Interview With The Agent: Tony Dutt (NBA)
via Sports Agent Blog
Tony Dutt is the President of Dutt Sports Services, Inc. (DSSI), a basketball agency based in The Woodlands, Texas. DSSI’s website’s catchy phrase states, “With Dutt, it’s a done deal.” Dutt has negotiated deals for many NBA players, including Marcus Camby, Rashard Lewis, Raymond Felton, and Brandon Bass. Throughout his career, Dutt has secured hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts on behalf of his clients. Dutt represents three players selected in the 2011 NBA Draft – Markieff Morris, Marcus Morris, and Tyler Honeycutt. Interestingly, he represents them in conjunction with a new company named Rival Sports Group. I recently interviewed Dutt about his relationship with Rival Sports Group, his start in the industry, and many more topics. The result of that interview is below. Darren Heitner: What enticed you to become a basketball agent, and where did you originally get your start? Tony Dutt: I started in 1985. I worked with Bill Blakley in Dallas. We signed Karl Malone, Joe Dumars, and Spud Webb. Darren Heitner: At what point in time did you create your own agency, Dutt Sports Services? What has been the most rewarding and toughest part of running your own company? Tony Dutt: I started Dutt Sports Services, Inc. (DSSI) in 1990. A really good friend of mine and one of the founders of DHL, Bill Robinson, was discussing what I did and he asked me how much money I would need to start my own company. We agreed upon an amount and he loaned me the money to start DSSI, and I’m proud to say I was able to pay him back. Bill Robinson is still a very close friend and is the Godfather to my two kids. Darren Heitner: Have you ever represented any professional athletes in anything other than basketball? Do you have any future plans to expand your agency to include other divisions? Tony Dutt: Yes, with the first firm I worked with I was able to do football and baseball as well. Mark Adicks was an offensive tackle from Baylor who we worked with. He told us he wanted to be a surgeon. Fast forward to about a year ago and I was talking to a doctor friend of mine, and he told me about an orthopedic surgeon that was working in the medical center. Well it was Mark Adicks, who is now the person I use for myself and my clients. I am working on expanding DSSI. Darren Heitner: I noted that you are working in conjunction with a start-up agency titled, Rival Sports Group, to represent the Morris twins from Kansas and Tyler Honeycutt from UCLA. How did you form a relationship with Rival Sports Group? What does the relationship entail? Tony Dutt: I am working with Rival Sports Group as a Consultant. I handle all basketball contracts for the company. I must say that so many people try to get into this business and spend alot of money and usually do not succeed for one reason or another, as it is extreamly competitive. I have spent 25 plus years building relationships with owners, general managers, coaches, etc., and I go back to TRUST – it’s developed over time. Rival Sports Group has a lot of business success along with really good people working with them, and I’m really excited about the relationship going forward. Darren Heitner: Marcus Spears of Yahoo! Sports first reported that the Morris twins were close with a man named Jason Martin. Who is Jason Martin, and how are the two of you connected, if at all? Tony Dutt: Jason Martin works for Rival Sports Group and has been involved in basketball his whole life. He truly cares for the clients he works with, and has been successful in business outside of working with players. Jason and I are getting to know each other better as we spend more time together. Darren Heitner: Let’s talk about another one of your clients – Rashard Lewis. A lot of people are talking about how he has the worst NBA contract (which means that you actually did a great job in the negotiation). What do you say to anyone who is calling Lewis’ contract atrocious? Tony Dutt: First let me say that I really feel Rashard is worth every penny. In doing any deal, the one thing that I try to do find is a “fit,” meaning, where can a player have the biggest impact if a free agent is considering leaving his current team, and I do a really in-depth calculation as to where a client will fit. Rashard was a perfect fit in Orlando. If you look back, when you have someone like Dwight in the middle, they needed someone to spread the floor and someone who could shoot the three and drive to the basket and create his own shot. Orlando had given up two first round picks to Detroit for a big man, so I knew I had to be well prepared to give them an option in Rashard. And don’t forget, they did get to the finals. I think sometimes teams forget the importance of keeping a team together, but it’s also hard for GMs under the cap to keep players together. And I personally would rather be overpaid than underpaid. Darren Heitner: Other than Lewis and the 2011 Draft class, you have a lot of big name players with very large contracts. Do you also handle your clients’ marketing in-house or do you work with particular marketing agencies out of house? What are some of the more creative deals you have negotiated? Tony Dutt: I would like to think that all my deals are creative. We do a lot of marketing in-house, but we also use outside marketing groups as long as it benefits the player. Darren Heitner: Are any of your clients considering playing overseas based on the presence of an NBA Lockout? If so, which players and where are they thinking about playing? Tony Dutt: We are always looking for jobs overseas, again by having years of experience, we know the market, but there are so many issues overseas that have to be considered because of players having problems getting payed, the city, etc. You have to look at it as a case-by-case situation. Darren Heitner: What piece(s) of advice would you give to someone who is looking to break in as a basketball agent or break into another part of the basketball industry. Tony Dutt: It has always been a tough business to break into. Getting an internship or working in a certain area like local marketing deals – anything to get your foot in the door – is important. And it’s important to know that it’s a lot harder than people think, but if you have the right game plan and are willing to work long hours and do it the honest way, you can succeed. There are no shortcuts. Read more posts on Sports Agent Blog »
Colin Powell's Rules for Leadership
I found these to be quite useful...
General Colin Powell's Rules for Leadership
1. It ain't as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning.2. Get mad, then get over it.
3. Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your
position falls, your ego goes with it.
