ME

Posted on March 24, 2012 by Steve Weiss

Recently I left the world of being an employee to start my own company and in essence become my own boss. It was quite a gigantic step in my life and I still don’t exactly know where I will end up but as I live and breathe my new realities I am learning so many lessons about People, Life and Business.

For one, their is this perception that its an entrepreneur’s responsibility to be this chief everything officer or do a little of this and do a little of that?? From past businesses I was a part of, I used to agree with this theory but that has since changed. I think that one of the keys to success is understanding on a very deep level what you are good at and what you will provide the most value for at your company at and then it should be your job to continually create execution plans based around getting tasks done that are continuously leveraging this skill set of your’s on a daily basis.

I used to think that it was imperative that I start a business that I am supremely passionate about as I used to think that happiness is derived from what you are doing on a daily basis and not from your thought patterns ,where you are at in life, and being productive in your daily tasks. Mark Cuban hit a home run and put it best “Don’t Follow your Passion, Follow your effort”. Productivity builds passion this was a tough lesson to learn but when you feel productive you become more passionate about what you are doing.

I got off to a fast start from a financial point of view and made really good cash online in my teens and I had no clue what I was doing. When I was younger I never thought about any high level business plans, revenue modeling or any other slang terms that so called “business people” use, I just did it. The reason I never thought of all of that because I was never taught it, I never went to business school in my teens all I did was go to high school and play football, then come home and make money on the computer. Life was easy.

In essence, I learned that speculation or over critiquing of any business model can lead to the downfall of great entrepreneurs. I understand the concepts that these great business schools teach you,

Step 1- Plan

Step 2- Plan

Step Plan- Team

Step 4- Execute

The only stage you learn from is Step 4 or actually doing. I believe that some entrepreneurs ”lack of doing” and “fear” coming from their mind prohibit them from “doing”. This was my down fall, I couldn’t control my mind and my thoughts and I didn’t execute on anything. Bottom line, I hate business models, hate discussing business models, I hate revenue models, hate planning. Life is tumultuous I can’t predict the future if I spend all day planning, I won’t spend no time living.

I love collaboration, love working toward a vision and love being productive.

Lastly, in a sense I know what I am after, its not building multi gazillion dollar businesses, I am after an “exploratory lifestyle”. Living a life with challenge, travel, meeting new people and going about my life on my terms is what I am after. I am still and will always be a person who hates authority and will always question authority. I can’t explain why or how but I am a guy who will go to extreme length’s to win at all costs, my ego forces me to never give up and even go ten miles farther than my competitor just to prove in my mind that I could do it. It’s the thing that forces me to always guard the best basketball player on the other team when we play 5 on 5 team.

My new quote is “if your not doing your losing”. The way you will stay happy is by being productive. Productivity is a key element to success however you define you choose to define success.

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Psychology vs Statistics

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Steve Weiss

Are we just numbers or are we actually living and creating human beings? From a marketing point of view most us don’t even exist, we are just ratios and numbers our personal and physiological preferences don’t exist. Our race/gender and sexual preferences are all that matters. It could be said that we are all just apart of some very large random sample that either grows larger or becomes smaller and our information of “who or what” we are is just resold back and forth just like a commodity.

My mind opened up to something new,I just finished reading the book “Super Crunchers” and it just opened my mind to this new and exciting parallel universe called “numbers”. It was a tough transition from the Pyscology readings that I have grown accustom to reading i.e. books like “Pyschology of Influence” and Malcolm Gladwell.

In essence, the last couple of days my mind has been focused on the same question. Is it easier to predict an outcome of a certain situation based more on “Pysychology ” aka this person likes volleyball so this person is more likely to plan volleyball today or based on properly mapped out statistics? 7 out of 10 prefer volleyball, what will this person prefer?

Is the relationship you have to a particular person or situation that you are predicting bucketed under the “term” psychology as far prediction method?

I started to do things a little differently by thinking “rationally” about all the small life decisions I made over the last day and then calculating in my mind the statistical chances that the best possible outcome would come true mainly based on past historical data instead of psychology.

Example what is the % chance that the women sitting at the bar would

(A) “greet me warmly i.e. smile when I approach.

(B) Have things in common i.e. we chat for more than 1 minute with the full attention of each other?

