Until last weekend, I thought of movie theaters as expensive, fattening, and inconvenient.  Personally – I’d rather stay home.  After all, there are a ton of movies on DVD I haven’t seen yet.    

Here’s how the conversation at our house usually goes:

HIM:  Let’s go to a movie tonight.

ME:  Maybe.  What do you want to see?

HIM: (after an hour of research)  Let’s go see this movie.

ME: (reflecting on expense vs. pay-off)  Eh, forget it, let’s stay home and watch a movie here.  We can open a nice bottle of wine for all the money we’re saving.

What happened last weekend? 

I discovered a movie theater that had differentiated itself to appeal to me, to fix all the things I hate about going to the movie theaters.   Sundance 608 is unique, it’s different, and it’s going to dominate my demographic. 

Really, I don’t think I’ll ever go to another movie theater in Madison,WI again. 

What I love about Sundance 608 is:

• They have healthy and affordable food (salads, etc).
• They offer wine, beer and good coffee.
• They offer a place to eat right on-site, making the evening more social.
• You can reserve your seats.  Whoo-hoo!
• They cut out all the annoying advertising.
• They support local artists.

You get all this extra service for just a nominal amenities fee of $1 to $3 per ticket.  A price that’s totally worth it!

The marketing lesson here is that you CAN stand out.  There are thousands of ho-hum struggling movie theaters out there in the world today.  Sundance 608 is not one of them.  Sundance 608 didn’t concern itself with appealing to everybody.  They went after the 35+ market, and created an environment that appealed to them. 

The question won’t be, “Want to go see a movie tonight?” It’ll be, “Any good movies at Sundance 608?”

What can you do to make YOUR business stand out?  What can you do to knock all competitors out of even being an option?

At least I felt like I was going to die.  My heart was racing.  My face was bright red.  I was dying of thirst.  I have to reluctantly admit that taking the Advanced PowerStep class after a 4-month hiatus from the gym was not a wise idea. 

How did I get so out of shape?  What make me think I could just jump right back into it?

(sigh)

My story is sadly typical.  And it doesn’t just happen with the gym.

The same thing happens in business.  All of a sudden (it seems) you realize – My pipeline has dried up.  No fresh leads are coming in.  What happened?  I better get MOVING!  So you put forth a BURST of activity, but if you are out of (marketing) shape, you could damage your business instead of helping it.   You might do the wrong things, and instead of generating leads, you are just blowing your marketing budget. 

Ooops. 

Big oops.

If you find yourself in this spot, I want you to start taking action, but start slowly.  Test what you are doing before you blow it out onto a larger scale.  Make sure it works!  For every product, every service, and every campaign, you need to ask these simple questions:

• Who am I targeting?
• What problem am I solving?
• What makes my solution better or different than everyone else’s?
• What is the next action I want them to take?

Once you have crafted your messaging, test out subject lines and offers using email marketing, Google Adwords or a simple business letter that goes out to a small group of people.   Once you have validated that your marketing message is on target, that’s when you can start expanding your campaign.

Think big. But start small.  Make sense?  I’m taking that advice myself.  After I take two Advil.

“To hell with 2009.  May we never see your like again.  To a bright new future in 2010.”

We weren’t alone in that sentiment.  2009 was a tough year!  But it wasn’t all bad.   And sometimes the good gets forgotten.  We set our New Year’s Resolutions on what we want to improve, but we forget to pat ourselves on the back for the goals we did accomplish.   

Personally, I achieved two huge goals in 2010. 

1. I moved my family across the country to a location where I wanted to live.
2. I launched a second business, The Art of Online Marketing, focused on one-to-many marketing training. 

What did you do that WORKED this year?  What went right?   Is there a way that you can continue to capitalize on what you did?  By focusing on the positive and reinforcing your ability to create what you want, you just might be inspired with the confidence you need to make other changes.   In marketing.  In life!

