MBA Oath Book - A must for every MBA graduate

The MBA Oath: Setting a Higher Standard for Business Leaders by Anderson, Max, Escher, Peter published by Portfolio Hardcover (2010) Hardcover

The MBA Oath: Setting a Higher Standard for Business Leaders by Anderson, Max, Escher, Peter published by Portfolio Hardcover (2010) Hardcover

Iselector by Far The Best I've Owned

This is a follow up post to my original entry where I reviewed or I guess I critized the Beats Headphones. 

I went through about 30 different headphones online and at stores, checking them out for confort sound, stereo quality, features, accessories included, design, aesthetics and more! I couldn't decide what to buy. Then I came across Beats.. This headphones almost had me convinced! But most reviews only talk about how "COOL" they are and the brand and how comfortable they are...

OK. Almost. 

What about sound? Well I talked to a few sound engineers and artists and they all seemed to agree that although beats are seemingly cool headphones, they sound is not any better than your average 20-50 dollar range headset. I was surprised!

Then I found out about their marketing strategy, and the added metal to give them that heaviness and thus "improvised quality" feel to them!

So my search was on... Until I found ISELECTOR Over The Ear Headphones.

This set has a multi-function button that acts as power button/siri caller, transmitter, skip button and more. The noise cancellation works amazingly but even without the NCS on the sound is significantly reduced!

The reviews this headset has are impressive. I'm not even kidding, check out some the reviews below

These reviews speak about the quality, the sound and functionality of the headset and better yet their overall happiness for the price and what they get which as a business person I will say that this only means that the headset is actually worth more than what is being charged. 

What does this mean??? Well it means that if you are looking for an over the ear headphone set with bluetooth capabilities and is super confortable and looks great on - you should get this ISELECTOR BNC80 Headphones! 

The loss of a customer

YOUR CUSTOMERS used to get what they paid for, more or less. Now they're poaching value left and right. Just a few years ago, when typical retail shoppers went to a store and received advice on the size, style, or purpose of a product, they almost always bought the product right then and there. If they were looking for personalized service, they chose stores that offered it - and paid premium prices for it. If they were bargain hunters, they sought out no-frills shops. Whichever distribution channel they opted for, they stayed with it until the sale was made.
Not anymore. Today's customers "channel surf" with abandon. They routinely avail themselves of the services of high-touch channels, only to buy the product at the end point of another, cheaper channel. Who among us hasn't leafed through a catalog before heading to the mall, or called a travel agent for advice about airfares and then either bought the tickets on-line or purchased them directly from the airline to get a better price? The result is that companies are left with "stranded assets" - physical and organizational capabilities, typically developed at great expense, that become more useless by the day. Depending on the situation, these may include highly trained but underused salespeople, lightly trafficked retail floor space, and obsolescing inventory dedicated to displays and immediate fulfillment. Forrester Research analysts suggest that as many as half of all customers now shop for information in one channel, then defect from that channel when it comes time for money to change hands. Our own knowledge of clients' situations in both consumer goods and B2B markets supports this finding.

Surely, this isn't news to you. But what are you doing about it? You should be rethinking the core logic of your go-to-market strategy. Instead of designing channels to capture targeted demographic segments, you must design them to support unfettered buyers' behaviors. What's crucial is that customers get what they need at each stage of the buying process - through one channel or another - and that, at the end of that journey, your company has not spent more money on customers than they have spent with you.

Source: Wall Street Journal, Nov2003, Vol. 81 Issue 11, p96-105. 10p. 3 Color Photographs, 1 Chart

Oringally posted at HonestMaids.co:

Maids of Phoenix Home Cleaning Services

We have been in business for a short while, but this is a good thing. Our team is working harder than any other maid service out there to ensure your complete satisfaction. Honest Maids team members are not afraid to work hard and earn your trust and complete satisfaction.

 Honest Maids of Phoenix AZ[/caption] Running a business is harder than it seems, you might think “Oh, she has a cleaning business. That’s super easy to launch!” or “Wow, she got a business degree and is doing that?” Some people even go as far as assuming that me and my team are doing this because we can’t do anything else. Well let me tell you that running a cleaning company is difficult, growing it much more. Also know that you offering house cleaning as owner operator is not the same thing as running a company that is competing with large multi-million dollar franchise companies.

I’m writing this because I want to share some aspects of growing a business.

Part of our compensation and benefits to our maid team is that we will work with them to build a team of dedicated members under each who commits to the values and efforts Honest Maids is about. We will do our best to get them their own franchise in their own area fully and independently operated by them. This letter should give them a bit of insight too onto what they should expect. There are days were Honest Maids receives 10 calls a day, there’s others where we get none. In this environment marketing and pricing is everything but we are working hard to build a trustworthy brand that doesn’t have to compete on price alone and instead compete based on quality and commitment.

