Money for nothing, special vampire edition

August 28, 2009 By

Do you think it’s wrong to get paid for doing nothing?

If you immediately said yes, you have a choice:

  1. You can quit reading this post now, and go back to your regularly scheduled life of trading time (or skills, or hard work, or yes, even knowledge) for money. Good luck with that. I hope you’re able to retire someday.
  2. Or you can keep reading and run the risk of changing your mind. It’s OK to argue with me (in your head or in the comments) if you want to have a reasonable adult-type discussion. It could even be fun.

Hi, people who stayed!

Lemme tell you a little secret. I myself would have answered this question with a “probably yes” until earlier this week when Johnny B. Truant once again blew my mind in this post about believing in the value you provide.

(You should totally go read that post. I mean it. Do it now. I’ll wait. Oh, and remember that Johnny swears. Beautifully.)

Are you back? ‘Kay. Johnny is right on when he talks about the value of knowledge and the right to charge appropriately for it.

And I’m going to go one step further and suggest that it’s even OK to make money for doing nothing.

Everyone who just thought of Dire Straits? Congratulations, you’re as old as I am.

(I could use some chicks for free, actually. I’m thinking of raising some chickens so we can have fresh healthy eggs from our own backyard. But then I’d need a chicken coop, because we have foxes and coyotes and bobcats here. Hmmm.)

Back to the “money for nothing” discussion.

My goodness, what kind of greedy immoral person thinks they should be able to just get handed free money?

For starters, everyone who’s ever invested in the stock market… and that includes you “I’m buying and holding mutual funds for my IRA portfolio” folks. But that’s not the main point of this particular rant.

I’m mainly talking about anyone who’s ever created any form of intellectual property, ever. Like stories, for instance. Or music. Or movies, or software. Or teleclasses. Or ebooks.

All of these pieces of “content” can be digitally duplicated with a marginal cost (additional cost for each copy) of exactly zero.

Of course it costs money to print a book, or burn and ship a disc. But that’s merely the container for the intellectual property, not the intellectual property itself. And in our online world, there are more and more “information products” that don’t have a tangible, physical existence at all, and that’s where I’m headed.

If you think that the price of a book (or an ebook) is a reflection of the work the author put into it, I’d suggest you reconsider. Because that would mean, among other things:

  • Nothing that resulted from hard work could ever be freely given away
  • Bestseller status would automatically mean those authors worked harder than other, non-bestselling authors
  • Once an author dies, you shouldn’t have to pay for their stuff anymore; it should be free
  • The higher the number of copies sold, the lower the price should be (reflecting a fixed amount of work that went into writing and production)

But we all know that someone can write and launch an ebook, and then essentially keep selling copies forever, while doing exactly zero additional work. Slap it up on a website and have an autoresponder deliver the link, and that’s it.

Why should this person keep receiving profits from doing no additional work?

Well, first, why not? That only seems wrong if you actually believe that the only way to earn money is hard work. See stock market reference, above. The people who cash the dividend checks are not doing the work.

Second, a more substantive guess at an answer: Because as a buyer, I’m not paying for the work the author did to write the book. I’m paying for the experience of reading it.

Yes, it’s true that I might “learn something.” That might even be the point of my experience. But it doesn’t have to be.

People are still paying for books of fiction (maybe not so much in e-format, but still). I recently paid good American money to purchase tangible copies of all four books in a certain vampire series, for instance.

(Okay, it was Twilight. I admit it. And although I have giant problems with some aspects of the books, I still enjoyed the experience I had reading them. I like SpaghettiOs, too. Happy now?)

Rooted in integrity

Do I resent Stephenie Meyer for making money from my purchase? Hell no. Neither do I resent the authors of the various info products I’ve bought.

In fact, I think info products seem like a pretty great way to make some money, while helping people and staying true to my small-business tree roots.

Soon, I’ll be launching some paid products. (I’ve already added two new services, WordPress Installations and AWeber Tune-Ups, but those are both old-school trading-skills-for-money gigs, so they don’t fit the “info product” definition I’m working with here.)

I’m now choosing to believe it’s OK to make money from the kind of product I can sell over and over again with very little (or even zero) additional effort. I know that I will in fact put hard work into creating them, and that they will in fact provide value… for My Right People. And all others? Need not apply.

And you can choose to believe the same thing about your work. Will you?

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“Is everything delightful?” or, why market to your existing customers

June 19, 2009 By

Two quick examples of why it’s great to actively sell to your existing customers:

1. “Is everything delightful?”

