Horses, H2O and Humans

Horses, H₂O and Humans

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a rant in this space. I’ve been inspired by Alex at Heyo and Derek at Social Triggers and even my buddy Jake at Embark Marketing. So here goes.

Cowboys used to say that you could lead a horse to water but that you couldn’t make him drink any. So the horses that wouldn’t drink any died. Which reinforced the cowboys’ belief that horses offered water that they wouldn’t drink were really stupid and thus deserved to die.

If you were offered water, would you drink it? I don’t mean Evian or Nestle or some other fancy water that you pay far too much for. I mean good old-fashioned water say from a tap in your kitchen. Or, if you are old enough to remember doing it, from the front end of the garden hose, after letting the water run for a while, of course, so that it was nice and cold and didn’t taste like rubber?

You probably might answer those questions with reservations. It would probably have something to do with whether or not you were thirsty at the time, right? But what if you weren’t thirsty at the time and a few minutes later your water supply was cut off by some catastrophe? Would you last as long as you might if you had drunk the water even if you weren’t in desperate need of it at the time?

Knowledge is like that. You might not think you need it when it is offered. But when disaster or drought strikes, you surely could have used it after your refusal to drink from the cup when you didn’t think you needed it, couldn’t you? How do you know when a piece of knowledge, a piece of expertise, a piece of experience or some advice on avoiding a mistake will be a critical element in shaping your future and the future of whatever endeavors you are engaged in?

I’ve been offering my knowledge to you for well over a year now. Many of you have taken advantage of it, particularly the free stuff, including the website resources list, the calendar of events, my monthly newsletter and maybe even these blog posts. And I’m thankful that my efforts to provide value for you are appreciated at some level and that you are finding them useful.

I have to say, however, that sometimes my efforts to bring knowledge to you so that you will have it in your time of need seem to be unappreciated or ignored. Not always, but sometimes. I did The A to Z Blog Book. $24.95 on Amazon, now $9.95 on Kindle and $20 if you get one from me personally, autographed or not. Several hundred ordered it during the free promo period on Kindle. Two were kind enough to write reviews, and very nice ones at that.

I just did the Probiotic Marketing Infographic. OK, the name is funny because it is a take-off on the TV commercials touting prebiotics, probiotics and other “features” of yogurt. Clearly a borrowed interest kind of name, to which I don’t normally resort, but an infographic filled with tremendously valuable information on how best to market what you sell to the most likely prospects in the most effective way in any case.

I’ve been promoting these things heavily on Google+, Facebook and Linkedin. A few of you are drinking in the knowledge offerings, and many of you are complimenting them with “likes,” but not nearly enough of you to justify the effort that it takes to lead you to the water. It reminds me of the cartoon showing an Indian chief ignoring a Gattling gun salesman because he was too busy fighting a battle with bows and arrows. You’ve seen the cartoon. And you’ve thought: what an idiot. But have you looked at, let alone taken advantage of the knowledge offers in The A to Z Blog Book or the Probiotic Marketing Infographic? Not according to my Google analytics! So what does that make you?

How much is a good idea worth if it increases your sales, bumps up your profits or helps you stay in business? How much is being prepared in advance worth? I have bunches of stories about how a few ounces of prevention can save tons of time, effort, money and grief. But you have to make the effort and the investment in learning these prevention techniques before you need them if they are to be of use to you.

Please give some thought to these issues. Buy The A to Z Blog Book in one form or another. Order the Probiotic Marketing Infographic. They don’t cost very much. And they contain the kind of information you really need and won’t find anywhere else in this world. Or be like the horse that is led to water and refuses to drink. It is your choice, and I hope you choose to drink in this valuable knowledge before you succumb to the results of not doing so.

As always, thanks for reading and please do bombard me with comments pro and con.