To do so, there is a branding effort that must take place, the strategies for this are time consuming and any misstep can cause the entire plan to fail. We depend a lot on social media- why? Well

• Franchise companies have hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in Google Search results, we can’t compete with that.
• Referrals are huge in this type of business, we are still building ours – most clients will freely share with friends but is harder than it seems to get customers to go to Yelp or others to leave a good review. Unless that review is bad, then you better bet they will be there.
• A lack of Yelp or Google or BBB reviews is actually a good thing because of this, but few people realize that. Social Media remains key.
• My husband is a marketing genius! Really! He has achieved for our website to receive hundreds of visits a day on a $0 ad budget. All content and all just good PR which is free.

We would love to use Yelp, and although you can leave reviews there of us we don’t promote in it. WHY NOT?

• Yelp is running like a mob, unless you are a business you might not realize that you get blackmailed into spending “advertising” with them.
• Competing businesses are promoted in your own profile!! Unless of course you pay hundreds of dollars a month to keep them from doing that.
• My personal thought is that once you receive a call from them and reject their “ads service” they stop or reduce the search results for your business!! I tracked this after I noticed a sudden drop in visits where before we had a ton of traffic. – Again, my thoughts based on experience.
• This leads me to this, if you want Yelp to show more of your business you guessed it! You gotta pay!
• If you want to have a slideshow of your products or completed services…Yup! You gotta pay!
• Restrict Competitors Ads on your own page? Yup, you gotta pay!
• Then they have their actual ad services which help you in return appear in competitors profiles.

So as you see, marketing can be difficult and expensive. Social Media is by far the best approach, as a business owner there are many things I need to make sure get done, like payroll and other HR issues, sales are being processed, insurances and bonding get added to each job and maid member, answer customer and employee phone calls (although my husband takes care of this for the most part).

My husband, he has been helping with a lot of the workload, but the burden falls on me since this is my business and my company. Employee and Customer satisfaction is a team responsibility. So as you can see, there is a lot to do no matter what business you are in and marketing, building a reputation, crafting an image, spreading the word, getting visitors to your website, complying with state and local laws, keeping customers happy, earning trust, building a team, helping with cleans, training and growing the business is not a menial task. It requires a savvy entrepreneur who can take on big enterprises and do so with her chin up.

Yes we clean homes and do so with pride.

-Diana

Don't forget, let us clean your home before or after guests visit. 

Call or Text 602-500-2285

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The Broken Zenefits Sales Team

Zenefits director of sales department believes that the company is currently  "overpaying" their sales people. This director, a position I actually volunteered for and was rejected doesn't seem to know what to do to fix this. My understanding is that they believe that they lack incentive to sell and should fire everyone.

This is of course a really bad expensive idea and won't fix anything either.
I used to train sales personnel for Cox, Century Link, Unthink and various other small startup and some not so small household brands.

Here is what I would suggest:

Develop a culture based on the current employees and managers, conduct surveys to find out what hobbies, interests, professional development, incentives, reductions in tasks, etc. are being currently sought after by the sales staff. 

Implement changes that reflect the most popular ideals that embrace and create value to the company's mission and vision. Company culture and improved customer service is a competitive factor that cannot be easily replicated and can help create "Blue Oceans" for any company. 

The changes in environment, expectations, limits, reductions, promotions, ideas, etc. will take time to implement but it will be much cheaper than firing and rehiring. It will also drive those who don't fit the culture to weed themselves out, or have weed each other out. Then as you replace with new hires, make referrals a strong focus, they are cheap but also help enforce that like mindedness in a team. The goal is to have a set of shared values that are so embedded in each employee on their own that matches company culture that you drive entrepreneurship with a sense of responsibility and ownership onto the what the company is about.
If you have clock punchers, workers that are motivated by the "have to" or "need to" you won't make a good sales force out of anyone no matter how much you pay or how many you fire or train. Culture is key. Drive value innovation among your team. 

I know you think is obvious but you would be surprised how much is not for some managers out there. 

Also, and just as important - TRAIN BETTER. 

Improving sales teams with the right words, rebuttals, sentence compositions, and linking, etc. will make sales so easy that they would have less of a reason to not complete sales quota for the month.  

I'm for hire, feel free to add me on linkedin. 

READ THIS TO GROW YOUR CAREER, SALE MORE, AND BECOME A LEADER

You are going to want to read this because is literally life changing!

Ask yourself, Have I ever though “If they only gave me a chance! I know I can prove them I can!!” ?? or how about “I know customers will buy from me once they realize their benefits!”

I will admit to both.

