Social Traffic | Social Media Marketing

Discipline. Team First. Be true to yourself.

There is a lot of momentum going on in the weekly meetings, notes, and comments. It’s always good to have such confident and energetic influencers behind a movement. With only a few weeks into Social Traffic, it already seems like I have known these brilliant people for years.

However, despite the enthusiasm and energy, it’s important to be able to distinguish between those individuals who are providing direct value to the teams goals from those who are just great people. This is why we’ve been investing so much energy to get the selection process of Social Traffic Inc right. After the first weekly review I realized that although Barbara and Glen are doing an awesome job guiding everyone else – there seems to be a little ambiguity that we need to spend some time clearing out, to get everyone on the same page so that the process is effective. Before I delve into it, I’d like to recap the three essential pillars of the team selection process.

The three pillars of the selection process:

These positions are being filled without the traditional HR processes of due diligence, track records, employment histories and recommendations. On the contrary, these positions are being filled by three important elements: 1- self-analysis of the people who have raised their hands to a position, 2- trust in the abilities of those stepping up, those willing to invest their time at risk into earning the respect of peers that they know will come, if time is used as a filter, and lastly 3- collaborative due diligence.

I’ll delve a little deeper into these elements.

1- Self-analysis

This is perhaps the most important step for everyone involved in the leadership group. If you’re responsible for handling a certain part of the campaign, then you owe it to your team mates to be exceptional at what you do. You should become the domain expert of that area. If there are things you don’t know, make an effort to learn them. What you lack in skills or knowledge, make up for it in passion and commitment. If you don’t lack skills or knowledge, add passion and commitment to enhance your value, know your efforts will be both appreciated and rewarded. Avoid acting out of fear or insecurity. Like water, natural born leaders will rise over time, and as shareholders in Social Traffic Inc, we want time to be given its opportunity to do what it does for this to be the outcome.

Each of us taking ownership of individual segments of this campaign and all doing an exceptional job will determine Social Traffic Inc’s fate. If one of these segments (expertise area) falls behind, a domino effect will ensue and the positive efforts of other team members will suffer a negative effect leading to the entire team falling behind. This will lead to failure if not corrected. Just like sporting teams, business demands exceptional commitment, passion and sacrifice, because it relies on the collective brilliance of individuals harnessed together to become what must be a championship team at the highest level. What we are doing here, ladies and gentlemen, is not competing in a local track meet; we are going for gold at the olympic games. It’s going to take the best of the best performing faultlessly if we are serious about winning. If any of us is not serious about winning we must reconsider ourselves as a team. It is thus incredibly important for everyone to look into their own mirrors and check to see if they’re fit for the roles they have chosen to take ownership of. If you are “anything but” whole-heartedly committed to winning this challenge at the highest level, then you owe it to your team mates to pull out.

Discipline. Team First. Be true to yourself. These are the key philosophies by which the Social Traffic Inc team prides itself. Posts like this are written to have our readers ask questions of themselves, tough questions written with a purpose.

In saying that, although we are at the Olympics we are competing as amateurs. Our commitment is restricted to 10 / 2o hours a week and this means we are part timers. At this stage we are not competing against professionals although it is our intention to go professional in phase two. Some team members are working 60 hours a week, I know Barbara is, as I am sure others are too. Their value to those people who aren’t, must be acknowledged and it must be rewarded if we expect them to continue to over-perform to this degree. Their efforts are benefiting all of us, because it is enhancing our chances of success. I am sure we all agree that we would prefer a 5% share in a company worth $5,000,000 than a 10% share in a company worth $1,000,000.

It’s each of our responsability to ensure the value of our efforts in our area/role are evident to others, and that the weekly survey reflects it. If you don’t feel the survey does, you need to address that. On the other hand, we don’t want you overselling your efforts, it should be evident by the results of what you do. If you are one of a few who see the value someone is adding that others may not see, you must reflect that in the survey to ensure that person’s value is recognized. If nobody sees the value added to our goals that are a result of your effort, then you need to re-assess your own efforts? Not providing value towards the teams focus should invariably result in you losing your position sooner than later. The longer people who are not adding value to the team’s goals stay, the greater our risk of failing to achieve those goals. I’d respect the person who steps back to a role they are more suited to add value in, than someone who lies to their mirror’s reflection. If we are all honest to ourselves and our team mates we will succeed, because their is a lot of talent amongst us.

Our focus must be on the value added. Discipline. Team first. Be true to yourself.

2- Trust in the abilities of others

A very basic ingredient for any relation is trust, this is especially true online. Initially you don’t know who is on the other end, other than what they tell you about themselves. You don’t know details about their expertise, other than what is evident from talking to them. You don’t know how dedicated they are to a cause, until you see them taking initiative and ownership of what they do (which is why we need time to sort the talkers from the doers).

For a community like this to be formed into a stable entity, we have to be able to trust people around us by giving them the space and leverage to prove themselves. This is the initial benefit of doubt when they are raising their hands to be a part of the game. People who aren’t fit for the game will automatically sizzle out; but everything about a specific person’s role has to be objective, neutral and absolutely without bias.

After giving and gaining trust, it is every ones duty to live up to it. Those who don’t should be identified at these early stages and let go off. If you have committed to 10 or 20 hours a week it is your responsibility to deliver all that and more. If you don’t you are cheating your team mates, some of whom are even putting in 60 hours. If you do not have the time to add value to every segment of this campaign story, as its published, you don’t have the capital to purchase your shares in the corporation we are building. Now is the time for anyone not 100% committed to adding value to our team’s effort to take back empty promises and step away from a shareholders role. Stay involved by joining our evangelist team where the demands and re-numeration are not nearly as demanding.

