from Mediapost:

Zephrin Lasker is the CEO and co-founder of Pontiflex. Reach him here.

from my email:

Daily Sales Tip: Manipulation or Persuasion?

Manipulation is getting prospects or customers to do something for your benefit. Persuasion is getting them to do something for your mutual benefit.

What's the difference? Manipulation is usually bad. It's done to serve your own interests without any regard to what you're doing for the prospect or customer.

Persuasion is good because it's done for the best interests of you and the prospect or customer. Here are some tips that may increase your persuasive powers:

Persisting. Persuaders realize that 80% of sales are made on the fifth call or later. They recognize that one of their most persuasive abilities is the refusal to give up. They understand that more than 75% of salespeople quit after calling on a prospect three times. Persuaders are in the elite 20% of the sales force that close 80% of the sales.

Personalizing. Persuaders recognize that a prospect wants to know one thing: "What's in it for me?" They add persuasion by personalizing every part of their presentation to meet prospects' own personal needs and wants.

Proving. Facts and testimonials are very persuasive. Persuaders recognize that third-party endorsements go a long way to building credibility. They're prepared to prove every claim they make with hard data, test results and performance records.

Positive. The best persuaders are positive about themselves, the company they represent, the products or services they're selling, and the prospects they're attempting to persuade. Enthusiasm is contagious. They persuade with power because they get customers and prospects feeling the same way.

Source: Adapted from Persuasion: The Art of Getting What You Want, by sales trainer/consultant David Lakhani.

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From Amy:

Creamy chocolate balls. Pizza. A psychedelic Sweet'N Low world. Let's launch!

Amy Corr is managing editor, online newsletters for MediaPost. She can be reached at amyc@mediapost.com.

From my email:

Daily Sales Tip: Simple As ABC

The primary rule in selling has been and always will be ABC: Always Be Closing. Unfortunately, some prospects identify ABC with pushy, aggressive, manipulative or offensive salesepeople.

Closing shouldn't be manipulative, tricky or based on a technique you apply at the end of a presentation. Closing should begin the second you qualify a prospect. It's an attitude you maintain throughout the selling process.

Sales are not closed for two reasons: Either the prospect didn't see the need to make the change, or the salesperson failed to explain the advantages of the product or service being sold.

You begin to close the sale the moment you open it. You're closing when you believe 100% in what you do and what you sell. You're closing by showing prospects a passion for what you sell. You're closing when you keep you word, walk your talk, and behave in a thoroughly professional manner.

You're closing when you ask intelligent questions to identify the specific ways your products or services will contribute to the lives of your prospects. You're closing when you listen, giving prospects the respect they want and expect. You're closing when you present expert solutions to the specific needs and concerns of your prospects.

Source: Adapted from 22 Keys To Sales Success, by James M. Benson and Paul Karasik

---

Do you have a favorite "Dollar" store?

Click and read:

When I read this headline, I wondered what was really going on....

Are consumers maxed out on their credit cards?

Are they unable to get credit?

Or are they simply becoming more thrifty and not spending until they actually have the cash in hand?

Shoppers Still Stick To Payday Purchases

Consumer-products makers continue to see shoppers stock up on necessities around payday, a sign that some of the frugal habits consumers picked up in the recession linger.

The so-called "paycheck cycle" -- where shoppers make purchases in tandem with salary checks or government payouts and then pull back on spending as they run out -- became more prevalent at the height of the recession. But many consumers are stubbornly sticking to that buying pattern even as the economy improves.

Unilever NV said it continues to see a sales jump in the first week of the month in the U.S., with brands like its lower-priced Suave shampoo, and kitchen staples Skippy peanut butter and Ragu sauces getting some of the biggest lifts as paychecks are cashed.

"A lot of people are still truly living paycheck to paycheck," said Lisa Klauser, vice president for consumer and customer solutions at Unilever North America.

Consumers typically shop close to payday, but the paycheck cycle "heightened during the recession, and it's one of the behaviors we would now call the new normal," said Ms. Klauser.

Finding ways to appeal to frugal Americans has turned into one of the biggest challenges for consumer companies. The persistence of a marked paycheck cycle suggests that some recessionary patterns will be hard to shake off -- particularly among consumers with lower incomes.

Some brands are trying to reach payday shoppers. Jeff Ettinger, chief executive of Hormel Foods Corp., said retailers still talk of the paycheck cycle as having an impact on the timing of sales. Hormel is trying to time some promotions around the cycle and is working with retailers to make sure it has the right brands stocked at pay time. Ms. Klauser said Unilever tries to time marketing programs like coupons for when shoppers are likely to have more money.

The exact cycle can be hard to predict as timings of paychecks and government payouts vary, but many companies notice a jump at the beginning of the month. The cycle has become more prominent in brands popular with shoppers on low incomes or getting government benefits. Food-stamp benefits, which more people are using, generally are received in the early days of the month in many states.

ConAgra Foods Inc. said it sees a sales spike of about 2% to 5% in the first two weeks of the month for brands like Banquet frozen meals, Snack Pack pudding, Manwich sloppy joe sauce and Hunt's ketchup. ConAgra said that the brands tend to be heavily used by households on government-assistance programs, and it attributes the sales lift early in the month to factors like paychecks, government checks and food stamps.

Dawn Brown, a single mother in Rockford, Ill., who makes about $33,000 annually, said she lives paycheck-to-paycheck and stocks up on necessities early and mid-month when she gets paid. She became more careful during the recession, timing purchases early in the month when her neighborhood stores offer big discounts. Ms. Brown, who works as a credit counselor at Chicago nonprofit Family Credit Management, said many of the people she counsels tend to have similar purchasing habits.

The paycheck cycle also appears in more discretionary categories. Jim Moseley, a senior vice president for consumer planning at Diageo PLC said the company sees the cycle play out most in its "subpremium," or more-affordable brands. Lines like the company's more affordable Gordon's Vodka appeal to consumers looking particularly hard for value, he said. At the height of the recession the company saw the paycheck cycle play out a little in premium brands as well, though that trend has since eased out.

The big brands say that consumers remain willing to pay for a higher-end product, but want to ensure they get good value for money. That focus on value is another recession habit likely to stick. "We have created a generation of smarter consumers," said Mr. Moseley.

(Source: The Wall Street Journal, 08/30/10)

Success.

from my email:

Daily Sales Tip: Always Shoot for the Next Level

The most successful salespeople stay that way by maintaining an edge on the competition.

The majority of them read industry literature, join trade organizations, and regularly attend conferences and seminars to keep up to date on what's changing in their industry, and what new and emerging trends they need to be aware of.

In that spirit, a lot of top salespeople are continually looking for new ways to move upward in their own organization, whether that means attaining a new benchmark, earning a new title, or striving to achieve some type of incentive.

They always have something that propels them forward, keeping them in a state of perpetual motion.

Source: Ron LaVine, president of Intellworks, a national sales training and consulting firm

---

Click and read:

What is your customer retention rate? It's a question that I was asked recently by the president of the group of radio stations I work for.

See, we've made a couple of changes this year, and a couple of our stations are almost sold out all the time, and the other two have room to grow.

So, as we look to sell out the two that have room for more advertisers, the first place to look is at former and current clients.

The Customers Rock! blog featured a post on this subject:

Growing Business the Old-Fashioned Way

Here is a blast from the past, a classic Customers Rock! post on taking care of your current customers. Thanks to @Foundora for bringing it back to my attention. Enjoy!

Many companies spend a lot of time and money on attracting new customers to their product or service. Much of the marketing budget is spent on mass approaches such as advertising and direct mail. While those media may have their place in attracting prospects, they don’t help companies with their most valuable asset: their existing customer base.

Taking care of existing customers is a fantastic, cost-effective way to grow your business.

Drew McLellan shares some advantages we have when we concentrate on the “old” customers. I especially like the first advantage he lists:

“They know who you are and trust/like you enough that they’ve done business with you”

How well is your organization doing in its communications with your customers? What would cause them to trust you and want to come back for more?

Take a brief break here and think about the last 5 communications you received from companies you (or your company) are doing business with. What kinds of touches were they? Interactions with existing customers tend to be one of the following types:

• A bill
• An upsell offer
• A cross-sell offer
• A renewal offer

While there may be some customer value in these actions, they tend to be more favorable to the company than the customer. In order to keep and grow existing customers, a proactive strategy is needed. Here are some great ideas from a few of my favorite bloggers:

Meikah of Customer Relations shares with us some insight from Jack Stahl, former president of Coca-Cola and CEO of Revlon, on how to strengthen relationships in a B2B setting:

“Persist in offering value. Give consistent and routine attention, which shows that you are always interested in your customer’s business, in good times and bad. Also, have an ongoing dialogue with the retailer, when an opportunity arises to regain your business.”

Offering something of value to your customers is very important to furthering the relationship. If there isn’t value, customers may continue to do business with you for awhile, but the relationship will be short-lived. Keeping the communications line open, whether or not the customer has recently purchased something, is one of the keys to keeping up a conversation with customers.

Joe Rawlinson of Return Customer gives us some ideas on communicating appreciation with existing customers.

“When was the last time someone told you how much they appreciated you? How do you feel when you get a thank you note? If you’re like most, you get a warm fuzzy feeling inside. You smile. You feel a little bit better.

Don’t you think your customers would like to feel that same joy?”

Words of thanks are greatly valued by customers. They are a nice antithesis to all the sales calls and could actually make the next call more fruitful!

Rosa Say of Managing with Aloha tells us how to deliver on the promise of our customers’ dreams. She tells her readers about the art of creating loyal customers:

“Managing with Aloha incorporates the art of Ho‘okipa to achieve a service and product delivery that is unparalleled in the dreams of your customers, turning them into loyal customers for life. When people feel they have experienced the ultimate in good service and in hospitality, they return for more of it time and again.”

Customer loyalty comes from more than just great products and services. The customer experience has a very strong influence on customer attitudes towards an organization. I love the way Rosa describes it above – an experience that makes you want to return again and again.

Other ideas on how to create meaningful interactions with existing customers:

• Birthday cards/anniversary of start of relationship
• Invitations to customer appreciation events
• Asking for customer feedback, then acting on it and letting customers know the results
• Customer apologies, where needed
• Customer advisory boards

Which types of interactions you use depends on the company, it depends on the culture, and of course, it depends on what is important to the customer.

Finally, one can always use the element of surprise to keep relationships fresh. Here is an unexpected example from Bounce fabric softener shared in Andy Nulman’s blog.

Sometimes it is the little things that make all the difference.

(Photo credit: cookelma)

Please read this carefully.

It is not saying you should talk a lot. More sales are lost by too much coming out of your mouth and not enough out of your customers mouth...

Daily Sales Tip: People Love a Good Story

Over the years as a speaker, manager and facilitator, I have observed the greatest retention of my message was from stories that I told.

The impact went beyond facts and theories. Stories engage the audience, were conversational, and tapped into the emotions and senses. Often I would encounter people years later and they would playback a story I had shared with them, and more importantly, voice the point of the story and how it helped them overcome barriers or create solutions to problems.

How to use stories to educate and explain:

Listen. Learn to listen to your audience for clues as to what would resonate with them and what is important in their world. Be prepared to tell a variety of stories from your arsenal.

Use personal experience as a basis for your story. The greatest way to build trust and relationships is to be vulnerable. The story can demonstrate how you had to overcome an obstacle or barrier, reveal up-close and personal experiences that your audience can relate to, and encourage them to remember we are all human.

Be genuine. Share real-life stories that can demonstrate how you can learn from your mistakes (usually the best lessons are from our mistakes), and demonstrate effective techniques on how to overcome barriers.

Engage your audience. Stories capture the imagination by allowing people to paint their own pictures and images of what you are sharing. Have a beginning, a middle, and end with a clear take-away. Like a good joke, it is all in the delivery of the story and your conviction.