Scoop.it

Image credit: <a href=’http://www.123rf.com/photo_13261383_skinny-cowboy-horse-drinks-water-from-a-bucket-vector-illustration.html’>vipdesignusa / 123RF Stock Photo</a>

Great ideas ad for The A to Z BlogBook — Order Your Copy Today! Hard Copy $24.95 at https://www.createspace.com/4295924, Kindle e-book version for only $9.95 at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CZN4BA0

June 24, 2013July 14, 2013

The Cost, Price and Payback for Helping Others

When someone asks you for your help with something do you do a cost/benefit analysis before deciding whether or not to respond positively to the request?

Do you try to figure out what kind of “price” you should charge for helping others, perhaps in exchange for some help you might need now, or to bank in order to ask for a favor sometime in the future?

Do you have a different set of criteria for helping others depending on their relationship with you or based on what kind of benefit you could get in return for your help?

Or do you just help whenever you can, however much you can and without regard to the nature or circumstances of the person in need of the help?

My father used to drill into my head the following: “Always help as many people as you can, in as many ways as you can, whenever you can. Because you never know when you might need some help and if you’ve never given any help it might be tough to find it when you need it most.”

And “If you help others you may never get back as much help as you’ve given. But if you hurt others that hurt will come back many times over when you can least afford it.” I think he was talking about bad good and bad karma before I know what those words meant. Sort of like “What goes around comes around.”

Zig Ziglar said “You can have anything in the world you want if you’ll just help enough other people get what they want.”

It takes far more muscular effort to frown than to smile. Do you know that a smile from you will almost always help someone else smile, and thus feel better? How much does it cost for you to smile versus to frown? Smiling is one of those “win-win” situations.

How much does it cost you to say “Thank you” when someone does something nice for you, even if it’s their job to do so? How much does it cost to say “I appreciate your help” to someone, even if their help was minimal but their intentions were good? How much does it cost to tell someone that they did a good job on something or, where appropriate, that they look especially handsome or beautiful at a particular time?

How much does it cost to click the Share button on your social media account when someone you know asks you to do so? Or to “+1” something on Google when you think it was OK or might be of interest to others even if it isn’t of much immediate interest to you? Or to re-tweet something where it might help someone with a project they are trying to promote?

I’m not proposing that all of us help everyone all of the time. That’s just not possible, except perhaps in special circumstances (e.g., where you have all the time and money in the world to give and having that richness hasn’t turned you selfish and immune to the feelings of others). But I am suggesting that helping whenever we can, without first trying to figure out a cost or price or quid pro quo, is a better way of living than the other way around.

I am privileged to have a lot of friends, both in the real world and on social media sites, who go out of their way to help others. They provide advice, they answer questions, they help organize in-person events and they volunteer to help in their communities. All without wondering whether or not they’re going to get paid for helping and without expecting some kind of payback.

I’m also not suggesting that you confuse helping with working. If you earn your living by providing commercial services, I wouldn’t expect you to provide detailed help and advice in your field of expertise for me without expecting me to pay for it. And I hope that you wouldn’t expect me to provide you with detailed marketing help and advice on your particular business issues without being paid for it.

But if you need a generic opinion, or a connection to someone, or some hints on what events might be beneficial for you, I’m happy to help – without charge – because it is something that I can do and am happy to do. I’m convinced that each of us individually and all of us together can make this world a better place just by helping each other whenever and however we can.

I hope you are one of them. And that the next time you are in a position to help someone that you do so – freely, willingly and with goodwill in your heart.

Thanks for reading. Your comments, as always, are very welcome. To read more of Jons’ thoughts and ideas, order The A to Z Blog Book from Amazon or Kindle. You’ll love it.

Scoop.it

March 4, 2013June 3, 2013

Time for a Commercial Break

I spent some time today putting together a set of small videos that I’d like to share with you. Some have to do with free offers – the website Event Calendar and the Marketing Strategy Development e-Book – and others have to do with asking you to spend some money with me.

The very inexpensive offers are The Piano Story and the Marketing Plan and Marketing Strategy Worksheets. Very inexpensive and very, very useful to you.

