Rob Hendrickson

The right perspective is important when you’re trying to solve a problem. It’s difficult to create a good solution if you have no empathy for the one with the problem.

My wife and I were looking for a new place to live eight years ago. Because of our horses, goats and other menagerie of livestock, we required space.

We found a nice home within our price range some mile from the busy metro-plex. A nice view and lots of room, this was a nice place to camp while we began our family.

Two years after we settled in, an engineer working for a big oil and gas firm invented a way to extract gas from under the rocky ground in our county and all hell broke loose.

With the exploration and extraction came people. Lots of people that drill, haul, and service the pipelines and tanks scattered all around. These people like to drive and so our small farm to market road, became a congested travel way overnight.

Our road intersects with a larger highway not far from our house. This intersection has always posed danger. The highway traffic appears from over a hill and disappears much the same.

Taking a turn into this steel laden stream is usually a leap of courage or faith - maybe both.

With the added traffic to our small road, we needed a stoplight at that intersection. The county had placed several others at less needed intersections and so when we spied the construction crews setting up shop at ours, we naturally assumed they had come to the rescue with a good solution.

Within a weekend they had completed their task of adding a left hand turn lane for the highway traffic. This not only didn’t solve the initial problem, but made it worse. Now the highway traffic had no reason to slow down at the intersection. They could take the through lane and keep on zooming. Before, we had a chance to slip out when someone slowed to turn in and the cars behind had to wait to resume. Now the traffic backed up for a mile impatiently waiting to risk the deadly intersection.

I picture two or three civil engineers sitting in a room looking over the reports of the accidents at that intersection. With a birds-eye view of a technical drawing, they mapped out what they assumed to be a correct solution… from their perspective. All they had to do was give me a call. Me who drives that shit slew each day. Me who grits my teeth, closes my eyes and catapults my vehicle into a gauntlet of cars to get to work.

I would have shown them pictures of my daughter’s book, Go Dog. Go where the little bird is standing in the intersection and when the light turns red he yells… “Stop Dogs. Stop now!” and the donut pushing pups screech to a safe halt before they splatter green bird scat all over the road on their hurried way to the big ass tree.

The stoplight is a universal symbol for - “caution, caution, OK stop! or you’re going to kill someone.”

IF the engineers had written Go Dog Go, that little bird wouldn’t have made the party at the end.

If the engineers had the right perspective when they looked to solve our nasty intersection problem, they would have a good chance to get it right.

When you’re trying to solve the next problem, take a gander from the viewpoint of the people your trying to solve it for and you’ll have a better chance at a good solution.

Wanted:
A new Vice President of Marketing AND Sales.

I’ve seen this title a thousand times and wonder if the person who created the position knows the difference between the two. I wonder if the person wearing the title knows?

I’ll bet that more often than not the answer is no.

Many companies (people) use the two terms interchangeably. When looking through the job postings on Craigslist, there are many, many listings for “marketing specialists” or “marketing professionals wanted”. Click through to the ad and what do you know… it’s a sales position. Pushing something door-to-door or making phone calls.

So, I’ve decided to give everyone a short primer because it is important to know the difference just like it’s important to know the difference between an OBGYN and a Dentist - especially if you just need a good teeth cleaning.

I could sum it all up in a couple of sentences, but let me set the stage so the impact is greater.

Marketing is a very broad and long-term process that provides brand value or capital as time goes on. It’s the ongoing evolution of your company’s or product’s reputation with the people who use them.

Sales is a more narrowly defined, short-term set of techniques that have a specific goal in mind… to get a potential customer to become a customer. Many of these techniques include persuasion, relationship building, education and consistent communication among many others.

Now, many people will point out the fact that good sales can take time and is a marketing function because it directs the reputation with the customer. I do not disagree. That is why it is a “part” of Marketing.

Marketing is an all-encompassing umbrella that includes a variety of divisions such as Advertising, Sales and customer service. Anytime you’re brand is visible to the outside public, it has a chance to affect the reputation and thus is a function of marketing.

But why the debate?

Well, because Sales is such an important aspect of business it often is confused with, or in many cases, overshadows the Marketing program.

Now, here is a simple explanation and a demonstration of why they are both important and need specific care.

Sales is your monthly income and Marketing is your Net worth.

You HAVE to have sales in order to pay the bills, the employees and the green fees. Specific Sales goals should be set for each day, week, month, year and so on. They can be measurable and somewhat predictable.

Marketing is a long-term strategy, set of brand guidelines and programs that influence the company’s reputation in a positive way, over time - which gives you brand strength which is brand value. (By the way, advertising, another marketing function, is effective in establishing brand “awareness” but not brand “strength” which is another subject.)

If you only focus on sales, you take the chance of building no long-term value in the brand. And we all know when one business buys another; it is the brand strength that creates the big price tag.

I’ll also make a link in my Tools/Resources section so that I can keep updating the list. Look for my Web Video Camcorder list to come. We’re going to figure this audio problem out yet.

