Markethive Groups

Markethive Groups The Champion of the Cottage Industry

cot·tage in·dus·try
noun
noun: cottage industry; plural noun: cottage industries
a business or manufacturing activity carried on in a person's home.

Like Facebook, Groups is a more focused culture gathering to have topic discussions based on the Groups theme.

Unlike Facebook, Groups is the center of all the tools of the system. Let’s start with the blogging platform.

  1. The Group blogging platform is a unique platform published to from the group members who choose to publish to that platform. The Markethive blog system also utilizes plugins so that content can be directed to one or more WordPress blogs.
    This allows you to build a team of marketers all working together for a common cause contributing content for the Markethive blog platforms and WordPress distribution (reach).
     
  2. SEO Backlinks management is another group function where the group organization utilizes the Backlinks system to build white hat links for specific campaigns.
     
  3. Co-op Advertising Campaigns Financing: Press releases, Youtube video ads, Facebook Ads, Google ads can easily be financed with an internal co-op campaign.
     
  4. Membership Management Reports: As Admin, you can review activity reports for the members in your group. Login activity, blogging in the group, Backlink activity, Massaging responsiveness, etc. Allow decisions based on activity to determine ejecting non responsive members.
     
  5. Rotators: Used to distribute traffic coming to the Group blogs, or Co-op traffic to designated sites or capture pages. Or distributed traffic for any reason. Similar to the Co-op campaign is the ability to acquire leads, customers or distributor in a co-op function and distribute the leads, customers, etc. accordingly.
     
  6. Asset Map: A management system whereas displays the relational connections between, capture pages, profile pages, blogs, social networks, press releases etc.
     
  7. Group Messaging: Communication with your group members is well managed with the group function messaging system.
     
  8. Replicating PDF documents:

 

A Markethive group is like a Cottage Industry. You can use Groups to build a startup business, a professional service, a power network marketing team, nothing like it before, like building a startup service with no overhead. This is the promise of the new Market Network (contrasted to the old Social Networks) That is exactly what Markethive is.

Case in point: Chris Corey, Annette Schwindt, Stephen Hodgkiss and I have formed a new corporation called Wavefour Inc. This corporation is negotiating a marketing campaign with a new client that is hiring us to run an agent acquisition, reach, Craigslist, capture page campaign, having the potential to create over $500k for us when we reach target. This is exactly why we built Markethive, a market environment designed to incubate, support and enable small, moderate and large business.

And Markethive Groups is the epicenter of all of this. Welcome to the new Market Network of the future. Markethive!

David Ogden

Helping people help themselves

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

1968 Has Been Rebooted

Sports and politics are colliding. On one side, Colin Kaepernick speaks out. On the other, Donald Trump’s rhetoric finds Dwyane Wade.

united games sports

 

 month ago, Donald Trump’s campaign announced it was rebooting 1968. With Nixonian gusto, Trump would push the idea that crime in America was out of control, that our inner cities were a “disaster.” The strategy reached its unintentionally comic apex this morning when Trump used the shooting death of Dwyane Wade’s cousin in Chicago for tweet fodder.

If that felt like a replay of the turbulent days of ’68, check this out:

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and [people] getting away with murder.”

That’s Colin Kaepernick of the San Francisco 49ers sounding like Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the ’68 Olympics. With Kaepernick subbing for Smith and Carlos, and Trump for Tricky Dick, we have our own versions of the adversaries of ’68 standing on opposite sides of the scrimmage line. The world has changed a lot since then. But our plunge into the sports-politics nexus feels eerily similar. All we need is a new Howard Cosell to interview everybody on TV.

Of the two statements, Trump’s was the least surprising. The only thing that was surprising was that he briefly deleted his tweet, and then resubmitted it with Wade’s name spelled correctly. In the new, gentle Trump campaign, this counts as a nonapology apology — or, to use Trump’s priapic phrase, a “softening.”