The more expensive offers have to do with the Instant Strategy Session and the Monthly Mentoring Mode. Certainly more costly but much more in depth and personalized service for you.

I’d love to do business with you and I hope you’ll both enjoy these short videos and respond to their calls for action. Because I could use the business and I’m betting that you could use the help! Just click the links above to visit the applicable pages and view the videos.

Thanks for reading – and watching. And please do let me know what other products and services that you would find useful.

December 17, 2012July 15, 2013

Smite Those Tactics!

Marketing tactics are insidious and prolific. They keep popping up on what seems like an almost daily basis. SEO. Content. Backlinks. Tracklinks. PPC. AdWords. Promoted posts. Featured items. Offers. Text messages. Mobile apps. Interactive cable TV. Webinars. Teleseminars. e-Books. On-demand presentations. Gadgets, widgets and plug-ins. And the list could easily go on. In fact it does go on!

Are you inundated by the latest “must have” tactics in your marketing strategy mix? If so, I suggest that you smite those tactics until you step back and take a broader view of your overall marketing strategy. Don’t succumb to the siren song of any new tactic until you figure out if it will do you some good.

To whom are you marketing? Are you in the B2B or B2C business? What are the demographics of your markets in terms of age, occupation, income and interests? What kinds of activities are your prospects interested in and how do they find out about them? Mightn’t that information provide some valuable insights to guide you in the selection of your messages and the media you use to deliver them?

Who buys the largest quantities of what you sell, and where can you find more of those kinds of customers? Are there uses for your products or services outside your existing customer base that could be exploited with new messaging? Would new media selection help your message go viral? Is going viral what you want? Can you support that level of activity?

The right hierarchy for your marketing strategy decisions is goals first, strategy second and tactics third. So if those tactics are distracting you or diluting your overall goal and strategy work then I suggest you smite them until it’s time to consider which of them you’ll actually want to implement to support your plans.

Comments, as always, are solicited and thanks for reading.

Scoop.it

December 9, 2012June 3, 2013

Social Media ROI Baptism

Social Media ROI Baptism (with apologies to clergy everywhere)

There’s an old joke about a man whose pastor decided that it was time for him to be baptized into the faith. So the pastor took the man down to the river and, after saying the appropriate words, dunked the man’s head into the river for a few seconds. When the man’s head was out of the water and he had shaken the water off his face, the pastor asked him if he believed. The man said that he wasn’t sure.

So the pastor said some more words and dunked the man’s head into the river for several tens of seconds. When the man’s head came out of the water for the second time and he had caught his breath and shaken the water off, the pastor asked him again if he believed. And again the man said he wasn’t sure.

Getting frustrated, this time the pastor regaled him with a full sermon on why he needed to believe and held the man’s head in the river for a full minute. When the man’s head was finally released and he spluttered and shook the water off and took several deep breaths, the pastor asked for a third time if the man believed. And this time the man said that he did indeed believe.

Just to make sure that the baptism had really been effective, the pastor asked the man what he believed. And the man replied that he believed that the pastor was trying to drown him.

With so much emphasis on social media these days, one could wonder how much of the blog postings and social media content to believe. This is especially true now with the focus on social media return on investment (ROI).

Do you believe that social media has value in building your relationships with your prospects and customers? I certainly do. Do you believe that you need to post interesting and relevant content in order to nurture those relationships? I certainly do. Do you believe that you need to interact with your customers, sometimes in almost real time, via social media? I certainly do.

Do you believe that you can put absolute numbers, in dollars and cents terms, on the results you are gaining from your social media efforts? I certainly don’t. And you can immerse me in words and arguments and articles and posts until day turns into night and I think then that I’ll only believe that you are trying to drown me in “facts” until I acquiesce to believing something.

