Peter Brownstein as a Ghoul thanks to Scream Team Posted 10/31/2008 by PeterB, .NET Prog.

Yes I know, it is a shameless marketing test once again.  However the title is accurate as this year I decided to get a latex max and dress up as a ghoul.  This is my first time ever doing something like this, and I did need some help, but in the end I was pretty happy with the results:

If you thought this was remotely cool, you can pick up latex masks similar to these at The Scream Team.  We have a green screen in the office so we took a camera and shot the above pictures quickly in there.  Hopefully I can take these and add a bit more of a dramatic background later.  Anyway, Happy Halloween everyone.

At this time I am fairly convinced that mostly people at 352 Media Group read this blog, however I am sure PVR has real statistical evidence on where our hits come from.  If I happen to be wrong, and you don't know who I am or what I look like, I will try to put up some images of me later so you have something to compare the prosthetic mask to.  For all you know, I could look like this normally...

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	LA2M, Sales Presentation Oct 15th 2008 Posted 10/28/2008 by Declan, Acct Mgr

Here are the slides from my LA2M session, they discuss how I go about selling and what works for me.  Enjoy...

Slideshow transcript

Slide 1: LA2M - Lunch Ann Arbor Marketing Selling for Designers and Developers October 15, 2008

Slide 2: About Declan ONeill • I am a Regional Account Manager with 352 Media Group.• I moved to the US 3 years ago from Ireland.• I started in the web industry 12 years ago as a developer. - I was terrible, PERL was not my friend, and I was smart enough to know it. • I have been selling for 11.5 years. - What I do is a passion, not a job, because for 11.5 years my main hobby has been web design and related technologies.

Slide 3: “I am not a sales expert and will I never claim to be. I have, however, made millions of dollars / Euros for the companies I have worked with during my career. I have remained an apprentice of business development and take what I do very seriously.” “I have my own way of selling that works for me. I try to associate myself with smart people who can teach me and help me improve upon what I do.”

Slide 4: “Someone called me ‘Altruistic’ 1 (I didn’t know its meaning) for those in the same boat as I am — “unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others.” I try to go above and beyond for all my clients to ensure their experience is stellar.” “I treat every client as if he or she is a client for life and do what it takes to keep clients coming back.” Source1: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/altruistic

Slide 5: ” This may mean stepping out of your comfort zone or battling against colleagues or management to make sure clients’ needs are met at an acceptable level.” “This may mean working late nights or on weekends. Bottom line– you get out of sales what you put into it; do little work and you will get little reward”.

Slide 6: Firstly, there are a few givens when selling Look the part, try to dress better or equal to your client. - Get a nice suit, tie (if applicable), shoes, etc. - Make sure your hair and nails are tidy and you are clean shaven (if applicable). - Get a nice pen, folder, and stationary for client meetings. - Arrive on time, get a GPS, and power converters for your car. - Make sure you have a working presentation before arriving at a client meeting as internet connections are not always available.

Slide 7: Why should a client buy from you? Clients buy from you because they like you and your company and they choose you because you made them feel special. If you can satisfy a client’s tangible needs (satisfied directly by your product or service) and intangible needs (something subjective, something that exists in the customer’s head i.e. their emotional needs), you are more than 90% the way to winning that client’s business.

Slide 8: There are different types of personality Understand your clients personality, • Will they be easy to work with? • Will your team members have any easy time working with the client? • Are they asking for discounts, before the work begins. • Are they promising you more work for a better deal now. • Are you getting a bad feeling?

Slide 9: Know how to deal with Personality types • Do not be afraid to fire problem clients. (only after you have tried everything to solve his or her issues.) • Alert your team that the customer will be easy or hard to deal with. • Address any issues upfront, like how they would like communication, any deadlines, or any budget issues, or change orders etc.

Slide 10: Sometimes it ok to say NO Do not be afraid to say no to work, if you do not have the bandwidth to take the work on, this will have a domino affect within your firm. The new client will not be happy because of the length of time it takes to complete the project and other clients will get annoyed because you are not given them the attention they deserve.

Slide 11: Lead Generation • Web Site Leads Search Engine • Cold Call Mixers / Networking Lunches • Word of Mouth Golf Course • Referral Friend / Family • By Chance Ad Words • Phone Book Linked In • Quote Catcher Facebook • Vendor Seek Other Sources

Slide 12: Make it easy for prospects to find information • Tell people what you have done • Make it easy to find your portfolio • Tell them about your awards and provide client testimonials. • Show them your client list and allow them to see that similar companies are also your clients. • Show off your work. • Show your services, don’t make it a guessing game

Slide 13: How I deal with leads Note: this works for me and may not be the right solution for you. I give each lead I receive a rating between 1 and 10. 1: I am not wasting my time. 10: This is going to look great in our portfolio when I win it. Example of a lead rated 1-3: User contacts me but doesn’t leave his/her last name or phone number but provides a hotmail address. The client’s requirements are: “I need a website” or “I want a ‘You Tube’ type site” and the client has a $500 budget. I contact each one but don’t lose any sleep when they don’t contact me. Example of a lead rated 7-10: User contacts me and he/she is from well-known company. The client has a very detailed RFQ/RFP, is in need of a custom website, and understands the costs involved (including associated costs such as hosting, SEM, etc.

