February 8th, 2010
We only think of failure as a bad thing when in actuality it couldn’t be better. Failure is what drives us to reinvigorate, reinvent, renew, refresh, restart. The only true failure is if you choose not to try again. Failure is what allows us to take our game to the next level. The only way you can turn failure into a positive experience is if you have a winner’s mindset.
Winning isn’t everything. In fact, it’s only a very small percentage of everything. Winners have to go through a lot of failure before “it” happens. Winners are not made over night; they’re made over many nights.
What do I want to do? Fail hard and fail spectacularly. I’d rather not have my wins come easy to me one after another. Savoring the glorious victory isnt as sweet without the experiencing agony of defeat.
Tags: actuality, agony of defeat, glorious victory, mindset, next level
Posted in business, featured, life | 1 Comment »
October 12th, 2009
Upon pulling demographics for a general analysis overview of the internet I realized that Google’s information in Google Ad Planner is very much different than Quantcast’s information. I tend to believe Quantcast a bit more because of the simple fact that certain sites can be “quantified”. What that entails is a website adds some code to their site so Quantcast can track all of their traffic and demographic data.
To test my theory that Google isn’t giving proper stats I took the gender demographics of the top 100 sites in traffic that were quantified and compared them with Google Ad Planner stats. The problem with Google vs. Quantcast is that there are limited stats that both agree on. Gender and children in household are the only two that sync up as there are ONLY two options, male & female and yes & no respectively. Other stats like household income, age range, and even college attended don’t quite match up, as both sites have chosen different division points for stats.
As you can see below Quantcast’s directly measured stats for males are in blue while the Google Ad Planner comparison stats are in red:
In the following table you can see the difference in percentages between Quantcast and Google Ad Planner. In almost all instances Google Ad Planner is shy of the actual target. Google is only equal with Quantcast once and is off as much as 13 percent:
The bottom line is this: don’t rely on just one source for your analytics and statistics. Google may be a reliable name to many but unless they’re actually measuring data on the company’s behalf then they’re just guessing at best. If ever in doubt use the wisdom of the crowd. Choose many sources and take the average of all of them. It may not be the best solution (the best would be direct measurement) but when you have no other option finding out the hidden wisdom of the crowd may be your best bet.
Tags: actualities, actuality, analysis, analysis overview, analytics, demographic data, demographics, gender demographics, Google, google ad planner, measurement, quantcast, quantified, statistical analysis, statistics, stats, sync, traffic
Posted in analysis, business, featured | No Comments »
September 14th, 2009
Know that old truism 80% of your business is from 20% of your clients? Well the same goes for word of mouth. Numbers are all well and good for surface value but in actuality a small group of your customers are fueling your business.
This small group of people are your brand evanglists or ebrandgelists. These are the people that are rabidly consuming your product or service. These are the people that are publicly and passionately promoting you. These are the people who are your online an offline digital soldiers. They make your brand viral in a way that counts: amongst their trusted circle, their friends.
What are you doing to cultivate this group? Are you rewarding their behavior? Are you encouraging them to ebrandgelize you more? Do you have a special incubator to allow these ebrandgelists to connect with others like them?
Whenever you encourage ebrandgelists to interact with others like them this allows enthusiasts to solidify their beliefs and actions through other enthusiasts. Setting up a system of rewards and encouragement creates an environment where people feel cared about by your brand. This ultimately drives them to utilize your product or service more as well as tell others about their wonderful experience.
People LOVE to be passionate about things. Give them a reason to be passionate time and time again. Being passionate about something makes them feel good. Feeling good allows them to connect with others in similar situations. People look to connect with like minds because humans are intrinsically social creatures.
Large numbers are important because it sends a message of prosperity to the masses. The numbers you need to focus on are the group of people most passionate about your brand. Passion is infectious. Give your ebrandgelists a reason to spread it
Tags: actuality, advice, benefit, brand, branding, business, communicating, communication, communications, consumer, consumers, conversation, core values, digital soldiers, ebrandgelist, encouragement, enthusiasts, evangelist, evangelists, feeling good, incubator, interaction, interactions, large numbers, network, networking, passion, passionate, prosperity, rewards, selling, small group, social, social creatures, surface value, truism, Value, word of mouth
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