4. It can be done!
5. Be careful what you choose. You may get it.
6. Don't let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision.
7. You can't make someone else's choices. You shouldn't let someone
else make yours.
8. Check small things.
9. Share credit.
10. Remain calm. Be kind.
11. Have a vision. Be demanding.
12. Don't take counsel of your fears or naysayers.
13. Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.
Game Changer: Everything You Need to Know About Google+
Seeking Alpha
Three weeks ago Google (GOOG) launched a new social networking product, Google+, on a limited invitation only basis. In this article I am going to discuss the implications Google+ will have for Google’s future business and provide some key insights into why it is important.
During Google’s earnings call last Thursday 14 July, Larry Page announced that in its first two weeks of limited release 10 million people have joined Google+ and have been sharing over 1 billion items per day. Incidentally Larry Page, who is enjoying a stupendous first quarter as the company’s new CEO, also posted a transcript of his announcement on Google+ which has subsequently been shared by Google+ users 1,000 times and +1’ed nearly 10,000 times (more on that in a minute). For the quarter Google’s revenue is up 32% year over year and has set a new record for quarterly revenue at over $9 billion. On the news Google shares shot up nearly 13%.
According to Page, “[Google’s] goal with Google+ is to make sharing on the web like sharing in real life, as well as to improve the overall Google experience.” While a lot of press has been devoted to Google+ as a challenger to Facebook and Twitter, Page had additional words that may indicate that the company hasn’t lost any competitive focus on Apple either. “Google+ is also a great example of another focus of mine--beautiful products that are simple and intuitive to use and was actually was one of the first products to contain our new visual redesign,” he said.
Preceding the launch of Google+, last quarter the company also launched the +1 button in search results and ads -- enabling users to recommend stuff they liked, and have those recommendations show up in the search results of people they know. The +1 button is often compared to the Facebook “Like” button however the message is intended to be slightly different. This quarter, the +1 button was launched to the entire web, and many sites like Huffington Post, the Washington Post (WPO), and Best Buy (BBY) have added +1 buttons. Today the +1 button is all over the web and is being served 2.3 billion times per day.
(Click to enlarge)
Soon enough I imagine the SeekingAlpha webmasters will add the +1 button right alongside the LinkedIn Share button at the top of each article. You can also follow me on Google+ to stay up-to-date on the latest market news and innovations.
Beyond the extension of Google’s service offering, Page also announced that the company has 550,000 Android Devices activated each day. The Android platform has quickly caught pace with the Apple (AAPL) iOS platform on smartphones, although it still holds less than half the market share of iOS when you include tablet and iPod sales. These growth numbers are nothing to be scoffed at however, especially when you consider that Android’s market share has risen from around 5% in January 2009 to 20% in May 2010 while iOS has drop from 75% to 59% in the same time period. Additionally, Google’s Chrome browser is also the fastest growing browser on the market now with over 160 million users.
Source: BrightEdge Research, "Social Share Report," July 2011.
What this means for Google and Google users is:
- Growth – Google’s reach of influence is rapidly expanding and becoming increasingly integral to a greater scope of even more people’s lives. Their user base is increasing and Google has a proven track record of monetizing their users.
- Personalization – as users and those in their network use Google+ and the +1 button search will become increasingly personalized. This means that my search results will not always match your search results eventually creating a significant product advantage that is not easily replicated by competitors. This is already happening.
- Integration – the ties that connect the user experience between Google search, Gmail, Google+, and Android as well as Google’s other products will become more seamlessly bound. This is already apparent for users of the Android OS. Integration creates brand loyalty and stickiness which drastically increases switching costs.
(Click to enlarge)
Footnotes: 1.) The figure for Google users refers to the number of unique monthly search users, which doesn't reflect all the people that see its ads and use its services. 2.) The figure for Groupon users refers to reported "cumulative customers" in 2010. 3.) The figure for active Zynga users refers to "monthly unique users" from October through December 2010. 4.) The figure for active Twitter users refers to a recent report from Business Insider that found that only 21 million Twitter users follow 32 or more accounts. Twitter considers an "active" user to be someone who is following 30 accounts, with a third of those accounts following back. 5.) Revenue figures for Facebook and Twitter are based on estimates from eMarketer, a research firm. 6.) Revenue figures for Zynga and Groupon come from their IPO filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Source: “How much is a user worth?” Technology Review India, MIT, 12 July 2011.
Furthermore, as Google stampedes down the road of expansion their M&A activity is going to increase. Earlier this month at the Sun Valley conference in Idaho, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt explainedhis expectation for an explosion of startups built around the Google+ platform:
“You could image the scenario where the social platform is so successful that you’ve got startups that are building on top of Google + that are so incredibly sexy and exciting that we would pay top dollar very fast … That’s a great scenario because then you know you’re winning.”
According to Schmidt, Google M&A made the decision last year to accelerate the acquisitions of companies below the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act threshold, or the amount that is subject to FTC notification requirements and a waiting period (currently $66 million and 30 days). Google is targeting companies such as Punchd that they are acquiring for around $10 million, versus AdMeld for $400 million, in order to fill gaps in their broader development strategy. Schmidt emphasized that M&A at Google is driven from the bottom up, “A product manager that has a problem and [needs to] solve that problem” is the impetus for many potential acquisitions.
All signs point to an increased rate of growth. As Google continues to propagate a progressively more dedicated, integrated, and subsequently monetized customer base, Google+ is going to provide the fuel for rapid acceleration. To anyone standing in their way: look out.
Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.
