Marketing as Dating: let's hook up and exchange money for services rendered

lot of people I talk to are in dark places right now. They see excess office furniture and the people who used it carted out on dollies and they panic. Belt tightening can be inevitable. Even the parades of former co-workers dead-man-walking out the front door seems understandable to a degree.

Hands down the most common concern I hear from people contemplating the jump to freelance work or even just sideline freelance work is how to make contacts. Networking is creepy and makes stalkers of us all. Yesterday I heard an analogy that changed the way I think about networking for business contacts. It was a dating analogy, which blew my mind. Dating is all about prettying yourself up and making as many impressions if you can till someone gives you the time of day. It's so obvious.

Be a good listener

The dating scene seems a little quiet out there, doesn't it? Before the economopocalypse, everyone was shouting from every direction and a dollar spent on advertising was worth a dollar. It's no breaking news that many companies have shrunk or collapsed their marketing budgets lately, or as I now look at it, every other guy at the party voluntarily contracted larengitus. It's an unusal opportunity to shove that better looking guy off his feet and steal market share while your competition sits mute and forgotten. I'd say a dollar is just plain worth more when it doesn't have to work as hard.

You can't be afraid to be a hustler

I'm not proud of this next part, but it's only because the looks bad when using the dating analogy. If your client base shrinks by the numbers due to their own internal budgeting, you don't kick them to the curb; you cheat on them. Same analogy about marketing dollars, now is a great time to mad hustle for more clients. And not just regular clients. Consider married clients too. Some clients might get turned on by the aggressive swagger of an upstart leveraging against their AOR's more conservative, respectful stance.

Grow the relationship organically

All that furniture and deadwood wasn't bringing in clients; self-promotion and sales efforts do. A plant won't grow if the leaves all shrink. It needs to grow new leaves. The leaves in this horticultral analogy are one-off projects to help keep client money flowing. Now is the time to propose brave new areas of branding and promoting businesses, now that social media has removed some of the financial hurdles of traditional media. Presenting creative strategies and aligning partners on a project basis, like bringing a squirrel out of a bush with a peanut is what will grow those leaves.

Try, try again

When you're trying to woo someone and they turn you down flat, you don't crawl back in your car and leave, you step up and try someone else. I always tell the story clubbing with an old friend; it was late and everyone wanted to go but before he'd leave he ran out and hit on about fourteen women, struck out fourteen times, and we were off. He believed in the numbers game, and so should you.

On the surface of it, everything I've said follows the rules of common sense, but I believe people need to hear it some times. Getting noticed is the first step to getting laid. I mean, paid.

Reinventing your Free Time: sleep when you're dead or die obsolete

Rhett Dashwood may not have the best grasp on what to do with his free time, but he inspired me, so there. Rhett Dashwood is an Australian creative director who used his free time between projects to study Google Maps, trolling for land-formations and buildings that resemble letter forms hoping to recreate the alphabet.

Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap clap clap.

I was using my free time to learn Adobe After Effects and Flash until my free time ground to a halt. It's bad enough that everything I learned in school is obsolete. Between software updates and the addition or reinvention of marketing channels and trends like the "social media revolution", you wouldn't be alone if you found yourself wandering the aisles at the liquour store.

By the time you finish a three or four year program in design, you're looking for a job and some kind of retraining course. Education is a life long process, especially for designers and advertisers. What I will say for now is find your moments, and rethink your "free time". More to come.

Product Placement: just what the doctor ordered

I'm not going to pretend that I don't park myself in front of 90210 every week to nourish my soul. It is after all, the funniest sitcom on TV these days. It also deserves an award for pioneering acheivement in Product Placement. In the olde days, an actor might place a product by saying, "sorry hon, no time for dinner. The captain's going to have my ass so I'll stop by McDonalds on the way to the precinct" and boom, some money changes hands and the audience associates the character with their feelings about McDonalds, and vice versa. Today it feels like producers assume you won't notice the Big Mac unless the actor is basically posing with it and talking about it like it's another character. Let's explore some bad examples of product placement.

Innapropriate usage of a product


Really? Dr. Pepper for breakfast? Product placement without context will always catch the eye because something doesn't fit. Take this shot; would it have been crossing a line to have the cast enjoying delicious bubbly Dr. Pepper with a Western Omelette? Cheers to the producers for putting their foot down and puting a more tastefully positioned gigantic logo beside that slightly larger crying cabbage deal weeping off the table to make this scene more realistic.

Intense usage of product

I've been less excited about bandages after accidents than these two (Dixon and Annie) were while road tripping through the Arizona desert. I couldn't decide if the cooler in the back was small, or if it only looked small because of the stylized log jam of delicious, refreshing Dr. Pepper. Either way, the director gave us whole seconds of screen time to think about it as Annie decided between regular delicious and diet.

