marketing fear Archives - Page 2 of 7 by Mark Murnahan

Marketing ROI Factor: Are You a Client or a Customer?

Planning is a Critical Marketing Component

I often ask people what they want to achieve in their business. Much of the time, they really don’t know. I ask questions relating to the sales volume of their industry, the volume they want to achieve, the market share increase they seek, and what they are doing, or willing to do to reach those things. It gets me a lot of blank stares and long pauses on phone lines. This is because they really don’t know.

Many companies don’t have goals, or even the right information to understand what goals are achievable at a given level of marketing effort. They don’t know what it will require to get the results they want, and many times they are entirely shut off to finding out the frightening truth of where they are and where they are headed. When this is the case, they simply do not have all the pieces of marketing math and science in place to make good decisions that will optimize their success.

Relax! If you don’t feel like reading right now, at least push the play button and listen to the audio version. I think you will gain something from this.

If you are a marketing professional of any decent calibur, you surely understand this, and deal with it all the time. You will appreciate this story, and wish for each of your customers to understand this. Otherwise, if you are a business person who is not involved in marketing, I will explain why you need to pay attention to your marketing people and stop trying to butt heads with them over things you don’t fully understand. If you don’t understand something, you should work with your marketing people to make things more understandable, and know this: Marketing professionals do a much better job when they are not getting roadblocked by you standing in your own way. They also perform much better if you are not having chest pains over every decision and over every nickel and dime. So, it is best that you pay attention and use what they know to your advantage. That is what they are there for!

The market information I mention here is not intuitive for most people. It is the data that a marketing director or consultant can deliver for you, digest for you, and provide continually updated measurement. Tragically, it is often overlooked when somebody chooses to kneecap the marketing department because they don’t understand the work we provide. It is important to have this information in order to build your strategy, or it will be much harder and usually impossible to achieve optimal results. If you overlook these fundamentals, you are building on a weakened foundation. It makes perfect sense, right? Fine, maybe not yet … so I’ll continue.

Without accurate information about market potential, a defined set of business objectives, and a clear knowledge of what it will take to meet your well-planned goals, a marketing campaign is often little more than an experiment in wasting money. Marketing should never be a “shot in the dark” like this, but I see it very often that this is the way companies, large and small, approach their market. It leaves little wonder why some companies view marketing as a risk, while others understand the sound investment it really is. When this miserable fate of marketing fear gains control, companies suffer in huge ways. The common cause is lack of research and planning. The common outcome is that somebody makes an executive decision to slow down the marketing train and pull it off the tracks.

When Return on Investment Goes Negative

Positive return on investment (ROI), is the magical part of marketing that keeps a business steaming forward. Sometimes companies accidentally stumble on a positive return on investment. After all, even a broken clock is right twice per day. When the return on investment comes without good planning, it is often just out of “luck”, and that “luck” runs out. When it is based on yesterday’s market information and yesterday’s strategy, a similar drop in ROI can be expected.

If you have encountered this in your company, let’s look at this again and reevaluate the importance of marketing. Marketing is what makes companies successful. Without good marketing, many phenomenally great companies have failed. Conversely, many presumed failures have become successful because of good marketing. There is a strong correlation in the outcome of a company and the quality of their marketing. Not just quantity of their marketing … I said quality. This requires providing your marketing people the resources they need so they can deliver what the company needs.

Marketing provides the math that runs the machine, and has a huge influence in everything from determining the right selling price of goods or services, to the CEO’s salary. It is a lot more than just advertising, branding, or updating your Facebook status. When marketing is done right, it is approached as a holistic strategy to make the company stronger and more profitable.

Notable Considerations: Starbucks was a little coffee company and Subway was a little sandwich shop in the beginning. Because they understood the principles I am expressing here, they have become some of the most successful companies in their fields.

Call for Marketing: A True Story

I received a telephone call from an existing client. Actually, he is more like a customer, because he thinks like a customer and creates his own roadblocks like a customer, which is unlike a client. I consider customers and clients two entirely different things.

Let me explain this: In my business, clients view me as an integral partner in their success, and not just a person who completes a series of tasks. They understand that my knowledge and experience is what brings them success, and not just my performance of a set of prescribed deeds. They pay attention, and they take my advice very seriously. Clients don’t tell me what to do about their marketing … they ask me what to do about their marketing.