Be conversational. The delivery should be natural in a conversational tone. You are letting your audience behind the scenes with this revealing story about people and events. It can be fun, serious, sad, dramatic -- all the range of human emotions. People love a good story.

Source: Sales coach Paul Anovick

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From MarketingProfs.com:

How Chick-Fil-A's Email Offer Brought Customers Into Stores

In a post at the Bronto blog, Julie Waite says you may know Chick-Fil-A recently introduced a Spicy Chicken Sandwich. "What you may not have heard," she notes, "was that they ran a special invite-only event promotion to taste the new sandwich (for free!) well in advance of its launch date."

For those who signed up for the promotion, here's how the email campaign worked:

The first message confirmed the reservation. "We have you down for Tuesday, June 1, 2010 at my restaurant (Northgate Mall (NC)) between 11AM-2PM," read Waite's personalized note, which included the name and headshot of Garrett Reed, the store's owner-operator.

It included a link to a printable invitation. A lengthier message described Chick-Fil-A's Spicy Chicken Sandwich—the first new sandwich on its menu since 1989—and included all of the reservation's details.

A second message—a friendly reminder—arrived the day before the event. "Again," she says, "clear and simple instructions for redemption, a link to print my invite in case I lost it, and directions to the store. Perfect timing."

Once at the restaurant, Waite discovered the "secret" event was, indeed, secret. "[T]here was no signage or anything that denoted the day's special events," she says, "which actually made us feel as if we were getting something special that others weren't." A few tabletop signs marked "Reserved for Spicy VIP" were the only indication of the sandwich-tasting promotion—and had little meaning for non-participants. "[A] clever way," she concludes, "to add to the mystique and give a wink to those in the know."

The Po!nt: Tastefully targeted emails really do work. Chick-Fil-A's campaign drew Waite in with a solid email campaign and the promise of a tasty sandwich—and, importantly, it followed through on its promise of exclusivity.

Source: Bronto. Read the full post.

from my email:

Daily Sales Tip: 6 Tips To Get Your Clients To Open E-Mails

Compelling subject lines get your e-mails opened by clients and prospects...and that must be the first goal of any e-mail. Use these tips for subject lines to improve your open rate.

1. Create a sense of urgency.
2. Include a benefit to the receiver.
3. Be consistent with your station's image.
4. Signify the importance of the e-mail.
5. Play to the relationship you have or want.
6. Keep it short and to the point.

Good e-mail subject lines will make the client want to do something. Create your subject line by first knowing what you want clients and prospects to do.

Source: John Potter. VP/Training, Radio Advertising Bureau

I'm back from a trip with my bride of nearly 10 years and while we didn't fly, we had a great time.

There will be some lessons from our travels I'll be sharing in the weeks to come on my other marketing blog in the weeks ahead, but for now, check out this from Drew:

Marketing question #91: What's changed?

Posted: 22 Aug 2010 12:12 PM PDT

As I was replenishing my dopp bag (here's why it's called that) so that I can maintain my "pack in 10 minutes or less" standing, I noticed something different on my deodorant.

Check out the sticker on the cap. "Sized for airplane travel." Good to know. Now, if I'm just taking a carry on bag, I don't have to get one of those travel sized deodorants.

But the truth is...the only thing that's changed is Arm & Hammer added the sticker.

They didn't change one thing about their product or packaging. It's the same deodorant they've been selling long before 9-11 and all the new TSA security measures.

They were just smart enough to ask "what's changed? What in our customers' lives, in our society, in the world has changed?"

And now they're capitalizing on it.

Most of us sell/make a mature product or service. Whether you're an accounting firm, sell fresh fish or consult on IT security -- odds are you've been doing it awhile. And to you, it's business as usual.

But stop and ask the smart marketing question. What's changed? Are your customers worried about something new? Are they bound by some new rule? Do they suddenly have new options? Has your industry been labeled as "green" or "luxury" or something else?

In most cases, business owners/leaders are so busy keeping their noses to the grindstone that they don't look up to explore the changing landscape. Don't get stuck in that trap.

Look around. Notice what has changed. (And I promise you....something has!) and then ask the important follow up question -- how can you take advantage of that change?

from Jim Meisenheimer's newsletter:

Sales Ignorance Is Oblivion

If I were to give you a list of 15 ideas that you should consider as principle foundations for starting a business, would you accept it?

If I gave it to you at no cost because I care that you succeed, would it still be valuable to you?

If among those 15 ideas were a few you disagreed with, would you toss the whole list out?

These 15 ideas (with footnotes) are from Seth Godins blog.

He is one of the authors, speakers and leaders that I feature on Collective Wisdom.

Contact me if you have any questions or add your own comments.

Foundation elements for modern businesses

Your Employees...

Catch them Doing Something Right.

From Content Marketing:

Five Guys Burgers and Fries Really Understand in Person Content Marketing

from an email from Keith Ferrazzi:

A new study was released this week:

According to July data from comScore, 178 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content during the month for an average of 14.7 hours per viewer. Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property with 143.2 million unique viewers, followed by Yahoo! Sites, with 55.1 million viewers. Facebook.com jumped one position to capture the #3 spot.

Google Sites had the highest number of overall viewing sessions with 1.9 billion and average time spent per viewer at 283 minutes, or 4.7 hours.

Top U.S. Online Video Properties by Video Content Views (July 2010 Total U.S. Home/Work/University Locations)
Property	Total Unique Viewers (000)	Viewing Sessions (000)	Minutes per Viewer
Total Internet Audience	178,148	5,234,655	882.0
Google Sites	143,226	1,884,498	282.7
Yahoo! Sites	55,107	238,322	28.6
Facebook.com	46,571	166,186	18.3
Microsoft Sites	45,558	219,149	40.2
VEVO	43,911	202,091	68.5
Fox Interactive Media	38,136	164,760	27.2
Turner Network	33,442	107,793	25.3
Viacom Digital	30,715	70,617	44.8
Disney Online	28,475	64,104	6.0
Hulu	28,455	153,845	158.0
Source: comScore Video Metrix

Americans viewed nearly 3.6 billion video ads in July, with Hulu generating the highest number of video ad impressions at 783 million. Tremor Media Video Network ranked second overall (and highest among video ad networks), followed by BrightRoll Video Network and Microsoft Sites. Video ads reached 44.5% of the total U.S. population an average of 27 times during the month. Hulu delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 27.9 over the course of the month.

Top U.S. Online Video Properties by Video Ads Viewed (July 2010 Total U.S. Home/Work/University Locations)
Property	Video Ads (000)	Frequency (Ads per Viewer)	% Reach Total U.S. Population
Total Internet Audience	3,559,928	26.8	44.5
Hulu	783,304	27.9	9.4
Tremor Media Video Network	451,864	8.0	19.0
BrightRoll Video Network	248,345	6.0	13.9
Microsoft Sites	232,256	9.1	8.5
Google Sites	219,326	4.6	15.9
Crosspoint Media	206,269	7.3	9.5
SpotXchange Video Ad Network	170,895	4.3	13.4
CBS Interactive	134,798	6.1	7.4
BBE	120,179	4.5	8.9
Viacom Digital	110,810	5.4	6.9
Source: comScore Video Metrix

Additional findings from July 2010 include:

• The top video ad networks in terms of their potential reach of the total U.S. population were: ScanScout Network at 40.5%, BrightRoll Video Network at 39.4%, and Break Media Network at 38.7%
• 84.9% of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video
• The duration of the average online content video was 4.8 minutes, while the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes
• Video ads accounted for 9.8% of all videos viewed and 0.9% of all minutes spent viewing video online

More information from comScore may be found here.

Need an excuse to rent a movie?

This is from MarketingProfs.com:

How to Get Inside Your Target Audience's Head

It's one thing to market to people just like you. But what if you have nothing in common with your target audience? How do you get inside their head? In The Experience Effect, Jim Joseph offers a practical suggestion: "Read a book or go to a movie that depicts the customer—especially a book or movie that the target marketing is embracing," he says. "You'll get an incredible glimpse into their lives, their emotions, and their preferences."

When Joseph—then a single man in his twenties—began marketing Johnson's Baby Shampoo, he knew nothing about babies. He'd never even held one in his arms.

"So like every other new-mom-to-be," he says, "I read the classic book What to Expect When You're Expecting to see for myself what pregnant women are thinking about, worrying about, and purchasing as they go through the cycles of their pregnancy and as they make decisions for their baby's arrival."

But that's not all. When his pregnant friends would go to the doctor for a check-up, Joseph would tag along to observe mothers interacting with their newborns in the waiting room.

He adopted a similar approach when marketing to another demographic he didn't fit. "I used to watch Dawson's Creek and Beverly Hills 90210 religiously when I was a brand manager on Clean & Clear teen skin care at Johnson & Johnson so that I could learn about teenage girls and their lives."

Now the question: What can pop culture teach you about your audience?

The Po!nt: "Good marketing comes from turning theory into reality," writes Joseph, "so let's make our consumers real people, not just a collection of data."

Source: The Experience Effect.

From an email I recieved last year from SalesDog.com...

Chris is a well known advertising consultant, but this applies to any selling situation:

How (and When) to Talk About Money
by Chris Lytle

I learned early in my career not to save the money discussion until the presentation stage of the sales process. In fact, if the customer doesn't bring up the money question in the first meeting, I do.

I started doing this when I was a young advertising salesperson. I would tell my prospects what our average weekly order was. That way they would know what it took to make an impact on our audience. Most of them appreciated the information.

I recently discovered another approach to bringing up the money issue. Mahan Khalsa suggests committing to memory your version of the following:

"I don't know how much this will cost you. Every client situation is unique. However, other companies in similar situations and trying to get the same results you've been talking about tend to invest between $X and $Y. Can you see yourself falling somewhere in that range?"

Khalsa believes Y should be about 25-50% more than X. A range of $100,000 to $150,000 is more believable than $100,000 and $2 million.

Not one prospect has ever dropped dead because you talked about money early. But a lot of salespeople have suffered tremendous disappointment because they didn't raise the money issue until it was time to make the proposal. When it comes to finding out that your prospect doesn't have the budget or isn't thinking as big as you are, remember this: Bad news early is good news.

Chris Lytle is President of Sparque Inc. and the bestselling author of The Accidental Salesperson. His current passion is partnering with sales managers to conduct sales meetings their people would attend even if they were optional. To learn more, visit his site.

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Every once in awhile I realize that there are things my kids take for granted that I don't.

Like cell phones.

Central Air Conditioning.

Indoor plumbing.

Okay, I've always had indoor plumbing as did my parents.

What about my future grandkids. Will Facebook and You Tube be around?

I guess we better take a look at You Tube's history while we still know what it is!

From the Basic Marketing Blog:

A Short History of YouTube

The Rise of YouTube

Many people simply can’t imagine a time without YouTube, but the fact is that this video-sharing site has only been in existence since early 2005. In just a few short years, YouTube has gone from newcomer to dominator. In the realm of video-sharing, few sites can even come close to matching YouTube. Like its parent company Google, YouTube dominates on the web.

YouTube was designed to be a place where people are free to upload content. Much of the content that is loaded onto YouTube’s website is material from copyrighted television and movie programs. This aspect of the site has received a great deal of attention. However, copyrighted material is far from being the only type of content on YouTube. In fact, the scope and variety of content that is showcased on this website is nothing short of staggering. This is due, in part, to the fact that YouTube is available in fourteen different languages.

People are using YouTube for everything from promoting their own products and video blogging to showcasing their independent films and animations. YouTube is even used by major media outlets and news organizations to promote their content. By 2008, YouTube had agreements with companies such as CBS and Lions Gate Entertainment where television shows and films could legally be posted to the site. As of 2010, YouTube has formed over 10,000 content partners in total from around the world.

