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“Breakfast at Tiffany’s” is a movie that I saw at the age of five. The year was 1961.  My mom used to bring us kids to the movies every Sunday.  We saw every movie that came to our local theatre, But the theme song in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, Henry Mancini’s “Moon River”, has stayed with me all through the years. To this very day, I am still haunted my the melody with Andy Williams singing.

Based on Truman Capote's novel, this is the story of a young, jet-setting woman in New York City who meets a young man when he moves into her apartment building. He is being kept by a wealthy, older woman, but wants to be a writer. She is working as a high-priced escort and searching for a rich, older man to marry. The opening scene has her window-shopping at Tiffany's at six in the morning, after being up all night on a date.  More

There is a saying:  “The Truth shall set you free”, but even truer to the point
is that honesty will not only set you free; it will sustain you. I have a
beautiful apple tree outside of my kitchen window in my backyard, and it is a
constant reminder of this fact.  

From the beginning of time, apples have been associated with love, beauty, luck,
health, comfort, pleasure, wisdom, temptation, sensuality, sexuality, virility
and fertility. It doesn’t matter what period of time or which culture, the
themes always come down to these. The apple tree signifies the Tree of Life, and
in Greek myth, the apple tree is a symbol of abundance.   More

John Reese just released the first part of his new Income.com.

 BlogRush is the name of the service they have finally released
(after many months of development). It’s a free service that will
help any blogger generate more traffic and readers for their blog.

Using RSS technology and some of their own new technology,
they’ve built an amazing platform to help bloggers receive
“mass distribution” for their content across the Internet.
And their system doesn’t spam or abuse the Internet in anyway.
And it doesn’t try and ‘game’ Google either.

What a fresh approach.  I congratulate John Reese and his co-workers
for coming out with such a novel idea and look forward to using it.

Here's a link to join BlogRush:

http://www.blogrush.com/r10238588

You can see it in action here in this blog to the right.

Happy Blogging and Much Traffic To You!

Angela Wickenberg

P.S.  My new website is coming along nicely, behind the scenes
and will be re-launched very soon.

P.S.S. Stay tuned to this blog for coming news!

P.S.S.S.  Join BlogRush here:  http://www.blogrush.com/r10238588

This is the question I posed to my contacts in LinkedIn.  The question was as follows:

"Should we 'make love' to our customers?"

"Do you think marketers should stop treating their customers like wallets and instead treat them more like the people they would like to be their dearest friends, or even a desired lover?"

I received a few interesting responses, and have decided to post them here:

Lucas Allmon wrote:

While I agree with Benny to a certain extent, business IS relationships. You are more likely to do business with someone that you like than someone you can't stand.

Companies need to start treating people more like humans than just policy numbers or walking products.

While you may get a sale by being a hardass, you aren't going to retain those clients as lifers.

Hamish Taylor wrote:

Only if you're married to them as otherwise invoicing becomes really difficult!!!

Ray Miller wrote:

There is the old expression……….you catch more flies with honey than…..

Benny Greenberg wrote:

Actually befriending your customer is a poor approach to closing a sale. I have given a few e-courses on the proper methodology involved in this strategy. You need to be the expert, the person your customer looks to as the one-and-only person to buy from. Not the person to go bar hopping with. Think people - it is much easier to say NO to a friend than to a stranger. The same way you would not present in jeans and a t-shirt, or show up with your cell phone in hand, a bic pen and torn post it notes, you do not turn your customer into your friend. If you want to know more - drop me a note

Eugene Rembor, MBA wrote:

OK, had some time to look at the viedo, but honestly - I don't understand a thing. What's your point??

Eve Morris BSc(hons), Cert DigM wrote:

I think the FSA stance on treating customer fairly gives some valuable guidance on how UK financial services businesses should treat their customers. This guidance can also apply to non-financial services businesses. We should all treat our customers fairly & with respect - not with a veneer of false friendship which could potentially be perceived as shallow & insincere.

Outcome 1: Consumers can be confident that they are dealing with firms where the fair treatment of customers is central to the corporate culture;

Outcome 2: Products and services marketed and sold in the retail market are designed to meet the needs of identified consumer groups and are targeted accordingly;

Outcome 3: Consumers are provided with clear information and are kept appropriately informed before, during and after the point of sale;

Outcome 4: Where consumers receive advice, the advice is suitable and takes account of their circumstances;

Outcome 5: Consumers are provided with products that perform as firms have led them to expect, and the associated service is both of an acceptable standard and as they have been led to expect;

Outcome 6: consumers do not face unreasonable post-sale barriers imposed by firms to change product, switch provider, submit a claim or make a complaint.

