This past weekend was my 25-year business school reunion. We actually graduated 26 years ago, but, like most projects involving people with “advanced degrees,” this one came in a year behind schedule.

It was a blast. Hanging out during the day, big event Saturday night, brunch the next morning. Pretty much nonstop fun.

Amazingly, and despite the fact that we hadn’t gotten together as a group since the 10-year event, it was as if no time had passed.

I mean mentally, of course. Physically, and compared to our younger selves, most of us looked like Frosty the Snowman in that final scene where he starts melting into an unrecognizable blob.

Anyway, as the event drew near and the planning began in earnest, I raised my hand and offered to be in charge of “the slideshow.” I’m not great with logistical stuff – things like sending invitations or negotiating with the strippers – but this seemed like a fun and creative way to get involved.

And it was. My fellow classmates scanned, emailed and posted all kinds of photos from the old days. So many in fact, that by the time I sat down to put the show together, I had over 250 images to choose from.

A week later, and after having employed a very cool free service that my daughter found called Vuvox, the slideshow was done. It was 20 minutes long.

“Anyone want to see the reunion slide show?!”, I offered to my family.

Nope, no takers. I can’t say I was surprised.

After all, a single photo of drunk people you’ve never met is boring. But 20 minutes, back to back? I may as well have asked if anyone had an interest in climbing into the oven while I cooked a turkey.

But guess what. The night of the big reunion dinner, the show was a HUGE hit. Monstrous.

Not only was 20 minutes not “too long,” I’m pretty sure I could have let it run for a couple of days and nobody would have minded.

Why? Well obviously because the people in the room were the people in the show. Those weren’t anonymous drunk people from the mid-eighties … those were us.

Which got me thinking … about you, your newsletter and the writing you do. And, more specifically, about the very subjective concept known as “too long.”

You see when it comes to writing, particularly in the age of social media, everyone talks about length as if it’s the most important factor. The prevailing wisdom is that “nobody reads anymore” and therefore, everything has to be super short.

I don’t quite buy it.

Yes, length matters. But the definition of “too long” is as much a function of who your audience is as it is of the content itself.

Family member looking at reunion photos? One is too many. Member of the class of 1986? Can’t get enough.

And so when you create content (of any kind) it pays to give some thought to:

• How much the audience knows. Are they experts on the subject matter or novices? Do they need technical terms explained or is that beneath them? Are they up to speed on what’s happening in the industry overall?
  
  Without a clear understanding (or at least assumption) regarding what the audience knows, you have no way of directing your content.

• What the audience cares about. The reason my slideshow worked out so well was because the people watching it were intensely interested in the content.
  
  By the same token, when you write a newsletter (or whatever), you want to make sure you’re offering insights and perspective that are useful from the point of view of the recipients.
  
  Guidance that helps them live their lives or do their jobs better? Perfect. Thinly veiled come-on for your company and its services? The oven awaits.

• How the audience communicates. You don’t talk to your grandmother in the same way you speak to your dog (and if you do, I plan to avoid your house on Mother’s Day).
  
  It could be the exact same information, but depending on the audience, your voice, vocabulary and even font size should vary.
  
  The 80′s music in the background of the slideshow was spot on for my audience that night. Try explaining to a present-day 13-year-old, on the other hand, how a song named “Karma Chameleon” rose to #1, and you’re in for a long conversation.

Here’s the bottom line.  Effective communication involves more than just the communication vehicle itself. Match what you have to say with the people you’re trying to say it to and you’ll have a much easier time getting your message across.

P.S. Be the third person to call my voicemail and sing the chorus to “Karma Chameleon” (multicolored braids optional) and I’ll send you a free CD of Culture Club’s Greatest Hits. Dial (512) 827-0505 Ext 6378 to leave your message!

Either way, click here now to watch Boy George at his best.

Some professionals think of marketing as a thing you go out and explicitly “do” every once in a while, like mowing the lawn or wondering where your children are.

The truth is, however, many of the best business-building opportunities are easy, instant and free, and require no “going out” at all.

This brief, incredibly well-done video (below), offers an idea on how you can effectively market your professional service business from the comfort of your home, office or prison cell.

Click below to watch (wait until the warden isn’t looking).

There’s a new ice cream store here in town.

Well, okay, it’s not exactly a store, it’s more like a grain silo-ish thing attached to a market, from which they now sell ice cream.

And that’s bad news.

It’s bad news because thanks to the conversion of said grain silo, my family and I now have four ice cream options in our vicinity from which to choose.

