For years, I've been a scoutmaster. I've taken the opportunity to teach youth how to build fires more times than I can ever count. When you are building and maintaining a fire, you need three key elements: fuel, heat, and oxygen. As easy as it is to start a forest fire, when you are learning how to make it work it's harder than you think. If your heat is too low, you need more oxygen. If your fuel is too wet, you need more heat.
Let me get to the switch on that bait right off the bat. Your sales pitch is probably okay. What really sucks is your sales approach. But, that might not make you feel any better.
The sales world is changing. In my opinion, the consumer isn’t really changing but, instead, the options available to consumers in they way they buy makes the consumer realize they don’t have to put up with the crap traditional sales people spin. Inbound marketing has changed the way people buy and if sales people are still using the old methods of selling the consumer simply gets angry.
Over the years, I’ve learned two very important lessons about change. First, change can’t be avoided. Second, most people don’t like change.
In 2007, I was working for a local company in Boise, Idaho, and really wasn’t happy in my role. I was working for Fisher’s Technology (at the time, it was called Fisher’s Document Systems) as their VP of Innovation. When I was first promoted to that position, I loved it. I was able to use my passion for new things and technology to bring new products and services to the table. I brought document management to their sales team (among other things).
The tools you use for web marketing and website management are important, and there are so many of them out there for you to use. Most people find a few that become favorites and typically end up paying for at least one. However, Google offers a variety of tools for free that you should absolutely check out.
I recently had the privilege of attending the Digital Summit, an annual conference (this year it was entirely online) that provides inspiration, learning, and networking opportunities for Digital Marketers like myself. It was incredibly insightful and I highly recommend it to all Digital Marketers going forward.
What is marketing myopia? Simply put: it's tunnel vision. More specifically, it's what occurs when a business becomes complacent in its marketing efforts, and either focuses too much on the products they sell and not enough on the benefits it provides the user, or focuses far too much on one marketing channel and ignores others.
The eight-hour workday is a tired and old concept. It's time to put aside this tired, arcane way of thinking about work. In order to understand how to fix it, we have to understand why we have the eight-hour workday to begin with.
In the late 1800s, full-time manufacturing employees would work around 100 hours per week. Death and injury were commonplace. It wasn't uncommon for children to put in far more hours than we think reasonable today in the factories, fields, mills, and mines.
Last year we tested, and then made official, Office Free Friday. It's been a very cool thing for us as a company because it's provided us some much-needed focus time each week where our customers expect us to be a little less available.
If you aren't interested in clicking through to that announcement link, I'll give you the simple gist here. On Fridays, we officially close our office and our phones go directly to voicemail. It's still a working day, but because the office is closed, our employees have an option to work wherever they want.
I had a neighbor ask to pick my brain about what it takes to move into the web design and development field. She is starting her degree program and still has a couple of years but is wise to start working toward her career now. I was originally just going to respond to her directly but I figured I’d write a blog post because I think it might be helpful to others, too.
One thing to note: the answers I give here are based on how we do things at Tribute Media but we are a little unique… mostly in how we work with our employees. Our office is closed on Fridays and we encourage our employees to work remotely every Friday. Most agencies/companies will expect their employees to work on site but allow contractors to work wherever. There is something positive creatively about working on-site with your team that you can’t get remotely. (Oh, and a little, not-so-humble brag here.)