To be a client, a person cannot nickel and dime their way through and stumble along an undefined path until they make it. We set goals together based on solid facts and market data, and we adjust them as needed. We create a finely polished plan and we work together to make that plan a success.

So, about the person who called me, I like this guy. He has been a customer for about four years, and we have built a relationship in that time. I consider him my friend. He has been to my home, and he has met my family. We are not strangers, and we have a mutual trust. If he says a check is in the mail, I trust him (unlike this example from Suture Express). I believe that he trusts me, too, but he gets in his own way. He likes to be in control, and he likes to prescribe specific marketing tasks. That is fine, because if he has less than optimal results, it is ultimately not my fault. On the other hand, it kind of makes me feel a bit dirty and icky to just do what he says when I know he is making a mistake.

The troubling part is that when I explain why he should be doing something differently, the train gets derailed. It is not really because he does not have faith in me. As I said, he has been to my home, and he has witnessed first-hand that I am more than just a little bit successful in my field. What I have determined is that he has a hard time putting faith in his own plan … because he doesn’t really have a plan. He just knows he wants to make more money, but he refuses to take a strategic approach, regardless how sincerely or logically I urge him to do so.

In our recent discussions, he has explained that he wishes to market a product that he believes in very much. The product is in one of the most competitive industries in the world, and includes a line of very exclusive products with a specific market that is typically affluent. I asked him the common questions, and he does not yet have all the answers. What he could tell me is that he wants to hit the market at full strength. In his own words, he wants to put 100 percent into the marketing effort. When I told him that he had better prepare to mortgage his oceanfront home, his boat, and his first-born son, he probably thought I was joking.

Let me insert a bit of fact so that you can really understand this. My customer recently experienced a common fate as his employer of 20 years sold off his division to an overseas company and he became jobless. Because of his age and his specialized experience, he decided to avoid the underwhelming job market and take a new focus. He has chosen to sell a line of products that he and his wife’s other company has had some success with.

My friend and customer is an accountant by trade. In fact, he is a damn good one, who has been charged with accounting for a whole lot of millions of dollars by a sizable corporation. He has his Master’s degree in accounting and I believe he has done a great job with it. He is not a marketing professional.

His idea of putting “100 percent” into the new business venture was still expected to be manageable with a budget of under $10,000. Ten thousand dollars?! Can you even imagine that? His goal is to replace his full-time income of a senior accountant of 20 years with an investment of less than a month’s income. If that level of investment success was possible, don’t you think McDonald’s, Wal Mart, Microsoft, and Google would have already cornered that market?

So, in order to try and keep his perception of risk low, I introduced the idea of a partnership of sorts, whereby I would provide marketing on a contingency basis. I would not have done that if I didn’t have a degree of faith in his idea, and trust for him as a businessman. I also normally do not provide such a service with woefully under-capitalized companies, or those which are unwilling to listen and take good advice from an experienced consultant.

What I realized, as I considered this a little closer is that such a partnership is really not a good idea for me, simply because of his unwillingness to understand the importance of marketing. After all, the emphasis of his new company is nearly entirely based on marketing. Instead, I will offer him the opportunity to prescribe a set of tasks, pay me as a customer, and tell me how he wants to handle his marketing.

The way it turns out, he mostly believes that the emphasis will be in the production of a really great website and some social media exposure, but gives little thought of what else it takes, and what else I know. He wants me to produce his ecommerce website development, initial search engine optimization efforts, and set up a social media presence. The four-digit budget will be exhausted long before I can complete these tasks at an optimal level, but since he is a great guy and existing customer, I will stretch my work out beyond his spending cap. I will do a an exceptional job for him, and I will not let him down.

My customer’s chosen direction will leave no room for strategy development, data acquisition, customer modeling, industry market research and forecasting, or the many other things which need to be done to create a successful market penetration. However, it will provide a sense of control and security for my customer. He will fall far short of what he could achieve if he actually could bring himself to put forth a 10 percent effort, but I cannot tell somebody how to run their business. My job is to tell them how they could run their business, what they could achieve, and help direct them there. As for the 100 percent effort he talked about … he has no concept of what a 100 percent effort looks like in a competitive market. He has only seen that in movies.