Frankly, the tradeoffs are mind-boggling – one-third more so, given the new addition.

The problem is that each place, relative to the other three, offers its own unique combination of flavor selection, portion size, price, comfort, dog friendliness and distance from our house, to name just a few of the most salient variables.

If you thought the recently-ended Republican primary offered too many choices, imagine those people jammed into a waffle cone and doused in hot fudge and you’ll have some sense of what I’m dealing with over here.

In addition, and as a result of all this ice cream convolution, here in town, different people possess wildly different views regarding which ice cream place is “the best.”

Interestingly (and for all I know, not coincidentally), we also have four options for buying gasoline in town. Here, however, and given my long held belief that “gas is gas,” the choice is easy – I just pick the cheapest one.

So here’s my question for you and your professional service firm:

Are you a gas station … or are you an ice cream store?

Here’s why it matters…

The people who hire you would prefer that you were a gas station. Why? Because it’s easier to make a buying decision when all the choices are – or at least appear to be – the same.

Your prospective clients want to line you up, side by side with the other gas stations and pick the cheapest one (or get you to reduce your fee based on the fact that you’re not the cheapest one).

And why shouldn’t they? If “law firms are law firms,” or “recruiters are recruiters,” or “gas is gas,” all of us as buyers make a simple decision based on price.

You, however, want to be an ice cream store. You don’t want the comparison to be simple and you definitely don’t want the decision to be based on price.

Rather, you want prospective clients to see you as the only viable option for their unique bundle of needs and preferences. Either they hire you, or they get nothing – no reasonable alternatives exist.

In this scenario, side by side, apples to apples comparisons are meaningless; buying decisions based solely on price are impossible.

Three ideas then, for putting this into practice:

1. Don’t be generic. If you describe yourself as simply “graphic artist” or “marketing consultant” or “law firm,” you are inviting prospects to use price as the differentiator.
   
   If, on the other hand, you are a “graphic artist who specializes in the Australian food service industry,” you muddy the waters, making side by side comparison more difficult.

2. Don’t sell time. Charging by the hour is the service provider equivalent of pricing by the gallon. It suggests uniformity among choices and here as well, puts you in a neat little box for prospects to stack and sort.
   
   When you package your services, however – for a flat fee, with a distinctive name and with lots of elements mixed together – you create a unique offering whose elements are not easily pulled apart.

3. Show some (authentic) style. If you look, dress, talk, write, behave and work in the same way as all the other professionals in your industry, I’m going to slap the “generic” label on you and ask what your hourly rate is.
   
   Create and/or highlight real differences between you and the competition. (Hint: Telling me your firm is made up of “experienced, trustworthy professionals” isn’t a real difference unless you can point out a competitor who claims to employ “unreliable morons.”)
   
   Can you implement a unique pricing scheme (e.g., all-you-can-eat accounting services)? Do you have an unusual/compelling back story (e.g., “Our founder speaks 12 languages.”)? Do you have a contrarian point of view (e.g., “I’m a financial planner who thinks 401k plans are bad.”).
   
   The point is, you want to uncover differences, not similarities.

Here’s the bottom line. As consumers – whether of gas, ice cream, or professional services – we are eager to pay the least amount of money for a given result.

As sellers, therefore, your job is to make your “given result” as unlike that of your competitors as possible.

OK. Put your donut down for a minute  and pay attention. I have some questions for you:

1. Can you recommend a career coach for my cousin who’s thinking of leaving her job?

2. Can you recommend a mason who could repair my front steps?

3. Can you recommend a recruiter who could find a vice president of marketing for my 25-store restaurant chain?

 

  Listen To This Post

Take a look at the questions again and this time, pay attention to what your brain does as you read them.

If your brain is anything like mine (i.e., squishy, hardworking and predisposed to help), upon reading each of these questions, it diligently starts searching itself to see if it can find a match:

And even though these are made up examples (except for the part about my front steps; I really do need a mason), this is exactly how word of mouth business – both B2B and B2C – gets done every day:

You and I ask the people we know for ideas and recommendations relative to our immediate problems. The people we know try and help.

I mention all this because when it comes to getting enough of the clients we want, most of us professional service providers are too focused on proving how capable we are and not focused enough on getting recommended in the first place.

“Now wait a second,” you probably just said out loud to your computer monitor and/or mason. “Isn’t that the same thing? Aren’t recommendations based on capability?”

In a word, no. In two words, not really.

