If you’re a tech nerd like I am you can’t help but take note of the incredible hype building for the yet unannounced Apple Tablet. The speculation over whether Apple was working on such a device started really heating up months ago in the lead up to the last Apple event in which the iPhone 3GS was announced. Since that time the rumour mill has been churning at an astounding rate with coverage of everything from Apple’s patents that might be used in such a device to the recently held collective thought (hey if the NY Times says it’s so I think it’s safe to call it the collective belief) that yes this device is being built so we should now move to speculating on what it will be called. The ability of Apple to sit on the sidelines and not say a word yet have this much speculation and hype building says a ton about the passion people have for their products (more on that in this post) but it’s not just the normal hype and speculation around Apple products that we typically see -- it is more than just articles on TUAW and mocked up images floating around the Internet, rather there is almost a cry for the product coming from both consumers and very interestingly from the publishing world. It’s this last point (the desire from the publishing world) that I find really fascinating and want to explore a little further in this post.

The idea of the Tablet computer has been around for a long time, you can even go back to Apple’s Newton handheld to really find that it’s been tried by many pretty unsuccessfully to this point. Microsoft really tried to push the Tablet a few years ago even going so far as to have Bill Gates demo it in many spots. However it’s really never gained the traction that was expected -- people just couldn’t or wouldn’t adopt the new form factor and while I (I owned an Acer) always found the handwriting recognition and other Tablet features cool, there was just not enough reason for consumers to buy. Not enough software was created for the Tablet and while companies like Zinio were trying to start up with digital magazines there was not really any specialized media made for it -- at the end of the day it looked cool but not much more. Skip ahead to present day…

Today there are still Tablet devices available from multiple manufacturers but they’re pretty much the same as those from the last 7-8 years. The real difference is that while consumers definitely seem excited about a new Tablet and seem ready to buy an additional computing device (see the great Netbook and Kindle sales this holiday season) it is the publishing world which seems to be begging for Apple to launch a product to save them.

Print publications whether newspapers or magazines are dying -- readership + advertising is at an all time low, classified ads have moved to Craigslist, and only a very select few publications have been able to charge anything for their content online. It would only seem logical that these publications need to find a way to move their product to the digital space but the really interesting thing is that to do so they have basically thrown up their hands and said we need a new printing press to be invented and that printing press should come from Apple. Beyond a bevy of articles about the need and desire of these publishers to have Apple throw them a lifeline it was really a video from Time/Sports Illustrated that caught my attention. The video produced by Time and showcasing the potential future of Sports Illustrated (embedded below) looks great but caused me to step back and take a moment to look at what the message was to the business versus tech communities.

From a pure technology standpoint of course all of us (the tech nerds like me) are waiting with baited breath for the Tablet specifically from Apple and regardless of whether it really takes off like the iPod/iPhone or it’s considered a dud like Apple TV (just to show Apple’s not perfect) we’ll love that it’s out there and ushering in a new computing form factor beyond the Netbook. So I get that the video is a showcase of what could be. From a business standpoint though I really find the messaging of a video like this to be suspect.

What is Time trying to say with this video? From my standpoint it seems to be really giving the message that publishers are waiting for someone else to solve their business problems by inventing them a magical new printing press. I find that it signals that they feel they are unable to move forward or innovate at all on their own. While it is a very cool video indeed, if I’m an executive at Time I’d much rather my team be figuring out ways to make all of our publications more advertising and subscription friendly in the online space and less time creating videos full of speculation and conjecture. Don’t get me wrong, if Apple is indeed working on such a device (and pretending I still am an exec at Time) I would expect my team to have secured a partnership so that we had content ready at launch. We know Apple really knows how to launch a product so I’d want Steve Jobs to show our product at that launch, but Apple has not confirmed anything and so I’d expect to see a video like this presented to me (as an executive) internally but I wouldn’t want to announce to the world via YouTube that we’re waiting on a Hail Mary pass from Apple.

