We Are All Entrepreneurs, Not Labor Workers
As I am documenting my entrepreneurship journey, I can’t help but feel that I was always an entrepreneur. And if we can look back, especially at our childhood we can see that as children we had traits of building and creating things. I remember in the late eighties playing Atari for hours; but when Nintendo hit the scene I was hooked. I always wanted to play the latest video games. I always loved ninjas so I wanted the play the first Ninja Gaiden. The video game cartridge was $80 and my mother couldn’t afford it at that time since I was raised by a single parent, but video games were my outlet and I was determined to get it.
I called my friend Paul, and a few others , the plan was to sell our old toys and video games in front of our building and with the money we can buy new video games. My friends would say “You are crazy” you’re going to get robbed, beat up, or worse. I can’t blame them for saying that, all this was true. It was New York City and in 1988 there were 2,246 murders and over 218,060 burglaries that year alone.
Paul liked the idea, and we knew there were risks involved. So we set up a stand in front of Paul’s building using the stairs as a style to display our merchandise. As pedestrians walked by I would shot out toys for sale. I would handle the cash, and Paul would handle the toys. It was the first business model I created. And over the weekend we raised $55.74. I didn’t have enough, and my mother was upset because the danger I exposed myself to. Like any good parent, she gave me the rest and I was able to buy Ninja Gaiden and share it with Paul.
As a child, If it wasn’t for collaborating with others, I would not have achieved my goal or help others achieve theirs as well. Somewhere down the line I forgot all this. Passion is what drives an entrepreneur, and business suffers without it. Entrepreneurs are extremely passionate and motivated. And as children we were born with that, but as we grew older we became conditioned to believe otherwise.
History Repeats Itself
It’s funny how life works, now 25 years later I called my friend Juan, and a few others and told them I have a plan, in order to create job security for ourselves we need to run ourselves as a start-up. People told me “you are crazy” I can’t blame them. Its 2015 and we are still in a recession , I had a secure job at one of the largest technology companies in the world, and I had a kid on the way, but my heart told me the restriction of a larger corporation posed greater risk to my well-being and creativity than the uncertainty of starting my own venture.
I wanted to know what it was like to venture out on my own. As it turned out my business failed before it even started. But I’m not out the race yet. I wanted to further my knowledge not having any enough to afford these marketing events. I reached out to my networks and asked if anyone needed a volunteer. This way I could further my knowledge in marketing trends and make new friends as well. My currency comes in knowledge and applying that knowledge.
I was able to volunteer for few conferences thanks to my network. This spring I attended the Social Tool Summit and got to hang and work with Neal Schaffer International Social Media Speaker and co-founder of Social Tool Summit along with Brian Mahony Ceo of Trender Research.
And as I was speaking with them. I could not help feeling that as I am venturing into entrepreneurship, successful people want you to be successful too. No one is holding anyone back from greatest. And I had a strong misconception that being an entrepreneur you have to do it alone, when in fact it’s based on collaboration with other like-minded individuals As I was reporting the event on Twitter #SocialTools15 I was able to read and filter out my tweets to see who can I meet that will be aligned with my purpose. This is when I met Glenn Gaudete president and founder of GaggleAMP and as we were discussing my inspiration and what is it that I do, he took strong interest and personally invited to attend #Amplifyevent15. He informed me there will be people that are aligned with my vision using Social Selling in that event and it will strongly complement Social Tool Summit as well.
“Hustle Until You Don’t Struggle” – Grant Cardone
I contemplated if I should stay an extra night at Boston, there were three issues I had 1) I didn’t bring additional cloth to extend my stay 2) My budget only allowed me to stay over one night and I was at the Hyatte Hotel the prior night 3) All Hotel rooms were booked everywhere in Boston because it was graduation day. So the room rates nearly tripled. I didn’t want to lose this opportunity, I went to H&M got some slacks, and a blazer, and I ended up sleeping in the Hotel Lobby of the Hyatt until a room became available, or until I can get enough sleep to wait till morning. I was just really buying time until morning. I needed to shower and change so at 4:00 AM I went to the public bathroom and locked myself in to scrub my body By 5:00 AM I had breakfast in a dinner, and 6:00 AM I headed out to my next event.
I was the first to arrive at the Amplify Event and introduced myself to as many attendees and influencers as possible. Glenn was right, I got to meet Mitchell Levy Architect thought leader and CEO of ThinkAha, Tony Zayas, the creator of the 30-day social sales challenged. Those who engaged in this 30-day program had uncovered an untold number of leads and opportunities, landed dozens of appointments, and in total grossed more than $503,000.00 in sales, Tony announced that day the latest update on that sales funnel he has generated over $3 million in revenue and still counting, I also met Dr.Steven Zielke Ceo of Blappsta, and many others that I am looking forward to connecting and deepening my relationships with.
