marketing psychology Archives by Mark Murnahan

Pink Slime, Politics, and Marketing: Should You Doubt What You Read?

Who is vetting this Internet and deleting all the misinformation?

Yes, that is a nice idea, but let’s face it – there is a lot of information online, and it cannot all be true. Let’s consider how false information is often deemed true, true information is deemed false, and how people decide for themselves what is “true” or “false”.

Like it or not, the things people believe are often based on what they want to believe – and what others around them believe. We are each influenced very uniquely, and whether marketing an agenda or defending ourselves, it is important to recognize those influences.

Facts are commonly disregarded, in favor of more subjective means of decision making such as societal perception and emotion. Allow me to give you examples.

I recently read an article produced by ABC News about “Pink Slime” being added to ground beef products. It has been in the news a lot, recently. What they call “Pink Slime” is made up of scraps of meat that would be otherwise wasted, but instead are finely ground and processed to be mixed with other ground beef. The beef industry calls it “Lean, Finely Textured Beef” or “LFTB”. It has been used for over 20 years in America’s food supply, but news agencies recently uncovered a great opportunity to make a sensational story.

Questioning Pink Slime and Industry Agendas

Maybe Pink Slime is horrible stuff, and maybe it is not. That’s not the point I am after. Regardless of whether it is good or bad, it brought up some thoughts about people’s system of beliefs and reactions to things they read. On either side of the topic, there are people who will strongly believe in their viewpoint, but the side that many people will believe is the one which creates the stronger emotional draw.

The article was produced by a large news agency, and pretended to be journalistic, but there was a strong slant against the use of beef additives. As I read through the comments, it was obvious how it influenced others. In fact, there were only a few who questioned the source reliability and bias. It emphasized how people react to fact or fiction based on emotion, and in this case the emotion was influenced by presentation.

When something affects people emotionally, and they can personally identify with the topic, they are far more likely to find something believable. If they have a connection of trust with the source, it becomes even more believable. For example, I could probably write a convincing story about green pixie dust, and it would seem a lot more “true” to long-time readers and friends than to people who do not know, like, or respect me. It would be even more believable if I created an emotional attachment and led people to believe there is something important at stake for them.

The topic of Pink Slime has a lot of people up in arms, demanding tighter government regulation of “Lean, Finely Textured Beef”. The comments on the ABC News article expressed anger toward the evil companies using it, and the evil government that had surely been paid off to allow its use. I was a bit surprised nobody claimed it had killed their pet unicorn or had spawned a new sub-species of humans that can only eat through a straw.

The readers responded very emotionally, but only a few pointed out unbiased and unemotional facts about pink slime. That ability to move people away from facts or toward the facts to support a particular viewpoint is how marketing works at its best – and its worst.

In another article on Discovery.com, the concerns of Pink Slime were addressed quite differently – based on the “Ick Factor”. Here is a quote from the article titled “PINK SLIME: PSYCHOLOGY OF THE ICK FACTOR“.

The real problem with pink slime is the “Ick Factor” — it looks and sounds gross.

Part of the psychology behind the Ick Factor is labeling. The language we use when we identify things influences how we interpret them. We can call an old car “used” or “pre-owned;” we can call civilians killed in wartime “men, women, and children” or “regrettable collateral damage.” And we can call processed beef parts “pink slime” or we can call it “boneless lean beef trimmings.”

The article also considered Jell-O, but it seems far fewer people complain about gelatin products. I will give you another quote to consider.

And let’s not forget Jell-O brand gelatin, a favorite dessert since 1897. You can call it Jell-O, or you can call it flavored and colored powdered cow bones, cartilage, and intestines.

The beef industry may point out that meat prices will skyrocket without pink slime. Maybe it is true. Maybe this USDA regulated meat product is safe and nutritious. Maybe it is not. What we can be certain of is that there are multiple agendas involved in its discussion, and the facts will “bend” based on who is presenting them, how they are presented, and to whom.

Once something of this emotionally-charged level of interest is presented, society and its inherent emotion-based process will prevail – one way or the other, and for better or worse.

Do You Ever Question Politics? Let’s Have Some Fun!

Another very easy way to explore this type of emotional “fact-checking” (gut checking) is to look at politics. It is a presidential election year in USA, so politics is on a lot of minds. Let’s consider how we make things feel more believable and “true” based on personal experience, influence from the people around us, and emotional attachments. Make no mistakes about this, because none of us are fully immune.

Many people identify with a given political party based on how they were raised, where they work, where they live, or other societal input. It is very unreliable, but most people have a hard time accepting that they may be getting the wrong story – or at least a story very tainted with emotion.

With regard to politics, once people choose their political party, they will often remain influenced by that group and will base their views on the group’s influence.

Let’s have some fun examining the two popular political parties in America, and how people of one political party may view the other. Let’s also consider how rigid people are in their beliefs and unlikely – or even incapable – to acknowledge varying viewpoints with flexibility and fairness.