You might claim to that yourself or most definitely have heard someone say it. Although you might have agree with the person at the moment they said it, the TRUTH is that they needed to vent out their frustration because they are not being heard. You are not being heard! You lack an audience that listens. More so you lack what I call an ALPHA AUDIENCE.

IF YOU WANT TO ADVANCE YOUR CAREER

An Alpha Audience at work can be your supervisor, the company owner, your manager, the project manager you wish to work with, the supplier or vendor. It can even be a coworker.

They need to like you so much that they become ambassadors to your effort and your career. They believe in the WHY you do something, the WHY you work there that they create a sort of halo effect on you that they begin to look up to you in a personal way, they begin to share your goals and skills – they begin to consider you for a promotion or project.

IF YOU OWN A BUSINESS

You Alpha Audience are brand loyalists and evangelists that not only connect with your mission and vision but they connect behind the why you do what you do. For the most part consumers are emotional buyers, they don’t buy or hire you because of your services and list of features they will hire you or buy from you because they like your views, your true passion for why you are in business.

Apple conveys this perfectly! They always promote the why behind an OS change, their simplicity, the why behind an upgraded camera… or keyboard layout.. You intuitively agree and then thus buy the product as a personal statement.

You Achieve an Alpha Audience by simply sharing the WHY behind your actions. But the why has to be something meaningful more than saying I work because I have bills or I sell this because is my business or I like X products. You must dig deeper. For example:

I launched Unthink Me a few years back because I felt a call to help bootstrapped entrepreneurs break through certain obstacles to grow their businesses. I do engineering because I love the being able to couple my creativity with my technical side to find solutions to building construction.

Ask yourself why you work here rather than why you work. This should help you dig deeper on why you work. You might say, I work here because I enjoy how I am treated or Because I am trying to bring meaning to this line of work, or I somehow feel passionate about the simple perks this job allows.

Honest Maids has turned jobs into great careers options.

Win superiors with the words: YES (while you smile), using their NAMES (nothing sweeter than hearing your own name), BECAUSE (a passive method to lead someone to do/believe something), AND (this word is amazing during arguments/negotiations/sales), and BUT.

CAUTION!!!
Don’t use BECAUSE during an argument or under duress. This word is magic if used during lighthearted moments.

Example:

Potential Client: “Hello, this is John I am interested in your services and would like more information.”

Sales Person:  ”Yes of course John, let me tell you about our packages AND I’ll give you my opinion on what is the best deal!”

Potential Client: “ok”

…See that… very passively but firmly you lead the conversation, you showed you care by repeating their name (you listen to your customers), you went straight to prices (a lot of customers who want to lead the conversation hate talking about $$ because they hate being sold to but with the word AND you stop becoming a sales person for the company and start being their confidant… this is huge!

The word BUT

This word is dangerous. It can ruin a perfectly good first date, interview or sale.

Example:

Samantha: “I think you would be a perfect fit for our company culture! Tell me why did you leave your last employer?”

You: “Yes I think so too, thank you, I loved working for them they had me doing really enjoyable work but I had a conflict of schedules that didn’t allow me keep that position”

Notice how this might seem like a perfectly good response, however you used the word BUT in the wrong way. Everything before the BUT is forgotten and all you said was that you had schedule priority issues.

The new YOU would say: “Yes I think so too, thank you, I loved working for them they had me doing really enjoyable work and I had a different schedule that I feel is better suited for this company”

OR

“Yes I think so too, thank you, I had a conflict with my schedule but I loved working for them they had me doing really enjoyable work!”  

Imagine losing the potential love of your life because she sais... 

Her: "I really love the show Friends, they always make me laugh and just so random!!"

Dumb You: "Yes they are funny BUT they're not that funny"

Smart (happily married) You: "Yes they are random and sometimes I like their jokes!"

Thank you for reading, I really hope this helps you out in closing more sales, becoming a listened to person, getting that interview or promotion. As a favor to me please leave a comment and don’t forget to like my facebook page http://facebook.com/unthinkme

1 year old making strides!

Honest Maids of Phoenix Arizona turns 1 year old!

As you know, I do marketing for various companies – I don’t tout search engine optimization, pay per click advertisements, conversion pages specifically… My goal as a hired consultant is to help businesses breakthrough certain thresholds that are currently holding the company from achieving greater market stake, increased profit margins or added brand power. 

My wife started a business a year ago; her goal was to alleviate the time constraints professional parents have when it comes to good housekeeping. She wrote her business plan (with my help) interviewed a ton of parents and figured out just what needed to change.

Diana's mission was just that, to provide families with a healthy alternative to the time spent cleaning their homes with a hired professional housekeeping service.

In order for that vision to stay top priority she would focus as her main responsibility the tasks of long term strategy, quality, partner relations and operations and would hire coach-able, versatile, and entrepreneurial minded members for her cleaning team. She dubbedit Honest Maids.

