Marketing Today

Book Review: Delivering Happiness

I just finished reading Tony Hsieh's first book, Delivering Happiness, on my iPad.  Tony is the CEO of online shoe and clothing sore, Zappos.  It's a great book written by a man with a different perspective on business which is what makes him interesting.  

The book begins with his tales of early entrepreneurial ventures like his worm farm.  It takes him through Harvard University and his first experience with crowdsourcing at exam time.  And, it goes through his startup success that lead to running the Internet incubator that lead him to becoming the CEO of Zappos.

Zappos gained fame for growing to be > $ 1 billion in about ten years which lead to Amazon.com buying Zappos for $940 million in a stock and cash deal in June, 2009.  But, it's the core values that really set the company apart from most others.  The company culture is a competitive advantage.

Zappos' Core Values Make Them Unique (and Super Successful!)

The company publishes a "Culture Book" annually that is made up of contributions from employees. All employees that are hired for their corporate office, regardless of position, are required to undergo a 4-week customer loyalty training course, which includes at least 2 weeks of talking on the phone with customers in the call center at full salary. 

After a week of training, the new employees are offered $2,000 to leave the company immediately if they think that it's not for them. This is to make sure that employees are there because they love of the job and not the money.

As Anthony Robbins writes in the "Praise for Delivering Happiness" section, "When you focus on increasing the happiness of your employees, colleagues, vendors, and customers, you not only increase your own happiness, but you chances for success."

My Favorite Insight

Page 209 lists the "Top 10 Ways to Instill Customer Service into Your Company".  Sure, making customer service a priority for the whole company is key as is empowering your customer service reps.  But my favorite insight is #6 - "Don't hide you 1-800 number.  It's a message not just to your customers, but to your employees as well."  This just hit me as so profound because I've noticed how hard it is to find a number to call someone at a company when you have a problem.  Take for example, when I was in Quicken the other day and I accidentally deleted my checking account.  At that "Yikes!  Somebody please help me!" moment, I didn't want to read FAQs to find the answer to my problem online, I wanted to talk to somebody...and quickly!  After combing the site, I couldn't find a phone number, but I did finally find live chat and someone was able to help me quickly.  While my problem got solved, I did resent that as a Quicken customer for the last 10 years, they didn't think enough of me to make it easy for me to call them with a problem.  The Zappos folks have it right.

If you're looking for a good business book that will make you look at things a different way in your business, check out Delivering Happiness.  And, if you'd like to meet the author, go see the Delivering Happiness bus when it makes a stop in your town.  I think I'll go see it when it gets to Boston in September

The Book Tour Stop at WBUR-FM, Boston’s NPR news station

This morning, we stopped by the WBUR station as part of the "Learn, Earn & Return: My Life as a Computer Pioneer" book tour.  In the photo on the left, you can see Harlan Anderson, the book's author, with Curt Nickisch and Deborah Becker of WBUR.  Deb asked Harlan many questions about his co-founding of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) with Ken Olsen, his thoughts on what happened with DEC over the years, and his thoughts on computing today.  It was a great interview that should be aired soon.

History of WBUR

WBUR-FM went on the air on March 1, 1950, as a 400-watt non-commercial educational FM station licensed to Boston University. Through the 1960s, more and more radio professionals joined WBUR and gradually transformed the station’s format. By 1971, WBUR had enough full-time employees to qualify for status as a public radio station and applied to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) for certification. In 1980, the station began to receive programming from NPR via satellite. In March 1999, WBUR-FM was named “News Station of the Year” by the New England Associated Press, an award it has since received three more times.

WBUR Today

WBUR broadcasts with an effective radiated power of 40,000 watts. There are two daily programs  broadcast live from our Boston studios and distributed nationwide on NPR member stations: “On Point,” hosted by Tom Ashbrook, and “Here & Now,” hosted by Robin Young. There are also three other programs broadcast from WBUR studios on a weekly basis: “Car Talk,” “Only A Game,” and “Radio Boston.”

This morning, as we were getting ready for Harlan Anderson's interview for his book, the studio was getting ready for the discussion of Sarah Palin's book "Going Rogue" and her political future on the "On Point" show.  With the book just out, the website has already pulled in 60 comments from this morning's interview.

Stay tuned for a link to the interview with Harlan Anderson on WBUR that is coming soon!  We had a fascinating morning at the WBUR station that's just a part of the publicity for his book.

