There are many, many good reasons to have a blog.

A recent post by one of my favorite bloggers, Mitch Joel, made a great case for it (as if I needed one) and the more I do it, the more value I get from it.

But, I recently discovered a surprise benefit of having a blog…it’s become a story repository for my main themes.

I was hired to do a 12 part webcast for Microsoft and outlined the topics I wanted to provide.

Of course, I have to provide the substance to back it up…which is where the blog came in handy.

I was able to search for the key terms (about which I’d been writing about for years) and find great, illustrative examples to help bring the point home.

It saved me HOURS of time and a lot of stress in preparation for the webcast.

In essence, I’d spent 3 years blogging to prepare me for the work of sharing the knowledge with the audience.

Just one more example of why it’s good value.

Most of my proposals are done via email.

We flush them out in a back and forth and the client just says “ok.”

With Microsoft, it doesn’t work that way.

We’ll do all the flushing out and then someone will say, “ok, can you send me a Statement of Work?”

Like taking the air out of a balloon, I deflate. SOW’s are just not that much fun.

Or are they?

I looked at myself in the mirror and said (yes, I actually did this), “uh, you idiot, the SOW is a touchpoint. It’s an opportunity to do something remarkable…or at least go for it.”

So, instead of a boring exercise, the SOW became an opportunity for creative expression.

The title of this one?

Michelle’s Conquest of the xxx Market Begins Here and Now

In Investment, I wrote:

Since I really like Michelle (she’s a lot of fun and has a ton of energy), she gets the “Raving Fan of Never Stop Marketing” price of xxxx

Lesson (for all of us): EVERY touchpoint is an opportunity. Take advantage of it. It’ll be more fun for you AND (hopefully) more remarkable for your clients/prospects.

The Never Stop Marketing Todd Newfield Award is given quarterly (roughly) to the blog reader who, through a comment (or multiple comments), best exemplifies Golden Rule #2  of my first boss.

His sage advice was:

"There are two keys to success in business.
First, only work with people you like.
Second, don't ever believe your own bullshit."

This quarter’s winner is Paul Farrell who wins for unsubscribing from the blog.

Sort of.

I got a note saying that Paul had unsubscribed from the blog.

So, as I usually do, I wrote back to him saying

“No hard feelings, I promise, but wondering where the value was missing for you? Always trying to learn.”

And, right after I hit send, I saw a note from Paul in my inbox

“Hey Jeremy, I’m moving my subscription of your blog to a new email address (since I moved companies). Got to tell you…for a guy who talks about touchpoints a lot, the unsubscribe confirmation email is NOT remarkable.”

Well, as it turns out, that’s managed by Feedburner and I have not yet been able to figure out how to change it (the welcome email I can affect, however).

Anyway, that’s not the point.

The point is that Paul kept me on my toes and that’s why he gets the award.

Congratulations!

For a tip on how to win the award yourself, see here.

He joins our illustrious list of previous winners

• Bob Fichtner
• Chris Hagner
• David Green
• Becky Blanton
• Kristen Zatina
• Adam Schorr
• Tom Siegman

Big shout out to Raving Fan Allan Burt who called me up with the suggestion that the most likely theme song of Never Stop Marketing would be ‘Start Me Up’ by the Rolling Stones”

As in…”if you start me up, I’ll never stop…” (marketing!!)

Alan—this one’s for you.

Everyone else…enjoy!

There’s a saying that it’s far easier to sell aspirin than vitamins.

People will pay to have pain alleviated much more often than they will to have the intangible “better.”

I was thinking about this the other day when my friend, Nelson Lee, sent me some sample supplements of his new products for Kidney Stone Relief and Urinary Tract Relief.

Now, fortunately, at this moment, I don’t have any problems that require this type of pain relief so, taking them, would, as Nelson say, “help keep  you from getting these problems.”

I’m all for that, but it got me thinking: “How do I know if it’s working?”

And, “if I don’t know, would I buy it again (or the first time)?”

This is the problem with vitamins. We, who sell them, KNOW that our products/services, etc. can and WILL make the lives of our potential customers better.

But, they don’t have a pain at that moment.

So, you’re better off selling the same thing as aspirin, if you can.

UNLESS..you take one other road.

The road of “the only people I care about are those who WANT to take vitamins and who believe in them already.”

I think about this with my clients. The clients that I want are those who say “I want and must innovate as a marketer. I want to get pushed. I’m not afraid of making mistakes. The status quo and doing what everyone else does isn’t going to work for me.”

Lesson: Decide if you are selling aspirin or vitamins. Then, talk to the worldview of those people.

Metrics are a good thing.

But, as the old adage goes, “not everything that can be measured matters and not everything that matters can be measured.”

For today, we’ll focus on the first part of the statement.

In The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement, Eli Goldratt uses a parable based in a manufacturing plant to demonstrate that many of the systems, processes, and metrics that organizations use to “measure” productivity are actually counter-productive.

In the factory model, there are only three things that matter.

