Money isn't everything, but it doesn't hurt

I'm feeling extra motivated.

I didn't need a bunch of quotes or sayings to get me started. My motivation comes from where I'm at in my life.

X that

I'm nowhere near where I want to be in my life and since 30 is approaching, I've re-developed a laser sharp focus that had unfortunately, been missing.  

Each day is a grind that involves a million pieces to my proverbial puzzle. Being a creature of habit can be bad for you and you get into a funk.   my mother's birthday is today and it reminds me of the times I was little and told her I'd one day, give her the world.

I'm not sure I can give her much now but I'm working to making that a reality. A wake up call was needed.

Money is a motivation for a lot of sales people and there's nothing wrong with that.


Money creates opportunities and if you're not motivated to make a lot of money, you won't be successful in sales or marketing.  Some people want to live the life of "Wolf of Wall-street" and believe that's success.  Hollywood portrays sales and marketing professionals as egotistical, self destructive individuals hell bent on greed and short cuts.

Not me.

I want to make as much money as I can but not to show off.  I want to have options.  Money to me, bring possibilities.  I'm a creative person and at any moment, creative people can create an amazing idea!  Money can aide in your creative endeavors and make those ideas a reality.  It can also bring true wealth to my family and help prepare the next generation to carry out the family name proudly.

I want to be able to walk with a group of friends, see a big time club for bottle service enticing us to enter.  More often than not, I won't walk in that bar or club but it would be nice to know anywhere I walk in I don't need to check my chase account balance to enjoy a moment.

New marketing stars--Just Kids!

My previous post introduced you all to the fact that I am a Virgo.  I showed some really successful Virgo celebrities and was surprised to see that they were huge stars in Hollywood. They all have huge talent but also have agents that market them for certain roles.  I went on this website called  Famousbirthdays.com and found something interesting with the shown celebrities.

I put a question mark on "celebrities" I had no knowledge about.  Other than true celebrities like Michael Jackson, Beyonce, and Paul Walker,  most of these "celebrities" are web video stars.   The power of social media has put the power of choosing the next star in the hands of their audience.  This isn't some new phenomenon;
American Idol has been doing this the last 14 years.   

Marketing has really helped these kids become recognized for what they do.  Some people may feel they aren't real celebrities.  I say if you are generating website hits on par with established celebrities, you are an OUTSTANDING marketer.  Some of these kids are just that-Kids with entrepreneurial spirits and ambition.

I could learn from these kids indeed!

One of my favorite articles to read on social media is "10 Laws of Social Media Marketing" by Susan Gunelius.  She talks about principles consistent with social media marketing success.  When I look at all 10 steps, These new stars are following them to a tee.  Susan talks about:


1. The Law of Listening (LISTEN to what they want)

A lot of these young marketing stars are listening to what their public wants.  Whether it's clean content or lude and crude, there's a segment for everyone.

2. The Law of Focus (FOCUS on who embraces your brand most)

Susan believes it's better to be specialized than a jack of all trades. From listening to their target, these young marketing stars are focusing specifically on who is willing to listen to them!

3. The Law of Quality (Quality over Quantity)

There is so much content out there.  With so much content, there's a lot of bad inconsistent messaging going on.  These young-ins have taken to their particular skill and aimed to deliver content that generates clicks, views, and site traffic!

4. The Law of Patience (It's a marathon, not a sprint.)

While they are attracting great attention and even becoming sponsored, it took time for each of them to build their audiences.  Susan highlights there is a chance you can catch "lightning in a bottle."--It's very unlikely.  Keep grinding!

5. The Law of Compounding (Make your content work for you)

Not only are these kids utilizing YouTube and Facebook, They are also utilizing Vine and other platforms to compound their material.  These platforms allow them to share their content through multiple channels.

6. The Law of Influence (Strive to be a thought leader)

Building relationships and influencing others increases the ability to strategically network with common people.  These kids have influence over their target and big companies are looking to advertise products to reach that same target market.

7. The Law of Value (What's valuable to your target?)

The most consistent theme with social media and content marketing is sustainable value.  There has to be a reason people come to your page repeatedly.  It's not just about conversion but building a relationship with your target that stands the test of time.  It may be too early to predict but these young marketers are on the right path to maintaining relevance.

8. The Law of Acknowledgement (Show appreciation to those that help)

In any thing you build, acknowledging the people that put you in the position to succeed is important and respectful.  Building meaningful relationships takes time and showing their fans and sponsors they are appreciated, is the right step to maintaining their audience.

9. The Law of Accessibility (Make it easy for people to find your content)

Being able to make your content available in many ways is important to maintaining the audience.  This may sound redundant but it's so important  to make your content available everywhere your audience looks.

10. The Law of Reciprocity (Always give back)

A lot of these young marketing stars, have networked with each other to build friendship cliques.  I've noticed that they not only collaborate, but share their content to each others audiences.  It's a great form of web cross marketing.  This is something they do really well that opens new avenues to branch out their content.

These are 10 buzz words to help create successful social media marketing.

To be a master or jack at it.

I'm a Virgo.



