M & A Rainmaker

Lichfield businesses have been subjected to an incredible outbreak of Wahooliganism. Wahooliganism first emerged in Minneapolis in the U.S. last year and then spread globally via highly connected individuals and internet influencers.

It gained serious Klout along the way but suffered a setback in early February. It is expected to re-emerge over the coming weeks stronger than ever and businesses in Lichfield and indeed globally are advised to prepare.

What is Wahooliganism ??

A short description proffered by Wahooly founder Dana Severson is  ” Accelerating Start-up growth through online influence. “

There’s a good description of Wahooly in TechCrunch here:

http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/01/wahooly-launches-its-crowdfunding-experiment-with-first-3-startups-ready-for-social-capital/

Wahooly ( a start-up itself ) is helping it’s first 3 start-up’s ( actually on the website there are 4 now – http://wahooly.com/ ) to gain traction by having ” influential people ” invest time, effort and skills in them and promote them on a global basis.

Does this actually work ???

Well I think it does. Word of Mouth Marketing,Networking and Referrals are established ways of ” getting the word out ” and ” growing the business “.

For those of you who have read Gladwell’s ” The Tipping Point ” you will know that “The success of any kind of social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts.” These people are Connectors, Mavens and Salespeople.

According to Gladwell, economists call this the “80/20 Principle, which is the idea that in any situation roughly 80 percent of the ‘work’ will be done by 20 percent of the participants.”

The 20% are defined by Klout ( arguably ) as those who have a Klout score of greater than 45. ( Klout is only one company that is measuring Internet ” influence ).

This is not really rocket science – you get influential people ( in real life and virtual life ) to promote your company, products and services and this helps you grow your business.

Let’s take two examples:

Twylah ( http://www.twylah.com/ )

Twylah is a company that wants to take your Twitter Tweets and ” Tell your story and get you noticed ” by making an awesome looking website out of your Tweets. Twylah is based in San Franciso and is a start-up with co-founders Kelly and Eric Kim. Kelly is the community manager for Twylah and the marketing face of @Twylah.

Twylah has some VERY famous clients already ( see http://www.twylah.com/featured ) which include Lady GaGa, Britney Spears, Bon Jovi and Arnold Shwarzenegger !! This might give you the impression that only famous people need apply ! Here is David Skok of Matrix Partners Twylah page http://www.twylah.com/bostonvc/topics/matrix ( A Boston based VC investor  ) and here’s my Twylah page  http://www.twylah.com/cwindley .

From small beginnings Twylah has spread globally – mainly by using Twitter. Kelly has some 13,000 or so followers on Twitter. By picking certain people ( famous, influential, interesting ) Kelly has spread the word on Twylah and now Twylah users are spreading the word further.

Coco Meli Bakery ( http://www.cocomelibakery.co.uk/ )

More locally, Meli Nicolaou, of Coco Meli Bakery is using various means to promote her Artisan Bakery business and newly launched refreshments van at Trent Valley Railway Station.

Meli (  @CocoMeliBakery on Twitter )

has a relatively small ( well at least to Kelly !! ) Twitter follower base ( 500 odd ) but she has used this to help spread the word about her business. She now has a Twylah page http://www.twylah.com/CocoMeliBakery .

Again, physically and online she is spreading the word and others are spreading the word for her – some of them are influential people.

The involvement of influential people is having an actual positive effect on the growth of the business. What is the value of a new Twylah customer or a new Coco Meli Bakery customer ?? I don’t know but Eric Kim’s background is in the monetisation of Internet platforms and to him ( and the industry he has worked in for the last 10 years or so ) each follower, retweeter, circler, favouriter, liker and email address has a dollar or pound ( or part of ) value !!

If you are looking for a phone system in Dorset then Cisco FutureLine is one of the most popular systems to be installed by small and medium businesses in the Dorset area.

