Category Archives: Uncategorized

What You Don’t Know (About Your Identity/Biometric Company Website) Can Hurt You

The identity/biometric company (not named here) never formally learned why prospects shunned the outdated information on its website.

This is NOT the website I’m discussing in this post. The referenced identity company is not named here. This is the website of some other company, taken from https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/gallery/microsoft-1996.

The identity/biometric company never formally learned how its references to renamed companies and non-existent companies were repelling those very companies…and the prospects who knew the website information was inaccurate.

April 11, 2023: “It’s unclear what the change means for Twitter.” From https://www.seattletimes.com/business/twitter-company-no-longer-exists-is-now-part-of-musks-x/.

With those types of mistakes, the entire company’s positioning became suspect.

From https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/13/15966094/30-rock-buscemi-how-do-you-do-fellow-kids-meme-kill-it-please.

It could have learned…if it had met with me. But it chose not to do so.

NOTE TO SELF: INSERT STRONG FEAR UNCERTAINTY AND DOUBT PARAGRAPH HERE. TAKE OUT THESE TWO SENTENCES BEFORE POSTING THE FINAL VERSION!!!

(By the way…while the identity/biometric company never received this information formally, it did receive it informally…because such information is presumably critically important to the company.)

How many other companies are in the same situation, with:

(T)here are clues within the content itself as to its age, such as “Our product is now supported on Windows 7.”

My mini-survey shows that of the 40+ identity firms with blogs, about one-third of them HAVEN’T SAID A SINGLE THING to their prospects and customers in the last two months.

Is there a 29-year veteran of the identity industry, an identity content marketing expert who can help the companies fix these gaps?

Let’s talk.

Drive content results with Bredemarket Identity Firm Services.

And yes, the ALL CAPS paragraph was a setup. But I’m sure you can compose a FUD paragraph on your own without my help.

Can Artificial Intelligence Reduce Healthcare Burnout?

By Phee – Pixabay, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52233006

Burnout in the healthcare industry is real—but can targeted artificial intelligence solutions reduce burnout?

In a LinkedIn post, healthcare company Artisight references an Advisory Board article with the following statistics:

(T)here were 7,887 nurses who recently ended their healthcare careers between 2018 and 2021….39% of respondents said their decision to leave healthcare was due to a planned retirement. However, 26% of respondents cited burnout or emotional exhaustion, and 21% cited insufficient staffing.

And this is ALL nurses. Not just the forensic nurses who have to deal with upsetting examinations that (literally) probe into sexual assault and child abuse. All nurses have it tough.

But the Artisight LinkedIn post continues with the following assertion:

At Artisight we are committed to reversing this trend through AI-driven technology that is bringing the joy back to medicine!!

Can artificial intelligence bots truly relieve the exhaustion of overworked health professionals? Let’s look at two AI solutions from 3M and Artisight and see whether they truly benefit medical staff.

3M and documentation solutions

3M. From mining and manufacturing to note-taking, biometrics, and artificial intelligence. By McGhiever – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51409624

3M, a former competitor to MorphoTrak until 3M sold its biometric offerings (as did MorphoTrak’s parent Safran), has invested heavily into healthcare artificial intelligence solutions. This includes a solution that addresses the bane of medical professionals everywhere—keeping up with the paperwork (and checking for potentially catastrophic errors).

Our solutions use artificial intelligence (AI) to alleviate administrative burden and proactively identify gaps and inconsistencies within clinical documentation. Supporting completeness and accuracy every step of the way, from capture to code, means rework doesn’t end up on the physician’s plate before or even after discharge. That enables you to keep your focus where it needs to be – on the patient right in front of you.

Artisight and “smart hospitals”

From https://artisight.com/.

But what about Artisight, whose assertion inspired this post in the first place?

A recent PYMNTS article interviewed Artisight President Stephanie Lahr to uncover Artight’s approach.

The Artisight platform marries IoT sensors with machine learning and large language models. The overall goal in a hospital setting is to streamline safe patient care, including virtual nursing. Compliance with HIPAA, according to Lahr, has been an important part of the platform’s development, which includes computer vision, voice recognition, vital sign monitoring, indoor positioning capabilities and actionable analytics reports.

In more detail, a hospital patient room is equipped with Al-powered devices such as high-quality, two-way audio and video with multiple participants for virtual care. Ultra-wideband technology tracks the movement and flow of assets throughout the hospital. Remote nurses and observers monitor patient room activity off-site and interact virtually with patients and clinicians.

