Trajectory Chapter 1 – “The Perfect Trajectory”

Chapter 1 – The Perfect Trajectory

Many years ago, I was invited by NASA to the launch of the Space Shuttle.

I stood mesmerized in the early morning Florida sunshine as the ground shook, the engines roared and the calm blue sky was filled with the amazing spectacle of the enormous vehicle as it rose into space along its perfect trajectory.

For the first few seconds after being released from the launch pad, it hung slowly in the air as if being held by an invisible hand.

And then at the precise moment, to the growing cheers of the awestruck crowd, it lifted majestically into the clouds, tilted slightly to the right and then finding its trajectory blasted into the future.

I was struck at that moment by the realization that hundreds of scientists, engineers and astronauts had spent countless hours planning, managing and executing this breathtaking event – and now with a colossal thrust of energy all their efforts were paying off.

Perfect trajectories are not accidental.  They require tremendous knowledge, painstaking effort and total commitment.  They require consummate professionalism, careful planning and years of hard work.  But when that magical moment occurs and the Shuttle blasts toward its orbit — it seems unstoppable.

From Space to Social Media

Trajectory is an uncommon word in business.  It normally suggests the surge of a missile as it rockets into orbit, the dramatic arc of a forward pass in the NFL, or the exciting upward mobility of your career path as you climb the ladder of success.

In this instance, Trajectory is the powerful upward momentum of Social Media when strategy, management and execution are joined in the perfect combination.

Trajectory is the predictable path to profitable results after a period of sustained effort.  It will start slowly, but when everything comes together it will seem unstoppable as well.

Who is this Book Intended For?

The short answer is: Doers, practitioners and power users — especially overburdened entrepreneurs – who despite their daily stress believe as I do, that Twitter can have a major impact on their businesses. They know they should embrace Social Media, but have difficulty finding the time, the energy or the skills to make it happen.

Specifically, this book is intended for anyone who wants to know the secrets of Social Media success, particularly with Twitter — and anyone who wants to know how to achieve significant, sustainable and lasting results.

Entrepreneurs:  This Book is For You

If you are an entrepreneur, I am especially eager to help you.  You have chosen to be the vanguard of job creation and the financial backbone of the economy. You have invested your time, skills and resources in a dream and no one is paying your bills except you.

You have unique needs and specific wants, that as your fellow entrepreneur I fully understand.

You have no interest in theory — and you can’t afford the luxury of time required for getting up to speed. You have neither the stamina nor the inclination for trial and error. You can’t afford a Social Media Department, or even a Social Media assistant.

Finally, and most importantly, you want to know how one motivated individual, with the required professional aptitude, can do all of this alone without staff and without significant resources.

In short, it’s just you — but with the help of Trajectory you are enough.

Why Should You Listen to Me?

In decades of professional experience, I have been a corporate officer of a multibillon dollar corporation with a multimillion dollar marketing budget and an entrepreneur working 16 hours per day to maximize my business.

I am a professional strategist, manager and a specialist in effective and efficient execution — with over twenty years of successful online business under my belt.

When I began the Twitter campaign that forms the basis of this book, I made a conscious decision to do all of the work myself. That means everything — from website design to full Twitter implementation; from Tweeting dozens of times per day to writing 152 articles in the first year alone.

When I offer suggestions, they are proven ones. When I warn about mistakes, it’s only because I have made them myself.

I knew that to be credible in my argument that beleaguered entrepreneurs could face this task alone — I would need tangible, empirical data to prove my case. This book is my evidence.

I am willing, able and prepared to share my results with you, and I am enthusiastic about teaching you everything I know.

That’s why I have written this book. I have written it for you.

Why Twitter?

Why should you invest your time and energy in building a Twitter following?

Since Trajectory is all about results, I’ll cut to the chase.

Twitter is becoming a hugely profitable way to do business.

Building a substantial, loyal and engaged Twitter following for your company is the key to immense financial gains in the future.

Don’t take my word for it, just consider for a moment where the smart money is going.   According to Adam Bain, Twitter’s director of revenue, Promoted Tweets that initially went on sale to big advertisers for $25,000 — are now selling for $125,000 per day.

That is a staggering financial result for a company, and a Social Media process, that was considered a foolish waste of time by most businesses just a few short years ago.

Bain pointed out in a recent interview that Twitter’s Promoted Accounts allow advertisers to pay per follower.

The going rate is $4 per follower.

He stated, “Paying $4 for a follower is a pittance because the ROI is insane. Because once they have a follower, they can keep marketing to that guy as many times as they want …”

Is it any wonder that successful brands like Toyota, Papa John’s Pizza, Nissan and JetBlue Airlines keep coming back for more?

There is even a pending court case in California that is valuing Twitter followers at $2.50 per month each.  With an engaged Twitter following of 70,000 individuals, that’s a company asset of $2.1 million.

