The Marketing Mix | official blog of the Marketing Mentor community

Growing Your Business with Marketing, Week 1: Wrangling your contacts

This is Week One of a 52-week project/experiment in DIY marketing. Armed with nothing but a copy of the 2009 Grow Your Business Marketing Plan + Calendar and my bare wits, I'm applying the skills you need to grow a business in real time, day by day, and reporting on them week by week. You can follow along here every Monday; check in with my companion blog, A Virgo's Guide to Marketing, for additional links and information.

This week: Turning your snarl of contacts into a manageable database

If you've been around at all (meaning, in business, or even just an adult who's made friends and acquaintances along the way), you're going to have a ton of what is, for the most part, raw data. If you're like me—a great starter who's not so much with the follow-through—you're also going to have the added complication of multiple systems in various stages of implementation.

Choosing the right database solution

I've set up (and abandoned) systems in Palm, Entourage, Daylite, gmail, Address Book and various combo platters of same. I've also suffered more system crashes and database corruptions than I care to either remember or admit. Fortunately, I'm lousy with the former, so I'm not as worried about the latter.

A final borked-iMac situation made me decide to start from almost-scratch and implement a new system with the old data. Meaning, I started out with a clean hard drive, fresh installs of all software and hand-importing and sorting of all data.

After much gnashing of teeth about what kind of contact management system to commit to, I finally settled on Address Book, the vanilla contact system bundled with the Mac:

• it's light, so it's not using a ton of system resources
• it syncs to my iPhone (I like having my info with me at all times)
• it syncs to gmail contacts (see above)
• it's customizable via tagging and smart groups (more on that in a moment)
• it's the simplest solution possible (Good enough for Einstein, good enough for me.)

If I decide I need something more robust to manage contacts, I'll research other solutions with my particular goal in mind. Which brings me to my next point: before you set up your database, know your market.

Identify your target market, THEN build your database system

As I mentioned last week, I'm in a slightly unusual position in that I have built up a brand (communicatrix) and a business (design) already, but am trying to move into a writing/speaking/consulting space. Ilise and I talked over my goals and for the foreseeable future, I'm going to focus on creative solopreneurs who need help with their DIY marketing, with "actors" as a kinda-sorta special subset.

For me, this meant Address Book. It also meant going through all my my Address Book contacts, one by one—over 1400 in Address Book along at the start of the project—cleaning up each of them by hand, then coding it with a series of tags that would make the system useful.

Introducing Colleen's 100% Non-Patented Tagging System

(Note: this works in Address Book, a Mac-based desktop client; if you're using something else, test your tagging system on a few contacts before spending quality time revising your database.)

I knew I needed to be clear on my goals (target market and desired outcomes) before getting started with  the organizing. My friend and accountability partner (and organized diva supreme) Dyana Valentine suggested that I figure out my taxonomy first, then apply as I went through the list. I'd gone through a similar kind of exercise with my friend (and user experience diva supreme) Lea Ann Hutter before launching version 3.0 of my website and it was really helpful.

The idea was to create as many as I needed and as few as possible, to keep things sane. I came up with:

• #acting (actors and people in acting-related industries, like casting directors, etc.)
• #friends (I use this for friends and family)
• #design (designers and design-related services, fields, etc.)
• #clients (current or past clients)
• #prospects (self-explanatory...I hope!)
• #reconnect (people I know and have fallen out of touch with)
• #develop (people I don't know so well, but would like to)
• #maven (people who are the best at what they do)
• #writing (anything writing-related—my writing, other writers, etc.)
• #speaking (same as above, but with speaking)
• #reco (people I'd recommend to other people—I like looking smart by passing on good info, and I like being helpful!)

In addition to these, as long as I was going through everything, I added a few more for possible future sorting purposes:

• #admin (emails needed for whitelisting purposes)
  
• #blog #pr #journalist (for people who are plugged in, in case I have something I need to plug)
  
• #? (names I had incomplete info for or flat-out didn't recognize; for GTDers, this is like a "someday-maybe" pile)

I'll be honest: once I got started, I found a lot more things I wanted to tag for. Stuff like where I'd met people, if at an event (#CFC, #SOBCon, #SXSW, etc.) or time of life (#ETHS, #cornell, etc) or any other thing I might possibly want to remember, use or sort for (#connector, for times I need to reach outside my network quickly; #law, in case I find myself running afoul of it—you get the idea.)

