Archive for June, 2010

Gary Vaynerchuk tells it like it is when it comes to hard work, or as he calls it hustle.  At a client’s request I am reading Vaynerchuk’s book “Crush It.”  I’ll admit I was reluctant to even pick it up when I heard about it.  My immediate thought was, ‘Oh great, another Internet millionaire who got lucky and now makes millions selling his success as “easy” to vulnerable individuals.  Not Vaynerchuk.  On page two he lays out his three rules for success, love your family, work super hard and live your passion.  What does he mean by work super hard?  You’ll need to “work your face off” and “you’ll be bleed out of your eyeballs at your computer.” If you already have a full time job, he advises that “you can get a lot done between 7:00 PP.M. and 2:00 A.M.”  He’s not saying you can do this on the weekends or in your spare time. Vaynerchuk may not win any literary awards, but at least he doesn’t sugar coat the amount of effort you’re going to need to put in to reach his level of success. Read the rest of this entry »

Here is an example of how not to do email marketing. I recently signed up for a FedEx account. Frankly the experience has been less than stellar. Their user interface for technical resources needs a serious overhaul, they’ve had a service outage for getting a developer key for over 36 hours, or at least they’re telling me that’s what the problem is. When I tried to have an online chat with them Citrix’s GoToAsist never started the session, but just sat in continuous load mode. Needless to say, when they sent me an email asking me to fill out a survey I was ready to jump on the chance to finally get to complain. Then I clicked on the “Survey” link and got the message “This survey is currently closed. Please contact the author of this survey for further assistance.” Don’t feel bad if you’re laughing at my hardships, when I am not pulling my hair out over this I am laughing too. Who shouldn’t be laughing is FedEX. I don’t know how many new customers they get daily but it has to be a large number. How many of these people are having similar experiences? How many of these people will complain on Twitter, LinkedIn their blogs? That number is not so huge, but it doesn’t have to be. UPS, DHL, USPS, people have choice and ultimately they’ll go where not only the cost is right, but where the company makes their life easier not harder.

Here’s how not to do email marketing. Read the rest of this entry »