Bob Cefail Business and Marketing Resources

Ok, I know you were always wondering how to just skip all the actual work, and just go straight to some venture capitalists, have them give you a bunch of money, then sell your stock for a couple million bucks and then move on to speaking at conferences, and sneering at web 2.0 as yesterdays news.

Am I right? Hey, Bob Cefail is the guy who knows best!!!

Then check this out. I laughed long and loud.

In case the video doesn't automatically play, you can find it here:
http://www.5min.com/Video/How-to-raise-money-from-VCs-4661

I found this in Wired News today, here
and wanted to put my two cents in:

Here's the article with my comments added:

We learned the news in March: Contrary to decades of denials, the U.S. Census Bureau used individual records to round up Japanese-Americans during World War II.

The Census Bureau normally is prohibited by law from revealing data that could be linked to specific individuals; the law exists to encourage people to answer census questions accurately and without fear. And while the Second War Powers Act of 1942 temporarily suspended that protection in order to locate Japanese-Americans, the Census Bureau had maintained that it only provided general information about neighborhoods.

New research proves they were lying.

The whole incident serves as a poignant illustration of one of the thorniest problems of the information age: data collected for one purpose and then used for another, or "data reuse."

Bob Cefail Says: This is a huge problem, especially when these companies get "databases" and then resell the content.

When we think about our personal data, what bothers us most is generally not the initial collection and use, but the secondary uses. I personally appreciate it when Amazon.com suggests books that might interest me, based on books I have already bought. I like it that my airline knows what type of seat and meal I prefer, and my hotel chain keeps records of my room preferences. I don't mind that my automatic road-toll collection tag is tied to my credit card, and that I get billed automatically. I even like the detailed summary of my purchases that my credit card company sends me at the end of every year. What I don't want, though, is any of these companies selling that data to brokers, or for law enforcement to be allowed to paw through those records without a warrant.

There are two bothersome issues about data reuse. First, we lose control of our data. In all of the examples above, there is an implied agreement between the data collector and me: It gets the data in order to provide me with some sort of service. Once the data collector sells it to a broker, though, it's out of my hands. It might show up on some telemarketer's screen, or in a detailed report to a potential employer, or as part of a data-mining system to evaluate my personal terrorism risk. It becomes part of my data shadow, which always follows me around but I can never see.

This, of course, affects our willingness to give up personal data in the first place. The reason U.S. census data was declared off-limits for other uses was to placate Americans' fears and assure them that they could answer questions truthfully. How accurate would you be in filling out your census forms if you knew the FBI would be mining the data, looking for terrorists? How would it affect your supermarket purchases if you knew people were examining them and making judgments about your lifestyle? I know many people who engage in data poisoning: deliberately lying on forms in order to propagate erroneous data. I'm sure many of them would stop that practice if they could be sure that the data was only used for the purpose for which it was collected.

Bob Cefail says: I am sure that most Americans will think twice about what they put on their survey forms the next time around.

The second issue about data reuse is error rates. All data has errors, and different uses can tolerate different amounts of error. The sorts of marketing databases you can buy on the web, for example, are notoriously error-filled. That's OK; if the database of ultra-affluent Americans of a particular ethnicity you just bought has a 10 percent error rate, you can factor that cost into your marketing campaign. But that same database, with that same error rate, might be useless for law enforcement purposes.

Ok thats it for today,

Bob Cefail

The marketing world on the internet is moving blazing fast.

Many advice that marketers give is outdated before it is widely
circulated and absorbed by the general public. And one of the most
difficult things is the software cycle. For instance, people that build software for SEO purposes commonly have to do one or two revisions before the software is even launched, because the search engines change their algorithms so often.

So what is a person to do in this ever changing, evolving, hyperspeed internet world?

Focus on things that won't be here today gone tomorrow. Focus on basic trends. Its fine to use software, just make sure that the software can evolve, too.

Let's take search engines. In the beginning, search engines were all "free" and sold advertising. Over the last 7 years, this has moved ever more to a paid model. The general public has a very hard time distinguishing "sponsored results" from regular results, and the search engines have been bit by bit blending the sponsored results with regular results, making it harder than ever to see who is paying to be in the number 1 spot.

What's the ultimate end to all this? Well lets take the founder of Overture, the original pay per click company that yahoo bought, and Google co-opted to bring paid search to a mult billion dollar industry.

What's his big idea? Basically to just eliminate the "free" results altogether!!! You can check it out at http://snap.com

This may be the model for the search engines of the future, mostly paid results, only free results thrown in there when the search engines need extra content. And make no mistake, there's plenty of content. The search engines are swimming in it.

So what should you do to prepare for the future? If you are relying on free search engine results as your business model, you should rethink it. And you should learn paid search. And you should seek out and partner with other websites in your niche, both to buy advertising and to do strategic partnerships, so that you can both benefit of the same visitor.

