Notes from "New Rules of Marketing and PR"

I have been reading a copy of "The New Rules of Marketing and PR" by David Meerman Scott. In the old world of marketing, you could only reach buyers via expensive ads or 3rd-party ink. With the web, you can reach niche buyers directly with very targeted messages that only cost a fraction of what it would cost you in the old world. You have to stop marketing exclusively to the "head" of the tail; with the web, you can actually market to the "long tail" as well. "Instead of a one-size-fits-all Web site with a mass-marketing message, we need to create many different microsites--with purpose-built landing pages and 'just right' content--each aimed at a narrow target consitutuency."

Also, instead of using interruptive ads to reach customers, you should offer valuable content that helps buyers make decisions. This follows the overall trend in media: the most effective ads are the ones that are perceived as content.

You don't need to rely on 3rd-party ink to reach buyers. You can talk directly to them with the web. How do you do it? By publishing a blog and offering useful content. As buyers search on Google while they do research, they may stumble upon the content you have created. Now that you have established some kind of relationship with them by giving them valuable content, you can sell them on your product. Let the world know about your expertise. Participate in conversations in your industry or market by commenting on other people's blogs.

Create buyer personas, and then develop content specifically for them. "Who are my readers? How do I reach them? What are their motivations? What are the problems I can help them solve? How can I entertain them and inform them at the same time? What content will compel them to purchase what I have to offer?"

Blogs are used:
1. To monitor what people are saying about you and your product
2. To participate in those conversations by commenting on other people's blogs
3. To begin and shape those conversations by creating and writing your own blog

Make sure that your "news releases" speak directly to your buyers (rather than press releases that speak to journalists). Write news releases that are replete with keyword-rich copy. Issue news releases often. Place links in releases to deliver potential customers to landing pages on your Web site.

Bargaining for Advantage (Interests and Leverage)

My 2nd post on "Bargaining for Advantage."

3. Effective negotiators can see the world from the other party's point of view.

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interests." - Adam Smith

"If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from that person's angle as well as from your own." - Henry Ford


To succeed, you must learn to ask how it might be in the other party's interest to help you achieve your goals. You must determine why the other party might say "no" so you can remove as many of his objections as possible.

Skilled negotiators focus on areas of shared or complementary interests during planning; less on conflicting positions on issues. By doing so, the skilled negotiators developed about twice the number of possible settlement options. The following steps will help you focus on what the other party wants and how these interests can be used to advance your own goals.

1. Identify the decision maker
2. Look for common ground. How might it serve other party's interests to help you achieve your goals? (Role reversal)
3. Identify interests that might interfere with agreement: Why might the other side say no?
4. Search for low-cost options that solve the other party's problems while advancing your goals.


4. Use leverage during negotiations.

"Every reason that the other side wants to needs an agreement is my leverage--provided that I know those reasons." - Bob Woolf

"You can get much further with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone." - Al Capone

Leverage is your power to reach an agreement on your terms.

1. Who controls the status quo, and who is seeking to change it? Leverage often flows to the party that exerts the greatest control over and appears most comfortable with the present situation.
2. For whom is time a factor?
3. Who has the most to lose from no deal? Create a vision that the other side has something to lose from no deal.

Positive leverage: needs-based. Every time the other party says, "I want," or "I need," your leverage has gone up. "Leverage is having omething the other guy wants. Or better yet needs. Or best of all, simply cannot do without." - Donald Trump

Negative leverage: threat-based

Bargaining for Advantage

I'm reading "Bargaining for Advantage" by G. Richard Shell. There are a number of important lessons for negotiators in this book. I'll start at the beginning.

1. Set high expectations.

"High achievement comes from high aims." - King Ching of Chou
"I believe in always having goals, and always setting them high." - Sam Walton

"Transform your goals from simple targets into genuine--and appropriately high--expectations."

"Goals are usually things we strive toward that are beyond our past achievements. An expectation, on the other hand, is a considered judgment about what we can and ought reasonably to accomplish."

Goals give us direction, but expectations are what carry meaning and conviction to our statements. In negotiation, what you aim for is often what you get. Setting specific goals motivates people, focusing and concentrating their attention.

