Don't Feed The Suckerfish
I love to help people. It’s a passion, it’s a part of who I am as an individual. It gives me great satisfaction to help a community along, to help a business along, to help a non-profit move the needle, it’s just a good feeling. UNTIL I meet a suckerfish.
Suckerfish will suck the life out of you. Suckerfish will show up un-announced, suckerfish will EXPECT your time, suckerfish will not thank you for the knowledge they have sucked out of your brain. Once they determine that you no longer will provide them with free work / information / knowledge, they will move on to another victim within either your organization or your industry and suck them dry as well and then proceed to complain / bash YOU for cutting them off.
How to spot a suckerfish:
– They pit you against other businesses.
– They never really accomplish anything of business worth.
– They break down and belittle others with zero remorse.
– They oftentimes talk out of their ass and don’t have a clue.
– They are very quick to judge others but never look at themselves.
Suckerfish can be found everywhere, sometimes consultants, sometimes competitors, sometimes members of an organization you are a part of, sometimes disguised as friends. Suckerfish will completely distract you. It’s imperative that you spot them quickly and cut them off from the source as rapidly as you can.
It all comes down to boundaries and valuing your own time, so here are some ways to bypass suckerfish all together:
– Never let people just pick your brain without billing them for the time or only giving them 15 minute increments, etc.
– Create boundaries and stick to them. Don’t answer their call every time, don’t answer every email. If you aren’t getting paid for this time, you’re simply losing money.
– Don’t accept dangled carrots. If I had a nickel for everytime I heard that someone would be connecting me with so and so, or that they will get business if I give them some time in exchange, I’d be a freaking millionaire. Dangled carrots NEVER work.
– Get a gatekeeper. Putting someone in front of you as a line of defense is amazing if you can afford it. Let them answer your phone calls / set your appointments, etc.. Hire a tough one. Suckerfish are good at getting past enemy lines.
If you feel called to help folks out, volunteer on a board (with your boundaries) or offer to mentor an MBA or graduate student at a local college, you’ll find this to be way more gratifying.
Thanks for reading and sharing.
@TomJelneck
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Content Strategies To DISRUPT Your Marketplace.
When is the last time you purchased something because you read a snooze fest of a blog? When’s the last time you shared a boring infographic with all of your friends on social media? Perhaps you saw a non-compelling video on youtube and decided to embed it on your website to make it that much more boring. You get the point. Life’s too short to read, share or create digital nonsense.
How is that some blogs spread like a virus? Why do some infographics get talked about and shared across the digital world? How is it that a cat video is being talked about so much on Facebook and shared on cat loving walls all across the planet? That’s easy. They are remarkable. They are NOT like the others. They are DISRUPTIVE to the digital world.
So many companies come to me and my companies asking us to create a viral video for them. Make it go viral they’ll say. We want 2 million shares on this one… This stuff simply can’t be forced. Things get shared online because they stand out like a sore thumb. They stand out because someone did something REAL and captured it on film. They weren’t trying to make something go viral, they were simply being real. People like real. People on the Internet like to see real, and share real and celebrate real.
Take the recent rant by Fox 35 anchor John Brown regarding the Kardashians. He had a bit of a Kardashian meltdown on live TV. It was humorous, it was lively, it was real… and it got shared, and shared again, and televised, and featured on Mashable and talked about by hundreds of thousands of people. He was real.
So, how can your social media, website, SEO, content and digital marketing in general stand out? Be a DISRUPTER. Do something to take your marketplace off center. Do something that no one expects or sees coming. I’ve compiled a few content strategies that can help your business DISRUPT your particular marketplace.
1.) BE REAL.
I talked about this above, but being real is oftentimes very unexpected. Share real life stories in your blog content and how they relate to your customers, products or services. Don’t be afraid to show frustration, joy and other real emotions through your content. It’s imperative that you add a personality to your brand. The bottom line, your marketplace doesn’t expect your content to be real, make it that way and you’ll stand out and shine.
2.) BE THE EXPERT.
I’ve had the great fortune and have been blessed to be featured on Fox 35, CCTV, USA TODAY, CFNEWS13, NBC and more because I constantly present myself as an expert. The media wants experts. Your customers want to buy from experts. Your social media tribe wants to follow experts. As you create your blog, infographic, video, etc., do so with authority. Create as if you and your business are the LEADERS of your industry. We don’t all like to brag about ourselves and our accomplishments, but, I encourage you to make your expertise known.
3.) BE DIFFERENT.
If you aren’t be different online, why bother? Why post that snooze fest of a blog? Is that infographic you are posting of your ordering flowchart really going to take the Internet by storm? Create the unexpected. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of not playing it safe. Sometimes it’s simple doing something no one saw coming. Sometimes it’s as simple as creating a value add for your clients, a tool, a gizmo, a new report, a weekly tweet about the office dog, a story about that one time that your factory worker rescued a bird from the warehouse. Be different and stop talking about the same ole, same ole. Be that purple cow standing out from all of the NORMAL cows.
4.) ONE LAST THING.