Ridiculous non-satirical over-statement of product usage

This is the use that most taxes suspension of disbelief. In comedy I think they call it a cap or a tag when you add to the punchline of a joke with a follow-up line to milk or continue the punchline. In this example, Dixon craftfully chides his step-sister at a rest stop when he explains that maybe they wouldn't need to stop so often if she didn't drink so much Dr. Pepper. Oh snap, right? Wrong. Annie replies: "We're on a road trip! Drinking Dr. Pepper is practically a requirement". This smacks of an SNL skit, but it's not. Satire free. See my earlier note about money changing hands.

All up-in-your-grill usage

I may have over-stated my adoration for 90210. The first time I saw the new series, Naomi was trying to fit in with the rest of the Heathers at West Beverly High and won them over by teaching them how easy it is to program the new T-Mobile Sidekick. This had squat to do with the plot and the intense close-ups were really distracting. Maybe they could have CGI'ed in a few sparkles or played awesome dance music in the background to enhance the effect. That would have been less obvious than running a crawl of product features along the bottom of the screen. In this scene, Annie advances the plot by changing the station (read: cuing the next track from the official soundtrack) while holding (read: hand modelling) her Dr. Pepper. I'll point out they wasted a strategic partnership with Sirius/XM here.

Not-so-generic brand placement

No wonder these people love their Dr. Pepper. Dr. Pepper evidentally owns every inch of ad space in Beverley Hills. There is no where you can go without a giant logo being shoe-horned into view. I wanted to say seemlesslly, but the term doesn't apply. In traditional sitcoms, actors take pauses to allow for audience reaction so scripted dialogue is not missed by laughter. Attention 90210 producers: your brand placements are so focal and distracting that by the time we finish laughing and/or complaining, we're all like "that's nice, now why is Justin so mad at Silver?".

I'm going to start watching just to make a product placement drinking game out of it (see a logo, take a drink of delicious Dr. Pepper). When they innevitably pull out the old teen-alcoholism chestnut, they could seemessly work Dr. Pepper into the plot by partnering with Barcardi to invent a drink called a "Bacardi & Pepper". Annie: "I'm all worried about Shasta. All she drinks anymore is Bacardi & Pepper". Shasta: "I do it because of the delicious taste, and my daddy issues".

The producers need to get off the fence and either change their product placement strategy to be less obvious, or commit whole-hog and go for that gold medal.

That's a great ad, now feel our wrath!

When I first saw Bob Burnquist and Ty Evans's "Feel the Bubbles" video, I wanted to blog about it immediately. Aero's last TV campaign featured the two potted office plants (read: employees) talking about letting bubbles melt on your tongue in a way guys wouldn't understand. JWT in the UK decided enough was enough and created something beautiful and fun to reposition the brand. Here's the commerical.

and the very interesting "making of" video

It's always easier to apologize later than to ask for permission first, which probably led to the backlash. The creators admit they "borrowed" the idea for riding through balloons from a previous skate video, but skaters haven't been very forgiving. Snickers ripped off a skater video ealier and a boycott ensued. This backlash reminds me of this recent animated type spot by Motrin.

You may have heard a woman innocently talking about the pain of wearing a snuggli, but to a lot of mothers, they heard a condescending "you're a stupid and insecure fashion victim for wanting to carry your baby" and it was all downhill from there.

Whether you're stealing your inspiration, or just being neglectful of people's feelings, people will always find a way to complain about your work. The rule of thumb used to be for everyone one person who boycotts your product, there are a hundred who wouldn't complain out loud, but would sabotage your brand to friends, and a thousand behind them who wouldn't complain at all. They'd just quietly stop using your brand.

I did work for a bedding company that enjoyed provactive headlines and the backlash they inspired. "The Boss is on Prozac Sale" headline was written thinking the only people who could complain were on Prozac so they wouldn't be interested in complaining. The complaints came from the parents of children on Prozac. My personal feeling is you can't please everyone all the time, so you have to do what feels right and handle any flack with dignity later.

The protest signage was created by Stephanie Syjuco.

Strategic Partnerships: lightning in a bottle, or an insanely obvious misuse of trust and money

Webster's defines Strategy as "a careful plan or method; the art of devising or employing plans toward a goal". Partners are defined as "one associated with another especially in an action".

When I was a kid, friends told me there was an mirror version of the Earth on the opposite side of the sun that no one could see. Assuming this opposite Earth exists, do you think their version of the Hockey Hall of Fame saw a partnership with a Green Food detoxifyer and said "sign here, please"?

I asked a few people in the related field to comment on this photo but there was nothing they said I could reprint here. I'm reminded that the Hockey Hall of Fame is a building full of Hockey Memorabilia. It has a soul, but no colon. I have to wonder what awesome list of candidate partners did they fire through before they ened up here. Not just a green suppliment sponsorship, but an Official Green Suppliment Sponsorship.

This blog post could be literally eight pages long, but there isn't enough snark in the world I'm afraid, so let me leave it at this: if you doubt the description of Strategic or Partnership, you likely shouldn't be creating them. And as I've said in the past, when in doubt, consult a professional.

