Just a quick update today.  I thought I would share a perfect example of the disconnect between what YOU want to tell visitors and what THEY are actually looking for.

That disconnect is the reason you have crappy conversion rates, wasted SEO and Adwords, and abandoned pages.

First you will find my video which describes where you can get the materials, what do look for, and a few tips  I learned from doing it myself. You don’t have to watch it, but it will honestly save you about an hour of work, a few trips to home depot, and some sore-ass fingers, and a lot of frustration.

As for the tutorials, I did not come up with any of the methods. I’m just bringing them together and sharing a few issues I had and how to get around them.  Thanks to Xbox 360 Repair guides   and Llammas adventures  for the actual know how…. oh and the guy at Home Depot helping me find stuff that I knew nothing about.

Watch this First:

 Steps to fix your XBOX 360 Ring of Death:

1.Check to see if your xbox is covered under the extended warranty. They extended the warranty for 3 years for this specific problem.  Free fix including shipping.  http://support.xbox.com/support/en/us/nxe/contact.aspx (you have to call)
If not, Here’s how you can fix it (this will void your warranty…not and issue if it’s already expired anyway…)

2. Watch my video first.  I’ll hilight where things get caught up before you start to avoid the same problems I had.
3. Watch the Youtube videos to see how to take the case apart and remove things.
4. Follow instructions on the Picture/text tutorial when you get to actully fixing the problem.
5. Refer to youtube video to put it back together.

Here are the materials you will need:

Here is a picture of the hardware you will need. Handy to bring with you to Home Depot along with the list below (pic is just one set, but remember, you want TWO sets to do both CPU and GPU.  List below is for TWO sets)

• 8 M5 x 12mm Machine Screws (home depot MUST be M5 and 12 long. head type not as important)
• 16 M5 Nylon Washers (home depot. sizes wacky. Make sure same diamater as steel and that center hole is big enough for 5mm screw to go through easily)
• 32 M5 Steel Washers -  (home depot)
• Arctic Silver Thermal Compound (Radio Shack)
• Goo Gone (Home Depot)
• Toothpicks (Makes cleaning goo around CPU/GPU Easier)
• Buttload of Qtips (Wifes make up bag)

Total Cost: About $20-25

Tools:

• Torx T10
• Torx T8
• 1/4″ Nut Driver or Wrench/Pliers
• 13/64 Drill Bit and Drill (Can go tiny bit bigger. Don’t need to be exact)
• Large and small slotted Screw Driver
• Tiny Ass Screwdriver  (paper clip MIGHT work, but didnt try) 

Picture/Text Instructions:

http://www.llamma.com/xbox360/repair/ring_of_light_x-clamp_fix.htm

Video Walkthrough:

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo2dl2vlwis&feature=related

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvdJ-Q_T6Js&feature=related

Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-wni_SNFXU&feature=related

That’s it. Hoped this helped some folks.  Drop a comment if you have any questions and I will see if I can help out.

In the mean time, browse our Blog for other tutorials, and let us know if you need any help with Marketing, Web Design, or Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

But that is me and my blog, NOT my work as either a consultant or as a marketing executive in my previous life. Because my blog is personal (as I think all good ones should be) it is the genuine me, burrs and all.

However, when I am working with a client, the suit goes on, the language is toned down, and humor, which defines me as a person, is actually rarely used as a marketing vehicle at all. It kills me, but there are SO many pitfalls if used inappropriately, it is often just not worth the risk for a client.

Sometimes I get lucky and a client and their audience have a very similar tone and market as me. In that rare case, our marketing results are just off the charts, but those cases are few and far between.

Being a guy who places tremendous value in humor, I offer these 6 tips for using humor in your own marketing materials. Use at your own risk.

1. Be Genuine

There are many types of humor: Subtle, sarcastic, slapstick, off-color, clever, etc.

What you need to figure out is which one you are. I am definitely the slapstick, off-color type. What can I say – I realize I am a large child, and fart jokes still crack me up. Compare that to Mikey, a good friend of mine (he hates when I call him that…It’s Mike, thank you.). He has a fantastic subtle sense of humor. He is the type that rarely pipes up, and you really have to pay attention; But, when he says something funny, it is obviously well thought out, and it always frigging kills me.

The point is that there is NO WAY I could pull off Mikey’s type of humor. Because I am so over the top 99% of the time, it would just get lost in the commotion. On the flip side, Mikey would look like a total idiot and loose all respect of people if he tried what I do. You can’t be quiet and mild mannered and then randomly start singing about your love of string cheese in the middle of the supermarket. It just don’t work.

If you are going to use humor, make sure it is your real humor, and not what you think your audience wants. Nothing is more cringeworthy than a joke that receives dead silence. In almost every case it comes from poor delivery, which is usually the result of not feeling 100% comfortable and confident in what you are doing. It works the same way in marketing. If your humor does not match that of your audience, take my advice – Don’t use it.

That was a super fancy segue into our next section if I do say so.

2. Know the audience…WELL

It is so super important to always know your audience when you are marketing. When using humor, it is doubly so. Not all people find the same things funny. Some type of humor (particularly mine) will even turn people away who would otherwise be customers. If your product or business paints it prospects with a broad brush, it is an absolute necessity that you niche out your segments if you want to try a shot a humor. Try your best not to let the segments cross paths.

Why? Because consensus humor is just not funny. If you try to make humor fit every audience, it will not fit ANY audience. If you have ever worked for a large corporation, you know that marketing creative is often brainstormed and approved by a group of marketing execs. I genuinely believe that that type of marketing usually sucks as it is so watered down to reach a consensus that it is also too watered down to earn a customer reaction. The same thing happens with humor.

3. Know how the audience views YOU

I have the luxury of hand picking my audience for my blogs and articles. I have built my sites from the ground up with the same tone and humor the entire time. If you like it, you stay, if not, you leave – and I’m totally cool with that.

When you are working with another business, or as a representative for a business that is not an exact replica of you, this is not the case.

What you really need to figure out is how the audience views you. And that will tell you if the type of humor you are using fits. If your audience perceives you as a “subtle”, then they are probably following you because they are “subtles” too. That tells you that the humor needs to be subtle as well.

Going back to points 1 and 2, if you are not a “subtle” as well, you have two options:

Option 1:. Don’t use humor. or
Option 2: Find a Mikey with a great subtle sense of humor and let him lead the creative.

4. Take risks if you can

The key point of this is “if you can.” This really depends on your type of humor, how risky the material is, and how big the potential upside is.

Everybody knows that the bigger the risk, the bigger the return. I’m finding that out in great detail with my own blog. Whenever I post a article that is a bit offensive and off color, the traffic for those posts usually goes through the roof. My article called “Retards and the Chinese” is a perfect example of this. To sum up, I received a few angry posts and emails about my casual use of the word “retard.” The article that addressed those comments was designed specifically to push peoples buttons and provoke a response. And it really did. But, truth be told, I was biting my nails for the entire week after I posted it. I got lucky, but it could have been a disaster.

