to find more info. It’s a great place to get your finger on the pulse of current trends.

Pro-tip: Look at Wikipedia, enter your search terms, and look at the table of contents on articles that pull up. This will get you some new search terms that be even more clutch.

Step 3: Google Autofill Hack
This is a nice little hack even millionaires I work with in eCommerce didn’t know about until I taught them! Go to Google.com and enter in the first word of a keyterm — don’t type in the full phrase though let Google autofill the rest.

This is the genius of it, Google will suggest the most popular search term combos that people search for. This will advance your search term list with real results you aren’t guessing on but have in specifics.

Bonus: Google Search Console
Stroll over to the Google Search Console to see the keywords your website already ranks for. Google will also give you the heads up if you have broken pages and/or links on your site, or anything that prevents them from properly indexing your webpage on search engines.

The Genius of Long-tail Search Terms

At this point, if you’re following the steps outlined in today’s blog, you’ll have quite a few search terms written down from:

√ Your brainstorming
√ Role playing as the customer
√ Your teams ideas on search terms
√ What you find on forums and boards in your industry and
√Google auto fill suggestions

To be effective you’ll want to have four to six baseline key phrases.

Ex: Marketing, marketing strategy, marketing plan and eight to twelve long-tail phrases.

Ex: Marketing plan template, Marketing help for small businesses, Marketing ideas during covid.

Baseline search term phrases are just that, your baseline. Start with these, put them on your landing pages, even in About pages if you can.

Use one phrase for your home page and the other phrases should have landing pages or whole sections of your website dedicated to these terms.

This empowers you to earn rankings on search results on Google. But make sure when choosing baseline key words to include relational search phrases in addition to the main one.

What I mean is this, remember when we talked about intention and the customer experience? The plain picture search term of say “marketing” will have higher competition than a less-than-obvious search term that denotes the experience your customer has on the customer journey.

An example of a key word phrase that reflects intent would be “get leads for my business” instead of just “marketing.” It’s a more specific intention which separates the people who may also be marketers from your customer base, that you actually want to reach.

As you may have noticed, the second phrase is a long-tail search term.

The long-tail search terms are fantastic on clarifying the customer’s intention, like the “getting leads for my business” above. You can even make certain weeks in the month themed for specific long-tail search terms you want to split test for SEO generated traffic on your site.

Sounds pretty dang useful right?

There are a few tools SEO experts recommend using I’ll mention as well.

SEO Tools Experts Use

√ Google Keyword Planner

Try and use your twelve to fifteen search terms in the planner’s keyword suggestion tool, and peep the ad groups Google suggests to piece out and label what you see.

You can find terms related to the ad groups, and view the estimated search volume for each term and the suggested bid — keep in mind it’s an AdWords tool made mainly to sell more ads.

Keep your perspective balanced here, as search volume is just one metric. Search terms with a lot of traffic don’t always help, but when you marry this to the bid price, you’ll notice high bid price means higher conversion values.

It isn’t a hard fast rule, but you’ll begin to see that bid price fluctuations are a vital sign when diving in to the research. Ideally, you want to mark and edit your search phrase with a combo of search volume and bid price. Try to find the mid point.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed right now – it’s understandable. You can stick with all the advice given before the Tools section here and still come out on top, better than before.

Here are a couple of other tools SEO experts recommend:

Yoast Suggest
Google Trends

TLDR Cliff Notes Version: Yoast is a free WordPress plugin (with advanced options on the paid plan), it alphabetically lists related search terms from Google, and Google Trends is gold for seeing a timeline of the popularity of a search term.

Google Trends is key if you plan on running Amazon or Shopify eCommerce businesses, as you can see spikes, dips and plateaus for search terms ( = buying habits) of a product you’re evaluating for adding to your shop.

What are your favorite key takeaways from today’s blog on SEO? Comment below, thanks.

. . .

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Does Facebook Only Promote Sad Reacts? No – It Goes Deeper

The content that you see on social media, or Facebook at least, is not as random as you may think it is. The Facebook algorithm is how Facebook decides which posts users see, and in what order, every time they check their newsfeeds.

Credit: Hootsuite.com

In the early days, when the Facebook algorithm was born, in 2009, posts were sorted based on popularity.
But, after more time passed, Facebook decided to just do what ever they could to keep Facebook users on the platform. The reasoning is that the more time Facebook users are on Facebook, the more they can be advertised to.

Right now there is a lot of negativity on Facebook. There are positive posts too but many news articles state that negative talking points are organically being supported more than positive by the Facebook algorithm.

While Facebook is free to use, Mark Zuckerberg pays the bills through advertisers paying him ad money to run advertisements on the platform.

The more time people spent on Facebook, the more money goes to the shareholders of Facebook.

Facebook's Shareholders

Mark Zuckerberg, with a net worth of $54.7 Billion dollars according to Forbes, holds over 400 million shares of Facebook, comprising a market value of around $82.2 billion.

The Vanguard Group Inc., an investment management company, holds approximately 184.0 million shares of Facebook with a combined market value of about $37.7 billion.

BlackRock an asset and investment management firm, holds about 158.2 million shares of Facebook with a combined market value of $32.3 billion.

FMR LLC, a financial services company holds approximately 123.6 million shares of Facebook with a combined market value of $26.1 billion.

T. Rowe Price is an investment management company offering portfolio management, equities, fixed income, asset allocation, and holds about 107.8 million shares of Facebook totaling a combined market value of $22.1 billion. Source: Investopedia

Facebook Algorithm Changed to Prioritize Friends & Fam

Mark Zuckerberg announced in 2018 that going forward, one of the biggest changes with Facebook was that the algorithm would be modified to prioritize friends and family posts instead of just advertisers' posts.

However, that's not what happened. Instead of seeing more communities of friends and families created, studies revealed that over 50% of increased engagement was paired with increased divisiveness, outrage and angry reactions.

At the same time, the way the Facebook algorithm prioritized content ended up supporting fringe posts on fake news from scam artists and spammers who knew how to work the engagement algorithm.

If It Bleeds It Reads

Journalism, in the news media has always had a slant for things that are negative. Despite the fact that there are also more positive topics that are newsworthy -- these are often ignored to prioritize the shock and awe and graphic violence stories.

So much so, there is even a catch-phrase that journalists use: “If it bleeds it reads.”

In a sense, Facebook has just allowed itself to become prey to the same ideology with one big predator creating the most amount of unhappy feelings in millions of people’s lives as they scroll the newsfeed: Fox News.

“Angry” is the top reaction when it comes to political content, though not other types of content. Fox News hired social media managers who knew how to bleed the hearts of millions through divisive negative stories on Facebook:

Credit: newswhip.com

It's clear Faux News knows exactly what they are doing, and do it well. Creating content that is negative and hateful will get more reactions, with a consistent narrative, posting schedule and relentless factory of discontented posts.

That's not the entire story though. There are plenty of other stories and posts that have gotten a high number of reactions that are positive. Posts about babies, pets, and baking cookies also have gotten incredible amounts of reach.

Over 2 MILLION engagements were drawn to the So Yummy Facebook Page's post on 12 cookie decorating hacks:

Credit: newswhip.com

So while many decry Facebook as having the intention of hurting people's feelings and spreading discontent, this isn't reality. Reality isn't one single narrative. When you subscribe to only one way of thinking you miss out on what's happening in the periphery.

The reality is, Facebook is a tool, and if bad characters spend more time on learning how to use this tool and get more adept at distributing content with higher engagement - they will dominate the Facebook Newsfeed.

Credit: Anthony Quintano

What's curious is how many people seem to miss out on the fact that reactions such as the laugh react and love react, if prioritized in high numbers also drive just as much engagement on Facebook.

The narrative that keeps getting repeated is that Facebook is only supporting negative content, when studies by NewsWhip for instance, show this simply isn't true.

NYU professor Scott Galloway, who is known for his outspoken views on Facebook - and someone whose perspective I value - has also missed this essential fact as well in a recent interview with Fast Company:

"What these companies [eg Facebook] have done is created a business model where the most incendiary, upsetting, controversial, and oftentimes false and damaging things get more oxygen than they deserve because we are a tribal species and when people say things that are upsetting we tend to engage. Engagement equals enrichment. The more rage equals the more clicks equals the more Nissan ads. So these algorithms have figured out that if you promote the flawed junk science of anti-vaxxers, it increases shareholder value. There is a population of people out there that believe vaccinations are bad, and they should be heard. But they should not dominate health news so that you start getting these stories from your friends on Facebook. It starts adding legitimacy, and then there’s a trend around anti-vaccination, and more two- and three-year-old boys and girls have their limbs amputated because of an outbreak of measles which we thought we had conquered 30 or 40 years ago."

While there is definitely a lot of truth to what Galloway speaks of, as far as accountability, fact-checking, anti-trust laws not being enforced on big tech companies like Facebook & Google - he misses the point that there is more than one narrative here.

Positive stories get distribution and crazy amounts of reactions too - just share a photo or video of a puppy and see how many reactions and likes it gets. But - as stated before, when companies who want to use negativity to drive reactions put their posting in overdrive, it will definitely also create massive social media engagement.

One headline I've read recently said,

"Facebook Prioritizes What Makes You ‘Sad’ Or ‘Angry’ Over What You ‘Like’"

and yet this is false - as reactions aside from the likes, also include the wow, laugh, love and new Care react - not just sad or angry.

Later on in the article the author says:

"...all reactions are weighted the same, which means the News Feed prioritizes things you “love” equally to things that make you “angry” or “sad.”"

But the headline stated only the negative emotions.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This is an example of cherry-picking info to frame a story to support a bias. A pre-existing narrative being told instead of examining the data and seeing the full picture. How you use a tool determines the emotional outcome.

What's even more disturbing is how willing the public is to accept a pre-framed narrative without investigating it, reactions become almost robotic. (Read Great Leaders Don't Create Robots for more tips on leadership).

Ironically, a lot of the trite dialogue on social media, could have been written by a computer algorithm as it's one person trading talking points they didn't think up, or research themselves with another who is doing the same thing.

People don't study anything that doesn't already confirm their existing bias, and look for things on Facebook to support this rather than research their own beliefs.

It would be great to see folks get informed beyond the 3 primary outdated emotionally charged talking points on posts shared without even googling origins of the info and fact checking with multiple sources.