1. Throughput-how much product you put out to satisfy market demand in a timely basis
2. Inventory-the money invested in the components that will lead to the final product
3. Operating Expenses-what is spent on the system to create the Throughput

While the big ideas of the book could probably have been expressed in one page, I think the parable does a great job because it helps you really learn the concepts.

And the concepts have broad applicability to all businesses, not just manufacturing.

It affects service businesses as well. We’re just not manufacturing a physical product, but the “Theory of Constraints” which sits at the center of this book applies just as well.

The book cover claims that over 3 million copies have been sold and I read the “20th anniversary” edition.

My client, Luis Derechin of JackBe, had suggested that I read it…and I’m glad I did.

At the very least, it’ll give you some additional framework in how you think about your life and your business, particularly, since some of the convention is turned on its head.

And, most importantly, it force you to focus on the “Goal” of your business.

To find out what that is…read the book :-)

 

Just do all you can to avoid frustrating.

In a fascinating podcast from HBR, Matthew Dixon of the Corporate Executive Board takes a stand against the conventional wisdom that you want to “delight” your customers.

Roughly paraphrasing him, he says, that “delighting customers when it comes to customer service is like always relying on the Hail Mary pass. You have to go above and beyond. In reality, people just want their expectations met and to have them done so with as little frustration as possible.”

So, if I go to your FAQ section and I can’t find the answer so that I am forced to call you. That’s not good.

If your business processes take too long, have too much paper, or involve unnecessary steps, that’s what leads to disloyalty.

And it’s more significant than any “delighting” you could do.

In fact, his data suggests that “Customers will punish you harder for failing at the basics than they will reward you for delighting them.”

So, you create Raving Fans by executing on your promises…and simplifying the lives of your customers and clients.

You create Remarkable experiences when “it just works as I expected it to.”

That’s not to say you can’t/shouldn’t supercharge your Word-of-Mouth by giving customers reasons to talk about you (be it your business cards, voice mail messages, or invoices), but the bread and butter of loyalty, satisfaction, and growth is the “blocking and tackling” of your business processes. Nail those down and you’re on your way.

Next step for you:

As I was listening to this podcast, I was simultaneously scanning my blog feeds, when I came upon Josh Duncan’s review of the same podcast. So, hop on over to his blog and check it out

For so long, we’ve discussed “targeting” or its cousin “segmentation” in terms of a discrete set of facts- age, gender, income, race. etc. that, at least in my mind sometimes, we forget the far richer aspect of targeting.

Behavior.

And, on the social web, that’s the kind of targeting/segmentation that will thrive.

We see evidence of this in the Amazon-Facebook partnership among other examples.

And this is where the opportunity lies for all of us.

This post was inspired by Microsoft’s dedicated use of Twitter as a customer support channel not just because the story in and of itself is impressive, but because effectively, XBOX uses Twitter as an “early warning system” for potential problems.

They are using “behavioral targeting” by saying

“those folks who use Twitter AND use XBOX are going to be the ones who push our product to the extreme. Their behavior tells us about their mentality and that’s why we should listen” (among other reasons).

So, the challenge for all of us is not to say “most or none of my customers are out there.”

Instead, it’s to say

“the type of people who use Twitter (or Facebook/Blogs/YouTube channels/LinkedIn discussion groups or whatever) AND who talk about my industry/products/service category…what can they tell me about NOW that the rest of my customers will want to know next month?”"

Brent Hollowell called me the other day.

He is the owner of ZenClass Travel, which makes a line of products designed to simplify your travel experience. 

He was looking to see whether I might be interested in working with him to market these unique products (we’re discussing it).

But that’s not the point of the story.

The point of the story is that:

WHENEVER anyone cnntacts you out of the blue, you MUST get the answer to the question “How did you hear about us?”

It’s basic, I know, but it’s often forgotten in the excitement of a new prospect.

The reason? You get immediate qualitative feedback on your marketing activities.

Brent’s response “I heard about you from my friend, Brian Le Gette.”

I almost started to cry.

Why?

I have NO idea who Brian Le Gette is!! (but I am a FAN of his now.)

I asked Brent to push further.

“He heard about you from Tom Loveland at Mind Over Machines.”

Another person I don’t know. More tears.

Made my day. Two people I don’t know had spread the WOM.

Gents-next time I’m in Baltimore, coffee’s on me!

Now, check out Brent’s site and buy something ;-)

Marketing is about creating stories that people then tell themselves about why they want to buy from you.

What Brian Hamilton does is tell a true story with passion and sincerity. In 8 months, he paid of $52,000 of debt and committed to changing his life forever.It’s worth the watch

The service he offers is born from that.

And the meta-story is even better.

“You can trust me because I was once like you. In my core, I want to help you feel like I feel now.”

Met a guy the other day who paid off $52,000 worth of debt in 8 months. So inspiring.

Remember that great TED Talk: “People don’t buy what you do, they buy WHY you do it.”

Brian knows why he does it and so does everyone else.

Lesson: Find the passion in what you do. Find why you do it. Tell that story. A lot.

Share his contact information with someone who might need the help.