Read Inbound Marketing Because The Rules of Marketing Have Changed

The rules of marketing have changed.  Marketing today is a combination of traditional marketing methods strategically pushing the message out coupled with online marketing methods that strategically reel in your prospects.  So, how do you build and execute a marketing plan that best meets your business goals?  Get your hands on Inbound Marketing for starters.

Hubspot co-founders, Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, have written THE book on how to get found using Google, social media, and blogs.  Inbound Marketing begins with a refresher on how customers shopping behavior has changed.  It goes on to discuss how your website needs to be a marketing hub that attracts your customers rather than an online marketing brochure that talks at your customers.  The book moves on to give ideas on how to get found online and then how to convert prospects into customers.

By reading Inbound Marketing, you will be able to: 

• Hire the right people to market your organization most effectively
• Improve your rankings in Google and other search engines to get more traffic
• Build and promote a blog for your business that is integrated into other your online marketing
• Grow and nurture a community in Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.
• Measure what matters and learn to do more of what works online

My Inbound Marketing Experience

As for me, I've learned a lot reading the book.  And, I've already been to two Inbound Marketing Summits and I put online marketing methods into practice every day for myself and my clients.  I am constantly learning about inbound marketing all because a) there are so many new tools that seem to come out every day, and b) I have to constantly test what's working and what's not in order to readjust my online marketing to keep it effective.

More interesting than what I've learned from this book, watching my friend Jennifer, who runs a local gift shop, learn as she reads her copy of Inbound Marketing.  Everything she learns is immediately put into use on her website, her Facebook page, and her Twitter account.  She's found the Hubspot site and has been running Graders on everything!  (I probably shouldn't confess this, but now we both talk online stats, stats, and more stats until we realize that anyone else who tried to join our conversation walked off about five minutes before we noticed.) 

Inbound Marketing book specs:

Hardcover: 256 pages

Publisher: Wiley (October 19, 2009)

Language: English

Price (on Amazon):  $16.47 (discounted from $24.95)

Have You Seen "Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong"?

Like many others, I read about this blog & book in a recent New York Times article.  Both provide a very funny look at some of the craziest cakes you've ever seen that were designed by  professional cake decorators by accident. 

Author Jen Yates defines a Cake Wreck is “any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate — you name it.”  Her inspiration for the blog/book was the image that you see on the book cover (to the left) which got her collecting images of "cakes gone wrong" that has become an Internet phenomenon.

Not since I came across "Cute Things Falling Asleep" have I found crazy blog that some one put together in their spare time, that made me smile as much as this one does.  As a baker of a few "disaster cakes" of my own, I think I'll be giving this book out as a Christmas present to a few of the folks who have been served a few of my mistakes.

For fun, join up with over a million others and follow @cakewrecks on Twitter.  And, if you end up with a cake wreck of your own at your next event, send it into the Cake Wrecks blog.  (Note:  only professional/store bought cakes will get featured.  If you happen upon a home-made cake wreck, that won't get featured.

Lots to Learn from the 2009 Inbound Marketing Summit

I just got back from the Inbound Marketing Summit in Boston.  This was my second year to attend. Except for the part where I got food poisoning on Day 2, I learned an awful lot and had fun doing it.  There were 21 sessions crammed into two days and while some sessions were naturally better than others, there was something to take away from all of them.  Here are a few things I learned:

What Hash Jacking Is

Like any tech conference these days, the event had a hashtage - #IMS09 - so that we could all tweet about the event and see our comments all in one place on Twitter.  As the event started trending high for tweets, a porn site found us and began using our hash tag to post their images and 140-character messages too.  This, I learned is called "hash jacking" and made for some interesting tweets!

Case Studies Still Make A Subject Real

The most interesting presentations for me where real world examples of how folks are integrating new social media tools into their traditional marketing programs.  We had some great presentations from Gary Vaynerchuck, author of Crush It!, on how to turn your ideas into business using the Internet the way he did for his wine business.  Greg Matthewsof Humana Consumer Innovation gave a presentation on who Humana is using social media to execute their strategy of changing health care from a focus on sickness to a focus on wellness.  It is an example of a social business from the inside out.  Most fun of the case studies was Paula Berg of Southwest Airlines who is "nuts about online communication."  From the video of the rapping flight attendant to stories of the highs and lows Southwest has had with social media, Paula showed how Southwest Airlines has learned to leverage social media to support company initiatives.

