The advice — from social media “experts”, God help us — fell in two categories.

1. Approximately 64 versions of “contribute to the conversation”.

I think we all know what I think about that.

2. “Give really useful tips.”

This got me thinking… if every expert in Christendom is saying this, perhaps there’s something to it.

But, see, personally? I HATE useful tips. HATEHATEHATE. I am on Twitter to waste time and screw around with my peeps. Twitter is not my study group, it’s my water cooler. And if you came up to me out of the blue at the water cooler and gave me a bullet point on how to optimize my email subject lines, I would first ignore you, then avoid you, then punch you in the nose.

However! Since I like nothing more than a good argument on social media, I put it out there to my followers to see what they thought. Here’s what I asked:

Question: All the Twitter how-to experts say “tweet useful advice and tips”. Considerate? Obnoxious? Harmless but missing the point?

And here’s what I got in response:

@julianowebpages tweeting advice, considerate but obnoxious with a great quantity

@JenGresham Considerate, unless it’s all self-promo. Then obnoxious. I look for a PERSON behind all that advice.

@thecopycorner Harmless but missing the point. An example of a useful tweet IN CONTEXT from said experts would be nice. :)

@darinpersinger i want engagement and conversation BUT also want tips and insights from people I admire..like you

@thedoodledaily Just don’t go for overkill. Understated is better and gets the message across.

@TonyIdem If ur good at being HUMAN (non annoying) you should be fairly decent on Twitter. Tweet tips & advice? Misguided I’d say…

@OLSoundAdvice Could it be a combo? Pt neighborhood bar, pt info sharing? After all, no one really likes Cliff Clavin

@AmnaAhmad Mostly annoying. If they manage to pack in some comedy, I forgive them.

@ElizabethPW awesome if you do it in the way you would tell your friend. and if it’s kind of funny or inappropriate.

@AndyFogarty Eh, I think all of the above at times. Depends on how it’s done. I think interesting and relevant yield stronger relationships

@who_is_matt Missing the point. Advice and tips are pretty boring to read all day, whereas f-bombs are always funny

@Juno360 Missing the point running into obnoxious. Twitter is about personality. Advice only works if you establish a Twitterself 1st

@Juno360 And then only if your twitterself turns out to have useful advice to give. Helps to be funny. Otherwise you look like a dork

@MarekZee don’t think there are rules on what should be tweeted any more than there are rules on what should be e-mailed or texted…

@MarekZee though, I rather see useful advice and tips than what people had for breakfast or where they are (through Foursquare)

@JimValeri Half the time I’m wondering what the heck to tweet. I don’t want to be a knob, but I don’t want to be a know-it-all either.

@MarkDykeman Useful

@MaLindaLou Considerate! Especially when the tips involve discounts and career opportunities.

@havi d) obnoxious AND missing the point. (Or: okay if people want to but tweeting useful tips is so unfollow-worthy in my book)

@chrisgarrett @havi depends. When @unmarketing or @chrisbrogan tweet tips/wisdom/advice I listen. Most of what I read is automated and bland

@kizmiazuk What @havi said, plus I’d rather read a good article with some context I can relate to than a disembodied tip

@alisonjgolden I don’t mind a bit of usefulness but mostly I like the inane funny stuff.

@fabeku Mostly obnoxious, unless there’s some funny there. But also kind of missing the point.

@ingridtappin you just walked into a bar all by yourself. what do you do? the answer is your ‘twitter how to’.

@joannapaterson twitter is awash with advice. you need an umbrella to shelter from it.

@bluestreakblog tips go in the blog, masked by chuck norris jokes. twitter is for snarky potty-mouth.

@richardmiller As far as I’m concerned, it’s the ideal way to get unfollowed. #usefultips #spareme

WELL. Isn’t THIS interesting?

Here’s what I make of all of this.

1. “Tip” means different things to different people.

If you send me a link to Mashable.com’s list of 1,000,000,000 best Facebook resources, I am thrilled. Nicely done, sir or madam. If you tweet, “Tip: Personally engage with Facebook fans to make them feel special!!!”, well, out comes the old punch in the nose. What’s the difference?

The embarrassing, elitist, ugly truth? The second one sounds inane and amateurish and, well, lame. Cheesy. Maybe there are some people reading that and saying, “Holy SHIT! Yes! I SHOULD engage with my fans as if they’re people and not just credit cards!” But I think those people are stupid. So if I read that tip, I think YOU think I’m one of those people, which is to say… stupid.

To use a non-social-media example, it’s like when a parenting expert says, “Make sure to listen to your kids. They’re people too.” What are you, my father? I was sitting here innocently making Chuck Norris jokes and you essentially accused me (quite condescendingly) of ignoring my children. Screw you, random internet person.

2. Social media savviness and saturation.

It seems like the less involved in social media you are, and especially the less involved in TALKING about social media you are, the more likely you are to be pleased with tips. If you’re really IN social media, you hate it. This means that if you’re selling hats, you’re probably pretty safe to tweet hat maintenance tips. If you’re running a social media blog, stick to Chuck Norris.

3. Size of network.

The fewer people you’re following, the less you’re likely to mind tips. If the people in your network tend to follow less than 500 people, they (generally) won’t mind tips. If they’re heavy users with sizeable networks, they’re sick of it.

4. Tone.

This is probably the biggest piece of the puzzle. If you can be funny or self-deprecating or ironic, you can give as many tips as you want. If you’re all earnest and serious about it, people get annoyed. It’s Twitter, for Christ’s sake. It’s not the fucking Magna Carta.

Which leads me to:

What’s the point of social media, again?

Then we got this tweet, and I think it deserves some airplay:

@massbehavior “What is the point? PLEASE tell me, I swear I will tell no one or everyone what ever is your wish. I am waiting…”

I’m pretty sure the point of social media is… being social.

