Humour

RIP Rippln?

2013-04-30 by James Burchill in Humour, Internet Marketing, Local Marketing, Marketing, Mobile, Mobile Marketing, News, Social Media, Technology | Leave a comment

RipplnI’ve lost track of the number of people who’ve invited me to share the social opportunity that is Rippln.

Hmm , I wonder if it has anything to do with the many thousands of business people in the networks I’ve built?
Nah … I’m being cynical

Let me save anyone else thinking of inviting me some trouble: NO THANK YOU.

In the beginning I explained why I was declining, but people didn’t listen and even attempted to goad me with statements like, “and you claim you know social media!” “Rippln is social media” and other such bunk. I cannot be goaded, in fact such tactics fire me up even more to dig in and refuse.

Ironically I was curious in the beginning. So I tried to find out more. That’s when I ran into a wall of NDA and other “obscurity” marketing ju-ju. Believe me, I get it when a company tries to stack the coolness and wind up the pressure with a veil … but Rippln is supposed to be social.

Social is transparent. Social is clarity … It’s not smoke and mirrors and shadows. Very 1980′s “cold war” if you ask me …

Smart people don’t sign “blind contracts” and if you have a background in software development as I do, you know only too well what can go wrong if you put pen to paper (even digitally) and sign an NDA when code is involved.

And now I’m hearing rumours about the way Rippln is supposed to deliver value. Then there’s the whole icky “MLM” stigma “bait and switch” accusations being attached to it. No idea if it’s true. But where there’s smoke … there’s usually some guy making kippers ;-)

I imagine when the dust settles and the truth is out … which will eventually happen … we will see what Rippln is all about. It may indeed be what they promise, but until then I’m going to watch from the sidelines as the herd chases the brass ring.

Hey, I know … I might miss something cool But believe me when I say (and you know this too) opportunities are like buses … there will be another along in a few minutes. It is the 21st century you know ;-)

PS. Here’s the article by Chris Voss >>> Rippln Investigation: Is It A MLM Pyramid Scheme Scam?

People are worrying about me … here’s why.

2013-04-18 by James Burchill in B2B Networking, Humour, Local Marketing, Money, News, Social Media | Comments Off

Good morning,

I’ve mentioned this before, but people “worry” about how I’m making any money with my Business In Networking Group. It’s actually quite cute ;-)

I think by now you might have heard me explain the model, but just in case, here it is again:

‘Membership is free … Promotion costs a fee’

The network is designed around a hybrid freemium model and while we happily give away life-time memberships at no cost (something other groups charge hundreds of dollars for) we don’t.

What we do is charge for promotion.

If you want to advertise your business to the members you can … for a fee. And even then, our fee structure is very reasonable. In fact, we’re less than half the cost of typical market rates for similar services.

To see what we’re currently offering (and the associated fees) you can visit the advertising rate pages for each network:

As you might expect, the size and scope of the network affects the price a little and we offer bundle and repeat discounts if you’re interested.

Another way we make money is through licensing.

Contrary to rumour, I cannot be in multiple places at once and have chosen to partner up with some clever people who appreciate the power and value running a Business In Network provides them.

Currently our Niagara network President is RoseAnn Waters and I’m in discussions with network partner Presidents for Oakville, Mississauga, Milton, Kitchener Waterloo, Toronto and Guelph to name a few.

If you’re interested in partnering – or know someone who might be – get in touch. I’m happy to chat about how the whole licensing model works and while I’m expanding the network, the quarterly fee structure is incredibly affordable (less than the price of one very small ad in a local newspaper!)

Finally, I just wanted to remind you tickets are now on sale for a couple of special training events in May. You can get all the details at http://SocialMediaTrainingDay.com and if you reserve your space before the end of April you can save $100 too.

That’s all for now, I hope you have a fantastic Thursday and remember …

Stay frosty!

James

OMG … I’m NOT perfect!

2013-01-27 by James Burchill in Copywriting, Humour | 5 Comments

Mr Potatoe Hed

Recently I was reviewing the comments in my blog and I noted someone had taken great pains to rather spitefully criticize a typo I’d made in a piece (or is that peace?) of writing. They’d written an entire diatribe citing all my writing credentials as if those should be sufficient proof I must never … ever … foul up.

But I did. I said “who’s” instead of “whose.” 

OMG! I made a boo-boo.

Seriously? 

Good lord, I write over 250,000 words a year (at least) … and yes, I actually figured it out. So it’s pretty dang likely I’m going to make a mistake once in a while.

For fun, let’s try and quantify that shall we? Assuming I make one word gaff per day (it’s nowhere near that high, but hey … let’s use that data anyway.) Then we calculate those gaffs as a percentage of the 250K words I write and that yields an accuracy overall of 99.854%

Not too shabby eh?

Sure, it sucks when a typo slips past. But the last time I checked, no one died if I made a mistake in an email, a blog post, a sales letter, a script, an advert or some other random chunk-o-text I write for the fun of it.

So if your (I know …. you’re) thinking of trying to send me some jumped up little grammar police style missive saying how I should be soooooo ashamed I messed up. Bit me!

Cr*p … BITE ME ;-)

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