The point is that it was a calculated risk. I knew that my audience base was predominately outspoken and thick skinned, so I figured they could take it. I was also very careful to turn the article sympathetic towards me after I ruffled everyone’s feathers. It worked well, but definitely took some time to get just right. I probably rewrote the closing paragraphs about 10 times.

5. Know when to say no

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point being a damn fool about it” – WC Fields

Sometimes humor is just not the right choice. Yes it is fun, yes it can produce fantastic results, but yes, it can also kill you if done wrong. If you find yourself on the negative side of any of the above tips, then just stop. It’s not worth it.

The key to humor is 100% confidence. If you are not true in your humor, if your audience is not into your humor, or if your audience image of you is not congruent with your humor, then your chances of success can not possibly outweigh the potential risks of using it.

Stick with the tried and true marketing vehicles that have worked for you in the past. They will not get the big results you are hoping for, but you won’t shoot yourself in the foot either.

Also, as a final caveat on know when to say no. Some things are just inherently not funny and should not be taken lightly. I wouldn’t recommend using humor under any circumstances to market when people have been injured physically or emotionally or are truly in need of help.

A great example that comes to mind is the recent Cash4Gold commercial that aired during the Super Bowl (I reviewed it and other ads in a recent article here). It starred Ed McMahon and MC Hammer pawning all their goods because they were broke. It was supposed to be funny. Not only did it not work, but it made me feel bad for the stars. If you think about the underlying context of WHY someone would be selling their stuff to a pawn shop and how desperate their situation must be, I think you would agree that there is nothing really funny about that.

6. Thicken your skin

Jokes flop. Even the best comedians will tell you that. If edgy, they will also offend some people. It’s gonna happen sooner or later. My final piece of advice is to grow a thick skin. Not everything will work the first time. As with stand up comedy, humor in marketing often takes a while to work out phrasing and timing.

At my site, I often push the edge on what is “professional.” After all, I am a serious and professional business person. I have a ton of real experience and have made a ton of real money. But that often does not jibe with the image I represent, especially on first impression.

Most people who stick around past the first article will usually become fans –loyal motivated fans – for a long time, but that does come at a price of losing a good percentage of visitors who just don’t get it or cannot get past the apparent professional/goofy disconnect.

That is a trade off I am willing to accept. I am 100% confident and 100% congruent to my personality on my site, so I can weather the comments and criticisms that I occasionally get. If I were not, I’m not sure I would be able to stomach someone truly thinking I am an idiot and what that might mean to my reputation.

I’ll end with a great quote that sums up a lot of what I do on my own site, and being the spaz I am, my general approach to humor. It’s simple, but says quite a bit.

“I’m not funny. What I am is brave. “ – Lucille Ball

Stay Cool.

JJ

 BIO: JJ Kennedy is the president of Evil Genius Interactive,  marketing, seo, and web design company located in Sarasota FL. 

Here are a few recommended reads: (What’s this?)

Do’s and Taboos of Humor Around the World: Stories and Tips from Business and Life

Humor in the Advertising Business: Theory, Practice, and Wit

Ben & Jerry’s: The Inside Scoop: How Two Real Guys Built a Business with a Social Conscience and a Sense of Humor

Working with my new client base of smaller businesses in Sarasota, I’ve been asked this question several times over the last few months. Blog or Website?  I usually recommend a blog over a traditional html website in most cases, but it’s not for the reason you are probably thinking.

Most people associate a blog an unemployed person, sitting in their bathrobe, ranting about a particular topic.  And I’m not saying that isn’t true.  But that is also NOT at all what I am suggesting.

When I recommend a blog over traditional web pages, I am recommending a TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM, not what you will be using it for.  And that’s a crucial distinction.  Using a blog as a technology platform gives you access to a free, easy-to-use-and-administer content management system. It gives you the ability to change your design with the flip of a switch, and it gives you the ability to add tons of functionality at a fraction of the price you would pay to have custom built.

By building your site on a blog-based technology* you get a few things that a static HTML site just cant offer.

• With a blog, you have a built in CMS (content management system) that allows you to update your own content.  That means you don’t have to pay me every time you need to update a phone number or add a page. If you can use Word, you can use Wordpress.
• Blogs are waaay more search engine friendly.  You can put all the tags right in when you are writing the page. No fancy coding needed. Tags show up more often on pages. Pings are set up automatically, etc.
• Blogs encourage interaction with comments. This both moves buyers along the decision making curve, but also creates more inbound links, and keyword appearance both bumping your Google visibility
• Blogs have THOUSANDS of free design themes.  Don’t like your current design? Pop in a new theme. Flip the switch.  Even if your theme is customized, the amount of work to change it in blog format is CONSIDERABLY less than redesigning and rebuilding an entire site.
• Blogs have THOUSANDS of free functionality plugins.  Add a form or survey? No problem. Want a fancy photo slideshow for your portfolio? No problem. Calendar of events? No problem.  All free, all with minimal setup. Pay me $100 to set it up, or pay a developer $1000 to rebuild the wheel… you choose?

Cases where a blog is not your best idea:

• Very design heavy sites- Customizing a blog or CMA base theme (either Wordpress or Joomla or Drupal, or whatever) is NOT easy. They were designed for content, not pretty pictures and advanced interaction.  It can be done, but it may require  a lot of work.
• Programming intensive sites – custom shopping carts, fancy scripts in the works?  Not so easy on a Blog or CMS

This ain’t yo mammas blog:

The last question I get a lot is this “Don’t blogs look like…well blogs.”  And that question depends on how much you want to spend.  This site for example is built on a blog.  It has some pretty fancy customizations, but both the platform (Wordpress) and the theme (Brandford), are the same as the frees one you can download.  The design is seriously pimped, the wordpress install is vanilla.

Some other sites that are using wordpress as their base technology

People	Wall Street Journal Magazine	Playstation

 Blogs that don’t LOOK like blogs

Camancho Cigars	Furniture Warehouse	Ford Autoshows

 **(I usually recommend Wordpress for most small busineses since it is both free and fairly user friendly. Joomla for larger businesses with multiple contributors or advanced needs)

Evil Genius has teamed up with its sister firm, Bayline Partners in Boston to offer a new breed of Search engine visibility.  You show up on page one or its FREE!

A caveat before we even begin.  While I hope this article entertains and informs you, its ultimate purpose is to pitch a new service my company is offering.  I made an extra special effort to make it fun, but it is what it is.  If that bothers you, go away.  If however you enjoy my warped perspective, self-flagellating sense of humor,  and/or are thankful for the hundreds of articles and tutorials I have penned pitch-free, read on!  Ultimately I really believe in the value of this program or I would not offering it.  So, as Forrest says…that’s all I have to say about that.