My favorite answer to my question came from @LJonte. I liked it so much, I’m giving it a box.

@LJonte I’d say, harmless but missing the point. Twitter is a conversation. You can’t have a conversation with a fortune cookie

As far as I am concerned, this is the wisest thing said about Twitter ever. We can now officially never talk about it again because all that needs to be said has been said and we can get on with Chuck.

Which brings me to…

You, me, social media and the healing comfort that comes from spitting in Frodo Baggins’ eye

Working from home, while delightful, is a bitch sometimes. It’s lonely. Your family doesn’t understand you. At least 50% of your real life circle is pretty sure you’re doing something illegal but they like you enough to keep quiet about it. While I don’t want to go back to working in an office — unless it’s MY office — I do miss the water cooler. I miss the group slackoff.

So let’s start a group slackoff. One in which you ask me if I liked Lord of the Rings and I say I liked all of it except I fast forward through the bits with Frodo because I want to spit in his eye.

Introducing #msms: Make Social Media Social

Starting today, I’m going to start asking you (if you’re following me on Twitter) embarrassingly personal questions under the guise of being friendly. We’re going to start with lame stuff like “what’s your favourite movie?” and allow the conversation to organically degenerate into jokes about your mother.

Let’s get to know each other as humans, instead of businesses, blogs, or profiles.

How to join in:

First, make sure you’re following me on Twitter. (Click that link, and then click the Follow button.)

When you see something with the hashtag “#msms” and want to chime in, do so by saying whatever you want to say, but make sure you ALSO add the hashtag #msms. You don’t need to actually reply to me — as in, you don’t have to start with “@NaomiDunford”. (That’s a waste of 14 perfectly good characters.) Just by adding the hashtag, I’ll see your response, and other people will too.

If you want to make SURE a specific person sees your tweet, make sure you include their handle (the @Whoever part) somewhere in your tweet.

To see what other people are saying, click on the #msms in my (or anybody else’s) tweet, or search for it in the search box. That will get you to a page with real time results, refreshing every few seconds.

Ideally, this will turn into unintelligible mayhem and nobody will get any work done all day. But it’ll be fun!

(Oh, and for those of you bugging me for Tweet This buttons? Here. Have a button.)

Tweet

Let’s try a fun little mental experiment.

Think of your favorite people to follow: The big guys and girls, the ones you look to as mentors and the ones who are where you’d like to be. To put a finer point on it, I’m talking about the people who have successful businesses, who are making a lot of money, who are in the public eye (at least as far as your industry is concerned), who have a big fan base, etc.

Know who I’m talking about? Okay good. Now for today’s lesson.

Those people put their pants on one leg at a time.

Thanks for your attention. You can leave your comments below, and I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.

What these pants have to do with you (and your pants)

What I’m about to say is probably going to sound really obnoxious, but there’s a point to it, so hang in there. It’s this: more and more, I find that when I follow people on Twitter or friend them on Facebook, I get messages back about how they’re flattered or humbled or [insert embarrassing phrase here] they are that I would follow them or friend them.

Really? I’m humbling people? Me? Me, who filled a wastebasket three times with snotty tissues last Wednesday? Me, who is nervous what my mother will say when I get this tattoo I’m thinking of getting? Me, whose car is so neglected that the entire turn signal assembly fell off on the highway the other day?

Every time someone expresses amazement that I’d deign to answer their email (“I can’t believe you replied!”) or exhibits fandom (“Let me send you panties and ninja weapons!”), I feel like reminding them that I’m more ordinary than ordinary and that FOR GOD’S SAKE please don’t tell me how honored you are that I’m following you on Twitter. (Naomi’s note: I believe I speak for Johnny here when I say, please continue to send us panties and ninja weapons. If I am wrong and Johnny does not share my sentiments, please continue to send them to me.)

Now that the above paragraphs have got you hating me (solves the adulation issue, I guess), the point is that even I — even the guy who got my start on IttyBiz specifically because I wasn’t anything close to a guru — have now gotten a fair amount of my own guru status. Yet I remain the same guy. The same things still make me nervous or scared or happy or sad.

Same is true for Naomi. And Brian Clark. And Darren Rowse. And Sonia Simone. And anyone else who you’d consider above me, or above you, or on the A-List or whatever.

All just regular folks. All carrying the same human emotional baggage as you are, all feeling in many ways the same as they did when nobody knew their names or took their advice — which, incidentally, wasn’t that long ago at all.

We all know that. We all know that the big guys and girls put their pants on one leg at a time, but we don’t always act like it.

But the sooner you get — and I mean really GET — that the most successful people are a hell of a lot like you and share many of your faults, the sooner you’ll be able to let yourself succeed. The sooner you’ll stop making excuses that you probably aren’t even aware you’re making, like, “Of course Brian and Sonia can sell out a huge program like Teaching Sells and make a ton of money. They’re Brian and Sonia.”

Or, “Of course Dave Navarro can get together a 2010 More Buyers Mastermind. His 2009 Mastermind went really well.”

Folks, Brian and Sonia put their pants on one leg at a time. Dave puts his pants on one leg at a time. All three were and remain just ordinary folks who are out trying things, hoping they’ll work, afraid they’ll fail, who experimented early on to see what their readers and customers liked and tweaked until they found the sweet spot. (Naomi’s note: Am I the only person who finds Johnny’s lack of mentioning MY pants to be conspicuous? Is he intimating that I don’t wear pants?)

I keep telling Naomi that she needs a handler — someone she can throw wine bottles at when she’s freaking out. If, even on a less-than-conscious level, you’d ascribe someone with that kind of raw humanity the magical label of “guru” (whatever she touches turns to gold without effort just because she is her own magical self), then dude… shame on you.

When any of those people — the ones that you look up to, who you think have it all together — whenever they try something, none of them have any magic pixie dust to make it work and none of them are sure that it will work. They’re not magic elves. They’re just like you.

