Talk It Up!

Building a Profile in the Workplace

Had the excellent opportunity to attend one of Empowering Women Network's corporate events this week--one of the benefits of being a podcaster is the all-access press pass you get to events you normally couldn't get access to! The crowd was devoid of entrepreneurs: these were all women in various large corporations, all energetic, smart and open to advice on how to improve their performance.

The speaker was R3 Group's Jane Pigott, a lawyer turned inclusion expert based in Chicago. She's been speaking for years on inclusion of women in the workforce, and she's spent the last few showing women how to build a profile in the workplace so that their work gets noticed. And she shows women how to make sure they get promoted to where they want to be. It's nearly an hour-long session but definitely worth the listen!

Take a listen here: Building a Profile in the Workplace

Chicago Marketing Seminar

A public service announcement:

Join me Thursday, October 11th  for EWN's Sales & Marketing Workshop & Panel Discussion at RR Donnelley from 8:00am to 1:30pm. 

Three professional speakers and experts in their fields (Georgia Dudley, Founder - EWN, Inc., Lennie Rose, President - Rise Public Relations, LLC, & Heidi Miller, President - Heidi Miller Presentations) present on the topic: Debunking the Mystery of Sales & Marketing. 

Each workshop leader will present a one hour presentation with handouts: Sales (Relationship Selling & Business Development), Marketing (Collateral & Public Relations) & E-Marketing (Blogging and Podcasting) all focused on how they work together in business helping you become a more effective executive. After the workshop we gather for lunch and have a question and answer panel discussion.

You will walk away with tips and techniques on sales, marketing and e-marketing that you can apply immediately.  Hang on to your seats and prepare to become "empowered"!  Continental Breakfast & Lunch provided. Networking will take place from 7:30am to 8:30am and again after the presentation.  Workshop Cost EWN Members $149.00 - Non Members $169.00.

This is a popular event and seating is limited, so register TODAY! Early Bird Registration applies when you register on or before September 15, 2007 - EWN Members $129.00 - Non Members $149.00!

More information and to register

Shameless plug

Now that I'm back from last week's LabelExpo and plugged in again (with long show hours, internet fun was limited to essential email and Podcast Expo planning only), here's a shameless plug for Diary of a Shameless Self-Promoter's new sponser: PromosPlus marketing!

See that pretty blue badge in the upper right-hand corner? Go on; click it! You know you want to!

Plus a generous 10% discount for DSSP listeners; what's not to love?

So the shameless plug: PromosPlus has a variety of promotional items, from basic pens to calendars to thank-you cards (remember how important handw-written thank-you notes are?) to those sticky pad thingies you can put on your car dash to keep your cell phone or iPod from sliding around.

And a few ways to use promotional items:

• smaller items like pens, notepads, etc. are great for keeping your logo in front of the client's eyes
• thank-you cards are great for adding a personal touch and building relationships
• clever trade show giveaways (blinkie balls, e.g.) help build your brand, especially if the item is tied in to your message or name
• more substantial gifts (calendars, coffee mugs, mouse pads) stay on your clients' desks for longer and stay in the line of sight

How do you use promotional items? Have you had any great ideas that you got feedback on? Any particularly successful campaigns? Share the creativity!

Shameless Self-Promotion

Kathy Sierra has done it again. She took an analogy that never quite worked, made it work, and ran with it to the moon and back!

The idea? Marketing is a seduction scene, as sleazy and fake as a stripper in a dark club. Therefore, real idealists don't "sell out" their products. In this fan-frakkin'-tastic article in her Creating Passionate Users blog, she compares being a good marketer to being an attentive lover--and her analogy is just genius! With this simple advice, she explains putting a good face on one's product/service:

A good lover takes a shower and puts on a clean shirt.

She continues: "In other words, maybe we should stop assuming that marketing means lying, and start treating our customers/users as people we value and care about enough to make their life a bit more enjoyable."

What? Caring? In marketing? Is she insane?

Oh, wait. Right. That's why we're here in the first place--because we think our product/service will make someone else's life better. When did we go from genuinely believing in our products to believing that marketing them had to involve lying?

Now, this article really resonated with me for a few reasons. First, the analogy of marketing as a caring lover/spouse was spot-on. Second, she's speaking specifically of marketing to geeks, which comprise much of my client base. Third, what she's really speaking about is shameless self-promotion and the obstacle of inauthenticity that many timid self-promoters stumble on. To carry on Kathy's analogy, they think that marketing their product requires bleaching their hair blond and faking being "in the mood" in order to please the customer.