I then set up some smart groups immediately: "Friends," "Clients," "Develop," etc. I intend to start going through these lists methodically, getting in touch—or back in touch—day to day and week to week. I'll also do another pass with the tags and pull out all of the actors who have requested being on a mailing list for workshops I plan to start up in February.

The beauty of Smart Groups, hashtags and flexibility

Smart groups rule when it comes to this stuff because when you add a new contact and tag them, they automagically get placed in the corresponding group: it continually updates itself!

And now that I've (mostly) got everything tagged, I can also do combo platters as the need arises:

• if someone calls for a copywriter recommendation, I search for (#writing + #reco)
• if I need to talk to a journalist who specializes in marketing, I search for (#journalist + #marketing)
• if I'm stuck on a Mac problem, I search for (#dev + #maven)

And so on. I can also search for location: if I'm planning something like my Seattle trip, I can create a Smart Group whose parameters include cities, states, ZIP codes, etc. (Apple, I'd love it if you'd make this stuff searchable on the fly in the iPhone! Oh—and Smart Groups ON the iPhone would be a great start, although I did find a roll-your-own scripting solution for the intrepid.)

Some words of advice before you start

In Address Book, the #hashtags go in the "Notes" section of the entry. The hashtag (# sign) means that when you do a search, it will pull up only the tag, not other stuff. For example, if you wanted "service" to be a tag but didn't use the # sign in front of it, a search would pull up every contact that had the word "service" in it instead of just your desired pool.

Write out your tags on index cards first. Go crazy with the first pass. Write down everything you might EVER have to sort for. Then edit, tweak, refine. See what redundancies exist. See if you can make tags shorter and easier to remember. If you can afford the time, do this over a few days, especially if you're a nitpicky type like me. I eliminated something like 15 with one pass. (I added in new ones as I went, but it would have been worse if I'd kept those AND added new ones.)

Backup! Backup! Backup! Do it as you go, and keep redundant copies, just in case. ALWAYS perform a backup before you sync to any other program or device. Most responsible sync-ware will warn you before you do it, but be hyper-aware and responsible about it. Data entry is a great task when your brain is fried; syncing data is not. I screwed up my database once after syncing with Facebook (which was great for importing missing addresses and photos, but still) and again with the gmail sync. Backup. Seriously!

I won't lie: this has been a far, far more arduous task than I'd anticipated. I've been combing through my various databases, email programs (gmail and local Mail.app) and stacks of business cards for weeks now in anticipation of 2009. If you've got a lot of contacts, or have been undisciplined about setting up a system and sticking to it, give yourself time. You're not just doing monkey work for nothing; you're investing your time to create a powerful tool for reaching out to your current contacts and building your network as you grow.

The Simplest Solution

If you're just starting out with a brand new business, you may not need a system even this complicated. What you'll want to do is just to collect all the names and contact information you have of people, and get it all into some kind of trusted system: an address book, electronic or paper; a series of index cards, alphabetized; a separate piece of paper for each contact that you put in one folder to start, then more as you go.

Start with the information you have, and use that channel to get more. If you have an email, connect to say "hi", say what you're up to and send some sort of friendly message. If it's appropriate, you can ask for more info right there; if not, move slowly, build the relationship back up a bit and then ask for contact info. You want to be real and authentic, not a shark; no one likes to be looked at as though they were chum.

Keep a record of each communication with that person. When I was an actor, I noted each letter, audition or call on a sheet of paper devoted to that person (and kept copies of stuff on the computer.) I also noted things I read about them that might be of interest, like hobbies, achievements, etc., so there would be things to talk about the next time we met or spoke. You can catalog family members, birthdays, job changes—anything that's not creepy. And remember, people LOVE getting snail mail, if it's personal. (Well, most people do; if you find out someone doesn't, note that, too!)