Forgive me, perhaps I am biased about people who are biased, as I worked at a college instructing students on how to cross reference primary and secondary sources. Authenticating data sources is important before becoming emotionally invested in what you think is the absolute truth. But back to Facebook.

It seems like there is a lot of opportunity right now to prey upon people's fears on social media, but there are just as many opportunities to encourage hope, trust and faith that things will get better.

I've seen posts celebrating the bravery of health care workers get amazing distribution, positive reactions and countless likes.

Don't fall victim to a one-story narrative, examine all sides, cross reference sources to make sure you aren't being fed a one dimensional version of a 5 dimensional reality.

I encourage individual Facebook users, as well as companies and entrepreneurs, to use the tools we have wisely. To do our best to create networks that support authenticity, mutual respect and a narrative that promotes sustainable social networks.

. . .

Available for freelance writing and guest posting on your blog: [email protected]

Great Leaders Don’t Create Robots

Credit: Rock'n Roll Monkey

Does every piece of news, blog and social media post have to reference COVID19 right now? While we are limping our way through a pandemic sometimes there needs to be a break from obsessing.

During a crisis we look for leadership to guide the ship we're sailing into safe harbor. At every company, you'll have tons of managers but not very many leaders. Let's talk about leadership.

At an email-marketing conferences I attended, the speaker made it a point to communicate that we won't succeed without a solid plan.

To attempt to keep doing the same thing without strategy is called "hope marketing" and makes a lot of folks live the reality of "broke marketing."

Hope without a strategy doesn't create leadership. Leadership is developed when your hope and positive thinking are matched with a concrete vision of the future and a way to get there.

Real Leaders Know It Ain't About Them

Word of mouth is one of the most powerful ways to grow a tribe, to create a group of people dedicated to a specific purpose or cause. You'll find this in any major sport - word of mouth is a powerful driver and builds communities.

One of the mistakes people make is defining leadership as the worship of a single person. Identity politics is one of the most divisive cancers right now plaguing America.

Leadership that lasts beyond tomorrow and creates a strong community grows when the leader gives people a platform for spreading ideas that work.

Who do you trust more: an ad you see on your Facebook Newsfeed, or a recommendation your friend made? The friend of course. The culture around a product or service grows when people recruit other people. That's how ideas spread too.

People won't do it for you - they do it for each other. Leadership is embracing that it really isn't all about you. It's about the movement you're creating. The shared values of those who follow you.

Change is Inevitable - Except from Vending Machines

Generally speaking, managers don't like people that stick out. By definition they want everyone to tow the line, and stick within established rules.

Many companies have PR statements that say they are about innovation but reward conformity more than anything else. It was definitely like this when I worked in tech at Facebook. You didn't want to stick out in any way.

Managers were overworked and had no bandwidth to recognize the talents of their employees. I quit my job at Facebook because of this and started a successful consulting firm and e-commerce ventures.

I was a deviant - I didn't fit in with the status quo. But neither did Elon Musk, Henry Ford or Tony Robbins. All of them are outliers that challenged conformity. While I wouldn't say my contributions to society can light a candle yet to these notable people, there's something important to worth mentioning:

Managers don't like deviants, they don't like nonconformists who may be eccentrics or mavericks with too much individual personality. Deviating from conformity is a failure for a manager working to deliver within the rigid lines of their role.

Managers crush nonconformists - that's what they do. Managers don't inspire people. Leaders do.

Leaders understand a different outlook: change is unavoidable and also one of the keys to success. Not human robots.

Credit: Craig Sybert

As it turns out, when you have a workforce that is dedicated to change and more fully engaged in making things happen-- not only are employees happier but they are also more productive.

This is a much better way to organize a business than making people walk on tip toes, using threats of losing job security and fear as a motivation to do a good job.

Leadership isn't just popularity, power and showmanship.
The Harvard Business Review states:

"A successful leader as one who can understand people’s motivations and enlist employee participation in a way that marries individual needs and interests to the group’s purpose."

Find Someone Succeeding & Encourage Them

When someone at the job place has created a workaround, or another way of doing routine work that works better, instead of punishing them for not conforming shine the spotlight.

While it won't always be the case, often innovation comes in small packages from employees just figuring out a better way to do a task that isn't officially sanctioned in the employee handbook.

Great leaders find someone deviating from the norm creating success - and encourage them.

Many things we know and love as part of every day life happened because someone did something different than the norm and challenged the group-think of conformity in the workplace, society or within a specific industry.

Air Bnb is one example of this, so are Lyft & Uber, as well as Google's Gmail as mentioned in the blog about managers needing to adopt flexible strategies from leadership to keep folks motivated post COVID (to not just do the minimal but to exceed expectations).

It's raining right now in Austin, Texas and Leonard Cohen is playing on the online radio station I listen to, Radio Paradise.

As I listen to the lyrics sang, I think of leaders who inspired me in my journey from 9-5er to entrepreneur. And the traits they have in common.

One of the shared attributes every one of them has, is the ability to put aside their own ego and become sincerely invested and curious in how other people think, feel and perceive life.

Who are some great leaders you've met in your life? Who inspires you?
. . .

Available for freelance writing and guest posting on your blog: [email protected]

5 Tips on Starting a New Business During Covid

Credit: Danielle MacInnes

Now is a great time to start a business. You're saying, "Hold up Trevor, we are all on lock down, are you kidding?" No joke - right now is a great time to start a business with a caveaut:

Design a company that is agile, not dependent on physical location, with a strong online presence.

Businesses succeed when they solve a problem. Right now, consumers have a whole set of new problems that your business can solve.

Whether you're launching a new clothing line for sweat pants and lounge gear or at-home fitness training, there are opportunities to grow and succeed in the new marketplace.

Create a Business Plan

Starting a new business is exciting, nerve wracking and you gotta think on your feet a lot. But, if you have a business plan mapped out ahead of time it gives you a great jump off point.

You may not even follow the plan. Or you may pick and choose parts to follow and adapt other parts as you go along - being agile is critical to your success. Pivoting as you see fit allows you to succeed.

Don't kill yourself writing it. Make it 5-7 pages max. Get your ideas out of your brain in a format for a business template.

Cover these Important Business Points

Write down your answers to these questions in one document:

How are you going to grow?
What are you trying to build?
How are you different from competitors?
How do you make customers wildly happy?
Ponder the chapters of your business

Think about the segments of growth for the chapters of your business. For instance, if you're starting a vegan delivery food truck that customers can order from via an app - 1st you'll have the food truck and app developed.

Then your vegan food delivery service can expand to a full restaurant. After that it'll become a catering business for a larger area. Perhaps this will then open up to franchising or being priced to sell.

The concept here is that when you're thinking on your feet, you can miss important details. When you're doing some deeper thinking on the bigger picture of your business ahead of time you can map out the smaller steps in between significant moves.

You won't have time to sit on your couch and just strategize once you've really got the ball rolling. You may not have all the answers but putting your thoughts down in a structured business plan gives you a resource to refer back to to connect the parts.

You'll have something to refer back to when you're on the move making things happen. It helps you gain perspective on how you connected ideas together that manifest as concrete action steps.

This is especially helpful when you've spent time ahead of time analyzing your competition so you know how you can stand out - or at least have a starting place.

Go Find Smart People to Criticize You

After creating your business plan, structured for stay-at-home, online-friendly covid reality, then find the three smartest people you know.

You know who these people are, they are the super smart folks around you in your friends circle or even co-workers from present or previous jobs.

It would be even better if they also run their own business. Either way, you want them to give you hard criticism on your ideas. Because this helps you increase your ability to make your business better.

Be prepared to hear some hard words. Go into it expecting they will tell you your ideas suck. Don't fish for compliments. Lean into their criticisms. Ask open ended follow up questions.

Remember - your goal is to get them to poke holes in your strategy and future visions so you know where you can improve.

It's highly likely if they see things you aren't seeing, and you want to get investors, those angel investors will see the same things or some of them as well.

Thinking up objections ahead of time and better yet solving them puts you ahead of the rest.

Get Yer Legals Set

Make sure you understand the basics on what you need to do for local taxes, which vary state to state. For example if you're starting an e-commerce store you need to buy at the least an LLC or sole proprietorship, and a sales tax license.

You'll want to get a business bank account to separate your taxable income from your business from your personal finances. It'll be set up with a business EIN number, which is like your social security number for businesses.

Invest in a good attorney and a good accountant. Prioritize the accountant first as you'll want to make sure you don't owe the IRS money. You can hire an attorney after you start making income. When you're ready to scale, you have to make sure your books are straight.

And of course, make sure you have a website for your business, and a business email that isn't just @gmail. Look up Gsuite and how to connect that to your domain for a business email.

Find People Like Me

Reach out to entrepreneurs like myself who already run their own business and ask them for two minutes of their time.

You'd be surprised but many people who are very successful love giving back and helping the newbs out with advice they wish they knew when starting out.

[Hint hint - the reason why I wrote this blog]

Having a solid convo with an established business leader, the higher up the better, will help you see the gaps that laterally moving won't catch.

It's also inspiring to talk to those who have tried what you're doing and succeeded.

What are your tips for those starting out with a new business? Or, what do you wish you had tips about for starting a business?
. . .

Available for freelance writing and guest posting on your blog: [email protected]

The Economy of Integrity

Credit: Bonnie Kittle

We live in uncertain times but one thing we can all count on is our own ability to frame the social interactions we have. This is both in our personal lives and in business connections when we interact with other business owners or potential partners for joint ventures and more.

It's one of those nuances of human behavior often ignored - are you being the best version of yourself?

This is where professional development meets personal development. Why is it so hard to take a step back outside the echo chamber of previously held beliefs?

Some of it is habit. Habit in how we think of ourselves, the world, other people and our potential. For many, their careers don't take off until they figure their shit out, as a person. Yet - you won't see this taught in MBA programs at major universities.

It's Not What You Do It's How

There are tons of awful people that donate to charities yet abuse their spouses, do unhealthy amounts of drugs and never take a long hard look at who they are actually becoming aside from profit margins met.

Have you ever tried to save a friend from themselves? Passionately advocating on how to dodge the bullet you see headed towards them from their current actions and life path?

What usually happens?

A shit ton of defensiveness and resentment.

Leonard Cohen once sang,

"And I lift my glass to the awful truth
Which you can't reveal to the ears of youth..."