But Kaepernick — wow. At last glimpse, he was completing a slow fade into oblivion by losing a quarterback competition to Blaine Gabbert. But there have been signs of an itchy social conscience. Back in December, Kaepernick used Instagram to push back at Trump’s proposed Muslim immigration ban. Now, he’s staked out a position way beyond Michael Jordan’s “brave” statement about police violence, and one with more teeth than the “system is broken” speech that LeBron James and company offered at the ESPYs. Among the big names, only Carmelo Anthony — who wrote “No more hashtags” — has invested similar capital in pushing the conversation forward.

e’ve been here before — and not just in ’68. In 1996, the NBA suspended the Nuggets’ Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf for a game for not assuming a “dignified posture” during the national anthem. By contrast, today both the NFL and Niners released messages saying that, while they’d keep honoring the country, Kaepernick could assume any posture he wanted. That’s a lot of elbow room earned in 20 years.

The comparison to Smith and Carlos isn’t accidental. Players have begun to explicitly cite the ’60s ideologue-athlete archetype as one they want to emulate. At the ESPYs, Chris Paul ticked off Smith and Carlos, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and others as “model[s] for what athletes should stand for.” As Kaepernick said last night, channeling Ali, “If they take football away, my endorsements away from me, I know that I stood up for what is right.”

The Kaepernick story is less than a day old. But it’s already produced a happily antagonistic political sports arena. The Giants’ Justin Pugh declared that he’d stand up during the anthem. Bleacher Report’s Mike Freeman got texts from football players backing Kaepernick and football coaches and executives opposing him. The civil rights activist DeRay Mckesson nodded at Kaepernick; a sports-media entity named Ross Tucker took a whack at him. Clay Travis did a remarkable impression of Clay Travis. And as Adam Schefter noted, Kaepernick figures to get an intense reaction in the Navy-friendly city of San Diego this week. (For his part, Abdul-Rauf was booed by Bulls fans back in ’96.)

Remember last week, when NFL players were making “controversial” remarks in the preview magazines? This seems a lot more important. I don’t demand that any athlete weigh in on the news of the day, but it sure is clarifying when they admit they’ve been having the same conversations everyone has been having for the last year.

Finally, my own pet theory is that the uptick in athlete activism has inspired, or at least cleared the road for, an uptick in activist sportswriting. If memory serves, in ’96 you could find writers defending Abdul-Rauf, but they mostly stuck to strict First Amendment grounds. And on the debit side, you could also find two Denver radio idiots — at least one of whom was wearing a turban and a T-shirt with Abdul-Rauf’s picture on it — storming into a mosque and playing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Kaepernick has his detractors. But members of the sportswriting class have filed full-throated defenses of both his right to speak and what he said. What was true in 1968 — with Cosell, Robert Lipsyte, and many others — is true again today. An athlete’s decision to sit has given us media types a chance to take a stand.

Join United Games and Signup for Free

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

Inbound Marketing For Dummies

Inbound Marketing For Dummies "or"

When Out Bound Marketing and I separated our ways for good!

In 1996 or there about, I was approached by a well-known marketer, David D’Arcangelo. We were associates at that time in the Network Marketing business and we both lived in San Diego. He pitched me on a new deal he felt was a considerable advantage in the industry, had an organization begun (He has a large sphere of influence from his radio shows). He was proposing he run major ads in papers like USA Today, etc. and round robin the incoming leads to the new distributors. He felt that he and I could work together on this and build a sound solution for the ‘rank and file” recruits. With his name and advertising and the advantage I had because I owned a big marketing system (which came to be known as Veretekk).

I enrolled about 10 people based on this agreement and we scheduled our first tele bridged conference call. My wife Annette (my girlfriend at the time) and I were excited before the call began. On the call nothing was said about a Co-op distribution round robin. What did transpire, was David took control of the call from me, then quickly introduced his friend John Green and pitched the leads John Green was selling from CuttingEdgeMedia (This is my recollection).  John Green and David claimed they were awesome pre interviewed leads and cost $20 each.

Annette immediately expressed her anger that we had been baited and switched, and the call was a disaster. I was also angered as I have always found buying leads a foolish pursuit. Ho9wever, this time< I wanted to use these leads to conduct a real survey.

I paid for 100 leads, about $2000 for the 100 super hot, pre interviewed hot ready to join my business leads. I also bought the USA Today white pages on CD Rom as a control subject.

I spent 4 weeks and tracked the results in an Excel Spread sheet. I called every lead in that database. I called everyday of the week. At 3 different times for each lead at 10am, 2pm, and 6pm. I also called Saturdays at 12 noon and 8 pm in their time zone until I actually talked to someone.