The other day I had lunch with a friend at one of my favorite local restaurants, Farm Artisan Foods. We were enjoying a sampling of tapas-like small plates, including a truly delicious salad that included herbed goat cheese, pickled beets, and roasted red peppers. Our server stopped by and asked “Is your salad wonderful?” and all I could do was nod (my mouth was full!).

What a funny question, I thought. Isn’t it a bit presumptious to say something like that? And I was still thinking about it  several tapas later when she did it again: She asked “Is everything delightful?” after we’d gotten everything we’d ordered. We said yes. Because it was true.

My conclusion: It was presumptious, and it was also great marketing. Here’s why:

  • Shows confidence in the product. The folks who run this restaurant seriously know their stuff. The chef makes a big deal about local, sustainable agriculture; the servers know everything about the dishes; the menu is seasonal. She knew full well that the salad was wonderful and the tapas delightful, before she asked. The leading question made it easy to agree. Presumptious, in a good way.
  • Trains customers to think your product is exceptional. Many restaurants have their servers come out at some point during the meal and ask “Is everyone doing OK?” or “How’s the food tonight?” or some similar open-ended question. Most customers respond “OK” or “fine” or occasionally ask for some more ketchup. When I, as a customer, am asked to agree that the food is wonderful and delightful, I actively think about the fact that the food is in fact wonderful and delightful. This interaction just went from a mundane check-in to a celebration of fine dining.
  • Acknowledges that the relationship doesn’t end with the sale. Once I’m in the restaurant and am eating, the sale is made. Why bother spending any more time or energy making me feel good about my food choices, or asking my opinion? There’s probably something sophisticated I could say here about customer retention, but basically it boils down to feeling appreciated as a customer. Not only will I go back to the restaurant, but I’m blogging about the experience two weeks later because my server asked me my opinion of the food in an interesting way.

2. Flowers for Father’s Day?

For Mother’s Day, I ordered flowers for my mom. Actually I ordered a real live plant because she likes them and no flowers would have to die to demonstrate my filial affection, but the ordering process was basically the same.

I wanted to support a local business, so instead of going with a national toll-free florist service, I looked up local florists in Denver, read some reviews, and settled on 5280 Flowers (it’s the Mile High City, get it?). I ordered straight from their website, despite the fact that the pictures aren’t very big and the ordering process isn’t quite as smooth as with an ecommerce giant. The flowering plant was delivered the next day, Mom was thrilled, and I was a satisfied customer.

End of story, right?

Not quite. Last week, six days before Father’s Day, I got an email from 5280 Flowers with “Father’s Day” in the subject line. It was a bit of a clunky email; not exactly perfectly formatted. Also, the first line was somewhat ominous:

“Fathers Day. Do not forget. Sunday June 21.”

But I read the email anyway because I was in the market for a Father’s Day gift. I wanted to send my dad something, but I would never have thought of flowers. I mean, we’re supposed to get our dads ties or mugs or weird electronic gadgets, right? Definitely not flowers, so why would I even consider shopping at a florist?

Well, as it turns out, this local florist also sells gift baskets, ranging from your basic Chiquita Banana fruit-cornucopia to teddy-bear baskets for new moms to … wait for it … barbeque and snack-food themed baskets for dads.

Perfect! So I called them up and ordered a custom basket, because several of their packaged baskets had different things I wanted, and the website had a clear message on every gift basket page telling me that baskets were customizable.

This business got an extra sale from me by showing me (in the right place at the right time) that they could provide more than flowers. They built on a previous interaction (my successful flower purchase) and offered me more. And I snapped it up and was happy to pay them.

Bonus tip: 5280 Flowers has two domain names: 5280Flowers.com and 5280Gourmet.com, so they can market themselves as a gourmet gift-basket shop even to people who would never buy flowers. The sites are interlinked and similar enough that I went back and forth a couple of times without realizing I was doing it. This kind of smart marketing is one reason that I recommend buying multiple domain names (they’re cheap, after all).

These two examples are straight from the leafy canopy of the Small-Business Tree. Yes, they both fall into traditional marketing, but they’re also great reminders that marketing isn’t just something you do to get customers. It’s something you do all the time, even in your interactions with existing customers.

And the florist example is also a great case study in the art of the upsell. They successfully upsold me three times: First, by getting me to shop with them for Father’s Day in the first place. Second, by offering customizable baskets so I had the option of going beyond the prepackaged deals. And third (or maybe this is just a part of the second one), the custom baskets are more expensive than the packaged ones, and I didn’t blink.

For more about respectful and successful upselling, check out the latest product I’ve purchased from Dave Navarro (@rockyourday) and Naomi Dunford (@ittybiz), Upsell 101. They’ll tell you exactly why I fell for the florist email, and how to get your own customers to fall for similar promotions…without being a Sleazy Marketer.

