More about Ilise here.
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Ilise, Peleg and I thank everyone for their support and contributions in our inaugural year of The Marketing Mix.
The Mixmasters are taking a holiday break, after which we will return refreshed and rededicated to sharing the best of what we know with the best of the entrepreneurial community.
Until then, Merry Hanuchristmakwaanzah to all, and to all a good night!
Marketing Mentor IT guru Alan Seiden definitely has marketing (mentor) on the brain. He emailed me this story recently:
Here's the mini-dream I had while getting a massage last Thursday. It was a Marketing Mentor dream without a doubt.
I was meeting a new person at a networking event. I gave her (or she gave me) a small blue-green plastic turtle, "...so we can come out of our shells," because everyone has a shell.
At the time, I knew it was a Marketing Mentor dream. Later, I also remembered that blue and green are MM's colors.
If dreams are where we work things out, it looks like Alan's getting some good work done!
Okay, it's not really called The Pitch-a-lator. But the create-your-own pitch thingamajiggy at 15secondpitch.com is a fun little tool.
While it won't, alas, do all the work for you, the site walks you through a series of steps designed to get you to think about what it is you do, and limits how many words you get to express it. At the end of the exercise, you get a fairly pithy statement you can tweak, if you like, and a place to store it on the web. There's also a larger profile you can fill out and let live on their site, with space for more detailed interests and contact info.
One caveat: I found this via a Google ad link on another search, and can't vouch for the security or spamminess of the site. So don't go giving away all your super-private email addys if you're freaked out about stuff like that.
Mary McCauley-Stiff of Five Star Writing sent Ilise this link on Marketing Profs (short for "marketing pros and professors", apparently) to a pretty great article called "The Myth of the Elevator Speech." You'll have to sign up for the Marketing Profs (free) membership to read the whole article, but the gist of it is this: don't let conventional wisdom get in the way of having a real conversation.
In other words, while it's all very well and good to be able to summarize what you do in 20 words or less and have a snazzy, user-centric pitch, it's also good to know when to back away from the marketing and just talk to someone. As the writer, marketing communications expert Doug Stern, points out, people aren't always really asking the question "What do you do?" when they ask what you do; sometimes, they're just making idle conversation. And no one wants to be pitched 24/7.
I have to say, I tend to agree. While it's really important to have your verbal business card at the ready, sometimes it's better to just relax and have a conversation.
from Lauren Cook, of MoldaveDesigns
Ilise got a question from Jonathan Selikoff of Selikoff & Co., who wanted to know of any good contact management systems for the Mac. (Ilise, like other lucky-in-this-instance PC-users, uses ACT!)
Good question. Blogger/podcaster/Shameless Self-Promoter Heidi Miller had posted a similar plea on her blog awhile ago, and devoted portion of a recent podcast (shownotes and show link here) to the solutions her readers sent in. I cross-referenced them with ideas from geek heaven (a.k.a. the user board for Merlin Mann's always useful 43 Folders website) and a few entries came up most frequently:
Since I gave up all extracurricular Microsoft usage, I've been hobbling along on the Apple iSuite solution—Mail.app + iCal + AddressBook. The only other solution I have any familiarity with is FileMaker Pro, which I loved but haven't used for years.
So I'm all ears, too. Anyone want to weigh in on contact management software for the Mac they couldn't live without?
A client recently told me about a networking event he attended where it didn't even feel appropriate to offer his card. I've been to that sort of event. We all have, I think.
Either it seems like everyone already knows each other (and aren't interested in knowing you). Or they're looking for prospects for themselves and not open to you, if you aren't one. Or sometimes the purpose of the event isn't networking. What to do?
Here's my advice: First, adjust your expectations. Then, find the one friendliest, most open person in the room and go as far as you can.
Any other ideas?
I wonder: Is it really a question of time? Because marketing really doesn’t take as long as you imagine it does, especially if you have a system in place and you know what needs to be done. All you have to do is set aside time to do it, maybe an hour a day -- even a half hour is usually enough.
I think the issue is attention -- you don't have the right type of attention to market your services. Because marketing certainly requires a different quality of attention than what is required to do your actual work, no matter what it is. I call the type of attention needed “the marketing mindset” and it’s one of the fundamentals we teach in the Marketing Mentor program.
Momentum is the other issue. Even if you have the Marketing Mindset from time to time, it's hard to recapture it when your marketing is done once in a while, without any continuity. The Marketing Mindset is fleeting when you have to start from scratch each time. You lose any momentum you may have had before.
"What will I say?"
That's the most-asked question I hear from my Marketing Mentor clients when we get to the part in this process when it's time to call the companies they want to work with. Many books suggest using a script, but I don't agree.
Whether you're making warm or cold calls, it helps to start with a script as you prepare for the call. But I don't think it's helpful when actually making a call. It's easy to get lost in the script and freeze when they don't follow along, which is likely, since the other person doesn't have a copy of your script.
What works better is to have a list of talking points -- the 3-5 things (max) that you don't want to forget to ask or say. Then just be awake during the call and respond to what they say. And if you get flustered, it doesn't matter. Just keep going. So use your talking points as a prompt, but don't get too attached to them.
NJ-based client, Tracy Ivie, of Words and Ideas, suggests keeping a cheat sheet of your best qualities and success stories by the phone, in case none come readily to mind.
And practice, practice, practice.
When I gave my new Cold Calling for Designers workshop for Spark, the first question I asked was, "Why do you hate cold calling?" and almost all of them said, "I don’t want to sound like a telemarketer."
Don't worry—you're not a telemarketer! Here are two differences, right off the bat:
1. A telemarketer calls vast lists of people who are not qualified prospects, hoping someone will be interested. You, on the other hand, call only the prospects whom you've taken the time to qualify to make sure they need what you're offering. That's why they're likely to be interested.
2. A telemarketer has a script and, no matter what your response, doesn't deviate from the script in his or her effort to sell you. You, on the other hand, have a script (or even better, an outline of talking points) but you drop it if your prospect takes the conversation in another direction. You follow their lead and listen closely so you can respond genuinely to whatever he or she is telling you.
Can you think of any others?
A series of posts documenting Marketing Mentor's search for a new tagline and what happened when we opened up the discussion to the Marketing Mentor community.
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