Open & Free Business Model
Mini Workshop – Book Your Seat Now – Seats Still Available.
Social Media = The Open & Free Business Model – Workshop
Book your seat NOW – 1st Come 1st Serve – ONLY 20 10 Seats available!
How to give your content away and generate revenue!
This mini workshop is being held in Abbotsford, B.C., and will touch on three primary areas:
TRENDS
We’ll look at trends and what’s happening around the world, and how these trends will impact your business online & off. Today there are 1.7 Billion people on the Internet, in the next 3 – 5 years that number will be 5 Billion. How will you get their attention?
THE OPEN & FREE BUSINESS MODEL
This is not a skill set, it’s a paradigm shift and this shift is painful, I’ll layout why and what this model might look like for your business, I’ll also show examples of how businesses are using this model. We’ll talk about Content, Social Media Strategies and tools.
BREAKOUT SESSION
By the time we get to this section, you’ll already have some new creative ideas, and ways to increase revenue. We’ll work through how you can build & implement your ideas with your staff.
When the workshop is over you will have a much better view of what’s coming, a framework to help you adapt, plus you will have a simple step by step approach for implementing new revenue streams.
The workshop will be held on April 30th, Noon – 4PM and it’s just $100. There are only 10 seats available and are on a 1st come 1st serve basis.
To reserve your seat please reply ASAP by e-mail at owen@owengreaves.com for all the details, DO IT NOW!
The world is coming, and I look forward to helping you get ready.
Owen Greaves Consulting
The Open & Free Business Model Mini Workshop
I have been asked many times what the Open & Free Business Model is and what it might look like, how would do I use it in my business and so on. The questions always center around, how will I get paid for my digital content? That’s actually the wrong question and the wrong focus. The model is not about technology, nor is it a skill set, it’s a mind set, a paradigm shift of moving away from control. It used to be, he who had control made all the money. Today, the good news is, that thinking or model is shrinking and is changing to, he who has less control makes more money. It sounds risky doesn’t it? I liken it to a faith based way of doing business, trusting the people formerly know as consumers.
With that in mind, Owen Greaves Consulting is holding a workshop for local businesses Friday April 30th from Noon – 4PM, there will only be 20 seats available and is being held in my community. This workshop is a scaled down version of the Two Day Program. Three topics will be covered, first I’ll touch on trends to help get the creative juices flowing, then I’ll give you 4 – 5 examples of brands / businesses that do variations of the Open & Free Business Model, then we’ll spend most of the workshop in a breakout session, call it a Think-Tank if you will. We’ll split up into teams of 5 to work together on developing idea’s, concept’s that can be implemented, and then each team will share their idea’s with everyone. In the longer Two Day Workshop, the format is similar but with perks not included in the shorter session.
The purpose of the workshop’s is to help you as a business owner to begin the process of changing the way you view the world online, revolution is adopting new behaviour, it is my hope you will change your behaviour and become revolutionary through these workshops.
I have shared many times before, there are 1.7 Billion people online today, in the next 3 – 5 years that number will be 5 Billion. We will have to prove Impact like never before, we will need to find new creative and effective ways to get attention. The current strategies and or tactics have yet to be proven effective in this new way of thinking, also the current infrastructure is inadequate.
If you live in my area and would like to fill one of the 20 seats available, please contact ASAP! I will be providing more details later in the week, there will be a 10% discount for registering by April 23rd, 2010.
For more information, check this Blog and or send me an e-mail: owen@owengreaves.com
Free Seattle's Best Coffee at Subway
Like McDonald’s, Subway is following suit. Till April 22nd, 2010 you can get your Seattle’s Best coffee free at any Subway, this on the heals of the Golden Arches experiment that increased sales in the Month of March. This another low-level example of how the Open & Free Business Model works. In the retail sector they have a name for it, Loss Leaders. They would blow out product that hasn’t moved or strategically bring in a product of low cost and use it to draw in customers. This is not a new concept but strengthens the argument for the Open & Free Business Model to increase revenues.
I can’t help wondering what’s next, this is the kind of thing I teach and recommend to local businesses, how they can increase awareness, brand and revenues by strategically using what they may already have in house. As I’ve mentioned before, the Open & Free Business Model is not a skill set, it’s a paradigm shift, a new way of looking at the world of business, especially online but also win the brick & mortar types. I hold workshops to help business owners make progress on the deemed paradigm shift, so they can go back to the office and help staff make small changes. The world is coming, it’s not here yet, but when it does, you’ll want to be ahead of the wave. Otherwise, you may get wiped out by that wave.