Generally accepted relationship psychology would say that since she is

(A) Around multiple women,

(B) she has another guy with her, (currently at the bathroom) who she was making out with before.

(C) Not Drunk yet.

This information would dedicate its a risky proposition in working toward the end goal of success.

Could there be another statistical formula that could better accurately predict the outcome of all personal life situations than the universally accepted behavioral based formula or “Feeling”?

Numbers do tell fascinating sometimes I wished I paid attention more to these stories throughout periods of my life.

I think people in general haven’t figured out the overall correlation between lifetime historical values of numbers in their life pertaining to his/her interpersonal relationships.

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Measuring User Behavior Along With Conversion Percentages

Posted on November 10, 2011 by Steve Weiss

Performance marketing from an affiliate stand point is driven by “Performance” or in essence if I don’t hit a certain eCPM or a certain cost per click then I am not profitable and then the campaign must be tweaked to lower these metrics. The goal usually for most campaigns is to “scale” or in basic definition hit a certain ad spend where there is synergy between both the traffic source and the advertiser who loves their traffic.

What most people forget to measure though is the user behavior among different traffic sources. The user behavior can tell an interesting story when there is a comparison between various traffic sources and ad types. What I mean by user behavior is the following

- Time it takes to fill out a lead form.

- Average number of fields that a user inputs before they bounce off a page.

- Average time spent on site from certain traffic.

-Does a user scroll or highlight?

- Amount of content shared through social networks.

- Browser Type

These are just an example of certain variables that can be measured. You could measure these variables with simple Java Script and they’re also tools out there to measure this as well.

In conclusion, if you are ever buying media and you feel that they’re might be something fishy going always take a look at the user behavior as this could tell an interesting story.

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Keys to Legitimizing Your Social Interaction

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Steve Weiss

For most of you reading this post, you probably figured that the term “Social Interaction” was pertaining to “Online” social interaction mainly because a good portion of my blog is dedicated to discussing digital media at length.

You are sadly mistaken here. Legitimizing social interaction, a term I use to describe the aspect of changing the perception between strangers as quickly as humanly possible when integrated in their first interaction or “first time meeting”. I came across with this “thought” from taking and performing “Improv classes” twice a week. Establishing an improv scene is very similar to establishing a human connection between two people.

An example of this is at a bar or night club, you happen to play the roll of the “dude” in this equation and you introduce yourself to a young women that you are interested in on a deep sexual level (we have all been there). She is standing with her friends on the dance roll.

In the past and all throughout college the key to speaking to women at bars was to down as many shots of Yagerbombs to the point where you lost nearly all grips of reality and sensitivity and then go up to her and say so profoundly stupid that she feels sorry for. Your older now and all that stuff is down the drain (at least for this example it is).

You follow these this map in hopes of establishing the following elements of the conversation

Who

Who are you speaking to? and who are you? Explain your name and what you do that best describes you and ask the following from your partner. (Names are key). Finding each parties and remembering it is the biggest social legitimizer.

Where

Where are you? Where are you from?

What

What are you doing there? Who are you there with? Both parties in the conversation need to privy this

When

When are you going to escalate this conversation to either bring the conversation to a different setting? When are you going to make an action in the night club case maybe the action is to ask the person to “dance” or maybe if your at networking event maybe you are going to ask for a “business card”.

*What I learned in Improv in terms of actual methodologies about building scenes and establishing the characters so the audience knows what’s going on

It can be applied to nearly all social interactions. Once you establish these principles you legitimize both yourself and the person you are speaking which will in essence build a long-term comfort level with that person.

*Who , What, Where, When= simplicity

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5 Reasons Why Youtube Wasn’t Built Specifically for the Content Creator

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Steve Weiss

I was at a launch party for a brand that will go un named tonight and I met a couple well-know YouTube content creators that have built a somewhat sustainable business model on creating content specifically for the YouTube audience and then monetizing it through both CPM banner placements through Google and video pre and post roll ads. They have already raised the first round capital and seem to be building for the future quite well.

I got in a debate with the studio owner whose model is based upon the representation, management, and building of these YouTube stars. Our debate was about YouTube’s role as the main and only monetization and branding tool for the talent. He seemed kind of annoyed that I was thinking a bit more different than him. I didn’t mean for him to take offense.

I understood his argument. “YouTube has the biggest reach out of all the video sites”"Youtube pays us a high CPM” (compared to what). “More people watching your video equals more money”.

