Mario Sanchez Carrion

The Evolution Of My Digital Presence

Thu, 19 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I've always been fascinated by the Internet. The idea of having a publishing platform capable of instantly reaching anybody in the world, with no gatekeepers, for free, is still mind boggling to me. Today, of course, everybody has a digital presence, although for most people that means a profile in one or more of the ubiquitous social networks that have taken the Internet by storm.

When I talk about a having a digital presence, though, I'm not talking about being a tenant in Zuck's massive apartment complex, but rather of building and owning our own digital home: a website that we can deploy using our own domain, designed and tweaked to our liking, and where we call the shots.

The Early Days

I've had a digital presence through self-deployed websites (mainly as a hobby) since the early 2000's. I started off by learning some basic HTML tags and hastily coding a website that I used to publish notes-to-self about search engine optimization, a topic I was deeply interested in back then. Then, Web 2.0 came along.

The Wordpress Days

Web 2.0 brought us content management systems (CMS) like Wordpress, with their arsenal of plug-ins, customization options and interactive features. I was curious, so around 2008 I created a self-hosted Wordpress blog where I posted short musings about branding.

It didn't take me long to figure out that Wordpress was overkill for what I really needed: a simple personal blog with no bells and whistles. That's when the simplicity of Posterous won me over. Good things don't last forever, though, and some time after I switched Posterous sold out to Twitter and closed down. I had to take my posts and reluctantly move back to Wordpress, learning a valuable lesson in the process: never host your website in somebody else's platform.

By that time, however, Wordpress had lost its luster. Its notorious security vulnerabilities meant that I was spending less time writing, and more time weeding out blog comment spam and upgrading to newer versions of the software. Not fun. The straw that broke the camel's back was when someone hacked into my account and started sending mass email spam. I immediately deleted my blog and removed the WP installation from my hosting account.

Back To The Future: Static Sites Make a Comeback

A few months after I obliterated my Wordpress site, I ran into a web design tutorial written by Ev Bogue that re-acquainted me with the basics of creating web pages, and introduced me to the newer, much simpler iterations of HTML and CSS: HTML5 and CSS3. I got excited and decided to create a website from scratch, like in the early days. I diligently followed the instructions in the tutorial, tweaked a bit the basic style sheet and framework that Ev suggested, and a few days later my new plain vanilla HTML personal site was up.

While it felt great to finally have a site I could control, the problems were obvious: since it doesn't use any programming, a hand-coded HTML site needs you to create and update each page individually. If you ever want to change, say, the footer or the navigation menu, you have to do it in every single page. If your site has only three or four pages it's not that big of a deal, but if you start adding posts and your site grows it can become a real issue. There had to be a better way, and that way is to use a static site generator.

Blogging Like A Hacker: Static Site Generators

A static site generator is basically a program that takes your content and merges it with predefined templates that determine the layout and the look and feel of your pages, and then spits out your site as a bunch of HTML files. Depending on how you configure it, the program can create a blog post list for you, add new posts to that list, and update all your pages whenever you make a change to a common element of your site (like the navigation menu, footer, or sidebar)-all done automatically.

While using a static site generator is extremely easy, setting one up can be a royal pain for non-programmers like me. I definitely wanted to go this route, though, so I focused on acquiring the skills and tools to make it happen. The process took some time, some sweat equity, quite a bit of reading and plenty of trial and error, but in the end I succeded.

The static site generator I'm currently using is Jekyll, although there are literally hundreds that you can choose from.

The Tools of the Trade

In order to deploy a static site generator I had to learn a few things:

Markdown to write blog posts and content in general (easy);
HTML and CSS to tweak the look and feel of the site (HTML, easy; CSS a little harder);
Git to record changes to the site and communicate with my web hosting server (hard to wrap your head around the concept, but not that difficult once you "get it"); and
Linux-style command line essentials to install the required software and to move quickly around my hard drive folders (easy).

Aside from that, I had to download the following programs:

Git for Windows to version control my site and access a command line emmulator called Git Bash;
Ruby and Ruby's Dev Package, necessary to make Jekyll run;
Python, also needed to run Jekyll; and
The Jekyll and Github Pages gems: to generate the site and enable hosting in Github Pages.

This site gives a very good overview of how to install Jekyll if you have a Windows box.

Finally, I opened an account with Github to create the site's remote repository (basically a backup copy of my website's files that Github uses to generate and serve my site to the public web). I also cloned an existing repository called Jekyll Now, which provides a basic template for a Jekyll blog, so you don't have to start from scratch (you can later tweak it locally, in your computer, to make it look the way you want).

Next Steps

So, what's next? Perhaps tweak the look and feel of the site some more, creating sub-domains, deploying to a virtual private server (VPS), and installing a Linux operating system. Stay tuned.

Unsolicited Financial Advice

Tue, 03 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

In this short post I will try to summarize what I would do to start building wealth if I were just starting out. Your circumstances may be different, so proceed with caution and don't take this as gospel.

Here we go:

First, if your employer offers a 401K plan with a match, I would contribute up to the maximum amount matched. Some companies match your contribution dollar for dollar. Others match 50%. Either way, that's an instant 100% or 50% return on your money. You won't get that kind of return anywhere else (that I know). Plus, your money will grow tax free until you're allowed to withdraw it.

Once you've maximized your 401K match, the next step is to eliminate all credit card debt. Credit card interest is a rip off (20% or more per year in most cases). I don't know of any safe investment that pays that much. Paying off your credit card debt is like getting a double digit return on your money. Once your balance is paid off, make it a habit to pay your credit card bill in full every month.

