Decision Rights Series

This is an introductory teaser to a much longer seriers of posts that is still gestating, still under heavy thinkering and development ... the whole series started off as a idea for a simple posting about some reflections on Market Based Management or Charlie Koch's Science of Success, specifically the Challenge Process ... and, of course, the whole topic on the elegance magnificence of markets takes us into the nuances described in the work of Friedman, Sowell, von Mises, Mercatur ... it goes beyond MBM's Vision, Knowledge, Incentives, Diversity and lands us in the world of where things must be EARNED and paid for -- it is the context of who gets to make the decision, who is allowed to bid, what does it take to OWN the rights to make a decision?

Ownership and what it takes to be the one in control, the one making a decision is really intensely powerful stuff to think about ... it is not the cream puff namby-pamby world of democracy and fairness, it is the REAL world of who paid the price, who won the war, who owns the turf and who gets to decide [for now].

Understanding your sales funnel

Every business has a sales funnel or sales dealflow process that involves different stages of lead generation, lead conversion, customer satisfaction, referrals.   Even if you think that you do not use sales funnels, you do.  You language and jargon might be different  You have to have a sales funnel or sales dealflow process -- you might call the process something else, but you use some form of sales funnel.  How effectively you use that sales funnel basically determines how well your business is doing.

If your organization is healthy and not in a state of decline, EVERYBODY in your organization has to be involved in sales ... and EVERYBODY has to understand their role and the pivotal importance of their role in the overall sales flow.  Nobody can systematically drop the baton and everybody has to understand the sales flow well enough to see how they fit, what they should expect from what's upstream and what people who are downstream should expect from them.   That's it is so important to understand that everybody in your organization has to be involved in sales ... if not, your organization is already in a state of decline and just waiting to die.

You are probably with different concepts in the history of marketing, guerrilla marketing, and salesforce management systems ... if not, you really need to read and get up to speed on these things. You can think about a sales funnel as a continuous flow process or in order to approximate smooth continuity you might think of a 10 step flow process.