While I’m pretty well known for giving stuff away for free, it’s usually with a purpose.  I’m not real big with the concept of losing money (unless of course when it comes to the stock market where my incompetence seems to have no bounds) .  So when Kevin (CEO of Bayline) and I started talking about the program he was running, I was understandably…how do I say this gently….passing him a helmet and assigning him the open seat on the short bus.

If you would like to get straight to the details of the program, skip down.

If you would like to be marginally entertained first, read on…

A walk down memory lane… boys will be boys

Kevin and I cut our chops together as fresh MBA grads in Boston at a company called Instinctive, later changed to eRoom.  This was the pre-dot com bubble and the office was replete with both in-office parties where beer was not only allowed, but supplied, and a foosball table in the lobby.   ….aah I miss those days. 

Kevin was slaving away as events manager in a cubicle next to sales, I was in a shared office down the hall working as my self-appointed title of “web guy” which to my ears sounded oddly more prestigious than webmaster.

When I was finally given the big promotion to internet marketing manager and received the thumbs-up to add to my staff, I approached Kevin.  I can’t even recall how we met or hit it off in the early days, but apparently somehow we did.  At this point Kevin had zero experience building websites or anything to do with technology, but he was a very bright camper.

One of my fondest memories of any of my start up days was sharing an office with Kevin.  They were days full of both fratboy tomfoolery and genuine hard work.  Let me give you an example of the former.

My desk was at the back of our office, with me facing the doorway.  His was up front on the left, also facing the doorway, but set up so that one of his computer monitors faced me, but was hidden if someone was standing in the doorway.

With me being in full view of anyone walking down the hallyway, everybody used to just stop at the door to talk to me.  This did not go unnoticed to Kevin. 

He somehow got it in his head that it would be funny to flash porn on his screen while an unknowing person stood in the doorway to talk to me.  Usually the picture was an enormously fat woman nude and spread eagled.    On special occasions, like when it was VP or higher, he made sure to step up the nastiness.  I am not even sure where you would find that type of stuff in those days, but needless to say, many of the participants were either German, Japanese, or equine.

Not to be outdone, I decided to make my retribution a little more personal.  Our office manager was a very cool guy named Robert. He was also flamingly gay.  Not kinda gay, but the flamboyant gay that makes most people uncomfortable. .  Being a fit, blond-haired, blue-eyed guy who was into personal grooming, it wasn’t a stretch to imply to Robert that Kevin was as closeted brethren as well .  And trust me, I implied it a LOT.  Every chance I got I would drop the subtle hints.   To this day I remember the email Kevin got from Robert with just a picture of a biker in chaps and a thong.  The caption simply said  “hot!”

In all, Kevin is basically the guy your parents would want you to marry.  Handsome, intelligent, well spoken and well coiffed.  I however, am the guy you snuck out of your bedroom window to go meet at midnight.  We both somehow managed to land supermodel-worthy, doctoral-level wives…but he in his way (think Opie from Andy Griffith) and me in mine (think Edward from Twilight…without the sparkles…or good looks) . But I digress.

In time, Kevin went on to start his own firm Bayline Media, which has now grown to become Bayline Partners with a staff of full time employees.  I went on to fulfill my dream (at the time) of becoming a fancy pants executive.  If you follow my blog, you know the story.  After a few years, the realization sunk in that the fancy office in the fancy big city with the fancy title and the fancy paycheck ultimately come with a fancy price tag – your soul.

So needless to say, Kevin and Bayline have a few years on me in the business ownership gig.  And ultimately, and finally the point of this story, is that the student has become the teacher.

Flip to last week

 I am in the process of relaunching my company, Evil Genius Interactive, in my new locale of Sarasota,Florida.  It is not without its challenges.  While my experience and strength is in working with larger business or big marketing programs, the environment down here just won’t support that type of approach.  Granted there are only a few cat’s down here besides me that wouldn’t quake in their boots at a multi-million dollar marketing program, but the reality is that there are even fewer business with that need.

With the big guys, your lead in is the strategy – my strong point.  You talk about ROI, business plan integration, champions, and boardroom politics.  With the little guys, you talk about pretty pictures and hourly rates.  And that is quite a shift for me.

In discussing the challenges with Kevin, he mentioned how well the guaranteed SEO package works as a lead in with the smaller business.  And I can understand why. I am one myself.  We need to get in front of customers just like everyone else, but we don’t have a lot of money to burn – hence why anything that offers a service with a no-pay guarantee sounds like a voice from God.

How the Guaranteed Page One Google Thingy Works

I won’t go into details which you can find HERE. But what I will tell you is that from everything I have seen, it really works….or ultimately Kevin would not be pitching it to me, nor would I agree to partner with Bayline on it.

This is NOT paid keyword advertising.  This is natural search which has shown to have a 30 percent higher click thru rate as well as being seen as much more trustworthy than paid keywords.

So to super-dumb down-simpli-fizicate the process, here goes.

There are 2 parts.

First we create a list of 100 or so locale-based keywords that we think would work for you*.  We then narrow down that list is pick the best to run with.   Next, your site/blog/whatever is optimized for your chosen keywords.  They are incorporated into your titles, meta tags, articles, everything.  If needed, extra pages are created within your site which are live, but not visible anywhere other than your sitemap. Yes, there is a charge for this. This part is not free….yet.

The next step consists of stuff on our side.  And sadly, this is ALL manual labor. Brainless, but still manual.  Your site is submitted to all the major search engines…by hand.  Then dozens (or hundreds) of inbound links are created to your site.  Again, by hand and no black hat link farm stuff** .

Within 3 weeks, about 50% of your search terms (25 is the minimum number we work with) will appear on page ONE of biggies like Google and Yahoo.  Within 3 months, 90% should be up.  And of course comes the guarantee.  If you don’t show up on page one, that keyword is free.  Period.

The Pudding (where the proof is)

Not ONE client has gotten a free pass yet. That’s good for them, but really better for us   What that also screams in big neon letters with a pointing cartoon character and a marching band is this – it works.

If we have to start giving everybody their money back for being on page TWO think of it this way -  A. We go broke. And B. Page two is better than what you have now – and you didn’t have to pay for it.

So in closing

Geit it tard.  If you are using the phonebook for local traffic, stop.  There are 4 BIG phone book competitors now which all promise traffic, but ultimately gather dust because both you and I search the web before we open a phonebook.  That’s the way it is these days.  I’ve done it over the years for several businesses and the ROI is just not there unless your name is Aaaaaaadvantage Appliance Associates.

If you are doing lots articles, submissions, and link building and getting decent results all on your own., then keep doing what you are doing.  This is a slower path, but ultimately should get you the same results eventually. No need to pay anyone.

BUT if you are not into cranking out 3 or 4 new articles a week, posting them to dozens of category sites, amassing  followers, mailing your list, and basically whoring yourself to every “expert” site out there, then this might be the way to go for you.  After all, IT’S GUARANTEED.

