The Marketing Mix | official blog of the Marketing Mentor community

Reaching out for high tech advice

Wendy Meyeroff from WM Medical Communications, Inc. was sparked by one of my recent blog posts to ask a few questions.  She's a print writer with lots of experience who also writes web content.  She claims she's not a "techie," and says she only first heard the terms SEO and keywords in the beginning of this year.  She's wondering about two things:

1. I could spend a fortune signing up for classes and investing in books, and also spend hours reading.  But I'm a hands-on type of person.  If I had a tutor, maybe a more techno-savvy "partner" I could probably figure out Google rankings and Twitter (totally confuses me) in a few hours.  Trying to do it alone, I'm just thoroughly confused.  Does anyone know a place where I could barter:  the techie who'd train me in exchange for some really nifty articles they could backlink to enhance their visibility?  (Or maybe something else?)

2. I started a blog in Blogger, but stopped 'cause someone told me any ads I might glean would enrich Google, not me.  In another place they said you must use Wordpress...but they added you need a techie to help you get started or it would take forever.  It looks like you're using Typepad.  I just wanted to ask your attendees to give me an opinion.  Which one is worth either the money or time to invest in?  (Again, maybe I could set up a bartering arrangement.)

Any ideas or advice we can share?

Back to the future

Here's a note I got recently from Jean Feingold, a writer, who has been following along with my weekly audio tips, Sound Advice. And be sure to read to the end for her "happy ending."

Confession time - I signed up for your marketing plan and have done almost nothing you've recommended. I have listened to most of the short messages and enjoyed them. If nothing else, you are an inspiration.
 
But let me tell you what I am doing that may be of help to other long time freelancers. It's what I call looking to the past for future work.
 
Over the years, I've had clients come and go. Some I dumped because they were not worth keeping; others happily disappeared just as I was about to say goodbye to them. But others have left for reasons completely unrelated to my work, perhaps a change in jobs or other life circumstances on their part, or a change in their publications that removed the need for freelance writers. These were folks I always enjoyed working with and missed when they went away. I have long made it a habit to say "hi" every few months by e-mail to editors I haven't heard from in a while and to offer them my services. Sometimes this has gotten me work.
 
Today I spent some time going through old records and cleaning out unneeded paper. This reacquainted me with people I had written for or about several years ago and had lost touch with. I made a list of their names and started searching for them online to see if they had new e-mail addresses or affiliations. One I found is now associated with a writing and PR service, so I wrote to see if they might have some overflow work. When she wrote back, I learned this website represents not a company of folks sitting in the same building but a group of freelancers all over the country! So maybe there will be some work here for me or with one of the others I have yet to contact.
 
The point is, good former clients and contacts are worth finding. If they liked your work once, they will either like it again or be willing to recommend you to someone who might. While I don't have any assignments yet from this latest effort, I've just started this e-mail program. I am optimistic it will produce the desired results.

-----

There's now more to the story - the happy ending. My former client with the PR and writing service has more work than she can handle and I will soon be working for the service as well. The content areas it covers are ones with which I am quite familiar, so the learning curve will be short. 
 
What Ilise tells people about asking for work is right on. What's the worst they can say - "Sorry, there isn't any"? But maybe they will say "Not now, but later"  (an answer I've gotten from other former clients), or "Yes, we need your help now." You'll never know if you don't ask.

Guest Post: Avoiding the free advice trap

Colleen's note: I met guest blogger Donna Gordon via the Ask Liz Ryan group  on Yahoo. She is a shining example of how to use social media well—i.e. be brilliant and helpful, and people will come to you. She's also a smart cookie when it comes to business in general. As with her previous guest post on networking etiquette, Donna's tips on good consulting practices were so awesome, I asked if she'd elaborate for our readers on the blog. Here are the (fantastic! awesome! thorough!) results.

Okay all of you self employed and small business owners, you’ve got that hot prospect at the table, and you’d love to get the project.  Then comes the question, “What do you charge?”  Seems like a simple question, but one fraught with landmines.  At what point does a meeting to pick your brain for ideas turn into a paying assignment?  Are you seeing lots of tire-kickers these days?  Do initial meetings turn into non-paid consulting sessions?  If you’ve been in business for any length of time, you have wrestled with this problem.  

My ‘aha’ moment came after tracking every 15 minute block of ‘work time’ for almost 2 months.  I was astounded at how much non billable time was spent on prospecting, meetings, and other things that did not produce a check.  It was then that I had to re-assess my service offerings and the kind of clients I was pursuing.  Here is my list of best practices:

Business networking: Facebook, LinkedIn or neither?