1. The minimal level of drive-by engagement ... this is just about "hanging out your shingle," being open for business, having the lights on and phone -- having the basic tools of the trade in order to deliver the product/service.  This level of engagement might require something like a location, a vehicle, a website, cards, brochures, a blog, tweeting, having a booth at conferences, writing an article in trade journals, having a radio program.  This is only the beginning of being there so that you are notice if someone is looking ... it starts with the processes of developing a reputation for expertise and the promotion of that expertise.  It is the very first element of "findability."
2. Put your business "on the map" is a slightly higher level of engagement ... at this point, you have made sure that your business is mentioned in relevant discussions, you have networked and built relationships, you are listed in directories.  Your business comes up in search -- if you have a website, you are knowledgeable search engine optimization or whatever is necessary in your industry to be one of the first options that people might consider.
3. Developing a REAL following of people, friends who genuinely "Like" what you do, people who see your organization as a source of information and a potential solver of problems.  These are not people who have made ANY tangible commitment to you -- but they are "real," even though they might still anonymous people who go by a username or online personna.  They are "friends" of your business who occassionally refer their friends and family members to content that you provide or retweet your tweets ... these are NOT sales referrals, these content referrals, as in people who send links of your blogs/photos/videos to others.
4. The next stage is getting people to participate in your "freemium" offering and to make the smallest possible real commitment.  The barrier to cross here is in to getting people to SIGN UP [with their real name, email address and password] and then to sign in again and verify that they have signed up and are moderately interested in your product ... this is not a commitment or promise to make a purchase or even use the free version of your product, but they have given you their [real] name, email address ... at the beginning of this stage, you have not even asked for a phone number, home address or anything remotely vital ... but that might change as they use your product more [in the same way that Facebook nudges people to supply more information].    
5. The next stage is getting people or business to make the MINIMUM possible atomic purchase ... you might have a service [just beyond FREE level in your "freemium plan] that costs $19.99/month ... if you are selling to businesses, this is the smallest possible Purchase Order that gets you into their Purchasing System.  The distinction between this level and the fourth level is that MONEY has changed hands.  From the fifth stage on, these people are not just "users" of your content and free product, they are verified CUSTOMERS.
6. The sixth phases is about being there, and stepping up to deliver, when the CUSTOMER really needs something special or unique.  This is when the customer calls and they really, really, really NEED service and they need it NOW.  It might also be when the customer calls to complain and they feel that the product has let them down -- the quality of response to a customer IN NEED determines whether or not the customer  advances to the next levels.
7. At the seventh level, the CUSTOMER becomes a "pro" or a "premium level" customer ... perhaps they take the time to become "Certified," a la Certified Red Hat System Administrator or Certified Solidworks Professional.  They use your product or service at a significant level and they use it more or less routinely, but even though their purchases are significant and almost routine, they are still comparison-shopping -- you are their preferred vendor, but you are not yet the only vendor they would consider using. 
8. At the eighth level, the CUSTOMER is a satisfied lifetime, automatic repeat customer.  They will give referrals if they are coaxed -- but if they are pushed into giving referrals [in some sort of manipulative, passive-aggressive fashion] before they are really ready to do, you will probably either lose them OR they will never move to highest levels of trust and enthusiasm.  At this level, the customer TRUSTS your product or service as a ubiquitous, necessary utility -- they would not really think of doing without it unless some idiot in your organization does something to squander their trust.
9. At the ninth level, these customers are the true enthusiasts and believers in your product and service.  They will endorse your product without compensation, without being coaxed.  They will pay more money than they have to pay in order to buy clothing that offers them the special privilege of wearing your logo.  They will paint their houses green and yellow if they love your green and yellow tractors.  They are die hard zealots who will claim to have always been your fans even when other people weren't -- they will dispute whether lawyers and accountants should be allowed to buy your guitars or own your motorcycles just because those people have money.  
10. At the tenth level, these customers move beyond making smaller token efforts (i.e. buying a sweatshirt).  They will invest in your company, they will back your projects, they will jump at the chance to become co-owners -- they will covet the chance of having the opportunity to be considered as an employee or to offer consulting services.

Most companies do not understand sales funnels ... very few employees of any company really understand the pivotal role of their efforts in their employer's sales funnel ... it does happen, but not all that frequently.  Brand new, smaller startup companies and family businesses tend to do a better job of this ... older, established, dinosaurs tend to be rather poor at this.  If you want your organization to be around in five years, it is imperative that all of the people in your organization understand your sales flow ... you just cannot understate the importance of sales flow to a healthy organization.  A healthy sales funnel is more important to an organization than a a healthy digestive track is to a human being.

A Few Hundred Ways To Become An Expert in Friendraising

Salebarn's new enterprise, AUCT.us was formed to increase those "US" things that auctioneers can be involved in, to be better citizens ... crowdfunding, social commerce,  social network analytics and friendraising.  Friendraising is such an new notion that the word is still not in most dictionaries.  If you type the word and you will probably see squiggly lines under it because your text editor doesn't recognize the word yet BUT friendraising already kind of a big deal.

The massively collaborative, crowd-written, crowd-edited Wikipedia, which has come to epitomize the notion of crowdsourcing and shared interest in knowledge, has an entry for friendraising. Of course, the notion of friendraising is still a brand new, still evolving, thinly understood concept.  The Wikipedia entry will change -- right now, it is still new and SMALL and quite likely to be somewhat incorrect, even though it is a good starting point.

So far, the Wikipedia "experts" on the friendraising entry have defined the term as just another "form of fundraising that involves befriending an organization or individual for the purpose of helping support the financial aspect of a charity, nonprofit group or other community benefit organization."

Is friendraising ONLY about money?  What about skills, creativity, enthusiasm and human capital?  

Besides just the current deal-based fundraising, what about relationship-based friendraising and the networking that shapes our organizations into the venue where we meet our FUTURE friends?

If we have friends involved in our organizations, won't those those friends likely to tip over their couches to get the change, maybe hit up some of their friends to get involved, to go to their employers for employer-sponsored matching contributions?  Won't genuine friends somehow, some way find the money if that money is REALLY needed to do something?  Is money really what really makes things happen?

