I think that a major problem for Internet marketers is communication, usually between you and your employees (if you have some), you or your boss (if you have a boss) or at least between you and your clients/prospects.

What I am going to say in this article is that your communication must be direct, explicative and most of all, people need to understood your messages.

Getting any business message across is vital to the success of not only the business, but the success of your employees and your clients/prospects. In fact, communication only works when both the sender and the receiver understand the same information as a result of the communication.

Remember, if your employees are not experiencing success, or your clients/prospects are not experiencing success, then you’re most likely not experiencing any success as well.

I have many examples of failure to communicate, just a few sentences in an email can lead to huge mistakes. Therefore, I’ve got some tips for you. Everyone involved has to have the same line of understanding, if they do, it will save you time through accurate and complete information.

Negative aspects

A rule of thumb is that any negative aspect should be dealt with in private. That’s because most employers are aware of the possible humiliation and resentment which could occur as a result of being reprimanded in public, such as the weekly staff meeting or conference call. The same goes for discussion forums, leave all negative thoughts away from the forums. Keep them between you and the person involved (the same goes for commenting on blogs, that’s a public thing).

Some employers believe that publically pointing out mistakes or problems will result not only in their personal appearance of power, but also that it will ensure the employee in question doesn’t make the same mistake again. The same goes for bloggers and Internet marketers. But I believe that this is not the case.

If there are any negativities needing to be addressed, the best way to handle this is either in private at a separate meeting, by email sent only to one employee and not the entire team, or by telephone if needed. This will avoid bad feelings and embarrassments on behalf of the employee.

Positive aspects

Another rule of thumb is that any positive aspect should be made public. That’s the opposite of the negative aspect. Your employees will go that extra mile if they see you giving praise or recognition for their achievements. Most people thrive on positive feedback such as making a comment or two complimenting them on how quickly they finished a project, or learned a new task enabling you to trust them with other assignments. The same goes for bloggers, or when it comes to discussion forums. Make positive aspects public everywhere.

Get to the point

If you are saying stuff like “do a better job” or “you’re making too many mistakes”, you should understand that this is often too vague for people to relate to. Vagueness leads to these statements being useless. Elaborate on what exactly it is that you are not pleased with. This permits the person involved to take note of the issue, thus making it easier to avoid in the future.

Poor grammar or spelling

If your issues of miscommunication involve messages sent via the internet, a whole new set of issues can arise. Such problems could include poor grammar or spelling. Not only do these situations shed a negative light on your performance abilities, but it also makes it difficult for the receiver to decipher what is asked of them. If you are aware you have issues in this regard, practise regularly the use of proper grammar, as well as spell-check when available.

I’ve got a story for you. It’s a true story, one about a Polish carpenter and a wizard. It’s a story about marketing, and the power of using no money and no marketing skills in order to drive lots of traffic and earning a lot of money.

The wizard is a twenty-something kid, working at the local barnyard. He is a modern day wizard, he knows everything there is to know about computers, and he knows everything about cars. He’s finished high school, that’s all the education he got. 

Every single day, people show up with their computers and/or their cars, people call him all the time. He is earning money, a lot more money than most people. All he’s doing is an amazing job. Not one customer is anything but really really satisfied. Word of mouth is what’s going on. 

People are talking. More and more people share the information about his skills. He doesn’t have to do anything other than an amazing job, that’s all the marketing he needs.

Now, the Polish carpenter is an amazing carpenter. He’s a little older, and he’s quite hard to understand. He speaks a little english, and he smiles a lot. The results of every job he’s ever had, is new jobs. People are satisfied, they are really satisfied, and what happens when people are really satisfied? They talk to other people, they spread the information about why they are really satisfied. The same thing happens when people are really dissatisfied (but that’s a completely different story).

Most of the time, marketing is about making people really satisfied.

Salespeople are calling me on a daily basis. They are trying to sell advertisement space and various products that will help our college to attract more students. Some of them call me once or twice, and never again. some of them call me several times a month, even though I am still not interested in their products. Some of them are really friendly and cool, others are plain annoying.

Yesterday, a got a call from one of the most annoying salespeople around. During the conversation, I didn’t really listen to what he had to say, instead, I was thinking about why I thought this guy was annoying. Was is because of what he said, or was it the way he said it?

It’s not easy to understand why someone causes irritation. Sometimes people is plain annoying because of the way they talk, sometimes they are annoying for not talking. Sometimes people can be annoying by the way they look, sometimes by the way they sound or how they smell.

Finally, I got the answer.

The guy is actually both a lot of fun and friendly, and there’s nothing annoying about him other than that he calls me several times a month. And he tries to sell the same products over and over again, and I am still not interested. I have actually never been interested.

So, the only reason he is annoying, is because he is taking up too much of my time.

The only way to make him stop being annoying is to tell him not to call me anymore. I know all about the product by now, I’ll call him if I want the product.

I told him this yesterday, and hopefully he’ll respect the decision. The only way to deal with annoying salespeople is to be explicit, and tell them clearly and in detail what they should be doing. If you are not explisit, some will never stop.