What do you think? Am I crazy or is there some real mixed messaging going on here?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSn7Za5SWng

So you’ve got a business idea or maybe even for the most advanced in my readership, a business plan. You’ve heard a lot about your elevator pitch and the many ways in which to raise money. So the next step in your plan is to get mainstream buy in for your idea. Yet how do you do this if your idea is complex and new? You need to break down your idea into bite size and intellectually digestible pieces. The person you are pitching to must intrinsically get your business the moment after you pitch it or the pitch flat out was not worth it. So how to explain a tough concept? Why not spend a fair bit of dough (this was not entitled the “free way to get noticed”) and get some experts to help you tell your story. If you really want to go for the gold, how about the guys from Epipheo Studios who were good enough for Google, twice.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDu2A3WzQpo

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwVX42Amcak

I’m not just talking about any group of talented individuals because if you need a guy who is awesome I’d just send you to Marc Lostracco, but if you need an agency who knows how to explain technology or even say Rosh Hashanah, go visit the kind folks at Ephipheo.

Given my propensity for nerdiness and specifically my passion for entrepreneurial businesses in the online world I often get asked by friends, family and tweeps about what company or service I would recommend for this or that related to the Internet or online marketing. I am happy to give one of advice but find myself recommending the same companies and services time and time again so I thought it would be worthwhile to break down months of recommendations into a usable list of technologies and/or services I use or recommend you use in your business. I’ve tried to include some brief information on why I use the company/service and what I find valuable about that particular company but there are two things that you can be sure are true of any company that makes my list. First the company must be hell-bent on customer service, if there is one thing that every company (online or offline) should be passionate about, it is customer service and creating customer evangelists (I think I qualify as example A with this list) so if a company has made my list you can expect that while they might not be Zappos, they’ll treat you with respect. Second, to make my list the company/service has to be one that does not require a second mortgage on your home to use, if it’s on this list then in my estimation the benefits of use far outweigh the cost.

I’ve tried to break these down into some sort of usable categories and would be happy to expand on my experiences with any of these companies so feel free to drop a comment or ask anything that’s on your mind.

So here is my inaugural list of companies that rock!

Collaboration/Communication

What good is working in a vacuum or not being able to effectively collaborate with team members regardless of whether they are in the next office or a different continent. As a company like WooThemes has shown, with some ability to be tech savvy and the occasional early morning (or late evening depending on time zones) video call you can create and run a successful (and profitable) company across geographic boundaries with people you may or may not ever meet in person. Most who read this post will not be in the boat of the WooThemes guys but they’ve proven that it can be done and done well. So here are my favorite companies and tools for collaboration.

Skype

Traditional communication through the telephone and ultimately the dreaded conference call can and should be replaced by a better and cheaper method, the combination of ubiqutous high speed internet access and voice over ip has made there many better ways to communicate and collaborate with your team than simply using the telephone but Skype is still the most user friendly.

I am quite sure I do not need to give you an overview of what Skype is especially considering Oprah seems to love it, but if you want to communicate with colleagues (or friends) in a free manner there is no reason to look beyond Skype. With the smooth video to video calling capability you can not only collaborate in real time from across the world but you can do it face-to-face. For people who feel that it is important to have that “face time” with clients or colleagues there really is nothing more practical than Skype.

Yammer and P2 Theme

There is no doubt that Twitter has exploded communication across the Internet and that if you could harnass just one small bit of that communication in your own business it would be a very powerful thing. With that in mind I have two recommendations.

Yammer is Twitter but behind the corporate firewall and P2 is a WordPress Theme that mimics some of the functionality of Twitter. I have included both Yammer and P2 in the same area because although I think P2 is an excellent (and free) alternative, it requires that you or a member of your team have much more technical knowledge (you need to at least know WordPress) and it certainly does not offer the applications (e.g. iPhone or BlackBerry client) nor support of a paid product like Yammer. Both offer your team increased ways to communicate and collaborate, it really just comes down to the functionality and support you require.

Yammer

I’ll start with Yammer which I have described as Twitter behind the corporate firewall. I am sure the company would list about a billion different ways to describe it’s features but at the end of the day that’s the difference maker that I see in it and the value of Yammer is really in that it is a private version of Twitter. In organizations where people are in at different times or where teams are trying to collaborate with people they don’t often get to see face-to-face, Yammer can be a good way to ensure that those teams are talking and sharing links, resources and ideas.