**Heads Up: If your business client base is national or global, this plan is NOT for you. The power of it is in the specificity of geography.  It works for a dentist in Cambridge, a veterinarian in Sarasota, a CPA in Miami, a designer in Topeka, etc.  You don’t have to be brick and mortar, but your clients need to be searching for services in your neck of the woods.

***Side note: If someone suggests to black hat stuff to you (automated postings, link farms, keyword spamming,, etc) …run. It works for about 1 week, but as soon as the farm is blacklisted, ALL the farmed sites go on Googles Bad site list (presumably Santa‘s as well).  A reasonable metaphor is your credit after a bankruptcy… you will get it back if you are good, but it will take a looong time

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Bayline Partners Latest Search Engine Client Gets 42 Google Page One Listings!
Parrelli Optical Centers of Cambridge and Danvers, MA retained Bayline Partners to help them drive traffic to their website. “Our first objective was to get them where 80% of internet searches are made… in the natural results spaces on Google and Yahoo. In just 4 short weeks they went from 0 visibility to having their 42 most requested search terms on the First Page in Google!” Say Kevin Roy, CEO of Bayline Partners

Try out a sample by “Googling” eye exams danvers, eye exams Cambridge, eye doctors danvers, optometrists danvers, high prescription eyeglasses, All have Page One Rankings!

More…

But these numbers don’t apply to you.  We have made it into the growth phase where your chances for success improve significantly.  You now have the clout and cash to make a few mis-steps – and trust me you will.  I actually encourage it at this point. 

This article is going to be about Accelerating the Tipping Point.  If you remember, one of the things we discussed in the Introduction Phase was targeting the innovators, early-adopters, and influencers.  In this phase, we are going to start to leverage those relationships to help pass our message to the mass market.

Please note: In other phases, the role of innovators and influencers can be quite different, but in this context they play a similar role.  I will be using them interchangeably in the course of this article.  Either will do just fine. 

The mind of the Mass Market 

The mind of the mass market is VERY different from that of an innovator or influencers.  What appeals to the early folks is not the same as what appeals to the mass market, and we need to take that into consideration. 

I hate to say it, but the majority of people, particularly in group situations, are sheep. They try not to stand out in a crowd, avoid confrontation, are moderately averse to any type of real risk, tend to revert to the lowest common denominator in a group decision making process, and for the most part, want to keep their head down and do their thing.  

As such, motivating them to try something different is always a challenge. Two motivators I have found that are particularly effective in reaching the mass market are Reassurance and Pain.

Reassurance

 Have you ever noticed how a bunch of people will gather at a street corner and wait for a light change to cross?  Even if there is little traffic, people will look down the road to see if it is safe, and then do nothing.  Now introduce an innovator or influencer.  They will look down the road, see it is safe, and then run across.  What happens next?  That’s right, the mob, lead by the innovator, now crosses.  

That’s a perfect example of crowd behavior and the role of an influencer in real life. There are thousands of examples of this psychology ranging everywhere from the following of Hitler, to the famous Bronx stabbing witnessed by 38 people where not a single person tried to help or even phone the police. 

The mass market is dominated by these constraints; And, for good or bad, we better find some way to use it if we are to tap their collective buying power. 

The easiest method is to use your innovators and influencers gathered in the introduction phase.  The very characteristics that made them try your product in the first place are the same that will make the mass market look to them for guidance and reassurance. Nifty hunh? 

What you need to do is target those influencers and innovators which best represent the “every man” quality of the mass market you are going after.  Believe it or not, demographics will be more important than psychographics when choosing.  Mass market people tend to relate to age, race, sex, location, salary, and similar activities, over beliefs and other more intangible characteristics (Remember lowest-common denominator in group psychology) 

What the mass market needs at this point is reassurance.  They need to feel like they are making the right decision, they need to feel that they are not risking money or time, and sadly again, they often need to put the decision in someone elses hands.  It’s up to you to give them those hands. 

Testimonals, product ratings, infomercials, and case studies work excellent at this point.

Pain 

Most marketers believe that the pursuit of pleasure is what will really motivates people.  How many campaigns present images of wealthy people, in exotic locations, with fancy cars and beautiful women?  Well, pretty much all of them. 

There is another method which is exponentially more powerful.  Pain.  

Avoidance of physical, mental, or emotional pain is the one thing that will make people open their wallets and pay whatever it takes to make it go away.  In psychology terms it comes down to Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs. You need certain things to be taken care of before other things become a priority.  The absence of pain is going to be one of those top priorities, long before the pursuit of pleasure. 

For example, I get migraines.  I have since I was a kid.  If you get them too, I don’t need to tell you how much they suck. Like no other suck in the world.  If you don’t get them, this is a reasonable approximation: 

1. Get a nail gun.
2. Point at your temple
3. Fire.
4. Repeat until you wish you were dead. 

How much would I spend on a miracle drug that had a real chance of making them go away forever?  Anything. I seriously would sell my shiny BMW Z4 for that. No lie.  Over the course of 30 years, I probably have spent that and more on every type of medication, relaxation tape, psychoanalysis, and biofeedback there has been on the market. 

That’s powerful isn’t it? 

How to use pain 

In order to use this method effectively you need to do a few things.  You have to make your prospect realize they have this pain (and it has to be legitimate pain), you need to ramp up that pain as much as possible by illustrating all the reasons it sucks, you need to show them explicitly why whatever they are doing now is NOT working, and you need to show them how your product will relieve that pain. 

The reassurance method above is an excellent way to do this.  Find an “every man” influencer, and make people relate to him or her.  Because they were an innovator or influencer for your product, they were either a leader in general, or were acutely aware of their existing pain, and sought you out to solve it for them.  Either way, it makes them a perfect spokesperson for your solution.  They are relatable, capable of leading, and if they are still with you, have found that you have provided a real resolution of their pain.  That’s more than enough to convince the masses that you have what they need. 

Prepare for demand to go through the roof. Good thing the next article is going to be on how to manage that demand. 

Stay cool. See ya soon. 

Here are a few recommended reads: (What’s this?)

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

Pain Killer Marketing: How to Turn Customer Pain into Market Gain

I have resumed work on a project with an old partner with the goal of spinning a new company with the same exact purpose as the company he is working for now. The reason for doing it is simple. The consulting firm he works for now (from this point forward I will refer to them as SuckCorp) treats him and all other employees like shit, they treat their customers like shit, and since he runs the division, he has a pretty damn good idea how to do it better.

The Atrocity That is Our Competition

Here’s an inside story on just how F’d up our soon-to-be competition is. I met with the very top guy of their “Customer Excellence” department. I’ll just call him Executive VP of Denial. When going through their customer records, I happened to notice that almost every file was marked with having a “CUSTOMER INCIDENT.” Assuming I was just a ‘tard and misread something, I went through them again. And yes, 28 of the 30 records I was looking at were marked in the same big red letters.

I asked my buddy to set up a meeting with EVP Denial to get an idea of why this was showing up – surely there had to be some error. I mean NOBODY has a 98% customer dissatisfaction rating. For christ sakes, Hitler was more popular than that.

