Sell, Sell, Sell…

Have you ever woke up and said “Boy I hope I get a lot of sales calls today”?  That was a line from Brian Marshall and his presentation “Building a Referral Machine”. Sometimes you don’t even know you ‘re being sold… “But Wait…  There’s More… If you act now we’ll double your order…  (quietly or in fine print) just pay for shipping and handling.”. And sometimes we don’t know we’re over selling ourselves.

I did a little traveling around last week with 3 new networking events.  One was on Investing, one on Time Management, and the other one I mentioned above.  I also attended a webinar on the “Facebook Business Strategies: The 4 Most Effective Marketing Methods to Grow your Business”.  What did I learn last week?  I am poor, waste time, and network completely wrong…  but the webinar also taught me that if you are going to have an hour long commercial, it should say so up front!

During the webinar, they made having a Facebook fan page sound as sexy as supermodel. An audience of 400 million potential customers and new terms like Friendcasting and Viralosity (Viral Velocity) make this a money making machine…  and to the ‘First 20′ who plunk down $800 for our Fan Page Generator, we’ll toss in 3 more free webinars.  What they neglected to mention was that if you are  selling services to seniors, chances are you have a audience of maybe 400 vs 400 million!

Just like a Shamwow, Snuggie, or Popeil Pocket Fisherman…  they show well on TV (we miss you Billy Mays), but after 1-2 uses you figure out why you really didn’t need this in the first place.

Can you Hear Me Now?  Good

There are two basic types of advertising…  Push (traditional print or media) and Pull (networking, eMail, etc.). There are also various different audiences that will respond differently to push and pull messages.  If you are like most businesses, you have to create a blend…  and even more important, measure each for effectiveness.

That’s a basic formula and is equally important whether you are a soloprenuer, large company, or even looking for a job.  The days of having one message or resume are long gone.  It all circles around answering two basic (but difficult) questions…

1. Who is your ideal customer or employer?
2. When would they be most likely in need of what you offer?

Next comes the challenge of having the right message in front of them at the right time.  ”Can you hear me now?  Good!”.

Give a Little Bit

One of the many things I have learned about networking is that it’s better to give than to receive.  That’s one reason I give so may free speeches on Social Networking.  I also have to tailor them to each audience.  During the presentation, I try to present tips that people can do themselves and I try to avoid selling what I do.  If you give back, people will be more open to what you have to say and feel more compelled to find out what you do.

The same goes for networking.  I am always looking for ideas to connect people with opportunities.  An example was last week… I was at a morning networking event when a lady mentioned she was involved with two banks.  As we were walking out I asked “Are you in need of any Bank Presidents?” and she said “Well maybe?”.  I was able to connect an unemployed banker friend with her and he’s already had a phone interview.  He in-turn then offered to assist my wife Kim with her job search with insurance companies.

Sometimes… it’s the impact that you have on others that can lead to even bigger impact in you life or business.

The Harley Update

Poor Harley…  He has been getting a little worse each week.  His hips are so bad that he can barely get up on his own.  He also does not have the strength to get up and down the stairs so he has been confined to the first floor and he has to wear his harness most of the day.   The poor guy kinda feels rejected when we head to bed without him (till he starts snoring). He is heading to the Vet today for a tune up.

On the bright side…  He seems to find a 2nd gear whenever we are prepping his dinner or breakfast…  So where there’s food…  there is hope for a better tomorrow!

Bonus Video of the Week!

This weeks video honors inginuty and creativity.   Non more special than the Rube Goldberg.

From Wikipedia – Goldberg is best known for a series of popular cartoons he created depicting complex devices that perform simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways – now known as Rube Goldberg machines. The 2010 music video “This Too Shall Pass – RGM Version” by the rock band OK Go features a machine that, after four minutes of kinetic activity, shoots the band members in the face with paint. “RGM” presumably stands for Rube Goldberg Machine. The video, like several of their other videos, is one camera/one take, therefore assuring the audience that the machine is valid.

