I got hacked. Well, my credit card did.

I was balancing my books when I noticed two charges from GoDaddy India on a credit card with a $25,000 limit. I use GoDaddy for domain names, but not in India so that was a BIG RED FLAG!

Immediately, I called the credit card company and they closed that card and are sending me a new card with a new account number.

The problem is that 90% of my monthly bills are paid on that card. So now I have to watch and manage to pay my monthly bills with different cards this month and then update all of them with the new number when I get the new card.

Knowledge of Money

I do my accounting for my own business and have done so since I started businesses in the 1980s and '90s. Money is power in a way that can make or break success. Being intimate with how money flows into your business and goes out is knowledge.

Money is power. You can make money with money. If you really think about it, you don't control your money unless you stick it under the mattress. It's managed in the form of a bank, a credit card or a line of credit, or an investment.

I have often been a slave to banks and credit card companies, and even investors. They are in the business of giving you money to make money off of your time, talents, and ideas. This is why you get so many emails, connection requests, and spam from financial advisors, small business loan companies, and even the federal government (SBA).

Knowledge of Intelligence

I was hacked before and I learned from that experience.

Back in the early 2000s, I was in Las Vegas and had to change flights. When I gave them my credit card it was declined. This happened before we started plugging in our credit card numbers into e-commerce sites to buy things or pay bills, or could even get your credit card transactions online.

I called the credit card company and they told me that someone made a $100 purchase at Tiger Direct. I had made a purchase before I left for my trip at a physical store, so someone must have stolen my info from there. Then they told me that they used up the balance of my $5000 limit at the Precious Moments store.

I only had one credit card with me so I had to get my father to buy me a ticket home to Chicago and pay him back.

That's when I learned to REALLY pay close attention to how money was going in and coming out.

Attention is not a skill, but a conscious activity. Attention is Power.

Pay Attention

I not only pay attention to my finances, but I pay attention to thought leaders. I consume blog posts, podcast episodes, and newsletters from people like Seth Godin, Malcolm Gladwell, and Andy Crestodina. You may not have heard of Andy, but he was a guest on The Bacon Podcast and is truly a thought leader in the online marketing space.

Andy just did a post about using Artificial Intelligence to create a persona of your perfect customer and then asking that AI questions about themselves.

Keep in mind, that if you don't know the profile of your perfect customer, you need to start there. Once you have that, you can ask AI questions like “What keeps you up at night?” or “Where do you search when you are looking for products or services like mine?”

That can help you create better content or update your website in a way that resonates with your perfect customer.

Creating great content and posting it to social media is great, and has the potential of getting in front of the right eyes or ears. But, social media platforms are not in the business of promoting your business. You are.

Paying For Attention

Attention is power. There is power in attaining someone's attention. If you really think about it, you can use money and knowledge to get in front of people, but you don't control their attention. They do. Also, money and AI can buy you attention. But even if you buy ads (no matter how targeted) there is still an AI engine deciding for you who sees what you're paying for and when.

Knowledge is power. You can look intelligent with Artificial Intelligence. If you really think about it, you control your intelligence through learning, but you don't control Artificial Intelligence. It's managed in the form of a computer, an app, or a browser.

Money is power. Buying ads or sponsoring posts can boost or enhance your ability to get your content in front of people who may not already buy from you. Ultimately, it's up to them to pay attention or not.

If Money is Power, Knowledge is Power, and Attention is Power, how can you use all three to optimize your knowledge to gain attention?

Power To The People

Unless you have unlimited resources, you have to choose between paying for attention or creating something worth paying attention to.

If you are trying the shotgun approach to advertising, you are hoping that someone who does not even know, like, and trust you will be willing to invest their time to start that journey.

I suggest you invest in creating better content assets that can become more targeted to your perfect persona after you define who that really is.

You already have a great audience for your content. Albeit smaller than you would like, your current and past customers are the perfect intelligence tool.

First, they help you create profiles of who already buys from you and why. Secondly, they can show you what people are paying attention to in the heat of the moment.

That means you should try to segment your audience by industry, experience, job, and personality.

You can use a CRM or ERP (I use Nimble) to tag them with the above attributes. Then you can use a tool like Crystal Knows to build a personality profile. That will start to show you trends in various jobs, segments, and industries. This is the Power of Data.

If you can get them back to your website to view your content, you can start to get an idea of what content is resonating with certain segments. That will give you the power to then use social media advertising and email to reach out to a lookalike audience and see if that generates additional interest.

The key concept is starting out with targeted and segmented knowledge of who is paying attention. Then you can use money to test if your message can resonate with a larger audience.

Final Thoughts

Although getting a credit card breach is a pain in the ass, it does give me an opportunity to review my expenses and make sure that each is really showing a return on the investment.

Time and experience have enhanced my knowledge of how to use money to make more money!

Also, time and experience have shown me how learning from others increases my knowledge. Finally, I have learned that it is hard to buy the attention of people who don't know, like, and trust you already without building additional knowledge of how and why they pay attention. Building that knowledge first is more beneficial than spending money (sometimes lots of it) to get their attention.

Doing my own books allows me to analyze trends in my own data. Putting people into a CRM and doing personality profiles is data. Watching what articles, posts, or content is getting attention is data.

Time and experience have enhanced my knowledge of how paying attention to those who already pay attention to you is GREAT data!

“Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are.”
– Jose Ortega y Gasset

Comment below and share your thoughts, ideas, or questions about how you can get the attention of your perfect customers! Have you made an avatar or a persona of your perfect customer? Has that changed since the last time you did it? Are you paying for attention? How can you get great insight from your current and past customers? Can your business benefit from better data aggregation?

To learn more about this and other topics on B2b Sales & Marketing, visit our podcast website at The Bacon Podcast.