My argument is a bit different, I believe in the world of content creation YouTube has its place as the buffer to build steam around videos but once you have a name its serves very little purpose to stream your tier 1 content without full control over any parts of the process that drive actual real revenue.

Once branding has been established now you have to sustain that branding and monetize that branding to a “T”.

Here is my rationale

1. CRM and Fan Club Building

Youtube has never provided any useful tools to actively manage continuous fan club correspondence.

The goal of a content producer in my opinion is to not only generate short-term revenue but also to stay relevant and in the public eye and develop continuous social chatter amongst a large segment of evangelists. As long as you stay in continuous correspondence with these evangelists or people who are fans of you and who have KLOUT the easier it will be generate long standing buzz to your content on a daily basis. The power users or should I say the one per centers and not the 99 per centers no pun intended are the people driving the buzz to your video.

YouTube could offer more tools to help these content creators better connect with their fans.

I understand that they want to centralize all communication within YouTube obviously because of ad revenues so maybe its a conflict of interest if they provide more detailed analytics of a content creator’s fan base.

2. Advertisers/Ads

If your a content creator ever wonder who exactly is buying up your ad space from banners within your YouTube page? I understand that you probably have ad sales control over Pre and Post roll ads which generates revenue but having the insight to see which advertisers are advertising on your page to your fans I think is very important?

I think the casual fan correlates you in a way with the advertiser you represent on your YouTube page just like on TV when you see an NFL player represent a deodorant. YouTube does not allow any sort of advertiser control to my knowledge, I think this is a necessary tool to give content creators more control over their message to their fans.

3. Monetization

I know most people hate this word “monetization” unless you are an investor.

This goes back though to knowing your advertisers. Advertisers who advertise on your page through YouTube don’t in most cases do so willingly.

In some cases they are buying space within Google Content Network or maybe Retargetting a user who might have bounced off their site. As a content creator you have no clue what metrics the advertiser is using to judge their ad campaign.

Is it for branding for a new product? Is it straight direct response? Youtube provides zero channel insight from the advertiser perspective. In their defense, maybe they don’t know the advertisers goals but never the less it is important because thats where your revenue is coming from.

If you were to know who your advertisers were and the audience that they were trying to reach you could then segment their ads within your network of viewers to only target viewers that fit their demographic. Think TNT do they the same ads to everybody? I don’t think so.

If you were to segment your ads this would lead to astronomically higher CPM’s that you could charge and you won’t be leaving extra cash on the table.

As a content creator currently all you see is a paycheck at the end of the tunnel. I understand that in most cases if you host your own videos and have a large following that you won’t be able to pre sell all your ad inventory.

That might be the case, I could though almost guarantee you with the amount of remnant advertising buyers out there through a partnership with a major video ad network paired up with the prices you will get from leveraging an ad server that is capable to do behavioral targeting you will in turn generate lots more in revenue in comparison to just putting up a video on YouTube and letting the monetize with their eyes closed.

I think there should be more a bit more transparency that will allow the content producer greater insight into their advertisers and be able to increase their value of their brand exponentially.

4. Optimization

This all goes back to understanding your advertisers. Most content producers aren’t marketers, have never in their lives marketed a product online in most cases. In essence, they don’t understand the expectations of what the advertiser is looking to reap by connecting themselves with your content.

I think fundamentally there needs to be a tighter connection and YouTube has to allow a deeper sense of transparency. If your a content creator and you know who your advertisers are that are spending the big cash dollars with through various ad placements then you in turn could offer them previously unmonetized advertising placements such as product placements within a video or a post roll paired up with another advertiser (just being creative) .

Once you are working with this advertiser and you understand their expectations you could then optimize their campaigns within your video to reach their goals which in essence will drive more marketing dollars to you the content creator specifically and not some other content creator. This unique transparency isn’t available through YouTube and most likely never will be.

5. Audience Segmentation

Ever wonder what exact demographic of people is watching your video i.e. age, gender,race etc? I know YouTube provides some of that. Even better wouldn’t it be cool to make content specifically for different segments of your audience and then sell ad space based around those various audience segments.

For those who aren’t familiar with ad spending, when there is deep ad targeting the advertiser will in turn pay a lot more for that ad inventory. If you are using YouTube as your main marketing and monetization partner you are not leveraging audience segmenting to generate revenue which is just leaving cash on the table in my opinion.

