I don’t know exactly what happened in the last few months, but I’ve been reading a lot of chatter from various male bloggers that I admire. We’re getting tired of the ridiculous advertising pushed on the American man. Perhaps it was the Superbowl ads and their pandering to neanderthal men.

How many men are there that are just sick and tired of it? We are MEN, not beer swilling, breast staring buffoons who have been whipped into submission by our nagging wives. Most of us are intelligent, capable, loving husbands and fathers (except me – I’m not a father). Why do these ads not target our demographic?

Are you one of those guys that agrees with me? In the last month I’ve had conversations with several of them. I’d love to hear your agreement in the comments.

Brett McKay from Art of Manliness told me that he’s focusing on working with small advertisers who are responsive to the interests of more enlightened men (read: most of us).

Ben Martin from The Father Life told me he has reams of data showing that men are more interested in advertisements that don’t make men look dumb.

I recently read this post from Natural Papa where he talks about the need to focus on the good things men are doing.

I know Tyler Wainright from Building Camelot agrees with me.

So here, the question:

What the heck are we going to do about it? Is there an organization that we can all join to help advertisers wake up? Do we form our own?

The only way that these companies are going to change is if we make if financially feasible for them to do so. Why don’t we all just raise a big stink? How about something like a Blog Carnival about advertising to men and what modern men are now (and what we’re not)?

What do you think guys? (this post was cross-posted at AGoodHusband.net)

I keep a folder on my desktop full of hilarious screenshots. I’m posting some of the best, sometimes inadvertant, advertisements, announcements, and incongruous images from that folder.

To the left here is a Geico ad on Facebook, aimed at the fact that I am Mormon. Pretty much left me speechless.

This next one is a screenshot from Amazon. *Sings* One of these things is not like the other…

and, finally, for today, is an insert from one of my very favorite Web cartoons, Savage Chickens. Tell me you’ve never felt this way before.

image by Ernst Vikne

Some of you come to me after trying to launch a new blog, or signing up for Twitter. You know that everyone’s talking about it like it’s some great thing, but you’re not seeing results. I’ll ask how you were using the tools, and I usually get something like, “I was sending out timed daily updates to let everyone know what was going on with my business.”

That’s usually when I put my put my hand over the phone, grind my teeth, and heave a huge sigh. Then I put on a smile and ask you to continue.

I’m grinding my teeth because you’re treating Twitter & blogging like you would treat TV, radio, or the newspaper. You set a message and forget about it, only counting whether or not you got leads from it. The problem, of course, is that social media doesn’t work that way.

It’s not about you anymore. Not that it ever really was.

The thing you have to realize is that your customers have a million options. You’re not the only service provider out there, and even if you are, they can probably get by with someone who does what you do on the side. They don’t care about your message, they only care about what they want – and that’s why using social media is important. You can use social media to get a strong understanding of what your customers want, where they want it, and how they look for it. It’s like doing surveys, but cheaper and it updates in real time.

If you understand what your customers are looking for, then you can formulate a relationship with them, and creating a relationship is far more powerful than pitching a sale.

Jeremiah Owyang shared this set of slides about how social media should be engaged in this way, with a great case study on how to engage mothers.

I maintain that social media is the best thing that ever happened to artists, startups, and unique businesses. Without a ton of capital you can engage with an audience who has a need or desire for what you want, and build tremendous word-of-mouth advertising.

If you’d like to work with me to engage with people in social media and turn them into clients, visit this page.

I’d like to hear about your experiences. What successes (or failures) have you had in social media?

image by thedrun

People don’t want you to be nice.

People want you to pick the reins and lead. That’s what I’ve learned in the last couple of weeks. People sit around and twiddle their thumbs, and when someone comes along and tells them to do something, they hop to because now their life has purpose – even if its not their own purpose.

In the last week I have witnessed several incidents of men making decisions that were definitely not the right decisions, but people went along with them because they were made confidently, even forcefully. People follow those who lead with confidence.

My wife does this when we’re out with our friends. If we’re walking somewhere in a city, she walks with purpose and we all follow her. Half the time we find out later that she had no idea where we were going. She just wanted to get somewhere and we all assumed that we wanted to be the same place she was.

