Expand your Brand 2013 in London delivered what it promised … broadening not just the way you think about business, but your whole perspective on how to build a powerful brand around your business.

The two day event sported a line-up of keynote speakers including: Mike Harris (creator of Egg and First Direct, Nic Rixon, Darren Shirlaw and many more.  Daniel Priestley shared insights from his newly released booked ‘Entrepreneur Revolution’ which discusses ways to develop your entrepreneurial mindset and takes you through some key steps you need to be aware of when growing your business.

Darshana Ubl the head of Entrevo UK said, “Sometimes business owners spend a lot of time in their business generating sales, managing team and being very busy. This event gave an overview on how you can work on your business and play a high leverage game”.

Events like this are being hosted regularly in the UK, Australia and USA  - see keypersonofinfluence.com/uk, keypersonofinfluence.com.au or keypersonofinfluence.com/usa - or email info@entrevo.com for more information.

Facebook reached 1 billion monthly active users on September 14 at 12.45 PM Pacific time.

Since Facebook launched, we’ve seen:
• Over 1.13 trillion likes since launch in February 2009
• 140.3 billion friend connections
• 219 billion photos uploaded
o Data was pulled on 9/10/2012, and represents the total # of photos currently on this site – in other words, it excludes deleted photos. If we wanted to include all photos ever uploaded, the estimate we have is 265 billion. Photo uploading launched fall 2005.
• 17 billion location-tagged posts, including check-ins
o Includes location-tagged posts as well as check-ins. Data was pulled 9/10/2012, and represents total location-tagged posts & check-ins since launch of the product in August 2010
• 62.6 million songs have been played 22 billion times – that’s about 210,000 years of music
o Data was pulled on 9/11/2012, and represents song plays since the launch of music-listening applications in September 2011

Characteristics of users joining the week Facebook hit 1B
• The median age of the user is about 22
• The top five countries where people connected from at the time we reached this milestone were Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico and the United States (NOTE: in alphabetical order)
• Facebook now has 600M mobile users

Characteristics of users joining the week Facebook hit 500M users (July 2010)
• The median age of the user at that time was about 23
• Top five countries where people connected from at the time we reached this milestone were Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and the United States (NOTE: in alphabetical order)
• Users signing up at this time now have an average of 305 friends

Characteristics of users joining the week we hit 100M (August 2008)
• The median age of the user at that time was about 26
• The top five countries where people connected from at the time we reached this milestone were Chile, France, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States (NOTE: in alphabetical order)
• The user signing up at this time now has an average 334 friends

Characteristics of users joining the week Facebook hit 50M users (October 2007)
• The median age of the user signing up at this time was about 26
• Top five countries where people connected from at the time we reached this milestone were Australia, Canada, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States (NOTE: in alphabetical order)
• Users signing up at this time now have an average of 321 friends

Characteristics of users joining the week Facebook hit 25M users (January 2006)
• The median age of users signing up at that time was about 19
• The top five countries where people connected from at the time we reached this milestone were Australia, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States (NOTE: in alphabetical order)
• Users who signed up at this time now have an average of 598 friends

From a standing start, your business needs all sorts of help. You call in favours from friends, you expect everyone to do a bit of everything, you save money at all costs avoiding any overhead that isn’t immediately necessary.

You don’t even consider stupid things like job descriptions, employee manuals, corporate governance policy, contracts or long term business plans.

You focus on generating leads, making sales, putting out fires, delivering to customers on time and paying bills before a nasty letter arrives.

This cobbled approach works. It’s the “first gear” in your business and it’s this approach that gets your busines off the line.

Worrying about contracts, policy documents, business plans and governance in the early days is like trying to start your car moving in 2nd or 3rd gear. You will probably stall.

There does come a time however when you do need to shift gear. No longer can your business grow based on favours, friendships and fast talking. There comes a time when your business must shift and do the things more like a grown-up business does.

You need to hire people in the right way, you need to pay them the right amount (not too much or too little), you need better reporting, more documents, better systems and you need to spend money on things that don’t pay off straight away.

Consider how a car shifts gear. As the driver puts her foot on the clutch, a disconnect occurs. The gears that helped get the car moving fall away and a new gear is introduced. The car jerks, (especially if the driver is new to changing gear). The engine drops from revving flat out back to just above its idle. For a split second, you worry that the car might stall.

Lets talk business. As the owner changes gear, many of the things that got the business started must drop away.

A key person might leave because they prefer working as an informal group of friends rather than a structured small business. A favourite client might leave because a new person answered their email but didn’t know their preferences off hand. A winning strategy for attracting clients one-at-a-time might need to be replaced with a marketing budget. Roping in favours might have to stop as you hire professionals to do a better job. Asking people to do anything and everything that needs to be done will probably need to be replaced with clear job roles. Rapid-fire chats over lunch will likely be replaced by regular team meetings that don’t feel quite so dynamic.

