Tech Guru Marketing

Jeremy Schomaker of Shoemoney.com has just opened up his Shoemoney System again. Jeremy’s one of the most successful online marketers of all time and has been at this for several years.

So if you’re interested in learning some new techniques to take your consulting practice to the next level, or just earn some extra cash online, you should definitely check it out.

And if you don’t like it, Jeremy’s return policy is great.  He even says himself, sign up, download everything, read it all, and if you’re not satisfied, cancel withing 60 days and get 100% refund. You can’t go wrong with an offer like that.

But if you’re interested, check it out soon since the program will probably fill up fast and be closed.

Here are pair of posts on creating your Unique Selling Proposition.

• 5 Tips for Creating Your Unique Selling Proposition
• What’s Your Company’s Sentence

Top 10 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog Using LinkedIn

If you’ve been thinking about using video to showcase your services, here’s some tips on how to write a 1 minute video marketing script.

I was going through my Google Reader account over the last two days, pretty ruthlessly unsubscribing from blogs I hadn’t read for some time. I was getting frustrated with the amount of time it took to keep up with so many blogs, especially some of the more prolific ones.

As I was going through the process, I was noticing that some of the blogs I wasn’t reading anymore were some that I was quite fascinated with when I first subscribed. One of those was Havi Brook’s The Fluent Self blog.

Havi is a fantastic writer and an A-list blogger I’d been turned onto by Naomi Dunford at Ittybiz. Havi’s a terrific story teller and she’s adept at blogging about her life and making it relevant to her readers. She’s been a wonderful mentor and I’ve learned a lot from her.

Why is it then, if she is such a great writer, that I’m no longer interested in reading her blog, I wondered.

The answer, I decided, was that I’m not one of “her people,” the people she targets, the one’s who are on the same wavelength with her.

And that’s okay. In fact, it’s better than okay.

That’s what makes her as successful as she is. She writes for her people. She doesn’t try to make her content interesting to the masses. If she did, it would just end up being bland and uninteresting to everyone.

It would no longer be magnetic.

Havi figured out long ago that to be successful, she needed to be herself, full extra strength, not some watered version of who she is.

People that love what she writes and what she is about will be attracted to her, love what she writes, and buy what she sells.

And those who don’t find her content interesting or relevant — they don’t matter. She doesn’t need them — or me.

So if you want to cut through all the noise, and find an audience for your services, learn to be yourself (or a slightly more interesting version of yourself) and don’t try to be someone you’re not.

That is the path to success today, my friend. Be authentic, be relevant, be interesting, (and, of course, qualified) and people will want to do business with you.

Ever wondered how videos become viral? How some people are able to use Youtube (and other video sharing sites) to promote their products and services with such success while others fail so miserably? Want to know how to most effectively use video to promote your business?

Then YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour a Day is a book you should pick up.

The book, as the name implies, breaks down its subject material into easy to digest, bite-size lessons that can be done in a short time (approximately an hour) each day. The book is written as if it were being offered as an eight month long class, breaking lessons into months, weeks, and days, with different aspects of video marketing covered in each period. You can work through the lessons at the pace offered in the book or you can skip around to the material of most interest to you.

Now, if you are looking for a book that covers the technical aspects of producing a video, you’d be better off looking elsewhere (some resources are mentioned in the book), since this book is much more focused on the marketing aspects of the resulting video.

However, if you want to know how to create a video that has a chance of going viral and getting publicity for for you or your business, then this is definitely the book for you.

In early sections of the book, the author provides an overview of video marketing including a history of YouTube. If you’re not interested, you can skip right to Chapter 3 (Month 1) and get started mapping out your video strategy.

The author provides exercises for you to do as part of the lessons – viewing and analyzing successful videos, researching keywords, setting up a YouTube channel, becoming involved in the YouTube community, etc – to get you familiar with the landscape of YouTube and other video communities.

Other topics covered in the book include:

• How to choose a topic people are interested in
• How to answer the questions that people have
• Getting to know YouTube as well as Myspace Video, Vimeo, and Yahoo Video
• Identify who discovers new videos and why so few go viral
• Building buzz for you video
• Tracking and measuring your video marketing results

I highly recommend the book if you want to learn what makes a video successful on YouTube and how to get the most bang for your buck from videos that you do make.