The fear of loss is what most business owners go to bed with at the end of each business day. How will coveer this, how will I….and so on. The fear of losing their business or money of any amount is a problem. The Open & Free Business Model embraces that fear and confronts it, how, by doing something different and taking a small calculated risk. You most likely took that risk when you started your business.
McDonald’s obviously has resources most of us don’t have, Subway isn’t nearly as large but they see the benefit of giving away Seattle’s Best Coffee for the purposes of leveraging a Social Currency called ATTENTION. McDonald’s sales increased when they ran the experiment of giving away coffee for short period of time, the loss if any, was minimal and got them a ton of Attention. These arrangements are called Strategic Alignments or Alliances, Seattle’s Best wants to sell more coffee, offers to provide the coffee by leveraging Subways customer base. Who wins? They both do!
Even if you don’t own a business, your going to remember Subway’s name, and Seattle’s Best Coffee sales will go up. What a simple concept, but yet the fear of loss seems to win over most business owners. If you’re dealing with the fear right now, go to Subway and have a coffee on the house till April 22nd and get creative with how you can overcome that fear. Or, take my workshop and learn how to defeat the fear by learning the Open & Free Business Model Mindset.
Mainstream Is Stuck In The Mainstream
Change is hard, for some it’s very uncomfortable, and for the mainstream it’s almost impossible, so it seems. Change is inevitable, it is happening with every minute of the day, how you chose to respond to that change determines it’s value. Like ambiguity, change too must be embraced in order for progress to really take hold. I know you know this, I know you understand it and that’s why this environment welcomes those who truely understand it.
Mainstream media, mainstream big business and the businesses that support them, still don’t see what’s coming and it’s coming quickly. Wall street, the Music Industry, Newspapers, Television Media, are stuck in the mainstream, they don’t know how to make the shift to this new economic model called Open & Free. Amber Naslund ranted about how there is an entitlement to free stuff, I agree with her, I’m all for getting paid and we should be if we are providing something of real value. Unfortunately, the world is filled with many looking for a shortcut, looking for a way to take advantage of others and not pay for what they take. But today, we the people get to decide what is important to us, no longer will we be convinced that products, services and information are important. Unethical Internet Marketers, traditional marketing and subliminal messages raise the BS Meter to new levels and become very suspicious. The pay first and and access second model is breaking down rapidly, no longer to be tolerated, and will all but disappear in the next 3 – 5 years when the rest of the world gets here online. There will be 5 Billion people here in the next 5 years and they won’t pay first, and you won’t be able to make them. They will find ways to get what they want, much like we do today, music, movies and information is being copied at will and that’s what the fight is all about. What you may not see is that the money is moving from the selling of copy, to the selling of experience.
Keeping content, products and services behind walls is a losing model, and is a bad experience, the end of control is shaping up everywhere. With Newspaper’s forcing you to buy access to content, record labels unwilling to move on their position and flexing the control muscle, they are in for a rude awakening. Mainstream Media & Mainstream Business must find ways to make this shift, find ways to monetize around product and service. Rather than fight with everyone and try to maintain the current Copyright Model, try working with the stakeholders and content providers. Create interesting ways to replace the Copyright Gridlock we are in with collective agreements where everyone wins. Much of what we know must be unlearned and new creative ways to allow for everyone to participate in a global economy where the content makers do indeed get paid. The Open & Free Business Model allows for this and also brings a hotbed of creativity that builds trust, relationships and attention.
Silicon Valley has the same issues, it is very much an incubator, it doesn’t really integrate with the rest of the world, they talk a different language, and it feeds on itself and funds itself. Sounds cold and harsh but let’s be honest, they are light years away from most of us but still have to share the same space. We need them to be weird and innovative for the rest of the world, but they also seem disconnected at times, it’s a day time soap at times. It’s like being the Nerd in grade school again, everyone looks at you funny because you talk funny and wear a pocket protector.