I’m here to promise you that that’s true. Now that I’m being lumped in with a lot of the people that feel way above me, I can promise you that it’s true. People thank me for my work and thank me for answering a message and thank me for following them on Twitter and ask my advice and I just want to shout, “Don’t you realize that I didn’t have time to shower yesterday and that I smell bad?”

So, the good news? If the most successful people are just like you, then you’re just like them. (Naomi’s note: The bad news? Johnny smells bad.) That’s just how it works. If they did it, you can do it. I don’t care how imperfect you are, or what you feel is holding you back. The so-called gurus have things holding them back too. They’re just as nervous and insecure as you are.

The only difference is that they did it anyway. So go out and do it too, rock star.

——

Johnny B. Truant blogs at JohnnyBTruant.com and is one of the two guys behind The Charlie and Johnny Jam Sessions.

“I need to make [very high dollar figure] by [date that is alarmingly close to now]. I have [no blog /small blog/ no list/ small list]. I can’t imagine how to even start doing it. Can you help?”

I love this question. The answer is surprisingly simple.

Let’s put in some fake numbers and play it out. Let’s say you need $20,000 and you need it 29 days from today.

The reason most people fail when given a task like this one – and when I say “fail”, I mean a level of fail that is so bad, they may as well have not bothered because they probably managed to LOSE money in the process – is because they try to start making money today.

It sounds reasonable, right? They’ve read the motivational books. They remember the advice their dad always gave them when they were overwhelmed as a kid. They paid close attention when Johnny was telling them to just start eating the damn elephant already. So they do what they think is the right thing and they simply start, right where they are.

Let’s see how that’s likely to go. If you start today and you need $20,000 by 29 days from now, you need to make $689.65 every day for a month. No short falls. No internet outages. No sick days.

How likely is that?

Even for the most motivated person on earth under the best of circumstances, it’s just not going to happen. Add your innate awareness that it’s nigh on impossible and your motivation will flop. You won’t try as hard, making it more impossible.

Now let’s imagine you did it the Totally Awesome Business SuperStar™ way. What way is that, you ask?

Make them love you. THEN ask for money.

Our numbers are the same. $20,000. 29 days. How do we do it right?

Spend the first 28 days being totally, ridiculously awesome. Plan to make 100% of your money on the 29th day.*

Spend 28 days being insanely active on Twitter or Facebook or your local small biz networking scene. Spend 28 days making killer contacts on LinkedIn or at the local flower shops or a few select forums. Spend 28 days loudly creating tactical, useful content on your blog or YouTube or, hell, Facebook notes.

Make friends as if your life depended on it. Be helpful. Give lots of shoutouts. Send link love. Generally be the nicest, coolest, smartest kid in school.

Then, on the last day, ask for the money. Launch your consulting sale or your custom deck design sale or your half price classes or whatever at the last possible moment.

And…?

This is a good idea by itself, but there are a few ways to make it work better.

It helps if, during your schmoozing and content creation, you allude to The Thing That Is Coming And Is Very, Very Awesome. (“Here’s 24 [insanely useful and fairly hard to deduce otherwise] tips that I came up with while I was working on my next course. If I added everything I thought of the thing would be 700 pages long, so I thought I’d just give this one to you for free.”) (“I’m doing a crazy sale on coaching packages at the end of the month and I know I’m going to be stupid busy, so I wanted to get this video done now while I can still find my own head.”)

It helps if you get over your fear of tooting your own horn for at least the next month.

It helps if you take a few days to work on a strong brand so that when people talk about you, they know what to say.

It helps if you find a direct but nice way to suggest people tell their friends about you.

But basically, the key takeaway here is to not try to make your money in bites. Bites are great for to-do lists. Not so good when your money’s on a deadline.

”Oh my God! That’s so risky! What if it doesn’t work?”

It wasn’t going to work anyway. Now at least it has a chance of working – and it worked for Sinclair. She’s cool. She’s good. But she’s no cooler or gooder than your gorgeous self.

*OK, honestly? If you do it right you should probably ask for the money on the 27th day. Why? Because on the day after your big brouhaha, you’ll get 42 emails from people telling you The Worst Calamity In Their Life happened on the day of your sale and could you PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make an exception and let them send you money. This is normal and to be encouraged. Customers begging is a good thing.

Originally published September 4, 2008

Dearest baby Jack,

On Labour Day, 2000, I was going to school for something I hated and gearing up to divorce your brother’s Daddy.

On Labour Day, 2001, I was living in a homeless shelter and pregnant with a baby boy you’ll never get to meet, although you can trust me that he was pretty awesome while he was here.

On Labour Day, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005, I was getting ready to go back to work after the long weekend. It was a different job each year — all temp — and I hated each with varying degrees of intensity.

But on Labour Day, 2006, you came, and everything was different.

There’s a Bryan Adams song that you will one day hear on oldies radio and cringe, and it says, “Everything I do, I do it for you.” I personally think our pal Bryan is a bit of a poser, but I know how he feels on this one.

Everybody says that when they have a child, it changed their lives forever. This is obviously true, but it’s kind of a dumb thing to say if you ask me. I mean, do you think all these parents were pacing the halls at two in the morning before they had kids? Like, for fun? Because if we’re honest, you and other people in your demographic are a bit of a pain in the ass, frankly. So yeah, kids change lives.

But in your case, you unknowingly changed a lot more lives than just mine.

Between the bedrest and the panic attacks and the dental surgery without anaesthetic and the abject poverty, being pregnant with you was not what it said on the tin. I kind of wanted my money back, really. But then you decided to join us in the world of the living and breathing and cussing earlier than strictly necessary, and the shit kind of hit the fan. My water broke really, really early and they strapped me to a bed and wouldn’t let you come out.

Since you are my son, after 10 days you said, “Fuck this shit!” and came out anyway. Your Daddy took six months off work because neither you nor I were particularly healthy, but things were not looking good in the Dunford family bank book.