Let's accept the impossible mission to become experts in friendraising.  Let's define what friendraising is about in terms of developing relationships with people who will become our FRIENDS because we share the same passion for the same cause ... since these people are going to be our friends, let's leave money out of it at first ... we can talk about money later ... at first, let's start raising a network of new friends in the same way that Amish people might thing about raising a new barn.

The following quote should guide us in how we think about friendraising, about how our commitments shape our friendships and how we make our lives more meaningful by sharing our commitments and our friendships ...

"We make a living by what we can get, we make a life by what we give."  Winston Churchill

It's not just about giving money. That's too easy. Friends give much more to friends than money. A lot of the networking, energy, creativity and other skills involved in friendraising might be dismissed as just common sense.  After all, almost all of us have been making new friends for longer than we've have been able to talk in coherent sentences, so we might already know how to make friends [even if we have forgotten it and prefer to only talk with people we already know].  If we are going to be any good at this, we have to think about structure or architecture ... in other words, in order to RAISE this network of new FRIENDS, we might have to  think about how we might engineer and accelerate the development of our expertise in this brand new topic of FRIENDRAISING.

Let's start by brainstorming 100 Ways To Become An Expert in Friendraising ... some of these will be WILD goofy ideas ... we won't be able to do all 100 right away ... but the first step is just brainstorming ... when you run out of ideas, start BlekkoStorming

