The Pit - IMI Trust

You are seeing the world of business revolutionise right before your eyes!

Business is not about building databases anymore, it is now about building networks or communities. It is taking what is so powerful offline and utilising the technology available to create networks online.

It is no longer about selling your customers, it is about educating them and providing them with a platform to contribute to your business.. The more you educate and inform, the more loyalty you attract. It is about involving them in the community which you are developing, and allowing them to be active within it.

Advertising platforms allow marketers to target their customers, in ways which 10 years ago… were not even thought of. The way consumers think is now in terms of ‘keywords’. Companies like Google, take an approach to advertising which I have never seen before. That is… the better you are at targeting your customer, and the better you are at relating your text to your customers desires… the cheaper your advertising rates.

For business, sites like LinkedIn have gone from strength to strength. Facebook is now evolving at an amazing rate and astonished the business world when Microsoft invested US$240 into the company for a minor stake. This investment valued the company at US$15 Billion.

Google is on the verge of cracking $700 a share, and it’s aquisition of Youtube has proved wise, with it now being the platform of expression for the new generation. Politics has seen a rapid change, with a strong focus on capturing Youtube’s audience to promote their message.

Now we are seeing Australian politicians John Howard and Kevin Rudd go toe to toe, utilising Youtube and Myspace as their platform.

Promoting your business is now more complex and strategic than ever. Those companies that don’t advance with the changes, will be left behind by the companies that adopt the Web 2.0 and Social Networking models.

How are you utilising Web 2.0 and Social Networking in the growth of your business?

The old tradition of political marketing was all about direct media advertising, with carefully designed ad placement and a whole lot of kissing babies. TV, Radio, and Newspaper photo ops. Media organisations love nothing more than an election year for marketing budgets to open up.

Whilst this platform is still very relevant, there is an entirely new landscape that has opened up and both parties are feeling their way through new media.

The new platforms being adopted are Social Networking sites, Wiki’s, Online Video and Blogs. The main sites the politicians are looking to utilise are Myspace (which now has it’s own political section), YouTube, and Wikipedia.

This new media offer more power and opportunity then ever before to sell their promises… but on the flipside it makes the public acutely aware of the potential pitfalls.

TV, Radio and Newspaper have all the same features. They are expensive, can only provide short messages, and only provide generic messages.

New media is different. Inexpensive, gets instant media coverage, can provide long or short messages, can target specific groups, they can provide interaction with voters and it allows the parties to respond to comments from their opponents.

This is Political Marketing the Web 2.0 way. In the US, YouTube created national Online debates, where Youtube users ask the questions, and viewers can watch the debates live. Australia is looking to follow this lead.

It is now common in the US for candidates to spend more time with influential bloggers, than with journalists. If you look at the websites of Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama, the have embraced the Web 2.0 medium completely. The have blogs, online videos, user profiles and offers to ability for supporters to unite and communicate their message.

Whilst elections can be won this way, they can also be very quickly lost. Just ask John Edwards. The Democrat politician was doing what he called “The Poverty Tour.” His entire campaign was about helping people out of poverty and getting back to basics.
His campaign was ruined when footage of him appeared on YouTube, getting a US$400 haircut. The YouTube footage, made its way to all the blogs, other video sites and then into the mainstream media. His popularity has never been the same since.

It will be interesting to see how John Howard, Kevin Rudd and fringe parties like the Greens use this new media when the election date is announced.

FON.  If you haven’t heard of them yet then you soon will.  They are backed by some of the most powerful organisations on the internet, Skype and Google as well as the venture capital companies behind these giants, Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures are all investor partners in FON.  So why has FON done so well to capture the attention of these giants?

FON is the world’s largest WiFi community. Started in Spain by Martin Varsavsky, FON is built on the idea of creating a community of people who get more out of their internet connection through sharing. Every router purchased by a user enables that user to become a mini-ISP.  The beauty is they can choose to charge for the service or give it away for free if they so wish. Any amount they charge is split down the middle with FON.

Clearly, this is the best home-based business idea in a long time.  Have an internet connection and resell the bandwidth to people in your local area.  Be your own ISP and profit.  Or be chartiable and give it away. 

We love the idea here at IMI Trust but we are not alone.  There are over 300,000 ‘hotspots’, or router portals worldwide and FON want to grow that to 1m by 2010.

When FON finally hits Australia, it will cause a massive shake up in a stagnant and relatively service-free industry.  Large Internet Service Providers are getting fat on the easy profits made by broadband users.  Wireless service is poor in Australia and worse still, fees for usage are ridiculous compared our international counterparts.