Last year I launched a solo practice as a corporate writer and communications consultant. One of the initial questions I asked myself -- right after, "Can I make an honest (or dishonest) living doing this?" -- was where I stood on the whole social networking thing.

The first hurdle was deciding whether I even wanted to connect with prospective clients via online mingling. The second, once I'd given a half-hearted yes to the first, was whether the people I happened to mingle with would want to mingle with each other. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

I'm not on Facebook, for several reasons. First, the fact that two hundred million people have jumped onboard doesn't mean much to me. Two hundred million people probably tune in each week to Dancing with the Stars of Survivor: Krakatoa. That doesn't mean I have to. In fact it increases the likelihood that I won't.

Lessons in price talk

Today's guest post is from Stacey Morris, of Focus Copywriter, who specializes in writing web content. She learned a good lesson about how to answer pricing questions that I thought everyone would be able to benefit from.

For anyone who struggles with cold calling…yet another lesson learned last week. In fact, three lessons.

It started well. A web designer responded to my inquiry email about the copywriting for his clients’ sites by asking for my prices, which is pretty common.

And what does Ilise tell us to do when someone emails a question about price?

She says “CALL THEM.” Cockily drowning out my coach’s voice with my own assuredness (after all, this was going well), I wrote back with an estimate for the job and attached a rate sheet.

Two hours later I got a response from this web designer. I can’t write it down verbatim because I don’t want to use profanity, but this guy was pissed! Apparently, my ridiculously low estimate was way above what he had in mind.

Now, I know it’s never personal with these things. But “Troy” didn’t seem to value my profession (copywriting) nearly as much as he valued his (web design). So I emailed back politely explaining that “copywriters help bring qualified motivated visitors to the beautiful sites a designer builds. Copywriters make sure that the business owner is getting the right message across to the right people. And good content leads to happy clients, which leads to more referrals and more work down the line for the designer.”

Why you should tell Facebook “what’s on your mind”

“What’s on your mind?” “What are you working on?” To me, these questions have an innately Orwellian tone. But as anyone remotely involved in social networking knows, these questions are immediately asked of us when we open our Facebook and LinkedIn pages, respectively.

Until recently, I answered them only sporadically. “How frivolous, I thought, and what a waste of time.” Now I realize how wrong I was. 

It all started with a freak accident. A few weeks ago, a speeding bicyclist struck me as I got off a bus in Boston. Something (maybe the painkillers) made me think it would be a good idea to mention it on Facebook. That post led to a raft of well wishes (always nice when you’re feeling crappy). But one of them made me sit up and take notice – painful as that was.

Was I a Conference Commando?

In Keith Ferazzi’s book, Never Eat Alone (which, ironically, I read a few years back, almost entirely while I was eating lunch, uh, alone), he advises readers to “Be A Conference Commando.” He posits that conferences are not for gaining information and insight, but instead are opportunities to develop relationships. You must be pro-active, not passive. 

In March I made the decision to attend the annual BRITE conference—Branding Innovation and Technology—sponsored by Columbia Business School’s Center on Global Brand Leadership for two main reasons:

1. Because in 2007 I moved out of NYC to rural central New York state so I needed some mental stimulation, exposure to new ideas, and a good write-off-able excuse to hang out in the city for a few days (not to mention a good, urban, soul-satisfying bagel and lox breakfast).
2. I’m following the 2009 Grow Your Business Marketing Plan + Calendar (veteran’s version) and felt attending this conference would be an excellent networking component to my marketing checklist—along with all the other strategies we’ve been reading about on this blog: research calls, crafting your online bio, blog creation/posting, etc. 

At the conference, through various addresses, breakout sessions, and a fantastic keynote given by Seth Godin, I gained a better understanding of such current catchphrases as ‘crowdsourcing’ and ‘tribes’; was able to hone my Twitter skills on my iPod Touch (in fact, unlike most other public gatherings, this audience was actually encouraged to dialogue with their devices while the talks were taking place, and after each speaker, the MC would field “tweeted” questions); and was exposed to compelling new technologies—my favorite of which is prezi.com, zooming presentation software.

However, according to Keith’s standards, as a conference attendee, I failed. (Well, maybe a D+). 

Did I sign up to volunteer at the conference in order to gain access to its inner workings? No. 

Did I research the VIPs beforehand and set up opportunities to hobnob with the ones I wanted most to meet in person? Uh, no. 

I did not even really set goals for myself, other than that I would go, meet people, and learn a few things.