1. Read everything you can find on relationships and networking. List ways that your network can do more to advance each of the following positive attributes of genuine friendship:
   • Knowing and liking one another ... beyond the easy, non-committal "slacktivism" of being a social network  follower or recipient of the [LIKE] button
   • Open, positive communication, interaction, debate and notification
   • Demonstrated compassion, care, concern, empathy; being present
   • Depth of understanding especially on differences in opinion
   • FUN ... collaborative, creative, entertaining effort toward mutual success
   • Reciprocal participation and appropriate cross-involvement in other causes
   • Open-mindedness, fairness and adaptability without loss of integrity
   • Honoring commitments, being dependable, especially in times of need
   • Honesty, dignified disagreement and respect for different views
   • Everything that friendliness and being a true friend involves
   Get out of your cocoon, and put your knowledge of networking into practice, test different ways of meet NEW people ... but get out there and see what works!
2. Develop an systematic adaptation of the Edward D Jones process for relationship-based marketing, setting aggressive goals to make personal, physical belly-to-belly contact with 25 people per day.  Find ways, e.g. seminars, tradeshows, events and auctions, to meet larger numbers of people who share your interests to ensure that you make contact with more people who will join your cause, become your friends.
3. If you think about the process of networking very long, you start to realize that it is going to be even more necessary in the future to spend [at least] an hour a day on social media marketing and, in particular, you may want to get especially serious about Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
4. Master web analytics and related topics [include mobile] to understand how people USE web pages and the internet
5. Get serious about social network analytics
6. Become a better, more focused, more intuitive listener ... read between the lines as you listen to what someone is saying, as you read their blog posts or comments.  It's a lot like making friends when you're two or three years old; you cannot just depend on logical or rational argument ... you have to develop your intuition to really HEAR what someone is saying.  
7. Beyond just listening to one or two people -- you must find ways to listen to the smartest person in the millions of jabbering voices out there.  That means that you must develop ways to use technology to automate your content selection process and transcend the process of reading ... the fundamental notion is there's always a LOT of someones out there who are smarter than you.  Even among the people who aren't that bright, there are more than enough good ideas.  If you can be a more effective and efficient LISTENER and if you can sift the wheat from the mountains of chaff, there will always someone out there who will give you an idea that will work well [even if they have a wild idea that will never work].  You already know what kind of stuff is just a distraction and completely unworthy of your time.
8. Using vertical search engines like Blekko and curating a slashtag is one way to improve and refine your approach to search.
9. Become proficient at use a CMS like Drupal to aggregate RSS feeds and manage content from different sources
10. Develop curated lists on Twitter; use those currated lists as the basis for daily "newspapers" with services like Paper.LI (@SmallRivers) and TweetedTimes.com (@TwtTimes) come under the newspaper format. 
11. Develop slightly deeper content, such as curated magazines or course syllabi, with Postano.com (@ilpostano), Twylah.com (@Twylah), Scoop.it (@scoopit) or Learni.st (@LearnistTweets)
12. Consider developing content using so-called "summarizers" include Summify.com (@summify), Strawberryj.am(@strawberryapp), Knowabout.it (@knwbt), News.me (@newsdotme), andTopicmarks.com (@topicmarks)
13. Investigate the more advanced "text synthesis" robojournalism includeAutomatedInsights.com (@AInsights), formerly StatSheet, andNarrativeScience.com (@narrativesci). 
14. Master the use of Pinterest in fundraising, especially if much of of your content is image-based, for example, Van Gogh Museum or philanthropies that involve nature [photography]. Everyone should remember that "a picture is worth a 1000 words"and more image-based social networks.  It's not just Pinterest, don't ignore Google+ Photos Instant Upload and Picasa OR even FlickR, especially since Yahoo is trying to make FlickR relevant again.
15. Real experts assiduously cultivate real person-to-person relationships [beyond just Facebook, Twitter, blogs] with real people who do real things.  Finding the rising stars in any industry or important pursuit is matter of digesting and reading a fair amount of deep content every single day.  It not about name-dropping or knowing the keywords, it's about really GETTING the ideas -- it's never hurts to be well-read.  
16. Every commercial niche has one or more trade magazines.  That's true also  of the fundraising industry.  The editors and writers know what is the conventional wisdom for their industry ... seek to know more than they do. 
17. Examine the advertisements [in industry publications.]  Look at WHO is advertising aggressively and who does not need to advertise.  Examine why and how they are advertising -- what are they selling, how are they trying to change opinions, what reputation are they trying to build or sustain.  Pay close attention to success and, more importantly, the DISRUPTION of success.  
18. Write an article and submit it for publication in an industry magazine or peer-review journal. Become a published author in the industry. If you have trouble getting an article published, write a letter to the editor or respond to one.  Write something, start the process going. People will see your name, read your material and comment ... respond to the comments, interact with your audience ... develop a following. 
19. Develop an authentic web presence; develop a process for re-inventing it and keeping it fresh ...  then develop another one.
20. Develop a SERIOUS professional blog or family of blogs. 
21. Speak regularly.  Get comfortable in front of crowds.  Practice at Toastmasters or form your own club of speakers.  Offer to speak at a local college, club, association, or service organization programming chair the opportunity to have you speak on a relevant subject both at no charge. 
22. Becoming knowledgable about audio recording and podcasting and then develop a podcast that will attract friends.  
23. Become a talk radio personality and use the power of personality to build influence, to reach out to like-minded people and, in general to attract friends.  While you are "on the air" think about also posting videos and photos, liveblogging, tweeting and doing other things to add depth, to make your show multi-dimensional. 
24. Run your own seminars. Tie in your seminar with other companies and organizations to build your credentials. Become a technical specialist speaking to businesses, business organizations, banks.  Charging for your speech at leading businesses and corporations will add to your credentials. 
25. Develop an alliance of friends who are using New Media.
26. Join a national trade organization for your industry; write a monthly column on interesting aspects of the industry for the organization’s newsletter or magazine. Give a seminar or have a booth at your industry's national or international trade show. Get on boards or committees for the organization that fit your expertise. 
