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How Many Bodyguards Does It Take to Protect Mark Zuckerberg's 5-Bedroom Mansion?

By: Unknown on 03:31 / comment : 0 advertising, Marketing, youtube

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Paparazzi and passersby beware: There’s no casually cruising by Mark Zuckerberg’s $7 million abode anymore. The billionaire’s Palo Alto, Calif., mansion is now patrolled by 16 security guards, because apparently that’s how the world-famous Facebook co-founder and CEO rolls in his perpetual quest for privacy.

Yes, you read that number right. Sixteen bodyguards -- a small army -- are now working detail around the clock at Zuckerberg's cushy five-bedroom digs, according to a recent Page Six report. Incidentally, that’s the same number of pawns chess players use at the outset of a game, and what the new father and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are presumably hoping amount to enough muscle to fend off “threats from unstable” Facebook users.

Related: Mark Zuckerberg Uses Daughter's Birth to Announce New Charity
https://youtu.be/jwDq32MtOQU 
Safety first, kids. With more than 1 billion “daily active users on average” trolling the wildly popular social-media network, you’re bound to have more than a few creeper apples in the bunch. “You’re touching hundreds of millions of people,” an unnamed “insider” Silicon Valley source told Page Six. “All the CEOs get threats, and they take them very seriously.”

Some more than others.

Related: Did Mark Zuckerberg Really Take 'Paternity Leave?'

By hiring more than a baker’s dozen bodyguards to watch over his Palo Alto pad, Zuck’s bound to ruffle more than a few neighbors’ feathers. He did just that in 2013, when he spent $30 million to buy up four neighboring homes. Meanwhile, people living next door to his $10 million San Francisco digs on splashy Liberty Hill are furious about his security staff there. They claim Zuck’s watchdogs are “permanently” and “illegally” hogging nearby parking spots with their flashy silver SUVs.

Zuckerberg’s press handlers refute the allegations, telling Buzzfeed News: “The security team’s cars are parked in accordance with local parking laws. The team strives to be sensitive to neighbors’ concerns and regrets any inconvenience.”

“Sensitive” security or not, as one neighbor pointed out, it “can be cumbersome living next to Zuck.” Unfortunately for his Palo Alto neighbors, it might’ve just gotten worse.

How I Went From $40,000 in Debt to a Millionaire by Age 30

By: Unknown on 03:28 / comment : 0 advertising, Marketing, youtube

I came from a family where money was always an issue. My father was a union electrician who brought in a nice, but not exceptional, living. My mom was a stay at-home mom turned jobbie-entrepreneur (as I talked about here). But, money was always tight.

When my parents separated in my early teen years (and ultimately divorced), that put further pressure on their financials and assured that they wouldn’t be able to pay for my college education.

When I graduated from arguably the best undergraduate business school in the country, The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania in 1995, I had an Ivy League education and $40,000 of college debt. I was determined that in less than eight years, I would go from being in that financial hole to having a net worth of one million dollars.

Related: How to Become a Millionaire in Under 5 Years

And I did it. Here’s how.



1. Set the goal.
Probably the most important but overlooked part of attaining a goal is having one to begin with. A goal means a very specific, desired outcome, with a specific date of completion and a plan of steps to help complete it.

My specific goal was to make my first million by age 30. I chose that because of the stress that not having a lot of savings put on my family, and I didn’t want to have to deal with a constant state of financial chaos. I figured having a cool million in the bank would allow me to be able to take more risks, have more flexibility and lessen my stress.

Age 30 seemed like a good challenging goal but still reasonable. While the tech world makes some folks billionaires at a young age now, back in 1995, I didn’t have a beeper, let alone a cell phone or a smart phone. I didn’t own my own computer (I went to the school’s lab) and the only thing resembling the internet was one email list-serve that I was on until I was introduced to Netscape (look it up if you are too young to remember it) after I started my first job. So, a million dollars was a good stretch.

Having the goal was something to continue to work towards and provided a benchmark of sorts to evaluate different activities to see if they would further me reaching that goal.

2. Take a high-pay, big opportunity job.
My next step was to find a job that would pay me the most amount of money (legally), while giving me a strong skill set that I could leverage down the road. I choose to go into the corporate finance side of investment banking, which paid me somewhere in the neighborhood of $85,000 my first year and well into the mid-to-high six-figures in subsequent years.