These 6 outcomes should be the foundations upon which all products are marketed & sold to customers.

As regards your love metaphor.. to take it literally - to smile at a customer can be to engage initial interest in your product, to cuddle them can be to comfort & reassure with credibility & brand reinforcement, to make them feel special is to target & personalize the relevance of your communications to them individually, and to love is to value them as an individual who interacts with your brand time & again.

I hope this is helpful - I am open to connect
Kind regards
Eve

Pieter Dorsman wrote:

No that would be too much…

I do hope some of my suppliers say "yes" but preferably just the female representatives…

Hjörtur Smárason wrote:

Depends on what you are selling, Angela

But in general, the answer is no. You should not.

I like it when brands approach me personally and appear relaxed, secure and sincere, (the same goes for people). But if you start stroking my thigh, I'm off. So don't over do it.

Cheers
Hjörtur

Geri Rockstein wrote:

Hi Angela,

I believe that a business relationship should be a professional one where each party meets or exceeds the expectations of the other. I don't believe that is treating someone like a wallet. Being treated or treating a business relationship like a potential friend or lover does not enter into the equation for me.

Best regards,

Geri

Teemu Korpi wrote:

If there can be a person more reserved than a brit then he/she must come from Finland like myself. Like John W. I would find it very troublesome if someone in the position of a salesperson came too "close".

I would rather have that relationship in the right framework that being a customer one. Then again there are certain facts that make a good customer relationship.

One vital part of marketing communication mix is personal selling. That's the contact point where the promises are kept or not. That's the critical point where the basis of returning customer relationship are laid.

So, I would keep my pants on and hands in my pockets.

Tim Chattaway [LION] wrote:

In the industry I work In It pays to be nice, even through gritted teeth sometimes.

However I work with clients/people I get along with, I know this is not always possible, but if you find clients you enjoy talking to the desire to go that extra mile for them is there. Willing to take phone calls from Clients in various time zones at 3am in the morning for example.

We all work to get paid, thats life, but whats to say we can't be nice and treat people with a bit of respect whilst they are also lining are pockets?

John Welford wrote:

I'm not so sure! If a marketer treats me in this way, I will immediately know that they are only pretending to be my dearest friend. If someone said that they wanted to be my lover, I'd get really worried!

The point is that when the marketer is clearly acting out a falsehood, how can I trust anything they say about what they are trying to sell?

This may have something to do with cultural differences. I understand that Americans have a different attitude in these respects from Europeans. As a "reserved" Brit I do not want to be grabbed by the elbow when I meet someone for the first time, and I want people to earn the right to use my first name, not to assume it. In marketing terms, I am deeply suspicious of advertisements voiced in American accents, simply because they sound, to my British ears, less sincere than those that use British accents.

(What I find even odder is the public prudery in America that goes alongside the personal chumminess. Look at the absurd shock and horror generated by Janet Jackson's costume malfunction!)

No - in the same way that I will not jump into bed with you after only one date, don't expect me to buy your product simply because you "come on strong" with your first marketing contact!

Eugene Rembor, MBA wrote:

I don't need to watch the video to yell from the bottom of my heart "YES, they should!".

Thanks so much for all of your responses.  I will be contacting you all tomorrow with your downloads.

The question will be live for 7 days, but from the looks of things, very few people are watching the video.  The question in itself is enough to evoke a passionate answer.  And viewing my video without first reading the Attention Age paper is confusing, as one reader, Eugene mentioned in his second post above after watching the video.  However, when I took a look at my YouTube statistics before writing the post, there were 72 views of the video, so SOMEONE is watching out there!!! Yeah!!!

Apparently, a lot of people do not like the idea of becoming your customer's best friend.  Opinions are also divided.  Many of the interpretations are far from what my intention was.  Eve hit the nail on the head with her analysis and explanation, and I think we can all learn a thing or two from her answer.