Summary: You Cannot Save Your Way to Prosperity

If you approach your market like the customer I have described, you will miss a lot of potential. In fact, it is a good recipe for failure. A reality of marketing that is difficult for many people to grasp is that you cannot save enough money to become prosperous in business. To become prosperous, you have to invest it, and do so with good direction and dedication.

I like the way Thomas Jefferson put it with the inspiring quote as follows:

“The man who stops advertising to save money is like the man who stops the clock to save time.”

–Thomas Jefferson

Don’t just take it from me, look at your own company. If you are investing wisely in your business, you know that I am right. On the other hand, if you are trying to save money in order to keep your cost low, your profit is undoubtedly much lower than it could be, too.

I shared my description of what I call a client versus a customer. The question that I really hope you can answer for yourself is which makes more sense in your business. Would you rather be a client or a customer?

Other Related Articles: I believe that a lot of shortsightedness comes from fear of loss overcoming hope for gain. The fear of loss is often due to the cost of doing things right, versus just doing things. Here are some related articles you will appreciate if you liked this topic.

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Social Media Goals and Complications of Winning

I just read an article from a great business coach and friend, John Falchetto. It related business to sports, and the importance of keeping your eye on the prize, rather than just the challenges that come between you and your goals.

His article got me to thinking about how people’s perceptions of winning are drastically different. John’s article, “How to Get Past Challenges”, included a video of Lance Armstrong racing in Tour de France 2003. Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you have probably heard of Lance Armstrong. He won Tour de France seven consecutive times, even after surviving testicular cancer. That is a huge accomplishment, and he obviously knows how to win.

In the video, a competitor, Joseba Beloki, crashed right in front of Lance. Without hesitation, Lance found a way around the complication to achieve the win. Winning is what he does. He sees beyond obstacles of nearly any magnitude, and does not let them get in his way. Here is the video, so you can see it for yourself.

Armstrong swerved around the downed rider to continue in the race. He was focused on winning, and he surely had a picture in his mind of crossing the finish line with another victory.

Here’s the deal: In order to win in a competitive environment, it takes focus, and drive. You have to see it, feel it, and really want it to make it happen. In fact, you have to see it, feel it, and want it enough to overcome obstacles.

Sometimes the toughest obstacles come in the form of people who will hate you for winning. Whether it is a competitor, or just another cynic, some people really will hate you for winning … if you do it enough. Lance Armstrong has certainly taken a whole lot of criticism for winning, including relentless accusations of using performance-enhancing drugs.

The Psychology of Winning

The psychology of winning has been the topic of about a squillion books, and other studies. It should be little surprise that only a small number of them were actually created or inspired by “losers”. Oh, they have surely lost many times, but their perseverance continues to drive them to win. Some people hate them for that … I mean really despise them. Success polarizes an audience, and as much as it may be wrong, it brings people together, and it separates people. You just can’t make everybody happy … so stop trying! The ones who do appreciate your goals and your efforts will appreciate you even more.

When it comes to social media, that cynicism has very fertile soil. In fact, I wrote about the power of cynicism in a still-relevant 2009 piece titled “Self-Promotion: The Ugliest Term Ever!” This article was taken from one of my books, and it addressed the hypersensitivity of people when it comes to a marketing message. Some people will really hate it, and some people will understand that marketing is what helps companies progress toward better things. After all, without marketing, how many of the great products in your home or business would you own today? For that matter, without marketing, nobody would ever go on a date, get married, or carry on the species. We must market our goods and services in order to succeed, or even survive. That means showing what we have to offer, and delivering it to the right people, just to get anything in life, from a job to a mate.

Winning is a very tricky thing, and our individual psychology surrounding success is one of the biggest obstacles. I could write a whole book on the psychology of winning. Come to think of it … I already did! It was titled “Living in the Storm“, and I put a whole lot of experience into that book. I have won … a lot, both as a highly trained race car driver, and as a 15 year old school dropout who retired at 25, screwed that up, and came back to create a very successful corporation. It took a lot of losing, and a lot of scrutiny from people who hated me for those things.

Look at that … I just promoted two of my books in under a minute. Doesn’t that just piss you off?

Overcome The Cynics … They Aren’t Buying Your Lunch!

In a real-life instance of trying to please everybody, versus doing what is good for my readership and for myself, I’ll give you just a brief and recent example of cynicism. Remember, the cynics are not the ones we care about in marketing … the ones buying lunch, or the ones who know the ones who are buying lunch are what we care about here! The others will run you down, and they are obstacles. They often hold you back from doing the things which are best for your business, and they are clearly not there to feed your kids.