Here’s the thing about search marketing and social media: there is no right way to do it, so business owners waffle on which direction to lead. Then some “Social Media Expert” comes along and sells them a bill of goods and it takes them months to figure out that they’ve been duped.

The point? People want to be told what to do.

If I walk into an office and I see a CEO making bold decisions every time, and that boldness is accompanied by follow-through, I’ll pick him to win every time over the CEO who maybe knows more, makes thoughtful decisions, and has a better education. The CEO who makes bold decisions fails faster, and failing faster is important. If you’re bold, you’ll fail a bunch and find what works faster than everyone else.

I’d love it if you partnered with me. Tell me where you want your business to go. Tell me who your target market is and where to reach them. The problem is, you probably don’t know.

You need to know, though. So, here’s the deal. Hand me your cash. I’ll market your business for you.

In Justin Spohn’s latest post Shooting Ourselves on the Engagement Face he rails against the pseudo-science of justifying advertising expenditures in terms other than financial.

Justin mentions David Meerman Scott’s rants about executives who demand an ROI calculation on Web marketing or social media. The measurement that he is railing against is the methodical way of using complex calculations to measure how much money you are making when you spend money on something.

To a point, I agree with David. That kind of complex calculation is just not necessary in most cases. Perhaps if you are spending vast sums of money, but the plain truth is that most Web marketing campaigns are vastly underfunded, especially in proportion to the amount of time people are spending on the Web vs. other forms of media.

When you’re talking about the tiny amounts of money most companies spend on the Web, this kind of calculation isn’t the direction we need to go. We do however, need to be responsible to the numbers, and as Web marketers we should be the first ones championing financial responsibility.

The Advertising world, it seems, has a knee-jerk fear reaction when it comes to justifying their expensive ad campaigns. Not coming from the advertising agency world, I think this kind of justification is insane. I’m with Justin on this one.

Just because you can’t measure the ROI of a TV ad or a Billboard, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be responsible to the numbers on the Web. It’s easy to track how many people came to your site, how many people saw your Web ad, how many people ordered something from you online. These are easy numbers to come up with, and they are easy to tie to financial numbers.

There’s no politicking necessary in Web marketing. Just make everyone responsible to the numbers and you’ll get exactly what you need out of your investment.

What does this image represent? What is The Awesome?

It’s something that I’ve been thinking about for over a year. You know that thing that tickles the back of your mind when you see people doing business and you think, “Wow, that’s it. What is that?” I’ve discussed it with some smart people (thanks Erin).

This is by no means the definitive answer, but:

The Awesome is that thing that happens when you get people out of their comfort zones. It’s that thing that happens when brilliant minds collaborate. Einstein came up with the Theory of Relativity by himself (more or less), but it took hundreds of scientists to unlock the Human Genome Sequence.

In business, people and . This is a mistake. Perhaps it wasn’t a few years ago, but it is now. Not communicating is killing your business.

The Groundswell is the result of the backlash at not communicating. People are tired of being yelled at through television and radio, tired of being sold something and then being forced through work queus to get satisfaction. The Groundswell is going to swallow your business.

Unless you embrace The Awesome.

Your customer service department talks to your customers. They hear them. PR, Marketing, and Sales need to hear what your customers are saying. PR is no longer about framing the message, instead it’s about hearing what’s being said and responding sincerely to the conversation. Marketing is no longer spray and pray, it’s tapping into a need and energizing evangelists. Sales is no longer about how well do you close, but instead about how much do you care.

The Groundswell wins. The conversation will happen with or without you. Conversations move faster than your Marketing & PR departments can move.

Social Media is not the thing. Social Media is a technology tool. The thing that created Social Media, the Groundswell, is the thing. Embrace the Groundswell and they will embrace you back. Ignore them and you will go away.

The Awesome is getting all of your people on the same page, understanding business objectives, and having fun doing it. It’s being real with each other, while at the same time having high expectations.It’s not that you’re wrong. There’s just a different way that you haven’t thought of yet. It’s building the Groundswell within your own company. Its joining the Groundswell to learn about what their needs are.