After we hung out with you for half a year, though, we didn’t really want to stop, so we created IttyBiz. It’s been a battle at times. Trying to work with you nursing and screaming and demanding fruit cups and insisting that feeding a magnetic letter C to the cat is your basic human right ain’t exactly a walk in the park. But we did pretty well. Your Daddy was able to quit his job in time for your last birthday, and now he gets to hang out with us all day. That made it all worth it, and we were able to take on more clients and do more stuff.

Because of you, we’ve been able to help a lot of people with their own IttyBiz’s. We’ve been able to help people quit their own jobs to hang out with their own kids. One lady had a husband who wasn’t being very nice to her at all, and she had FOUR of you. She’s getting ready to move her babies to a safer place now, and we got to help.

Another lady was on bedrest like me, only she lived in America and didn’t get to take time off like I did, and we helped her start freelancing from her bed.

I got an email from a man the other day, and he said that he’d made enough money with his new little side business to take his kids to Disney World for the first time.

A whole bunch of kids like you are able to see a lot more of their own Mummies and Daddies because you showed up and made it happen, and I think, if they ever knew, they’d say thank you and share their fruit cups with you.

Dearest baby boy, this post goes live at 11:04 PM, exactly two years after you came into the world. Your Daddy and I don’t know what we ever did without you.

Because of you, the world is a little brighter, a little funnier, a little sweeter. Because of you, I have the perfect family. Because of you, I have the greatest job in the world.

I hope that being two is better than you could have ever hoped. I will move mountains to make sure it is full of raspberries and rubber ducks and books and choo-choo trains and red buses and bubbles and the number TEN screamed over and over and over.

I hope that all you ever know is love.

Mama.

Originally published February 20, 2009

Every time you scold your children in public for doing something they get away with at home, you are manipulating the truth.

Every time you order a diet Coke simply because there are people around, you are manipulating the truth.

Every time you wear control top pantyhose, you are manipulating the truth.

Every time you think before answering an interview question, you are manipulating the truth.

Every time you clean your dorm room before your mother comes, you are manipulating the truth.

Every time you decide not to go out with the guys but make it sound like your wife’s decision, you are manipulating the truth.

Every time you tell your friend you like her hair and you don’t, you are manipulating the truth.

Every time you watch American Idol and deny it the next day, you are manipulating the truth.

Every time you dress your kid differently when your in-laws come over, you are maniuplating the truth.

Every time people talk about a popular book and you don’t mention you haven’t read it, you are manipulating the truth.

Why are you manipulating the truth?

Because you want something.

You want the job.

You want the second date.

You want people to like you.

You want people to respect you.

You want someone to think something about you. You want to highlight your good points and camouflage your bad. You want people to take actions they would not normally take if they viewed the situation objectively and without your manipulation.

You know what that’s called? MARKETING.

If I see one more fucking person criticize internet marketers for “trying to sell a lifestyle” while happily drinking Coke and typing on an iMac…

If I read one more fucking blog comment saying marketing is dirty, while linking back to their own website…

If I hear one more fucking person tell me that ebook sales pages are yucky but, gosh, they loved The DaVinci Code…

As a marketer, I can be FINED AND JAILED for lying. You can do it whenever you feel like it. I have to creatively highlight the good points of my product while deftly redirecting concerns about the bad points.

You are under no such obligation. You can just lie.

So maybe it’s time to get off the fucking high horse about marketers manipulating the truth.

Originally published December 7, 2009

I’m not a big cook. I’m not a cook at all, really. I didn’t cook before I started IttyBiz and I sure as hell don’t cook now. Jamie and I eat out a lot, and if we’re not actually eating in a restaurant, somebody’s going for takeout. What this means is that we’re not the type of couple who sees going out for dinner as a big treat.

One day, Jamie and I were having one of those not-really-an-argument arguments, the kind you’ll often see in couples who are very aware they would be completely and totally fucked if they didn’t have each other. They’re mad, but not mad enough to risk saying anything stupid, especially in front of the kids. Since I don’t care how mad I am, I’m still not cooking, we went out to the Mandarin, an Americanized Chinese buffet.

Jamie’s favourite dish at the Mandarin is called Spicy Chicken. Sometimes they have it, sometimes they don’t. It’s weird, because everything there is so static normally. But Spicy Chicken is a sometimes treat.

The way we handle the Mandarin is pretty routine now. Jamie sits down with Jack while I go up and fill two plates – a dinner plate for me and a side plate for Jack. I come back with our food, and Jamie goes up to get his own. Jack’s food requires preparation and organization and coercion, so I’m usually busy enough sorting him out that I don’t really start eating until Jamie gets back.

This night, he sits back down, pretty silently. (Having not-really-an-argument arguments is particularly easy when you have children who are more than happy to chatter enough for all three of you.) I go to eat and he says, really quietly and without really looking at me, “They had my Spicy Chicken today.”

Where we segue into the modern human condition

Have you ever seen those people in restaurants who don’t speak to each other? They’re not fighting or anything, they’re just generally grumpy? Same with movies. You’re in line to see a show and there’s fifty teenagers who look like they have made boredom into their life’s work. Sometimes you and I are like that too. Bored. Anhedonic. Numb. Cynical.

But deep down, every person in that restaurant, everyone waiting in line, at one time or another it was our first trip out to dinner, our first time at the movies. Our excitement was enough to shatter glass. Our hope was palpable. We had not yet learned that hope was for losers.

Beneath layer after layer of disappointment, disillusionment, betrayal, confusion, rage, fear and keeping a stiff upper lip is a profound and fundamental human hope that maybe something nice will happen today.

For a moment, a flash really, I saw Jamie as the deeply good fellow human being who was looking forward with cautious hope to his favourite dinner. Probably not, but maybe.