Do you think these guys played a lot of “Mouse Trap” as kids?

You’re Fired…

Have you ever been fired? I’m sure there are dozens of you who have been… Laid Off, Furloughed, Downsized, Rightsized, Repurposed, Outsourced, Reduction in Force (RIF), Involuntary Reduction in Force, Voluntary Reduction in Force, Bum Closed Down,  Disengaged, Down Fired,  Free Idled, Inactivated, Leisured, Resting, Unapplied, Underemployed, Unengaged, Unexercised, Unoccupied, Unused & Workless…  I am talking about the all out Donald Trump “You’re Fired!”?

In my world, there are two kinds of fired…  The “You just were not a good fit” fired and the “You did something wrong (cheating, lying, stealing, or something dangerous) fired.  In business, we spend countless hours and resources trying to gain and keep customers.  It’s like trying to get hired over and over again, but occasionally you get the boot because of various circumstances.  But on a very rare occasion, I have to fire a client or potential client.  That’s what happened last week!

After spending hours in meetings and proposals and eMails and phone calls, the potential client responded that they can’t get their arms around “Why they should hire me rather than go to template web host service and get a website for $20 a month?”.  My response was to let them know that people pay me for my experience and that you can hire people overseas for $10 an hour.  What I was offering was knowledge, experience a good potential for a return on their investment.  They still could not see the benefit, but still wanted me to to continue to engage and offer advice.  I had to tell them that I thought we would not be a good fit and I wished them all the best.

It’s a hard thing to explain the value marketing to someone who has strong preconceived notions what marketing is. There is a value in knowing what will help them grow their business. It’s also hard to change a perception that marketing is an investment as opposed to a expense. Yes there is a cost associated, but you offset that by selling more.  My goal is to at least double their investment.  It’s not as obvious when you are selling items at $4.95 as it is when you sell $495 or $49,000 items or services, but you only have 1 chance to make a first impression.

For example…  You could save a chunk of change by hiring Sharon and Fred…

Kim does not believe they are for real…  but you have to visit their website and they have been interviewed… (and yes they have a facebook fan page) the debate continues.

Or would you be willing to invest a bit more and get a truly creative idea that will get noticed?  (like Todd’s…)

The bottom line is you get what you pay for.. so make sure you understand the intangible value of  doing it right!  That may mean hiring an expert to help you plan the work…  and work the plan!

Perfume on a Pig…

A pet peeve of mine is how companies try to fool customers into thinking that they have this whole new thing…  that is just the same ol’ stuff at a new price!  How about getting a box of cereal that says “New and Improved”  only to get home and see the box has 11oz of product verses 16oz of product in the old box – for the SAME PRICE?

Similar to that is the new service by Comcast.  Somehow paying $100 a month to watch TV is not sexy anymore…  Enter ‘xfinity’.  One blogger called it “brand-washing (is that a word yet?) to smear over their customer ill will”.  Also… Time Magazine released its “Top 10 worst corporate name changes” and topped its list with the Comcast-XFinity transition and also pointed out the x-rated connotation involved with its new name. One blog described XFinity as the “worst, pseudo-pornographic, retrofuturistic marketing dollars can buy.”

Another is DEX (short for INDEX… It’s the Yellow Pages people).  Freshly emerging from bankruptcy, now called “Dex One”… they have new slick commercials that decry advertising for their marketing consultants.  They offer you online advertising and print marketing (that’s lingo for grouping you with your competition in their on-line adds and putting you in the yellow pages).  If you want to get more traffic to your website, there are better and less expensive ways (wink…  call me!)

It just goes to show “No matter how much perfume you put on a pig..  it’s gonna smell like a pig.”.