Honest Maids has been pretty much all I have been working on for the past 6 months, decreasing my workload to accommodate to the harsh environment that the cleaning industry deals with. Each day cleaning businesses go out of business, mainly because the barrier to entry is almost non-existent that anyone who wants to start a cleaning business doesn’t need to know basic business to do so, and thus when it comes to competing the only thing these other business owners can turn to is price competition. Since most cleaning freelancers are owner operators they can reduce their fees as low as they want in efforts to win your business but what they are not realizing is that they are setting a very low expectation for these services and their costs. After they win your business with a very low price they then disappoint you, just how they did to us before we created Honest Maids, so that you now have this halo effect where you assume every cleaning company is either overpriced or just not worth hiring anymore.  

Diana and I are both graduates of Grand Canyon University’s B.A. program – something we are really proud of because GCU not only has a great welcoming environment they are true leaders in practicing what they preach when it comes to being a servant leader, entrepreneurial and community leadership.  Be assure that when you hire my wife’s team to stop by your home you will not only receive green natural and allergen free cleaning products and equipment you will also receive a great price because you don’t pay the hour like with other services and you, the customer is the very top priority – because without you – the business is on the verge of always going bankrupt, is just the nature of this industry.

Because client satisfaction is so important they will often go out of their way to deliver a great experience. I will continue to work hard for her business hopefully with you by our side helping ensure this company lasts many more years to come. 

Diana is building her linked in network, feel free to join here on on Linkedin here.

10 Ways to Attract New Clients for a Residential Home Cleaning Business

How to Attract Clients for a Residential Cleaning Service

My wife started her cleaning business in Arizona, HonestMaids. When she did that I was put in charge of her marketing efforts since I have previous experience with that. Here are my suggestions from experience:


This how you become successful!
 Seriously, a must read!!

1. Tap into friends and family (FF) -
not for business, but do charge - do it for the pictures and for Yelp reviews. They don't have to state that they are family or friends and reviews go a long way.

2. Ask FF for a list of people you can call and name drop them as referrals. Ask them for people who will not be upset that you are calling and that their friend gave their contact. Typically young, friendly, busy people.

3. Give you FF cards to pass on and help you out. - if they truly care about you they'll take the cards and share them once or twice at least but from your FF that's all you need.

4. Use that small stream of cash from FF jobs to pay for Yelp advertising, it works! spend 100 or 200 dollars in it. Call them and ask for assistance creating a small campaign.

5. Create a beautiful website!! Don't assume that because is a cleaning business you don't need a website and or a well designed professional website. Image is everything!!
Specially in this industry most potential customers want to know that you will be there next week and the week after that... A professional website helps promote that because you have spent time and money developing an online presence rather than doing a bad job yourself creating a DIY website with pixelated images and a bad font and logo. (My team can do one for you very affordably!)

6. Promote your website shamelessly! Everywhere.

Have you seen "The Office" be like "Bob Vance, from Vance Refrigeration" - 

"Hi, I'm ______, from [yourbusiness.com]"

7.Use facebook - don't pay for the ads, the ROI is not as good. But instead run offers, put up pictures of your FF cleaned homes.. FB has this feature where after you post something it lets you 'pin' to the top..do this for your offers or pictures that show the quality of work.

8. Add punch card counts on your business card - this is called gamification... incites people to come back for a 10th free. HonestMaids does this and it works wonders!

9. Attend events, creative idea:many elementary schools run festivals. Stop by and introduce yourself and ask if they have any coming up - YES, even if you don't have any kids enrolled there. What better way to get in front of busy parents in your community? BONUS: these fairs are often free for 'vendors' or really really cheap!

10. Find realtors in your area that you can partner with - these are realtors who give their new home owners a gift basket or something - you can add a '$50 certificate' in there for them. email iwill@unthink.me and I will design one for you for free if you want.

BONUS BONUS!
 Use Yelp - I did this to start too... go to your competitors' Yelp pages and look for bad reviews... the site allows for you to contact anyone in there.. offer them a hefty discount if they are willing to try a maid service again and obviously try you... What better way to target people that already hire maids, and are unsatisfied with their current?! Try it.


Unthink  Side Note: 
Those in business who are successful are because they do what others things is not usually done or frowned upon or don't think about it... In small business, as with many things in life you are limited by your own creativity.



P.S. : 
A lot of our Honest Maids of Phoenix clients are young people who like to spend their weekends outdoors. If you are in the Tucson area we suggest checking out San Xavier Mission, a beautiful old church internationally known for its murals and beautiful architecture, natives set up nearby offering their indian fried bread :)

How to Target The Right Set of Customers For New Luxury Item?