So FON sound ambitious.  You are not wrong.  To kickstart their success in the US, they have have just offered 10,000 people who live near Starbucks, or any cafe with any existing WiFi hotspot, the opportunity to receive their FON WiFi router for free. A bold move considering Starbucks has its own service it provides, but when you have Google, Skype and Sequoia Capital backing you, bold moves come with the territory.  Since there are over 13,000 Starbucks stores worldwide, this initiative is only the beginning of a large scale, long term plan.

Forbes Magazine have listed them as one of THE companies to watch this year. Not bad for a company which only had its first birthday this February.

The question on Australian lips is surely when is FON coming to Australia? We need your service sooner rather than later. 

Also, on a more self-interested note, when is the IPO? And where can we sign up?

Now when you use Mozilla and have Skype installed, a Skype icon appears next to phone numbers on browsers. You simply click on the icon and the call is placed. 

For those not in the know, Skype is the most popular global internet telephone system.  Calls can be placed through your internet connection as if you were making calls on a landline.

What makes this simple addition so remarkable is that Skype have accessed the second most popular browser on the net.  Approximately 18% of all web users use Mozilla.  This means millions and millions and millions of people will have this functionality available to them.  No amount of advertising and sponsorship can match that reach. 

By creating a simple, yet powerful joint venture, Skype will boost their revenues by millions overnight.  You too could do the same thing.  Maybe not to the same scale but by choosing your joint venture partners carefully you could effectively double or triple your business.  If you do, you may need to use this number…

- Say Hello to the Australian Tax Office.  HELLO!!

This blogging thing seems relatively easy.  Every once in a while you post some commentary about what you want, the news of the day, some story you want to re-tell or just shoot the breeze about something banal. 

However, many companies that are adopting blogging are struggling to post.  They are getting writer’s block.  Is the subject worthy of commentary? Will readers laugh at my attempts at communicating?  Is there even anyone out there?

‘Blogophobia’ seems so prevalent that major corporates are paying bloggers thousands of dollars a month to write 3 or 4 posts.  To the average blogger that seems like a dream.  To a company, that seems scary that the going rate for a blogger is so high.  Well, there is an alternative…

PayPerPost is a start-up based in the US that is connecting writers with companies that need content.  Bloggers can get paid and companies can pay for content.  Blogger purists are turning there nose up at the idea that you can outsource such a personal form of communication.

For us, this is further evidence that you are able to outsource even the most minor of functions to free up time for yourself and the people at your company.  Many companies in Australia are still doing accounting, archiving, book-keeping, word-processing and other support functions all in-house. 

Companies choose not outsource these functions because they like maintaining control, however, by outsourcing these functions you can give each action a unit price.  A cost-per-word, the price per pdf, the record keeping costs all have unit value.  If you know that it costs $20 to process a document and you can be certain what you need to do to make the process profitable. 

And everyone likes profit…even bloggers.  Well most of them, anyway

Unless you have been hiding with the weapons of mass destruction this week, you would have noticed that Microsoft have released Windows Vista.

You have to love the hard sell. Not many corporates really do it to consumers anymore. Not Apple, not Google, not the oil companies, not the car manufacturers. They are all into the brand.  Microsoft have allocated US$500million to marketing their new operating system and it shows.  Come back Crazy Frog all is forgiven.

Actually, Microsoft, well done for bringing back blanket coverage in marketing and sticking it in my face everywhere I look. It is a good reminder as to why you are a $300 billion company.

The truth is the only companies persistantly doing the hard sell is the credit card companies and the banks. Can’t understand why they keep on announcing record profits.  Probably because if you put a product in front of a consumer that services a need then they consume it…

When I checked out the Microsoft site to read the Vista marketing, i was stunned to see 100 reasons as to why Vista is so great. If you were absolutely insane… that is perfect for you to discover all of Vista’s benefits. if you are a bit more human, they had the highlighted benefits. From a marketing perpective, this warmed my heart.

The truth of the matter is I am going to Harvey Norman, or similar electrical retailer, and ask for a PC that is loaded with XP.  I know for a fact they will be fire-sale-ing that stock so I can get one or seven really cheap.  That is only one reason but better than the 100 reasons Bill gave me for getting Vista. 

Experts have come out of the their holes to comment on Vista.  Us included. The reality is in 2 to 3 years time, we all know we are going to be using it. This should impact their share price of (MSFT) Microsoft significantly. Will its recent bull run continue until then?  Maybe.

PS. Bill, I dont care that you have copied Apple, nor do I care that they will release something even more impressive with Leopard. Which they won’t because I’m over operating systems named after big cats.  Just please be taking notes when they do. Look forward to my Wow beginning Now!