27. Send out press releases. Mention your credentials, promote your speaking and seminars, share examples of your writing and content.  Be sure to mention that are a nationally recognized and published author, a lecturer at universities and colleges, and a nationally renowned expert on your area of interest.  In the end, marketing you as the expert leads to more opportunities to develop expertise as a Friendraising [and fundraising consultant].
28. Investigate ways for organizations to develop develop networks of friends and networks of networks of friends for developing a large list of guests for event.  Make the event virtual so that "expats" and people on the road, away from home can participate. 
29. Investigate training clinics for benefit auction staff; host/sponsor these training clinics at your site and invite similar organizations from the area.  
30. Develop a network of professional event planning and benefit management professionals.  USE these professionals to make your friendraising and fundraising more successful.  Work with several and negotiate the best deal for your organization.  Competition matters.
31. Use graphic design professionals to develop memorable logos [with your website] for apparel or other items that are tied to your benefit auction, fundraiser, campaign. 
32. Develop a list of suppliers of key materials and services
33. Develop a list of donors and people who will give [promotional] items for being associated with auction.
34. Work with benefit/fundraising professionals to develop gamified ideas for unique raffles, silent auctions
35. Work with budding app developers to develop an app that showcases their talent AND serves your organization's friendraising/fundraising needs.
36. Get the very best beef or pork and have it prepared professionally ... OR better yet, allow people to grill their own steak on their own pitchfork... provide attendees with a education about what they are buying from a beef producer, a locker owner or a chef. 
37. After hors d'oeuvres and a happy hour ... trying auctioning off LOCAL wine or beer early at your benefit auction [along with corkscrews/openers/glasses. Provide attendees with a education about what they are buying from a sommelier or brewmeister.  
38. Investigate auctioneer bid calling and ring man training services and host a mini-clinic at your location for organizations in the area.  
39. Develop a network of different printers to handle your catalogs, placemats, brochures, business cards ... get competitive quotes, "steal" the best ideas.  
40. If you [and your friends in other related organizations] are going to spend money on supplies for events and fundraisers, then get GOOD at it.  Become the "supplier development manager" and procurement HUB for organizations like yours.  Get competitive quotes and design suggestions from different vendors; negotiate volume purchases.
41. Think about these thirty-two recommendations for philanthropic organizations  ... ONE.BY.ONE. ... in this 2011 report on philanthropic giving. In 2010, in the United States alone, there were 1,280,739 registered 501(c)(3) organizations garnering total financial support of $291 billion from American citizens. That's 2% of disposable income; it is highly doubtful that the level of financial support will increase all that much.  Even in relatively good times, people tend NOT to give MONEY for a variety of good reasons, but they might be convinced to give more of themselves ... their time, their enthusiasm, their energy, their skills ... partly as advertisements for what they can do or for networking opportunities and partly to connect with their FRIENDS.
42. Here are eighty-nine (89) friendraising ideas to adopt as your own from  an e-book sold by Help4NonProfits.com.
43. Skim the Table of Contents from these 475 books that discuss the importance of relationships in fundraising ... pick the best one out of five to read or skim more thoroughly ... by the time you are done with that you should have a couple hundred good ideas for friendraising.
44. As you brainstorm more ideas, do not just adapt neat fundraising tricks and games ... understand the crucial distinction between deal-based fundraising (i.e. checkbook-based one-time transactional fundraising) and relationship-based friendraising which involves reaching something of  an agreement that involves long-term cooperation, collaboration and friendship. There are HUGE critical differences between deal-based approach and the relationship-based approach:
    • In a deal, the goal is confined to just getting an agreement ... or a check. In a relationship, the goal is cooperating, collaborating, enjoying each other's company, networking on future opportunities, establishing a foundation for working together profitably over the long term, starting from the first agreement, then building far beyond it.
    • In a deal, the party you are negotiating with is, to a large extent, is not all that close to you now and won't be in the future.  Right now, they support your cause; right now, you are just raising money. In a relationship, the people who are involved are your FRIENDS, you preferred partners in working together, you all share a true belief in the cause [and probably in other things as well].
    • Deals are about raising as much money as you can ... in that event, in that evening, in that campaign. Relationships are based on more than just money, they involve "dividing and conquering" the work that has to be done and joint burden-sharing and joint celebration.
    • In a deal, you basically hold yourself aloof from the others ... perhaps playing games, hiding information, guarding the responses [to get more money], pressing positions or relying on "ego contests" to get more money. A relationship is for the truly long pull, you need to more relaxed, open, and natural because you can't keep up the "push" for that long.  Relationships are about really involving people, so they have ALL of information and there are no secrets so that they understand the needs.
    • In a deal, you may exaggerate the urgency of the need or use different tricks to just to get others write the check. Successful friendraising relationships are based on honesty, reliability, and continual, long-term follow-through.
    • Deals are static [focused on how much is contribute right now, today], inflexible, with demands for booking the contributions, getting the event totals, just as soon as possible when transaction is completed. Relationships are also based on fundamental agreements and COMMITMENTS, but they are more accommodating, less rigidly detailed and probably far more valuable than just quickie deals. Because relationships take place over time, change needs to be anticipated and managed constructively and creatively rather than ignored or given short shrift because the relationship falls outside of the scope of the initial agreement. Relationships are dynamic and EXPAND as we go through life.
    • Not all organizations require relationships in order to succeed; organizations that don't do much are only worthy of quick-and-dirty simple deals.  And sometimes, everybody wants a quick-and-dirty simple deal with no strings and no relationship.  For example: when someone donates their old car or junk in their basement, they are basically just disposing of stuff and they'd like to maybe try to do a bit of good.  Any extra value that they might get from a relationship with an organization would be a bonus but mostly they just want to unload their stuff, support an okay cause and be left alone.
45. Ok, that's still not enough ideas yet ... KEEP BRAINSTORMING and get your friends involved in the brainstorming.  After all, that's what friendraising is all about!