Slide 14: The tricky ones Leads rated 4-6 are tricky, and this is where networking plays a major role. 4 - 6 are realistic leads, but sometimes they looking for .PHP or some sort of open source application. These leads don’t have the budget to pay for the project and are, sometimes, seeking SEO, SEM, or copywriting. Solution: pass these leads on to other vendors (3.7 designs gets all of my smaller design leads, Ingenex Digital Marketing gets all of my copywriting leads and smaller SEO. Referral business is a great way to increase sales–right now, hand your business card to the person next to you and ask them for a referral.

Slide 15: Proposals “So many times other companies just list their rate and a one sentence explanation for the cost. When you are asking for $50-150k, this does not cut the mustard.” This is a quote from my boss–I love it because it is true. Tell the customer what you are offering but, more importantly, tell them what they are not getting, so there is no gray area. “I think that it has to do with the fact that we explain the process, the features, and expectations for the project based on what we learn before we write it. This produces proposals that are more thoughtful and succinct”. This is a quote from our Tampa-based account manager. Ask all the right questions and get to know what the clients’ needs are by asking open-ended, probing questions. You cannot provide the right solution if you don’t know what the customers’ needs are.

Slide 16: Follow up with the client Pick up the phone-e-mailing to follow up with a client is a pet hate (I do it, but only with clients that I know are not ready to purchase. I want to let them know that I am still thinking about them and I am still here when they need me.) Emailing is so impersonal, it doesn’t allow you to build a relationship and get to understand your client and their needs/personality. I partly credit my success to my lack of typing and grammar skills, because I know that picking up the phone is going to be 100 times quicker than writing a long e-mail that I will have to triple check for errors before releasing it to the client.

Slide 17: Have the right tools for the job If you need something to make your job easier (like a piece of software, a faster computer, email/internet on your phone, 2 screens, a nice desk, a comfortable chair) make sure you get them. If your company will not purchase these things for you, purchase them with your own money and call it “personal development” because great tools make the job easier. Creating the right environment is so important to a person’s success. If you feel good in your workspace, you can concentrate more on selling.

Slide 18: Your Success Associate yourself with the right people–other successful people. Stay away from people that bring you down. Get a mentor and learn from him/her. Expose yourself to what’s new–if you are not learning something new your competition is. New information is essential to your success. Become valuable–the more valuable you become, the more the marketplace will reward you. Become known as a resource, not a sales person–your value is linked to your knowledge and willingness to help others.

Slide 19: Your Success The more you can solve problems, the easier path you will have to success. Clients don’t really want facts, they want answers. Recognize opportunity–stay alert for situations that can create opportunities. Take responsibility for your actions, don’t blame others for your mistakes. Learn from your mistakes–the best teacher is failure. Mistakes are experiences not to be repeated again.

Slide 20: Motivation Do what it takes to get motivated. For me, personally, I love getting 352 Blocks. For each sale I make that is 10K and over, I get a block. I want to build a big wall and in order to build my wall, I have to sell projects that are over 10k I would have a small wall if I got a block for each sale, but 10k is a decent bar to shoot for.

Slide 21: Motivation Want to be the number 1 person in your company, albeit whatever your role. In 2007 I was the highest grossing account manager within 352 Media Group.

Slide 22: Motivation Sell a solution that nobody in your company has done before. In 2004 I sold the first ever corporate MPLS network in Ireland .

Slide 23: In closing If you can’t build it, don’t sell it. If you know when speaking to a client that you cannot perform the services they require, don’t take on the job because you will get caught. You will have wasted this company’s time and money. Not to mention the bad press and negative feedback that they will pass on to everyone they know about you and your company. Use this community of people to generate business–refer business you cannot take on to others in this room.

Slide 24: Thank You Learn more about 352 Media Group : www.352media.com Our Blog: http://www.352media.com/rantingandraving/

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	When Times Get Tough, It's Time To Market! Posted 10/27/2008 by Geoff, Pres/CEO

I got a semi-spam email today promoting some marketing company's services.  I suspect times are tough for them, because many businesses are pulling back on their ad budgets as the economy worsens.  At 352 Media Group, we have seen a little belt tightening by our clients, but thankfully most are still wanting to go full speed ahead.