Perhaps you saw my snazzy new popup on the way here. In case you missed it, the popup looks like the image below. If you have a weak stomach, you may want to cover your eyes and scroll past this. It is pretty offensive!

A screenshot of this recent addition to my blog showed up in a Google+ post by my friend, Jeff Gibbard. His initial comment was “Nice new pop-up. Been thinking about doing something similar to increase subscriber count. Is that a WordPress plugin?” He was curious about using it on his blog, Social Media Philanthropy.

The next comment on the post was from Paul Mosenson, and it said “That is cool. I;d like to learn how he did that as well”. Paul’s comment inspired me to write a tutorial on it … one of these days (if you like it, be sure to subscribe, and I’ll show you how to do it). It is not a plugin, and since I am a programmer, I found it pretty easy. Surely I can help to make it easy for others, too.

Another comment was overwhelmingly negative, as if I had claimed to be a fan of Adolph Hitler, son of Sadam Hussein, and dear friend to Osama bin Laden … and then told him he had ugly kids and a slutty wife. I expected that mentality from some people. After all, it may actually serve my interests, and that would be … well, it would be … HORRIBLE! Yeah, getting something for my work … like somebody new to connect and network with, or a prospective client, or somebody who liked my work enough to pass it along to somebody who needs marketing help … that would probably kill teddy bears and make unicorns cry.

The point is that the people who made it beyond the horrendous insult of the popup are the people I care about. It takes under a tenth of a second to click any blank part of the page to make the popup go away (for a week), and it has boosted my subscriber rate at a significant level. Has it made people click away? It doesn’t look that way so far. Will it drive away the people I care about, or the ones who are actually buying my lunch? Heck no, they want to be here, and they appreciate the reminder to keep coming back, because I have something useful and interesting to say. They have interests in our mutual success, and they care that I keep doing what I do to help them, just as I care to keep helping.

In the end, there is a big difference between good business-building and the ugly mistakes that I wrote about a couple days ago in “5 Spam Tactics Good People Use to Kill Business Efforts“.

The difference is quality, but if you let people hate and intimidate you away from doing what your business needs in order to grow, they will be eating a lot better than you.

Do what you need to do, and do it with quality. Leave the “pleasing everybody” to the competitors who are willing to destroy their return on investment by pandering to people who really don’t give a damn about them anyway. You want the ones buying your lunch, and I do to.

If you see your life’s work the way the cynical people do, you are wise to sleep in a coat of armor and wake up ready for a fight. On the other hand, if you embrace the joy of a happy waiter, and do your very best job to serve the people who matter, your success will be measurably greater than the hateful others hoping to dictate your future.

If you didn’t hate this, and if you have an eensy bit of respect for the thoughts I shared here, tweet, Facebook, email, and Google+ this to those people for me, will you please?

If you did hate it, please add your comments to express your dislike.

Photo Credit:
Lance Armstrong by Angus Kingston via Flickr

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Internet is a Body and Your Website is an Organ Transplant

I have an uncommon analogy for you to consider today. I sometimes feel a bit like a mad scientist slinking into my secret laboratory, just a little bit like Dr. Frankenstein. It seems especially real on days when I sit at this computer for sixteen hours, nap for three hours, and then return with my crazy mad scientist hairdo and coffee breath. Creepy? Perhaps, but it is always fun to exclaim “It’s Alive!” after it all comes together just right.

I realize that some people are squeamish about biology, but don’t worry, we are just imagining this for a few minutes. Think of it like a science fiction movie scene.

Try to picture the Internet as a sci-fi creature with living tissue, nerves, and blood vessels growing every day. It is alive and growing, and it has defense mechanisms just like most organic life forms. If you introduce a foreign object, it will either accept it, or it will reject it.

Now try to picture a surgical introduction of an organ transplant of a man-made synthetic tissue. Your website, along with the rest of your online branding assets, make up that donor organ. In the beginning, it is laid on the surface of the huge Internet organism, and surgically connected by way of new social networking efforts and a micro-web of hyperlinks to and from other websites. This is the toughest time for the transplant, and requires a lot of nurturing.