Make the system better!

This is definitely a case where many minds are better than one. If you see flaws in the system, or ways to improve it, please let me know in the comments. And if you have a fantastic, completely different system of your own that words—especially with follow-up, which I know is going to be the weak link here—I would love to hear it.

NEXT MONDAY is WEEK TWO: Drafting boilerplate for email & a script for (gasp) cold calling!

Growing Your Business with Marketing: A Real-Time Experiment

We all know we should be marketing; we even know a lot about how we should go about it. But actually doing it—day after day, week after week, month after month? That’s another story.

You can’t make me market myself...

I’m not immune to “I Don’t Wanna” Disease, especially when it comes to certain aspects of it (cold research calling, I’m looking at you.) Yet I’ve never been more aware of how important it is to be out there like clockwork, with a consistent message. The stuff I managed to do well in 2008—networking, primarily, both in real-time and via social media—really helped my business. I started landing the speaking and consulting gigs I was interested in, and it’s given me hope that I can fully transition my business from one thing (primarily design) to another (primarily helping people become better communicators).

...or can you?

As many of you know, Ilise is not only one of my co-authors on the Marketing Mix: she’s also my coach, and has been for over two years. She knows me well enough by now to understand what floats my ChrisCraft: I love solving problems, creating order where there was none, and illuminating stuff along the way. So I should not have been surprised when she came up with this genius idea:

“Why don’t you do the Grow Your Business calendars out loud, as a project, here on the blog?”

Love! It! And for a whole host of reasons.

How YOU are going to help ME (and vice versa)

First and foremost, this project will provide personal accountability to keep me on track with my goals. I’ve got a business to get up and running, and I do better when I know people are looking. Sad? Maybe. But true, so I might as well get down with it.

Next, it’s right in line with my personal credo: live out loud; help other people do the same. My writing, my volunteering, my one-on-one work are all about throwing a light on something I’ve been through, to make it a little easier for the next person. I’ve got a lot of good company in the self-as-experiment department, from my friends Gretchen Rubin, Matthew Cornell and Jason & Jodi Womack to the founders of NaNoWriMo to...well, a host of famous pundits.

Finally, it’s a new project! And I’m a nerd—nerds love new projects! I’ll be seizing this golden opportunity to put up a new WordPress site under a sort-of-new imprimatur. Articles will post here every Monday through 2009, and be cross-posted to The Virgo’s Guide to Marketing. Dig it!

Aaaaand...a pitch! (Hey, it’s MARKETING, remember?)

Of course, with any luck, we’ll also sell a few calendars along the way. (Or rather, Ilise and Peleg will.) There are two, so you know: the Start-Up Plan and the Veteran’s Plan (that link again). Each takes you step-by-step through a plan that will get your marketing in place, running 24/7/365, to help you avoid “feast or famine” syndrome.

Since I’m in the unique position of being both a veteran at some things and a newbie with this consulting start-up, I’m going to be drawing on both. You can choose whichever you like, or roll your own. But I’m telling you, the calendars are great. I get nothing for saying this (other than a warm, fuzzy, Virgo feeling of righteousness), so you know I’m not shilling, here. If you'd like some hands-on kinda help, Ilise can provide that a number of ways, as well. For details, click here.

Please let me know if you’re going to play along. It’d be great to have some company. Or just stay tuned and cheer me on. (It’d be seriously great to have some cheering.)

NEXT MONDAY is STEP ONE: Getting your contact database in order!

Guest Post: Networking, holiday style!

If there's one thing I learned first-hand this year, it's that nothing beats getting out of your own, little space and meeting people in the flesh. Not that social media isn't great! It is; it's how I found all these awesome people to meet. People like today's guest author, Dave Hardwick, whom I met online when he posted a link to my blog, communicatrix, on his blog, then met in person on my trips up to Seattle this past fall.

Dave has a few interesting things to say about meeting people, as well. Enjoy!

A major snow system or two ago, Colleen invited me to write a guest-post.

What an honor!

I was humbled!

I had NO IDEA what to write. 

