A world stage

The voting isn't over until tomorrow, but it looks like I'm going to England on an all-expense paid trip to attend the 2009 TED conference, thanks to Seth Godin's endorsement today. He is an amazing marketer and an even more amazing man. I've been a member of Triiibes.com for more than six months now. Triiibes is a social media network Seth established this year just prior to the launch of his book, "Tribes" - which is an INCREDIBLE book and you should definitely go buy it (see it on the right of this blog and click on it for more info).

Anyway - I recently became a finalist in the Johnny Bunko writing contest (one of three out of hundreds of entries). The winner is selected by popular vote. Go here to vote. Vote for "Stay Hungry".... The race was tied at 40% 40% 20% last night. Then this morning I got up and checked and wow! At last count, thanks to Seth's blog post below - I'm at 64% and climbing!! Looks like I'll attend the all-expense paid trip to England to the TED conference in July!! I know a LOT of you guys have voted for me and I thank you!! So, just wanted to pass along the good news that "Things get BETTER when you LEAVE the Register & Bee." You won't read the news about my trip in the paper - they're pretty lousy that way...so spread the word!! You read it here first!! P.S. Download the FREE comic book I wrote and my friend Martin Whitmore illustrated to help win this thing! by going to Seth's blog.



Traffic magnets

Here's a trick that's as old as the web: Run a popularity contest with public voting. It could be anything from a listing of the top blogs to a creative contest for best tagline or ad.

The nominees run around like crazy, hoping to get their friends to vote. Which of course brings you more traffic. This is a large part of the strategy behind Threadless.

I get invited to vote in these all the time, to participate as a nominee regularly and most vexing, to post them here as a way of helping this person or that person achieve some sort of nirvana.

My feeling is that most of the time the cause is too thin and the prize is too lame. If your blog gets picked as the most popular woodworking blog by some other blog, it's really unlikely that you'll find many benefits other than a nice smile for your ego. On the other hand, if you can offer a great prize and/or be useful and relevant, this is a permanent tool in the web toolbox for you.

As I've said, I don't promote these. But, just this one time, I'm breaking my rule for Becky, who didn't even ask me to mention this, and for my friend Dan Pink, who has written another terrific book. If you'd be so kind to visit Dan's site and vote for "stay hungry," it's quite likely that Becky will win a paid for trip to TED UK, which she deserves and will benefit from.(She's only a hundred votes out of first place as I write this).

I promise to do something like this no more than once a year, so wait unto 2010 before you send me a note about your contest! Thanks.


Oh - late breaking...one of the members of Triiibes.com put together this video and posted it on YouTube.com. It's GREAT to get such support!! And the comic book made the FEATURE page of SLIDESHOWS last night too!



Amazing what is possible when people are positive, focused and CARE about people rather than simply wanting to exploit them, ridicule them or treat them with disrespect isn't it?

Start your own newspaper

Seth Godin says it's "Time to start a newspaper"



What should not-so-busy real estate brokers do?

Why not start a local newspaper?

Here's how I would do it. Assume you've got six people in your office. Each person is responsible to do two things each day:

* Interview a local business, a local student or a local political activist. You can do it by phone, it can be very short and it might take you ten minutes.
* Get 20 households to 'subscribe' by giving you their email address and asking for a free subscription. You can use direct contact or flyers or speeches to get your list.

Twice a week, send out the 'newspaper' by email. After one week, it will have more than 500 subscribers and contain more than 20 interesting short articles or quotes about people in the neighborhood. Within a month, (if it's any good) every single person in town who matters will be reading it and forwarding it along to others.

It will cost you nothing. It will become your gift to the community. And it will be a long lasting asset that belongs to you, not to the competition. (And yes, you can do this if you're a plumber or a chiropractor. And yes, you can do this if 'local' isn't geographic for you, but vertical).

Own your Zip code. The next frontier is local, and this is a great way to start.

Do Ads work?

Do ads work?

Newspaper people believe they do. They've been taught to tell you what you want to hear in order to close the sale. Ask them about their degree in marketing. Do they have one? No. When's the last time the Register & Bee did a survey, one-on-one with their readers ASKING them about what ads they read? Never? uh-huh.

Now, I'll tell you what the studies show - it takes a MINIMUM of 12 ad views - that's right - 12 views for a reader to BEGIN to recognize your company/ad and that's IF they see the same ad. MOST people do not read the ads unless they are looking for a specific item. Many people will simply SCAN the ads looking for words like "SALE" or "40% OFF" or other items that indicate possible savings."

The ads that WORK are grocery store ads, car ads, real estate ads - ads that keep a constant presence in a publication that people read - not one that is printed and then the extra copies thrown in the recycle bin still bound from the printer.