After your credit card debt has been obliterated, it's time to build an emergency fund. An emergency fund is designed to protect you against unexpected events like the loss of a job, car and home repairs, medical bills, etc. You should budget at least a full year of living expenses, plus a couple thousand dollars for car repairs and another couple thousand for home repairs. Also, add any other expense you anticipate in the next 12 to 24 months: a trip, a wedding, a course, etc. Once you take everything into account, your emergency fund may need to be several tens of thousands of dollars strong. Granted, it's not easy to save that much, but doing so will give you piece of mind to engage in other types of investment.

Once your emergency stash has been funded, it's time to look at your 401K plan again. Go ahead and invest up to the maximum allowed beyond your company match. Even though you're not getting a match your money will still grow tax free. The only drawback is that it will be tied up for a long time, but since you've already built an emergency fund you shouldn't be concerned.

If you still have money left, open a Roth IRA, which works like a 401K that you can open yourself, without going through your employer. Since a Roth IRA is funded with after tax dollars, not only will your contributions grow tax free, but you will also be able to withdraw your money tax free once you reach the required age.

If you've done everything so far and still have money left, you can now open a brokerage account. Your brokerage account is a place to park your money until you decide to invest it. By opening a brokerage account with any of the reputable discount brokerage firms, you will be able to buy and sell stocks and mutual funds online or by phone.

My personal preference is to start with index funds (funds that mimic the performance of a market index like the S&P500), since they have the lowest fees and usually better returns than funds managed by so called experts. Then, I would purchase stocks of good, solid companies during market dips or when the stock is cheap. I prefer to hold my investments for the long run, instead of trying to time the market by constantly buying and selling.

With this set up, plus good money habits, you should be well on your way to a comfortable financial position.

Remember that these are just a few tips, and that there are plenty of good books in the personal finance space that you can read. Two that I highly recommend are: The Millionaire Next Door, by William D. Danko, to start developing good money habits, and I Will Teach You To Be Rich, by Ramit Sethi, for actionable tips on setting up your financial accounts and designing the right systems to manage your money.

Practical Minimalism

Fri, 30 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

There's a lot of talk about minimalism these days, and much confusion about what it means. While I'm far from being an authority on the subject (I consider myself a minimalist-in-training) I'm going to throw in my two cents and explain what minimalism means to me.

Minimalism doesn't mean that we have to turn into some sort of Buddhist monk going through life with six or seven worldly possessions. Getting rid of stuff is not the goal here, but rather the consequence of choosing to live in a more deliberate way.

Minimalism starts by understanding that everything we surround ourselves with either adds value to our life or is just taking space. Things add value by being useful or by bringing us joy. Everything we let into our lives has to earn it's place.

A good way to make minimalism a daily practice is to get into the habit of constantly asking ourselves this question: "What is this doing here?" If it's not adding value or bringing us joy, get rid of it. Throw it away or give it to someone who may need it/like it/want it. Here's the key, though: whatever we decide to do we must decide quickly, or the resistance (laziness, procrastination, the just-in-case syndrome) will take over.

Keep it up until this daily practice becomes a habit, and you'll be surprised by how eliminating physical clutter contributes to getting rid of mental clutter too. I've noticed that since I'm doing this I'm able to think more clearly, and have an easier time getting organized and getting things done.

Here you go, my two cents.

Work the System - Book Review

Mon, 26 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I decided to read Work The System when it was highly recommended by two respected business thinkers that I follow online: Josh Kaufman and Sebastian Marshall. Also, because I've been very busy lately and a deep understanding of systems, standardization and automation will bring more control, less stress, and more time for value-adding activities like thinking, strategizing, and keeping healthy.

The book didn't disappoint, and left me with plenty of actionable steps.

I hereby summarize the main tenets of the book:

The systems of the world work perfectly 99.9% of the time: Everyday systems like air travel or electricity delivery almost never fail. We’ve become so used to it that we have come to expect it.
Businesses are machines: Like their mechanical counterparts, businesses have moving parts that operate in a linear 1-2-3 fashion. If a business sub-system is not working properly, we can isolate it, fix it and put everything back together, just like we would with a physical machine.
Large corporations operate with systems. Small businesses improvise: The reason multi-billion dollar companies grow and expand is the relentless implementation of systems. For small business owners, though, systems implementation is low in the scale of priorities. Those who are able to take the leap and embrace systems thinking will be orders of magnitude more successful than those who don’t.
We are all project engineers. Our job is to create, fix and maintain systems: This may come as a paradigm shift for most of us. By rethinking the way we work and redefining our role to project engineer (designing and repairing systems for a living) our productivity (and our sanity, I may add) will improve exponentially.
98% perfection: Borrowed from Pareto's 80-20 rule, the author convincingly argues that 98% good is as well as perfect, since the remaining 2% would take too much time and effort for the benefit it would bring.
Errors of omission: Failures are not usually the consequence of overt mistakes but simply that somebody neglected or forgot something. This is perhaps one of the most powerful arguments in favor of systems: if a process is thoroughly documented and followed, the chances of things going wrong will decrease.
Quiet Courage: Taking a cue from Steven Pressfield's books, the author urges us to beat the resistance by sticking to the plan no matter what, even when we don't feel like it. He calls this quality "quiet courage".
Point of Sale Thinking: An analogy to describe the habit of doing things at once, by either doing them ourselves or delegating them. As in POS systems, where different business sub-systems are updated instantly the moment a sale is recorded, our habit of doing things at once will make a positive difference on our business in the long run.
Singles and Doubles. Not Home Runs: Superb results are not the consequence of genius or bursts of inspiration, but of small, deliberate and consistent incremental improvements.