Nine Things Successful People Do Differently
From Harvard Business Review
Why have you been so successful in reaching some of your goals, but not others? If you aren't sure, you are far from alone in your confusion. It turns out that even brilliant, highly accomplished people are pretty lousy when it comes to understanding why they succeed or fail. The intuitive answer — that you are born predisposed to certain talents and lacking in others — is really just one small piece of the puzzle. In fact, decades of research on achievement suggests that successful people reach their goals not simply because of who they are, but more often because of what they do. 1. Get specific. When you set yourself a goal, try to be as specific as possible. "Lose 5 pounds" is a better goal than "lose some weight," because it gives you a clear idea of what success looks like. Knowing exactly what you want to achieve keeps you motivated until you get there. Also, think about the specific actions that need to be taken to reach your goal. Just promising you'll "eat less" or "sleep more" is too vague — be clear and precise. "I'll be in bed by 10pm on weeknights" leaves no room for doubt about what you need to do, and whether or not you've actually done it. To seize the moment, decide when and where you will take each action you want to take, in advance. Again, be as specific as possible (e.g., "If it's Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, I'll work out for 30 minutes before work.") Studies show that this kind of planning will help your brain to detect and seize the opportunity when it arises, increasing your chances of success by roughly 300%. 3. Know exactly how far you have left to go. Achieving any goal also requires honest and regular monitoring of your progress — if not by others, then by you yourself. If you don't know how well you are doing, you can't adjust your behavior or your strategies accordingly. Check your progress frequently — weekly, or even daily, depending on the goal. Fortunately, decades of research suggest that the belief in fixed ability is completely wrong — abilities of all kinds are profoundly malleable. Embracing the fact that you can change will allow you to make better choices, and reach your fullest potential. People whose goals are about getting better, rather than being good, take difficulty in stride, and appreciate the journey as much as the destination. The good news is, if you aren't particularly gritty now, there is something you can do about it. People who lack grit more often than not believe that they just don't have the innate abilities successful people have. If that describes your own thinking .... well, there's no way to put this nicely: you are wrong. As I mentioned earlier, effort, planning, persistence, and good strategies are what it really takes to succeed. Embracing this knowledge will not only help you see yourself and your goals more accurately, but also do wonders for your grit. 7. Build your willpower muscle. Your self-control "muscle" is just like the other muscles in your body — when it doesn't get much exercise, it becomes weaker over time. But when you give it regular workouts by putting it to good use, it will grow stronger and stronger, and better able to help you successfully reach your goals. To build willpower, take on a challenge that requires you to do something you'd honestly rather not do. Give up high-fat snacks, do 100 sit-ups a day, stand up straight when you catch yourself slouching, try to learn a new skill. When you find yourself wanting to give in, give up, or just not bother — don't. Start with just one activity, and make a plan for how you will deal with troubles when they occur ("If I have a craving for a snack, I will eat one piece of fresh or three pieces of dried fruit.") It will be hard in the beginning, but it will get easier, and that's the whole point. As your strength grows, you can take on more challenges and step-up your self-control workout. 8. Don't tempt fate. No matter how strong your willpower muscle becomes, it's important to always respect the fact that it is limited, and if you overtax it you will temporarily run out of steam. Don't try to take on two challenging tasks at once, if you can help it (like quitting smoking and dieting at the same time). And don't put yourself in harm's way — many people are overly-confident in their ability to resist temptation, and as a result they put themselves in situations where temptations abound. Successful people know not to make reaching a goal harder than it already is.
2. Seize the moment to act on your goals. Given how busy most of us are, and how many goals we are juggling at once, it's not surprising that we routinely miss opportunities to act on a goal because we simply fail to notice them. Did you really have no time to work out today? No chance at any point to return that phone call? Achieving your goal means grabbing hold of these opportunities before they slip through your fingers.
4. Be a realistic optimist. When you are setting a goal, by all means engage in lots of positive thinking about how likely you are to achieve it. Believing in your ability to succeed is enormously helpful for creating and sustaining your motivation. But whatever you do, don't underestimate how difficult it will be to reach your goal. Most goals worth achieving require time, planning, effort, and persistence. Studies show that thinking things will come to you easily and effortlessly leaves you ill-prepared for the journey ahead, and significantly increases the odds of failure.
5. Focus on getting better, rather than being good. Believing you have the ability to reach your goals is important, but so is believing you can get the ability. Many of us believe that our intelligence, our personality, and our physical aptitudes are fixed — that no matter what we do, we won't improve. As a result, we focus on goals that are all about proving ourselves, rather than developing and acquiring new skills.
6. Have grit. Grit is a willingness to commit to long-term goals, and to persist in the face of difficulty. Studies show that gritty people obtain more education in their lifetime, and earn higher college GPAs. Grit predicts which cadets will stick out their first grueling year at West Point. In fact, grit even predicts which round contestants will make it to at the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
If you want change your ways, ask yourself, What will I do instead? For example, if you are trying to gain control of your temper and stop flying off the handle, you might make a plan like "If I am starting to feel angry, then I will take three deep breaths to calm down." By using deep breathing as a replacement for giving in to your anger, your bad habit will get worn away over time until it disappears completely.
It is my hope that, after reading about the nine things successful people do differently, you have gained some insight into all the things you have been doing right all along. Even more important, I hope are able to identify the mistakes that have derailed you, and use that knowledge to your advantage from now on. Remember, you don't need to become a different person to become a more successful one. It's never what you are, but what you do.
Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D. is a motivational psychologist, and author of the new book Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals (Hudson Street Press, 2011). She is also an expert blogger on motivation and leadership for Fast Company and Psychology Today. Her personal blog, The Science of Success, can be found at www.heidigranthalvorson.com. Follow her on Twitter@hghalvorson
"10 Advertising Terms You'll Be Hearing For Years" So Learn Them Now via @sai
Last decade's CPM and CTR (cost per 1,000 impressions, and click-through rate) are old news. Now we have DSPs, RTB, retargeting, and other gibberish-sounding -- but important -- terms to get straight. If you work anywhere near online advertising, you're going to be hearing many of these terms for a long time. So now's a good time to get a handle on them. Image: Business Insider In this model, ad buyers can be more selective and specific about which ad impressions they want to buy, even based on things like what is known about the person who is loading the website. For publishers, the promise is higher ad rates -- and potentially, reducing the cost of ad sales. Image: Business Insider In the case of online advertising, the "supply" is the advertising inventory that's available on websites, and the "demand" is from advertisers who want to place their ads. A "demand-side" platform, therefore, is the dashboard of sorts used by advertisers (and their agencies) to engage in ad buying, including real-time bidding. It includes targeting, campaign management tools, reporting, and more features. (More details here.) Image: Business Insider The objective, of course, is to get more money for each ad impression delivered. Image: Business Insider As advertising placements become more automated and data-driven, the big agency holding companies have set up "trading desk" corporations to move their clients' money around. The skeptic's take is that this is allowing agencies to "double dip" advertisers -- charging them once for the agency services, and another time for the "trading desk" services. Image: Business Insider A private exchange allows a publisher (or group of publishers) to sell into real-time bidding and/or agency trading desk systems by invitation only. The idea is to open up some of these new ad products to publishers without just letting anyone in. The goal, of course, is to sell ads for more money, keep out the riff-raff, make themselves look more important, etc. Image: Business Insider They can try to win you back by "retargeting" their ads at you on another site. The first few times you experience this, it seems like a bizarre coincidence, or maybe even a little creepy. But it makes sense. If you were on their site in the first place, you're probably at least a little interested in what they have to offer. Perhaps they can close the deal a second time. Image: Business Insider This can be as simple as serving up a male- or female-targeted version of the ad if it knows your gender, or a geographically customized version if it knows your city (or favorite sports team?) or as complex as including your name in the ad. Image: Business Insider One concept is geofencing: The idea that a virtual boundary, or "fence" is set up around a particular location. If you enter the geofence area, you may qualify for a discount or promotion. This is the basis for the age-old mobile advertising cliché: Walk past a Starbucks, and you'll get a coupon beamed to your phone for $1 off a cup of coffee. Several companies are now working to make that a reality, though it's still not proven that people actually want that. Image: Business Insider So the industry is adopting a new technology called HTML5, which allows for multimedia (or "rich media") content and ads without Flash. As advertising, apps, and content converge on mobile devices, connected TVs, and on the web, agencies are going to be doing a lot of work with HTML5. Image: Business Insider This is possible with e-commerce. But most commerce isn't e-commerce. Offline, it used to mean clipping out and redeeming coupons (something that is trendy again thanks to companies like Groupon). But as mobile payments develop, advertisers could be getting new ways to "close the loop." For example, technology called "near-field communication" could soon allow people to make payments with their cellphone -- just by touching it to a sensor -- and simultaneously close the loop for advertisers.A new wave of online advertising technologies means a new bunch of acronyms and other jargon to learn.
Real-time bidding (RTB)
In a real-time bidding system, each ad impression is sold off to the highest bidder in real-time, as someone's browser loads an ad unit.
Demand-side platform (DSP)
In a market, there is supply and there is demand.
Supply-side platform (SSP)
A supply-side platform is a tool used by web publishers to plug into demand-side platforms, real-time bidding, and other advertising systems.
Agency trading desk
Madison Avenue has found a solution for its Wall Street envy.
Private exchange
It's the advertising equivalent of a fancy party with a guest list.
Retargeting
Did you visit a website but didn't buy anything? Or didn't sign up for a newsletter, or some other thing the website owner wanted you to do?
Dynamic creative
If ad systems are smart enough to serve up a specific advertiser's ad to you, based on your likelihood of finding it useful, why shouldn't they be able to customize the way the ad looks for you, too?
Geofencing
Ad companies have big hopes for location-based advertising, especially on mobile devices.
HTML5
Most online advertising with multimedia -- video, animations, audio, etc. -- uses Adobe's Flash plugin to display it. But most mobile devices, including Apple's iPhone and iPad, don't support Adobe Flash.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/future-of-advertising-glossary-2011-7?op=1#ixzz1SH0obLsrClosing the loop
This is the holy grail for advertisers: Knowing that someone bought something because they saw an ad somewhere.
Not What, Not How, But WHY...
Simon Sinek @TED... worth watching...
http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html
The Innovation Secret: How to Repeatedly Innovate
By Nathan Furr
Most innovators don’t know the secret of success. In my recent post, I quoted Bob Metcalfe, inventor of the Ethernet, when he stated that ““most successful entrepreneurs I’ve met have no idea about the reasons for their success. My success was a mystery to me then, and only a little less so now.” I asked the question: why does innovation see so hard. Let me explain a little now.