The Awesome is having fun in business.

image by Karmalize

When I was at a conference in Los Angeles a few months ago, I met some veteran entrepreneurs. People who are really successful. They had great advice, great stories, and great experiences to share. They had been there, done that, and seen it all. I was start struck and intimidated.

While I was talking with an older gentleman (we’ll call him Jim). Jim told me I had a bright future and, flattered, I told him “that remains to be seen. I don’t have your experience. I’m just a baby entrepreneur.” He, and everyone else at the table, laughed.

What The Heck Is A Baby Entrepreneur?

A Baby Entrepreneur is someone who owns a business under a year old for the first time. Yes, that’s my definition.

Growing up, I had no idea that just anyone could own a business if they wanted to – everyone I knew worked for some large, multinational corporation like Wal-Mart or McDonalds.

When I was 21, however, Rick Voss hired me to be his first salesperson at his new company. Since it was just the two of us, I got to sit in a car with Rick as we traveled to sales territories and he told me stories about businesses that he had started. He was a serial entrepreneur. A veteran. Not long after I started, however, our ways parted.

There were things that I took away from my time with Rick that stuck with me. His passion for life, his family, and what he did every day made me want to do what he did – oh, not build metal buildings or sell coupon books (two of his businesses), but be an entrepreneur.

So, here I am, with my first consulting business about four months old. What have I learned so far?

Being dumb enough not to know better is awesome. So many entrepreneurs start something and have no idea how hard it will be. Count me among them. I don’t have nearly enough time in a day to do everything that I want my business to do. How the heck do ya’all veterans do it?

Entrepreneurs have the best stories. “This client changed plans last minute and decided to add 30 hours to the project on a Friday afternoon, and it was due on Tuesday!” The good entrepreneurs seem to make it happen, then live to tell the story.

Passion for what you do is the stuff of life. I watched Dune over the recent holiday break. The whole galaxy gets in a big fight over Spice. Spice is the stuff of life for them, they really care about it. It’s a metaphor, I suppose. Thanks Frank Herbert. I really care about what I’m doing. I think that the way that people do business is changing – it’s no longer about ‘who can I find that does this?’ Now it’s more about ‘who do I know, like and trust that does this?’

Any more tips for this (and all of the other) baby entrepreneurs? Please share in the comments.

Business should be fun. Life should be fun. If the things that I am doing in my every day are making me crazy, then I shouldn’t be doing them.

I was going to make a list of the reasons that business should be fun, but I have a feeling that if you don’t agree with me on that point then you’re probably not reading this blog anyway. Just in case, however:

• If you’re having fun, you are more productive. Smiling and laughter increases oxygen flow to the brain and creates endorphins, which in turn makes you more clear headed and creative.
• If you are happy, you are relaxed. If you are more relaxed then you make better decisions.
• People like happy people. People buy goods & services from those they know, like and trust. If people think you are happy and excited about your business, they will be too.

This is something that I was thinking about over the Christmas holiday. I usually use holidays as time to step away from working, spend time with family, and meditate on the direction of my life and business.

Without waxing too philosophical I’ll say that it’s easy to get so caught up in business that we forget why we started the business in the first place.

I’ve never actually met an entrepreneur who started a business just because they needed money. That could be my lack of experience, but every entrepreneur that I’ve ever met has told me that they started their business because they had a passion for something or because they saw a need that existed.

There are certainly moments when I need to hunker down and do the repetitive stuff that is required in business. When that stuff stretches on for ages, however, its time to start figuring out how to make it fun again.

This is where I am at this point. I’ve been doing a lot of repetitive work, getting ready for the new year. I still have a lot of it to do, but I’m forming in my mind a plan for a new product or opportunity that I think will be a lot of fun. It’s a contest of sorts, with a bunch of artists involved. Should be really great, and everyone involved should make a little bit of money.

Enough foreshadowing, however. I’ll have more information on that shortly.

Here’s a list of things that I do when business starts to suck and I need to make it fun again.