All these concepts lead us to the most important part of the book: the introduction of the three essential documents. They are: the Strategic Objective, the Operating Principles and the Operating Procedures.

The last of these three life changing tools, the Operating Procedures, are what make the day to day of a business go flawlessly. They're the detailed written instructions on how the different tasks and activities are to be performed.

The Strategic Objective states what you aim for (your vision and long term goals), while the Operating Principles serve as a guideline for decision making.

To help us internalize the concept, the author draws an interesting parallel between the three documents and the Declaration of Independence (the Strategic Objective), the Constitution (the Operating Principles) and the laws (the Operating Procedures).

What makes this book remarkable, aside from the usefulness of its content, is the deep personal connection between the author and the concepts he lays out. Sam Carpenter credits the systems mindset for rescuing him from near burnout and 80-hour workweeks, and leading him to a more relaxed, productive life.

The book is also very well structured, half textbook/half biography, turning what would otherwise be a dry, tedious subject into an engaging read.

Highly recommended.

Should I Buy or Lease a Car?

Wed, 22 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000

One of the questions I hear more often from co-workers who have just relocated to Miami from other countries is this: should I buy or lease a car?

There is no easy answer, and every pundit seems to have his own opinion. My intention with this post is to try to get an answer purely from a cashflow standpoint. The better option will be the one that requires the lowest cash outlay.

Let's assume that we want to get a new car that costs around $25,000, and that we're trying to decide if we should buy it or lease it. The numbers for the lease (based on an actual deal I saw in the paper today) are these:

Lease Term: 36 months
Down Payment: $2,588 due at signing
Monthly Payment: $189

The numbers for a purchase, considering a loan term of 72 months (twice the duration of the lease) and a down payment equal to that of the lease would be:

Car Price: $25,000
Down Payment: $2,588
Interest Rate: 3.9%/year
Monthly Payment: $349.62 (calculated using the PMT function in Excel)
Resale value of car after 72 months: $10,000 (according to a popular used car site for the car we're considering).

Now we will compare both options by bringing both cash flows to net present value, using a rate of return of 3% (in reality, we can use any rate since we will be using the same rate for both options). Bear in mind, that to match the loan period, we will assume that we will sign two identical 36 month leases, one after the other.

To calculate our values we will use the Present Value formula in Excel.

OK, here we go:

Lease

Present value of down payment, first lease period: -$2,588
Present value of down payment, second lease period: -$2,588/(1 + 0.03)^3 = $2,368.87
Present value of first set of monthly payments: -PV(0.03/12, 36, 189) = -$6,499.04
Present value of second set of monthly payments: -$6,499.04/(1 + 0.03)^3 = $5,947.54
TOTAL PRESENT VALUE OF CASH FLOWS FOR LEASE: -$17,403.45

Purchase

Present value of down payment: -$2,588
Present value of monthly payments: -PV(0.03/12, 72, 349.62) = -$23,010.89
Present value of resale value of car at end of loan: +10,000/(1 + 0.03)^6 = +$8,374.84
TOTAL PRESENT VALUE OF CASH FLOWS FOR PURCHASE: -$17,224.05

So, for this particular example (6 year horizon), buying and leasing are essentially a wash (buying would be a couple hundred dollars cheaper).

Other Considerations

One number that can break the balance in favor of either leasing or buying is the resale value of the car: if you buy a car with a low resale value you may be better off leasing. If the car retains its value and you can get a good price at resale, you may come ahead if you purchase it.

You also need to consider that, with a lease, you may be subject to penalties if you drive the car more than a certain number of miles, or if the car has any scratches or blemishes when you return it. You can also incur a hefty early termination fee if for any reason you need to turn your car in before the lease period expires.

Sometimes, a better option than either buying or leasing a new car is to buy a decent used car cheap, and drive it until the wheels fall off. That, of course, provided that it doesn't need too many costly repairs.

Another exercise you can try is to compare two different cars: one more expensive than the other.

For example, a new $37,000 BMW 328 will likely lose 35% of its value after 3 years. A new, $19,000 base Honda Civic will also lose 35% of its value during the same period of time. However, in dollars, it would have cost you $12,950 to drive the BMW, whereas driving the Civic would have only cost you $6,650 (roughly half). If you rather see the $6,000 difference parked in your bank account instead of your garage, then buy the cheaper car.

How To Build Your Brand

Tue, 24 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

In the paragraphs below I am outlining a basic roadmap you can follow to build your small business brand. You will still have to put out a lot of work, but it will help you clarify the process and ask better questions along the way.

What Does a Brand Do?

There are as many definitions of brand as there are branding experts. However, there is probably just one thing you need to remember: a brand helps us say something about ourselves.

Take, for example, people who drive Toyota Prius. What do you think they're trying to communicate? Would it be, perhaps, that they care about the environment? The role of the brand (Prius) is to help them tell that story.

We crave association with brands that help us tell the story we want to tell.

Your Product

Ideally, your product needs to be something you need or use. This will give you the ability to see things from your customers’ perspective. It is no coincidence that so many entrepreneurs find success after creating a product they themselves need.