It's important to distinguish between your "bottom line" and your goal, or "highest legitimate expectation." Once a negotiation is underway, people tend to gravitate towards the single focal point that has the greatest psychological significance for them. If you focus on your bottom line, you will consider any agreement reached above that point to be a success. If you focus on your goal (or "expectation"), then any offer reached below that point would be considered a loss.

To make your goal more real, make it specific, write it down and talk about it.

2. Use authoritative standards and norms to your benefit.

"The first duty of a wise advocate is to convince his opponents that he understands their arguments." - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

As part of your preparation for negotiation, you must become an advocate for your goals using the most persuasive standards that you can. You need these standards to give you a fair basis on which to be an energetic advocate for your goal.

Why are standards and norms important? Because people like to be seen as consistent and rational in the way they make decisions.

You maximize your normative leverage when the standards, norms, and themes you assert are the ones that your counterpart views as legitimate and relevant to the resolution of your differences.

If you only advocate your own standards and norms, you will not inspire agreement. The best practice is therefore to anticipate the other side's preferred standards and frame your proposal within them. If you can't do this, argue your position as an exception to their standard. But only attack their standard as a last resort.

Beware the consistency trap: an aggressive negotiator will get you to commit to an innocent-sounding principle/standard, then spring their trap by arguing that your position violates the norm you just agreed to. Probe why these questions are important before committing to anything. If you are pressed into committing, qualify it or say it in your own words and use the broadest possible terms.

Standards and norms have power in negotiation in part because they carry an authoritative message about what the market, the experts, or society has determined to be a fair and reasonable price.

Developing the Leader: Influence, Priorities

Influence

There is no leadership without influence (and power)

McKinsey's 10 methods of influence:

• Explaining
• Legitimizing
• Logical reasoning

• Asking
• Socializing
• Appeal to friendship
• Consulting
• Inspiring
• Role modeling
• Appeal to values
• Stating
• Exchanging
• Alliance building

McKinsey's sources of power (organizational):

• Resources
• Reputation
• Role/title
• Information
• Network

McKinsey's sources of power (personal):

• Knowledge
• Attraction
• Character
• Empathy
• History

The book talks about 5 levels of influence/leadership

1. Position/rights
2. Permission/relationship
3. Production/results
4. People development/reproduction
5. Personhood/respect

• To excel at level 1 (position): Exceed expectations with your job; accept responsibility
• To excel at level 2 (permission): Make those who work with you more successful; see things through others' eyes
• To excel at level 3 (production): Initiate and accept responsibility for growth; develop accountability for results, starting with yourself; communicate strategy and vision of org
• To excel at level 4 (people development) : Place a priority on developing people; be a model for others to follow; attract other winners/producers to a common goal
• To excel at level 5(personhood): Your followers are loyal and sacrificial; you transcend the organization

Priorities

Success: progressive realization of a pre-determined goal
Said a different way--focus, concentration of effort
Too many people are distracted from their goals, or try to take on too many goals and do not succeed in achieving any of them.
Leaders have the ability to focus, concentrate their efforts, prioritize on a small number of goals--and knock them out of the park

Methods of prioritizing:

• Pareto Principle (80/20 rule)
• Importance v. urgency prioritzation
• High importance, high urgency - do first
• High importance, low urgency - set aside time to do these
• Low importance, high urgency - find quick, efficient ways of getting done; delegate to a "can do" assistant if possible
• Low importance, low urgency - put it off as long as possible, indefinitely if you can; if it must be done, batch it up so that you can get it done with all at once
• Initiate, don't react (or said another way, "act, don't be acted upon")
• Don't let other people set your priorities/fill your calendar
• You initiate, you lead, you set your own priorities
• You can't have it all--focus on few priorities
• Time deadlines force us to prioritize--set them for yourself
  

Notes from Developing the Leader within You

10 key principles:

1. The definition: influence
2. The key: priorities
3. The most important ingredient: integrity
4. The ultimate test: creating positive change
5. The quickest way to gain leadership: problem-solving
6. The extra plus: attitude
7. Developing your most appreciable asset: people
8. The indispensable quality: vision
9. The price tag: self-discipline
10. The most important lesson: staff development
    

Transactional searches

Great post on Jeremy Liew's blog about the nature of searches (http://lsvp.wordpress.com/2007/08/08/monetizing-search/)

There are 3 types of searches:

1. Informational (50%)
2. Transactional (30%)
3. Navigational (20%)

All of the monetization comes from transactional searches. Vertical search engines (shopping, health, local, travel, and video) see a higher proportion of transactional searches than general search.