Don’t get me wrong here. I do believe that our social media efforts, properly directed and executed, are important. And that they do provide a return on our investment in both tangible and intangible ways. But when I’m asked to prove it with debits and credits and dollars and cents I’m afraid that I have to revert to faith alone. Because I don’t believe anyone has yet to come up with a proof that an accurate equation exists.

I’d love to have your opinions on this viewpoint. And thanks for reading.
Scoop.it

December 4, 2012June 3, 2013

Elements of a Marketing Plan — 3

I’m going to continue posting the materials from my Udemy.com online course entitled The Marketing Plan Seminar in 2013 so that my followers can get a feel for the kind of work that I can do for them on a consulting basis. If you can’t wait for the installments to be posted you can order the complete course at http://udemy.com/The-Marketing-Plan-Seminar at any time. In the mean time, I hope you will enjoy each small installment and please do give me a call if doing so triggers something for you where I can be of help with an Instant Strategy Session or working with you longer term with the Monthly Mentoring Mode. Enjoy!

While we need to answer the first three questions on this slide, we really need to think about the fourth bullet — how will we convert leads to prospects to (new) customers and how will be both retain and convert new customers to repeat customers.

Elements of a Marketing Plan — 3

We’re really asking three questions here. Who are the real target markets we’re trying to reach, what messages that hopefully will resonate with these target markets are we trying to convey, and what is the best media to use to get those messages to those target markets in the best and most cost effective way.

Order the complete course today so that you’ll be ready for 2013 and won’t have to wait for the next twelve slides!

December 3, 2012December 3, 2012

Elements of a Marketing Plan — 2

I’m going to continue posting the materials from my Udemy.com online course entitled The Marketing Plan Seminar so that my followers can get a feel for the kind of work that I can do for them on a consulting basis. If you can’t wait for the installments to be posted you can order the complete course at http://udemy.com/The-Marketing-Plan-Seminar at any time. In the mean time, I hope you will enjoy each small installment and please do give me a call if doing so triggers something for you where I can be of help with an Instant Strategy Session or working with you longer term with the Monthly Mentoring Mode. Enjoy!

: This image goes with the accompanying video that is part of the online Marketing Plan Seminar. This is slide number 7.

Here we see the hierarchy of goals, strategies and tactics. Too often people fall into the “tactic of the day” trap and go off developing tactics before setting initial goals, supporting the goals with strategies and then implementing tactics that will support them.

Elements of a Marketing Plan — 2

The “bottom line” here is to make sure that you develop things in the right sequence.

November 30, 2012November 30, 2012

Elements of a Marketing Plan — 1

: This image goes with the accompanying video that is part of the online Marketing Plan Seminar. This is slide number 6.

This slide illustrates the first thing that you’ll want to do in developing your marketing plan: market research. Have a look and a listen to this one. The better your research the better your plan will be.

Elements of a Marketing Plan — 1

You’ll want to make sure that you take a real objective look at your markets — people who are really likely to be intersted in what you can supply. You’ll want to estimate the size of your market(s) and segment them into niches where appropriate. “Everyone” is not a well defined target market!

You also need to identify competitors, not only for your product or service but also for the overall dollars that are available from your prospective customers for your type of product or service. Look also at barriers to entry. How expensive is it to enter the market? What regulations or licenses could impact your entry into the market? And what about physical location needs and alternatives if you are considering a brick and mortar based business.

The more complete your research, the better your planning results will be. Don’t skimp on this step!

November 29, 2012December 14, 2012

How’s Your Scotoma Quotient?

If you aren’t familiar with the term, WebMD defines the scotoma as “An isolated area of varying size and shape, within the visual field, in which vision is absent or depressed.” And as “A blind spot in psychological awareness.” The first one discusses a physical manifestation while the second refers to a psychological manifestation. And that is the one I want to talk about.

The psychological scotoma is most often discussed in the context of cognitive dissonance — typically described as the feeling of discomfort when simultaneously holding two or more differing ideas, beliefs, values or emotional reactions. The phrase was coined by Leon Festinger in 1956 and published in his 1957 book called “A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance.” According to Festinger, people engage in a process he termed “dissonance reduction” which can be achieved in one of three ways: lowering the importance of one of the discordant factors, adding consonant elements, or changing one of the dissonant factors.