”It Took Me 25 Years to Unlearn What I Thought I Knew”
Last week at the Startup Lessons Learned Conference in San Francisco, I heard Mitch Kapor, the legendary founder of Lotus 1-2-3 (the spreadsheet software that transformed personal computing) say the same thing. Mitch humbly acknowledged that his success at Lotus was completely atypical of any startup (Lotus sold over $50M in software the first year). In the meeting, Mitch confessed that although he thought he understood how to innovate, it took him 25 years to “unlearn” all the mistaken lessons he learned by getting lucky.
So What Is the Secret to Repeated Innovation?
Innovation shouldn’t be so hard and although we often ascribe successful innovation to the person, the truth is we should be looking more closely at the process. How did these innovators stumble on their innovation? On occasion they are lucky but more often big innovations come from spending time understanding how customers struggle with a fundamental problem. For example, although Mitch suggested that Lotus was born a success, he admitted a few interesting facts. First, before founding Lotus, Mitch, who was unemployed at the time, spent an immense amount of time hanging around customers in retail computer stores. He heard the customers talk about how they used computers and their frustration with the existing spreadsheet solutions–they just wanted software that was easier to use and more powerful. He also picked up the vibe around the emergent PC as a potential exciting new technology. Lastly, he brought a new perspective to the problem, recognizing that there might be a way to use the unique capabilities of a PC to improve existing spreadsheets. When Lotus conducted a demo of their product concept at Comdex, they landed $1M in orders in a single day for a product that wasn’t even built yet.
It’s the Process: Reducing Your Innovation Risk
So why couldn’t Mitch repeat his success until recently? Primarily because he didn’t recognize the process that made him successful in the first place. Mitch confessed that he was a Lean Startup “fanboy” because it describes the process to reduce your risk when you innovate. The process focuses on creating a learning loop of Build-Measure-Learn to quickly validate your innovations in the market.
The goal is to discover what to build before you waste your time and money. So how do you do it? First, you identify your most critical assumptions (usually around what problem you are trying to solve), you develop the minimum product that will allow you to learn about that assumption, and then you test it with customers to find out if what you believe is true. I’ll illustrate with a few examples in my next post and dive deeper into what you actually should do. The important thing is not the exact steps in the loop but the focus on the process of learning while you validate your assumptions. Mitch and I have talked off-line in a number of contexts, including when he was running Foxmarks and the more experience he has, the more he emphasizes the need to validate your assumptions.
Lean Startups Are Not about Saving Money–They Are About Avoiding Waste
Lean Startups represent one approach to solving the mystery of repeated innovation by helping you find out what customers will actually buy. Contrary to what it may sound like, Lean Startups are not about doing things cheaply but instead focus on quickly discovering where you are right and where you are wrong so that you have more time to change. All ventures have limited resources and so how to efficiently use these resources to discover what to build before you run out of time and money is the key challenge.
What industry (that you're probably not paying attention to) generated $125B in revenue in 2010?
In case you haven't noticed (and I didn't until a few months ago), direct selling (or network marketing) companies are booming!
Recently there was an insert in the Wall St. Journal titled, "The Ultimate Social Business Model". (Link here) It was quite eye opening...
Did you realize that from March 2009 to May 2011, the top 7 publicly traded direct selling companies averaged a 268 percent increase in stock price. In 2010, direct selling companies generated over $125 billion in revenue in 150 countries involving more than 75 million men and women. OK, go ahead, pick up your jaw!
The products and services sold by these companies range across such diverse categories as cosmetics, financial planning services, home decorating, home improvement and solutions, energy services, personal- care, health and wellness, apparel and accessories, legal services and fine wines.
As the current economic crisis continues to take a toll on people around the world and unemployment rates steadily rise, direct selling may be the answer to a shrinking job market. There is little question why financial notables like Cramer, Warren Buffett, Ray Chambers and Suze Orman have touted businesses based on direct selling.
In 2009 there were over 16 million people are involved in direct selling in the US alone. While a few direct sellers work at their businesses full time, about 90 percent work part time to supplement their income. Some 80 percent of direct sellers are women, and almost all say they appreciate the schedule flexibility and low cost of starting their business.
Top 5 Reasons People Consider a Direct Selling Business
Be Your Own Boss—You are in complete control of how you invest your time and how you go about building your business.
Save Time and Money—As an independent business owner, you purchase the products you love at discounts and you operate all activities from your home.
Expand Your Circle of Friends—Direct selling business opportunities are based on building relationships. When building a direct selling business, customers and other team members appear to quickly become important and rewarding aspects to one’s life.
Be Recognized and Rewarded for Achievement—It’s not every day that an adult receives praise for an effort well done, but direct selling companies recognize and reward their independent business owners through bonuses, trips and prizes. This is an essential component to the business model.
Build Income—The direct selling compensation model offered by most companies allows the building of organizations that have the potential to create incomes beyond those earned from the personal selling/servicing efforts of the direct seller.
Curious which firm I invested in? Ask me, I'll tell you.
tom at tomcuthbert dot com
"Do you think Facebook is worth $100 billion?" Me neither...
... and neither do 89% of people that took this WSJ.com poll.
But then, what do I know? (no need to rush to agreement!) Facebook is a great execution of an awesome concept. It is a useful site and an interesting company. Obviously, since there are now only seven people on the planet who are NOT on Facebook (yes mom, I am talking about you!), the reach and targeting capabilities are incredible. Online advertising (especially display) is growing fast. Facebook is hot and clearly on a roll.
But is it worth $100 billion dollars? The Wall St. Journal has a fasciniating look at various perspectives.
"PayPal Predicts The End of the Wallet By 2015" via @mashable
Great news!! I personally don't like to carry a wallet. NFC technology will help enable this along with QR codes (ie Starbucks app).
