Multiply your success with technology

The goal of technology in business is simple: to take the most successful elements in your business, and amplify them — make them more effective and efficient. But remember: technology cannot make you successful. If you multiply a zero with anything, you’ll still get zero. Technology can only make you more successful if already have some success.

At Maya’s Hope, it was clear that the most effective marketing tool we had was Maya. People responded to her story and people responded to her. But Maya was only one person. She could only talk to one person at a time face-to-face, she could only meet with people in New York City, and no matter how little sleep she got, there was only so much one person could do.

The solution was obvious. In order for the organization to grow, we had to clone her.

But instead of setting out to replace Maya with soulless machines (like most companies do), we used technology to amplify her. If she was the best salesperson, then the goal of technology was: multiplied salesmanship. This meant capturing her best performance, and making the website a “Virtual Maya”. The goal was to replicate the presentation she was giving to prospects in person… and delivering an equally effective presentation (or better) online.

Now instead of having to repeat the presentation from scratch with every prospect in person, we have our website: Virtual Maya. By investing in creating this presentation once, it can provide infinite return in the digital world, since it never sleeps, never has to eat, can talk to millions of people at once, anywhere in the world… forever (and for free).

That freed up Maya’s precious time from cold-prospecting, because the website can now be the first point of contact for cold leads. Virtual Maya (the website) automatically screens, sifts and sorts and hands off only pre-motivated, pre-interested and pre-qualified people to connect with Maya in person.

Further, since digital content lives forever, the website serves as a permanent (and publicly visible) archive for every article, campaign, letter, promotion, etc ever created. As a result, every piece of content becomes an investment that can be used and reused to produce a return forever.

In addition to your website, tools such as Facebook and email are used for “one-to-many” commnication. With these tools, Maya can write one post or one email, and for a fixed investment of her time, can reach an unlimited number of people. That is the leverage that modern technology gives you.

For example, here’s a piece we created to answer the question people had, about how to send gifts to the children: “How to Send a Surprise Gift to an Orphanage in Philippines — Cheaply”

Over the course of a few months, Maya’s Hope shared that article on Facebook multiple times and forwarded the link to answer anyone who asked. Do you see how this is powerful? Instead of having to answer those questions for each person over and over, digital media lets you create content once and share it infinitely, not only saving time, but also having the power to deliver the same information in the best way possible — every time.

What’s more, it makes it easy for your supporters to share with others. Instead of re-iterating your message or information, they just have to say, “Here, visit this page” — your digital presentation does all the work automatically! With the use of social sharing features on Facebook (and embedded in the webpage itself), the article reached thousands of eyeballs at zero cost with only a one-time investment of creating it.

All this produced the largest holiday gift drive at Maya’s Hope, and Maya spent a whole month packing and shipping out boxes to the Philippines as gifts for the orphanage kept coming in to her from all over USA. (The gifts included much needed items like nebulizers, lice medicine and deworming medicine.) And guess what… with minor modifications, the same piece can be reused next year as well.

But once again, everything must start with your kernels of success. Start with success, and technology multiplies success. (But start with garbage, and you’ll just get more garbage.)

So first identify what’s working best for you. E.g., what’s brings in your most valuable people, what makes them happiest, what makes them happiest to buy and return to buy more. Then, use technology to take what works, and multiply it.

Next: unique positioning