Of the John Greene leads 80% of the list was contacted. 20% never answered or numbers were disconnected or wrong numbers. Of the remaining 80% I was able to talk to 80% said very nasty profanity at me, demanded I remove them from the list, and were extremely angered and some threatened me with legal action. Even when I explained I was doing “lead” research, told them who sold them and that they were supposedly interviewed.

Not one was interviewed. Either they called me a liar or the provider a liar or said they had no recollection of being interviewed. There were 2 out of the 100 who expressed some interest in the business, but further calls were never answered and nothing ever came from these halfhearted interests.

USA Today leads

In sharp contrast I must report on the 100 names and phones numbers I pulled from the USA Today white pages disk as a control to the research. Of the 100 I called on the same routine, 97% connected. Not one of them expressed anger, called me names or hung up on me. Most of them were still not interested, but I did get 12 very interested to join and 3 actually did join.

This is Outbound Marketing

This technique to cold call is a daunting process even back in the days, even for professionals. Today it is virtually a total waste of time. When people do answer and don’t know who you are 96% just hang up. The others usually take some time to insult you. It is over. Outbound marketing is now a total waste of time and money.

It is time to understand Inbound Marketing

So I have produced this blog and video for the Dummies out there. It is Inbound Marketing for Dummies. If you are ever going to find success, you are going to have to embrace, understand and intitiate the process called Inbound Marketing.

You are in luck, because Markethive is one of the top state of the art, “Inbound Marketing” platforms in the world and it is the only one that is free!

Inbound Marketing For Dummies

By now you probably heard some of the buzz about inbound marketing. But just what exactly is it?

Inbound marketing is like marketing with a magnet vs. a megaphone.  Its marketing based on quality content, that attracts a steady stream of qualified leads.

At this point and time outbound marketing has completely lost it edge. Did you know that the average person sees anywhere from 3000 to 20,000 outbound advertisements per day? No wonder no one is paying any attention.

Shouting at your audience with a megaphone is no longer the most cost-effective or productive way of marketing your business, Inbound Marketing is.  The cool part is that inbound marketing methods are almost always less time-consuming and less expensive than traditional lead generation methods.  

Not only are they cheaper but they are more effective.  Inbound leads are eight times more likely to become customers, and close at a much higher rate.  In fact while outbound marketing has an average closing rate of 1.7%, inbound marketing has an astounding closing rate of 14.6%.

All that savings means the companies that Focus primarily on inbound marketing, typically spend 62% less per lead than companies that don't.  So how does it work?  

Think of it like a giant funnel, prospects come in at the top, happy customers come out the bottom.  Today 88% of consumers are conducting their own product research online before making a purchase.  

Therefore the key to being found and trusted on the web is generating relevant content to what people are searching for.  This is the first part of our inbound marketing funnel.  Once you have their attention we need to capture their information.  

Generally this is done with more awesome content in the form of digital media such as free offers, articles, case studies, videos, free services and more.  The next part of our marketing funnel is where we create an automated system, by which we turn these qualified leads which came in from our offers into Happy paying customers, who refer more new customers because of all the awesome content you're putting up.  

At Markethive we deliver inbound marketing methods such as SEO, Broadcasting, Capture Pages, Social Media, massive reach, Work Groups, Co-op Advertising videos, and so much more, to establish you as the authority in your industry, and create a client magnet that will generate a constant stream of qualified leads just for you.  Let us help you to establish an online presence, attract new leads, and convert prospects all on autopilot.

Marketing Manager Staff

 

 

 

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

American Imperialism (corruption and Obama) has finally destroyed America

Barack Obama may have finally destroyed America’s #1 advantage

In July 1944, just weeks after the successful Allied invasion of Normandy, hundreds of delegates from around the world gathered in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire to determine the future of the global financial system.

The vision was simple: America would be the center of the universe, and every other nation would revolve around the US.

This arrangement ultimately led to the US dollar being the world’s dominant reserve currency which still remains today.

Whenever a Brazilian merchant pays a Korean supplier, that deal is negotiated and settled in US dollars.

Oil. Coffee. Steel. Aircraft. Countless commodities and products across the planet change hands in US dollars, so nearly every major commercial bank, central bank, multi-national corporation, and sovereign government must hold and be able to transact in US dollars.