*I know the counter argument to all of this which I will always hear is how extremely difficult it is to pull an audience off of YouTube and on to your site to watch your content. Yes that is difficult but with an organized Social CRM strategy in place this in my opinion could be conquered. The fans who do come to your site will be 10x times more valuable than the people who watch your video on YouTube and now you are building a long-term branding strategy that will keep duplicating itself.

Think outside that stupid box and maybe even kick the box, rip that stupid box in half. Much success to everybody.

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The Conversion Pixel Defined

Posted on October 26, 2011 by Steve Weiss

What is a conversion pixel? Obviously, if you been in the affiliate marketing space it is the most important mechanism to track the stats and profitability on a campaign that you are sending traffic to. They’re is though an even greater importance to this pixel in the online media-buying world.

Lots of time when you buy media from large ad networks or mobile ad networks the ad network will specifically ask you to place a conversion pixel on your “Thank You” page or the page after a conversion happens. Most of the time you don’t even think twice about it and you just place the pixel mainly because you want them to leverage their internal expertise to help optimize YOUR campaign on their side behind the scenes. You think that by placing this conversion pixel for the ad network that this will in turn help your overall profitability.

When you think more deeply about this issue should I or should not place this pixel? You tend to ask yourself why does it benefit me to place a conversion pixel on my page if I am optimizing this campaign through my own analytics?

You are already tracking all of your analytics such as CTR, Click Throughs and all the other important pertinent campaign data through your own redirect so they’re is no need to go off AD network stats. Now after thinking you have thought more deeply about it, you come to the conclusion that it doesn’t make much sense for you to place this pixel. You then start to ask yourself, what does an Ad network have to gain from me placing their conversion pixel?

What they have to gain is simple “DATA”. It provides much needed conversion data such as “KEYWORDS” “SUBIDS” for your specific niche which will in turn help them in the selling process of other advertisers in that niche to buy traffic off their ad network. This data will also help them optimize their current advertiser’s campaign. Ad networks are not stupid, they are built by some of the most intelligent analytical people in the online space.

As much as ad networks tell you how important you are to them, you aren’t their only child even if you are spending lots of money with them. Think twice, before you place the all important conversion pixel. Take this post for what it worth or maybe I am just paranoid all together one of the two.

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The term “Team” what it means? In Context of Building a Successful Start-up

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Steve Weiss

I had an interesting call today with a friend of mine aka Shamoon and we discussed the exact formula for success within a tech startup. We came to the conclusion that their isn’t an exact formula first and foremost.

So many times we are mechanically taught that the success in building a sustainable business is all about the great idea/execution and you put both the

(A) Great Idea

(B) The Building of The Product

(C) Revenue Model

ahead of the most important variable of the business equation and that is team aka “PEOPLE”. How many people out there actually think about building the “team” before the 3 sub topics above? I know lots of people try to piece together everything that encompasses the business then figure out the team and I was one of those people. This specific formula based on simple probability is not what is going to get you to the finish line.

I am systematically trying to change up years of thought patterns on this subject and build a whole new pattern. Usually right after I convince myself that a business is worth doing I try to do it myself flat out and then find myself sitting in Starbucks with a hopeless look on my face after 2 months of busting my balls. After feeling the feeling of burn out, I then proceed to enter into the early stages of what I like to call “solo mediocrity” with a fundamental lack of overall direction in what I am doing on a daily basis. “Solo mediocrity” could also be described as a feeling of loneliness without answers in a business sense.

I now believe that it is imperative no matter what you are doing, to convince other people to work with you and share in your dream. You need to have a team to conquer the world, as much as you tried to convince people otherwise every great business capitalist had a team. From Mark Zuckerberg on down, they had all had a team.

I came to this conclusion by finally understanding on a deep level, if you get people to believe in your thoughts and follow your lead in a project, now you aren’t just working for yourself you are working for a common goal with a like minded group of people and all of a sudden you have a direction. In a way, its not a just about you its about everybody who is on your team and you want to win for the team and this gives you a grounded direction that’s firm and constant. I admit that was a run on system but it was worth it to get my point across.

I have always had this knack to sell people well on my ideas but in a way I could never sell myself and it took a lot of deep reflection to figure this out. The point of the matter is everything is about the team, it is what’s going to win you the game or lose it and without a “Team” you won’t be able to enter the tournament.

