Bulldog Marketing

What is a Trackback

How do I do one, and Why do I care?
This is another one of those things I have been getting a few requests for lately, so here's the scoop.

One of the biggest differences between a blog and a website, is that a blog is interactive, not unlike a huge virtual cocktail party. You know how it is, you walk into this party, and if you look at the entire room, you will see cliques of people, and usually one big herd right by the bar, becuase, after all, that is where the action is. So you grab your cosmo, and begin circulating. If you are like me, you search the room for someone you know, and you kind of hang out with them. All of a sudden, somebody taps you on the shoulder and says, " Hey, I overheard you talking about bulldogs, and how funny they are. I have a bulldog, and here is what my dog did yesterday". Now I am engaging someone new in a conversation that I was having, and I have made a new connection. That my friends is a trackback.
So how does this work with blogs?

Sometimes you get lucky...

And you get handed a bone. My friend Gerald from Relevant Methods sent me this email today after reading some things on this blog. Gerald is an extremely talented project manager, who has always been more about doing than talking, So enough from me, here is what he has to say.

Go ugly early is probably the most valuable advice I have ever heard. It's
probably the most useful piece of information an entrepreneur or even an
executive of a corporation could capitalize on. You wouldn't believe how
many ideas with potential sit in labs or garages or hard drives of PCs
because of the desire to get it right the first time. There is no such thing
as the perfect PowerPoint presentation or web site or sales pitch or
whatever (venting now so bear with me for a moment). But there is such a
thing as stimulus and response from a sales / marketing perspective. And if
you can get folks stimulated you're on to something. Granted, you have to
bring something forward that is intriguing and thought provoking. But that's
it -- provoke thought!!! Get the person on the other side of the table
(phone?) involved in the process. Seriously -- Trump, Tony Robbins, Steve
Jobs, Marc Benioff (salesforce.com) all went ugly early. And will always do
so. Trump and Robbins basically put The Learning Annex back into Atlanta's
consciousness with probably the tackiest and back of a napkin-designed ad
campaign. AND they shut down downtown Atlanta for kicks. On the other hand,
Microsoft delayed Vista (and Longhorn) and is seeing their competitive
advantage (had to sneak a buzz word in) slip as a result. Not only that,
anticipation got up and headed elsewhere.

That's enough ranting for now. Got to go and get ugly.

Woof!

Stop Cold Calling Forever!

I did an audio post on this a while back, but I think it is worth reviewing since coaches and consultants have an interesting dilemma. They typically get their clients from referrals, but how do you create referrals if you are just getting your feet wet and building your client base? This ‘chicken or the egg’ scenario is one that can be very frustrating when you are building your business, but there is a way to jump start your business to a full practice- by creating Topic Specific Marketing (TSM) material.

TSM is:
A slice of knowledge that you know your prospects and clients need and want.
Written, recorded or both
Accessible to anyone, anytime, anywhere
A way for you to become an industry expert on your topic of choice

So how do you go about creating TSM? Read on!

Selling to Law Firms

I received a comment asking me about selling to Law Firms, so I thought it would be fun to do a post about that. My first reaction to this question was Don’t even try, but seriously, selling to Law Firms is good business if you can get it, so here are some ideas for you. In general, I would treat a law firm just like selling to a large account with Multiple Decision Makers, and you need to cover your bases and meet with as many people as you can to determine if they are motivated enough to entertain the idea of buying from you.

1. You need to understand the structure of the firm as it relates to making decisions, and If possible, get the lay of the land from somebody who is currently selling something to your targeted Law Firm.
2. Build a relationship with as many partners as you can inside the firm, and take time to build strategic alliances with them. In general, most large firms are not a ‘slam dunk’ type of sale, so plan and forecast accordingly.
3. If a product that is geared toward infrastructure efficiency, you will need to sell to both the end users and the decision makers.
4. If your product is geared toward making Lawyers more efficient, they may be a bit resistant to change the way they do things. See if you can get one person inside the firm to use your product on a trial basis (neat pun, hunh!) and have them report the benefits of your product to other members of the firm.

If all this fails, here is something that I did at the beginning of my sales career selling telecommunications services.

Are You in Transition?

I work with a lot of people who are ‘in transition’. You probably have met one of them, they are the people who have a great job in the corporate world, but would really like to go out on their own. The problem most people have when crossing the chasm, is that their ‘Day Job’ is paying the bills, and going out on their own would put them in a financial disaster unless they knew they had clients lined up for their services. So how can somebody bridge the gap?

TypePad Domain Mapping

Here is Part II of Domain Mapping with Go Daddy and TypePad and I have to admit I have a dilemma. I have mapped several URL’s in the last few months, so I know how I do it. In order to write this post, I had to go back and think about how I learned how to do it in the first place. I tried a few times to write this post, and found that I didn’t have a lot of motivation to write it. The reason is, I used this from The Blog Squad to map my first URL, and quite frankly, it is a very good tutorial. So why reinvent the wheel! This is the power of blogs and linking. If you find something that somebody did that is of value, share your resource, and give credit where credit is due. Let me know if you have any questions about it when you try it, but take it from me, it works like a charm. Thanks again to Patsi and Denise for being a wonderful resource!Download TypePadDomainMapping.pdf