Advertising Slap and Tickle: Another groovy idea unintentionally backfires

With great power comes great responsibility. Uncle Ben knew it. Spider man learned it. And now the fine people at Honda are geting a taste. Honda came up with a great viral advert that put a smile on people's faces, and it was paved over before I started typing.

Every highway driver knows what happens when you hit a rumble strip. A Japanese engineer accidentally figured out how to create musical tones through the frame of a car by controlling the width, depth and distance between lines scraped in asphault. Before you knew it, drivers in three Japanese cities were enjoying pop tunes while they commute.

Honda engineers used this technique to make a stretch of road in Lancaster, California to play the William Tell Overture. Drivers loved it, but local residents? It didn't take long for local officials to point out some issues.



The ultra dynamic trumpet-heavy, fully-orchestrated finale to Gioachino Rossini's William Tell Overture loses some lusture when reproduced on aspault. You have to drive at exactly 55mph to really get the effect. Any slower and you get a dull, sickening rumble. Any faster and it becomes a whacked-out, high pitched drone. If you're not driving a Honda Civic, the spacing of your axles will alter the effect. And the Japanese originators knew enough to make their roads far from people's homes. Evidentally in the wide open California desert land, the sound carries further than anticipated.

"When you hear it late at night, it will wake you up from a sound sleep," said Brian Robin, who lives a half mile away from Avenue K. "It's awakened my wife three or four times a night".

Far be it for me to point out someone else's misfortune without pointing out my own. This piece was an invite for the very first agency I worked at. We needed an occassion, so we invented the two-and-a-half year anniversary party. The invite was simple enough; directions, two aspirin, and the suggestion that you would benefit from these the day after. The invites had to be crafted by hand and over 1,000 were mailed. Fast forward a couple of days, and the calls started. It turns out, mail does not gingerly flow on gentle breezes to their destinations like a scene from a Christmas cartoon. Real mail is beaten and rammed through sorting machines. Now picture the attached image with the dime bag, but instead of aspirin, you get white powder. The calls were endless. One was from Customs; summoning us, our lawyer and our checkbook to pay for testing, re-routing and charges related to sending controlled substances through the mail.

Somehow we had more than 1,300 people RSVP. We even had postal workers trying to crash the event. So the question is, are these campaigns really failures, or is the endless apologetic backpeddling just part of the cost of a great idea?

Conspiracy: Is there an Acrobati?

Throughout history, symbols have been imbued with archetypal energies that bond spirit and matter. These symbols are expressed in a sacred geometry. The ancients took these formulas and hid them, making us believe them to be evil so they could use them to control us. This allowed an early guild of brick layers, or Masons to build the great pyramids and ...

Uh, I mean, you ever notice how needy Adobe Acrobat is? If it was a girl, I would have broken up with it by now.

Adobe Acrobat is a piece of software that needs more memory than the original moon launch. It can take whole minutes to start up. This raises questions. What's it doing with all my RAM, and why does it want to be updated every second day, and why can't it be updated without restarting everything I own. And why is it twice as much (not really) for Europeans?

Adobe needs to be more honest about what they're doing with my computer. In school we met up with a student who'd blown his whole internship by not being honest. In his first week, they asked if he'd ever heard of Torontosauraus. Trying to sound knowledgeable and indispensible, he stepped up to the plate with a big positive grin. They wanted to name a roller coaster on Toronto's Centre Island after the monster and needed the back story on any previous claim no the name, so off he went. It took him five-and-a-half out of his six weeks to find an early 1900's newspaper clipping about two winos who saw a tire bobbing in the lake and dubbed it Torontosaurus. His lesson to us: if you don't know, don't lie, just ask.

Now back to Acrobat.



Step through the looking glass with me here. Back in the day, the masons and the illuminati attempted an intellectual overthrow of the great Monarchs of Europe, but was supposedly destroyed by the Bavarian Government's Secular Edict in 1785. 208 years later the Shoemaker/Levy comet was destroyed on impact with Jupiter. That same year, Adobe unleashed Acrobat 1.0. Wait, a black van just pulled up outside my house. A couple of

Judgement Day: or as I call them, Weekdays

I found this image on a french "Anomolies de Back to the Future" website. In case you're wondering why Lorraine looks so pissed, they've pointed out that future-husband Biff Tannen, has left an errant copy of "Black Taboo" on his giant future-retro bartop. Thanks internet, I didn't catch that the first time.

I've referred to your museum of you before. Your blog is like a walking-tour of your personality that's open to the public. Google on the other hand is a museum of human under-achievement, and Google Image Search can be an actual guillotine. A quick google search of your name could reveal your previous arrest records or that album you made or your amateur "photo sessions" - these things happen. But what if it captured you commiting professional suicide?

