Millenium Marketer

You may have heard this line before–whether you like it or not, once you enter the workforce, you are going to have to be a salesperson. Yes, you are going to have to sell, whether it is real customers or pitching ideas to co-workers or convincing friends to go somewhere.

The words are enough to make anyone adverse to the word “sales” cringe, because we have all met bad salespeople and there are very few good ones–mall salespeople come to mind as does the lone consultant who has an honest service to offer but wants to work right away.

But the reality is sales isn’t what you might think, meaning the immediate goal isn’t to make a sale. Sales is actually made up of many goals, whether it is to make an initial contact, get information or ask for a referral.

I should add, too, that often thinking too short term about making a sale right away could eventually cause customers to buy once (just to get away from you) and then think twice about buying again.

So, if you think through the goals of sales much more clearly than to make a hard sell right on the spot, it can be better positioned as as a series of long, enjoyable conversations between to strangers getting to know each other.

It means creating an affiliation with someone looking to see if you are someone who can help the solve a problem.

When I think of sales this way, it reminds me of the goals of social media, the highway to fast connections. There are times when we can add someone as a friend and never speak to them again–that is the story of the hard sell. Then, there are other times when messaging, commenting, posting with someone regularly makes that person more memorable to you–you’ve reached a point with them where you are really connecting and the exchange is easy.

So the real lesson here is that you don’t sell by taking, and you don’t make friends by taking either. It’s making an offer that is appealing time and time again that will keep buyers engaged and coming back to you.

What are some of your favorite lessons about selling?

As a way of learning to build community on the web, I worked with a local young professionals association to rally up 20 volunteers to do some volunteer work in real time, out on the field, at Hayes Valley Farm. There’s nothing like working in real time to observe how people get to know each other and interact. The only difference is the type of contribution, on the internet, we’re typically contributing content, whereas on the farm it’s much more about working the land to make things grow.

Hayes Valley Farm is an urban farm experiment right in the middle of San Francisco. The land is owned by the city of San Francisco and people of all kinds come out to do pretty much whatever they want, whether it’s planting seedlings, weeding out clover, harvesting vegetables or digging dirt. As Jay, the organizer of Hayes Valley said, it’s all about a free economy, whatever you put into the land is what you can get out of it. Also, it was important that you find something to do that you enjoy, basic law of specialization, find something you can do best.

Social Media Community vs. Real Time Community

To organize the event, we started out with a Facebook page, where some of the regular organizers of the organization were the very first to post on the page and indicate that they were attending, or show their enthusiasm for the event. Then, others followed so that the the event became a self-organizing entity and we recruited 30 people. In other words, it begins with Social Proof, starting with just a few evangelists.

I noticed this phenomenon too at Hayes Valley Farm. I met a permaculture buff who was one of the first to contribute to the layout of Hayes Valley Farm, and being a more senior guy there, he was very enthusiastic about the Hayes Valley Farm community, and directed us towards a few tasks that we could work on. Anyone on the farm could quickly become an expert at something and lead others through an activity. Even more amazing, there were young kids, as young as 4 years old leading certain initiatives like building a tool shed or making bridges out of wooden pallets so that areas of the farm were easily accessible. People were using their creativity because they were given the tools and free license to do as they wish.

This idea of community building is the same on the web. Once you can find a few invested people who can corral or direct others, community building is truly an organic entity that grows on its own, as long as you plant a few seeds to guide the way. This has to be a consistent effort, otherwise within an ailing community, people will fall away.

What do you think? Are there ways that communities are built similarly in “real time” compared to on the web?

Zipcar, a web-based car rental company, went public on Thursday, and the company valuation crossed the $1B mark!

Although Zipcar is not quite making a profit, I like their business model. I was a member last year for about 6 months, and used it several times during that time period.

So, what’s so different about Zipcar?

1) Membership system
As a member, you get an all-inclusive per hour rental. The membership includes gas, insurance, rental, so basically everything when you need to get from point A to point B. There is no additional insurance, no necessary add-ons, no extra frills. Dead simple. You pay per hour, and that’s it.

To contrast this, I’ll share one of my personal experiences as an example. Last time I rented a car (in Europe), I booked and pre-paid a week-long car rental online. Little did I know! When I returned the car, I got a receipt that listed many other surcharges and fees that doubled the original cost of the rental! And that was without the insurance…

2) Web-based system
Zipcar’s cars are parked in various random locations, and you find them out through the web. Once the car is reserved, you just show up, swipe your card and start driving. You don’t talk to anyone. There’s no one around. It’s that simple.

