SATURATION

In other words the concept that you are in a crowded market, or looking to enter into a market that has already been overly marketed and serviced. A concept resulting in this horrible word entrepreneurs, authors, speakers and the like seem to dread… saturation! (said as if I was a motocross announcer).

This one might seem small, but it is a perfect example of how small little deceptions and misconceptions can have a massive effect on our lives and our business growth.

So many of us who have that entrepreneurial dream to either build our own empire or just create a second stream of revenue base our decisions on this classic business concept.

I do believe that an important part of business success comes from looking at a market and going where there is little to no competition.

In fact Thomas J. Stanely, Ph.D. author of the book “The Millionaire Mind” states that one of the top 10 reasons listed when interviewing hundreds of millionaires is just that. They knew they did not want to have to work as hard as it takes to take on heavy competition.

So if that is a researched fact, then why am I saying it is an excuse?

Let’s define saturation and competition.

For the purpose of our conversation, and dealing with why we resist marketing ourselves as experts, I will define competition as a fact of life but saturation as a perception, or better yet, how we are choosing to see the fact of competition.

Imagine for a second that you wake up one day with a burning passion to create a new line of cars, lawn mowers, health shakes, work out programs or even yet another social media platform.

You’re insane right? Well only if you are not willing to look for the opportunities in those crowded markets. In every industry there are weaknesses that allow for someone to come along and exploit.

Energy – Green Mountain Energy

Transportation – Electric cars or even low cost cars such as Kia

Social Media – New platforms that don’t create connections but facilitate them such as ping.fm, peoplebrowsr or tweetdeck.

The point is simply this: Yes there is competition, and yes you should look at that competition very clearly. But if you are an author, speaker or any sort of business person that will be in front of people you have one key ingredient, one secret weapon that can carve out a piece of that market faster than any technology, degree, or product.

YOU!!!

That’s right true believers. You.

I have spent my life showing people from every imaginable background and business how to leverage themselves to gain their market share and it starts by simply stopping the khaki game.

If you’re not familiar with the khaki game, I can sum it up with this quote that I heard from a girlfriend.

“Being boring is a choice. Those khakis and mild salsa didn’t create themselves!”

KHAKI TALK

No offense to all my khaki wearing brothers out there. Khaki pants and fashion is not really the point here.

Each one of us has a completely unique mind that has been shaped and forged from billions of impressions that all come together to create a single unique view of the world and its challenges.

So it doesn’t matter if you’re selling insurance, donuts, or civilian space travel. You see it differently.

The key is that you have to give way to those thoughts and allow them to be heard.

This is what truly lies beneath this excuse, as it does with all of them. FEAR OF REJECTION.

So let me leave you with this one question.

If you are scared of rejection from clients, customers, and especially your peers, then how has that worked for you up to this point?

Take a true assessment of your business.

Are you doing what you love?

Do you enjoy your clients?

Do you actually respect your peers and value their opinions?

If you answer no to any of these questions then you would probably truly benefit from what we see as rejection. It is “rejection” that shapes our business for the good.

Your life view and opinion will attract those that you will enjoy working with and for. Those that will value your business so you are not constantly asking for them to value your time and expertise.

Where there is saturation there is IMMENSE potential. Saturation tends to be the thickest in markets where the actual humanity is the hardest to find.

Every one of us wants to communicate with a human, purchase from a human, and work with a human.

If you don’t believe that then go ahead and call for tech support the next time your system or phone has crashed losing all of your work and pay attention to your very first reaction when an automated message comes on.

And if you don’t believe me well… then… I encourage you to “reject” me! LOL. I’m just that much closer to my true market!

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This not only pulls Facebook profile photos, but it also pulls the newsfeeds of your contacts into your inbox. Looking at someone’s e-mail, you’ll get to see their status updates, picture uploads and wall posts, etc.

The Facebook integration has limits: except for friend requests, Outlook can only pull data from Facebook. There is no “liking” posts or updating your status via Outlook, FOR NOW.

