A Presumption of Guilt

While British and American Jurisprudence is based on a presumption of innocence there are a number of systems which are not.

If you have an internet presence in which you market your services or products, you should consider your website to be presumed to be difficult to use until proven otherwise.

Stoney deGeyter wrote an article entitled "Are You Guilty of Crimes Against Usability? Let the Jury Decide"

Your Actions Change Your Reputation and they Change You

On Thursday (Feb. 12th) I was listening to the Radio and heard an author of a book on Parenting saying that statistics show that older children are tending towards "disassociation" when it comes to self perception and behavior.

Folks, this is not about anyone's religion. Your actions shape who you are. It may take water a long time to erode a hillside but given enough time much damage can be done. When you engage in any activity repeatedly, especially over longer periods of time, it becomes more and more difficult to cease.

Overeating is one example. Gambling is another. Cheating is another.

But not only do your actions shape you, they also shape others perceptions of you.

Recently I saw a van with a realtor's bumper sticker parked in the blue striped access space just to the side of a handicapped parking space. The sticker said that the agent wanted to be my realtor. My reaction? No way, no how.

Why?

Because if they would do that in a parking space they might also mess up any transaction in which they represented me. Not going to happen.

Seth Godin wrote "Good guys finish..."

Even Pepsi gets it wrong

The medium must be allowed to shape the message.

A radio ad is different from a newspaper ad which is different from a TV ad.

The market must shape the message.

An ad to B2B is different from an ad to B2c and selling to a single person consultant is different than selling to a Fortune 500 company.

Pepsi apparently forgot this.

The social media is a bottom up, not a top down media. Recently Pepsi sent cans of Pepsi to what they were told were the 25 most influential social media bloggers.

This was a mistake.

One of the recipients of the free Pepsi was Mack Collier. He wrote an article entitled "Are Companies Targeting the Wrong 'Influencers' With Social Media?"

Just Like Hang Gliding

Hang Gliders are not focused on a directional agenda. Successful hang gliding is dependent upon being willing to let the wind decide which direction you go next.

This does not mean that people who hang glide don't need to learn what to do to be even more successful at achieving an enjoyable experience. Rather successful hang gliding is about handling the little details of the moment and not about long term destinations.

The experience is the destination.

Successfully marketing a product or service is like hang gliding. The focus needs to be on knowing how to "catch the wind" and how to "glide with the wind."

The wind is the market and these days the market is holding a discussion about each business and each product in ways never seen previously.

Dr. Jeff Cornwall used the metaphor of dancing and wrote a very good article entitled "Follow the Lead of the Market"

The final item on the checklist

What should you always do, before you tell the client that the job is done? What should you always do before you send a letter or article? What should you always do before you sign a contract?

Jon Swanson wrote an article about a local auto mechanic who apparently consistently fails to do the final item on the checklist. The article is entitled: "There Is Always Something."

The Proof is in the Stats

Sometimes trying to convince a business owner that thousands of one time visitors are not nearly as valuable as hundreds of repeat visitors feels like trying to convince a dog to avoid chicken bones. (For those of you that are not dog owners, poultry bones are fragile and the "splinters" can hurt a dog.)

Many business owners are smart enough to look honestly at statistics. With this in mind, today's recommendation is an article entitled "Repeat Site Visits - A Critical Goal for a Successful Website" by Ayo Ijidakinro

Hopefully the charts and statistics will convince you to focus less on the first time visitor and more on the second and third time visitor.

Once Upon A Time, Not Very Long Ago

Once upon a time, there lived a sales representative that closed a lot of sales.

Many other sales reps wanted to learn the secret of his success.

The story that he told led down twenty paths.

Jeff Paro wrote: "Facts tell, but Stories Sell."

What worked Five Years Ago, Won't Work Today

In half of a decade, Marketing as really changed.

Both Chrysler and Pepsi messed up big time recently and if it had not been for the quick intervention of a new hire Ford's legal department came close to committing marketing suicide.

The times, they are a changing.

Ardath Albee wrote "Marketing Priorities - Easy vs. Tough."

Like A Bull with a nose ring

Why do they put a ring in a bull's nose?

Why to lead him around, of course. It's as simple as that.

That's how to write for a business web page.

Business web pages are not written like Emily Dickinson, John Steinbeck or William Shakespeare.

The way to write a web page is very very simple. Like a Bull with a nose ring.

(Definitely not the way that I wrote this posting.)

Demian Farnworth wrote "The Disgustingly Simple Rule for Web Writing That’s Often Hard to Swallow."

The Arrangement of Design

Do you groom your hair?

Do you wear professional attire in a professional manner?

When it comes to personal grooming, most business people understand the importance of presentation.

But there is a difference between design and dazzle.

The right balance impresses because it does not seek to be overly flashy.

The guidelines also apply to many other features of business. For example, the facade of a storefron should be clean, professionally designed but not gaudy.

The brochures which a sales department uses should set a tone which subtly impresses. This is also true of a well designed website.

Seth Godin wrote "Beauty as a signaling strategy."

Are you worthy of my trust?

The more voices that there are in the marketplace, the more important it is that a buyer knows who can be trusted.