Some great reading from this week.

• The Complete Newbie’s Guide to Marketing
• According to a Gallup poll, The Self-Employed Are the Happiest
  
• 10 Reasons Why Freelancing is the Best Job Security
  
• 5 Things Small Business Owners Should Do Today Online
• Social Media Basics For Freelancers
• The Art of the Small Start
  
• What Would You Learn If You Could Read Your Client’s Mind?
  

Want some publicity for your business. Come up with an outrageous marketing stunt like this to attract attention.

Here’s another study confirming what Leo at Zen Habits preaches on his blog and in his book The Power of Less.

GeekDad put together a list of the geekiest constructed languages I thought you might get a kick out of. The list includes languages like Vampirese,  Gelfling, and, of course, Klingon.

Speaking of vampires, FreelanceFolder asked the question this week,  “Are Vampire Clients Sucking the Life Out of Your Business?“  They also provided suggestions for what to do about it if your answer is yes.

FreelanceFolder also offered 10 Tips for Becoming a Freelancing PowerHouse.

As I’ve written about many times before, more businesses are turning to social media (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc) for marketing. This week, USA Today wrote about the growing phenomenon.

On the topic of social media, GetEntrepreneurial.com provided some ideas for creating a social media strategy before jumping in.  And once you start implementing your strategy, here are some tips for not screwing it up.

Finally, FreelanceSwitch had nineteen great links in this week’s Linkswitch that are well worth reading.

Gary Vaynerchuk knows a thing or two about building personal brands. He built Wine Library TV into an Internet phenomenon and has become a bit of a celebrity.

In this motivating video, Gary explains his success and gives advice on how to build your personal brand. (Warning: You probably shouldn’t watch this at work or with kids around unless you put on headphones.)

In summary, to build your personal brand, Gary advises you to

• Be passionate about what you do
• Truly care about the people you serve, whether you call them your customers, clients, or your readers
• Be authentic – don’t make yourself out to be something you’re not
• Be everywhere – connect with as many people as you can
• Work hard – Turn off the TV and get to work

Freelance Folder asks the questions “Is Freelancing Really For You?” and “Are These 5 Mistakes Holding You Back from Freelance Success?”

Mashable uses a case-study to illustrate 6 Must-Follow Steps for Selling in Any Economy

WebWorkerDaily has some advice on future proofing your career.

And then there was a trio of terrific posts from FreelanceSwitch this week.

Do Old School Marketing Tools Still Work?

How to Take a Vacation, Freelance Style

12 Tricks for Optimizing Your Freelance Career

Have a great weekend.

Photo by AceLain

“No one goes there any more; it’s too crowded.” – Yogi Berra

My Vacation

This past week I took a vacation to Texas with my wife and four kids. My wife’s sister and her family live just north of Houston so we planned to stay with them for a few days. Then we planned to head west to New Braunfels (just north of San Antonio) to visit the Schlitterbahn waterpark.

Thank God for in-car DVD players! When we first left our house, our GPS (which my wife has now named Mary Poppins due to the British voice we’ve programmed it to use) told us it would only take thirteen hours to make the journey to my sister-in-law’s house. Throw in bathroom breaks, meals, and road construction, and it ended up taking us over sixteen hours. We left at 8:30 in the morning and didn’t arrive until past 12:30 am.

Anyway, we spent a couple of very hot and humid days (it is Houston) at my sister-in-law’s before heading west to the water park.

The Water Park

We chose to go to Schlitterbahn because (a) we’d been there about 5 years ago and had had a great time, (b) it was hot and a water park would feel great, and (c) it was a Thursday – how busy could it be?

Famous last words, apparently. We got to the park when it opened at 10:00 am, slathered on sun screen, toted our coolers to a nice sunny picnic table (the shaded ones were already taken of course) and headed to the water.

Now, what I remembered about the park from the last time we were there was a ride called the Master Blaster. It’s a roller coaster that uses water to push you around. We all remembered it as being pretty cool and worth the trip, so the first thing we did was head to that ride.

