referral business Archives by Mark Murnahan

Remember Who Your Friends Are … And What They Do, Too!

Everybody Needs Friends: Treat Them Right!

Do you remember who your friends are? If you care about them and respect them, why not consider how they earn a living? Times are hard for a lot of businesses, and it may mean more to them than you think. More than that, you may eventually regret going elsewhere … where they will appreciate you less.

I am reminded of a story of two friends, John and Mike. I introduced them many years ago. John was the number one real estate agent in town, and Mike was seeking to sell his house, and buy another. One day, Mike called John and asked him to evaluate his house for market, and make suggestions for improvements to increase the sale price.

John was glad for the call, and he offered his professional time and efforts to help Mike. A few days passed, and John discovered that Mike had listed the home for sale … but chose a different listing agent. As the top agent in town during a good time in real estate, John certainly did not need the commission, but was disappointed because he had wanted to assist our friend Mike in the sale, and subsequent purchase. Plus, he had been somewhat crudely taken advantage of professionally, by his friend.

John was a bit confused as to why his friend chose a different agent. He feared he had somehow offended Mike with the suggested listing price. No, Mike took his advice on the price. Was it the suggested improvements, the commission, the way he combed his hair? No, no, and no … the agent Mike listed with was a young sexy lady. Mike hoped he may have a chance with her, so he took all of John’s suggestions and listed the house elsewhere.

Once the house was sold and Mike was ready to buy his next house, he still overlooked John. He went with a different agent, again.

I really don’t think John ever felt the same about Mike after that. Whether it is right or wrong, I can understand how John could feel insulted. After all, he would have done the sale transaction and the purchase transaction for his friend, without a commission at all. Ironically, Mike had done a similar thing to me, years earlier, and he was on his way to building a reputation for it.

I am certainly not a fan of implied reciprocity (as you can see if you read that link), but you can probably imagine (or remember) how it feels when a friend overlooks you and buys from your competitor, right? It actually kind of stinks, and it is easy to take it as an insult. It also feels even worse when the friend is hurt by a competitor, when you know you could have saved them the trouble. No, it does not feel satisfying … is stinks!

Have you ever witnessed a friend go somewhere else when they needed something? I have heard speculation about the mindset, but I refuse to understand it or adopt it for my own use. I know that some people think you shouldn’t do business with friends, but I think that is largely a horrible attitude.

I will always try my best to give my business to a friend or acquaintance above a stranger. They may really appreciate that you thought of them, and they may really appreciate the business.

Now I’ll tell you what got me to thinking about this.

What Reminded Me of This?

I recently had a friend ask me if I knew a good option for web hosting. Now, when I say “friend”, I don’t mean just a random acquaintance on Twitter. She has sat at my bar for drinks, she co-chaired a school fundraiser with me, and we have celebrated kids birthdays together. She has sat in my office, and she has even seen and touched the corporate YourNew.com, Inc. Race Team Corvettes. She has also been my friend on Facebook for years. So, I know she knows I do something “Internetty”, and she knows I do it very well. She knows I know a lot about this Internet, so she asked me about web hosting.

The sad thing is that she didn’t really know much about what I actually do, or just how much I am able to help her. It bothered me, but mostly because of how I could benefit her, rather than that her business would pay me a dollar or two per month. That’s why I decided that I am going to start letting more people know.

I know that a lot of people who know me don’t really know or understand my work. I do more than a couple things here on this Internet, but I don’t really promote them very much. It’s mostly kind of an “obvious secret”, in a way, because the majority of my work is operating as “the geek behind the geeks”. I generally don’t promote my services to a retail market, or to friends.

You see, aside from my work as a marketing guy, I founded a company sometime over a decade ago, as a merger of two other companies. That company sells Internet services to wholesale clients … who often sell those same services to resellers, who sell them to the public. We’ve been very successful at that market segment, and retail sales are a minimal part of what we do.

We sell web hosting to web hosting companies. You knew it had to come from somewhere, right? In fact, if you have used the Internet very long, there is a very high probability that you have used services I have created or brokered. The company is still my full-time employer after all these years, and I work there as the CEO.