At a minimum, this reduces the need for nurses to run down the hall just to check things. At a maximum, tracking of asset flows and actionable analytics reports make the job of everyone in the hospital easier.

What about the benefits?

As Bredemarket blog readers have heard ad nauseum, simply saying that your health solution uses features such as artificial intelligence makes no difference to the medical facility. The facility doesn’t care about your features or your product—it only cares about what benefits them. (Cool feature? So what?)

By Mindaugas Danys from Vilnius, Lithuania, Lithuania – scream and shout, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44907034.

So how can 3M’s and Artisight’s artificial intelligence offerings benefit medical facilities?

  • Allow medical professionals to concentrate on care. Patients don’t need medical professionals who are buried in paperwork. Patients need medical professionals who are spending time with them. The circumstances that land a patient in a hospital are bad enough, and to have people who are forced to ignore patient needs makes it worse. Maybe some day we’ll even get back to Welbycare.
  • Free medical professionals from routine tasks. Assuming the solutions work as advertised, they eliminate the need to double-check a report for errors, or the need to walk down the hall to capture vital signs.
  • Save lives. Yeah, medical professionals do that. If the Marcus Welby AI bot spots an error in a report, or if the bot detects a negative change in vital signs while a nurse is occupied with another patient, the technology could very well save a life.
I’m old enough to remember Welbycare. Robert Young (“Marcus Welby”) and Jane Wyatt (“Margaret Anderson” on a different show). By ABC Television. Public Domain,  https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16472486

Now I am not a doctor and cannot evaluate whether these artificial intelligence solutions actually work (unlike some other so-called artificial intelligence solutions that were in reality powered manually). But if the solutions truly work, wonderful.

What’s YOUR healthcare story? And who can tell your story?

I Edited My “Customer Focus” Page

From the Gary Fly / Brooks Group article “7 Tips for Implementing a Customer-Centric Strategy,” at https://brooksgroup.com/sales-training-blog/7-tips-implementing-customer-centric-strategy/.

I just made a minor edit to my Customer Focus page.

In the introduction to the page, I previously talked about how adopting a customer focus leads you to address “what is important to the customer.”

I changed that phrase to reference “what is critically important to the customer.”

Because TLOI (three levels of importance) rules.

How Does Outsourced Content Writing Work?

How can your technology business work with an outsourced content writer?

Perhaps you should first ask WHY your technology business needs an outsourced content writer.

The need for content

Do your technology business website and social media channels DESPERATELY need written content?

  • Is your website a dreary collection of facts and awards that don’t address what your prospects REALLY care about?
Unnamed firm. Will this increase revenue by 50%? If not, so what?
  • Have you NEVER posted to your company LinkedIn page?
Unnamed firm. What does this LinkedIn page tell prospects?
  • Is your online presence a ghost town?
From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ix8ocFEMa1o.

There may be a variety of reasons for this. Perhaps your current employees are too busy doing other things. Or perhaps writing terrifies them so much that they think ChatGPT-generated content is actually a GOOD thing. (Read the content. It isn’t good.)

So you’re thinking about outsourcing the work to a content writer. One who has created content for multiple technology firms, including 9 returning clients. Here are four examples.

But how does outsourced content writing work?

How Bredemarket works with you to create content

Maybe you need an outsourced content writer because your current textual content is not compelling to your prospects, or perhaps it’s non-existent (for example, a LinkedIn company page with zero posts).

If you approach Bredemarket with your outsourced content writing request, here’s how we will work together:

  1. Kickoff.
  2. First draft.
  3. First draft review.
  4. It depends.
  5. Finalize and publish.

For this example, let’s assume that you need between 400 to 600 words of text to post to your company blog or to your company LinkedIn account, and therefore are purchasing my Bredemarket 400 Short Writing Service.

From https://bredemarket.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/bmt0400-2206a.pdf.

Step 1: Kickoff

This is the most important step in the entire process, and I don’t write a word of text until you and I have some agreement on WHAT I am going to write.

I start by asking seven questions about the content, your product, and your company.

  • Why?
  • How?
  • What?
  • Goal?
  • Benefits?
  • Target Audience?
  • Emotions?

I ask some additional questions which I won’t discuss in detail here. For example, you may specify the subject matter experts or articles I need to consult.

