Time Off WeirdGuy Blog – Just One Week

By E. Brown

I’ll be taking a week off to focus on closing out a project (July 28-August 1). More to come from the lessons learned during this engagement. It’s a really cool online course with custom hooks into a client app. The back-end was designed as “plug and play” so content can quickly and easily be swapped out while still being applicable to the course testing and grading scenarios.

See you in a week.

Summer Movie Line Up

Where has the Summer gone in 2008? So many movies and so little budget or time. While visiting my friend’s blog I was reminded of all there is yet to see. Here are some of my thoughts as well as my friend, Melvin.

Speed Racer: Visually stimulating, has an odd cast. I have not seen it yet, but Melvin says, “Go with low expectations and you’ll have a blast.”

I have heard nothing but good fun about IronMan. I still wanna see it while it’s in the theaters.

I have also seen:

• Batman The Dark Knight – definitely a “dark” movie with a nihilistic Joker.
• Kung Fu Panda - Good fun CG movie. My kids love the figures.
• Prince Caspian, Narnia – Good adaptation of the C.S. Lewis book (not closely followed). See my previous post.
• Wall*E - I heard mixed reviews about Pixar’s latest release. “Not much dialogue” was a common complaint. However, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think the movements and “body language” created all kinds of dialog.
• Hellboy 2 – Another in a list of good movies directed by Guillermo del Toro.

Still to see: Clone Wars, Indiana Jones, Get Smart, Journey to The Center of The Earth…Hmmm…what else am I missing?

Why Asking Why Gets Results

By Frances Jones

The “Six Layers of Why” is a mental exercise consultants use to deliver recommendations to a client, in the client’s own language. The technique is simple. When you hit a roadblock ask, “Why?” When you’ve gotten the answer, ask the same question again. Repeat four more times. Although asking the same question over and over may initially seem irritating or childish, it can often lead to unexpected answers or insights. Exploring the “Six Layers of Why” ensures you haven’t left any ideas unturned.

Here’s an example. I was recently working on re–branding a client to attract a more upscale clientele. As I began researching their brand language, I discovered a product description that could only be described as down–market. My first instinct was just to say, “Change it.” Yet by tabling this impulse and asking, “Why?” we started digging into the issue. Asking, “Why?” five further times was edifying. After their initial reaction, “It’s always been that way,” they admitted the decision was made by the founder’s son in the 1940s to bring in customers. With this information, I was able to appeal to their sense of heritage – and logic – in my request that they change their description. Evolving their language has helped them to attract the customers they were seeking.

Why Ask “Why” in Your Job Search
Say, for example, you are looking for a job in marketing, but you’ve been at your current job for some time, or you’ve been off the market for awhile. Simply dusting off your old resume won’t be enough. You’ll have to re–word many roles to make it sound current and alive. I recommend researching today’s job postings for positions you might target. What you’ll discover is that – while the basic elements of the job haven’t changed – the way people talk about those elements may have.

While you’re reading these job descriptions, ask yourself why they’re written the way they are, and why particular skills are either required or highlighted. The answers will help you refocus and update your resume. For instance, what your old resume refers to as ‘managed market research plans’ might now be phrased in more detailed terms like, “ran focus groups to uncover consumer trends.” Wow. That’s more exciting. That’s language that makes me want to get in touch.

As you get ready for your interview the “why’s” can also be extraordinarily helpful. A qualification like, “I was nominated four times for Eastern Sales Manager of the year” is something you could improve upon prior to your face–to–face meeting. Asking yourself the first “why” leads you to the statement, “Because I increased sales 23%.” The second “why”, (in effect, “how?”) probes you to detail how you accomplished this goal. You might respond, “Because I instituted a new approach to talking to customers.” The third “why” gets behind the performance issue you identified. “Why’s” four five, and six can then help you articulate how you plan to add value to a potential company. As you can see, by asking yourself to explain further, you can develop more well–rounded, fully fleshed out answers to common interview questions.

