"Perpetual Beta"

“Perpetual Beta” suggest that by putting your less than perfect ideas, products or services out to your community, asking for feedback, and acting upon it, your outcome will have a greater likelihood of achieving its intended outcome.

Jeremy Epstein, word of mouth marketer extraordinaire, blogger, social web guru and all around groovy guy, has coined this term. He applies these principles with his community and his work as a consultant helping companies turn their customers into their best marketers.

Why
"Perpetual Beta" works off three basic assumptions

1. We live in an attention economy and everyone has A.D.D.
2. We don’t know everything
3. Collectively, our community knows more than we do

The bottom line is that customers have many choices and little time. If we do not capture their attention with tangible, explicit value right off the bat we will never get it. By leveraging the collective knowledge of our communities we have a better opportunity to deliver maximum value to more people with greater efficiency.

How
3 steps to "Perpetual Beta"

1. Put you ego aside- make sure your fear of being perceived as vulnerable or embarrassed by putting a less than perfect idea, product or service out there does not get in the way of you delivering greatness
2. Find Comfort with Discomfort – Get comfortable with putting yourself out there in an authentic manner. Let your customers see your vulnerabilities in your attempts to add value. The more we open up the deeper the relationships we will build.
3. Engage in Perpetual Beta – by consistently engaging your network; asking and answering questions, giving and receiving feedback we are able to empower these relationships to evolve. If we cease to contribute these relationships will wither and die ( look what happened to me)

As I see it, “Perpetual Beta” is a model for building trust as long as the associated behaviors are motivated by the authentic desire to add mutual value.

The Bottom Line
From a selling perspective you can never have too many healthy, productive relationships. By leveraging social media to engage in “Perpetual Beta” we open ourselves up to the possibility to grow our relationships on an exponential level.

The Bottom, Bottom Line
The more people we come into contact with, the greater the potential we have to find people that we share a vision/value fit with. The larger the network of people with whom we have been able to build profound, productive relationships witch will result in more plentiful interactions that are both productive and meaningful. Oh, and you’ll make more money!!!

What’s your ego costing your business?

Ego’s cost businesses billions of dollars every year! Think about it. How many decisions have you seen that have been made when someone’s ego has got in the way of what was ultimately the right choice?

Personally – has your ego cost you a sale, a client, a meeting or has your ego stood in the way of you adding value to your customers?

Your ego is just doing its job. The purpose of your ego is to protect you from the fear, anxiety, embarrassment that can arise when you interact with the world. The ego is the great mediator between you and your perception of reality. Ego is not altogether pathological, it only becomes problematic if the ego/logic relationship is out of balance and your ego is allowed to be the driver of the decision.

According to Dr. Sandy Gluckman;

“The result is that ego-driven decision-makers tend to make defensive, short-term, self-serving, and strategically inappropriate decisions, regardless of whether it’s right or wrong for the company, profitable or not”.

Although, I have found a vast amount of data on ego, I have found very little information on how to manage it. Dr. Gluckman suggest an approach she calls “Spirited Economics™ “which she call the “art” of making a decision with your “spirited self” in the drivers seat and your ego in the passengers seat. I find her approach effective as a guide to developing the inner dialogue needed to determine if ego is at play in a given situation

From my own experience I have found the following process to be highly effective at identifying and working through situation where my ego is getting in the way.

Putting your ego aside

1. Acknowledge – don’t deny its existence. Ask yourself why you are making the decision you are making. Is it for the greater good? Is it satisfying its intended purpose? Intimately understand your own drivers. Does it stand up to the scrutiny of a rational decision making model?
2. Assess – try to understand where it’s coming from, what meaning does it hold, what is the story it’s telling? What is your ego trying to protect?
3. Move forward – Once you have assessed the ego imbalance, take what you have learned, find meaning, and decide with intent to achieve the intended outcome.