Archive for the ‘free business intelligence’ Category

i’m not talking about promoting your local police organization here. authority marketing is walking the walk. marketing without authority is blowing hot air. so, how do you achieve authority? research. writing. publishing. relevance. credibility. consistency. 1) research — don’t jump to conclusions on efforts…circle the subject, learn something new every day, then proceed; 2) writing — putting words to paper helps to form, anchor and mature  thoughts; 3) publishing — blogging, article marketing and more put your authority to the test by interacting with audiences and forcing you to defend your ideas and knowledge; 4) relevance — much like the factors that google uses to rank websites, make sure what you’re saying and doing has momentum, is in the news, has significant interest, etc; 5) credibility — search for consensus (especially pros who also speak on your subject matter) and pursue third party endorsements (testimonials, panel invites, etc); 6) consistency — stay on subject(s) for a prolonged period of time (establish longevity, focus, commitment, passion, etc), though it’s not necessary to hold the same perspective(s) and opinions (showing a progression in thought is positive in that it communicates consideration, balance, flexibility, humility, maturity, etc).

just overheard an interesting byte on fear via espn sportscenter. the father of the fallen georgian luger revealed today that his son was overcome by fear upon arriving at the olympic course at whistler that would later claim his life. specifically, he was terrified of the turn where he would eventually lose control of his sled. not sure about you, but this theme comes up consistently over the course of my week — though with far lesser consequences. where you allow fear to take hold, you become unfocused and commit less to the task at hand. the prospects for failure increase significantly. for most of us, what’s at stake is our emotional or financial state of being. we can recover from these. for some, fear’s consequence is far more profound and final.

fans of the new york yankees often wonder why the team “lets” certain players sign with other teams, often at severe paycuts against what the player made while being a yankee. sometimes, the new player the yankees sign to replace the old (often a fan favorite) is lesser in talent and paid nearly the same money. well, a closer inspection shows why this is not odd at all. price for talent is relative to the marketplace.

baseball players, like employees at any job, won’t agree to take a paycut where performance hasn’t declined. the team’s priorities may have changed, but the player still produces. the player declines the reduced offer with the yankees out of principle and tries the open market. smaller markets (places where stadiums don’t sell out, where no branded entertainment network exists to augment income, etc) can’t bear the higher price tag. teams offer seemingly lesser deals that are actually favorable or inflated relative to their market. the player, feeling a little burned and now having lost interest from their former employer, feels good about the deal on the table (especially where the team is stretching to afford the player). on the other side, the yankees pursue a replacement at the price they were willing to pay all along. they evaluate what the player is worth in their market (again, this is higher than with the smaller market teams). they sign the new player for the budget they were willing to pay the fan favorite who’s left. look at the abreu, matsui and soon to be damon departures and how they played out. it’s almost the same situation each time.

are you or someone you know shopping to have a website developed? i had an interesting chat today with a partner about a proposal that went south. while you can’t win them all, it looks like there were a few simple misunderstandings that may have led the end client to pass. what they don’t know could end up hurting them! 1 — website design doesn’t usually include search engine optimization (seo). the former is creative, the latter is marketing/sales. 2 — search engine friendly doesn’t mean search engine optimized. it means the website is ready for a real investment, which is what what the seo represents. 3 — a one-time seo investment doesn’t keep you at the top of rankings. google “robots” regularly track what your website is doing (or not doing) and your rankings move accordingly. sounds sci-fi but it’s true. 4 — a “no hostages” approach to website design means a client can muck up a project that launched beautifully using the content management tools they were provided. there’s nothing the designer can do about that! look to the screenshot from launch and converse with the designer about concerns.