Proceed with some type of boundaries. I’m not encouraging you to create anything that doesn’t represent your brand well. I’m not encouraging you to go out and be a jackass. I’m simply encouraging you to start creating stuff that no one in your industry would see coming. I’m encouraging you to build value by providing your prospects, clients, website visitors, social media followers with an expert insight that no one else is sharing. I’m encouraging you to INTERRUPT the current way that your industry is doing business. If you can’t be different, why bother at all?
Now, go forth and DISRUPT.
Thanks for reading and sharing.
@TomJelneck
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It’s Not You, It’s Us. Oh Wait, No, It’s You.
Being in business for over 10 years has exposed my company to a wide variety of characters. I’ve meet amazing people. I’ve meet not-so-amazing people. I’ve meet people who would give you the shirt off of their back, I’ve met people who live to rip other people off. I’ve met people who tell the truth, I’ve met people who don’t have an honest bone in their body. Over the years I’ve learned MANY lessons. Lessons of humility, lessons of practicality and PLENTY of lessons about humanity.
I do consider myself a good judge of character but sometimes, I completely miss the call. I’ll see a prospect that I think we should pursue, their story checks out, their budget seems legit, they talk the right talk, they agree and shake their head when I try my darndest to manage expectations, I take on their project and within a month, I regret every second of it and EVERY dollar of it.
We recently took on a digital marketing job that was packaged just right. It looked right, the product looked right, the foundation was in place, but when I met the folks in our conference room, I could tell that something wasn’t quite right. I should have trusted that feeling. 2 months went by, after we went overboard explaining what to expect out of an SEO campaign and then they wanted to meet. No big deal, it will be an opportunity to show them the amazing results that our team has produced. Analytics were all way up over the last 3 months, search results were WAY up way quicker than expected, leads were up by 60% over the previous quarter, things were looking way up.
24 hours after that productive meeting, they fired us. The ex-client exclaimed how SEO just takes way too long. They noted that they received 0 leads, (totally incorrect.) They noted that their search results were not as expected (despite several number one rankings in 2 months). They noted that their son-in-law could do the job and will do it for free from here. This is always frustrating for my team. They truly put their hearts and souls into each client campaign. They all go the extra mile, they all take a loss personally. I feel partially responsible for that. I should have said no to their business from the beginning. I should have realized that they would bail as soon as they actually started to get rankings. This would probably explain why they had been through 4 SEO / Digital Marketing companies in a one year period. Lesson learned.
A wise man once told me, you can’t expect your business to grow if you never say no. In fact, I read an article just this week that illustrated how some of the world’s most successful CEO’s say no 78% of the time. Saying no means saying no to new business that just doesn’t feel right. Saying no means not letting customers work around your boundaries. Saying no means not dropping your pants on pricing just to get the business. Saying no can sometimes SUCK. But, it HAS to be said. It’s not easy. It’s not fun. It’s NEVER popular, but at the end of the day, it’s your organization. It’s your products and services that people need. It’s your business process, employees, your bottom line, your life. I should have listened to that wise man AND my gut with this particular client.
The bottom line, if you ever feel that the person / company you’re about to do business with is not above board, you owe it to yourself, to the integrity of your business, to the sanity of your employees and to the bottom line of your company to walk away. Practice saying no. Practice it often. You can still provide excellent customer service by creating boundaries. Could you lose clients? Sure. Will some clients expect a YES all of the time? Yes. The truth is, great clients will understand that you need boundaries, that you have a process, a system and a method to your operations. Those, my friends, are golden clients.
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Outside Marketing Reality VS. Inside Reality
I was visiting an organization the other day and meeting with the executive director. It was the first time I had ever been to their office, so wasn’t really sure what to expect. We were going to discuss an ongoing content marketing strategy in order to help connect this nonprofit with their volunteers in some neato, cool ways. I loved their website, their executive director was passionate and very hospitable, so I was excited to visit.
Until… I walked in the door. I walked into a waiting room type area with multiple chairs. There was an unmanned receptionist desk, but their were signs of life on the desk, including a really moldy coffee cup and some crumbled up, presumably used kleenex. I waited a few moments and could see some cubicle dwellers in the wings. They were busy, doing their thing and none had even looked up to see me standing there. So 3 minutes has gone by and I finally did the throat clear thing, you know, to get someone’s attention and acknowledge that their was a new human being in the office. One gentleman in a bright sweater walked by, looked at me and turned his back on me to help a cubicle dweller. He was literally 5 feet away from. He saw me standing, saw me make eye contact and chose to do nothing. No head nod, no 1 minute signal, no nothing. Cold.
Finally, I decided to walk around the corner and flag someone down to get our meeting started. Hospitality Fail. I’ve been thinking about this awkward encounter a lot. This great online presence, this shiny website that is very welcoming, this organization that serves people in such a profound way and then within their organization, their people, their team have no sense of carrying that mission out internally. Maybe this was an isolated issue, maybe it was just a crazy busy day, but maybe, just maybe, the interior culture isn’t matching the outbound messaging.