YouTube was developed and launched by former PayPal employees Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim. Chen and Karim were both from a computer science background and developed the site in response to problems they had experienced involving sharing videos over the web. Interestingly, Steve Chen was also one of the first employees at Facebook, but left the company to pursue his YouTube plans. Chad Hurley was instrumental in the creation of the company’s logo.

The real breakthrough for YouTube and its young founders came in late 2005, when they were able to secure over $11 million in funding from Sequoia Capital. Sequoia Capital is the same venture capital fund that has played a role in numerous Internet start-ups, including PayPal and LinkedIn.

After several months of work, YouTube officially launched a beta site in May of 2005. The rate of growth for the site was nothing short of phenomenal. Within just one year, YouTube was experiencing an impressive 100 million videos being viewed each day. Even while it was still a new website, the potential of YouTube was clear to many people. Mashable.com wrote an article in 2005 entitled, “YouTube-The King of Video Sharing?” Quoting Nathan Weinberg of Inside Google, Mashable stated, “YouTube has moved ahead of Google Video in terms of popularity…But its not just Google-these guys have moved ahead of everybody!” Even in 2005, industry insiders realized that Google was going to be the dominant player in video searches and video downloads.

Part of what makes the YouTube story such a fascinating one is how website grew with such unprecedented speed. By 2006, it was a dominant player in the video download game. In October 2006, Internet giant Google acquired YouTube for a whopping $1.65 billion dollars, which was paid in Google stock.

With the help of Google, YouTube has found yet more growth. By 2010, a remarkable two billion videos are served each and every day. In fact, the amount of content that YouTube has at its disposal is likely to play a significant role in the development of Google TV.

There are many video-sharing sites on the web, but YouTube quickly managed to distinguish itself. Part of what makes YouTube somewhat unique is this wide spectrum of diversity. Today, YouTube is used for just about every reason imaginable. You can quickly find videos from media giants like CBS or children’s piano recitals for grandparents and relatives to watch worldwide.

YouTube also began providing a method through which users could profit from their videos. As of 2007, YouTube has allowed users to place advertisements in and around the videos they upload. The money from these ads is then split between YouTube and the user. In 2008, Brian Stelter at The New York Times wrote an article entitled, “YouTube Videos Pull in Real Money.” This article explains how people are able to make a living through adding advertising to the YouTube videos they produce. Buckey writes, “One year after YouTube, the online video powerhouse, invited members to become ‘partners’ and added advertising to their videos, the most successful users are earning six-figure incomes from the website.”

Of course, the site has not been without its controversy. On one level, the site has been attacked for not doing enough to combat copyright infringement on the site. The issue of copyright on YouTube, of course, reached a fevered pitch when Viacom sued YouTube. Not surprisingly, this resulted in a very messy legal battle.

Google, the parent company of YouTube, even went so far as to state that Viacom had uploaded large volumes of its own content on purpose. Wired Magazine covered this issue in a March 18th, 2010 article called “Accusations Fly in Viacom, YouTube Copyright Flight.” The article includes a quote from Google stating, “’Viacom alone has uploaded thousands of videos to YouTube to market hundreds of its programs and movies, including many that are works in suite,’ Google wrote. ‘Given the broad scope of marketing, YouTube could not be charged with knowledge of infringement merely because it came across a video that was clearly from a professionally produced television show or movie.”

Yet this is only one aspect of the legal problems that YouTube has faced. Several countries, including China and Pakistan, have shut down the site for a variety of political reasons. However despite its problems, YouTube has grown seemingly unabated.

YouTube realized the high-definition would be an important aspect of the site, and with this fact in mind has slowly moved the site in this direction. In November 2008, 720p HD was added as an option for videos and full 1080p quality was added about one year later. By 2009, some 3D content was made available as well.

YouTube Becomes Dominant

As of 2010, YouTube held an Alexa ranking of 3rd of all sites on the Internet. Part of this success stems from the sites incredible 23 page views per visitor. YouTube visitors average about twenty minutes on the site per visit. These incredible numbers are further amplified when one considers that YouTube’s parent company is Google, whose Alexa ranking is number one. Thus, with the acquisition of YouTube, Google effectively gained the spot of both number one and number three of all Internet web destinations.

Few sites have ever experienced the rate of growth that YouTube has experienced and continues to experience to this day. Today, billions of videos are watched daily on the site, and there seems to be no stopping YouTube’s growth. The simple fact is that YouTube has become a vital part of many people’s lives. The site is truly nothing short of a global phenomenon. In recent years, YouTube has been taking serious steps towards monetizing the site, and there is little doubt that parent company Google will likely earn back far more than it initially invested.

There are some really weird but creative ad campaigns out there, like this one:

from the AOM Blog:

How to Firmly Say No Without Coming Off Like a Jerk

We’ve talked a lot about the Nice Guy Syndrome here on AoM. You know the guy. Big time people pleaser, always puts others before himself, lets people walk all over him. Heck, maybe you’re that guy. These so-called Nice Guys might appear happy on the outside, but on the inside they’re feeling burnout, resentful, and depressed.

One trap that a lot of “Nice Guys” fall into is always saying “Yes!” to every request that comes their way. These “yes men” are afraid that people will stop liking them if they say no. By saying yes to everything, the Nice Guy piles on the obligations and deadlines to his already busy schedule. He ends up spreading himself so thin that he can’t even fulfill the obligations he said yes to in the first place, which in a sadly funny, yet totally predictable turn of events causes people to resent Mr. Nice Guy- the very result Mr. Nice Guy was trying to avoid by saying yes in the first place!

A man firmly sets his core values, goals, and priorities, makes time to tend to them, and says no to things that conflict with what’s important. He doesn’t lose sight of the best, by pursuing the endless opportunities for the merely good.

What Nice Guys don’t realize is that it’s possible to have this kind of backbone and be able to say no while maintaining positive relationships with others. In fact, it’s even possible to say no to people and leave them thinking you’re a pretty swell guy.

If you’ve been having trouble saying no to people, we’ve provided some pointers on how to do it without coming off as a cad.

Don’t make the no personal. Instead of making it seem like you’re saying no because you don’t like the person, think their cause is crazy, or their parties are boring, just let them know you’re simply “following the rules.” By this I mean that your pre-set personal rules prohibit you from saying yes.

• “I can’t come to the Polka Festival on Monday night because Monday night is always family night for us.”
• “I can’t donate to your charity. We’ve made a decision to set aside our charitable dollars for our church and the Red Cross.”
• “I appreciate the invite, but I don’t date women with more than eleven cats.”

Let them know you wish you could say yes. Letting someone know you sympathize with their request, but still can’t grant it, will soften the blow of the no.

• “I would have loved to hire you-you’ve got just the right personality for the position. But HR has an internal candidate who’ve they’ve already pegged for the job.”
• “It would have been a great honor to speak at your convention. I’ve enjoyed attending it every year and have always been impressed with the presentations. But I’ve just got too much on my plate at this time.”

Show them that you thought it over before saying no. Feeling like you’re getting the brush off can be just as hurtful as hearing “no.” Show the person that you took the time to understand their request before turning it down.

• “This was a very entertaining screenplay. I really like how in the third scene the man-eating robot and the platypus become friends. But the studio is really concentrating on romantic comedies at this time.”

Offer a “consolation prize.” If you can’t fully grant someone’s request, think of a way you can still do something to help out.

• “I can’t referee at the game, but I will donate a keg for the after celebration.”
• “I can’t come on the Scout trip, but I can volunteer at the Pinewood Derby this year.”

Show them that your “no” is really in their best interest. You can take some of the sting out of your no by showing the person that having you on board wouldn’t have worked out anyway.

• Your newsletter is always so topnotch. Even if I could have found time to crank out some articles for you, they wouldn’t have met the standard of quality you are known for.”
• Even if I had chaperoned the all-night lock-in, I probably would have fallen asleep, leaving some kid to shoot his eye out with an airsoft gun.”

Say no by helping the person say no to himself. Web designers, barbers, and other creatives understand the frustration of having clients request something they know will simply not look good or turn out well. But if you say no outright, the client may become angry and defensive. Instead, ask them about their goals and then kindly show them why their suggestion wouldn’t help them achieve it.

• “If you’re going for a simple, modern look on your webpage, then all these rainbows and unicorns in the background would distract from that. Let me show you some examples that may be more of what you’re looking for.”
• “You’ve got a chin that makes Jay Leno look like Paul Giamatti. That haircut would only make it look even bigger.”

Let them know what it would take to get a “yes.” Don’t make the situation seem hopeless if it’s not.

• “I can’t give you an A on this paper. But you’re almost there. Next time, include a stronger thesis statement and more supporting evidence and your grade will definitely improve.”

Expose holes in their request. If someone comes to you with an idea that’s never going to go anywhere no matter who they talk to or how they tweak it, it does him no good to sugarcoat your no. But a “Get out of here, nutso!” isn’t the way to go either. Instead, ask them some questions that gently expose the holes in their plan. Help them see for themselves how untenable their idea is; you’re doing them a service.

• “Okay, and who would be the target market for a chest hair toupee?”

Just say no. It turns out that DARE was right-sometimes you just need to “say no.” If someone is wasting your time and doesn’t respect you, there’s no need soften your denial. Tell them no and walk away.

A final note. While these pointers will help you soften the blow of a no, they should not be said with any equivocation or hemming and hawing. While remaining polite and warm, you must also be firm and confident. Say your piece and let that be that. Don’t let someone guilt you into doing something by making you feel bad about your decision. There’s no pride to be had in saying yes, even to good causes, simply because you’re too afraid to say no. But you will find self-respect in making decisions that are in line with core values and priorities, regardless of what others think of you.

What are your tips for saying no politely but firmly? Share your advice with us in the comments!

Related posts:

1. How to Break in a Baseball Glove
2. 30 Days to a Better Man Day 30: Get a Straight Razor Shave
3. The Art Of Manliness Weekly Roundup: There Will Be Blood Edition
4. Check out The Manival #6 At Building Camelot
5. Check out The Manival #7 at The Simple Marriage Project

Tech tips for the non-technical folks:

Passwords.

Love them?

Hate them?

Think yours is foolproof?

Try this site: http://howsecureismypassword.net/

It estimates how long it would take to break or crack your password.

I tested a few old passwords that I used to use.

1. 30 seconds
2. 13 minutes
3. 3 days

And one of my current favs:

4. 38 days

Now 38 days is pretty darn good.

One of the keys to having a good password is that it is one that you will remember, but others won't be able to guess.

So I came up with a new one, which looks like it would be perfect:

Every once in awhile, everyone feels it.

Here's some tips from DLM to get out of it:

8 Great Ways to Motivate Yourself When You Just Don't Feel Like It

Posted: 10 Aug 2009 06:42 AM PDT

Motivation is a tough thing, especially if you're in the midst of some difficult circumstances. If you're at all like me, and things aren't going the way you planned, you might have a tendency to fall into a funk. Instead of conquering the world, you might just want to put on some pajama pants, crack open some Ben and Jerry's, and watch TV.

This is a poor solution to your problems.

Seriously, sitting around isn't going to solve anything. You'll end up feeling worse about your situation the less you do about it. And, if you keep up with the B & J, you'll end up with a weight problem, too.

So, how do you motivate yourself if you're not feeling motivated? I think the feelings are key to understanding the root challenge. You're not always going to feel like doing something. You have to lead your emotions, not let your emotions lead you. Take one or more of these 8 eight concrete steps to inject some purpose into your situation.

1. Let Fear Take Hold
   Fear is one of the strongest motivators we have. The "fight or flight" response is dependent on feeling fear as its source. So, let fear work for you. If you're genuinely concerned about what's going to happen now that you've lost your job, and you don't know where the money is coming from to pay the rent, you're going to do whatever needs to be done. Issues that seemed to be obstacles before are going to fade to the background.
   