Not only did I pick the right job, I picked the right company to work for. While I could have gone the prestige route and taken a job at a company like Goldman Sachs, I picked a more boutique firm that had a meritocracy environment. I thought that there was a better shot at getting promoted and earning more in the out years in that type of company -- which proved to be true.

3. Work your butt off.
I worked like crazy. I would say that most weeks, I worked 16 to 18 hours a day, six to seven days a week. I pulled many all-nighters. I got on as many deal teams and live transactions as possible and learned as much as I could.

4. Advocate on your own behalf.
I didn’t let my hard work go unnoticed. I would remind our senior team and department members of all that I was doing and what my expectations were. When I thought that I was working at a higher level, I asked early and often for promotions. I was called a self-promoter, but I was also rapidly promoted. That increased my earnings substantially, especially having become a vice president by age 25 -- a good six years ahead of schedule.

Related: The Only 5 Ways You Can Become Rich

5. Keep overhead to a bare minimum.
My dad had a saying, “keep your nut low," which meant to keep overhead expenses to as little as possible. While my colleagues got two- and three-bedroom apartments, I stayed in a studio apartment (I was barely ever there, since I was usually at work). My nightstand was a cardboard box with a sheet over it. I didn’t have cable television. I took the bus to work. I tried to eat at work whenever it was possible. When I went out, I calculated menu costs carefully and ordered accordingly.

This allowed me to save the greater majority of each paycheck and pursue the next step.

6. Relentlessly pay down debt.
Back in the day, interest rates were substantially higher than they are now. While I don’t remember the exact rates that I paid, they were probably in the 6- to 9-percent range. That’s a lot of return to make up, so I took each paycheck to pay down my college loans after taking care of overhead.

I cleared those out by December of 1996, about a year and a half after graduating college.

7. Make investments and take a back end.
With my debt cleared, my earnings increasing and my overhead very low, I was able to start saving. And, a portion of that savings I started investing in retirement accounts, stocks and bonds (and related mutual funds).

As my career progressed, and my net worth started to substantially climb, then I was able to make additional investments. This included leaving my investment banking job after five years to start my own firm and taking equity stakes in companies. Had I stayed in my job, I probably would have hit the million-mark a year or two sooner, but I wanted to try to be more entrepreneurial -- and I felt I could still hit the goal.

One of my equity stakes had a nice payday that helped to compensate for the loss in guaranteed salary and bonus from going a more entrepreneurial route.

8. Keep setbacks in stride.
Not everything worked perfectly along the route. One of my biggest setbacks was loaning nearly $40,000 to someone close to our family in 1997, just as I was starting to ramp my savings. He took off without repaying most of it. But, I decided to not focus on the loss and focus on the future and what I could control.

And that was it. By age 30, my self-made net worth reached and surpassed the million-dollar mark.

What that bought me was the flexibility I so desired. It allowed me and my husband -- who was pursuing his own financial success story -- to map a plan for our future. It allowed me to take more professional risks. It allowed me to not have to worry about financial issues that plagued my parents when they were alive.

Monetary benchmarks weren’t -- and still aren’t -- my only goals, but this type of formulaic approach should work well for you, no matter what types of goals you are pursuing.

7 Massively Overhyped Careers to Avoid

By: Unknown on 03:24 / comment : 0 advertising, Marketing, youtube

Ever since social media and smartphones captured the imagination of a billion people, we’ve seen a rash of new career fields that never existed before. Many of you, no doubt, have jumped on these opportunities with fad-like fervor. And therein lies the rub. You’re far from alone.

These fields are now flooded. The problem, as many have already learned, is that if it’s easy – if the barriers and costs to entry are low – then anyone can do it. And that’s exactly what’s happening. Not just anyone, but anyone and everyone. And that means heavy competition, no pricing power, slim profit margins and low income.

If all it takes is some online classes, a certificate, a seminar, a self-help book and a website to proclaim that you’re the best darn, award-winning, best-selling, guru, expert, or whatever, you can bet that a flood of other people with no real marketable skill or expertise will go for it. And they have.