In plain English what is being said is this: If reality as you are experiencing it does not match the vision of reality that you are holding in your mind, you will feel disharmony. And your subconscious mind will do whatever it takes to resolve that disharmony by either changing or applying a scotoma (blind spot) to your currently held vision or causing you to do whatever is necessary to change your current reality into something that matches your currently held vision.

This theory, which is one of the most influential and extensively studied theories in social psychology, is the basis for a technique called visual image formation. Using this method you create picture in your mind of how things are when you have achieved your goals. The picture is created in the present tense and is supported by a connected emotional good feeling like lying on a beach or getting married (presuming that was a happy experience!). If your current reality doesn’t match this picture, your creative subconscious will help you do the things you need to make reality as it is match reality as you envision it.

There is a great book called The Magic of Believing, written by Claude M. Bristol and published in 1983, that goes into this theory in great practical rather than scientific detail and I highly recommend it to you. Because it also warns of the second way in which disharmony can be resolved: by altering your mental vision, typically with a scotoma. Your creative subconscious will resolve the disharmony,but you want that to happen by fixing your reality, not altering your vision. Or “patching” it with a scotoma to block out the uncomfortable or disharmonious feelings.

It helps sometimes to revisit your vision on a regular basis to make sure that certain parts of it haven’t been papered over with scotomas that have reduced your energies toward making reality as it is match reality as it should be.

There’s a lot more to this story than will fit here and perhaps I’ll elaborate in a future post. In the meantime, please let me have your comments on this post. Thanks for reading and I hope this helps you identify and eliminate your scotomas.

Scoop.it

November 29, 2012December 17, 2012

Authority versus Power

Do you know the difference between these two terms? And I don’t mean just the dictionary difference, I mean the difference in behavioral terms of both those wield and those who submit to one or another of their forms.

You may be given the authority, by someone with higher authority or with real or perceived power, to sign checks in your company, to hire and fire people, to issue purchase orders (up to your authorized amount) and the like. This authority was given to you and it may be revoked at any time for any reason, however arbitrary (although the more arbitrary the reason the more justified it will be).

Power, on the other hand, is something that you give yourself, even if you have no authority to grant it to yourself. And no one can take it away from you. Let me give you an example.

The supply room people in your company are tired of being interrupted all the time by people demanding pencils, pens, paper, paper clips, staples, copies, etc. So they put out a memo that says, in essence, “In order to serve you better, office supplies will now be available for pickup on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10 AM to Noon and from 2 PM to 4 PM. Please drop your written and approved request forms – downloadable on the company Intranet – at least 24 hours in advance to insure that your supplies will be ready for pickup at the time you choose. – Supply Room Management”

Who gave the supply room “management” the authority to modify the behavior of everyone in the company who uses office supplies? No one did. They gave themselves the power to change their environment and work habits by issuing the memo – and publishing it to the whole company because they also own the copy machines and do the mail deliveries! And who is going to question their obvious attempt to be more helpful to everyone? Aren’t they doing this “in order to serve you better?” You don’t want better service? What are you, some kind of subversive chronic complainer who needs to be reported up the management chain?

OK, the CEO’s admin wants something on Wednesday. Are the supply room folks going to give her a hard time? Of course they’re not. They’ll bend over backwards to make her happy so that she compliments their wonderful service to her boss. So guess what he thinks when he hears a complaint about their “in order to serve you better” memo? You’ve got it.

Think about this the next time you decide to submit to an arbitrary “rule” provided by someone “in authority.” Make sure that it’s not an example of the misuse of power I’ve described above. And think about it as well when you think you can do some real good by assuming the power to do so!

As always, your comments are solicited. And thanks for reading. Much more on this topic to follow in the future.

Scoop.it