At about 8:45 AM last Tuesday I was waiting for the bus to take me from Philly to NYC. It was approximately 24 degrees with a wind-chill of um….. 0.
Over the past 7 months I had managed to build a website reaching levels of success that had shocked many of the seasoned experts in the marketing field. Now I was responding to a request for a meeting for a speaking opportunity with the New York City Entrepreneurs Meetup Group. Yet the rare opportunity I might have allowed myself to feel proud or even a little bit smug, was sufficiently suppressed by one tiny little idiotic fact: I hadn’t even had the common sense to wear a hat or gloves and I was bitterly cold. My dear mother would have flipped out if she knew this fact.
Looking for anything to take my mind off of my current predicament, I opened up the February issue of INC Magazine. Because my fingers were pretty much frostbitten, even turning the page was a task I wasn’t really up for. I was stuck pondering page 24.
On the bottom of that page was a quote by a guy I had never heard of named Jeffrey Zeldman.
“Promote the hell out of your product—not yourself…” He further went on: “There is a difference between being arrogant about yourself as a person and being confident that your work has some value. The first is unattractive, the second is healthy and natural. Some people respond to one as if it were the other. Don’t confuse them. Marketing is not bragging, and touting one’s wares is not evil. The baker in the medieval town square must holler ‘fresh rolls’ if he hopes to feed the townfolk.”
Of course I was able to find a lot to think about based on this simple quote. The experienced entrepreneur or marketing executive might have the experiences to understand what Jeffrey Zeldman is talking about, but this lesson does not just apply to them, it applies to all of us. Because no matter what we THINK our profession is, we ALL are in sales and marketing and most of us have NOT had the experiences to truly understand the quote.
I may not fit your definition of “experienced” because I don’t have years, I have months. But when I initially started marketing my own website, I learned some valuable lessons by making the mistakes one can only make by being the “arrogant marketer” to which Jeffrey Zeldman was referring. It took failing by being egotistical to learn the tremendous value of “being confident that (my) work (had) some value.” There is no reason that you should make the same mistakes though. I would love to share some of the lessons I learned:
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Advertising Your Popularity Hurts You: I once had an article read by eight thousand people in one day. But advertising that fact did NOTHING to make more people want to read that article. When you throw out numbers like this and people don’t know who you are, then you sound like you are trying too hard, and you turn people off or lose credibility. If people DO know who you are and you talk about how popular you are, then you look like a pretentious asshole. There are much more creative ways to go about it.
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Your friends are good for nothing! Your friends are your friends because they love you. They don’t love your business. In fact, your friends don’t want anything to do with your marketing efforts. If they did, they would work for you, and then they would be subordinates, and not friends. Don’t expect your friends to help you hustle. They really won’t like you if you do. I promise.
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The Only Way To Get is to Give: It pains me to say it, but there is nothing free, especially in the marketing relationship. If you are thinking you can push a business relationship to spread your message for free think again. Be generous with favors and people will be generous in return. If you do get lucky enough to have someone help you without bringing something to the table, be ready to return the favor. Take a favor for granted, and you can kill a relationship. Additionally, asking for free favors from someone will usually put a thorn in someone’s side as well. I did this too much in the beginning and managed to piss off a few would-be connections.
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The Most Effective Marketing For Your Product Is Done By Outsiders: This is a very true look at the value of social proof. Anything you say about your own product is simply discounted by the masses. If you can get just one publicly positive review from someone non-affiliated with your product then you are golden. However, the opposite is true as well - negative publicity is detrimental. Think about this: if you read a bad Yelp review, aren’t you going to think twice about going to that restaurant, doctor, or pet store? Now that we have social media, anyone can reinforce your marketing message, and your marketing power is revved up proportionally to that person’s sphere of influence. Previously – we had to rely on a telephone-like spread of ideas. This leads to my next point.
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Networking Is Extremely
Important As a New Age Marketer: This is something that I have understood since the beginning. In the traditional medium, a marketer can create an amazing advertisement and those they target with a billboard or advertisement are going to see it. Online, those with the most influence control a dramatic piece of what people see. Enlisting the help of these influential people is usually a function of networking and building relationships. In fact, if you are good enough at networking, you can have a huge impact without ever spending a penny. Of course, if you are an arrogant marketer, you could easily forget the point I made previously “The Only Way To Get Is To Give.”
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You MUST Sell Yourself Or Your Company To Sell Your Product: I am going to establish some quick semantics here. Please understand that selling yourself is not the same as promoting yourself. From his quote above, I think Mr. Zeldman would agree that “promoting” yourself is meant to have an arrogant connotation. I would say that self-promotion borders on bragging and is certainly not the same as selling yourself. The actual process of selling one’s self is beyond the scope of this article. Some do it well, and others don’t. This is a large topic in itself, and I will address it in a future article.
There is certainly a point when a product or service reaches an ability to sell itself. Usually this is the result of an excellent marketing message, or an exceptional product. But in order to reach that “tipping-point,” a company or individual usually must sell itself well through effective marketing. But all of those who are successful understand that no-one likes an arrogant marketer.
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