An occasional series in which a review of recent posts on MyVenturePad reveals the following nuggets:

It only takes a slight breeze
When we’re in situations where there’s great opportunity, we all can tense up, and perhaps think of all the things that can go wrong. If we dwell on them, a little whirlwind or slight breezes of negative thinking can hinder the best in us from coming out, reaching out, and giving our best - unconsciously, naturally.
—Mario Vellandi: Business Rules of Thumb: #1

Trust, trust, trust
The explosion of social media and social networking tools has fostered two fundamental changes in the business world. One, consumers now have at their disposal a wealth of information about your company and its product or service… Two, and more important, you can no longer control the communications messages the public receives about your business. You still have to put your message out there. But now it is just one more message amidst all the social media “chatter” about your company. In order for your messages to have credibility, people must trust you, which is why trust has become one of the new business imperatives.

It helps if they’re referable
Building a foundation that automatically generates referral momentum is not done through external actions – like some many things in life, you do it from the inside out. Plain and simple, the most widely referred business are purely more referable.

Who’s in control now
One of the reasons I became a business owner was to be in control. Of course, when you try to sell something you lose a fair degree of control, but at least you can have control over the selling process. With an RFP you have virtually no control over the process and, in many cases, the organization issuing the RFP knows exactly who they will hire before the process even starts. Ideally, you want to be speaking with the organization before they start the RFP process. If you’re not, that makes it all the more tempting to give up before you start.

Cycles, not months…
Seriously. It seems like the venture industry these days spends more time lamenting its future than actually working towards a future that’s different. And they couldn’t be more short term in their perspective. VC sentiment has started to become like consumer sentiment – something that moves on a monthly basis. Are we forgetting that our business is about spotting long-term trends and funding business cycles that are measured in years, not months?!?

Don’t forget the takeaway
There's an evolving list of all the things you need to consider when developing B2B marketing content. One of the components often discussed is the call to action. And, yes, you still have to do that. What's important to understand is that the call to action is not the takeaway. A call to action is what you want your prospects and customers to do next. A takeaway is the specific impression or memory the audience walks away with after reading your content.

Connecting from the top down
Social media isn’t the only way a CEO connects, etc., with stakeholders. There are many other means to connect, communicate and collaborate with all the stakeholders. There are hugely successful brands whose CEO doesn’t use social media. Though their numbers are declining. There are brands whose CEO does use social media and the brand suffers. Neither refutes the power of social media to easily and cost-effectively connect with their stakeholders.