Cohen sings of the eternal resistance of being told what we know is true - that perhaps we aren't trying hard enough. Perhaps we owe it to ourselves to be a bit more honest on if actions taken are doing justice to the version of ourselves we become when energy follows thoughts.

The act of becoming is talked about in many esoteric texts and yet very divorced from the business world, as far as an inherent quality we associate with success.

The art of becoming is the acknowledgement we aren't perfect but also aren't helpless about who we become during the process of living our lives.

I've been blessed to meet, rather recently, a number of influential multi millionaires at the top of their game for their industry. And in this circle something is different than others I've met in previous years who were also successful in business.

These people, many of whom know each other, have spent time understanding who they are and reflect honor and integrity into how they do business and affect the world.

Back to the friend you're trying to save analogy (happened several times for folks I know). It isn't what you're saying. The content is gold - your intentions are pure, you don't have anything to gain here. It is all for the sake of your friend who is fucking up that you want to save.

It isn't what you say, it's how you say it. If anyone feels lectured to, instant walls go up. Higher than the BS ones the prez wants to build between USA and Mexico. Just add water or err um..strongly worded advice.

People feel the energy coming from you behind your words. This has parallels in the start up world as well.

LTV Isn't Accidental

Of the highly successful 7 figure business leaders I've had the luck to meet, connect with, and in some cases become friends with - the feeling of 'this person genuinely cares for others' and reflects that in how they do business is a great predictor of not just success but longevity.

You may have heard of LTV, the life time value of a customer who makes multiple purchases with your business. A customer's LTV exponentially increases if they trust your business. This is the economy of integrity.

When customers feel a bond because of the tribe you've created based on integrity, the rituals specific to your business, and the values you stand for (and what you won't accept: read I'm Not For Everyone) this not only increases long term profits but you become an excuse for others to rise up and act better.

Do we need to wait for Christmas to be generous, forgiving and proactively giving?

Of course not. It's an attitude. An attitude of gratitude. Ok I did see that on the wall at a meeting I was at back in the day. But despite it's rather pithy phrasing, it speaks to deeper concepts.

It's the idea that every Sci Fi author understands - sometimes we are world-creating. We create a micro world of who buys our product or service and determine what kind of environment and culture we create.

Make use of the free will and choice we do have to lead a company based on values of integrity. It gives back so much more than it takes. Your influence continues to grow positively and affect the lives of others in a way that inspires them to do the right thing.

Don't Take My Word for It

Don't take my word for it - plenty of studies from multiple sources back up, empirically, the values delivered by being a decent person, and how that decency affects organizational structures beneficially.

From the National Academy of Sciences:

"Leadership by individuals of high personal integrity helps to foster an environment in which scientists can openly discuss responsible research practices in the face of conflicting pressures. All those involved in the research enterprise should acknowledge that integrity is a key dimension of the essence of being a scientist and not a set of externally imposed regulatory constraints.

To the Journal on Public Integrity and Ethical Leadership:

“ 'Moral values and norms' are often absent when scholars are involved in describing, explaining, and understanding the reality of governance and administration (the dominant focus is on goals and interests; biases and irrationality; institutions; and context and power). An “ethics and integrity turn” in the dominant fields of study is needed."

The Economist referenced a study ran by Tim Hird of Robert Half Management Resources who aptly said:

“Companies with strong, ethical management teams enhance their ability to attract investors, customers and talented professionals,” explains Hird, adding that ethical behavior starts at the top and allows companies to create a culture that values integrity."

Going back to the friend analogy - the reason I bring this up is that this fits your engagement with your customer base as well. If you really want to help your friend out and avoid a slow motion accident you see coming, listen first. Focus less on the righteousness of the point you're making. More on what his or her needs actually are.

Same goes for the impact your business has on the world through the interactions your clients have with each other, with your business and others they come into contact with after purchasing.

When the person you are is reflected in the values of your company, this ripple effect increases CTV by just making people feel more comfortable because they know, see and feel your integrity.

You may just inspire them to also live their lives with higher integrity - helping your business thrive through word of mouth, increase customer retention and long term profits but also help the world become a better place.

"The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office."

-President Dwight D. Eisenhower

I'd like to hear your comments on your experiences as a customer and business with integrity.

. . .

Available for freelance writing and guest posting on your blog: [email protected]

What the Workplace Looks Like – Post COVID19

Image by cromaconceptovisual from Pixabay

Many businesses have come to a full stop due to the Corona Virus, or rather the response to C-19 from governments across the world putting entire countries on lockdown.

What does a post Covid workplace look like?

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor, 21.0 million are unemployed in America right now. The unemployment rate and the number of unemployed persons are up by 9.8 percentage points and 15.2 million, respectively, since February 2020.

Employers are taking a step back, scratching their heads and trying to figure out what hiring strategies look like, and how workplace organization will accommodate social distancing.

Remote Workflows Increase Employer Value

You may have noticed that businesses you work for or are a customer of have started partially staffing offices again. To the extent this will continue depends on the spread of the corona virus, death counts, and potential vaccines.

Many workplaces, especially in the tech sector, already offered remote work options. When I provided IT support for Facebook's servers, Facebook had us working partially remote.

This added many advantages being able to multitask household chores like doing laundry while still monitoring dips and spikes in the flux of Facebook's site stability.

Employers adapting to C-19 by offering remote work options will attract some of the best talent from literally anywhere in the world.

This increases job satisfaction as well if location is no longer the make or break factor in accepting a job. How many times have people moved away from friends and family just to land a 'good' job?
Countless.

What happens when your commute time is increased 5 times as much driving to and from work? Definitely doesn't make you appreciate working somewhere more.

I've known folks who commuted literally from other cities to work everyday. And not outlier suburbs but literal whole other cities hours away.

Working remote offers savings in gas money, babysitting money for parents, and expands the talent pool employers can select from.

Productivity Hacks & Employee Behavior Drives

If the new future post covid19 involves more remote work, employers will need to develop new productivity hacks. This includes the necessity of increasing engagement among employees.

When I worked remote for another IT company that offered tech support for colleges we had group chats where we could share comments together on more than just the job.

The social aspect helped relieve the monotony of working only by yourself at home without physical socialization.

Socializing is important. Research by Oxford University's Saïd Business School, in collaboration with British multinational telecoms firm BT, has found a conclusive link between happiness and productivity:

The happier employees are the more productive they are.

Autonomy and trust will need to be increased in order for even a partially remote workforce to be productive.This means, individually, employees have to find out their specific behavior drives.

This is likened to the aspiring college student - if you went to college one of the things you had to figure out, consciously or by habit, is how you learned the best.

Are you a visual learner? Audio learner? Did taking notes by computer lessen how much you retained versus shorthand notes that are hand written in a notebook?

One of my biggest challenges going to the University of Texas was discovering how I learned the best. It was a Rubik's cube.

Spanish grammar was a particular roadblock for me. Through trial and error I discovered that I learned best by immersing myself in Spanish Netflix shows, Spanish radio stations, and attending Spanish speaking meetup groups - in addition to the standard flipping of index cards for vocab and grammar memorization.

Employees will need to find new routines if working remote, that helps them stay focused and productive. Management can take the lead helping this process by increasing engagement and feedback activities.

The End of Chats by the Water Cooler Era?

Side chatter may be reduced if people aren’t physically at the job place. No more random stops by your friends desk on the way to your lunch or the bathroom.

No more chats by the water cooler

While to some this sounds like a good option it’s good only in the out dated IBM of the 60s work model of dress codes, strict workplace protocols that kill creativity and innovation.

This antiquated notion that the more alike and the same everyone was the easier it is to control them and increase their output has been proven wrong by numerous studies (read my blog on intrinsic motivation).

Some of the best ideas that created billions of dollars in revenue came from chats at the water cooler, as well as side projects that were left up to individual employees to develop to their own liking versus strict company standards.

Gmail itself was invented by an engineer during Google's famous 20% days.

"We encourage our employees, in addition to their regular projects, to spend 20% of their time working on what they think will most benefit Google,"

as Business Insider quoted Google saying.

Paul Buchheit, the creator of Gmail, created the first version of Gmail in one day, reusing the code from Google Groups. The project was known by the code name Caribou, a reference to a Dilbert comic strip about Project Caribou.

The point is, if remote work is going to become the norm, management will need to adopt more flexible strategies from leadership to keep folks motivated to not just do the minimal but to exceed expectations.

Companies will be at an advantage to be inclusive of free range creative brainstorming moments where staff can socialize, share experiences and create mini think tanks.

What other ways do you see the workplace changing due to COVID19? Comment your thoughts below!

. . .

Available for freelance writing and guest posting on your blog: [email protected]

The Power of Tribes

Credit: Joel Mott

We live in challenging times right now. Police brutality has led to business closures from storefronts near protest marches, COVID19 panic buying has led to food and toilet paper shortages and many college graduates, like myself, were stripped of the gift that walking across college stages in grad regalia gives our hearts and souls.

Would be memories never created due to the bizarre pausing of normal life, as we all wait, breathless, for the next thing to happen, hoping paradoxically for things to return to normal.

Business right now is also juxtaposed with innovation opportunities but strained to maintain existing product lines above margin.

Steve Jobs' iconic slogan for Apple, "Think Different," really applies to all verticals still attempting to run a company in these challenging times.

How to Challenge the Status Quo Correctly

Companies that defeat the status quo often succeed where many fail. Whenever the state of affairs is changing, it gives one a chance to be remarkable.

However, many grains of sand make up a beach. Microinfluencers are forgotten by heads of marketing as they push out more cold audience targeted ads.

When you challenge the status quo and can follow through with incredible products or services so unlike what's already out there you start to build a cult following & the story of your business changes.

This following is what makes the difference when you actually are

"Thinking Different."

Quality always beats out quantity. A highly engaged group of followers will recruit more people to join your tribe. They'll take the lead creating micro leaders to step up to the plate and push the envelope.

Nature Abhors A Vacuum

The problem is, there is such a large amount of people that have convinced themselves that it's best to do nothing. That's part of the reason why we see Black Lives Matter protests striking a chord globally. The sleeping masses have woken up and see doing nothing isn't enough now.

To build a business, you need to build a brand. To build a brand you need to build a following. To build a following you need to think differently than the other millions of brands out there saying,

"Buy my stuff, buy my stuff."

Nature abhors a vacuum. A vacuum exists when many who think alike, share pain points your product or service can solve but see no leadership to guide them forward.