The Integration of Social Selling with Mobile Communication and the Future of Sales Ecosystem in 2020
During the Amplify event I got to speak with Steven Ceo of Blappsta, what his software does is that it allows you to incorporate bloggers or anyone with a WordPress site to build a design that’s native to iOS and Android Apps with only a few clicks and in only a few minutes without any coding. Steve’s company created more than 600 applications and he has an abundance of knowledge in mobile communication. What separates him from other developers is that he focused on intelligent data and not just on creating push notification for bloggers.
Steven went on to elaborate that if we were in the future and using the Internet of things, where everything communicates with every appliance there will be an overflow because our current technologies are mostly triggered. Checking a customer bounce rate is always difficult, you don’t get as much detail telling you how good your content is, they might leave your website, and they might not come back because they forgot about you. How can you retain that lost traffic and still find those users by personalized content for your audience?
Networking Events and Conference Will Change In The Future
Steve went on discussing how in the future Networking Events and Conference will change, because the real value in going to a conference is meeting people and deepening the relationships, so they can endure. However, most events are not participating live, people communicate digitally. But how can you integrate your digital audience and the people present at the events so they can meet?
The issue is that people see us, but we don’t get to see them. We don’t look into the camera, so we don’t look into them. How many opportunities are left on the table by not properly integrating technology with Live Event conferences and networking? Right now this is done through Social Selling by leveraging relationships with different social media tools. But what happens to the rest that don’t know Social Selling? and what happens when we reach a point where it’all of this data can be gathered intelligently and you won’t need to do social listening because it is now automated? The concept of social selling will have to evolve if it’s going to survive, and as it evolves, so must we.
Contextual Marketing Suits The Desire For Instant Gratification and Customer Service Appreciation
Steve went on to give an example; In which if you can respond instantly to consumer demand there are big rewards, and pushing content to the customer at exactly the right time is a great way to do this. In addition, by sending precise and accurate messages directly to consumers, you free the customer from the noise generated by the Internet.
As we move into a new marketing era; contextual marketing puts customers firmly in control. Customers can now set their mobile devices to limit advertising, or opt-in to allow location-based services to access their smartphones. According to a Pew Research study, 74% of consumers with smartphones choose to use location-based services
As a customer I want to decide what communications I receive, how I receive them and when. Organisations therefore need to gear up to deliver a relevant, timely and permission-based experience and offer customers preferences around channels of choice and complete opt-out. And Intelligent data will soon get us there. There are 5 reasons marketers must start to embrace contextual marketing. If you are interested in knowing a little more about it visit Embrace-Contextual-Marketing
While Sales Professionals Are Moving Into The Future, The Buyer is Already There Waiting – Koka Sexton
I was interested in knowing what this all meant, and I did some research and gathered some information from my network. The world’s capital is flowing towards automation and away from investing in human labor simply because automation has a better ROI; We all know this. We are at the tipping point economically speaking, and we are unfortunately reaching the point of no return, and as for the argument that productivity and automation technology only impact’s the low paying jobs, this is false. Automation business model is first geared towards high-paying, high valued jobs. That is where the revenue streams for automation mostly come from.
We are in the transition staged to a jobless economy where only a small number of robot designers will be gainfully employed, this could be extremely problematic to employees. We have to abandon our 19th-century economic concepts and start creating a new one that will move us into the 22nd-century economy.
As we get into a new company, we have to hit the floor running. Most workers are continuously monitored and rated on quality and reliability. There are many stories where even the slightest deviations or doing the right thing for the customer can get workers fired or de-prioritized in the future from work. With the mainstreaming of wearables, companies will even be able to track and retrack human movement into a distinct unit of financial value. I enjoy working in healthcare marketing, but I read it is estimated that doctors in the U.S. leave approximately $125 billion on the table each year due to poor billing practices. It is estimated that up to 80% of medical bills contain errors. Can you imagine a piece of technology that can save $125 billion a year, but at the cost of replacing all medical billing and coding positions putting thousands and thousands unemployed?
Is it worth it? This all comes down to are we properly training our employees? And this is just more evidence of why its more important than ever to start running yourself as a start-up. Be the CEO of your own life.
Bill Gates says software bots will eventually take jobs away in 20 years. What do you think?
Carlos Gil story is an inspiration how he started, lost his job, and came up from being unemployed to working with LinkedIn. He did this by leveraging his network. I would recommend watching this video and discipline yourself into meeting as many people as possible and offering value now if you want to get a head start by 2020
If you want to accelerate your career or make a career transition I would recommend reading “Accelerate your career using LinkedIn And Social Selling”
Thanks to wearable technology and mobile communication, the buyers journey is getting more difficult to map. This is why intelligent data is needed to help filter the noise thats happening in the internet.
The next social tool summit is taking place in San Francisco. Visit SocialToolsSummit for further information. For the record I am not getting any incentives in promoting these conferences. I was genuinely impressed by the hospitality I received from host and attendees.. As a sales professional, your number one asset right now is the network you are building for yourself. I am interested in knowing how do you think intelligent data will change Social Selling? And What does this mean for Sales and Marketing Professionals?
I would love to hear your comments. Please feel free to comment below or reach and connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter
photo credit: HTC One M9 _ 4 via photopin (license)
