I don’t know how it began; I must have clicked on something.
Because suddenly, in addition to the familiar scraps filling up my Instagram feed – NBA highlights, home maintenance tips, Key and Peele clips, male incontinence remedies (it’s for a friend) – I suddenly began seeing people doing card tricks.
I don’t know why, but there they were.
One day, I watched this one. I know, pretty amazing.
But what’s most interesting – and the woman in the video says this right at the beginning – is that she has no idea how it works.
It’s not about sleight of hand or any of the usual things you’d expect from a card trick. It’s just a recipe that, if followed to the letter, works every time.
I practiced until I was able to memorize it, at which point I forced my visiting children to watch.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m not going to become one of those dads who makes you watch card tricks.”
My son Jonathan pointed out that, “It looks like maybe you already have.” But at that point, I was too far into it to care.
You’ll be happy to learn that we did, eventually, figure out how it worked (too complicated to explain here).
But it didn’t really matter: knowing how it worked had nothing to do with making it work.
Your Large Competitors Are Hopelessly Constrained
One of the things I don’t miss about working in a big company was the need to justify every expenditure or proposed action, quantitatively and before the fact.
You want to launch a new marketing program?
Show us the numbers.
You want to modify some aspect of our pricing?
Show us the numbers.
You want to purchase software that will improve the customer experience?
Nah, I’m just kidding. It was the cable company; we didn’t even pretend to care about that.
In other words, and unlike my newfound card trick, it wasn’t enough for something to work – you had to know why it worked and you had to know before you were even allowed to try out the trick.
[I’d love to know who first floated the idea of the bank ATM machine. “So here’s what I’m thinking. We take a big metal box… we put it out on the street filled with about $30,000 in cash… and then we walk away. What do you think?”]
Relationship Marketing Shouldn’t Work
When I left that job (I don’t think they missed me) and went off on my own to offer marketing services to professional service providers, I stumbled onto the concept of “relationship marketing.”
It wasn’t intentional; it just kind of happened.
Before long, my entire marketing strategy came down to one simple phrase: Stay in front of the people you know, over and over again, in a way that positions you as a likeable expert.
But here’s the thing. While it’s true that at this point, I can talk for hours about how to do it and even provide all sorts of after-the-fact explanations for why it works so well, I don’t really know.
Because between you and me, it shouldn’t.
You shouldn’t be able to generate a never-ending stream of inbound, prequalified leads by…
… sending “stay in touch” emails – in which you attempt to sell nothing – to a few hundred people that you kinda, sorta know;
… getting together for coffee or lunch weekly with an even smaller number of people;
… regularly publishing a newsletter filled with personal anecdotes, in which you give away, for free, everything you know about the exact topic you make a living selling.
And yet, here we are.
A Hard Argument to Make
Every once in a while, someone gets in touch and tells me that while they believe in the concept of relationship marketing (and, usually, email newsletters in particular), their boss does not. They want to know what they can say to convince the boss it’s worth investing in.
My typical answer is, “probably nothing.”
It’s too squishy and untrackable to convince the nonbelievers. Even when it works, you can’t usually connect the dots in any kind of satisfying, empirical way.
Like being a NY Mets fan, it defies logic. (That one’s for you, big brother.)
Experiment First, Explain Later
When it comes to growing your business, today’s newsletter isn’t really about relationship marketing – that’s just one example.
Rather, it’s about experimentation. As a small professional service firm or solo, you have the luxury of trying things without knowing what’s going to work.
That’s huge.
Because the more people involved in a decision – let alone who have to sign off on it – the more inside-the-lines, risk-free, numbers-based, and plain vanilla it’s going to be.
So my advice is simply this: stop trying to figure everything out ahead of time. Just try and try and try things. If it works, keep doing it. If it doesn’t, try something else.
You can make up the answer to Why later on.
Discussion Questions:
- What’s common in your Instagram feed?
