social media objectives Archives - Page 2 of 8 by Mark Murnahan

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Does a Slick Sales Pitch Work in Social Media?

Have you ever seen one of those slick sales pitches that seem to suck the money right out of your pocket? You know, like those vacuum cleaner demonstrations where they show you how their vacuum will pick up nails and screws, and even lift a bowling ball with its superior suction.

These are the sort of clever sales tactics where they show that even after all those nails and screws, it will still pick up the dirt that your tired old machine leaves behind. The dirty “proof” is right there in front of you, and you don’t really want your home to be that filthy, do you?

With all the filth of nasty bacteria and dust mites, it is only a matter of time until your kids get asthma, and the doctor bills will cost you a squillion times what their vacuum cleaner will cost. So, really, they are not selling you a vacuum cleaner. They are saving your kids’ lives, and keeping you from going bankrupt with all the medical bills.

This is really not a laughing matter, and it all goes to prove why you need the Sucker Sucker 4000! The massive power of the Sucker Sucker 4000 will suck up dirt better than the competition, but at a fraction of the cost. When you add in those medical bills, it actually pays you to buy this machine!

Plus, every spouse is more amorous when their back is not hurting. Think about how many times your wife complains about hauling that big old heavy vacuum up and down the stairs. She won’t be complaining of a backache with the Sucker Sucker 4000! You like sex, don’t you?

Guess what! Your tired old vacuum will do most of that stuff, too! It is a sales pitch, and it is not designed to save your kids’ lives. It is designed to get the money out of your pocket and into theirs.

The Tragedy of Social Media Pitches

There is no disputing the value of good marketing. Marketing is where the sales come from. Marketing builds companies, and puts the money in their bank account.

Marketing has changed, and many companies struggle to adapt. They are trying so hard to hold onto yesterday’s values, that their marketing sucks as strong as that vacuum cleaner. They are still trying to sustain the lies and deception of old-school pitches, and excessively boastful statements, while the market passes them by. The smart ones figured out that they just needed to provide the best offerings they can, and be honest, and their fans will do the boasting for them.

People got smarter, and many cleverly devised mysteries were revealed. The semi-honest tactics that used to bring in customers may still work for a while, but not forever. It mostly works on the naive, who do not take the extra effort to shop around and pay attention. Those naive and impulsive people are wising up. The most naive of all were the same people who took the economic collapse extra hard. They were suckered far too often, and now they are mad! The ease of comparison shopping and more cautious spending makes the slick pitches less effective.

Just look at my industry for an example. How many people in the SEO (search engine optimization) industry do you think have built up sales with sleazy tactics? I see it all the time, and when customers find out the SEO is a fraud, and their tactics are more harmful than good, they change their company name and go into hiding like Osama bin Laden. It happens a lot more than you may think. It is like those traveling magazine salesmen. By the time you realize you never got the magazines you paid for, they are in another town, scamming another would-be reader.

What about social media marketing? Have you happened to notice the massive number of people who became “social media experts” in the last few years? How did that happen? They were not trained in marketing, or have decades of experience, but now they know a bunch of buzz words and how to suck up bowling balls with a vacuum cleaner.

It happened because people really want to have hope, and that is the big con job of the majority of social media marketing people. They sell ridiculous hopes that they will save companies from destruction by setting them up on Facebook and Twitter. As with other industries, people are figuring things out the hard way, and now they are starting to shop more carefully. Many of the “social media experts” are not so expert once you lift the curtain and turn on the lights.

A strong case can be made about the uneven distribution of intelligence among our population. Yes, there are a lot of very unintelligent people out there who will buy anything! You are different, and I know that, because you are here and reading my blog. You have a higher I.Q. than a potato, so you can surely see beyond the common trickery.

Some Truth About a Sales Pitch

The truth about a sales pitch is that they are designed to bring you to an emotional peak, and then close the sale while you are still excited about the product or service. The numbers may vary by industry, but there is generally less than one percent of people who will come back for the purchase if the sale is not closed immediately at the conclusion of the presentation.