If however you (or a team member) has some technical knowledge and you don’t really need the full feature set of Yammer then I highly recommend you check out the WordPress theme known as P2.

P2

I was originally alerted to this WordPress theme through an article written by Matt Mullenweg (if you don’t know who Matt is, he is one of PC World’s Top 50 People on the Web, Inc.com’s 30 under 30, and Business Week’s 25 Most Influential People on the Web) entitled “How p2 Changed Automattic“. An article with that title from a person of that amount of knowledge and influence had it book marked in Instapaper (more on that below) for a long period of time before I got around to reading the article. With that said and if you’ve taken a moment to read Matt’s article you will immediately have a great use case for just what p2 is and why do I recommend it.

At the end of the day P2 is a free theme for WordPress that allows a traditional blog to to operate in a Twitter like fashion by supporting features like inline comments on the homepage, a posting form on the homepage, inline editing of posts and comments, real-time updates so new posts and comments come in without reloading, and more. I could do a more full job explaining the feature set, but there is a pretty slick video on the demo site that gives you all you need to know.

Go To Meeting

You really can’t talk about collaboration amongst team members without giving them a tool with which to collaborate or share documents in a conference or video call setting. With that in mind GoToMeeting is about as reliable and cost effective solution as can be recommended. The level of customer service and number of customers using the product (hence most problems are sorted out quite quickly) ensure that this is a service that will continue to advance. They’ll give you a 30 day trial and you can pay monthly so it’s a good service when you need it.

Rypple

Feedback is one of the most important things you can solicit from customers, colleagues and friends. The team at Rypple has made that pretty amazingly easy and slick. Using a customer acquisition model that seems to be based on employees at corporations falling in love with the service and then recommending it to their company – with the company paying to implement on a larger scale – Rypple is a company you should watch and get on board with.

Email Marketing

Mailchimp

For most small businesses email marketing or having a newsletter is one of those things they know they should do but don’t really know where to begin. I can tell you that email marketing works time and time again and getting started is not only easy, it’s also free. Sign up for an account at Mailchimp and you’ll be sending beautiful emails in no time. I can’t stress enough how much you should be working to get email addresses and beginning your email marketing. As you get more at ease read the Mailchimp blog and get some inspiration here.

Productivity

Perhaps my favorite items on this list can be found here, whether you’re a casual Internet user or hardcore these services will come in handy.

GetDropbox

Perhaps the most useful on the list, Get DropBox is a free service that will let you store files on the cloud and the retrieve them from any other computer or even your iPhone. It’s much better than emailing yourself and if you’ll have Internet it’s much better than any USB key. Go get yourself and account and you will not be sorry I promise.

Evernote

Whther you’re on a Mac or a PC, an iPhone or Blackberry, Evernote is another one that should be on both your desktop and your phone. We all have some method of keeping notes to ourselves, whether it is where you parked your car or your latest business idea, Evernote is the place to store them all. You can go so far as to take a photo with your camera and save it as a note with all the text shown in the photo searchable, it’s semi unbelievable. Notes sync with your desktop and phone and are basically available to you everywhere.

One non-business use for you is to save coupons as pdfs to Evernote and then have them available in store, the clerk can scan the upc from your phone.

Instapaper

This one is specifically for iPhone users but it’s an amazing and free little app that will allow you to access any web article from your phone while offline. You can all relate I’m sure, you’re working and come across an article you’d like to read but dint have the time. So you click read later and when you’re on the subway you’ve got a set of things to read. It’s a great app.

Twitter (Social Media) – Caveat, I do not know the customer service levels here

There are many who have covered the numerous Twitter clients and services better than I ever could (see this from Mashable, and this from Twitter) but I have a few services you should take a look at.

I’ll first say that my Twitter desktop client of choice is Tweetdeck and that on the iPhone I prefer Tweetie2 but here are some Twitter related sites and services.