And definitely, don't be an amateur. If you are going to own a website, you need every trick in the book to monitor the conversions of your site, and track the sales process of your visitors all the way from the advertising you buy through to the action you want to take.

Hope this helps,

Bob Cefail

In business, there are always setbacks.

And when you are trying to build a business, you have not only your own uncertainties about yourself but sometimes people in your environment are less than helpful. There are even many people that actually discourage one, because of jealousy or other factors.

But by remaining positive about your project and your goals, you accomplish several things:

1) You keep yourself positive and continue to get things done that relate to your goals and avoid wasting a lot of time

2) You also will end up changing people in your environment who might have a tendency to turn negative and stop them in their tracks before they do so.

Really, there's no reason why you can't be an awesome success.

All you need, is to keep your attitude positive, and then really dig in and learn your tools.

Until Next time,

Bob Cefail

Here's some more interesting news on DRM from slashdot:

Apparently there was a Jupiter Research survey conducted before Steve Jobs's anti-DRM essay, indicating that most music industry execs see DRM-free music as a way to expand sales on digital tracks.

The survey covered large and small record labels, rights bodies, digital stores, and technology providers.

To summarize: 54% of music execs think that current DRM is too restrictive and 62% think selling unencumbered music would be a way to boost sales.

Even limiting the survey to the record labels themselves, 48% believe this. Yet, many also believe it's not going to happen without significant governmental intervention ”even though most insiders think DRM is harmful, the labels are keen to stick with it."

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/91197028/article.pl

Bob Cefail says: You betcha, DRM is hurting sales:)

Confused about business leads?

Having generated thousands of business leads for companies in many different industries as well as managing salespeople in my own companies, I have some shocking news for you. Here's the real story about business leads that most people don't know about:

Leads Made the Right Way

Looking for leads? It can be quite confusing when you are looking for a good lead company. Almost no one tells you HOW THEY MAKE THEIR LEADS, so it is hard to evaluate what is good from what is bad . It is also possible that you have used what were supposed to be leads before and came away severely disappointed. Before we discuss this subject further, you should note that it is important to understand what business leads are now, as compared to what they used to be in the past, before the internet.

What Leads Used to Be

Many years ago when a company purchased leads from a marketing company, what they received in return was very valuable. The leads were generated in many cases through direct mail campaigns that generated responses who would then be called by outbound telemarketing centers. The respondents would then do a quick interview with the telemarketer and an application would be filled out showing "real" interest. These leads would then only be sold once for an initial 3 or 4 week exclusive, and after that period the lead would be recycled or sold again. These prospects were "gold".

What Leads Are Not

What passes as leads today makes people shudder but here are some examples of what leads aren't:

FALSE LEAD: In this case it can come in many forms such as an email record, an application, or a form; but they all have the same thing in common: the person did not knowingly request information about which you are calling or emailing them back. In many cases, they have no idea why someone is contacting them. In some cases their email address has been hijacked by some software program, stuck in a list, and is then "called" a lead and sold --and sold--and sold--and sold --and sold--on and on and on. That action of just gathering up email records (called harvesting) is now illegal according to the "Can Spam" law. If someone approaches you about buying 10,000 or 100,000 or 1,000,000 leads for a couple hundred bucks, you better turn and run away because those are most likely harvested lists.

UNPRODUCTIVE LEADS: Now there is another class of leads which were possibly legitimate leads AT ONE TIME OR ANOTHER, but which have since been sold many times over and are now technically "not" leads.

This is because the person requested data some time ago and has since received data (many times over) and now is either signed up on a program or not in a program at all because they didn't want to. They are done. The problem here is that they are continuing to be sold over and over again and yet no longer interested. They are not a lead. The key here is "freshness", with the ideal lead being an EXCLUSIVE, REAL TIME email lead. People on the internet want instant gratification, so when they request information from a site they want service NOW. Before the internet waiting a week or two to call the prospects back was not optimum, but would still get you decent results, but now, even an hours delay in calling the prospects means they just bought from someone else who was more organized. I have seen this in many different industries.

That is why buying leads gets a bad name. Many companies that generate leads keep reselling these leads weeks or months later, and they are almost worthless. Yes it is more expensive to buy exclusive real time leads but on the internet they are the only ones you should buy. And have your sales force know that the only way to make this work, is the second that lead comes into their email box, they should be on the phone, not 10 minutes later. This, used in conjunction with an SEM campaign will ensure that you get the prospects when they are really the hottest. Believe me, a prospect that is really interested is MUCH easier to sell.

Hope this helps sort out some confusions for you,

Bob Cefail

BlogCatalog

Welcome to my site!!

When researching "Bob Cefail" a person needs the exact truth about me
and my business connections. That's what this site is for.