And when it comes to fads, you can always count on one thing: they will come, and they will go. Granted, fads may gain viral traction in the blink of an eye, but once people discover that there’s nothing to them – that they really are all hype – they vanish just as quickly as they appeared.

Related: 10 Behaviors of Genuinely Successful People



Don’t get me wrong. There are legitimate experts in every field, even some of these, but if you’re not a top performer, you might want to reconsider your future in these faddish gigs.

1. Professional coaching
There are coaches for everything: leadership, strengths, performance, career, fitness, family, holistic, happiness and, of course, life. There are even coaches who coach people on becoming coaches. And no, I’m not making that up. The vast majority have three things in common: a worthless certificate, no real expertise and a lousy business.

2. Emotional intelligence consulting
There is no scientific correlation between emotional quotient and job success. If emotional intelligence was a requirement for business leadership, then Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Mark Cuban and Donald Trump would never have made it big. Besides, the emotional intelligence test is so easy to game, it isn’t funny.

3. Working in the gig economy
Driving an Uber cab, renting out a room on Airbnb, selling used stuff on eBay or generating online content for peanuts are definitely not high-paying gigs. While the self-employed make up 17 percent of the U.S. workforce, they generate just 7 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. This is why we have a productivity crisis in America -- we have a growing slacker economy.

4. Millennial consulting
Maybe Millennials are self-centered and entitled. So was I at that age. Then something happened. I grew up. At some point, everyone will wake up and realize that young people are childish and egocentric. Then they mature. Besides, with median employee ages between 28 and 30, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and Salesforce don’t seem to be having much trouble getting their Millennials to perform.

Related: Want Big Things Out of Life? Expect Big Things of Yourself.

5. Employee engagement consulting
Gallup has done a marvelous job turning useless employee surveys into a checkbox for every HR executive. In reality, employee engagement is just employee satisfaction 2.0. The most successful companies on earth don’t need employee engagement consultants to create cultures where their most valuable assets, their people, thrive.

6. Self-publishing
Everyone and his brother claims to be a best-selling author these days. I don’t care if you were number 499 for a few nanoseconds in some narrow category of an esoteric list, if your Amazon best-seller rank is over 1,000,000 you are not a best-selling author. Published authors can get away with self-publishing. Amateurs can’t.

7. Content marketing
The web is so flooded with blogs, posts, tweets, shares and videos that the return on investment for social media and content marketing is practically negligible. And having tons of followers on Twitter or LinkedIn rarely translates into meaningful results for most businesses. Don’t even get me started on personal branding gurus.

If you want to achieve great things in life, loving your work is not enough. Working long hours is not enough. What you do also has to be marketable. All the passion and inspiration in the world will not overcome the laws of supply and demand. If it’s easy and everyone’s doing it, your chances of getting anywhere are somewhere between slim and none.

Venture Capitalists Are More Likely to Help Startups They Can Visit Via a Direct Flight

By: Unknown on 03:16 / comment : 0 advertising, Marketing, youtube

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Venture capitalists aren’t a fan of layovers. That’s the not-too-shocking takeaway from a new study, which finds that VCs more closely monitor startups in their portfolios accessible by direct flights.

The implications, however, are important: if your startup isn’t connected to VC hotspots such as San Francisco, New York and Boston, you may miss out on crucial early guidance, the study suggests.

To determine the “direct flight” effect, researchers at MIT examined around 23,000 startups and more than 3,000 venture firms over the course of 30 years. They found a small, but noticeable, difference in startups’ output once direct flights connecting them to their VC firms were introduced.

When compared to similar startups that lacked a direct route, these companies saw a 3 percent increase in granted patents. What’s more, the study found that startups connected to their VC firms via direct flight were 1.4 percent more likely to achieve a “successful exit,” i.e. an initial public offering or acquisition.

In a separate survey, the authors asked VCs if the introduction of a direct flight would increase their ability to monitor firms previously only reachable if layovers were involved. The vast majority -- around 86 percent -- agreed.

7 Inconvenient Truths About Content Marketing

By: Unknown on 03:13 / comment : 0 advertising, Marketing, youtube

Content marketing is, without a doubt, the most over-hyped and least-understood marketing tool for entrepreneurs, soloproeneurs and small businesses owners. And it’s certainly not the panacea it’s been made out to be.