As you hunt for the best fit in your area of expertise, use the “Six Layers of Why” as a helpful tool to position yourself against the pack.

Frances Cole Jones is the author of “How to Wow: Proven Strategies for Presenting Your Ideas, Persuading Your Audience, and Perfecting Your Image” and the President of Cole Media Management, a communications consulting firm in New York City.

Your Virtual iPhone Revisited

By E. Brown

*I need your help — so keep reading!

I was in my local Apple Store today and noticed the line of people waiting to purchase the new 3G iPhone. It was lunch time and they were waiting in line…

Waiting in line!

Where else have you heard of this? The local AT&T Store ran out — everyone was at Apple. Plus, some people said it was easier to get the phone through Apple than AT&T (hint, hint — take notes AT&T).

Previously On WeirdGuy
You may have read my previous articles about the iPhone. I hoped you listened. If you did, then you are not one that is kicking yourself for having purchased the first generation phone. Although, you might find someone (a Windows user perhaps) that would be willing to buy it from you for $100 and give you a nice down payment on the new iPhone. And hey, this time you have a choice of White or Black :)

So, it comes down to this — I am rethinking the iPhone in this new iteration. Granted, I would probably keep my iPod because it has a heck of a lot more memory and holds every song I own, but this new 8GB iPhone looks pretty sweet for the price…hmmmm….

You may ask, “Are you willing to trade in your current Smart Phone for Apple’s new release?” Yeh, I am willing. I just have a few questions about the email and package pricing. You see, I use Entourage and I want to get my email on the iPhone. Does that mean I have to use Mobile Me? My email is currently through AT&T and I hear you cannot get it without forking out the $100 for Mobile Me.

Help Me
What do you think?

Did you recently purchase a new iPhone? How do you like it? What do you love/hate about it?

What advice would you give me about the new iPhone? Should I get one? Why/why not?

Can I get my Entourage email any other way on an iPhone? Can I sync my Entourage Calendar too?

Let me know here on WeirdGuy!

Now, Some Possible Value In Using Twitter

I have questioned the value of Twitter in the past. Well, with a recent acquisition, there may be some value to using/adopting Twitter — especially if you’re in marketing, public relations, or customer service. See Mike Gunderloy’s post on Web Worker Daily:

If you’re a Twitter user you likely saw the news this morning: Twitter bought Summize. The deal, covered on the business level by our parent blog GigaOm, brings Twitter some more smart engineers and a potential route to monetization. But what does it mean to the average web worker?

Read more…

Quotable Quote

No one gives advice with more enthusiasm than an ignorant person.
–Unknown

Weird Week In Review – July 4

In case you missed out, here is your one stop review of all things from WeirdGuy blog. Have fun!

Advice On How To Stay Young

Lessons from Great Achievers

Do You Have A Marketing Mentality?

Have You Conversed With Your Readers Lately?

Love The Pub

Simplicity Quotable Quote – Bruce Lee

Quotable Quote – Herbert Simon

Marketing And Sales Need To Get Along

The Charter House, Bellvue KY

Related Links
- Weird Week In Review (June 20)
- Weird Week In Review (June 13)
- Weird Week In Review (June 6)

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The Charter House, Bellevue KY

By E. Brown

The Charter House restaurant in Bellevue, Kentucky has a spectacular over-the-river view of the Cincinnati skyline. Known for friendly service, the layout of the establishment is spacious open seating. With carpeted floors, the acoustics are not too noisy. Warm colors, ambient and pinpoint lighting, and colorful fish paintings adorning the walls make The Charter House feel comfortable and a place to bring friends or work associates.

For starters, I ordered the Lobster Bisque. The presentation was nice – the bisque came in a little kettle shaped bowl complete with handle and lid. The soup was ladled over a small mound of lobster meat at the bottom of the bowl. The flavor and serving portion was just right.