The OLD way of advertising was to blanket as many newspapers, magazines and billboards as possible, and to buy as much television and radio air time as you could afford. That was BEFORE the internet. Now society is forming groups or "tribes" of people interested in certain things - like gardening magazines. If you sell gardening supplies do you think you'll get a better response placing ads where gardeners go for information (magazine or website) or in the local paper? You don't need to REACH 20,000 readers. You need to reach 2,000 or 200 readers who WANT TO BUY. See the difference? Would you rather try to sell 50 boxes of Girl Scout cookies to anyone walking into a hardware store or to people walking into a bakery or grocery store? Hint. The people walking into a bakery or grocery store are more likely to be in a cookie buying mindset. And the bakery may even be better than the grocery. Sure the bakery is smaller, but it's not size that counts. It's NUMBER OF POTENTIAL cookie buyers that count.


So - if YOU were a small business, what's your best advertising? Word-of-mouth, newsletters aimed at your customers, and the best return of all, permission marketing. What is permission marketing? Permission marketing is when you sign up to receive email or information from a company or business because you're interested in what they're selling. When we request a catalog from The Pottery Barn or The Gap, or LL Bean, we're giving them permission to send us ads.

They don't send their ads to people who don't buy their stuff and don't want to buy their stuff and save themselves millions of dollars that way. Why are YOU paying to put your ad in front of thousands of people who don't want to buy what you're selling?

If you sell hair care products, why not invest your ad dollars in a flyer with information about hair care (download the one I wrote/laid out/created here. IT'S FREE)

Put YOUR products in a flyer and leave the flyer at area hair salons. In exchange for leaving the flyer there (ie. what's in it for the hair salon) you put the names of the hair salons where YOUR product is available!!! The hair salon wins because they're not paying for advertising - they're just handing out your brochure! They're making their money from selling your product! So yeah - they're going to hand out the flyer.

NOW the people who use hair care products and come into salons are getting your "ad" and are MORE likely to buy. You haven't spent all your money in newspaper ads where people are only buying the paper for the grocery ads and the sports page. The money it costs to buy a half page ad in the Register & Bee that will run for ONE DAY is three times what it costs to have the flyer made. Add another $100 for printing and you have enough brochures for weeks - maybe months. And the brochures keep circulating. The newspaper doesn't. It's trash in a day or two. Why keep burning your money? Do you have that much to waste?

If you join Danville Business (joining is FREE), you can advertise for free on your page. No gimmicks. No tricks. As part of a social network you not only meet other people who get to know you and spread your name FOR FREE, you join the growing movement of new business practices - social media. What is social media? Watch this video.


And, as marketing guru Seth Godin writes in his business blog:

Do Ads work?

If the local bank were offering a sale on dollar bills, ninety cents each, how many would you buy?

Most rational people would say, "I'll take them all please." Especially if you had thirty days to pay for them.

So, why, precisely, do you have an ad budget?

If your ads work, if you can measure them and they return more profit than they cost, why not keep buying them until they stop working?

And if they don't work, why are you running them?

If you like advertising in a newspaper, it should be because it works, not because it feels good. Massages feel good. Winning at something feels good. But throwing money away on ads that DON'T work? HOW can that feel good?

Customer service

With the economy in the tank for many, businesses are wondering what to do to increase or even just maintain their sales. The number one thing you can do to retain customers? Be nice. Offer great customer service! It costs you NOTHING, yet reaps great rewards. Think about it. Do you enjoy shopping at a place where you feel welcomed and appreciated? You bet you do! You go back don't you? I do.

Given the choice between saving a few pennies most of us do pick a business, church or organization that cares, or at least seems to care, about our needs and wants as much as they do making money.

Here's a recent for instance:
Do you love those free business cards from VistaPrint? Yeah....Nice huh? NOT SO MUCH. Read the fine print. I'm still getting billed after canceling an account I had with them. They canceled the account, but kept billing me. After two weeks they've assured me they'll refund the money in the next couple of weeks. So, they hold onto my money and make money off of it...not much by itself, but when they do it with a thousand other customers, it adds up.

What makes it so difficult to cancel an account with VistaPrint is they don't let you cancel your own account online. You sign up by yourself online, but can't leave. You have to call during business hours, and talk to a representative and then cancel. Very inefficient. It also means you have to answer a lot of questions about WHY you want to cancel and gives them a chance to try to convince you to stay. Not fun. Not easy. And of course, the operation is overseas, so sometimes the accents and information are hard to get past as well.

I'm not the only one complaining about customer service. Marketing guru Seth Godin's blog today bemoaned the lack of customer service from KitchenAid! He writes:




How to answer the phone


The KitchenAid tea kettle (adorned in bright Squidoo orange, of course) in my office melted, leaving hot orange plastic on my thumb. Yes, it hurts as much as you probably imagine it does.

But that wasn't the worst part.

I called 1-800-334-6889 to whine a little bit and to hear why they made a meltable teapot. I counted how many prompts I had to press in order to talk to a human being. It was NINE.

Nine! Try it. I'll wait.

The last step was a recording that they were closed and I should call back after 10 am. Click.

I know you've heard this before, but it's really simple:

The only reason to answer the phone when a customer calls is to make the customer happy.

If you're not doing this or you are unable to do this, do not answer the phone. There is no middle ground on this discussion. There are no half measures. Saving 50 cents a call with a complicated phone tree is a false savings. Think of all the money you'll save if you just stop answering altogether. Think of all the money you'll make if you just make people happy.

