I’ve been working for the past year on a social media site called “RantRally”. The concept is straightforward – call a toll free number, leave a voice message, and it shows up on the site in real time.

Anybody can listen to your messages, follow you, share you message on twitter or facebook, embed it on a website, or email it to a friend.

The reason for launching the site isn’t obvious until you take the time to go and listen to some ‘Rants’. If you’re socializing on the web and all your doing is reading text, there is an element of human emotion that is missing. Video is great but there’s a barrier with putting video on the web quickly and easily.

Everyone has a cell phone these days, and it’s incredibly easy and quick to dial a number and leave a short audio message.

I’ll be posting more information on RantRally, including our marketing efforts, but for now I encourage you to checkout the site by going to: ww.RantRally.com or by clicking the logo above.

I thought this was great advice, and now I have scientific studies that show why it works. According to Daniel Kahnemann, the founder of behavioral economics, we have two selves: one that is experiencing the present, and one that recalls our past experiences. After an event has passed, the ‘present’ self has no recollection of what occurred, only the part of us that remembers the event is relevant. Our ‘memory’ self is fairly bad about recalling the experience that occurred.

In fact, the last part of the experience counts the most for what our memory will use to rate the experience as positive or negative. By giving positive reinforcement at the end of your criticism, the recipient leaves with the knowledge you wanted to impart but hopefully without resentment or negative feelings toward you.

You can checkout Daniel Kahnemann’s Ted presentation on the riddle of experience versus memory at: http://www.ted.com/talks.

An easy read and incredibly informative.  The subtitle is: Why you lose your car keys but never forget how to drive and other puzzles of everyday life.  One of the reasons I write book reviews and started a career oriented blog here is to make sure to retain my learning’s over the entire course of my life.  This book enforced my reason for doing it in the chapter on memory – use it or lose it.  Synapses in the brain can be strengthened or weakened over time, if you don’t revisit memories from time to time they can fade or completely disappear.

Here is my top list for what I found interesting in the book:

1. We use all our brain: The myth that we only use 10% of our brains is complete BS. We use 100% of our brains – don’t you feel dumber now
2. Brain setupThe brain is wired like my motorcycle after I took it apart and put it back together again – except worse. The wiring is horrible. Certain connections are handling multiple tasks. EG: 25% of the population sneezes when they look at a bright light b/c their brains are wired such that the connections that handle pupil dilation also handle sneezing. There are lots of examples like these throughout the book!
   Our brains started out as very basic and then kept adding functionality. As any engineer knows, this can lead to very poor design and efficiency. Yep, that’s your brain. Incredibly complex, incredibly poorly designed. If we could start over, the plumbing could be made much cleaner and efficient. I feel for neurosurgeons!
3. Factors influencing intelligence: Little geniuses – playing Mozart does not make babies smarter. Genetics set the upper bound for intelligence. Pre-natal care, diet, and opportunity for development are the environmental factors that can then decrease intelligence. In the US it’s not hard to ensure that your baby Einstein has all his / her needs met so don’t stress.
4. Happiness: Frequent small events have a greater cumulative impact than occasion large positive events. Here are some exercises that can increase happiness
   • Focus on positive events. Every evening for a month write down 3 good things that happened that day and explain what caused each of them.
   • Practicing using your character strengths. Got to authentichappiness.org and take the VIA signature strengths questionnaire to figure out what they are. Next, use them in one new way every day for a week.
   • Remember to be grateful. Every day write down 5 things you are thankful for.
5. Willpower can be trained. There is a part of your brain responsible for willpower and the dendrites / synapses / etc. can be strengthened.
6. Meditation works. Brain scans further prove that practitioners of meditation are able to change their mental state. This can be finding inner peace or removing feelings of physical pain. It’s pretty cool what we can do when we put our minds to it!