So, why don’t I promote that to my blog readers? It is mostly because I have enough search engine traffic and recognition in that specific area of the industry that it is just a distraction to what I do here at aWebGuy.com. In any case, if you are in need of any of the many Internet-related services we provide, I’m always happy to help … I am just not out to push those on you. In fact, you may even see Google ads for my competitors right here on my blog. It’s ironic, right? 😉

Let Me Show You Why I Have a Reputation

I want to show you why I have a good reputation in my industry. I’m going to start with this: If you have been a reader for a while, you probably have some sense of who I am. You may even know a good amount about my principles and my ethics. You can probably tell that this is not some big scam waiting to suck you in.

Today, I have decided to offer web hosting to my readers and friends at a rate of $10 per month, or $5 per month for ten or more websites. I was going to say free, but come on … having a guy to call who really knows his stuff has got to be worth something, right? I’m not just offering basic web hosting, either. I will include the same web hosting system that is used here at aWebGuy.com … which clearly exceeds an average demand when it comes to web hosting. I’ll even include all the bells and whistles like website builders, ecommerce tools, plenty of email, and support for about any technology you can dream up … just ask me.

Better yet, I will provide your web hosting technical support, myself. Sure, I will have my tech support folks waiting in the wings in case you encounter something really pressing and I am in the shower or otherwise cannot take your call … but I will be the live voice at the other end of the line if you need web hosting help. How many CEOs do you know who will do that? I’ll bet that “Daddy” guy won’t take your call on his way to pick the kids up at school.

In fact, to take me up on this offer, I want you to contact me directly, and I will personally help you to set up your account and walk you through the basics. Now that doesn’t sound like such a scary offer, does it?

The one caveat is that you subscribe to my blog and keep reading to learn more about how to use that web hosting to build your business. If you are a subscriber, just ring me up and introduce yourself. I’ll be delighted to help you.

If you need web hosting, or you need better web hosting, contact me. I’ve provided web hosting for over a decade, including many websites you know and trust. Maybe even your bank, your city, your hospital, or your university. It’s better to trust somebody you are familiar with than trusting a total stranger.

I also want to add that if you know somebody else in the industry … by all means, call them! I really do believe it is valuable to do business with people you know and trust. I think it is always important to know who your friends are, know what they do, and remember them when they can help.

Oh, and one more thing … this is just for new web hosting accounts. I can’t just give away the whole farm. If you are already paying me more, I’m confident there’s a good reason for it. 😀

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Don’t Mix Business and Personal Relationships?

There is a mentality which some people and companies have about mixing personal and business relationships that paints an unfavorable picture of this combination. Mixing business and personal life has frequently been viewed as a mistake for businesspeople. The problem is that “businesspeople”, and even the term itself, implies something other than “people”.

Who do you do business with? If you encounter somebody in a given business setting who is less than personal toward you, do you look for somebody else who will appreciate your business more? I do, because I like to do business with people I like, and trust … and who like and/or respect me, too. An impersonal approach is personally appalling to me, and I think it fails at all levels.

Prices don’t get in the way, because if I don’t like somebody, I will walk away even if they are offering a huge discount. Even product quality takes a back seat to trust and comfort in my purchase decisions. The numbers show me that I am not alone with this, and that millions of people feel the same way.

A Fading Business Mentality of the 1900’s

A former mentality of the business world was that of huge separation between business and relationships. The prevailing thinking was that business is done in boardrooms or storefronts, and personal relationships happen someplace else, away from company turf. It failed, and it did so with such a force that it spread throughout the world.

This mentality is more apparent in business-to-consumer industries, but it has also strangled a lot of business-to-business industries. In either case, it simply doesn’t work well.

Why has it changed? It was not because of some miracle invention we call “social media“. It has changed because companies finally started realizing that they were doing it all wrong! Customers didn’t change. They have understood mixing business and friendship for thousands of years … since trading grains for meat, or gold for salt. It was the business world that strayed from good business practices.

Who Separated Business from Friendship?