The marketing company was sending these semi-spam emails to try to convince business owners to market with them during these slow times.  Their point was that now is actually the best time to market.  They are absolutely correct.  Given the number of businesses pulling back on marketing and spending right now, it is easier now to gain market share than ever before.  And if you properly utilize the many Web marketing tools and techniques available today, you can seize market share very cost effectively.

Here are a few paraphrased paragraphs from their pitch:

Companies that out marketed and outsold their competition during slow times emerge from the recession with increased market shares and better long term profitability.   Studies in September 2008 by the Marketing Planning Institute, Mc Grawhill and Nielsen show that Marketing Investments are more critical in gaining market share during the downturn rather than when business is good.

Great companies attack the market place in a downturn. They carefully spend marketing dollars on online activities where cost of customer acquisition is much lower.  During tough times, great companies deploy counter intuitive strategies to gain new customers and expand to global markets and expand market share. Pushing off new campaigns or reducing marketing is a sure shot way to ride your business to the bottom of the totem pole. This is the time to make the investment in to growth while most others are cutting costs.

All very true.  Now is the time to seize the market!  And of course, call us so we can help!  :)

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	Community Technology Preview of VS 2010 & .Net 4.0 Posted 10/27/2008 by PeterB, .NET Prog.

For those of you that are interested:

Microsoft Pre-release Software Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 Community Technology Preview (CTP)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=922b4655-93d0-4476-bda4-94cf5f8d4814&DisplayLang=en

Sorry for the short post, just trying to use PVR's Hassle-Free Blogging For Business Tips

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	Guest Article: Hell Hath no Fury like the Hotlinked Webmaster Posted 10/24/2008 by PeterV, VP, Marketing

By Kelly Kilpatrick, special rantingandraving.com contributor:

There are some things that are taboo on the World Wide Web, and if you’re doing one of them, you are bound to get blacklisted sooner than later. We all know that spamming, releasing malware, stealing data, performing denial of service attacks, hosting porn and the like are activities that you should stay away from. But there are others that are not so well known but are still banned or frowned upon, like hotlinking.

For those who don’t know what this means, it’s the practice of linking to images on other sites without downloading the pictures to your system first and then uploading them to your own server. So what’s the big difference you may ask; the difference between the two methods of linking to pictures on another site is that the first is akin to stealing and the second is not (if the site owner has given you permission to use the picture). How does linking to a site make you a thief?

When you link to a site (especially the images there) without downloading them on your system and then uploading them on your server, you’re literally stealing bandwidth and storage from the site you’re linking to, and this is a definite no-no when the other site’s owner is paying their host for the amount of data downloaded or uploaded from and to the site. This amounts to figuratively stealing money from them, because they are paying the price each time a visitor to your site views the image. In some instances, when you link to sites that feature pictures used for commercial purposes, you’re guilty of stealing intellectual property – like plagiarism when you copy what someone’s written without their permission.

Some people hotlink because they don’t know any better, but there are others who do it even though they know it’s wrong. Webmasters are now becoming smart – they’re protecting what’s theirs by using .htaccess files to prevent their images from being misused. When these files are used, visitors to your site see one of three things in place of the image you linked to illegally – a broken link, a message that the image was hotlinked and so is not visible, or in the worst case, another image that is offensive to your viewers.  

Even if site owners are not yet wise to the fact that you’re hotlinking to their images or CSS files, don’t be too confident that this situation will last forever. There are methods that webmasters can use to find out if anyone is hotlinking to their site, and when they find anomalies in their usage details, you can bet that this is the first thing they’re going to be checking up on. So, link all you want, but do so responsibly. 

By-line: This post was contributed by Kelly Kilpatrick, who writes on the subject of how to become a travel agent. She invites your feedback at kellykilpatrick24 at gmail dot com

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	"The Intern Den" Episode 1 - Inside The Mind of a 352 Media Group Intern Posted 10/24/2008 by Shivani, Marketing Intern

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	New Web Video Host for Eco Text Smart Posted 10/23/2008 by Chance, Acct Mgr

http://www.ecotextsmart.com/

Check it out......Gainesville's own, Kim Wilson as the web video hostess with the mostess for Eco Text Smart. Eco Text Smart is one of 352 Media's newest clients to implement a web video host - humanizing their mobility site. Nice work!

My first post on the blog and my first completed project, all in one shot!

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	Peter Brownstein - Web Marketing Test Posted 10/23/2008 by PeterB, .NET Prog.

So not too long ago I wrote an article on Visual Studio 2008 and how to "Apply Cut or Copy Commands to blank lines when there is no selection". Right before I wrote the article I searched those words in quotes to see who else wrote about it. I obviously found Sarah Ford's blog among many other results, all dealing with the same tip.