Social Oomph

Previously known as Tweet Later, this company will allow you to schedule tweets days in advance and have them drop at a time of your choosing whether you are online or not. You can do some key word tracking using the site but that’s not its strong suit, it really is just a great service for pre-scheduling some tweets and then sitting back and watching them go.

Peashoot

There is no sense saying that you are going to use Twitter as a serious marketing vehicle if you’re not going to track your Twitter based campaigns and try to learn from them. Peashoot tracks your conversions and shows you how to improve your future campaigns. I’ve toyed with this but have not used it seriously yet but the company says it’s Audience Builder automatically follows people on Twitter who are relevant to you or your company. Over a matter of days Peashoot can increase your total audience size giving you more people to connect with and help spread the word about you or your company. More importantly the application lets you Measure ROI and respond to campaign activity. The company offers what it calls “Active Listening” technology whereby Twitter activity about your campaign is included in your campaign reports.

What The Trend

Trends on Twitter are a good way to keep yourself in the loop as to items which are topical and will hopefully draw visitors to your blog and comments if you hop on a trend and write something interesting. What the Trend is not one of those sites that you need to visit daily, but it’s a handy little place to get some topical blog post ideas.

Short post cuz the video pretty much says it all and I can’t take any credit here.

If you want to read the original post and get your hands on many of the sources as well as the stats go here. If you want to see a presentation (different authors) with very similar statistics on slideshare go here.

Grab some popcorn cuz its a few minutes but its good.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8

Of course we’ve all heard the sentiment that a satisfied customer will tell a few people but an unsatisfied one will tell anyone who will listen. When the Internet started to become a more social place, companies started to realize that their customers now could tell the world about their negative experience – just look up any company with the word “sucks” after their name. Companies that already had good customer support realized they had to do even better while those with crappy support were at least more exposed.

There is no doubt that this is good for the consumer, but recently I was giving a speech on customer service and I gave a tidbit from my personal consumer life that seemed to really resonate with the crowd. I explained to them that there is transparency in the levels of customer service that current customers are receiving and that as a potential consumer it is actually pretty simple for me to gauge the number of support issues and the way they are handled. This transparency can and does impact sales well before the point of purchase.

In the offline world when someone has a customer support issue they generally will have one of two ways of resolving it. Either they call the support number provided or they have to head to the store and seek live support. In either case generally the exchange between company and customer is private to the outside world.

However in the online world one of the ways I like to investigate a product or service that I am contemplating buying is to head directly to the support page or forums and see what problems customers are having and more importantly (to me anyway) the responsiveness of the customer support staff at said company. It’s a level of transparency and a window into what life would be like as a customer of this company that I can’t get elsewhere. I of course can and do search the blogosphere and use Twitter to seek out other’s opinions, but I find that by doing a quick scan of the support forums I can find out (1) if the product is plagued with issues and (2) how quickly and efficiently those issues are dealt with.

Some companies make you register to enter these forums and that’s ok, I don’t mind giving up a little information if it means I get to look behind the curtain of PR and Marketing to see what’s really going on with the product and company.

So what’s my point? You can and should be using this tidbit as a way to look at your own company.

Try dealing with your company as a consumer – what are the difficulties? Where does the company fall down? Take the time, call your customer support line, is it a good experience? Head to the support forums on your website and post a problem – how long until someone gives you a well thought out (not a pre-written form letter) response?

Every once and again you need to step back and put yourself in the shoes of your consumers experiencing problems – how does your company look then? Where can you make improvements?  The transparency of support is something that can be a big plus if your company does it well but I just don’t think enough companies remember to put themselves in the shoes of the consumer in an after sales capacity.

As always your thoughts and comments are appreciated.

As Oprah pulled up at the Twitter table last week it seemed like the party was over. There are no shortage of people who declared that the reason to use Twitter was dead now that it was being taken over by celebrities like Aston Kutcher (@aplusk) and the aforementioned Ms. Winfrey.

I guess that is one way you could view the happenings, yet I’m going to ask you take a look at a different group of people (all of whom are celebrities) and I think you will get the sense that while Oprah is undoubtedly like your parents (and why not follow my Dad – @actonroad) chaperoning and then deciding to dance at your prom, if you take the time to follow some of the great athletes that have embraced Twitter you’ll get a totally different view.

