Category Archives: Anything But Marketing!

Demystifying Marketing – the Sampler Version

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Do you get really excited when you think about being self-employed…

but then freeze up when you think about marketing?

Does marketing seem like a four-letter word to you?

Does it seem dishonest, manipulative, pushy, or oily?

Then we need to talk! That was me when I started my coaching career, and I still slide back into those thoughts and attitudes from time to time. When I train and coach and write about marketing, I bring this perspective with me to help marketing newbies find ways to get comfortable with marketing and choose marketing tactics that are authentic – that reflect who you really are and let you honor your values and keep your self-respect.

I compiled a collection of my marketing articles and released it as a fr*ee e-book – a “fr*ee-book” – with clear explanations of some marketing concepts and tactics and how small businesses can apply them. It’s called Demystifying Marketing: Easy Examples in Everyday Language (the Sampler Teaser Version).

To get a copy go to my Anything But Marketing! web site and sign up. You’ll get the fr*ee-book as a PDF you can read online or download to your computer so you can print it out or read it on the device of your choice, which can include an iPad or a Kindle. (Disclaimer: the fr*ee-book does not come with an iPad or Kindle, but if you have one, you can transfer it to the device and read it there.)

After you read the fr*ee-book come back to this post and leave your questions and comments. I’m eager to hear what you think and to find out what questions you have about learning the basics of marketing for newbies.

Let’s talk!

Find Your Mission – Write Your Story – Tell The World

Was I Speaking Up For You?

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I raised a question on behalf of internet marketing newbies (including myself) when I posted a comment to a blog post a few days back. The post was about building an e-mail list. My comment looked like this:

Brilliant! But, uhh…. we have to figure out what we’re going to sell first, right? I run into a lot of people trying to grow a list and then figuring out what they might do with it. I don’t bother with a list because I don’t have my first training product ready yet. Hoping my enthusiasm to share it with people will drive my list-building efforts when it’s on the launchpad.

That comment was on a post about how to have the best chance of making money through internet sales if you have just a month to do it. It’s an entertaining read, as much for style as for content, because it was written by Naomi Dunford of IttyBiz. Yes, that IttyBiz – the one with 35,000 subscribers.

How do I know she has that many? Because she mentions it in the blog post she wrote as an answer to my question. [gulp] So… I tried to cram a complicated dilemma into a blog comment and didn’t make my main point clear. Naomi responded to what I actually wrote and chastised the dumbass I appeared to be.

In front of 35,000 people.
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Godin 07-09-10: On Lists and Commitment

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I’m a skeptic by nature, so when I see lots of classes (tele- and otherwise) offered on how to grow your lists – on social networks, for your newsletter, for your blog – I have lots of questions. Then I read an article or excerpt and hear the techniques, and my skepticism grows. What’s the benefit of adding someone who falls for that technique?

People with strong reputations say it’s all about the numbers. But I’m pretty sure the list of subscribers for someone with a strong reputation is a lot more responsive than a quickly grown list built by “techniques”.

Seth Godin’s recent post on fans, participants, and spectators confirms my skepticism. The stats he shows for conversions are a little dreary. But he offers a solution.

It Was a Fast-Straight-Road Weekend

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It’s been a hectic Memorial Day weekend totally consumed by… let’s just call it extended-family-madness. I planned to have a little time over the last couple of days to put together a post but life interrupted my plans. But I’m home now and the chaos is left behind.

Fortunately I found a powerful and brief analogy for my recurring warning about focusing on chasing the latest new marketing tactic before figuring out your marketing plan. It was a link in a recent blog post by Seth Godin.

Seth referenced a post by Rich Goidel, blogging at “The Back of the Napkin,” titled Playing with turtles. The core message here is to focus on the important thing — marketing message — and not get distracted by secondary things — playing with marketing channels.

I’m writing a corollary. When someone else has written a beautifully concise post that conveys a valuable message to your audience, call it good, link to it, and shut up.

(Bonus to me: I don’t really have time to write a post, much less edit one to make it good.

Bonus to you: You don’t have to read that meandering post I don’t have time to write!)

May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,

Steve Coxsey

Godin 05-07-10: The Future of Media

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A very cool friend pointed me to a vivid poem yesterday. I enjoy poetry that uses concise and precise word choice to compose a scene or evoke a complex response.

I thought about the condensed communication of poetry when I read Seth Godin’s
blog post on the future of media. It’s like a mystical parable, maybe even a zen koan, in that grasping all that it teaches will change your outlook on a lot of things.

Seth Godin’s core messages are contained in this post: find what captivates you, explore it and share it with the world, and your tribe of like-minded and like-hearted people will gravitate to you and provide you with opportunities to receive their gratitude as payment.

There’s also this other lesson we solo entrepreneurs need to catch. Print media is withering, especially if it’s not published daily. It will be replaced by timely digital publications sent to smaller, more narrowly targeted audiences. Heard that for a while, right? But read Seth’s post carefully. Then think about what you’ve heard about having an e-mail newsletter or a blog to build your business. I think as this new paradigm of digital media takes over, our blogs and newsletters are likely to wither, too.

Audiences will be getting compelling, detailed information from sources who immerse themselves in exploring, understanding, and explaining a topic. “5 Quick Tips” won’t be compelling to that sort of audience. It will work to capture the attention of the newbies joining the tribe, and they might sign up to learn more. But in order to keep the tribe’s attention we’re going to have to provide much better content. I’m betting the format of a personal note, a soft content article, and two or three sales messages won’t work in the coming years.

How will you adapt?

My Own YouTube Channel!

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Valerie Young of ChangingCourse.com is opening her Profiting From Your Passions Career Coach training program to new students. She brings in limited groups so she can give them the time and attention they need for a few months as they start learning the materials and settle in to the supportive community.

I like to brag about the supportive community because I regularly get ideas and resources and encouragement from them. Sometimes I’m part of the helpful crowd, whenever I have something helpful to say in response to other people’s questions.

Valerie asked me to record a video about my experience specifically as someone trained in the ICF model of professional coaching prior to taking her program. I was eager to explain how Valerie’s approach, her step-by-step system, and her creativity-sparking techniques are a powerful complement to broader coaching skills. But I wasn’t sure about making a video.

So I jumped right in! I recorded the video (it only took me 7 tries to get through it without bloopers) and created my own YouTube channel! I named it Twisting Road Travelers to encourage me to come up with more things related to the Twisting Road theme of uncovering your natural gifts and talents, cultivating them, and designing your life and work around them.

I am really excited I took this step. I don’t know what future videos I will add or what direction my ideas might go, but it’s a new way for me to talk to people about authentic living that flows from the core self. That’s what energizes me, so that’s what I need to be doing!

May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,

Steve Coxsey

No More Carnival Games

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My last two posts were about the sleaziness of tricking people into buying what they don’t really want, and the ridiculousness of people complaining the FTC is going to try to keep them from tricking people into buying something that’s not what they say it is.

Then I see Seth Godin’s recent blog post about his experience being bombarded by red light district marketing tactics. He suggests an alternative: cut the hype, cut the crap, no more deceit, just be transparent and deliver.

So are you going to sell at a street carnival, a back alley, or the public square?

FTC Mania

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People in the online marketing world are getting worked up about a new stand the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is taking towards enforcing marketing and advertising rules on the internet. Some people are claiming the FTC added new rules or changed the game.

The un-hyped version is that the FTC has issued guidelines for how existing rules will be applied to online marketing and advertising. The rules have always applied, but they have not had the interpretation guidelines or the resources to enforce them online.

If you want to skip the personal story part of this post, you can see a great webinar Continue reading →