Now if we can just get rid of pennies, barking dogs and Laker fans... :)
PayPal has just hit a new milestone: The payments platform has more than 100 million active accounts. The news, announced by PayPal President Scott Thompson, also comes with a bold prediction: By 2015, the wallet will become a thing of the past. “As the trend toward digital currency continues to gain momentum, we are focused on delivering solutions that are not just new and different, but better than what is currently the norm today,” Thompson said in a blog post. “We believe that by 2015 digital currency will be accepted everywhere in the U.S. -– from your local corner store to Walmart. We will no longer need to carry a wallet.” To back his assertion, PayPal is launching a new campaign that will challenge five Bay area residents to only use digital currency to pay for all of their purchases — no cash allowed. It’s an intriguing campaign that could become a good marketing tool for the company. PayPal has been on a tear in recent years, generating more and more of eBay’s total net revenues and profits. The company is expected to facilitate more than $3 billion in mobile transactions this year alone. The payments company faces some powerful challengers, though. Google recently unveiled its mobile payment solution, Google Wallet, to the world. PayPal has sued the search giant, accusing two of PayPal’s former executives (now with Google) of stealing and sharing trade secrets.
Facebook Planning to Release an iPad App (finally!)
Posted by Naveen Kar Facebook has already offered app for the iPhone but is still lagging behind in terms of producing any app for the iPad. As a result, iPad users have no option but to use third-party apps or continue using Facebook’s regular website. According to reports from New York Times, Facebook has already spent a year in the making of new iPad app. The app will come equipped with new functionality for Facebook Chat and Groups, in addition to offering a completely unique experience for the users for photo and video usage. The new app will let you directly upload photos and video in the app and see them as a full screen view and at full resolution. There are also reports of Facebook having plans for an HTML 5 web app for iOS devices as well as a new iPad-optimized website. According to these reports, this new site will not be replacing the Facebook’s iOS apps but act as a ‘supplement’ to it.
Facebook is planning to release an iPad app with “slick design” soon, reports PCWorld.
The History of Email (formerly e-mail) via @mashable
In its 40-year tenure as a form of communication, email has run its course from the domain of über nerdy computer scientists to one of the most common ways to keep in touch, both personally and professionally. Although email as a mode of communication was around for ten years before the term “email” was actually coined, we now count on it in our daily lives. In fact, the use of email has become so pervasive that the Oxford English Dictionary recently added a slew of email acronyms to its official canon. And finally, just this year, the AP Stylebook, a.k.a. the holy book of all (or most) journalists, amended the spelling of e-mail to email, allowing articles such as this one to save bigtime on hyphens.
Groupon And Living Social Are "Gorillas Among Ants"
While the daily deals space is increasingly crowded, Groupon and LivingSocial are "Gorillas among ants," says comScore.
As you can see in today's chart the gap between Groupon and LivingSocial and the rest of the deals sites is huge. (This is uniques visiting each site on a monthly basis. Deals are a mobile phenomenon, so this is mostly a directional indicator.)
According to comScore these top two players account for 90% of the visits to daily deals sites.
It's good for Groupon and LivingSocial, but over time a bunch of "ants" can become problematic. As the "ants" get more and more daily deals for themselves, it will affect Groupon and LivingSocial.
That's why both companies are shifting to a real time model offering multiple deals in a limited time frame. That's a much more difficult model emulate.
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5 Things to Do Every Day for Success (via @fastcompany)
by Dayna Steele
"You get up at what time?" I hear that a lot along with "you are so lucky." So, I'm going to help out here and let you in on the secrets of my success. Well, not all of them but enough to show you the foundation I build on every day.
1. Wake up early. For the next week, get up a half an hour earlier that you normally do--and get going. If you get a few more things done, then get up even earlier the next week. Early in the morning is a great time to get work done because most of your associates have not started emailing, tweeting, IMing or posting yet.
2. Read the headlines and watch the news. Not only should you know what is going on in the world, you will also be the first to recognize opportunities (if you followed #1) for you and your business--long before the competition has even had their first cup of coffee.
3. Send something to one person who can hire you or buy your product--something you promised to follow-up with, a quick email with a link to something relevant or a "hey just checking in to see how thing are going" email.
4. Touch base with an old friend or associate you haven't talked to in ages. Ask how they are, what are they working on and ask or suggest how you might help. You'll make their day.
5. Write a handwritten note to someone. Seriously. It is a lost art and makes quite an impression. There is always someone you can send a thank you note to--or you aren't doing things correctly.
A simple yet highly effective list. Try all five every weekday for a month. Then, tell me I'm right. If I'm wrong, I'll buy you a cup of coffee. When you finally wake up ...
Follow @FastCoLeaders for all of our leadership news, expert bloggers, and book excerpts.Building a Better Board
via HBS Working Knowledge
When Stephen Kaufman took the helm at Arrow Electronics in 1982, it was de rigueur for CEOs to sit on the boards of several other companies in addition to running their own. Back then, serving as a board member didn't require much of a time commitment, and governance was a matter of trust.
"There has been a tremendous shift to the better over the past 15 years"
By the time he retired in 2002, the board-serving landscape had changed considerably. These days, serving on a few boards can comprise almost a full-time job. While quarterly board meetings used to last maybe half a day, including a catch-up-with-the-buddies lunch, meetings now span a day and a half and they happen up to six times a year. While reviewing relevant materials used to mean flipping through the annual report on the plane ride to the annual meeting, it now means spending several hours poring over hundreds of pages of company documents and SEC filings looking for problems, unreasonable risks, or even signs of fraud.