Democrats Defined:

Tree-hugging fanatics who hate companies, love abortion, don’t work or work very little, and complain about economy but think the government economy-fairy should keep producing more money. Democrats commonly believe that if the government grows large enough, it will protect us from ourselves, and we can all have public-sector jobs while we let pixies, gnomes, unicorns, and other fantasy taxpayers produce the tax dollars needed to cover our salaries. Democrats are generally poor, because earning money is considered evil and corrupt. They have too many children, and they only vote when republicans are trying to take away their free government cheese. Democrats are likely to be seen protesting against the organization that writes their paycheck (unless it’s the government). They love to protest things whenever they are not busy cleaning up an environmental disaster and wiping the crude oil from little a kitten’s eyes after some idiot republicans decided to drill for oil instead of thinking globally and buying it from those nations we should work harder to get along with. A hug is always the best answer to political or religious unrest, and our enemies would stop plotting to attack America if we just gave more hugs. Oh, and let’s not forget that most democrats are either gay, bisexual, or have some sort of sexual perversion.

Republicans Defined:

Wealthy religious zealots who think women should make babies and stay in the kitchen. They despise the working class, unless it is to manufacture weapons or go fight in the latest war. They pray before they make any policy decisions, and if they pray extra hard, God will make them wealthy enough to control more industries, and countries. They are generally rich, rude, self-centered, and want to control the universe while making slaves of democrats. Republicans enjoy destroying our planet and are likely to be seen driving a Hummer while eating an endangered spotted owl sandwich on their way to the whale hunting expedition where they will crash into an oil tanker and set a glacier on fire, thus producing more global warming and sea level rise. Then they can enslave more democrats to clean it up … they always have a sneaky agenda like that. In fact, it is undoubtedly republicans who came up with the idea for Pink Slime – probably as a way to sneak brain-numbing drugs into our food supply and make us agree with whatever they say. They lie, too … almost always. Regarding their sexuality, it is amazing there are still any republicans left, because according to them, sex is taboo. If they do have sex, there will surely be another republican voter on the way, because they don’t believe in birth control.

I know you nodded your head or identified with something in those stereotypes. I hope you did not identify too perfectly either way, but I’m trying to make a point.

The point is that people think in packs. It is generally true that people make decisions about what they accept as fact, based on the people around them, combined with their own experiences, and their own desire to believe it. The presentation is critical, both in how it is presented and to whom.

Know This About Marketing!

I hope you can see how the ideas here are very important factors in your marketing approach. If you do not reach the right audience and understand how people are influenced, it is easy to waste a lot of marketing resources.

Getting these principles right can create a lot of great business opportunities, but I must caution you to be very careful, too. The knife cuts in both directions. If you are falling prey to the emotional pull of the Internet’s popular notions of getting rich quick and easy with low efforts, it’s time to get a checkup from the neck up. That idea is popular and has a lot of emotional draw, but does it really settle right with you?

I guess you could say I am a bit of a whistle-blower about bad information online. I have explained the common SEO lies and publicly called out social media frauds. I try to encourage critical thinking, but perhaps understanding what leads people to believe something that is otherwise irrational or unbelievable is the best way to keep you safe from misinformation.

Now, please consider how believable something can become if you really want to believe it, and if others around you believe it, too. Then, perhaps the next time somebody tries to sell you their new variety of success in a box or easy-money green pixie dust, you will better understand how they make it so appealing.

Go ahead and tell me what you think about Pink Slime, democrats, republicans, marketing, or whatever this brings to mind for you.

Postscript:

I want to add a timely personal and professional observation.

Even in my present seemingly fact-based search for a new company to work for, these factors I pointed out here play a huge role with both parties. While I search for the perfect company with all the right “facts”, something that means even more is that I will fit well with the team and feel good about my work.

Wise companies understand this, and when they look at my résumé, it is merely a guideline. While my background is in operating and providing consulting services to successful businesses for over twenty years, my decision making comes from understanding people, business, where they intersect, and how the pieces all work together. My salary requirements depend on who I like, and their salary offerings will depend on their like and belief of my ideology, personality, and my specific fit with their people, and their business agenda.

This does not fit into a single sales pitch, and neither do many of the decisions the public will make about your brand, or your products.

These intricacies of people are what creates success at every scale of a business. That is why I expect the right company to invite me for an interview to learn more before making me an offer. Otherwise, they would just blindly email me the job offer based on simple facts. I’m not counting on that, and I don’t believe you should, either.

Build your brand, know who you are addressing, and give them the facts – but never neglect how the real decision making unfolds across a group, and how that group is influenced.

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Vision: If You Don’t Have it, You Can’t See It!

If it ever seems you’ve tried “everything” and it is not working out the way you planned, there is probably a good reason. A very common cause for a plan to fail is lack of planning.