I am going to start by saying that I do not really think it’s fair to put Shaq or Lance Armstrong in the same column as Oprah when it comes to their “cool” factor, but I think it is essentially fair if we are just trying to compare celebr-twit to celebri-twit on my invented “this person is autograph worthy” scale.

Neither Shaq nor Oprah need any more people trying to cover their every move yet there both of them are on Twitter sharing with the world. The difference between Shaq and Oprah is that Shaq – like most athletes on Twitter – inherently seems to “get it”. I mean you really only need to look at Shaq’s tweet where he put Oprah in her place to see that he is actually protective of the Twitterverse.

Ok you say, so Shaq and Lance Armstrong seem to like Twittering and they aren’t so completely self-interested that every tweet is about themselves or their cafe macchiato – what’s the big deal?

It’s not just Shaq and Lance that get it is what is the big deal. There are a ton of athletes on Twitter who are actually using it in much the same way you or I do. They’re chatting with friends, throwing random questions at their followers and for the most part are some of the most “real” Twitter users you will find.

I could have listed numerous examples but will stick with just @jalenrose because after following him for a bit I actually think that for him Twitter is not about stroking ego.

So before you declare Twitter dead and the party over, remember that there are all types of people on Twitter – celebrity or not – and nobody’s forcing you to follow @oprah.

If you’re looking for a list of athletes to follow on Twitter there are no shortage of them out there but I found the majority of the ones I follow at Athletes That Tweet and would encourage you to check there first.

As someone with an entrepreneurial mind I often have business ideas, marketing sparks or even just insights that I think might prove valuable for a future article, book or speaking engagement. Sometimes I am able to work through the idea on my own, either pursuing it further or deciding it was best as a passing thought – but often I want to get some real world opinions or reactions and I certainly am not about to pay a real focus group. Problem? Absolutely not…

If you’re looking for a variety of opinions or a sounding board for ideas, sometimes your best bet is to turn your thoughts inward to your own life and to your real life group of friends and other contacts. Something I have recently been able to do with different groups of people in my life.

Case in point…

Being a good Canadian boy once a week I grab my hockey gear and lace’em up in men’s (beer) league with a group of good friends and last week something struck me when we were chatting over a cold one after the game, my hockey team serves as a great personal focus group.

Now stay with me for a minute because I realize that 14 men all around the same age all participating in an organized sport is not exactly the cross-section of society you want for a focus group. However with that said when I look up and down our roster and I think about the wide variety of topics that come up amongst the boys both pre and post game it struck me that in just that one little group I have a pretty great cross section of professions, technology acumen and even stages of life.

To offset the fellas, on another night I sat in on my Mom’s famous Mahjong game and chatted with women who crossed several generations and had an extremely wide set of technology and business acumen. Finally, to round it all out I took my friend’s teen-age brother and 5 of his friends to lunch and talked to them about their use of everything from Facebook to Twitter.

I know enough not to make any life or business decisions solely on the basis of what I discern from these gatherings, but as a sounding board or a place to get some real world (non sterilized) opinions it absolutely makes sense and helps me quickly get the pulse of any number of different people/groups.

What about you, who do you use as your personal focus group?

As the economy worsens and businesses continue to tighten their budgets I find more and more people in need of an emotional boost and a little jolt of re-inspiration to help make them a little bit more passionate about what they do. I am certainly not immune to the need for re-inspiration every now and again and just recently I was thinking of the ways I have been able to accomplish this for myself (or clients) and some of the innovative ways I have seen others do it. I think that many of these ideas can be implemented in both small (even your own one person) businesses and within departments or groups at large companies, the point is that there is a ton you can do for under $100 per employee (you can decide if it is monthly, yearly etc).