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Managing Addrenaline

Posted on October 17, 2011 by Steve Weiss

I am making this posting after a lot of deep internal reflection. It has taken me a long time to figure out why the events of what’s happening online as pertaining to business aka affiliate marketing/blogging industry have such a profound effect on me. An example of this could be if somebody were to write a poor review about a site I operate or working on. Under normal circumstances it would really un nerve me as I try to figure out the physiology of the user. The question I have always asked myself is why do I dwell on that one poor review instead of focusing on all the great reviews that other users write?

I have came to the conclusion that the body and the mind when put in the situation of deep frustration or anger needs some sort of closing or some way to immediate way to release the adrenaline that has built up from that situation.

To state this point, a parallel example of this was when I was growing up, I was 8 years old and playing basketball on the playground at basketball camp. When going up for a jump shot another camp mate for no reason kicks me in my shin and I fall to the ground in obvious pain. On top of that, he calls my mom fat and then proceeds to say that I am fat. (which I was fat) but that’s besides the point.

My next move was a simple punch in the face to him and then I put my leg out and tripped him making him fall then I started kicking him on the ground only to have his really heavy sister come in and take care of me by punching me in the face until I started crying. I was 8 years old I didn’t know any better yet after the fight I felt relieved maybe in a way that the issue at hand was closed and would not be opened up again.

When you are faced with challenges in an online impersonal environment after an issue is brought to the fore front in a way you feel like the issue is never really closed or it takes a lot longer to be closed in reality. You have to in my opinion find other ways to release the adrenaline, anger, fear, or sadness.

I think if every entrepreneur or person who operates an online business can connect the dots and figure out ways to manage their adrenaline not only will they be able to solve problems better but scenarios that in the past affected their performance won’t have the same effect in the future.

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4 Reasons Why Job Search Sites Are Not for Serious Job Seekers

Posted on October 14, 2011 by Steve Weiss

Job sites like Simply Hired, Monster and CareerBuilder are in my opinion a waste of time to the experienced job seeker for these reasons.

(A) The Pool

No educated job searcher wants their resume thrown into a pool of thousands of other applicants and having random in experienced recruiters calling them about jobs that they are not interested in.

Upon starting a job search it is imperative to understand the market and understand a position that you are looking than target the companies that you will reach out to accordingly.

(B) Recruiters

Most job sites as I said earlier are frequented by job recruiters who have very little practical knowledge of the position that they are recruiting for.

In essence, even if the perfect candidate for the job came forward and flicked them in the back of the ear they would never know it and would in turn most likely turn off the candidate.

(C) Who is the Company

Lots of times you spend 20 or 30 minutes tweaking your resume to fit a certain job description and you have no clue who the company is. The worse thing in the world is taking a job working for a company where they put you in a little cubby and make you do 9 hours of depressing grunt work.

Knowing the company you are applying for is always key as you should be able to do your homework and understand who and or what they are looking for in a certain position that they are recruiting for.

Having a strategic list of companies and positions that you would like to work for is even better.

(D) Zero Personalization

I used to not be on the personal branding band-wagon and in the past I never really preached about the importance of building your personal brand during your job search, mainly because I thought all the people preaching this were doing so to sell a product or service.

Most job applicants have no clue what a personal brand is on a deep level. The way I explain it is, you want to be seen as a human being and not a resume when you apply to a job. Building this essential personal brand around yourself through Twitter, WordPress or another micro blogging site is essential.

Think back to the Stone Age era aka 1955, if you want a job at Slate Construction you go down to Slate and knock on the door and say “Hire ME”. Well not that easy but you get the point.

Job search sites take away all personalization, which is terrible. You are a unique person and human being, and you should do whatever is possible to show it. First impressions are the only impressions that count.

* One key to success in the job hunt is to understand “yourself” on a deep level. Where do you want to live? What kind of job do you want in the perfect world position wise? What exact companies do you want to work for?

Making a list of 20 companies in the place you want to live and contacting the hiring manager directly through LinkedIn shows both initiative as well as shows that you are motivated.

Even if they aren’t hiring for your specific position most of the time they will consider you because you have eliminated all the middle men in the job search which the company loves. It has always been the formula for success. Try it! Do IT! Kill It! You will be surprised at the results.

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