Companies ranging from lawyers to wealth management companies and garages to marketing and PR companies are benefiting from the flexibility, support, low cost, ease of moves and changes and advanced technology that Cisco FutureLine phone systems bring.

These are just some of the quotes from happy Dorset businesses that have bought Cisco FutureLine phone systems:

“Initially we opted for FutureLine because of the flexibility it

gave us. When we first started we weren’t sure how fast we

were going to grow and we needed to ensure that whatever

we choose we would always have flexibility. When we

recently added an extra member of staff, we simply placed

an order and within 24 hours the new phone was installed and

being used. The ease of use is great. The FutureLine team is

easy to deal with, they are very knowledgeable and always

quick to respond to any query. Also I now only have one bill to

pay rather than several and about the best thing is that it’s

about half what it used to be”.

Tim Gallego – Partner – Poundbury Wealth Managment

“The Futureline phone system offered us all the features we

needed at a price that suited our budget. We now have a

new phone system and we are paying less a month for phones

and line rental than we were before. We’ve used ring groups

and hunt groups to make sure we never miss a call. We can

see which number the customer has called so we can track

sales campaigns and we can review call records to help us

plan better for the future.”

John Johnston – Manager – Ford Harbour Bonfield Garage

“We wanted a phone system that would give us ultimate flexibility

whilst still ensuring that we paid a fair amount for the

features we needed. The ‘all inclusive’ package from Future-

Line allows us to easily manage our budgeting. The flexibility

has been fantastic for us. We have moved offices several

times and there is never any fuss – just a simple, quick move.

Each time we add a new member of staff it is a simple, quick

process. We know in advance what it is going to cost, so planning

and budgeting is easy.

Natalie Gamble – Partner – Natalie Gamble and Associates.

Contact FutureLine on

0871 594 3555 or

email at: info@futureline.net.uk

Why choose a telephone system from Poundbury Systems?

We have range of options that not only suit your business, but can grow and change as your business does.

Flexible – Simple – Effective

The features you need, at a price you want.

All our Telephone Systems all contain the following features

Our standard telephone systems come with all the features below needed to successfully run any business. Apart from all these useful components, we can also customise your system to provide what you need for your individual business.

Free calls within your own company – All calls to your other offices or home workers equipped with our VoIP phone are entirely free of charge. Calls to other land lines and mobiles are cheaper than BT’s standard rates.

Lower call charges to everyone else – Our phone call charges are significantly lower than most national phone companies’ standard prices without compromising any quality.

Single Bill, Single Point of Contact – One bill and one phone call for all your calls, line rental, broadband and even your IT support.

Main number voice mail – Collected from the phone, remotely or by e-mail. Callers can leave a message out of hours or when your reception staff are busy, safe in the knowledge that their call will be returned swiftly.

Individual voice mails – Any employee you choose can have their own voice mail. Messages can then be forwarded to their e-mail account, mobile phone or can be accessed from their desk phone.

Individual call forwarding – Individual phones can be set to Do Not Disturb. Calls can be forwarded to other extensions, mobiles, home numbers etc.

Presence Indication – See when your colleagues are already on the phone – Have you ever transferred a call to somebody only to find that they are engaged? See with ease who is on the phone or available.

Fully customisable – You can turn on and off features, or add them at a later date.

Easy access to call reporting – Reports are available for you see exactly who has been calling where and for how long. These are issued automatically with each monthly bill.

Geography free – The system can receive numbers that are normally associated with different parts of the country – London for example.

Music on Hold – let your customers hear music while they are on hold.

Home workers – The system can support remote users so working from home becomes easier.

Road Warriors – The system can connect you with those members of staff who are always on the road.

Demonstrations

If you would like to see and try one of our phone systems, just call us and we will arrange for a free demonstration.

Additional Services
PSL can supply any other services you might need for your new telephone system, such as a broadband (ADSL) lines and routers. We can also provide servers, PC, e-mail and anti-spam service through to desktop PC support.