Leaders find out how to enter these vacuums and generate momentum. They create the ripple effects the world feels later, after critical mass is reached.

This type of movement generates another type of momentum: the speed of shared trust, the pace of belonging, the transformation of individuals into a tribe.

Be Congruent Inside & Out

Distinguishing your customers from other brands and their clients takes some work. You need to develop your own rituals unique to your company's vision.

Don't be afraid to be a little eccentric. As long as it isn't forced. Jobs was probably very socially awkward but with a genius for aesthetic design.

The funkiness of having all MacBooks after a certain period, come with Garageband, a program to create music, really helped solidify Apple's tribe from competitors.

When you're feeling stuck, think about rituals you enjoy. Contemplate how to integrate these with your tribe. What are things you enjoy, hobbies-wise?

Take a moment to see if you can repurpose some of these activities into a ritual for your company. You may see there are areas you can still rise to challenge the status quo and become remarkable.

. . .

Available for freelance writing and guest posting on your blog: [email protected]

Where Reverse Engineering Fails & Stories Win

Credit: Math

Just like a good cup of coffee, feeling like you are beating the competition in your business's market is a feeling you want to savor. But what are you competing against?

The typical response is binary. Apple competes against Microsoft. General Motors competes against Toyota. Netflix competes against Hulu.

However, when customers are using your product or service to solve a pain point they are doing so to satisfy a complex set of emotions, moods and attitudes.

There are times when a customer may decide to purchase from you because they want to meet a goal. The steps towards reaching this goal have sub-steps that have to be achieved before reaching the purchase point.

The 3D Sphere Model of Competition

Credit: jgvdthree

Just the belief that things can get better is a foundation for moving forward. If consumers don't believe that anything can improve it will be a lot harder of a sell. How does what you sell help your clients make progress in their lives?

The way someone makes progress towards completing a goal is a path that offers many moments for you to solve their pain points. If you have an Ecommerce store selling coffee it would make sense to sell coffee mugs as well right?

Amazon's suggestions of similar products customer bought after buying what you're purchasing is responsible for millions of dollars in sales.

But the only way you will be able to even get to this point is if you understand what is competing with your products. Think beyond a linear timeline. Make it more like a 3 dimensional sphere that intersects with other spheres.

If You Were Selling Coffee...

If I was selling coffee, the competition you may think is other coffee brands, and tea. However, just like last Tuesday's blog mentions another source of competition is not buying anything at all.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, talking about the competition Netflix faces said:

“Really we compete with video games. We compete with drinking a bottle of wine. That’s a particularly tough one! We compete with other video networks. Playing board games.”

Thinking outside the box of typical market research on the competition, you'll want to ask, "What do people do instead of drinking coffee?"

Crazy as it seems there are folks who use cold showers to wake up in the morning, or buy really bright lights to turn on in the morning. Workers who work the night shift have their own unique sets of alternatives to coffee which can only last so long before a tolerance is built up.

Energy drinks, Yerba matte, lemon juice and even just water are other sources of competition to coffee. Cigarettes are a replacement for coffee to stimulate the user into being more awake as well as physical exercise.

Using the sphere model of where competition exists for your product, we can see it's more than tea but also yoga mats and stationary bicycles. What circumstances are people in when they seek coffee?

Students, office workers, teachers, entrepreneurs and many more use coffee to start their day. It's a popular drink. What aren't people saying about coffee?

Power of Micro Targeting

Answering these type of questions helps you niche down to a specific market you can micro target and develop a tribe of enthusiastic buyers that will take your company to the next level.

Going with our example of coffee as a sample product you would be selling, we can definitely sub niche down to different categories like:

Social coffee drinkers - they only drink coffee in a coffee shop with friends

Daily coffee drinkers - there are subcategories here as well, the instant coffee drinkers, the pre-ground coffee drinkers, and the whole bean grinders that consider themselves coffee aficionados.

Intermittent coffee drinkers - switching between chai teas, coffee and green teas this group is constantly experimenting with a variety of caffeinated beverages.

How you speak to each member of these groups (which can be subdivided further) will be different.

The marketing messages for an instant coffee drinkers won't be the same as a coffee aficionado who might only use an Aeropress and burr grinder (this is me - I love making some of the best coffee ever created).

The experiences that each group has inside of specific circumstances will decide how you present your product. Finding out that exercise is a competitor for drinking coffee may make you want to pivot into finding ways to combine both.

Reverse Engineering Vs Story Model

There are certain brands who will never have direct competition because of the immersive experience buying their product creates for customers. Trying to reverse engineer an existing business's model can only go so far.

Creating your own story that is filled with rich details solving multiple pain points in the customer's journey is how you stand out from the competition. The truth is most companies don't go to this level of detail.

Crafting unique rituals specific to your consumer's demographics, and circumstances surrounding their decision to buy is going to put you leagues ahead in your progress towards becoming the best version of what your business is capable of.

. . .

Available for freelance writing and guest posting on your blog: [email protected]

How To Measure Better Company Metrics

startup blog, startup blog, startup blog

Credit:Luke Chesser

It is easy to get caught up in measuring metrics at a company as a way to gauge success but the data is often not organized in a manner that allows a business to consistently forecast which tactics will be successful.

When you start up a new business, it's exciting to have data that you can parse to see which split test is successful, whether this is in advertising creatives, ad copy or product designs.

But, it's often taken for granted just how complex and layered this process is because it isn't just about delivering a satisfying product but a complete experience that makes buying from your company stand out from the competition.

Distinguishing Your Company From Others

Even the limitations of your product or service can be used as part of the unique selling mechanism. Take for example Twitter's 280 characters limit for tweets & calling a post a "tweet." (See last week's blog on the war between Trump and Twitter)

There are so many levels of a pain point your product or service solves, that it takes a very nuanced approach to address the gap filled. This means that just basing definitions of success on quantitative data will miss the elephant in the room, the customer's:

Credit: Sarah Kilian

Why a person buys your product or service is not always something so granular that it can be put on a spread sheet. This why can change at different times of the day, year or with a set of personal experiences of infinite variety.

Facebook's Metrics Fail to Measure Actual Data

When I worked at Facebook in the ads department we had scores that rated us on how effective we were at our jobs. The number one score was Customer Sat, for Customer satisfaction. The C-Sat scores determined the stability of vendor contractors that staffed for Facebook as well.

However, there was a huge hole in universally rating everyone, for every type of customer, based on one, very black and white metric. The amount of money a person had to spend on ads often was a big trigger on whether or not they were satisfied with the support from the ads department.

If you were too broke to spend enough money to both A/B test and retarget (or even understood what retargeting is) then it didn't matter how many help center articles you read --you'd be unhappy. It wasn't an accurate measure of job performance.

We didn't have conversations with management on understanding why customers chose Facebook over other social media platforms to advertise on.Or how Facebook products or services helped make progress in people's lives & which circumstances they were trying to make progress in.

How to Discover Multileveled Pain Points

Many organizations completely miss defining what the real reason is that customers hire them, and easily fall into the common trap of a one-size-fits-all solution that never solves the problem.

Diving deeper than the surface level metrics opens up new possibilities for growth hacking and innovating company structure, both B2B and B2C.

Taking the time to investigate a customer's multileveled why for consuming your business's offering helps uncover the real reason they buy. Before Volvo messed up their brand image, people didn't buy Volvos to get from A to B or for a flashy look. They bought Volvos to feel safe.

The Secret to True Innovation

One thing you'll discover when going beyond quantitative metrics is the reason why your customer does not purchase. This is often an even more important area to focus on.

If there isn't a product or service that fits a customer's needs, they'll choose not to buy anything rather than settle for a less-than-perfect solution.

Customizing a product or service to fill this need is where many entrepreneurs have made billions of dollars. If you've looked at a niche and felt like you don't have any room to compete because it's over saturated that's a big sign that you probably haven't defined your client avatar's Why well enough.

It's a whole range of experiences that create the need that you're solving. This goes far beyond the basic demographic information of age, gender, location and interests.

When you captivate the story of every day consumers in that split second of struggling to move forward and being stopped by not having what they need - this is the real gold.

Workarounds Offer Insight Into Product Development

Finding out what things your customer base is substituting for what they really want is another opportunity to growth hack. If they have a work around that's pretty "meh" because what they want isn't available you can become very successful by solving that trade off.

Start paying closer attention to the workarounds you use in your own life to get things done, digitally and physically. Being both the consumer and the entrepreneur at the same time can yield new insights because of the way you can think outside the box than just quietly suffering wishing for something better.

Take note of both your own circumstances, and social-emotional depths when faced with something you can't solve perfectly. Observe other people's buying habits and workarounds and discover if consumers are repurposing something it isn't intended for.

This will signal a new gap your product or service can fill. It's a story that mere metrics won't tell you about. This type of market research reveals the nature of pain points in a way that offers you a chance to stand out in solving them.

. . .

Available for freelance writing and guest posting on your blog: [email protected]

How Entrepreneurs Go From Good to Great

Credit:NeONBRAND

As an entrepreneur you are a risk taker by virtue of your chosen profession: to be a leader instead of a follower takes courage. But how good do you have to be to succeed? How is success defined in your professional and personal life?

My last blog, COVID Economic Recovery Solutions, discussed the benefits of investing in employees, and seeing the return of professional development in productivity, profits, and increased word of mouth marketing.

In the same way you may invest in your staff, you can also invest in your company's other assets.

Don't Settle for Good Enough Go for Great

We walk a fine line between "just good enough" and "great." To the average suburbanite, just being able to pay bills without a boss breathing down your neck is a huge success.

But the line between good and great, while being thin, is what separates the quitters from the Elon Musks and Steve Jobs of the world. Entrepreneurs benefit from a daily check in and brainstorm sesh on how to make what's good even greater.

You will feel the difference, those few extra hours here and there add up to the bling, the shine, the razzle dazzle of a clean mean business machine. Your customers will feel the difference too when you put in the energy to fine tune and improve what's "just good enough" into something truly excellent.

Drive & Dedication

It feels good to solve a problem - this is at the heart of 99% of all marketing messages. When you've gone through the rigmarole of questioning how to fix something until that eureka moment - it's satisfying to arrive.

But don't rest on your laurels. The allure of complacency is strong and keeps you at mediocre instead of embracing your brilliance. You have to cultivate the inner engine to improve. It has to be an attitude. A mantra.