Recently I had an interview where I was asked, “Why have a professional blog?”  There are multiple reasons:

1. To establish yourself as an expert.
2. Provide content that an employer won’t find in a resume.
   • Some employers want to know and will seek out as much information about a candidate as possible. Make is easy for them by providing them with the best source possible.
3. To retain your learning’s.

This last one is the most important. I’ve recently been reading a book about the human brain. Memories are written and erased on a daily basis. Much like a physical hard-drive, there is only so much space that we have to store information. Memories that are not jogged every once in awhile disappear forever into the ether. By writing down your thoughts, learning’s, and observations and then periodically reviewing them you ensure that you don’t lose those insights, which if you’re like me, you painfully learned the hard way.

I try to read one new book per month, and by distilling the best parts of the book in a review on my blog, I make sure not to forget what I’ve read. Employers can get a feel for my personality and interests, and hopefully a few readers of the blog will either be enlightened or post a comment that leads me in a new direction.

As long as you’re not posting anything inappropriate or opinions more suitable for flame wars on internet comment boards, a professional blog can be a positive tool for your personal growth and career.

This is a great marketing book that forces you to start thinking outside the box. Assuming you don’t work for a company with really deep pockets and you’re trying to launch a business on a shoe string budget, you have to be creative when it comes to marketing.

I can sum up any business plan in 2 objectives:

1. How are you adding value?
2. What is the cost / how do you acquire customers?

Number one is usually easy to answer. I have a widget / service that does x,y,z – people need it, love it, etc. Number two is where things get tricky.

In 10 years I’ve launched 6 businesses. I have had only 1 mild success. The biggest problem with each one is how to cheaply acquire customers. This is a major problem.

Buzz Marketing provides some great advice:

• The law of 6:People pay attention to content / suggestions / word of mouth 6 times more than they do an add. Want to get the word out – an ad won’t cut it, you’ve got to get people talking to each other about it. Or better yet, get the media and news to talk about it – this is the essence of buzz marketing.
• Make it a secret:If there’s one thing people love to share among each other it’s a secret. Google launched gmail as this ‘not yet released’ service, but if you get an offer and tell a friend we’ll give them an account too. Somehow overnight they gained 10% market share – not much of a secret after all!
• Taboo:Genitalia, sex, anything related to the potty or that you’re not supposed to talk about it. Run a campaign around something unmentionable and watch it get mentioned, a lot.
• Unusual / Outrageous:Overweightdate.com got started with a funny name, some t-shirts, and a small amount of online marketing. Be honest – you want to tell someone the name right now.
• Funny:Give people something to laugh about and a story to tell.
• UnPolished:Slick designs, costumes, posters – scream corporate. Go with something that looks homemade and you’ll gain peoples trust and interest.
• Customer Support:If you’ve got the media talking about your product, have a great story people are sharing, and then you give crappy customer service – that is the number one way to kill sales. Secondly, exemplary customer support can be one way to get your existing customers recommend your business.
• Employee evangelists: Don’t talk about IPO’s, sales goals, or hitting the numbers. Reference the secrets above and get your internal team talking about what makes the product / service great. CEO’s who offer a week of their compensation to a member with the best idea for saving on operations costs, board members who drop by individual stores, these are things you want your team talking about internally. Your employees should be the front line members who are evangelizing your product / service and telling everyone they know how great it is. They don’t do that b/c of money, but because of something worth talking about.

As the budding entrepreneur that you are, you may think, “If I lived back then I would build a cheap building but offer better rates and gobble up all the business”. However, you would quickly find that wouldn’t work. Why? Because when customers saw an expensive building they knew it was there for the long haul. Would you want to put your money in a bank that sprung up overnight (and may as quickly disappear the next day with all your hard earned cash).

The same goes for your business card. Spend the time and effort to create a strong design, purchase quality card stock or plastic, perhaps go for rounded corners – do whatever it takes to make it look like you spent a mint on those cards.