In the meantime, E-mail marketing service MailChimp is preparing to release a new version of its application that includes support for integrating “Like” buttons in e-mail campaigns. MailChimp v5.2 is being released soon and includes support for Facebook.

Look out folks! The pendulum is swinging again.

Email marketing has been taking a beating for a long time now, especially with the advent of Social Media Marketing.

Whenever something like Social Media first comes on the scene, most people tend to discount its importance, preferring instead to remain wholly committed to “tried and true” methods. Only when they hear that thar’s really gold up in them thar hills, do they come running to stake out their claim.

Unfortunately these same people tend to rid themselves of the old “tried and true” methods in the process.

A better approach is to embrace the new while still engaging with the established ways of doing business.

So wise business builders are still using email marketing.

If you’ve never used it, or used to use it but have abandoned it, now is the time to reconsider your position.

The future is coming and it’s going to look a lot like the past!

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You may not be shocked to hear that I address this with clients on a daily basis.

What you might be amazed to learn is that many of them have been in their area of knowledge for over 20 years. What’s more, many already have books, radio shows, and have appeared on TV numerous times!

How is this possible?

With just a quick peek behind the curtain you will quickly learn that a very significant number of well-known and famous therapists, speakers, authors, politicians, etc. still deal with anxiety attacks over this one common fear.

That fear isn’t public speaking or rejection.

It is “what happens WHEN someone DISCOVERS that I am not REALLY an expert?” and it is one of the subtlest forms of self-sabotage and deception.

Let’s dig down deeper on this epidemic that plagues all of us at one point or another in our careers.

Looking at the language we use has always been an effective method for seeing into our issues.

3 primary lies layered into this fear are what keep thousands of us from achieving our best and working so much harder than needed.

LIE #1 – WHEN

We have all heard the phrase “it’s not a question of if but when.” Most of us live by this concept of life. Disappointment, loss, rejection, abandonment, the list goes on forever. While I am by no means an unrealistic “dreamer”, I do believe we embody what we expect.

In the last blog post, I walked you through an exercise designed to prepare you for the “worst case scenario”. But the truth is that most of us spend our lives running from events that will never take place.

AT LEAST THEY HAVE A REASON TO RUN

In over a decade of marketing, training, speaking, directing and producing, I have never had someone try to prove that I am not an expert. The fact is, even IF you are wrong on a fact relating to your expertise, 99% of people will forgive that IF your intention was to help people.

However, if your intention was to make as much money as possible and you’re arrogant, then you deserve what happens next! I say this because that is the exact formula for ensuring the humiliation of being called out.

Plus you don’t have to constantly tell everyone you are an expert. IF you are, others will say it for you!

LIE #2 – DISCOVERS

Listen to the very intent of this word. You are already accepting you are NOT an expert and that there is something to be “discovered”. IF you are going around saying you are the world’s foremost expert in your field, then you are calling out skeptics to test your claims, but that’s not what we are doing here.

We are simply stating the truth.

An Expert is only required to be "Smarter Than the Average Bear"

You have a greater amount of experience and “working knowledge” than the average person on the street.

There is simply nothing to be “discovered”. However, it is a great exercise to acknowledge this fear and list any element of your business or marketing you feel could be “discovered” to not be true. Maybe you have just embellished facts where you didn’t intend to. Now is the time to correct that and keep your claims legit and simple.

Remember: people buy from benefits much more than they do features. You only provide benefit to a client is when you are seen as an expert.

LIE #3 – REALLY

Another tell tale sign you simply are not believing you provide the value that you do.

Always come back to the definition. Do you have a greater working knowledge of a subject than the AVERAGE person on the street? If the answer is yes, then you are a budding expert… yeah REALLY!

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IDEA SOURCING

Idea Sourcing is simply the process of allowing anyone in an identified group, party, or network to make suggestions to help solve problems, come up with ideas, and create initiatives.

In other words, instead of sitting up all night worrying about how to best position your company for a specific client you are pitching, you allow people from varying backgrounds and areas of expertise to make suggestions.