Specialized Business/Mini Cards

I know that many businesses hold their logo and branding guidelines as sacrosanct and would be appaled by this suggestion, but I find that this is one of the greatest ways you can inspire your employees (or yourself). My suggestion is that you order 100 mini cards from Moo.com and either spend some time designing them yourself or (in the case of a company that wants to protect branding) offer multiple “funky” or at least alternatively themed images that employees could choose from and let each person include the information they want – Facebook or LinkedIn Page, Twitter Name etc – as an alternative to their regular corporate cards. If you are doing it for yourself it is a fun and interesting way to take a good look at your business and find some new images and looks to inspire you and at the same time it also allows you to update the information on your regular cards for use in specialized (say Tweetups) settings.

For less than $35 you can get 100 individualized cards and a snazzy case for the cards. Pretty simple but also a nice little boost.

Give Incentives & Give Back

I have previously written about my idea of discontinuing swag at trade shows in favour of companies donating to charity in a trade for swiping my show pass and gathering my information. I also think that companies and individuals can inspire by combining a little bit of personal indulgence with giving back to a cause of choice. Of course there are those people who will say they would rather just have money, but I think that giving someone $100 is cheesy and really has little to no impact. With that said, if you take the time to choose a few different gift card (best with online redemption ability) options and let your employees choose the one (e.g. Amazon for the everything, Home Depot for the home builder, Blue Nile for the a real indulgence) that suits them best and combine it with a few charity options and let them choose the one they want to donate to for $100 you will have given a gift to your employee and let them donate (I think it is important to make the donation in the employee’s name so they know you didn’t do it for the tax receipt and also so it is indeed their donation) to a cause they believe in. If this is not a way to show people that you are willing to be creative and show them that you value them I don’t know what is.

Listen & Act

One of the trends we have seen in consumer relations is the two way conversations that are happening between companies like Dell, Zappos, Starbucks (see my post on the My Starbucks Idea site) and their customers. If you take a look at the Starbucks site, you will note that many of the suggestions that have been implemented were for the most part extremely low cost implementations (e.g. putting a spill protector in the cups, a birthday program) for a tremendous gain in customer loyalty. There is absolutely no reason why you should not be seeking the same feedback from your employees. The most important point in this regard is that you are willing to act on the ideas given and just as important, communicate the actions you are taking. Why not establish an internal site like the Starbucks site to share ideas received and actions taken? Although this does not impact people from a direct incentive perspective, there is little that is more inspiring than a boss who is willing to listen.

Team = Family

You want the people who work for you to care about your business as much as you do but lets be honest if they are not owners (and even then) it is hard for them to ever feel the same sense of passion that you carry around. With that said I cannot tell you the amount of business owners who tell me their employees are like family, my question back often is “do you think your employees feel the same way about you” or even more to the point “do you really believe your employees would consider themselves treated like family?” For the organizations that can honestly say yes I say kudos to you but for everyone else I think you need to take a step back and realize that if you want to talk family then you should get to know who your employees care about. You know who your family cares about and you know who your closest friends care about so why don’t you show your employees that you want to get to know them as well. Staying within my $100 budget why not organize a series of events, outings and get togethers in which the employee brings a guest to each. For an average of $33 per outing you could arrange a lunch at a local restaurant, bowling/ice skating/etc or even be as creative spending the money on bringing in day care for a day and going on a day outing to a mall or attraction with your employees.

Beer/Wine/Spirits = The Ultimate Inspiration

It is easy as the boss to try to be magnanamous and throw down your credit card to pay for drinks when you and your employees go out on a Thursday afternoon, but I am going to let you in on a little secret, they fully expected you to pay for those drinks (its why they are hanging out with you) and if you didn’t you would have looked cheap. So how can I also say that buying a beer for your employees can be one of the most inspirational things you will do for them? It is all in the way you do it that matters. Your employees do not want to hang out with you if they feel that you are just doing the obligitory thing and if you have never really interacted with them outside of their job functions this will be difficult to correct. However, if you are willing to step off the pedistal and be one of the “guys/gals” for a bit then you will be a much more effective leader and spending $100 per employee will seem like the best expenditure you make. My suggestion is that you make a monthly “order in” night with your team where a team member gets to pick a restaurant from which to order food and another employee is given some $ (again you can stick to my $100) to head to the local beer and liquor store and ensure everyone can let loose. You can throw in some music, rent a movie, do what ever you choose but just turn work into a dorm room for a couple of hours and your employees will look forward to it all month, I guarantee it.  *My only caveat (sometimes I hate the lawyer in me) is that you must provide a cab slip that day for all people so that nobody has to drive*

