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April Fools' Jokes — Great Publicity, Fun, or Maybe Not?

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The Net Was Filled with Fake Fake News

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I’ll never forget one particular April Fools’ Joke during my college years in Peoria. That Midwest city is the home of the famous Caterpillar tractor — five major plants in the metropolitan area produce monster land moving equipment of a trademark yellow color.

One April 1st, the Penny Press, the free newspaper. ran a front page article describing how market research revealed that the famous yellow color was dangerous in large construction sites, particularly in non-English-speaking parts of the world. The article said, with all dry humor, that as of certain date Caterpillar Tractor would be changing their signature color to HOT PINK. Most readers didn’t know the article was a joke.

As I recall, the article caused quite stir in the metropolitan area dependent on the tractor company for a disproportionate part of its thriving economy. Folks were talking about losing their jobs.

The Penny Press, a weekly paper, had to wait to before they could let folks know it was a ruse. Was the article good publicity for the Penny Press?

Here are five April Fools’ Jokes from this year.

What makes a great prank and what makes one great? How credible do they have to be? How easy to figure out? When do they make good press? Is timing important? When do they work for or against the prankster? Which April Fool’s joke will you remember most from this year?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Know that the message you send is the right one. Work with Liz!!
SOBCon08 is May 2,3,4 in Chicago. Register now!

Get Unambiguous and Get More Customers

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“Give Me Ambiguity or Give Me Something Else!!”

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A client comes to you with a problem. The person you meet is your perfect “work soulmate,” but for some reason you don’t get the job. Why is that?

Could it be that you’re ambiguous?

When it comes to hiring people, we want to know exactly who they and what they promise unequivocally. We also want to know what they won’t do.

That’s why it’s critical when someone says, “What do you do?” You have a strong and interesting answer that invites them in to ask you more.

I say, “I help companies and individuals develop irresistible offers (products/services) that attract customers.”

Shama Heyder says, “I help service professionals built a long-term plan to get more clients.”
Chris Brogan says, “I use social media and technology to show businesses, organizations, and individuals how to build authentic conversations between coworkers, customers, and even competitors.”

Do we all do more than that? Of course we do, but we’re umambiguous about where our focus is. People know who to go to for which thing.

Get Unambiguous and Get More Customers

Here are some ways to get you closer to unambiguous.

  • Choose the client you want to work with most. We can’t work with everyone. Not everyone is a good fit with our skill set or our personalities. The time we spend trying to make a bad match work good be better invested in finding a great client. choose group that talks to each other and can afford to pay you.
  • Think about what you do well and why you like doing it. What skills do people often ask you to help them with? What have people already paid you for? Those are a place to start.
  • Make a list of what exactly you can do. Assign that list a monetary value.
  • Prepare a story to explain how what you do takes a continuing problem off the desk of your chosen client group. Explain how you can do the work easier, more efficiently, in less time, and still make them look like a hero.
  • Stick to the list for a month or two. Talk to the folks who can use the service you’ve outlined about their goals. When you hear a way you might help, tell them what you offer.

Do the above steps and suddenly, you’ll not only know what you do. But you’ll also know what you don’t do too. You’ll feel unambiguous.

It’s much more fun to know who we are and sitting across the table with something to offer.

How might you get on the road to unambiguous today?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

SOBCon08 is May 2,3,4 in Chicago. Register now!

New Improved 'Work with' Page: Round Two

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Ready for Round 2

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Last week I invited you to critique my “Work With” page. Those of you who stepped up offered so much insight and information. I had to put your suggestions to work. After a few hours and quite a few revisions, I’m bringing it back for another look.

Here’s what I did.

Joanna’s Observations

  • I made the Opening headline about the reader. I didn’t make it a question. Do you think I should?
  • I also rewrote that opening section to reflect the final page once it was rewritten.
  • I made the entire page more specific.
  • The emphasis on connecting began to feel forced so it went away.

Mike’s additions

  • Everything is now more concrete.
  • At first I didn’t think adding the testimonials would work — I was trying to keep the page short. Finally, I put them in. I like how they add to the conversation.

Shama’s Suggestions

  • I used her suggested three parts and added a fourth that was missing.

I also changed the picture and made all of the writing parallel.

Now What?

First, a huge thank you! A special thank you to Joanna, Mike, and Shama for writing their thoughts out here for all to see. I thought it only fair that I show you the result. To see the full page, click on the link above the screenshot.

Successful Blog, Work with Liz! page

All of the credit goes to you. Thank you again. It’s true that

No person can be inside the thinking and outside the thinking at the same time.

I’m one lucky blogger to have an incredibly cool team you!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Is My 'Work With' Page Doing What It's Supposed to Do?

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Work with You or Work for Them?

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Last night, I enjoyed a delightful, long conversation with Shama Hyder from After the Launch. We talked about how her business and mine match up. Shama”s strongly drawn niche is in marketing. She offers service professionals a six-month marketing makeover plan. My background is product, community, and strategy. I help businesses and people find their vision, develop compelling new products and services, and write irresistible offers about them.

During our conversation, we talked about that topic I mention so frequently . . . that you can’t be inside the thinking and outside it at the same time.

Our conversation got me wondering whether my ‘Work with Liz’ page is doing what it’s supposed to do as well as it might.

Is My ‘Work With’ Page Doing What It’s Supposed to Do?

So often I say, “Everything needs to be about THEM — the customer, the reader — not YOU (or in this case, me). It’s time I took a look to make sure that I’m following my own advice.