For those of you who have not yet seen the video, here it is again:

http://www.strategicprofits.com/66-seconds-compelling/angela-wickenberg/

Talk soon,

Angela Wickenberg

 

 

 

As Web 2.0 becomes less of just a buzzword and more of a
reality, the types of sites webmasters need to publish will
increasingly become more important. In other words,
mini-sites are slowly dying and cookie-cutter article sites
are on the way out as well. Web surfers will become more
value-focused and web companies will become larger.

Over the next few years expect larger conglomerates to be
buying up profitable websites in their chosen markets.
Expect smaller sites to either be bought or driven out of
business. My intention is not to scare you, but this
outcome is inevitable.

Large businesses have always taken two approaches to their
desired markets. They either buy their competition or they
push them out of business. You want to be prepared when
this trend begins on the Internet.

Being a webmaster and online marketer, you should be
preparing for one of two scenarios. To position yourself
for a buyout to a larger company or to become the larger
company that dominates your chosen market.

Whichever route you choose is entirely up to you, but I
would suggest that it would be in your best interest to
begin focusing on authority sites. You can either start
building them or turning your current sites into them.
Whatever your approach may be, I assure you it will help
you sleep better at night.

What Is the Definition of an Authority Site?

A fairly comprehensible authority site definition was put
forward by Jason Dowdell of Global Promoter. Jason defined
it this way: …quot;Authority sites are sites that have
been linked to and referenced on other web sites covering
the same subject matter and they also will have hundreds if
not thousands of pages covering that subject matter and
nearly every facet of it….quot;

That definition is one man’s opinion, albeit a good one,
but let us go directly to the source. Many search engine
optimization and search engine marketing experts believe
Google has derived their primary algorithm from a document
titled, "Hilltop: A Search Engine based on Expert
Documents."

The PageRank formula as we know it today was derived from
this paper, and the authors, Bharat and Mihaila, define an
authority site in the text below:

"We believe a page is an authority on the query topic if
and only if some of the best experts on the query topic
point to it. Of course in practice some expert pages may be
experts on a broader or related topic. If so, only a subset
of the hyperlinks on the expert page may be relevant."

"In such cases the links being considered have to be
carefully chosen to ensure that their qualifying text
matches the query. By combining relevant out-links from
many experts on the query topic we can find the pages that
are most highly regarded by the community of pages related
to the query topic. This is the basis of the high relevance
that our algorithm delivers."

What we have reprinted above is the foundation of the
PageRank system and the determination for deciding which
sites will be authorities. I highly recommend you read and
re-read the full document until you understand every aspect
of it.

What Are the Components of an Authority Site?

Allow me to present you with a diagram at:
http://www.contentdesk.com/authoritymap that dissects your
typical authority site. As you can tell from the diagram, a
considerable number of components and systems must be in
place for the authority site to function profitably and
reap the benefits of the "Authority Site Formula."

The Authority Site Formula = Visitor Optimization (VO) +
Content Optimization (CO) * Creative Marketing (CM)

A simple question must be asked. What do 99.9% of authority
sites provide? In a sentence, an incredible amount of
original content and a superb visitor experience. The
search engines want you to succeed and they want you to
make money, but you have to play by their rules. In the
future, focus your efforts on visitor optimization and
content optimization instead of search engine optimization.

What Is the Anatomy of an Authority Site?

About.com is the definition and was the original authority
site. Their site has a generic domain name and hundreds of
subdomains on different topics.

Your authority site should take the same approach, but not
on such a general level. If you launch an authority site,
it should be geared towards a well-defined and large
market. After you launch the site and generate some
traffic, you should create subdomains that cover specific
areas inside that larger market.

For example, Diabetic-Resources.Com is not an active site;
but if it were, then a typical authority site setup would
be something like:

* http://supplies.diabetic-resoures.com *
http://diet.diabetic-resources.com *
http://insurance.diabetic-resources.com *
http://symptoms.diabetic-resources.com *
http://treatment.diabetic-resources.com

Using this approach, you are able to target your general
market while generating more targeted traffic pertaining to
related sub-markets.

As a rule of thumb, the index pages on your domains and
subdomains should be more focused on content, but the
article and commentary pages should be more focused on
advertising. Just do not ever lose sight of the most
important aspect of your site, which is visitor experience
otherwise known as visitor optimization.

What Does It Take to Create an Authority Site?

You want to create a site that generates thousands of
visitors a day mainly through the major search engines, and
would ultimately be the one-stop source for information in
that particular market.