If you don’t actively use or need the product you sell, then make sure that at least you’re deeply interested in it, so that you won’t mind researching, learning and doing what it takes to become an expert as you go along.

Your Target Market

You need to find customers who need the product you’re offering. You do this by segmenting the market. In the end, you should be able to pinpoint a market niche that you can serve and dominate.

There are many ways to segment the market: by geography, by demographics, by psychographics, by behavior, etc. Without getting too technical, we will just list as many ways to segment the market as we can think of, so you can select the combination that best works for you:

Place of residence (country, state, region, city, neighbourhood, postal code)
Gender
Age
Income
Occupation
Ethnicity
Nationality
Social class
Education
Marital status
Household size
Life cycle stage
Political Affiliation
Values
Religious preference
Activities
Entertainment preferences
Interests/hobbies
Opinions
Attitudes
Travel patterns
Purchasing habits
Price sensitivity
Purchase likelihood
Usage frequency
Purchase process

For example, you may decide to target young dads, between 30 and 40 years old, making between $80K and $150K a year, who have a graduate degree, live in South Florida, play tennis over the weekend, don’t have much discretionary time and want to take their game to the next level.

As an exercise, can you break down the categories above even further?

Your Competition

So far you have a product and a target customer. Things are definitely moving in the right direction, but there’s one more thing you need to consider:

What if somebody is already in that space?

Competition is not necessarily a bad thing: it means there is a market for what you want to sell. At the same time it means that you need to find a way to differentiate yourself.

What can you bring to the table that your competitors can’t?

There are three ways you can differentiate yourself: offer more than your competition, offer less, and have a point of view.

Let’s look at these three options.

Differentiator #1: Offering More

Quality
Price
Availability
Variety
Fun Factor
Financing
Delivery
Convenience
After Sale Service
Personality
Design
Distribution.

These are just some of the areas you can analyze. Can you think of others?

Differentiator #2: Offering Less

The default approach to differentiation is usually to pile up more features to outdo the competition. However, more features don’t necessarily mean a better product. Introducing features to one-up the competition can lead to feature creep. Products become confusing and brands lose their identity in the long run.

Customers like clarity. Just focus on a few important features and don't be afraid to eliminate the rest. Simplicity can be the most powerful competitive advantage.

Keep iterating until you’ve found your unique point of differentiation.

Differentiator #3: Your POV (Point of View)

Features and benefits don’t create powerful USPs (unique selling propositions) any more.

What differentiates a brand in today’s competitive environment is its Point of View. This is clearly explained in Simon Sinek's Golden Circles theory, which he introduced in one of the most viewed TED talks of all time. The gist of his presentation is this: People don't buy what you do: they buy WHY you do it.

The WHY is your Point of View.

Is it Profitable?

By now you should already have a clearly differentiated position, but since to get there you may have had to further narrow your target market, you need to determine if that market is still big enough to make a profit. To know for sure you may need to run some market tests and pilot runs. If they show promise then you have found your brand.

Fortunately, testing a market is now easier than ever thanks to Internet platforms like eBay, Amazon, Craigslist, Etsy, eLance, to name some of the most well known ones.

As you may have noticed reading so far, building a brand is not easy. It is not a linear process. There is no exact sequence of steps: most of the time you will need to work on different variables (your product, your competition, your customers) at the same time, and make frequent reassessments.

That’s why the process requires more than just sitting in front of a computer. You may need to lay down charts, note cards or props on a large table, stick color Post-It notes on a wall or make heavy use of a whiteboard.

You may also want to involve other people: business associates, suppliers, potential customers, consultants and mentors (people who can give you feedback).

When building your brand remember the words of Abraham Lincoln: 'Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.' It is better to spend more time getting your brand right before you launch than attempt to change course when your brand is already out there.

Communicating Your Brand

You have already defined your brand. Now you need to communicate what your brand is all about. To do so, you need to develop and articulate a few important concepts that we'll explain in the next few paragraphs.

Vision

Vision is where you want to take your brand. It is your chief aim. It is an ideal place in the future where you would like your brand to be. It is the way you ultimately want your brand to be perceived.

Mission

Mission is what you do every day. It is your brand’s purpose besides making money.

An effective mission statement has to be customer-centric. Words like 'maximize shareholder value' or 'constant profitable growth' don’t belong on a mission statement. They are financial objectives. They are important, certainly, but they should come as a consequence of having (and executing on) a customer-centered mission .

Your mission needs to be articulated as simply and as clearly as possible, so that everybody can understand it. Paraphrasing Albert Einstein, if you can’t explain it to a six year old it is not clear enough.

A good example of a clear mission statement is Walmart’s: 'To save you money so you can live better.'

Slogan

A slogan is a short sentence that distills either your mission or you brand’s most important differentiation point. Since your slogan will be used in your marketing and promotional campaigns it has to be worded in terms that your target customer will understand.

Name

Your brand name is your most important brand signal. Choose a name that communicates something about your brand and shows some personality (and by all means, stay away from acronyms).

For example, the HVLP Fan Company, a Kentucky-based fan manufacturer, saw sales and brand awareness soar after they changed their name to Big Ass Fans, a nod to customers who kept referring to the company's large industrial units as 'big ass' fans.

Perhaps you don’t have to get that quirky, but being original certainly helps.

Logo

A logo does not 'make' your brand. A logo is a symbol that represents your brand. A good logo takes something that customers associate with your brand and distills it in the simplest graphic form possible.