Someone asked " How to target the right set of customers? ...We are working on this product which will be a consumer electronic product but with a more design and fashion functionality rather than tech..." then continued... "Price point is around 300-400 dollars which makes it not a necessity but a luxury and not everybody will want to pay for it, how do we convince people cheaply that they want to buy this 'luxury' item?

Hi, first of all if you have a consumer electronic product, never admit or mention that your product is not competitive at minimum with other electronics. Consumers are not stupid, even those who are willing to spend a significant amount of money will most likely not do it if is only aesthetics.

Always assume your consumer is smarter than you and try to over deliver.

Second, the price alone does not make it a luxury item. I will give you an example to illustrate how a luxury item comes to be:

Ferrari as well as Bentley are hand crafted cars with limited availability, their engines and raw materials might be better than the mass produced BMW and have a long history of market satisfaction - meaning they've been in business for many many years.

Consider Apple, their company started with the mission of delivering consumer grade, easy to use, modification free computers. They introduced heavy R&D into their machines and thus introduced fonts, paint, click and point mouse and much more. Over time their quality became renown and through their continued innovation, their computers were priced at a higher range than others. But due to quality of both the hard ware and the technology consumers don't really mind paying their higher price margins. This market acceptance at a higher price helps make it a luxury because not everyone can afford it and there are entry level, problem solving laptops and computers you can buy if what you need is to simply have a computer.

Also, part of what makes their devices look and feel somewhat luxurious is the fact that they are heavy, they are made of typically single or coupled pieces of steel or some other alloy.

So with apple, you have dependable technology, heavy-steardy feel, high price acceptance, limited quantities for long periods of time after announcements, ongoing releases.

Apple's target market? Anyone who is willing to spend money to stand out, have a product that is limited, industrial art oriented consumers, graphic artists, music artists, any artist you can think of. Generation Y and Generation X who grew up with the brand. Music lovers and techies who enjoy the simplicity of technology and integrated functionality. App lovers (socially engaged mobile users)

Original picture and story on digitaltrends.com

1/3 of the Beats weight is from the metal alone. You've been fooled! Not high end, but high marketing.

Now consider Beats, purchased by Apple. Beats is touted as top of the line listening devices, however every professional grade testing proves that Beats is competitive with your average $29.99 headsets. Much more their headsets cost on average, including the packaging, only $16.99 - something Apple must have loved because the Beats sell for average $200 a piece. Apple has similar margins. However typical their sound might be, Beats was able to leverage the founder's industry & network to get free unpaid sponsorship from athletes and musicians, on top of that they promoted the customization of their sets which people saw and replicated. On top of this customization, as general consumer when you see your favorite athlete or singer or celebrity using Beats, you're going to wonder where and how much? This worked for Beats, because there are other "father-like" headphones like Bose's who are priced about the same. Beats found a hole in the headphone market and exploited it.

Another thing that Beats did (proven to work and not alone) is that they added random pieces of metal to the headphones bands to add weight to them. Because when we feel something heavy and steardy we often assume is high quality packed with high quality stuff... in Beats case, It was just metal to add weight.

Beats target market?  Those who are looking for hip, colorful, attention grabbing, status touting headphones.

Finding a target market is key, since you didn't really provide any detail of your product Is hard to give you direct help, but I hope this helps you get sorted out and re approach your marketing strategy. Also consider that pricing is a key marketing effort. Not everyone knows how to properly price items, but what is most commonly done is take most direct competitor and add 15% on top. Assuming that less than the competitor's price already covers your costs and provides some profit. 

Humberto Valle

www.clarity.fm/humbertovalle

www.unthink.me

www.unthinkhosting.com

20 Warning Signs Is Time To ReBrand

Branding Strategy is something that should be left to the 'pros' otherwise you cant hurt your business.

So you had a business idea. You came up with a logo and business name yourself. Was this a smart move? Or have you realized, like many other entrepreneurs that their branding is what is hurting their sales?Here are 20 Warning signs it’s time to rebrand!

1. You’re not attracting customers you want

2. You see similar businesses just killing it while you struggle

3. You feel like you’re spending too much on marketing efforts

4. You feel like your marketing budget is completely wasted

5. You’re not attracting great talent to work with you

6. Your logo doesn’t seem relevant to customers

7. Your current business image is overly complex or varied

8. You website, color scheme, logo, wording style, and customer persona doesn’t fit together

9. Your business is exploding in growth, but you’re not sure what the right next steps are

10. Your business name doesn’t fit your brand’s vision

11. You find yourself removing your email’s signature portion each time to send an email.

12. Your business card do not match your purpose or current offering

13. Sales have been in a steady decline

14. You can’t seem to increase your prices

15. Your business model and sales mix is increasing

16. Your brand’s look and feel is stale – You started and kept the clip art.

17. Your business culture is misaligned with that of your ideal or current consumers

18. You’ve added new products or services and they are confusing to your customers

19. You’re feeling unclear about your key messages

20. Your employee or customer turnover is really high

Join my newsletter and receive many more cool tips to help you grow your business in an affordable and sustainable way! The Unthink Way. The Unthink Strategy Newsletter.  