It’s as if you’re using multiple computers networked together to solve a problem instead of just the one you are sitting at.

In this case, your brain is the computer.

If you have ever enjoyed an animated series from Pixar, you should know they did not animate, shade, and render those films such as Toy Story or Finding Nemo on one computer! As obvious as that sounds, why do we take that very approach? Most great masterpieces require involvement, engagement, and collaboration.

If you’re not familiar with the term, I want to introduce you to an extremely important concept called:

Social Capital

Wikipedia defines Social Capital as:

… a sociological concept used in business, economics, organizational behaviour, political science, public health and the social sciences in general to refer to connections within and between social networks. Though there are a variety of related definitions, which have been described as “something of a cure-all”^[1] for the problems of modern society, they tend to share the core idea “that social networks have value. Just as a screwdriver (physical capital) or a college education (human capital) can increase productivity (both individual and collective), so do social contacts affect the productivity of individuals and groups”.

Your friends, families, co-workers, employees, neighbors, you name it, all have different “values” than you.

We can discuss the reasons why some friends are closer than others, or why you avoid that one co-worker all day long, and yet we rarely ever think about the business value our relationships carry.

While this is a favorite topic of mine, I will keep this on topic by simply saying that in my experience there is no reason not to tap into the Social Capital in my life other than ignorance of the abilities possessed by the people in my life or my own pride and fear!

So with this working definition of Social Capital, let’s look a little further at the process of Idea Sourcing.

Probably the easiest way to do this is online where people feel the most comfortable to engage.

While you can offer opportunities where a profile of the user is not available (so they feel more comfortable),  you might want to be careful with that option because you are inherently throwing out a great deal of “data” about their suggestion.

It is important to note here that the greatest results to date with Idea Sourcing have come from offering a wide array of people with varying ideologies, educations, and life experience the ability to engage… not just who you think would have good ideas.

Always remember: the laws of “small worlds” or “social networks” cannot be predetermined. You will always be amazed at what someone knows or has experienced beyond what you could ever have imagined!

Let’s look at one of my favorite examples I have been talking about for almost 2 years now:

CASE STUDY: Threadless.com

Before Threadless.com came on the scene, we had all been to apparel websites and perhaps even visited a few T-shirt websites.

I want you to think about the process of creating and selling t-shirts online.  There’s the costs of design, manufacturing, advertising, processing, shipping, customer service and returns.

Image via CrunchBase

But the biggest problem is that the consumer has to shop and shop to find anything unique and honestly most t-shirt sites at the time were all selling the same fare.

Enter threadless.com

The concept is so simple, it passes us all by.

Create an online environment that allows anyone to upload a design for a t-shirt.

Then once a month have a vote for the best artwork of that month.

The person selected then has their artwork put into limited T-shirt runs (ensuring demand) and… voila!

You have your super cool T-shirt business.

But here’s the part most of us miss: they have outsourced the most expensive and risky parts of their business.

They are not paying for design work AND they know that the t-shirts will sell because of the number of people who voted for it!

SO they mitigated risk (they don’t have boxes and boxes of t-shirts in storage somewhere because they couldn’t sell them…like I did once)

One more vital component here… think about the mind and basic nature of an artist who would upload their designs.

What do you think the possibilities are that artists will do their best to make sure everyone they know sees their art work and buys a T-shirt?

Pretty good, right?

This process creates a new, natural, organic, viral campaign EVERY MONTH for Threadless!

Just because they are an online business doesn’t mean there aren’t great applications of this model for your brick and mortar business.

Just remember: when a consumer BELIEVES they have a say in the decision or outcome of a business they immediately feel a sense of loyalty.

And it’s that loyalty you build upon.

Let’s look at just a few methods and tools you can use in your own business.

TOOLS

There are many great tools available to you ranging from Social Media to surveys and polls.

Social Media - there are so many great social media tools for this I could dedicate an entire blog to this subject, so I will just cover a few for now.

LinkedIn

This is probably my favorite!

No matter how many times I give this tip when I speak, I am always amazed at how many people have not heard of it.