Bonus Video of the Week

Just to keep you IPhone dewds and dewdettes happy…  I will be talking more about that in the coming weeks!  Till then enjoy this “ode to the IPhone’  done by a guy from the New York Times…  (Thanks Don P.) Enjoy (or maybe not : )

‘300′ – My Epic Battle with Networking

Have you ever seen the movie ‘300′?  Well I haven’t…  well kinda!  It’s almost like ‘It’s a Wonderful Lif’e'…  but kinda!  Let me explain.  Back in the 70’s, 80’s and into the 90’s, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ was in the public domain.  Around Christmas time, it was shown literally 24 hours a day on multiple channels.  I had seen every scene from that movie at least 50 times but never in order (I have now since my wife made me buy it!).  It’s the same with ‘300′.  It on multiple channels like History, NatGeo, TMC and more.  I am sure I have seen the whole movie but not in sequence.  ’300′ is about 300 Spartans who go into battle against Persian “God-King” Xerxes and his army of more than one million soldiers. I won’t spoil the end like I did with my step Mom when we watched ‘Titanic’…  ”Ma… I hate to ruin it for you… but in the end… the boat sinks!”.

OK…  So you’re asking yourself…. “Self?  What does that have to do with marketing or computers?”  Well I had my own battle of the ‘300′.

Last week was like most, filled with networking and speaking and teaching. If you are like most business people, you pass out and collect business cards.  A few weeks ago I was at a presentation by Tom Wieczorek from Sales Automation Specialists who calls himself  ’The Act Pro’.  He talked about how everyone collects contacts but most of us do nothing with them. He was right!  I collect them all the time but only act on the ones that I tagged as ‘HOT’.  I was missing out on communicating to a potential referral.

So I dug through my briefcase, my portfolio, my desk and a few other places (my wife found some in my coats) and stacked them all up.  There were over 300 cards!  I was not about to type all these in.  Being a two finger typist, it would have taken me the better part of a month!  I did buy an IPhone app called ‘Business Card Reader’.  It works by taking a picture of the business card and then the software reads the text by OCR (optical character recognition) and enters it into your address book.  The concept is cool, but the IPhone blocks the light source and it’s hard to hold the IPhone still enough to get a clear shot. Using OCR is not an exact science… and trying to make corrections on the IPhone keyboard is not exactly quick and easy.

So I bite the bullet and got a Neat Scanner for Mac.  I thought about just getting a business card scanner but you have to feed them one at a time. For just a little more cash, this puppy can scan a stack of at least 10 at a time (along with receipts and documents).

It’s has some quirks but overall I’m happy with how much time it saved.  It’s also pretty amazing how the software can differentiate between eMail or web address, first and last names, addresses or a business line and mobile phone. Some of the issues I had were… The slot is a little oversized so when you drop the cards in, it sometimes skews the card scan. The software did lock up a few times causing me to restart my computer.  And finally OCR works well only you have clean and clear typesetting on the card.  I would say only 1 in 10 cards did not need any tweaking.

A week later all cards were scanned and entered into my database.  After my final networking lunch on Thursday, I was able to scan 10 cards, tweak them, and send a personalized eMail to each person there.  I guess I finally get it… I have to practice what I preach…  Thanks Tom!

Killer Creative

I did learn a lot about business and card design last week.  Some people get a little overly creative to try to stick out (in my humble opinion), but once it gets into your pile, it has lost it’s edge.  Speaking of the edge, the cards that are portrait (tall) vs landscape (your normal wide) are harder to scan.  Those black cards with dark blue and green type were a mess. There were these oversized or odd shaped cards that I had to cut to scan or fit into a card holder.  Some cards crammed so much info on them, that the type was too small to scan or read without a magnifying glass.  Double sided (even 4 sideed) cards often have two completely different looks (some work well though). And finally…  I can’t believe how many people had missing information like an eMail address or have doglover123@freemail.com as their business address (even though they have a website with my-business,com).

I’m not perfect (insert laughing wife here), but I would suggest that you make it easier for people to contact you and tell them what you do.  Make the type larger and clear (these older eyes don’t do well with 4 point type). If your name happens to be a creative logo, repeat it somewhere in type for clarity. If you are like me, and access these cards days, weeks, months (or years) later…  it will be appreciated.  Neither of the above samples are any good… so that’s why it pays sometimes to hire a designer who understands all of the above (right Lisa?).