The interactive web -- social media, blogs, videos, etc. -- has made content marketing relatively easy and inexpensive. And therein lies the rub. As with entrepreneurship, everyone is doing it. The competition is enormous, and so is the level of noise you have to get over just to be seen and heard by potential customers.

There must be terabytes of content telling you how to make your content marketing count, but nearly all of it is click-bate generated by those struggling to make a name for themselves on media sites selling ads. In other words, most blogs and articles on content marketing are, ironically, nothing more than worthless content marketing.

What do you say we cut through all that BS and get into a little truth about content marketing from an actual former senior marketing executive of the high-tech industry who doesn’t have skin in this game -- or his hand in your pocket.

1. There’s content and there’s CONTENT.
There’s an old saying -- you get what you pay for. The vast majority of content is generated for peanuts, and that’s exactly what it’s worth. The fact that it’s cheap and easy is why everyone does it, and that’s also why it’s worthless. As marketing goes, it’s lousy and its return on investment even worse.

2. Everyone’s an expert. Well, not really.
Know why John Grisham is a best-selling author? He was a successful trial attorney for years and years before putting pen to paper. Everyone seems to understand that, if it’s not expert content, it’s of no value to customers, but that doesn’t seem to stop the “fake it ‘til you make it” crowd from generating enormous amounts of worthless tripe.

3. It’s all about strategy.
If you look at the way big companies do marketing, they have senior executives and top agencies working to develop their marketing and communication strategy, and let me tell you, that ain’t cheap or easy. Content marketing is simply an execution tool and, without the strategy part, it’s undifferentiated and essentially worthless.

4. Product and personal branding are worlds apart.
When it comes to personal branding, this generation has been sold a bill of goods. Without a distinct competitive advantage -- a value proposition that truly sets you apart from competitors -- all you’ve got is a difference without a distinction. You may look or come across different, but in the customer’s eyes, your product is not differentiated.

Related: What's Better -- Building a Personal or Business Brand? Or Both?

5. A billion people make a lot of noise.
I once read this tweet by serial entrepreneur Naval Ravikant: “1999 to $5M to launch a product, 30M serious computer users... Leverage / $ is up 100,000x.” He’s right, except for one factor: competition. It’s so cheap and easy that a billion people are generating online content via WordPress, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. You’d have a better chance of being heard across the stadium at a Denver Broncos game.

6. It’s a lousy time to have a service business.
Commodity products like paper clips and jellybeans are nearly impossible to differentiate -- unless they’re made by Apple, of course -- but in general, it’s a lot easier to market a proprietary product than a service business like coaching, Web design, or, ironically, content marketing. Like it or not, most service businesses are like paper clips and jellybeans.

7. Originate, don’t regurgitate.
Most web content is either complete nonsense or regurgitated riffs on original content by real experts, journalists or writers. Neither type is worth what content generators are paid to write it -- which isn’t saying much. Google’s algorithms know the difference between the cheap and easy stuff and quality content and, more importantly, so do customers.

Speaking of which, I recently came upon a post by a twenty-something content marketer called, Leaders Must be Readers. Yes and no. Real executives and business leaders do generally read a lot, but they’re usually far too busy working to waste their time reading what she was referring to -- the kind of fluff most content marketers generate.

Get the Most Out of Your Marketing Agency in 5 Ways

By: Unknown on 02:45 / comment : 0 advertising, Marketing, youtube

The minute you hire a marketing company, you’re itching to dive in. Time to maximize your advertising and public relations dollars and finally build some brand equity, right?

The short answer: Yes, absolutely. The long answer: Be patient. As tempting as it is to hit the ground running, it’ll be better for your company in the long term to solidify your strategy first.

To maximize return on investment (ROI) down the road, share these five data sets with your new agency.

1. Your current marketing mix
Tell your agency about what aspects of marketing you’re already tackling and what you hope to accomplish. Too often, I hear from clients, “Oh yeah, we’re doing marketing. We’re running search engine optimization campaigns.” When I ask what else, they tell me, “That’s it.” Unfortunately, by limiting their focus, those clients are missing opportunities to convert potential customers into sales.

