Today we have had the honour of being featured in "The Community Challenge" blog/club on ecademy. Penny Power asked us to write about our business journey over the last 6 years and how we have come to embrace "social media" and the web, illustrating how we use it with our businesses.
We thought we would share it with you here.
So what are we all about, now there hangs a question!
Well there's two of us: Nick Tadd and Vanessa Warwick ... ahem, G'day.
We met late in life so I suppose it's only right that we have a paragraph each to explain the story before we met - bring you "up to speed" so to speak. You might note that we have a fairly musical back ground, Vanessa being a VJ on MTV and me being appreciator of melody, not only that but film buffs to boot. Therefore, we thought it would be quite appropriate to interject lyrics and quotes throughout this piece to give a flavour to who and what we are ... let alone the reason behind it.
So without further ado ... enter stage right Mr Nick Tadd.
In the immortal words of The House of Pain "Pack it up, pack it in, let me begin ..."
Quick potted history: After school and becoming a qualified fashion designer and an Art history buff I immediately dropped out and picked up a surf board. This was in the latter end of the 80's/ early 90's and I'm sure you recall a recession at that time. This did not bother me as I was too busy enjoying my 20's and living the beach life and, to afford it, I started designing surfboards (graphic/logo's etc), then windsurf boards which evolved into jet ski racing teams ... cool. Living on a beach and being creative….
"Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary." Dead Poets Society, 1989
I had no idea what a recession was, so I just carried on! With designing jet-ski racing teams came Motorsport, and between the early 90's and the early 2000's that's what I did, design racing cars ... not the engineering you understand but the graphic/s.
Ford motorsport (Rally cars), Janspeed (Nissan touring cars), Toms (Toyota touring cars, F3 and LeMans Gt1 cars) even a 2.5 litre Harley Davidson drag bike – jeez that was fast!
Why it's so important to "get" social media and "apply" it well.
Transparency:
I was on another forum when it was noted that some chap was copying "written content" and "paste-ing" it without any recognition for the original writer.
I've been to a number of events over the past couple of weeks, and had the privilege of meeting many inspiring people. That has got me pondering the attributes of successful and entreprenueurial people.
Many people believe that it is entrepreneurs who will help Britian out of this economic downturn. There is massive opportunity for those people who see a niche in the market and fill it.
At 4wallandaceiling.com, we’ve made our name being a reliable and trust-worthy source of property information. However, as you may have also noticed, we do take a more holistic approach to business, and endeavour to introduce you to other concepts that we believe will make a difference to your life in general.
We spend a great deal of time on the internet learning new ideas, and we also attend many varied events in person. Vanessa recently attended the “Women Unlimited” event in London and she came away feeling very inspired and having met some truly amazing women who are making a huge difference in the world. We try and distil everything we learn down into some content to earn your continued attention.
We hope you find today’s blog valuable from both a business and personal point of view.
When you wake up in the morning, do you hope for a “good day”? A day full of joy, happiness, laughter, positivity .... Some people get those sort of days, and others don’t. Have you ever wondered why?!
A great deal depends on one's circumstances, environment and efforts. A lot also depends on your attitude, and the energy you put out – whether that is positive or negative. The quality of your thinking determines the quality of your life.
Few "good days" occur by happenstance. Life is a series of "choices." We believe for the most part that it is within your power to have a “good day” every day.
Thank you to everyone who attended and contributed to our event on Sunday 15th March. We aim to earn your continued support by always delivering massive value and great networking, so we hope you found it a worthwhile day!
A big shout out to Keith and Anita Truman who drove down from Peterborough to attend. We salute you for your commitment to your property business!
Morning, just a quick note: I went to London yesterday (17th Feb 2009) to see Seth Godin. (I'm a big fan and have been following and using his wise words for a number of years now).
I thought I would share with you one important aspect of what he had to say yesterday and that was "leadership, authenticity, and consistency". Now that the age of the "TV industrial complex" method of marketing is dead (2000 years since its inauguration), we have been, and are, moving into the new age of "business exposure".
Let me explain TV industrial complex. First of all, the action of the complex is this: company buys advertising space, puts an advert out to a mass market who he knows tunes in at the same time, makes money, buys more adverts …. And so the cycle continues.
However, this is what it means to you and me a.k.a. the consumer. Halfway through “Coronation Street”, we get some bloke running in our room shouting “CILIT BANG! BANG AND THE DIRT IS GONE!” and then he’s gone again. Moreover, you and I as the consumers have no choice to watch it unless we want to go for a pee or put the kettle on. This has been going on for centuries, but on the internet we call it SPAM!
TV/Radio advertising is SPAM, we have no choice on the TV or radio … but we do on the internet (lets face it Vanessa put up a post a few weeks ago “what’s happening to loveproperty” and look at the replies she had!) … if sites or marketeers continually spam we just go to another site. Moreover, if marketeers continually spam or are inconsistent and unauthentic with their message we will go to another site or just won’t do business with them.
From what I can see most marketing treats clients as if they are dense, and more importantly the client has very little chance of learning about the product or person they are buying. They were just “battered” by advertising and then “battered” by the kicking they got afterward because they bought a bad product, or trusted someone who did not have the right qualifications in the first place!
The Church understood this (the biggest blue-chip in the world is the Catholic Church). When books were first introduced to the populace, they were written by Monks, therefore, from day one the ad break did not feature Barry Scott and “Cillit Bang” but some chap with a pious nature. The rest is history.
The Church made a following out of advertising knowing that the people who they were advertising to had very little other choice.
Then came radio. Then came TV. The method was always the same: get a bunch of people together en-mass and subscribe to their fear and greed
Even now the method is the same: $2.6m for a 30 second advert during the Super Bowl !!! But the power of that is dying… I would argue is dead, but no one wants to let it go!
Why? Because you cannot apply that method to the internet.
How do you know what web-sites people are on at any one time? If you did know, how do you know to keep them watching your ad’ … it’s not like “if they didn’t they would miss the end of “Coronation St” … is it?
Now consumers have a choice and, just as importantly, they know it.
They do want to be “sold to”. They are consumers, but now they will dictate who they buy from … because you can’t hide on the internet.
1. No longer will clients follow a leader down a dead end; 2. No longer will clients put up with "inauthentic" messages; 3. No longer will clients put up with inconsistent messages.
They don’t need to, for the first time the Client will choose which advertising he/she will be exposed to … they will decide based on what they see or find on the internet.
The internet dictates that anyone who does not measure up will fall by the wayside. Darwin was right there, evolution is taking place as I write.
So it would appear to me that, whilst we still seem to have “marketeers” using an out-dated method of marketing, we can sit happily in the knowledge that they will become extinct. Not by our hand, you understand, but by their own.
You can spot who they are by applying the three points above. It’s obvious who does not fit anymore.
My point is this: long live sites like loveproperty.org and many of the qualified forums that don't allow spam. These forums give the future consumers a chance to “weed out” the dinosaurs and choose to work with the ones that count, the ones who have delivered real results, been authentic, consistent and more importantly, have led from the front.
I was tinkering on the computer last night, when, thanks to the joys of Facebook, an old friend from the music industry, who I hadn’t spoken to for ages, popped up on the instant messaging asking how I was doing.
It was great to catch up with her after so long, but it quickly became apparent that her life had changed dramatically. She told me that she had recently taken voluntary redundancy from her long-term job in the record industry. Her partner was also about to be made redundant from the computer games industry.
Drawing from some of the most pivotal points in his life, Steve Jobs, chief executive officer and co-founder of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, urged graduates to pursue their dreams.
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