Now What?

Now that I have all that info…  I have to do something with it!  I finally broke down and signed up with a broadcast eMail service.  I teach about them, I set them up for clients, but I have avoided them since I (and my blog readers) liked the simple eMail I sent each week.

The advantages are:

1. People can subscribe and unsubscribe – making it easier for me to manage my eMail lists.
2. It provides metrics of how effective your eMails are – I could track the blog page but not where people were reading it from.
3. It will allow me to promote more in the same space – I can add links to speeches, news or project examples.

If you get an eMail from me about this blog and you prefer to to get the new eMail News version – Click Here and Subscribe!

Bonus Video of the Week

I am all about target marketing and bending over backwards for clients but this is just incredible!  Enjoy…

Time to Make Time

I am often asked…  ”Where do you find the time to do all you do?”.  I respond… “I try to be hyper organized and I try to rate the usefulness or necessity of activities from 1-10.  Doing work that I get paid for is a 10.  I will let you imagine what could be a 1!  Oh Yeah…  working late and lack of sleep helps also!  Factor in that I have DDA (that’s severe ADD) and you can imagine the challenge.

It’s quite the balancing act.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull Boy!  All work frankly is impossible…  You have to mix in so many things (especially as a soloprenure) like learning, teaching, marketing, meetings, networking, billing, accounting, proposals, tech support, and more.

I was at a meeting with a guy who was looking to get back in the saddle of soloprenuership and asked “How do you know what to charge?”.  It a fairly basic formula…  ”What do you need to make?”.  There are 2000 working hours in a year (50 weeks at 40 hours).  If you are like most, you can only hope to bill 1/2 of that so. So if you charge $50 an hour you most likely will gross $50,000.  Now factor in 30-50% for expenses (phone, milage, internet, & more) leaves you with $25 to $35 an hour net.

So what do you do with those other 1000 billable hours?  Aside for the basic day to day operations I have a list I try to accomplish each week.

1) Learn

Last week I spent hours trying to learn new stuff. Here’s a few activities: I learned about tracking Social Networking Effectiveness, attended a webinar on Search Engine Optimization tips, started to explore new web programming platforms,  learned about using Community Access TV for marketing, went to an Owners Issues group, and read countless on-line articles on Social Networking, Marketing, Design, and more.

Things change so fast, you have to spend time keeping up to speed on what’s new and up and coming.  You have to learn to evolve or be left behind.

2) Teach

I am part of a group called Free Speech.  This is a group that promotes your topics to groups in exchange for not charging for presentations.  Last week it was the Oakbrook Sunrise Rotary.  I also taught a class at Waubonsee CC on “Marketing in the 21st Century”.  The class was held spellbound as I tried to explain 8 hours of material in 2 hours (a broad brush overview).

By teaching I learn what topics are hot and how to better communicate to customers.  I also tweak my speeches each time to reflect new things that I have learned when appropriate.

3) Give Back

I try to spend at least 10% of my time giving back to the community, that includes volunteering, sitting on boards and committees, and such.  Last week it was helping with the ‘Souper Bowl of Caring’. Although my store did pretty well, giving overall was down and the need continues to grow.  I have two unemployed people in my house so I can only imagine what it’s like choosing between keeping the heat on and having to go to a food pantry to feed your family.

It’s very easy to write a check to help…  but just like a $1 to a food pantry can buy $6 of food from the Northern Illinois Food Bank… an hour of your time can have a huge impact on helping those trying to help others.  They are short on people, time and resources so every little bit helps!

Rock My World.

Last Tuesday/Wednesday was just freaky…  It started out with a snow storm.  In the morning I broke out Ol’ Bess (the snowblower) and had to dig out the driveway to clear a path so Timmy could make it to his first job interview since graduating from Western Illinois U in December.  My neighbor Mark and I have a pact of working together to snowblow not only our driveways but clearing the street.  This is to avoid getting snow drifts from the plows piled up in our way out and making a path for the mail lady in front of our mail boxes.

