Passion Archives - Page 9 of 25 - McLellan Marketing Group

Looking for the spotlight?

April 19, 2008

When the tip in card promoting a book includes raves from Jack Trout, Tom Peters, Al Ries, Jay Conrad Levinson and others — you have to conclude one of three things:

It’s an amazing book
The author is a brilliant networker
Maybe both

Tsufit (think Cher and Sting, no last name needed) is a former attorney who left her law career to become a "seek the spotlight" coach. Her book, "Step into the Spotlight…’Cause ALL Business is Show Business!" is her guide to getting noticed.

As you might expect, a book about promoting yourself includes a fair amount of promotion for the author. But that aside, it’s a fun read. Tsufit draws wonderful pictures with her words and brings to life many scenarios where the reader could use a good kick in the rump to get out of the shadows and onto center stage.

This book is a little bit personal branding, a little bit public speaking, a little bit networking and a little bit publicity garnering. What’s great about this book is that it’s broken down into bite sized stories and tips. You’ll find yourself nodding and earmarking pages.

Perhaps the biggest value of the book is that Tsufit’s enthusiasm is contagious. She gets you excited about promoting yourself and your business. Mix that enthusiasm with plenty of "how to" tidbits and you should be shielding your eyes from the bright lights in no time.

Dear soon to be college grad

April 17, 2008

It’s April. Which means that all of you seniors who are graduating in a few weeks are getting a serious amount of pressure from Mom and Dad to send out those resumes.

And so you will. I thought I might offer a few helpful hints.

Do not address your cover letter to the entire company, i.e. Dear McLellan Marketing Group. If you don’t have time to find out the specific person to send it to, don’t send it. And if you do get their name, for the love of Pete — spell it correctly. If you can’t get my name right, do you really think I’m going to let you loose with one of our clients?

The time to start looking for your first job is not in April of your senior year. I know it’s too late for you but warn your little brothers and sisters. Tell them to start engaging in conversations with the companies they might like to work for when they are freshmen and sophomores. Then, by the time they’re seniors — these companies will be helping them find a job. Who is helping you?

Spell check. Then, read your cover letter and resume slowly and out loud. Find is not spelled fine. Again…do I want you writing to our clients?

I know it’s a common mistake, but when you say my resume is attached — attach it.

Cutting and pasting is tempting. I cannot tell you how many times I have received a cover letter addressed to another agency or agency principal. Odds are she got mine. Odds are, neither of us are going to hire you.

It’s tough enough to get a job in this field. Don’t let laziness or sloppiness make it even harder for you. I know you think the above is an exaggeration but I just deleted an e-mail that made 4 of the 5 listed mistakes. All in one cover letter!

Want more….read this free e-book written specifically for college grads and this post on what I would do if I were a college grad, looking for that first job.

Last piece of advice — hang in there. It’s as much fun and as rewarding as you think it will be.

Okay, I lied. One last thing. If you are going to try to impress me with your creativity — then A) Be creative. and B) Don’t let spelling and punctuation errors spoil the delivery.

Check this out. See if you can spot the errors (both in the video and description). Instead of helping himself by going above and beyond, he’s just proven that he hasn’t even mastered the basics.

How do you listen to your customers?

April 15, 2008

Ask any executive or business owner if it’s important to them to listen to their customers and you will get an enthusiastic "of course!" Then, ask them what programs or tools they have in place to listen. Suddenly, for most companies, the silence is deafening.

You might hear suggestion box or a customer service toll free number or even an e-mail address. On a rare occasion, you might hear customer satisfaction survey or personalized follow up phone calls.

But, I suspect it will be a rare company that says "RV."

Yes, RV.

The folks at Freshbooks (a web-based time tracking and invoicing tool) decided to hit the road. For two weeks, they lived and traveled on an RV as they toured 11 cities in the southern U.S. Along the way, they stopped to host BBQs, met customers, and hung hangover kits on the hotel doorknobs during SXSW.

This is a company that gets customer engagement. They didn’t sit back and passively wait for a customer to shoot them an e-mail or take an online survey. They got up and went to their customers. Literally. They didn’t do a hard sell, they let their brand’s personality dictate how they interacted.

No wonder 99% of their customers said they’d recommend them to a peer.