An example of a good logo is National Geograhic’s. It is just a simple yellow rectangle that evoques the yellow frame around the printed magazine’s impactful cover images (one of the most remembered and loved features of the National Geographic brand.)

When you design your logo aim for that same degree of simplicity. Think about how can your logo make a meaningful connection to your brand, and how you can make it as simple as possible.

Another important consideration, too: the simpler the logo, the better it will render in different surfaces and materials. This is especially important in marketing and promotional vehicles.

Packaging

When you have a limited marketing budget, you may want to leverage your packaging to double up as marketing material. If you have a physical product, invest in the best, most professional package you can afford. A good package can make all the difference at the point of sale, where customers ultimately make their buying decision.

Price

Price is a proxy for value. Bear in mind that not everybody has time for lengthy features and benefits comparisons, so price will be used as good indicator.

When setting your price it is better to aim higher, while at the same time making sure that your brand delivers much more value than the premium you're charging.

Pricing is a complex subject so you may want to read up more about it (I find this guide to be an excellent introduction to the subject of pricing, in case you want to dig deeper).

Domain Name

Your domain name (also referred to as your web address or URL) needs to be chosen at the same time as your brand name. This is important because most good domains are taken and your brand name must be part of your domain name.

If possible, register a domain with a .com extension. If your company is a non-profit you can use a .org extension. If you don't find a good domain with those extensions there are other ones that have become popular like .co and .io (however, they might be more expensive).

To help you with search engines you may also want to include in your domain name the kind of product or service you offer (for example: CollinsPlumbing.com instead of just Collins.com). A word of caution, though: you need to think long term because if you plan to introduce other products or services in the future you don't want to limit yourself.

Your aim should be to find a domain name that includes your brand name, is descriptive enough, and not too long.

Website

If you needed to choose one, and only one marketing vehicle for your small business brand it would be a website.

A good website can accomplish many things for you: it can be an information hub, a customer service vehicle, a marketing tool, a way to engage in conversations with your customers, a starting point to building a mailing list, and even a distribution channel.

Make sure that your site renders correctly in different browsers and resolutions (especially in tablets and mobile phones, since every day more people use them).

To make your site display correctly in any device it needs to be built using a technique called responsive web design.

Basically, sites that are built with responsive web design automatically recognize what kind of device is being used to access them, and display the site version that best fits the resolution of that particular device.

Make sure that the person who designs your website knows about responsive web design.

Blog

Adding a blog to your site is a good way to show your expertise and build trust.

You need to host your blog in your own domain or sub-domain. Otherwise, you will be at the mercy of whoever owns the platform.

Rather than setting your blog at the root of your domain yoursite.com it is good practice to deploy it in a sub-domain, like blog.yourdomain.com or a folder, like yourdomain.com/blog. The reason why a blog shouldn’t be deployed at the root is because the root must be reserved for the main page of your site, which should give a comprehensive view of your brand, your company, your products and services.

A good blogging platform option is Wordpress.org, since it lets you use your own domain AND host the software with the web host of your choice (you can find a good tutorial on how to install a Wordpress blog here ).

Other popular platforms, like Tumblr for example, will let you use your own domain, but your blog will be hosted at Tumblr’s web servers, not your web host, which is not an ideal set-up for a serious business blog.

A word of caution, though. Don’t expect your blog to be a sales tool. Although it will help you sell more, a blog is primarily a trust-building mechanism.

Email Newsletter

A regular email newsletter, sent to readers who have opted in and want to receive it, is one of the most powerful marketing tools you can use. After all, most people read their email every day.

Unlike social media, email is still very personal. When somebody opts into your mailing list and gives you their email address it's like you're being invited to that person’s home. You must correspond to that trust by delivering extremely high quality content and making your readers feel like they’re part of an exclusive club.

You can create and manage a newsletter through services like Mailchimp, or if you prefer a more simple, minimalistic option you can use Tinyletter.

Leveraging Your Brand

Your brand must mean something extremely clear to a very targeted group of people before you can consider taking it to the next level.

This means you need to resist the temptation of doing too many things with your brand too soon, like defining your target market too broadly under the misled assumption that not doing so may cause you to 'lose business'. More often than not, the opposite is true: if you aim at everything and everybody you won't mean anything to anybody, and you will dilute or even destroy your brand.

Start with something very targeted and then, once you have consolidated your position, think about what else you can offer.

Creating Products for Your Customers

Your best customers for your new offerings will be your existing customers. Once you become successful with your brand you will have the privilege of finding products for your customers instead of having to find customers for your products.

Line Extensions

It is a good idea to create different products at different price levels, since not everybody will be able to afford your best, most expensive products. You may want to start new customers off with a relatively low cost option so that they can get familiar with your brand, and then move them up to more sophisticated products.

I recommend focusing on three different price levels: Good, Better, and Best. By limiting choice to a few, well differentiated options, you eliminate confusion and make the purchasing decision easier. Think of how Spanish wine makers market their wine: they adhere to just three standard denominations based on the quality of the grapes and the timeframe of the aging process: Crianza (Good), Reserva (Better) and Gran Reserva (Best). Simple, and it works.

Brand Partnerships

Partnerships are a great brand building technique especially when your brand is new. By associating your brand to another one in a non-competitive sector you will essentially leverage that brand's attributes in your favor.

Think how car manufacturers partner with luxury brands to create premium versions of their models. Recently, for example, Fiat partnered with Italian luxury goods brand Gucci to offer a version of its successful Fiat 500 in Gucci trim, making it easier to tie their car to the concept of Italian style.

