Hey there ,

I don't know about you but I absolutely love Vampire movies.

One of my all time favorites is Blade...

A vampire movie about a day walker who protects humans from vampires...

Day walker: Vampire that walks in the sun without turning into toast.

Any ways...

In Blade 2....

Blade teams up with the vampires he regularly slaughters...

To fight a new breed of creatures who feed on vampires and potentially humans too.

In making the decision he (Blade) said to his friend...

The Enemy of my Enemy is my friend.

That brings us to today's key thought for creating a successful mind virus and consequently a highly successful community...

That key thought is: IDENTIFY A COMMON ENEMY FOR YOUR COMMUNITY

I've been a student of advertising for about 20+ years now.

One of my favorites (advertising) is Apple’s legendary 1983 television commercial that launched the Macintosh.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH IT

It showed a woman running down an aisle of robot like employees

And throwing a hammer to shatter a massive screen with that displayed a very dictator like looking figure.

No company was ever named...

But everybody knew it was IBM, and the enemy was conformity.

They did pretty much the same thing again in 1997 with their Think different campaign after Steve Jobs returned to the company...

That campaign became the rallying cry through which Steve Jobs turned the apple brand into a mind virus.

Now...

Just as it is important to articulate your market's pain..

It's also vitally important to take a stand against something...

That thing could be a person...

A company or business...

A way of thinking...

An Industry...

A set of traits...

Norms...

What ever it is...

You've got to take a stand against it.

Will you polarize your market?

Yes...

Some will love your message...

Some will hate it...

Once you identify the enemy...

You need to understand what is propping it up...

What's giving it the ability to stand....

In short you have to discover what Gene Sharp (Remember him?) refers to as...

The pillars of power...

You need to discover what your identified enemy's pillars of power is...

And create an alternative that is so much more compelling that those pillars move to support you.

In political revolutions...

These pillars are most often the population, police, military, industrial complexes and allies.

In our context as entrepreneurs on the path to high profile, highly paid expert status...

They’re most often some blend of customers/clients/patients, suppliers, vendors, distribution channels, trade organizations and more...

When I started HPEN...

My identified enemy was ignorance and misinformation...

Well meaning bad advice from people who meant well...

But just ended up doing a lot of damage...

Ruining potentially awesome careers with misinformation...

I hated that...

That informed my approach to sharing on HPEN...

I wanted to get the right information into the hands of as many as possible...

I wanted to help democratize the process of becoming a high profile, highly paid person of influence in any field.

Today I think to a large extent I have achieved that...

And so for this next phase of growth for HPEN...

I need a new enemy...

Ignorance and misinformation no longer cut it as enemies for the new level of influence I want to reach for.

So think about that...

For the community that you want to build...

The market that you want to serve...

Who or what is the enemy?

Identify that..

And you'll find it easy to rally ideal clients to your cause.

Till tomorrow

Get out of your own way.

CTM