 

What could the self-employed readers of a marketing blog possibly need to hear from a recruiter in the tech sector? What could I say that would even begin to be helpful? And while we're at it, why would Colleen, whom I met randomly via our blogs and then in person up in Seattle, ask me to do this, anyway?!

Then it hit me: networking! We met...via networking! We became friends...via networking! And not in the usual, stand around at an event, handing out your business cards way, but in the strange, serendipitous, bonded-over-common-interests way.

So yes, I'm going to recommend networking, but an unusual kind. A holiday kind. It goes like this:

1. Look around the homes around your home. How many of them have people inside them that you know? Have you partied with them in a while? Create a list of 10 you don't know yet (and, for safety's sake, don't go visit someone who gives you the heebie-jeebies. That little voice in your gut is not to be dismissed!
2. Go make some gingerbread or holiday-appropriate cookies (6 or 7 dozen). If you're SERIOUSLY baking challenged, either try out sugar cookies ('cause they are simple beyond belief), or brownies (ditto), or get a friend to help you, or worst case, go buy them (but then, that would miss two key parts of this lesson, frugality and giving a gift that keeps on giving).
3. Decorate them. Again, holiday appropriate for your intended audience.
4. While you're waiting for them to cool, type out the recipe on your computer and title it, "Colleen's Christmas Elf Cookies". Ha ha. Actually, put your name in place of 'Colleen'. You want them to remember you. Then print them onto 3x5 cards.
5. Put them on paper plates and wrap them in saran wrap. Or, stick them into quart- or gallon-sized Ziplocs, depending on quantity.
6. Put a bow on your cookie container of choice. Also put on a nice tag that has your name on it so they know who it came from.
7. Get your party clothes on. Warm party clothes, as appropriate.
8. Go out and deliver the goods. In person. Knock on the door, TAKE A BIG BREATH, introduce yourself, get their names, wish them a happy holiday, etc. Maybe even get into a conversation with them! My guess is that because you just handed them a recipe, they'll give you all kinds of fun lines for you to play off of. Like, "Wow, my mom used to do this." Or, "Gosh, my favorite Holiday treat is rum balls." And, "Have you ever had holiday peanut brittle?"
9. Use your wit, intelligence, and most importantly the air you breathe and talk to them.

I bet this will end up be the most holiday fun you've had in a long while. And who knows what kind of doors it may open for you in the coming year?

An ode to great notes

I wasn't familiar with Julia Reich's lovely holiday notecards until last year, when I received some as a gift from Ilise.

The simple, elegant designs, rendered in letterpress, which makes them feel extra-special, remind me very much of famed Washington State artist Nikki McClure's gorgeous woodcuts (I've been using her calendars for years).

Apparently, Ilise and I aren't the only big fans of Julia's work; her notecards were selected from among over 2,200 entries in STEP magazine's Reader's Choice awards competition. You can see the other entries (there are several categories, with lots of inspiring visual design) by going here, then creating an account, then browsing the entries until you see Julia's designs.

I'll warn you up front—the navigation is VERY clunky. But if you like to look at pretty, interesting things, you won't be disappointed. Plus you can do your part to bring Julia a little well-deserved publicity.

(And if you do like those Nikki McClure calendars, there's a two-fer special on them this week only through the BuyOlympia website!)

A new tool for worry-free email "vacations"

As email continues threatening to bury us all, more and more people are coming up with creative ways of dealing with it when we've got to knuckle down and get real stuff done.

The "only-check-twice-daily" method is great, except for those few emails you're always worried about in the back of your mind. You know--the emergency emails that really are an emergency.

AwayFind deals with just that problem. The freshly-launched web app acts like a filter, shielding you from email onslaught while letting the people who really, truly need to get through to you via text message. You sign up for an account (free or pro), create a special autoresponder that goes out to anyone who emails you and go about your business as usual. 

To celebrate the launch, AwayFind is offering a really great ebook on how to control your email flow along with any free subscription you sign up for by November 21. After that, the ebook will only come bundled with the pro version of the account, which also gives you features like the ability to brand your messages, access to support, etc. (And it really is a great ebook—I previewed it, and I'm picky as hell.)

