[Star Trek Business Lessons] #3: They’re Born Pregnant!
August 5th, 2009
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by NicoleDean · Filed Under: Business Building
Hi again! I’m Nicole Dean, and I’m a friend of Bob’s. I’m a Guest Expert here this week, and I’m doing a Star Trek theme. (Can you tell?) ;)
The topic is:
5 Lessons I’ve Learned from Star Trek that Have Helped me with my Online Business
The first lesson was based around “I’m a Doctor, Not a (insert other career or random noun … like ‘escalator’ here)“. In the first lesson, I discussed the fact that many of us are trying to wear way too many convoluted “Dr. Seuss” shoes. (Can you picture Dr. Seuss shoes? Picture lots of sideways angles and maybe curly toes?). I also talked about how to kick off those painful shoes and wear the comfy ones.
The second lesson was based around “Beam Me Up Scotty!” and touched on doing things the fast way, rather than the slow, time-consuming “Kill me now!” way. (Yes, I have issues…)
So, what on EARTH could I be talking about today?
You’re hoping for another embarrassing picture, aren’t you? Well, you’re in luck!
Lesson #3: “They’re born pregnant!”
In the episode “The Trouble with Tribbles” the little creatures in that picture take over the ship by reproducing at an almost exponential rate.
Dr. McCoy wraps up their reproductive issues in one sentence when he says “They’re BORN Pregnant!”
While I don’t necessarily want to turn this into a lesson about the birds and the bees — (Remember, I’m subbing for business class, not sex ed…) I do think there is a very valuable message here about marketing.
The lesson is that your marketing should BE the tribble. Viral marketing is like the reproductive status of the tribble — on steroids.
What is viral marketing? It’s when people promote you. They spread your message around because it’s interesting, educational, bizarre, or because there is an incentive to do so.
Or, as Reba sang “Let’s give them something to talk about!”
Be remarkable.
Give them something to talk about.
OR… give them a monetary reason to spread your marketing message around.
Any marketing message that “reproduces” without effort from you is pretty darned cool.
But HOW do you get people to spread your marketing message so that you don’t have to?
- Make them so excited that they WANT to spread the word. (That’s the reasoning behind Marketing Comics.)
- Give them great free information that they want to share. (I have several audios, videos, and articles at my blog that you are welcome to post on your blog any time: Nicole Dean’s Reprint Content.)
- Give them a monetary reason to! (My favorite! – Sales Army Secrets is a great course to learn more about this.)
- Loyalty. Here’s where people like Bob (and hopefully I fit in this category, too) excel. If you help people, they feel loyal to you and want to give back. So, they spread your message in an almost evangelical fashion. (Not a bad thing.)
Are you asking people to share your message? I will right now. Please share this series of posts with your internet friends to make them smile! Twitter, StumbleUpon, or just drop an email to a buddy who you think would enjoy this. Thanks so much!
(See? That wasn’t hard at all!)
There’s a whole lot more I can get into with this post, but I’ve got to watch “So you think you can Dance!” with my kiddos before I fly out to Atlanta tomorrow.
So, if you have any questions, please post them in the comments and I’ll answer them in the next day or two.
Thanks so much for reading!
Warmly,
Nicole Dean
Follow us on Twitter: Nicole on Twitter | Bob on Twitter
PS. Doesn’t that tribble in the picture (on the left) look familiar? Hmm… Bob “the Tribble” Jenkins? ;)
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7 Responses to “[Star Trek Business Lessons] #3: They’re Born Pregnant!”
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| Bob Jenkins is an internet business marketing teacher, with ten years experience teaching teenagers and teachers. He is the creator of several online training courses that teach you how to get better customers and increase your profits. Specializing in social networking strategies for business and creating information products from teleseminars, Bob can help you use internet marketing tools and strategies to promote your business online. |
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I love that episode of Star Trek! Cute comparison my man handed friend!
I’m pleased to say that my article marketing has given birth to lots of tribbles. I’m still seeing articles written more than four years ago published on new sites.
[...] This post was Twitted by bobtheteacher [...]
Hey Nicole,
I had a funny feeling Trouble With Tribbles would be among the ideas shared, but had no idea how you were going to weave it in.
Having “pregnant” ideas is great. What you can also infer from this, other than the viral aspect of thing being spread around is that the seeds of your next project are born inside the previous one. This is how most of my products have evolved. Something in one product makes people want more of something specific that you may have mentioned. This is how Squidoo Secrets was born out of FreeAdReport for example.
Sure is fun to see you running class like a superstar. :)
Bob Jenkins
[...] http://askbobtheteacher.com/blog/marketing-lessons-from-star-trek-3-theyre-born-pregnant/ [...]
Nicole, you’ve hit upon some core viral marketing concepts there. Their succinct delivery hides their power.
In the creation of the Tipping The Point Viral Marketing Handbook, I have Bob and Jimmy to thank for their ideas.
The execution of one of the central strategies in the handbook harks back to Jimmy’s Viral eBook Brainstorm and there’s a smattering of Sales Army Secrets in their too.
Both of the aforementioned are required reading IMHO.
Running with the pregnancy analogy, you need a “big seed” (as Duncan Watts would say) to ensure your viral marketing efforts are not wasted.
Put another way, your marketing should be promiscuous!
All the best,
Tom
[...] Viral Marketing Lessons from Tribbles. [...]
Wow! That IS taking us back some years! That was a great episode! I need to do more viral marketing! I’m terrible at making time for it.