Your site must employ three traits to become an authority
site. Let’s discuss all three necessary aspects:

Dynamic: You should have as many RSS feeds as you can
muster to incorporate throughout your site. Your visitors
need to be able to receive RSS feeds for any keyword,
category or archive as well as create their own. One feed
is no longer enough to satisfy your visitors.

Interactive: You should be engaging the minds of your
visitors at all times using surveys, commenting and
feedback. Make these features easy for your visitors and
your site will grow exponentially. Why? Because they feel
like you actually care about them. Interaction is a
powerful tool and creates a sense of community on your site.

Consistent: You should post to your blog often, and you
should always provide quality and original content. That
doesn't mean you need to produce 800-word articles three
times a week. Your goal should be to become a news master.
You need to be an …quot;authority…quot; on the news
happening in your niche.

If you follow the steps and guidelines listed above, then
you will be on your way to being the owner of an authority
site.

This blog and site will be transferred to the Authority Site Center within the next few days.
After that, I will be able to write about the developments in traffic and unique visitors.
I expect to make a great deal of changes to this site during that time.  More to come on that later.

In the meantime, here is the link to check out what the Authority Site Center has to offer:

Click here to download the Authority Black Book, a $97 value.  In fact, it has more value
than many courses that cost a lot more than this, but it's free:

contentdesk.com/cmd.php

And here is the link to the Authority Site Center:

http://contentdesk.com/cmd.php?af=615874

Best,

Angela

Apropos Facebook for business and how to make money from your content and network on Facebook, I found this article on Early To Rise:

7 Sizzling Business "Discoveries" From Stanford's Facebook Project (and How They Can Help Any Entrepreneur Make a Million Bucks)

By Charlie Byrne

Last week, Mark Zuckerberg turned 24. 

And my guess is, he's pretty pleased with himself so far. 

A college dropout, but from Harvard. A self-starter who launched a business from his dorm room. And, oh yeah, the world's youngest self-made billionaire, according to Forbes magazine. 

Make that a "theoretical" billionaire, since nobody is really sure exactly how much his hugely popular social networking website - Facebook.com - is actually worth. It's not publicly traded (although Microsoft recently laid out $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake). It's not clear where it's headed. (Mark himself isn't sure.) To some people, it's not clear what purpose it's supposed to serve either.

But at least two things are sure.

First, people love it. Nearly 70 million visited the site last month alone. And second, it's looking like one of the greatest entrepreneurial innovations since, well, since someone launched the first business that offered sliced bread.

One area that's receiving plenty of attention is Facebook "apps" (applications). From useful tools such as stock market tickers and productivity management helpers… to complete time wasters such as "Give the Imaginary Puppy a Bone" and "Who's the Coolest Person You Know"… there's a Facebook app for just about everyone and everything.

After (if) you've chosen to add one of them to your Facebook homepage, it appears in your browser whenever you sign into Facebook. Most of these mini software programs are developed by third-party entrepreneurs and monetized (not always successfully) through a classic advertising model: Get eyeballs and sell ad space or place affiliate ads.

Facebook apps are so big right now that B.J. Fogg, a professor at Stanford University, launched a semester-long project just to develop more of them for Facebook users. 

At the end of the project, Professor Fogg and his students published a report to name the entrepreneurial "discoveries" they had made. But were they really breaking new ground… or just reinventing the wheel?

I decided to take a look. 

Combing back through the longstanding principles you've come to know and love by reading ETR and Michael Masterson's new blockbuster book, Ready, Fire, Aim, I found at least seven "power principles" with fascinating parallels to the Stanford project.

ETR Longstanding Principle #1: Introducing Products in a "Mature" Market

Consumers aren't looking for brand-new products. They are looking for clever new adaptations of products they already know and love. When it comes to new, the human brain can take only a little bit of it. Eighty percent of the old and 20 percent of the new is a good ratio. Your goal is not to develop brand-new ideas, but to notice trends that are beginning and develop products that anticipate that trend by a little - just enough to catch your customers' attention.

Stanford Students' Discovery: "It's Never Too Late to Create a Winning App." When Stanford launched its project, over 6,000 Facebook apps already existed. Just 10 weeks later, the students had six apps in the top 100. None of them were radically innovative.

