11/15/09  We have all read about or participated in six degrees of separation. The concept is based on the small world phenomenon and made famous by a board game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon which rests on the assumption that any actor can be linked through their film roles to Kevin Bacon. This human web is playing especially true in our new online world order.

This gets me to my most recent experiences of developing and using online networking to reach what I call Power of Ten. Reach out to ten people. Ten people who need you or your product, who will listen to you, and hopefully trust you. Those ten people need what you have to sell, or want it. And if you win them over and they cannot live without your product or service, then you’ll win. If they love it, they will each find you ten more people (or a hundred). Repeat exercise until momentum gets going.

If they don’t love it, you need a new thing to sell. Start over or take their feedback and adjust your offering.

Your business grows. Not as fast as you want, but faster than you could ever imagine.

This Power of Ten approach changes the posture and timing of everything you do. Learn to use all the online tools at your disposal; Facebook, LinkedIn, Luxury Marketing Council website, Twitter… Get these New Influencers in your Power of Ten.

You can no longer market to the anonymous masses. They’re not anonymous and they’re not masses. You can only market to people who are willing participants. Like this Power of Ten..

The timing means that the idea of a ‘launch/opening/product release’ and press releases and the big unveiling is nuts. Instead, plan on the gradual build that turns into a tidal wave. Organize for it and spend money appropriately. The fact is, the curve of money spent (big dump, then a trickling stream, then a dry tap) is precisely backwards to what you actually need.

Three years from now, Paul Gillin and Seth Godins advice will be so common as to be boring. Today, it’s almost certainly the opposite of what most are doing.

I thought I would suggest a read of the week, this one is free online:
download Seth Godin Tribe’s here

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Steve Pollack