Common Additional Options:

Automatic greetings – Many professional companies are now or will soon be required by legislation to ensure industry specific announcements are made to each and every caller. Remove the worry for you and the hassle from your reception staff by recording the important messages and letting the system automatically play them for you.

Automatic call routing – Callers can choose 1 for sales 2 for accounts etc. This can save resources on reception and enable calls to be answered with more speed and efficiency.

Paging Service – Do you need to know about emergency calls out of hours? – No problem at all with our system.

Conference calls – Easily talk to any other group of people without the need to get in the car.

Personalised numbers – Individual users can have their own direct dial number – where only their phone will ring – ideal for you to give to your premium clients. These can be geographic i.e 01 or 02 numbers or non-geographic numbers such as 0800/0844/0871 etc

Multiple company numbers – The system can accept calls to multiple numbers and will display the number the caller has dialled – i.e. ‘Sales Order Line’.

Operator software – this can give specific users the ability to drag and drop incoming calls and see the status of all users within the organisation.

Company Specific Directories – these can be synchronised with ‘off phone lists’. Public folders in Microsoft Exchange can be linked to the phones for example.

Click to dial – allows you to select a number on your desktop and dial it by clicking with your mouse.
Screen pops – can show you information about who is calling and be linked to your other internal software, if the necessary external connectors are made available to us.

Time aware behaviour – The system can do different things automatically at different times of day. i.e. all calls to voicemail after 5.30pm.

Handsets
There are a choice of handsets and we can show you all the options at our demo facilities in Dorchester.

I have long been aware of the power of a Marketplace advert both inside Ecademy.com and outside Ecademy.com ( on the Internet ).

Because Ecademy.com is such a powerful platform ( to Google ) much of the content posted there is picked up by Google and displayed for relevant searches. Testimonials and Marketplace promotions are amongst the things that are seen on Google and other seach engines.

You cannot guarantee to get ranked high on Google for selected words and phrases because it depends on how competitive the terms are. However, for reasonably competitive terms you stand a good chance of getting ranked high.

If you go here

http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&rlz=1R2SKPB_enGB362&q=cisco+webex+dorset&meta=&aq=&oq=cisco+webex+dorset&fp=4ea42b1d61769dbd

you will see that ( at the time of writing ) via Ecademy and other platforms we dominate the search for people searching for Cisco Webex in Dorset.

I can give you lots of examples of achieving a significant Internet presence for selected terms via Ecademy.

My posts, like this one, tend to be rather text based. It was when I saw the work of Ces and Jay Loftus in particular that I thought that a graphically rich, visually powerful, Internet Testimonial or Recommendation could be produced that would rank high on Google.

On Saturday Ces and Jay launched a Targeted Internet Testimonial for The Glan Yr Afon Inn. Now it would be easy to make it rank for ” The Glan Yr Afon Inn ” so we wanted it to rank for something like ” Real Ale Pubs Holywell “.

At the time of writing this, if you do this search here

http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&rlz=1R2SKPB_enGB362&q=real+ale+pubs+holywell&meta=&aq=f&oq=real+ale+pubs+holywell&fp=a73fa2ac306dd28e

This Ecademy Marketplace advert here

http://ca.ecademy.com/module.php?mod=list&lid=200364

is at the top of the Google search.

When you click on the Google result you get a lovely, graphical, Internet recommendation.

However, we have NOT yet even SEO’d this Marketplace advert !!!!

We can produce a Marketplace based Targeted Internet Testimonial for anybody about anybody and there’s more…….

Once we have produced this Testimonial we can transfer it to many different places and formats:

It can go on your blog or website..

It can be made into a pdf..

It can be emailed to your customer base ..

It can be printed for use as a poster, flyer or brochure insert ..

and these are just some of the uses of this Testimonial.

We believe that it is much more powerful for a Recommendation or Testimonial to come up as the result of a Google search than a Directory listing, or some random landing page on your website …..

But let us know what you think because we are still developing our idea …