In LinkedIn there is a brilliant feature titled “Answers”.

It’s a bit misleading because it isn’t just answers, but questions as well.

You can post a question about any topic and direct it to specific markets.

For example, if you are a small business owner and you just had a serious problem with your CPA or bookkeeper you can log in to LinkedIn and create a question such as “what should I look for in a great CPA?”

You can then select who in what market (because in LinkedIn you have to select a preselected field of work when you create a profile) you want to submit this to.

Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking the answers you receive will be shameless self-promotion such as:

Answer: Yeah, I do. Hire me!

That does occur from time to time, but you will be amazed at the overall quality of answers, referrals and long term contacts you will receive.

Remember, people behave on LinkedIn because it’s for business and their peers are always watching:)

Twitter

I hear all the time how frustrated people get with Twitter because they don’t know what to talk about and they can’t seem to get people to engage them. Yet these same people are facing decisions, comparisons, and challenges all day every day!

Sounds like a great match to me!

Just a few of the Twellow Catagories

Ask questions on Twitter and you will get answers. If you need to ask questions to a specific market, and you don’t have many of these users following you, then head over to sites like Twellow.com

and search by interest. When you find the market you are looking for, follow the people listed. When they follow back , as most do, you’ll have your free market research waiting for you!

Grow your networks by solving problems whether they be your own or someone else’s.

Surveys and Poll

LinkedIn

sample LinkedIn poll

Again, LinkedIn weighs in at the top of my list because they offer you a polling feature cleverly titled… “Poll“!

LinkedIn says it best “Add the Polls application and leverage the wisdom of millions of business professionals on LinkedIn.”

There is even a paid option so you can submit your poll to users you are not connected to if you need to access their brains!

Of course Facebook has a slew of applications that allow you to survey your friends. Check out their options here: Facebook survey applications.

I have not used this myself but have been told several times that http://twtpoll.com is awesome for polling your Twitter community.

Now if you’re looking for options you can email or place on your blog or website then I suggest any of these:

FREE:

surveymonkey.com

polldaddy.com

PAID:

Constant Contact

While many people use Constant Contact for their Ezines and email lists, few realize they offer an amazing survey tool at an additional cost.

I have found that instead of setting up separate polls for every site, you can simply create one, place it on your blog or website, and then, if your Social Media funnel is set up correctly (like we teach you),  you can direct folks from your Twitter, FB or LinkedIn accounts to the poll on your blog or site.

Regardless of your business model and challenges, I encourage you to experiment with Idea Sourcing.  If you have even half the results we have, and our clients have, you will make it a primary part of your business.

So what do you think? Let me hear from you and please post your thoughts and questions below.

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“Damian, how do you pick which companies you work with especially in the Web 2.0 world?”

I usually get that question when speaking or on a panel somewhere and inevitably it is from someone wanting to hire me to develop their Web 2.0 concept into a viable business.

One of the answers I always give is that I look for an idea that would be second, third or even fourth to the market. Not first!

I believe this is crucial because you are mitigating risk by looking at existing models and perfecting that model. I know it’s not as exciting as being a trail blazer but I can tell you raising venture capital is much easier!

The second element I look for is what’s commonly called “CrowdSourcing“.

by Sami Viitamäk

The working definition found in Wikipedia (which is a site based on crowdsourcing by the way) for crowdsourcing is the act of taking tasks traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to a group (crowd) of people or community in the form of an open call. The term crowdsourcing has become shorthand for the trend of leveraging the mass collaboration enabled by Web 2.0 technologies to achieve business goals.

We are seeing this every where. New York Times now makes all their content available for free, Flickr allows you to upload and tag your photos so others can use them in most cases. And don’t forget about amazing companies such as Threadless,  Goldcorp Inc. not to mention our very own goverment and the new methods emerging everyday for crowdsourcing security measures. I’ll get to them in later posts.

There are many terms already associated with this trend such as:

• Wisdom of Crowds
• Open Innovation
• Social Collaboration
• Human Computation
• Citizen Science
• Collective Intelligence to name a few.