This system provides a huge incentive for the rest of the world to hold trillions of dollars worth of US assets– typically deposits in the US banking system, or US government bonds.

It’s what makes US government debt the most popular “investment” in the world, why US government bonds are considered extremely liquid “cash equivalents”.

As long as this system continues, the US government can continue to go deeper into debt without suffering serious consequences.

Just imagine being totally broke… yet every time you want to borrow money there’s a crowd of delighted lenders eager to replenish your wallet with fresh funds.

This may be the US government’s #1 advantage right now.

You’d think that they would be eternally grateful and take care to never abuse this incredible privilege.

But no… not these guys.

In fact, they’ve done the exact opposite. Over the last eight years the US government has gone out of its way to eliminate as much of this benefit and alienate as many allies as possible.

They’ve abused the trust and confidence that the rest of the world placed in them by racking up record amounts of debt, waging indiscriminate wars in foreign lands, and dropping bombs on children’s hospitals by remote control.

They’ve created absurd amounts of regulations and had the audacity to expect foreign banks to comply.

Plus they’ve levied billions of dollars worth of fines against foreign banks who haven’t complied with their ridiculous regulations.

(Last week, for example, New York state financial regulators fined a Taiwanese bank $180 million for not complying with NY state law.)

And they’ve threatened to banish any foreign banks from the US financial system who don’t pay their steep fines.

Abuse. Deceit. Extortion. Not exactly great ways to win friends and influence people.

It’s as if Barack Obama pulled together the smartest guys he could find to make a list of all the ways the US government would have to screw up in order to lose its enormous financial privilege… and then he went out and did ALL of them.

The US government is practically begging the rest of the world to find an alternative to the US dollar and US banking system.

Even the government of France, a key US ally, called into question continued US dominance of the global financial system after the US government slammed French bank BNP Paribas with a $9 billion fine.

There have already been some attempts to displace the United States in the financial system.

China has been aggressively setting up its own competing financial infrastructure, something called the China International Payment System.

It’s been a slow start for the Chinese, but they’re building momentum. Though I’m not sure China is the answer in the long run.

While banks around the world may not care for the long and strong arm of the US government, the Chinese government doesn’t exactly inspire trust either.

But now there really is an alternative. Technology.

Ripple, a blockchain-style protocol that’s funded by Google Ventures (among others), is now being utilized by international banks to send and receive transactions directly.

The way international bank transfers work now relies exclusively on the US financial system.

Large foreign banks have what’s called a “correspondent account”, typically at a major US bank like JP Morgan, Citibank, etc.

A correspondent account is essentially a bank account for other banks. Our company holds funds at a bank in Singapore, for example, whose US dollar correspondent account is at Bank of New York Mellon.

Foreign banks’ US dollar correspondent accounts are typically at major Wall Street banks because that’s the epicenter of US dollar transactions.

So when a bank in Australia sends US dollars to a bank in South Africa, that payment actually flows from the Australian bank’s correspondent account in the US to the South African bank’s correspondent account in the US.

The entire transaction effectively takes place using the US banking system.

Again, this gives the US government enormous power over foreign banks. Any foreign bank that doesn’t do what Uncle Sam commands can be excommunicated from the US banking system.

And without access to the US banking system, a foreign bank will be unable to transact in US dollars, and hence unable to conduct any global business.

This is a death sentence for a bank. The US government knows this and has been blackmailing global banks for years.

But now technology is providing another option.

Banks don’t have to use the US banking system anymore; they can send real-time payments internationally using the Ripple protocol.

Two months ago a Canadian financial services company sent the first-ever institutional cross-border payment to a German bank.

This isn’t some wild theory or conjecture. It’s actually happening.

Just this morning a group of 15 banks in Japan signed up to start using Ripple, and dozens of banks plan to use the protocol within the next six months.

The technology is cheaper. Faster. Superior. And it doesn’t come with any US government strings attached.

So it seems Uncle Sam may have finally shot himself in the foot for the last time.

 

Original Article appeared here:
https://www.sovereignman.com
BY: Simon Black
August 23, 2016
Santiago, Chile

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

Market-Network: A New Type of Business Model

Market-Network: A New Type of Business Model

Social network. Marketplace. SaaS. These buzzwords are no longer synonyms of massive business opportunities.