AwayFind is the brainchild of an enterprising chap, Jared Goralnick, whom I first met back in May at SOBCon in Chicago. He is obscenely young to be so accomplished, but I forgive him that because he not only comes up with great stuff, but is the good, nice kind of networker: proactive, friendly and always looking for ways to be helpful. His excellent productivity blog--one of very few in my Google Reader--is here.

See also:

• A great page of uses for AwayFind that may not be immediately obvious
• A great write-up with screenshots by Lifehacker editor Gina Trapani

Guest Post: Another HARO success story

We're big fans of Peter Shankman's Help a Reporter Out (HARO) mailing list here at the Marketing Mix blog. Previous guest poster and NYC-based feng shui consultant Ann Bingley Gallops is, too. Check out her latest experience with the list, and how she addressed the reporter in question to maximize her chances of becoming a journalist's resource.

I am on Peter Shankman’s Help a Reporter Out (HARO) mailing list. One of last Monday's editions (editrix's note: HARO goes out three times daily) contained the following query:

"I need an expert in the field of Feng Shui to speak about how harmonizing your bedroom/house will help relationship dynamics. This article will be posted on Beauty News NYC, an online beauty publication with over 400,000 unique visitors monthly. This is an opportunity to promote yourself as an expert. High resolution photo needed.”

I responded immediately with the following email:

"I am a Feng Shui expert here in NYC and have just given an entire workshop on this very topic, Feng Shui in the Bedroom.  In Feng Shui, the bedroom is one of the top three most important areas in any home. I love to talk about it because there are so many things people can do with Feng Shui to enhance their love lives in the bedroom."

I signed off with contact information and a link so that the reporter could check out my credentials.

The result? The reporter contacted me immediately to ask about my background and experience, and out of over 30 respondents to her query, she chose me for her piece. She told me that unlike the other responses she received, mine was "the most sincere". I interviewed with her the next morning and will be going to her home for a sample Feng Shui consultation. The results will appear on BeautyNewsNYC.com throughout the month of December. 

What did I learn? That “Be Yourself” applies in the field of media relations just as it does in so many parts of business life. This reporter didn’t want to hear about all the credentials I’ve accumulated until she was convinced that I was passionate about what I do.

Guest Post: Turning your passion into a profitable business

We go on and on here at the Marketing Mix about how a "real" job is not the sure thing it was for previous generations of gold-watch-and-full-pension retirees. Couple that with the rise in restlessness among an underchallenged, overburdened working population and you have the perfect conditions for striking out on your own. But how?

Christine L. Dennison, a fellow member of that amazing advice resource, the Ask Liz Ryan mailing list, recently answered that very question on the list with her own story about creating her job coaching business. It came from a place I think is so wise--creating a business around your own natural skills and passion--and was so helpful and well-written, I asked her if she minded sharing it here. Chris graciously accepted, and even agreed to author a few more guest posts, which I love: always great to get posts from a professional writer!

I set up my business twenty years ago when I decided that I really didn't want to go back to my corporate life when we started our family. I thought about what I could possibly do that people would be willing to pay for, and that I could do from home. I had been working for 15 years, had just spent 8 years as a headhunter, but had no desire to continue going after corporate clients -- I loved the process, but had always been frustrated that I wasn't getting paid to help anyone but those "perfect" candidates at the top of the food chain. I had developed skills in writing résumés, and I understood the hiring process.

I started by mailing a letter to everyone I knew (previous colleagues, friends, Lamaze class alums, etc.), announcing my new business. I self-published a one-page quarterly newsletter and looked for cheap advertising in school event brochures, village directories, etc. I bit the bullet and spent big bucks (for me) for a one-inch ad in the Donnelley Yellow Pages. Gradually, the business came. When the Internet came along, I added a website. Business was steady.

One challenge for you is to start charging for what you now do for free. You'll want to enlist your current network to help you in your marketing -- maybe continuing to help your current group for free and charging only new clients, especially since your current group is your best resource for new business. Since you're good at networking, you can now apply those skills and use those contacts to promote your business.