Luck and the entrepreneur

Marc Andreesen has an awesome post about luck and the entrepreneur here. In it, he talks about the 4 types of luck, and how entrepreneurs can best exploit luck.

Chance 1: Blind luck

The good luck that occurs is completely accidental. It is pure blind luck that comes with no effort on our part.

Chance 2: Motion

In Chance II, something else has been added -- motion. A certain [basic] level of action "stirs up the pot", brings in random ideas that will collide and stick together in fresh combinations, lets chance operate. Motion yields a network of new experiences which, like a sieve, filter best when in constant up-and-down, side-to-side movement... Chance II springs from your energetic, generalized motor activities... the freer they are, the better. [Chance II] involves the kind of luck [Charles] Kettering... had in mind when he said, "Keep on going and chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I have never heard of someone stumbling on something sitting down."

Chance 3: Recognizing good fortune

We see blind luck, but it tiptoes in softly, dressed in camouflage. Chance presents only a faint clue, the potential opportunity exists, but it will be overlooked except by that one person uniquely equipped to observe it, visualize it conceptually, and fully grasp its significance. Chance III involves involves a special receptivity, discernment, and intuitive grasp of significance unique to one particular recipient. Louis Pasteur characterized it for all time when he said, "Chance favors the prepared mind."

Chance 4: Personal approach to the opportunity

[Chance IV] favors the individualized action. This is the fourth element in good luck -- an active, but unintentional, subtle individualized prompting of it.

Chance IV is the kind of luck that develops during a probing action which has a distinctive personal flavor. The English Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, summed up the principle underlying Chance IV when he noted: "We make our fortunes and we call them fate." Chance IV comes to you, unsought, because of who you are and how you behave...Chance IV is so personal, it is not easily understood by someone else the first time around... here we probe into the subterranean recesses of personal hobbies and behavioral quirks that autobiographers know about, biographers rarely. [In neurological terms], Chance III [is] concerned with personal sensory receptivity; its counterpart, Chance IV, [is] involved with personal motor behavior.

To recap:

• Chance I is completely impersonal; you can't influence it.
• Chance II favors those who have a persistent curiosity about many things coupled with an energetic willingness to experiment and explore.
• Chance III favors those who have a sufficient background of sound knowledge plus special abilities in observing, remembering, recalling, and quickly forming significant new associations.
• Chance IV favors those with distinctive, if not eccentric hobbies, personal lifestyles, and motor behaviors.
  

For entrepreneurs, this means:

• How energetic are we? How inclined towards motion are we? A variation on the "optimize for the maximum number of swings of the bat" principle. (Same thing that Reid Hoffman mentioned in his talk) In a highly uncertain world, a bias to action is key to catalyzing success, and luck, and is often to be preferred to thinking things through more throughly.
• How curious are we? How determined are we to learn about our chosen field, other fields, and the world around us? Curiosity is more important than intelligence. Curious people are more likely to already have in their heads the building blocks for crafting a solution for any particular problem they come across, versus the more quote-unquote intelligent, but less curious, person who is trying to get by on logic and pure intellectual effort.
• How flexible and aggressive are we at synthesizing -- at linking together multiple, disparate, apparently unrelated experiences on the fly? I think this is a hard skill to consciously improve, but I think it is good to start most creative exercises with the idea that the solution may come from any of our past experiences or knowledge, as opposed to out of a textbook or the mouth of an expert. (And, if you are a manager and you have someone who is particularly good at synthesis, promote her as fast as you possibly can.)
• How uniquely are we developing a personal point of view -- a personal approach -- a personal set of "eccentric hobbies, personal lifestyles, and motor behaviors" that will uniquely prepare us to create? This, in a nutshell, is why I believe that most creative people are better off with more life experience and journeys afield into seemingly unrelated areas, as opposed to more formal domain-specific education -- at least if they want to create."