Identity/biometrics/technology marketing and writing services
I assembled my latest video on Friday night.
It’s a talkie.
I still have my usual text, images, and AI-generated music, but I actually talk between the segments.
I plan to release the video on Monday.
Well, except on Bluesky and other social channels that can’t handle 3 minute and 40 second long videos.
When I was last a full-time Proposal Manager a decade ago (for MorphoTrak), a proposal due date extension did not necessitate an update to an Asana task end date. Asana existed (its iOS and Android apps were both released by 2015), but MorphoTrak wasn’t using them.
Things are different now.
My consulting firm Bredemarket has helped (at least) four identity/biometric companies with proposal work over the years, including RFI responses, RFP responses, proposal letters, and similar communications; proposal templates; and proposal standard text (what the machinists call “boilerplate”).
I signed non-disclosure agreements with all these companies, which is why I redacted my current client’s name and its prospective customer from the accompanying image. But if my client wins, I will celebrate. Quietly.
Incidentally, since my Asana is only accessible to me, it only includes minimal information. In Asana, this entire response is a single entry. I use other means to communicate the more detailed schedule to my clients.
Incidentally, if you were one of MY prospects and received a communication saying that I was wrapping up a project today…I’m not. But it’s almost wrapped up, bearing in mind that any gas fills up the available space.
But if you want me to work on your gas, contact me via Bredemarket’s “CPA” page.
Proposal work (the P) is just one of several services Bredemarket provides to identity, biometric, and technology clients. In fact, all 4 of the referenced Proposal clients have also used my Content services, my Analysis services, or both.
Inland Empire businesses, do you require marketing and writing deliverables for your product or service with a unit price > $2000?
Consider Bredemarket for your content – proposal – analysis needs.
Let’s talk.
My “Biometrics and Bredemarket” video is buried in the middle of my “Ready, Fire, Aim” post, but people are finding it anyway.
(They’re skipping the short video and watching the long one.)
So it’s time to feature “Biometrics and Bredemarket” on its own.
If you don’t feel like watching a 2 minute and 20 second video, here are the bullets:
Learn more in the video, or at my “CPA” page.
(Gift wrapping image CC BY-SA 3.0)
At Bredemarket, I am wrapping up one of my marketing-writing projects at the end of this week.
So I will have an opening next week for you.
Content? Proposal? Analysis? You decide.
Visit Bredemarket’s “CPA” page to schedule a free discussion.
(Ready, fire, aim wildebeest via Imagen 3/Google Gemini)
If I had to choose between acting too quickly and acting too slowly, I would choose the former. You already know I don’t like it when things never get done. But the ready, fire, aim method introduces problems of its own. Let’s look at how ready, fire, aim can adversely affect both external and internal content.
If you haven’t figured it out already, I create a lot of external prospect/customer facing content. Not only for Bredemarket’s clients, but also for Bredemarket itself so I can get more clients. This blog post is an example.
Sometimes I meticulously plan a full campaign via a myriad of Asana tasks covering multiple blog and social media posts. Sometimes the entire project appears in a day or two, sometimes it takes a week, and one recent project took 3 weeks including teaser content, the main content, and follow-up content.
Yes, sometimes I meticulously plan. And other times I just do stuff.
Last Saturday I was struck with an idea for a 2 minute and 20 second landscape video about biometrics and Bredemarket. I knew it was long and many who encountered it wouldn’t watch the whole thing, but I wanted to make my statement and reserve it for bottom of funnel activities.
Only AFTER I posted the video did I realize that this was the logical second part to a 30 second video that I had previously created for biometric clients.
If I had thought this through, I could have started with the 30 second video, THEN introduced the longer video as the logical next step. Like a funnel, if you believe in funnels.
Well, better late than never.
Watch this 30 second video that I made for Bredemarket’s biometric prospects and clients.
Hey, did you like that video? Would you like to learn more?
Watch this 140 second video that I made for Bredemarket’s extra special biometric prospects and clients.
Hey, did you like that video? Learn more on my “CPA” page.
Well, that’s what I should have done in the first place so I wouldn’t have to make this clumsy fix later.
But there’s still time to fix a future internal campaign before it happens.
Because this content is internal I can’t really talk about it, but I anticipate that Bredemarket will be invited to a future event…and I am already planning NOT to attend.
There are a number of stakeholders associated with this event, and in a TLOI kind of way they will have different reactions to my non-attendance. Some of them probably don’t give a you-know-what whether I attend or not. But perhaps there are those who do care, ranging from mild curiosity about why I’m not going, to the other extreme of demanding to know how I could bypass this important event.
So I drafted three messages in case I was asked about my non-attendance: (1) a brief two-paragraph message, (2) a longer message, and (3) a detailed message which delved into my concerns.
But what if I don’t know which message to send? What if I unloaded my deepest darkest fears via the long message, when the stakeholder merely wanted to know if I had other commitments at the time of the event?
So I rewrote the messages so that they build on one another.
There’s my funnel. And if needed I can skip directly to the third message with certain stakeholders.
And if no one asks why I’m skipping the event, I don’t send ANY communication—and know that my decision to skip the event was the right one.
So in the future, whether creating external or internal content, I need to pause and think about how it fits into the tons of content I’ve already created.