This is a massive area of study but for our purposes today lets just say this.

If 2 heads are better than 2 then 50 heads are AWESOME! LOL

Image of New York Times lead articles mapped on the NYT API from blprnt_van

Here’s the point.

We are in the information age NOT the industrial age

UUUH no shoes in the office Jim? Really?

Is your business still working like a factory?

Let’s walk through an example.

OLD MODEL: Crowd Surfing

not to mention the awkward gropping...

In the previous model (industrial age) of problem solving was approached by going to someone or a small group of someones that have a specific related skill to solve your problem. So let’s say you are the proud owner of Jarvison & Minx CPA firm, (totally made that up) if you had a problem with say high employee turn over in your company you would talk to your friends and associates at the office and then finally when it cost you enough pain you would try several ideas and if that didn’t work you would look for an expert in HR.

And that expert would bring their experience into the mix and undoubtedly over time help you solve your problem. And the solutions would fall in typical areas such as improved working conditions, better atmosphere or even greater incentives.

Now in order to solve this problem you need to sit back and asses the costs to the company. The lose of revenue by loosing trained employees and always hiring and training new employees, the cost of the meetings to figure out the problem which basically results many times in lose of productivity and of course the cost to the HR expert.

I call this Crowdsurfing because of the image it conjures up. We have all seen someone crowdsurfing at a concert right?

Whether your the average board and disapointed youth at a modern day concert (major soap box of mine)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR7Pg6rq_fs

or just another psyched out Obama fan we have all seen the results:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk0i_Ot92g0

I know it was never you but still you know what I’m talking about.

Here’s what has always amazed me about that idea of transportation… I have NEVER EVER seen someone crowdsurf and get what they want!

They always want to travel closer to the front by the stage and yet if they manage to get there all that happens is some massive security guard grabs and throws them all the way to the back so that they are actually worse off than when they started! Sound familar?

But this is my favorite part of crowdsurfing… plane and simple. 90% of the time they are dropped!

Haha I know I shouldn’t laugh and all that and of course I would never want them to actually get hurt.

But why is it so common to see a crowdsurfer get dropped?

Well I believe its because NO ONE LIKE TO BE STEPPED ON!

Well usually no one likes getting stepped on...

Oh sure you might be game for a while but after enough butt and boots hit you in the face you tend to no longer have the strength to hold them up! LOL

Here’s my point. The old method for solving so many of our problems are a lot like this. We rely on people to get us where we are trying to go but they get tired of it because of one main reason…

They are doing ALL the work and you are having ALL the fun!

NEW MODEL: CrowdSourcing

In today’s methods (information age) information is king! We have all heard that content is king but all content is really is presorted and organized information that we want. So now a savy owner of Jarvison and Minx CPA firm has options.

What we now have the ability to do is to poll everyone’s mind equally to see where we find consitent areas of frustration. Not just the manager’s or the sales team.

Think about it for a second. What we have basically learned to do in business is apply a cast system that none of us would ever agree to or submit ourselves to. As if it’s impossible that George in your accounting department has NO clue what makes a compelling sales pitch.

That’s insane.

Do you have any idea how many sales pitches he sees on an average day? Any idea how many of them work on him or don’t. We as humans carry impressions from birth!

These are accesible to anyone at any time if you are willing to look past a degree on a wall.

At it’s most basic principal it is the same concept as a suggestion box. You don’t create a suggestion box for every department!

So in todays arena a frustrated business owner can access the problem and solve the problem all the while reinforcing that his/her employees matter.

Why do they feel that they matter?

Because you are turning to them for a solution and now they are engaged at a personal level!

So back to our business owners delima. What can he do to crowdsource this issue.

Well for starters they can create a survey in any number of ways with tools like: SurveyMonkey.com, SurveyGizmo.com or even Constant Contact.com.

If you want to really get in depth responses then you can simply create a basic form using Google Forms! Literally in seconds you can ask any question and send it out. The best part is that when the employees in this case respond Google Forms arranges and exports the information into a spread sheet!