That is the old school pitch, and it is very hard for companies to let go of that power, and to work hard enough to earn a customer’s business based on truth and trust.

Even in cases where the sale is not made right then, the buyer’s decision has often been made. They are either committed to the sale, or further consideration of the sale, or they are not. This goes for any pitch.

How this is applied to online marketing, and especially in social media marketing efforts, is that the buyer has a lot more control of the sales pitch. The process is more long-sighted, and it allows customers to make better decisions. It also requires companies to work harder to avoid “no” until they get the “yes” answer they wanted.

Along with a social media pitch, customers will Google your name, check for reviews, and see if your equivalent to the Sucker Sucker 4000 is what you claim that it is. If it really is, they may decide to watch you and think about your product or service for a while, until they are ready to buy. That scares the heck out of a lot of companies, because it is so foreign.

The good news about the sales that come from social media sources is that the customer is often far more aware of the offering, and will be a better customer because of their higher level of confidence.

If you are doing your job right, the customer will pay attention. They will bookmark your website, subscribe to your mailing list, and they will think about the wonderful day when they will own what you sell. Until that time, it is your job to make it easier for them to remember you, and how much better they will feel once they make their purchasing decision.

Once they are your customer, it is your duty to be sure they love your brand enough to tell their friends, and give you positive reviews across the Internet. When this happens, the sales cycle comes full-circle, and you are on a path to growth.

Some Options for Your Sales Pitch

The way I see it is that you have some options to consider. There are many degrees of how much you will incorporate these extremes, and finding your perfect balance is important.

Option One: You could just keep sucking up nails and looking for more people to present your pitch to. You can keep dismissing the non-buyers as idiots and child abusers for leaving their home so filthy by not buying your Sucker Sucker 4000.

Option Two: Another option is that you show more longevity, take a long-term approach, and help others to do the selling for you. You can give the real facts, keep the hype a bit less creepy, and cultivate a customer base who love you for your integrity and fine offerings.

Option One focuses on short-term drama and urgency, while Option Two focuses on long term success and building trust in a market segment. There really is a good balance between short-term and long-term objectives for any company.

Long-term social media objectives often come with more pain in the short-term, and short-term objectives often come with more pain in the long-term. Sometimes success is a matter of determining your tolerance to pain.

Oh, and by the way … did you Google me, check my background, and subscribe to my blog, yet? Come back any time to read some more. I’ll be here when you are ready to do business. 😉

Photo Credits:
Arco Wand Vacuum Cleaner by Marxchivist via Flickr
23.4.2009 by Miika Niemelä via Flickr
Hey Dorks, Who Is Your King Now??? by Rob Boudon via Flickr

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

They Pay for Awesomeness, and Nothing Less!

People ask me all the time, for ideas about how they can make their business better, stronger, and more profitable. They want to know what will convince more people to spend hard-earned money with their company.

I usually have some useful tips for them. I love to help, and I enjoy the look on their faces when they say “Why didn’t we ever think of that?” It is even more adorable when they call me to tell me that they implemented the tip and it is working for them.

It feels great to be helpful, and it keeps me sharp with new ideas. It is also why I write this blog, and why you see my direct phone line at the top of every blog post with the statement “I am always ready for a brainstorm. Call me at *REDACTED DUE TO AGING WEBSITE*.”

One of my best tips, in a single word, is “Awesomeness”. I will explain this, and how you can create greater awesomeness for your customers.

Being Helpful Grows Awesomeness!

I want to explain a principle that may seem scary to some people, but it is one which has served me very well in life, and in business. It requires patience and practice, but it has never failed me in the long-term. In order to explain it best, I will use my own experience. I could explain it in some fancy theoretical terms, but this comes from real life … my real everyday work.

