Growing & Learning Archives - Page 19 of 23

How high is your water level?

December 23, 2006

People rise to expectations. Or sink to them. How high do you set the bar for your employees, peers and customers?

So often marketers create copy thinking that they have to live by the 3rd grade reading level rule. I say that’s ridiculous. Unless your product is for 3rd graders.

It’s okay to expect them to get clever. It’s okay to treat them with respect. It’s okay to expect them to make good choices.

I just learned of a company that has “employees cannot sleep while working” in their employee manual. Come on. If you have to say that in writing, you need to revise your hiring policies.

Go ahead, expect a little more and watch your boat rise with the tide.

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Give to get

December 20, 2006

Hopefully you have a passion for the work you do. It matters to you. And you honestly believe it matters to the clients you serve. It’s something you are proud to offer.

Give it away.

I could hear your collective gasp. Give away what you sell? But sampling is a golden oldie in terms of marketing tactics. The biggest buying obstacle any business has is the uncertainty of that first time. Why not leapfrog over that worry by just giving them a taste?

Many service-based businesses can’t conceive, because they don’t have a physical “thing” to offer, how they can use the sampling tactic. But, it’s easy.

Some of my learned peers in the marketing/communications field and I have decided to really explode the idea of sampling. We’re adopting a charity for the entire year. They’ll get everything from marketing counsel to video production services, web and new media coaching/services, printing, etc. We’re taking applications now. Read the Des Moines Register’s story about our marketing makeover.

If you’re a Central Iowa based non-profit, download the application and get it in! Some lucky charity is going to score over $75,000 worth of services.

Along with MMG, our partners in this experiment are:

Trinity Press
Radio Garage
Brackett Media & Event Services
Aijalon web services
Andy Lyons Photography

Hats off to these smart marketers who recognize the power of sampling. And of doing some good along the way.

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Tell me again why you don’t blog?

December 18, 2006

Dear corporate America…little one man business…and everyone in between,

You’ve heard it before. New media, blogging, YouTube, text messaging etc. etc. etc. We’ve talked about how the power is shifting from you to the consumer and how you’d better get your voice back in the conversation. Well guess what, now it’s official.

Time has named their Person of the Year. And it’s you. And me. And all the other voices out there. No doubt this will be discussed and re-discussed among the blogging community as a sort of triumphant validation for being an innovator. Interesting but not relevant for 99% of the businesses out there.

The only part of the whole discussion that you need to pay attention to is this:

How long can you afford to be silent?

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Ease into the week — brand of your youth?

December 17, 2006

I don’t know about you but Sunday nights are time for me to catch up. On my reading, on my work, on my relationships — all with an eye on Monday morning and knowing that the 180 mph pace is about to resume.

Sundays also seem to be my day for deep thoughts. I thought it might be fun to ease into the week together with a question that is sort of about branding and marketing but also has a personal element to it as well. A chance to get to know each other AND talk shop. Perfect for a Sunday night.

In the comments section of my recent post…This is your brain. This is your brain on brands there’s an interesting discussion about the emotional connection we make to brands. There’s no time when our emotions are more at the surface than when we’re kids. So here’s this week’s question:

What is the brand that best epitomizes your youth?

Mine…without a doubt, Rawlings. They made the best ball gloves. I can remember getting my first one…and oiling it with such attentive rapture. As I got older and my hand got bigger, I had to make the bittersweet move to a new glove. But soon, I loved the new one as much as the old one.

The great thing about a baseball glove is that, much like jeans, the more you use it, the more perfect it becomes. I slept with my mitt under my bed for months, molding the pocket to just how I wanted it. But it didn’t really achieve perfection for a few seasons. Then…it was (and still is) just right!

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Five Tips to Increase Online Book Sales

December 15, 2006

It seems like just about everyone who has written a book is pitching it on the web. Even me! Marketing sense tells us that the web needs to be part of any author’s strategy today.

Here are some easy and smart ways to juice your online sales.

Create a blog on the same topic as your book. I know I am probably preaching to the choir here, but it is worth saying. Blogging is a place where birds of a feather gather together. Gather your birds in your own nest!
On your book’s/author website (or blog) include a calendar that outlines your public appearances, book signings and presentations/readings. And provide a place for people to request an appearance too!
Post a sample chapter that can either be read or downloaded so they can get a taste of your style and how you approach the topic.
Give the buyers lots of choices. Don’t only have your book available on your site. List it on Amazon, BN.com, 800CEORead, etc. as well.
Identify some other authors who write in your same subject area. rather than seeing them as competition, make them a co-conspirator! Promote each other’s books, do some mutual giveaways and take advantage of each other’s fan base.

Rocket science? Not really. But you’d be amazed at how many authors think those books will sell themselves! If you’re an author, give a couple of these a try and let me know how they work. If you’re a reader…reward some of those authors and pick up a book or two for the holidays.

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Find a new read or two

December 15, 2006

Mack over at The Viral Garden has ignited a new idea in his post Revenge of the Z-Lister to spread the word on some blogs that really deserve more attention and traffic than they’re getting. Some are pretty new while others are just still a well kept secret.

Here’s what Mack suggests we do to create some viral buzz for this worthy blogs:

"What YOU can do is simply create a new post on your blog, but CUT AND PASTE the list I have below, and then ADD any blogs you feel aren’t getting their due either. It can be 1 blog, or a hundred(or none if you simply want to repost the same list), but the idea is, find those great blogs that, for whatever reason, you feel aren’t getting their due, link-wise.