There are some huge tech success stories around the world.  Many that started with a few people with vision and now household names.

Steve Jobs with Apple Computer, Larry Ellison with Oracle, Sandy Lerner and Len Bozack were the brains behind Cisco Systems and Jerry Yang & David Filo made Yahoo! stratospheric.  More recently, Larry Page and Sergey Brin made Google synonymous with search, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen did the same with YouTube and Online Video.

All these companies have been helped along by the capital corporation with the midas touch, Sequoia Capital.  Without Sequoia Capital it is likely that Google and YouTube may have fallen to oblivion. They needed help to get off the ground.  Genius only gets you so far.  Money takes you to the next level. Not just money, but business acumen and experience in finding ‘the next big thing’.

Sequoia Capital have sunk money into many companies that have become hugely successful.  After searching on Google, you discover that 10% of the value of the NASDAQ is made up of companies which have had some sort of business involvement with Sequoia Capital.

They promote themselves as the entrepreneurs behind the entrepreneurs.

The world of capital raising can be highly lucrative and very risky. And many capital raising companies raise capital for the sake of taking a cut.  Sequoia Capital have backed their deep pockets up with great results.  They have ensured that entrepreneurs are able to grow their dreams.

How many Google’s have we not seen?  How many other tech nerds with a passion have missed out on a multi-billion fortune?  Without the seed funding, and without the business guidance, where are these guys today with Page and Brin and Hurley and Chen?

Behind every great success story there is a depth that is rarely explained or mentioned.  We see the end result, nothing else. Companies like Sequoia Capital make it happen.

The reason they are successful is because they are passionate and have a believe in the value of ‘The Idea’ and ‘The Culture’ underpinning the idea.  In business, the support is what you need to succeed.  That and billions of dollars.

Corporations spend billions a year promoting themselves. Advertising on billboards, TV, radio, online banner ads, nearly everywhere you look. On your television, on buses, painted on football fields and even on the skin of boxers, there is brand placement everywhere.

Companies focus on the promotion of their brand as a means of communicating with their clients. They do this through their logo, their slogan, their colours and the types of people that appear in their advertisements.  On the other hand, some companies use the ‘Celebrity CEO’ to push the brand through.  Richard Branson and Donald Trump are known for their amazing abilities for self-promotion.

Web 2.0 has capitalised on this theme. The principles of Web 2.0 are that there are open channels of communication.  Consumers can connect with the company. On the flip side, a CEO can present themselves to be human. This allows consumers to move beyond the brand and create a connection with another human.

This connection creates loyalty.

A good example of this is Jonathan Schwarz. A recent blog post headlined 5 things highlights 5 things you may not know about him.Why does he do this?

The answer is simple.  To break down barriers and create trust and loyalty. It breaks down the myth of the superhuman or the egotist at the head of the company. It allows him to connect.

Branding is an important aspect to the growth of any company. Introducing your clients to a personality within your business builds loyalty.

Steve Jobs at Apple has done an amazing job in pushing forward Apple’s growth. The personality has become an integral part of the Apple Brand where he garners unwavering loyalty from users of his products.  The downside to this is that there is concern about the future of company when Jobs steps down.  It is clear there are benefits to showing personality but there are issues too.  These themes are relevant to your business too.

• How do you build loyalty with your client?
• What personality shines through your business?
• Does that personality appeal to your target audience? 
• What is the impact on your company if that personality disappears?

The answers are different to different companies and their particular situation.  What is crucial is that you should explore these themes and how they can impact your business.  Don’t be scared to try something new.

Give yourself a pat on the back and bask in the glory of your achievement.  YOU are the ‘Person of the Year’.  Yes it is true. This is not a hoax.

Time Magazine has voted ‘YOU’ as the ‘Person of the year’. I have to say, you did have some pretty stiff competition in Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and North Korean leader Kim Jong Ill.

Not sure how they figured out the other nominees as ‘YOU’ is a fairly broad label covering ‘Me’ and of course ‘You’. I am gladly accepting my award from Time Magazine.

‘You’ are the winner because you are part of the development of the next generation of business. The winner of Time Magazines Person of the Year are the Internet users behind the self-made content on sites such as YouTube and MySpace. They called it the digital democracy.

Time highlights user-generated content as the winner, but if you want to peel the orange and get to the real juice behind their staggering success then look at the Social Networks behind these companies. That is where the success really lies.

More and more Fortune 500 companies are adopting this model in the US but in Australia we have been very slow to act. Australia for some reason, still likes the idea of the faceless business which offers no real human dimension. 