1.    TweetDeck - Manage multiple accounts and feeds for twitter
2.    Search.twitter.com - Search your topics on Twitter.
3.    Tubemogul.com - Manage your mass video distribution. One portal, several feeds including YouTube.
4.    TwitterFeed - Same as Tweetdeck but probably not as robust.
5.    TweetFlip
6.    Ping.fm - Multiple posting program. Upload your story once and hit several Social platforms. I was hot on this type of tool but am cooling. I think people can tell you didn’t craft the message for them and it becomes a little corporate feeling. And corporate in SM is bad.
7.    SocialOomph - I haven’t used it yet but it looks really robust for managing your posts. You can write and upload and time your posts, manage analytics and many other cool features. I plan on giving this a try.
8.    Gist - Database for Contacts. Not sure how to use this as a publisher’s app.
9.    Tungle - Open calendar
10.    Nutshell Mail - aggregate status updates and notifications
11.    FriendFeed - Aggregate Content
12.    Mysocial24x7 - Side bar added to browser for live post updates;
13.    Shareaholic - Great tool for sharing stories and other items of interest online. Very powerful if you’r etaking my advice and becoming the CONDUIT to information within your space. It also gives you a good idea about ALL the social network platforms available online.
14.    Event Box - Multiple Site Manager. I couldn’t get this one to work but may be temporarily out so I included it anywho.
15.    Retaggr - Create and manage your profile. One set-up and push out to a variety of social parties.
16.    DandyID - Same as REtaggr but better GUI. Also has analytics program. I’ll be testing this one.
17.    Followize.appspot.com - It’s like a clean email program for the tweets you are following.
18.    Friendbinder - Friendbinder brings together your friends from different social networks. It lets you keep track of all your friends in one place, lets you post updates and replies, saving you time.
19.    8hands - Aggregates all your social media… media. Mobile version as well.
20.    Mingll - Another one I could not access. I’ll be trying back again.
21.    Ning - Build your own damn social network.
22.    Hi5 - Social Network for not us.
23.    Orkut - Google driven social network. Looks like Google’s attempt at becoming Facebook. Also looks like another way for Google to make you sign up for a gmail and get your phone number. YIKES!
24.    Reddit - trending topics and what’s hot online at any given moment. Mostly dumb topics but you can submit as well.
25.    Yammer.com - Social Network for business use. Like linked in but a closed community. Big business might like this.
26.    Digg - Social bookmarking that also shows trends.
27.    Google Buzz - Kind of like Orkut. Another one of hundreds as Google tries to compete with Social Networks.
28.    Stumbleupon - Really a great service. Apply and learn how to use it today.

Lexington, Kentucky Trip - AHP 2010

Growing up in South Dakota and having spent most of my life in the mid-west where we pride ourselves on the few number of people and the many numbers of cattle and horses, I forget that agriculture also thrives in most other parts of the country.

It’s our nature to be somewhat myopic about what we consider a unique upbringing of haystacks and open pastures. But I was pleasantly reminded that agriculture can be found everywhere and continues to be an important part of our existence when I traveled to Kentucky for the American Horse Publications Council annual conference this last weekend.

Lexington is a countryside patchwork of robust farm ground thick with deep green crops like tobacco fields stitched with miles of endless horse fence. This is definitely horse country.

Being back in the graces of a society who respects country life and worships the horse was also a refreshing bonus. The common bond of equine passion and responsibility made everyone instant friends and allowed us to openly share and listen.

I must admit I was nervous about presenting to the group. I am not a professional speaker, but have had the opportunity to amass some experience in key areas of interest for the publishing community. The topics which I covered were:
Using Social Media for Marketing and Sales;
Social Media 101: How to monetize (Which could have been called - Using social media for marketing and sales.);
40 Ideas in 40 Minutes;
Selling Integrated Media Packages for the Small Publisher.

I was prepared least for the last topic but believe it went the best. A smaller group, we were able to share ideas and asked questions early. I’d much prefer a big Q&A session anytime over a lecture setting.

Overall, feedback was positive (at least to my face.) And there were some common questions posed that I’ll try and provide some answers for in this and a few other supplement columns.

First, monetizing the social media and how it can be accomplished. I was somewhat elusive to direct monetization techniques. I feel if you haven’t set up a Fanpage or Twitter account you should not have this at the forefront of your plan - it’s a recipe for failure. This is a community, a party, that you’re inviting yourself to and stepping right in trying to push an agenda makes you a Social Media Poser and you’ll soon have a bad reputation.

If you’re chomping at the bit for more revenue streams and need them fast, consider improving your ecommerce play and leveraging some retail strategies first. By the time you create a strong foundation in the SM community and have gained trust enough to pitch you’ll be ready.

There are great examples of people who did not do this and made millions. WineLibrary.TV is one of the most talked about examples. However, Gary was reviewing wine and sold… wine. He was not a publisher trying to act in the best interests of a readership base, he was pushing red. Very successfully.

He knew giving away three minutes worth of content in the form of wine reviews would provide him the credibility and give people a reason to return. He’s also highly entertaining and great on camera. There is hardly a written word on his websites and he leveraged traditional PR and advertising methods to really make his splash.

SM educated him and gave him a fanbase to launch from. He worked long and hard at it and was honest in his presentations. The guy is a battery in human form.

Monetizing social media should not have been the topic. It should have been how to create new revenue streams where we could have looked at a variety of ways you can bring in money outside of advertising.

My favorite way is saving money by migrating your customers to digital correspondence. Printed and mailed renewal, event and sales notifications replaced by email, web calendar and social media can save you money. A dollar saved is like three earned. Keep track and you’ll be surprised.

Web video was also a hot topic. Especially the mechanics. If anyone has some good ideas about a cheap and reliable camera with external mic functions, please pass it along so I can pass it along. I’m currently using a Kodak Si8 and have found the audio to be somewhat shitty. You can have low quality video online but the audio needs to be good.

I’ll upload a list of SM tools that can be used to make your life a little easier and your program a little more robust.

Please contact me if you have questions or shiny new things you’ve found for Internet marketing and publishing.

Until next time.

Robo