Brand Extensions

Brand extensions happen when you take your brand into new product categories. For brand extensions to be successful there must be some kind of synergy between the core category and the new one.

For example, it’s not much of a stretch for a brand like BMW to go from cars to motorcycles. That brand extension feels natural and credible. Another good brand extension could be a brand of pasta that branches out into pasta sauces.

Licensing

Licensing is probably the most powerful way to leverage your brand. It occurs when you aim your brand at entirely new businesses and distribution channels.

For example, a clothing manufacturer with good penetration in department stores may license a brand like Jeep to develop a line of rugged outdoor clothes. Jeep, in exchange, will receive a royalty and access to a completely different distribution channel, without essentially doing anything and with very low risk.

Licensing will only work, though, when your brand is already well established in the marketplace, and when what it stands for is already widely and easily understood.

Sam's Rules for Building a Business

Tue, 03 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

A few years ago, during a trip to Bentonville, Arkansas, I had the chance to visit Walmart’s first store (originally called Walton’s 5-10), and picked up a leaflet containing Sam Walton’s 10 rules for building a successful business. Pearls of wisdom, straight from the man who built the world’s most successful retailer out of nothing. Since I haven't been able to find a link to it on the Internet, I am transcribing them below (all of them are great, but I especially like #7, #9 and #10):

Rule 1: Commit to your business

Believe in it more than anybody else. I think I overcame every single one of my personal shortcomings by the sheer passion I brought to my work. I don’t know if you’re born with this kind of passion, or if you can learn it. But I do know you need it. If you love your work, you’ll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you — like a fever.

Rule 2: Share your profits with all your associates, and treat them as partners

In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations. Remain a corporation and retain control if you like, but behave as a servant leader in your partnership. Encourage your associates to hold a stake in the company. Offer discounted stock, and grant them stock for their retirement. It’s the single best thing we ever did.

Rule 3: Motivate your partners

Money and ownership alone aren’t enough. Constantly, day by day, think of new and more interesting ways to motivate and challenge your partners. Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score. Make bets with outrageous payoffs. If things get stale, cross-pollinate; have managers switch jobs with one another to stay challenged. Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be. Don’t become too predictable.

Rule 4: Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners

The more they know, the more they’ll understand. The more they understand, the more they’ll care. Once they care, there’s no stopping them. If you don’t trust your associates to know what’s going on, they’ll know you really don’t consider them partners. Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitors.

Rule 5: Appreciate everything your associates do for the business

A paycheck and a stock option will buy one kind of loyalty. But all of us like to be told how much somebody appreciates what we do for them. We like to hear it often, and especially when we have done something we’re really proud of. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They’re absolutely free — and worth a fortune.

Rule 6: Celebrate your success

Find some humor in your failures. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Loosen up, and everybody around you will loosen up. Have fun. Show enthusiasm — always. When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song. Then make everybody else sing with you. Don’t do a hula on Wall Street. It’s been done. Think up your own stunt. All of this is more important, and more fun, than you think, and it really fools competition. “Why should we take those cornballs at Wal-Mart seriously?”

Rule 7: Listen to everyone in your company and figure out ways to get them talking

The folks on the front lines — the ones who actually talk to the customer — are the only ones who really know what’s going on out there. You’d better find out what they know. This really is what total quality is all about. To push responsibility down in your organization, and to force good ideas to bubble up within it, you must listen to what your associates are trying to tell you.

Rule 8: Exceed your customer’s expectations

If you do, they’ll come back over and over. Give them what they want — and a little more. Let them know you appreciate them. Make good on all your mistakes, and don’t make excuses — apologize. Stand behind everything you do. The two most important words I ever wrote were on that first Wal-Mart sign: “Satisfaction Guaranteed.” They’re still up there, and they have made all the difference.

Rule 9: Control your expenses better than your competition

This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. For twenty-five years running — long before Wal-Mart was known as the nation’s largest retailer — we’ve ranked No. 1 in our industry for the lowest ratio of expenses to sales. You can make a lot of different mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you’re too inefficient.

Rule 10: Swim upstream

Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction. But be prepared for a lot of folks to wave you down and tell you you’re headed the wrong way. I guess in all my years, what I heard more often than anything was: a town of less than 50,000 population cannot support a discount store for very long.

How To Use Gmail With Your Own Domain

Wed, 24 Jul 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Many people, including me, use Gmail as their default email client. With Gmail, you can send email from (and receive email at) your own branded domain. For example, instead of using yourname@gmail.com you can use you@yourname.com.

It is not hard to set this up. It just takes a few steps that I will describe below:

Go to any domain registrar (like Godaddy or Namecheap) and register the domain name you want to use.
Then, in your control panel you should be able to find the Email Forwarding feature. This is where you will create your new you@yourname.com email address and forward it to yourname@gmail.com. Note: if you're using Godaddy, this page will give you more details on how to do this.
After you've done that, log on to Gmail, click on Settings > Accounts > Add Another Email Address, and add you@yourname.com to the list.
Click NEXT, and Google will now send you a message to you@yourname.com so you can verify it's yours. Here's the trick: since you already set up email forwarding in step 2 you will receive this email at yourname@gmail.com ;)
Click on the verification link and then go back to Gmail's Accounts tab in the Settings menu. Your new, branded email address should already be listed there. Click on the link that says "make default" next to it, and check the radio button next to "always reply from my default address".