To wit: hot on the heels of a KFC staff bathing in a chicken tub, I get this video of some Domino's employees making booger sandwiches. I'd show it to you, but Domino's was quick to arrest the employees, get the lawyers to yank the video off the net and slap down some damage control:

"The opportunities and freedom of the internet is wonderful. But it also comes with the risk of anyone with a camera and an internet link to cause a lot of damage, as in this case, where a couple of individuals suddenly overshadow the hard work performed by the 125,000 men and women working for Domino’s across the nation and in 60 countries around the world."

Two people hurt an entire company's brand. Now what if it's your name on the door? I've seen a lot of snide remarks recently attributed to Peter Arnell of the now infamous Arnell Group on the recent Tropicana package redux, and hot on the heels of the Pepsi redesign, I can't help but feel these comments, pooled here for your amusement, can only return to hurt his personal brand and the reputation of his company.

In a nutshell, the internet puts everyone under the same spotlight we all make fun of celebrities for ignoring. How many people have been sacked for telling Twitter and Facebook about playing hooky or how much they hate their jobs? To my credit, I've almost never been fired over porn, and a quick google search gives me a picket fence bill of health. How about you?

Professional Development: I blog, therefore I rule!

The two things I hear over and over in conversation is "should I start a blog" and "I should start a blog". I've explained before why I think professional blogging is key in this day and age, but that was weeks ago. It's time to break off a super awesome kick-ass update infostravaganza.

YOUR NAME

I know people who function just fine without getting all hung up on these "typewriter television machines" (an actual quote, and they mean "computer"), but they do it at their own peril. They have no internet identity, and by living off the grid, they are impossible to locate and go largely ignored when the gravy train rolls through with a healthy haul of work. An active life in the blogosphere and on social media is the most popular chance you have of having your message breaking through to the masses.

YOUR MESSAGE

That you are as awesome as a Guitar Shark and Darth Vader put together. No doubt.

YOUR GIG

Let's expand that last thought. Coming from an expert at establishing oneself as an expert, you should know that demonstrating your knowledge is key to building trust and earning the respect of potential future clients. I made that first part up, but in truth, what you offer and how much you share about your niche of expertise brands you. It becomes your personal brand. People argue the definition of personal brand, but my belief is that brand is reputation personified, and reputation is the promise of delivery. Big reputation, minus the ability to deliver, equals (see my next point).

YOUR HONESTY

(Read: your life span) There's a saying, fake it till you make it. To a certain degree, there's some validity to it, but if you out-and-out lie about your experience, crack open a window so the neighbours will know when to call the coroner's office.

YOUR TIME

I never took the time to enjoy periods of unemployment. Looking back I feel like the sunless kid who spent his afternoons boning up on Adobe while my friends were all outside working in the sun. Blogging takes on-going education to another level, and here's the important part: every entry is essentially an essay that the whole world will grade you on. With each new entry, it's like being in an alternative school where you choose your own curriculum day to day. They won't kick you out unless you don't study.

Blogging didn't pull me off a ledge, but it did give me purpose when times were tough. It made be smarter, faster, stronger. And if you click the adlinks on the side of the page, it'll make me slightly richer.

[UPDATE: the author wants to thank the entire internet for apparently showing up for the launch party of his previous post about Marketing an unmarketable property like a Fight Club. Let's just say that the writing was no joke. And no, although I'm flattered, it was not a promotional gimmick by Doubleday or Chuck Palahniuk]

Marketing your Fight Club: easier than you think

Fight Club has a fantastic "exclusive product offering". It's the only business that offers torn ligaments and abrasion as part of a satisfactory customer experience. The first two rules of Fight Club (you do not talk about Fight Club) make it hard to market, but is it impossible? Let's explore how simple and inexpensive marketing techniques can make your customer experience more profitable and exciting.

First things first, know your client

You know why they come. They had a tough day and they want to snap a tibia to take the edge off, but what else do you know about them? A good marketer takes the time to talk to their target and understand their needs and desires. You would be surprised how often the feedback you get from patrons can inspire and spark an idea that shapes your entire marketing approach.

The simple gift of swag

You might think key chains and t-shirts don't add any real value to your brand, but if your brand has a founding myth, a sense of community, or any kind of tribal initiation, your target audience would likely see these items as a symbol of pride or ritual or fellowship. Just because you might not wear an "I went to Fight Club and all I got was this dislocated jaw" trucker hat doesn't mean someone else wouldn't. Now try to think about more strategic offerings and how you might partner them to differ costs: a carrying case for collecting your teeth at the end of the night brought to you by a local Dentist's office as an example.

Strategic partnering

Whether you approach a national brand like Band-Aid or a local Reconstructive Surgeon, consider what you each bring to the table and how you might cross-promote. Consider partner-branding ideas, and don't be afraid to be creative. Maybe it's a crushed eye-socket, and maybe it's Maybelline. Here's a simple creative exercise to get your thinking outside of the box. Draw the human body (a handy reference here), and indicate an injury to any part of it. Now make a list of every product or service that could benefit from the associative repair of those injuries.