I was at a meetup this past week and discussing possible business opportunities with a participant. He handed me his business card, a folded in half 80lb (at best) card stock that looked like it had been printed from his home inkjet. It most likely was printed from his home inkject. Pixelated logo, childlike combination of too many colors, and poorly formatted text that was difficult to read.

If this is how he represents himself I want no part of him representing me. What did that card say about his attention to detail, financial situation, professionalism, etc. When it comes to your business cards, build an expensive bank, go for the marble treatment and give people the right impression.

For inspiration and to see critiques of others business cards, checkout these links:

http://yourcardsucks.wordpress.com/

http://creativebits.org/bizcards

In a previous job I had direct access to the CEO. I admired him as well as the leadership team. However, the gloss began to wear off when the GM of my division was let go. I was told that major changes were underway, things would move quickly, and I would succeed him as GM. People at the company, including the CEO, knew I had aspirations of moving up and taking on greater responsibilities.

A few months passed and instead of gaining the new title of GM, our CEO announced informally that I would run the business unit “2 in the box” with the business manager. No title change, no promotion, and now confusion ensued between myself and the other manager as to what our roles were.

Between the two of us, we allocated who should do what to absorb the responsibilities of our departed GM. Neither of us received pay increases or title changes. I felt let down by the CEO. He had taken the time to speak directly with me about the upcoming changes and then reneged.

It was easy and it felt good to tell me what I wanted to hear. However, when he couldn’t or wouldn’t follow through, I lost my confidence in him as a leader. I began to question his integrity. I began to wonder about other issues plaguing the company. For example, we had a hosting company who returned our servers with no notice. When we received them back they were incorrectly configured, such that we couldn’t get the data off them.

I pressed our CIO and legal counsel to threaten suit if the hosting company would not send us the config documentation. My requests went unanswered. Later I found out that we had stopped paying our bill to the hosting company. At first I assumed it was an oversight on the part of the operations manager. But after my experiences I began to wonder if our CEO and top management knew about the lack of payment and were trying to squeeze out a few months of free rent.

I also found out from a colleague that he had a similar experience where the CEO had taken him aside and promised a promotion that never came. I don’t want to work at a company with ‘loose’ ethics. Ultimately I would end up leaving, fearing that the future of the company was in peril when a major division of the company began missing it’s revenue goals.

The CEO did not have to promise me anything or tell me what I wanted to hear. I would have continued diligently working and putting in my time. However, once a promise has been made, it must be kept. Failure to do so shows a lack of integrity, and your team will begin to question your leadership, commitment, and ethics. Once that happens morale falls, productivity decreases, turnover increases, and the ship begins to sink.

Honesty is hard. It takes courage to tell it like it is, especially when things are bad. It’s easy to tell people what they want to hear. However, being honest gains you respect and the willingness of others to follow you, even when the going gets tough.

Written by Warren Bennis.

1. You set the context. Refuse to be defined by others around you, current events / markets/ environments, or your own personal history. Define and understand what is truly important.
2. Ingredients of leadership:
   • Vision – a clear idea of what you want to do.
   • Passion – love what you do.
   • Integrity – understand yourself, be honest, be mature.
   • Curiosity and daring – try new things and don’t be afraid to fail.
3. Accept responsibility – blame no one.
4. Reflect on your experiences.
5. Understand your personal history so that you can be master of your life not its servant.

Next step, place an order for several different versions of ads and step into the money machine. Not quite. We enountered two problems: #1, our clickrate was extremely low. Clickrate is how many people who view the ad click it. When your click rate is very good the cost of the ads go down, when it’s bad the cost goes up. #2, the few people who did click failed to convert. I recall a conversion rate near .001.

First lesson: the users of different media channels have different expectations and goals. In google paid search, you know the user is looking for a particular term and they may be browsing for either information or a purchase. In social media, users are looking for information or entertainment, and expect a more entertaining experience.

