Show Notes
We’re getting some practice with the mashup episode because this one covers the gamut. We’ve got a laundry list of things on our minds, from making money to pricing services, from social media authenticity to outrage, from winning to losing opportunities. If you’ve got an opinion, this is the perfect opportunity to let it fly because we take on some sticky subjects.
In This Episode We Talk About
- The latest hoopla about Clorox’s “racist” tweet and why it may just be time to stop apologizing
- Why the “social media outrage” over… well, everything… is overblown and mostly fabricated
- Whether you need to be careful about what you publish or should continue to be unapologetically yourself online
- The difference between being offensive and being off-message
- What it means to monetize a podcast and whether it’s important to tie a direct line between your podcasts, blogs, social posts or other content and sales
- The value of understanding why you lost some business – and just as importantly, why you won some
- What we learned from losing a job because our proposal wasn’t as pretty as the competition’s
- The super secret Rivera Pricing Model that you can use to help you prepare your proposals
- Why businesses tend to underprice (especially service businesses)
- Whether you should respond to or ignore requests from people who ask you to guest post/ask to guest post on your blog/ask you to contribute to something they’re writing
- Plus we announce the presidential candidacy of Cynthia Sanchez but can’t decide on #cynthia2016 or #sanchez2016, announce the “wife swap of podcasts” between Superheroes of Marketing and Web.Search.Social and practice rolling the music in and out at least three times
Links & Resources
- Listen to Episode 399 of The Podcast Answer Man, Cliff Ravenscraft’s podcast for podcasters
- Listen to Episode 90 of Oh So Pinteresting, Cynthia Sanchez’s podcast all about Pinterest for business
- Listen to Episode 8 of Superheroes of Marketing, Alisa Meredith and Kelly Krantz’s podcast with Dorien Morin about testing and measuring your marketing results
- Listen to The Beancast, one of our favorite podcasts about advertising
- Listen to Business Growth Time, Janet E. Johnson and Terry Bean’s podcast about marketing and business
Your Marketing Action Item
From Ralph: Find a way to automate social tasks that can be automated. Check out “If This Then That” and create some “recipes” that will help you connect your social networks and apps in a way that streamlines your tasks. For example, IF you post a photo to Instagram with a specific hash tag THEN post that photo to your Facebook business page (like we do with #wssup).
From Carol Lynn: Go out and buy yourself a box of new crayons and draw something. Anything. We all have the ability to be creative but we need to flex our creative muscles. So practice having fun and setting your creative side free. Then snap a photo of your creation and tweet, pin or post it with the hash tag #wssup so we can love it!
Where To Listen
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“Pretty Trumps Professional”
It’s a crazy weird mashed up episode
Cynthia should be our next president
If your ads display half-nude women
Your brand is pretty far from elegant
A podcast is a drop in the content bucket
Make sure your client proposals are pretty
Practice the secret Manerna pricing model
And don’t neglect to be charming and witty
Please, dear brands, stay on message
Stop apologizing to the noise makers
Go to IFTTT and set up your recipes
Has nothing to do with tarts or bakers
The tool of the day is a box of crayons
Or colored markers or colored pencils
Abandon inhibitions and doodle for fun
Toss aside the templates and stencils
I’m giving today’s episode a “C” rating — for creativity, coloring, crayons, clients, content, crazy, and Cynthia! 😉
C’mon, who doesn’t love crayons?? I have a box of 64 that I have never used just because I love to look at them. Of course, I also have many boxes that have been used to death because…. CRAYONS!
I love your IFTTT line… nothing to do with tarts and bakers. I have the perfect image in my head of that. Sounds like something I could draw with crayons! Which of course now gives me another idea to illustrate your poems. Well, I guess I should work on getting them on the page first.
I will take a C rating any day! And by the way, I got a kick out of Cynthia’s last podcast… she mentioned the president thing and ended the podcast with “Cynthia16!” lol
I HAVE to get off my duff and head over to Cynthia’s podcast. Haven’t stopped by in ages. I love her personality and style and she definitely knows Pinterest, one of my favorite social media venues. And I don’t see why she can’t be president. Those who are currently running are certainly no smarter than Cynthia! (Don’t get me rolling on politics. It’ll get pretty ugly.) LOL
You’d be the ideal candidate to draw colorful crayola creations to accompany the podcast poetry. But since you’ve already put yourself in charge of getting them on the page, we could always commission Leyton Parker for the illustrating part. 🙂
I constantly learn stuff about Pinterest from Cynthia. And believe me, she’s way too smart for politics! Seems like it takes a special kind of dumb to do and say what some of these people do. But that’s for another podcast… one called “Melanie and Carol Lynn have a complete meltdown”.
And DON’T THINK I didn’t already think about having someone like Leyton or Evan draw for those poems 🙂
… although we have to be a bit careful if Evan does the illustrating. The last illustration he did for me was a nude lady hugging a computer monitor. It was quite impressive and quite a surprise. This is what happens when you give a graphic designer complete artistic freedom. 😉
“Melanie and Carol Lynn have a complete meltdown”. Yeah … let’s not go there. LOL!
OH YEAH! I remember that one 🙂 That was pretty…. striking! He did a few for me that I love. I wish I could afford to have him to ALL of our images!
Talking about the cost of graphic design …
This past week I was hanging out in a FB group and one of the members called out for a graphic designer referral. She’s in need of someone to create logos for two of her clients. I recommended Evan but his $500 logo fee wasn’t “cheap” enough for her. Other members of the group, OF COURSE, referred her to Fiverr. I chimed in to offer up a fair warning — a little heads up on being cautious since some Fiverr designers have been known to borrow/steal designs from others. 🙁
P.S. I enjoy Colleen’s work, too. She creates some pretty cool designs. 🙂
Me too! So many talented people, so little time to adore them all.
UGH. Fiverr is going to be the downfall of the human race. $500 for a logo is cheap in my book.
I love that Ralph is mentioning IFTTT, I just started using it last week and I am in love.. I am so going to have to do the whole hashtag on pics thing… I will be spending some time there.
The hashtag cannot be Sanchez, sorry Caroline, (teehee) one reason, there is NO DOUBT that there will be a Latino on the ticket this election, chances are, they won’t want them to be “too ethnic”, knowing politics. Chances are, if the hashtag is #Sanchez2016, we may all actually be supporting and giving an early advantage to some horrible, who knows what they will believe candidate that is to run. I want to make sure the cred goes where it is due. So, #Cynthia2016 gets my vote..
As far as creative juices, I agree 1000%. I spent the first 20 years of my adult life believing that I was all books. I could put crafts together, but only if someone else came up with the idea. I could make just about anything, as long as I didn’t have to be the one to originate the concept. At 40, I realized that my brother didn’t actually get all of the artistic ability in my family. I tapped into the part of my brain and opened up a part of me that changed my life. I can create, I can take just about anything and make it into something beautiful. Now, everything I see is a project to make it beautiful. And, I am really good at it. Never could I have imagined…. Taking the time to realize your creative nature is necessary and can end up magical…
Ok, so we’re playing serious politic now 🙂 Who knew! Sadly you are probably right.
But it’s more fun to talk about creativity anyway. You have a great story. I think a lot of people ingrain things into their heads and then think “well, I’m too old to change now… I’ve never been creative.” (Ok, present company included. Guilt abounds.) But you proved that there is no time limit on creativity. Sometimes it’s just a matter of tapping into your potential. When I had more time on my hands, I used to be creative just for fun. Every old, broken, empty, discarded thing was like a magical unicorn of possibilities. I loved finding a broken earring and being like….. oooh I can make that into something! I may have to find that spirit again, the itch is growing!