For the main course, I had the seared scallops with bok-choy and coconut rice. The light soy and sesame dressing added the right amount of flavor for the scallops. It was overpowering for the rice though, not allowing the coconut flavor to come through. Toward the end of the dish, much of the rice was left swimming in the soy broth. After finishing the meal, instead of tasting the full ensemble of flavors, I was left tasting lots of salty soy, garlic, and sesame.

I would recommend the chef ease up on the sauces. This seems to be an ongoing issue for many restaurants I visit – dishes swimming in sauces. Perhaps a better approach for this entrée would be to offer the soy mixture on the side for dipping the scallops into.

All in all, I would say The Charter House is a nice place to dine. However, the lingering soy taste prevents me from highly recommending this restaurant.

*For more on restaurants, food, and recipes, visit the Grub category of WeirdGuy Blog.

Marketing And Sales Need To Get Along

There is a war going on within organizations: Marketing and Sales are at odds and fighting against one another. Marketing complains that Sales never follows up on all those leads they send. Sales grumbles that Marketing doesn’t bring them any qualified leads. It’s a battle that neither side can win. And the company as a whole loses unless the two sides wave the white flag and agree to work together as partners, rather than against each other as adversaries. The two sides should join together to fight the war against competitors who are conquering market share.

The truth is both functions are crucial for success. Marketing makes the phone ring and salespeople close deals. It’s a very close association between two functions, so why is there such a disconnect? Part of the problem is that Marketing suffers from a credibility crisis. Marketing is viewed as the people who throw parties and spend budgets, rather than as part of the machine that drives revenue and profits. There are companies where Sales holds weekly revenue calls, and nobody from Marketing is on the call. In order to work with Sales, Marketing must be viewed not as a cost center, but as a strategic asset that drives growth. How can marketers do their part to achieve success and end the war?

Prove Your Worth
CFOs make budgeting decisions and recommendations based on facts and figures. Marketing must present useful data that enables CFOs to understand the value of the Marketing department. Evidence of this issue is seen in a Marketing Sherpa study in which only 17% of B2B marketers queried were sure their CFOs understood the value of lead generation programs. To combat this, provide meaningful success metrics.

Collaborate
Traditionally, the Marketing and Sales departments operate in silos. Each department performs its function without interacting with the other. To end the war, the barriers must be broken down. Sales and Marketing should share common goals. Both should frequently meet to share information. Or, savvy organizations might take it a step further: Have Marketing go on a sales call along with salespeople, or invite salespeople to participate in Marketing meetings, so each side can see, first-person, the challenges the other department is up against.

Instill A Focus On The Customer
Instead of paying attention to divisive internal issues, devote your energy to focusing on the customer. Find reasons to work together to solve customer problems…and to focus on the “right” prospects.

Define Core Messaging
Along these same lines, make sure both departments have a clear understanding of the company’s competitive advantage and key sales differentiators. If Marketing is promoting a product based on price advantage, and Sales is touting customer service (but neither mentions the other) they present mixed messages to the marketplace. Agree on a value proposition, and stick to it. That means having coherent messaging coming from all parts of the organization. Make sure all ads, marketing materials and sales presentations communicate that value proposition to prospects.

Prove Them Wrong
When all else fails, prove them wrong. Make sure you’re generating not just large numbers of leads, but qualified prospects. Remember, in the BtoB world, quality is more important than quantity. You might have a big budget, but if you don’t use it effectively to generate quality leads, why bother?

Don’t Overlook The “No-brainers”
Too often, Marketing’s attempt to “prove them wrong” involves complex strategies and unconventional marketing tactics. But don’t overlook the obvious. One of the most effective forms of online advertising is an industry directory. It’s a small investment – often just a few hundred dollars for an entire year of advertising. And it produces quality prospects. Your ad is hitting prospects at the exact moment that they are actively searching for your company’s product or service. What better way to drive qualified leads than when you already know they’re looking for exactly what you provide?