However, upon returning home to the farm, I did follow up with each of the people I met, with an email that read:

Going where the clients are

I've been to many design/marketing/technology conferences over the years. I find them inspiring and informative and I'm always energized to do even better work when I return. It’s also easy to prepare for an event where I will mostly encounter colleagues, as opposed to prospective clients. All I have to do is make sure I remember to bring lots of business cards.
 
But with renewed focus on growing my business, off I went to meet my target market at the CASE (Council for Advancement and Support of Education) District I Conference in Boston. Being a designer among college development and alumni relations people required a completely different plan and mindset.

Here's what I did in advance: 

1. Researched like crazy. I spent too many hours on the conference web site reading about the sessions and the speaker bios. I Googled and checked on LinkedIn, then made myself 3 lists: interesting sessions, sessions my targets would most likely be in and speakers I might want to meet. (Note to conference committee: this would have been a lot easier if the web site was better organized and used readable typography.)

2. Posted a question to the CASE LinkedIn group about the conference. I got a response from one of the presenters who said it was a great networking opportunity. That started a conversation and we arranged to meet there. This proved to be the best move I made.

3. Got my game face on. Being an introvert, I admit that putting myself in the mix of strangers whose workstyles and areas of expertise are totally different from mine scared me. So I turned to Ilise's book, Stop Pushing Me Around!, for tips on questions to ask and ideas to offer. I also reread the chapter, "Be a Conference Commando," in Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi.

4. Set some goals that I could actually reach: Talk to at least 10 people. (Not a very high number for 2 days, but as I said, I'm an introvert.) Get ideas for enewsletter topics. Gain knowledge I can share w/my current clients. Get the attendee list. Check out the competition.

How'd I do? 
 

Cold Calling Nightmare Comes True

It's Cold Calling Day. Ugh. I schedule this task about a week after I send out hard-copy materials to people I haven't met but may use my services. Cold Calling Day is never on a Monday and never on a Friday and always between the decent hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. I open up my marketing outreach list and then I open lots of marketing articles and blogs to read between calls and keep my energy up.

Today was supposed to be a good Cold Calling Day because my prospects weren’t really cold. A client who no longer needs my services but thinks I do a great job gave me twenty referrals. Why wouldn't his contacts want my help?

It started out smoothly. I left seven left messages and got one request for materials by email. I thought I'd get another easy one out of the way by calling a gentlemen who might even remember me - I planned his retirement party at the Guggenheim back when I was in-house at his law firm. 

I picked up the phone with enthusiasm, dialed and was confronted with the first wave...the assistant. After I had thoroughly convinced her I was not some loony tune but a viable human being worthy of speaking to her boss, I heard him..."hello?"

Problem Solving: Lessons Learned from an Electrician’s Service Call

I recently had an electrician come out to fix a lighting problem in my kitchen.  In the process I learned some lessons that are important for anyone who gets paid to solve problems – and that’s pretty much all of us, right?

You see, what should have been a 15-minute service call turned out to be a 2-hour one.  I’ll spare you the details (although I do have to relay a few in my points below).  The short story is the guy spent about an hour trying to determine what was causing the problem but ended up having to call in his partner to help.  After the second guy arrived, it took them another 45 minutes before they stumbled across the real source of the problem and then they were able to fix it right away.

As I reflected on what happened, I realized the ways they went about trying to fix the problem were all wrong – and yet, if I’m really honest with myself, I find that I’m probably guilty of using the same methods to address my clients’ challenges.  Perhaps some of these will sound familiar to you:

1.  Jumping to conclusions

What happened:  To demonstrate the problem to the electrician, I used a dimmer switch that happens to be one of those newer dual-function ones (dimmer and on/off.)  The unusual nature of the switch caught the guy’s attention and he immediately pronounced that the problem was probably caused by the switch.  While it soon became clear the switch was not the problem, his initial reaction seemed to bias his perspective for the remainder of his visit.  He kept on returning to the switch, convinced there had to be something wrong with it.

Lesson learned:  Avoid the temptation to think we have the answer right away.

Psychologists use the term “the primacy effect” to refer to the cognitive bias that results from the disproportionate salience of initial stimuli or observations. For example, we are more likely to remember words we’ve read toward the beginning of a long list, for example, than words we’ve read in the middle.  As problem solvers, we might be guilty of allowing the primacy effect to cloud our judgment and lead us down the wrong path.

Instead of jumping to conclusions, we should exercise discipline and conduct a thorough analysis before we offer a diagnosis.