Once you create the habit of improving, you can't help but get better. This is across the board, personal, romantic, business, family, social life, hobbies, sports - attitude is gratitude.

What I mean is, you'll thank yourself for creating the habit of dedication to improvement. It's a new routine that once developed will help you reach the next level of your potential.

Self Sustaining Networks & Teamwork

There are plenty of entrepreneurs who can wear 10 hats and play multiple instruments. But to be truly successful as an entrepreneur, this means building a strong network. Creating a team that fills the gaps in your own competence is part of what crosses from 'just good enough' to something great.

I chose to use the word sustainable with a specific intention: The personal and professional networks built must be mutual, reciprocal and headed towards a destination that is beneficial.

If only one business is benefiting, see where you can help the other business benefit even more. This goodwill will not go unnoticed. It's all about who you know right? You may catch the eye of an affiliated interest that yields even greater return.

At the very least, you've increased loyalty to your brand and secured a better professional network.

The Self Efficacy Question

Self-efficacy is, in a nutshell, increasing your abilities by believing that you can increase your abilities. And of course taking action to increase them.

It's shown remarkable results in test scores in children in Kansas City, Missouri, and strengthening people's beliefs that they have what it takes to succeed produced even better results in college students at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee.

Student underachievement brought about by low academic motivation is a major factor contributing to school dropout levels according to the Department of Teacher Education and Higher Education at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Beyond Social Cognitive Theory in an academic setting, self-efficacy has huge potential to help businesses improve. 7 League Boot leaping over obstacles with emotional resilience is achieved by believing that you can overcome these obstacles.

The consistency and commitment to keep on trucking, and examine your methods for achieving success along the way is the key to making that success a reality.

Live, Breath, Sleep the Mindset of a Champion

Whether you're fighting cancer, winning an olympic gold metal, or mastering the art of public speaking - the mindset that you have frames your ability to perform at low or at peak levels.

To even consider quitting a day job requires a whole shift of mindset. But let's take that one step further.

When you believe your company will succeed, in addition to making the efforts to ensure it will, the mindset of a champion means that that needed grit to not only survive but to thrive is present.

Having the mindset of a champion doesn't mean you ignore the less-than-great realities of a situation or sugar coat the gaps in your business.

It means you don't hesitate to face these head on, and do what it takes to succeed. With of course, no moral ambiguity. Doing the right thing, for your business, only improves who you are and the quality of customers you attract.

I've mentioned this before, but one of the defining moments of my life was when my childhood mentor drove me to a homeless shelter when I was kicked out of my mother's house.

He let me know that while he doesn't support this happening, I also needed a wake up call and realize that even if I didn't like my step father, I had to do what it takes to survive with a roof over my head.

Hows that for a gut check?

I didn't have the mindset of a champion then. But 3 days ago I graduated the University of Texas at Austin, having gained acceptance into UT with a recommendation letter from the president of Austin Community College.

It was a hard struggle but once my mindset changed from victimhood to proactive reluctant hero - life aligned to produce the results I wanted.

The same is true for entrepreneurship.

What separates us from the 9-5ers is our ability to innovate, think outside the box, create solutions, and have an unshakable belief in ourselves, our brand and the goals we set out to achieve.

This is the mindset of a champion.

. . .
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5 Steps On How To Overcome Sales Objections

Every business has to overcome sales objections, spoken and unspoken, to grow and prosper.

Whether your company is B2C or B2B, the sales process of client acquisition will always involve initial objections before purchase.

There are certain tactics that work across the board, in most verticals, so today we'll go over how to overcome sales objections to get the sale.

Anticipate Objections

It sounds simple, and isn't impossible to do, yet it isn't always common to hear a company be the first to say your objections. It's incredible effective when you do this, saying something like:

"I know you're probably thinking, this is way too expensive, but honestly can you put a price on happiness?"

By calling attention to a topic that many customers want to avoid, which is their reason to object to buying, you start to overcome objections before they happen.

Anticipating objections means taking the initiative, and calling out objections as you sense them. There are the standard objections, and also new ones specific to your prospect and this particular selling circumstance.

How can you sense which objections are hidden beneath the surface but aren't being aired out? By changing the nature of how you're listening to your prospect.

Always Active Listen

Many people, regardless of trying to make a sale, will listen only to wait for their turn to talk. This won't get you the sale. Listen with the intent of understanding. This builds trust with your potential client, and allows you to hear the 2nd reason behind a no.

The first reason is the surface level 'no' which doesn't have the emotional triggers that the real reason for the no has. The real objections are rooted in emotion, and association.

When truly listening to understand, there is more data to draw from. You start to get the feel for what isn't being said, as well as what is being said.

This creates an opportunity to anticipate their objections and have a solution ready to go in your response.

Respond

Your response should validate the type of concern that the prospect has, even if it’s that your competitor offers a better deal.

Even if it’s the latter by using curiosity, not defensiveness, you’ll be able to fully explore what is that the prospect likes better about the competition.

Many times it’s just a matter of sticking with what they already know and not wanting to risk an unknown.

In other cases, by asking questions with a true active listening approach, you’ll find that the customer isn’t as sure about their decision to go with the competitor.

You’ll unearth new pain points about the business they currently use, and can position your reply to show your company
connects those gaps.

And if it doesn’t, you’ll also be in a great position to use this as market research and tweak your own business model to offer what your competitors don’t offer but your customers / their customers want.

This is a high leverage position to be in.

With my clients, who are tired of getting Facebook ads disapproved without a solid answer from Facebook as to what part of their ad triggered the disapproval - I offer something no other competitor can offer:

Insight into why Facebook makes certain decisions, and the exact words, copy, in ads and landing pages, that caused the ad to get flagged as well as what ad copy would be approved instead.

This enables me to acknowledge gaps in the market, identify objections, and overcome them ahead of time by offering a solution Facebook doesn't offer - a clear explanation of what caused an ad to be disapproved and guidance on getting it approved.

(Does your agency need a FB Policy Expert? Schedule a free discovery call here)

Confirm - Check for Understanding

After discussing their objections, and how your company overcomes them, touch base to make sure you’re on the same page.

In schools, this is called a “Check for understanding” where a teacher double checks the class understands the material thus far, before moving on to new topics.

This is very similar, you’re the teacher, with the secret knowledge, and your prospect is the student, yearning to learn, even if they don’t know what is possible to learn.

Look for the confirmation, by paraphrasing their objections, summarizing your response and defeating of the objections, and ask if that sounds right.

Budget concerns - If they are objecting due to you haven’t built enough value first. It means you need to build more value.

I need to talk to my husband - We’ve all heard this one, or a version of it. Make sure that you aren’t playing a game of telephone and get the decision maker (DM) on the phone, or in the meeting before going for the close.

I’m too busy right now - Emphasize the fear of missing out, either a quantity scarcity, or a special price scarcity as the price will go up after tomorrow, or for a mastermind group, there are only a few spots left approach works well.

I need to think about it - This is a question of credibility, trust, and the value that’s been built (or hasn’t been built) about the product or service.

Price

If a prospective customer says your service is too much, it’s to your advantage to know what the competition is offering.

The difference in cost can be overcome with the unique selling mechanism your company has, that’s part of the brand slogan, ideally.

“You get what you pay for, and you look like someone who appreciates a quality product.”

This approach shifts from “It’s too expensive” to “Am I really giving myself the [royal] treatment I deserve?”

Conclusion - Know Your S#%t

Ultimately the better you know a product the better you can sell it.

The real secret is not only knowing your product, but also being well versed in:

▶ Your product/service's unique selling mechanism
▶ The market your business is in
▶ Your competition

The more you can speak on why your product or service specifically stands out - the more this confidence and expertise effortlessly translates to the customer who will mirror your energy.

If you’ve done the research and speak confidently based on knowledge, statistics, and results this will motivate your prospects to buy from you more than anything else.

. . .
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Check out my Medium page here
Is Facebook not explaining why the disapproved an ad?
I worked at FB for years and offer FB Policy Consulting here
Available for freelance writing and guest posting on your blog: [email protected]

Secret Dreams

Running a business is a stressful job if your heart isn't into it. When you're driven by a sense of a calling, a passion, and as previous blogs like "Uh Oh Management Needs A New Business Plan" have mentioned, armed with an intrinsic motivation much of this can transform into a labor of love.

But what of the paths not yet taken but dreamed about? Those nights entrepreneurs lie awake, thinking of the next million dollar invention or business model are full of the promise of what's to come.

The nights of enigma, mystery, and that sense of a far away destiny calling you. It is as if there is a party on the other side of the horizon line, just out of view, that you've been invited to, but can't find the address.

It was a feeling like this that introduced me to entrepreneurship in the form of blogging 4 years ago in April 2016. It was taking action on this feeling - refusing to miss another beyond-the-horizon opportunity - that let me quit my day job. It is the nature of being proactive that actions product results.

Instead of acting 'normal' and just chalking up my late night ideas as fantasy or 'unrealistic' I pursued my passion. Taking little steps one at a time, starting companies on the side while I worked at Facebook.

Getting proof of concept that there was a market for my services, a demand that exceeded the supply and thus the side hustle became the main hustle.

That's not all though. We want to make it to the top with our goals and ambition. For someone truly motivated I feel like there are not limits to how high your energy and focus can take you. As Lil Wayne raps, "No ceilings."

In the time I've spent working as a full time entrepreneur I realized there are secret dreams I have yet to act on. Sometimes it's out of nervousness that I'm not capable of achieving them. Other times the to-do list takes over and I forget about the never-talked-about dreams a part of me is still nurturing.

Some of it are businesses and iPhone apps I want to start but haven't been brave enough yet to seek venture capital for. And there are secret dreams I have for my own human potential. Many of these secret dreams surprise my family and myself when I shared one last week for the first time.

I want to be a classical pianist, and perform classical piano pieces in concert halls by Bach, Mozart, Chopin, and Ludovico Einaudi. There's no background that justifies this - I didn't have piano lessons as a child or study it in college. I play some blues piano improv, but I've never been good enough to consider myself "a pianist."

Yet - this is something in my heart that I really want to pursue. I'm considering taking piano lessons now, to make this secret dream a reality, once the world opens back up for regular business after COVID shutdowns. I had the fortune to see Ludovico live at the Bass Concert Hall in Austin, Texas last year, and he was incredible.