The gold rush has already happened.

But a new business model has emerged.

Market-networks are hybrid animals: part social network, part marketplace, part SaaS. [1]

It’s a social network. Professionals use profile pages to showcase their work and demonstrate their credibility. They also connect with each other and build relationships.

It’s a marketplace. Professionals come online together to find other parties with whom they can do business.

It’s a SaaS tool. Professionals use the tools on the top of the marketplace to negotiate, do the job, or manage the paperwork.

Social networks are designed to connect people. Marketplaces are built to sell simple products and services at scale. SaaS tools are here to make your job easier.

Market-networks focus on more complex services; the types of services that are not easily scalable and require more human collaboration. [1]

So get your pick-axe and prepare yourself for the next gold rush.

Think about the number of opportunities in M&A, scientific research, construction, management consulting, marketing, media production…

[1] Thanks to James Currier for sharing his thoughts on this emerging business model.

[2] Here are a couple of examples:

AngelList is a market-network.

It’s a social network for startups and investors. It’s a marketplace where business angels can find startups to invest in and startups can post job openings. It’s a SaaS tool that helps business angels create syndicates and startups get introduced to business angels.

Contently is a market-network.

It’s a social network for freelance writers. It’s a marketplace where companies can find writers to create content—articles, eBooks, and other kinds of marketing collateral. It’s a SaaS tool that helps content marketers organize their editorial calendar, manage the writers’ work, and track the performance with analytics.

Article originated here:
https://boostcompanies.com/market-network/

Meet Writer Guerric

Guerric de Ternay is an entrepreneur
and digital & marketing strategist. A large
chunk of his work focuses on behavioral
science, customer experience, and digital
strategy. His passion?
Helping people and businesses level up.

 

 

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

When Markethive discovered herself

From Social Networks to Market Networks

 

Markethive is a full suite “Inbound Marketing” platform integrated with a full scale “social network” targeting the 800 million “Entrepreneur” global populations. Like Facebook meets Pardot. This new revolution of the next wave of progressions is known as Market Networks, compared to the last wave of Social Networks. Even MarketHive’s name reflects this new revolution. Experts predict the “Market Network” will dwarf the “Social Network” market.

1. Founder (Thomas Prendergast): 40 years’ experience in Ad Agency and Marketing professional. Educated and developed technology awareness from 1982 – 1992 in the Silicon Valley. Visionary, skilled programmer, innovation 1sts, Stanford and UCSD Super Computer Center foundations and over 20 years building marketing innovation on the Internet.
 

2. Pardot, a full scale Inbound Marketing Platform (very similar to Markethive's platform) sold for $95 million to complete the ExactTarget platform in preparation to be sold to Sales Force for 2.5 billion Using these metrics it is easy to assign a value to Markethive of a minimum of $100 million. see story: www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/blog/atlantech/2013/06/atlantas-pardot-helped-drive.html
 

3. The experts (like Nir Eyal) and many bloggers (like Guerric de Ternay) are recognizing the new emerging systems called Market Networks.

  1. Market-networks are hybrid animals: part social network, part marketplace, part SaaS.
  2. It’s a social network. Professionals use profile pages to showcase their work and demonstrate their credibility. They also connect with each other and build relationships.
  3. It’s a marketplace. Professionals come online together to find other parties with whom they can do business.
  4. It’s a SaaS (Software as a System) tool. Professionals use the tools on the top of the marketplace to negotiate, do the job, or manage the paperwork.

4. Hooked: Systems that improve with age are the sought after prizes as they retain growth and are considered monopolies, not commodities. Markethive possesses this trait on 4 serious levels.

  1. Leads (called children) from the profile pages advance organically and improve with time
  2. Blog subscribe organically builds subscribers (automatically publishing) to top social networks
  3. Profile page improves with organic advancement in workshops, blogging and groups
  4. Increased reputation builds via blogs and profile page growth

5. Markethive is the indisputable full platform Market Network and has the distinct advantage of ready to launch and be "First to Market".

6. At least three patentable products; Blog Subscribe, Blog Swipe and 1Click Subscribe Widget

7. Projected funds of minimum $1 million with 20% to polish the system in preparation to officially launch and the remaining 80% to drive the marketing and crowd funding to record breaking status.