100 Keys to Success in Selling Advertising for Publishers

There is so much to learn about the world of advertising for publishers of content ... ALL content either is supported by advertisement or is implicitly an advertisement for the ideas embedded in the content OR and advertisement for the author of that content.  All content is basically "selling" something or asking the reader to think about something ... even if the idea being sold is essentially one that asks the reader to be a more critical thinker, to be more skeptical even of the article itself.  All content is basically selling something ... the concepts of advertising applies to all content.

The world is changing rapidly in the world of advertisement ... it might be that advertisement along with recommendation engines are becoming even more powerful and necessary.  As a result, I thought it would be a worthwhile exercise to attempt to curate this list.

1. In order to understand any topic, it is up to you to put together your own program of study to do what is necessary to become a bit of an expert ... it might seem like a paradox, but it's more like the chicken-and-egg thing ... you have to start where you are and RAPIDLY evolve and grow ... you have become a bit of an expert FIRST, so that you can find better ways to educate yourself [and so that you can seek even better training] ... this is the same in the world of advertising ... develop expertise by seeking out and listening to experts; don't waste experts time -- do your homework first so you can ask good questions but never show off, especially when you might know more about a niche topic than an expert!
2. Develop better content and media for your advertising.  Work at improving your advertising expertise as you develop your content expertise.  Develop a daily practice to "sharpen the saw" as you build skills that reinforce your ability to successfully improve your media and content publishing at the same time that you improve your success in selling your advertisement for a higher return.
3. As a rule, the Google AdSense advertising for publishers will generally be the standard.  But as you will also want to consider other programs such as Microsoft Ad PubCenter or the Chikita Online Ad Network or BuySellAds or the Amazon Associates Affiliate Program or any other advertising network o affiliate program for content creators and publishers.  If you are a content creator and publisher, you probably should use Facebook only about as much as you absolutely need to, to bring people back to your website, your blog, your content.  Many would say that Facebook's business model is basically about killing the revenue possibilities in publisher advertisement and programs like Google AdSense or the Amazon Associates Affiliate Program [in order to drive all social commerce to the insular Facebook universe].  Before you investigate the other alternatives, it will be worth your while to focus on just one and that best is probably AdSense; watch the AdSense videos and also the DoubleClick videos; read the AdSense forum; participate in the AdSense Academy; understand how you earn money with the whole AdSense Family ... AdSense for content (AFC), AdSense for search (AFS) AdSense for video (AFV), AdSense for games (AFG), AdSense for mobile (AFM).   Two products that you might have heard about before, AdSense for feeds (AFF) and AdSense for domains (AFD) have gone away and are not really necessary for content creators and publishers.