I have been to several seminars, most of them quite boring. Usually, I try to avoid seminars, but not this time.

I have been looking for a seminar to use for my marketing job at the college – not just a seminar to help me earn money online. It seems that most seminars are either boring, or for people looking for a way to earn a fulltime income online.

Now, I have watched the website for the launch formula marketing seminar, and it seems to be a little different than most other seminars.

There’s just one goal with this seminar though, and that’s how to build your Internet marketing business. The goal is a little different than marketing a college, but there are a few similar traits.

It’s a membership site workshop. A college website is a lot similar to an Internet marketing membership site. We need to provide the best information for our students, we need to keep them interested, we need them to participate, and we need feedback. We need to reach them with the information, we need them to read it, and we need them to love it and be amazed buy it. Sometimes we need to send them vital information for their exams.

The launch formula marketing seminar seems like a rather relevant seminar for me, although I wouldn’t be attending it in order to start an online business (like probably most other people attending the seminar).

The seminar is in England, and that’s not too far away and not too expensive for me (or the college), and the seminar is in May, a great time for travel.

Some of the guys attending are well-known marketers earning a six-figure income, like Robert Puddy. They will, hopefully, share some of their secrets. Secrets that could either help you start a very profitable online business, or help me market a college in Norway.

Take a closer look at The Launch Formula Marketing Seminar.

When should you start a blog, and if you have multiple blogs, when is the time to start another one?

It’s fairly difficult to answer the questions above, and I am the first to admit that I have no clue what I am doing, other than listening to my gut feeling. If I feel like starting a blog, well, I will start it, no matter what people are telling me.

Don’t get me wrong, I listen to advice, I always do.

One advice that I have listened to, several times actually, is that I shouldn’t start another blog before the one I already have is popular.

I am not sure what people will tell you if you ask them to put a carachteristic on me, but I think that some would say that I am fairly unpremeditated. I like to do things the way that suits me, and many times I act on my gut feeling, and it happens fast. If I feel like starting another blog, it can happen within the hour. The blog will be up and running in matter of minutes.

I am not sure if this is a good thing or not. Well, sometimes it should be considered a strength, other times, it might be considered a weakness. It all depends.

Now, I have this gut feeling, fairly late on a saturday in March. My wife and kids are watching TV, we’ve just finished eating a late dinner, and I have hidden myself in the office, listenting to old Erasure songs.

Let me tell you about it.

I have a domain, I really like it, but I don’t use it for anything. It’s about to expire. The reason I haven’t used it for anything, is because I had a gut feeling, and I was impulsive. I wanted to write an ebook about marketing mistakes, and why most people fail at Internet marketing, but I ended up with an interesting sales page and no ebook. I got started, but I lost interest, or I should probably say that I had too many other projects, because that’s the real reason.

Now, I am thinking about creating a blog, and using it for the same reason; writing about marketing mistakes. It would be a blog about mistakes, nothing more and nothing less. I already own the domain, and it would focus my blog posts. This blog (slymarketing) would be about ways to do successful marketing and some interesting thoughts, while the other one would be about failure and things you never should do.

Right now, this thought sounds very interesting to me.

It’s not really that hard to build a kick-ass blog.

The problem is time, I barely have the time to write posts on my two blogs. Adding a third blog won’t help me get more time. I guess I have to work a lot smarter, and it’s tempting to see if I can.

And, I think that adding another blog means that I will get less content for my blogs. Today, I am writing about everything related to marketing, and I am posting it to slymarketing (the blog you are reading this very minute). Adding another blog related to marketing is not going to help when it comes to creating content, or maybe it will (it will help me be more focused)?

And, I have to hire a designer. I want a cool blog design, and a professional designer will cost hundreds of dollars. But, it’s not really about the money.

I think that time is of the essence, as well as content. Adding another blog might destroy what I have created, but on the other hand, adding another blog might be the wisest thing I have done in a long time.

It’s hard to decide.

But, right now, I want another blog. And, it will be marketingflop.com, all about marketing mistakes LOL.

Spam if applied to email, means that you are not allowed to send unsolicited bulk email. Unsolicited means that the recipient has not granted permission, bulk means that the message is sent as part of a large collection of messages.

But, what about offline marketing?

I am not sure how this works in other countries, but in Norway (and my guess is that it’s similar in both Sweden and Denmark), we can buy addresses to all sorts of companies. We can send them letters or whatever we like to send them, as long as it’s offline (snail mail).

My question is; are we allowed to spam, as long as it’s offline?

Or maybe the definition of spam only applies when it’s on the Internet?

Yesterday, I ordered take away pizza from a restaurant. It’s been a while since I’ve been there. The only reason I decided to order from this restaurant yesterday, was because they currently have a discount on their pizzas. The cut the price by 50%. It was a bargain, and I was hungry.

As I walked inside the restaurant, really hungry and ready for my pizza, I started feeling sad. I looked around, there was no people inside, only the two people working there. They didn’t look happy. They didn’t say much, it looked like they tried to smile as I paid for my pizza. It was weird. This place should have been crowded with people, It was cheap pizza.