A sizable part of the blame for separation of business and personal relationships can be attributed to changes in the advertising industry. As television and radio ads were new, companies found it extremely easy to buy people’s attention. It created a lot of brand recognition for some companies, and people soaked it all in while they waited for the show to return … “after these messages from our sponsors.”

Note: This is opinion mixed with observation and research, and you are welcome to rebut this.

It became commonplace to sit through commercials for everything from soup to nuts. Then, after some glory years, consumers fought back with tools like the Internet to find new things, DVRs to speed through commercials, email spam filters to squelch the noise, popup blockers to say “Shut Up”, and etcetera. We created and discovered choices, and then we realized huge empowerment.

Consumers gained more choices than ever, but with choices came hazards. Cons, crooks, deadbeats, and snake oil sales made a resurgence. The trusted brands were not our only options, and armed villains were not the only ones stealing our money.

Transitioning Away from a Bad Business Ideology

As business continues to transition back to people-focused and consumer-oriented thinking, the reliable and trustworthy choices have slowly narrowed. Now many consumers rely on those good old brands we remember (and trust just because we remember them), and the people who earn their reputation with us as friends, friends of friends, and etcetera. Yes, “word of mouth” marketing (including Facebook, Twitter, and etcetera) has grown in value at rates even faster than television, radio, print, and other one-way interruption marketing lost value.

This is not all fixed to perfection yet, but many companies have noticed the obvious shortcomings from separation of business and relationships. Those companies have adapted well to social media, and they already understand people’s motivations, and what makes them comfortable. Others still struggle with the fundamental basics of how and why people prefer to do business with people, rather than businesses.

So, I must ask, what do you see in your everyday life, as a consumer? What do you see within your own business dealings? Do you see it the same as a consumer as you do in your business? If you see a disparity, perhaps you are still using 1900’s style business ideology, and trying too hard to make a separation between business and relationships.

My Summary of Business and Personal Mixing

Some say “Don’t mix business and personal”, but I say “Don’t mix 1900’s ideology with 2000’s customer expectations!” Here is some of my personal/business experience. You can skip it if you like. Maybe I am wrong, but I also invite your input.

I met a woman (via social media) and we merged companies in 2000. She later became my wife and the mother of our three children. Now we own more companies. Prior to that, my business partnerships included many dear friends with whom I communicate frequently, and will attend my funeral (and even cry). In my earlier days, my business partners were my parents.

Sure, some things can go wrong with mixing business and personal relationships. That is usually because of two things … misdirected passion (but it is still passion) and lack of good communication. This does not mean it is acceptable to make a business into a faceless monster without personality, or to even diminish the mix of business and personal relationships in the least.

The good news is that when you have stronger relationships, you are far more likely to hear feedback from others … both positive and negative. Think of the potential benefits of that!

Many of my best clients are close friends, and I have always relied on the “old fashioned” approach of doing business as a person and not as a business. They may come to me as clients, but if we can’t have a good relationship, I would rather find different clients.

We work together, and we have fun together. I have been there to counsel them through death of spouses, treacherous divorces, emotional weddings, joyous graduations, and more. I have held countless parties to honor and celebrate my clients/friends. I have rented whole floors of large hotels, sent limousines, and done everything I can for and with these friends.

They are not my friends because I earned them millions of dollars, nor because they have paid me millions of dollars. Here is what I have discovered: Even when business is what introduces us, the business results from a relationship, and seldom if ever the other way around.

Photo Credit: Structo Cement Mixer by puuikibeach via Flickr

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SEO and Social Media Reward: $5,000 for Introduction

Updated 13 June 2011 — This offer is re-opened through 30 June 2011.

I am going to give you an opportunity to pick up $5,000 just for making a simple introduction. This is not a hoax, and I really will put $5,000 in your sweaty palms for introducing me to “the right one”.

Great weather is coming, and I am pretty sure that most people can find a way to spend a surplus of $5,000 this spring. Cruise ships, sandy beaches, mortgage payments, utility bills, and many other amazing delights are right around the corner.

I hope that $5,000 will be worth a few minutes of your time to rack your brain, peel through your list of contacts, and think hard about whether you know this person I am seeking. Mostly, I hope that you will do it because I am a good fit for that acquaintance of yours, and because we deserve to meet each other.