Consider something as complex as a space ship for a moment. Space ships don’t always launch as planned, but they have an overall good record, considering their challenges. That’s because of careful planning. It has to begin somewhere, and it begins with a vision.

It is more than a coincidence that most successful companies have a vision statement. Those visions can change, but there should always be a vision. Vision is what guides people and keeps them on the right path to achievements.

You have undoubtedly heard somebody express the importance of setting goals and envisioning the outcome you want. It can sometimes sound far-fetched, and even a bit hokey. If you reverse-engineer this notion of having vision, the reality may not be as you expected.

I want to explain why those people who talk about having vision are not just promoting a dream world filled with unicorns and cute kittens. It is not just about dreaming up a hallucination, either.

The reason it is important to have vision, whether as a huge corporation or as an individual, is that it becomes a basis for your goals and expectations. With vision, you will begin to do the things that bring you closer to the desired outcome. Your vision is what helps you to develop a subconscious reflex to do things to affect the results you want.

Vision Doesn’t Work for Skeptics

There are a lot of skeptics who may consider the value of vision as hogwash. We are each skeptical at some point, and to varying degrees. Being a bit apprehensive about a positive vision and creating goals is what preserves us from failure. If you don’t hope for much, you are less likely to be let down. That kind of apprehension also preserves us from success.

I believe that lack of vision is one of the greatest causes for failure in business and personal pursuits alike. The fear of creating a vision and doing what it takes to follow that vision is simply more than some people can overcome. I have witnessed this for decades as a marketing consultant.

To a skeptic, the people who talk about vision are often the ones who somehow “got lucky”. They hype the whole idea that everybody should have a dream for their life. It must sound totally crazy to a skeptic. For the skeptical type, the very notion of “vision” as it applies to getting what you want probably sounds like some kind of mystical new age idea complete with smoking the wrong stuff, waving a magic wand, and other hokus pokus that makes people want to go chase unicorns.

I’m talking about the real world. This is not about some fancy notion that if you can dream it that the obstacles will magically fade away and you’ll get everything you ask for. That’s usually not going to happen, but you can definitely get a lot closer.

I realize that many people do not want to be inspired, but instead, they want to find their own inspiration. I will not pretend to inspire you, but I do believe I can show you a couple points on the map to help you find your own inspiration. Here’s a nutshell story of why I know and strongly believe in the value of having long-term vision. I hope you’ll find ways to relate and think about instances that worked for you.

A True Story of Vision

There was a time when I was not expected to make it very far in life. I was frustrated with school, and my grades showed it clearly. I was bored to tears, and I hated sitting in a classroom to be drilled with the same information, over and over again. I had previously been a top student, but my teenage vision obviously did not include my grade point average.

This was hard for my mother. Despite her previously high hopes and continued business mentoring, my future was falling apart. I was becoming an outcast, and a disappointment. She was giving up on me. All of the sudden, I was not just letting myself down, it was tearing my mother apart. I did not feel good about that.

When I was 15 years old, I left school to start a company. Throughout my earliest career years, I was a bit fixated on somehow making my mother proud. It became a very clear vision for me. I imagined how it would be for her to not look at me as her biggest failure. Of course, at 15 years old, I only really knew one way, and that was to prove my lack of formal education would not hold me back and I could be successful in business.

My vision took me far beyond expectations. I did very well in business by fixing under-marketed companies in exchange for ownership equity. Ten years after leaving school, I was comfortably retired and enjoying Mother’s pride … and a bit of my own. My vision was complete.

Caution: Completed Visions Are Like Poison

Once my earlier vision was completed, I became a 25 year old retired bachelor with no vision of my future. I dated the wrong ladies, I made the wrong investments, and I connected with the wrong business partners. Things pretty much fell apart, and I needed a new vision to get back on a good track.

I discovered that without a continued plan – without a vision – life simply would not take me where I intended. It became obvious that it would be impossible to get what I wanted if I couldn’t define it.

I eventually became inspired again. My new vision came in the form of another lady. Call me a ladies man. She wanted to quit her mid-level job in the banking industry to grow her sideline Internet services company. We merged companies and I went back to work with a vision. There was nothing easy about it. It took a lot of time and effort, but the vision came to life.

This vision worked, because there was a goal. We expanded the goal as needed, and our vision was flexible. It turned out that we took a website development company and spun it into one of the largest wholesale providers of Internet access and web hosting in the world. Yes, a high school dropout can have a successful vision, too!

Visions Should Be Flexible and Failure is Always an Option

Years later, I had a vision of sports car racing. I bought some brand new Corvettes, spent a quarter million dollars per year, and invested countless hours of hard work and training in that vision. It was very important to me. I got quite good at it, too.

When I consider all of the things in my life that require vision, auto racing has got to be on the extreme side. It would be nearly impossible to make it around a two and a half mile race course with 14 turns in under a minute and forty seconds without a vision.