Christine Dennison, celebrating 19 years as The Job Search Coach, helps people find jobs they love through her résumé writing and job search coaching services. She offers a wealth of practical advice from her previous experience as a headhunter, as a corporate HR manager and trainer, and in business operations and marketing.

Ask Liz Ryan is the online community based on the workplace, work/life and networking advice of author, commentator and advisor Liz Ryan. Members use the group to get advice from Liz and from one another on careers, business, networking and work/life issues. Its mission is to support working people at the intersection of work and life.

Here's your chance to shine eco-consciously!

Crescent Hill Books, publisher of many collaborative design books (we told you about one of their logo books a ways back), is currently accepting submissions for a new book on eco-conscious design, The Big Book of Green Design. Over 1,000 entries, printed on environmentally-friendly paper, and no charge to submit.

This link will take you to their submission site. You'll need to take a moment create an account in order to view the various books and to submit your own entries.

Don't dilly-dally, either. Deadline is December 1, and November is a short month!

Guest Post: HARO Creates Buzz for Your Business

I've been a fan of PR genius Peter Shankman's Help a Reporter Out mailing list since I first discovered it this spring, talking it up here, in my own newsletter and in countless emails, conversations and presentations. (In fact, one of the highlights of my recent trip to Seattle was getting to meet the man in person—he's everywhere, is Peter, and just as funny, sharp and generous as his thrice-daily messages would lead you to believe.)

I've used it to raise the profile of Crohn's disease a bit, in an article for MSNBC online. Ilise was recently interviewed for a piece on shyness to run in the NY Post in November. And here, Marketing Mentor client Dara Turransky shares her experience, as well as some tips on how to get the most out of a terrific service.

HARO is an excellent resource for creating some buzz for your business. I used HARO recently to find radio interviews for two of my clients. The pitches worked out great. My clients received much needed exposure, and I looked like a hero to them.

The best part about the service is that it's FREE. All you need to do is sign up for the daily inquiries and HARO is sent to you three times a day. HARO reporters are always looking for experts to interview for articles ranging from the latest Halloween trends to best marketing practices.

Keep in mind these simple tips to get the most out of HARO:

• Only answer inquiries that match your business objectives.
• Craft your pitch to match what the reporter is looking for as closely as is humanly possible.
• Don't SPAM any of the reporters with off-topics.
• You can forward inquiries to friends, but don't post them on the Web or on any blog.
• You aren't allowed to harvest the reporters' email addresses in any way. There are severe virtual consequences for anyone who does.
• You don't need to know a great deal of PR to use the list, just be yourself and professional. If you're so inclined to learn a bit more about PR, then I would read Michael Levine's Guerilla PR 2.0. He writes in an easy-to-read format with great tips and lots of examples on how to write a pitch that delivers results. You will also find most of the actionable items in the chapters can be scaled down for a one or two-person shop.

You can sign up for HARO here and join the other 36,000 subscribers on the list. Information on Michael Levine, his book as well as his PR firm is available here.

Dara Turransky is the Founder and Creative Director of 7 Lucky Dogs, a marketing agency for the pet industry. Learn more about her agency by visiting her website or email her at dara AT 7luckydogs DOT com.

Brand is behavior (and good news for solopreneurs)

You think you know more about marketing your small business than the big guys? PR and marketing guru extraordinaire Jonathan Salem Baskin thinks you're probably right. Baskin's new book, Branding Only Works on Cattle, is all about how the old model of marketing--building up a brand's "image" and selling it like crazy to the teeming masses--is beyond broken: it's irrelevant.

Full disclosure: Jonathan and I go way, way back; we've known each other since we were in high school, back in Chicago (although I could not find photo documentation of such...thank GOD). But frankly, that means less special treatment on the part of the interviewer, not more; I think you'll enjoy the results!

* * * * *

CW: You've got a pretty game-changing thesis about marketing in your book. Before we get to the meat of it--that brand is behavior (which I admit, I didn't "get" just by looking at it)--can you talk a bit about what branding used to be, and what started to change that?