ETR Longstanding Principle #2: The Power of Simplicity

You can sell your product very well by talking about its many benefits, but the most successful advertisements are those that highlight a single benefit above all the rest. When this benefit can be presented as uniquely characteristic of your product, you have an advertising proposition that can last and last and last. Consider any great marketing campaign - Burger King, Charmin, Marlboro. Examine any best-selling, non-fiction book - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, What Color Is Your Parachute?,  Chicken Soup for the So ul, etc. What do they all have in common? Simple themes. Ideas so simple they can be expressed - and understood - in a few short words.

Stanford Students' Discovery: "Simplicity & Clarity Are Key to Success." Too many and too clever features must be avoided. Make the app easy to understand and easy to use.

ETR Longstanding Principle #3: Ready Fire Aim

Prudent entrepreneurs do not want to risk all their time and money on a single product. For the best chance of having a successful business, they need to be flexible about what they are going to sell. If their first product idea doesn't sell well, they have to be able to generate a second one. Innovation matters. And so does speed. Combined, they give your business extraordinary growing power.

Stanford Students' Discovery: "Speed & Flexibility in Launch & Iterations." Many fast and imperfect trials beat deep thinking. Flexibility beats quality. Getting too attached to one app idea can be fatal.

ETR Longstanding Principle #4: Teamwork Accelerates Success

Don't even try to be a solo creator. You will get much better results much faster by working with a creative team. Sometimes you might get ideas while showering or exercising or sitting on an airplane. But don't act on those ideas. Write them down and bring them up when you're brainstorming with a group.

Stanford Students' Discovery: "Community Cooperation Leads to Success." Students helped each other a lot, sharing app development tools, tips, and insights.

ETR Longstanding Principle #5: Check Your Ego at the Door

How do you know your product idea is good? Because you think it is? Business is not and must never be about what the business owner thinks is good or right. Business is about providing value to the customer. And that value can be determined only by the customer. Don't let your ego convince you that you can teach the marketplace what it should and should not buy, or you and your ego will soon find yourselves in the poorhouse.

Stanford Students' Discovery: "Individual Opinions About Apps Are Worthless." Don't be swayed by one person's opinion. Just get the app out there and see what happens.

ETR Longstanding Principle #6: Don't Be a Pioneer in a Market

When it comes to answering most of the fundamental questions about selling your product, the best answer will always be this: Imitate the industry norm. If you are always trying to come up with product ideas that are completely new and different, you will likely have a very poor success record. Let others live (and die) on the "bleeding edge."

Stanford Students' Discovery: "Copying Success Is a Cheap/Fast Way to Succeed." Novelty isn't the best approach to apps. If you're desperate for a win, just copy something that's working. Flipside: If your app is doing well, expect imitators.

ETR Longstanding Principle #7: Accelerated Failure

Success isn't usually about genius. It is more often about trial and error. Money loves speed, so spend your time trying new permutations of existing successes rather than endlessly hoping to find the "next big thing." Don't be satisfied when things are "running smoothly." An entrepreneurial business should never be running smoothly. Accelerate failure. Cut your losers and run with your winners.

Stanford Students' Discovery: "Success Comes From the Chaos/Control Cycle." Successful innovation is a process.

So there you have it…

Now I didn't have access to the details of everything Stanford attempted. They probably made a ton of easily avoided mistakes. And it sounds like they had some very nice successes as well.

Over the course of their project, they generated somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 million in revenue from their Facebook apps… not to mention at least three new companies that were formed during the experiment, two others that were acquired by outside interests, and reports of lucrative job offers for all those who completed the program.

But I'm willing to bet they could have had a LOT greater success, a LOT sooner, if they'd spent some time reading Early to Rise and Ready, Fire, Aim first.

That's where you have an advantage. You see, every day you get (for free!) what took about 75 smart Stanford students months and months to learn. (And think of all that tuition you saved too!)

So congratulations to the smart and energetic Stanford students who learned these lessons the hard way - valuable business principles that most people never discover. You're getting them the easy way… but now it's up to you to go out and use them.

Of course, you've got to be careful out there. Just because lots of people are talking and writing about Facebook doesn't necessarily make it a lasting business model. There have been plenty of "next big things" on the Internet that have turned out to be quite the opposite.

But you've got the knowledge to find out quickly, without spending a fortune, if a business idea is going to work. So who knows? Use ETR's ideas to develop an "app"… and maybe YOU will be next to make a million bucks on Facebook!