2. Keep the Finish Line In Sight
   A lot of folks have a tendency to look at the next step, rather than the big picture. While this technique has its merits, it's important to look up at the finish line occasionally. If you don't, and you're constantly focused on the day-to-day minutiae, you'll eventually wonder why it is that you're doing what you're doing. It's important to remember the payoff, because that's what got you excited in the first place.


3. Make It a Game
   This one works wonders with little kids! If your goal is to clean up toys before bedtime, you parents know that it's often beneficial to race your kids to see who can pick up the most toys in the shortest amount of time. The same thing works with yourself. If you're training for a marathon, you can continually try to improve on your overall time, or your split times, or whatever. Find ways to measure yourself, and constantly try to set personal bests.
   


4. Remove All Other Options
   Hernán Cortés landed in Mexico in 1519 in order to secure lands for the Spanish crown. One of his first orders to his men was to burn the ships that they had arrived on. This was to remove any thoughts of retreat from their minds. When things were going poorly, the men didn't have the option of thinking, "well, we can always go home". This is a scary step, but sometimes it's the only one that will work. For a person who wants to work for themselves, even if they have developed a substantial business on the side of their full-time employment, quitting that secure day job is a "burn the ships" moment. There isn't anything to fall back on, and they have to succeed.


5. Tell Someone Else
   If you have a goal you want to reach, don't keep it to yourself. Be sure to share it with people you respect. Once you've publicly acknowledged it, it becomes harder to give it up. You've made a verbal contract in a sense with people whose opinion you care about. If you were to give up on your dream, you would lose face with them. Most folks don't want this to happen, but because they're scared of failure, they keep their dream to themselves. However, if you want to succeed, you'll tell as many people as you can.


6. Tell Yourself Daily
   Make an affirmation to yourself about your goal. For those of you who aren't familiar with the concept of daily affirmations, it goes a little something like this. You write down a sentence or two that specifically details what it is you're going to achieve. You need to make it specific, and you need to keep it short. Then, just before going to bed, first thing when you wake up, and at various set points during the day, you read your affirmation aloud to yourself.
   
   This sounds a bit hokey to some, but it serves to keep your mind focused on what it is you're working toward. It keeps your mind on the task at hand, even when there are many other things that are demanding your attention.


7. Recruit a Group
   In the course of telling people around you about your goal, you may run into a few of them that are excited about what you're doing. They may be so excited that they want to do something like it. If you talk to enough people, you'll find some that have goals just like you. You can take the initiative to lead these folks into a group that supports each other in reaching each of your destinations.
   
   By having an accountability group, you put yourself in a situation where you're not only afraid of losing face with the other members, but you also have people available to provide ideas and brainstorm ways to keep going when you get stuck. It's amazing the things that members of an accountability group can accomplish together.


8. Break It Up
   While I said that you need to keep your eye on the prize back up in step #2, there's nothing wrong with breaking up your big, huge, audacious goal into smaller goals along the way. If your goal is so big that it scares you, or you worry about not being able to achieve it no matter how hard you try or how many people you tell about it, this may be a good tip for you. Just break it up into chunks. The sub-goals you set for yourself should still be something you can be proud of on their own, but they should also advance you toward the main objective. By taking things in smaller doses, you won't get easily frustrated.

So, here are eight tips to keep your motivation up when you just don't feel like it. It's really all about fooling yourself into doing something that you know is good for you (like eating broccoli with cheese, right?). If there's something I missed, or you have a story about how one of these tips worked for you, share it with the rest of us in the comments.

Written on 8/10/2009 by Jason Barr. Jason writes at the personal development blog Start Being Your Best. Follow him on Twitter here, or grab a subscription to his blog.

Photo Credit: Leeni!

Fear is a powerful emotion.

This post from the DLM Blog tackles one aspect:

The Largest Cause of Your Insecurity

Posted: 22 Aug 2010 08:32 AM PDT

I used to live my whole life without a clear sense of direction.

Everything was being paid for by my parents. The threat of getting murdered or ending up homeless couldn't put a dent in the confidence that my mother and father would always be there to protect me. I was happy and carefree.

I assumed that in the end we'd all remain together as one happy family.

Then in a blink of an eye, everything changed. My parents separated and divorce proceedings were underway. It shattered the rosy image of my future.

Questions swirled around in my head like a hundred angry piranhas dining on a rapidly shrinking carcass:

"With a broken family, where would we go? Were we going to be okay anymore? Without a father, where could I hope to end up?"

It seemed that although the fighting in my home had ceased, a war within my brain had just begun. I didn't know how much more I could handle.

But through all that uncertainty and pain, I realized the one thing that I was missing. The one thing that separated me from the people who were more confident in their futures:

They had more than just a destination. They had a direction.

Did you notice that as soon as my parents split apart, that the vision of my destination was destroyed? That never would have happened if I already had a direction for my life. When you only have a destination, you leave yourself to be unfocused. If something goes wrong in your life, you're destination is instantly derailed because of one unlucky occurrence.

Most people will say that as long as you know where you're going, you'll be more likely to get there. They'd be wrong.

The number one reason people are insecure is not that they don't know where they're going, but they just don't know how to get there.

You feel good when you make New Year's resolutions and set goals, but you end up feeling bad when you never follow through. What do you expect? Did you think saying, "I want to make more money this year", at the beginning of some random year was going to magically insert cash into your pockets?

Focus less on your destination and more on the direction. Less on the "where" and more on the "how do I get there?"

This advice alone will get rid of your insecurity and have you achieve more of your goals, but I'd to help you out a bit more. Here are three tips to get your direction right:

1. Don't get direction and destination mixed up
   When you make goals, you designate their value by what result it will bring. For example:
   
   I want to be a famous doctor; the best in the world.
   
   I want to go to Brazil, and learn Spanish and Portuguese to better communicate with the locals.
   
   While these goals sound great on paper, they're not very practical. If you look closely, you'll see that these statements are just destinations. Instead of merely stating a destination to be achieved, you'll be better off using changing these goals into action steps, like so:
   
   "I'm applying for medical school, where I intend to learn and network with some of the greatest medical professionals in the world."
   
   "I'm practicing to be semi-fluent in Spanish so I can at least have some sort of foothold when I go to Brazil. I'm going to practice three times a week and have already starting saving up for the trip."
   
   Practical application brings actual results.


2. Choose the right incentives
   Even if you have a direction in addition your destination, are you aligned with them? Is this where you want to go? What's your incentive for going this way?
   
   You set the goal to make more money, but why do you actually want to make money? To buy the next overpriced Apple product or to travel to a new vacation spot? Whatever your answers, understand that you will never prevail if you do what you do for the sake of a cause you don't resonate with.
   
   My parents wanted me to be a doctor (another one of my many destinations). I agreed because I wanted to make them happy. Unfortunately for them, I discovered that I just didn't find that career to be appealing. I chose instead to be an entrepreneur.
   
   I chose my own direction.
   


3. Don't be afraid to blaze a new trail
   The time will come when you're fed up following paths you don't resonate with or doing work that doesn't matter. When this time does come, whether you're ready for it or not, be prepared to blaze a new direction all your own. Yes, I know—you'll hesitate because you'll either be:
   
   
   • so scared to strike out on you're on that you'll remain where you are, or
   • eventually screw up and feel miserable
   
   Let's get this out of the way before you come to my blog complaining about it later... you will screw up if you go in a new direction. You're going to mess up a lot and it's going to feel really bad for a long time. You'll feel like giving up every chance you get.
   
   But what makes those who choose their own path successful is they have the courage to stick it out, even when their situation starts to feel really dire. As long as your passion holds up and your confidence in your future remains sky high, nothing can actually stop you.

Only you can stop yourself.

Written on 8/22/2010 by John Anyasor. John is the author of HiLife2B, where he inspires you to do what you love and go beyond perspective. Download his free e-book, 101 Maxims to Break the Mold and Conquer Your World

Photo Credit: Juliana Coutinho

A tune from my youth:

Here's how, from the DLM Blog:

How to Chill a Hot Beer or Soda in 3 Minutes

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 06:03 PM PDT

So my father and brother-in-law were over this weekend for a barbecue. My fridge was stuffed with appetizers and salads so I was only able to fit a 12-pack of beer. Normally, this would have been enough so I didn't worry about it. After a couple hours, the stash was depleted; the old man got into a groove and well, so did we.

I did have some more beer in the garage but the 90+ degree Chicago heat had rendered it useless for at least an hour. Now what? These guys all had designated drivers and, in all honesty, they wanted more beer. Little did I know, the old man had a trick up his sleeve that I had never heard of. If I had a video camera ready, I would have taped this because it was pretty cool (sorry, no pun intended there).

Here is how he took beer from 80+ degrees to (seemingly) 40 degrees in about 3 minutes.

1. He took 6 hot beers from my garage and he placed them into a steel pot from the kitchen


2. He tossed in enough ice cubes to completely cover the beer


3. He then filled the pot with water


4. Next, and this is the trick, he tossed in (what must have been) 2 cups of table salt.


5. He took a large wooden spoon and stirred this thing up to be sure the salt dissolved.


6. He placed the concoction into the freezer and in 3 minutes we had ice cold beer.

Frankly, I wish I knew about this little trick years ago. Apparently this works for wine, soda, or anything. The addition of the salt does something that I am admittedly not qualified to explain. If we have any experts that want to weigh in, feel free. I do however know that this works.

Written on 7/07/20079 by me, Jay White, the founder of Dumb Little Man and an all around average guy.

Photo Credit: hizonic

from his weekly column:

Never stop learning life lessons

By Harvey Mackay

Gordon Dean was an American lawyer and prosecutor whose distinguished career was fairly typical for Washington types. He went to work for the Justice Department under President Franklin Roosevelt, taught in the law schools at Duke University and the University of Southern California. He was appointed as one of the original commissioners of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1949 by President Harry Truman, eventually becoming its chairman from 1950-53.

When Dean died in a plane crash in 1958, it's said that among his personal effects was an envelope with nine life lessons scribbled on the back. These lessons aren't about the law, or atomic energy, or foreign relations. Rather, they represent wisdom that should be shared and used by people everywhere. These are his superb lessons:

1. Never lose your capacity for enthusiasm.
2. Never lose your capacity for indignation.
3. Never judge people -- don't type them too quickly. But in a pinch never first assume that a man is bad; first assume that he is good and that, at worst, he is in the gray area between bad and good.
4. Never be impressed by wealth alone or thrown by poverty.
5. If you can't be generous when it's hard to be, you won't be when it's easy.
6. The greatest builder of confidence is the ability to do something -- almost anything -- well.
7. When confidence comes, then strive for humility; you aren't as good as all that.
8. The way to become truly useful is to seek the best that other brains have to offer. Use them to supplement your own, and be prepared to give credit to them when they have helped.
9. The greatest tragedies in the world and personal events stem from misunderstandings. So communicate!

The reason I'm so impressed with Dean's lessons is that -- besides being written on an envelope - they apply across the board, to all ages in every profession. They are simple yet profound.

Perhaps you remember Robert Fulghum's runaway best seller, "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten," which the author says reminds us that the most basic aspects of life bear its most important opportunities. Again, the life lessons contained in Fulghum's book are not complicated. It is their simplicity that makes them universal.

You may have noticed that I end every column with a moral -- a life lesson of sorts. Some of those morals resulted from experiences that taught me that I still have plenty to learn. We have all learned some lessons along the way, including plenty from the school of hard knocks.