I suddenly realized, after I took the leap of quitting my day job, and following my instinct to become a business owner, now that this was possible, I could pursue another secret dream: sailing. Again, there is no context that makes any sense at all. My family hasn't been big on boats, I didn't grow up with any experience on boats that was memorable.

Well there was one moment, as a child, I heard my father say that one day he hoped to get a sailboat. Except, he invested poorly into his life, and business. Ended up old and broke, never pursuing any of his dreams. I guess I took that lesson to heart: how not to be.

I joined a sailing club, befriended a few skippers, and ended up going sailing on $100,000 dollar yachts. The waters glistening with beauty, the wind on my face, as a new friend let me steer his Beneteau Oceanis 38 across the lake. I marveled at how my secret dream, while not yet achieved of owning and sailing a yacht, was at least made more real now. Someday this will be my yacht, I'll let my friend steer.

Another ah ha moment came in a flash, as I found myself thinking about music. I've never seriously pursued learning how to make electronica music. I've dabbled here and there with a few experimental tracks like this one.

But, overall, I didn't take this seriously. In a sort of heart-to-heart moment, before I fell asleep a couple nights ago, I came to terms with the fact that this was something I never thought I would be capable of doing but have a very real interest in learning.

Chillstep in particular, with sampling beautiful singers, on a broad spectrum of neat soundscapes, complete with clips from movies relevant to the mood of the track - this is a dream I've denied myself the chance to see if I can make it happen.

I don't know when I will (perhaps if I meet DeadMau5 at a party & he's cool with sharing a few tips) but...I'm honest with myself that this isn't bullshit. It's a legit passion and interest I just haven't nurtured a whole lot. Another path yet to be taken, waiting, on the other edge of the horizon.

Any one of these secret dreams, has a startup idea behind it. It's part of what guarantees success - if you are genuinely interested, beyond just the money, in making something happen, that kind of motivation is unparalleled. I encourage you to look inside, and ask yourself,

"What are my secret dreams?"

Think about what you may have written off as unrealistic, or just not for you. And revisit these dreams. You just may discover that million dollar idea. Or at the very least, create a new route, for a path not yet taken, that leads to a good work-life-balance and increased personal happiness.

. . .
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5 Steps for Designing a Successful Chatbot Flow

Chatbot marketing is one of the newest trends to gain a foothold in the marketing world and there's a reason why: chatbots work.

When you can automate basic questions that most customers always ask, it saves time and money. If you're paying someone to design a chatbot, you'll want to direct them to create a flow that works for your website.

Or perhaps you're creating the chatbot yourself, either way, here is a quick tip on chatbot design:

Option 1 - The Opt In

If someone sees your ads, lands on your website and your messenger bot pops up, the first step is to give them 3 options for what action you want to funnel them to.

Don't make it open give them a path to take. If they are just browsing your chatbot can show a few resources your website offers and encourage them to opt in to your email list to get a lead magnet.

Option 2 - Learn More

The 2nd option could be "I'd like to learn more about your products, or services" and from there you send this potential customer to another sequence that offers them a chance to check out your latest products and services.

Option 3 - Book A Call

The 3rd one is perhaps they are looking for a case study or something specific from one of your services. And get them to book a call with your sales agent, or opt in for an email list, or provide their phone number to get updates.

4. Text Opt In Copy That Converts

"John?"

First name question mark? Is a great way to get people to respond if they opted in to your text alerts from your chatbot.

You can have a simple intro, after they reply to the first name question mark text of:

"Hey this is Thomas from [company name's] and wanted to see if you have any other questions."

And then your sales agents can close them on the phone.

5. Chatbot Flow

Once your potential customer has opted in, you want to have value-based content that solves their problems. When your content delivery includes value packed nuggets without any heavy sales pitches but gentle reminders of your services or products along the way it's a great way to increase conversions.

By providing value first, you gain more trust, and market authority that will boost conversions when your services are interwoven into the educational content they get for free.

You want to be careful with text messages because people will get annoyed if you send them too many texts. Web based alerts you can do more often without risking burn out.
. . .
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I’m Not for Everyone Here’s Why…

Do we trust people we like with less experience more than we trust people we don't like with more experience?

Yes and the reason comes from caveman times. If we felt that someone was going to be able to stick with the herd and provide consistently they were always the safer choice.

Times have changed though, and many build their entire careers from being immune to social niceties. Whether it's Gordon Ramsay or Gary V these public figures have disregarded wanting to be liked. Or at least trying to sugar coat their social interaction skills and language.

There is a lot to be said for the walk-away feeling one gets after shopping at a store. Whether this is an online marketplace, or a retail establishment, we tend to remember the last thing more than the first thing.

On the opposite end, there are people who will say anything to get you to like them. Some have personalities that cannot stand to feel the disapproval of others. Crippling social shyness aside, there is a magnified effect of personal dishonesty that goes hand in hand with trying to please everyone.

How can a business please everyone, and still remain true to the core values that founded it? There are a few businesses that deliberately take confrontational stances on an issue to gain media attention and customers. The crazy thing is it works. (Look at whose president right now).

However, there's something to be said about caring for what kind of CX your company provides and the residual income that is purely from testimonials being shared. I think there is a balance between kowtowing to every little thing your client base needs and drawing the lines for ethical behavior.

One of my clients asked me to do work on making sure their client, who was running political ads on Facebook, was Facebook policy compliant.

I Had to Take a Step Back

There are some crazy people out there right now that want to encourage unsafe behavior, and many are political. I had to do a gut check and ask myself,

"Can I live with myself, if my FB Policy Analysis helped a candidate get elected who endangered the lives of others?"

It wasn't easy. Times are hard, business is slow, and you take money from the money tree when you can grab it.

I gave my client an ultimatum and said that I would need to review the goals of their political ads client and end game before I could say yes.

I wasn't going to walk into this with blind faith or just wanting to make a profit.

What I stand for, and the ripple effect of my business decisions matter.

I would rather starve than steal.

But that's just me. If I was having to feed a bunch of mouths at home, with mounting bills and little options, would I have chosen differently? I can't say as that's not the reality.

The reality is that I have to trust the people I work with to do business (and their clients) otherwise I won't sleep easy. In the last blog we discussed the power of showing up and this counts for showing up for what your business stands for.

Profit Over Principles

This also made me realize that there are lot of businesses that don't factor ethics into their business decisions. Walmart has dumped tons of toxic waste into Texas tributaries and was almost sued by the EPA before they stopped.

There are plenty more examples of behavior like this that puts profits over principles. I think I learned something about myself through this last experience: I'm not for everyone.

I'm fine with that.

As an Entrepreneur I Get to Choose Who I Do Business With

Abdicating that choice because I was being lazy, or too eager doesn't seem fair to the many people who don't get to choose who they work with. It also doesn't do justice to the hard work I had to put in to become a startup founder who has options I didn't have in my 9-5er past life.

What experiences have you had that made you question your business choices?

Comment below:

If you want to hire me to freelance write for your blog email: [email protected]. Need FB Policy help? Book a time on my calendar here.

Startups: Power of Showing Up

So you've got this great idea - you want to start a business. Or launch a new product, or service for your current start up business. The stars seem to align, the universe is on your side and you're so excited. Then what happens?

It's like having a wonderful dream (Nice Dream) and then you wake up and can't remember the details - but the beauty of that moment is on the tip of your tongue.

What happened?

The fact is consistency works like magic to reach milestones, achieve goals in the short term and the long term and yet it's like there's this ingrained flaw in entrepreneurs and startup founders to avoid commitment. Perhaps we fear that getting too routine is a soul-killing spell reminiscent of the cubicle-laden 9-5 jobs we barely escaped from.

And Yet...

Every startup needs a certain amount of routine tasks to reach critical mass - the tipping point where we get investors, or consumers discover the beauty of our creation and rush to the aisles (or one-click Amazon buttons). Part of what's amazing about starting your own business is the ability to Be Yourself (with SMART Goals).

We enter Startup life to escape the false roles and identities we have to wear to appease oppressive overlords.

Being eccentric, socializing in ways that are 'imaginative' or just having our own, sometimes nonlinear approach to reaching business solutions is something we have always wanted but were unable to articulate in the office (aka "hell with florescent lighting"). The Trail Blazers of our time were known for their ability to be themselves. Being yourself is a powerful message other people can receive, relate to, and believe in.

So is the Power of Showing Up

"There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself.It is the only true guide you will ever have,"

- Howard Thurman

We live in historical times right now: 2-3 generations in the future they’ll look back and talk about the corona virus pandemic of 2020. The startup founders I’m either friends with or business associates with are one of the most unflappable, unshaken demographic I can imagine.

We’re prepared. We already work remote. Social distancing isn’t the exception - it’s the norm.

Social skills don’t always come hand-in-hand with entrepreneurship or tech. So we’re uniquely prepared and already adapted to taking this pandemic in stride and still create new inventions, new services, new apps, new ways to help brick and mortar and other businesses pivot towards sustainability.

And yet…some of our most lofty goals are still dusty on the shelf. Just like that nice dream we had and can almost remember. It’s because we aren’t showing up. Showing up to do what needs to be done to move the needle. The power of consistency to move mountains, redesign bridges connecting the gaps between who we are and who we see ourselves becoming. I’ve got a tip for you. I’ve got a tip on showing up.

5 Magic Minutes

It’s easy to go all out, make a big promise and then get so overwhelmed we do exactly the opposite. Happens all the time working out. Building a startup is working out just using different muscles, but both rely on creating muscle memory. When we use self-management in focused in 5 minute increments, this helps to initiate a 3rd drive that connects our ambition to the image we have of ourselves. Taking action, with intense focus, for 5 minutes at a time, consistently, builds muscle memory and makes it easier to self-identify as someone who is taking action to make dreams come true.

The 3rd Drive

The power of showing up depends on the unlikely 3rd drive, beyond the drive for money, and success. It's the drive to trust ourself to achieve the impossible. Or at least achieve a modicum of progress in our path towards greater things. Stephen Covey, who wrote the timeless classic, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People had a son who was also author. Well technically son(S) who are also authors. One (also named Stephen) wrote in the book, The Speed of Trust, that there was a formula for results.

(SXE)T = R

Or in other words, Strategy times Execution multiplied by Trust = Results.

The idea is that we as founders, must trust ourselves to lead with integrity for our business practices, inspire trust in customers and business associates, and achieve a type of startup leadership that gets results in a way that inspires.