Give Feedback – The $0 Inspiration Tool

Formal reviews are so yesterday. People will tell you that it is only the millenials who want instant gratification and feedback but lets be honest, it is all of us. It doesn’t matter if you are 23 or 63, when you do a good job on something you want to have people tell you so. It is inspiring to hear that people appreciated your efforts and value your work. When you were a little kid and your parents put your “A” paper on the fridge didn’t it make you want to continue on that same level? When I get a complement at work that  means something to me I often still tell my parents (insert wife if I had one) about it. My point is that we absolutely relish getting feedback and since your organization is certianly not going to pay to have 360 reviews done every time someone needs a pat on the back I would recommend that you immediately check out Rypple. Finally a way to both seek and receive feedback in a manner that actually allows it to be timely and informal.

In conclusion, there is obviously no better inspirational tool than leading by example but sometimes you need a little pick me up and so I’ve shared these. I would love to hear your simple and cost effective ways to inspire and motivate.

“My Mom Is Better For Your Brand Than Tiger Woods”

Let’s face it not very many of us are ever going to be in a position to spend millions of dollars on a celebrity endorsement of our product or service (even GM decided that they couldn’t or wouldn’t foot the bill to put Tiger Woods behind the wheel of one of their cars) but regardless of the size of your company, your Tiger Woods is out there, you just need to find him (or her). Let me explain.

Tiger Woods is undeniably one of the most recognizable people in the world and having him drink Gatorade in a commercial or sport a Nike golf shirt on a Sunday is absolutely noticable, but is it an effective spend of resources? While Tiger may be dynamite with a 3 iron, none of us really believe that drinking Gatorade or wearing a Nike swoosh is going to get us out of the sand trap, but if you actually saw Tiger Woods buying an item he didn’t get paid to endorse – say a bottle of Robaxacet – I bet you would be influenced by his purchase the next time you had a tweak in your back

Authenticity Means More Than Star Power

The influence seen from the Robaxacet purchase comes from the fact that his usage is authentic and speaks to the fact that he must actually believe the product works or he would just call Advil and tell them to give him a lifetime supply (along with millions of $$) and they could stick his face on the bottle. Ok you are saying but Tiger Woods is not using my – insert product or service here – so I don’t have the ability to leverage his star power. Ah but you do I say!

You may not make a product or service sold on the mass scale of the products that Tiger endorses but again my point is that you have the ability to use influencer marketing in much the same way. People out there are using your product or service and thus must have formed some opinion about it. Currently those people might only be telling their neighbour (or their FriendFeed, Facebook groups etc) that they love your company and that is where the opportunity to make them your Tiger Woods comes in.

You Need To Scout For Your Celebrities

People have passion for all sorts of things. I may not know the first thing about Mah Jong but I know my Mom is so enthralled with the game that she regularly goes online to discuss it with people she has never met. If Mah Jong was your company, then my Mom could be your Tiger Woods, the thing is you need to be looking for her because she is not looking for you.

You need to seek out the users of your product/service and engage them in conversation. Figure out what it is they love (or hate – see my post on the Motrin Moms) about your company and then help turn them loose on all the people they can influence on your behalf. This will mean different things to different people but the main thing you should see is opportunity.

Again let’s use my Mom. She’s fairly Internet savvy but she is not going to start a blog or be Tweeting about your product so how can she be your Tiger Woods? She can be if you understand her and the fact that she probably represents a good percentage of your consumers/audience. They too are not blogging or tweeting about your company, but dig a little deeper and you will learn that she hosts games of Mah Jong weekly for over thirty of her friends and friends of friends. Just with that single tidbit of information you now know that she is the centre of a circle of influence and that enabling her to promote your product/service means that you have just found a passionate and authentic endorser of your company for the low cost of simply listenting and engaging.