 

Summary:
see story: https://techcrunch.com/2015/06/27/from-social-to-market-networks/

Social Networks Were The Last 10 Years. Market Networks Will Be The Next 10.

First we had communication networks, like telephones and email. Then we had social networks, like Facebook and LinkedIn. Now we have market networks, like HoneyBook, AngelList, Houzz, DotLoop and Joist.

You can imagine a market network for every industry where professionals are not interchangeable: law, travel, real estate, media production, architecture, investment banking, personal finance, construction, management consulting and more. Each market network will have different attributes that make it work in each vertical, but the principles will remain the same.

Over time, nearly all independent professionals and their clients will conduct business through the market network of their industry. We’re just seeing the beginning of it now.

Market networks will have a massive positive impact on how millions of people work and live, and how hundreds of millions of people buy better services.

“Markethive has the ability to be an incubator (hive) to produce more strategic “Market Networks” as well”. 

 

Thomas Prendergast
Founder and CEO Markethive, Inc.

 

P.S.
The "Market Network" Illustrated
(Do you see Markethive?)

P.S.S.

Definition of Hive (Curious aint it?)

hive (hīv)

1. A place swarming with activity.

2. To work with many others in a close network.
3. a network showing signs of great industry
4. a teeming crowd; a network

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

From Social Networks To Market Networks

From Social Networks To Market Networks

Most people didn’t notice last month when a 35-person company in San Francisco called HoneyBook announced a $22 million Series B*.

What was unusual about the deal is that nearly all the best-known Silicon Valley VCs competed for it. That’s because HoneyBook is a prime example of an important new category of digital company that combines the best elements of networks like Facebook with marketplaces like Airbnb — what we call a market network.

Market networks will produce a new class of unicorn companies and impact how millions of service professionals will work and earn their living.

What Is A Market Network?

“Marketplaces” provide transactions among multiple buyers and multiple sellers — like eBay, Etsy, Uber and LendingClub.

“Networks” provide profiles that project a person’s identity, then lets them communicate in a 360-degree pattern with other people in the network. Think Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

What’s unique about market networks is that they:

  • Combine the main elements of both networks and marketplaces
  • Use SaaS workflow software to focus action around longer-term projects, not just a quick transaction
  • Promote the service provider as a differentiated individual, helping to build long-term relationships

An example will help: Let’s go back to HoneyBook, a market network for the events industry.

An event planner builds a profile on HoneyBook.com. That profile serves as her professional home on the web. She uses the HoneyBook SaaS workflow to send self-branded proposals to clients and sign contracts digitally.

She then connects to that project the other professionals she works with, like florists and photographers. They also get profiles on HoneyBook, and everyone can team up to service a client, send each other proposals, sign contracts and get paid by everyone else.

This many-to-many transaction pattern is key. HoneyBook is an N-sided marketplace — transactions happen in a 360-degree pattern like a network. That makes HoneyBook both a marketplace and network.

A market network often starts by enhancing a network of professionals that exists offline. Many of them have been transacting with each other for years using fax, checks, overnight packages and phone calls.

By moving these connections and transactions into software, a market network makes it significantly easier for professionals to operate their businesses and clients to get better service.

We’ve Seen This Before

AngelList is also a market network*. I don’t know if it was the first, but Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi deserve a lot of credit for pioneering the model in 2010.

On AngelList, the pattern is similar. The startup CEO can complete her fundraising paperwork through the AngelList SaaS workflow, and everyone in the network can share deals, hire employees and find customers in a 360-degree pattern.

Joist is another good example. Based in Toronto, it provides a market network for the home remodel and construction industry. Houzz is also in that space, with broader reach and a different approach*. DotLoop in Cincinnati shows the same pattern for the residential real estate brokerage industry.

 

Looking at AngelList, Joist, Houzz, DotLoop and HoneyBook, the market network pattern is visible.

Six Attributes Of A Successful Market Network

Market networks target more complex services. In the last six years, the tech industry has obsessed over on-demand labor marketplaces for quick transactions of simple services. Companies like Uber, Mechanical Turk, Thumbtack, Luxe and many others make it efficient to buy simple services whose quality is judged objectively. Their success is based on commodifying the people on both sides of the marketplace.

However, the highest value services — like event planning and home remodeling — are neither simple nor objectively judged. They are more involved and longer term. Market networks are designed for these types of services.