Through the years I have offered more than 1,000 morals in this column and in my books. Naturally, I have some favorites which have universal applications. Here are my top 15:

• They don't pay off on effort . . . they pay off on results.
• People don't care how much you know about them once they know how much you care about them.
• Make decisions with your heart and you'll wind up with heart disease.
• Pale ink is better than the most retentive memory.
• When a person with money meets a person with experience . . . here is what happens . . . the person with the experience winds up with the money and the person with the money winds up with the experience.
• No one ever choked swallowing his or her own pride.
• Sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck
• If you don't learn from your mistakes, there's no sense in making them.
• If you think you're irreplaceable, try putting your finger in a bowl of water and observe the hole it leaves when you take it out.
• People go around all of their lives thinking: What should I buy? What should I sell? Wrong questions: When should I buy? When should I sell?
• There is a place in the world for anyone who says, "I'll take care of it."
• Failure is no more fatal than success is permanent.
• Anger is only one letter short of danger.
• Ideas without action are worthless.
• We are judged by what we finish, not by what we start.

Mere platitudes? No, these words hold real meaning for me. No doubt you have learned a few lessons too, and I'd love to hear them. I'm always ready to learn something new!

Mackay's Moral: We are all students of life -- pay attention and take notes!

Here's another one.

This week's tip is a bit detailed and if you don't have Windows XP running on any of your machines you can move along.

However we have XP installed on several of our radio station computers, along with my wife's desktop and a spare laptop.

Save this info and share it with others. It comes from an email I get each week from WindowsSecrets.com


Preparing Windows XP for the long haul

By Fred Langa

Microsoft's support for Windows XP may be fading, but a loyal horde of XP users plans to stick with this venerable OS for as long as possible.

If that's your long-term goal, there are a number of steps you can take now to ensure a finely tuned XP system for months — possibly years — to come.

Windows XP is almost a decade old, which in both computing and dog years makes it very long in the tooth.

Microsoft has officially dropped support and security updates for all XP versions through Service Pack 2. The only version of 32-bit XP that still qualifies for Microsoft's security patches and major bug-fixes is the Service Pack 3 edition. (The relatively rare 64-bit flavor of XP is a special case. See Microsoft's explanation.)

XP has had a long and excellent run, but SP3 is the end of the line.

That said, XP is not dead, and it's still the best OS for older hardware designed with XP in mind. (I have XP on several of my older systems.)

If you're still using an XP box by choice (or necessity), there's lots you can do to keep things humming along until you eventually move to new hardware — which will almost assuredly come with the excellent Windows 7 already installed.

Here are some key steps you can take to get — and keep — your XP system running great! And if you move to Windows 7 (or are also running Vista machines), many of these techniques can also help you.

Start with a thorough XP system checkup

► Check the hardware. Hardware? Yes! No operating system can be better than the hardware on which it's installed, and older systems are prone to age-related problems. One often-overlooked problem is dust buildup, which can cause chips and drives to overheat and malfunction. These hardware errors can masquerade as software problems, causing you to waste time troubleshooting the wrong thing.

It's easy to clean your PC. Consult my how-to article, "Getting the grunge out of your PC." (It's a few years old, but still completely apt.) While you have your PC's case open, make sure that all plug-in cards and socketed chips are fully seated and all cables firmly connected.

► Check your hard drive's "physical" health. Most new and XP-era drives are equipped with Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology, also known as SMART reporting. SMART data is stored within the hard drive itself and can often alert you to impending problems before they get serious.

It's easy to check the SMART data. Two tools I like are PassMark's DiskCheckup (info/download page) and Active@ DiskMonitorFree (download page). Both programs are free for personal use and also come in commercial versions for organizations.

► Check your hard drive's "logical" health. Run chkdsk.exe to check the integrity of your hard drive's files and to repair any errors.

Click Start and Run, then type chkdsk c: /f into the Run dialog box. Hit OK.

Chkdsk may tell you that it can't check the drive because the drive is in use. It will then offer to check the drive at reboot. Type Y (yes) and hit the Enter key.

Repeat for all drives/partitions on your system.

► Correct driver errors now, while you can. Just as Microsoft is providing less support for XP, third-party vendors are withdrawing support for older hardware. Someday soon, you may discover that the drivers you need are no longer available. Fix problems now!

Boot XP and right-click My Computer. Select Properties, Hardware, then Device Manager. (Or, click Control Panel/System/Hardware/Device Manager.) Click View and select Show hidden devices to make sure you're seeing everything.

Correct any problem indicated by a yellow exclamation mark or a red X; in most cases, you should get correct or updated drivers from the hardware vendor's site.

It might also be wise to save copies of any special drivers your systems needs; burn 'em to a CD or DVD, and tuck the disc away in a safe place.

Review and update your PC's security system

► Patch and update XP and apps. Starting with Windows Update, make sure your operating system is fully up-to-date with all necessary patches, fixes, and updates. Do the same for all your non-Microsoft software, visiting the vendor sites to download any new updates and patches for your applications and utilities. A tool such as Secunia's outstanding, free-for-home-use Personal Software Inspector (PSI) (download page) can make this step a breeze.

► Verify system security. Regardless of the antivirus and anti-malware tool(s) you're using, visit a competing vendor's site and run their free live or online scan to verify that nothing slipped past your usual defenses.

Next, check that your firewall is providing the protection it should. There are many good, free, online firewall-test sites, such as Hackerwatch, Gibson Research ShieldsUP, and AuditMyPC.

Give your computer a thorough file cleaning

► Take out the trash — all of it. Needless file clutter makes a system harder to use and slower to operate. For example, AV scans and Windows' indexing both take longer when they have many junk files to process.

Start by deleting old $NtUninstall{xxx}$ files from XP's C:\Windows folder; these files can occupy a shocking amount of space! You need these files only when a Windows Update fails and you (or the OS) have to roll back your system. If your system is working fine, $NtUninstall files serve no purpose.

Next, wade through your hard drive, folder by folder, making sure files are where they're supposed to be and that you're not storing needless duplicates or other useless files.

Next, uninstall obsolete or unused software.

Finally, use a tool such as Piriform's free CCleaner (site) to rid your drive of useless junk files and broken or obsolete Registry data.

► Rein in XP's three worst space-hogs. System Restore, the Recycle Bin, and browser caches are like black holes for data, and your system can run better if you limit their voracious appetites.

System Restore is at best a limited recovery tool, so I don't feel it's worthwhile to devote vast amounts of disk space to it. The Kellys-Korner article, "System Restore for Windows XP," tells you how to manage it.

Windows' default Recycle Bin can consume hundreds of gigabytes on a large drive. Pare this down to a reasonable size by right-clicking the Recycle Bin and selecting Properties. Reduce the size of the Recycle Bin to a smaller percentage of the total disk space. (Click the disk tab — e.g., Local Disk (C:) — to determine its reserved Recycle Bin space in gigabytes.) I set it to around 500 MB (0.5GB) on large disks and 250MB (0.25GB) on smaller ones.

To reduce Internet Explorer's cache size, click Tools and Internet Options. Then, under the Browsing History section, click Settings and adjust the cache size downward to, say, 50MB.

For Firefox, click Tools/Options and then click Advanced. Under the Network tab, look for the settings box in the Offline Storage section.

Chrome's cache-size adjustment uses the command line, as described on a Chrome Help forum page.

► Defrag. Once your disk is rid of all unnecessary files and is organized the way you want, run your defragmentation tool to reorder your files for optimal performance. If your disk was badly fragmented, it may take several iterations of defragging to achieve maximum benefit. (Paid subscribers can read an in-depth discussion of defragging in my Aug. 5 column.)

Use disk imaging to preserve your new setup

Once you've worked through all the above, your XP system should be lean, clean, defragged, and fully up-to-date. Wouldn't it be great if you could somehow preserve your PC's current software state so that, should you ever need to in the future, you can bring it back to this nearly perfect condition in just minutes?

You can! Use a disk imaging tool to create a perfect, complete, working copy of your current setup. You'll never again have to rebuild your system and reinstall all your software from scratch!

XP requires third-party disk-imaging software (Win7 has it built in) such as Acronis' U.S. $30 True Image (info page), Norton' $70 Ghost (site), or — my personal favorite for non-Win7 systems — Terabyte Unlimited's geeky-but-powerful $35 BootItNG (info page).

All three programs make disk images and bootable recovery discs that can be used to restore a complete, everything-installed-and-working setup — even to a raw, unformatted drive.

There's plenty of free disk imaging software available, too. For example, see Freebyte's page titled "Free disk image software;" TheFreeCountry's list of "Free hard disk and partition imaging and backup software;" or OptimizingPC's how-to, "Create free bootable Windows XP image disk."

Run through the above steps once or twice a year to keep your system in tip-top shape, and make a fresh disk image from time to time — especially if you make any significant changes to your hardware or software. Store your disk images in a safe place (off the hard drive), such as on CDs or DVDs stored away from your PC.

With this kind of routine maintenance, your XP system will most likely run well for as long as you need it. And, should the worst (major crash, hard drive failure, etc.) happen, you can use your disk images to rapidly restore your system to the near-perfect state you just created.

You're now set for the long haul!

Have more info on this subject? Post your tip in the WS Columns forum.

Not really...

Most of us are told that Procrastination is bad.

And for good reason. Waiting until something is due to start often results in a half-assed, rushed job that is likely to have errors that would have been avoided if you hadn't done it at the last minute in a rushed, half-assed manner!

However, I've been giving this word some thought and want to challenge you to do the same.

It all began on a Friday morning. I was attending an introductory sales presentation by Paul Lushin when he mentioned that procrastination is good. Due to the time limits of his presentation and all of the other items he was covering, he didn't same much more about the subject.

But I thought about it the rest of the day, and decided to write about it.

However before I began writing about it, I checked my email and low and behold, there were not 1 but 2 newsletters in my inbox talking about the evils of procrastination.

More fuel to my fire.

First a posting on the Dumb Little Man blog entitled Four Crucial Steps to Avoid Procrastination.

Ali Hale gives some good advice on how to overcome Procrastination if it is a problem in your life and business.

Next, Seth Godin touches on the subject as he talks about Finding Inspiration Instead Of It Finding You.

Again, good advice about a more disciplined life, but there is another side of procrastination that I know is good.

I call it Crock Pot Procrastination.

Crock Pots and Slow Cookers became popular in the 1970's, as more Moms entered the work force fulltime and were still expected to feed the family at dinnertime.

A crock pot allowed you put raw food into a slow cooker, add some water and spices and let it simmer all day so when you came the house was filled with the aroma of a delicious dinner and our plates were filled tasty morsels of goodness.

Contrast this with the Microwave. What used to take an hour can now take 5 minutes. And that is how a lot of us operate with multi-tasking, doing everything now, etc.

In order for procrastination to work for you instead of against you, you need to follow the Crock Pot rules:

1. Prepare the ingredients. Start thinking about the project way ahead of the deadline.
   
2. Let it simmer. Go do something else. Some of my best creative ideas come when I'm mowing the yard, or playing a game. Staring at a computer screen and trying to be creative can be counter-productive.
3. Capture some of those ideas. Like the aroma that fills the kitchen as the food is cooking, those random ideas can add flavor or direction to what you are going to create. Write them down, save them in your voice mail, just have a system to capture those ideas.
4. Have a deadline. Dinnertime is 5:30 tonight. Not 9:30 tomorrow morning. Set a time to take the ideas that have been cooking in your crock pot, set the table and eat.
5. Save your leftovers. Not all of your ideas will fit into the project you are working on. Perhaps they are ideas you can use in the future.
   

By the way, the Friday that all of this happened was 11 days ago, August 20th. And I wrote this after about 24 hours of "Crock Potting" the idea of Good Procrastination.

But due to an abundance of ideas, I scheduled it to appear publicly today on the 31st, which takes the pressure off of having to Microwave an idea for a blog post that I've committed myself to update every week.

So how it all works?

Facebook just launched a location service where people can update where they are on their Facebook page.

This is not a new service in social media, there are a couple of others including the one I use on occasion, FourSquare.