Other people must have thought it was a decent ride, too, because by the time we got it line there was already over a two hour wait. Two hours! For one ride. Holy cow! How about “No F***ing Way!”

Okay. Let’s try the ride next to that ….. one hour!  Well, that’s not going to work, either. After all, we had seven kids between our two families (including two four year olds).

The park is made up of three distinct sections, each with different water attractions, so after being frustrated with the first area, we hopped on a shuttle and headed to the next park.

There, everywhere we walked had lines that extended so far we couldn’t fathom the wait times. All the bigger attractions had at least one hour waits so we settled for spending time in the lazy river and some of the kids areas. Some of our group did get in a couple of water slides, but that was about the extent of it.

The third park area wasn’t any different. Long, long, long lines everywhere.

This Wasn’t What I Remembered

What had changed since the last time we were there?

I’m actually not sure what changed, but I think they’ve been a victim of their own success. The park has been covered by the Travel Channel and is ranked as one of the best water parks in the country. I’m sure that hasn’t hurt their business.

But seriously, 2 hour lines on a weekday? I can’t even imagine what weekends are like.

The Impact of Their Success

They are experiencing great success now. But I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t going to come back to bite them. After our experience this time, with the money and time we spent to go to the park (gas, hotel rooms, park tickets, food, etc) measured against the enjoyment we got from the park, I think we came up with the short end of the stick. And I won’t go back anytime soon!

If the park doesn’t adjust the way it does business – add more rides, raise ticket prices, or find a way to make lines move faster – it’s success is going to hurt it. Eventually more people will get disgusted and stop going.

Success Can Hurt You

That is what too much success can do to a business. If you find you are getting too busy and you risk alienating clients because your work product or customer service is going downhill, you’re business will not survive. You need to institute changes to keep this from happening.

But Your Business Doesn’t Have To Suffer

So, if you are lucky enough to be in a situation where demand exceeds your ability to do the work to the same level as you had, here are some suggestions for coping (and taking your success to a new level):

• Raise your prices – It will naturally eliminate those less motivated to work with you and make you more valuable in the eyes of prospects. After all, if you can demand such rates, you must be good.
• Increase your supply – Hire employees to work with your clients.
• Add leverage – Outsource less critical tasks or automate tasks where possible.
• Fire some customers – Some customers take far more effort and are harder to work with than others. Think of the 80/20 rule. It says that 20% of customers will take 80% of your time. Maybe you should think about firing some of the 20%.
• Raise your standards – Be pickier about who you choose to take on as clients. You might as well work with clients and do the kind of work you really savor.

What ever you choose to do, make sure your clients aren’t impacted negatively. Any changes you make should maintain or raise your customers’ experience with you. If you become too difficult to work with or your product goes downhill, your customers may well say the same thing I did after my vacation experience – “That kind of sucked and I won’t go back anytime soon.”

Photo by Galveston.com

• Darknet – A blog dedicated to discussing the latest security threats and the new tools that are released for testing and defending your network.

• F-Secure Labs – From the labs of the Finnish anti-virus company, comes a nice blog full of info on the latest threats from around the Internet.

• Forensic Incident Response – As the name implies, this blog focuses on incident response, with discussions of tools, techniques, and case studies.

• Metasploit Blog – Keep up-to-date on the latest news about the great pen testing tool, Metasploit.

• Professional Security Testers – Another blog devoted to new tools and new threats.

• Bruce Schneier’s Blog – From the desk of the famed security expert, Bruce Schneier. Schneier offers his unique insight to security topics drawn from the headlines.

• Brian Krebs’ Security Fix Column – This is a great blog for keeping up with the big news in Windows and Mac security. Brian covers the high profile security incidents and vulnerabilities around the web.

• Packetstorm Security Headlines – This isn’t technically a blog; it’s actually an RSS feed of security related headlines from around the web. You may also want to subscribe to the Packetstorm Advisories and Exploits feeds. They also have a feed dedicated to new tools submitted to the Packetstorm repository so you can keep your arsenal up-to-date.

• Tao Security – Author Richard Bejtlich’s blog

• Payment Security – This blog is focused on PCI related issues, which seem to become a more important topic for businesses each year.