People matter. With complex services, each client is unique, and the professional they get matters. Would you hand over your wedding to just anyone? Or your home remodel? The people on both sides of those equations are not interchangeable like they are with Lyft or Uber. Each person brings unique opinions, expertise and relationships to the transaction. A market network is designed to acknowledge that as a core tenet — and provide a solution.

Collaboration happens around a project. For most complex services, multiple professionals collaborate among themselves — and with a client — over a period of time. The SaaS at the center of market networks focuses the action on a project that can take days or years to complete.

Market networks help build long-term relationships. Market networks bring a career’s worth of professional connections online and make them more useful. For years, social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook have helped build long-term relationships. However, until market networks, they hadn’t been used for commerce and transactions.

Referrals flow freely. In these industries, referrals are gold, for both the client and the service professional. The market network software is designed to make referrals simple and more frequent.

Market networks increase transaction velocity and satisfaction. By putting the network of professionals and clients into software, the market network increases transaction velocity for everyone. It increases the close rate on proposals and expedites payment. The software also increases customer satisfaction scores, reduces miscommunication and makes the work pleasing and beautiful. Never underestimate pleasing and beautiful.

Social Networks Were The Last 10 Years. Market Networks Will Be The Next 10.

First we had communication networks, like telephones and email. Then we had social networks, like Facebook and LinkedIn. Now we have market networks, like HoneyBook, AngelList, Houzz, DotLoop and Joist.

You can imagine a market network for every industry where professionals are not interchangeable: law, travel, real estate, media production, architecture, investment banking, personal finance, construction, management consulting and more. Each market network will have different attributes that make it work in each vertical, but the principles will remain the same.

Over time, nearly all independent professionals and their clients will conduct business through the market network of their industry. We’re just seeing the beginning of it now.

Market networks will have a massive positive impact on how millions of people work and live, and how hundreds of millions of people buy better services.

I hope more entrepreneurs will set their sights on building these businesses. It’s time. They are hard products to get right, but the payoff is potentially massive.

by (@JamesCurrier)

Is Markethive one of the new pioneers called a Market Network?
Please comment below what do you think?

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

There Is No Such Thing As Flexible Work

Technology was meant to herald a new way of working anytime, anywhere – but that’s not the case.

Original article by Georgina Kenyon

We didn’t get the flying cars or the self-lacing shoes. But we did get the work world of the future – you know, the one where the internet allows us to work anytime, anywhere, resulting in the death of the 9-to-5 life.

Our ability to trust each other has not advanced in parallel with the technology we have created

Oh, wait. As more and more companies promise flexibility, the reality, it turns out, is pretty far from the culture we dreamed of.

For almost all of us, flexible work really means working a few hours each side of the core workday of 09:00 and 17:00. And, if you think about it, that makes sense, because many businesses still run within those core hours when markets are open, banks process deposits and payments and daylight makes it easier for tradespeople to do their jobs, for example.

 

(Credit: iStock)

Flexible hours have made working from home possible for many – but how many people actually make the most of it? (Credit: iStock)

But while digital technology has enabled a very small degree of flexibility around the regular working day for some, there have been unseen and sometimes unsettling repercussions for employees and employers. For instance, experts say that always emailing your staff and colleagues, even though they sit a metre from you, has had a hidden, but very real impact on morale and trust.

That, in turn, has made truly flexible work nearly impossible for most of us.“There can be a dark side of innovation, and unintended consequences of some organisational innovations,” says Almudena Cañibano, lecturer in human resource management at ESCP Europe, a business school in Madrid, Spain.

No matter how much a work rock star you might be, your manager does not trust you

Our ability to trust each other has not advanced in parallel with the technology we have created. And therein lies one of the real reasons flexible work is little more than a catch phrase. No matter how much a work rock star you might be, your manager does not trust you. Your colleagues do not trust your manager. And, truth be told, you probably don’t trust most of your colleagues or your boss, either.

Trust and the digital age

For Rachel Botsman, a visiting economics lecturer at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, it’s simple: “Institutional trust isn’t designed for the digital age.”

 

(Credit: Alamy)

Technology has let us work anywhere, anytime – but trust issues can get in the way (Credit: Alamy)

 

That’s also the case for the trust people have towards colleagues, within organisations. Perhaps not surprisingly, then, we’re also less able to understand or make room to consider each person as, well, a person.