How am I doing with the lessons I’m learning from Upsell 101? Well, I’ll report back after I try some more of Dave and Naomi’s tips.

I’ll let you know how it goes! Happy Father’s Day, everybody!

Filed Under: Real-Life Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m going to be ME while I do it

June 12, 2009 By

One of these things is not like the others...good for that one!

Ah, it’s Friday again, which means it’s Small-Business Tree day here on the blog. And Ijust held a free call where I talked about the Tree for an hour, which was great fun. I’m even doing a two-week workshop starting next week where I’ll get to help My Right People nurture their own trees.

Also in tree news, I’m working on a prototype for a new Small-Business Tree program that will lead some more of My Right People through daily exercises to help them map the tree metaphor onto their unique businesses (if this appeals to you, you may want to subscribe to this blog, because you’ll hear about it here as soon as it’s ready for prime time).

So, all this biggification is fun and exciting.

And scary as hell, too.

I’ve had this voice in my head for the past couple of weeks telling me that I really don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing. This is different from my usual voices that tell me that I’m incompetent (my old familiar friend), or that I’m doomed to fail (come on, who doesn’t think that once in awhile?), or that I will be living in a van down by the river soon (thanks to Pam Slim for reminding me of that SNL sketch in a way that’s actually useful and funny!).

This voice is specifically about direction, about “What’s next?”

Even though I’ve got plans and ideas and projects, none of them seem to be quite organized enough or good enough to go live with (note the operative word here is “seem”). If I let myself, I can get easily swamped in doubts about the commercial viability or contribution-to-the-world factor or a dozen other variables.

So here’s the big risk for today: Trusting that my plans and ideas and projects are good enough for now, and proceeding with the most important thing I can do to build any kind of commercial success or contribution to the world, which is just being myself. The real, tree-hugging, swim-goggle-wearing, less-than-perfect, sometimes-angry, sometimes-scared, but also sometimes-funny, often-compassionate, frequently-craving-doughnuts me.

This might involve tweeting about what I ate for breakfast, or what I’m reading. It might also mean sometimes taking a few days away from Twitter because that’s what The Real Me needs to do. It might mean giving myself much more time and pampering than I think I need to launch a new product… but for a different product, it might mean going ahead with less than 24 hours’ notice to the world, because screw timetables, I’m having fun, dammit.

It might mean publishing this post without figuring out what I’m doing wrong that is making the words smush up against my pumpkin picture up there. Gah.

Being The Real Me means that sometimes, I may spend several hours working on a web project that’s never going to be commercially viable, just because it’s challenging or fun. And sometimes I might screw up and watch a website blow up in my face (O hear me, Internet gods of irony: If you are planning on doing this to me when I update this site to WordPress 2.7, which is long overdue because of precisely this fear, could you make sure it happens just when I get mentioned somewhere that will make me famous overnight? Thanks.).

One thing I know for sure: Being The Real Me means consciously accessing my roots whenever I’m deciding what to do next. I have enough experience at this by now that I know that if I don’t (or worse, if I do and then ignore the clear message I’m getting from myself), I’m being less than The Real Me. I’m not giving The Real Me a chance.

And you know? The Real Me deserves a chance. So does The Real You. Come be real! Leave a comment or @reply me on Twitter and let’s have a Real Conversation!

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Small-Business Tree seasons of growth and change

March 27, 2009 By

Here’s a quote straight from the mailbag that is so so so perfect I had to ruminate about it in public here on the blog.

I don’t know if your other clients do this – but I find myself wanting to jump in right away and build my website so I have it.  But there is another part of me wanting to go slow and be patient and build my biz from the inside out.  I’m still finding my voice and trying to describe what I do in coherent terms.  It’s a process, eh?

Ohmygosh yes, is it ever a whangdoodle of a process. It can totally tie you in knots, and then it can straighten out and feel completely blissful. And then another knot trips you up.

There is so much I want to say about this. So I’ll start with the simplest thing:

Organic growth is not a linear process.

Sure, parts of it unfold in a linear-looking fashion. A tree grows bigger year after year, new growth appears on the end of existing branches, gardening books can tell you approximately how many years it will take for a certain species of tree to reach a given height. But the whole organism? From seed to tippy-top leaves? It’s just not linear growth.

(C’mon, you knew I was going to mention a tree at some point, right? It’s Friday, which is Small-Business Tree day here on the blog, and the SBT is the guiding metaphor for pretty much everything we do. So prepare for some major tree-hugging metaphor talk!)

In fact, there are two kinds of non-linear growth that are in play here.

