$10 To Change A Comma

 As I sit back with a cup of hot black coffee ☕ 

I remembered an ad we put out back in the 80s " Ten Dollars To Remove A Comma" I had a typesetting company at the 

time and industry wide there was a lot of push back on the cost of typos. There still is. So being part of International Typography Association, we as an industry put together a piece going through every step needed to remove or replace a comma. It is amazing how many steps are needed for such a simple task. Take the change, pull the file, call up the job, find the page, paragraph and sentence. Save the job. Que the job to run. Process to alteration. Put the alteration in an envelope. And ship or deliver the alteration.

Try this game on anything you do. It is amazing how complicated even simple things are. 

This led to last year someone came to me to have a banner produced. No, content. No graphics. Nothing but I want a banner. Okay. so the banner is X amount. What he wanted was not much so I figured I could eat the 20-30 minutes for a simple design and graphics. Sent the PDF for approval and he didn't like it. While I was doing all this he was shopping banners and found a discount banner company. He pulled the job without allowing us to do some simple changes. So I billed him $25 for the time and work we had done. He complained. I eventually ate the charge. 

So now I will itemize everything in a job. Design, Logo vectorizing, printing dies, the banner (or what ever we are doing) and shipping and handling. 

Yes $10 to change a comma, or should it be $25 now? 

Howard

Stumbling On Social

 Settled in with my cup of hot black coffee ☕ 

Here we are socializing on social. There are different elements involved with growing a business with the help or on

the back of the social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn. 

You need to actually work it. You can't just stick a post up and expect action. One or two posts and you're going to get lost. If someone stumbles to your page your voice will stand out but that is what it is. Stumbling. The social stream these days is like a river rapids in the spring. AI, #hashtags, @s, are going to help but for me a good solid content attack is what is needed. If I was on your page yesterday and I go back today and see the same stuff, nothing new, you will drop on my hit list. 

That is why I researched and resurrected my organic posting services. Helping businesses keep fresh, new content flowing on their page. One of the problems is good content is hard to create. Following your own content to be interactive with likes and comments even harder. 

Because I am in the marketing business this is one of my class rooms. Every week I am learning and/or replacing an idea or technique. If you truly have time for that fantastic. For the rest of you, there's Larson.

Howard

Your Suppliers Should Be Customers

 As i sit back with my cup of hot black coffee ☕.

I had a good Monday considering I had to use my cell phone as a hotspot. Ya

my Internet provider messed up again. Their customer service number is one of the stored numbers on my cell phone. After I reminded them I am calling from my cell phone because the phone I buy from "you" is not working and we talk about "our" mutual ( I like to share my problems) problem of being down again and the customer service rep says I wish I could do something more, I stop, pause and say, You know you could get me the direct phone number of your marketing department. 

It doesn't work but I ask anyway. And when I think about it, everyone of the companies that I buy from should be my customer. I think starting today I will implement that as a company policy. And why not. I should have a fair shot at each and every ones business. Some things are easier to change than others but the more services become commodities, even they are not immune to this new policy of mine. I know a couple insurance agents who might want to be looking over their shoulders. 

The last time I changed CPAs was when they became a Larson customer so why not go down the list. 

Howard

Define it, Be it, Own it!

 As I sit with my cup of hot black coffee

☕.

Here we go again new day, new week, same plan. Yes the plan is the same, only the tactics used change, or I just get better at using them. 

I am a sweat equity kind of guy. Why you might ask? Because I want to, no, because I need to know what works and what doesn't. I love and embrace my mistakes so I can correct them and come back better, faster, smarter, stronger. The me you knew a year ago has the same values, but knows more of what works and what doesn't.

I'd make a bad welder, a slow carpenter. If I was a baker I'd probably burn all the cookies but when you walk into my world of marketing and bigger better faster is your dream, I'm rolling up my sleeves and going to work at something I do understand.

I noticed a Home Show in Rockford this morning which is happening in February. If that is your market area call me. It could be Rockford, Minneapolis, Dallas or St. Louis but where ever the show is, that is my world. I talked a while back about staying in your lane. Put me in a show and I'm in the outside lane pushing the speed limit. 

