David Erasmus

I was walking to a meeting in Pimlico the other day and I saw this.

No selling points of “We are the best / cheapest / fastest plumbers in London just a Social Association with the Prince’s trust.

We are a lot more concerned than ever before about how nice a company is. These guys are harnessing the power of Social Association and it is something that will only increase, trying to make businesses look less greedy!

Askmustard.com is a business I am involved in creating at the moment to give young people involved in tough backgrounds a chance to set up their own community based businesses.

With this business we have attached the Mustard Partner element where we team up with established businesses in the area to deliver projects that require more specialized skill.

The key is it is a mutually beneficial relationship between Mustard and the partners.

Mustard provides sales leads and “social association” to the partner and the partner helps mustard provide a service they would otherwise have to turn down sales leads for.

Win Win – Its the best way.

There are so many free lunches offered!

Often by well meaning people trying to give someone a hand up but accidentally through their over keen desire to help giving them a hand out instead.

I am sure you have seen it, a youngster gets a dream opportunity handed to him on a plate and doesn’t bother turning up on his first day and it drives you potty trying to understand how that could happen!

In my experience the best relationships exist when both parties bring something to the table, both parties hurt and both parties benefit from the success of the relationship.

Anything else is charity and charity is definitely an overused and often ineffective vessel for change

Every Lunch you go to you pay a high price for even if it is free financially it still has a high “Opportunity cost.” Who else could you have been at lunch with? Where else could you have been.

Don’t make it too easy for people, they need to buy in, if they don’t then you have no idea what they will be like when it matters!

The messages we push out about ourselves often become our realities.

This happens through what we say, do, dress like and what time we turn up.

In some weird self fulfilling prophecy we attract the attention that ask for through our actions.

My friends have always banged on about me getting a decent car for perception but the main perception I care about is my web footprint.

It’s where everyone makes their decisions about me, about whether I am a cowboy or an established and more importantly trustworthy business person.

Below is how my blog looked before I got someone to improve it……

I wonder if I would be perceived as any less of a person if my blog still looked this way?

What do I look like to you? Let me know.

There is a balance to be stuck between writing stories and telling stories.

If all an author did was lock himself in his cupboard and write continuously no-one would ever hear of his work and it would have no impact.

If all he ever did was talk about his writing in interviews and reviews then he would just be full of hot air.

We are all writing our own stories and telling them to the people around us whether we know it or not and different seasons demand different priorities in the writing / telling balance.

I know for me the next three months is a writing time!

The next chapter in my book. “Mobile Micropayments”

I will tell you about it once its written!

My team are already bored of hearing it.

“The future is Social and Mobile”

We want to do….

Whatever we want

With whoever we want

Whenever we want

———————–

Is it good?

Probably not

Is there any way to stop it?

Probably not

Will you win commercially if you fight it?

Probably not

In any market segment, any country any socio-economic grouping sooner or later I think you will be hearing these words.

Mobile & Social