You can easily do the math.

 Twitter for Business is Simple – But It Isn’t Easy

Like the game of chess — that can be learned in an afternoon but requires hard work and sustained effort for many years to master – Twitter usage for business is simple but it isn’t easy.   I mention this early, in case you may be under the impression that a quick read and a little effort will make this happen.  It won’t.  In fact, you will learn as you become familiar with the Trajectory Formula that you are about to undertake a challenge as difficult as it is important to your business success.

Don’t underestimate this challenge, or the valuable results its successful completion will ensure.  Be prepared for a sustained period of hard work.

Twitter Results

The above graph represents my actual Twitter results over the first year of the campaign. I began with zero followers in April 2010, and by August 1, 2010 had 6,936 highly engaged Twitter followers. Over the next 12 months, over 52,000 individuals had chosen to follow me. The growth had been steady and predictable, and the purpose of this book is to explain precisely how I caused that to happen.

This same dramatic Twitter growth has continued to the present, passing the 65,000 follower benchmark in the first week of December, 2011.

This sustained and predictable growth is the essence – and the driving force — behind Trajectory.

A Cautionary Note about Twitter Followers

It is often said, and justifiably so, that simply amassing followers will not accomplish much. This statement is absolutely true. If Social Media success were that easy, there would be no point in writing this book and no point in purchasing it, for that matter. It would be a wasteful exercise for both of us.

Amassing a significant Twitter following is merely an important cog in a very complex machine.  It is the driving force – but not the final destination.

The balance of this book will explain in exhaustive detail how to turn this sustained effort into a financial triumph.

What Will You Learn by Reading Trajectory?

Laura Fitton, one of the brightest Social Media personalities and thinkers working today, wrote an excellent book entitled Twitter for Dummies that dealt with the basics, and did so very well.

Trajectory, however, is not Twitter for Dummies. 

1. Trajectory is an advanced approach to doing business with Twitter, beginning from a place that assumes you know most of the basics.
2. Trajectory assumes that you – or someone you know — may have attempted to use Twitter for business purposes but with less than stellar results.
3. For this reason, Trajectory starts where other books leave off:  A guaranteed sequence leading to results.
4. Trajectory is not a path to experimentation, or testing, or theory – it is a path to whatever results you have determined to be strategically most important to your business.

1. Strategy, tactics, management and execution.
2. How to identify, locate and capture your audience.
3. The importance of online influence and you will learn how to achieve it.
4. How to become proficient in the use of appropriate software and external websites that will make your job easier and more efficient.
5. How to become a world-class multitasker.
6. How to engage your followers, maintain their interest and gradually move them toward a mutually beneficial business relationship.
7. How to write blog articles that will be widely appreciated.
8. How to sell — without really selling.

1. You will learn and apply the E13 Social Media Strategy to all of your business efforts.
2. The E13 Strategy is a sophisticated process for transforming your business into a profitable and results-oriented Social Media powerhouse, not a company that merely dabbles in Social Media as an experiment.
3. Properly implemented it will impact all aspects of your enterprise.
4. It is a macro-level series of 13 concepts – a look down at your business from 30,000 feet – that provides an intelligent complement to all of the other components of Trajectory.

Demonstrable Value

You will learn that the most significant and earliest Social Media outcome is demonstrable value.  It is value that you can see and feel; value you can quantify; value that will predictably turn into cash and ring the cash register — and before that — value that adds to the assets of the company.

Based upon a case being decided in the federal court in California, demonstrable value alone can improve your company assets by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars.

In short, you will not simply amass a significant Twitter following — you will learn how to make it a mainstay of your online enterprise. You will learn that every hour you expend in building your Trajectory will pay off. 

You will learn to appreciate your followers and treat them with the dignity they deserve.

And you will learn how to absorb them into a well-tooled, interconnected mechanism that will prosper your business.

How Trajectory is Organized

The infographic below illustrates in detail how Trajectory is organized.

There are four major parts to Trajectory:

