The Higher Purpose

I ended my last post by alluding to a vision of building something that has a much higher purpose than just saving money on the things we intend to buy. A couple of years ago I sat my wife Beth down (after waking her up) and started describing to her what would  later become BuyCasts.  While I’m already grateful for the time you’ve given me in reading my past posts, I’ll be especially thankful if you’ll take the time to read this one.

But before I get started let me thank all of you who have already joined BuyCasts and have started building your own referral networks. If you haven’t yet joined, then you can do so by clicking here or simply search on the word “BuyCasts” at Facebook.

Doing “good” through our social networks!
Current day social networks focus on connecting friends and enabling them to share information, pictures and the events of their lives. While these sites have done a terrific job in connecting large volumes of people, they haven’t developed applications that can use these connections for a societal good. I think BuyCasts is the next generation of social networking! It is focused on connecting adults in a narrow, but powerful, part of life.  In building BuyCasts, we recognized that most adults are involved in buying or selling something almost every day of the lives.  So we focused our efforts on giving adults and their friends a way to unleash the full potential of their collective economic power by forming multiple referral networks that naturally exists within their existing relationships. But perhaps more importantly, BuyCasts gives them the power to leverage these networks and relationships in a way that helps the people that they care most about, as well as helps support the personal values and social interests to which they are most committed.

Helping The People We Care About Most!
Think about it like this … I bet you can think of at least 20-30 people in your life that you desire to be happy and successful. These are friends and family members for whom you would do almost anything to help. Everyday these people get up and go to work for a business in their local community or even a business that they might own. Like my friend, Lori, who recently started her own marketing company after doing it for somebody else for 20 years. Friend’s like Jennifer and Mike who have their own sport uniforms business or my stock broker Scott who has been one of Beth’s closest friends since early childhood. These are just a couple of examples and we would do anything to help these friends be successful.

BuyCasts gives us all the ability to build our own referral network of friends and trusted merchants. That way when any of my friends are searching for a product or service that Lori, Mike or Scott can provide, they will receive an automated referral from me telling them all about Lori’s, Mike’s or Scott’s business. This happens because all three are in my referral network as a trusted merchant. BuyCasting our upcoming purchases to the businesses that employ (or are owned) by our friends is a great way to help each other … and in this economy with so many people losing their jobs, I can’t imagine more perfect time to be supporting our friends.

How Does It Help Advance My Values?
When you choose to buy something, dollars go out of your pocket and into the pocket of the business where you shopped. Unfortunately, the people owning and managing that business may not share your values and social interests. However, as you and you friends begin building your referral network, BuyCasts lets you link yourself to organizations and charities that best reflect your values. This option is also given to the businesses and business people who join the BuyCasts network. That way when you are BuyCasting for an upcoming purchase we can connect you to merchants and businesses who have also linked themselves to one, or more, of the organizations that reflect your values. This way the dollars you spend are more likely to stay in the pockets of people who share your values and are likely to be supporting and advancing those values … just like you.

You can link yourself to organizations from a list of 500,000 charities and non-profits. Choose from charities, religious organizations, churches, temples, synagogues, political groups and educational institutions. For Beth and I, its ministries that support our faith, its organizations that support our commitment to home schooling and it’s the University of Georgia … go dawgs!!

Thanks for reading again. My next note will attempt to answers a few questions that I have gotten from some of you. I’ll also share more about how you can help us get the work out about BuyCasts.