When we sat to meet, I started by asking in my usual subtle fashion, “What’s up with these numbers?”

In a pleasing tone (and he really did seem like a nice, if self-deluding guy) he explained, ” Oh no, that’s not unhappy customers, we just have a policy of marking a file if there has been an issue with the client.”

To which I replied, “Well what defines an ‘issue’?”

He then replied confidently, “Well it’s only if the client has refused to pay a bill, or requested another consultant, or had a problem with our telemarketing, or collection or something.”

And for one of the few times in my life, I shut up. I just didn’t know what to say. So apparently someone thinking a consultant sucks and requesting another, refusing to pay, or being pissed for being constantly hassled isn’t and “issue” for them. Just wow.

And that was when I made the flip in my head that I am NOT working with this company, as I was debating taking a consulting gig with them to get this new division off the ground. Not only that, but I decided to pull out my buddy so we could do this the right way. In hindsight it might have also been that I found out that their employee retention after 6 months is 15% or that consultant’s call it “popping your cherry” the first time a client kicks you out or threatens to call the police if you don’t leave.

Again. Just wow.

So….If we combine their horrendously bad customer service with my modestly breathtaking marketing abilities, I figure we got a pretty good shot competing with them.

My conundrum

The challenge I am currently working through is how to introduce ourselves. We obviously want to target the same client list. We also want to highlight the experience the team has, and want to try to use as many big name drops as we can (Having the IRS, several state governments, and a handful of well known Fortune 500 firms never hurts the marketing). Unfortunately, they all come from the time the team worked at SuckCorp.

In the process of my brain scraping, I called on a few friends to help me with my conundrum. One of the folks I asked was Jay White, copywriter extraordinaire who helps develop copy for a lot of the big name IM (Internet Marketing ) gurus including Schefren, Filisaime, and I think Kern and Walker as well. In addition to being a retardedly adept wordsmith, he is also just a really cool guy – and that’s 90% of the game in my book.

Anyway, homoerotic adoration aside, Jay wrote back to me and his advice pretty much re-affirmed my original plan. He told me simply – just be honest. It was just nice to hear it from another trusted source. And coming from an IM guy where fluff, fibs, and spin reach atmosphere-breaking levels, it was a welcome surprise.

I like to think of myself as a pretty honest, ethical guy. I’ve walked away from not one, but two ridiculously well-paying gigs because I thought what the company was doing was shady. So to recap: Sellout, absolutely. Scumbag, I try not to. Subtle distinction.

However, in business, and in marketing in particular, you are constantly walking a fine line. Both for the purposes of greed, and believe it or not, the legality of what you are saying, – you sometimes have to censure things out. Now I believe that a lie of omission is just as much a sin as a big flat out honker, so I have always strictly adhered to what I think I would want/need to know if I were the customer, and market accordingly.

The difficulty in this case is that this plan requires me to do two things that I am not particularly comfortable with. The first being talking shit (all of which really is verifiably true) about someone else. The second being that I have to creatively wordsmith some stuff to sound like WE did it (which technically is true, our consultants did do the work) , when in actuality it was done while at SuckCorp. You see my conundrum – honesty for a less than honorable purpose, and stretching the truth for an arguably noble one.

The Plan

I am still early in the process, but I think my pitch is not going to be to badmouth the competition, but to over-emphasize our commitment to customer service. Hopefully SuckCorp’s rep will speak for itself, and customers will come to their own conclusion as to why we are doing it. (which is always a million times more powerful than anything I can say to them). That does put a lot of pressure on us to excel at service, but I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing, and truthfully, we could screw up pretty bad, and still be better than SuckCorp.

In terms of introduction, I am going to say that we are a brand new company with the same seasoned experts who have (performed this service) for industry leading companies like namedrop, namedrop, and namedrop.

Everything about the marketing will smack of building an ongoing relationship with our clients. Not only is it true, but it’s a critical part of our business model where lifetime customer value is going to be used to offset upfront losses. As we simply don’t have the capital or manpower (or inclination) to dump 500 telemarketers in a room to scour the phonebook for contacts, it’s gonna have to be.

I think theirs is a shitty model anyway – Anyone with business experience will tell you it takes approximately 10x more effort, time, and money to gain a new client than to keep an existing one, an important fact that seems to be lost on SuckCorp. Apparently their company motto is “Burn the f’n bridge, they are making new ones all the time…”

As for the offering, we are basically gonna pull a Japanese de-engineer/reengineer on SuckCorps product. Their service is truthfully pretty good, but its woefully out of date, and could be made a hell of a lot prettier and user friendly. That part should be a no brainer.

Lastly in terms of marketing, I’m also gonna pull out all the stops on affiliate programs. Something I learned from my days in IM. Get affiliates, pay them a sick cut, and let em loose. In this particular arena that means I’ll be going after divorce and bankruptcy lawyers, insurance agents, retirement planners, and accountants. Tell me those guys won’t drop a load in their panties when I tell them I am offering them a 50% commission.

Yep, FIFTY percent. Another trick I learned in the internet marketing world as well. Let me explain: When you are selling a service that is VERY difficult to quantify, and relatively few people are doing it, you can charge people just about anything for it. In fact, a higher price often makes if more desirable. And since we are creating plans that will quite literally save or earn people 10x or more than they paid for it, it’s not too hard to justify the sale in their mind. I’m just gonna take SuckCorps price, bump it up enough to cover the commission split, and let my affiliates bring the contacts to me. Slick, I know. Do I know it will work? Not for sure, but I think it will.

So that’s the basic plan at this point. I’m tending to think it will do pretty well, but there is always the possibility it will flop, or SuckCorp will come after us with some pretty big legal guns. But then again, that’s why I partnered with a lawyer and why god created limited liability corporations : )

The Proof

I’ve seen the David vs. Goliath battle play out in real life. One of the first companies I cut my teeth at was eRoom technology in Cambridge. They pulled a similar coup against Lotus and won their particular product battle (Lotus at the time was a monstrosity rivaling Microsoft, not the shell it is now) Granted, eRoom had not only funding, but minds that dwarf mine in comparison including my original mentor and to-this-day one of the greatest marketing minds I have ever met, Francois Gossieaux, in the VP of Marketing role, but I’ll try to do ‘em proud. I have the added advantage of the fact that company I am fighting against basically sucks – abysmal service and reputation, antiquated models, and stone-age technology.

All they got is size… and as my wife tells me on occasion, “Size doesn’t matter.” Let’s hope she wasn’t lying to me.

I’ll let you know if how it goes. Talk to you soon.

JJ

I’m over Twitter. Don’t get me wrong – I still have it, I’m still collecting followers, and I still throw up a new tweet when I write an article. But other than that, the twetals have fallen off the twose.

In case you live in a cave, or are my wife, Twitter is “a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read each others’ updates, known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters, displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to other users – known as followers – who have subscribed to them.”