By the way, if one of your goals is to figure out this “social media stuff,” we have an intro training session coming up on January 20^th at 10:00 a.m. PST.  Find out more at http://www.theartofonlinemarketing.com

How would you make Americans care about African girls?

What if YOU were charged with ending poverty in Africa?

Tough job, right?  The task seems daunting, overwhelming, and frankly impossible.  Many Americans take the stance that Africa’s plight is just “not our problem.”  Even if we did care, what could we do?  We’re a continent away…and besides we have our own problems, our own bills to pay.  If YOU were in charge, how would you go about changing that belief?

Watch  The Girl Effect . 

The Girl Effect is trying to eradicate poverty in Africa, one girl at a time.

(Go visit The Girl Effect website now before reading the rest of this post – I swear it wraps into a marketing message!)

Take note of how The Girl Effect is going about accomplishing their mission.  They used video.  Told a story.  They made the message personal.  Made it simple.  Made it easy to digest.  Touched people’s emotions.  Asked their audience to take just a small step.  Even the opening page of their website makes you make a decision, invites to you get involved.

Now go back and start thinking about your own business.  I work with clients every day who are selling incredibly complex products and services.  They’re faced with the same challenges in getting people’s attention. They’re faced with the same challenges of  boiling complex concepts down in to simple messages. 

So many don’t. 

And when complex solution providers fail to make their messages personal, simple, emotional and compelling, their products and services don’t sell — at least not as fast as they would like, driving up the cost of sale. 

Use the The Girl Effect website / video as a reminder to make your marketing messages personal.  Make them simple.  Easy to digest.  Touch people’s emotions.  Tell a story.  That’ll put you on the right track.

And if that doesn’t do the trick, see if you can get Oprah, George Clooney and Angelina Jolie to endorse you. 

 For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, Wikipedia’s podcast definition is this:

A podcast is a series of digital media files (either audio or video) that are released episodically and downloaded through web syndication.  (Read rest of podcast definition.)

I was having a conversation with John Jantsch, the author of Duct Tape Marketing, at our coaches conference a couple of weeks back.  He and several of my Duct Tape Marketing colleagues were raving about the effectiveness of small business podcasts.  I haven’t added this tool to my marketing mix (yet), but I am considering it. 

I like the freedom that a podcast brings.  Your listener isn’t chained to their desk.  They can be walking the dog, driving in their car, at the gym, and filling otherwise unproductive moments with your business wisdom.  They are getting to know, like and trust you in a deeper way, because hearing your voice is more powerful than just reading your words. 

So I guess my question is this.  Do you subscribe to podcasts?  Why or why not? 

If you’re just not sure where to find podcasts, here are a few “top 15″ lists to get started.

• 15 Podcasts That Will Make You Richer by Business Pundit
• 15 Podcasts That Will Make You Smarter by College Crunch
• 15 Podcasts Every Geek Should Listen To by Make Use Of

Being a smart, rich geek.  I’d be OK with that!

But before I explain, I want you to do this little exercise:

1. Think of the last product or service you bought that made you really mad.
2. What was it that made you so upset?

For me, it was a car I rented.  I asked if I could keep the car for an extra day at the same rate and the gal at the desk said “SURE!” but when I got my bill, the extra day was double the price.  Customer service’s response?  “Sorry ma’am.  The price is right there in your contract.”  Why was I so upset?  Because they didn’t properly set my expectations.  Sure, I should have read the contract, but I trusted their representative to give me the right answer.

In the scenario I just described, the car rental company did make the sale.  They did keep my money.  But am I happy?  No. Will I be more wary of that company next time? Absolutely! So did they do an effective job of marketing to me?  I say NO!  I have lots of choices in car rental companies, and I’ll just take my business elsewhere.

So back to my original point, rather than just thinking of marketing as just a means to a sale, I’d like for you to think about marketing as a way of setting expectations.  Many times it means having to lower expectations.

Yes, marketing may mean LOWERING expectations.