Mainstream being stuck in the mainstream has a silver lining, it means we get to be creative and help them get unstuck. Unfortunately, today they are fighting against us and the world, and want to maintain control, it’s a losing battle I’m afraid. They aren’t listening now, but they will, musicians and the like are banding together all over the world as messengers. It might appear mainstream media has the upper hand, but it will be short lived. I try to advocate working together, bring awareness, and help build the future in an Open & Free Business Model, a place where everyone (YOU) wins.
Are you ready? How do you feel about an Open & Free Business Model? Do you think Mainstream is stuck in the Mainstream?
Where To Put The Toll Booth
The question of where to put the Toll Booth is being asked of me more and more lately, it’s a big subject and really can’t be covered in a Blog Post well, I’ll just share some thoughts for you to ponder. With the shift to an Open & Free Business Model, the confusion of the concept, the fear of losing control, and how to make new money from it are the biggest reasons to take your time and consider where the Toll Booth should be. Let’s consider some facts.
Today we have 1.7 Billion people on the Internet, in the next 3 – 5 years there will be 5 Billion people here online. Also consider that Advertising dollars are shifting to the digital marketplace, traditional advertising is dropping and digital is increasing. Print is down 18.7%, T.V. is down 10.1%, Radio is down 11.7% and magazine’s are down 14.8% in the USA alone. On the other-hand, Digital is up, HandHelds are up 18.1% and general Internet (Computer) is up 9.2% overall in the USA. These numbers are changing everyday, and these are taken from November 2009 statistics. With over 65,000 iPhone Apps on the market and more are being released daily, these apps are revenue generators that play a huge role in the Open & Free Business Model. A Toll Booth if you will.
The term Open & Free Business Model means a great many things, it’s access first before money, in a way it’s like the old GPL of Shareware model, you got to try it for 30 days and then you had to buy it. But today there is a difference, today people won’t tolerate paying for content in any of the traditional terms. Newspapers are trying get you to pay for content for access, how do you think that will go, I think they will rethink that if they want to generate new revenues.
The biggest issue I’m coming across is a thing called creativity, there is a mental block on how Open & Free is going to make money. Personally I think it’s not that difficult to figure out, but that’s what I do, I help businesses come up with new ideas on how to do that, to build something that can be implemented for the purposes of being ready for the new 3.3 Billion people coming in the next few years. The problem isn’t that it can’t be done, the problem is we have to unlearn and make a paradigm shift in how we view the world of business. I’ve quoted Gerd Leonhard many times, he once said, “the Internet is a giant copy machine, we now have to sell things that can’t be copied. Sell things around the content. Sell the packaging, sell the experience.” I’ve always believed that the experience I have in dealing with you determines the success of your brand. Business is not transactions, it’s interactions with people, and those people determine whether your brand is good or not based on the experience of dealing with you and your business.
If we must stop the model of copy to something that can’t be copied, we must look at a bigger picture, and that means changing the way we see the world. The Open & Free Business Model has nothing to do with technology, it is rethinking the placement of the digital marketplace Toll Booth. Some Bloggers have proven this model in part, offering good if not great content for free that you normally would have paid for upfront. That scares the day lights out of the business world, letting you decide before you buy means mainstream business has give up some control. It means they can’t guide you through the typical sales process of making say yes to a string of mini closes. They have to change how they think and ensure what they want you to purchase brings value and fills a real perceived need. They struggle now with where they make the money and how to ask for it. I’m generalizing of course, some understand but most don’t.
The bigger issues coming, what happens when we go to a single currency in North America, what happens if Net Neutrality comes to fruition, there will be another shift but not nearly as big as the Open & Free Business Model. This is not the same as Open Source but we can learn much from the GPL (General Public License) model.
The placement of the Toll Booth will most likely determine the amount of money you generate in the digital marketplace, but you need to understand how to determine that placement. You may not like the idea of an Open & Free Business Model, but what you may not see is that free gets you to a place where can ask to be paid. It will be quality over quantity, and it will also mean you are solving a problem and or filling a perceived need.
I have probably introduced you to, maybe for the first time, the thought of giving your content away for free and then figuring out how to make new money from that thought. There is far too much to cover for this post but you can read more about it here on my Blog by doing a search on the topic.
Owen Greaves Consulting is currently planning a 2 day workshop on the Open & Free Business Model, to help you learn how and where to put the toll booth in your Open & Free Business Model. If you are interested in this workshop please send me an e-mail or leave a comment for more information.