It feels strange. It feels like the business will stall. You start to wonder if it would have been smarter to just “drive around” in first gear forever.

Just as your doubts kick in, so does a glimmer of hope. The business starts to rev up again and things move faster than ever but less effort is required. You do your annual turnover in a matter of months, you attract a new breed of talent, you win a big piece of work … This things going to drive forward after all!

The real trick is knowing which parts of your business are the engine and which parts are the gears. The engine of your business is the unchangeable value that can never stop.

For me, the engine of my business is the unwavering commitment I feel towards helping small businesses to succeed. I want to be part of an entrepreneur revolution. That won’t change. In any tough decision, I reconnect with that “engine” and look for which decision is going to get more power from it.

Shifting gear isn’t easy, especially the first time you do it; it is necessary though. Some of the things that got you here probably won’t get you there.

The Reptile - It’s main purpose is to make sure that you can escape and survive any dangerous or stressful situation in the immediate short term.

The Monkey - the functional worker part of your brain that sees the world as a set of challenges and problems for you complete while you ride emotional highs and lows.

The Empire Builder – the part of your brain sees the world as a place you can have an impact on and transform in a meaningful way.

Don’t let the reptile run your life?

If you operate from the primitive, survival part of your brain, you can expect to live like a reptile. Reptiles don’t have many friends, they eat garbage, they don’t evolve and they feel the cold when the winters of life come around.

Operating from the survival brain gives you more scarcity. It’s not a logical or strategic part of the brain, it’s programed to seek out situations that seem good for immediate survival with as little effort as possible.

The reptile will destroy everything around itself if it thinks it will bring an immediate benefit to it’s survival. If you have ever lashed out at someone close to you, if you have ever smashed something valuable or sent a venomous email that later cost you dearly, it was you “going reptile”.

The monkey brain isn’t much better than the reptile brain if you want to achieve success as an entrepreneur.

If you operate from the purely functional part of your brain, you will live like a monkey. You will have friends and you will be able to perform repetitive tasks but most of what you do will not be very meaningful long term. You will enjoy nit-picking and keep amused with very simple things.

If you’ve ever gotten addicted to drama, caught up in meaningless repetitive endeavors or become a real party animal, that was you “being a monkey”.

If you want to build an empire, you need to access your empire building brain.

If you operate from the Empire Builder part of your brain you will develop an empire. You will solve big important problems and make a difference to many people.

The Empire Builder part of your brain has great amounts of empathy, logic, reasoning and higher consciousness. These are all great skills for building an empire.

Every entrepreneur needs to spend less time in the reptile and monkey brain and more time thinking like an empire builder.

James Bond is a master of creating partnerships.

The ultimate, gentleman spy doesn’t just get into bed with gorgeous enemy agents, he’s been getting into bed with the worlds hottest brands too.

As it currently stands, James Bond:
- Is dressed by Tom Ford
- Wears Omega watches
- Drives Aston Martin cars
- Has a theme song sung by Adele
- Uses a Sony smartphone
- Drinks Heineken beer now instead of martinis
- Drinks Coke Zero when he’s not drinking a beer
- Has a fragrance by Proctor and Gamble

Each of these sponsors, helps build James Bond’s brand and James Bond helps them build theirs. As a result, Skyfall, the 23rd 007 film is expecting to rake in almost £700m and the sponsors are seeing their products flying out the door.

The message here is partnerships help everyone involved; no one loses in a good partnership. Everyone wins, including the audiences, who enjoy a surreal experience of being surrounded by a world full of 007 experiences that accompany a sensational movie.

Is your business learning from these MI6 branding strategies?

- What big brands are supporting your business?
- Who are the highly regarded people who are having input into your business?
- Is your product being distributed by national businesses?
- Are you working side-by side with industry leaders?

In the cut-throat, explosive world of small business, you can’t go it alone; you need big partners watching your back. If you want to infiltrate your industry with the skill and agility of James Bond, get out there this week and find attractive new partners to join your on your next big assignment.

PS: Here’s some of the fun ads from Bond…

Bond Heineken Ad

Bond Coke Zero ad

Bond UK Tourism ad

The government wants small business to revitalise the economy and create jobs however there are very few entrepreneurs in government.

They say there’s billions put aside, but I don’t know a single entrepreneur who is accessing it. I’m told many are, but of the hundreds of SME’s I know, I’m not seeing it showing up on the ground.

They say they are pressuring banks to lend but I know good businesses who can’t get a basic overdraft.

Yes everyone is looking at small businesses, innovators, entrepreneurs, designers, engineers and developers to fix the mess were all in.