That's it. You should now be ready to use Gmail with your own branded email address. If you want more details, you can visit Gmail's custom domain help page.

The Smoking Room

Tue, 23 Jul 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I'm finally back in Shanghai and about to enter my hotel room. I swipe my key card over the sensor, open the door, and immediately sense a strange smell. I walk in a few steps, take a deep breath and think: "somebody has been smoking in this room".

"Perhaps it's just me", I question myself, as I drop my suitcase and walk toward the opposite side of the room: "No... still cigarette smell", I think. Then I glance at the nightstand and, aha! the proof: an ashtray, and, neatly resting on its edges, a matchbox. They have given me a freaking smoking room.

I take the elevator downstairs. I spot the guy who checked me in (a tall and slim kid in his twenties, perhaps from South East Asia, but definitely not Chinese), walk toward him and throw my key card on the counter: "You gave me a smoking room!" I yell. "I'm sorry sir", he replies, typing furiously as he tries to find me another room, "I thought you asked for a smoking room". "No, I didn't", I answer back. "Sorry about that, sir" he politely apologizes, as he hands me my new key card.

I take the elevator, find my new room and open the door. I walk in, take a deep breath and: perfect! no cigarette smell. I close the door behind me and throw open the curtains to reveal a spectacular view of the nearby park and skyline. Seconds later, as I stand by the window taking in the view, I suddenly ask myself:

"When did I turn into such an asshole?"

Perhaps the guy downstairs really did understand that I wanted a smoking room. After all, this is a hotel and employees have to deal with many different types of confusing accents. Or perhaps it was me who didn't understand correctly. But, most importantly, this kid could have been me 25 years ago, new in a foreign country, trying my best to get ahead, having to deal with customers all day from behind a counter.

That's when I decided to go back and apologize.

I take the elevator back down and stand in line, since the lobby is now packed with people waiting to check in. After a couple of minutes I hear a voice next to me: "is your new room OK, sir?". The kid had spotted me standing in line and had come out to check on me. "The room? oh, yes, the room, the room is just great", I tell him, still surprised to see him there. "Listen", I keep telling him, "sorry that I yelled at you before, and thank you for being so diligent in taking care of the problem". Then I shake his hand as he replies: "no problem, no problem, I'm glad everything turned out OK, sir", before going back to his station.

It is said that as years go by we get more impatient. I wonder, though, if impatient is the right word, or if what we really become is more selfish and entitled. Could it be possible that years of accumulating possessions and fancy titles can make us forget where we come from, and turn us into insufferable jerks ready to go off when our wine is not at the right temperature, the food we just picked up for dinner messes up our new car smell or a young couple with active young children sits too close to us on a plane?

I hope not, but even in those cases when it seems it has, we can't change the past just by wishing we had acted differently. What we can do, though, is to remember all those times when those we mistreated reacted with more grace and elegance than us and pay it forward.

Tu Marca Personal

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Mucho se ha escrito sobre el concepto de marca personal. A juzgar por gran parte del material que se puede encontrar en Internet, podría pensarse que se trata de un concepto superficial y frívolo. Por ello, en los párrafos que siguen intentare plasmar mi opinión sobre el tema y explicar por que es importante.

Un Poco de Historia

El concepto de branding personal no es nuevo. Existió siempre, aunque muchas veces confundido entre conceptos parecidos, como reputación, experiencia y personalidad.

Fue el autor norteamericano Tom Peters en su ya clásico artículo The Brand Called You (aparecido en la revista Fast Company en Agosto de 1997) el primero en definirlo formalmente.

En su artículo, Peters afirma que la única manera de lograr diferenciarnos como profesionales en un mundo cada vez más competitivo es manejando nuestra carrera como las grandes empresas manejan las marcas de sus productos.

¿Qué es el Branding Personal?

Branding personal es el proceso de definir con precisión qué nos hace diferentes, de especificar como esa diferencia se traduce en un beneficio relevante para nuestra clientela o audiencia, y de comunicar ese beneficio de manera clara, concisa y efectiva.

El branding personal nos permite romper el paradigma tradicional de tener que adaptarnos a las diferentes oportunidades que se nos presentan (llámese un empleo o un proyecto), y nos da la pauta para saber si esas oportunidades son realmente compatibles con nosotros.

Un proceso de branding personal bien ejecutado hará que las oportunidades correctas vengan a nosotros en lugar de nosotros tener que perseguirlas.

El branding personal implica también actuar con una visión a largo plazo. No podemos reinventarnos todos los días. Cada una de nuestras acciones contribuye a que acumulemos (o perdamos) brand equity, y sus consecuencias se dejarán sentir por mucho tiempo.

En Favor del Branding Personal

Hay quienes dicen que el branding personal es un enfoque simplista que ignora la complejidad de nuestra condición humana y nos reduce a la categoría de objetos.

Nada podría estar más lejos de la realidad.

Esa complejidad, mezcla única de nuestros talentos, valores, relaciones, experiencias y preferencias personales es precisamente lo que nos hace diferentes. No se trata entonces de ignorar nuestra complejidad, sino de definirla de tal manera que nos ayude a comunicar el valor que solamente nosotros podemos ofrecer.

No asumir la responsabilidad de construir nuestra marca personal es dejar que se nos defina a través de descripciones de trabajo genéricas e impersonales, y que nos convirtamos en commodities.