I saw the 16-year-old who knows that his parents don’t have any money for a birthday present this year, but maybe they’ve been saving money for years and he might actually get a Mustang. Probably not, but maybe.

I saw Jack, who can’t eat birthday cake like other kids, saying, “maybe there might be Rice Krispie cakes at this party?” with that little lilt at the end that asks a question and trusts I’ll know the answer and deliver it with mercy. Probably not, but maybe.

Your customers are these people too.

I sell internet marketing products, and my industry has a bad reputation. It is generally assumed, because of my profession, that I am out to fuck everyone and anyone. Not even for the money, necessarily. Just for the sheer joy of fucking someone over.

Somehow, despite this, I am blessed with a lot of very nice people who buy my products repeatedly. Considering the habits of some of my peers, it’s a miracle I sell anything at all.

In internet marketing, and I imagine the weight loss industry is like this as well, while people consciously know there is no magic wand, they continue to hope you’ll sell them one for $47. When you don’t, most of them realize that their hope was misplaced, but some become really, really angry. Then they send you emails.

I sold thirty-five thousand dollars worth of products in the last two weeks. We got a lot of email.

I am very lucky to have a lower than 1% return rate in an industry where 20% is standard and 50% is still in the realm of normal. I received a lot of beautiful letters from people who were grateful for the sale and more so for the payment plan. But, numbers being what they are, we still got some returns.

If you sell how-to products for a living and you’re not in the habit of lying about what your products will do for people, your returns will generally fall into two major categories. One, your product was too advanced. Two, your product was too basic. (The guy who returned SEO School for too much swearing and the other guy who returned OBS for not enough swearing are, naturally, the exceptions to this rule.)

But every now and again you get a return from somebody who’s just out for blood. Maybe they want to make good and sure you’re going to refund their money. Maybe they’re pissed at you. Maybe they’re pissed at everybody. But they’ll write a treatise on exactly how much you suck and why.

We got a return from somebody who told me OBS should have been renamed Online Business 001: Business Lessons for Total Imbeciles. They told me they felt totally betrayed. They told me they were crushed.

My first instinct, this being IttyBiz and all, was to publish their letter in its entirety here. To rant and scream and make fun. To say that “crushed” is a term better used for miscarriages, philandering spouses, and lifelong pets found dead on Christmas morning.

But then I thought about Jamie and his Spicy Chicken and I stopped.

This person entered into a situation full of hope. They held their breath for a moment before clicking “Buy Now” and thought, “Maybe this time it’s for real.” For whatever reason, that for which they hoped did not materialize. They are disappointed and sad, and I’m sorry for that. Who the fuck am I to say what should or shouldn’t crush a person?

Inside every customer…

Inside every customer is a little child in the supermarket, hoping beyond hope that their father will buy Cocoa Pebbles instead of oatmeal, just this one time.

Inside every customer is the awkward teenager thinking that maybe, just maybe, this new pair of jeans will make the popular boy think she’s beautiful.

Inside every customer is a tired housewife who hasn’t got anything more romantic than a tea towel for three decades, but still dares to believe that maybe that envelope under the tree has cruise tickets tucked inside.

Don’t be angry. They’re just human. Try to love them anyway.

Originally published January 13, 2010

There is a highly icky and pervasive problem that keeps most of the world from having the ittybiz they dream of. Smart people do it and dumb people do it. Opera goers and NASCAR fans. Die hard vanilla lovers and those who would throw down for pralines and cream. Many, many people believe something that is an absolute, utter, devastating lie.

They think the world is linear.

Why this belief didn’t go out with thinking the earth was flat, I’ll never know. I don’t know whose fault it is, although it’s generally a good idea to start with your parents when looking for someone to blame.

Maybe successful people – the ones who have realized that this so-called truth is actually a dirty, filthy lie – don’t talk about it. Maybe they do talk about it and we don’t listen. Maybe we think Successful People have special powers to make the laws of the universe bend to their will. Doesn’t matter. It’s bullshit.

Life is not a line, it’s a web.

The easiest way to slow down your goal achievement is to go about them in a linear fashion. Lines are bad. We do not heart lines.

The trick to achieving impossible goals is to come at them from a whole bunch of angles in a whole bunch of ways. (Bonus points if you can do them in a way they haven’t been done before, because then you get publicity benefits too. Get a masters degree by going to school? Meh. Get a masters degree by screwing every person in every dean’s office in the place, regardless of gender? THAT is interesting.)

Therefore, I unveil the IttyBiz list of creative ways to meet your goals.

1. Make lots and lots of friends.

Depending on where you are in your career, you can call them fans if you want to. But no matter what you call them, you have to make them. Connect with a lot of people at a level beyond what normal people connect. If other people are following others on Twitter, send DMs. If other people are sending emails, make phone calls. If other people are hanging out on blogs ad nauseum, go to a damn conference and shake some live, human hands.

Deep connections are the most important currency you have. With connections, you can do anything. You can meet any goal. Hell, you don’t even have to know what your goal is. You can just make friends now and figure out what to do with them later.

2. Tell me what you want. What you really, really want.

When you’re selling something, it is generally considered good advice to ask for the sale. You don’t make your pitch and then sit there in silence. You ask for the sale. Bad salespeople don’t ask for the sale. Stupid salespeople ask for something sort of like the sale and think they’re asking for the sale.

Example: You meet a woman and, after careful drunken consideration, you have decided that the thing you want most in the world is for her to have lots of your babies. You want to say, “I’d love to get a martini with you someday real soon. I can get us a great table at Mynx with highly convenient dance floor access. Does Friday or Saturday work better for you?”

You actually say, “Can I find you on Facebook?”

Which one of these scenarios is more likely to net you martinis at Mynx?

The same is true for business goals. If you want someone to mention your new product on their blog, you’re a lot better off asking them to mention your new product on your blog than simply sending them a comped copy and hoping they get the hint.