“Thanks for the kind words, thanks for cheering us on from the sidelines!”

Why should people in cushy, stable government and banking jobs put pressure on us? … Obviously they need us.

… Then when we do stimulate the economy, when we do create the jobs they will pat each other on the back and congratulate themselves for their good cheering.

Predictably, the media will then single out a few of us who succeed and say we don’t pay enough tax, we don’t employ enough people, we don’t buy enough stuff and we don’t fit with their societal norms.

As painfully unfair as it is, that’s just the way it is.

Sadly we’re not the types who will form a union and we won’t complain. We will get on with it.

We will innovate, we will build, we will risk everything and labour night and day. Not because we want the money and the fame but because we don’t know what else to do with ourselves.

Something is in our blood, something gets us up early and keeps us up late at night. Something makes us feel more joy from creating than consuming. Something makes us tick differently to them.

It’s inevitable. There’s no real choice, you just get on with it hoping that occasionally you meet the odd person who “gets you” and who makes you laugh because you “get them”.

It’s tough, and it takes a lot to stay focused on the vision. Occasionally it’s nice to see someone who did well on their journey and to learn a thing or two from them.

If my events do any good at all I hope it’s that they connect people and help them to keep going in times that are less than ideal.

Not for the politics but for the marketing campaigns. Just like in 2008, this US Election will dictate the big marketing trends for the next four years.

To put some things in perspective:

- In 2008, Facebook had 40Million users inside the USA, today that number is over 160million.

- On the day of the 2008 election Obama had over 135,500 followers, today he has 20million.

- In 2008, Obama had 17million YouTube Views, today he has over 223million views on his channel.

- There were 2million Facebook fans for Obama in 2008 and there’s over 28million today.

Social media campaigns have become a huge deal. They can swing elections! For that reason, the smartest and most effective social media marketing strategies come out to play in these elections.

Both candidates are armed with close to $1billion each to spend on their campaign, both have access to the best marketing minds, both have an army of fervent supporters willing to spread their messages. With this mix of almost unlimited resources, we get to see what’s coming when it comes to creating an impact online in the next 4 years.

In 2008 Obama’s team created something called “Obama Everywhere”. It was a panel on his website that linked to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. Today this is stock standard, but back then it was groundbreaking.

The Obama08 team pioneered “social media engagement” by responding to people’s tweets, creating daily videos on YouTube that related to micro-niche issues, blogging, commenting and “friending” at a scale that had never been seen before.

For me, the 2008 election gave me a glimpse of what’s possible using social media. I saw what could happen as a result of “sharable content” and “community engagement”.

Over the last four years, all of the things Obama did in his 08 campaign have become standard for businesses everywhere. Even the smallest businesses now have Facebook pages, YouTube channels and Twitter accounts.

If you pay close attention to the upcoming elections, the trends of the next four years will be revealed to you in the next 2 months.

Here’s what to look for:

- Look at the tools being used: The web sites, the platforms, the apps, the software.

- Look at the content: The number of messages, the length of videos, the frequency, the way the message is presented and the balance of emotional vs logical arguments.

- Look at the interaction: How are they responding to the media, each other and to voters.

- Look at what they ask people to do: Downloads, actions, commitments, etc

Here’s some of my observations so far:

- The Dashboard: it’s like an affiliate program on steroids. It has everything you need to set up shop as a campaign manager.

- Highly targeted, highly niched ads: Unique ads are visible to people who live in different postcodes. People at Nascar events are being served mobile ads that are different to people who are at concerts 20 minutes down the road.

- The huge emphasis on mobile: Everything has been built to function from a smartphone, ads are hitting smartphones based on location data, people are being asked to interact almost daily using their smartphone or tablet.

In the motor industry, Formula1 teams dictate the trends and technology of the future. If you see new technology being used in F1 motor racing, you can bet it will be appearing in production cars soon. In the world of influence, there’s nothing more powerful than the US elections for dictating the big trends of the next few years. If influence is important to you and your business, be sure to keep your eyes pealed.

The question I keep being asked is “how does your team manage to do it?… How do you fill these big venues?”

Yes we have great speakers, we have generous content, we’re known for bringing good people together; but that’s not how we fill the events.

My answer tends to scare people. We book a theater and then get good people working on filling it… Essentially, “we fill it because we have to”.

I’ve come to the conclusion that human beings are not normally proactive creatures. As much as we’d love to be proactive, rarely do we do things unless we are solving a real problem.

I remember that classic scene in the movie Apollo 13 where the head engineer at NASA tips a pile of parts on a table an says “we have less than 7 hours to make this square peg fit into this round hole or our astronauts aren’t coming home alive”.