Then after you leave your post, the next blogger will do the same thing, cut and paste YOUR list, and add THEIR blogs to the list, then repost it. Add the same instructions in your post that the next blogger should cut and paste YOUR list, and add any blogs they feel should be on it to THEIR list. The list will get increasingly long, and all the blogs will get a sort of reverse ‘pyramid-affect’ of link-love. "

So….Mack posted his list. Chris Brown added a couple. Which inspired Mike Sansone to add a bunch. Now, I’m going to keep the torch lit and add three more and then hope you’ll grab the torch and keep this going.

Shotgun Marketing Blog (via Mack)
BrandSizzle
bizsolutionsplus
Customers Rock!
Being Peter Kim
Two Hat Marketing (via Chris)
The Branding Blog
The Emerging Brand (via Mike)
CrapHammer
Drew’s Marketing Minute
Golden Practices
Viaspire
Tell Ten Friends
Flooring the Consumer
On Influence and Automation
Kinetic Ideas
MSCO
Buzzoodle
NewsPaperGrl
CK’s blog (via Drew)
Conversation Agent
The Copywriting Maven

Now do your part….spread the word!

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Blogging 101 from the expert

December 13, 2006

It’s rare that you get to listen and interact with a true expert. But if you happen to be in the Central Iowa area…you’re a lucky son of a gun.

Why? Mike Sansone is a business blogging expert. Many a business blogger (myself included) can point to their success and standing right behind that success is Mr. Sansone himself.

Mike’s generosity is well-known throughout the blogosphere. He demonstrates it again by offering a free blogging workshop series. The first one is tomorrow (Thursday, December 14th).

Take advantage of the opportunity. Go interact with the expert.

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Want to feel good about our world?

December 10, 2006

Sometimes our world is a little too focused on what’s wrong. Especially this time of year, that can be a bit wearing. So here’s something that will fill your heart with appreciation for the capacity of love that exists within us.

I promise you…this is worth the read and the watching.

[From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly]

I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.

But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.

Eighty-five times he’s pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he’s not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars–all in the same day.

Dick’s also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. On a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?

And what has Rick done for his father? Not much–except save his life.
This love story began in Winchester , Mass. , 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.

"He’ll be a vegetable the rest of his life;” Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. "Put him in an institution.”

But the Hoyts weren’t buying it. They noticed the way Rick’s eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. “No way,” Dick says he was told. “There’s nothing going on in his brain.”

"Tell him a joke,” Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain. Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? "Go Bruins!” And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, "Dad, I want to do that.”

Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described “porker” who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. “Then it was me who was handicapped,” Dick says. "I was sore for two weeks.”

That day changed Rick’s life. “Dad,” he typed, “when we were running, It felt like I wasn’t disabled anymore!”

And that sentence changed Dick’s life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.

"No way,” Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren’t quite a single runner, and they weren’t quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.

Then somebody said, "Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?”

How’s a guy who never learned to swim and hadn’t ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried.

Now they’ve done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii . It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don’t you think?

Hey, Dick, why not see how you’d do on your own? "No way,” he says. Dick does it purely for "the awesome feeling” he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.

This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992–only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don’t keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.

"No question about it,” Rick types. “My dad is the Father of the Century.”

And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. "If you hadn’t been in such great shape,” One doctor told him, "you probably would’ve died 15 years ago.” So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other’s life.

Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass. , always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father’s Day.

That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.

"The thing I’d most like,” Rick types, "is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.”

And the video is below….

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Have some branding with your breakfast?

December 4, 2006

John Jantsch over at Duct Tape Marketing posted about one of my favorite marketing tactics — sampling. Many service delivery businesses think that they can’t sample because they don’t sell a "thing" that people can try. But they’re wrong. With some creative thinking, every business can (and should) sample.

At MMG, we walk that talk. On the first Wednesday of every month, we host the Branding Breakfast. Come by our office at 7:30 am this Wednesday and we’ll give you a hot breakfast, caffeine-charged coffee and some great branding conversation.

All for free.

Why? First and foremost — because we truly believe that branding is every business’s best defense against becoming a commodity and having to complete on price alone. But our second reason — we know that as smart marketing people attend our breakfasts, they’ll begin to see the power and value of working with us. That is the beauty of sampling.

To learn more about this week’s Branding Breakfast, get a map to our place or RSVP, check us out here.

We’d love to have your voice in the conversation!

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Tag, I’m it!

December 3, 2006

So there’s this silly little game flying through the blogosphere. I first caught wind of it at Phil’s blog and followed as he tagged Liz…who got me. Since it’s the weekend, I’m game to divert a little of our attention away from marketing and branding.

The rules are simple. Share five things about yourself that most people wouldn’t know and tag 5 other bloggers to do the same. Here goes!

I’ve crossed the threshold of Walt Disney World at least once a year since it opened in 1971.

I could be President of Venezuela —> (I was born down there while my parents did an overseas stint for work. )

I hung out with the movie star Ashley Judd for a weekend in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

I really dislike feet. Don’t like to look at them or touch them. Have no idea why. But, if I ever were the President of Venezuela – I would outlaw sandals.

You can find me in the TV special (now on DVD) of a very famous country music duo.

Hey — Starbucker, Doug, Roberta, Sandy, Tom…come play if you’d like!

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