The recorded video will be posted here shortly.
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You might wonder what a commencement address from a college drop out has to do with marketing, but it has EVERYTHING to do with marketing.
Marketing is the transference of emotion. In particular, the transference of PASSION.
Follow your passion regardless of the detractors.
The bad news is that you will never be the next Steve Jobs. You can only be the next YOU.
You will fail. Probably often.
But even if you never find “success” whatever the hell that is, you will have lived a life worth living.
Steve, thanks for the inspiration.
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(from the YPcommando archives. First published November 16, 2004)
Dane Madsen
Our story begins in February 1996. Yahoo had just gone public. Stockbroker, Dane Madsen had just moved to Las Vegas to open an office for Sutro & Co, Inc.
Dane was having trouble securing a office space lease, and was working out of a temporary space. In those freewheeling days, you could get absolutely anything you wanted in Vegas . . . except office space.
The Sprint Yellow Pages sales rep came to Dane’s temporary office. The rep gave him four days to sign the insertion order or “you will just have to wait for the next book”. Dane had been a buyer of Yellow Pages advertising for 10 years and knew how critical it was to be in the book. Sutro needed to be under five headings, but there was a pretty good chance that they wouldn’t be able to finalize their office location before the directory went to press. Being a bit of a gambler, Dane advertised under one heading because the risk of the address being wrong was less than not being in the directory at all.
In conversation with his old friend, Bill Povondra later that day, Dane commented how the web would change these things. Dane understood print cycles, but that the dynamic movement of business was going to embrace interactive in the future with a vengeance; static was going to see some change. Bill had owned an advertising agency in the past and was running a trade show company in Las Vegas. His understanding of B-to-B was enormous and his predictions for what we now know as supply chain management were well ahead of the curve.
Bill was on AOL at the time so Dane asked him to check if YellowPages.com had gone live. Dane reasoned that this would be the solution for the other four headings he missed. Bill discovered that there was no YellowPages.com. Another friend offered to find out how you registered domain names. He poked around and found out how registration happened. He also discovered that YellowPages.com was registered, but the owner had not paid for the registration. The url would be available in about 30 days.
They all understood that the Brand “Yellow Pages’ was powerful. They knew it was an instant icon for local businesses, and they knew that they could eventually do something with it. On April 6, 1996, the third partner registered the name for 2 years and got a little hosting package. For $130.00, the three amigos were in the directory business: And clearly over their heads.
It all happened because of the rudeness of the Sprint Yellow Pages sales rep.
End note
In November 2004, SBC and BellSouth joined forces to purchase the domain name and company YellowPages.com for around $100 million. Prior to the sale, the most expensive domain name ever sold was business.com which sold for $7 million at the peak of the Internet bubble.
Update:
AT&T has made both YellowPages.com and now YP.com (a domain they purchased for around $3.5 million) into the backbone of their digital strategy. The Yellow Pages brand and Walking Fingers Logo (both in the public domain in the United States) continue to be one of the most recognized and respected brands in the world.
So with all of their smart people, you would have thought that someone in the Yellow Pages industry would have purchased the name before then.
Moral of the story: it isn’t what you have done that matters, it’s what you do.
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Jimmy owns a full service car wash.
He spends a lot of time on Facebook.
Mostly, he’s lurking and spying on people who want to be noticed. But he’s trying to convince everyone (including his seriously suspicious wife) that he’s mastering social medial marketing.
Jimmy is full of crap.
I had coffee with Jimmy and his wife Marlee a few weeks ago, and I was brutally honest.
Marlee knows that I have been heavily involved in LinkedIn and Facebook for quite a while, and she asked me if I would send a message to my 8,000 connections and the 6,500 people receiving my newsletter to visit Jimmy’s car wash.
I politely refused.
Not because he doesn’t have a good car wash, but because my connections are very unlikely to become his customers. They’re generally not near his location, and are certainly not looking to me for car wash advice.
The last time I cleaned my trunk, I discovered a copy of the Dead Sea Scrolls and a few unopened ballot boxes (Chicago joke).
I also told them that Jimmy was deluding himself if he thought his Facebook lurking was building his business.
The first rule of advertising is:
“Start with the people closest to your cash register.”
In Jimmy’s case, that means putting a guy in a gorilla suit on the street with a big sign that says “Car Wash” with an arrow pointing to Jimmy’s place.
For $25 bucks an hour, gorilla boy will get the attention of a large number of people in dirty cars driving within a few feet of Jimmy’s location. They are “closest to the cash register.”
That gets people in the door for the first time.
To keep customers coming back, Jimmy needs a text marketing loyalty club.
His customers send a text from their cell phones to receive a free upgrade or discount, and they give Jimmy permission to send them occasional offers and discounts via text message.
When Jimmy has a slow day, he can send a text to his customers and give them a “buy one get one free” or “early bird special” or any other deal to get people through the door.
Gorilla Sign Boy reaches non-customers who are likeliest to buy, and Jimmy’s text loyalty club reaches his past customers who are likely to return.
Jimmy knows that sending a timely, targeted message can bring in people on slow days and keep them in the habit of frequent washes.
Try it yourself.
Text: DEKALB to 36000
If you’re not already driving business with a good text marketing program, we should talk.
Next week I’m publishing my manifesto
“39 Things You’d Better Know about Text Marketing”
my secret tips, best practices, and serious warnings for anyone interested in marketing via text message.
If you’d like a free copy, send me an email at this address Dick.Larkin@HomePagesDirectories.com with the subject line “39 Things.” It’s my gift for sharing.
Dick Larkin
ps. I’m happy to connect with you on Facebook or LinkedIn, but I’ll never confuse online social networking with actual marketing.
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Sometimes I speak with business owners who brag about not advertising or marketing their business as if it is a sign of success.
Here’s the thing.
If you don’t tell a prospective customer about your years of experience, premium products, warranties and guarantees, certifications, insurance, and state of the art equipment,
Then you’re no different than the guy who will work for food.
Actually, he’s cheaper. So you lose to a loser.
Speak up.
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