Friday, October 14, 2011

The Mason Jar Experiment

Starting your own business has never been easier. Thrive Learning is one resource that can help you improve what you’re already doing, but before that I think it’s time we address one simple fundamental that keeps many people from their dreams. The Flee.

When thinking of everything we have access to these days the easiest thing you can do, if you really want it, is make money online. It’s really not that hard. However; a lot of people are trapped into thinking it’s impossible and because of this they leave it to others to go out and start businesses that they’ll just simply seek to work for. This can be summed up in this illustration: Flees are one of the smallest insects in the world but their ability to jump is up to 3 meters. If you catch a flee and put it in a regular mason jar and place a lid over the top with a hole or two for it to breath but small enough so it can’t jump out the flee will jump for a period of time smashing its head into the lid. After a short period of time the flee will adjust and jump just shy of hitting its head, pretty smart right? Once this happens you can take the lid off. The flee will continue to jump, but it will never jump hirer then when it had the lid on. It’s been conditioned and given the mindset that it cannot achieve anymore then what we limited it to. And yet, we know it can jump up to 3 meters with ease.

Owning your own business and making money online is easy. It only takes a bit of effort on your part to get it done. If you’re unsure about how it would work exactly and want to wait until you know everything there is to know about it, remember this: you can imagine all day long what a pizza smells like, what it looks like, and what it feels like, but until you’ve actually had a slice you’ll never know what it tastes like. Go out and start your business today. It doesn’t have to be perfect when you set it up, that’s the beauty of the whole thing, you get to improve it over time as you learn. And, if it turns out you don’t like it, fine, scrap it and start over, or better yet, sell it.

In closing, are you still stuck in the mason jar even though the lids off?

Thursday, October 13, 2011

How Double Chocolate Changed PR

Today I had the fortunate experience to relive what it truly means to be in PR and the power that it can have in online marketing. When you want to really thrive learning from what others have done is key in making great improvements. Here’s the story:

Its not secret that many large, hotshot companies want their products in the faces of customers around the globe and that a lot of that happens through social media and popular bloggers. In this particular case it was a combined effort. Scott Stratten is one of the many online social bloggers I follow. I always find that his posts show facts and his personality. So instead of just reading words blindly I’ve come to understand and know Scott more. That said in his most recent post he talks about the caliber of the PR/Agency People that are “Awesome”. You’re welcome to go and read his post but what I really wanted to emphasize was the matter in which things happened not only for him but the company in general.

When we approach customers with our products and ideas it’s important to always remember they have the freedom of choice. They can choose to accept or reject our offer. Our main goal in marketing is to provide the customer with the information and the ability to get what they want. When Scott was approached Duri and Magnum he tells us that they just wanted him to be him. To be honest about what he thought, to blog and tweet only if he wanted to. And it paid off big time, but only After a follow-up. We’ll come back to that. After shipping a crate of ice cream to Scott and trying several flavors Scott got on and made a quick little video talking about how dumb the title was of one of the ice creams. It was labeled something like double chocolate. In the video he expresses, that’s impossible, it should be called quad chocolate because there’s four layers of chocolate. Scott mentions how his regular readers, family and friends enjoyed the video. He also mentions that he really wasn’t trying to sell the product. In fact, the title of the video was “Magnum’s False Advertising”. Now lets skip ahead to the follow-up.

The main reason this became a big story and that Scott wrote the post was based off of the follow up. The PR group from Duri and Magnum watched the video and then shipped Scott a special package. Four cartons of “Magnum Quadruple Chocolate”. It also had his name across the top.

This type of follow up is key in our efforts to not only get on the good side of our customers but to get a better idea of how we can improve ourselves as a company.