I don’t claim be be a Twitter expert but Scott is and so is Michael.  Read what they have to say about it, there are so many more things local companies can be doing on Twitter besides telling me how great YOUR company is.  Get creative! Yes it may take a little time but I bet if you sat down and actually made a plan for Twitter you’d be surprised with the results you could attain.

So please stop the constant self-promotion and engage a follower or two.

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I know they can get all this done with minimal to no work at all on their behalf for $1,000-$1,500.  So what’s stopping them? Probably the cost.  But if the average person spends a minimum $10 it would take 100 people who found their site online and convinced them to come thru the door to achieve the site’s break even point. What would you do?

They could take it one step further and have pictures of everything on the menu (their menu is HUGE) or have a Sushi tutorial, teach me about it, give me something more than I’d expect to find on their site. But first things first get a site.

The amazing thing about this Wasabi is that it has a beautiful interior and is the most inexpensive in town (unverified) but a bento box here is $9.99 and it’s delicious!  You can’t tell me more people wouldn’t go there knowing this and why not spread the word?  Start a Facebook group when you join you get 50% off your next visit, then at random once every month that same offer is sent out to all the group members. It might just work, but first they need a site.

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Frustration is a funny thing though, it stems out of confusion and misunderstanding, and can grow to be an insurmountable demon.  But the best part is, it doesn’t have to.

Recently working on a project, I could see a growing frustration on faces and the general atmosphere just wasn’t right.  When I spoke with both parties involved I could understand where the frustration came from.  Within one conversation we had agreed that the frustration was due to a lack of communication and could easily be interpreted as a challenge.

Our world would be much better off if instead of getting frustrated with a problem, we look at it as a challenge.  Challenges get you going, they’re the fire under your ass, they’re the reason why sports are so interesting and they could be your solution if you are feeling frustrated.

So what do you do when you’re feeling frustrated?

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It’s been a proud week for the province, our pavilion is located beside the Quebec and Ontario pavilion’s and is across from the Molson Canadian Hockey house, the largest bar at the Olympic games (though it’s only a $99-$450 cover charge).

It’s a surreal moment when you walk around Concord Place and see your own province on the World’s stage beside Ontario and Quebec.  Even more so when you find out that neither pavilion is prepared to hold more than 300 people and the SaskPavilion has a capacity of just over 600.  What not a better role for the Province of Saskatchewan but to host the largest no-cover-charge party in Vancouver.

With the assistance of Riley Moynes from Living Sky Media, we will be putting together video’s pretty much every day in Vancouver to give Regina a taste of the Olympiad.  While I’m here I apologize for the less then regular posting but I’ll try to keep you up to date with the behind the scene antics of what happens at the Olympics.

I also have a request for you.  We need feedback and ideas for videos, what do you want to see?  Please tell me, comment below or e-mail me jeff(at)fraserstrategy(dot)ca

If any of your ideas are used, of course we will give you credit during the video, just saying!

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So how do you create a semantic marker in someone’s mind?  By going to extreme’s and doing something completely unexpected but so memorable it is embedded in our minds.  Remember how good Burger Baron’s billboards were?  They were different and were actually funny that they stuck out in our minds, you’d chuckle to yourself when you thought of Burger Baron.

How about the Roughrider’s Watermelon heads?  Difficult not to talk about those.  It allowed Roughriders fans to show the league how dedicated they really were.  It was different and definitely not for everyone.

Just recently the apparel company 22 Fresh came out with a new outlet store on Facebook.

The only way you can buy anything in the store is if you have “Scrilla”, and you can buy Scrilla or earn it.

This store isn’t for the average person, then again, regular people don’t wear 22 Fresh, it’s cool, it’s new, and you have to have the Scrilla to afford it.

What’s different is memorable.

Lindstrom also discusses why we don’t see more of this ingenious advertising regularly and he attributes it to organizations being too conservative and trying to please the masses.  When you set out to tell everyone a message, no one hears.  Most of the advertising messages we see are targeted at a large number of people and the result isn’t surprising.  The more conservative, politically correct, respectful, polite the message is, the easier it is for us to ignore it.

So the next time you want to tell everyone about your product don’t, come up with a different message, a different medium, cross the line, offend someone, do something that has never been done in your industry, evoke emotion. Otherwise you are just making noise.

