BMA Marketing’s blog

Crazy - right as I ready to send process my second project, the LongJump CRM had a problem and stopped displaying hosted images. Good example of the problems you can hit using a hosted platform. Support responded to my ticket in minutes and had it fixed in an hour. Impressive.

I just accomplished an exciting objective this morning where I created an "app" (as in "there's an app for that" - aka application) in my CRM (http://www.longJump.com) to handle the process of creating and sending US Postal mail for my "Birthday Party Sales Mailing" service clients.

I created a crude system using MS Access and Outlook about a year ago to run the then new service on. Now that I have signed many clients, I find my original solution does not scale. A part of my paper printing and direct mail sending process uses email.

How exciting that in one day I was able recreate my invention and make use of my CRM's incredibly powerful system capabilities (ex: the CRM can send thousands of emails per MINUTE while I can send a few hundred per HOUR), eliminating massive bandwidth limits that my own "home-office" grade equipment presented.

Wow - I had no idea that I have had the same Hotmail address for 10 years!

That's right! For roughly a decade you've been using Hotmail® to help keep your digital life in sync, and we just want to say thank you. You've witnessed many dramatic improvements to Hotmail since it launched. Just imagine what the next 10 years will bring! Windows® 98 Was the hot new operating system! Titanic Broke every box-office record imaginable. Cell Phones Were largely considered unnecessary and annoying! Organize and share! Use Quick add to easily share maps, restaurants, movies, and more. Store your messages With ever-growing storage, you don't have to delete old photos or e-mails. Back-up your files Store up to 25 GB online - for free! - with Windows Live™ SkyDrive™. Learn More About Hotmail | Download Windows Live™ Messenger for Free!

This gives us something to think about with all our new electronic
technology.

GPS

A couple of weeks ago a friend told me that someone she knew had their car
broken into while they were at a football game. Their car was parked on the
green which was adjacent to the football stadium and specially allotted to
football fans. Things stolen from the car included a garage door remote
control, some money and a GPS which had been prominently mounted on the
dashboard.

When the victims got home, they found that their house had been ransacked
and just about everything worth anything had been stolen.

The thieves had used the GPS to guide them to the house. They then used the
garage remote control to open the garage door and gain entry to the house.
The thieves knew the owners were at the football game, they knew what time
the game was scheduled to finish and so they knew how much time they had to
clean out the house. It would appear that they had brought a truck to empty
the house of its contents.

Something to consider if you have a GPS - don't put your home address in it.
Put a nearby address (like a store or gas station) so you can still find
your way home if you need to, but no one else would know where you live if
your GPS were stolen.

MOBILE PHONES

This lady has now changed her habit of how she lists her names on her mobile
phone after her handbag was stolen. Her handbag, which contained her cell
phone, credit card, wallet... Etc...was stolen.

20 minutes later when she called her hubby, from a pay phone telling him
what had happened, hubby says 'I received your text asking about our Pin
number and I've replied a little while ago.'

When they rushed down to the bank, the bank staff told them all the money
was already withdrawn. The thief had actually used the stolen cell phone to
text 'hubby' in the contact list and got hold of the pin number. Within 20
minutes he had withdrawn all the money from their bank account.

Moral of the lesson:

Do not disclose the relationship between you and the people in your contact
list.

Avoid using names like Home, Honey, Hubby, Sweetheart, Dad, Mom, etc....

And very importantly, when sensitive info is being asked through texts,
CONFIRM by calling back.

Also, when you're being text by friends or family to meet them somewhere, be
sure to call back to confirm that the message came from them. If you don't
reach them, be very careful about going places to meet 'family and friends'
who text you.

1. The average and median age of company founders when they started their current companies was 40.

2. 95.1 percent of respondents themselves had earned bachelor’s degrees, and 47 percent had more advanced degrees.

3. Less than 1 percent came from extremely rich or extremely poor backgrounds

4. 15.2% of founders had a sibling that previously started a business.

5. 69.9 percent of respondents indicated they were married when they launched their first business. An additional 5.2 percent were divorced, separated, or widowed.

6. 59.7 percent of respondents indicated they had at least one child when they launched their first business, and 43.5 percent had two or more children.

7. The majority of the entrepreneurs in the sample were serial entrepreneurs. The average number of businesses launched by respondents was approximately 2.3.

8. 74.8 percent indicated desire to build wealth as an important motivation in becoming an entrepreneur.

9. Only 4.5 percent said the inability to find traditional employment was an important factor in starting a business.

10. Entrepreneurs are usually better educated than their parents.

11. Entrepreneurship doesn’t always run in the family. More than half (51.9 percent) of respondents were the first in their families to launch a business.

12. The majority of respondents (75.4 percent) had worked as employees at other companies for more than six years before launching their own companies.

Which of the above surprises you the most and alters your mental model of what entrepreneurs are like?

From...

On Startups blog

Another fine idea in Ben Hart's AUTOMATIC MARKETING is to create a list of businesses that are "complementors"!

I emailed 3 business last week. 2 are certainly what I used to call competitors, but as I reviewed their web site I found that we do not really offer the same services!

No response yet.

I also contacted list companies that I buy lists from each time I close a sale. I suggested that I might be able to help their prospects or past customers who are slow to reorder due to being in need of a specific service I offer. If the list company can connect us and I can help their prospect/client, I will need to...order a list from the list company!

Complementors

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Complementors is a term used to describe businesses that directly sell a product (or products) or service (or services) that complement the product or service of another company by adding value to mutual customers; for example, Intel and Microsoft (Pentium processors and Windows), or Microsoft & McAfee (Microsoft Windows & McAfee anti-virus).

Complementors are sometimes called "The Sixth Force" (from Porter's Five Forces model), a term which was coined by Adam Brandenburger.

Before its use in business, the word was used to describe a color that is complementory to another color.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complementors

I had a good experience creating my proof-of-concept video brochure using Windows Movie Maker.

While creating version two, Windows Movie Maker choked on some files. Other users report that the "server error" was not easy to fix.

I found an awesome online video editor called www.JayCut.com

Good news: I used their new beta version two editor and created my version two video brochure in minutes!

Bad news: The v2 editor does not let you save your work!

So, I used a CamStudio.org to do a lame screen recording. My PC choked trying to play and record so the video quality is poor.

I just purchased Cyberlink PowerDirector 8 ($70) and will rebuild version 2 in that app while I wait for JayCut.com to make their version 2 editor live.

I am sure PowerDirector will blow JayCut away, but sometimes having hundreds of options can slow you down. Plus, I don't like installed software since I do marketing night and had to install PowerDirector at home. With JayCut.com I can login from anywhere anytime!

Here's my "version 2 video brochure"...

Resources...
- I used www.jaycut.com  in place of Windows Movie Maker
- images from www.bigstockphoto.com
- video from www.shutterstock.com
- the Excel video was created with freeware www.CamStudio.org
- I lost vid-quality due to my work-around where I captured the JayCut v2 video with the CamStudio app.

Shout out to Ben Hart's book "Automatic Marketing" www.directmarketinginstitute.com for inspiring me to start creating some multimedia marketing.