Our second try consisted of a poll whereby we asked users 15 questions and then recommended a career in a certain category for them. We provided a link to a form where they could fill in their information to get more information about a particular school’s offerings. Although we still weren’t able to make a profit, this at least started moving us in the right direction. Our click rate greatly improved driving down the cost of the clicks, and the conversion rate of users who completely the poll was on par with expectations. However, we still did not get the number of leads that went on to fill out our final lead conversion form to make the campaign profitable.

Try number three: make it entertaining, make it social. The key to a good social media campaign is to get users to share your link, site, app, etc. with their friends / network. When one paid click results in your link being shared with 10 other people for free – now you’re on to something. We ran a highly targeted campaign centered around users who may be interested in computer science. Again, we ran a poll that asked a series of programming and computer questions and at the end provided a score and a recommendation to click a link where they could apply to one of our partner schools to request information.

You've been pwned

The difference from our earlier campaign is that the poll gave you a score that you could share with your friends and encouraged you to invite them to try and beat your score. Plus the conclusion screen at the end of the poll had a series of humorous images and messages depending on how well you did. Low scores were ‘noobs’ who got ‘pwned‘ and high scores were part of the 1337 who would accomplish world domination.

Fun: check.  Share-able: check.  Viral: check. Our market was small, but our success with our last campaign was huge. Our margins mirrored those of our best media channels and we had figured out how to crack the social advertising nut. Bottom line: innovation and hard work drive results. Be lazy with your marketing and you get what you pay for.

For example, if Strayer gave us a cap of 2,000 leads that we could sell to them per month, if we only sold 1,000 then our cap for the next month would be restricted to 1,000. Doesn’t sound like a problem right? Read on. We had different media channels that leads came through. Some of those channels were high quality (email, paid search) and some were horrible (interstitial, call centers).

If we delivered high quality leads we got more cap, but if we delivered poor quality we lost cap. Every month was a delicate balancing game of quality and volume. We would take a loss on high quality leads via Google adwords, making as little as 50 cents on the dollar, to balance out high volume and high margin low quality leads.

Our golden goose was email. No one else in our industry could run email campaigns as big or effective as we could. The problem is that you can put all your eggs in one basket.

One of my top initiatives was to diversify our lead generation sources. Below were several goals I set out in the strategic vision for the product:

1. White label partners: We had been successful at organic search (setting up niche sites dedicated to capturing search traffic for certain categories), but it took too long to get results. A new site would take anywhere from 9 months to 2 years to develop any amount of decent traffic. Our executive team required faster results. By partnering with sites that already had major traffic, we could instantly create a new traffic source. The hardest part was locating partners and structuring deals so that we kept enough margin to be profitable.
2. Buzz Marketing: The requirements for a buzz campaign where that it had to be cheap, get media coverage, and it had to generate leads. Our best performing category was medical: nurses, phlebotomists, x-ray technicians etc. What better way to generate buzz, give back to the community, and get leads than by having a wheelchair race (contestants would sprint pushing a partner in a wheelchair down a closed off street). We could promote healthy living via exercise, partner with a local hospital to borrow 100 wheelchairs, and have a submission form to get contestants. The winner of the race would get a 1 year scholarship towards a nursing degree at one of our partner schools. To enter the race you had to sign up online where we mixed in lead gen form, and at the least got users contact info to market to them further.
3. Retarget abandons: We pay a lot for the leads that we get, unfortunately many of them abandon the sign up process before completing it. As long as they had provided some form of contact and checked off the optin box, we started to retarget them to come back and finish what they started. What we found was that selling them directly didn’t always work best. The journey a user takes that ends in conversion is often not a direct path. Sometimes they need additional information about a particular school, finances, or college life. By giving them the additional information they sought we could often close the deal and make the sale, thereby reducing our costs of acquisition.
4. Social: Everybody talks about social marketing like it’s the next coming of Christ. Like anything else, we found you can’t jump into it doing what you’ve always done and make it rain money. Check out my next post on what worked and what didn’t work in social advertising.
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