• Stop working. I get up, stretch, and walk away. Even if it’s just for a minute, it helps.
• Watch something funny online. It’s easy to get carried away, but once I’m in a better mood I am more creative.
• Read my scriptures. The inspiration and Spirit that flows from the Bible and the Book of Mormon are a source of enlightenment and rejuvenation to my soul. I often find that when I am at a loss for what to do, the Scriptures give me a direction to go.
• Work on something new. I brainstorm a lot. I have a lot of cool ideas that I never implement, simply because I don’t have time, but coming up with new ideas gets me excited and motivates me to get something done so that I can move on the next big thing.

What about you? What do you do to make business fun again?

I hear a lot of the Social Media gurus talking about how Social Media is not new, it has been around for ages. The fact of the matter is that media is inherently social. It’s person-to-person contact. Just like the fact that some people are better at personal relationships than others, some marketing professionals are better at client relationships.

One of the oldest forms of social media is the telephone. That’s right, the phone. Person to person, speedy, and affordable, the phone is a key building block in how we do business.

Social Media is getting incredible scrutiny right now. What are employees doing and saying? People are being fired for their Facebook photos and status updates.

When was the last time you (business owner) gave your telephone this kind of scrutiny? If you have a large sales or customer service team, are you monitoring what they are saying to people and the tone that they are using? Social Media engagement is currently being measured in some of these ways:

• Frequency – the amount of content being produced & number of people engaged.
• Sentiment – The ratio of positive to negative feedback in regards to a company’s efforts.
• Engagement – People doing the things that they are asked to do, like share content, buy something, or take other actions like sharing content.

There is no reason that these same practices cannot be applied to the telephone. If you are a company that relies on the telephone, are you measuring:

• The number of inbound or outbound phone calls that your employees are making.
• The tone and experience that your customers are receiving? You may have skilled salespeople, but are they making people angry by calling at the wrong time or talking in a negative tone?
• Are your customers happy when they call, or angry? Are they doing the things that you ask them to do on the phone, like purchase, call a friend, or call you back?

Since we’re all so fired up about how we are going to measure Social Media and train the employees who interact with the public, then we should be training people who are using the phone in the same way.

A business woman that I really admire is Alexis Neely. When Alexis started her own law practice, she trained the person answering her phone to say, “Hello, you’ve reached The Family Wealth Planning Institute. How can I help you?” The receptionist answered with a smile in her voice and in a tone that conveyed warmth and happiness. How often do you get that at a law office? Other lawyers told her she couldn’t build her business that way, but Alexis has proven them all wrong and is building a business that produces amazing wealth – and she is building incredible connections along the way.

There is no reason at all to continue allowing your employees to make people angry by abusing them with long hold times and ill-trained people. Teach your people to care on the phone, and pay as much attention to that as you do to your Twitter & Facebook pages.

There are no experts in social media – only experimenters. – Craig Filek

If companies are going to enter the social media space, they are going to have to empower more of their employees to understand what social media is. If I were doing that training (which I am, by the way) I would start by having people do some reading of the following material.

Marketing is marketing – except for the fact that with social media, you can’t control the message. You can only participate in the conversation and hope to guide it a little bit.

Watch this slide show:

What the F&*k is Social Media

Then, one year later:

What the F&*k is Social Media: One Year Later

That said, you should know some things about social media before you start experimenting. There are a few people out there who really Get It and we should be paying attention to what they are doing. We need to become social media strategists.

If you are going to be writing for the company blog and participating in customer-engagement through social media, I recommend you view the following articles.

Smashing magazine is a design and social media magazine. They have a great introduction to the do’s and don’ts of writing for corporate blogs.

The goal of any marketing campaign (and make no mistake, social media is another marketing channel) is to get a good return on investment (ROI). Olivier Blanchard put together this amazing slide presentation on how to measure social media ROI.

There are real numbers on who uses what social network. Demographics including age, income, gender, education & more.

As a goal of who we should be connecting with, this is interesting.

If you’re going to use Twitter, read this post from Mashable on Twitter Communities.

If you’re going to market on Facebook, read this post: The Levers You Should be Pulling on Facebook.

This is obviously just a partial list, but it’s a good start.