kendall card 2.0

Back in “the day” when athletes wanted to get sponsored by a company it involved printing up a bunch of photos that had either been published or which were keepers and creating a portfolio.

Then said athlete would put together a three-ring binder with the images and any articles or advertisements that featured the athlete. If they really wanted to impress they would have it bound in something more permanent than a three ring binder.

A few years ago some athletes started to use digital images in their portfolio and some went above and beyond by actually creating a web page to host said images rather than including them in an e-mail proposal. But the reality is 99.9% of all the athlete sites I’ve seen are sub par, leaving me wanting more.

I think more has arrived. Meet Landis Tanaka, a 15 year old skier from Alaska put this promo video together and hosted it on Brightcove. Sure, I’ve seen better skiers (not to say he doesn’t have skills) but I’ve never seen a better promo video or “portfolio” ever. Nice job Landis.

Saw this video while reading the NYT online, which finally is free to view. Funny that while reading the news online I would be attracted to a video. Makes you wonder about the powerful medium that is video.

So after watching the video a couple of times I checked out the microsite for the 2 Mile Challenge Tour from Clif Bar. Although the tour is over the microsite is still up and offers some interesting insights as well as an entertaining blog.

Something really cool is the map your two miles page where using Google Maps you can map a 2 mile radius from your home or workplace and then click on the various types of destinations that you’d typically drive to. Banks, grocery store, bike shop, hardware store, etc. Rather than hop in your car at over $3/gallon not forgetting the emissions why not hop on something like the Kona Ute, a utility bike?

This is a creative way to market a product from a company that was started by an epiphany while on a 175 mile bike ride. Bringing people out to a tour stop for something unrelated to the product (the bar) itself but giving them a chance to sample the product while embracing something that they can be emotionally driven to do.(the desire to better themselves and the planet by biking).

How can your brand do something bigger than itself and in the process bring the product to more potential customers?

I think people must love to screw up a good thing. It’s true. Case in point - blog comment spam.

If you’ve got a blog you’ll know that comment spam is getting out of hand. True to form Seth Godin saw it coming back in March of 2005. Good guys keep improving comment moderation tools and bad guys keep creating more innovative ways to screw up the good thing that is the ability to comment on a blog, thus spending your hard earned 2 cents.

But the bad guys are scared so they hide behind anonymous names and servers.

One of the blogs I manage is the Backcountry Blog, which posts Backcountry.com customer adventures, gear reviews, outdoor industry fodder and anything outdoor related that I care to discuss. Recently a company called CouponAlbum.com has been comment spamming the blog with offers for a competitor of Backcountry.com - Dick’s Sporting Goods. At first I laughed about it but after the 4th or 5th comment I moderated I wasn’t laughing.

It got me thinking - does your company have a comment spam policy? I’m sure it has a privacy policy which it likely created after the need arose. What about creating a policy, taking a positive position before the need arises? Your company may not even have a blog yet, like Dick’s Sporting Goods or CouponAlbum.com, but they should have a policy about comment spam.

So I dropped the folks at Coupon Album a note. They said they welcome it.

Dear Customers, we always welcome your feedback and suggestions. Your inputs help us in providing better offers / deals to you.

Although I’m not a customer they weren’t really a reader of the Backcountry Blog. Here is the message I left them.

I see that you have a privacy policy for your customers which protects their privacy and information. But do you have a blog comment spam policy? You need one.

I manage the Backcountry Blog (http://backcountryblog.blogspot.com) and I would appreciate it if you’d stop comment spamming the blog with deal offers. Since I have moderating enabled it’s NEVER going to get published!

What’s most ironic is that these offers are for a competitor of Backcountry.com who owns the Backcountry Blog.

You bring shame to internet marketing by your back door attempts. Do something remarkable not something repulsive.

Yours in the web,

Kendall

If you know of a company that has a blog comment spam policy I’d love to see it. I haven’t heard of one yet and the need for one has definitely arrived.

Marketing at people is so 20th century, but a majority of the marketing done these days is still at people, not with/through people. Companies get away with it because of the “everybody is still doing it” clause, which I don’t subscribe to but can remotely understand, sort of.

But if do decide to market at people and if you are going to SCREAM or YELL your message, you probably aught to be sure that it’s spelled correctly. Case in point:

I was driving with a friend heading north on State Street in Orem, Utah when we passed this business:

And according to the sign on the front left of the store they buy and sell used cell phones:

So they decided to YELL it to everyone who drives by the south side of the store, which is also visible from State Street. But they forgot to SPELL:

Either they are very clever and were hoping that someone like me would come along and blog about it or they were in a hurry and didn’t notice the error.  What do you think the real deal is with this sign?  Simple error or clever marketing?

When you’re starting a new company in a sea of 40+ year old companies and a handful of scrappy upstarts, you’ve got to go about things a bit different. Then again, you could likely pick up a 40 year old textbook on business and realize that different is primarily in the application, not the concept. Different doesn’t always mean extravagant, wild, extreme. Different could be focusing on the customer when your competition isn’t. That is indeed different.