It is my job to provide answers for improving companies and making them more marketable. I do a lot of my work free of charge. Well, at least I try very hard to blog about it in ways that people can use it. I’d call that work, so yes, I do a lot of my work for free.

Since I only work with a very small number of clients, and because a company has to be pretty serious about their marketing to hire my services, I make many efforts to help others without digging into their pockets. Don’t worry, it is not some kind of Jedi mind trick (video reference), and I am not selling something here. Being helpful gives me good karma, mojo, luck, or whatever you want to call it.

Being helpful is a principle that is used in abundance by successful companies, and successful people. You really don’t have to look around very hard to see this in action. It is a principle that is even more important when applied to the Internet, and I’ll tell you why. When it comes to Internet dealings, people have a very strong filter for noise. I wrote about this a while back, in an article titled “Will Your Social Media Noise Withstand 2011 Filtering?” They are also commonly very skeptical. There is a lot of “crap” on the Internet to overcome, as a consumer.

Many companies use blogs and other social media tools to be more helpful and interesting to their potential market. When they provide useful information, it brings attention to their brand. It is a means to express a company’s awesomeness and to put their helpfulness to work, and their company culture on the front line. There are many good reasons for companies to have a blog, in fact, I can offer you 10 really good reasons to blog.

I could stop right here, but I just told you this as a preface for the real point of this article. You can stop here, add your comments, tweet it, Facebook it, blog about it, and etcetera, but there is more! Yes, it is lengthy, but that is why there is a play button on my blog (at the top). If you don’t have time to read it, at least care enough about your business to push play and listen.

What Do They Pay For? That’s Right … Awesomeness!

The principle of being helpful is only one piece of success, but a huge piece that a lot of companies totally neglect. Somebody has to pay for all of that helpfulness, or the company would go broke. So, a lot of companies are left with a question of who will pay for that? Can you believe it? Companies actually treat it as a “dilemma” of whether it is a good idea for them to be helpful. This is why I find that even when they are helpful, they seldom make it to “awesome” status.

The reason I mentioned this principle of being helpful is because I want you to pay attention without thinking I am here to sell you something. Call it a bonus, and whatever you do, please try to implement that tip. Be helpful … It is for your own benefit!

Now I am going to tell you what people actually pay me for, and explain ways you can benefit from it without having to pay me. Come to think of it, this may not go just right, but I am pretty sure I am not obsolete quite yet. In any case, I want you to use this for your own gain.

This May Not Be Awesome, But it is Helpful!

As a marketing guy, a huge amount of my work is not focused on helping companies with the obvious marketing task of getting their name in front of more people. Does that sound strange? It probably sounds totally crazy to a lot of people. In fact, you may be wondering, “Where in the heck do you find these idiots who pay you, Murnahan?” Yes, I am paid by aliens from another planet … but they are very successful Zarkmobians from Planet Narburloid.

It is true, though, because a significant amount of my work involves making them more marketable. That means digging into who they are, as a company. They pay me to develop a strong understanding of who they are, and to uncover what makes them more like sex, bacon, and other things people love. My job is to get a solid grasp on their “awesomeness” by viewing the culture of the company from a unique perspective. With this, it is my responsibility to create their best marketing strategy.

You can get a better picture of your awesomeness by talking to people. Ask people you respect. Ask people you don’t respect. Ask people who buy from you. Ask people who don’t buy from you. Ask without a word, by researching your market, and uncovering the real forces that drive your market. Ask a lot of questions, and pay careful attention to the answers. This will help you to discover your best customers!

Discovering the Model Customer

Once I know a company’s best assets (their awesomeness), I can begin the research to build a perfect model of their customers. Knowing the right audience is extremely important, especially if you want a return on your marketing investment. I wrote about this a couple times recently, and I hope you read those articles. I will add some links below, but if you are not a subscriber, do it now … it is free. I will say it again, though … ask a lot of questions, and pay attention to the answers. Below are some links to help you with your customer modeling, but note that they will only help you if you use them!