The classic black eye = sunglasses, make up, long brimmed hats, halloween masks

Promotional ideas

So the rules of Fight Club pretty well kills brand advertising and obvious word-of-mouth strategies. This does not mean you cannot market within your niche audience. A promotion of the "$10,000 Separated Clavicle Challenge" sponsored by your local HMO is a great way to generate excitement and trial while offsetting the cost by associative branding. The HMO picks up the tab while you put a map to their clinic on the back of every entry slip. Be creative.

Social media

Fish where the fish are. Nothing spreads a message more effectively and inexpensively than a carefully crafted social media platform. Consider the viral potential of Twitter as a great example. In previous stories I've shown how Twitter has the power to unite a niche crowd into a localized spending frenzy.

@nucklelicious will be handing out hairline fractures in the Mill St. Sharky's Grill basement after 11pm

Bearing in mind the frown put upon open discussion of Fight Club, you can consider a cross media platform like YouTube to share videos or Flickr to gallery images and to help bond your community. Budget permitting, you might talk to a web developer highly adept at social media to creating your own moderated FightBook social network. Many platforms such as YouTube and FaceBook can essentially be bought as a package and customized these days.

On a long enough timline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero, unless you prepare and plan ahead. The first two rules of Fight Club make it hard to market, but not impossible. With a little imagination and guts, even the most inexperienced operator can turn a satisfactory customer experience into a fantastic customer experience!

[author note: I found the ceramic punching mug here]

Suggested reading is Bertrand Cesvet's "Conversational Capital" to change the way you see the customer experience.

Business Cards: a Valuable Clue to solving the Mystery of your (professional) Death

So I'm going through a crate of business cards with an event guru, when she stops and shows me the worst business card she's ever seen. I'm a strong believer that learning is a life long process and you can learn as much from your mentors as your tormentors, so let me preface by saying I'm not being mean. I'm just going to vivisect this hot mess for the benefit of others.

What makes this card great

Out of 1,500 plus cards, this had the most conversational appeal.

What makes this card not-so great

You can already see the big issue. If he were an artiste you might chalk it up to use of ironic design and embrace its brilliant lack of flair, but we have to weigh the odds that this guy will more likely become patient zero for a new site called yourbusinesscardmakesmebarf.com.

Nothing about this card expresses the mildest glimpse into what his business is. It's got a name, and a phone number, and a hotmail address. The end. No job title, no indicative graphics, no URL. Designers use a hierarchy to create emphasis of your information. Your name, company, contact info, some kind of visual identifier, logo or wordmark associated with your business. If you're in a more competitive field of business as an example, having a very clear title of what you do is a fantastic idea too. Otherwise, consider throwing on a recyclable logo.

Photos on business cards is more of a niche characteristic, like people in real estate value who place a premium on making themselves appear friendly, approachable and visually memorable. In this case, we have a photo of John Doe relaxing by a fence on a planet that may have more gravity than earth, like one of Jupiter's moons. Perhaps he wanted to appear friendlier, and just had his smile stretched out rather than splurging on a second photo.

Fonts and colours. Don't question the effectiveness of a clean business card. Believe. If your card is awash in colour, you will stand out, but your card will be less useable. Same goes for type faces. The less the better. In this case, he two colours for fonts. Good boy, but he's using three fonts on a card with three lines. Consistency increases digestibility.

When it comes to printing on unusual stock (wood, plastic, metal) or creating crazy sizes to make your card unique, remember that if it's too awkward to fit in someone's wallet or rolodex, it's not too awkward to fit in someone's garbage. This guy really jumped the shark and committed the triple sin of lamination. First, your card is now too wide to fit in a standard wallet card sleeve. Second, and really this should be first: lamination is cheesy. And third, although this card will outlive us all, standing against the elements for thousands of years so future historians can ignore him too. And why will they know so little about him? You can't write on lamination. A lot of people like to make personal notes on your business card; quick memos about your specialties or how they know you. It's a nice idea to leave white space or a mostly blank backside for this purpose.

If you're looking for cool inspiration, here's a Flickr set that will treat you right. And when in doubt, consult a designer. Show them what you have and get a second opinion.


via videosift.com

Self Promotion: looking for work in all the wrong places

I had lunch today with a guy looking to jump ship and freelance to the shores of independence. Stop me if you've heard this before:

"I'm not an account rep. I love working with people, but I'm not the big sales guy who's going to be landing clients. How do I do it?"

His concern is the lack of a thing I call: successmanship. Don't confuse it with "gift of gab", because this rabbit hole runs much deeper. I already have a grandiose Hail Mary one-stop-shop solution, but I'll return to that at the end. As I pointed out in a previous article, one of the most overlooked sad facts of freelancing is the day you throw your name on that shingle, you now wear every hat of a traditional agency, and you better make them all look good. You want to be a freelance marketer? Your first job is to prove you can market yourself. In a perfect world, the quality of your work turns will turn into an endless stream of positive word-of-mouth and you'll be carried into retirement on the shoulders of your admiring client base. Back here on Earth, we all need help.