3. Brainstorm. Until it feels like a storm went through your brain.

Think of crazy, stupid, ridiculous potential incarnations. Get loopy. Think of all manner of bizarre combinations of resources and strategies until you have at least 100. (If this is difficult for you, you need the Idea Catalyst Kit. It was built for people like you.)

One of the things you can do here is write down a list of the first ten ways you can think to accomplish your goal. Once you hit ten (and the last few should be pretty hard), burn it. Those were the easy ones. Now come up with ten more. Then ten more. Keep going until you’re light-headed. The light-headed ones are the best ones.

(Someday I’ll tell you about how we came up with the idea of the Limited Edition Marketing School Audiobook, which features me reading it in a phone sex voice. True story.)

4.Understand… you don’t need nearly as much as you think you need.

One of the biggest roadblocks between you and your goals is the mistaken belief that you need a lot of stuff. Often you think it’s money, but time, connections, and reliable electricity are on the list as well.

Once you realize that you don’t need half the shit you think you need, you’ll free up a whole lot of resources for working towards your goals.

5. And be brutally honest.

Some people say you shouldn’t ever say “I can’t” because it’s disempowering. I think you shouldn’t say “I can’t” because it’s lying, and lying to yourself is dirty and stupid and supremely counterintuitive.

But I can’t move to Fiji because I have a huge mortgage.

Bullshit. Sure you can. Abandon the house, move to Fiji. Done.

Sure, you may not WANT to do that, but it doesn’t mean you can’t. As long as you persist in thinking you CAN’T do something, you don’t open up the avenues of your brain devoted to figuring out how you CAN.

(Alternatively, you could try a home swap. Or a house sitter. Or you could sell it. Or rent it out. Or turn it into a creative commune for like-minded individuals on a pay-what-you-can basis. Don’t fucking play the “can’t” card with me, young lady.)

Most people who say they want to start a business but can’t really mean that they like the idea of starting a business but find the reality unpleasant. They won’t be able to get all those martinis at Mynx and write them off as business expenses. Their upwardly mobile spouse likes trading in his car every two years.

Dealing with these issues is hard. Saying, “gosh, I’d love to but I can’t” is easy.

6. Figure out what you’re willing to do.

When you’re feeling motivated – and you have to be feeling motivated or this won’t work – make a list of all the stuff you’d be willing to do to get that thing you want so badly.

Quit smoking.
Eat ramen.
Give up eating out for six months.
Sleep six hours a night.
Sell your house.
Sell your car.
Sell your entire vinyl collection.
Write 100 guest posts.
Spend 12 hours a day networking on Twitter.
Spend an uncomfortable amount of money on a class or course.
Go to live networking events.

Make it a really long list. (If the list isn’t long, you probably don’t want it that badly and you should go back and read the unstupid goals post.)

Then figure out the order in which you’re willing to do them. If you’ll eat ramen 6 nights a week easily, but it’ll be hard to give up eating out, ramen goes higher on the list. If the last thing you could ever, ever do is go to a live event, that goes lowest on the list.

Then start doing them. You’d be surprised how effective it is.

7. Think of something you absolutely couldn’t do.

Then try doing it. You’d be even more surprised how effective that is.

***

Others in this series, to which you could subscribe if you were that way inclined:

Day One: How to Make Unstupid Goals

Day Two: Accountability: Is it for Losers?

Day Three: Batshit Crazy: Creative Ways To Meet Your Goals

Day Four: Disheartenment, Disillusionment, and Other D Words

Day Five: Reevaluation: What To Do If Your Goals Were Stupid After All

Originally published November 16, 2009*
* Since this is a re-post, some deals or products mentioned may no longer be available.

As a reader of this article, you will fall into one of three categories:

1. People who sell things, or want to sell things.

2. People who are, without exaggeration, destitute and are very sensibly finding free information online about starting and running an ittybiz.

3. People who are financially comfortable but like to wave the I’m-so-fucking-liberal flag. (We know who you are. We can identify you by your screaming about the plight of the poor, while donating less than 1% of your money and 0% of your time to charitable causes.)

If you are in category 3, please read the disclaimer at the end of this blog post before you leave an angry comment.

What if people can’t afford your product?

Every time I create a new product, I get emails from people saying they don’t have the money to buy it. If you’ve been selling anything for any length of time, you get those emails too. Today we’re going to talk about where they come from and how to deal with them.

Scary Proposition: They’re lying to you.

The only people who do not have the money are people who have no money and no means of getting their hands on some. That is a very, very, very low percentage of people in first world countries in general, and a far lower percentage of people with access to email living in first world countries.

What “I have no money” really means:

1. I’ve bought four [things like your product] in the last two months and haven’t used any of them. I’m getting really disillusioned and I’m blaming myself for buying things and not using them. I feel I don’t deserve to buy your thing.

2. My spouse is really pissed off at me because I’ve been spending too much money on the internet/on clothes/on these crazy make-money-online schemes. Your product is not worth making things awkward with my spouse.

3. The last three [things similar to what you sell] I’ve bought haven’t come close to living up to their promises. Now I don’t really trust them, even from you. I think it sounds good right now because I’m excited, but when I actually buy it, I’m going to be really disappointed and mad at myself because I should have known better.

4. My marriage/job/life sucks, and I need some little conveniences to keep me going. (Latte on the way to work. Sending the kids with lunch money instead of lunch. Sending MYSELF with lunch money instead of lunch.) I CAN afford your thing — I do have the money — but if I bought it, I’d have to give up my little conveniences, and I’m not willing to do that.

5. I have another completely valid reason for not buying, but it takes too long to explain and it’s kind of embarrassing. (Examples: I drink too much. I have a feeling my spouse is about to leave me and I need to make sure I have money aside for a divorce and/or alimony. I just came very close to maxing out my credit card, and there’s a big psychological difference between an ALMOST maxed out card and an ACTUALLY maxed out card, and buying your thing would really freak me out.)