The next day I decided to search for those terms again and was amazed to find my blog at the top of the search results. I was quite impressed and quickly turned to PVR, from marketing, to talk about this jump in search rankings.

As he explained the reasons (which I will allow him to do in the comments) I began to wonder how our other blogs have done in regards to search rankings. While some also resulted in the same way, there were a few which didn't show up at all. At this point my curiosity got the best of me, and thus caused me to create this post.

Now as some of you may have done yourself, in the past I have searched for my name on various search engines. Call it curiosity, boredom, the need to feel special, or sad, but either way, I and others have done it. However, regardless the amount of pages I scoured, I have never showed up in any results. Working for a web development company for 8 years and in the industry for 10, you would think something would show up. That, however, is not the case as I am constantly overshadowed by my evil twin, Peter Brownstein the poker champion (note that he is not actually my twin nor is there any evidence of him being evil). If not him, there is also a CIO and an Account Group Manager which occasionally get on the list.

So, all considering this, I have decided to see how good our web marketing and search engine optimization is. With any luck, I will show up within at least the top 5 pages when I search for "Peter Brownstein" tomorrow. It will be a great testament to what PVR and the developers of Ranting & Ravings have done, and it will also bring a smile to my face to stand out, or stand beside the crowd of Peter Brownstein clones that exist out there.

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	Missed Connections are taking over... Posted 10/22/2008 by Kelly, Project Mgr

I’ve always been intrigued by Craigslist.  You can find anything from a job to housing to game tickets.  About a year ago while browsing the incredible amount of links I discovered the Holy Grail…missed connections.  I know it weird…but the postings are wildly entertaining.  They were so entertaining that I kept coming back.  Missed connections has become one of my guilty pleasures.  That “instant connection” that people feel, which is nothing more than a crush, keeps people holding on for something more.  It’s not really a secret around the office that I love to read missed connections, so when a coworker came across an article on CNN about it she sent it to me.  The article, found here, talks about the cult phenomenon that is missed connections.  I had no idea that people out there love it as much as I do (though while I read it for entertainment purposes, they mostly read it to see if they've been missed).  I also couldn’t believe some of the stories about people getting married from missed connections.  I mean, I’m not one to judge but finding my future husband on craigslist’s missed connections is a little strange.  The article also opened my eyes to an entire internet world with sites like www.kismeet.com, www.isawyou.com, and www.subwaycrush.com.  It talks about the how our culture is changing and relying on this thought that if you meet someone you like and don't get their number you can always just find them on the internet!  The world is changing...and apparently you don't have to worry about missing out on someone anymore.

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	Creativity! Get into the Right Mind State Posted 10/22/2008 by Kelli, Design Dir.

I recently delivered a lecture on creativity to our fall design intern class. Much to my surprise, preparing that lecture was a great experience that took me on a winding path of my own creative evolution. Who knew?!

When I started to prep, I immediately pulled out my old rusty creativity lecture that I give in college design classes every so often. Well, that seemed ironic and kind of…um, well...uncreative! So, I kept in some of the boring basics of my old lecture…the 5 stages of creativity, Jacob Getzels's research, yada, yada, yada. But then I started to think about my personal experiences with creativity.

What I concluded is that creativity is inextricably tied to getting into the right mind state. But what does that really mean? On a cursory level, this can be achieved through setting up creative rituals… putting on music, sitting in your favorite chair or coffee house, working at a certain time of day, walking around, or even going outside. Now this requires a certain level of self-awareness, but nothing too introspective.

But the next level of getting into the right mind state is a bit murkier: letting go of your ego. When most people first hear that expression, “letting go of your ego” they tend to get tripped up by the word “ego”. It’s certainly a word heavy with connotations and negative associations. People (myself included at one point), tend to think “ego” equals “cocky” equals “bad”. So, the take-away from the expression is generally “don’t be arrogant or defensive about your design”. That’s fine; it’s a good and important lesson, but that’s not the moral of the story.

Years of working with new, aspiring designers as well as my own journey practicing yoga has really helped me understand what it means to let go of one’s ego. Letting go of your ego is really about not judging yourself. Most designers I meet suffer from insecurity, not arrogance. They are worried about what their peer or clients will think of their work. Insecurity and self-censoring kill creativity.

Specifically in the case of design, checking your ego translates to

1. being gentle with yourself
2. respecting and believing in your own talent
3. not allowing the rejection inherent in the design industry to make you question yourself
4. not personalizing feedback or getting too emotionally attached to your design
5. not censoring yourself
6. trusting yourself enough to take risks
7. standing up for your design decisions when you know they are right

I deeply believe that learning to relax and let go of the ego is far more valuable than any type of brainstorming technique or trick could ever be. It doesn’t happen over night, but staying aware and trying to let go over time will allow you to tap into your own truest creative potential.

 

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