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Seth Godin recently came out with a book titled Linchpin.  If you don’t know the story of how Seth came out with the book it’s worth a read.  To make a long blog short, he offered a free copy of his book in exchange for a minimum donation of $30 towards the Acumen Fund.  Within 48 hours this offer raised $108,000.

There was one slip up, for the people who took advantage of this offer living in Canada, the book wasn’t delivered on time.  Roughly two weeks late, my copy arrived.  I’m sure some people weren’t happy about the late delivery but it was the next event that really took me by surprise and made up for the late delivery. Just last week I receive a similar package in the mail, it’s another copy of the book.  Inside the front cover lies a note from Mr. Godin that offers this second book as a reward for my generosity and that I must now give it away as a present.

I was smiling from ear to ear for the remainder of the day.  Sure it must have cost Seth double the money to send two books, but I think to him having me tell this story is worth it.

If you want guaranteed results from your next marketing strategy, determine what your customer’s expectations of your product or service are, then surpass them.  The proof will be in the story they tell.

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Joke around with them.  Humor relaxes people and says “hey, I’m not nearly as bad as you think I am”.

Example 1: I play hockey, I usually hate refs in hockey, I usually yell at refs in hockey, not this time.  For the first time ever in my life that I can remember, while sitting in the penalty box, quite angry at the ref to say the least, he made a joke about what I did to get the penalty.  I had no choice to laugh and to start liking him.

Example 2: The Pastor at my church has a great sense of humor, after the service you can’t help but smile and laugh with him while he makes his remarks as everyone is leaving the sanctuary.  You feel a different connection with him because he makes you laugh.

You don’t have to be a comedic sensation, that’s not what I’m after, but if you can smile and make a comment that gets a laugh out of me, we’re already connecting on a different level.  A more humorous, enjoyable, trusting level.

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For the past five years the Paul J. Hill School of Business at the University of Regina has entered the JDC West competition.  JDC West is the largest student run academic case competition in Western Canada which includes prestigious schools such as the University of Alberta, Asper School of Business, and Sauder School of Business.  The complete list can be found here.

The Paul J. Hill School for the past three years have finished in second place.  This is no small feat by any means and it truly shows the quality of students that the school is producing.  For reasons beyond my comprehension you can’t find a link on the School’s website to this competition.  Not just a second place finish, they also raised $21,390.12 for charity and the faculty is more concerned with course offerings?  Something is awry.  If I want to find out about programs offered I’ll search for them, they don’t need to be the first things I read.

For future reference; whatever you’re amazing at, whatever your organization’s claim to fame is, whatever you can do better than everyone else, please tell me on your home page or soon after I enter your site.  I guarantee you’ll impress your audience much more by doing this than putting what YOU think SHOULD be on the site.

Congratulations to the 2010 JDC West team, you truly have achieved something astounding.

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Tell us to go somewhere and we won’t go.

Tell us to watch something and we’ll turn off the TV.

Tell us to wear something and we’ll choose to go naked.

Tell us to do it your way and we’ll find a better way.

Tell us to be a part of something and we’ll avoid it with all costs.

Tell us we can make more money doing it your way and we’ll go volunteer somewhere else.

Tell us “this is the norm” and we’ll disagree, we have our own norm.

Tell us to believe in something and we’ll make up our own belief’s, because we can.

Give us the opportunity to be innovative and creative, and we’ll surprise you every time with what we can do.

How are you managing the new generation; by telling or by giving?

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a) Pay an absurd amount of money because he works on a project until it is perfect (or very near perfect) not worrying about time.

or

b) Pay a seemingly miniscule per hour rate to account for the extra time spent making the video great.

When you are passionate about your work time doesn’t matter.  For Riley, he’d rather put in the extra effort to make the video amazing whether he’s getting paid for it or not.

Most financial and business consultants would say this is a terrible business model because it does not amount to being profitable.  If Riley’s main goal was to be profitable he wouldn’t create such amazing video’s.  Now I’m not saying that being profitable is a bad goal to have but putting your passion before profit is something that many people do not do in business.  This isn’t his long term strategy, I bet he’ll do it long enough to show the world how good he is, then by means of demand, he will be forced to raise his price.

What’s your main goal, being profitable or being passionate?

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