So that you can have a better idea of who you are introducing, I offer you a link for more information about me, but you can come back to that part.

First, I will briefly explain why I am making this offer, what I offer, and who I am looking for. If you just want to skip to the details, click here.

I just reviewed the response to an engagement letter I sent out a couple days ago, and I almost wet myself with laughter and dismay all at once. I send out what seems like a squillion responses to companies that contact me hoping to benefit from my work, but this one was different. It was for a company that was referred to my services by somebody who was referred to my services. Somewhere along the line, it seems that I have picked up a reputation for what I do. This still does not mean that everybody I meet has a brain in their head, a dollar in their bank, or a sincere desire to improve their business.

As I have seen many times before, the recipient of my engagement letter hit me back with something resembling “Duh, wut duh ya mean … ya want us tuh pay fur it?” This was not their exact words, but that was my interpretation. To say the least, I am not very tolerant of cheapskates, or people who talk about action more than actually taking action.

It was after this response that I seriously realized that I had hit the wall at the end of my patience for dealing with this equivalent of The Abominable Snowman on Looney Tunes (video reference). As a husband and father of three, I am all grown up and reasonably mature, but if I must tolerate another of these abominable snowmen who insist I am a rabbit, I will likely use much stronger language than good old Daffy Duck.

Yes, I am a snarky guy, and I prefer to send a good booger from your nose to your computer screen than to make this sound too serious. After all, I am trying to put 5,000 bucks in your pocket, and that should be fun!

In this case, I am going to spell something out in sobering terms. I love the work I do. I help companies to be successful with their online marketing. It is an awesome feeling to see companies succeed. However, I must say this in true Murnahan fashion: “Business is great if not for all the damn customers.” Is that crazy? Perhaps, but it is very true. I am inundated by requests each day to offer my services to build an uncommitted company’s success for a fraction of what my work is worth.

The size of the company doesn’t matter. Building bigger and more profitable companies is my job. Even a small company with a focused desire for business growth can be extremely successful with a good strategy and a decisive marketing approach.

I broke my magic wand a long time ago. So, these days I build companies with other tools like market research, strategy, customer modeling, and well-crafted ideas to help companies look, smell, and feel like sex, bacon, and other things people crave. Yes, you read that correctly. In layman’s terms, my job is to make companies more like sex and bacon. You know what I mean, the things that people like.

That is how companies become popular. It improves their search engine rankings because all of the sudden the whole world wants to link to their website. Understanding their best value proposition and knowing the customers who want their “sex and bacon” improves their social media reach, and response rates. When it all comes together, it makes a lot of other great things happen for a company, including much higher profit.

Seeking a Frog Hair in a Fiberglass Factory

Although I am a very experienced and creative marketing guy, finding the best clients is like searching for a frog hair in a fiberglass factory. I sort through a lot of people rubbing their lamp and hoping for a genie, but a much smaller number of people are ready and able to put a signed check in my hand. They still want their fill of that sexy bacony stuff that comes when I rub a couple brain cells together, but that comes with money.

I have said it many times, and even blogged that “When I go to hell, they will have me selling SEO“. I say that, because I simply do not enjoy the selling process. Sure, you can search Google for How to Sell SEO and find me right up top, but the truth is that I love the work, and not the selling. This is why I am seeking an ongoing project, rather than the short-sighted marketing that many people ask for.

To make this fun for both of us, I am offering you a $5,000 reward to help me find that one special “frog hair in the fiberglass factory”. I want the one who wants the benefits that a great SEO and social media marketing guy can provide.

Claim Your $5,000 Social Media Reward!

The details are easy: If you introduce me to my special someone who is ready to take their marketing to a new level of success with a minimum six month engagement of my SEO and social media marketing services, you get the money.

This could be either contract work, or in-house, working directly for the company. You can introduce me by email, telephone, blog about it, tweet about it, direct them to my resume, or whatever you like. You only have to be the one who brings us together, and the money is yours. I just need to know that you are the actual person who introduced us, so I welcome you to contact me.