Now, imagine the typical car rental agency, with offices and a private parking lot in an urban setting, where real estate is priced at a premium. They usually have a private gate, where a clerk lets you through. The guy at the counter shows you a combination of 26 different cost options for insurance and gadgets. Any value added? No, and in addition, there is a high real estate cost that is tagged on to the price of your rental ticket.

***

Zipcar started out in college campuses, where the density of potential drivers is high, and people don’t necessarily have a car. At Stanford, I suppose they were received like celebrities on the red carpet, as Stanford strongly supports alternative commutes than car. Those who take the train, then have to go run a quick errand off-campus can easily just pick up one of those Zipcars.

Then Zipcars started appearing in dense urban areas, e.g. SF / NYC, where drivers don’t necessarily want to own a car. At this point, it seems like their members are strong converts to the Zipcar business model, and that number is growing. Although they may face competition from the older companies such as Avis or Enterprise, the membership model may help them retain more customers.

Overall, I think they have an interesting model. It’s not a business travel rental car company. It’s about letting people drive without having to own and maintain a car. In an urban setting, it’s perfect. No need to find a parking spot or rent a garage spot.

As Zipcar will increase their presence, they may be able to convert more people to adopt their model. I personally stopped using it some time ago, because 1) cars weren’t close enough; I would have to drive to the nearest zipcar, so 2) I didn’t want to pay for membership if I could only seldom use it.

Looking forward, their low-cost structure may help them move past their competitors. Who knows, we may even see the Netflix /Blockbuster story repeat itself again with Zipcar…

Your opinion?

Contributed by Dany

You can laugh, if you see this, and wonder if I think this is the answer to the world’s demand, and any marketer’s problems, but actually it’s just the beginning.
I had to play a guessing game with my manager last night before leaving work.
It’s called Guess the Population. What’s the size of Tokyo? (10 million metropolitan) The size of Japan? (128 million) The size of US? (316 million or twice the size of Japan). I have to admit I had forgotten a lot of those numbers and did not play this game very well, despite the numerous places I have been and numerous people I have met.

Said the manager, “Being a good quant is about understanding populations, when you know the population size, you can estimate the market size.”

I talk a lot about the trends of certain products, often times in the tablet, mobile and hardware device market. But I haven’t said much about how big these markets really are in concrete numbers. It’s even tougher to put those numbers into a context that is understandable, so let’s put this into practice.
So, in the coming weeks, I’ll bring you on a virtual tour of the globe, offering a few key stats on the different places throw in a bit of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. We’ll have some fun.

About the chart itself, if you were to exclude Martians, the world’s population is close to 7 billion. That’s twice the size of population than it was 50 years ago.
That’s a lot of people with pains and needs. That’s market potential, only a percentage of those people own a technology device, which leaves many more who will buy one later, or those who own who will buy again in the future.

The more I look at Facebook recently, the more I see baby pictures. And when I say baby pictures, I mean newborn sons and daughters of friends who are newly parents. I browse these pictures with great interest and can see myself as a doting aunt, showering presents, organic cotton blankets, BPA free sippy cups, baby carriers or other baby things that are en vogue.

Even so, to see myself as parent is an anxious vision, a possible threat to my career and personal growth. Am I alone in this worry, I wondered. Right now, simply balancing work, writing, friends, family is difficult, more seems impossible.

I wanted to find out how others have approached work life balance with children so I took this scenario to a jury of skilled careerists: What would negatively impact your personal brand, if anything, should you choose to have children?

There was a gentle scolding for thinking about prioritizing career over children, and was reminded that children can be negatively branded too if exposed to workaholic parents: “Worrying about your personal brand while raising children causes me to question your sense of priorities.” Miri, a mother of two boys, said that it doesn’t negatively impact career, but it does change things a whole lot, “depending on the decisions you make.”

I also liked this idea from Ashley Feader, who says, “Your personal brand should reflect your values and your life as a whole – not just work.” I agree with this wholeheartedly because it is important that perception from others does not dictate how a person lives his/her life.