The donor organ is nourished with the textual content of the website, but it cannot live on its own for very long. It will need to connect with and become a part of the larger organism. The surgical team (web developers, SEO, owners, management, and etcetera) will need to work diligently if the donor organ is to be accepted to live and grow as a healthy addition to that larger organism.

Like any organ transplant, if the organ is not well-matched, it will not grow, and it will be rejected. To improve its odds of acceptance, the website medical staff needs to introduce antibodies to the larger Internet organism, and connect the nerves (the people) carefully. Think of the antibodies as the useful things the website has to offer, and the nerves as the people. The delivery method is social media and appropriate business networking with existing parts of the larger organism. You know, instead of hypodermic needles and pills.

The useful “antibodies” help to keep the nerves (the people), and other defenses of the large creature soothed, and even bring it to embrace the new donor organ (website). It is critically important that the surgical team connects the right nerves in the right places in order to make it a healthy transplant.

Why the Organ Transplant Analogy?

This concept came to mind as a prospective client asked me to help her launch a new surgical center website and social media campaign. She did not seem to grasp all that really goes into developing a successful online presence, just as I don’t fully understand how to perform surgery. She mostly just wanted to believe that a good website with a little search engine optimization fairy dust and social media chattiness was all it took. That is kind of like if I assumed surgery just takes some sharp knives and clean towels.

Things such as targeted marketing using customer modeling based on demographics, psychographics, and propensity analysis held no importance to her. She didn’t understand or want to accept those concepts in the beginning, just as I don’t understand why they can’t easily replace my blackened smoky lungs with a new pair.

While visiting with her, I decided that I needed an analogy, so I used the example of the online marketing work I do for myself. That is easy, because I never have to worry about treading on a client’s non-disclosure agreement (and most of my clients require them). It also shows that I have faith in what I was telling her … after all, I performed the same surgery on myself.

So, I explained that there are over 157,000 links pointing to my blog articles, according to Google Webmaster Tools, and that indicates a healthy transplant.

They each add up to connect my blog to the rest of the Internet organism. They are like the nerves and the blood vessels that have adopted my blog as a part of the larger organ which is the Internet. Now my blog helps to nourish the larger organ, and the Internet nourishes my blog as an accepted donor organ.

Then she was concerned about how much it would cost to do it the right way, but without any apparent concern about the cost of doing it the wrong way. Of course, everybody wants to know the cost, but as I’ve explained before, simply asking “How Much Does SEO Cost?” is the wrong question … for many reasons.

The cost of good marketing is kind of like paying taxes. If somebody asks me about taxes, I will tell them I’d prefer to pay a billion per year in taxes, because that means I earned a lot more than that! Similarly, if you spend a lot of money on marketing … the right marketing … it pays you many times whatever you pay for it.

She eventually steered away from her cost concerns, and she began to recognize that she was doing this to increase profit … and not to waste profit. Then she was concerned about how long it would take. Of course, we all want things fast … especially when it comes to money. The more important and seemingly obvious consideration is not only in how long it takes, but whether you implement the skill, the time, and the effort to make it possible at all. If you are doing it well, the time frame is shortened accordingly.

The conversation was very familiar. She was terrified of making good business decisions. I don’t blame her for that. It is a challenging process, and the world of online marketing has tried to overlook good business principles of “pay now, play later“.

Do Surgeons Have All the Answers?

I told her that I could create the tissue in my lab, surgically implant the tissue into the Internet body, help her with the antibodies, and nourish its growth. Then, in her wisdom, she decided that she just wanted me to create the tissue, but that she would handle the surgery and the after-surgery care.

This was because she thought it would save her some money. Yes, the surgeon decided to be a marketer … or to assign it to somebody she could pay the least possible amount of money to. The truth that she does not want to face is that she would be wiser to create a novice website but hire a great surgeon. The even more astonishing truth is that she would be a lot better to count on professionals to carry out the surgery from beginning to end, just the way her patients do.

Can you believe that even somebody so intelligent as a skilled surgeon does not understand the much higher value in allowing the professionals to do the work they are trained to do? Seriously, when people are so absurd to believe that they should add another profession to their resume to save a few bucks, just imagine the dollars they leave behind with their even more expensive and time consuming trial and error learning.

I have written my ideas on this topic, but it still leaves me to wonder why everybody wants to become an SEO and social media expert.