Why Online Marketers Publish Dead Tree Books

After listening to purposely controversial presentations by online marketers stating that PR is dead; advertising is dead; within 10 years face-to-face meetings will be dead, I tweeted " Why is it that everyone making a name for themselves in online social media comes out with a dead tree book? #ims09"  Shortly, there after, I heard from my friend W. Curtis Preston (known in the computer storage world as "Mr. Backup") who tweeted back "@cgunst bcs deadtree books are still where the money is (I have both & the $ from paper exceeds online by at least ordr of mag.)".  PR, advertising, and conferences are not dead, they are evolving.  Curtis is right in that the money is with the printed word not the blog although Twitter, blogs, online videos, etc. are a great way to build relationships with your base and spread the word.

Will I Go Again Next Year?

Inbound marketing has come a long way even in the last year as it becomes more mainstream and is more widely integrated into the marketing mix.  I left the conference with enough dead tree reading materials in the form of:  101 Content Marketing Tips, Putting the Public Back Into Public Relations, Inbound Marketing, and Trust Agents that I'll still be reading by next year's conference.  Seriously, we'll see were marketing is at this time next year.  With luck, my marketing consulting business, Gunst & Associates will take off and I'll get called in as a speaker!  Now, that would be fun! 

Marketing A High-Tech History Book Using Today's Marketing Tools

I'm marketing the autobiography of Harlan Anderson, the co-founder of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and I'm having so much fun doing it.  It's so nice to have a client with a great story to tell who is a joy to work with and who appreciates the marketing initiatives that we're doing. 

To start, we've built a website and a blog.  I just started a Twitter account today and am starting to tweet while building up a list of followers.  Later today, I need to beef up the wikipedia entry with all of our links and a little more information.  And, we're utilizing relationships - like the link to DEC alumni and the Massachusetts high-tech community - to generate speaking opportunities, book reviews, and hyperlinks to our website.  We're offering autographed, custom bookplates to folks who pre-order the book.  If we achieve success with all this, we're moving on to Google readers, Amazon.com and other electronic sales venues. 

While I'm seriously starting to wonder about who really needs a book agent or a publishing house, when you publish your own book and market straight to your audience, I just want to share a few facts about what it was like in 1957 when Harlan Anderson and Ken Olsen founded DEC.

• There were no word processors, so the original business plan for DEC was typed up on a rental typewriter that cost $10 for thee months by Harlan Anderson's wife, Lois.
• The original company name was Digital Computer Corporation, but since there hadn't been a lot of success selling computers, the name was changed to Digital Equipment Corporation
• The initial idea for funding DEC was to make a proposal to the Boston office of the Small Business Association to ask for a loan. While that didn't work, the SBA suggested that Olsen and Anderson look into venture capital which was in its infancy then.
• Boston-based American Research and Development (ARD) corporation put up $70,000 to start Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in exchange for 70% of the start-up’s equity. (The rest of the equity was 20% to Olsen and Anderson and 10% reserved for additional businessmen to join the team.) If things were going well by the end of the first year, ARD offered to put in an additional $30,000 to round out the initial request for $100,000 to get DEC started.
• When ARD finally liquidated its stake in Digital, the company was worth more than $400 million – yielding a return on the original investment of more than 70,000 percent.
• DEC, at its peak, was the second largest computer company in the world. (IBM being the first.)
• In 1966, the year that Harlan Anderson left DEC, the company went public. The DEC IPO was one of the most profitable initial public offerings in Wall Street’s history.

It's amazing to me how far technology has come in 50 years and how rapidly things change. Many of the tools that we're using to market the book and get the word out - like Twitter - didn't even exist five years ago. There's no replacement for good, honest hard work and building relationships that matter on your path to success, but using today's marketing tools, you can get there a lot faster.

Paperie for Inspired Living (Because Sometimes Electronic Just Won't Do)

As much as I love marketing with all of the electronic methods available to me (e-mail, blogs, websites, SEO, etc.), sometimes paper is just the way to go.  It's abundant, inexpensive, and these days a creative mail piece stands out and provides a tangible keepsake that an e-mail just can't do.

What's got me thinking about paper?  Well, I got my hands on a new book called Paperie for Inspired Living that really inspired me.  Karen Bartolomei, owner of a Boston-based business called Grapevine Paperie, has written a book that brings her design secrets for creating unique stationery and decorations to the rest of us.  This 160-page book provides all sorts of ideas (and templates) for making events more special.  And, it's guaranteed to kick start your creativity the way it did mine.