Oh and don’t forget that at the base operating level of all social media is crowdsourcing. Asking opinions, giving opinions and of course there are apps in Facebook as well as LinkedIn for polls and surveys.

So now our business owner is getting information that he is probably unaware of in the first place to better asses the problem.

Think about it. What is one of the first steps a operations or HR consultant takes when they are hired?

Start interviewing the staff!

Why? Because they need the same info you do… you must remember that what has traditionally made someone an expert is their focus in a field. Well isn’t it possible that the very focus you are paying for is blind to other solutions because they do not even consider it or even know it exists?

Now I want to leave this example because we can get into a lot of minutia here but I want to draw your attention to this basic concept.

Imagine what you can do with your existing clients, prospect clients or even disgruntled clients with crowdsourcing.

It doesn’t have to just be a survey either. There are many great tools available for your own crowdsourcing project.

Over the next few weeks I will take one of these methods and break it down so we can all begin to work smarter and not harder and brand ourselves as those savvy business’ that consumers love to discover!

In the mean time write and an let me know what you have done with crowdsourcing or peer production models or even what you would like to do and I will address it in the upcoming blog posts.

If you want more in depth study on this subject here are just a few excellent blogs:

Wikinomics by Dan Tapscott and Anthony Williams

http://bit.ly/4nCj0I

Crowdsourcing by Jeff Howe

http://bit.ly/1m1hW

Flirting with Crowds by Sami Viitamäki

http://bit.ly/3CrBKY

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While there are many sides to this conversation let me just give some of the basics today.

Stop with the enforced e-mail forwards already! Trying to force or bribe people to forward your info to a friends or family in order to be rewarded or win looks skanky in today’s ultra-permission-based world. Especially when you tell visitors nothing about their friend’s or family’s privacy in the space directly next to the e-mail form.

A true viral campaign gets forwarded because consumers are compelled to do so by the glory of the content, not because you bribed them with points or something else.

What absolutely will not work:

Suggesting that e-mail recipients forward your message to their friends and family will not work. Adding a line at the bottom of your e-mail that reads Please feel free to forward this message to a friend is more likely to get it deleted than forwarded.

What absolutely will work:

Offering something worthy of sharing like a valuable discount, vital information or offering an incentive for sharing like additional entries into a sweepstakes or an added discount or premium service will work.

Relevant or timely information, research, or studies that are included in your e-mail might encourage the recipients to share with their family and friends. Interactive content like a quiz or test, especially if it’s fun, will inspire forwarding.

Jokes and cartoons are almost always forwarded to everybody the recipient knows.  Why?  Because they are entertaining and entertainment is meant to be shared.

A really cool multimedia experience is always going to achieve a lot of pass-along. Rich media is new and the novelty and tech factors alone are often enough to make the e-mail recipient eager to share it.

Oops!  Almost forgot one really important thing.You can craft a brilliant e-mail following all the rules, but if a consumer visits your site and has an experience less that what was promised, you are going to achieve viral marketing, alrightÖthe bad kind.  So be certain that your product or service is ready and is as advertised.

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I am usually the guy in the background consulting on any number of topics and enjoying my life and work.

However, every now and then comes along a company and more importantly a group of people so talented, so passionate and so dedicated that they almost make me wish I worked FOR them instead of WITH them.

Thus is the case with my fairly new client Debbie Wright founder and visionary of Seed Sucker Inc.

What the hell is a Seed Sucker you say?

Read press release

Seed Sucker Website

Well not only is it an innovative company that specializes in selling eco friendly t-shirts but they create their own custom lines of shirts which are all made from bamboo.

So that’s cool. Right?

Where most folks would stop at the bamboo part convinced they have a cool product Debbie had to go a step further and work directly with the factory in China that brings in the bamboo and process it to make the thread!

Sure this takes longer and costs more but does Debbie care… of course not because she has done her home work and knows there is a market for a higher end product such as this.