So that I can tell the best stories.
And so I will achieve ready, aim, fire rather than ready, fire, aim.
Bredemarket writes for biometric clients.
Content, proposal, analysis.
More information: https://bredemarket.com/cpa/
Effective product marketing usually won’t help you make your numbers this quarter. But it can provide long-term benefits…if properly executed and maintained.
In a down employment market such as the one the tech industry is experiencing right now, the common wisdom is that if a company isn’t hiring new employees, it can definitely use independent consultants.
Sometimes the common wisdom is faulty.
One of Bredemarket’s former clients (whom I will not name) illustrates the gaps in the common wisdom. I had worked on projects for this company several times…until I didn’t.
If I had provided said company with top-notch content-proposal-analysis work, would those laid-off people have kept their jobs?
Probably not. Content, proposal, and analysis work is not a quick fix.
While not a quick fix, doing the work now will benefit the company in the long run. Even in the short term, setting the strategy communicates to everyone, including both internal and external stakeholders, the direction in which your company is heading.
But you can’t just treat this as a one-time oroject and be done with it. Looking at the content portion alone, you have to regularly revisit your content and update it as needed.
This is a trick I learned back in my proposal days. Some of my former employers used proposal management software packages, many of which used a “timeout” feature on standard proposal text that required someone to review the text by a certain date.
Does your proposal text state that your software supports Windows 10? Perhaps it’s a good idea to mention Windows 11 also.
Or you may need to revise your standard proposal text to mention that new feature…or new benefit. Any proposal text for a health application that was written in December 2019 definitely required an update in December 2020.
If you haven’t laid the groundwork for your company’s product marketing, Bredemarket can help in a variety of ways. After asking questions (starting with “Why?”) about your needs, we can jointly decide on the most critically important things Bredemarket can do for you and your company.
To find out how John E. Bredehoft of Bredemarket can serve as your “CPA” (Content-Proposal-Analysis marketing professional), go to my CPA page.
And no, I’m not going to share an Eagles song. I’m going to share a Madness song.
(AI wildebeest “Keep Moving” image from Google Gemini)
Hardly anything is permanent. And this applies to boxing AND to B2B sales.
Perhaps you heard what Mike Tyson said a few days ago.
I don’t know, I don’t believe in the word “legacy.” I just think that’s another word for ego. Legacy doesn’t mean nothing. It’s just some word everybody grabbed onto.
It means absolutely nothing to me. I’m just passing through. I’m going to die and it’s going to be over. Who cares about legacy after that?
We’re nothing. We’re just dead. We’re dust. We’re absolutely nothing. Our legacy is nothing.
With the life that Tyson has lived, it’s understandable why he’s echoing Ecclesiastes in this interview.
But you don’t have to have had Tyson’s experiences to realize that legacy does not last.
In business (and in life), there are companies (and people) who don’t need you or want you.
This may be temporary. The company that doesn’t need you today may urgently (and importantly) need you tomorrow.
Or it may NOT be temporary. There are companies that will NEVER need you or want you.
I recently ran across three such companies that will never need Bredemarket.
Perhaps you noticed Bredemarket’s “six weeks” promotion over the weekend. It was addressed to companies that may have a final project that they want to complete before the year ends in six weeks. (Now 5 1/2 weeks.) I emphasized that Bredemarket can help companies complete those content, proposal, and analysis projects.
The promotion included a blog post, a LinkedIn post, a Facebook reel, an Instagram reel, a YouTube short, and appearances in other online locations. Which is probably overkill, since the promotion is already outdated and can’t be used again until possibly November 2025.
I also included email in this campaign, targeting prospects whom I haven’t worked with recently, or whom I’ve never worked with at all. I didn’t go overboard in my emails; although I have over 400 contacts in Bredemarket’s customer relationship management system, I sent the email to less than 40 of them.
As of this morning, none of the recipients has booked a meeting with me to discuss their end of year needs.
And I discovered that three companies (four contacts) will NEVER need or want Bredemarket’s services.
How did I discover that?
Via four “delivery status notification” messages.
So I visited the web pages in question, and they no longer existed.
I’ve been building up my CRM for over four years, so it’s not shocking that some companies have disappeared.
But one of the companies (“Company X”) DID exist a mere eight months ago.
I know this because I prepared a presentation on differentiation (see version 2 of the presentation here), and two representatives from Company X received the presentation in advance of a conference.
After the conference organizer distributed the presentation, I offered to meet with the companies individually (no charge) to discuss their content and differentiation needs, or anything else they wanted to discuss.
While some conference attendees took advantage of my April offer, the representatives from Company X did not.
And now in November, Company X no longer exists.
Could Bredemarket have created the necessary content to keep Company X afloat? Who knows?
But EVERY company needs content to differentiate it from its competitors. Otherwise the competitors will attack you. And your competitors may not be as merciful with you as Jake Paul was with Mike Tyson.
If you need Bredemarket’s help with content, proposal, or analysis services, book a meeting with me.
Six weeks until year end.
Do you have a final project?
It’s not going to complete itself.
Bredemarket can help with content, proposal, and analysis services.
Schedule a free 30 minute needs assessment at bredemarket.com/cpa.
Bredemarket