The Experience Doesn't End When the Invitation is Received

Whether you are creating a holiday party, planning a wedding, or throwing a birthday bash, this book recommends creating a "paperie suite" with a creative theme that weaves through everything from the invitations to the guest book to the thank you notes.  This way, the event experience lives on after the invitation is received in the mail.

Inspiration Is Everywhere

Karen Bartholmei says that inspiration for your events can come from graffiti on the side of a building to celebrity fashion on a red carpet to a rural landscape.  It's for you to translate your inspiration into your own design based on what you'd like to convey to your guests.  The materials and design elements you chose will reinforce the theme whatever your budget.

Tips, Tips, and More Tips

Along with the ideas and the templates, this book offers some great tips for entertaining.  Beyond creating a signature cocktail for your event, there is some great advice on the art of being a gracious host.  I liked simple tips on suggesting the dress code for your guests so that they are comfortable and the reminder on how to be ready for your guests whether they come early or late.

Ready to Get Out Your Glue Gun and Rubber Stamp?

Paperie for Inspired Living costs $24.95 and has been available in bookstores and online book retailers since July, 2009.  If you don't pick it up for yourself, then give it as a gift.  Chances are the next event that you're invited to from the gift recipient will be extra special thanks to you.

The Julie & Julia Project: From Blog To Book To Movie

Julie & Julia is the bestselling memoir of Julie Powell, a woman who is living in New York City, nearing 30, and trapped in a dead-end secretarial job.  On a trip home to see her parents, she happens upon Julia Child's legendary Mastering the Art of French Cooking and can't stop reading the book.  Back in New York, she decides to cook all of the 524 recipes in the book in one year.  To keep it interesting, her husband suggests that she blog about the experience.

The Julie/Julia Project Blog

Julie Powell started her blog in 2002 when blogs were relatively new.  (In 2008, Technorati reported 133 million blogs were in existence, up from 4 million in late 2004.)  Several times a week, she wrote about her experiences making a meal using Julia Child's recipes and instructions.   As far as blogs go, there's no audio, video, or photos, it's just amateur cook with a salty vocabulary writing prose about her experiences on this project from weight gain (Julia Child uses a lot of butter!), to adventures with bone marrow, to handling new found fame acquired through the project.  What makes it interesting, is that you are reading a real person's view on what it's like to take on this project and you see her life change along the way.  Then, there are the comments from the loyal fans she picks up through writing the blog which can be as interesting as the blog itself.

The Julie & Julia A Year of Cooking Dangerously Book

By the time the "project" ended, blogger Julie Powell had been featured in the Christian Science Monitor, on CNNfn, on CBS, in the New York Times and many more places.  The success of the blog led to a book contract.  As she wrote the book, she took some parts straight from the blog.  The addition verbiage involves Julie Powell adding color based on her personal life which includes: her ever-supportive husband, collection of New York friends, family, and ever so interesting co-workers who were part of her life throughout the "project". Of particular interest to me where the random comments throughout from her 'bleaders' (blog readers), who cheered her on throughout the project.

The Julie & Julie Movie

Coming out on August 7th, the Julie & Julia movie features Amy Adams as Julie and Meryl Streep as Julia.  The screenplay was written by Nora Ephron who also directs the film.  What makes this movie interesting is that it's based on two stories:  Julie & Julia by Julie Powell and My Life in Franceby Julia Child.   The movie contrasts two women who lives are similar in that both had adoring husbands, no children, and both were stuck in that they wanted a meaningful career, but hadn't quite figured it out yet.  For both of them, mastering the art of French cooking and writing about the experience became a life changing experience.

10-10-10: A Life Transforming Idea That Really Works!

Faced with a choice that requires a decision?  Don't go with your gut, try 10-10-10 which translates to:  how will the results of this decision affect me in 10 minutes - in 10 months - and in 10 years.

A current bestseller, 10-10-10, is a book written by Suzy Welch, co-author of Winning a book written with her husband, Jack Welch. What began as a column in "O" (Oprah's magazine) 10-10-10 is now 240 pages full of interesting stories that prove out the successful concept that is helping people to make decisions in a rational way that can transform careers, relationships, friendships, and parenting.

