Event Launch Strategies

Sometimes, all we are is what others perceive us to be. It doesn’t matter how great we are at a task, unless other people benefit from it. I was thinking about all of the people that I have known in my life – it’s interesting how a stranger can become an acquaintance and then turn into a close friend. Interesting because just days before you wouldn’t even know them and suddenly you trust them. I rarely take dynamics on face value; I tend to study a process, always looking for clues as to why things happen the way they do.

If you were to choose ‘1′ person to go into battle with, who would it be? If you were to choose ‘5′ people to camp out with, who would they be? If you were to choose ‘10′ people to form an informal alliance of trust with, who would they be? If you were to choose ‘100′ people to attend your birthday party who would they be? If you could pitch a business opportunity to a group of business mentors who would you want listening? Knowing the answers to these questions lies in knowing who you are, knowing who you are is only possible if you know where you’re heading. If you know that, you are going to get there. Truth is, very few people take time out to think about these simple questions.

When we look at how people are networking in the online world today, it becomes incredibly unnerving. Marketers are brainwashing people into a mindset that suggests we need to “add as many people on our networks as possible” if we want to succeed in doing business online. “She’s in your industry, let’s add her on LinkedIn”, “He looks like someone influential, let’s add him to our Facebook”. It’s like everyone is being encouraged to waste time adding as many people as connections with a blindfold on, instead of investing the same amount of time into reinforcing some of the online relationships that we already DO have, and neglect.

Next time you are going to add a dozen people to your network, think about this for a second: Will I choose these people for going to battle with, or camping out with, or starting an online trust-based association with or are these people going to be little more than another number on my profile page that I can hopefully syndicate my content through? Will having these people on my list actually add value to my efforts and make me more influential in any way – or are they just going to leach away the value and worth that I have been building for myself. Another question we should be asking ourselves is; do I have the time and resources required to be able to add value to what they are working on.

We need to seriously reconsider how we network online – there are individuals who think that online networking is not different to offline networking, except you can do more of it across distance and time. A lot of people who “get this” will read this note, just as I read notes written by others that lead to a thought process towards establishing more rewarding relationships online. Am I the only one who feels a movement of people who “get this” flocking together, like birds of a feather, or do we all sense that it’s happening around us.

I want to hold onto this thought whilst we take a moment to look at ourselves as an important part of this movement. Let’s take each of us and consider ourselves as an entity that has a set worth, like a corporation of some sort (Just like Nightingale’s philosophy). Let’s consider that our “circle of trust” are people who believe in us and have invested in us, let’s look at this investment as them owning shares in our stock value. Now it would be each of ours responsibility to ensure that our stock value increases over time so that the investment our circle of trust has made in us pay’s them a healthy dividend as well as a capital gain over time. If we don’t do this they will stop investing in us.

Now what if we were the CEO of a major corporation that had hundreds of staff, thousands of clients and multiple stock holders that all cohabited under the one umbrella - and it was your responsibility to continually add value for these stakeholders. You are going to want some talented people adding value each day if you are going to succeed in your role. Now, as the CEO of a major corporation, if you were to set a target of lifting the corporation’s stock value over a defined period, would you tackle this by asking your executives to produce more or would you be better served off focusing on the individuals. What if you were to embark on a campaign that touched all your stock holders, customers, staff and executives through? What if, you were able to lead them all into focusing on elevating their own focus to increase the level of intent they carry into each day. What if you were capable of encouraging everyone to enhance the level of perceived value they represent to the people around them.

Now, wouldn’t it be true that if everyone was able to elevate their intent towards others, at some point, this would increase the value each individual represents to others. This could only lead to the value of the entire corporation to rise, along with its stock price.

Does this mean that everyone should hit the street and pick 1000 people to start adding value to? No, but everyone can increase their level of intent with everyone they come in contact with through every single day by adopting a simple shift in mindset. Open doors for ladies, give your seats to old people on a bus, say thank you, appreciate the person who serves you coffee - it’s the little things that increase your overall intent which ultimately determines our stock price as an individual.

My point is this, if we all shifted our mindset to see ourselves as having a stock value and we all started viewing the people in our lives as stakeholders in our corporation who had varying degrees invested in us, we would be forced to accept our market value. If we don’t like what we see then we must accept that there is only one way to fix it. We should focus on the value we represent to our stock holders and find ways of enhancing it so that stock price can rise. Do you see the analogy here? If we run around obsessed with making fickle connections who we can yell at by shoving links in their faces and demanding they listen to us then it’s only a matter of time before your stock price crashes. You can only, at best be building a bubble and as we all know, bubbles pop.

When it comes to business I would want to partner up with people who I can add value to. It enhances the value I represent as a person and by the same token, I want to work with people who add value to what I do. In my personal life I want to partner with people who are like mirrors that reflect me – so as to amplify my value. I married a wonderful woman who is witness to everything I do in life and in business. Without her, other family and my closest friends, what I do in business has no meaning. When you are networking online, let’s first understand the value you represent to each other with a view to reaching a higher potential in your businesses together.

Take some time to think about the collective power of a great movement of people that are focused on the overall intent they represent each other versus working in your own direction. If committing to a relationship, lets be sure we can honor it and let’s not commit to more than we can honor.

If you have read my “Sleeping With The Enemy” post you will have seen what my focus on 14 effective relationships did for me in a previous business. What I didn’t talk about in that post was how I started out begging, borrowing and stealing to start one very small 30 backpacker business. I had no clout, I didn’t have the numbers with 30 beds to be taken seriously by anyone in my industry or in hospitality. I could not approach top clubs and promoters in town with a view to partnering because at that stage there was not a lot of value I was able to offer them. Instead I focused on relationships where I did represent value, my backpacker customers who valued everything I was able to do for them. This trend was reciprocated by them wanting to add value to what I was doing because it’s in our nature to want that. Eight years later, through maintaining this focus, my network was 5 tiered from myself, down to my managers, to our house captains, to their lodgers onto their friends that was the most powerful social movement in Sydney that every pub, club and promoter in town wanted to work with. The same people I could never have added value to in such a relationship when I started out. The key message here is that I didn’t try to go after those people who weren’t ready to listen in the beginning.

People have asked me where I am going with this campaign. Questions like, if I have ten people in my group does that mean I will have to bookmark ten people’s content in order to have them bookmark mine?

This is not where I am taking this campaign. This movement has been moving along nicely for a long time now and it will keep moving where the masses allow it to go. Everyone of us is a part of it, I see many thought leaders producing great content that is forging paths that a lot of us want to follow. I see amazing contributors who add value to the efforts of others including mine, and most impressively I see a community that debates protocol and etiquette with a constructive precision, intent on building a better online community. I can see the emergence of a shift away from meaningless networking towards online relationships that do represent greater value.

My aim is to publish thought provoking content that delivers value to those people who enjoy consuming it. My intention is to add enough value to those around me that I attract a top line network of people who I can start a process of building a circle of trust with. I would like to introduce a process whereby I can expand and amplify these connections through a series of interconnected networks operating under a similar charter. This charter is to strive for better ways of harnessing our collective resources into strong infallible ties built on a foundation of trust enabling us to grow together as a movement of thought leaders in the space of social media marketing.

This movement does not need structure but it will need boundaries, and it has to be recognized as a movement for it to become one. If I was to pick ten people who have added the most value to my efforts here on Facebook I don’t need to look very far. I will be spending this week making sure I let them know that I recognize the value they represent to me and I will be arming myself with their email address and their Skype ID or phone number.

Can I recommend those who want to join me on this journey do the same?

Sign up to get your copy of “Social Traffic”

Join my Social Traffic group in Facebook.

Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.