About 5 years ago i was reading a book by a well known author and came across a word that I didn’t know the meaning of. It was such an important word and so central to the writing that I had to stop and go and find out what the word really meant. The word was Maven and Malcolm Gladwell, in his book the tipping point uses it as a descriptor of someone who has an unusually detailed understanding of a particular subject. Mavens are relatively uncommon but well worth seeking out as they are the ones that are either early adopters or trend formers. They are not people who collect other people’s information and present it as their own but real visionaries.
If you are in business, running an organisation or in a position of influence my strong advice is to seek out Mavens.
Now about the book – it is all about people and events that start changes a bit like viruses. It is one of my top 10 books and well worth the £3 price. The Tipping Point is also available as an audiobook – great if you spend time driving – from £6.
On this mornings weekly team call we talked about the concept of ‘Random Acts of Kindness’ and I used the examples of the Freedom Writers from Long Beach and the film Pay It forward.
In the Freedom Writer’s film Erin Gruwell, a newly qualified teacher, takes on a class of ‘no-hoper’s and in the course of 2 years begins a movement, the freedom writers Foundation, that is definitely changing the world they live in and the world much further away – This film is in my top 10 and is a must watch.
In the other film, Kevin Spacey, challenges his class to come up with an idea that will change the world. One student suggests that if they get the Chinese population to jump up and down at the same time that it would knock the world off its axis. While the star of the film, Haley Joel Osment, comes up with a concept where he would do something that would help 3 people (it was something they couldn’t do for themselves) and then hope that they in turn would pay it forward.
My challenge for the next few weeks is to exercise the idea of Random Acts of Kindness – do something for someone that is of no benefit to you but makes someone smile, helps them values them, inspires them.
It needn’t be large, often the small things are best, but see what you can come up with and post your experiences on the site.
Go on – make someone smile today!
You may have created the best website in the world and have the product everyone wants or needs but unless you get found by the search engines then it will take months if not years to build the traffic to your site. We talked in the past about Squidoo (if you are not yet registered click the preceding link) , Gumtree, US Free Ads, backlinks, signatures, business cards but just this last weekend I came across a post on a website that I follow that was very interesting and can be massively helpful in generating traffic.
Before I share with you the site I just want you to think about something really important. If you come across something really good you have 3 options 1. keep it to yourself , 2. share it with others close to you or option 3. copy it and pretend you are the author.
Options 1. is plain selfish and can’t be justified. Option 2 is OK but you don’t really get the best return and option 3 – well it is not the right thing to do.
The post I found this weekend is on a site called Maxblogpress.com and has been a site that I’ve watched and used for several years. It is foccsed on wordpress blogs and has produced some great little ideas but the article today is all about being found by the search engines and is so topical today that I can’t tell you how excited i am about it all. It shows you how to get several key websites to list your sites and thatway get more traffic and more potential sales. The post to go and have a look at is called how to be listed by killer startups.
If you want go and have a look at killerstartups.com
makes very interesting reading and is well worth the time to explore. Please also sign up for the Maxblogpress.com newsletter which has been of consistently high quality.
If you recognise that for most customers to be able to phone on a freephone number will increase your response rate by as much as 7 times. These numbers only cost a few pence to run each month and the best place to get them is resource utilities
I’ve been in business for several years now and have the privilege of working alongside some of the brightest minds in business.These are people who have real experience of doing things that lead to success. I remember one lady Louise Fowler, who I worked with for 2 years and who to my knowledge built 2 £1/5 million businesses, who said “the fortune is in the follow-up” and it took me a while to really grasp what she meant. Follow-up is often talked about as part of the marketing process but in reality it is far more about building relationships and enabling people to trust you.
Follow-up can be broken down into two areas Active and Passive:
Active Follow-up might include:
- picking up the phone and calling a prospective customer/client and asking some very un-sales like questions like: “How are you doing”? If they’ve been on holiday ask them how the trip went. If you know that they had a daughter getting married ask how the wedding went. Don’t try to sell them anything – just ask them some open questions. Just find out what they like doing – kite surfing, flower arranging, extreme sports – just find out what they like doing. Continue Reading…
OK those of you who know me, and I mean really know me, know that there are some things that I really love. Apart from food and wine and beer I love things that are free and help people communicate and develop relationships. I started using Skype about 8 years ago in its early days and immediately fell in love with the concept – free communications over the internet. I hated spending money on phones and calls and Skype seemed to be a gift from God. Today Skype is much more than a simple way of making calls over the internet – it allows you to build relationships in business, in family and all sorts of other really neat ways. In fact I’d go so far as to suggest that if you are in the business of talking to people then Skype is probably the best way to go. By the way I don’t just use Skype – its just that i love the way it allows you to see when people are on-line and that helps build relationships.
Let me give you a real example that occurred just yesterday (names changed to protect the innocent). I have a friend and business colleague in a middle eastern country who suddenly dropped of the scene, I knew she was moving house and she had 4 children so had her hands full. The months went by and e mails were returned and then – she popped up as on-line on Skype. A quick text message via Skype and we are back in contact – she’d changed her e mail as well. In my book the ability to see when someone is on-line is priceless.
Needless to say Skype is a cornerstone of our business and personal lives and helps us keep in contact. By the way I love Twitter but thats another story.