Once we’ve worked through ALL the questions, either in a synchronous meeting or asynchronously via email, I have a good idea of what the written content needs to say.

Step 2: First draft

Now I write the first draft.

By Photo by Gnsin – Gnsin, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=234900.

I don’t ask a bot to write the first draft; I write it myself.

Why? Because I’m an opinionated, crotchety, temperamental writer, and a “you can pry my keyboard out of my cold dead hands” type.

This benefits you because I love doing this, communicating your benefits to your prospects using the framework upon which we agreed in the kickoff.

Unless we agree on a different schedule, I get that first draft to you in three days for the next important step.

Step 3: First draft review

This is where you come in. Your task is to review my draft within three days and provide comments. And if I don’t hear from you within three days, you’ll hear from me. Why?

  1. The first reason is my pure self-interest. The sooner I complete the project, the sooner I get paid. Those cold dead hands need some nice gloves.
  2. The second reason is of mutual interest. We want to complete the project while we’re focused on thinking about it, and while it is critically important to us.
  3. The third reason is for your own self-interest. You have a content gap, and it’s in your interest to fill that gap. If we get this draft reviewed and move forward, that gap will be filled quickly. If we don’t move forward, the gap will remain, your efforts to contract with Bredemarket will be for naught, and you’ll still have an uninteresting website and dead social media accounts.

Step 4: It depends

What happens after the first draft review varies from client to client.

  • Some of my clients love the first draft and don’t want to change a thing.
  • Some of my first drafts have embedded questions that you need to answer; once those questions are answered, the content is ready.
  • Some of my first drafts may need minor changes. In one case, I was asked to remove a reference to a successful hack that occurred at a well-known company; unbeknownst to me, the company was a customer of another division of the client in question. Whoops.
  • Occasionally more substantive changes are required, and I end up creating a second draft in three days, and you review it in three days.

In the end, we have a piece of content that is almost ready for publication.

Step 5: Finalize and publish

While the words may be ready, the entire piece is not.

I’m not a graphics person, and usually a written piece needs some accompanying images to drive the message home. I may suggest some images, or I may suggest that the client reuse an image from their website, or I may just ask the client to select an appropriate image.

Once the text and images are ready, you publish the piece. Normally I don’t have access to your website or social media accounts, so I can’t publish the piece for you. Only one client has given me such access, and even for that client I don’t have COMPLETE publishing permission.

For short projects such as a Bredemarket 400 project, I usually bill you when you publish the piece, although in certain circumstances I may bill you once the text is complete.

Are you ready to outsource your content marketing?

While other content marketers may work differently, we all have some type of process for our outsourced content writing.

If you’re ready to move forward with Bredemarket for outsourced content writing, contact me.

Drive content results with Bredemarket Technology Firm Services.

Does Your Gardening Implement Company Require Age Assurance?

Age assurance shows that a customer meets the minimum age for buying a product or service.

I thought I knew every possible use case for age assurance—smoking tobacco or marijuana, buying firearms, driving a car, drinking alcohol, gambling, viewing adult content, or using social media.

But after investigating a product featured in Cultivated Cool, I realized that I had missed one use case. Turns out that there’s another type of company that needs age assurance…and a way to explain the age assurance method the company adopts.

Off on a tangent: what is Cultivated Cool?

Psst…don’t tell anyone what you’re about to read.

The so-called experts say that a piece of content should only have one topic and one call to action. Well, it’s Sunday so hopefully the so-called experts are taking a break and will never see the paragraphs below.

This is my endorsement for Cultivated Cool. Its URL is https://cultivated.cool/, which I hope you can remember.

Cultivated Cool self-identifies as “(y)our weekly guide to the newest, coolest products you didn’t know you needed.” Concentrating on the direct-to-consumer (DTC or D2C) space, Cultivated Cool works with companies to “transform (their) email marketing from a chore into a revenue generator.” And to prove the effectiveness of email, it offers its own weekly email that highlights various eye-catching products. But not trendy ones:

Trends come and go but cool never goes out of style.

From https://cultivated.cool/.

Bredemarket isn’t a prospect for Cultivated Cool’s first service—my written content creation is not continuously cool. (Although it’s definitely not trendy either). But I am a consumer of Cultivated Cool’s weekly emails, and you should subscribe to its weekly emails also. Enter your email and click the “Subscribe” button on Cultivated Cool’s webpage.

And Cultivated Cool’s weekly emails lead me to the point of this post.