What is SEO and why should I care?

Many of our clients have been asking themselves: Why aren’t I getting many online visits? Then they come to us and we explain this: 

To understand why your site isn’t ranking good in a Google search, first you need to know what Google is really all about. Google’s customer is the online searcher, never the website owners, and it is Google’s job to help searchers find what we’re looking for in the fastest, most convenient, and reliable way possible. Just like any other business, if Google’s service isn’t great we’ll go search somewhere else and for this Google has implemented hundreds if not thousands of ‘algorithms’ that help validate and rank websites from all other the internet.

So why isn’t your Page Ranking good? Google for any particular search has millions of pages that in theory could rank each time you enter a query but really only the top few of those millions of pages are the ones that get to rank visibly in a Google search. As business owner you want to be in the top 10, which show up in the first results page in Google because hardly anyone ever goes onto the following search result pages, unless we are truly desperate to find something. You don’t get in the top ten unless you are the most relevant, most valuable, most useful, most helpful or even most interesting search result that will serve the searchers needs out of those millions of possible results.

Look at your website and ask yourself “Are my pages better than that million, two million, ten million results?”

As a website and business owner, dependent on Google searches you must constantly compete with other business’ content, network reach and relevance to appear as high in the ranking as possible. To be in the top ten - you have to be better than all of those other pages. You have to be the most unique, the most interesting, the most valuable, the most useful page out of those millions of results to rank number 1. However at Unthink, we have conducted small but qualitative studies that indicate that the optimal ranking, due to positioning within the average browser window is #3, not 2dn and not even 1st place! So as long as you get to hover around that magical #3 result spot you are doing amazingly great and your content/product is in high demand and optimal visibility.

Ask yourself a few more things:

Is this the best I can do? What words are my visitors using? Where else are they spending their time? Are they using mobile? Search prior or after a certain activity? The more relevant you can be means your website can become more interesting, more useful and shared more which means links of your site spreading and thus becoming more valuable to Google which incentivizes the search giant into ranking you higher.

Break! Take a moment to consider our Hosting solutions.

http://UnthinkHosting.com

click image if interested. 

Continue reading about SEO... 

S.E.O. takes dedication!

Think about it, you don’t live in a vacuum and there tons of businesses trying to outsell you all while Google is tweaking their algorithms! So you must continuously strive to improve and maintain a level of relevance that is valuable to your potential market and to Google. (This is why most SEO experts will offer maintenance options, & so do we)  Be constantly striving to improve your pages to make sure that you are competing effectively in this competitive environment that Google has set up. So always make sure that you have the best, most unique content - quality content that people are talking about and linking and sharing your site with others, and that will prove to Google that you are the best result out of those millions of pages that they can serve, and that’s how you get into the first results of Google.

Good SEO means good Marketing:

Here’s why

Think of Google’s algorithm like a collection of empty boxes varying in size.  One box is labeled trust, another relevance, links from website to website, mobile friendly, design, content, authority, social engagement, how up to date it is, wording, etc. Your job as website and business owner is to place as many items relevant to each of the boxes. You have various sizes because Google ranks differently for certain categories. Although most of us don’t really ever know how heavy a ranking might be for certain categories knowing that you have to work on the SEO drastically improves your chances in satisfying the need for each category and thus making Google’s algorithm happy. There are literally hundreds or thousands of categories or boxes so is hard to miss, the real trick is the getting to be on the first page and staying there.

To start, many SEO experts don’t realize that they must understand your consumer, know marketing to better target and manipulate the image and lifestyle the customer persona embodies to find a possible gap in the market search results in Google and focusing on improving your SEO for that particular ‘niche search’. Many “experts” simply improve the ‘copy’ of the content but fail to engage the visitors once they are there, this is something Google’s algorithm notices as well and eventually ‘punishes’ you for it.  Another thing that can harm is the over use of certain context or back linking, the algorithm is really good in knowing if you are aiming for cheap SEO tricks like adding a ton of random links to other websites to fake a certain level of ‘online authority’.

The Breakdown  

Quality + Trust + Authority + Expert SEO Work  = Good Google Ranking = Increased Sales

Thank you for reading, 

Humberto Valle, MBA CEO www.Unthink.Me 

OppenUp 1 - Desktop versus Mobile App?

Desktop versus Mobile App?

original design concept (copyright OppenUp inc.)

