Where it all Begins!

To continue this amazing series, after Ads Around The World #2, here I am posting some new creative Ads. Everyday there is million of ideas, ads created but few stick in your mind or make a strong impact on viewers, that’s why you cannot learn how to be creative in school you need to have it as a gift. Explore the two Ads below, and you will know what creative people are capable to.

The Creative Plastic Carrier Bag

Quite a simple and boring item… right?

 

The above bag was given when you bought a book by a famous crime-writer from Belgium. 

Creative Headache Tablet Ads 

Again, a useful product, but very boring. So how do you promote something so dull? With a little twist of creativity:

 

See you in the next Episode… 

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As I hold the position of Business Development Director at BobnBab Ltd., and since I got this position I have learned a lot of things especially that I had a big challenge in a very competitive market (Dubai). In this post I will share some Business Development tips with you.

The Internet is great at automating routine transactions and more software is being sold as a service on a simple "click here" to subscribe basis. But occasionally some contact sport is still required, and you have to resort to what we can now call Biz Dev 1.0 — what we used to call selling. You will need these skills to raise money and to sell your business, even if you never have to sell to anybody else. Here are 10 other tips:

1. Close on every call. Whether your call is by email, phone or face-to-face, have one single objective that you can close. It might be "please sign here," it might be "will you have lunch with me next Tuesday?"
2. Expect mutual effort. A sure sign of spinning your wheels is when you make all the effort and the buyer/investor does nothing. Ask them to do something to indicate some level of interest. If you don’t see this, move onto the next prospect.
3. Wait until you hear the screams. If you have a fire engine, you are not needed until the house is on fire. The best sales people wait until they see a real need before applying a lot of effort. One way to judge this, of course, is via #2.
4. Two ears, one mouth. If you only learn one lesson, this is it. This is particularly hard for technically oriented entrepreneurs with a deep passion for their product. People don’t buy products, they buy solutions to problems. Find the problem and show a solution based on your product. Ask lots of open-ended questions. People are much, much better at talking themselves into buying than you will ever be at talking them into buying.
5. Talk about the weather. This a lesson that I learned the hard way. Just as the buyer was about to sign, I said something that prompted a question that was critical and for which I did not have a good answer. The next day something happened, totally outside my control, that put the deal on indefinite hold. When somebody is about to sign, be quiet, shut the f**k up and if silence is uncomfortable find something banal to talk about.
6. Imagine the press conference. This is a good way to focus on the one thing that really matters to your buyer. What would the buyer tell the world about your deal? Assuming the usual attention deficit, this will be one simple point. Focus relentlessly on that one thing.
7. Recognize the emotional tipping point. Selling is a contact sport. You cannot do it by email or phone alone. Even in a long, complex sales cycle with multiple people in a decision team, there is one person who really matters and one moment when that person says to themselves, "I am going to do this." Everything before that moment is preparation and everything after is clearing due diligence.
8. Stomach knots, table banging, and other good signs. These agita moments show both parties that the negotiating is nearing the end. It reassures them that they are not leaving money on the table. Of course, good negotiators can fake it, and watching that can be pretty amusing. (Is that what we are witnessing in the on-again off-again Microsoft/Yahoo! negotiations?)
9. Don’t take it personally. Look at every rejection as a learning experience. Really. Even if you think the guy was a jerk/idiot. If he is a jerk/idiot, how do you recognize jerks/idiots earlier so that you waste less time? More likely you did not do #2, #3, or #4 properly. In other words, it was not a good fit and he was not a jerk/idiot.
10. Measure face-to-face time. Biz Dev 1.0 is a contact sport. Email and phone is great for details and follow-up, but selling happens face-to-face. Always has, always will. So measure face time. But also remember #1, close on every call. Just socializing can be good to build some warmth in the relationship but my rule is that respect is essential, liking is optional.

Even if you hire sales people to sell your product/services and M&A advisers to sell your company, some of these Biz Dev tips are likely to come in handy at some stage. Do you have any other tips? Post them in the comments.

Last November there was a question on the web, "In 6 months time, will you have more business contacts in Facebook than LinkedIn?" 62% of users said LinkedIn, and only about a quarter chose Facebook. It’s now been about six months, so how do the two services stack up? Has Facebook caught up with LinkedIn for Facebook? Will it ever? And what about Xing?

My personal experience has all been with LinkedIn lately and that has been very positive:

• Lot of my contacts have connected on LinkedIn (even technology conservatives are joining).
• I have used it for recruitment as well as business development, with some success.
• I met lot of new business people where we developed projects together and also they became my friends.
• LinkedIn now provides an RSS feed into my start page, so I can quickly scan what my contacts are doing, adding a touch of serendipity as well as pure curiosity.