- Are you a Mets fan? Explain.
- What’s something off-the-wall in your business that you tried?
Share your answers below…
Something off-the-wall I tried during COVID (you may even like this one) — I compiled a list of past prospects and sent them a package of high-quality nuts (from a company in MA).
My letter opening read, “Why are you receiving this package of nuts? Because Huff Industrial Marketing is nuts about helping manufacturers like you grow your business!”
Alas, it didn’t lead to any real work, but a fair number of people contacted me to thank me for the nuts! 😀 (I had also completely forgotten about nut allergies — which is why I didn’t do this campaign again.)
It was fun, though.
Very creative!
Let’s Go Mets! Can’t explain it. Big Bro.
You defy logic.
1. Companies holding prize giveaways are the most common thing in my IG feed. Entering and winning is a hobby of mine (which sometimes feels like a part-time job I can do whenever I want with no guarantee of every getting paid). Most recent cool prize – an 1/8th of a cow.
2 I have no interest in baseball no matter who is playing.
3. About two years ago, I told two long time editor clients they were still paying me the same nominal dollars they had been in 2011 (13 years earlier – remember how much cheaper things were then). One told me his organization was non-profit (something I already knew) and they couldn’t pay more. Then he stopped hiring me.
The other was sympathetic and found a little more money. He got laid off, an unrelated event – but was replaced by a woman at a higher level in this organization who has more power, loves my work, and pays me more. (The nice guy got a better job he really likes somewhere else, so it all worked out.)
I know this is not the kind of off the wall you meant. It’s all I’ve got.
I like your #!. Sounds like a fun thing to do. Which 8th of the cow did they send you?
Cow hasn’t arrived quite yet, but it will be a bunch of steaks, roasts, sausage, and ground beef totaling 49 pounds. I’ve been eating everything in my freezer to make room.
1. Most of my feed is politics and women’s forgotten history.
2. Mets is baseball, right? Not a fan of any sport. I like watching ice skating when it filters through on instagram or Facebook and gymnastics.
3. I haven’t tried anything off the wall yet. I tried a newsletter. The people I asked liked it but nobody bought or referred me. I took a college course in marketing with no result except I learned some things about marketing and pricing. I got a job with the city until I can figure out how to make the business work.
If you are not a fan of any sport, I definitely recommend the Mets (yes, baseball). Since they never win, you’ll never be disappointed.
If you ever want to give the newsletter a try again, feel free to get in touch. I find that after 18 years of doing it that I have so many different newsletters that I send out, it’s fascinating.
I live on Main Street. With a direct mail company. I created an oversized postcard called “The Main Street Journal” with a font similar to a certain newspaper. It displayed a newspaper’s front page with a large headline “Attorney: Your Name Here with Quote of Insights About Local Business.” The rest of the card was blurred dummy text. On the reverse of the postcard was a pitch about my services as a Public Relations professional who could introduce you, as an attorney, to reporters, as a way to promote your practice. It offered a FREE consultation and guaranteed TWO IDEAS, displaying my email address and phone number. The direct mail company sent it to attorneys with a solo practice. It cost $1,000, with the discount. I calculated one new client would cover the expense. No one called.
Did the direct mail company explain where the attorney list came from? Why did you think introducing attorneys to reporters would help them promote their practices? As a person who’s done both PR and reporting, I don’t think the attorneys would get any press coverage from meeting reporters. Reporters want stories; I don’t see one here. I suspect your thousand dollars would have been better spent taking attorneys to lunch one at a time to learn what promotion help they needed.
1. What’s common in your Instagram feed? – A lot of really fun trippy music videos
2. Are you a Mets fan? Explain. No, I gave following professional sports over 20 years ago. Go, Iggles
3. What’s something off-the-wall in your business that you tried?
I could probably write a book answering this question. All sorts of fun things, but one of the ones that I see you doing is your annual ice cream party. I wish we lived closer, I’d come.