Today I am learning about the way new technology is allowing us to interface with machines. This is an incredible demonstration of where this technology is going in our quest to fully integrate with machines.

Enjoy….

David Bullock

Some years ago, I sold robots.

For 99.9999% of the people in the world, the robot was a cool, neat and impressive piece of machinery but was not valuable to most people.

Why? They could not do anything with the information, except be impressed by it. They could not afford it nor use it to do anything with what I was offering.

Now on the other hand, if they:

• Served as senior engineer for a manufacturing facility
• had a funded project
• could authorize the purchase
• could provide internal support, and
• could justify the project with ROI

Then, and only then, would we begin the conversation about my product or service being valuable.

SIDE NOTE: Shhh… ROI is still important (if you are in business). There is an ROI associated with time and effort. Don’t forget that money is foldable time. If you are not paying attention to this then you might be wasting alot of time for nothing.

Do you see how specifically this offer is matched?

This is such an important lesson. The key is exposing your offer to the right people who care about your offer. To say that “everybody needs what you have” means you have not taken the time to think about your ideal customer.

New Media Application: The World Is Your Oyster (Sort of…)

Social media gives you access to a bunch of people. But you still have to target your communcation to the people who want, need and can afford your offer. Technology has allowed us access to just about any one in the world, but…

• After you get access, then what?
• What is your valuable offer?
• What can you do for the person after you get to them?

Your offer needs to be thought out, understood and planned… before you start attracting the market. By the way, people still like to talk to people. The internet has made us lazy with the craft of communication. Everything is not good content. Some of it sucks and has no value whatsoever.

• Old Adage: If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.
• New Social Media Adage: If you can’t say/share something valuable, don’t share it at all.

Now follow me as I apply this to social media. I was told yesterday that I don’t use social media very well because I don’t have a huge following on Facebook.

I thought about it for a moment, and replied, “Because you can’t see what I am doing, does not mean that I am not doing something.”

The same thinking that I used for moving in the marketplace selling robots is the same thinking that I use as move in the “social media” marketplace.

Well-placed effort and communication is valuable for all parties involved.

The idea of just Tweeting, Facebooking and Blogging for the sake of Tweeting, Facebooking and Blogging is of no value and creates no value in the marketplace. What it is creating is noise.

When you don’t know:

• who your customer is
• where they are
• where will come from

you will use a shotgun approach and hope that your prospects will find you. That is called shotgun marketing. It is expensive and ineffective offline. And now this thinking has moved online.

When you know:

• who your client is
• what your offer is
• where they are
• how to attract them to you
• what is important to them

That is called valuable offer positioning. It makes business life a lot easier. Keeps costs down. This is well-leveraged effort.

For a business owners and independent salespeople, creating a valuable positioned leveraged offer is critical to your success.

The first key to creating a valuable positioned offer is knowing who you can be valuable to and designing the offer so that it can be:

• exposed
• consumed
• understood and acted upon.

We’ll talk about this in the series of calls that I am doing.

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www1.gotomeeting.com/register/640505905
Webinar, Monday March 29 – "Creating Your Offer"
8PM EST– 9PM EST / 7 – 8 PM Central US
Go there now and register, as we have limited number of spaces available.

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Til next time,

David Bullock

Have you ever seen an opportunity in the marketplace and wondered what would have happened if you had taken the chance to actually go with a hunch and do something? What did you do then and what are you going to do in the future when opportunity presents itself?

In May 2008, I was presented with an idea with an uncertain future. But I seized the opportunity and a whole new world has opened up for me. As I write this post today, I am pleased to be able to share with you what I had been up to and the adventure it has been.

Key Take Away : One project that is well selected and executed in a timely fashion can change your life.

You own it. No one can take it away from you. And the lessons that you learn along the way are priceless.

The Project That Started With A Conversation

Over the past year I have been working on several projects some good some bad. But all of them taught me something.  As I have been watching the market, I have noticed that there is this idea that you only need one skill, one magic product or one super-secret technique to create a wonderful empire.

With Barack 2.0, we have spent over 12 months expanding the blog into a book, which then grew to a full-blown business and speaking career.  There was no one product or skill that we used to accomplish this.  It took a bunch of pieces to complete the puzzle.

We incorporated:

• Offer Creation
• Salesmanship
• Traffic Generation
• Content Deployment
• Listbuilding
• Repackaging
• Leverage Management
• Taguchi Thinking
• Video
• Audio
• Blogging
• Copy Writing
• Online and Offline Networking
• Public Speaking
• Social Media
• SEO
• Pay-Per-Click
• Strategy
• Tactics
• Seminar and Webinar Presentation
• Building Credibility
• Social Proof
• Public Relations (Credibility Public Building)
• E-commerce
• Distribution
• etc…

More on Integrating Your Marketing & Connecting The Dots – Webinar Series

This is a continuation of Social Media Strategy Playbook Series. There is much to learn as we study politics and extract meaningful marketing lessons from the outcomes of the various campaigns. New media technologies are disrupting the landscape of both business and politics and the similarities are staggering. If you have the distinctions to see what is really happening, this is an excellent real-time ideation-to-transaction primer.

We have covered:

Rule 1:  Use All Available Media Channels from the Very Beginning

Rule 2:  Create a Short Meaningful Message, Speak It and Let It Work

More on Social Media Strategy Playbook: Transactional Situations

The Superbowl is over. Lasted for one day. Congratulations to the New Orleans Saints on the win. Congratulations to the advertisers that debuted their new commercials.

But let’s look beyond the Superbowl to the Pepsi Refresh Project.

For those of you who have not followed the story… In a nutshell, Pepsi decided not to advertise during the Superbowl. They decided to use the money that they would spend on “traditional advertising” on a social media project.

More on Leveraging Social Media to Transform: The Pepsi Refresh Project