6. I don’t want to buy your thing but, for whatever reason, I feel the need to justify myself to you. Saying I don’t have the money feels like an inarguable and socially acceptable white lie. I get to feel good because I said nice things about your product, but I don’t actually have to part with my money.

Those people? Plenty of money. They’re just not giving it to YOU.

People who REALLY have no money do one of two things.

One, they do nothing. They know they’re broke, and they accept that part of being broke is not being able to buy things they’d like to have, no matter how helpful owning them might be. They put your thing on the list of things they’re going to buy when their tax rebate comes in, or they start to save up for it, or they accept that they’ll never buy it. They will not email you, unless they’re sending fan mail.

Two, they will try to find a way. You’d be surprised by how many people do this, and the very creative ways they’ve found to do so.

They could split the cost with a friend.

They could offer to barter.

They could request a payment plan.

They could sell their guitar.

They could cut down on conveniences and luxuries for a few weeks.

I’ve had people offer to get OBS now and pay me double its cost after Christmas. I’ve had people take temporary part time jobs to buy consulting. I’ve had people pay me $50 every pay day until they’ve paid off the cost of Marketing 101.

But an email saying they’d LOVE it but don’t have any money?

Might mean a lot of things, but it doesn’t mean that.

And now, the point of this whole post. What should you DO?

Nothing. Do absolutely nothing. Do not change your pricing, except maybe to offer a public payment plan, if that’s your bag. It is very easy to receive these emails and freak out, thinking you’re charging too much for your stuff. (This is particularly true for artists, crafters and people in tech.)

There is a difference between “I have no money” and “it’s overpriced”.

If they thought it was overpriced, they would either tell you they thought it was overpriced, or they wouldn’t say anything. They would mentally call you an asshole and go about their day. If they say they don’t have the money, changing the price won’t change their mind.

“No money” isn’t about price. It’s about value. They don’t currently see it in your thing, and your thing at a different price will probably not change anything. It might. It probably won’t.

Do not stress about your pricing.

Do not write them back and offer them a deal.

Do not be angry at them.

Do not sit around wondering why they send people like you and me emails like this, but not, say, Steve Jobs. They have good reasons for emailing you, especially if you already know them. They are trying to be nice.

I offer 8 hours of consulting a month, daily task lists and major product discounts to members of the SpeakEasy for $44 a month. Every time I open up spots, I get dozens of emails from people saying they’d love to sign up, but they don’t have the money.

I get at least an email a week from people who say they just LOVE the idea of Online Business School, but they don’t have $397. I suggest they go on the Advance Discount List to find out when it’s on half price, and they don’t sign up. Guess they don’t LOVE it that much.

We have an unconditional 100% lifetime money back guarantee and we STILL get people not buying because, well, they HAVE the money but they’re not sure if it’s right for them.

People will give you ALL SORTS of reasons why they’re not buying. Be nice to them, but try not to pay too much attention to what the reasons are, because odds are, they’re not the real reasons.

* The disclaimer at the end: I wrote about the buyer side of this equation a couple of years ago in Can You Afford It? If you want to get your hate on about how I don’t understand true poverty, read that first and we’ll fight about it there.

Originally published June 10, 2008

After a few weeks of home business lessons from the sex shop and home business lessons from the tattoo parlour, it’s time for another one. It is Tuesday after all. (I had a request to do a brothel next, but even I don’t know how to track down one of those. Southwestern Ontario is not known for its liberalism.) Therefore, without further ado, here are 5 home business marketing lessons from the homeless dude:

1. Ask for the sale.

You know when you walk by a homeless dude on the street and he’s sitting there with a sign that says “Spare some change?” You know how he never has any money in his cup? You know how you see him there every damn day? He’s there every day because NOBODY’S GIVING HIM ANY MONEY.

Takeaway: Don’t be the dude with the sign and the empty cup. Don’t just post a classified ad or hand out your business card and assume your marketing job is done. It ain’t.

2. Be specific.

I don’t know about you, but I am much more inclined to give money to complete strangers when they have a good reason for wanting it. Like, “My mother just died and I have to get on the next bus to Tulsa or I’ll miss the funeral” or “I’d really love to get a sandwich because I haven’t eaten since Sunday”. Much more likely to make the sale than vague begging.

Takeaway: Tell me what you want me to buy from you and I am much more likely to buy. You do not provide “business solutions” or “quality technology” or “positive results”. You provide dog walking or web hosting or cheese graters.

3. Bark up the right tree.

If you’ve been homeless for a while, you know who is likely to give you money and who isn’t. Certain demographics don’t carry cash. Other demographics don’t have cash to carry. Still more demographics won’t talk to strangers at night no matter how compelling your argument.

The other night I was walking home from the IttyBiz Branch Office — otherwise known as Coffee Culture on Dundas Street — and a guy asked for money. It was dark and he was standing in a not very well lit area and I wasn’t carrying my wallet. I wasn’t carrying a purse, either. Just me, my laptop, and my debit card.

He practically jumps out at me and asks for money. I am a young woman walking alone at night… is that really the best way to start? There is no visual sign that I have money on me and now I’m afraid of you. Um, no. Bad prospect.

Takeaway: Qualify your prospects. Certain people don’t buy. Certain people act cheap. Certain people adore you but can’t afford you. Pay close attention and view the trends.

4. Don’t be a prick.

Speaking of the jump-out-of-the-night dude, I tried to be nice. I said, “I’m really sorry. I don’t have any money on me. Good luck, though.” (I’m much nicer in person than I am on my blog.)

Dude totally lays into me! As in, “Look, lady, I work hard and I’m not out here every night and I just need some fucking money for some dinner, OK? You don’t have to be a bitch about it. A buck woulda been fine.”