In summary: The next time you, or a loved one goes into surgery, be sure to ask the doctor if she does her own marketing. If so, she is probably not the smartest surgeon.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Social Media Emphasizes “Pay Now, Play Later” Mentality

Have you ever heard the term “Pay now, play later”? Sure, it probably sounds familiar, right? It means that you pay your dues, and then, cash in your rewards later. Just ask a successful business person about this, or ask a parent. Most parents try to instill this mentality in their kids with something like “Do your chores, and then collect your allowance.”

This old school work ethic is a popular way that success is taught, even at the lowest levels of education, but we have a new school, now. We have a school that teaches success in overtly misleading ways.

It is astonishing how many people approach me with their marketing concerns and have this all backward, so I decided to share some thoughts with you. Not just thoughts, but experience … earned experience. I see it a lot more in small companies, but no size of company is immune, and we can witness this in Wall Street news stories every day. It is the needle that makes economic bubbles of all sizes burst.

Is Your Company a Job, a Career, or a Slush Fund?

Let’s have a glimpse at reality. You are probably not wealthy. Oh, you may even be “rich”, but I am a numbers guy, and I’m betting that you didn’t just send your butler, Charles, to bring you another chilled bottle of Dom Peringnon and a dish of beluga caviar.

The fact that you have read this far should perhaps tell us both that you have some serious moments of introspection, trying to figure out why all of the purchasing public does not understand the things you see so clearly. Your stuff is the best on the market, but yet, Charles is still just bringing you another Bud Light and some pretzels.

What in the heck is wrong with this picture? Well, here’s a tip: Charles isn’t messing it up … you are!

Yes, I know How Easy it Can Be

I am amazed and amused by how often I see business leaders rip off their own future to have some of that fun right now. They are playing now, and paying later. It is a lazy formula for disaster, but very popular.

I’m not going to claim that I am innocent. I have wasted more money than some small countries, so I know how easy it can be to rob yourself. I am trying to warn you and encourage you, so I hope you take this seriously.

People who treat their company this way are often paying quite dearly for it, with “opportunity cost“. It is worth being conscious of this, whether you are that business leader, or just a random employee behind the scenes. Either way, it can significantly screw up your future to ignore this behavior in a company.

Let’s Think About Opportunity Cost

Opportunity cost is the cost of all the missed opportunities that companies endure, and the examples are abundant. In simple terms, just try to add up the lost potential for referral business for every customer that goes elsewhere. Then, imagine the loss of market share over time, as their referred business sends referrals to the competition … and so on.

I see a lot of people damn near stroke out and die right in front of me when I tell them how much money they should logically be investing in their marketing. It really scares the heck out of a lot of people. Why does it scare them? Probably because, based on their limited experience, they imagine a marketing budget as risk capitol, rather than understand it as the most mathematically and scientifically sound thing they can do for their company. Many people are fantastic at their job, but if you throw them into marketing, they get ripped to pieces. They already saw failure, and they don’t need another financial bloodbath like that!

In case you missed that link I offered up a moment ago, let me tell you what Wikipedia says about opportunity cost. If you think about it, this should be what really scares companies. Brain-up for a bit … here you go:

Opportunity cost is the cost of any activity measured in terms of the best alternative forgone. It is the sacrifice related to the second best choice available to someone who has picked among several mutually exclusive choices. It is a key concept in economics. (more about opportunity cost)

When you look at it this way, it really sounds expensive to ignore the best possible alternatives, right? You bet it is! It is money that is flowing right on by and floating somebody else’s yacht while Charles gets your canoe ready for you.

How Does Social Media Add Emphasis?

Social media marketing is so frightening to some businesses that they are afraid to invest in it. Others are taking great advantage of the medium. If you look at the vast difference in potential opportunity cost between the two options, you can see how it emphasizes the loss or gain at both ends of the spectrum.

I want to be fair here, and give you an upside and a downside look at this. There is an amazing assortment of people to meet, interact with, and socialize with in the realm of social media. There are a lot of creative ways to gather market data and promote products and services using social media, as well. It can lead a company to great opportunities of all sorts. It can land you a great new customer, employee, or even a wife, three kids, and a corporation.

Social media is also very misunderstood by many, and from a marketing standpoint, a lot of people would like to imagine it as “free marketing”. Even just today, I was introduced to somebody, and I couldn’t make this up if I had just dosed myself like an under-aged hooker in a war zone … an exact quote was “The beauty of Mark is that he is the best and he’s free!”