Since the vision of our Internet company was as developed as we thought it would ever be, we created a new vision of selling the company and opening an upscale bed and breakfast and racing school. It was a mutual vision to pursue our culinary talents and my racing passion. Indeed, my business vision had led me to a full-time career in automotive racing. But there was a curve in the road!

I want to note that failure is always an option! Failure can teach many valuable lessons. A person who has not failed, is missing those lessons.

Anybody who believes that failure is not an option is leaving a lot of their potential to waste. Having a substantial vision requires being willing to step outside your comfort zone, and until you do it, you’re missing out.

Consider it like this: Failure is a side-effect of success.

The crash of the economy was not good to us, and it changed our vision. Change can be a good thing, when you have vision. Following my wife, Peggy’s culinary passion, we opened a wildly successful bakery, Mad Eliza’s Cakes and Confections.

Racing ran off the track for a while, but guess what? The vision is still there!

The Best Visions Bend, But Don’t Break

With a well-conceived and longer term vision comes flexibility. By its very nature, vision should be flexible and open to changes. It is not a formula for instant success, but rather a guideline. The best vision will create an overall look at what is to come, but it is not a predefined paint-by-numbers view of the future.

What got me thinking about the importance of vision today is because I’ve noticed my long-term vision coming clearer, almost without even consciously recognizing it. My earlier vision began to drive me to focus on what I really want.

In December, I announced that I would stop accepting new marketing consulting clients in January. That was because I decided to stop trying to be great at everything, as a CEO, in order to focus on my best talents and the things I am most passionate about.

I realized that my refined vision is to work for a company I will love. I started imagining how it would feel to settle into a new job with great coworkers and a new home in a new city. Then I imagined how amazing it would be if that company was one that fits into my larger vision. That means a company that is involved in racing, has a race team, or would have a good case to sponsor a race team if their marketing success – based on my hard work – could justify it.

The vision involves racing, and it involves marketing. I’m not shopping for my next race car just yet, but with vision on my side, it’s definitely in the works.

Almost without even realizing it, my efforts began to focus on companies that I could believe in and where I could improve their vision and feel proud to bring them success. I found myself researching companies based on their vision, and how it would fit with mine.

I’ve developed my vision, and I’ve noticed that I am making many renewed efforts, both consciously and subconsciously, to make that vision come true. It may sound pretty lofty to some people to find a job they love with a company where they can feel devoted. What I know for certain is that without a vision, I would fall short of my best outcome.

My vision may not come out exactly as planned. It is flexible – and negotiable. Then again, I was somehow able to make my mother proud. So I’m going with it.

Great Visions Are Shared

When you have a vision that others can share, it builds synergy. The vision becomes larger than its individual parts. Sometimes the hardest part is to share your vision with others, for fear of being shot down.

You should feel proud of your vision. Some people simply don’t have any. You may be amazed by the outcome of sharing your vision with others. If you don’t feel good enough about it to share it with others, it probably just needs more development. Even if this is the case, vision is always best when it is shared.

So now I ask you, what is your vision? Please share it.

Pssst! Here are links to my résumé and a little more about me.

Photo Credits:
Through the Glass by GoRun26 via Flickr
Seeing Truly by Joel Penner via Flickr

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Hard Lessons I Learned About Marketing and Success

Some people say that you can learn a lot from successful people. I think it is largely true, too. It makes more sense to learn from somebody who has been successful than to learn from somebody who has not. At the same time, one thing that becomes very valuable is to learn from the mistakes they made, and use those things to avoid repeating their mistakes.

Some would say that I took a bit of an uncommon direction to learning about marketing. I dropped out of school about 25 years ago at age 15, regularly held 2-3 jobs as I built my first few companies, and nearly worked myself to death by the time I was 25. It sounds glamorous, doesn’t it?

My career path would certainly not be comfortable for most people, and I would never encourage it for my own children or anybody else I care about, but it worked for me. I learned my way through it the hard way. I read a lot of books, and I studied a lot of concepts from successful people. They were often people I knew first hand, and there were many instances when I should have listened more carefully. Since I was stubborn, I still had to learn some things the hard way, by making my own mistakes.

Lesson one: Don’t be stubborn! There really are people who know more than you about a given topic.

OK, I’ll admit, my path to learning was not totally awful, and there were a few benefits along the way. I earned more money by the end of those ten years between 15 and 25 than most people will in a whole lifetime. I retired for a few years, and it mostly seemed worth it. Yes, indeed … I had become one of those successful people like the ones I worked so hard to learn from.

Some of the greatest benefits I received were the marketing lessons I learned. Those tough lessons about marketing taught me how to bounce back from nearly any business calamity. That is because if you can market something, you can sell something, and if you can sell something you can earn profit, and let’s be honest … the majority of things that can go wrong in business can be improved with more money.

I want to share some of what I learned with you. I’ll offer a glimpse of my early years in business, and some valuable lessons it taught me about marketing. I hope it will save you some of the frustration of my mistakes. At the same time, it may scare you to imagine what it really takes to build success in a business. It is not for everybody … “average” is for everybody.