One horoscope trait tied to Virgo's is the need for being a perfectionist.  I agree with this as it describes one of my strengths and also my weakness.  Everything I do has to be the best.  I can't half ass anything I'm passionate about because that's not who I am.  Is it because I'm a Virgo that I want to be the best at everything I do?  I don't fully believe in everything astrology says but there is a pattern for perfectionism.  Enough of the stars, let's talk about mastering your craft.

I started to research famous people that are Virgo's.  I was pretty impressed.  There are so many but a few to highlight are:

Michael Jackson
Adam Sandler
Beyonce Knowles
Kobe Bryant

All of these people are considered true masters of their craft.  In the book "Outlier" by Malcolm Gladwell, he says it takes a person roughly 10,000 hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field.  10,000 hours is a lot of hours but it's not so unbelievable to fathom.  Take into account the aforementioned people began their craft as young as 8 years old.  It's easy to see with natural talent, they became true masters of their craft.  I'd argue in 2015, this theory by Gladwell no longer is as relevant.  There a few reasons it's harder to truly be a master at a skill.

Technology Distractions

The youngest person in that list of people is Beyonce who is 33 years old.  These famous people do not face the technology distractions that todays youth face.  Kobe Bryant didn't have access to high speed internet or PS4's to distract him from playing basketball.   It's becoming increasingly tougher to focus with so many distractions.  Facebook and LinkedIn are used more often in my work place than the free training certifications available to all employees.  On the other hand,  tt's become harder to master a skill when employers want their workers to be good at everything outside their scope.

Jack of all Trades, Master of None

Today's employee or entrepreneur no longer has a specialized skill.  With technology changing so frequent,  People are continuously having to learning new concepts within their field.  Job requirements nowadays want you to be good at 3-5 things.  Back then a marketer who was great at writing focused solely on writing.  Nowadays a marketer has to be a good writer, good in design, and good in public relations.  We have jack of all trades, masters of none.  It's debatable if mastering one skill is better than simply being good at 3 things.  People don't have the patience to truly excel at one thing.

Impatient

Instant gratification is the reason we get diluted talent within fields.  The pressure for instant results is affecting business and encouraging incompetency.  There have been numerous movies emphasizing a pill that makes you super smart and rich.  People don't want to wait for results or even deal with growing pains in learning.  Impatience has stopped us from witnessing true masters in their fields.  Products become rushed and end up being just like everything else.



I have come to truly appreciate those that are masters in what they do.  It's incredible to maintain a razor sharp focus and become better at it than everyone else.  It's more than just astrology because it takes a special type of person to realize what they could master.  It's almost more valuable to have someone that can do something very few people can do.  There is a debate when discussing this topic. In certain fields it's ad advantage to be a versatile, jack of all trades person.  There seems to be so many people who are decent to good at a few things. With so many distractions for Generation Y, I've come to greatly respect those who truly master a skill in any field.  It now feels like an american past time.

Is too much networking hurting you?

I love this illustration because it describes networking challenge overloads.

If it's one thing I love--It's networking.  I love being able to connect with like minded people that are as hungry or hungrier than me for success.  Unless you are in the 1% of absolute elite in your craft,  there is always someone more successful than you out there.

With so many platforms like LinkedIn, MeetUp, and FaceBook, it's becoming increasingly easier to network than ever.  before the internet, people had to actually attend expensive trade-shows and conferences to meet the people they wanted to share connections with for their field. Now, with the click of a button, I'm apart of 10 groups with several meet up destinations.  I know a guy who attends all these networking events to talk about his project.  that's fine and dandy but the issue is:

He hasn't completed his project and it's delayed.  He wants to meet all these people that can help change his life but he has nothing to persuade them to go that extra mile!  They may share a favorite band in common but after a certain time, it's business.

He's officially hit network overload.  If you spend more time talking about your project at networking events than actually working on it, you're hurting everyone involved.  Sometimes these networking events give us an excuse to drink and be wild. True, the best business that happens is outside the office; you still need to have a balance of something ready to give to people.

Is too much networking too much of a good thing?  I ask this question to myself every time I see an event locally or LinkedIn group.  Too much of anything isn't good.

I'm not a book,stop trying to reading me!

This post is for the all the people that been called:

"Mysterious"
"Enigmatic"
"Mercurial"
"Freak"
"Weird"

All these words have been said about you or someone you know.  They aren't necessarily bad words but they evoke a need for people to "figure each other out."  the more quiet you are, the more particular people look at you to change or get you to come out.  You become their entertainment in their otherwise dull world. People that are very curious must understand in their perspective, what's not normal.  I imagine Michael Jackson, Richard Branson, and Prince have all faced this form of scrutiny at a much dangerous higher level.

I can tell you I have been called a few of those words I mentioned above.  It's not being an introvert. It's being wise to your situation.  I've seen people talk about other people behind their back in a way that always makes me question if they would do the same thing to me.  For those people, I put them in a "Don't share" bucket. I feel people like this will at one point, use what you say against you to strengthen a pointless argument.  They value information to exploit you down the road.  These are the people that can be charming and ask what you think of another persons situation.  They may even walk you into a situation you have no business being in.   I see it in the office all the time and I'm sure you see it too.  These people are the very reason a defense is put up.