How Does the Company Fit Into the Market?

After the ideal customer models are in place, I can accurately direct my clients as to how they fit into their marketplace. Then, I can also provide steps to better adapt to their market. This is when the real awesomeness is unleashed. It is completely different for every company, in every industry.

If you do not know your competition, you probably don’t know your market very well. You need to know your market before you can even begin to get ahead. If you learn the forces working against you, it will be a whole lot easier to overcome them.

Spend some time knowing your market, including your competition. Most companies do a terrible job of this, so it is like low hanging fruit for you. Pick it!

Producing Awesome is Not Easy!

Most companies simply cannot see their business clearly from a marketability standpoint, and it becomes their Achilles heel. This destroys many companies.

Even when they think they have a good grasp on their “awesomeness”, most companies do not express it very well. I have said a lot about good reasons to blog, and good uses for social media. None of it centers on the use of destructive interruption marketing.

The challenge here is to present your company in a way that it is appealing to the customer, based on what they want, instead of just what the company wants.

I return to the principle of being useful. Most companies, including your competitors, will not have the required patience to be useful and give their customers a reason to buy from them. Many will just hope to flash a sale price and scream their selling message, but only a relatively few will put aside the selling enough to understand what will inspire buying.

Most companies (yes, most) will choose to skip the important research. It is not easy work, and it bores a lot of people to tears. It becomes too much hassle to actually build their understanding of the customer. For a lot of people, it would be cruel and unusual punishment just to finish reading this article, not to mention actually implementing the suggestions.

Here is where the punishment really pays off: If you understand your customers’ motivations to buy, and address it properly, they will tell each other. Your job becomes a lot easier.

Delivering Awesomeness to The People

Once the marketability factors are perfectly in place, it is a whole lot easier to deliver it to the people. Delivering something marketable to the people is simple! Have you seen how many amazing tools there are for delivering a good message to people? Just think of the first ones that come to mind. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google, blogs … and the list goes on.

You want some awesome? Check this out! Here is some unsuspecting awesomeness for you. They didn’t seem all that amazing to me at first, but you would probably never believe me if I told you how many times these made my phone ring. These are just a couple of many examples, but the articles below make a good point.

How To Become Popular on Twitter Without Actually Being Useful

Social Media and The Absurdity of Implied Reciprocity

So you must be asking, “How did these make the phone ring?” It was because those little pieces of awesomeness made people think. They made people laugh. They compelled people to share them with others, and they created a squillion new links to my blog. Bonus Points: They were also extremely relevant to my industry.

Those links enhance my SEO (search engine optimization), and reflect credibility to search engines by showing popularity. That credibility helps everything else I write about to rank higher in search engines. That is how SEO works! This matters far more than the mechanical approach to SEO. The trick is to be awesome as often as possible, or at least as a high percentage of your efforts.

Are you getting it yet? A little bit of awesome carries a long way. I don’t make “awesome” happen every time, and you will not either. I know when it is needed, how to do it, and why it matters. That comes with practice, so start practicing!

How much more can I say? I gave you a lot of good links within this article, and I did not include a single one to waste your time. I just gave you tools to learn and implement excellent marketing. I hope I have encouraged you to take the same approach of researching your market and to provide value to your potential customers.

I suggest that you give in order to receive. As an example that I mean what I say, I am giving $5,000 just to receive an introduction to somebody interested in paying for my services. That pretty well covers the “awesome” and the “helpful” in my book.

Of course, companies pay me for a lot more than what I included here. If you have the time to exercise your patience, and put some practice to use, you will find a whole lot more free assistance in my blog archive. I do it to be useful, and that works for me. I believe it will work for you as well.

I will allow you this moment to practice being helpful and awesome. This is your chance to add your helpful comment, and share how you apply these principles, or how you feel you could do better. If you want to get outrageously helpful, give this a tweet, a Facebook like, a stumble, a digg, or whatever it is that you do to share helpful things with others.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download