"The digital age… has resulted in an ‘assault on empathy’, that makes us less able to appreciate the situation of another person,” writes Sherry Turkle, director of the Initiative on Technology and Self at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

A lack of trust brings about fear, which goes a long way to explaining why we put in face time, even when we probably don’t need to

In other words, the propensity for email, texting and quick-type apps has led us to forget some of our people skills, including distinguishing the nuances of language and meaning, fostering of a feeling of belonging among groups of people, and knowing our bosses and colleagues well enough to have confidence that others will pull their weight. That, in turn, has diminished implicit and earned trust among the people we work with.

 

(Credit: Alamy)

Technology has disrupted the workplace – and not always for the better (Credit: Alamy)

 

That lack of trust brings about fear, which goes a long way to explaining why we put in face time, even when we probably don’t need to in order to do our work well. It also can explains why we feel we’ve got to have our “butt in the seat” even if our work could truly be done from the corner café or the back garden.

Mother, may I?

Phyllis Moen, professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota in the US, calls this the ‘mother, may I’ problem. It’s when we feel fearful of asking our managers if we can work from home or work altered hours if, say, we need to help a relative or attend a series of medical appointments or simply want to work during hours we’re feeling more productive or efficient.

 

(Credit: Alamy)

While it is technically possible for many to work odd hours, the majority of us only need flexibility a couple of hours either side of the typical 9-to-5 day (Credit: Alamy)

 

Some workplace psychologists take it a step further, saying that modern technology is a way for employers to constantly keep surveillance over their staff. In turn, people are increasingly suffering from the impacts of feeling watched, even when they are allowed to work remotely. The Future Work Centre in London released findings earlier this year that showed the emotional reactions we have to constantly being connected to our work causes “a toxic source of stress.”

As a result, we often start thinking up more ‘creative’ ways of excusing ourselves to create flexibility.

What next

There’s also the worry that flexible work options may actually get more limited as automation and advances in information technology now threaten many traditional white-collar jobs, such as accounting and law.  And that’s led to a feeling of insecurity that keeps people in their seats, playing out face time for the boss, and avoiding flexible options when they are available.

As a result of job insecurity, even when flexible work options are offered in a workplace, employees do not always take them up

One report from the World Economic Forum examines how, just as technology made manufacturing largely automated, now white-collar jobs will be automated (for example, when selling a house, the seller will fill in all the required information for an 'online solicitor').

As a result of job insecurity, even when flexible work options are offered in a workplace, employees do not always take them up. Being present it seems in the workplace, seems the most secure option for most.

 

(Credit: Getty Images)

As automation threatens more jobs, it may seem more important to be present in the office (Credit: Getty Images)

 

But, that could be counterproductive for employers. The more control that we have over our time – of when and where we work – the more job satisfaction increases, says Moen. The University of Warwick in the UK found that being happy at work makes people, on average, 12% more productive. In the paper, the researchers found that happier workers use the time they have more effectively, increasing the pace at which people work without sacrificing quality.

In reality, for some of us, the flexibility of a few hours outside of core hours actually turns out to be enough to improve quality of life. 

In Spain, Iberdrola, one of the country’s largest utilities companies, decided a few years ago to allow its employees to choose working 08:00 to 15:00 with no lunch break – a major change in a country where most people work 09:00 to 19:00 with a two-hour lunch break. The company reported employee satisfaction levels increased as a result and lower turnover (90% of the workforce has been with the company for more than five years).

Changing habits

How do you change a workplace culture? Bring in blanket company rules, say some experts, making benefits universal to all staff if possible. Financial company Moody’s instituted a policy that women returning from maternity leave do not have to fulfil the usual 'billable hours' for several months. “Middle ranking managers can also help introduce flexible and healthy workplaces by getting rid of low value work – like meetings every Monday with no agenda,” says Moen.

“It’s said that to understand something you should try to change it. We are trying to redesign working conditions, giving employees greater flexibility and control over their time with more supportive supervisors,” says Moen.

But, maybe like flying cars in the film Back to the Future, truly flexible work wasn’t ever really going to happen.

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Stephen Hodgkiss
Chief Engineer at MarketHive

markethive.com


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