Marketers who put these tips into action will be closer to ending the war: to being seen as an equal partner with Sales in the effort to deliver revenue for their organization. Marketing programs will be more successful, sales will increase, morale will improve, and customer satisfaction will go up. Peace, at last.

Source: Media Brains 2008 issue.

Quotable Quote – Herbert Simon

What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of the recipients. Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.
–Herbert Simon (Recipient of Nobel Memorial Prize)

Simplicity Quotable Quote – Bruce Lee

One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.
–Bruce Lee

Love The Pub

By E. Brown

Located in Florence KY, in a mall parking lot (of all places) is The Pub. Modeled after authentic British pubs, the proprietor, Nick Sanders, says he liked the traditional pub feel with the modern colonial influence. In the center of The Pub is a large well-crafted and ornate wooden bar. From here you can sample one of many beers. On draft, The Pub offered English, Belgian, Scottish, Irish, and local specialty beers as well as assorted bottled beers. I had a sampler of four quarter-pints. Nicely done, these four glasses allowed me to try several flavors for the cost of one. They were presented on a sheet of paper titled “Beer Sampler”.

I tried the English Boddington’s Pub Ale, the Belgian Stella Artois, the Bellhaven Scottish Ale, and the Irish Smithwick’s. While all were good beers my favorites were easily the Bellhaven and the Smithwick’s.

The food selection was above notch for the usual pub. They included appetizers, soups and salads, hot panini sandwiches, classic pub fare, main entrees, and desserts. I tried the more traditional meal with Bangers and Mash. The sausages were good although they both seemed peppery. The server had told me one was sweet and the other was to be spicy to even out the flavors. I did no find this to be the case. The peas and carrots were of the grocery store frozen food variety and not fresh. They included a nice little salad on the plate with balsamic vinegarette – a refreshing addition. The potatoes were advertised as “chive whipped potatoes” and they were. The chives added a bite to the mash that, with the spicy sausage, seemed to overwhelm the dish.

The Pub menu was fun, conversational, and informative. They included witty quotes, beer definitions, a Monty Python drinking song, and English/Brit word equivalents. As Mr. Sander’s letter to patrons commented on the back of the menu, the atmosphere was fun, friendly, and one of conversations and relationships.

I think I’ll have another Bellhaven!

*For more on restaurants, food, and recipes, visit the Grub category of WeirdGuy Blog.

Have You Conversed With Your Readers Lately?

By Valerie Kendrick

Do you talk to your reader in your sales letters? Are you using language that is too formal or stuffy? Worse yet, are you writing in a style that is too informal?

Formal Language
I talk to so many people that are confused about what is business appropriate in their written correspondence. Many are convinced that the company expects them to use the old formal language.

Let’s look at an example.

Pursuant to your inquiry of March 17, 2008, I am enclosing some literature regarding our XYZ products. Our organization is dedicated to providing the utmost quality and cost effectiveness. We are confident our products will meet and exceed your standards of excellence.

This is too formal and most likely will bore your reader. You should ask yourself if this is how you would speak to the customer in a face-to-face conversation.

Informal Language
Now let’s consider the opposite approach. We treat our customers as if they were one of our closest friends. We use slang, make up adjectives, and forget we have proper grammar and sentence structure to consider. We forget that email, when used for business correspondence must remain business appropriate.

Take another look at the above excerpt now written in a very informal style.

Hey, thanks for calling. I put some really cool stuff about our XYZ products in the package. Our company thinks quality is really important and our pricing is uber-low. You’ll be totally stoked by our super products.

This is too informal. It sounds like we are talking to a friend at a college party.

Business Appropriate
Let’s make our excerpt more conversational, while maintaining the appropriateness.

Thank you for your call. I have sent you some information about our XYZ products. You might have heard that our company values quality. We would like to show you how we can help you be most cost effective. Let’s talk some more about how we can help you and answer your questions. We want to be sure you feel good about your decision to buy our products.