Are you kidding me? I don’t even begin to market a company without a bare minimum … and I mean an “I owe you big time for saving my life from that charging grizzly bear” retainer fee of $5,000. It is usually a boot full of bear piss and swollen underpants full of “oh crap” more than that.

Now, although I would argue that she may have meant “free”, in the sense that I will not take money from a company unless I am confident that we can work well together and that I can provide them a huge return on investment … I’ll give her that. If she meant that somebody can get a lot of value by sucking up some of my experience like drinking free grape soda through a garden hose, that’s cool by me. She means well, and she knows that I do, too!

The cost of business is frightening and often frustrating, but only until you understand that a business is an investment. It requires tough decisions, and a good investment and reinvestment strategy. Making money takes money, and continuing to miss opportunities by seeking a cheap solution is like trying to dig your way out of a hole.

Social Media Can Destroy a Company

There, I said it … social media can destroy a company. It may not hit all the major news outlets, but I would put a good bet that it has helped more than a few into an earlier bankruptcy, or a complete failure.

It sounds crazy, right? This amazing saving grace we call the Internet could actually do harm to a company? It is very true, and it really happens. It is often a last refuge of absurd hope that setting up social media profiles will help a company out of trouble, or that this magnificent Internet can absolve a company from making good business decisions.

When I see people with starry eyes about the easy money online, it really brings back days in the early 2000’s when I was marketing for an Internet services company. It sounds a lot easier than it really was. I was marketing wholesale services to Internet access providers and web hosting companies. In the instance of my most satisfying online success story, I frequently had to lift the CEO by the ankles and shake him for every coin in his pockets to get the investment money needed to ensure his success.

A few years into the project, he could actually make better decisions about the corporation. He eventually even set his sails toward a young retirement, and after many years of paying heavily, he started playing (like a rock star). He paid himself handsomely. The corporation allocated $250,000 per year to fund his race team, $50,000 per month for “other miscellaneous business expenses”, and set him up pretty nicely. When he decided to buy a new home and asked the banker and accountant if he was spending more than he should, they literally said “If you want to buy every house on both sides the street, we will be happy to finance it for you.”

So, surely with an income in the top fraction of a percent of money earners in USA, and worldwide, that is a reasonably sensible time to stop investing in your company and soak in some significant leisure. A leader must eventually enjoy the lion’s share of the rewards someday, after all.

Oh, but there is still an “Unless Clause”, which explains that unless you are zombie-stupid, or high on arrogance, you must keep investing it well.

Damn it like mad, but the worst scenario still happened to my client. Corporate suppliers started laying off, killing services, and slaughtering his customers. He ended up losing millions in corporate equity, going back to working hard to earn a living, and teaching people like you to invest well in your company … even until the point when it nearly breaks you.

If you wonder how important it is to invest wisely today, to see a good future tomorrow, just ask that CEO about it. He has built many companies into huge successes. Best of all … well, aside from the fact that he is absolutely not free, you can reach him right here.

If you want to know how much it really takes to be successful, or how much it can hurt to stop looking ahead, you need to read the book “Living in the Storm“. If you were paying any attention at all, you will recognize the author. 😉

Photo Credit:
Playing in the Fountain by Tim Schapker via Flickr

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Is Social Media Marketing the Hardest Job?

Is Social Media Harder Than Ditch Digging?

When you think of the hardest jobs ever, you probably don’t think of social media marketing. Maybe you think that digging ditches would be harder. Maybe you will even think it through a bit more and imagine that working with terminal patients in a children’s cancer ward, or hunkering down in a fox hole and hearing enemy troops coming close would rank right up there as the hardest jobs. Oh yeah? Well, let me tell you about the job of a social media marketing consultant and strategist.

People are very selfish by nature. They don’t always think about the others around them. It is ingrained in each of us, from the very beginning, to preserve ourselves and to do what we can, to get the things we need. By default, we think of ourselves, and our own preservation, above that of others. After all, we are less equipped to help others if we cannot help ourselves first. Acting otherwise is a learned trait, and still must come with oneself in mind. Unchecked altruism would actually have devastating consequences.

