Business Development & the Power of Networking – JVAlert Orlando

Ken McArthur

Whew! Finally catching up from being out of town for five days to write this post. Last weekend, I was in Orlando, Florida attending an internet marketing event called JVAlert Live!, hosted by internet marketer Ken McArthur. This event is unique because it is really set up by Ken to foster joint venture partnerships and allow the greatest amount of interactivity and networking possible between both attendees and speakers. Ken has done a fantastic job of creating the perfect combination of instruction, planned networking and informal networking in a setting that you can really get to know people. I met some really incredible people, made new friends, and heard some very dynamic speakers share business development expertise that I have applied to my own business activities. Here were some of the highlights for me:

• Author, marketer and persuasion expert Dave Lakhani defined persuasion as helping people come to their own most logical conclusion which happens to be the one you share. He stated that this is built on developing 1) visibility – making you, your organization, your brand known, 2) credibility – creating trust through proof & third party endorsements, 3) relationship – creating emotional connections and serving the best good for all involved.

• Author and speaker Brendan Burchard really hit the mark for me when he spoke of the power of nonprofit and corporate partnerships, which is one of the key components of what Mission Driven Marketing is all about. After a near fatal auto accident, Burchard felt like he was given a second chance and wrote the book Life’s Golden Ticket. He asked three questions that he felt everybody consciously or unconsciously asks when they come to the end – Did I live? Did I love? Did I matter? Bringing nonprofits and businesses together to impact communities is one of the ways that he feels that he is able to answer yes to those questions.

• Christine Comaford-Lynch, author of Rules for Renegades gave out lots of gems on business development like:
• Make your brand = results. What three adjectives do people think of when they think of your brand?
• Problems + pain = profits. In other words, if you are solving real problems in your business, profits are the result.
• Network palm up (offering), not palm down (grabbing). What can you do for others rather than what they can do for you?

• Glenn Dietzel of Awaken the Author Within gave a riveting presentation on becoming the knowledge broker in your industry through entrepreneurial authoring. He spoke about the “Science Of Reframing” as the ability for you to use the power of metaphors and human experience and deliver customized education to your ideal clients. His words of wisdom included how the marketplace always chooses the top expert in the field, how important it is to not allow your value to turn into a commodity, and that greater sameness will not get results. He also spoke about building laser focus and clarity by asking yourself, “What am I trying to prove right now?” In his effort to “move the free line”, Glenn has tons of great resources at his various websites. There’s a clip from JVALert and I love his driving videos. Check them out.

• Kevin Nations sought to reshape people’s paradigms about achieving higher profits by asking questions like, “What is your biggest profit challenge?”, “Is that challenge the limiting factor in making profit?”, and “Are you acquiring puzzle pieces, or are you completing the total picture?” He illustrated this by telling the story of seeing his young daughter working on a jigsaw puzzle with the box top propped up as a point of reference. He made the point that people often focus on what he called “means goals” and not the final destination. This especially applies in the world of internet marketing where activities such as list building, traffic generation, and copywriting often become an end unto themselves. Successful businesses begin with the end in mind.

• Jermaine Griggs of HearandPlay.com is truly the Nitty Gritty Marketing man! He has used very creative and innovative marketing techniques to build a community around playing music by ear. The one that impresses me the most is the way he uses lead segmentation to deliver a highly personalized follow-up process. In a systematic way, he gathers detailed information about each person who opts-in to his offer for free lessons, then leverages that information to plant seeds for paid courses. He has also been very successful at community building by providing a platform for people to interact with one another on the musical learning journey. If you want to delve more deeply into the techniques that Jermaine uses, check out his NittyGrittyMarketing.com site.