If The Doors Aren’t Swinging, The Cash Register is Silent

In my early days of business ownership, nearly 25 years ago, it was pretty easy to recognize that my business was much better when the doors were swinging open, or the telephone was ringing. Without enough customers, I wasn’t selling enough, and selling something was how my company generated revenue … money … profit. You know, the stuff that sets the difference between a hobby and a business.

I needed to attract customers, and I knew it would take some pretty clever marketing to keep my company moving forward. Without marketing, even the best companies fail. I had seen such failure in other companies, so I knew I needed to get that part right.

Of course, marketing comes in many forms, and it involves many aspects of a business. It includes product assessment, pricing, merchandising, public relations, and more. Focusing on just one area of marketing is short-sighted, and leads to a lot of waste. What I knew for sure was that if I didn’t do something and do it right, I would never grow the company into anything sustainable. First things first, I needed to generate some money to make the whole thing work.

Sales reps were not worth a garage sale necktie to me if I didn’t have the right product offering. So, I worked on our offerings to be sure they were better than the competition. The sales reps were also no good to me if I could not legitimately define why the offerings were the best option in the market for our given customers. That meant I needed some product research. That’s when I realized the product research and the customers had to match up just right. It would not matter how awesome the offering was, or how well we could merchandise it, if we did not understand who would benefit from it the most, and would have a greater propensity to respond to our efforts. That’s right … “everybody” is not a target market.

I researched like mad to put all the pieces together. I got the products just right, the pricing was attractive, and I ran great ads to get bodies through the door, but then I figured out that there were good customers, and then there were great customers. I needed to determine how to get the right customers through the door. When I learned how to do that, our profits grew like mad. With all that research to my advantage, advertising cost went down because it became more effective.

You see, it took a lot of little pieces to be put in their proper place in order to grow. It took a lot of very time-consuming and often high-investment efforts to create success.

Putting all those little pieces in the right order and in their rightful place is even more important now than ever, in the digital world. The competition is broader, the offerings are sharper, and getting people to a website is not at all the same as getting the right people to a website. Once you get them there, you will need very compelling reasons they will want to do business with you. My early experiences really helped me to understand this.

Here comes a lesson that came really hard for me, but it makes a huge impact once you get it right.

Who You Are is Not a Microcosm of Your Market!

You are not the same as your customers and potential customers. You may try to be like them, you may try to speak their language, and you may even be part of a very similar demographic, but the truth is that they are different. We each want to believe those warm and friendly lines like “people are not so different after all” … but they are!

It is very challenging to try and understand your perfect market segment, and how to reach them with the right message. It is a bit unnatural, because it requires thinking in a way that is not your usual way of thinking. They are the customer, and they will always have their own perspective, their own experiences, their own mindset … and you will have yours.

During my earliest days in business, I remember a constant nagging question of “Who are these people?” I’ve got to say that as much as I tried, I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. I understood them in concept and in statistics, but I still could not relate to their ways of thinking. Fortunately, I didn’t need to nor want to become more like them. It is true but misunderstood that you do not have to “become your customer” to provide their best option … but you will need to know a lot about them. I was selling very expensive things to very egotistical people. I knew exactly why they would buy, and I knew that it was all about stroking their ego.

What I couldn’t grasp was why they were so willing to endure all of that opportunity cost just to splurge on luxury items. They were buying things that I felt I could never afford. The crazy part was that I would constantly find that my customers were actually earning only a fraction of what I was.

The big separation for me was that I was in a different stage of my life, and in a different mind capsule of my own. I believed in taking every dollar I earned to further build my businesses, and buying showy things just didn’t fit into my model (until much later).

There are many things which can separate us from the mindset of our customers, and it is usually not a simple task to figure it out. In my case, it became my most monumental career objective to understand the gaps between customer and seller perspectives … and to bridge those gaps.

One of the best and hardest lessons I learned was that it usually takes a fresh set of eyes looking from outside. That means outside of the buyer’s perspective, and outside of the seller’s perspective. Analysis from a complete outsider is one of the best ways to understand the gaps between sellers and customers. I am lucky I learned this early, and I will always value the outsider. This can be a friend, an associate, or a trade organization, but it is even better when it is their job to serve your company needs and expectations. You can be afraid of the truth, but it will not change the truth. The best outsider is often in the form of a trained and experienced marketing consultant.

The funny thing is this: I am a marketing consultant, and in fact, I am a very accomplished marketing consultant … but knowing what I know, I will never stop using them. Yes, it probably sounds totally nuts to you, but I rely on outsiders to provide the same services that others pay me to provide.

The reason I use outside marketing consultants is that for as much as I can do the research, bring you to discover me, know your hot buttons, and even address them fairly well, I will never completely understand you, or why you are not buying my services. If I tried to understand you all on my own, without influences from the outside, I would destroy many of my greatest opportunities. I would also likely go even crazier than I already am.