I headed out for a quick client meeting only to return to a 3 foot drift in my driveway and another right in front of my mailbox (accidentally on purpose?).  I had to dig that out by hand just to get my car back in the driveway!  It’s a good thing Mark’s wife was not home…  she has been known to chase those jerks down the street screaming at them in tongues…  scares me!

Later that night, Timmy and I were working to clear the additional snow from the day.  Ol’ Bess was starting to get cranky and then started spewing parts past Tim’s head.  Her blades were disintegrating and she had seen the end on a short but illustrious career!

Finally at exactly 4:00 am that night we were all awoken by a LOUD BOOM.  A snowplow hit the house? A plane crash? Fermilab crashed two particles again?

Tim, Kim and I all woke up and met in the hallway.  We look at each other and say at the same time “What was that?”.  Then we proceeded to search the house looking for stranger danger and head to the basement to make sure the furnace or water heaters had not exploded.

It was not until that morning that we heard it was an Earthquake (Tim called it).  I jumped onto Facebook and posted a link to a Beacon News story  It started out by saying “Breaking News”…  a buddy commented “Breaking News?” (it was 5 hours later)  to which I commented… “Something had to ‘Break’ somewhere?  A Plate?  A Mirror?  : )

Then another friend posted to her husband “Honey… You make my earth quake everyday.”  which opened up a tsunami of funny comments.  I know how she feels since earlier that week I had posted “Off to another meeting at Panera… Stimulating the Economy and Myself… 1 Meeting at a Time : )”  I was talking coffee…  but the minds of my friends found a way to spin that in a slightly different direction!

Oh Well!

Bonus Video of the Week!

On this Valentines Day Weekend…  Nothing says” I love you” like hand written letters!  Or does it?  Enjoy…

Are you afraid of trying new things?  I am not talking about a new flavor of sugar free Jello… I am talking stepping out of your comfort zone. That was me last week…  venturing into the world of (three doom-y crashing chords - Duh-duh-durr!) Public Relations (audience gasps with fear).  I am pretty much a  multi-tech geek, but writing and delivering PR that creates a desired results is not one of my strong suits.  But I have to be a man of integrity and walk the walk, practice what I preach, Do the Dew…  using traditional media techniques to promote myself and my business!  (Did I mention that I’m teaching a class at Waubonsee  on Marketing in the 21st Century on February 10th?).

Who Dey?

As most of you know I donate as much time and money as I can to my community.  Next week is the Souper Bowl of Caring at Jewel stores all around the Fox Valley.  This is organized by Fox Valley United Way (Deborah Collins) and supports the Aurora Interfaith and Kendall County Food Pantries.  Last year we collected 7000 pounds of food and $5000 cash.  Sounds like a lot but when divided up, would only last 2 weeks at each pantry…  and the need is even greater this year!

Another project I’m working on is Ride IV Reasons.  I was approached by Mike Meyer (UWFV not the Wayne’s World guy) to help with an event happening in April.  George Hood is an ex-Marine (been in Afghanistan) ex-DEA, and ex-World Record holder of riding a stationary bike for over 177 hours.  Some dewd in Belgium broke that with 192 hours?  George is not the kind of guy you want to mess with (what was that guy thinking?)… but rather than executing his covert operation (named ‘Operation Broken Knees’), he’s decided to break the record (rather than knees) again with a 300 hour (12 1/2 day) ride.  He is trying to raise donations for kids (through the United Way) and the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund and needed help getting the word out!

