If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Sorry. It was a trick title. There is no low cost way of building a personal brand.

For a personal brand to flourish, the marketplace needs proof. Proof comes in the form of accomplishments and thought leadership to begin with.

The wrong way to TRY to build a personal brand is to try to build it on weak proof.

The better way is to work on accumulating proof in the form of accomplishments and thought leadership to start with.

Why?

For one, it just costs more to build a personal brand on weak proof (if at all you can build one).

Since last week, I have been receiving requests  about the new search engine Scour. Some of these requests came from people I know but MOST of them came from long lost acquaintances.

The invitations are something like this

Did you hear about Scour? It is the next gen search engine with Google/Yahoo/MSN results and user comments all on one page. Best of all we get rewarded for using it by collecting points with every search, comment and vote. The points are redeemable for Visa gift cards It’s like earning credit card or airline points just for searching. Hit the link below to join and we will both get points!

http://scour.com/invite/<<affiliate_id>>/

I know you’ll like it!

- <<name of the sender>>

Out of curiosity, I wanted to find out what is behind this. It was not difficult to find that out. I found this in the rewards section for the site.

The top search engines make billions of dollars a year in advertising revenue, wouldn’t it be cool if the users got a piece of that too? Enter Scour Points! Every member is awarded one point for every search, two for a vote and three for a comment with a maximum of 4 points a search. Once you aggregate at least 6,500 points you can cash them out for a $25 Visa gift card… it’s more than you currently make from searching, right? On top of that, we offer referral points for the friends you introduce to Scour where you can earn 25% of the points they make. So if you invited 25 friends that used scour regularly in addition to yourself, that’s an easy $125 in your pocket for a year of what you already do! Check out how much you could earn with the Scour Points Calculator. This isn’t a pyramid scheme and we’re not trying to get you rich quick, we just think it’s a good idea to share our success with those who help make it possible.

Play a part in the Scour community and get rewarded for what you already do!

My thoughts:

1. This is a simple case of “selective withholding” of information. The invitation says “we both will get points” but does not say “the sender gets additional points (a fraction of the points earned by the receiver)”.

2. Please notice the emphasis in the rewards section - “This isn’t a pyramid scheme and we’re not trying to get you rich quick…” Just in case you thought it was one

3. I wonder how they expect to increase the quality of search results if most of the people who are participating (votes, comments, recruitments etc.) are doing this to earn points.

All the best to everyone involved.

It hurts to see many nice people struggle through life. Just like gravity doesn’t care who you are, the world doesn’t care how much money nice people make. The marketplace rewards value and it helps if that comes from a nice person.

If being nice is on one axis, having the power to make things happen is on the other axis. Being nice and having the power is the winning combination. Any other combination, a recipe for a short-term or a long-term failure.

Here is a Nice-Power matrix to consider

As you can see, if you have no power and you are not nice, you will be a “Clueless Loser” meaning, you don’t have a clue that you are losing or you know you are losing but have no clue why you are losing.

With pure power and no nicety, you will be an “Arrogant Loser” - meaning you may have a short-term win that will boost your arrogance even further until it leads to an eventual failure.

Being very nice but no power, you will be a “Charming Loser” - meaning people will love to be around you but won’t be willing to pay and engage you.

You need both - niceness and power. Only then you have an opportunity to “make it happen” in the short and long-term.

How easy are you making it easy for people to get what they are entitled to?

Think about it. There are so many “Mail-In Rebate” offers that want you to do half a dozen things to get back what was promised. I am sure that the complexity of the problem precludes many people from completing the steps required - thus saving a ton of money for the merchant

Yesterday when I returned from North Carolina, I traveled by US airways and found that they now provide a way for flyers to text their information to earn “dividend miles”

Seems simple and clean - travelers are entitled to frequent flyer miles and all they need to do is send a text message and they are done!

Think about your own business and see what you can do it make it easy for your customers to get what they are entitled.

Good luck!

A mini saga is a story told in exactly 50 words – not 49 or 51 but exactly 50 words.

Why write a mini saga?

There are several reasons. For the reader, the benefits are simple – whether the mini saga is good or bad, it only takes a minute to read it.

There are multiple benefits for writing a mini saga. Here are a few benefits

1. Expands your creativity

“I didn’t have the time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead”

- Mark Twain

Constraints expand creativity. When you are forced to think of the various parts of the story within 50 words, you have to put your imagination to serious work. Writing something long is easy. When you have to put everything in 50 words, you have to “leave behind” a lot. Deciding what NOT to include (and still bring forth everything you wanted to) requires a lot of creativity.

2. Stretches your thinking

OK you decide to write a mini saga. What will you write about? That question alone is enough to stretch your thinking. Your story can be about anything but if it has to be narrated within 50 words, then the choices are limited. You don’t have an option but to “stretch” your thinking in your question for a “good” plot.

3. Enhances your discipline

Trying to convey an idea in less than 50 words is hard. So, imagine trying to write a story in 50 words. You need a lot of discipline to make it happen – deciding what to write about, what to include and what to leave behind.

Here is a Squidoo lens with 25 mini sagas I have written over the last two years.

Squidoo Lens: Mini Saga

Enjoy and have a great week ahead!

The article in Business Week (May 15) nicely demonstrates the state of affairs for the Baby Boomers. Here is the link to the article:

Business Week: The Wave of Retirees? Not So Big.

In my opinion, while the article focuses on Baby Boomers, this has far reaching impact on other parts of the economy.

Rather than thinking about this generally, why not think about your own situation.Here are a few questions to ponder upon

1. When do you plan to retire?

2. How much money should you have to make this dream a reality?

3. How much money should you earn this year to reach the goal outlined in #2?

Don’t stop shying away from the question even when you know that the answers may not be pretty.

Have a great Friday.