The tried and true paths

I know people who've tried the direct mail route, the PR route, and cold calling, and all met with varying degrees of failure. Direct mail gets a glance and 99% of it becomes recycling. PR is good, but again, no guarantee of hitting your bullseye target and generating a real lead, and cold calling is a form of torture for most people. I'll be addressing the need for a good elevator pitch in a future entry, but for now, I'm just going to address the tongue-tied horror that befalls the best of us when trying to pan for gold in a disinterested, faceless caller. Cold calling is essentially telemarketing. All pitch. No foreplay. You hate doing it, and they hate hearing it. Time to get out there for a more organic conversation.

Networking schmetworking

You can certainly find your share of "networking groups" through LinkedIn, but the non-obvious downside is you're mostly meeting and greeting with, that's right, other people looking for clients and not actual clients. Picture a real world model of a sex chat room (is anyone a girl here?) That being said, I think they're a good thing if for nothing else than blunt honest discussions with your peers about their experience finding and schmoozing clients. I look at a networking deal as an opportunity to learn a lot and earn even less.

Dealing with dry-mouthed forked-tongue syndrome

There are plenty of books on the art of schmoozing, none of which I've read, so none of which I can recommend. What I can say is that conversing is easy, schmoozing is hard. Most people have a hard time shoe-horning an agenda into an otherwise well-meaning conversation without being tongue-tied and derailed by their awkward discomfort and guilt. You can quiet the pain of these artificial discussions by lowering your expectations. Lose the stressed-out attitude that every conversation needs to end with a signature on the dotted line. You'll live longer. You have to remember, everyone you meet is potentially three people away from someone you want to know, so don't focus on big wigs, and don't cram a hard pitch into every conversation. Leave off with a "I'd like to talk to you again some time". Meet everyone you can. It's the little people that can more influential than you know. There is a good article here on additional techniques.

How would Ghandi schmooze?

It's likely he would just be nice. It all comes down to finding out how you might be able to help someone with their needs by being an observant listener, being nice, and being helpful. This could even take the form of advising someone that they don't need your services at that time. If you remember my previous article about the benefits of giving away the cow's milk for free, you'll know how well being helpful without the expectation of a reward can work to your benefit. This kind of transparent honesty builds a trust that will carry your good reputation into the future. You're showing people how smart you are without telling them how smart you are. They'll figure out how they can best use you.

And without further ado; the solution to our woes

If you're a new business developer, drop me a line. Here's my elevator pitch.

You work for an agency creating new client leads. It takes time and effort and expense, and not every client is going to fit your agency's needs. I propose recooperating some of your expense by proposing to these clients that although your agency is not the appropriate fit for their needs, having a pool of trusted and recommended freelancers on call is one way to keep the relationship alive. It shows your interest in their needs, and the goodwill generated may one day be returned when their business has grown to a level more lucrative to your firm. And the best part? It wouldn't be inappropirate to collect a referal fee from your freelancer.

R.I.P Trust: don't touch the body, it's diseased

Shady, street-level marketers spent so much time corroding our ability to trust with their scams and their deceipt and their lies that they accidentally overdosed us and left us for dead. Plus they gave us hepatitus. Makes you pretty angry, huh.

Did you know the guy who pioneered TV thought he built something that would allow cultures around the world to learn about each other, and this would lead to an age of reason and understanding. The renaissance emancipator turned into a shameless marketing tool and he lived the rest of his days cloaked in guilt at "the monster [he'd] created".

Sounds like some other invention I've heard of. Oh right, it was "every other communication device ever invented." I'm not alone in saying that this disease has infected my phone and email. As a result, in my private life, I'm not terribly easy to get a hold of. Actually, it's quite easy, but I might answer my phone with foreign gibberish to weed out telemarketers. I am officially voice mail phobic. I'll check it, but typing in all those numbers to access to system then waiting to scan one-by-one and debating the motives of each caller - you could say it's not the favourite part of my day.

Marketers have made diseased corpses out of trust and prematurely killed voicemail too.

There are days I want to flying dropkick my phone through a plate of glass. Friends tell me they have dozens of partially heard messages saved on their work and cellphones waiting for that one ambitious afternoon where they'll buckle down and give them the attention they deserve. I ask them what calendar year? They prefer it when people send them a text or email. Are they unique? Nope. U.S. phone carrier studies show that 30% of calls sit for at least three days before being checked.

So on the one hand, all this fear of marketers has heralded a new age of brand engagement, product interaction, experiential marketing and social media ties to get around the diseased corpses of old school marketing messages, but what about us everyday people who got an air bubble shot into our arms? What about our more day-to-day concerns? Fear not. Hope is on the way. Wireless providers are figuring out how to convert voice mail into text and email so save you from your own trust issues, and they're already starting to roll them out. If my phone hadn't been suplexed into some drywall, I'd love to have that technology today.