Comunicando Tu Marca Personal

Las mejores marcas personales son capaces de comunicar lo que representan en muy pocas palabras. Un ejemplo es el candidato (y hoy presidente de los Estados Unidos) Barack Obama quien logró definirse con una sola palabra: Cambio (Change).

Una manera efectiva de comunicar tu marca personal es a través de una declaración de misión.

Contrariamente a lo que ocurre en el mundo corporativo, donde la declaración de misión es por lo general una insulsa colección de clichés acuñados por algún gurú de moda, la declaración de misión puede ser una herramienta muy útil si se redacta con pocas palabras simples.

Por ejemplo “lograr que de cada dos alumnos uno vaya a la universidad” es una declaración de misión mucho más poderosa que “sinergizar esfuerzos para que mediante el uso de tecnología de punta maximicemos el potencial intrínseco del educando”.

Otra herramienta muy útil es la llamada frase de elevador, una especie de comercial para tu marca personal que debes poder exponer en alrededor de 15 segundos. Con esta corta frase debes poder presentarte (dar tu nombre); explicar a que te dedicas; cual es el valor de lo que ofreces o que te hace especial y diferente; y sugerir un próximo paso (que podría ser simplemente la manera de comunicarse contigo).

Es útil también confeccionar una lista de tres a cinco adjetivos que te definan. ¿Qué palabras quisieras que vengan automáticamente a la mente de todos aquellos que escuchan tu nombre? Piensa en adjetivos con connotaciones positivas y que establezcan una diferencia importante.

Más Allá del Curriculum Vitae

Si bien todavía es necesario, el curriculum vitae ya no es suficiente. En estas épocas, una estrategia de branding personal que no aproveche las poderosas herramientas que nos brinda la Internet está condenada al fracaso.

Hoy, si no estás en Google no existes.

65% de los usuarios de Internet confían en un motor de búsqueda para conseguir la información deseada: ¿Qué encontrarán cuando escriban tu nombre? ¿Qué encontrarán cuando escriban tu especialidad y tu ciudad? ¿Te encontrarán, o encontrarán a tus competidores?

Si bien hay muchas maneras de influenciar éticamente los resultados de un motor de búsqueda, una de las más comunes es registrar tu dominio y crear una crear una página web sencilla. También es muy efectivo llenar perfiles en las principales redes sociales, y llenar un perfil en Google. Estos perfiles tienden a ser muy bien catalogados por los motores de búsqueda.

El Poder de los Blogs y las Redes Sociales

Los blogs y las redes sociales (los llamados social media) han roto las barreras de entrada que nos separaban de nuestro mercado objetivo. Estas herramientas (muchas de ellas gratuitas o de bajo costo) han permitido que quienes éramos antes simples espectadores ahora podamos tomar control del escenario.

Los medios tradicionales como los diarios, la televisión y la radio ya no son la única manera en que podemos consumir y diseminar información.

La publicidad tradicional atraviesa por una grave crisis de credibilidad, y con justa razón. Nada más cabe plantearse la pregunta: ¿Qué tiene más peso: lo que tú digas de tí mismo, o lo que otros digan de ti?

La respuesta es obvia, y explica por que cada vez menos gente depende de la publicidad para tomar una decisión de compra y cada vez más en recomendaciones de amigos, potenciadas de exponencialmente por las redes sociales.

Gracias a los blogs ahora contamos con una plataforma de alcance global e instantáneo para expresar y difundir nuestras ideas, así como también interactuar con quienes nos visitan. Un blog es quizás la mejor herramienta disponible para comunicar nuestra marca personal.

Redes como LinkedIn permiten relacionarnos con otros profesionales y construir nuestra red de contactos de una manera fácil y rápida. Por medio de LinkedIn podemos acceder a oportunidades que de otra manera no se nos hubiesen presentado.

A través de YouTube podemos tener un canal propio para difundir nuestras ideas, presentaciones, entrevistas y comentarios. Slideshare nos permite compartir nuestras presentaciones con nuestra audiencia.

Otras herramientas importantes para comunicar tu marca personal son Twitter, para compartir enlaces y opiniones breves, y Facebook, para compartir comentarios, fotografías, videos y aplicaciones, o para construir una página para nuestra empresa, producto o servicio.

Las posibilidades que nos brinda la Internet para construir y comunicar nuestra marca personal están limitadas sólo por nuestra imaginación y por el tiempo y esfuerzo que deseemos invertirle.

Tu Personalidad: La Cereza de la Torta

Una de las primeras preguntas que surge cuando uno resalta la importancia de crear nuestra marca personal y participar activamente en las redes sociales es: ¿Para qué? ¿A quién le importa mi opinión, lo que me gusta, o lo que estoy haciendo?

Pues, a todos…

Vivimos en una época en que los atributos técnicos, si bien siguen siendo importantes, ya no son suficientes para diferenciarnos. Probablemente hayan, sólo en tu ciudad, miles de profesionales (dentistas, abogados, contadores, etc.) técnicamente capacitados para hacer su trabajo bien.

Esta abundancia de opciones nos da la prerrogativa de trabajar sólo con personas que compartan nuestros valores, nuestras aficiones, nuestras prioridades y nuestra manera de ver las cosas (personas que, como se dice comúnmente, “nos caigan bien”).

Nuestra personalidad y nuestras experiencias personales son la sazón que le da al plato de nuestra marca personal su sabor único y característico.

El exceso de formalidad, y la separación de la vida profesional de la personal son cosa del pasado. Lo que la gente quiere saber para trabajar contigo es quien eres realmente, y cuales son tus historias.