The best example of Social Networks I have seen is actually from a TV Show. Yes… and if you watch it… you know what I am talking about.

The Sunrise Program on Channel 7 has done this brilliantly. And the Seven Network have done it so well that Channel 9 still can’t figure out why they are losing in the ratings. Sometimes marketers and Eddie McGuire miss the absolute obvious.

When you watch it you actually sense that the hosts actually are family.  There is a sincerity present that is missing from the Channel 9 alternative. This offer of family is extended out to their audience. They also know their audience very well, knowing their desires and fears.

This audience has attracted such a strength that they are now having an impact in federal politics. Their “Cool the Globe” campaign to highlight climate change is a great example of this.

Kevin Rudd used to feature every Friday where he and Joe Hockey would talk about Political issues impacting Australia. At the end, they would always have a joke and give each other a bit of stick.  Finally… real, humans on TV that have flaws. I respect Joe Hockey’s broken ankle from touch football on the Parliament House lawns.

What’s interesting is look who is the Labor leader now. In fact, I used to watch him every Friday, wondering why he wasn’t the Labor leader … and now he is.

Go to the Sunrise and see what the first question you are asked is… “Are you a part of the Sunrise family?” They even call themselves Australia’s Breakfast family. Grant Denyer expressed this strongly in his last show.

Social Networks has an important role to play in Australian business. In the past it was limited to networking groups where people went along to a function held at the local RSL. Now they go online, and they have access to whatever group they want, when they want.  Business, finance, sport, stamp collecting, anything…

Time Magazine has identified and highlighted this.  So ‘YOU’, sit down, have a drink and congratulations on your award!

Job applicants that want a job where they can ‘travel’ can send their applications right here.  What a 10 days.

• Gold Coast (our hub) to Brisbane, then back to base
• Gold Coast to Sydney
• Sydney up to Cairns via Gold Coast
• Cairns back to the Gold Coast (for a change of clothing)
• Then, finally, Gold Coast to Melbourne and back 

I really must learn the art of appointment booking. This also explains the lack of blogging recently.  Sorry.

Please Note That Trips Were Longer Than 5cms In Real Life 

Brisbane
We met with clients to discuss processes they need to implement to streamline their services and become more efficient.   Their processes were too ‘key person’ specific.

Technology allows businesses to provide consistency. Relying solely on humans for the support of your clients can cause serious problems.  Do not remove the human element completely but support your staff by underpinning their role with strong systems.

The reason.  The potential impact of losing just ONE client is:

• You can lose the upfront profit a sale will generate
• You can lose any ongoing trails or commissions that sale will generate
• You can lose any referrals that client can provide
• You can lose the sales, trails & commissions from those referrals and their referrals
• You lose the potential to upsell any new products
• That ONE unhappy client will tell lots of other people and ruin your reputation amongst their peers

Can it be emphasized enough the amount of loss suffered from weaknesses in company processes? 

Sydney
The point regarding loss of reputation leads me nicely onto the next stop of the trip, Sydney for the “Banking & Financial Services Reputation Management Summit”. Hosted by Frocomm Australia, the event was focused around “Trust and the Impact on Reputation”. 

One of the speakers at the event was John Brogden, CEO of Manchester Unity and former Opposition leader in NSW.

This event confirmed for the direction we’ve been taking with our clients. Building trust & loyalty through community & support and communicating this clearly.

John Brogden was so accurate when he said the key to retaining clients is developing loyalty through service and information as the public can access your competition in seconds online.

In line with our philosophy, he noted that the power of the internet in developing their business.  When he started with Manchester Unity, he was of the belief that the internet would provide a lower quality, less loyal client base. What he has found is precisely the opposite.

His reasoning was the client who purchase online have developed a lot stronger product knowledge before making their decision. Exactly the way we have been working with our clients.

The line-up of speakers was second to none and a thank you must be extended to Glen Frost at Frocomm for organizing the event and Mark Hollands from Factiva for being a superb MC.  Also I won an iPod mini for my troubles.  Bonus!

Cairns
The trip to Cairns ended up being like a weekend away. I would have to say thank you to the Shangri-la Hotel for the fantastic stay. Cocktails and Wedges (not in the same glass) by the pool topped a perfect weekend.

Another One Of Those Texas Planes Landing

Melbourne
The road trip ended with Melbourne, which included a meeting with one of the big four banks to improve their marketing and distribution. It is amazing how the largest organisations in Australia can be ‘old school’ in their marketing approach. Get on the phones, sell, sell hard and quickly. We offered a few solutions and soon we’ll see if we’re allowed on board.  The signs so far are good.

The road trip was a great success, next time though I need to allow more time for sleep.