<– I KNEW Mr. Rogers was always after the Giant C*ck!

In noob terms, Twitter is like your Facebook status. Followers are kind of like your friends…but the ones you don’t really give a shit about or know personally. Yeah, I mean the kid in high school in the cool crowd that picked on your when his friends were around but was nice to you when he was alone . Dick.

Why I originally liked Twitter

At first, I thought it was a killer app. A great way to make new acquaintances with similar interests and a great way to follow up on what your friends are doing. A couple of cool free tools out there like TweetDeck make it easier to organize tweets of those you follow and search for info.

Why I am really no longer a fan -The Popularity Contest, Hacks, and randomness

Twitter has become a popularity contest…and becoming more shady by the day. Twitter etiquette usually implies that if someone follows you, you follow back in return. And there are dozens of mods to automate this process for you. Combine that with the natural desire to have more and more people follow you, the twitter anonymity factor, and the fact that all the Internet Marketing gurus are always claiming that you want a giant “list” for marketing, and the ultimate result is hoards of people who know nothing about each other on each others “follower” list and an open door for spam abuse.

In addition, there is a new clever “black hat” technique that some of the shadier marketers have created to exploit the automatic return follow. It goes like this. A spammer runs a program that “follows” thousands of people. A good percentage of those people (like me) have a mod that automatically follows them back. The next day, the spammer runs another program that drops all those people they are following.

The result – The spammer has a Twitter account that looks like this : Following: 8 Followers: 15,483

At first glance, you must think that they must be some type of celebrity with so many people following what they have to say, and so very few that they follow themselves. … but nope, in truth it is a fat sophomore in a community college that lives in his moms basement and collects transformers figurines who just bought the latest IM guru course on “How to make $10 Million Dollars in 17 Seconds with my Ultra-Ninja Secrets!”

I’m perfect proof of this tactic. I have probably pro-actively followed about 25 people EVER. And yet I am following 779, and have 707 followers. I’m guessing 400-500 may have come from the blog. Others… I have no idea. And I certainly haven’t signed up to follow 779

The Unweildyness

I can honestly tell you that I have not opened up twitter or tweetdeck in 2 months. It’s just too cumbersome. For every 1 person I’m actually friends with (read: give a shit what they say) there are 100 other people posting updates on what HAS to be a 15 minute basis.

A random snippet from approximately 10 seconds of my twitter feed:

HomeChik: OMG. My dog is barking at the dog on TV. Yawn.

WorkAtHome: Is frugality about saving money or making you feel less guilty? http://cli.gs/Wg4aNU. Yawn

ManvDebt: Free limited time offer on an “exlusive” new marketing tool. http://bit.ly/Hf0MC Yawn.

DanB: LOL. Dude hitting himself in the face with a hammer. http://bit.ly/Mt0MC Ok, that one was funny.

The result? About 3000-5000 new tweets a day – That’s a conservative number, and I have a comparatively small follow list. Imagine if you follow a few thousand people?

Talk about a frigging time waster. Is anyone actually going to read all those? Even if they were all useful (which is becoming less and less so thanks to the inevitable spam component) there still aren’t enough hours in a day to read all those and get anything done.

Why Facebook is my new Twitter, mySpace, and LinkedIn rolled into one

I have been using Facebook quite extensively lately. I can still post updates on a regular basis, and I can still see my friends’ updates on a regular basis. In addition, more and more people of my age (read: over 12) are signing up every day. The fact that I have to approve every person before I become “friends” with them means that I only get updates from the people I actually listen to.

Now what about mySpace? What about it? Have you been there lately? That’s perfect proof that giving users too much power is never a good idea. The whole thing is a mess or migraine-inducing backgrounds, autoloading 17 random videos, unreadable text, crashing pages, and background music from the latest American Idol contestant at brain-melting volumes. I’ll pass. I already closed that account. (PS: Sadly, still the best place for musicians and band pages tho)

LinkedIn is still a great business tool, but with so many people now on Facebook, the controlled user experience (ie more professional, but still personal) and the clear social networking advantages that Facebook offers, I have to say that LinkedIn is drying up as well.

A quick rundown of apps/sites I like, and those that now blow:

Daddy Like:

• Facebook - Some things still confuse me, but getting better by the day. My goto spot for communication with people with value to me.
• Digsby – ALL Instant Messenger programs rolled into one including AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Facebook chat, Facebook statuses, AND Twitter updates (if you insist despite my warnings…’tard)
• Skype – Still a cool app. I have the phone plan and an actual physical phone hooked up to it. $25 bucks a year. Free calls to Dad in China, buddies in California, France and Germany? Priceless
• Rapidshare – At $10ish a month it ain’t cheap, but pretty much every movie, CD, ebook, and porn ever made has rapidshare links to it somewhere on the interweb.
• eFax.com - Don’t got a landline or want to deal with a fax machine? Send faxes right from your PC and recieve them as an email. Pretty nifty. Free packages available too. You get an actual phone number that people can fax to (can upgrade to your own 800 number as well for a fee). I tried to get 1-888-spankme but it was taken…damn.

Now Lame: (Not worth the time to link…figure it out if you must)

• Twitter – Spamnificient waste of time
• MySpace – Should come with a Prozac prescription
• RSS Readers – Just don’t have time. I just check a few blogs I like regularly.
• Google Alerts – Same as RSS. Not enough time. But still useful if I am researching a particular topic over a period of time.
• Monster.com – Man this site turned into a clusterfuck of ads, non-responsive pages, and tedious application processes. Networking and headhunters work better anyway.

Scum of the earth:

Ecost.com – Avoid these guys like the plague. Shady don’t even begin to cut it. NEVER EVER buy anything from these guys. Just burn your money instead if you have to. Amazon.com is a great alternative and usually has all the same stuff at similar prices.

Till next time…be cool

And just in case your are remarkably shallow and didn’t at all get the point of this article…..Follow me on Twitter at EvilGeniusTV

If you DID pay attention, you can find me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jj.kennedy if you have something interesting to say, I might even friend you I have a pretty small group of very close knit friends, so we will see

JJ

Whenever I tell a client they need one, they look like I just told them they were being audited, kicked them in the weiner, and dry humped their dog. (See photo)

The reality is that there are different types of business plans. Yes, there are the voluminous ones with reams of research and data, but those are usually reserved for projects where a source of funding is required. And I believe in these cases, a solid justification is both understandable and necessary. After all, if you are giving me $10 Million to launch a new business, you deserve to know exactly what I am going to be doing with it and exactly how I am going to be providing a return on your investment.

But for most entrepreneurs, a huge business plan is just not necessary.

For the majority of entrepreneurs, a business plan is simply a target that keeps your focus and the top level strategies for reaching that destination. This is where a 1 page plan is enough. It is designed to serve as a tool to keep you on track and to aid in decision making. That’s It. And in EVERY case I have seen it implemented in, it is a giant help.