Does the above example sound too stuffy? Is it too informal? Does it sound conversational and still maintain a business-like tone?

Try reading your sales and business letters out-loud before you send them. Make sure they are written in a conversational style that maintains a business tone. Give your customers the respect they deserve by communicating in a clear and concise manner. Choose strong, direct words to convey your message. Write in a style that encourages your reader to want to talk more with you.

Source: Valerie Kendrick is the President of Kendrick Resources LLC, specializing in communications skills training.

Do You Have A Marketing Mentality?

By David Eissman, founder of Guaranteed Growth Systems

Most small business owners and independent professionals start their business primarily because they have knowledge and skills that are in demand. While they understand intellectually that they have to market and sell, often it does not translate on an emotional level. Many business owners tend to look at marketing as a necessary evil, and in many cases, have negative beliefs toward it. They could not stand to be hounded by those pesky salesman in their previous jobs and do not want to “become on of them.” As a result, the tendency is to focus on the aspects of our business that were the reason we chose to go into business in the first place, the actual application of our knowledge or skills.

What is a marketing mentality and how is it developed? There are three components that all link together:

1) The first component is belief. What are the underlying beliefs that affect our mentality? It encompasses our attitudes, thoughts, fears, expectations, and lack of experience. Our actions are shaped by what we think about, what we assume to be true and where we choose to focus. If the thoughts are negative or avoidance minded then we will see marketing as undesirable and in some cases unethical. It will manifest in self talk such as: I don’t deserve referrals, my marketing won’t work anyway; I will look desperate; if my service or product is good the market will know that; I don’t like networking; etc.

2) The second component is behavior which is generally driven by our beliefs. The decisions we make every day are critical and negative beliefs about marketing affect the decisions that are made. For example, how often do we plan for the week and tell ourselves that on Tuesday we will focus three hours on marketing. Tuesday morning rolls along and we receive a client call or an issue or problem with an employee and then rationalize that the marketing must be put off because these issues must be dealt with immediately. The question is how often this is really true. In my experience working with clients the answer is rarely. Although we know that the marketing is important, we let our negative beliefs affect our behavior. Before we know it the pipeline is dry, and then some type of marketing activity is undertaken in an unplanned haphazard manner.

3) The third component is relationship. In order to have consistent lead generation and sales there must be a relationship cultivated with an adequate amount of prospects. This is the main function of marketing. It is the adage of people to do business with those they know, like and trust. Without a consistent and systematic marketing plan, there will not be a sufficient lead generation process.

The linkage is very powerful. The beliefs affect the behaviors and the behaviors affect the ability to develop the relationships. The connectivity between these elements is extremely leveraged in both a positive and negative direction. When they are aligned, the results are extraordinary, and when they are not, the results can be devastating.

So, if you are in this quandary, what can be done about it? First, sit down and make a list, and inventory what your beliefs are about marketing. Be honest and list as many as you can. Then ask yourself about whether these beliefs are really true, or just simply a personal bias. Second, are you absolutely sure what you believe is true, or is it possible that it is not? Next, evaluate how this belief affects your behavior and what would happen if this belief is changed. Try to reconstruct the thought to a more positive mindset. The next step is to translate those new thoughts into new behaviors. One of the best techniques for doing so is to block out time on your calendar and treat it as if it were an appointment with your best client. You surely would not miss an appointment with your best client to deal with a task that was short of an emergency, would you? After a short time, these new behaviors will become habits and the rewards will follow.

If marketing is a struggle, it is absolutely critical to engage in this marketing mentality process. Many companies with great services and products go out of business because they could not implement a consistent lead generation system. Most often that failure starts with the lack of a marketing mentality. The great news is that the necessary mentality can be developed with effort, focus, and an open mind. You will be amazed by the impact on your business.

Source: Reprinted from John Jantesh’s Small Business Articles Duct Tape Marketing (www.ducttapemarketing.com).