"I see much more time being spent—more meetings, longer meetings, more meaningful meetings, and more pre-meeting materials to be studied," says Kaufman, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School who sat on one outside public board during his tenure at Arrow and has since served on four other public boards and five private boards.
"There has been a tremendous shift to the better over the past 15 years," he says. "The improvement started on its own without any major external events in the late 1990s, accelerated dramatically with the accounting scandals of the Enron era plus the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley, and then continued to change under the pressure of shareholder activism. There's a lot more attention paid to non-fun stuff now, much of it being compliance mechanics that add very little to the competitive position or underlying value of the enterprise."
But while board members are now taking their jobs more seriously, their input is not necessarily as helpful or effective as it could be, Kaufman says. He recently sat down with HBS Working Knowledgeto discuss what he considers to be the biggest practical issues facing boards today: how to get and give honest assessments without eroding collegiality and trust; how to evaluate the CEO using factors that go beyond financial results; how to diagnose the corporate culture; and how to contribute meaningfully to strategy development.
Making it safe to be critical
Chief among the responsibilities of a corporate board member is to develop and share an honest assessment of the company's performance, including the performance of the CEO. The problem is that directors sometimes worry that delivering honest criticism will hurt the group's collegiality or, worse, result in reprisal—namely, getting kicked off the board and losing a gig that often pays six figures annually, plus stock options or shares.
"At $150,000 a year—a typical compensation package for a Fortune 1000 company director—it's real money," Kaufman says. "So who's going to tell Bill that we really like his ideas, but that his management style pisses people off? It can feel very risky for board members to think, 'If I pick on Bill, will he pick on me?'"
"The goal of the performance review is not just to fill out a report card, but also to help make a good CEO a great CEO."
Corporations can mitigate this issue in a couple of ways, he says. For starters, they can hire an outside recruiter to enlist new board members, so that the board includes more than just acquaintances of the CEO or other current directors. This can serve to cut down on the clubby board atmosphere. Outside recruitment has grown more common in recent years, in part because of improved governance and in part because the usual playing field of director candidates has begun to thin out organically.
"As business in general globalized and became more competitive in the '90s, as the world became more difficult, CEOs got busier and joined fewer boards," Kaufman says. "That was one of the things that led boards to look further afield for directors. They ran out of active CEOs they knew from other companies who were willing to serve."
Boards also can make it feel safer for directors to give honest assessments by hiring an outsider to interview each board member individually and aggregate the information for both the board and the CEO. "That person puts together a report that says, 'Here's what your fellow board members said you could do to be more effective as a board member or as a CEO," Kaufman says.
More comprehensive assessment metrics
Historically, a board member's assessment of a CEO's performance simply involved asking a couple of questions. One, did we make the numbers? Two, is the stock price doing OK? "It was a 10-minute conversation, and that was that," Kaufman says.
These days, the assessment is usually much more wide-spread, taking into account both quantitative and qualitative metrics other than just recent financial results, such as customer satisfaction, employee engagement, and even the CEO's leadership style and character. But even these broader assessments can lack accuracy and credibility. Too often, the board members' appraisal is based largely on how the chief executive acts at periodic board meetings and occasional one-on-one meetings, rather than on how he or she handles day-to-day activities with customers, managers, and front-line employees during the rest of the year. The CEO who seems measured, thoughtful, and open for three or four hours in the board room six times a year may actually be inciting a mass exodus among unhappy customers, disgruntled subordinates, or disengaged employees.
"I can give great PowerPoint presentations, but that doesn't tell people whether I'm Attila the Hun or a New Age Leader, or if I create a culture of fear, a culture that accepts and respects dissent, or a culture of energy and enthusiasm," Kaufman says. "A board sees the CEO at highly structured—and possibly well-rehearsed—board meetings, at a few dinners and perhaps at an annual golf outing. That doesn't tell the board whether the CEO is a listener or a lecturer, an autocrat or a democrat, or a fan of yes-men. But those are the things you need to need to know if you want to give a CEO meaningful counsel. The goal of the performance discussion is not just to fill out a report card to justify the compensation decision, but also to help a good CEO become a great CEO."
When he was at Arrow, Kaufman instituted a policy where the independent directors based their assessments of him on direct, private conversations with company executives at multiple levels of management. (He detailed the process in a 2008 Harvard Business Review article, "Evaluating the CEO.") He suggests that this, or a similar process should become industry standard.
"When companies get into trouble it doesn't usually happen overnight; it happens over the course of two or three years. Figuring that out before the numbers go bad is the greatest art of a board member."
Incorporating input from across the company also helps directors to gauge corporate culture in a way they can't from the ivory tower of the boardroom. It's important to ask questions such as, Are employees engaged? Are they enthusiastic? Are all the really smart engineers quitting in frustration? Are the best salespeople looking for new jobs? Are the high-potential, next-generation senior managers energized and growing? The answers can help the board realize whether a company with great financial results today may have terrible results in six months, six quarters, or six years—unless there's an intervention.
Kaufman recommends that board members periodically request that the company conduct anonymous surveys about employee engagement and the company culture, and then ask that the data be shared in raw form, "not the chewed and digested and spun form." He also suggests urging board members to make occasional visits to company facilities and sit in on town hall meetings.
"When companies get into trouble it doesn't usually happen overnight; it happens over the course of two or three years," Kaufman says. "Figuring that out before the numbers go bad is the greatest art of a board member."