But check out her list of "Characteristics of a good lover/marketer." Having blond hair or pretending to be ready for action isn't on the list. But being thoughtful, brave, playful, caring and flexible is. I'm reminded of what so many of my girlfriends complain of in frustration: My man doesn't LISTEN to me!

How many of our customers have the same frustration with us? Shameless self-promotion should be truly without shame--it involves listening intently to your clients (and those who chose not to be your clients), caring and giving thoughtful attention to how we can make their experiences with our products better. Just like a good lover would do.

Handwritten Thank-Yous

Edit: Read a related post from Fleck.com blog here]

When was the last time you sent a handwritten thank-you note? To your grandma, maybe, when your mom made you?

Check out this article from LifeHack.org about the value of standing out by writing hand-written thank you notes. Chris Brogan makes an excellent point--if you want an easy way to stand out to contacts and clients, why not send handwritten notes? They're unique simply because no one does this any more!

Whenever I have the chance to hear the estimable Bob Burg speak on networking and endless referrals, I always am reminded that my favorite bit of his talk is when he walks through exactly how to create a cardstock card that will serve as thank-you note stationery as well as, well, shameless self-promotion. And invariably someone in the audience will raise a hand and say, "Or you could just send an email; that's what I do."

Right. That's what everyone does. It's fast, free, lazy, less personal and requires a minimum of effort. Nothing wrong with email, of course; I use it for follow-up all the time. But the whole point of having thank-you notes reflect your brand is that they're not easy. They take work to write, stamp and seal. They show a small level of extra attention you're willing to give your contacts/clients that, most likely, no one else is bothering to do.

And Chris has some wonderful extension/branding ideas in the above article--like maybe cutting out pages of an old comic book and using card stock to fashion them into a creative thank-you note. I'm thinking of other cute ideas--a realtor might cut up maps of her town, attach them to cardstock and send the message, "I'll go all over town to sell for you!" Or someone who sells cell phone could decorate a card with used, cut-up calling cards.

Me, I just have my photo, logo and contact info printed in the upper right-hand corner of the card. Not as wildly creative, to be sure, but it's amazing how many contacts have been blown away by my simple, black-and-white cards--they're always delighted to have received something personal in their office mail.

So how can you make an impression on your contacts and clients? What can you to stand out from everyone else?

Keep It Simple, Sweetheart

How much is too much with unsolicited promotions?

A client just shared with me a clever promotional package in the mail. It was a small box, no more than three inches square, and it contained nothing but two mini-PayDay bars, a business card and a bright yellow sticker proclaiming:

Pay Day with Precision could not be sweeter

Best in value, Best in personalized service, Fair & flexible

Call [rep's name] at [phone number] for a seamless setup!

Why do I like this so much? Well, OK, maybe because the client gave me one of the PayDay mini-bars, and my stomach was grumbling because it was close to lunch.

But also for three reasons:

1. The obvious tie-in between the candy and the payroll service
2. The simplicity of the approach--no long sales letters
3. The unobtrusiveness of the packaging

That is, I like it primarly because it's small. It was easy to open and digest (pun intended). Last week, the client showed me another promotional package that wasn't nearly as effective: a large box, about the size of a sheet of notebook paper and about three inches deep, that in the end only contained an elaborately-packaged model truck and a long sales letter. The letter was thrown away without being read, and the truck... no idea where it ended up.

Sometimes a big promotion is in order, of course, but with initial solicitations, I vote for the KISS method: Keep It Simple, Sweetheart. Simple to open, simple to tie in, simple message, simple text to skim.

The Death of Fields and Emotional Branding

Chicago is already mourning the loss of Marshall Field's. No, not the stores; they'll stay, but under the Macy's name. This brought about a lively lunch conversation with friends and clients today: most of us felt the emotional loss of Marshall Field's, a Chicago landmark, with its Frango mints and stunning window displays on State Street. In fact, it's more of a tradition.

One client shrugged his shoulders and pointed out that, since the merchandise and store layout would be the same, why should we care? Why does it matter that the very same store with the same staff, the same merchandise in the same location presumably selling the same Frango mints would change names? All these department stores have the same stuff, anyway, right?

Because it's not changing names. It's changing brands. The Marshall Field's brand is an emotional one to Chicagoans--it's where we go every Christmas to stand outside in 20-degrees-below-zero weather to ogle the fantastic window displays. It's where we indulge in those melty, minty Frangos. It's the company that sponsors local parades and festivities, fashion shows and kids' teams. It's a Chicago brand.

This brings to mind once again Karen Post's excellent book on branding, Brain Tattoos, in which she talks extensively about creating an emotional brand. This is what Chicagoans are mourning: the loss of our brand.