The day that Stella sculpted air

Today’s weekly newsletter issue from Cultivated Cool is entitled “Dig It.” But this has nothing to do with the Beatles or with Abba. Instead it has to do with gardening, and the issue tells the story of Stella, in five parts. The first part is entitled “Snip it in the Bud,” and begins as follows.

Stella felt a shiver go down her spine the first time the pruner blades closed. She wasn’t just cutting branches; she was sculpting air.

From https://cultivated.cool/dig-it/.

The pruner blades featured in Cultivated Cool are sold by Niwaki, an English company that offers Japanese-inspired products. As I type this, Niwaki offers 18 different types of secateurs (pruning shears), including large hand, small hand, right-handed, and left-handed varieties. You won’t get these at your dollar store; prices (excluding VAT) range from US$45.50 to US$280.50 (Tobisho Hiryu Secateurs).

From https://www.niwaki.com/tobisho-hiryu-secateurs/#P00313-1.

Stella, how old are you?

But regardless of price, all the secateurs sold by Niwaki have one thing in common: an age restriction on purchases. Not that Niwaki truly enforces this restriction.

Please note: By law, we are not permitted to sell a knife or blade to any person under the age of 18. By placing an order for one of these items you are declaring that you are 18 years of age or over. These items must be used responsibly and appropriately.

From https://www.niwaki.com/tobisho-hiryu-secateurs/#P00313-1.

That’s the functional equivalent of the so-called age verification scheme used on some alcohol websites.

From https://www.budlight.com/.

I hope you’re sitting down as I reveal this to you: underage people can bypass the age assurance scheme on alcohol websites by inputting any year of birth that they wish. Just like anyone, even a small child, can make any declaration of age that they want, as long as their credit card is valid.

By Adrian Pingstone – Transferred from en.wikipedia, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=112727.

Now I have no idea whether Ofcom’s UK Online Safety Act consultations will eventually govern Niwaki’s sales of adult-controlled physical products. But if Niwaki finds itself under the UK Online Safety Act, or some other act in the United Kingdom or any country where Niwaki conducts business, then a simple assurance that the purchaser is old enough to buy “a knife or blade” will not be sufficient.

Niwaki’s website would then need to adopt some form of age assurance for purchasers, either by using a government-issued identification document (age verification) or examining the face to algorithmically surmise the customer’s age (age estimation).

  • Age verification. For example, the purchaser would need to provide their government-issued identity document so that the seller can verify the purchaser’s age. Ideally, this would be coupled with live face capture so that the seller can compare the live face to the face on the ID, ensuring that a kid didn’t steal mommy’s or daddy’s driver’s license (licence) or passport.
  • Age estimation. For example, the purchaser would need to provide their live face so that the seller can estimate the purchaser’s age. In this case (and in the age verification case if a live face is captured), the seller would need to use liveness dectection to ensure that the face is truly a live face and is not a presentation attack or other deepfake.

And then the seller would need to explain why it was doing all of this.

How can a company explain its age assurance solution in a way that its prospects will understand…and how can the company reassure its prospects that its age assurance method protects their privacy?

Companies other than identity companies must explain their identity solutions

Which brings me to the TRUE call to action in this post. (Sorry Mark and Lindsey. You’re still cool.)

I’ve stated ad nauseum that identity companies need to explain their identity solutions: why they developed them, how they work, what they do, and several other things.

In the same way, firms that incorporate solutions from identity companies got some splainin’ to do.

From https://tenor.com/view/i-love-lucy-lucy-ricardo-some-explaining-to-do-gif-14297186.

This applies to a financial institution that requires customers to use an identity verification solution before opening an account, just like it applies to an online gardening implement website that uses an age assurance method to check the age of pruning shear purchasers.

So how can such companies explain their identity and biometrics features in a way their end customers can understand?

Bredemarket can help.

Drive content results with Bredemarket Identity Firm Services.

Take Me to the (Login.gov IAL2) Pilot

From https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/Pepperidge-Farm-Remembers.

As further proof that I am celebrating, rather than hiding, my “seasoned” experience—and you know what the code word “seasoned” means—I am entitling this blog post “Take Me to the Pilot.”

Although I’m thinking about a different type of “pilot”—a pilot to establish that Login.gov can satisfy Identity Assurance Level 2 (IAL2).

From https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-3/sp800-63a.html#sec2.