The 1 page plan provides the who, what, where, why, and how of your business at the 10,000 foot level.

Here’s what it should include.

Business Description:
This section is a top level view of what your company does.

Company Mission:
This is the most touchy-feely section of the plan. Your plan is to of course make money, but this is the section where you explain your values and why you are doing it.

Product/Service:
Pretty self explanatory. This is the products or services that you plan to offer

Competitive Advantage:
In this section you need to describe WHY someone would buy your product over someone else’s or why your business will succeed where others won’t. Key point, if you don’t have any competition now (brand new concept) you will. Otherwise it is probably not a niche you want to be in. Highlight your real advantages over anyone else. If you don’t have any, you had better find some.

Markets:
This can be expanded or changed, but try to be as specific as possible. This will help you jump into the shoes of your prospects more easily. The “Putting a face to your target market exercise” is very useful here.

Calculating NPV on future revenue streams is sooo 2nd grade!

Revenue Channels:
This section will most likely change as your experience with the business grows. That’s OK, but it is important to have a focal point to help you make better decisions.

Distribution Channels:
For information marketers, this section will be easy. For physical product retailers or eCommerce sites, this will become a very important section. If you fall into the latter group, you need to make sure to take time to work out the fulfillment phase in quite a bit of detail.

Competition:
It is important to spend a good bit of time analyzing your competition. You need to know what products they offer it, price points, how they market, profit margins, what they are good at, and what they stink at. A keen understanding of their core-competencies is crucial to exploiting your own. It is also important to constantly keep current on what you competition is doing.

Financial Goals
It is understandable that this step may have some discomfort, especially in the early stages. While it is not important to have an exact figure early on, it is extremely important to have SOME challenging figure.
You can always readjust up if you are more successful than planned (and I hope you are).

There are several schools of thought on how to best use sales goals to motivate you. My personal philosophy is to make these numbers very challenging, but obtainable under ideal circumstances.

How to use your One Page Business Plan

In the initial stages, you should be re-evaluating and repurposing this document at 6 month intervals. Any more often and you risk losing focus (the main reason you are doing it to start with) less frequent and you could be missing valuable opportunities.

Keep a copy on your wall or someplace handy and review it often. Whenever you are facing a tough decision, pull out this document to keep you on track.

Below is an actual 1 page plan that I used with a client who was expanding their current Karate school to include at-home study program for women’s self defense.

Sample 1 Page Business Plan – InYourDefense

Business Description: InYourDefense creates, designs, develops, information products, videos, and seminars in the market niche of women’s self defense.

Company Mission: Our goal is to help our customers feel secure and in control at all times. We will do this through a system of education, training, and peer support.

Product/Service: information products, videos, and seminars about Women’s Self Defense

Competitive Advantage: President is 6th degree black belt in Tae Kwan Do with 15 years of experience teaching. Wife of president is also 2nd degree black belt and can serve as the “face” of the company as well as providing first hand insight into buyers needs and desires.

Markets: Buyers are women aged 18-55 of all socio-economic backgrounds interested in personal safety.

Seriously Honey! All I said was that you kinda look like your mom!

 Target must be easily reachable via internet and ready/willing to buy.

In addition, the constant churn of natural new interest in this space make customer acquisition an easier task

Revenue Channels: Fundamental revenue comes from three streams: dvd instructional videos, personal coaching systems, and affiliate sales.

Distribution Channels: Internet distribution of digital content, postal mail of dvd and training packages. Partner/affiliate distribution will be evaluated.

Competition: Several competitors exist in the internet place including xxx, xxx, and xxx. However pricing strategies, poor marketing and execution, and relative weak experience in training makes this an open market.

We will advance beyond the competition due to position as experts in this field , our knowledge of marketing best practices , and pre-exiting catalog of teaching content.

Financial Goals

• Year 1: 20,000 (transition into full time)
• Year 2: 75,000 (now full time position)
• Year 3: 150,000 (start growth, few outsourcers)
• Year 4: 500,000 (Begin full time employees, migration from worker to leader)

Wrapping it up

That’s it. That’s all there is to it. As I said earlier, tape this up on your wall and refer to it whenever you are faced with a difficult business decision. Another benefit of this document is that it provides a tangible action plan for tasks and a basis for your marketing plan. Whenever you are unsure on what you should tackle next in your new business, review this plan again. As you can see in the example above, there are numerous examples of areas that you need to explore fully before your business can become a success!

Hope this helps some of you. As always, feel free to post a comment with your thoughts or any questions you might have, and I’ll be happy to respond.

And as I expected, her problem centered around one thing – finding good people.

If there is one universal thing that plagues small businesses, that is it. While working with IM guru Rich Schefren, I had the opportunity to survey literally thousands of small business owners, and employee issues always topped the charts.

The truth is that finding, and more importantly, managing people is really really hard. No mention of it is ever given in any specialty classroom (lawyer, doctor, engineer, etc) and even in business schools where you have entire semesters dedicated to management, it’s always centered on softball subjects with little or no application in the real world.

After all, working relationships are relationships just like anything else. And people are complex F’rs. For 99% of the population, work is something a lot more than your paycheck. Nobody wants to feel like they are selling their soul for $15 bucks an hour. Even the ‘tard on the fryolator at Burger King.

And those ‘tards are the ones I want to talk about. Because for the vast majority of you small business owners out there, you are not hiring VP’s with years of experience and a $200k price tag like me – You are hiring the college kid, housewife/husband looking for some extra cash, or the person, sans-doctorate from Stanford, to help answer phones or file paperwork.

And this same exact boat my friend is in.

Now we have already established that I am a lazy bastard, and “unconventional” would be a polite way to describe me. But I also do have a background in psychology, am a pretty good natural leader, and my particular style allows me to push people much harder than anyone has a right to, and still be somewhat respected by my team later.

Yes, I have fired people. Yes I have had people quit because they didn’t like me. But, I think you would find that as a general rule, my teams kick ass, my teams really like what they do, and my teams would speak well of both me and what we were able to accomplish together.

So how do I do it?

I treat them all like human beings and make sure they know what their job is – From the highest paid executive, to the lowest paid assistant. Profound isn’t it?

Finding good worker bees

I’ve discovered that the trick isn’t finding good people. It’s making those people good. Let’s face it, anybody, even the most stone-stupid mother F’rs can alphabetize. So how is it that my friend can’t find a damn person that can just do their job and file legal documents correctly?

My guess is this: It’s not that they can’t alphabetize, it’s that they could give a shit about doing it correctly. And that’s not an employee problem, it’s a manager problem. (Granted, it is possible that this person is just an idiot, but having 3 in a row tends to make me think otherwise)

The difference between senior muckedy-mucks and lowbies

I’ve noticed that a lot of managers spend a considerable amount of time thinking about what makes their executives happy and productive. What motivates them, what they are looking to get out of a job, what their career path is. But what I have also noticed is that once you hit the “glass floor,” (which is usually around the coordinator or assistant level in a big corporation) , managers tend to see people as a hired hand who is just there to collect a paycheck.