• Ken McArthur also spoke about his upcoming book Impact and his Impact Factor coaching project and membership site. He talked about identifying where your customers are right now. The key is, if you want to know what your stuff can do – ask them how it can help them. What do they need? What problem are you solving? He also talked about not lobbing canon balls, but instead creating landslides. In other words, concentrate on activities and systems that generate widespread impact, not ones that only hit one or two targets. Ken’s book is set to launch on May 1st. To build awareness, Ken is giving away training from over thirty of his hand-picked personal advisors with all kinds of specialties to help people succeed in business on the Internet. Very helpful and interesting stuff here. You can also keep up on his Impact Factor blog.

Another very cool thing was the creation and launching of an ebook right on the spot called Instant Joint Venture Secrets. Originally, Joel Comm was supposed to do the presentation, but Joel got sick and went home early. His teammates, Eric Holmlund and Dan Nickerson carried on in Joel’s stead.

Here’s how they did it. First, they handed out 3 slips of paper that asked for:

1. Your best Joint Venture tip.

2. A Testimonial.

3. A Bonus you would be willing to give.

After the forms were filled out, everyone worked together to compile the material, write the sales page, complete with video and graphics, and put it up live on the internet within 90 minutes.

It was amazing to watch orders come in for the $7.00 ebook right after everyone mailed out to their lists. And what was really cool, was that the money generated from the sale of the ebook went to Helping Hands, an organization that helps children at risk around the world. Very cool!

The cast and crew of the internet’s first reality TV show, The Next Internet Millionaire was on hand for a panel discussion, and winner Jaime Luchuck also gave her first ever presentation at this type of event. Her inspiring story, which is chronicled in her book “Cubicle Slave to the Next Internet Millionaire“, had everyone giving her a standing ovation. I also got a chance to get to talk at length with Alisande Chan and Nico Pisani, chat with Thor Schrock and spend a lot of time with Jason Marshall and his wife Heather. What a great couple! I really enjoyed getting to know them.

For me, this was really the best part of the whole event, getting to know lots of really great people. People like The Tool Wiz, David Schwartz, systems guy Brad Semp, of Cashmap Systems, and Life Coach Ruddy Ortiz. I had a great conversation at lunch with Singpore’s leading internet marketer, Stuart Tan and eBay whiz Ben Wee. I had a really nice dinner with Jason and Heather, Jeff Wellman, SEO expert Paul Counts, Ruddy, and Harry Fink of Rising Star Marketing. I had great talks with Margaret Hampton and The Story Lady, Ronda Del Boccio, who also works with Glenn Dietzel. I got to chat with Frank Sousa, co-creator of Traffic Geyser, Dr. Ron Capps, the NicheProf, and successful internet marketer Willie Crawford. And on the last day of the conference, I got some good feedback at breakfast from Ross Goldberg, who’s the only person I know who made thousands of dollars online while in a coma.

So why am I reporting all this? Because after attending this event, I am convinced now more than ever of the importance of networking and attending events like this for the growth of your business. Social media has opened up a tremendous opportunity to connect with people from all over who who can impact your business, either as partners, mentors, or customers. In fact, many of the people I have mentioned here I was connected with online prior to coming. But there is still nothing like face to face encounters to really create meaningful relationships. I highly recommend it, and would like to thank Ken for helping to make it happen for me.

For more photos, check my Flickr set.

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The Best Valentine – A Day for Hearts

Flowers and candy aren’t the only gifts being given this Valentine’s Day. Dr.Mani Sivasubramanian is giving an opportunity for people to give the gift of life.

Dr. Mani is heart surgeon who is using his internet marketing business to fund heart surgery for under-privileged children in India. A DAY FOR HEARTS: Congenital Heart Defects Awareness Day is an effort spearheaded by Dr. Mani to highlight to the public the problems posed by Congenital Heart Disease (CHD). He is seeking to bring about increased awareness and demand for CHD issues such as:

• research funding
• formation and assistance to support groups
• education of the general public
• enhanced standards of care to CHD patients worldwide

According to Dr. Mani’s CHD Info website,

“Congenital Heart Defects are a lethal constellation of birth defects of the heart that affect millions of newborn infants and children worldwide; a killer that claims thousands of lives every year. Eight of every 1000 children born alive (0.8%) will have some form of congenital heart defect.”