Think about it. When I ask you for a recommendation relative to a specific problem, you immediately start looking for a match: A career coach who works in job transition. A mason in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. A recruiter who specializes in marketing people for the food service industry.

Sure, if you know a great coach, or a skilled mason, or a terrific headhunter, all the better. But at this initial, “Who do you know?” stage, it’s all about the match.

It’s so much not about capability, in fact, that in my experience, most of the people who offer up potential names, haven’t even worked firsthand with the people whom they’re recommending. All they know is that this person they’re telling you about appears to do the thing you need to get done.

Remember, people have very specific problems. A key piece of your marketing therefore, is making sure that your name appears on someone’s lips when the “Can you recommend…?” question is asked.

So try this: Stop trying to impress the people you meet with fancy-pants phrases that shine brightly for a minute and then evaporate. (I’m pretty sure that last sentence was a triple-mixed metaphor). Instead, just help others understand and remember what you do.

Don’t say: “I’m a human capital development expert with a 20-year track record of helping Fortune 500 companies increase employee productivity through world class internal communication documents.”

Say: I’m a human resources consultant. I specialize in developing employee handbooks.

Nothing about how good you are, or the results you create, or who you’ve worked with in the past, or anything like that. Just a simple statement describing what you do.

Something they can understand. Something they can remember. Something that will make you pop into their heads the next time someone says, “Can you recommend…?”

Here’s the bottom line. Being seen as an experienced, capable, impressive professional who can get the job done is important, no doubt about it.

But none of that matters until someone throws your name into the ring as a possible contender. And that won’t happen (much) until what people think you do matches what people think they need. Keep it simple.

Given my unabashed love of e-mail newsletters and their proven success in building a professional service business, lots of people gingerly confess to me their hatred/fear/impatience regarding writing.

First of all, I appreciate your gingerness; but don’t worry about me. I mean I love writing, but it’s not like it’s my baby and I’ll be offended if you tell me how ugly it is.  Feel free to hate it.

Second, and most important for your own success, if you hate writing, don’t write … do something else.

This brief, unwritten video clip (one minute, 10 seconds) explains why.

We’ve got a problem over at our house. A problem that involves barking.

Now fortunately, this barking thing relates to our dog, not one of our children, so I suppose I should be thankful for small favors.

Nevertheless, it seems that Abbie, our 8-year-old (more or less) Lab/Golden mix (more or less), has developed a penchant for making noise outside, late at night and early in the morning.

Personally, and if it were up to me, I wouldn’t do anything about it. The barking doesn’t last very long and when the windows are closed, I hardly notice it.

Of course we all know that it isn’t up to me.

Not only does my wife Linda object to annoying the neighbors (women, huh?), her hearing is so acute that she could be in the shower, on a different floor, on the other side of the house, and if a single bark molecule (or whatever) made its way up there, she’d hear it.

So it usually falls on me to get Abbie back inside, something that is easier said than done, especially when it’s 20 degrees out, I’m wearing nothing but my (sexy) green plaid bathrobe, and she’s 100 feet away in the woods.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that she completely ignores me when I call her name. It’s just that she completely ignores me when I call her name.

Last week, however, I may have solved the problem: I discovered that if I stand in the garage, yell “Abbie come!!!,” and slam the car door a couple of times, she comes running.

She loves riding in the car more than anything and the promise of a late night jaunt that a slamming car door suggests, seems to be working. I’m not sure this qualifies me for my own animal reality show (“The Dog Slammerer”), but it does demonstrate how reliably dogs will respond to certain cues.

In this respect, your newsletter readers are exactly like Abbie (minus, presumably, most of the fur). They too respond to cues and, if you want them to come running when you call, it’s in your best interest to send consistent signals.

Three areas to pay attention to:

1. A consistent schedule. I don’t know if there’s a magic number in terms of publication frequency (other than to say that anything less than monthly is a waste of time and anything more than weekly is going to kill you).

   That said, a consistent schedule is important. Not only because it helps you stay on track, but because it also gives your readers some sense of what to expect.

   So pick a publication schedule – first Wednesday of the month, every Friday, whatever. And stick to it.

2. A consistent voice. Lots of professional service firms share newsletter writing among staff. Whether because they want to “give everyone a chance” or (more typically) “share the pain of producing content,” too much variation in style, level of complexity and subject matter, ends up appealing to nobody.

   With all the competition for reader attention, the only way your newsletter (and by association, you) will stand out from the pack is if you consistently take a particular position with a particular voice on a particular category of.