Faced with a real problem and a very real consequence of failure, the NASA engineering team were able to create an “impossible solution” in an “impossible time frame”.

Could they have done this if it wasn’t life or death? Who knows, but they did it when the problem showed up
Back to my point on how we fill theatres.

Step1. Create a problem
We book a theater, sign a contract and pay a deposit. We have a deadline, we have clear targets and we either fill it, or we fail, lose money and look ridiculous.

Step 2. Get brilliant people working on the problem.
Everyone on our team is a ninja. We’ve crafted an environment where anything less than an A-Game just doesn’t stick.
Our team don’t perform tasks, functions or roles, we “get shit done”. We work the problem until its fixed.
We have a team of very smart people who love a challenge and everyone is 100% committed to hitting our target… and then some.

These two ingredients are an explosive combination. If you can create a problem and get good people engaged in fixing it you will see magic.

It’s not unusual for text messages to be bouncing around late at night with ideas and updates. It’s also not unusual for new people to quit in their first month when they discover that we run on results and we don’t care about how well you followed the job description.

If you want a new level of results you don’t need more motivational quotes and dream boards. You need to create a big problem that needs to be solved. You need to get in over your head.

Then you need to get on the phone and get a bunch of smart people engaged in solving it with you.

It might sound stressful creating a big problem and engaging a team of ninjas/geniuses/legends to help you solve it but in my experience, it’s when I feel most alive and get the most done.

What are your thoughts? Can a team perform just as well if there isn’t a big problem to solve?

Maxims have special meaning within the group and can communicate a big idea in a short sentence to the other members of the group.

Nike has maxims like “We’re on the offensive. Always.” and “It’s in our nature to innovate”. Facebook has maxims like “Move fast and break things” and “fail harder” to reinforce start-up values into their business even as they become a massive company.

Today I wanted to share with you the maxims we have posted on our wall at HQ in London:

1. You get what you pitch for and you’re always pitching.
- Careful what you speak into existence.

2. Income follows assets.
- We’re here to develop and commercialise valuable IP.

3. Influence flows from output.
- Prolific beats perfect so get stuff done then get stuff better.

4. We get known by the success of our clients.
- If our clients do well, we do well.

5. We are in partnership with everyone who touches the business.
- The spirit of partnership needs to be infused in every interaction.

6. We are a global small business.
- Opportunity I snow here.

7. Ignore the reptile
- Empire Builders call the shots around here.

8. Ideas are worthless.
- Implementation is everything.

9. Lean in.
- All energy goes into moving forward.

10. The market exists to make us better.
- At all times we’re getting feedback on how to improve.

11. Go all the way to 11… then celebrate our wins.
- Where’s the party?

What would be your 3 top maxims that you have developed?

He is one of only a handful of people to ever build more than one business worth over a billion dollars and his creations have been revolutionary.

After creating the first personal computers and building a billion dollar company while still in his 20′s, Jobs was fired from Apple at age 30.

Steve Jobs went on to acquire Pixar from George Lucas which released Toy Story, a blockbuster success at the box office. After growing and merging his second Billion Dollar Company, he became the single largest shareholder of Disney.

He then returned to the stagnating Apple Corporation in 1997, where he rescued the business from insolvency by creating the iMac, a computer that looked like something that you wanted to play on.

He then changed the game for the music industry with the innovative iTunes and iPod combination. In doing so he added billions to Apples sales and resurrected the failing technology giant.

From strength to strength he went on to use the innovations he pioneered after being fired to create the most respected opperating system in personal computing and bring the Mac range of computers back to life.

After that, he set about creating a device that would fundamentally put a computer in your pocket as well as a phone. Some say, the iPhone has become the most game-changing device since the PC. Today we can’t imagine life without a smart phone for maps, searches, games, music and of course calls.

Not content to rest up despite his cancer, Steve led the innovation team that would create the worlds fastest selling technology device; the iPad. Not only a ground breaking device, but when matched up with the Ap Store it sparked a new wave of creativity in software development world wide.

Under the visionary gaze of Steve Jobs, Apple has become the worlds most respected brand for innovation.

In under 10 years of Steve Job’s tenure his business bounced back from the edge of bankruptcy to become the worlds most iconic brand.

This inspiring entrepreneur has transformed the way the world relates to computers, software, movies, music, phones, books, magazines and screens.

Not only has Steve Job’s story has inspired millions of entrepreneurs, his innovations have become the platform of choice for some of the most creative people on the planet as well.

His most lasting legacy will not be his success at Apple or Pixar. It is the culture of innovation that he’s infused into society and the future innovators that he has enabled, empowered and emboldened.

I never met him but I will never forget him. He will inspire me for the rest of my life. Rest Peacefully Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011