That’s when I stopped being nicer than I am on my blog. My mother reads this so I won’t tell you what I said but to the outside observer it looked a lot like me ripping my debit card out of my pocket and waving it in his face yelling, “Are you calling me a liar? Look, fucker! This is what I have! Will this help you?”

Takeaway: I think the takeaway here is obvious.

5. Never doubt the power of the USP.

When my first husband and I moved to Toronto, we were shocked by the amount of people asking money on the street. Not shocked like morally opposed — there were just so many more people there than we were used to. More people than any one person could possibly help. (This is called market saturation and it’s very similar to the web design industry these days.)

People think that you can’t succeed in a saturated market and that’s total bullshit. Many succeed. But they’re the best, and they’re usually the unique ones.

Example One: My ex and I are walking down Queen West and a young man asked if he could make us a bet. He held up a loonie — that’s a dollar for those of you south of the 49th parallel — and said, “I’d like to bet you a dollar that I know where you got your boots.”

Since my ex had owned the boots for seven years and had bought them in a different city, he felt confident about the bet. “You’re on.”

The young man makes a huge show of thinking and posturing and generally being hilarious. (Picture someone who looks like they fell out of a Sex Pistols show with two fingers to each temple looking like he’s thinking so hard he’s trying to conjure up the dead.) Finally, after about a minute, he has the answer.

“You got your boots… ON YOUR FEET!”

Example Two: I used to go to a downtown college and as I was walking to the subway one day, a girl looked up at me from her sidewalk spot and said, “Excuse me, miss? Can you please spare $2.29 for kitten food?” Sure enough, right beside her is a kitten on a leash.

In both of those cases I don’t care if they used the cash to buy cocaine solely for the purpose of doing lines off a Tijuana hooker’s abdomen — they got the cash. And I’m pretty sure they weren’t the only ones.

Takeaway: Don’t be like every other loser. USP, people. USP.

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Image credit: romulusnr

Originally published May 12, 2010

I don’t have writer’s block, per se. I’m writing just fine, thankyouverymuch. The problem is, ever since I started work on the greatest copywriting class in the history of the English language, I’ve been writing. About writing. And I’m momentarily fresh out of words.

While I allow the writing nodes of my brain to refresh themselves — and research podcasting how-tos — I will tell you a tiny story I’ve been meaning to tell for ages.

As described in many places — most vividly in the how to love your customers story — I don’t cook. This means many of my lessons come from restaurant marketing. (If I had any sense, I’d write a series on marketing ideas for restaurants. Then again, I would also quit smoking and floss more. Je ne regret riens, my ass.)

Anyway, we have a chain of restaurants around here called Jack Astor’s. To give you an indication of the kind of restaurant we’re talking about, their logo is the ass end of a donkey, grown adults are encouraged to color on the tablecloths and the waitstaff wear shirts that say things like, “Tip well, I have to make bail.” Savvy?

Jack Astor’s is okay. Sometimes good, sometimes not. Tonight was great. Last time, James Chartrand found half a bread tag in her food and the server’s entire response was, “Huh.” Its most obnoxious quality is that, having branded itself as “fun”, it tries to manufacture fun where none exists, like an alternate universe where the entire staff of Disney World, Minnie included, is hungover. But the food’s okay and the music’s okay and the staff’s okay and the prices are okay.

Okay. Just like East Side Mario’s, Boston Pizza, Casey’s, Kelsey’s, Tony Roma’s. I haven’t been to any of these other restaurants more than once — if at all — since I’ve been back in Canada.

I go to Jack Astor’s around four times a month.

Same thing with McDonald’s. What are my options in the fast food market? Wendy’s, Harvey’s, Dairy Queen, Burger King, Taco Bell, KFC, Arby’s, A&W. God knows how many others. Do I go to any of them? No, I do not. I got to McDonald’s between three and five times a week.

When we were trying to figure out Jack’s great allergic skin explosion of ’07, the one thing we could hone in on was that when he went to McDonald’s, he didn’t get sick. We couldn’t figure out why, but it didn’t matter. McDonald’s = kid who doesn’t stay up all night scratching himself until he bleeds. Win! We got used to going, and now that’s where we go.

(Later, it turned out that the reason we could eat there was because they didn’t coat their fries in flour. Clever.)

Flash forward a few years and we know that he’s allergic to wheat and dairy. Combine that with our prediliction for not cooking our own food, and you have a fairly limited proverbial palette. Fortunately now we know that he can handle both wheat and dairy in small quantities, so we can break out of our mold periodically. One day, we did so by going to Jack Astor’s.

It was okay.

Well, it was okay until we saw the children’s dessert menu. (I would link to it, but it’s all sexy flash and shit and doesn’t have a distinct url. Restaurants: don’t do that.) There were two items. First, a brownie. Second, orange sorbet. And in case we weren’t already aware, they actually say right under the heading, “peanut free, tree nut free, wheat free, gluten free, dairy free…”

Okay or no okay, it is now the restaurant we go to most often. For a family that eats dinner out at least five days a week, that’s saying something.

Marketing Messages: The Many Takeaways

1. People will put up with almost anything if you’re the only one solving their most painful problem. (This is one of the reasons people continue to read this blog. It’s not like you’re here for the production quality.)

2. Parents even more so.

3. People are creatures of habit.

4. Parents even more so.

5. People will generally take boring and safe over novel and risky.

6. Parents even more so.

7. The moment I find out about a family-friendly restaurant with wheat-free fries, dairy-free ice cream and some fruit on the menu, the first six items on this list are moot and I am out the fucking door.

Marketing blah blah. Whatever. Read what comes next. It’s even better.

When I was previewing this piece in WordPress, the Related Posts plugin reminded me of a post called Duct-Taped Breasts, Hairy Mangoes, and New Kids On The Block that I wrote back in February 2008. I don’t know if it’s still in the list now that it’s published but, seriously? You should read it. The awesomeness knows no bounds.