3. A consistent format. Grab a copy of Time magazine; watch The Tonight Show; visit the supermarket. Have you noticed that week after week, they put the same stuff – the editorials, the monologue, the bananas – in the same place?

   That’s on purpose. It makes it both easier to create the content (knowing ahead of time which pieces you’ll need) and to consume the content (knowing where the bananas are).

   So do your best to create newsletter sections (e.g., “client spotlight”) and features (e.g., audio version) and to offer them consistently each time you publish.

Here’s the bottom line. Your readers have lots of choices; just because they came the first time you called, it doesn’t mean they’ll keep paying attention.

Build consistency into your approach and they’ll keep on … wait for it … panting for more. Woof woof!

Do you cringe when people unsubscribe from your e-mail list?

I used to, but I don’t (much) anymore.  The short video clip below (1 minute, 54 seconds), explains why paying attention to unsubscribes is less productive than it may seem.

 
What do you think about this?

Suppose, one day, you wake up and decide you’d like to be married. You’ve been single for a long time and for whatever reason, you determine that it’s time, as they say on Bonanza, to get hitched.

So, you do what any reasonable person would do…

You brush your hair, you put on some nice clothes and you head over to the part of town where the kind of people you’d like to meet hang out. Then, you cheerfully walk up to an attractive stranger who seems to fit the bill and you pop the question:

“Will you marry me?”

Now, I confess I haven’t actually tried this. And as a man who hasn’t had a date since the Reagan Administration, I hesitate to even give advice in this area – perhaps I’m simply out of touch with the way the kids do things today.

That said, it seems to me that the chances for success with this approach are minimal.

No matter how good you look, how smooth you talk, how well you target your audience by going to the right part of town at the right time of day, I’m fairly certain that few strangers would take you up on your offer.

Not only that, but anyone who did, would be, by definition, immediately suspect.

Why then, do so many solo professionals use what amounts to this very same approach when looking for clients?:

Targeting prospects, working on their presentations and trying to close sales, all the while ignoring the most important variable in the equation: “relationship strength.”

Relationship strength, my friend, is the secret ingredient (well, not any more, I just told you). It’s what lets you close deals … easily, pleasantly and profitably. All the other stuff is secondary.

Back to you and your attempt to get married.

What if, rather than asking a few prospects on the street to get married today (i.e., hire you), you instead asked lots and lots of people if they’d simply like to dance (i.e., interact with you in a low-pressure, no promises, “I’m not saying I like you either I just want to get a closer look at you on the off chance we may ink a deal in a few years time,” kind of way).

Don’t you think that would work better, for everyone involved? Me too.

A few specific suggestions then, in applying this to your business:

• Start early. Even if you’re full up with client work or still have a job and are only just thinking about striking out on your own, the time to ask people to dance is now. Rekindle your old connections (before you need them), whether or not you’re actively looking for clients.

• Think broadly.Stop viewing the world as made up of people who are either “prospects” or “those whom I can safely ignore.”Just because I’m not in a position to hire you (and may never be) it doesn’t mean I can’t spread the word regarding your wonderfulness. Plenty of successful romances have begun through “friends of friends.”

• Go slowly.You don’t want to rush into a client relationship any more than you want to rush into a marriage. I know, I know, but you need the money now.Believe me, “bad clients” – the ones that you don’t see eye to eye with, for whatever reason – are never worth the pain and suffering, no matter how much money they bring.

Here’s the bottom line...

While it’s true that the last thing I said to my then-girlfriend Linda before she answered “Yes,” was, “Will you marry me?,” it wasn’t the time of day, the location of the meeting, the way I looked (believe me) or even the words themselves that made it work that day. That was just the final step in a long process.

The sale itself came together slowly, over several months, and after lots of dances with the wrong people.

I know you’re just dying to sing the lines above from that great, old, Smokey Robinson song, “Shop Around.” Be the third person to call my voicemail and sing it, and I’ll send you an official, blue penguin USB drive. Click here firstfor inspiration.

Call this number to leave your singing message: (512) 827-0505 Ext 1916#

Today’s Insightful Insight is looooong.  49 minutes actually.

It’s an interview, recorded earlier this year and broadcast yesterday, of me by my longtime, good friend, Lissa Boles, as part of her two-month program, The Jupiter Midas Effect.

I watched it again yesterday and what can I say, it was fabulous. 

Lots of practical information on relationship marketing, using your authentic personality and succeeding as a solo professional (particularly a new one).

Click here to watch the interview (in which I appear to have no eyes*).