George could take down a bad guy with a stern look (Stay Thirsty My Friends), but his is just not that tech savvy…  Enter the Professional Geek!  In about 50 donated hours…  I helped George set up a whole bunch of Social Networking to help promote the event to a much larger audience.  We started with a Blog, attached to Georges site.  Next we created a Facebook Fan Page and Cause Page.  Then we linked any blog post he made to go to the Fan Page and his Twitter and Linked In accounts.  Finally I coached George and his manager Mark on how to use all this stuff (like the blog admin).  As I am writing this, George is on a stationary bike doing a 28 hour training ride, and blogging about it!  With one post he is now reaching millions world wide!

Now back to my original point…  This is a news story (in some’s eyes).  So I hired a writer (thanks Shirley) to get the press release in proper form and make it a bit more news worthy.  Here’s the part where I had to step out of my comfort zone…  Use a PR service.

Some guys (like Jim Kendall) are worth the price of admission because of the local connections they’ve built over the years and the improved chance your story will get picked up!  But this story is a world wide record breaking story and I felt it needed a service that would get the message out to a very wide audience.  I choose  PRWeb (click here to read it) and with some effort on my part (building the page in their system) and $200 (part of my donation to the Cause) it went out last week.  The jury is out on the effectiveness of this method, but you can see the hits I dot on the map to the right and it did get some hits in my google alerts.

If you would like to follow George or get involved (maybe by riding along with him) or volunteering (My Band Dough! is playing) at the event in April…  Contact the United Way at 630-896-4636 or join his Facebook Fan Page and Cause Page!

Apples & Tab(lets)

Unless you were under a rock last week, you’ve probably heard about the new Apple IPad. It’s their foray into an untapped computing genre. The IPad is a 9.7 inch tablet computer that integrates technologies from both the iPhone and the app store, and works like a Kindle (digital book reader)… and more.

There was an incredible amount of hype before it was released, and an equal amount of criticism after it was announced.  I had a few people ask me my opinion and if I was going to get one.  As to part two of that question… the answer is no, but that does not mean I can’t see the benefit of having one.

I think where some people are confused is… they’re thinking of this as Apple’s netbook… but that’s not what it’s all about.  This is a mobile media reader, game machine, photo frame, e-mail and Web server, and more.  A netbook is a cheap mini dumbed down laptop that allows you to run most programs and surf the web.  The difference here is how Apple has integrated a multimedia experience into a very portable device.

Most of the criticism comes from things that the IPad does not have.  It’s missing a camera, and SD slot, a microphone, and a few other features that were expected.  People were hoping for an iPhone on steroids, but this is a new class of computer and is meant for completely different audience.  What Apple did here was change the game.  You have a very functional device for $499 (that’s $100 less than I paid for my first iPhone – which I did get $100 rebate on), and it doesn’t require you to pay $30 a month for a data plan. You can (if you so choose) upgrade to a wireless 3G version and pay $19.95 a month for AT&T access, but I think this will be for a smaller group of power users. This is more of a Kindle on steroids than a netbook or iPhone…  and with the app store and all the games that are available, it will also be like a Nintendo DS on steroids.

I really can’t imagine anybody selling their iMac or MacBook Pro on eBay to get one of these (hence why I’m not getting one), but if you ride the train or plane, or head into your local Starbucks (sometime in May or June), you’ll be surprised at how many you see.

So the jury is still out, but I’m fairly certain that Apple knows what it’s doing. Sometimes you just have to experience it to get, like my buddy Jim in Arizona. He was talking to me yesterday and telling me how much he loved his new Apple TV in his entertainment center (and just a few weeks ago he didn’t even know what it was or that it even existed).

Finally I believe there’s a lot more to this story.  Traditionally, Apple has made huge announcements at MacWorld in February (last week’s event totally focused on this new IPad).  I believe in the coming weeks you’re going to see a whole bunch of new stuff from Apple including updated IWork and other software, upgrades to iTunes and potentially other devices like MacBook’s, Apple TV and maybe even a new Mac Pro. It’s going to be an exciting time to be a geek and you just gotta love it!

Bonus Video of the week!

People love their Starbucks (while surfing on their new Apple IPad).  So this video fits right in!  Enjoy…