The Center of Influence Will Help Your Message Ripple Out

Let’s stick with my Mom and Mah Jong for a bit longer…It might seem that there is no real promotion opportunity here, but what about the fact that each week she always puts out different exotic chocolates for her guests – If I was a chocolate company I might send her a box each month – Or how about a florist sending her little center pieces for each table – surely people would ask where the beautiful flowers came from. Of those 30 people who she talks to that day, how many people will they mention the chocolates or flowers too? What if you took it a step further than just giving her chocolates or flowers and enabled her to pass on a 15% discount to all the people who attended her Mah Jong game…And then what about those people, once they’ve ordered (using the unique code you gave my Mom) you not only know how you acquired them as customers but you now have an opportunity to engage them as influencers and grow the circle larger and larger.

My example is decidely low-tech, but I chose it for that exact reason. If your product or service is digital or you choose to engage users that are more wired than my Mom your task is much the same only you need to approach it with different tools (I have written before about providing your users with the tools they require to create content).

My point is that it is the authenticity that my Mom brings to her circle of influence that you should be grabbing on to and nurturing. She might not sink 35 foot putts as consistently as Tiger Woods, but in my mind her recommendations to the group she plays Mah Jong with are as influencial (I would argue more influencial) than the 100 million impressions/views that are reported when Tiger drinks a Gatorade at half-time during the Super Bowl.

So The real question you should be asking yourself is not how can I grow large enough to pay someone to promote or be equated with my brand? It is “who is already so passionate about my brand that given the right tools and love they will perform like myown personal Tiger Woods?“

One of the areas where companies inevitably spend money but see absolutely no return is in the area of company clothing and trade show give-aways. The company clothing for your employees at trade shows is ok, so is producing some t-shirts or ball caps with your logo but please do not try to convince me that giving away crap (and let’s be honest for the most part it is crap) with your logo on it does anything for your business. I say this fully cognisant of the fact that it absolutely boosts team spirit to give your employees some logo’d clothing but in terms of appealing to consumers partners and as importantly investors, free spending in this area can actually be detrimental and be a sign of either ego or just poor decision making. Don’t take my word for it, Mark Cuban recently wrote on his blog “Never ever ever buy swag. A sure sign of failure for a start-up is when someone sends me logo polo shirts. If your people are at shows and in public it’s ok to buy for your own folks, but if you really think someone is going to wear your Yobaby.com polo you sent them in public, you are mistaken and have no idea how to spend your money.”

In fact, I actually think that in the economic times we are facing companies that can be creative with the whole idea of “swag” – taking it from pointless gimmicks to something that actually promotes your brand – can be huge winners. If you feel the need to hand out branded items why not be creative and at the same time do some good? My idea for you is very easy to implement, actually captures leads for you (something your hoodie sweatshirt isn’t doing) and at the same time is a way to give the same $ you are spending to a worthwhile cause.

Changing The Game – Be Charitable & Do More Business

Instead of whatever crappy gift you were going to get branded – let’s take a budget of $15 per item – get some really funky business cards (check out some creative ones here or here) or some other wallet size item and have it custom printed with some info about a charity of your choice and a URL to visit. Give the card holder notice that by visiting the URL (set a custom URL like www.yourcompany.com/charity so people know this is specific to the fed you gave them) and upon submitting their contact info (or whatever you seem necessary) you will donate $2 to the charity referenced on the card. Give each card a unique code to ensure it is entered only once and be sure to put up one of those fancy charity thermometers showing just how much money has been raised to date. You may also want to be generous and start off your fund with an initial donation which will have the bonus of people assuming many before them have participated.

The total cost to you of a promtion like this is actually probably lower than any other swag and you accomplish the business goal of gathering leads and building your business. Although it might be cool to think of thousands of people waking around in your branded gear, in reality it is not going to happen. Spend your money on something that will actually grow your business and at the same time will prove you have a staunchly business mind but a generous human heart.

Oh ya and if you really “must” have someone showoff your branded gear you may as well check out girlinyourshirt – at least that way you get the satisfaction of knowing your t-shirt gets some love (heck I’d love your shirt for $75 too).