Even so, Raquel Elle Bell, CEO of 23 Degrees Branding, reflected my fears the best: “If I walk into a board room pregnant with a bunch of executives, usually all men, will they take me seriously?…I also wonder if people will take me seriously in being driven in my business if my focus is not 100% on building my company.”

Even now in 2011, there is a looming worry about males in the office, while politically speaking, they’d have to be understanding, you just can’t know how it impacts you in terms of missed opportunities or their perceptions. Because work and home life are still somewhat considered separate, talks at the watercooler are mostly about work or the weather, a pregnant woman in the office can do the unthinkable just by standing there, remind others that there exists a gray line between work in the office and caring for family at home.

Clearly Raquel and I, we’re not alone in this fear, according to a blog post in the Wall Street Journal. A study by McKinsey & Co. says women are less likely to believe they have opportunity to advance the more children that they have.

Disclaimer: this chart was an attempt to give you a visual, but without knowing the details of the McKinsey study, we don’t want to jump to too many conclusions

One of the reasons women could feel this way is somewhat tied to the gender gap in salary pay, because employers are more likely to perceive women as holding two shifts (work and children) and thus deserve less pay. At the same time, there were past trends during the recession indicating that there were more stay at home dads, because women could be paid slightly less than their male counterparts, and save companies money. Certainly there must be other factors at play? Would you agree/disagree that the study holds any weight at all?

As always, if you have an opinion on this topic, feel free to comment about the subject, better visuals, or more. If you have children, how has your career been impacted? And if you don’t have children, what are your hopes or fears about that coveted work-life balance?

A Swedish couple goes on a 3 month honeymoon, and experiences almost every natural disaster in the Asia Pacific and Australia that happened over the winter period including the tsunami in Japan.

I feel pretty sorry for this couple, and they have been lucky to escape each time!

Swedish couple have honeymoon from hell – Telegraph.

(From @pdjmoo)

I went to a sushi restaurant tonight. Not just any sushi restaurant, but a sushi restaurant where I had gotten a really good deal for $40 off. In fact, because we love sushi, we had bought two coupons. Unfortunately for us, tomorrow is the last day that the deal is valid and we had procrastinated, so we will be losing an opportunity on using the second deal.

Having waited until the last minute, we were competing with many other Living Social coupon customers. In fact, we could not even make a reservation because they were booked up with reservations from other Living Social fans. Not to mention the long line at the door.

The host looked very harried as he tried to balance fulfilling pre-made reservations with drop ins waiting at the door. The staff was stretched thin, and making $40 less per party. Is that a good deal for them? Questionable as to whether they are making any profit off of this venture.

So, if there is anyone that really benefits the most out of these deals, it’s probably the deal making company. If people are by default lazy, they’ll pay for their coupons and then maybe never redeem them. Unless, you just wait until the last minute to compete with other coupon buyers!

Do you buy coupons from Groupon, Daily Deals, LivingSocial or others? Are there deals you regret buying or regret that you did not redeem sooner? What are they?

LinkedIn is an amazing tool. It’s the best thing you can use if you want to find a job or find people who have a job that you want.
In fact, today, I got connected with my favorite author of all time, Ernest Hemingway, on LinkedIn. I got to know him after reading A Moveable Feast. He continues to be my mentor to this day, despite his ironic, twisted female characters.

That’s how amazing it is to have such a huge network of 417 people, at some point, you’ll discover you’re connected to pretty much everyone. That includes a few degrees away from Eichler, who designed my apartment and pretty much every other apartment in Palo Alto. True story!

And here’s more awesome celebrities you can connect to today, including Sherlock Holmes, Watson and Robin Hood.

It’s Friday! If you’re feeling exhausted and stressed out after a long week, follow the example of these Japanese Macaques. (Thanks @pdjmoo for sharing this photo!)

Source: Natural Geographic

Wacky Ideas, Silly Stories is a series of posts describing people’s strange experiences and discoveries in life, as well as some of my hare-brained theories.

Finally, Amazon launches the mp3 Cloud Player. I had wondered when this might happen. With the launch of their mp3 store, it was surprising that they did not include an easier way to purchase and save files for easy access at any time. After purchasing some mp3′s on Amazon, I noticed that .amz files not be opened at a convenient time once they had been purchased. This was certainly a great frustration from a usability standpoint. It meant having to email customer service and waiting for an answer.
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