Shaping strategy
Boards of directors also are expected to help steer strategy development, not only in small venture-backed and private companies, but in large public companies, too. Kaufman says this is increasingly difficult to do well.
"To develop good, actionable strategies you need to understand customer needs, customer behavior, and the technology behind the product or service," he says. "How is the technology developed? What changes or threats are on the horizon? What value does your product create for your customer? If you don't know these things then it's hard to develop strategy because you really don't know what's needed or what's possible. It's relatively rare that many directors really understand the physical technology or how the business operates at the street level. Therefore, it's really hard for a board to be deeply and constructively involved in developing the strategy."
Other than company insiders, those most likely to understand a company's technology and customers are its competitors and—in the case of B2B enterprises—its customers. But senior executives from such companies are generally discouraged from serving because of potential conflicts of interest.
Meanwhile, companies are under increased pressure to diversify their boards in order to include more minorities, women, and social activists. While shaking up the historical old boys' board networks may be good for balance, Kaufman observes that it can make strategy development and performance oversight that much harder. "The push for diversity creates a tension for us. We need to ensure that we recruit directors who understand the underlying technology, customer needs and patterns, and operational characteristics of the business, so they can contribute effectively to the critical strategy and investment decisions that come before the board," Kaufman says. "One lesson from the recent global financial crisis was that some financial institution boards had few directors who really understood the workings of—and risks inherent in—the sophisticated and complex derivative instruments being created and sold." 
About the author
Carmen Nobel is senior editor of HBS Working Knowledge.
How Agencies are Spending Online Media Budgets (via @Mashable)
Before the Internet, media agencies planned clients’ campaigns with a fairly straightforward menu of TV, radio, print and outdoor advertising options. These days, TV buys still take the largest piece of the global spend, but the share of money going to Internet advertising is rising steeply, and the options for those dollars are multiplying and morphing just as quickly. Twitter, YouTubeand Hulu each offer their own menu of customized advertising options, and Facebook ranked as one of the Top 10 online advertising properties earlier this year. And since online ad spending is not yet keeping pace with Americans’ time spent on the Internet, the upward trend in spending still has plenty of room to grow. Of the money going to online buys, nearly half goes to search and a quarter goes to display. But even within these categories, online ads are becoming more social, and spending on lead generation and email marketingis shrinking. At least a quarter of social media users connect with businesses along with their friends, and the most valuable campaigns lead to an alchemy of the traditional and the social. This past year, several big-budget Super Bowl ads lived on as viral YouTube hits, gaining popularity and millions of views that money still can’t buy. Check out the infographic below for more details on how agencies are allocating online media budgets. 
It's the new Windows 8! :)
What's the barrier to entry in the daily deal space?
There are now officially one billion "Groupon" clones, including one I am advising. I hear all the time, "The concept is so simple, the barrier to entry looks so low". This could not be more wrong...
As is the case with many businesses, scale is the key to winning and dominating the category. While I still believe LivingSocial is well positioned to be the long term winner (I know, most think I am crazy but I have my reasons), Groupon is scaling quickly.
I ran a Groupon recently for a company I advise to experience it myself. The sales person was efficient and smart, the process strightforward and the Groupon sold out in less than 36 hours.
Want to know the barrier to entry in the deal space? Bill Gross hit it on the head...
Groupon, as everyone knows by now, is growing like crazy. How crazy? CEO Andrew Mason just revealed at the D9 technology conference that he now employs 8,000 people, which is up from 1,500 a year ago. That means it grew headcount by 433 percent.
About half of its employees are sales people. Signing up local businesses to offer group discounts requires a lot of hand-holding and sales calls across many local markets. Groupon is now in 46 countries.
Groupon is a selling machine, so it needs a lot of sales people. But these aren’t door-to-door salesmen. The only way Groupon can scale this sales organization is through centralized call centers with different teams focussed on different markets. (Yelp does the same thing).
And you thought it was all about Groupon’s comedians-turned-copywriters and the “Groupon Voice.” (The company employs a lot of copywriters also, but they don’t have thousands of them). It’s a sales culture through and through. Facebook or Google would be bragging about how many engineers they have. Groupon crows about sales.
via @techcrunch
Anchors Away? via @HarvardNegoti8
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Adapted from “The Enduring Power of Anchors,” first published in the Negotiation newsletter, October 2006. In the Negotiation newsletter, we have reviewed the anchoring effect—the tendency for negotiators to be overly influenced by the other side’s opening bid, however arbitrary. When your opponent makes an inappropriate bid on your house, you’re nonetheless likely to begin searching for data that confirms the anchor’s viability. This testing is likely to affect your judgment—to the other party’s advantage. Psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman identified the anchoring effect in 1974. Participants watched a roulette wheel that, unknown to them, was rigged to stop at either 10 or 65, then estimated the number of African countries belonging to the United Nations. For half the participants, the roulette wheel stopped on 10. They gave a median estimate of 25 countries. For the other half, the wheel stopped on 65. Their median estimate was 45 countries. The random anchors dramatically affected judgment. Since then, dozens of studies have examined anchoring. In a new analysis, Chris Guthrie of Vanderbilt University Law School and attorney Dan Orr integrate what we’ve learned. On average, for every dollar increase in an initial anchor, the final settlement rises by 49.7 cents. Among seasoned negotiators, with every dollar increase in an anchor, the final agreement rises by 37 cents. Finally, even highly unreasonable anchors greatly affect outcomes. The lessons: Reject the relevance and appropriateness of your counterpart’s anchor—and consider how a different anchor might affect you. Full article: http://www.pon.harvard.edu/?p=19228