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A quick tip: the one good reason to answer telemarketer calls. No, not for material for your phony phone call album. In that brief two second pause after you answer before a human comes on the line to pitch you, a computer is logging that your number has been reached and you're removed from the call-back cycle that has your phone ringing at the same time every day. As air rushes into the telemarketer for those first words, my phone is already on it's way back to the cradle. It's an effective and beautiful dance.

As an aside, if you're looking to have fun with telemarketers, try this: next time you get a call from a 000 area code, take the call. When they tell you their records show your car/truck warranty is in danger of expiring and can be renewed for as little as $600, tell them you drive a model-T ford or Mad Max's old ride, and they will still be happy to help you. It's surreal.

Entrepreneurial Idea: Get People off their Asses and right back on their Asses

There was a Thunderdome-style Econompocalyptic melee of the survivors to decide who got my chair when my last full time job went south. All those seats and computers just gathering dust. There's got to be a lightbulb joke about how many people are finding themselves displaced from their offices these days. What a waste.

Then I read Springwise's article on an online marketplace for desk space in the UK that practically begs to come to life here in North American urban business centres. Email me if you're on board.

Desk Space Genie uses a simple online real estate business model to allow a) people with empty office space, and b) people with asses to find each other. Companies with empty desk space, which is all the rage these days, post beautiful pictures of wood floors and tall ceilings, their availability, and ammenities like a rental site, then monetize the space as soon as a qualified applicant shows up with a banker's box full of stuff and the cash. The leasees gain the legitimacy of actual office space and a reason to shower and dress in the morning again.

Freelancing isn't always easy, and people often realize they miss the separation of work and home life, the daily banter of living individuals and the legitimacy of a bonafide office address. Companies realize they also miss the energy and banter of living people and see rentals and sublets as an additional revenue stream. The UK model offers broadband, utilities and security as part of a flat monthly fee. It's also a great way to situate yourself into a network (read: into networking situations) for client and customer alike.

Who wants to help me write that lightbulb joke?

Lost in Translation: Forgiveness is Divine; Salvation is Free, or at least cheap

You know when you watch Asian TV and literally nothing makes sense?

See this truck? Maybe there's a Korean pop-cultural reference I'm missing here. I'm not going to attack Koya Ajoe juice. It's delicious. In fact if someone wants to ship me a case, I'll bathe in it on YouTube. The ad is well-meaning with good photography but the message is a disaster.

So how will I vent? I could easily make this about the value of translators (plural) or the three-second rule of advertising, but follow up on the happy theme of failure with a look at screwing up royal. No one wants to hear they made a mistake, but how you handle it says a lot about you.

I was always in awe of how the Japanese handle blame. Working in North America, when something goes wrong there is a flurry of finger pointing like people are dodging a shit-sprinkler (pardon the language). Throw someone, anyone under the bus, deke fault and distance yourself, get the promotion. In Japan, step one is to identify the problem, fix the situation, and only then is someone asked to put a sword in their stomach. The North American model may lack honour, it may be cowardly and shameful, but it's an honest reaction pre-programmed since school.

If you're freelance, it's just you. You're at the bottom of the trough, and if something goes wrong, guess what - the best thing to do is climb under the bus voluntarily.

WHAT TO DO: 101

To begin, repeat after me: "I'm sorry". Show some contrition to your client and get right to work on it.

Step two, show them the cause of the error wasn't a brain injury by describing a solution and get approval to proceed. Did we mention the client is the one who found the mistake? Make them feel that they're a part of the solution process to put them at ease. Now fix that problem. Stay up all night. Eat that cost. Whatever it takes. And if pushed or taken to task, let your pride take a backseat and honestly explain what went wrong, no matter how dumb.

The odds are the cooperative process of your repair job will be worth more goodwill than the damage of admitting Twitter is destroying your life and you promise to quit shortly. As long as there's an open line of communication, you're working as a partnership, and you can save yourself a lot of pain.

So do I consider this Aloe ad a mistake? I've worked with translators and they can be a shady bunch. Not every one of them is going to be the first to point out how culturally irrelevant your headline is once it turns into french or spanish. So unless "crush" translates from Korean as "delicious beverage", then at best, it's wrong for me.

Personal Failure: Pull your Head out of the Oven, it's only your Dreams that Died

Today I'm going to have to break a man's heart. Today he's going to open my email and yell "NO NO NO NO NO" at the top of his lungs for the rest of the week.

Many years ago, my friend Jan invented the Tauntaun Sleeping Bag. It started as a joke on cold winter mornings that he'd gladly slit a Tauntaun belly and climb inside for warmth. If you're unfamiliar with the backstory, in the second Star Wars movie, Luke and Han play Marco Polo on an ice planet, Luke gets punched by the Abominable Snowman, they get locked out over night, and Han keeps Luke warm inside a giant dead donkey-raptor hybrid called a Tauntaun. People loved that joke, and he shared it often.

Announcing, the Tauntaun Sleeping Bag.