Therefore, a seller needs to known how to be WORTHY of being trusted.

Matt McGee wrote "Why Trust Matters & How To Earn It."

Could We Maybe Discuss This?

A milestone in the history of Philosophy resulted from the lives of Socrates and Plato. These two introduced a method of teaching known as elenkus. In this method the teacher instead of lecturing composes questions which lead the student through a logic funnel.

Today, conversation in place of lecture is making a major comeback. For example, in the world of blogging - except for those who have been influential for decades in the non-blogging society - most successful bloggers are those who respond to the comments which there readers make. The bloggers who do not participate in two way discussion tend to have a higher rate of reader abandonment.

In sales and marketing, it was typical in the early twentieth century to have salespeople and advertisers try to overwhelm the objections of their prospects. The prevalent attitude of sales trainers in the early part of the twentieth century was that the sales representative should treat the objections posed by the prospect as merely excuses. This resulted in high levels of prospect frustration.

These days the approach is to respond to objections by asking more questions. Unfortunately there are two approaches to asking sales questions.

One approach is to ask purely rhetorical questions. However, this approach tends to foster prospect frustration and hostility.

A more successful method of sales questions is to focus on learning as much as one can about the prospect and about the needs of the prospect. To involve the prospect in a discussion and to try to discover alternative solutions. This method emphasizes relationship building and problem solving over sales agenda.

Jonathan Farrington wrote "Customers are persuaded when they are part of the process."

If Obiwan were an email marketer

Luke, the Emperor and his followers dominate the email marketing world.

But long ago when I was still young, we taught young marketers the right way to use email to market.

Luke, I want you to read an article, Email Your Way To Success, which was written by Ritu Pant.

Fundamentalism, Sales that is.

In the Beverly Hillbillies theme song, the lyrics say

... and moved to Beverly; Hills, that is ...

I thought I would borrow that for today's title.

There is a "branch" of American Protestantism based on a series of essays which were known as the fundamentals. The protestant theology which is based on those essays is called "Fundamentalism."

But this article is not about Hillbillies or Tv Show Theme Songs or Protestant Theology.

This article is on www.thejfblogit.co.uk/2008/12/22/the-twelve-golden-principles-of-selling-20-version/ as expounded by Jonathan Farrington.

Top Level Recommendation - Newsletter

I attempt to recommend only good articles with solid substance in this space. Occasionally, an article is even better than most of the articles in this space.

There are three very valuable tips and one nice tip in today's recommendation.

The topic is how to write a successful Newsletter.

One thing that this article does not discuss is typography and layout. If you want your Newsletter to be printable and to look professional when it is printed - Qwerty's PDF services can really improve the printed look of your Newsletter.

BUT - looking great is not as important as the first three tips in "4 Easy Tips On Writing a Winning NewsLetter" by Ritu Pant.

Local Sports or the Olympics?

Although the internet landscape is slowly evolving away from this, it is still somewhat of a democracy in the oldest sense of the concept.

Fewer and fewer people stumble on the writing of another without being influenced in some way by some type of a ranking or recommendation tool, whether it be algorithmic or human. Yet this was not always the case. A decade ago, most Search Engines were either flat or almost flat when it came to serving as RELIABLE methods of filtering the noise from the signal. This is has changed and is continuing to develop.

However, as such tools and experts become more available and more reliable - the beginning internet writer has a tendency towards reticence based on intimidation.

But even Jane Austin was at one point intimidated by the writings of others. When it comes to the average modern novice novelist, a little reticence may have been helpful. Yet even today, some new authors produce first novels that are breathtakingly well written. A fact which Jane Austin could not boast. Her first novel, Susan, was not nearly as well written as later novels, a fact which caused her to revise it extensively.

But we are not speaking of the writing of novels but rather of the writing of internet posts. In some ways, an internet post should share more of the traits of a diary than of the traits of a novel. Do not misunderstand - rarely does a diary style blog become a top ranked blog. (There are some.) But the personality of a blog author and the individual flavor of her/his conversation is frequently the difference between a large audience and a less read blog.

Today's recommendation is especially for anyone who experiences writer's block due to being intimidated by the writings of some other internet publisher. The article is: "10 Ways to Avoid Writing Insecurity" by Sean Platt.

Was it something that they said?

What you say doesn't mean nearly as much as what your consumer's say!

More and more consumers are turning to the internet to either express their frustrations or to magnify their favorites when it comes to products and businesses.

Where they express their feelings can impact your business success.

Believe it or not - providing a platform upon which your clients can vent or praise publicly can be beneficial to your business, especially if you are quick to resolve any problems to the client's satisfaction.

Because they will find a venue in which to vent! But if it is not on your site, it may be weeks or months before you find it and by then your reputation is damaged. If clients complain on your site then you know right away and can respond in order to make your reputation for customer service sparkle.

Karon Thackston wrote "The Incredible Persuasive Power of Online Consumer Reviews."

Watch Your Language!

As a child were you forbidden to use a Anglo-Saxon terms and required to use words with latin roots, such as perspire and urinate? Certain words were not considered polite.

Well, there are some words which are inappropriate to use in advertising copy.

Susan Gunelius wrote "10 Words to Avoid in Your 2009 Advertising"