When do you get the money? I am sure you were thinking that, right? I will pay the $5,000 reward within ten days of my acceptance of a paid contract, or within 30 days of joining with a company full-time.

This is a limited offer! This is limited to just one … my special one. I don’t take on a lot of clients, and if somebody wants me enough to make me their Marketing Director, that is clearly a one-time offer. I am also limiting it in time, so stop dilly-dallying and claim your five grand!

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Polarize Your Audience and Stop Making Everybody Happy

Polarizing an audience does not mean that you are telling them to go away or that you do not appreciate them. When you polarize your audience, you set yourself apart from the crowd and you often gain respect. If somebody does not respect you for who you are, you probably did not need that respect anyway.

I am first going to explain what I mean by polarizing an audience, and then give you my recent example that happened with an article I wrote titled “Era of The Social Media Dubeshag”.

Stop Trying to Make Everybody Happy!

Sure, you are in business, and you want to be certain that anybody and everybody will want to buy your products or service. You want everybody to love you, I get it. Have you ever considered the downsides? Yes, the downsides can be that your biggest fans are indifferent. They are not the kind who will drag their friends, family, and complete strangers kicking and screaming to buy your brand.

Looking around the business world, you can see many very successful instances of polarizing an audience. A good example may be in Apple Computer’s decision to not support Adobe Flash Player in their iPhone and iPad products. Other examples are available in the soft drink market with Coke and Pepsi, and extreme examples occur in politics. Who wants a wishy-washy politician, anyway?

Do Facebook and Google Polarize Their Audience?

Once you know your brand, stand strong to it. I don’t mean going around and intentionally making people mad at you, but don’t be a chicken either. Just look to Facebook for an example. Facebook is not at all afraid to polarize their audience. They are in the news for it every time they make a big change, but you don’t hear them apologize for how they run their business, or the culture of their brand. Does it work for Facebook? Consider this: If Facebook was a country, it would be the third largest in the world with over 500,000,000 (yes, five hundred million) users.

Google battles against whole countries, like China and recently Italy. I don’t think I need to go into a lengthy argument of how Google polarizes their audience. They are famously polarizing, just as most massively successful brands are.

Sure, you can say that Facebook and Google do not have any real competition, but they do, and in huge order. Many people just don’t look at them as having competition because they are so extremely large and tower over their competitors. In any case, consider who you hear more polarizing stories from … Google or Dogpile?

Today’s Murnahanism: Being famous often requires the guts to be infamous. If you just want to please everybody, give up now, before you get hurt!

Pleasing Everybody Satisfies Nobody

I have said it many times that “I do not try to please everybody, and that pleases some people very much.” I strongly believe in this statement and it is with me at all times. What it means to me is that I will not waiver from who I am just to make people like me. It seems that if they do not like me, they dislike me with emphasis. Conversely, if they like me, they like me very much and they are brand-loyal. I try to leave very little room for indifference.

So What About This Dubeshag Article?

I created a new word for our chubby or less-than-Clark-Gable friends in the social media world. I called them “dubeshags”. The genesis of the word was in good humor, and there is what some would call a very funny back-story. You can read the article and judge for yourself.

It polarized an audience in a pretty big way. I was accused of all kinds of crimes of social media for writing it, such as using popular names to build popularity. I explained my reason for writing it in an addendum to the article and it included the statement as follows:

If you think I wrote it for attention, I would have left it as a draft if I didn’t want people to read it. Sure, I want it to be read. Maybe you just blog for the entertainment of your cats, but I do it for public consumption.

The moral of the story is this: Whether people loved it or hated it, the word “dubeshag” is no longer a secret. In roughly 36 hours, dubeshag went from zero listings in Google and no recognition at all to over 500 listings in Google (and later over 25,000); over 120 Digg.com diggs; a handful of votes on Mixx.com, Reddit.com, and StumbleUpon.com; was re-blogged on many blogs; has been tweeted to hundreds of thousands of Twitter users; created an interview on Social Blade; and has flattered a few of the dubeshags who were mentioned.

Who cares if it made a few people pout? Certainly not this author.