This thing comes complete will saddle, intestines, embroidered head pillow, 100% polyester, machine washable and even has a glowing light sabre zipper to illustrate how you slice open the belly to gain entry. It's actually an April Fool's joke, but since Jan wasn't first to market, his claim and dreams are now null and void. I could tell him how sad I was when I saw this less ambitious version of my more luxurious All Day Duvet idea come to life, but that would be cold comfort.

Today he will have to retire his joke, and his dreams. So how will he, or any of us, deal with this level of personal failure and heartbreak? The only way to deal with failure is the oven thing I described earlier, or learn from it and move on. Cold comfort you say? Here are even chillier tips that only you can choose to use, when you're ready of course. Much like an alcoholic, you can't be helped till you're ready to be helped.

Close your oven door

First thing is the crushing pain of defeat. Pain becomes fear, fear becomes hate, hate becomes evil. Of course you're going to feel sorry for yourself. This leads to self-righteousness, which leads to sadness, which leads to boredom. Hate me later, but you have to pull up your bootstraps and struggle. Life without struggle is boredom, and boredom isn't really a life.

Misery loves company

I won't lie and say it's wasteful to mope. Moping is natural and therapeutic and if that's where you're at, I suggest moping as part of a group. Purging your negative feelings is more productive in a group setting and peer feedback is a faster road to recovery than withdrawing into yourself.

Let's point some fingers!

Actually, let's get some perspective is what I meant. At some point you have to stop laying blame, try to be mature and hypothesize a reason it didn't work. It keeps the rage in check and helps you sleep better. If you go on ten job interviews and nothing happens, ask yourself questions like "had there already been a hundred equally good candidates interviewed for the job"; not "why do I suck so bad".

Let's examine our tracks and see if they end with a rebel sleeping in our stomach

If at first you don't succeed does it make sense to try, try again in the exact same way? Or does it sound better to tweak something about your approach and try again. Did you know Edison failed almost ten-thousand times before his light bulb finally worked? Ten thousand times! What an a-hole, right? Wrong. Edison changed his strategy almost ten-thousand times before he found on what worked. Whether it's an invention or an interview, trade your time for opportunity. You certainly have nothing to lose.

Help me (insert name here), you are my only hope

You'll probably have died of hunger before your ten-thousandth interview, so if you're going to suffer, don't do it alone. Fact is, your judgement and objectivity are impaired. Ask people you respect to examine your failure. It's the wiki logic that suggests someone with no prior knowledge of a problem is the best one to offer a solution. My friend from this previous article once pointed out something hanging from my nose. I was a little put off till he asked if I'd rather have not known. That booger changed my life.

Wash that Tauntaun stink off you

Whether you're waking hung over or covered in donkey-raptor intestinal fluid, the bottom line is you need to brush yourself off and get back in the game. Nothing says more about a person than how they deal with failure. I'm failing to think of a fantastic end to this article, but I'm okay with that, and I'll move on.

Consumer-Service Marketing: Harsh times force large corporations to take menial part time jobs to make ends meet

Little trivia: did you know Howard Stern once ran for governor of New York on a campaign that included filling the state's potholes with the rich ashes of death row inmates?

Did you kow Colonel Sanders himself is personally filling Kentucky potholes with what we hope is "asphault" and marking them with a "Re-freshed by KFC" stencil?

You could make the joke that filling a pothole with asphault while running TV spots where they top off a chicken bucket with corn, mashed potatoes, cheese and gravy makes the buttocks clench the wallet pretty tight, but they're hoping people make the more obscure connection between "refreshing the street" and its new "fresh" campaign which focuses on food quality. It's actually called "consumer-service marketing" or "cause marketing", and in a nut shell it's a very old idea.

Early American advertising is rammed with puppets and cartoons shilling everything from Michelins to Marlboros. Here's the thing: Fred Flintstone wasn't trying to get Johnny Lunchpail to smoke Camels. He was working to create a warm feeling about the brand in Johnny's brain so one day he would feel comfortable enough about Camels to throw a pack in his adult-sized lunchpail.

Consumer-service or cause marketing works on the same principal. It creates a quiet feeling of goodwill between companies and consumers. While you're suspending your disbelief about chicken-flavored road holes, keep in mind I'm applauding KFC for their ballsy initiative. I'll explain shortly.

For my money, a better example of a company helping people on a grassroots level that builds directly to it's brand in a more strategic way is Charmin toilet tissue. For the last three years, they've provided custom port-o-lets in Times Square, and even have an iPhone/BlackBerry application that finds the nearest toilet in an emergency. They've embraced experiential event marketing and social media applications.

And now, the thorn in my paw revealed: for years I worked on an unnamed disinfectant manufacturer (not necessarily featured in my portfolio) that repeatedly shot down every attempt at any guerilla style awareness marketing and brand building in high traffic public washrooms.

Toilets and germs seems more literal than the association between fresh asphault and fresh chicken, but they didn't want to risk turning off consumers "by associating their brand with germs". So you can see, whenever a company is brave enough to engage in long term brand building rather than short term product lifts, my hands slap together involuntarily.