“… I have been summoned…”

“… I have been mandated…”

Do you do business with such a person? No, because that is the the language of a lackey.

While this may be nothing more than a grubby negotiating tactic, to claim to have to pass all decisions by a higher power, chances are such a person is merely buying time and is devoid of sincerity.

In other words, he or she would be, what we call in South Africa, a chancer!

Twitter is FAR from a Facebook competitor. To call Twitter a competitor is like saying Potato Chips is competition to Coca Cola. INCORRECT. What would replace Facebook if it ceased to exist? Twitter? No. That should be your 1st hint at if Twitter is a Facebook competitor. Steven Bertoni. You need to go to B School my friend. Your missing some remedial marks of the B world. It reflects poorly on your Editors at Forbes. Perhaps they need to be replaced. Your not adding INTEL. Your subtracting it.

The collective INTEL available via Twitter in form of two lines can be summed up in value and worth to when the Twitter heavy weight champion of all John Mayer said “I wonder what this button does” and deleted his account and its millions of followers. Follow him doing what? What does Twitter do exactly? I have hundreds of followers. And I have no idea who the hell they are nor do I care. I have no idea what they say nor interested in what they have to say. They “follow me”.

Twitter is kind of like the Nielson Ratings. It tells you how many people are watching you at that particular minute they decided to ‘follow you’. But it says nothing more.

To rely on Twitter as a measure of anything is akin to seeing ratings for the SuperBowl and assuming they are there for all time. The people I follow I can tell you I followed for that one second. I have no recollection of why I “Followed” them. They are worthless and meaningless and there is no way Twitter is organized in a way that will allow me to see what these people say in an organized or comprehensible manner. Twitters name in such times need to be changed to Jibberish. Which is why the heavy weight king of all time, amongst many others, have deleted this worthless account. Point of all this? Twitter is no Facebook. Friend.

Twitter is far from Facebook. Why it even exists , what is its worth or usefulness I will never figure out. Twitter is a Bubble waiting to Burst. It is the most overrated company on the face of earth.

To assume the 10 million following ABC Television during the SuperBowl are still following them 2 hours afterward is a critical mistake. Even in Nielsen ratings? Twitter is sheer absolute incomprehensible nonsense. Just ask John Mayer.

Steven Bertoni. Your not really to blame. Who is your editor? And why does he allow you to print cover stories littered with untruths that are exactly the opposite of what anyone knows out there. Twitter is no competition to Facebook. No more than Popcorn is to Coke. Different game. Very Very different game. Its like saying golf is competition for football. Get it in gear Bertoni. Wiser yet. Have your “Editors” get it in gear. They’re embarrassing themselves.

Clearly a start-up consultant cannot command premium prices. What you can do is offer value. A service offering with that additional something that your client will value.

Sell your value and not your price.

Customers respond positively to value. Low prices tend to raise suspicions of the product or service being ‘cheap and dirty’. The fact of the matter is that customers are often too lazy to do their research and many latch on to the price as being indicative of value.

There are, of course, certain price sensitive markets that are heavily competitive. Of course, here you may be forced to compete on price alone. Ultimately what will decide is the market, and you may have to stop midstream, evaluate and modify your pricing to best market your services.

Intel 82852/82855 GM/GME

Who is a chancer? A person who takes a chance, who does not put in the time, who expects to make easy money. A person who does not return calls, does not follow common business courtesy and appears to have his head somewhere in the clouds. Someone who does not follow logic, is a loose cannon.

The signals are as follows: Familiarity, Distinctiveness, Credibility, Connectedness, Viability.

More details here: http://www.entrepreneurmag.co.za/advice/funding/attracting-investors/how-to-sell-your-ideas/

Do not count on external forces to deal with a disruptive force in your project. The sooner you can call out the offender – the better. Keep your facts straight. The offender should realise that you are serious.  Stick to the facts – do not allow the discussion to veer off on a tangent – mainly because this is what this person will attempt to do.

Be honest and call out the facts as you see them – in private, with the offender, followed by a detailed email capturing this in writing. About 90% of the time, you will fail in getting any behavioral changes effected, purely because of the psychological makeup of the offender. You will then be forced to escalate this with a superior, but at least you have the defence that you made a sincere attempt to address this with the person concerned.

On being unpopular: Most people who are adults now, do not speak up, in spite of knowing that their interests are being compromised for fear of being unliked.  It is a subtle manifestation of the human dread of ostracism. Their fear is losing the affirmation that comes of being party to a group. This is something that society teaches us, right from our school days. The notion of popularity.

How can you be a successful entrepreuner if you are afraid of being unpopular? This can creep up on you. I caught myself attempting to explain a decision to a junior staff person. It is not the explaining that I later had an issue with, it was my own need for affirmation that I was seeking through that explanation that bothered me.