JSB: Sure. The human mind has always been a 'black box' of swirling, changing thoughts and opinions. There was a brief time in the mid-20th Century when mass media could hope to influence it, if not sometimes manipulate what consumers might aspire to do. But those days are long gone, thanks to the Internet, mobile media, do-it-yourself culture, and the birth of successive generations who've been inured to the claims of marketing. If brands were 'shorthand,' people now can access the complete versions of things, with annotation, additional content, and reviews. And then add to them.

Yet people still make choices, and they attach meaning to what they do.  So what's the best model for getting your commercial interests into that equation? It's not the old approach to branding, which doesn't work anymore (and is the reason why trust in corporations is at an all-time low, people aren't loyal anymore, and even some premium products are finding that the only branding attribute that truly matters is low price).

CW: So the solution is...?

JSB: I say the way to address this reality is to redefine your brand as behavior.

CW: Ah! Or "duh." Can you break that down for us a bit? Into some practical, actionable things?

JSB: Definitely. Brand-as-behavior is all about action and results, not fluffy, unquantifiable stuff.

So brand as behavior can manifest itself as...

• ...a tactic (how you communicate and illustrate what you believe is best done with actual actions, not just declarations)
• ...a strategy (by focusing on behaviors, you can understand your customers or consumers by what they do, when they do it, what causes it, and thus better understand and forecast your branding efforts)
• ...an ultimate goal (sales is the only real behavior that matters, isn't it?)

So giving folks information, or crafting "brand experiences," is only a small portion of this new definition of brands.  It's far bigger than marketing, and far more substantial than a creative campaign. It opens up a lot of resources within a company, not to mention mind power, to come up with newer and more effective ways to get and keep people buying your stuff.

And it provides a simple, obvious litmus test for every expenditure: if it prompts an action, it's worth considering; if all it does is propagate something "out there" that is important to people's thoughts about your brand, think again.

There's no "there" there.  Behavior is what matters. 

CW: How does that work lower down on the marketing food chain? What actions or processes should a solopreneur or small business owner be focusing her marketing efforts around?

JSB: Interestingly, small businesses are naturals for this approach; they do it almost unconsciously, or at least by necessity.  I like to refer to it as "one room marketing," where every member of the company sits around the same table and participates in every decision, irrespective of 'silo' or 'area of expertise' (for solopreneurs, that's easy).  What results is 1) a focus on getting things done, 2) an awareness that unless it not only 'touches' a customer/consumer, but moves her or him closer to purchase, it probably isn't affordable, and 3) an ability to change based on the behavioral reality of the business or the marketplace.

The challenge is to resist the siren call of 'branding' that might redirect some of that focus and money to nonsense ideas like 'building brand equity.'  Small businesses know that brands exist in real-time, and that they have little to do with image...and lots to do with products, services, and relationships.  Lead generation is all about awareness, but to call it 'branding' is a reach. 

CW: So I'm actually being a responsible design consultant when I tell some potential clients they don't need a professionally designed identity or website yet?

JSB: Totally. In a behavioral model, the 'identity' is a culmination of a deep understanding of behaviors (extant and desired, plus a causal map of real actions to move people along to purchase and re-purchase).

A website is a tactic, although a gloriously cool one. I'm sure you've had clients who expected a newly-designed web site would somehow tell, convince, inspire, and sustain a new relationship with customers...and it never works that way, SEO notwithstanding. Really ugly design on top of entirely beautiful behavioral strategy can still work (Amazon, or Google search for that matter). Great design is all the better, but it's not a first step or substitute for smart business strategy.

CW: Can you elaborate a bit on some potential sales closing processes, or even post-sale processes, that might help boost numbers long-term?

JSB: Lead generation and sales conversion are really interesting subjects when it comes to the role of branding. Once you start with the proposition that your customers have no relationship with 'your brand,' per se, it starts you on a very useful path.

Consider closing sales: in the traditional brand model, price is somewhat external to the brand proposition...it's the valuation of the benefits, many of which are associative or intangible, that accompany the brand 'promise.' In reality, of course, price is actually what a lot of people care about most, and it usually stands out as one of the only apples-to-apples points that would-be purchasers can compare between choices. Further, in the old model (I'm thinking of the tactic of direct marketing specifically), the idea is that you name a price and hope that it will, with the brand vaguely in the background somehow, prompt a sale.  

