Social Media Marketing Seminar April 28

If you find yourself confused about how your business can effectively use social media marketing, consider attending our next seminar on this topic.

Being held at The Front™ Business Club on Tuesday, April 28, 2009, this seminar will show you how you can use tools such as blogs, Facebook, YouTube and other sites like them to reach your target audience and grow your business.

This is an afternoon seminar from 3 p.m. ~ 5 p.m. The cost is $20, but if you pre-register it's only $10 - and you can pay online through PayPal.

Learn more and register by clicking here.

What's Your REAL Excuse?

While at the Small Business Club Niagara trade show yesterday I struck up a conversation with a vendor. She asked if I had a business and I gave her my card telling them that among other things, I create and implement effective online marketing campaigns. Her response:

"I have a website already and I'm not ready for something more elaborate."

Thinking she probably had a good site already I didn't inquire further, but took a card and went on my way.

I had a look at her website this morning. It's a DIY site that is obviously a work in progress. I'll restrain myself from a rant about DIY sites, although they're fair game for a future post.

What bothers me isn't the state of the website. It was the realization that the rebuff was based on such flimsy logic. I've heard it before, but it never fails to baffle me.

• You exhibit at a trade show so you must want more business.
• A properly designed, well-marketed website will get you more business - likely even more than you'd get from the trade show
• But you're "not ready" to establish a better online presence.
• This means you're not really interested in getting more business
• But you're at a trade show so you must want more business.
• I'm confused...

Here's what I wish she had said:

"I did my website myself because I'm trying to save money, but I'm not really sure how I should design and market it effectively. Do you have any inexpensive or cost-effective suggestions that would help me make money online?"

Being honest with yourself and asking for help when you need it is a marvelous way to get ahead in the world. I work on this every day. Knowing the REAL reasons why you don't do something and having the courage to admit them to yourself and others is an important step, in my mind, to move forward in business and life.

Speaking About Passion

I'm speaking - in just over 6 hours - to a group known as "The Linkers".

Yes, it's Carrie Matthew's "KNOW it ALL" Niagara Compliment Club breakfast meeting, and I'm the speaker-du-jour, so to speak.

I'm excited, because it's the first exposure of "Passion In A Digital Age" - my thought-provoking, humourous, insightful presentation about how companies can thrive instead of merely survive by injecting passion into everything they do.

I'm also going to be videotaping and watching myself to evaluate my presentation skills. I haven't done this in a while, so it'll probably be enlightening.

If you're very lucky, I may include the video of the presentation online...

Better Isn't Better When . . .

• nobody knows about it;
• the "betterness" isn't obvious;
• the "betterness" isn't communicated.

A story from a client about two organizations in his industry.

Organization #1 is a non-profit, has high standards and to achieve certification, you need to demonstrate extensive knowledge and put in a couple of years of study.

Organization #2 is a for-profit company that will certify anyone who can pass the organization's online certification test. It was demonstrated on television that a 12-year old with no industry knowledge could pass the test. The certification therefore requires next-to-no industry knowledge and virtually no time investment.

#1 has a small marketing budget due to its small membership. #2 has a large marketing budget because of its large membership.

To make things more interesting, because of government regulations, #1 can not say anything overtly bad about #2.

Despite the fact that individuals certified by #1 are arguably "better" than those certified by #2, the general public doesn't know that. The marketing of #2 is far superior to #1's efforts, so #1 is generally ignored.

Imagine having a root canal performed by person with no training. Ouch - with LOTS more ouches to come.

Imagine the same root canal performed by a professional dental surgeon. Ouch - but a much better probable outcome.

If masses of under-qualified individuals marketed dental surgery better than professional dental surgeons, which would you choose? Would you still choose the professional? Not doing so would be ridiculous. But what if you couldn't tell which was which? That would be scary.

Yet every day, consumers choose companies that have an industry certification that is essentially meaningless, largely because #2's better marketing drowns out the efforts of #1, which has a better "product".

Organization #1 has a serious problem - and it's primarily a marketing issue. More awareness. More focus on creating a compelling story on WHY their certification is better and why, by extension, their certified members are the best in the industry.

The good news: things can change - if organization #1 and its members get passionate about what they do.

They need to tell a better story, tell it to more people, and tell it because they really CARE. Who cares more - the person with several years training and the certification that demonstrates their capability to do the best possible job or a person who took an online course that virtually anyone could pass?

The sad thing is, the story I've told could describe ANY organization in any unregulated industry. Ignorant buyers - beware.

Searching For Passion

Ooh - that sounds like a racy title, doesn't it?

Well, it's controversial - at least, as controversial as what I'm going to say.

I think there needs to be more passion in business.

I'm not talking about the "behind-closed-office-doors-nookie" variety either.

I'm talking about the drive that got people into business in the first place - the "I'm excited to wake up in the morning to go to the office and do great things" kind of enthusiasm that we may have once had ourselves.

This got lost along the way for most people, as they "grew up", or more correctly, "grew old".

Most people have lost track of their inner child - the part of them that sees the potential this world offers and wonders how something CAN be done instead of "knowing" why it can't be.

We get it beaten out of us, starting in school by well-meaning people whose role it is to shape us into productive members of society, only to have us learn that at the end of our education, that the options we once felt were infinite are largely limited to what we "think" we can accomplish, instead of what we once dared to dream about doing.

What we call "work" is another destructive force for passion in most places. Management is there to make sure we do our jobs and to stamp out deviance from "the way things are done". This also means stamping out imagination and progress in many organizations, and it's a slow death for the spirit to work in a job that does not fulfill your life's ambitions.

Of course, this is a choice. You can choose to fit the norm, or you can choose to be extraordinary. Become a purple cow (to borrow a Seth Godin phrase). Lead your own Tribe (to borrow another). Dance to the beat of your own drum and make a difference in your life and the life of others.

It is this that I refer to when I talk about passion. The desire to create excellence and joy for both yourself and for others - by creating products and services people will LOVE, instead of merely consume. To do things as nobody else does them - and make a difference to yourself and the world.

Today, I reject conformity and settling for what I have always gotten.

Today I affirm my passion for my business and my desire to bring it out in yours.

Hold on to your hats because the ride's just beginning . . .