Info at his DrMani.name site goes on to say:

“Heart surgery is expensive. Many of his patients, from poor families, cannot afford the cost of treatment. So Dr.Mani decided to try and help sponsor the operations.This was the simple concept behind an online adventure that started in 1996.

Ten years later, Dr.Mani’s team has raised over $100,000 and funded heart surgery in 23 children, with many more to follow. He’s well on his way to achieve an ambitious mission – make high quality heart health care accessible and affordable to every Indian child.

The Dr.Mani Children Heart Foundation is a non-profit entity created to raise awareness about Congenital Heart Defects and to raise funds to sponsor life-saving heart surgery for children from poor families suffering from congenital heart disease.”

If you’d like to give more than just flowers and candy today, you can donate here.

Of Poverty, Slavery & Social Media for Social Change

Can $10 bucks make a difference in the life of a child caught in slavery or poverty? The Case Foundation thinks so.

To prove it, the foundation is awarding a total of $750,000 through the Giving Challenge, an initiative designed to inspire greater philanthropy and introduce new ways to give through simple online technology. Case launched the two-pronged challenge in December by partnering with Parade Magazine to give $500,000, and with Causes on Facebook for $250,000.

The Giving Challenge is not about who raises the most money, but instead the awards will go to the charities and causes that draw the greatest number of unique donors. The minimum donation to qualify is only $10.

With less than two weeks to go in the Challenge, here are a couple of ways to help.

America’s Giving Challenge – Route Out of Poverty for Cambodian Children

The Sharing Foundation helps meet the physical, emotional, educational and medical needs of orphaned and seriously disadvantaged children in Cambodia. Thousands of Cambodian children grow up illiterate, with few educational options. The Sharing Foundation’s Khmer literacy school helps farm children learn their native alphabet and numbers well enough to attend elementary school. Its English Language Program offers village students, ages 8-18, the opportunity to learn Cambodia’s language of commerce, allowing them to obtain jobs in tourism and word processing. These students are so dedicated that some meet on their own to study on weekends

Here’s a video that blogger Beth Kanter did with her son about the project:

You can help Beth raise $50,000 by donating to this cause, and at the time of this post, that’s looking like a real likelihood.

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Not looking nearly as successful at this point is a cause I’m supporting on Facebook:

Causes Giving Challenge – Not For Sale Campaign to End Modern Day Slavery

Did you know that 27 Million people are enslaved today and that over 50% of them are children? Many are forced into hard labor or prostitution against their will. Not For Sale (NFS) is a campaign of individuals, musicians, artists, people of faith, businesses, schools and sports teams united to stop human trafficking. This drive will help 130 children, ages 4-17, all victims of human sex trafficking, build a new life. Funds will help to build a village for Tawainese abolitionist Kru Nam and her kids. The village, Buddies along the Roadside, will have five dormitories, an arts and education center, and plenty of land for the kids to grow their own crops. The village is now over half done, but Kru Nam needs to raise another $60,000 to complete the project.

Back when the Challenge began, I saw the posted item in Facebook about the Challenge from Steve Case. I contacted David Batstone, founder of NFS and author of the book of the same title about some ideas I had for Challenge. Unfortunately, he was in China at the time and I had pretty much given up doing anything when I heard back with only 16 days left in the challenge. There are a couple of NFS causes that were already in place, but to qualify for the challenge I had to create a new cause. So I put out a message to the creators of those causes and some NFS groups to promote the challenge cause. Apparently, there was some confusion with people donating to the original causes which don’t count for the challenge. Plus, when I sought to enlist the aid of 12 stellar social media Facebook friends, the overly lengthy message I sent didn’t show as sent and I ended up sending it three times! Ouch! Understandably, that didn’t go over too well. The last thing I want is a reputation as a spammer!