Section 1: Outstanding and Irresistible

This section is most certainly about the clients I want. It’s a little sparse on words. In the world of needs-benefits selling, this puts forward the needs. The subhead might be stronger if it said, Outstanding and Irresistible Business, because that’s what the three questions are about.

Connector and Performance Manager

Connector and Performance Manager
This section is about the features and benefits of the “product,” which is me. [Each phrase in bold is a feature — something that is delivered. The words that follow are the benefits that each feature offers the “buyer.”] The execution could be more tightly done. The YOU in each benefit phrase is hidden. I need to state it outright as I did in the fourth bullet. This whole section could be a whole lot more YOU.

Connecting All Parts of You

Connecting All Parts of You
This section does what the section above should do. It’s interesting that I added it several days after I wrote the rest of the page. Distance from what I write helps me.

What Folks Have to Say about Working with Liz

What Folks Have to Say about Working with Liz
This is the proof and the call to action. If I don’t ask, people don’t know that we seriously want them to buy what we’re offering. I think this does that clearly enough.

Overall, in most places I seem to be selling the right things. My heart says I could do it more concretely.

What changes do you think would improve things?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Time to Check Social Media Return on Investment

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Infinite Room Is NOT Infinite Time

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We live in a world of Social Media, where we can choose from a seemingly unending list of new universes — places where any small group suddenly finds we can join up to be our own majority. Like-minded thinking is one of the pleasures of getting together on any social site.

Don’t like how I think?
Click on.
No harm. No foul.

The infinite Internet has room for everyone.
It’s not hard to find like-minded thinkers anymore. As the number of Social Media sites grows, we can’t keep adding to our lists.

We don’t have infinite time to spend.
We need to know that time we’re spending is time well invested.

Time to Check Social Media Return on Investment

It’s easy to get comfortable on a social media site, especially if we’ve never fit so well anywhere before. But, now that the choices are so many, maybe we should check to be sure that the time we’re spending is time is adding something, not wasting away.

Here are five values to check the return on your time investment. Maybe you’ll find some time to save.

  1. What’s the big idea? What do people do there? Do they exchange information, look for jobs, act like schoolkids? Is that focus important to you? Do you look forward to time spent there?

  2. Who’s there? Are the people there friends, fans, or contacts? Are they there for relationships or information or votes? Are there people to learn from and people you aspire to be more like? Can you see them? Can they see you?

  3. What are they saying? What do you take from the conversation? What ideas are on offer? What ideas directly apply to what you do? How often do you see real value?

  4. What’s the time/goal orientation? What do the people focus on? Do they come to achieve; then leave? Do they hang out for conversation? Are their goals in line with yours?

  5. What is the payoff? Is this site redundant with another place you visit? Can you accomplish the same thing in a better way? Would more time here return more value? Would more time somewhere else make this site a non-starter? What do you get there that you can’t get anywhere else?

I quit visiting certain places, got back that time, and have suffered no loss. Well, actually, I’ve gained. The folks I interacted with in those places are in all of the other places I’ve still visit. So I’m trimming my social media portfolio to only those that work for me and my business.

What about you? Time to rethink your Social Media Investments?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Seriously: Do New Thoughts and New Taglines Find Us?

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It Started with an Unsearchable Thought

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It started with a blog post. Somehow in writing it, I had a new thought.

Seems a good reason NOT to be a thought leader . . . new thoughts aren’t searchable.

That thought caught a conversation about how our thoughts might connect us.

In the comment box, Alina Popescu said

Hi Liz! New thoughts are not searchable because they don’t need to [be]. They have their own little strategy to finding their way to people. I did not use a search to get to your blog. However, I got here and ceased to be a stranger 🙂 So who cares if you can’t search them? Most of us find new thoughts or are provoked to think exactly when they most need it.

Via trackback, Billy Smith said

It is about discovering, not being discovered « The Organic Leadership Blog

Last night on the telephone, I asked Lorelle VanFossen what she thought. We discussed what we thought about thoughts finding us in the universe. She talked about the “Great Cosmic Muffin,” and she said

You have to write about this in the way only Liz can. It’s important. Don’t leave that thought behind. Send out a new one. Show them how.

It’s hard to say, “no,” to Lorelle.

Do Thoughts Find Us? I Mean Really

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I know that, in the past year, I was thinking some thoughts that weren’t the best. What they brought weren’t the best folks or events.

With every knock, I lost a bit of who I am.

I started listening to EVERYONE, but myself.

Each new problem child outdistanced the last.

I can list unhappy endings one by one.
Yeah, it’s a list, and the list gets progressively — exponentially — more detrimental.

If I constantly flinch, isn’t inevitable that I’ll get hit? Why is that?

Are my thoughts on my sleeve? Do they somehow transmit? I have trouble believing that 1, 2, 3, 4 — small, medium, large, extra large — could be all a coincidence. It just doesn’t seem that coincidence is that organized.

Even more.

When I decided that I’d had enough, when I said, “I’m taking this ‘kick me’ sign off. No more. It’s the end of this rotten stuff,” within hours new things, good things, things I love, started happening. Is that coincidence too?

I think not.

Go ahead, believe whatever your heart will let you.

If right now, I send out this thought on a Saturday, when most folks are out and not reading blogs, will it find you before it normally would?

When I answered Alina’s comment up above, I wrote this descriptive phrase in the comment box.

New thoughts on a mission to find new thinkers.

Alina wrote this comment in response.

Liz, that sounds like a pretty good slogan.

Does it mean that a new tagline came to find me and my blog?

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