Startup Tips: The Power of Showing Up

Science Daily States when making decisions, our perception is influenced by judgments we have made in the past as a way of remaining consistent with ourselves. Consistency breeds trust, in ourselves and the trust we inspire in other people. A book published in the 60s, called Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Volume 14)studied the power of consistency on human behavior.

One of the central themes is that attitudes predict behavior and the strength of how behavior can change or improve the quality of one's life (or startup business) depend on the consistency of the behavior.

How often you show up for yourself and for your startup is up to you. Start small and go big. The power of showing up, even in just 5 minute increments, is you are creating values of the person you want to be, that runs the business you want to run. Or envision someday (soon) creating.

Showing up consistently and doing small actions that move your startup forward adds up, every minute, hour, day and month of the year. This small amount of accountability for what you are creating, is a momentum-generator.

So generate your own momentum. Show up. Startup. And keep going until you reach the horizon line.

Uh Oh Management Needs A New Business Plan

Tuesday April 14th 2020
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Management philosophy in business hasn't changed since the 1800s - yet the world has changed dramatically. The old guard will always think work is a bad thing in employees' minds. Traditional management philosophy holds that most need to be manipulated with rewards or threatened with punishments to do their job.

This simply isn't true anymore. It was never true.

When you see a sculptor so in love with their art, they lose track of time, you start to grasp what it means to work playfully. To do something for the sake of doing it.Chasing the all mighty dollar is a rather soul-less task by itself.

But putting the work in because of the world your efforts create? That's a different feeling. There's longevity in that.You can be creative, seek challenges out for the sake of just that achievement regardless of money - and still enjoy making money.

But what drives you has to be bigger.

When it is, not only does this lead to better results but it puts you on the path of truly mastering your craft.If profit is the only thing that drives you - you'll miss out on opportunities in the periphery. Thinking will be limited. You won't feel inspired.

Being inspired sparks a particular alchemy that isn't matched by robotic checking check boxes. It is what sets you apart from your previous self and those who live thru habit.

What inspires you?

A lot of old school thought is centered around the concept that bonuses alone will improve the way we perform at
work.

Despite the evidence that these type of incentives actually decrease overall productivity. It's a simple enough concept but not obvious to the casual observer: When an employee (or anyone in any role doing a task) is motivated by wanting to get the dollar attached to completing the task - we do the bare minimum. Because I mean, why bother doing more if we just want the money? If there's nothing beyond the surface get us to use inherent gifts of imagination and creativity - the boring tunnel vision creeps in.

What's rather puzzling is how much this has already been proven - coloring inside the lines only gets you so far.

As the New Patterns blog explored, entrepreneurs create innovation often by thinking outside the box. In a similar fashion, literally everyone, entrepreneur or not, has a much better chance of realizing their hidden talents by not being static, rigid, and motivated by achieving only one goal.

Back in the 60s, J.W. Atkinson, the leading psychologist on scientifically examining human motivation, did a study that demontrated when people knew there was a reward, or were attempting to avoid being punished, the quality of their work degraded. This was attributed in part to less spontaneous engagement with the activites and more of a routine nature, and habitual energy expenditures - in other words "autopilot."

However, when someone is driven by the need to explore their own talents, just to see what they are capable of (like children often do), there is a stark contrast in results. As people become more focused on the bigger picture, their field of vision expands on what's possible...both from their own abilities in addition to additional resources that a profit-only-driven person would have missed.

Interest = Competency. Wait..Wut?
So I'm going to propose an idea that may seem pretty out there. The more interested we are in a task, the more competent we become. If the task bores us our performance suffers. That's not too out there. It's pretty logical. Do you think your son, forced to wash your car against his wishes, is going to pay extra attention to getting all the smudges? But it goes deeper.

Even if we think we are giving it our all - we aren't using all of our brain's power, neurologically speaking. We've compartmentalized off just enough to get the task done. As Dr. Ryan and Deci discuss in their Self Determination Theory when you are intrinsically motivated this creates an innate tendency towards self-examination, in addition to a focus on growth and meaning. And it makes sense. If a person is genuinely interested in something, this reflects on self-image and identity. I'm the type of person who is good at math, likes Nascar and Netflix.

Right? We self-identify with the jobs we work at and it only makes sense that this is segmented into individual tasks that comprise the entirety of our work. How many times did you think about where you were at in life, working a shit job right out of high school, at a convenience store or 7-11? We reflect. The thing is, this sort of reflection happens instinctively (and often unconsciously) when we are intrinsically motivated to complete a task. It isn't a task, it isn't effort, it's part of who we are. As a result, our competency increases because we are not working we are self-expressing.

The old approach of cracking the whip, throwing up the cheese for the mouse hasn't ever worked well. No one wants to be reminded they are in a rat maze or treated that way. Being threatened with punishment just makes folks resentful - resentment doesn't improve your employees competency. Rewards aren't helping either. The regions called the “brain reward network” that light up when stimulated by the thought of rewards are rather tunnel vision in range and variety. There is an information gap between seeking to attain one item, and the self-directed learning that satisfying a curiousity generates.

You ever have a word just on the tip of your tongue but can't remember it? Meet someone at a get together and forget their name? Remember a scene from a movie but not the name of the movie? It gets a lot of attention and the urgency to satisfy this curiosity is only matched by the feeling of relief and accomplishment when we finally have that "ah ha" moment. This is like a macrocosmic application of that feeling across work forces. The problem is, very few, if any, business models in corporate hierarchy are structured to support the type of intrinsic behaviors that lead to the best results.

Uh Oh, Management Needs A New Business Plan

Regardless of the thousands of studies done on this phenomenon management in most large corporations is still based on non-working models that are proven to consistently fail. The reward/punishment system is still well in place. I've worked at Microsoft, Apple and Facebook - they all use this same system. Yes, there is more of a startup vibe - but craft beer and ping pong tables don't make up for a lack of leadership and understanding of how to extract the best work from employees at the top of their game.

The irony is that we see this in every every field - pay an artist to do a mural you'll get better results if they are doing it for a charity because they believe in the cause. The many old school hip hop heads who say that hip hop has died - they do so because (aside from stylistic preferences and autotune) the money-motivated artists lack the soul that Erykah Badu effortlessly broadcasts over thousands of heads at live concerts. Jack Harlow isn't Eminem - setting aside skill, age, connections to Dr. Dre - simply because his music doesn't have passion, or the feeling that he has to do this because it's part of who he is.

My own personal analogies aside - there is a shit ton of evidence from countless studies that demonstrate that the old management style just isn't working. A system focused on creating a personal connection to the work done, and more autonomy is definitely a step in the right direction. Rewards based on specific details regarding an employee's character, skill set and contribution are 10Xs more motivating than a generic compliment or external item. Many tech jobs are partially there with remote work, giving more trust to software engineers to get the job done in their unique way rather than a mass produced factory of cubicles (but I like putting pics up and decorating my little cubicle!).

What do you think? Share in the comments your thoughts on management.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5364176/

Power of Perception: Business & Life

Is Struggle Always Necessary?

Have you ever heard the saying "struggle leads to success" ?

There's a lot of talk about how life has to suck before it can get better. But is this a false dichotomy? That's a fancy way of saying, do we have blinders on and just aren't seeing all the options?

I agree working hard can produce results - IF you're aimed in the right direction. But is hard work always a struggle?

Labor of Love

"Labor of love" is often a term ascribed for when you ARE working hard but, you believe in your work, your steps to the big goal, the pay off, and every act that gets you closer is worth celebrating.

Is THAT a struggle?

Isn't 'struggling' just mental for how we choose to think about actions?

I mean, physical pain aside, generally, being on the grind, if you always frame it as 'a struggle' wouldn't that make it harder for you than framing it as necessary steps towards becoming that bad ass you know you already are?

We can go deep on this one.

If you do become successful but are an a$%hole to everyone, and don't have good social skills (Steve Jobs, asperger et al) - is that success?

How We Look at Ourselves
The World
Our PROCESS

All of these things...determine how hard life is, and if work is really a struggle or just a system you use to become el jefe. If there's one super power you can opt in to having, without being bit by a radioactive spider (which would make you sick in real life), it's the power of perception.

The Power of Perception

Being able to look at how we look at things is a strange gift I've had since I was fighting tooth and claw to not become my father, fighting for scraps living on the streets as a teenager. It's the one thing that led to getting accepted into the University of Texas, working at Facebook, and starting my own businesses.

It's easy to fall into a habit of if this, then that.

This is SQL terminology for how results of a search are defined by certain parameters.

YET...

IRL this means we tend to start to draw conclusions before actually looking at what's happening. Our eyes are not really seeing. We are going through a series of automated emotional habits.

However, it's mainly unconscious. And it can have draw backs when you want to innovate your company but are still coloring within the lines and not thinking outside the box. The habit-thinking of expecting the same thing despite there being different variables and inputs limits our growth, professionally and personally.

How Good Becomes Great

Taking the time to look at your business and ask the hard questions, without sugar coating is how good becomes great. The challenge with thinking bigger is we tend to self-impose mediocrity, and creating artificial ceilings that limit our flight path. These ceilings are due to the habitual way we think about potential. The definition of identity, of a company or a person, if it's habit-based, is going to suffer adapting to a changing world.

Do your self a favor, and begin to cultivate a sense for how you look at things. For how you look at how you look at things.

---------->Start Here<------------

What are habits you have on how you think of yourself or your business?

Are there conclusions you assume about people or situations?

What is a new way to think about this and rewire your process?

Think, be, explore - it's an adventure.

Not So Secret Weapon

What's the one thing that brings people together?

Common ground. Community. Shared Purpose.

In these trying times, it's easy to look for ways to cast judgy eyes onto those that are different from you. In business, there are seldom second chances to make a great impression. As a result, if there is contention, often this loses customers.

For good.

Ever been to a restaurant where a waiter was rude and dismissive? This makes an impression.

Impressions cost money.

One time I was in a restaurant with a friend, enjoying some chips and queso. Everything was going great, until one of the waitstaff started talking loudly to the bartender about their life. The things they had to brag about. The intimate personal details I was not volunteering to hear or participate in - like being locked in an elevator, with someone on their cell phone pouring out TMI stories as if no one else exists.

This experience cost that restaurant a customer (and perhaps more than one, if others also weren't keen to learn the backstage view of their waiters personal life).