But Facebook is a giant. If you watched the video I posted last week, (Click here to see it again), did you catch that if Facebook were a country, it would rank 3rd largest in the world?

Facebook has privacy issues because it is so big.

Let me explain.

Because Facebook is so popular, unscrupulous people have found ways to gather information that most people would want kept private.

To Facebooks credit, they have created increased privacy options, but the general public hasn't locked down their Facebook pages and taken advantage of the privacy options Facebook offers.

I prefer location services like Foursquare, because I can use it when I want and only include people that I trust as my friends. Tonight I'm going to a baseball game and I'll use it to see who else is there.

Some businesses have used Foursquare as a marketing tool by offering specials to people who "Check in" on Foursquare when they are at that particular business. At lunch today, I was checking in on FourSquare and noticed that the Radio Shack in the same shopping center was offering a FourSquare special of 10% off just for showing them your phone with the FourSquare offer. It's a form of Word of Mouth endorsements via social media.

Most people however I not aware of all of the ways they give up their private information.

10 years ago, my mom was afraid of ordering anything online, yet for years she would freely give her credit card number to a stranger over the phone when placing an order at Sears.

Take a look at your key ring.

Do you have one of those loyalty cards with a bar code from your grocery store that they swipe in order to save money?

They have a record of everything you buy. Sometimes that is helpful like when they had the egg recall last week, some of the grocery stores were able to call customers who purchased the recalled eggs and leave them a warning and recall message.

And unless you are buying stuff that would be embarrassing, then you probably have nothing to worry about.

Personalized Marketing at the grocery store also occurs when they hand you coupons for your next visit that are based on the items you just bought.

Websites, and search engines do personalized marketing too, with ads that are relevant for what you are searching for and/or your location.

In the radio business, I've done a form of personalized advertising too.

No, I don't call your name in a commercial, but I'll target a very specific person in the content of the ad and keep it as time relevant as possible too.

A few other thoughts on this subject, when I turned 50 a few months ago, the direct mail and some of the email (Spam) I started receiving was geared to the 50+ generation. More like the 65+ generation.

And if you are going to send a direct mail piece to me addresses to RESIDENT or OCCUPANT, I'll probably be calling on you to teach you how to do a better job with your advertising and marketing.

40 years ago, when I was ten years old, Walter Cronkite was the most trusted newsman in America. Uncle Walter delivered the news to millions of people 5 nights a week and his network, CBS, was one of three television channels that most households relied on. ABC was the youngest and was a spin-off of NBC.

1970 was also the year that PBS was launched although it took years for it to become a national network.

We had 5 local AM Radio Stations and 3 or 4 FM Radio Stations to listen to. And a morning and afternoon newspaper.

That's what was normal for media in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Advertising options included all of the above along with Billboards, Phone Books and Direct Mail.

A friend of mine worked for the dominant radio station in the 1970's and the morning show was listened to by 60% of all radio listeners. Now we have around 20 radio stations, 16 of them are FM, and the most popular morning show is listened to by less than 15% of all radio listeners.

We have Cable TV reaching 8 out of 10 homes, and then there's the internet.

Advertising options have exploded. If you are running your advertising and marketing the way your parents or grandparents did 40 years ago without recognizing these changes, you are destined to fail. Sorry about that, but it's true.

The changes are also happening faster than ever before. So if you added a website to your marketing plan 5 years ago, it looks dated, and less trustworthy.

I know, I know... it's hard enough to keep up with the changes going on in your industry, let alone the changes in marketing and advertising.

So how do know what to change? What to drop? What to add?

Those questions are premature.

First you need to know about the heart and soul of your business. Your business has a personality that is unique. You need to know and understand this part of your business so that which ever advertising options you use, you are being true to your business and your customers.

Very few businesses are able to transform themselves from one niche to another. We'll explore that in the future. And we'll also look at the New Normal from a consumers viewpoint.

This is one of the latest in a series of video's that demonstrate some of these changes:

Technology can help your business communication, but you have to have the right people managing it.

Last month I used a trip to the dentist to illustrate how no matter what business you are in, you can use the technology tools of today to connect with your customers.

Click here to read it.

Today, I've got an update.

Last week I got an email from my dentist as part of their new email initiative:

(I replaced his name with "My Dentist" and am protecting his street address too)

My Dentist, DDS XXXX East State Blvd Fort Wayne, IN 46815

Dear Kathleen Howard,

Every day more exciting and important information is being communicated electronically via the Internet. In the future, My Dentist, DDS would like to communicate with you via email, which will enable you to receive teeth cleaning reminders, schedule your next appointment online, confirm your scheduled appointments online and receive money saving specials. My Dentist, DDS would like your permission for the privilege to serve you more efficiently and conveniently via email.

If you would like to be part of this convenient online program, you do not need to take any additional action. If you prefer not to have My Dentist, DDS contact you via email, please see instructions at the bottom of this message, and your name will then be deleted from our emailing lists immediately.

We appreciate your business and look forward to seeing you soon.

Sincerely,

Your friends at My Dentist, DDS


The first problem is they used my wife's name, not mine. They sent it to my email account, not my wife's.

Very few families have "Family Email Accounts".

We have individual email addresses. Email is not like regular mail. If you address something to my home address, whoever gets the mail sorts it and gives it to the appropriate person.

The next problem is the content of this email along with the subject line which read, "My Dentist requests your permission."

I already gave permission last month at the dentist office when I gave you my email address.

And the content is written in a non-friendly, almost legalese style that does not reflect the nature of my dentist and his staff, whom I characterize as fun and competent. Yeah, my dentist is fun!

So what went wrong?

They need to make sure the people using the technology understand how to use it instead of just filling in the blanks in the email template without considering the recipient.

At the radio stations where I work, we recently fired someone who did her job pretty good.

Not perfect, but it seemed okay.

Turns out pretty good wasn't good enough.

Problems started cropping up because she was in charge of inputting data into computers and following specific guidelines.

She had the "Google approach". Google is forgiving, it helps you with spelling errors, makes suggestions, etc.

Our computer systems require perfection.

I discovered 6 mistakes that were made in one day, and I'm not even trained to work in that area, I just know how to check for errors.

So, use technology, but make sure the folks you put in charge know how to use it, and care enough to do it right.

By the way, that is NOT a picture of my dentist!

Friday and Saturday I had two very different customer service experiences.

Friday evening my wife and I took my step-daughter out for her birthday, and she wanted to go to Applebees. I happen to know the Human Resources Director and Marketing Director for Applebees and because of this, I have some inside info on what's supposed to happen when you visit.

Our waitress and the rest of the staff did everything perfectly. This was the first time I've visited Applebees for dinner, I usually stop by for lunch. Now they get my recommendation for dinner too. Despite showing up at 6:15 to a full house, they found a spacious booth for the three of us and we were done by 7pm including desert!

Saturday, I visited Arby's for a diet Mt. Dew and I decided to try one of the Junior Deluxe Sandwiches. I went to an Arby's that I've never been to and it was terrible. I visit an Arby's 4 times a week, mostly for breakfast or lunch and they usually have good, speedy service. Not this time though.

I walked in and there were no other customers inside and just one car at the drive thru. I heard voices but didn't seen any employees for about 45 seconds. When they saw me, they seemed surprised and I asked if they had diet Mt. Dew because I didn't see it on their menu board.

Her answer, with a big sigh, "No".

Then she just stared at me.

I stared back.

Finally I told her my order, a Junior Deluxe and a small diet Pepsi to go. She pushed some buttons on her register and then said, "Fer here or ta go?"

I repeated, "To go please."

"$3.75", were her next words.

I gave her a 5.

She gave me my change and walked away.

It seemed to be talking an awful long time, so I glanced at the screen that counts down how long it takes for an order to be completed and when the timer hit 4:23, she reappeared and set my order on the counter, on a tray.

Since I don't take tray's when my order is to go, I took my food off the tray and walked out.

Oh, three more things,

The manager was laughing about the drive-up customer that changed their order and calling him a dumb-XXit. And the young lady who took my order, answered the phone while I was waiting for my food and was talking to someone on the other end about what they were going to do that night. Maybe that's why she couldn't remember my order was to go.

And the restroom, let's just say it needed a LOT of attention.

My wife and I both commented to each other Friday night about how nice our Applebees experience and I bet we'll be back for dinner on a regular basis. That means more money going to Applebees because of the way they handled themselves. That's how you Win Customers.

When I got in my car with my Arby's sandwich and drink, the first thing I did was post on 4 square, twitter and facebook or terrible the service was at this particular Arbys. This is how you Lose Customers. Not just me, but anyone of the 1500 plus people who are friends or follow me on the social networks.

What lessons can we learn from this?

1. Have a customer service plan.
2. Make sure your employees know it, and do it and you'll all benefit.
3. Bad news spreads even faster with the social media tools customers have and unless you are on top of this, you could lose more customers than you can recruit.
   

Last week it was announced that Facebook now has 500 million members.

That's a helluva lot of people.

The radio stations I work for have over 142,000 listeners every week according to the last report we received from Arbiton.

That's a helluva lot of people.

Every week there are over 400 visits to one of my blogs.

That's a helluva lot of people.

But these numbers don't really matter.

I have a choice of watching between 50 and 150 different TV Channels in my home.

I have over 500 Linked-In connections.

I have 550 Facebook Friends and 1017 Followers on Twitter.

That's a helluva lot of people.

But these numbers don't really matter.

What does matter?

Your numbers.

If you are running a business, and you need to, or want to grow, do you know how many more customers you can handle before you have to make some changes, like hire staff, extend hours, etc?

Do you know how to grow by 10% without gaining a single new customer? (Upsell).

Do you know what it takes to retain more customers and recruit them as your ambassadors who will tell others about you which in turn creates more business and growth?

Please don't be hoodwinked by the marketing gurus, advertising salespeople, or social media pundits into spending your money based on their numbers.

Invest in your business marketing based on your numbers.

Need help? Contact me. Click here.

Last week I visited my dentist for a cleaning and check-up. Everything was fine, as usual. Last year I had my first cavity in 20 years, which is pretty good.

As a kid, we had our cleanings every 6 months and at the conclusion of each appointment, they'd schedule my next visit and give me a reminder card to stick on the refrigerator along with a new toothbrush.

But as schedules have become busier, and working moms are the norm, my dentist has stepped up the reminder process.

A week before my appointment I got a post card, which jogged my memory to keep Tuesday afternoon open at 3:30. I don't recall getting a post card in the past. Usually the day before my appointment, I would get a phone call as a reminder, and sure enough, I got a message Monday in my voice mail about my cleaning the next day.

Now my dentist was doing something different. His office asked if I preferred Text Message or E-mail reminders too. They assured me that they were going to continue with the phone calls, because that works best for some folks, but they were expanding to these other reminder services too "as a service to our patients".

I know that it's also a service for themselves, because if someone forgets an appointment, it's money lost forever, since for a doctor, time is money.

So, are you asking the right questions about communication with your customers? Are you offering either enough choices or at least the choices that your customers want?

There is a bit of magic in the power of three. But today I'm going to refer to three that every business owner has to make everyday.

1. Improve.

2. Stay the same.

3. Go out of business.

Let's look at #2 first.

Stay the same. Coast for awhile. A lot of folks decided to do this when times were tough. When the recession hit their business, when the phone stopped ringing off the hook with new customers, when the easy money stopped being so easy... Many decided to hang tight, "I don't want to do anything different right now"

Problem is that by doing nothing, or cutting back, or staying the same, the world continued to change. Every corner of it.

Even yours.

The internet has changed the way we get information, make choices, and how we play. And now you don't need a computer to access the web.

I recall being amazed that even homeless people still had cellphones. And last month when I moved up to a Smartphone, another light bulb lit up above my head.

With the mobile web technology, even the most remote locations now are connected. And that connection means, they are not waiting for you.