I can do the same thing with almost any trade show or expo. It's my world. 

Do you know what you're doing yet. Do you understand your place and what you do best? Define it, be it, understand it then go out and own it!

Howard

AI, You Still Need To Plan It

 I hate when that happens. I wrote an entire post and hit the wrong button. 

I'm sitting here having an afternoon coffee. I

did a solo at church so my normal routine got out of wack. I hate being out of wack. Wack is not something you just run down to the store and buy. And you never find wack at a decent price online. So it is best to keep an extra can of wack in the pantry just in case.

I have been reading a book, yes a real book with paper pages, written by Kipp  Bednar and Kieran Flanagan of HubSpot  named Loop. It is about AI and the planning that goes into using it. It is a good read, direct, systematic, well laid out and straight forward. They talk about 10xing your marketing and if you are a Larson follower you know 10x is the backbone of the Mjolnir Marketing System which is designed to not just beat the competition but to overwhelm them. In the book it lays out how to plan you AI, and guess what. If you do the same steps on an old school marketing plan you will get. . . good results. Just not as fast. AI will only make Great Marketers Greater faster!

I'll say it again, AI is here, and as I keep saying it is only making great marketers even better faster. And the bad ones, well they are exposed faster. 

Remember when high touch / high tech was the rage? Smart companies like us, still believe in being real with people. We even answer our phones with a real person, usually me because I like to. Bad ones trap you in a pit of automation operator hell. 

When you are ready to become a Larson customer we are here for you. Real people doing real work using controlled AI as a tool. 

Howard

Don't Buy My Ducks

 Settling in with my morning cup of hot black coffee ☕ . Did you order yours for corporate gifting yet?

When I look at the economic picture for businesses there is 

still a deep divide between what is marketing and what is sales. Unless you're selling something that is an off the shelf item you had better get yourself a team of hungry Vikings to be your sales team.

This has been my biggest problem. Let's take Ducks for example. I could sell unlogoed ducks from a website. There could be a place for commody sales in my future. 

Any of you web guys who are always banging on me to design a new website for me? Are they calling you too? I must get 2 a week and none of them did their homework on my company. More on this later or another day ...

I like to work with my customers and help them make the right choices. I love uniqueness, not sameness. Being unique can be difficult. You really need to understand what is going on. Not just a snapshot but the entire picture. Kipling and his honest serving men, what and why, when and how, where and who. And I am not talking about the dreaded up sell I talked about a few days ago. This is about getting you, after I understand the purpose, the perfect "duck" or dare I say, maybe you are better off not buying a duck at all. What did I just say turn down a sale? Yes I did, if it is not what you really need. 

I want to be your guy. When you think marketing I want to be your trusted advisor. Isn't that what we all really want. To have a seat at the customers table. To have a voice as they formulate their strategy?  Every day Monday thru Friday at 8:00am I ask my followers "Are you a Larson guy or gal". So are you?

Howard

Stay In Your Lane

 As i sit back with my cup of hot black coffee ☕ 

Back from a trade show yesterday, so nothing new there but,

I am always amazed that first, people remember me and some of them want to talk to me.  

Yesterday was the ITF Chicago Section. I have a few customers in that sector but, the people who really wanted to talk with me were not looking to talk about my vast knowledge of food technology but my more extensive knowledge and understanding of trade shows. It's funny when my postings leading up to a show talk about having coffee and talking "Trade Show" and that is what they want to talk with me about.

It led me to remind myself and remind would be customers and vendors to stay in your lane.

Honestly my specialty is trade shows. Trade show marketing,  training and consulting. That expertise leads me into other horizontal markets but I will eventually lead my customers into a trade show. 

I guess that is why I am called "The Tradeshow Fanatic"

That arena is where people and companies go to buy and sell. 

Lately and I have been taking about, I have been interviewing vendors for additional services I can offer you. Call me lazy, but I can't do everything. And not at the level I want to be providing as fast a pace as is necessary. 

What I have found is these possible additions to the Larson stable of services don't know how to stay in there lane. They don't know how to do what they do best without taking more of the marketing pie or since today is National Donut Day, your marketing donut.

That is what professional friends are for. So you can stay in your lane and be the best while giving more. 

Howard