My 10-10-10 Experience

I brought the book with me to a conference that I left for last Sunday.  With a crazy schedule, I didn't sit down to actually read the book until the following Thursday when I was in the airport waiting to get on a flight back home.  With time to kill, I sent out a Tweet through my iPhone which read "Starting to read @suzywelch's new book 10-10-10 at the Orlando airport. Wonder which part of my life to transform first. :-)" and I cracked open the book.

Within 24 hours, I had a Tweet back from Suzy Welch which read "@cgunst A bit of unsolicited 10-10-10 advice? Start w/a smallish decision before going big. It's good prep. (And thx for reading my book!)".  Now, Suzy Welch is a smart lady and I like to believe that I'm a smart lady too, so I followed her advice and decided to start small.  I applied 10-10-10 to the ramifications of me skipping a workout that afternoon.  (True confession, I've been 12 pounds higher than I like to be for exactly three years now.  Admittedly, while it doesn't make me happy, it's not the biggest problem a person could have. Still...)  My 10-10-10 thinking went like this:

In 10 minutes, if I don't work out, I won't care because I'm exhausted and I really need a nap.

In 10 months, if I don't work out, I will care because I don't like being 12 pounds overweight or having a problem that I'm doing nothing about but complain.  If I haven't solved this problem by next March, I'm not going to be too happy.

In 10 years, if I don't work out, it won't be the worst thing in the world.  But, as I get older, my health is really important to me and not something that I take for granted.  Staying in shape and taking care of 12 pounds now is a lot easier than taking care of 20 pounds down the road.

Problem solved with 10-10-10!  I'm happy to report that I made it to the gym and got a nap in afterwards.  In fact, I've been to the gym and have eaten right for three straight days now and I feel wonderful.  I'm already working on how I'm going to keep this success going beyond Memorial Day weekend.  I have a sneaking suspicion that if I keep up the work necessary to lose 12 pounds - which will involve changing my schedule to include more time for exercise and making sure that I'm eating right every day - that other things are going to start falling into place too!

Are You Feeling Stuck?

Everyone has problems.  It's what we do about them that makes all the difference.  Sometimes the same old ways of solving a problem is not moving us forward and not really solving it.  10-10-10 is a good, straight forward methodology to help make better decisions.  And as Suzy Welch mentions throughout her book, once you've used 10-10-10, it also becomes a great way to explain a decision you've made to the people involved with your decision. 

This book is a quick read full of witty, interesting stories that you can relate to and it will change the way you think about things.  I really enjoyed it.  And, I see myself giving it as a gift to a few of my friends friends as a gift to help them make better decisions too.

Tips for Successful Networking Online and In Person

Recently, a friend asked if I could help another friend with information on a particular job that he was looking at.  I said "Sure, have him give me a call on my cell" and didn't think a whole lot more about it.  I was surprised to find out when I spoke to this fellow, he hadn't looked me up in LinkedIn before the call to find out exactly what I do or what my organization does.  And, when I asked questions about industry organizations he belonged to or local events that he attended, this person didn't seem to go to many.

Networking comes easily to me and I never stop doing it because I get its importance to me.  Not only have I been on a few jobs searches in my time, but I've learned the hard way that business success is all about your network inside and outside of your current organization.

The Time to Start Networking is Now

Just like it's best to ask for a loan when you don't need one, it's best to network when you don't have to.  The advice I got right out of college was to always stay on top of your field because sometimes you'll find something better than what you have.  And, sometimes you'll find something that makes you feel better about what you have.  It's true.  You have to stay on top of the skills you need to be successful for what you do as well as knowing who's hiring and what they are looking for.  If you can't get the skills you need with your day job, try getting them through organizations that you volunteer with or through courses.  This gives you a head start over your competition who might be falling behind. 

Read The Networking Survival Guide

A few years ago, I worked in the same office space as Diane Darling who wrote the book on Networking for Career Success.   Diane also gives seminars on the topic of effective networking.  If you're new to networking, you should read what she has to say.  Basic tips like "make sure to introduce yourself to three new people when you are at a networking event" can be helpful to new networkers.  And tips for expert networkers like "sharing articles or tips with people you meet at a networking event is a great way to add value and stay connected after the event" never hurt either.

You Are Who You Know

To advance your personal and professional goals, you have to tap into networks.  Heck, to just meet new people with like interests, you have to tap into networks.  Whether you are social networking online, offline, or both, always take the time to learn a little about your event and the people you'll meet before you attend.  Take the time to follow up with people if appropriate to keep the conversation going.  And, help someone out who can use your expertise because you never know when you'll need ask for someone's expertise from your network.