Lets start with my background and biography:

Bob Cefail Biography

1983 - 1985 Senior marketing representative for a national photographic industry
advertising publication. As a result of Mr. Cefail's marketing efforts this
publication became one of the largest and fastest growing publications of its
kind. The publications Mr. Cefail spearheaded the marketing on were:

Mid Atlantic Review
Southwest Review
Western Review
Northern Review
Mid West Review
New York New England Review

1985 - 1986 Editor-in-chief of the Pro-Review--a national industry publication for
professional photographers. This magazine was known for such creative
developments as the "Shoot Out" where photographers from all over the U.S.
competed in unique design.

1987 - 1989 Senior marketing representative for a Washington, D.C. based
telecommunications marketing firm involving the consulting and contracting
of private payphone station locations for Eastern Pay Phones, Inc. Mr.
Cefail was responsible for contracting more than 60% of this firm's accounts.
The efforts of Mr. Cefail helped vault Eastern Pay Phones into one of
America's top ten private pay phone companies of the late 1980's. Eastern
Pay Phones was also one of the largest users of the new GTE 1225 public
pay phone.

1988 - 1995 Established Robert Cefail & Associates, Inc. as a national
telecommunications services marketing firm for telecommunications
companies and their services specializing in the consulting of correctional
facilities on their inmate telephone systems. Mr. Cefail gained the first
inmate phone locations for such companies as:

PayTel of America
Northeast Pay Phones
Equal Access Communications
Eastern Pay Phones

1990-1992 Constituted a joint venture with American Inmate Communications, Inc. for
the purpose of enabling Robert Cefail & Associates, Inc. to provide full
inmate telephone services to its correctional industry clients. In the first
three years of operation the joint venture's income grew from $3 million its
first year, to $18 million its second year and reached $27 million its third
year. During 1991 Mr. Cefail achieved a first in the private inmate phone
industry when he established service contracts with two major local phone
providers Contel (later to become GTE) and United Telephone to deliver
inmate phone services for them. This was a major breakthrough in
competitor cooperation.

1995 - 2002 Established The RC&A Group, Inc., which was involved in multiple
communications applications. The RC&A Group is also involved in the
long distance mergers and acquisitions area helping first tier long distance
companies merge with smaller companies. The RC&A Group also was
involved in the long distance telemarketing business and business
development.

1995 - 2002 Established Robert Cefail & Associates Telecommunications of Puerto Rico,
Inc. with three other stockholders--Eladio Lopez, Andrés Romero, and
Dennis Dubin. This company delivered inmate phone service throughout
Puerto Rico in concert with Puerto Rico Telephone Company. This is the
first time such services had ever been delivered in Puerto Rico. Mr. Cefail,
through his company RC&A Telecommunications of Puerto Rico, had a
joint venture with the Puerto Rico Telephone Company (PRTC) and
Schlumberger Technologies which established an entirely new
telecommunications service throughout Puerto Rico generating over $6
million in annual revenues.

Mr. Cefail has also had experience developing possible business
opportunities with Telefónica de España, Telefónica Larga Distancia,
Telefónica Internacional, Millicom and Charter Communications. Mr.
Cefail also initiated the sale of a Puerto Rican based telephone equipment
manufacturer, Atlantic Telecom, a U.S. based company.

2002 to present In 2002, Mr. Cefail, along with Laura Betterly, founded In Touch Media
Group, Inc. (ITOU), a full service online marketing and research firm
dealing with medium and large businesses domestically and internationally.
Mr. Cefail is responsible for the business and sales strategy of the company
as well as the day-to-day sales and business development of ITOU. Since
2002, Mr. Cefail has generated well over $4 million in sales and developed
over 300 clients for In Touch.

Cultural and Social Activities

1991 Mr. Cefail helped sponsor United Nations Earth Day activities along with
such companies as TRW and "Final Frontier" magazine.

1991 Mr. Cefail was one of a small delegation that started certain business school
activities in Russia. The initial event Mr. Cefail participated in spearheaded
the start-up of half a dozen business colleges, which have course graduates
numbering in the tens of thousands currently.

1992 Mr. Cefail provided major funding for the renovation of a library in
prestigious Moscow University.

1991-1992 Mr. Cefail was one of the top five sponsors of the world's largest non-profit
drug treatment facility. This group, Narconon, has a special program
directed at taking American Indians off of alcohol from six different tribes.

1992 Mr. Cefail helped sponsor the Luxembourg Music Festival.

1992 Mr. Cefail was a participant in radio shows in both California and Russia
(national) which involved discussions about drug use and its prevention.
The Moscow broadcast featured one of Russia's foremost experts on drug
abuse, Vladimir Ivanoff.

1994 Mr. Cefail was the single largest U.S. sponsor of the Chinese Virtuoso
Orchestra homecoming tour in Beijing and Shanghai. This tour was a major
cultural event in China attended by the top governmental leadership. The
event featured China's foremost conductor and pianist.

1994 Mr. Cefail was on the panel of judges who presided over a national contest
sponsored by the Concerned Businessmen's Association, which was titled
"Set a Good Example". This contest involved participants from grade school
to high school with thousands of entrants.