My experience on Facebook has been light, as I used it for 6 months than deactivated my account, and this experience got me thinking about differences/similarities:

• Similar. Both try to get you to use their messaging. That is such a retrograde step. Why would anybody use a proprietary email system that is limited only to that service? I have occasionally used LinkedIn messaging but only because I had no other alternative. If that person is a genuine contact, then I have their email address, why would I use anything else? One semi-plausible reason is spam control, but Gmail has got that issue pretty well nailed in my opinion.
• Different. Facebook prompts public communication e.g the Wall. That is fun/different I guess. I also assume it gets old fairly quickly. What is the business value? We are talking deals, not dates here. In business this is like online whiteboard services, used for collaboration. Do I need to be on Facebook to do that?

I think the case for Facebook rests on all the cool guys entering the workforce who won’t use anything else. So, to reach them you gotta be on Facebook. Is that it? Is Facebook a tool to recruit people coming out of college?
As you may have guessed, I am still of the opinion that LinkedIn is the better tool for business.
What do you think?
Which social network is better for business?
( surveys)

LinkedIn’s value to users is clear; their value as a business, however, is less clear. But that may be due to the fact that they are a private company and so there is not any hard data to go on. Xing, the European alternative to LinkedIn, is public and recently published their quarterly results:

• Record quarter: Total revenues increased by 91 percent to 7.51 million euros (~$11.6 million)
• EBITDA increased by 500% over Q1/2007
• Number of Premium Members increased by 60 percent within one year to 420,000

Thats pretty impressive. It would be interesting to see the numbers LinkedIn is probably floating around as various unsubstantiated rumors say that they are looking to:

• do an IPO, or,
• sell to News Corp. or somebody else, or,
• raise another round

Which just about covers the strategic options.
USA Today, apparently with a source at LinkedIn, or at least not denied by LinkedIn, says:
"With more than 1 million people joining each month and projected 2008 revenue of $75 million to $100 million, LinkedIn Corp. seems likely to deliver another big payoff for [founder Reid] Hoffman."
That is heady growth, which would make any of the above strategic options viable. But this is a projection. To compare with Xing one would need to see last quarter revenue (about $11.6m for Xing). Take that $11.6m for Xing and multiply by 4 and you get an annual run rate of $46.4m. If they keep up their current 91% growth rate that would put Xing right around where LinkedIn is projecting ($46.4m + 91% = $88.82m). So, it is a two horse race for global online business networking. It is possible that Xing has actually got their nose out in front.
LinkedIn’s key asset is a young and rich demographic (younger than Wall Street Journal, richer than Facebook). That’s the key to their business.
What would be most revealing would be the number of paying subscribers. Xing reports that, and Xing is clearly profitable. My concern about LinkedIn as a business is that it is too dependent on advertising.
But then so is Facebook. And the key question asked 6 months ago is will Facebook eat LinkedIn’s lunch in the business market or will LinkedIn continue to pull ahead in that key segment. You know what this "suit" thinks (Xing is leading by a whisker, LinkedIn is close behind and looking strong, Facebook just fell at the last jump). What do you think?

Well again, an e-mail that took my attention, it came from my friend Ramzi. If you like tricky games, or you want to use your brain for a while, or maybe practice your brain read this post till the end.

This is not a test - just a phenomenon. All readings are explained.
Read out loud the text inside the triangle below.

More than likely you said, ‘A bird in the bush,’! and. …….
if this IS what YOU said, then you failed to see
that the word THE is repeated twice!
Sorry, look again.

Next, let’s play with some words.
What do you see?

In black you can read the word GOOD, in white the word EVIL (inside each black letter is a white letter). It’s all very physiological too, because it visualize the concept that good can’t exist without evil (or the absence of good is evil).

Now, what do you see?

This one is quite tricky!
The word TEACH reflects as LEARN.

Last one.What do you see?

You probably read the word ME in brown, but…….
when you look through ME you will see YOU!

Do you need to look again?
Test Your Brain
This is really cool. The second one is amazing so please read all the way though.

ALZHEIMERS’ EYE TEST
Count every ‘ F ‘ in the following text:
FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE
SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTI
FIC STUDY COMBINED WITH
THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS…
(SEE BELOW)

HOW MANY ?
WRONG, THERE ARE 6 — no joke.
READ IT AGAIN !
Really, go Back and Try to find the 6 F’s before you scroll down..

The reasoning behind is further down.
The brain cannot process ‘OF’.

Incredible or what? Go back and look again!!
Anyone who counts all 6 ‘F’s’ on the first go is a genius.

Three is normal, four is quite rare.

Send this to your friends.
It will drive them crazy.!
And keep them occupied
For several minutes..!

More Brain Stuff . . From Cambridge University .

Olny srmat poelpe can raed tihs.
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs psas it on !!

Psas Ti ON

As I promised you, a weekly advertising post will be available on this blog where I will share with you good stuff. This week I decided to post a 3D Animation movie developed by BobnBab L.L.C. for a real estate project called Ajman Corniche. This project was a competitive one for the company and the team itself, as it had to be done in a very short period not more than 3 weeks, I was part of the team and we had to create and develop the concept, with the copywriting, voice over, music and the final edit special effects, while we got a short brief from the client. I think, it is time for you to see what I am talking about and watch the movie below. 

For more check out http://www.youtube.com/bobnbabmedia