As the founder of this opportunity I have invested a lot of time selling it. I have convinced people I want in my team to partner with me, I asked them to commit to building on my vision and making it a reality. I owe it to the people who put their hands up, people who have committed to beating this challenge, and to protect them from fraud. It’s that simple, I will not stand by and let anyone defraud those people who have trusted in me through false promises or commitments. Protecting this team’s interests is the value I bring to this team. I will not let anyone down.

3- Collaborative due diligence

Since the entire community is formed on the basis of due-respect, trust, and collaborative synergy; we’ll be finalizing the leadership group based around the same beats. Everyone is expected to rate people that they interact with based on the experiences they had that week. These interactions are in the form of meetings and combined work activities that we’ll all be doing in the weeks to come. Remember to call each week as you see it that week. Do not become clouded by relationships or sentiment. You are voting to ensure the people you saw adding the most value in any given week are rewarded for it. Your vote is motivation for them to keep doing what they are doing, your vote is to build the best team to turn your effort into a golden egg. It’s not about friendship, ego, feelings or personality. It’s about respect! I am not here to make friends. I am here to earn your respect. If we all achieve that across the board, we will succeed. If friendships form as a bi-product of this process, great! What a bonus. It’s not why I am here.

The purpose of such a structure is to allow everyone the respect of being heard. Everyone’s experience and opinions during the whole campaign planning and implementation matters – which is why we are encouraging everyone to actively fill out the survey each week. If you don’t fill it out, you are not adding value to the selection process, this should count against your weekly rating.

There was a reason why we built this system this way… With ALL the members carefully involved in the system, it will give an effect of a massive due diligence process that no single company can ever form. Every single person will be given a chance to prove him/herself, to demonstrate his/her abilities and to show their expertise, their interest, commitment and value add to the rest of the group. No single person will be ousted unless they do not deliver on their commitment to pay a certain amount of human capital that is required to belong. Anyone actively engaged and doing their role, will be appreciated, you all know who you are when you look in the mirror.

Like every other stable system, we’re running by guidelines and processes that ensure we’re all on the same page. The Wednesday afternoon conference, the weekly meetings, the weekly reviews are all mandatory for the key roles in Social Traffic Inc.

As I mentioned in one of my emails; everyone has been made aware that their time invested over the first 4 weeks is at their own risk. After week 4, the team left become shareholders in an actual company that will be formed after April 22 if we successfully achieve our first goal together.

Why I think everyone’s not on the same page:

The aim of the group is to build a team that will lead an army of evangelists towards dominating Social Media marketing across the internet. I will be posting a note to our first tier evangelist group next week.

Together each member of the team should enhance the overall value of Social Traffic Inc. Over the next 12 weeks we must be working towards a point where each leading shareholder has such an integral role to play in the success of the team’s venture, that without him/her our ability to successfully roll out a campaign is weakened, but at the same time we have many other key people to fill the void. The opportunity is not vulnerable to going down the drain if one person leaves. Sophisticated share holders want this group of key people to own the most shares because it means they won’t leave easily. Our shareholders should want the same. If you have ever pitched to VCs you will know that one of their primary concerns is how ‘indispensable’ members of the core team are. Because like I said before, investors invest in people not products or ideas – because that’s what it takes for a venture to become successful. Anyone can come up with an idea, in fact billions do it every day. Not many people can turn big ideas into a big realities. Investors would much rather take someone’s idea and give it to others they KNOW can deliver, rather than invest their money into a team of unknowns.

Likewise, sophisticated investors will never invest in a team that is dependent on one person who is indispensable. Quite similarly to that, the core ST leadership team should have such strong credentials as a collective. We are here to build a team that is capable of successfully establishing a multi-million dollar company from our initial idea, passion and determination. This is every team members chance to prove themselves to a global investor community that they are capable of taking big ideas and turning them into big realities. This is every ones chance to be in a position to say confidently; “yes, I have climbed that start up mountain before”. Your ability to use these words alone, in the context described above make any time you invest worth every second. In saying that, always reflect on a simple philosophy that if it were going to be easy, everyone would be doing it.

The importance of the process:

We want to keep the structure of the ST leadership group as simple as possible. The company will effectively be driven by the main leadership group, thus putting the onus of the success on the collective capabilities of the group members. We don’t want easy players, since it doesn’t attract the kind of fighters required to turn good ideas into a million dollar venture.

In the longer run the second tier leaders (or associates) will be people who can be called upon as contractors / evangelists to support the company’s campaigns. So for each campaign, the core leaders can get the help and assistance of associates to ensure that the implementation is done without hiccups.

Next week, please make sure you put your thinking hats on. Our focus is on finalising each of our individual plans content. Next week we are focused on tying all of our individual plans into one coordinated plan. Wednesday week is execution day and I can’t wait.

I would like us to roll out a viral campaign like this one. It’s brilliant, check it out, put out your heads together, call on your networks to make this happen.

Post any ideas on how we could do something similar for Earth Day Birthday.

Check out this brilliant viral media campaign

Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)

Visit my “event line blogs”

Social Traffic – The book

Today’s tip! If you want to source the best JV partners in your niche, you need a software that sources those selling the most product’s in your niche!

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