How does your business address culture? Do you hold days of retreat and reflect upon the organizations’ mission? Do you hire only certain folks that seem to fit within? Do you send them daily quotes of inspiration and instill in them the mission of the organization? Do you let Mike with the Yellow sweater ignore guests? Do you let Sally behind the cubicle not acknowledge people walking in the door? Now granted, I’m just a consultant. But what if I was a new potential community partner or donor meeting to discuss a large gift? What if I was a volunteer who had just donated weeks of their time organizing the last fundraising event?
Our outside marketing needs to match our inside reality and vice versa. That rings true for businesses, for nonprofits, for churches, for city governments. The next chance you get, reflect upon how people perceive the good work that you do and how you’ve built a culture to bolster and build that up.
Thanks for reading and sharing.
@TomJelneck
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5 SEO Tips For Your Nonprofit Organization
Nonprofits don’t normally liked to be compared to the business world. They do good deeds, they devote their whole life to a worthy cause, they are passionate about executing their mission. Oftentimes, they are the EXACT opposite of how a business behaves. When nonprofits come to me for my digital marketing consulting services, the first question I ask them is can people find you in Google? Most of the time, the answer is no. That’s a problem. That’s a big problem.
Google and the Nonprofit.
People don’t just use Google to find window washers, restaurants, personal injury attorneys, or digital marketing agencies. They use Google to give. They use Google to learn. They use Google to contribute to the greater good. Oftentimes, nonprofits simply don’t have that pair of eyeglasses on, and they aren’t thinking in terms of search or getting found. They need to be.
Your audience is searching. They are searching for things to get involved in. They are searching for information on poverty, or the homeless, or the hungry. They are searching about endangered species, the arts, the humanities, the symphony. They are looking for you. Can they find your nonprofit?
Lost & Found.
I was recently appointed to the board of Michelee Puppets, an honor which I take very seriously. I was appointed because they see the value of digital marketing for their nonprofit, and they are looking forward because they see the massive need for being found online.
Michelee came to On Target a few months back and we donated a digital marketing plan for their amazing nonprofit. As I was meeting with the board president and executive director today, she informed me how very pleased she was that their traffic has shot up, their content is being read, their rankings are moving from page 10 of Google (the best place to bury a dead body) to page 1, position 1 under some of her core keyphrases. On Target is literally helping to transform her nonprofit by putting it on the radar in Google. Now, when schools are seeking educational programming for their students, Michelee Puppets is among those options. More people are served, and more lives are touched because of a simple search.
5 SEO Quick Tips for Nonprofits.
1) Content, Content, Content: Your audience is hungry, Google is hungry. Feed your audience, get found in Google. Focus your content on the mission you serve. Write about the grateful people that you’ve served. Tell the stories about the mother you helped, the little one who needed guidance, the amazing contribution that a corporate sponsor just made. SPREAD THE LOVE and don’t stop. The more amazing, shareable content that your nonprofit creates, the more Google will reward you with better search rankings.
2) Get Social: Installing amazing and fresh content on your website is great, and should be happening often. But you’ve got to take your nonprofit farther than that to get your audience and Google’s attention. Creating rich content for social media and building a strong following will not only keep your prospects, donors, board members and volunteers engaged, it will show Google that your nonprofit is alive and vibrant. Be sure to reference your website URL from time to time and steer your audience to your blog, newsroom, donation page, mission statement, etc.
3) Optimize Your Nonprofit: The majority of nonprofit websites that I see are NOT optimized for search. They don’t reference the specific location that they serve, they don’t adjust title and description tags, they didn’t incorporate best SEO practices, they didn’t chose the right URL structure, etc., etc. Have a professional look over your site and perform a quick analysis. Oftentimes, the majority of the SEO issues are easily fixed, but 9 times out of 10, a nonprofit website was built by a donor or volunteer who just simply doesn’t have the SEO background, OR the nonprofit was simply not thinking about getting the website found via search engines from the inception.
4) Get Local: If your nonprofit serves a particular regions, i.e., Orlando, be sure to claim your Google Places page. Add some rich photos, add some testimonials about the lives you’ve changed, add your ‘business’ hours. This will ensure that your nonprofit shows up during a Google search as a ‘place’ near the searcher’s location. Google is a real estate game, and you’ve got to make certain that you obtain every possible free listing that you can in order to own the real estate.
5) Get Responsive: Does your nonprofit website conform to tablets or smartphones? Many do not and Google has recently (in April) announced that it will be ranking websites that are built to ‘respond’ to the many different Internet enabled devices out there higher than websites that were built to remain static and seen on a desktop / laptop. This is critical and will typically require some pretty large modifications to your website code and sometimes, look and feel.
The Bottom Line.
It’s critical to treat your nonprofit and its online presence like you would a business. Your nonprofit needs to get found, get shared, get talked about, and get noticed by the people who can help share and spread the good word about your organization. SEO is a huge and critical factor (and just the tip of the iceberg) when it comes to digital marketing and growing your organization.
If I can help your nonprofit with its SEO or digital marketing in any capacity, I encourage you to give me a call at On Target Digital Marketing. In Orlando, call 407-830-4550 xt. 100.
Thanks so much for reading and sharing,
@TomJelneck