Your choice.

Seth Godin


*************

Okay, if the top marketers in the country are complaining about customer service, what do you think your customers are doing? They're complaining too - only not to you. They're complaining to their friends, who aren't buying from you, who - if you're a newspaper - aren't advertising with you.

What would it cost you to treat your employees right so they actually enjoy working for you? What would it cost you to smile, to act like you're glad to see a customer walk in the door? What would it cost you to treat people, your customers, the way you want to be treated?

If Steve Kaylor's wife had had her breasts videotaped so the newsroom could laugh at her and joke about his wife, would he have fired some people? (probably not, but we can hope). Would Bernard Baker's wife like to be on a computer monitor while all the men in the newsroom laughed. Would he have thought that as funny?

Customer service begins with treating your employees well, with respecting people, with saying "Thank you," with applying the golden rule. And if a business doesn't do that? You vote with your money. You spend it elsewhere. And if the business continues to treat people and employees like The Register & Bee does, eventually they go belly-up.

The economy is bad and only getting worse. You can change how well you do with a few simple things - happy employees, good customer service and truly caring about your customers.

Just doing my job....

"Just doing my job"

What a bogus excuse.

If you take a job, you've bought into what the company does. You're responsible.

If you work for a company headed off a cliff, hey, you're going too. The fact that you're just doing your job doesn't make unemployment any better. And if the company is hurting people or the world you operate in, it doesn't matter who told you to do it, you still did it.

It's not just your job. It's a big part of your life. And you're way smarter than you're giving yourself credit for. Speak up, change things or get out. Whining later is a low-return strategy.

Sorry for the rant. Been getting a lot of email this week from people explaining why they work for companies doing dumb things.

*****

This is not MY writing, but I concur with it totally. It's written by Seth Godin, marketing and business guru. I'm in Seth's social media network and five of my case studies on businesses are in the FREE ebook that accompanies his latest best-selling book, "Tribes." Seth's right. Speak up. Change things, or get out. Whining later is a low-return strategy. I'm in the speak up. Change things mode. I was smart enough enough to get out. Are you? Or will you be one of the people who goes off the cliff as well?

The problem with the Register and Bee and all the short-sighted people who attempt to manage it is, they don't care about people. They don't care about community. They don't care about Danville. They care about themselves. The problem with that is, the new marketing and business model demands businesses who care about others, who connect with community, who help others.

Forces are moving now to bring a newspaper to the area who will do just that. Who will it be? Hopefully it will be someone who is everything the Register and Bee is not.

Seth Godin's book Tribes

It's official. Seth Godin launched his new book Tribes yesterday and the ebook written by Tribes members in his special social media group. I'm one of them. You can read Seth's blog at this link or this url: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/10/free-tribes-ebo.html.

The FREE ebook is more than 240 pages long. Six of the seven stories I submitted are in the book. How cool is that! You just go to the link above, click on the download and it's yours. No sales. No tricks. No gimmicks. My stories are on pages: 123, 133,137,144,158 and 172.

I seriously, seriously, seriously doubt there will be a story about it in the Danville Register & Bee. But for those of you who don't know Seth Godin, please google his name. He's the writer of the most read marketing and business blog in the world and author of NINE best selling books on business.

I feel honored to be a part of it.

The cost of news going up, quality is going down

Thanks again dear readers for all your emails and support. It's welcomed! As you all know I NEVER name names online or off. Your input, info and photos are all anonymous so thanks for sending them in. Both a Register and Bee advertiser and another reader wrote today:

"Did you notice that the cost of an issue of the R&B has jumped 50% from .50 cents an issue to .75/issue?"

You're right! With circulation declining, paper size decreasing and general apathy among readership... It's not the best time for such a huge increase. Have you seen how many papers are going unsold and being trashed?

And as I pointed out to those who wrote, yes, the photos of the newspapers in the recycle bin are real. A former advertiser asked me if this was common practice - and I said yes, all unread and undistributed newspapers are typically recycled. Not all of them are however. Sometimes carriers will simply dump papers in a trash bin rather than recyle them. Papers that go unsold are often taken home to be used for fireplace starters, cat box liners or garden mulch. The photos posted on this website are just the tip of the iceberg and don't show all the newspapers or inserts that often get pitched.

I agree. If you're an advertiser you do need to think about where your advertising dollars are being spent. You might be better off investing in a webpage and advertising in something like the Piedmont Shopper. Ask Jimmy Farlow if his investment in a webpage paid off. www.sipsofamerica.com. I think you'll see it has and his business has picked up significantly since I redesigned his webpage. I'm also going to be showing local businesses how they can get online and start increasing their business with an internet presence.

What are my credentials? Gee....an association/membership online with Seth Godin's Triiibes.com for one. I'm co-authoring a book with 80 of the top internet marketers in the world to show small businesses and entrepreneurs how to create a web presence and make money on the internet. Best of all - it'll be a free guidebook you can download from this site. For those of you interested in more info, I'll be teaching a class later this fall on the same topic. Email me for more information.