I only use the homeless example to help you realize that if they are moving forward, you should be too.

There is only one way to coast.

You can't coast uphill.

You can only go so far by coasting on a flat surface.

The only way to coast is downhill. And once you start going down, you pick up speed until you crash at the bottom.

I don't think that's what most people were planning when they told me they were going to "ride it out". But unfortunately, it happened anyway.

Gravity is a law.

Of course, there are those that decided to choose #3 and close the doors and retire. Good for them if that's what they want.

But what about you?

For most of us the best choice is #1.

It's not the easiest, I can promise you that! But it is your only chance to survive. And if you can survive, you can also thrive.

In a couple of weeks I'll list a number of ways you can improve, survive and thrive.

I like that list of three, "improve, survive and thrive", don't you?

The easy ones sometimes aren't.

Unless you are prepared and know what you are doing.

Around the group of radio stations I work with, I am the fix-it person. About four years ago when I moved into management, I took over our Hip-Hop Station and increased sales to hit our budget within 4 months.

Then I took over the sales management of a different station with the same result... 4 months later, it was on budget.

April of this year, we launched a new station and by June, it was on budget. Now I've been assigned a different station and by September or October it will be exceeding its budget too.

The station I'm focused on improving now just launched a morning talk show 3 weeks ago. A well known afternoon talk show host from another station in town became available and after doing research, we brought him on board.

He had a list of about 40 local businesses that he used to do testimonial commercials for and they were our first target for increasing revenues. Yesterday I met with another one on the list and it was fun. Not easy, but fun.

For the past eight years, this local business owner would never agree to meet. The door opener was the talk show host we hired.

When I was ushered into his office, he introduced me to his marketing team, one of whom I've known for about 3 years. It was clear that the final decision was going to be the owners, but he wanted input from his team.

I brought with me, a few papers, one with the price for advertising, and a blank contract along with a credit application. I've renamed it a terms agreement because it sounds friendlier.

The conversation was back and forth, like a real conversation. I involved everyone in the room, and they basically sold themselves on what I was offering them.

But I've seen others who were put in similar situations, who would have blown it. They talk too much about themselves, or why they are better than others. They give unnecessary price discounts, they appear nervous, pushy, and they project zero confidence.

I did the opposite. I even gave them an idea on how to get better results with the radio station they were still on.

Sales shouldn't be a battle, or a game of trickery. Successful sales people know that their mission is to help solve their customers problems. And when you do it with the right attitude it can pay pretty well too.

It's easy to sell stuff to people who want to buy it.

But it's nearly impossible to sell stuff to people who don't want to buy it.

I've been considering upgrading my phone to a smart phone for awhile. But the price had to be right.

This month my step-daughter told me her fiance was buying her an iPhone for her birthday and he was adding her to his cellphone plan. Her birthday is at the end of July, but the new iPhone was coming out this week.

So Tuesday I visited my usual cellphone store, an authorized Verizon retailer, to check out my options for a new phone for me and what the cost savings where going to be with one less phone on our plan.

It wasn't a good experience. The store was understaffed, and the guy had to call Verizon customer service to get answers. The answers were vague and I decided it was time for me to shop around.

7am Wednesday my phone rings and it's my step-daughter asking for account info because she is in the process of transferring her number to AT &T at that moment. By 8am, the deal was done and I was now in the market for my own smartphone.

Later in the day, I went to an official Verizon Wireless store and found out how to save money, get a Droid and start learning how to use the apps.

The guy that I talked to Tuesday night was incompetent in my eyes. He could have sold me a $200 phone this week, but due to his inability to help me buy, he lost the sale.

The folks that I bought the phone from really didn't have to sell me, they just had to help me buy.

How much better could your life become if you helped buyers buy instead of always trying to sell?

One of my radio stations picked up a talk show host that has been on the top talk station for over a dozen years. We have been calling on the clients he did testimonial spots for and offering them a chance to stay with him, but on our station.

That's why I was meeting with a potential advertising client yesterday. It's a family run insurance business and they've been doing little piddly stuff for years along with some consistent advertising in other areas.

I noticed that they sponsored a Little League Baseball team. I learned they actually sponsored two teams. Cost them about $1000 a year. Could be good P.R. if they followed through and contacted each and every family that was involved with the teams and offered to do an insurance review for them. It could easily recover the costs and be a good investment instead of just good P.R.

In my meeting, they expressed caution. They have been losing some of their business clients because they have gone under in this economy.

Well, guess what. Nearly EVERYONE has had that happen to them. But the way to combat that is to invite more people to do business with you, not hide until the "bad times blow over".

You can not save your way to earning big bucks. Instead of cutting your advertising and marketing efforts, dig deeper.

Follow up, Follow through.

Stop wasting the leads you have and soon you'll discover the real path to big bucks is to pursue it with an honest passion to help your potential customers.

As a business owner, this is one of the most critical decision you need to make.

The number of options continue to grow, but not all options are created equal.

Let's come up with a measuring stick to determine what you should do.

The first question is, "How Long will I be in business?"

Some businesses are seasonal, like a Christmas Tree lot, or a Snow Cone stand.

For them, it would not make sense to advertise when they are closed.

But most businesses are open year round, and so if you are open 12 months a year, you need to advertise 12 months a year.

Your advertising needs to have both reach and frequency to the right people with the right message.

Let's use radio as an example, but you can apply this to billboards, television, paper, the web, anything really.

Reach refers to the number of different people who will see/hear your message. A radio station might have 50,000 listeners per week, but all of them will not hear your commercial.

Perhaps the average number of listeners at any one time is 1000. Only a percentage of those listeners will be in the market to spend month with you if they hear your commercial one time.

This is where Frequency factors in. Because our brains filter out most of the information we see and hear, I have a better chance of winning the lottery than you do of getting a new customer with just one commercial. And I have never even bought a lottery ticket!

Frequency is repetition. Think about the toddler that asks for a cookie, repeatedly until Mom or Dad give the kid a cookie just to stop the noise! If the kid asked just once, he would be ignored.

But repetition doesn't have to be annoying. That's where the right message comes into play.

So, what form of advertising should I use? One that you can afford to stick with with enough frequency to consistently reach and invite people to do business with you. Perhaps it's not the biggest radio station, maybe a more targeted station with a lower cost per commercial will allow you the right combination of reach and frequency for your budget will work better.

One last thought on this subject, take a look at the motivation of the person who is sitting across the table from you, trying to sell you advertising. Do they care more about their success or yours?

Ideally, they should care about both.

You can be the best plumber in your town and be broke.

You can be the best baker in your town and be broke.

You can be the best ___________ in your town and be broke.

If...

you do not invite people to spend money with you.

That's the single purpose behind advertising.

You have something of value that you will sell and you need to let your potential customers know about it, so they can give you money in exchange for the goods or service.

Yet, this piece of your business success is often missing, or not planned out.

The options are numerous for where to spend your advertising money. Next week, I'll give you the criteria most businesses should use to determine which will provide the most success and profit.

One of the things that a lot of businesses get backwards is focusing on themselves, instead of their customers.

What if restaurants were only open from 8 to 5, five days a week. Would they survive? Probably not unless you were only running a lunch counter.

Taco Bell was one of the first fast food chains to stay open late, they even invented the 4th meal concept. Now, I'm not likely to grab a taco at 4am, but lots of others do, and now several other fast food places are open until midnight or later.

What if you changed your hours to accommodate your customers? Would noon to 9pm work better for your customers? How about your employees, would they be in a better mood if they had mornings free?

Think about it, and rethink your hours of operation.

Sure, it would be nice to just "wing it", and be successful. But life doesn't work that way.

Earlier this month I got a phone call from a barber who was calling to get a quote for advertising for the salon that he works at. So I set up an appointment and visited them a couple days later and discovered that they were "Winging it".

9 months ago they moved from one side of town to downtown. I've driven by their shop 50 times, yet never noticed them. Even the day of my meeting I went around the block twice before I found them.

At this particular small business, they have about 6 or 7 employees including the two owners and they must be doing a decent job in order to stay in business for the past several months. They are planning a "Grand Opening" next month and reached out to a couple radio stations that they listen to for ideas.

I was honest with them. I told them what it would take to build their business and they really didn't want to hear it.

A 52 week advertising plan with a minimum of 15 ads per week at $400 per week is not what they wanted to hear.

I predict that their store front will have a For Rent sign in the window within the next 52 weeks instead.

Now, some other radio salesperson will sell them what they want, but it's not what they need.

The reason so many businesses close within 2 years, and even fewer last 5 years, is they don't have a plan to get customers who will pay them money, which in turn keeps them in business.

I understand that many of these people have the best of intentions, they have a great idea, they are above average in their area of expertise, but they are often missing that one ingredient, the advertising and marketing side of success.

And it hurts to see these fine people invest their hearts, dreams, time, passion and funds into something that won't last.

I've said this before and it bears repeating over and over and over again:

"If you are planning a party but never send out invitations, NO ONE WILL SHOW UP."

In the weeks ahead, I'll review some of the ways you can invite people to do business with you, pay you money, and keep you alive and thriving.

Monday, I had Subway for lunch.

As soon as I sat down at my desk, I realized that the reason I was about to eat my cold cut combo was the power of 3.

There is a rule that many advertising professionals follow that says it takes 3 impressions to motivate a person to action.

It started on my way to work. I usually have a hot breakfast. McDonalds was too busy so I kept driving. A few weeks ago I had an egg white melt from Subway and it was pretty good, so when I got downtown, that's where I went and what I got.

That was #1.

Then around 11:30 a couple of the women I work with mentioned that they were going to Subway for lunch.

That was #2.

About an hour later, as I was leaving to get my lunch, I stopped by one of the offices of the women who had Subway and she was finishing off the last bite.

That was #3.

As I pulled out of the parking lot, I was considering either chicken or Chinese. But I passed both of those options and continued a few more blocks to Subway where I ordered a custom made sandwich, chips and a drink.

With the increase in the number of advertising impressions we are exposed to daily, (somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000), is the rule of 3 still relevant? Yes, given certain conditions.

I have also been exposed to at least 5 lottery ads each day, but have never played. I'm not in the market for a lottery ticket. But when I was driving I was in the market for lunch.

Still, if I didn't like Subway, or never had been previously exposed to Subway, the 3 impressions I had that day wouldn't have been enough.

When you are planning an advertising/marketing campaign, realize that everyone will not become your customer (Lottery tickets).

Also each single person needs 3 positive impressions within a short time period to motivate them to action.

And finally, most people are not even aware of these 3 impressions that motivated them to action, so tracking the advertising effectiveness can be difficult.

Still.....

Last week, the answer was Focus.

This week the answer is Emotion.

Too often advertising fails to tap into peoples emotions.

But its not "Peoples Emotions".

Make it singular.

Your advertising message should be targeted to One Person.

If your commercial is using a language style that is not the style you use in a one-on-one conversation, you are probably not tapping into anyone's emotions.

People are individuals.
Talk to them as individuals.
No, make that, talk to them as an individual.

And use real language. Not commercial-ease.

Paint a picture with your words. Focus on the needs and desires of your customer, not yours as a business owner.

For example, they don't care that you've been in business 13 years. They do care that you have helped hundreds of people over the years that have the same problem that needs fixing.

It's the W.I.I.F.M. theory.

What's In It For Me.

And it's more than a theory, it's how we relate emotionally, and it's how to get better results from your advertising messages.

In a word:

Focus.

Too often advertising is designed to reach a broad spectrum of people. This may work for a grocery store newspaper ad, but is totally wrong when using something more personal like radio or television.

Our brains have a super power to filter out much of the information we are exposed to each day, except for what truly interests us. The rest of what we see and hear may go into our subconscious, or be blocked completely.

Let's take McDonalds as an example of an advertiser that successfully follows this Focus principle.