But if you take a step back and get rid of the corporate hierarchy and just look at Sally the VP and Bob the Assistant out of the context of work, are they any different? They both have lives, other responsibilities, aspirations, problems, dreams, careers.

Now it may be because I grew up really poor, but I can relate to the worker bees. I know exactly what it is like to feel like people see you as expendable, or the look in their eyes when they think your only use to society is to do a menial task just to pay your bills. After all, YOU are the one who took the job for $12 an hour as a file clerk, and if you wanted more out of your puny life and had any ability at all, you would do it right? Wrong. Remember, even in my own Rockstar case, after I had graduated with my MBA in the Top 3 of my class, I was still working at a 24 hour convenience store shilling gas and 2% milk until I landed my big break 6 months later.

Trust me, I know that some people do fall into that “slacker” category their whole lives. But that also does not mean that they like it, haven’t dreamed of more, and don’t have the potential to do more

At a bare minimum, everybody wants to feel like they are doing something of value.

And sticking files in a cabinet just don’t cut it.

Tip 1: So what if their job IS just to Stick Files in a Cabinet?

This is where it gets hard, and most managers fall short – YOU have to motivate them. And your immediate response is that “I don’t have the time to make sure than some dude making $15 bucks an hour is happy about their job.” And my response is, well, then your employee is gonna suck.

It’s that plain and simple. If you don’t challenge, motivate, and listen to ALL of your employees, your business will ultimately suffer for it. Now, I know first-hand how counterproductive this sounds. Your time is worth $200 an hour, and theirs is worth $15, so even logically this makes no sense.

My answer is threefold. First, once you discover what makes them tick, motivating them appropriately probably won’t take too much time. Second, it only takes 1 pissed off employee screwing up things at exactly the wrong moment to royally screw something up for you. And third, I have found than in many, many cases, your employees become so good at what they do, it actually takes YOUR game up a notch or two.

So my advice to you: Listen to them, find out what makes they tick, what interests them, what motivates them (cash will always come up, but in my experience, is NEVER anything more than a short-term improvement)

Once you know what works for them, find out a way to incorporate that into the dullest, suckiest parts of their job. A perfect example would be a bright but bored clerk who spends 3 hours every day putting files in a cabinet. Who WOULDN’T want to kill themselves and everyone around them with a sawed off shotgun after doing that for a few years.

My recommendation would be to put them in charge of a project to come up with a new system to make your filing better. More efficient, more accurate, whatever. Have them analyze what they do, give them the inside dirt on what exactly you do with those files (making them feel more connected to something important that happens as a result of their work) and then entrust them with finding a way to make it better. (giving them a sense of pride that their ideas are not only valuable but better than yours!)

Once the project is complete, not only do you hopefully have a better system, but you also have an employee who now has a sense of pride in “their” system, they will also feel like they fit into the big picture in a lot more prominent way, and you can guarantee that things will be done right. After all, something screwed up now is a direct failure of the system they built, and in turn a direct failure of them. In short, they got skin in the game.

Tip 2: Let them know what is expected of them and where their position fits in

This is the second biggie I see all the time in startups – and if you are ever lucky enough to grow your business, it’s a show stopper.

When most small businesses decide to hire someone, it’s usually because they are overwhelmed, not the result of a strategic growth plan. An employee is hired because “There just aren’t enough hours in a day to get it all done.”

So they put out an ad for “administrative assistant” or office manager, or whatever. The ad usually reads something like this

“Part time help needed for growing Legal office. Responsible for filing, answering phones, and clerical work. Computer knowledge required. Friendly office and competitive salary.”

You then find someone, hire them, and realize a month into it that either that person is an idiot, or just not the right person for the job.

But if you stop to ask why, the usual response is that the employee was doing it wrong or their attitude sucked. I then ask, well did you ever explicitly state how to do it right? Did you ever give them a job description to know exactly where they end and you begin? Did you ever explicitly tell them how their role fits into the big picture?

And the usual response is “How retarded do you have to be to not be able to figure out how to file a folder? You don’t even need to KNOW the alphabet, its printed on the friggin folder” (My friends tend to be a bit blunt : )

And one the surface that makes sense….but…

Chances are that you have been doing things so long yourself, that many things just come second nature to you. I mean it’s obvious than Cindy Duncan is filed in the same place as Hawthorne Dental. Isn’t it? Or that Joan Blackheart is the head of Blackheart, Smith, and Williams CPA’s. I mean duh?

Or that the fact that the legal briefings you had them look up go with the other briefings in the folder. After all when you go into court, it’s obvious you will need them in chronological order, and not just thrown in the file, because that’s how you present them. Anybody knows that.

Except that the person you hired has never been in court, has no idea what the briefings are, never mind what they are for, and could care less in either case.

The point is that even the most mundane of jobs requires a detailed explanation. You probably like things done a certain way for a reason. Tell them that reason. More importantly, let your employees know HOW and WHY they are important – what you use them for, what gets fucked up if they are not right, and exactly how you will castrate them if it’s wrong.

Specific job descriptions and responsibilities.

In my experience, the best way to guarantee nothing gets done is to have two people do it. If that occurs one of two things will happen. First, an animosity will grow between employees. Inevitably, one will be more aggressive and take the initiative, making the other person feel like they are wasting their time and pissed when the other gets praise for it. Or, they will see that the other employee is doing it, and as a result, neither finish.

There is no problem having people work on their own parts of a project, but you have to be painfully clear on who is doing which part, and when they have to work together make sure that it is on an equal footing.

In an office setting, you may have 2 administrative assistants. They are both required to cover the phone, research, file records, set up meetings, greet customers, ect. Well, what if Jane is researching a document that has to be on your desk in 15 minutes, Joe is on the phone setting an important meeting, and a customer walks in the door. Who stops? Which task takes priority?

These things need to be made explicitly clear, because if the ball drops, you have nobody to blame but yourself, and ultimately, it’s your ass on the line.

The Moral of the Story

My final advice is this: Don’t treat people like shit. Realize that while you are paying them to do a job, it does not mean you own them. You can TELL them what to do, but I think you will find they do the absolute bare minimum if they do stick around. You are always so much better finding out what makes them tick, and then using that persons unique skills, interests, and goals to help them motivate themselves. It’ takes a little more time, but as I said, I almost always end up with something better than I could ever hope to have done myself.

I also fully understand that you are a busy camper yourself. After all, you hired someone to help you.

Just realize that a little time spent figuring out exactly what YOU want, taking the time to communicate it, and then taking the time to make sure that those around you have everything they need to become their own version of a Rockstar, is always time well spent.

…and if you can’t or won’t, then hire me. I’ll take half of what you make as a result of my efforts, but then again, you won’t have to worry about how to get your new office boy to stop taking copies of his penis and faxing them to his friends. I’ve already had that one : )

Be Cool.

JJ