You really must have a plan if you want to get ahead in business. I started with a plan, but I found a lot of changes to make along the way. I also found a lot of roadblocks, and often by being hard-headed and not taking good advice. I cannot share all my best advice in one blog article, but I have a pretty lengthy blog archive full of good information.

Delegating Saved Me More Than Once

I learned that one of the most profound commonalities of successful people is knowing when and how to delegate things outside of their expertise. They realize their limitations, and the value of concentrating their efforts on the things they are best suited for. They recognize what they don’t know, and they become good at finding the right people to handle those things.

I learned to delegate. It was terrifying to me, and I never got really comfortable with handing the controls over to somebody else. I hated that my accountants and attorneys often knew more about me than my own mother. I also hated the thought that my marketing consultants have often known enough about my businesses to try and mirror my company and become my competition.

I thank my lucky stars that I got over it and realized that I cannot be the very best at everything. I am absolutely terrible at accounting! All I want to know is that there is enough money in the accounts to carry out my purchases. I generally grasp the whole legal thing, but I hate writing my own contracts, and I understand why they say that “the lawyer who defends himself has a fool for a client.” A similar principle holds true in marketing. If you rely on your own brilliance, without outside influence, you will make mistakes … and often very costly mistakes.

Whether it is a friend, a colleague, a trade association, or a trained marketing professional, you will need to trust and learn from an outsider at some point. Tell them your goals, tell them your business pains, listen to them, take their guidance, and grow your business. Otherwise, don’t be surprised that if you keep making the same mistakes, you will get the same results.

If Building Success Was Easy, Wouldn’t Your Market Share Be Higher?

Building a successful business is not easy, and it requires a lot of uncomfortable decisions. If it was easy, it would be easy for your competition, too. A key factor lies in your will to achieve more.

There will always be people to dislike you for doing the things they are unwilling or unable to do. There will always be people to try and roadblock your success. You may often create your own biggest roadblocks based on other people’s frustrations. I know this, and I can almost bet that it is like fingernails on a chalkboard to many people when I say I’ve spent much of my adult life in the top fraction of a percent of money-earners in the USA and in the world. Yeah, that’s annoying to the people who have not joined me there, and have no hopes of achieving the same or similar results.

I really enjoyed and related to an article my friend John Falchetto recently wrote titled “5 reasons jerks are successful“. I hate to give away the ending, but the fact is that they are not jerks at all. They just work very hard and have very strong commitments. I encourage you to read it and also read the comments on the article. I had a lot to say about it.

I know that there is a huge deluge of information telling you that you can do it all yourself, and that you can reach a huge audience of all the right people with the perfect message about your company and make your product or service offering so popular the phones will ring all night and day.

If you really believed it was so simple, I think you must ask yourself “Why isn’t my market share higher?” or “why am I still reading this blog?” You want more business … that’s why.

Let this roll around in your head for a while: If you were given all the right resources to market your company, would it become as successful as you hoped it would be? Either way you answer, this should require you to consider what mistakes you are making and which required resources you are missing. It very likely has a whole lot to do with your marketing.

Photo Credit:
Separation Anxiety by j bizzie via Flickr

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Hypocrisy in Hiring Social Media Services

Many companies want a bigger, stronger, and more productive online audience. So, it makes sense to look toward the Internet when they need help, right? It seems a common answer is “no”.

It may seem strange that so many companies need and want help to market themselves better online, but yet, turn to an offline connection to help them do it. A lot of companies who are in the market to hire a consultant for their online marketing are seeking a warm handshake, meetings in-person, and looks in the eye. They are understandably cautious about this sort of service. It makes sense, but yet it doesn’t.

The topic came up in a conversation with a friend earlier today. He is excited about partnering with a company that provides social media consulting services. He gave me the web address, and said he had spoken to them about how I am able to help them with their online presence. It sounds crazy, right? The social media consulting company needs social media help.

What shook me was that he said they have more business than they can presently handle, but their online presence is miserable. How miserable? They have sent under 100 tweets on Twitter, their latest video on YouTube had under 50 views and was uploaded over a year ago, and more than I can express, it was simply atrocious! Even the big rage online marketers have been touting lately … Klout (the online influence measurement company) did not have a profile for them.

Oh, but they’re selling like mad, so it really made me question the logic. How can somebody be successful at something without a demonstrated ability to do it? Even if they can do it, how can they be taken seriously if they don’t practice what they preach? This may sound just a bit jealous, but for many years, I thought I actually had to prove that I know my business. I have been wrong, and I see similar instances all the time. I think they must just smell really good, but I’ll explain that.

This is one side of the hypocrisy, but I’m not to the good part yet … the buyer’s hypocrisy.

Smelling is Not Due Diligence … Research Is!

I certainly recognize and respect the human aspects of doing business. It feels good to look somebody in the eye, and a lot of people believe they can tell a person’s integrity from their body language. Of course, it helps if you have training in the field of psychology, or spent some time as an F.B.I. agent. Let me tell you, though, there are plenty of people who will fake anything for money … I’ve met some of them.