The issue is the more of a defense you put up, the stronger they desire to "read" you.  If you're not easily understandable, people treat people like puzzles.  This is how we easily become misunderstood and tagged as something we may not be.  We get scrutinized because those same people want to break us down to say "I was right about you."  These people look at us as a story and they want to determine the ending.

Not today.  Go read a book that's fiction.

Now watching- "Stranger than fiction"

Everyone belongs

Today I did some meditation in a quiet room with only my thoughts and vision.  You'd be surprised at how much creativity comes up when you isolate yourself from dis-tractable technology (Is this even a word?)  It's Friday so I'm not going to delve too deep in a topic because I want to get out there and enjoy this summer weather as much as you all!

We've all been assigned to a box and role as long as we can remember.  

If you were the tall kid who was coordinated you were the "Athlete."

If you were the pretty girl with attitude, you were "the diva."

If you were good with computers, you were "the nerd."

The fascinating thing is, where are the groups for the kid who wears glasses and isn't high achieving?  

What about the tall kids that are absolutely horrible at any physical sport, let alone walking in place.  

Not everyone can be put in a box nor do they want to be put in a box. Still, boxes are good.  You can store like minded things in boxes.  People in these boxes share a story.  People that swear their life on Cross-fit all have one common goal and its being better than they were the day before.  These boxes or "Culture organization's" do a great job of inviting people and letting them find their way to tell their story.

I guess I can embrace that there is nothing wrong with being put in a box.  They seem to help and embrace change.

The ambitious side of me wants to have my own box that I can share with like minded people.  Then, those people can think outside my box and form new boxes.

What's your story?

It's true.  I always come across people that insist they aren't creative and live boring lives. I see people watch "lifetime" and these premium cable show series wishing their life had that type of adventure.  They constantly watch these shows to escape the somewhat reality that is surrounding them.  If they took a step back and saw their life in a creative way, they'd see a story many would like to see.

I don't know about you but I can think of two TV series that involve an extension of my life.  I have a dysfunctional side of the family that would make the show shameless seem tasteful.  I also have a fun albeit crazy roommate who may be a sociopath.  OK I'm exaggerating but my point is to write out a story of the people in your lives!

It's a fun exercise to do and it helps your writing ability.  In marketing, we look at our target markets and develop "personas" that aide in understanding our customers.  I'm not seeing nearly enough companies take this aspect serious.  By writing compelling stories for characters, we are able to really see where and who we should target.

  Some of my favorite writers are script writers and it's because they are great at determining the characteristics of the cast in a TV show.  A script writer truly has the "pulse" of their market and understand the demand.  The demand for greater original content has required great writers.  Being just a solid writer will not change your content to attracting attention.  I'm still trying to figure out what ways my writing can influence so it's definitely a journey. Marketing agencies have turned to become more like publishing companies using content as a true vehicle.  Gone are the days of spending millions of dollars on advertising just to get reach.   I've started to realize producing marketing content is like producing TV episodes.  There has to be:

• A theme 
• Protagonist and Antagonist ( Hero and Problem to the Hero)
• Emotion 
• Familiar originality ( Giving something people know a twist.)

I'm challenging everyone to write a story based on your experiences.  You will become a better writer and learn how to effectively tell a story people will want to hear.

I speak woman

No. I don't.  Many men would absolutely LOVE  if they could understand exactly how to effectively speak to women.

If I could truly speak to every woman out there, millions of dollars would easily turn into billions, then I'd be right back under a million (just a joke)

Women have been instrumental to the success of everything in modern commerce civilization.  I remember when I sold cell phones and having to speak with couples to persuade them to buy.  Even if the man was in fact the person with money, the woman was almost always the decision maker.  It's no coincidence when you look at stats that women hold major responsibility in purchasing consumer products. According to stats from She-conomy.com,

Women account for 85% of all purchases including:

• 91% percent of new homes
• 92% Vacations
• 89% Bank Accounts
• 93% Food

• Affluent working women with family incomes of $75,000 or more are growing in number, and 94.3 percent access the Internet during an average month. About half are now considered heavy users of the Internet, while heavy use of radio, television, newspapers and direct mail has declined within this group. – Ten Marketing Trends to Watch, Kim T. Gordon, Entrepreneur.com

One of my favorite examples of a brand that has success toward women purchasers is Old Spice.




Old spice has always historically had ads emphasizing boys becoming men.  A lot of testosterone can be found in those ads emphasizing "manly men."  The one consistent message in their ads is the conversation they have with women on buying their men's toiletries.  In 2003, they used a good looking, very in shape man to represent what most men want to be and women would prefer to be with.  It became a huge success and something relate able to both genders.  They spoke woman and it helped their efforts to re-brand successfully into a young 12-24 year old market for young men.

Most of the best advice comes from women.  But as men in marketing, not all of us understand the language that is "woman."  It's more than just listening; It requires dedication to story telling and removing generalizations.  before I leave this post, I'd like to post one of my favorite ads that highlights this theme.




Beyonce was right in her song "Who runs the world"