A recap of Login.gov and IAL2-non compliance

I just mentioned IAL2 in a blog post on Wednesday, with this seemingly throwaway sentence.

So if you think you can use Login.gov to access a porn website, think again.

From https://bredemarket.com/2024/04/10/age-assurance-meets-identity-assurance-level-2/.

The link in that sentence directs the kind reader to a post I wrote in November 2023, detailing that fact that the GSA Inspector General criticized…the GSA…for implying that Login.gov was IAL2-compliant when it was not. The November post references a GSA-authored August blog post which reads in part (in bold):

Login.gov is on a path to providing an IAL2-compliant identity verification service to its customers in a responsible, equitable way.

From https://www.gsa.gov/blog/2023/08/18/reducing-fraud-and-increasing-access-drives-record-adoption-and-usage-of-logingov.

Because it obviously wouldn’t be good to do it in an irresponsible inequitable way.

But the GSA didn’t say how long that path would be. Would Login.gov be IAL2-compliant by the end of 2023? By mid 2024?

It turns out the answer is neither.

Eight months later we have…a pilot

You would think that achieving IAL2 compliance would be a top priority. After all, the longer that Login.gov doesn’t comply, the more government agencies that will flock to IAL2-compliant ID.me.

Enter Steve Craig of PEAK.IDV and the weekly news summaries that he posts on LinkedIn. Today’s summary includes the following item:

4/ GSA’s Login.gov Pilots Enhanced Identity Verification

Login.gov’s pilot will allow users to match a live selfie with the photo on a self-supplied form of photo ID, such as a driver’s license

Other interesting updates in the press release 👇

From https://www.linkedin.com/posts/stevenbcraig_digitalidentity-aml-compliance-activity-7184539504504930306-LVPF/.
From https://www.gsa.gov/about-us/newsroom/news-releases/general-services-administrations-logingov-pilot-04112024#.

And here’s what GSA’s April 11 press release says.

Specifically, over the next few months, Login.gov will:

Pilot facial matching technology consistent with the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Digital Identity Guidelines (800-63-3) to achieve evidence-based remote identity verification at the IAL2 level….

Using proven facial matching technology, Login.gov’s pilot will allow users to match a live selfie with the photo on a self-supplied form of photo ID, such as a driver’s license. Login.gov will not allow these images to be used for any purpose other than verifying identity, an approach which reflects Login.gov’s longstanding commitment to ensuring the privacy of its users. This pilot is slated to start in May with a handful of existing agency-partners who have expressed interest, with the pilot expanding to additional partners over the summer. GSA will simultaneously seek an independent third party assessment (Kantara) of IAL2 compliance, which GSA expects will be completed later this year. 

From https://www.gsa.gov/about-us/newsroom/news-releases/general-services-administrations-logingov-pilot-04112024#.

In short, GSA’s April 11 press release about the Login.gov pilot says that it expects to complete IAL2 compliance later this year. So it’s going to take more than a year for the GSA to repair the gap that its Inspector General identified.

My seasoned response

Once I saw Steve’s update this morning, I felt it sufficiently important to share the news among Bredemarket’s various social channels.

With a picture.

B-side of Elton John “Your Song” single issued 1970.

For those of you who are not as “seasoned” as I am, the picture depicts the B-side of a 1970 vinyl 7″ single (not a compact disc) from Elton John, taken from the album that broke Elton in the United States. (Not literally; that would come a few years later.)

By the way, while the original orchestrated studio version is great, the November 1970 live version with just the Elton John – Dee Murray – Nigel Olsson trio is OUTSTANDING.

From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cC1ocO0pVgs.

Back to Bredemarket social media. If you go to my Instagram post on this topic, I was able to incorporate an audio snippet from “Take Me to the Pilot” (studio version) into the post. (You may have to go to the Instagram post to actually hear the audio.)

Not that the song has anything to do with identity verification using government ID documents paired with facial recognition. Or maybe it does; Elton John doesn’t know what the song means, and even lyricist Bernie Taupin doesn’t know what the song means.

So from now on I’m going to say that “Take Me to the Pilot” documents future efforts toward IAL2 compliance. Although frankly the lyrics sound like they describe a successful iris spoofing attempt.

Through a glass eye, your throne
Is the one danger zone

From https://genius.com/Elton-john-take-me-to-the-pilot-lyrics.

Postscript

For you young whippersnappers who don’t understand why the opening image mentioned “54 Years On,” this is a reference to another Elton John song.

