New York Marketer

Some Timely Advice on a Form of Tardiness

Every so often something really useful comes through in a newsletter.  My friend Jan Jasper is an organizing and productivity consultant who has a lot of good ideas.  Her newsletter this month was on procrastination.  In spite of business being a little slow, many businesspeople and professionals I know are procrastinating more earnestly than ever.  Jan's advice, excerpted below, is simple, profound and timely.  I especially like the second point.  Heaven knows I’ve wasted a huge amount of time and energy in my life putting off something I didn’t want to do. I also find this particularly relevant to my clients when it comes to marketing tasks (ahem)…

Jan's Top Procrastination Busters

1. Prune your to-do list of the non-essential items you know you'll never do.
2. For that must-do task you've been putting off, just do it - ideally, the first thing in the morning. This frees your mental energy - often, not-doing something drains you more than doing it.
3. Identify a part of the disliked task that's fairly pleasant - such as calling a colleague for information - and do that first, to get your feet wet. Or make a list of the various steps involved.
4. Schedule hunks of time to tackle work that requires concentration. Actually make an appointment with yourself. Let voice mail pick up your calls. You'll make a lot of headway in a short time.
5. If the task is really objectionable, promise yourself you'll tackle it just for 10 minutes, then if it's killing you, you can stop. You may find it's not so bad and can easily keep going until finished.
6. If you want to avoid being distracted by email or the internet, put your computer behind you. You'll have to swivel around in your chair to check your email for the umpteenth time, or to Google something you're only mildly curious about. Going to the computer will now be a conscious decision.
7. Avoid the temptation to shift from one half-finished task to another. This task-hopping is a form of stealth procrastination that many of us do without knowing it.
8. For digitally managing tasks with sub-tasks, watch for our upcoming article "Use Outlook to Keep Track of Multi-Part Tasks" in the next issue of this eLetter.
9. Some of the best procrastination advice is from Alan Lakein - pre-tech era, but still excellent.

Jan Jasper is author of Take Back Your Time: How to Regain Control of Work, Information, and Technology, published by St. Martin's Press.  Find her on the web at www.janjasper.com

It's All About Me

Not this blog, but an entry on my friend Andrea Nierenberg's Nierenblog.  Thanks, Andrea!  Andrea and I met some years ago at a networking breakfast.  Even though I hate talking to anyone that early in the morning, this proved to be well worth it.  In case you missed it, Andrea was interviewed for the second-ever Evoke newsletter.  The most important thing to getting business for a professional service (like mine or most of my clients') is to get people to talk about you in a good way, and the more public the forum, the better. 

Through the Blog Smog

I sometimes hate to admit it, but I'm a generalist.  Clients often call on me to design and manage complete marketing programs from soup to nuts, starting with branding. This occasionally means that my knowledge of specific things like blogging can be a bit fuzzy.  Well, I got asked to speak later this week on precisely that topic at a Gotham Networking business roundtable in Connecticut.  So what I was I to do?  Easy.  Find an "expert's expert" and devour everything they've put together.  Although I looked at a lot of things, including a secret resource only marketing consultants have, I was really impressed with Ted Demopolous.  You can download his free ebook, Effective Internet Presence, which covers just about all aspects of developing an online presence that can help you build business.  You should also check out his terrific, easily digested book, What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting.  After you've taken a look, let me know what you think.

What's In Your Cereal Box?

All marketing starts with branding.  Without it, people won't have a clue what you're trying to get them to buy -- or why they should even look twice at it.  In a down economy, personal branding is just as critical as any other kind.  Last night I spoke with executive strategist Maxine Hartley's Executive Tiger Team, a group of top execs in transition.  One of my favorite ways into this kind of conversation when it needs to get concrete quickly is the cereal box game.  It's pretty simple:  if you were a product -- say a box of cereal -- what would be inside?  Who do you want to buy you? How would you be represented?  A silly rabbit?  A leprechaun?  A ship's captain?  Euell Gibbons?  What promises would you make?  There are a lot more questions like this to answer (and you get to play with crayons).  If you're having trouble coming to grips with branding for yourself or your organization, I recommend starting with a basic exercise like this -- one that involves both left and right brains and gives you a chance to be silly.  As always, I'll be glad to send you the handouts from the presentation if you email me.

Attorneys Ask the Most Interesting Questions

This morning I spoke to a group at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York with my good friend (and fellow marketing consultant Carol Greenwald).  The topic, as usual these days, was how to allocate scarce time and resources to get a good return on marketing (I'll be glad to send you the handouts if you shoot me an email).  We got a lot of interesting questions, but the one I found most intriguing was about the difference between Facebook and LinkedIn in a business context.  Like a lot of things, the advice that was current six months ago -- that business relationships should stick to LinkedIn -- no longer quite applies.  My take is this:  while the former is largely personal and the latter is largely business, I allow some business contacts with whom I have longstanding relationships to join me on Facebook.  The tone there is a little less formal (I might joke about having martinis at the Algonquin, for example), but never inappropriate (I won't confess how many).  I wouldn't post that on my LinkedIn page, but I find that doing so on Facebook is a nice way to stay in touch with people on a slightly more personal level. How do you approach this?  Let me know here -- and by all means, connect with me on LinkedIn.

It Speaks (and People Speak Back)!

It took a little longer than the month we expected, but the second edition of Evoke's enewsletter was recently published and sent out into the universe.  This one covers the most essential marketing topic of all:  networking.  We spoke with Andrea Nierenberg, best-selling author and networking guru.  This one's kind of a triple-whammy:  you can skim my musings on networking (including how I met Andrea), you can listen to the most essential 15 minutes of my conversation with Andrea in a three-part audio program or you can read the highlights of that conversation in an attractive (thanks to our designer, Doug Santaniello) PDF.  So far, the response to these has been exactly what we intended:  more conversation with both people we've been good about staying in touch with and people we haven't.  Pretty cool; maybe you should try it?

Becoming an Overnight Success (in Just 279 Days)

When you write and speak all the time -- and help clients figure out how to write and speak -- you get pretty comfortable with your own position as an expert. As I was poking around the 'net one day (wasting my precious expert billable time), I came upon an interesting thinker who has a lot to say about some of my own subject matter.  Chris Guillebeau wanted to travel the world -- and wondered how to support himself while doing it.  He's written some very accessible, often funny, bits about helping people live life on their own terms while changing the world for others. I particularly liked his manifesto, 279 Days to Overnight Success, describing how he managed to make just enough money to live on as a professional blogger.  Check him out.

The Cobbler's Children's New Shoes

During the tech boom, I worked for a consulting firm that had been telling its clients for some time that they needed to develop websites.  The firm itself did not have one (that's what I was hired for).  Fast forward a decade or so, and here I sit, telling my clients they need an enewsletter.  Well, now Evoke has its own to show people how it's done.  The first edition addresses a topic that's been on everyone's minds a lot lately:  how to market in tough times.  Future editions will focus on various tactics and strategies that work -- and that don't cost a lot of money or take an inordinate amount of time.

A First Foray into Multimedia

I've been speaking in public since I was about 14 years old, but for some reason I've always been skittish about doing a professional video of myself talking about a business topic.  The chaos of the times prompted me to get off the dime (actually it was a little more expensive than that -- but not too much) and do something.  Editing the 90 minute presentation down to 5 salient minutes was an adventure.  Here I am talking about marketing in tough times to a group of coaches at the Midtown Coaching Center.

Making Lemonade

Everyone I know -- even professionals who were previously immune to economic considerations -- is asking about marketing strategies for these profoundly uncertain times.  Some of my clients have been doing some interesting things and have permitted me to share their thoughts in this article.