I think that's tantamount to asking somebody to marry you the moment you meet them.

CW: Not a very compelling scenario. So as small business owners, how do we rewrite that scenario?

JSB: Closing sales means giving purchasers real, compelling, substantive reasons to buy, and to buy 'now' vs. 'later.' 

If you define your brand as a set of behaviors -- those that you take for your customers, and those which your efforts enable by them -- your branding can be made far more relevant to registering actual sales. You've skipped all of the imagery and ephemera that links your product or service to some abstraction, or claimed things that you hope somehow, someway, sometime your purchasers will remember, care about, and apply to their decision-making. Behaviors are your tools to truly differentiate what you sell, and allow you to integrate price far earlier into your sales close conversation. 

CW: Which translates into action how, exactly?

JSB: Skip 'buying the vague brand promise' and focus on communicating...no, demonstrating...the actual brand value of a relationship with your business, as defined by doing real things that have real value.

I have done a lot of work recently on the idea of 'customer loyalty,' and how it's so fleeting in this day and age. If we see re-purchase/post-sale processes as a set of behaviors, and not the domain for creative content or other intangibles, we are again handed the tools to make long-term relationships with customers meaningful and somewhat sustainable. Think about how many post-sale 'relationships' with businesses default to nothing more than 1) more cross-selling nonsense sent to the customer, 2) thinly-veiled sales promotion campaigns, always trying to upsell good customers, and/or 3) qualitative surveys, frequent purchaser points, or other activities that make the quid-pro quo of selling terribly obvious.

CW: Whereas...?

JSB: A behavioral model would allow you to define your post-purchase relationship in terms of actual things you do for your customers...you could almost quantify these activities and market them up-front as reasons to buy from you. Personal service. Quick issue resolution. Random discounts. Whatever.

CW: You worked for some really big, fancy organizations—Edelman, Grey, Limited Brands—before hanging out your own shingle. What would you say are the most important things to have in place before making the leap to working for yourself?

JSB: Be crazy. Lol...well, actually, be crazy about what you love to do. I'm convinced that going out on your own is dependent on your love for, and the reward you get from, doing whatever it is you want to do. Know it. Believe it, don't just aspire to some ideal future or lifestyle. So talking about having 'passion' is not enough; you really need to have an intimate, real understanding of what makes you tick, and be at peace at the prospect that you could do your own thing, not make a ton of money, and still be very, very happy because of the mere fact that you're doing it.

After that, you need to be very realistic about that money situation. My brand is behavior paradigm suggests that you can't afford to contemplate what would-be clients or customers "should do," or what you intend to tell or "educate" them to do. Understand what they do, pure and simple, and figure out the way(s) your product or service will fit into those behaviors. I've had a lot of start-up clients who were shocked that people didn't grasp (or buy) their newly enhanced whateveritwas they sold. Your marketing will need to communicate not why people should be your customers or clients, but why there's absolutely no good reason why they SHOULDN'T be. SO your plan should be material and obvious, not aspirational.

CW: Fantastic advice, and all too easily ignored in the throes of launch fever. Any parting words of wisdom?

JSB: My last bit of advice would be to remain flexible. If there was one thing I underestimated when I decided to go solo, it was the amount of surprise, if not outright chaos, that would become a regular aspect of my life. If you're the kind of person who doesn't like that, you shouldn't try to be your own boss. On the other hand, the flip-side of that chaos is that you still have control over how you respond to it (or anticipate the next surprise), and it's a very empowering feeling.

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Jonathan Salem Baskin, "chief heretic" at Baskin Associates, Inc., has provided branding and marketing consulting to clients across four continents, specializing in translating business strategies into programs that involved more than words and images. You can read more of his fascinating (and insanely well-written) takes on marketing at his blog, Dim Bulb. A practitioner of all he preaches, he also has a business website and actual MUSIC VIDEOS he created as part of the promotion for Branding Only Works on Cattle.