Alright, so here are my thoughts as I begin this process again.  I'm taking a quick break from my other work to being my thinking about how to get OppenUp's relaunch moving forward.
In order for me to know what is in my to do list I first need to understand the current situation.

My goal for the new OppenUp is to be an app instead of a desktop tool.  That's because it appears that the market is adopting the mobile video platform a lot more than desktop based services. There seems to be this idea that if you're on a desktop you have to be more formal, although is not the case mobile video sharing inspire originality, spontaneous interactions and more transparency - which is what I want and need from future OppenUp's users.
So the goal is to have a video based tool that is entirely mobile driven with support through desktop access.
What do you think?

Unless I can find a mobile developer that wants to partner with me and can do both iOS and Android applications I will most likely have to bootstrap my new app and pay someone myself which will mean I will only be able to deliver an app for one platform. I will go with my gut instinct on this and pick Apple's iOS.

I am also learning to build using #swift programming developed my Apple, so I think that would help. 
I recommend this online course check it out here: OneMonth.com


When are an entrepreneur with an idea that is technology driven such as is an app but have no technical skills, you need to decide whether you want to spend  your time learning to pitch ( I recommend the Steve Job's Presentation Secrets listed on the right here) and looking for amazingly great entrepreneurial computer scientists/programmers/software engineers/hackers that are also interested in your idea, have no other opportunities going on, like to work super hard for no pay, and trust you as a leader to where will join your startup or you can learn to code yourself and as you learn and ask other programmers for their help on particular issues and you build your network of programmer helpers and that way you at least learn to code, good for any other opportunity and you build a circle of contacts for when you are ready to pitch and invite them to join your startup.

Trust me you can easily spend a year looking for programmers or spend that time learning yourself. 
That or save the money required to build an app, typically these days this run from about $35,000 and up. 


Because I have no money for this project and I am planning on launching this the typically way most entrepreneurs start - with no money - I will go with the latter, learn some more code @ OneMonth.com, talk to more programmers, attend or host meet up evens where I can meet programmers and go from there.


Next I think I will create a rough outline to the things I need to take care of which will serve as foundation of my actual plan and the strategy to follow.

If you haven't subscribed please do so, I really hope to show you something cool and keep you in the loop! or if you are a programmer and want to work with me or know someone or just want to chat! email me at humberto@oppenup.com

www.OppenUp.com (Copyright: OppenUp, inc.)

I will try to begin my app using what I have learned through OneMonth, check out my progress of another app I'm building: Photog.

Follow me as I build a technology business step by step

About 3 years ago I began crafting an idea, with a pretty simple goal: help ordinary people increase the amount of interviews they actually get. Simple, I'm not out to "make the world a better place" or even guarantee everyone a job. I have a ton of valuable corporate, sales and marketing experience but there was a year where I couldn't land a single interview no matter what job I applied to!

I was desperate! I felt horrible about myself and just couldn't believe it. 

Have you ever felt this way? 

Then I began asking questions. To everyone, I'd call HR managers and interview them, I'd ask on Twitter and FB, even LinkedIn. 

Did you know that a lot of "hiring companies" aren't actually hiring. Most don't even look at your email or resume and instead they have a software subscription service or third party do that for them. Heck! Some Have gotten as far as admitting that your name determines whether they want to even bother with you (for some jobs). The hiring and recruiting process is so impersonal now a days is unjust and almost inhumane. 

So my startup was launched. Then after a year or so it failed. 

OppenUp.com : is a map based job and applicant search tool that allows its users to find jobs and pitch themselves to them!  

To make the story short, I did the expected like get mentors, get user validation, spent A LOT of time finding developers who would work with me on an equity basis (this was what took the majority of the dev. time). Meeting and interviewing them, going through a high turnover of programmers who got burnt out because startups is not their thing, met with potential business partners who again deflected. All while the market ( that would be you) kept on telling us how

OppenUp.com was just about the most innovative thing in recruiting since online job boards! This was before #Meerkat and #YouNow

We failed because I honestly lost traction and focus and I fell into the bootstrap mentality of taking my time and finding partners who shared my passion. No one will ever share your level of passion for your own startup more than you will. I got busy with family and busy with my own consulting work at www.unthink.me

People still ask me about and yes the website is live. I never did find a great programmer who subscribed to my idea so much they wanted to spend their nights with me working away. All want money, only a few believe in investing your sweat equity for a while. And that's ok. So why am I writing about this? Well, I know more today than I did a year or two ago! I'm just as determined or more to see this happen. I also help startups and entrepreneurs take ideas from scratch and monetize from them! I have helped a few grow their communities as sort of stealth ninja. What better way to show you how to launch a startup than by walking you step by step as I build one myself. The market is now ready for video streaming, the technology is better suited now too, and amateur video is not as much taboo as it was even a couple of ears ago. 