So you buy a shirt for around $35.00 and its made of bamboo and is MUCH more comfortable than cotton and breaths way better but then you go to take off the tag and notice that the ENTIRE tag is plantable!!!

That’s right.

Take the tag plant it, water it, add sun shine and WABAMO (made up word I used as a kid when transforming into Thor… long story) you got a little plant growing in your yard, school playground or park.

Okay I’m sold, but then I am informed of her business model which consists of a retail line and a fundraiser program.

The retail line is way cool but fundraiser… I know a little bit about these bad boys and it ain’t good!

But once again the team at Seed Sucker has figured out a way to take you from the dread in your gut “my kids have a fundraiser” to “this is freaking cool and sales like gangbusters” excitement!

In other words… no more damn cookie dough, popcorn and candy bars. Oh or the wrapping paper you pay triple for!

They are launching schools all over the US and a percentage of the proceeds go back into an eco friendly non-profit for conservation.

I have to say what I really love about Seed Sucker is their approach. Their message is light hearted, kind and practical. They don’t sell by showing pictures of seals being clubbed to death or baby bird in oil spills.

Their slogan says it all “Organic Apparel With a Conscience”.

GREAT TIP: Just because you can use fear and guilt to capture my attention doesn’t mean its a good platform for selling!

When I was asked to come in and train the sales staff in the Mogulize Your Business concepts of social media, product and exposure I had no idea what I was walking into. The people mean business and are determined to change the face of both fund raising and eco friendly apparel.

I truly am privileged to call Seed Sucker Inc my client and to have a hand in their growth on the ground floor.

These folks are a PRIME example of utilizing the Mogulize Your Business concepts and they were applying most of them before I came on board.

The staff are energetic, genuine and ready to make your fundraiser the easiest and most rewarding fundraiser you could have imagined.

And no… I don’t get a commission for selling them I just am truly proud to know them and hope that the more my readers follow companies such as Seed Sucker the more my readers will grow by emulating such successes!

This is why I have deemed them GREEN MOGULS!

Stay tuned for more info on this company and how they are Mogulizing their business.

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Sorry for disappearing in the last weeks. I have moved my home and office and had some serious family medical emergencies. All while continuing to book more speaking gigs and fill more coaching calls.

Its been insane to say the least!

Now many of you have been asking for part 2 to “Are You Ready for Your Close-Up” and it is coming. I promise. I am working on it right now.

In the meantime make sure you register for this Saturdays “Mogulize Your Business” seminar hosted by Rodger Blaker.

I believe there are only 22 seats left.

Click here to register.

http://www.meetup.com/Mogulize-Your-Business

See you all there!

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My day to day activities as a consultant ALWAYS touch on this point. I have assisted professionals to either get TV interviews as an expert OR to develop a TV property.

Since I have worked in the film and TV industry for over 10 years I have learned a great deal about POSITIONING and believe it or not it isnt that difficult to get this level of exposure.

Awhile back a friend of mine Shama Hyder www.shamatv.com and I were discussing some of her segments for TV and she did to me what I do every day for my clients.

Shama stated the OBVIOUS!

It was so clear. Right under my nose the whole time but I have been to busy solving other peoples problems.

Shama stops me in mid sentence and says, “Damian, you are so silly! Why dont you create a workshop to teach the masses these skills instead of teaching one person at a time?”

What can I say? I just simply never thought of it.

Long story short I have decided, thanks to Shama’s brilliance to utilize this newly launched blog to discuss this point along with the others I speak on. How to develop your product and/or service to be TV worthy and to attract the right shows and right networks.

So many of us could stand to benefit from the simplest of tv exposure. A morning show, local news segments and even paid programming. Do you feel that you need to be a “star” in order to get this kind of access? Well you don’t!

But how? What are the steps?

In my course “Are You Ready For Your Close Up?” I explain in detail not only the methods to do just this but also the strategies needed to drive producers to YOU.

Starting this week I will begin a weekly update on this subject. Not sure how long it will go. Will base that on participation and questions asked.

So here is to getting what you have worked so hard for… exposure, sales and success!

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