While it may seem like a small loss, word of mouth alone can magnify this loss - if I were to say the name of the restaurant and other locals read it. Shoot, one place I ate at with another friend, she found a metal screw in her sandwich - hows that for customer retention practices???

Ironically, I still go to that restaurant. Why? Because the attitude and impression the waitstaff made on me before and after the 'screw-gate' incident was supportive and understanding.

A big contrast to self-absorbed life-story narrative waitstaff whose superpower is ignorance of the world around them. (Not sure who her arch-nemesis would be...Self-Awareness Girl? Kind of an anti-hero set up).

I can't solve national political debates, or bridge the divide between differing religions, beliefs, and social constructs - at least not with just one blog alone. However, we can all do our part both in business and in our personal lives to build community.

Community helps those with different view points find gaps we can bridge in eachother's skillsets by virtue of our shared membership in a tribe. That's our common ground. Whenever something goes down that requires team work - that sense of unity creates friendships, rebuilds relationships and helps others.

I was freestyling rhymes about living with intention at a local freestyle rap cypher here

What many may not realize is that finding common ground has to be a conscious decision to be effective. Well, I guess not necessarily if you are just a community-minded person. What I mean is most people have to make an effort to start finding what they have in common with other people.

I'll never forget...riding in the peach colored F-150 Ford truck my father drove and listening to him yell at other drivers. He'd insult them and make up all kinds of reasons why they weren't ANY good.

It always stuck with me because of the intense effort he made to find reasons to belittle strangers. I wondered if he knew how exhausting it was to listen to him yell insults. How exhausted this made his own life? I bring this up because I had a real epiphany when I was working at Facebook.

I'd take my breaks outside, and walk around downtown Austin. I started remembering my dad's judgements when people walked across the intersection at 6th and Congress entering coffee shops, jewelry stores, delis, comedy theaters and more. His words floated through my brain about how this woman is probably like ___ or that man is probably just___ [insert insult].

I don't know why it hit me at that moment.

I thought of how much control my dad completely let go of by doing this habitually. But I started to realize, as I heard my father's voice inside my head, that I had a NEW choice:

I could look for reasons to compliment people. I could find reasons to celebrate people.

I could choose to be positive. Being positive sometimes gets a bad rep from some who feel it's negating reality or practicing avoidance of harsh truths that need to be dealt with. But this wasn't it at all.

It is more of a choice on what to focus on. And when your attention is focused on adding details, filling in the blanks, with the intention of veneration, the intention of giving people back their humanity from these bullshit static labels we fall in the habit of accepting - this creates a new opportunity to build community.

Even if this is silently, just watching, enjoying little moments. Not creating negative imaginary backstories for why someone appears a certain way but instead creating positive, supportive opinions about people. Believing in their goodness. Believing in my own goodness. Feeling the glow of selflessly loving strangers just because I can and I choose to.

Does this relate at all to business?

To entrepreneurship?

Yes. And to enjoying life. When we pause, and look beyond trying to make money and focus on building relationships, nurturing a community, those who receive these messages respond in kind.

Humans have an innate urge to support positive socially constructive behavior.

Taking the initiative to create this within your customer's journey will not only empower you to extend the life time value of a client and build brand loyalty - you also won't feel like a shitty human being trying to manipulate others to buy from you.

Living with intention is not another millennial buzz phrase - when you start to fill in the details. What is your intention, specifically?

And in regards to which part of your life, or your business - how do you fill in the gaps for your intention? How does your intention manifest itself in each part of your life?

This is where you are the sculptor, molding the clay of creation, deciding to create a life that celebrates diversity, new ideas, the raw unpolished surface of the planet where all these little creatures live and die and share moments of joy.

We are part of this. We continue to choose which moments to nurture, to dwell in and continue to make. We choose which thoughts become our dominant narrative.

Yes, life is hard sometimes. We lose people we care about (RIP Kobe Bryant), sometimes money is tight, hospital bills pile up, impossible obstacles seem to face us - even if that obstacle is just waking up the next morning. I've been there. Some things we overcome quicker than others.

But when we focus on building a community, locally, within our business's customer journey, among fellow professionals, sharing hobbies like horse riding, golf, sailing, gaming, photography, education - these shared values, moments, and people create a beautiful caring network that is sustainable.

Money aside - this is the legacy we can build and contribute to - the networks and communities we build and are a part of that nourish each member with a sense of belonging and support.

This is the not-so-secret weapon against apathy, isolation, pain, ads that don't convert into sales, and brick walls we hit sometimes when deciding on our next move.

The people I know, friends, family, fellow entrepreneurs - all have given me great ideas and vice versa because we chose to listen to each other.

So keep listening. You may learn something new.

Are You On the Right Track?

Bonjour!

The world is changing at a rapid pace and as we enter the next year the often trivialized concept of "specifies survival" has become an intriguing concept in business.

The popularity of sustainability is indisputable.

But it's a paradox.

As many celebrities, and social movements have popularized "going green" there are often disconnects. People with "don't support the war" signs in their yard after 911, and the invasion of Iraq for their oil, still continued to buy oil guzzling SUVs.

Consumers still mindlessly buy products from companies that dump toxins in local tributaries (Walmart has had lawsuits threatened by the EPA for doing this in Texas - it isn't just 3rd world countries suffering). The motivation to actually do a little bit of research - I promise you, it's not any more time than you spend scrolling the FB newsfeed per week - is very little.

That's kind of mysterious.

The survival of the human race appears to depend on how popular an idea is, which Kardashian endorsed it to their fans (like the fires in Australia destroying an entire country ignored by the west, until more celebrities jumped on board and publicized it), and if it's convenient.

If there was some sort of complete trust in political leadership, around the world, to:

Care more about the long term survival of our species than getting re-elected
Prioritize resource preservation over doing arms races
Look at impacts of companies more than business deals subsidizing the very companies dumping toxins into our water supply

...then active citizenry wouldn't be as pivotal.

The World Grows Smaller & Bigger

Increasing access to technology and education are providing greater opportunities in developing countries and contribute to the expansion of the middle class as well. India is rapidly becoming more of an industrialized nation than ever before. New issues such as pollution are going to come to the forefront with this progress as well.

Per to the World Economic Forum, the world has fewer people living on less than $1.25/day by one-half. We are on the path to meeting the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) 2010 forecast that the global middle class may double by 2020 and triple by 2030.

Many say this is a result of urbanization, the increased access to education (no doubt increased by access to the internet as well), tech and growth expansion opportunities.

So while Walt Disney may have banned plastic straws from its theme parks we the people have a ways to go for changing our buying habits. It is from within society that lasting change happens.

Change starts with us.

For most people it's incredibly difficult to analyze their own buying behavior in relation to large changes in the world. We have 2 contradicting mindsets:

1. I don't matter, I can't make that big of a difference by myself

2. Everyone is looking at me, I have to be careful not to embarrass myself

The latter is called the spotlight effect - the idea that more people are staring at us than actually are (as the mass self-absorbed public rarely stares long at each other before power walking on).

The majority of consumers resist change to habits & established behaviors. The comfort of ignorance, the benefits and luxuries of not taking responsibility for anything we do with our money is the luring siren call of a real zombie nation.

Unthinking, feeding, breeding in large comfortable chairs like Wall-E's cast of characters or Jabba the Hutt (By the way Mandelorian is a great series..no Disney did not pay for that name drop)...we march on into oblivion. But wait. There's more. Hope.

Entrepreneurship+Sustainability = Opportunity

Entrepreneurs have discovered the benefit of sustainability as a business model due to it's popularity in pop culture. New ideas for new products that are eco-friendly pour out in the thousands every day.

Jason's Deli has little cards on the table talking about their sustainability work, more notices about where and how GMOs are used are no longer hidden but front and center.

Stating that your vegetables are organically grown not GMO isn't just an About section; it's a marketing tool and brand development asset.

I take heart in these type of changes. It's more than a business opportunity: being conscious of how what we do affects the world and being motivated to act on this knowledge helps save the world.

Saving the World

More than a general hippie euphemistic statement - but actually implement sustainable systems for land, air, and water and solar - it's simply incredible what is available now.

But the turning point, before we reach another critical mass for resource deprivation, deforestation, and water scarcity is going to come from a value shift in buying habits.

The 3 seconds it takes to make a buying decision based on the business practices in relation to resource-management is going to be what really helps us as a species survive.

These little decisions multiplied by the billions add up.

Every choice you as a person make - adds up. You are not alone. You are part of something greater.

Consumers are smart. Startup founders can make use of the growing consensus that companies should do more than tout 'sustainable' as an empty slogan. People are now expecting facts and data to back up a business's sustainability claims. The fluff just isn't enough anymore.

I take hope from this.

It's new opportunities to do a new kind of business: one led by less selfish money acquisition and more global heart-conscious decision-making skills. Entrepreneurs have can build partnerships with environmental organizations, 501c3 nonprofits and sustainability research groups to verify the sustainability claims of a product, service or company.

I like this. I like this a lot.

My thoughts are that once it becomes a core value, inherent as 'do no harm' and 'try to not be a douche bag if you can help it' that we'll see values and companies align easier and in greater quantities. Yes, fossil fuels will fight this every step of the way until they start building better cars with less of a carbon footprint.

While there may be a dark before the dawn, the way things are trending is that we, as a global consciousness are continuing to evolve. I tip my cap to you, sip my Texas Pecan Coffee, and wish you a good day!

New Solution to Facebook Ad Policy Violations

New Solution to Facebook Ad Policy Violations

LTV Isn't Accidental

Productivity Hacks & Employee Behavior Drives

Facebook's Metrics Fail to Measure Actual Data

Secret Dreams

Option 1 - The Opt In

Option 2 - Learn More

Option 3 - Book A Call

4. Text Opt In Copy That Converts

5. Chatbot Flow

I Had to Take a Step Back

Profit Over Principles This also made me realize that there are lot of businesses that don't factor ethics into their business decisions. Walmart has dumped tons of toxic waste into Texas tributaries and was almost sued by the EPA before they stopped.

What happened?

And Yet...

So is the Power of Showing Up

The 3rd Drive

Startup Tips: The Power of Showing Up

Profit Over Principles

This also made me realize that there are lot of businesses that don't factor ethics into their business decisions. Walmart has dumped tons of toxic waste into Texas tributaries and was almost sued by the EPA before they stopped.