1. The Launch Sequence:  
• An overview of the business implications that will arise as you make Social Media an integral part of your business.
• Think of Launch Pad as the fundamental platform upon which all else will be based.
• Why is Twitter the place to build your Social Media business?   Are there compelling reasons that might not be readily apparent?
• What are the seven creative steps for building a new Twitter Strategy, and why are they crucial?
• Why is it that Twitter has suffered from business neglect until recently, and what can we reasonably expect in the future?
2.  The E13 Social Media Strategy:  
• A combination of thirteen concepts, that when applied to everything you do will improve results.
• Think of E13 as a checklist that you should apply against every new strategy, management approach and execution technique before it is formally put in place.
• They are fine-tuning mechanisms that will improve profits, simplify scalability and encourage customer loyalty.
• They will solidify your influence, expand your markets and help you compete.
• Taken together, they will make an enormous difference in your business and greatly enhance your ability to run a lean, manageable and ultimately successful enterprise.
3. The Trajectory Formula:  
• A precise combination of variables that when applied in order amplifies results.
• Beginning with a comprehensive strategy, the formula requires a marketing discipline that concentrates on the wants and needs of the customer, builds a sizable Social Media following until critical mass is reached and explodes along a perfect trajectory toward sales and profits.
• The Formula explains the proper design of your website and various Social Media outposts;
• Explains the proper strategy and tactics for identifying, locating and accumulating highly targeted followers;
• Explains how to development influence, how to multitask, how to forecast financial results and hot to achieve your company’s objectives;
• Finally, the Formula will help you find answers to pivotal questions that can mean the difference between success and failure.
4. The Trajectory Process:  
• The Trajectory Process organizes everything you will learn in this book into a logical cycle, which may be repeated with predictable results.
• There is a slightly different trajectory for each market, that you must determine in advance and then adhere to.  This is where you will be warned about some of the management pitfalls you should avoid.
• Amorphous Marketing will identify important markets that might not be readily apparent.  You will learn the importance of brain mapping as a tool to choose among them. Innovators have had an impact on all burgeoning businesses.  This is where you will meet them.  The role of women in the world economy will be highlighted.
• Critical Mass will differ from market-to-market, but in every case will be necessary to achieve Escape Velocity.  The Process will tell you when.
• Trajectory Selling will provide you with step-by-step instructions on how to make Twitter the most valuable marketing component of your business.
• The Process will keep you abreast of new technology and thought leadership in your industry.
• And most importantly, if you follow the process you will achieve results.

Trajectory is Much More than a Book about Twitter

The crucial message I wish to convey at the beginning is that Trajectory is much more than a book about Twitter.  It is a compilation of everything you need to know to run a successful Social Media enterprise.  It is not a book of suggestions – it is a book overflowing with battle-tested, winning approaches – and with empirical evidence to back them up.  It is not centered on theory, but rather on predictable, measurable and profitable results.

What’s In It for You?

If you are looking for a Social Media get-rich-quick scheme, however, you have come to the wrong place.   If anything, this is a get-rich-slow formula.  But if you are willing to commit to a period of sustained effort, this book will show you exactly how to build an engaged Twitter following of 65,000 followers and more which will be the most significant asset in your business for many years to come. This is an immense asset that cannot be bought, only earned.

The Take-Aways

As noted above, Trajectory is a continuous process of eight steps.  As each step is described in this book, I hope to accomplish the following:

1. Twitter – To provide you with a systematic, step-by-step method for elevating your Twitter usage to a major strategic component of your business success.
2. Trajectory - To teach you the fundamentals of Trajectory, a concept that will make your Twitter following grow as never before. And importantly, to provide you with a proven method for measuring your success and predicting your results.
3. Amorphous Marketing - To teach you the fundamentals of Amorphous Marketing, a customer-centric concept that places the wants and needs of your customer ahead of your own.
4. Critical Mass – To teach you the fundamentals of Critical Mass, a concept borrowed from nuclear fission that will revolutionize your approach to strategy, encourage you during the slow periods, and give you demonstrable evidence that you are on the right track. It’s a proprietary process that will accelerate your success and embolden you to do more.
5. Escape Velocity - To teach you the fundamentals of Escape Velocity, a concept that when applied catapults your efforts into a sustained upward momentum.
6. Trajectory Selling – To teach you the fundamentals of Trajectory Selling, a new and exciting method of accomplishing profitable sales without distracting you from your Social Media growth.
7. New Technology - To prepare you for the emergence of new technology — as strategies, tools, techniques and Social Media venues inevitably evolve.
8. Results - And most importantly, to propel you from wherever you find yourself today — toward the tomorrow you want for you and your business.

The New Marketing Model

Social Media has turned traditional marketing on its head.  In many ways, it is this notion that is most transformative.

Social Media is about trust, not marketing gimmicks.  It is about conversations, not sales pitches.  It is about enduring relationships, mutual respect and service.

By far the most common mistake made by Social Media novitiates and seasoned marketing professionals alike, is the reluctance to postpone selling until the proper time and the desire to turn followers into buyers too early.

For all of these reasons and many more, the sales process must begin after all of the preliminaries are in place.

This is What Success Will Look Like

This is a book about hard work, perseverance and accomplishment.  It is a book about overcoming challenges and marshaling commitment.  It is a book that promises results for your business — in the present and future.   The principles you will learn in these pages will make you successful today — plus agile, knowledgeable and fully prepared for whatever comes next.

And along the way — as you find your perfect trajectory – this is what success will look like.

It will be a proud moment.

Availability

Trajectory is being published in January, 2012.

Published price as an eBook, $24.95.

66 Chapters, 410 pages.