Author’s Addendum: This was a strange example, but it does show a few key things pretty clearly. It shows that original content can spread fast. It shows that with a little know-how, you can build a lot of incoming links. It shows that even if you step on a couple toes, you can still be very well branded and have an audience like the kind I mentioned … the ones who will tell a lot of people.

It is funny that since I wrote this and was away for an event at my son’s school for a couple hours, the number of listings for dubeshag on Google keeps going up. In a short time it increased to tens of thousands of pages talking about dubeshag, and linking to the article. So it should kind of make a person wonder what happens when you do that several times per day? What happens if you do it for six months, a year, or longer?

It amazes me how some people still wonder if this whole SEO and social media thing is really worth looking into or not. To those in doubt, I hope I have given you some food for thought, and I hope you will investigate further. Stick around and read some more. You may find that there is a lot more to it than you think.

Building Referral Business: Referrals Build Business

Building your referral business is probably not a new concept to you, but are you implementing it properly? Most people in business can understand the value of referrals and that referral business leads to greater customer satisfaction, which leads to more referral business. This is not limited to sales referrals. A good referral can be for a supplier, a lead for a new employee, a sales lead, or a referral of a good SEO (search engine optimization) professional.

The Value of Referral Business

If you put a pencil to the value of referral business, you will find that the value far exceeds the cost. The list of benefits is long, but here are just a few of the ways referrals can benefit your business.

Shorter sales cycle
Lower sales or recruiting cost
Greater customer satisfaction
Potential for more referrals
Increased market share
Improved image from the word of mouth
Improved trust

Referrals Go Both Ways

When we think about referrals, it is common to imagine somebody telling their friend about your product or service, saying that you will call the referral soon, and the deal will be a sure thing. This is a great business referral, but also consider the referral that you may be able to provide them. You may think that you do not know a lot of people who would be a great fit for their business need, but you may be surprised. Often, the referral of a potential employee who may work harder, or a supplier who may provide a better fit for them can be just as useful. It is important that you do not close your mind to opportunities to offer referrals, because when you give a referral, you are much closer to receiving referrals for your business.

Building Referral Business Using the Internet

Of course, because my blog is centered on improving Internet marketing and SEO, I want to point out the value of referral business as it applies to the Internet and your Website. Many people neglect or underestimate the value the referral business coming from people linking to your Website. Any search engine optimizer knows the importance of incoming links from other Websites, but do you? One of the top factors in the success of your Internet marketing is how many other Websites link to yours. Each link pointing to your Website is, as Google describes it, like a vote from that Website for yours. It is a primary factor in Google’s vaunted PageRank technology, which estimates the importance of a given Website. Although you may not look at this as a business referral, it is likely only because the referrals often come in without your even knowing it, thus, neglecting the value of these referrals is common. Perhaps if you truly understood the value, you would send a nice thank you note to the sites linking to your Website … wouldn’t that be a neat idea? It would probably take you less than an hour to thank each and every site owner or Webmaster with a link pointing to you. This brings me to another point on thanking those who give you referral business.

Give Thanks for Referral Business

If you are not giving great thanks for the referral business you receive, you are making a big mistake. I occasionally see an attitude that a referral is just something that the giver was not going to use anyway, so it is no skin off the giver’s back. The reality is that when you are given a referral, you should respect it as if they just gave you a family heirloom. After all, they not only gave you their confidence that you will be respectful and caring to the person they referred, but they also gave you something that you can measure in your success.

Asking for Referral Business

Asking for referral business should be a daily practice. It is not like asking for a birthday present. Although a referral is a highly treasured gift, referrals are often something that your clients and friends will be happy to give. This is especially true if they know the value you place on them.

What is your plan to ask for referrals? Are you sending letters requesting referrals? Are you asking for referrals by sending email to your existing client base? Are you blogging about it?

Referrals Welcome

Your referrals are welcomed by me. I understand the value of your referrals, and I will not only thank you very sincerely, I will write you a check of no less than 10 percent of the initial value of contracts I receive from your referral leading to a SEO (search engine optimization) project. As for Website link referrals, I will thank you kindly, and in many cases return the favor.