  1. Organic growth is exponential. One cell divides into two, which divide into four, which divide into eight, and so on. A tree branch grows multiple new twigs, each of which then sprout multiple leaves. So for awhile you have what looks like nice slow steady predictable growth, or maybe barely discernable growth, and then, all of a sudden, watch out because you’re headed to the stratosphere.
  2. Organic growth is seasonal. In spring, there’s a burst of new growth. In summer, there’s slower, more steady growth — and also the production of flowers and fruit. In fall, growth slows dramatically and actually shuts down in the branches as the tree prepares for winter. Leaves fall, and in winter, the tree appears dead on the outside. Inside, there are still healthy live cells, and the roots might even be growing deeper into the ground, but most of the tree is dormant. Until spring switches those cells back to “on” and the cycle begins anew.

The constant play between these two types of non-linear growth is what makes things seem wacky at times. A seed (idea for a business) can take a long time to germinate into something you might want to actually do. You think, plan, wonder, and ruminate. Maybe it’s winter in your head and heart, and you’re hunkering down, gathering strength for what comes next. And this winter can last a long time.

And when spring comes, oh goodness watch out. It’s exponential-growth time. Those seed cells are dividing so fast you can’t keep track. New ideas pop into your head at a staggering rate. You suddenly feel like you can conquer the business world on hope alone. It’s intoxicatingly amazing.

And if you follow that energy, if you allow that rush of spring sap to rise straight from your life-giving roots and nourish your branches and leaves, if you take action to build your business, you get the bounteous reward of summer. Your ideas come to fruition. You put systems in place to support your business. Maybe you even outsource some tasks. The exponential growth slows down to a manageable pace.

And then the launch is over, or the new product is on shelves, or the new website is up, and so much energy has gone out into the world that there’s a totally normal and natural contraction process that happens. It can almost seem like an exponential slow-down in growth.

It’s time to review what worked and what didn’t. Time to take a breath. Time to let some marketing-leaves fall and draw energy back to the roots. This is autumn, and it’s what separates the short-lived plants from the trees. Businesses with strong roots and systems in place will survive until the next idea-spring, the next product launch, the next growth spurt. Businesses that grew like weeds — wildly but unsustainably — simply drop their seeds and die.

And then the strong business trees can begin the hunkering-down winter process again, to build strength and sap for the next juicy springtime burst of inspiration.

(The whangdoodle really gets crazy when you consider the possibility that different parts of your business might be in different seasons — one product might be launching, five more are barely germinated, and one’s done and feels dated. I’m not saying you have to be on top of all of that — just bring your awareness gently to the different parts of yourself, and your business, that might be pulling in and putting out different amounts of energy.)

It’s so important that I’ll say it again:

Organic growth is not a linear process.

Spring has always been my favorite time of year. Here in Southern California we’re already planting gardens and installing irrigation lines (apologies to those of you elsewhere who are still getting snowed on). I’ve already planted tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, green beans, and some herbs. Leaves and blossoms are popping out all over, and the trees that were so bare all winter are covered with a fuzz of that gorgeous shade of new-leaf green (OK, sorry, that was rubbing it in a little. You can get back at me when you’re having a nice temperate summer and I’m baking in 115-degree heat this August. Promise!).

Spring is powerfully great, and it can also be turbulent and chaotic and confusing. And I firmly believe that we humans are influenced by seasonal rhythms. We really do get bursts of energy in the spring, and we really do retreat energetically from the world in fall. Some people more than others, some years more than others. But the fact that it’s spring right now means there’s an absolutely natural tendency to get moving, to grow, to take outward-facing action.

That’s the part of my reader that wants to “jump in and build my website so I have it.” And I say go for it! Follow that energy! If it’s exciting to think about, take some action!

But don’t just steamroll over that other part, the part that wants to “go slow and be patient and build my biz from the inside out.” Honor it and sit with it. After all, building the website (or taking whatever inspired action step you’re contemplating) is only a small part of The Big Picture that is building your business from the inside out. And that even building the website is not a one-shot action; the website will be a work-in-progress that reflects the organic growth of your Small-Business Tree.

Those first sprouts may look tiny and vulnerable, but they’re already exponentially bigger than the tiny seed that started them. Your first web page won’t be your last.

So, yeah, I’m saying that you can do both. Follow your energy and have a sustainable growth plan. Stay heart-centered and put energy out into the world. Tune into your seasonal rhythms, learn to recognize and nourish your internal growth spurts, and give yourself credit and breathing room when it’s time to slow down.

Oh, and that part about “I’m still finding my voice and trying to describe what I do in coherent terms”? I’m doing that right here in this very blog post! So welcome to the tree-hugger club; we always have room for more!

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