I’d like to point out some things I’ve learned from over a decade and a half in a line of work where I have met less than one tenth of one percent of my customers in person. It really doesn’t hold the benefit to the client that most people imagine and hope for. It actually turns out that it is a whole lot more beneficial to the seller than the buyer.

Here’s where the buyer’s perception gets screwy. Think about this for a moment: Doesn’t this seem hypocritical to imagine a company that wants to sell more online, but cannot make their own fact-based judgments online? Companies often seek the faith of their customers online, but they, themselves, do not have the faith they ask from others. They have the tools at their disposal for making rational and logical decisions, but prefer to use a less effective and less objective tool set, in their meeting room. What’s worse, it often hurts the buyer, by opening them up to whatever brand of fairy dust is being pumped into the room.

Meeting in person will not tell you if somebody knows the Internet as accurately as their demonstrated abilities online will show. In fact, it will show a whole lot less than spending some time with our old friend Google. The only thing shaking hands and talking in a meeting room will reliably prove is whether they know more about the Internet than you do. It will not prove whether they know more than your competitor, and it will not prove whether they know how to produce an appropriately targeted audience, or even a fraction of what they say. Spending time researching them online is what proves those things.

Sitting across a table will not tell you if they are a crook. Ironically, you have to look online for that! The only thing it will really tell you beyond what you can learn online, over a telephone communication, or a Skype video conference is how they smell.

I’ll just tell you right now … I smell like cigarette smoke and coffee, but I can bend a crooked online marketer over my knee and whip them like the crybaby sissy bed-wetter they are.

Rational Thinking Eludes Confused People

It may just be a little too rational for companies to seek social media services where they can actually shop and compare, and can see who has demonstrated abilities or does not. Companies are made up of people, and people are not rational and logical about things they don’t fully understand, such as social media marketing, search engine optimization, and other areas of online marketing.

I’m too deep in the online side of this equation to be objective, but I categorize this as an absurdity. It seems as hypocritical as it gets for a company to ask customers for faith in something they fear too much to embrace. My best guess is that they are just waiting for a good smelling pitch man.

What do you think? Please share your comments on the topic.

Oh, but wait … here is some bonus material.

Where Can You Find Good Marketing People, and How Will You Know?

Just when I thought I was done writing about this topic, I realized that it leaves a question open about a better way to seek an online marketing professional. I do not have all the perfect answers, because that question has a lot of possible conclusions. I’ll give you a couple thoughts that may help you.

First and foremost, consider how you arrived here. If somebody sent you here, ask them what else they know. Sure, there may be a few dummies reading my blog, but I would suggest that many of them I have encountered are pretty bright, and have a strong interest in the areas of social media marketing and/or SEO. Look at the comments here on this article and check those people out. If they have been reading for a while, they probably have some pretty good ideas about marketing online.

Of course, if you arrived because I brought you here … call me … ask questions. I am for hire! Even if I cannot help you, I’ll try to suggest a good match and avoid a costly catastrophe. I am not a good fit for everybody, and I only take on one to three clients at any given time, but I sure know a lot of quality people in my line of work.

Your best fit will depend on your needs and expectations. If you want marketing excellence, it may require more digging, and the investment will be much higher.

If you are trying to keep within a small budget, or you have a tight time frame, be sure to understand how and why it will affect you return on investment. Discuss this with any potential marketing professional you are considering. Be sure they have an acceptable answer for you.

I must suggest, just as I have previously explained about search engine optimization, many of the best marketing people are not looking for you. It is also true, in my case, and I believe many other do not enjoy the sales process of their work as well as they enjoy the work they do. So, it may be best to not expect them to do a lot of schmoozing.

In any instance, the most important factors regarding their experience and knowledge will be found online. If they are good in their line of work, they will be very easy to discover with a search for their name on Google. Look at what they are doing online. Check them out. See what others are saying about them. Read their blog … a lot! It will give you a much clearer view of their ideas and their methods.

Finding the right fit will be worth your effort. Due diligence takes patience, but it will save you a lot of money and hassles! On the other hand, a horrible mistake I see companies endure is believing that because a friend, acquaintance, or somebody in their area knows just a little about Twitter or Facebook, they are safer with that, than to risk the effort and do a little research. Maybe they really are the right one, or maybe they are not. If the way they smell is used as a primary measurement, the company gets what they deserve. It is often how companies end up with fakes like these “marketing experts”.

OK, so I’m asking again … What do you think?

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Persecution of Excellence: What Einstein Knew About Marketing

You are more excellent than you are letting on. You cannot convince me there is no more excellence within you than what you produce. You just aren’t giving it everything you can, and my guess is you are aware of it.