OppenUp was a bit ahead of the curve and my team was not innovative enough to pull it through under an unfocused leader. So I figured I would use OppenUp as example. 

I will keep you posted on every thought and step as I build this startup.

I will ask you for advice and help from time to time but overall I just really hope that I can show everyone how hard and simple at the same time creating a company is as well as how rewarding it can be even if you fail. 

Footnote: I don't believe OppenUp failed, I think it simple came to a pause waiting for me to mature professionally and the market to come around video a bit more. 

Alright, I'll roll up my sleeves and get working! Subscribe to my blog here on the side bar or send me an email at Humbero@oppenup.com for email updates!  Don't worry I won't spam you! 

Here is a screenshot of my platform:

Here is a funny ad post we ran:

Your Continued Answer to Clarity.fm question...

{Hi!, here is the continuation from the question found on Clarity.fm here:  https://clarity.fm/q/2474 } {Regarding growth hacking for an international shipping service and creatively growing its customer base}

... A persona allows you to paint a picture of your targeted consumer: an example would be: A crafter of steam punk inspired dress shoes. His buyer’s persona would be a  hipster, he likes hand made items, crafted from raw materials, he wears hats suitable for Mad Men, probably wears Ray Ban looking glasses but probably not brand name, his wallet is probably made out of organic untreated leather with a chain, he has a beard, so most likely buys beard  care product, I’m almost sure his friends do too. If he uses social media, he would probably not have a Facebook, he probably uses twitter or Instagram. He would most likely connect with the words drapper, fashion, uncool, urban, no filter, raw, cotton. He probably doesn't mind spending more for the things he considers good quality made with love, so discounts wouldn't matter much to them.

…For your international shipping service, your client might be a middle income urban white male. But what subset of that is more common? What products are bought more through your service or for what industry? Answer those so you can begin crafting your persona. If the most common thing sold is handmade house décor, your persona would probably hang out a lot on Pinterest, which means they spend a lot of time online and have no problem following links to their hosting sites for How Tos, or suggestions. This group of people might be more secluded than hipsters, so trying to leverage their network might not work as much.  But what they would probably rave about is how your service allowed to find something super unique from another country and better yet gave them an idea on how to add to their space. This can be through a picture on their Facebook profile. You can hack into this by having them share their product from an email you could send informing them of their product’s arrival. You can showcase your products sold on Pinterest, create Facebook buy page, offer some discount for signing up to an email subscription.

An email subscription in exchange for a discount is great because if your consumer gets the idea that they are saving, let’s say: $100, you can continue a relationship with email and maybe at least once more get them to order again and make maybe $110 more from them, the more they buy, this initial $100 more than pays itself back..

Once you have that persona, 

Target them and their networks {this approach requires some serious homework, but it pays off} strategize on paper before you begin reaching out. Use social media to approach them and build relationships through them, also you might to make changes to your current social accounts so they play well with your super targeted effort and added squeeze pages.

Squeeze pages can be created so that in social media efforts your link is used to send them to a simple conversion page where they either sign up for your product or sign up for a discount, or follow up call or something (depending on what it is that you import)

If you really don’t want to offer any discounts: Have a squeeze page that gives your potential clients the right to sign up/in only if they refer a friend or tweet or like or pin… (Depending on what your subset demographic is most likely to use, the key is not vanity but actual valuable exposure to those who could actually use your product not just rack up likes)

You can offer “extra packaging” or care if they simply share or refer or enter their email.

Ask and easily redirect them to provide answers to Facebook for example on tips that future buyers could benefit from. Once your clients become contributors they are more likely to share their input with their networks.

Add gamification, rewarding them with some sort of recognition on social media for their contributions via answers/tips or for being a frequent buyer.

I hope this has gotten your mind flowing with ideas, just remember before you go half-assing your efforts write down in paper what your persona will look like, what keywords would they most likely be attracted to, what services or values, what products are bought the most by that most frequent persona buyer. Once all is jotted down in paper, then go and implement with a squeeze page, possibly redesign of your website, Pinning of pictures, or offering extra care, etc.

You goal is not ambitious, just look for a K factor of at least 1, which means that one consumer at least brings 1 more consumer to your site.

 Did you notice what I did here? I started with Clarity, then asked you to continue reading here. I hope you did. This increases the awareness to my blog to you and anyone else who reads the Clarity question/answer. It also gives you a real time example of growth hacking. 

Also, the tags I put on the bottom of this post should help anyone else looking for advice on this topic  find my blog in the future. 

Best of luck.

For web development, consider www.arizonawebstudio.com

For creative business coaching and help, consider me at www.unthink.me

Also follow me on twitter @OfficialUnthink or facebook.com/IwillUnthink

Humberto Valle

#UnthinkStrategy