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 : )