This story got me thinking. How can anyone be successful selling pizza?

I can use the town where I live as an example. We have about 28,000 inhabitants, and probably about 10 pizza restaurants.

In order to be successful selling pizza, the restaurants have to have either the best waiters, the best tasting pizzas, or the cheapest pizza. If they have a combination of all three, then they’ll have a guarantee for success.

The problem with the restaurant I visited yesterday was that their pizza tasted good, but it’s not the best I have tasted. There are at least four restaurants that makes better pizzas. The waiters are probably ok. I have never heard anything bad about them, and I have never heard anything good about them. Therfore, I am guessing that they are mediocre. The price of the pizzas are exactly the same as the price of the pizzas at most of the other restaurants.

Why then, should I order the pizza from this restaurant? I can’t do it just because I feel sorry for them.

The problem is, it’s close to impossible to be successful by being mediocre.

If I owned a pizza restaurant, I would try my best to be different. I would try everything to make the best pizzas, because this is the only real guarantee for success. If you are the best, people will turn up and order your pizza, even though it might cost more than the other 9 pizza restaurants.

They could turn the interior of the restaurants into something really cool and different. This way, they would stand out and end up with new customers. The problem still remains, when people order pizza, they want the best tasting pizza. Some of the other factors are really helpful though, because if the pizzas are great at this restaurant (like the fourth best pizza place in our town), they have to do something to make up for it. If the price is the same, if the waiters are just ok, and the interior of the restaurant is ok, why should people order their pizzas?

There are no reasons, and that’s why I ended up being kind of sad when I ate the pizza yesterday.

A few days before Christmas, I watched the new Jim Carrey movie called Yes Man. I had to watch it, because I thought that the book was probably one of the funniest books I have ever read. Now, it was time for Jim Carrey, not my favorite actor, but I always end up having a few laughs when watching his movies.

I enjoyed Yes Man the movie as well, not as much as the book, but enough to recommend it. What surprised me though was that I saw him use IncrediMail when checking email at his office. It was really easy to see that it was IncrediMail, it was like it was meant to be visible.

The Yes Man could have used any email client, so why go with the fairly unknown IncrediMail?

I thought about this after the movie ended, and I have three answers:

1. IncrediMail is different, it’s sort of a creative email. They use a lot of sounds and animations, and some people find it to be really cool. I figured that it might be part of the plot, maybe he used Microsoft Outlook untill he received an offer to download Incredimail, and of course, he couldn’t say no. IncrediMail is then the email client for Yes people.

2. IncrediMail is product placement. The company paid for their email client to be used in the movie. I find this hard to believe though, because this is a major studio movie from Hollywood, and it’s probably very expensive to do product placements. To my knowledge, Incredimail does not have that many followers and the company doesn’t have a lot of money to spend on advertisments. But what do I know, maybe they have?

3. What’s more likely is that some of the guys on the set, maybe even Danny Wallace (the author), are using Incredimail and love it. They wanted it to be featured, because they want more people to start using it.

I tested IncrediMail a few years ago, I liked it, but in the end, it was to annoying. I wanted something plain and simply, yet powerful. I am using the Apple Mail client. Go watch the movie, and see if you’ll spot Incredimail.

I have had a few problems with our car lately, and monday was the day I drove it to the car dealership. They had to fix some stuff that I really don’t remember the name of. I am one of those guys that when it comes to cars, the only thing I understand is how to fill gas, I contact the dealership for everything else. I am not proud of it, but that’s how it is, and that’s how it will always be.

When I was about to drive to the dealership, I discovered that our car was really dirty. I hadn’t washed it for months, I guess I just didn’t notice, well, I noticed a few minutes before I was going to let someone else take a look at it.

I didn’t really have time to wash the car, so I just drove it to the dealership and gave the keys to the car mechanic.

Now, I didn’t expect anything other than that the car mechanic would repair the actual damage. So, I was rather surprised when I returned to get my car and saw that it had been washed. It was shining, it was like it was a brand new car.

I didn’t pay for it, it was all part of their service.

Now, that’s what I call great marketing.

A few days ago, my wife and I took a trip to IKEA. We were just going to have a look at a bed for our daughter, because we were already in Gothenburg. But at the same time, we ended up shopping all sorts of stuff. We always do that when we visit IKEA, I guess that’s what everybody ends up doing.

After we paid for our stuff, I had to go to the restroom. When entering, I discovered something interesting. Basically, the IKEA restroom is like any other restroom, it’s clean and neat and it has all the features we need. Nothing more, nothing less. Well, except for people with babies.

You can probably see what I am talking about. Isn’t that cool?

What’s great about it, is that it’s an IKEA product. You can buy the exact product inside the warehouse.

They are using their products inside the restroom, and I think I have actually seen some other products of IKEA inside the restaurant as well. By using their product inside the warhouse, people can experience them before they decide to buy them.

That’s great marketing.