And it’s no surprise that the live version is better.

From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRngmF-AcFQ.

Now I’m going to listen to this all day. Cue the Instagram post (if Instagram has access to the 17-11-70/11-17-70 version).

Age Assurance Meets Identity Assurance (Level 2)

I’ve talked about age verification and age estimation here and elsewhere. And I’ve also talked about Identity Assurance Level 2. But I’ve never discussed both simultaneously until now.

I belatedly read this March 2024 article that describes Georgia’s proposed bill to regulate access to material deemed harmful to minors.

A minor in Georgia (named Jimmy Carter) in the 1920s, before computers allowed access to adult material. From National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/jica/learn/historyculture/early-life.htm.

The Georgia bill explicitly mentions Identity Assurance Level 2.

Under the bill, the age verification methods would have to meet or exceed the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Identity Assurance Level 2 standard.

So if you think you can use Login.gov to access a porn website, think again.

There’s also a mention of mobile driver’s licenses, albeit without a corresponding mention of the ISO/IEC 18013-5:2021.

Specifically mentioned in the bill text is “digitized identification cards,” described as “a data file available on a mobile device with connectivity to the internet that contains all of the data elements visible on the face and back of a driver’s license or identification card.”

So digital identity is becoming more important for online access, as long as certain standards are met.

Putting the Focus in Customer Focus

This morning on LinkedIn, I was commenting that the March 2024 3.8% unemployment rate makes no difference to someone who is 100% unemployed.

My comment reminded me of one made by a far greater communicator 44 years ago.

By Michael Evans – Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=257844

During the 1980 Presidential campaign, when candidate Ronald Reagan was criticized for not knowing the difference between a recession and a depression, Reagan commented:

“Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.”

From the perspective of Reagan and his supporters in 1980, technical definitions of recession vs. depression made no difference when you’ve lost your own job. “It’s only a recession, not a depression” doesn’t feed your family.

Remember to apply this customer focus when talking to your prospects. They have a particular way of looking at the world, and as far as they’re concerned it’s the right way. They may be wrong, but you may or may not be able to convince them of this. If you can, focus on things from the customer’s perspective.

Because, as I said in my “Differentiating Your Company and Your Products/Services” video yesterday, the prospect doesn’t care about YOUR perspective.

Video: Differentiating Your Company and Your Products/Services

From the video below.

Last week I prepared a presentation for a conference organizer, thinking that I would give the presentation at the conference in question. Instead, the organizer emailed the presentation slides to selected conference attendees. The attendees probably liked it that way.

But I still wanted to give the presentation.

And I also wanted to generalize the presentation so that it applied to ALL technology companies, not just the ones who were attending the conference.

So I recorded myself giving the presentation “Differentiating Your Company and Your Products/Services.” It’s ten minutes long, and you can view it now.

Differentiating Your Company and Your Products/Services (April 9, 2024)

This video obviously discusses differentiation, but also discusses customer focus as well as the seven questions your content creator should ask you before writing (including benefits and target audience). Not only are the seven questions good for creating content, but they are also good for differentiating content. (For example, why is your product/service so great while all of your competitors’ products/services suck?)

If you’re watching this video on your laptop, be sure to keep your smartphone handy because at the end of the video I display a QR code to obtain more information. Just point your phone at the QR code.

Of course, if you’re watching this video on your smartphone, you can’t read the displayed QR code. So just go to https://bredemarket.com/drive-tech/ instead.

21st/20th Century Lead Gathering

A client is attending an in-person event and asked for advice on how to collect prospect leads at the event. (For awareness.)

Since I practice a mix of old school and new-school technologies, I’m suggesting the following:

  1. Create a landing page for the event with a form to collect the prospect’s name, email, and other essential information, and feed those names into the client’s customer relationship management (CRM) system.
  2. Create a printed sheet with a QR code leading to the landing page, have the prospect point their camera to the QR code, and then the prospect can enter their information directly from their phone.

There are many other ways to collect information, including specialized software and (really old school) business cards, but this way will work. 

I wanted to demonstrate how to do this, but Bredemarket doesn’t have any in-person events on its calendar, and I don’t ask my prospects to sign up for my CRM.

But I DO ask my prospects to sign up for my mailing list. 

So I created the form below.

Print it out and give it to your friends.

Subscribe to the Bredemarket Mailing List (April 6, 2024)Download