This selfishness often has skepticism closely in tow. Worse yet, it is common that once people have just enough of those things they need, or fail at something enough times, a mechanism of apathy kicks in, and they stop caring. They stop seeking more for themselves, and they become complacent.

If you mix the naturally occurring selfishness, apathy, and complacence all together, you have a recipe for some really dreadful results. These results are so common that it often takes someone with specialized training and experience to clean up the mess. The best social media consultants have this training and experience.

The job of social media marketing is to crack the human code, discover human emotion, and move it!

Maybe you thought the job was to just tweet some stuff on Twitter, put your ads on Facebook, or set up your social media profiles the right way, but that is not how successful marketing is done. It is not even close.

The Job of Social Media Strategist Gets Messy

To perform the job successfully means we have to reach into the messy inside of human nature and human desires. The job includes studying how to bring others to a desired action based on an emotional response, and not just on an individual basis, but as a pack. A well targeted pack, at that.

Without defining who the customers are, understanding what they will respond to, and getting their emotions on board with your plan, it is like herding cats. You will never get what you want that way. Well, maybe what you want, if complacence has already set in, but certainly not what you could have. That brings up perhaps the worst challenge between a marketing consultant and their client, to instill the mindset that is required to want more. It means helping clients to remove their own barriers of apathy, skepticism, complacence, and the fears they create. It is especially frustrating when you know damn well they can have it, and you can deliver it, if they will just heed good advice.

I have studied a lot of psychology, and my studies have left me with little wonder why there are so many psychiatrists who are totally bonkers. Getting inside the mess that is the human mind can be very rewarding, but also very punishing. When you gain insights about why people work the way they do, it is easy to over-analyze everything from why people riot over a hockey game in Vancouver, to why apathy is easier than giving a damn. This is an arduous line of work for anybody!

Social Media Consultants Are Apathy Slayers

The job of successful social media marketing is a lot more than what people imagine it to be. It is not just the simple tasks that it may appear on the surface. It is a deeper look into apathy, and how to bring people to overcome it. This is an important part of how we deliver more happy customers to our client’s businesses.

In the job role of a social media marketing consultant, we must overcome apathy from our client’s customers, but that is the easy part. From the perspective of selling this as a service to clients, their apathy is enhanced by their skepticism, and solidified by fear. It becomes bolstered by their confusion of the difference between implementing a strategy versus wasteful tactics. That is where the line is drawn between the average social media marketing and the marketing that builds true success.

The point when you understand a market is when it can become a quest to “heal them all”, and to help them understand the little ways they are broken. It also must be done without them even realizing you are doing it. If they realize it, their skepticism may kick in and ruin even your best intentions.

Is Social Media Marketing Really So Hard?

So, how in the heck can this job of social media marketing consultant and strategist be worse than that nurse holding the dying child’s hand as she desperately wants the child to eat another bite of Jell-O? How can it be worse than the soldier with every nerve on end as his friend’s miserable body gives up the fight, right beside him? That must seem ridiculous, right?

It isn’t harder. I made that up. It does not even compare. I love my work, and I find it extremely rewarding. I must say, however, that helping people to feel something, and bringing them beyond their own apathy and skepticism is a challenge most people are thoroughly unprepared for. That is why I am hired to do the work I do.

Once you reach inside the messy mind of your market, you will find it much easier to ask them to donate to cancer research, provide support to hard working soldiers, or in this case, gain control of their own apathy and take the next step to improve their marketing efforts.

A truth that I have realized over more than two successful decades in business, performing every role from a sole proprietor, to a corporate CEO, is that success is something we demand for ourselves. I quit rubbing lamps, knocking on wood, and wishing on lucky stars many years ago when I noticed that successful business comes with mathematical projections, and also overcoming psychological obstacles. That means the ones our market imposes, but even more profoundly, the ones we place upon ourselves. That means getting to the messy insides, and that may not be the hardest job, but it is one that crushes a whole lot of dreams.

Most people who read my blog want better results for their business. It would not make much sense to be here otherwise. That is why I brought you here for this discussion. I can provide you with a lot of great free tools and thoughts to help grow your business. If you really believe in your company strongly enough, and you can put aside apathy, skepticism, and complacence, you will do much better. If you are having trouble with that, I welcome you to contact me to show what you can achieve with professional help. (Yes, even if you think you are my direct competitor.)

Until then, be sure to subscribe and keep picking up useful tips that can help you to help yourself.

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