After talking through your current approach, your agency will be able to identify holes in what you’re currently doing, as well as help you explore other key areas. For instance, maybe you produce a lot of written content, but video would be better for some of your target audiences. You might think you know what you want, but this information allows the agency to determine if what you want is what you actually need.

2. The makeup of your team
You need to have the bandwidth to execute your marketing agency’s new plan effectively. Examine your own team to help optimize both internal and agency talents. By smoothing out internal processes from the start, you won’t have to backtrack later and fix stopgaps and other communication issues.

Often, it’s intermediary project managers who hold things up. Maybe they don’t understand best practices, or perhaps they haven’t fully bought into implementing a certain tool. As a leader, you likely don’t see your marketing team in the same light an agency does. Figure out what your team and the agency require from each to produce good work together.

Related: Think Like a Company’s Marketing Director

3. Overall site analytics
Share your current conversion rate so the agency’s team knows what to look for. How many of your sales are coming from Facebook? Can you clearly see the details of where you’re getting your business? Asking such questions demonstrates whether your site is helping to properly convert leads into sales.

It’s easier than you think to get those metrics in place. Start with a Google Analytics account, and add your site as a property. This tool will help you measure revenue, customer acquisition, inquiry and engagement.

Related: 4 Marketing Analytics Tools That Are Shaping the Industry

4. Monthly revenue
Even if your income varies throughout the year, it’s important to organize this information based on reliable revenue (the minimum amount of money your company makes every month), and share it with your agency. It can help the firm understand the size of your business and what it means for achieving your goals.

For example, if you’re earning $10,000 a month in revenue, television ads wouldn’t be a good idea. But if you’re making $1 million a month, your agency might suggest such higher-level marketing channels.

5. The lifetime value of your customer
The easiest way to estimate lifetime value is to multiply the average value of a sale by the number of repeat transactions. Then, multiply that total by the average customer retention time. Once your agency understands how much you’re making from each customer, it can then determine where potential lies -- and help optimize the amount you’re spending to acquire each of them.

Say you’re only making $10 more than the average lifetime of a customer -- converting less than 20 percent of your online traffic into sales spells trouble, in this case. Sharing that information would show the agency that, while you’re paying a similar amount per click as your competitors, you’re not seeing much return on it.

Determining your customer lifetime value will help calibrate your marketing budget to your real needs. When you understand what kind of ROI you need to see, you’ll have a better sense of how real your numbers actually are.

As much as you may want to dive right into tactics with your marketing agency, resist the urge. Instead, sit down with your agency partners and cover these five topics.

Google is Australia’s best perceived brand, Aldi its top supermarket: BrandIndex

By: Unknown on 02:32 / comment : 0 advertising, Marketing, youtube

Google was Australia’s best perceived brand at the end of 2015, new figures from YouGov BrandIndex has found.

The study, by UK-based research company YouGov, includes over 250 brands and asks respondents: “If you’ve heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, through advertising, news or word of mouth, was it positive or negative?”

Scores can range from 100 to -100 and are compiled by subtracting negative feedback from positive.

rankings

The top 10 list is dominated by digital heavyweights, including YouTube and Apple. This shows that consumers are putting greater emphasis on socially shareable and digital adaptability.

Despite mixed publicity in 2015, German food store Aldi, came in third on the list, the highest non-digital brand featured. Supermarket giant Coles came in fifth, while major rival Woolworths didn’t make the list following a year of forgettable ad campaigns such as the ‘Fresh In Our Memories’ debacle that linked the company logo and tagline with war veterans as part of the 100 year memorial of the landing at Gallipoli.

The Australian findings are consistent with the global trend that sees digital based brands featuring among the best perceived. Although not featured in the Australian ranking, Amazon sits high among the best perceived brands on a global scale. Google, YouTube, Apple and Netflix, all featured in Australia’s top 10 list, are also ranked highly globally. Also among the high achievers is the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer, Samsung, appearing on 12 different countries top 10 lists. Popular social media website, Facebook sits just behind, appearing on 11.

YouGov’s BrandIndex is a daily measure of brand perception among the public. Every six months it consolidates its data and publishes rankings. These rankings are for Q4 2015. The firm’s Australian operation is a recent addition to BrandIndex, starting in the second half of 2015, and currently includes tracking of more than 250 brands.