Excellence is challenging, and even terrifying to the majority of people, and that keeps them holding steady at “normal”. Everybody will not become excellent, or it would no longer be excellent … it would just be average. People are not all equal, but we can each do much better.

As much as people say they want to uncover their excellence, they neglect it, and they run from it when they discover how hard it will be. The efforts required for producing excellence that stands out from the crowd is enough to scare away most people. Those people include the ones you compete with every day. If you want to take that as looking on the bright side, at least you can know they aren’t giving it their best, either. Oh, but what if they ever do?

Why do people neglect or fall short of excellence? I’m going to share some ideas in terms I believe you will find useful.

One of the world’s greatest thinkers, Albert Einstein said “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” I am a fan of Einstein, and I have enjoyed his works in the field of theoretical physics. As great as his works were, I don’t think he ever said anything more true or meaningful than this statement.

Try to think of the ways you see excellence being persecuted. I see it in corporate politics, where showing excellence can be looked down upon as it makes coworkers and the boss look less valuable. Going above and beyond often creates the opposite of the expected rewards, and can harm friendships, or even get a person fired from their job. This sounds insane, to me, but I see it all the time!

I often watch excellence being torn down in marketing plans, in schools, and even in families. We live in a society that rewards being average, and marginalizes excellence. The rewards for excellence are still many orders of magnitude greater than average, but accordingly far more challenging to achieve. You cannot deny this fact, but you can overcome it, if you are committed enough.

Applying Excellence to Marketing

I’m here to talk about marketing. To get marketing right … and that means creating an optimal return on investment … excellence is required. I said “optimal” … not “acceptable”, and there is a huge difference. The problem is that excellence comes with a higher level of commitment and/or a different time frame than most people in business are willing to reach for.

Claiming a “commitment to excellence” is little more than a buzz phrase to a lot of companies. Actually doing it is quite another matter. That is partially because most people and companies do not have enough faith in their own excellence to demonstrate it in their marketing. They are too busy watching and imitating others. Even in cases where they can see it in their future, there are other huge elements in the way, like fear, torment, and ego!

I believe that everybody has a higher degree of excellence waiting to be released, but I also believe that most will never use it. In reality, it is a fortunate truth that most people do not have all that it takes to be excellent. They have the basic recipe, but they also have huge fears of the associated persecution, and that breeds apathy and other traits that are unseemly and certainly not excellent. Most will give up and stop seeking excellence, and you can use that to your advantage, if and when you choose to. Yes, beyond simple ability alone, it is a conscious choice!

One of the greatest sacrifices is that you must make vows against mediocrity, and stop accepting less than excellence.

Persecution of Excellence Observed

I would not say these things if I did not have first-hand experience to demonstrate. Here’s a dramatically shortened story of others’ attempts to squelch excellence.

I was a pretty bright kid, but my school didn’t know what to do with that. I butted heads with the teachers all the way up to my 15th birthday. Just after I turned 15, I left school for the last time and started a new company. I worked very hard, against great odds, to enhance my business excellence and my credibility in marketing. By the time I was 25, I took an early retirement. That worked for a while.

A few years later, I met my wife and went back to work building another company. It was hard work, too. We invested every last dollar we had at our disposal in that company. The first couple years were filled with 100+ hour workweeks and scrutiny from every angle.

During those first couple years, Peggy’s parents hated me. They looked at me like a “dreamer” and they simply could not understand why I was still working so hard at my job as a CEO when it cost me more than it paid me. They wanted me to go get a job working for somebody else, the way they had done. They even passed that influence on to my wife, and she began to persecute me as well.

The company was an overwhelming exercise in excellence, and we eventually proved the value of that excellence. We finally got to collect massive paychecks, and some of the persecution subsided. I recall one day when my mother-in-law came to visit. It was after we had far exceeded the top one percentile of money earners, built an amazing new home, and my wife was driving out of our new driveway in a new $70,000 car with my mother-in-law to go shopping. I asked my wife to call me if she needed more than the $50,000 credit card in her purse. That was when my mother-in-law finally came around to say “I guess you’re not such a bad son-in-law after all, Mark.”

The truth was later evident that the only manifestation of excellence she understood had been the money-rewards. She never saw excellence before that. She never realized why I had worked so hard, or even that my work had anything to do with it. To this day, she has still never recognized that the sacrifices were to achieve excellence … and not average.

In 2009, we were hit very hard by the worldwide economic collapse, and the persecution resumed in full force, and from all angles. Knowing what I learned in years past, can you imagine my response? Let’s just put it this way … I am not in the pursuit of “average”, and I never will be.

Some people will always be incapable of achieving true excellence, and others will be incapable of recognizing it. If you let that stop you, then you will settle for average.

Is it worth the sacrifices to achieve excellence? My answer is an emphatic “Yes!” Of course, that is a personal choice that each of us must make.

What do you choose?

P.S. I want to share something that I can credit, in part, for the topic of this article. It is a blog post by Janet Callaway titled “10 Great Quotes that Explain Why“.

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