If you want happy customers, you need customers who understand your limitations.  Too often, sales people feel so pressured to make a sale that they’ll do so at nearly any cost – but for small businesses, and especially in consulting type of organizations, this short-term sales mentality hurts your overall profitability.

How do you know if marketing is not properly setting expectations?

There are five clear warning flags that indicate that your marketing message and the reality you are delivering to clients is out of sync.  You can either fix your marketing or fix your delivery – but ignoring the problems will not make them go away.  It’ll just make it worse.

If only the warning signs were this obvious!

The 5 Warning Signs Are:

1. You’re seeing more returns and complaints.
2. Customer satisfaction ratings are dropping.
3. Referral sources and repeat business is drying up.
4. Your delivery team is getting  “burnt out” on impossible demands.
5. Company morale is down the tubes.

If you see yourself with any of these 5 problems, there’s no time like the present to get started on the solution.  I can’t fix delivery.  I can’t make you a better consultant, accountant, dentist or lawyer.  Maybe you can’t either.  But you can fix how you represent yourself.  This is why I am so passionate about authentic marketing, truly representing your strengths, and finding your ideal client who sees that what you do best fits with what they need most.

Every marketing strategy needs to begin there, by knowing – Who’s your ideal client? What makes you different?

Any tips to share?  How do you set expectations up front  – and still make sale – so that you get raving fans?  I’d love to hear your ideas on this.

But look how creative and different their “Website Under Construction” placeholder is.  REALLY, go look.  Now!

http://peepscreative.com/

I told you it would be worth a peek.  Pretty awesome, eh?  Doesn’t this “site under construction” page immediately tell you the type of firm they are?  Give you a glimpse of how it would be to work with them?  I love it.  Maybe they should never go live with their new and improved website.

One note however, is that when you see something that is “cool” is that you have to evaluate whether it makes sense for your business.  As a web design firm, spending time and money on a website under construction page makes sense.  However, if you are an accounting firm, that same spend might not be worth it — because you’re not selling your creativity.  You’re trying to project a different message.  Stay true to who you are and you can’t go wrong!

Formed with two other brilliant marketing consultants, The Art of Online Marketing will focus on delivering group coaching/training programs for small businesses.  Tornado Marketing will continue to run as it always has offering one-to-one marketing consulting. Go check out our new website at: The Art of Online Marketing.  

Our first event, “An Intro to Social Media Marketing” is scheduled for 10/14 at 10 a.m. Pacific.   The cost of the class is $39, but my people can get in for free by using coupon code:  tornado.   If you are interested in becoming an affiliate for The Art of Online Marketing,  let me know.  We have lots of great training sessions coming up, and you’ll make a generous commission for every person you refer into one of our programs. 

Hope to see you at our ‘launch event’ on 10/14!  A full calendar of classes will be published soon.

Well, I definitely don’t want to suck at blogging, and I don’t want my customers and blog readers to suck at blogging, so I was intrigued.

Now the article itself is more about blogging for monetization (whereas most of my readers and clients are blogging for business) BUT the blog post had several gems that overarch all types of blogging and in fact all types of business. Adam Baker, the Man vs. Debt’s blog author sums up the video shown below by Gary Vaynerchuk nicely.

• No non-sense follow your passion.
• Giving a shit about your readers.
• Stop crying.  Keep Hustling.
• Legacy is greater than currency.
• The nature of the game is changing. [still is]
• “Stop watching f***ing Lost”

Unlike Adam Baker, however, I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I’ve NEVER watched this video.  No wonder people love this guy.  He’s so unedited.  It’s refreshing.

Now what are you waiting for? Go follow your passion.  NOW! Doing what you love to do will not only ensure that you don’t suck at blogging, but you won’t suck at life either.

By the way, thanks to Robert Lesser for sharing his Direct Impact Now blog on LinkedIn, which linked to the Bnet Sales Machine blog that posted this YouTube video.  I bet Kadient gets more mileage and more customers from this video than from 1000 hours of telemarketing.

But social media marketing doesn’t work for B2B companies, does it?  Oh, it does?  Huh.