They have over 20 items on their menu. But each of their ads features only one item. If they are promoting two items, they will use two separate ads. Angus Burgers and Chocolate/Banana Milkshakes are what they are promoting right now. But not in the same advertisement.

Also McDonalds uses shorter commercials since they are so focused. In radio, 60 seconds is the norm. Television ads are usually 30 seconds long.

In the past 5 years I've worked with McDonalds on our radio stations, their ads are 10 seconds, 15 seconds, and sometimes 30 seconds long.

Short and to the point.

Focus.

If your advertising sales rep wants to throw in as much as possible into your ad, (or if you do); stop and try this Focus approach.

Contact me if you need help.

First, read what I wrote last week by clicking here, if you have not yet read Part One.

Welcome back.

We're jumping into this with both feet which is why you needed the background info I wrote last week.

Every week, I receive phone calls and emails from advertising agencies around the country wanting information on the radio stations I represent. Usually it is the Media Buyer who is looking for the best way to spend their clients money.

What they are usually looking for is something called Reach & Frequency. That's good. However how they measure the effectiveness is what I question.

(Reach refers to how many individual people the commercial will reach and is based on the size of the radio stations audience and the number of ads that air for the business.

Frequency refers to how often each individual listener will hear the commercial.)

Terms like Cost Per Point and Gross Rating Points are on their list of items to work with.

Arbitron defines these terms:

Gross Rating Points (GRPs)

The sum of all rating points achieved for a particular spot schedule.

[AQH Rating] x [the number of spots in an advertising schedule] = GRPs

Cost Per Rating Point

The cost of reaching an Average Quarter-Hour Persons audience that's equivalent to one percent of the population in a given demographic group.

[Cost of Schedule] / [GRP] = Cost Per Rating Point
…or…
[Spot Cost] / [AQH Rating] = Cost Per Rating Point

These mathematical calculations can result in some pretty weird advertising schedules.

But my biggest complaint is that it is often short term thinking based on flawed numbers to begin with.

So, when I work with clients who are not represented by an advertising agency media buyer, I use what I call common sense. And usually that common sense tells me that it is best for my client to "dominate a daypart".

Radio Dayparts are 6am to 10am (morning drivetime) 10am-3pm (mid-days) 3pm-7pm (afternoon drivetime) 7pm-12midnight (evenings) and 12midnight to 6am (overnights).

To dominate a daypart, my client should air at least 3 out of 4 hours in mornings or afternoons, or 3 out of 5 hours in mid-days and evenings. This creates a stronger impression on listeners than what some of the crazy schedules I see coming from media buyers, where I will see 5 ads in mid-days for an entire 5 days versus my formula which says you should air 15 times, minimum during that same 5 hour a day, 5 day a week time period.

Please understand that I'm not insulting media buyers. Most have been trained to buy by the numbers and formulas. As a matter of fact, I will often propose an advertising schedule to the media buyers I work with based on the daypart domination that I explained.

I think next week, we'll talk about how to increase the effectiveness of your advertisement, that has nothing to do with ratings. Your comments are always welcome.

And why it is a flawed system....

This week I thought I'd go further into explaining a system that people think they understand, but most don't.

Radio ratings. Arbitron is the major provider of this information. Television ratings are similar and the company that provides that information is Nielson.

Eight years ago, when I was taking a sabbatical from the advertising world, our family participated in a Nielson survey. People who work in these industries are prohibited from taking part in these surveys.

We received the form to fill out, which asked us to write what we watched each day for a week. The first day, I filled the form out correctly. The next 6 days, I forgot about it. But I watched TV each day, so on the 7th day, I filled out what I probably watched the previous week and mailed the form back.

I'm sure this is typical for both radio and tv rating surveys. Which means the data is flawed. It is not a true, hour by hour diary of your listening/viewing habits, it is a guesstimate of what you probably did on most days.

But in our market, Fort Wayne is currently market # 105 or #106, this is how radio ratings are gathered twice a year, for 3 months in the spring and then 3 months each fall. The radio stations that pay for the results, (Thousands of $$$$$) get the use of the results when they are complied and released.

Our current rating period runs April thru June and we won't get the results until the end of August. Originally these ratings services were used by program directors to measure the effectiveness of their jobs and for bragging rights. But then they became a tool for advertising agencies to place commercials and negotiate price.

This is where things have become really crazy, when we think about it. Remember the inaccuracies of each survey, multiplied by the thousand or so people who fill out a survey, which is then multiplied to reflect the listening/viewing habits of an entire city, or in our case, 6 county Metropolitan Area of nearly 1/2 a million people.

Still with me? Good, here's how Arbitron counts radio listeners using the diary/survey system:

Arbitron counts individual people, called Cume for Cumulative persons. Arbitron also counts when and how long a person listens to each radio station and tallies this number up and calls it Average Quarter Hour.

If you listen to radio station WWWW from 6:10 to 6:35 am each morning, then turned the radio off until after 7am, you and I know that you listened for 25 minutes. However, using the Quarter Hour system that Arbitron uses, you listened in 3 Quarter Hours. 3 Quarter hours sounds like 45 minutes right? Not according to Arbitron.

If you listened for a least 5 minutes, you get credit for listening to that radio station for an entire 15 minute quarter hour. So, from 6:10-6:15 is one, 6:15-6:30 is two, and 6:30 to 6:35 is three Quarter Hours that radio station WWWW gets credit for you as a listener.

And if you listened to WAAA from 6:00 to 6:05 and then WBBB from 6:05 to 6:10 before you listened to WWWW for the next 25 minutes, they get credit for having you as a listener too for that same 6:00-6:15am Quarter Hour. Only if you wrote all of this down on your survey form.

Sound a little crazy? Let's add this up. WAAA get's 1 Quarter Hour, WBBB gets 1 Quarter Hour, WWW gets 3 Quarter Hours, for a total of 5 quarter hours in less than 60 minutes. In our example, you actually listened to the radio for 35 minutes, yet Arbitron counts 75 minutes (5 quarter hours).

Next week, I'll explain how Ad Agencies use this information.

First, let me explain my entire marketing philosophy:

I've been meaning to write this for awhile.

This is the advice I give to my radio clients.

It's the advice I give to nearly anyone that wants to get found online.

It's not a quick process.

It takes discipline.

It requires your time.

1. Start a blog. Update it at least once a week.
2. Set up a twitter account. Use it to promote, interact and share with others.
3. Set up a Facebook page. But be selective with what you do with it.

Let's start with your blog.

Once a week, tell a story about your business. Change the names to protect privacy of the people you are talking about if you want, but be real. Talk about the customer that was looking for something and you were able to help. Share tips on your area of expertise.

But most of all, keep updating it. Weekly is a minimum. Daily if you have the time.

I recommend using Blogger.com It is an easy to use platform and is owned by Google. Google is always looking for fresh content and after awhile you will probably start showing up in Google search results.

One other Blog hint: include a picture with each post.

Twitter is my favorite online method of promoting my blog postings. Most of my new blog postings, I promote with a link on Twitter. Many people don't understand Twitter, don't use Twitter, but they use Facebook, which I'll get to in a moment. Over the weekend, I posted my 10,000th Tweet since I signed up in October 2008.

I use Tweetdeck as a way to manage my Twitter account on a daily basis and unless you are compulsive about it, Twitter can be a useful communication tool. Somehow, I've gained over 900 followers and made friends with others in my home town and also around the world in areas that we are both interested in.

Now, Facebook.

Facebook to me is the social media platform that I really don't like but it is too big to ignore. The number of people with Facebook accounts, if they were a country would be one of the top 3 or 4 countries in the world!

What don't I like about Facebook? The games like Mafia Wars and Farmville that friends play and it shows up in my updates. The various other applications that are in my opinion silly. But the biggest problem I have with Facebook is they keep changing the layout and privacy settings.

What I like about Facebook is that because so many people are on it, odds are if you want to connect with old friends, new friends, or family, they are probably on Facebook.

But having a blog, a Twitter and Facebook account will not draw people to your website.

You need to provide links, not copy and paste style, but clickable links that go to your website.

And on your website, you need to provide links to your social media sites.

Click here and you'll go to my website where you'll find clickable links to my blogs, my radio stations, and even links to the most recent blog posts.

It has taken time, work and discipline but it works.

Or making excuses.

First, a true story. Followed by a Challenge.

In my real life, I spend my 40+ hours working for a group of radio stations in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

I've been here nearly 7 years, and have been in the radio business for over half my life. And I've worked outside of the radio and advertising business too for about 10 years.

Last week I had what I call a "come to Jesus" meeting with one of the advertising agency media buyers that handles one of the two major hospitals in our region.

For the past several weeks, I've been hearing radio ads for a "Don't Text & Drive" campaign on a number of radio stations, but none of mine. I was told in the meeting that with limited funds, they only bought the radio stations that had the highest ratings.

I pulled out the numbers which demonstrated our station was top dog for their target.

Then I got the truth.

She was prohibited from buying "certain stations due to the music they play".

These 3 stations represent over 219,500 listeners out of 792,000 people. Just over 25% of the population that they are not inviting to do business with them. These stations target the 18 to 35 year olds. The people starting families, establishing doctor relationships, etc.

I represent one of the stations. Fortunately I have 3 other stations to offer to this hospital and health care organization. And I will also go to their competitor and see if they are as limited in their vision and stereotypes.

Now, here's my Challenge to you:

What is holding you back from making smart, forward thinking marketing decisions?

What assumptions are you making that is crippling your growth?

You can't blame the economy. Even if we had 20% unemployment, that means 80% of the population is making money and spending money.

If you need help figuring all this out and want to plan for the future, and live/work in Fort Wayne, Indiana; contact me.

Scott @ ScLoHo.net is my email.

Mention this blog as I get a couple hundred emails a day and want to make sure I get yours.

Yesterday I met with a gentleman that oversees 30+ restaurants.

It's a national chain, but locally owned.

We talked about what makes them different than other, similar chains.

His answer was basically, "we do a better job of doing what everyone is supposed to do."

In other words, "we are better at being average than the other guys".

Or perhaps, "we don't piss off and annoy as many customers as our competitors do".

I challenged him to make a customer promise.

A customer promise that they would stand behind, no matter what.

And to empower their front line employees to stand behind the customer promise without having to get permission from "the manager."

I could see he was getting nervous about this idea.

He came up with a half dozen excuses as to why they couldn't do that.

We'll meet next week again and see if I can push him out of his safe box, which is really a very dangerous place to be.

In the meantime, I'll share with you a few places that I know first hand will exceed the average.

Last week I was wrapping up a short vacation in Michigan and nearly every place we went to and spent money met our expectations.

Most of them exceeded them, one way or another. The restaurants, bed & breakfasts, the hotel.

The fast food joint was average. So were the gas stations and the movie theater.

But the other places that did a great job, they deserve credit.

We started at the BaySide Inn. Spent two nights there. http://www.baysideinn.net/ Really enjoyed the outdoor hot tub along with the usual B & B experience.

We also spent 1 night at Heritage Manor Inn. Very nice hosts and the breakfast was excellent. http://www.heritagemanorinn.com/

We ate here twice! http://www.saugatuckdouglas.com/phils.htm

Also here for lunch 1 day: http://www.thewilddoggrille.com/ Check out the Guinness & white cheddar soup.

Burgers: http://www.thebutlerrestaurant.com/ Got 'em twice!

We only had desert here, but would have had dinner too if we hadn't already ate: http://www.restauranttoulouse.com/

A local coffee shop that is also a coffee roaster: http://www.uncommongroundscafe.com/v1/index

These guys got our money twice (That's a good thing!) http://www.wickspark.com/home.html

We also had lunch one day at: http://www.8thstreetgrille.com/

And one of most unusual surprises was the last night of our trip where we ate, drank & spent the night: http://www.cityflatshotel.com/