However…I’m not giving up! There are almost 8,000 supporters in the various NFS causes and groups on Facebook. If even 10% of those people donated to the cause, there would be more than enough unique donors to win the challenge. I’ve spread the word within Facebook without much movement and I think I know why. Causes is the most popular app on Facebook for fundraising because it’s so easy for anyone to start a cause. This means that there can be hundreds of causes with only three or four people supporting them, including duplicates of the same cause. And just because they join the cause doesn’t mean they donate to it. It’s a great concept, but it seems like most Causes I’ve seen in the past have raised very little support. I think people associate with a cause because they want to say something about their own identity, but up until now it doesn’t seem like any major fundraising has been going on. The Challenge does appear to be changing that.

So my question is this: If Facebook is a “walled garden”, how viable is it to create a non-profit fundraising presence within the walls, and then motivate people outside the walls to come in to check it out? In other words, what would happen if enough people are motivated through other social media channels outside of Facebook to check it out? Could Not for Sale could still come from behind to win the Challenge?

My humble request to you is, would you be willing to help spread the word about this Cause and the Challenge? Blog about it, Twitter it & encourage others to do the same. I think it would make a great experiment and who knows? Maybe we can sweep in from out of nowhere and get enough buzz going to vault Not For Sale to the top to win the Challenge. What do you think? How about $10 to Beth’s cause outside Facebook, and $10 to my cause inside Facebook. Poverty AND slavery dealt a blow with a click. Donate here.

Measuring Intangibles – Making Impact the Bottom Line

While checking in at Facebook the other day, I got into an interesting dialog with Social Media Consultant Beth Kanter. Beth is also a professional blogger and writes about the use of social media tools in the nonprofit sector for social change. I saw a status update that said “Beth Looking for resources and info about ROI and Tech.” Earlier, I had read her blog post about measuring return on investment (ROI) for intangibles where “love” was used as a tongue in cheek example. So I zipped off a link to a white paper recommended by Chris Brogan called Distributed Influence: Quantifying the Impact of Social Media from the PR firm Edelman.

After getting the link, Beth asked, “What piece of information or insight in this report struck you most? What was the most important learning?” This was my reply:

“I think what struck me most was just the whole idea conceptually of quantifying and measuring an intangible like influence. While I recognize the importance of measurable objectives, I have always had a problem forcing something that is organic by nature into a mechanical straightjacket. I mean, they’re not called “intangibles” for nuthin’!

That said, I realize the importance of discussing ways to measure intangibles. I appreciated this insight from Peter Kim that influence and attention are different. He said that influence is fiscal and long term whereas attention is monetary and short term, and I agree with that. Clicks and page views don’t tell the whole story. Influence is about IMPACT.”

As far as the most important learning, I think Jeff Jarvis and Keith O’Brien made similar statements that it matters WHO we are talking to not how many. Not just who is influential, but who is carrying the conversation, those who are more easily influenced. This includes understanding and possibly even tailoring the message to the influencers, the spreaders, adapters, commentators and readers.”

After Beth posted some of my comments on her blog, I got to thinking a little more about my reply and why I said what I did. Back when I was a community outreach point person at REI, one of the things that I discovered was that the connection between the outreach activity and the bottom line was not that clear, but that the impact was obvious.

We had an educational program that taught basic outdoor skills to customers to introduce them to activities like rock climbing, backpacking, canoeing, cross-country skiing and bicycle maintenance. The idea is, you inexpensively educate your customers on the use of the products you sell and they will want to buy from you, right? One of the classes that always did very well was a course on avalanche awareness. This is an essential skill for people wanting to cross-country and telemark ski in the backcounty, and we often found many beginners taking this course. For a nominal fee, they got a book, an in-store session, and a field session in the mountains with avalanche beacon rental. Now the cost to get outfitted to backcountry ski ($300 -$400 for skis, boots & poles, $200 for beacon, maybe another $100 to $200 in clothing) starts to add up. To measure the effectiveness of our programs, we would track the purchases of each participant in the class for one week before the class and four weeks after the class to determine the associated sales. Though we could not make a direct connection between their involvement in the class and their purchases, it was obvious that the class was having impact because we could see the spike in their buying history.

