Yesterday, I received this message from a retailer asking to stock a product I sell purely online.
Did it make sense? Probably not.
Why? Because the guy had never heard of my business or the products I sell but strangely enough customers kept coming in hassling him for my product.
What did this business owner do on encountering this unusual situation?
Cold called the person who had what the customers were asking for!
Ok. How can you do what I did?
Identify a “Bricks & Mortar” retailer that your online customers would visit
List the retailer (with out telling them) on your website as an exclusive dealer of your product
Sit and wait for the retailer to contact you after customers repeatably come in asking for your product which they don’t stock.
This strategies success is heightened if these three key factors exist to some degree
A great product - I have a niche product, with a robust barrier to entry, that repeatably sells online.
Time sensitive - Many people want my product NOW, not 2-3 days after ordering online. Remember B&M shops still hold it over the online world when it comes to Right Now
Geographic evidence - When customers want it NOW. They ask where I am? I ask them where they are? The more geographic specific requests for pickups the more likely this strategy will work. Alternatively, place a “pickup location” page with analytics to see who and where the people are from who click on it
Happy reverse cold calling. And be super nice to your new retailers because you will have to work harder then usual to build rapport for being a cheeky little bastard.
Well I didn’t really… If I was a bad guy, I could purchase (off the black market) your D.O.B and other juicy information like first school, pet and mother’s maiden name. Such information could be taken from your Facebook profile.
The D.O.B is the key to “tricking” accounts and because I continually see my friends displaying their D.O.B publicly on their facebook profile (available for easy pickings). I decided to pulled together this tutorial to show how easy it is to change…
A mate from University has the hookup to an interesting mobile phone management platform and wanted to know if I had any ideas to get people on board.
To no surprise I did and created a proposal for his management team.
The presentation includes some details of a non traditional startup yourmobilecompany.com.au applying notions of web democracy, equal ownership and emergence. Which makes me a level 8 or 9 on the purest-corporatist scale
With the model and audience (corporate) in mind, I designed the presentation with the objective of educating my audience, improving awareness and providing a teaser to get me on board to flesh out deeper insights for development and a potential partnership.
There are notes included to help apply to your own circumstances but you will need to download the powerpoint to access.
If you are an independent technologist\artist\media hacker\entrepreneur\etc and want to experience San Francisco and the Bay Area on the ground instead of a one week gig feeling like a tourist. Here are tips to make it happen cheap!
Travel OFF PEAK
Peak is May to August and any holidays i.e. Christmas, Thanks Giving are peak. For cheap flights and accommodation avoid these times.
Fact: San Francisco DOES get cold and foggy either side of Summer
Important! - 90 days includes travel to Canada and Mexico. Jetting off to Cancun for a week or two will not reset your Visa on re-entry.
Stay with locals
Accommodation will be your biggest expense. Use a travelling host site and let people stay at your house. In turn you will find it easier when you arrive in your international destination. I am a Couchsurfing.com evangelist, I cannot recommend it enough but you can check out the other services on my couchsurfing facebook app for other suggested options.
If riding couches gets too much the Element Hotel is cheap, clean, cool and centrally located. You can get Queensize bed with ensuite for $60 per night (and that is the high end!)
Get connected!
The cheapest way is to stay off plan and buy a phone that is tri-band GSM, supports PUSH (mail), MMS, browser.
It is inevitable you will be heading to Mountain View or Palo Alto for an event and PT to these areas does not cut it. Register for ZipCar and within a couple of days you can being picking up a car with in minutes from a convenient location to get you there.
Important: Internationals, bring a copy of your driving record from your home country to fast track approval
Get an office
If you want to feel lonely and ineffective quickly do coffee shops for 3 months. For FREE or a modest monthly fee you can have an office space along side other talented San Francisco independents. By having your own desk and location you can build a routine, get work done and meet locals just like you. My favorite place is the HatFactory but all the co-working locations are different so find one that fits you.
Hit the FREE Events
San Francisco and the Bay Area have a phenomenal amount of events all year round.
And there is no better way to find out if you are up to par, meet people, get free food and drink and learn really cool things!
I found the events, search and scheduling using upcoming excellent.
What is your tip for cheap legal working holidays? Where else in the world is an extra-ordinary place to setup shop?
Even if you are remarkable you may need a place to pull all the neat things you have done into one place and crystallize what you are really about. Enter the “New Media” type resume, the brain child of Chris Penn, extended by Bryan Person and morphed over to Wordpress by me.
I do not know this person; they are apparently female; play on my ego; have no network and are providing me an unusual link.
Funnily enough, I couldn’t stop myself from clicking on the link because the message was unexpected on facebook and I wanted to work out the spammer’s end game.
The link took me to http://e45r08w9ployz16.two2tango.org/?id=2524&mypics which resulted in a “Server Not Found” error page.
Probably because it has been shut down.
I went to primary domain two2tango.org which ends up being a static redirect to a dodgy dating site called friendorama.com.
Friendorama.com has an affiliate program.
Which poses the question. Was it an affiliate creating accounts and spamming people like me to drive traffic? Or the people behind the site trying to get registrations up.
It is painfully obvious, Friendorama.com’s site will not make any money from the lack of point of difference, cookie cutter look and feel, no content and empty support pages on a mysterious site called onlinepersonalshelp.com.
This rules out affiliates because there is nothing to pay them!
Overall a reasonable amount of sophistication and planning has occurred for no foreseeable return.
Owners of shoddy dating sites, pioneering facebook spamming techniques, please focus your obvious talents on a half decent business model.
And when you find this blog in your link backs. Flick me a message from your REAL facebook account and say “G’day” because I think you are O.K for trying and you are my first time.
Truly portable media has the potential to facilitate delivery of your ideas, stories, concepts, memorable moments to the right person at the right time in the right place……. seamlessly.
Facebook is not portable. Content that goes in cannot be easily shared outside of facebook.
However content developed outside of facebook can be easily included within facebook.
For example. Photos on flicker, audio on Utterz, micro-blogs on twitter can go nearly anywhere that supports rudimentary technology.
Start making your stuff portable now and watch in awe as your personal media goes on auto pilot.
How many guys do you know that have a phone\cell\ipod charm?
Not many huh? The reason is the majority of guys would have to sport something like this………..
Beside the cute accents of todays modern charm there are two major reasons there is no market for male charms.
Lack of function Cool factor
Last month, I inadvertantly had a crack at solving lack of function and cool after recovering from the loss of my 10th high end cell phone in San Francisco.
By purchasing three different products from three different retail outlets, I summed the parts to develop a new product I call the PDG (Pirate Device Guardian).
The PDG’s primary function is to protect the owners ipod, cell, etc anytime they are intoxicated or in an unsafe environment.
As for the cool. Well you just have to stay true to your personal vision and if it gets old or people don’t like just come up with another one!