This worked because:

It was fresh and different
The company was making the effort — not asking the customers to do the work
It had talk value — people told this story over and over
It was true to Freshbook’s brand personality

The RV/road tour isn’t the right answer for everyone. But aggressively listening is. So…what’s your best, most talkable listening tactic? If you don’t have one…get any ideas from the Freshbooks gang?

Alltop names Marketing Minute an “all the top” resource

April 12, 2008

In mid-March, Guy Kawasaki launched Alltop, a news aggregation site that provides “all the top” stories for forty of the most popular topics on the Web.

The headlines and first paragraph of the five most recent stories from forty to eighty sources for each topic are displayed. Alltop stories are refreshed approximately every ten minutes.

A good metaphor is that Alltop is an "online magazine rack" that displays the news from the top publications and blogs. Their goal is to satisfy the information needs of the 99% of Internet users who will never use an RSS feed reader or create a custom page. Think of it as "aggregation without the aggravation.”

Drew’s Marketing Minute is considered one of the top resources in the social media category. You can find the entire list of topics on their home page. You’ll be amazed at the diversity — everything from dads to venture capital and just about everything in between.

It’s a slick tool and gives you access to many resources at a glance.

Around the horn: 04/10/08

April 10, 2008

"Around the horn" is a baseball warm up drill that has the infield players simulating the path a ball would take during a double play. In my case, I’m using the term to share some of the best posts I’ve seen recently.

"You’re not all that." A great line from Andrew Clark’s post on 15.5 ways to be more creative over at Brand Chef. Check out his very helpful list of creativity triggers. I especially recommend #10 and #15.

Lewis Green offers up some insights on how to increase sales and marketing’s effectiveness in your organization. As you would expect if you are a regular reader of Lewis’ work — the post is very thought provoking and insightful.

Can seeing the Apple logo actually make you behave more creatively? Robyn McMaster explores this question, in relation to an article from the Journal of Consumer Research. Together, they conclude that even the briefest exposure to well-known brand logos can cause people to behave in ways that mirror those brands’ traits.

Want to squeeze even more out of your Google searches? John Jantsch over at Duct Tape Marketing offers up 10 of his favorite web site and SEO shortcuts. By adding what Google calls an operator followed by a colon you can get some pretty interesting research done very quickly, according to John.

Words just don’t cut it

April 8, 2008

I believe words are incredibly powerful. They can push past someone’s fear. They can inspire someone to act. They can humble the proudest of men. They can bring someone to their knees. They can also touch a heart and change it forever.

But for the past two days I have been trying to get them to do the impossible.

Describe Blogger Social weekend.

I simply cannot do it justice. Maybe that’s because the weekend wasn’t about words. It wasn’t cerebral or of the mind.

It was all about the soul.

It was hearing a laugh you’d imagined many times. It was about sipping sour only to discover that in the UK it’s called bitters.

It was scooting close to pose for yet another photo. It was cramming into cabs in search of an open diner at 3 am, simply because you weren’t ready to say good-bye.

It was watching two old friends hug for the first time. It was the sizzle of bacon as you share breakfast with buddies who are like brothers to you, even though they live half way across the world.

It was about goofy corsages, a shared cookie, and being friends 4ever.

It was about laughter. And tears.

It was about soaking each other in, knowing it would be a while before we’d be together again.

It was the discovery that everyone was just as you expected them to be. And reveling in how wonderful that is.

It was about everything that truly matters. And I simply don’t have the words to describe it.

Did Dilbert write your mission statement?

March 21, 2008

See how familiar this sounds:

"At XYZ Corporation, we work with integrity to deliver value driven solutions that propel our clients to their ultimate success. We do this with a spirit of fairness, teamwork and recognizing that the XYZ family is our greatest resource."

Blech. Lots of words. Very little meaning.

Mission statements. What is it about them that is so difficult for most companies? For every good one out there, there are 100 that make you just scratch your head.

My most recent post at Marketing Profs Daily Fix explores the struggle that many companies have with creating a mission statement that actually says something meaningful about their organization. Come join us in the conversation.

Or….feel free to go the Dilbert route — this is worth a laugh or two.

WowOwow! And I really mean it.

March 9, 2008

Look at this list of women. Do your best not to say WOW at least once.