However, many questions arise when you cannot make a direct metrical correlation between a marketing activity and a purchase. Did they, in fact, buy those skis, or that beacon because they took the class? Would they have bought them anyway? How can we prove definitively, with precise data that the class influenced their decision to buy? The answer, of course is that you can’t. It is only by inference that the class impacted their purchase. And was always clear that it did.

So what does all this mean for marketers, advertisers, and in particular, mission driven organizations? Has the issue of measuring intangibles changed for them with the advent of the internet with it’s clicks and page views? Should they avoid engaging in certain activities, such as social media, because they are not easily quantifiable? Should they only embrace initiatives that can be measured out of fear of not being able to prove their value? That would not only be ridiculous, but it would be bad business. REI’s educational outreach program is the right thing to do. They are educating their members and customers in the safe and environmentally responsible use of the gear that they sell. And they sell a LOT of gear. You gotta make money, but doing the right thing cannot always be measured in dollars and cents. Focus on the mission, measure what you can, and the money will follow. Impact is the bottom line.

Persuasion & Influence

Recently, I’ve been spending some time on Facebook to connect with other social media aficionados, internet marketers, and social entrepreneurs. One of the groups that I belong to is called “Persuasion and Influence”, hosted by author and internet marketer, Dave Lakhani. This group is made up of people interested in persuasion, persuasive marketing, public relations, influence, and other forms of persuasive communication.

One of the discussion topics that came up a while back was: If you could only give three pointers to someone seeking to become more persuasive, what would they be? There were some interesting answers like, learn and love the art of storytelling, fit your communication to the other persons state, reaction, wants and needs, and create intense curiosity so that they want to know more.

I thought these were pretty good, but it kinda seemed to not get down to the CORE, or the heart of the matter. Here’s what I wrote:

“I’ll share what I’ve written and spoken about elsewhere on this topic. This is what I seek to live by whether at home with my wife and children, at work with co-workers and customers, or in my community or the world at large.

1. Impart Vision – What do you SEE that others need to see? What insight, solution to a problem, or vantage point do you have that others could benefit from? Vision creates unity, unity creates synergy, synergy creates results. If you can’t see, you can’t lead, so why should people follow?
2. Ignite Passion – How do you FEEL about your topic, or subject matter? What is it that really gets you going with contagious
   excitement and enthusiasm? If you’re not passionate, why should anyone
   care?
3. Inspire Strategy – What do you DO that gets massive results? What action have you taken that practically demonstrates your ability to accomplish great things? If what you do doesn’t work, why should anyone listen to you?

The result? Impact Society. Ultimately the altruistic goal of persuasion is to compel people to get engaged in making a positive difference in their lives and the lives of others, not just buy my stuff. If buying my stuff will help them accomplish that, then I haven’t merely sold them a product, I’ve changed their life. And maybe even made a little contribution to changing the world.”

It seems to me that this is not only what persuasion should be about, it is also what business should be all about. It takes persuasive sales, marketing & PR to be successful. But it’s got to go beyond the bottom line. In back of it all, there’s got to be a heart burning with passion for something bigger. What do you think? I’d love to hear from you.

Dipping the Toe into the Social Media Stream

Well I’ve finally done it. I’ve got a blog. Just because I have one, does that make me a blogger in the true sense of the word? How often do you have to post to be relevant? I can tell you that working a full time job and helping my dear wife homeschool our four kiddos doesn’t give me a lot of time to work on developing it, or my business as much as I’d like, particularly the online part, but I am working on it! Nights & weekends are being spent learning about the myriad social media tools that can be used to network, communicate and have impact. I’m also working on an outline and gathering materials for a book, “Mission Driven Marketing – Making your Mission Your Message” So it may seem a little dormant as my updates may be few and far between right now, but there’s more to come in 2008! In the meantime, feel free to connect with me on Facebook or Twitter.