Lesley Stahl, Peggy Noonan, Liz Smith, Joni Evans, Mary Wells, Sheila Nevins, Joan Juliet Buck, Whoopi Goldberg, Julia Reed, Joan Ganz Cooney, Judith Martin, Candice Bergen, Lily Tomlin, Jane Wagner, and Marlo Thomas.

I know…can’t be done. Go ahead. Give yourself permission. Wow.

That is a power-packed list. Women who have incredible influence in many different fields. Apparently, they’ve been friends for some time and as they say:

"And for years we have been talking to each other about everything under the sun – our families, our work, our worlds. No matter what was happening in our lives, we made the time. We’ve shared what we think, observe and experience each day.

And now we want to share it with you."

The call it a conversation on the internet. I call it a blog. But….in very short order, we’re going to call it a force. Their question of the day for yesterday was….which 4 women would you like to see on Mt. Rushmore. 70+ comments.

Umm, that was on the day of their launch, International Women’s Day. Imagine how popular they’ll be in a week!

Hats off to these ladies, their fascinating conversations and their wisdom in inviting us to join in.

So here’s what I am wondering. How will this site and these women influence the blogosphere, the media, advertisers or public perception?

Look Mom, I made the team!

February 21, 2008

I love baseball. I love the smell of the freshly cut grass. I love the sounds of the ball smacking into a glove. I love the adrenaline rush that you get as you approach the plate.

So, the sure sign of Spring for me is Spring Training. Which began this week. We’re only 5+ weeks away from Opening Day.

I’ve always believed that the best players — be it baseball, marketing, sales or ice cream scoopers are the people with a passion for their game. The skills can be taught. But you can’t teach, cajole or force passion. It either burns in the belly or it doesn’t.

I was delighted to see Mike Sansone’s post about Spring Training and his baseballesque All Star team of bloggers. The team is impressive with guys like Jeremiah Owyang at third and David Armano in center field. So…I was thrilled to make the team. Twice. I get to play 2nd base and as one of the MarketingProfs Daily Fix line-up, be in the bullpen as well.

How cool is that?

When I look at Mike’s line-up, what strikes me is that every blogger on his list burns with a passion for their area of expertise. That’s what put them on Mike’s must read list. Be sure you check out his post…because these people should be on your must read list too.

Would your clients say that about you? Are you an All Star because of your passion? How do you bring that to life?

Surprise!

February 14, 2008

There are good surprises and then there are bad surprises.

On Saturday evening, my daughter and I were driving towards home when all of a sudden, my foot could not find the gas pedal. It was gone. I stomped and wiggled my foot all over the floor of my truck….but no gas pedal.

We coasted over into a left turn lane, I threw the truck in park and hopped out. My gas pedal was still there…but just sitting limply on the floor.

We weren’t going anywhere. Bad surprise.

Long story short…tow truck. Repair place. Rental car. Snapped cable from pedal to engine. Empty wallet.

When I picked up the truck on Monday night, I noticed that something was different. The seat belt on my side had developed a snag which turned into a vertical tear, along the seat belt. Which meant that it caught on the seat belt latch, every time I buckled up. It was annoying.

But, while the repair place had my truck and was replacing the gas pedal cable, they had "re-strung" my seat belt, so the tear didn’t catch any more. They didn’t charge me for it. They didn’t even mention they’d done it.

Good surprise.

Suddenly, I felt a whole lot better about the empty wallet. They’d done something special for me. Something they didn’t have to do. That’s the beauty of surprises…they make us feel noticed and valued.

How often do you do that for your clients? Do a little something extra? Put a note in a bill saying that you aren’t charging them for something, send dessert over to their table, let the ride run a wee bit longer?

Toby Bloomberg e-mailed me a couple days ago and asked me for a tip on building great client relationships. I said…"surprise them…give them a little more than what they expected or paid for."

Good surprises, like my seat belt are great fodder for passionate, genuine word of mouth. Give your clients a reason to tell stories about you.

By the way….Toby asked many a marketer this question. She’s compiled all the answers for us and there’s plenty to think about. Check it out.

Related posts:

Are you boring your customers?
Surprise! (Marketing lesson from Walt)
Turn things upside down!

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