One of the age old concepts of business is customer service. According to Seth Godin, customer service is an arm of marketing and quite likely it’s your least expensive way of going about it. If you’re looking at customer service as an expense then it’s time to be different.

Bluehouse Skis, who I recently wrote about, is going about customer service different when it comes to getting skis out to their customers. Be certain, if you order some skis, they are out the door pronto. But the opportunity arose the other day to be different and I think it will pay off.

BluehouseSkis.com

I love skiing. Surprisingly, to some, I also love the ski industry. Yes they are two separate things.

I’ve heard some tell me that they have enjoyed skiing more once they left the ski industry than while they were working in the ski industry. Perhaps that’s because they, along with most who live to work in the industry, don’t realize that there is a difference. Trust me, there is a difference.

Knowing that, I was very intrigued when Jared Richards from Bluehouse Skis called me up and wanted to chat. He and a partner Adam Hepworth had spent two years and a pile of cash developing and building a new ski brand and were going “live” with 2 different models - the MR and the District

After a couple of chats with Jared, Adam and Shane I wanted in and knew it was time to once again work in the ski industry. I’m stoked to be a part of the Bluehouse team helping to push the brand forward and embrace existing and future customers.  Most of all I am looking forward to pushing a quality home grown Utah ski company forward and enjoying the ride.

Remember the movie Pretty Woman? (yea, I can’t believe I’m blogging about this either) Richard Gere, Julia Roberts. OK, remember the part where Richard Gere’s character says to his right hand man played by George Castanza from Seinfeld, “We don’t build anything” and then proceeds to change the deal he had put together which would have scrapped a company for the sake of profits?

So it’s a stretch but the following e-mail from a former co-worker of mine got me thinking about the type of work I do as a blogger and a marketer. Essentially, most of my work is tied to helping companies highlight unique elements of their businesses or products so consumers (we once called them customers) will consume more. It’s really an insidious cycle if you think about it.

But before you conclude I’ve lost my mind, I whole heartedly admit that I enjoy my work as a marketer because the focus I’m dedicating myself to - that of creating relationships with customers who have embraced a product or service.  It’s amazing when a product impacts your life enough that you’ll tell others, at will, about it as often as you can.

This is the type of conversation I look to engage in with others and in this sense I know I’m building something of worth rather than just turning a buck to turn one.

With that, here is the riff that got me thinking - thanks Emily for stirring the mind. (I’ve removed a bit of the text to shorten the read without missing the point she was trying to make.)

Anyone who knows me, knows that I can’t – just can’t – leave without a little note of goodbye and my two cents (yes, that’s what I got from overtime pay so you better read on). I love ‘closing times’…because they give you a time to reflect and take in what you’ve just experienced. I adore romanticizing about old times and, more accurately, love laughing for a second time round at how completely absurd, hilarious, and juxtaposed life truly is – and working for this company has been no different.

From arriving here to snowboard for the Christmas season …I began my work  during the busy Q4. Since then this company has provided me with many laughs - from my paycheck amount to the so-called ‘benefits’ to the lack of natural light, and food smells that emanate from the neighbors cubicle – I never missed a chance to laugh. What was confusing, however, for me was the seriousness that people took this job – the screaming, the passive emails, being told by short guy in man clogs that you’re an idiot – I could never quite understand.

I mean no one was dying that we could see - we weren’t doing ONE thing that was ‘serious’ like making the world a more just place – we weren’t helping to eradicate poverty, or educate people, or get adequate health care (even to our own employees) or even help kids who may not have the chance to get outside to ‘use the gear we sell’ – nope, naddda, as a company. If anything, this company exacerbated our cultural maladies that make these conditions exist in the first place….consume, consume, consume ‘cause you’ll be happy, happy, happy – I couldn’t figure it out and after a great struggle realized that my values were just in complete contradiction to this position. I wasn’t doing anything to make this world a better place, and no amount of money or gear or ‘adventure points’ was able to make up for that.

Therefore, I gave my notice, got accepted into graduate school in sustainable development and economics – yup, you heard it right, economics. Because I want to know how the hell industrialized nations can cause this massive ecological, social and spiritual crisis that we face today , all in the name of profit (and how no one really seems to care).

I know I have so much to learn about this world, but I also know a truth that is deep inside of me that will never let me ‘sell’ what I truly believe in, and that’s hope that we all find a happiness that doesn’t consist of ‘things’.

It seems I’m wearing shoes that don’t quite fit…yet. They feel a bit larger than I’m usual.

Truth be told, I was let go.

“You’re letting me go?” I asked myself. (Those are the words he used.)

Surprisingly, I didn’t feel anger or an overwhelming sense of sadness or fear. The only response I could come up with was “this is interesting”.

It is an interesting event, being let go from an employer. Particularly one where I and others felt that I was an asset to the whole.  However, I learned long ago that everyone is replaceable. To think otherwise is mere ego and naivety. Like all individuals, I too had weaknesses, points I could have improved upon.

From this vantage letting go is not the trap door immediately falling out from underneath. This letting go feels more like holding a dove you release your grasp and it takes flight.

It was a tall order to be in a role with no ruler by which to measure my success, no metric to meter my progress, little guidance or vision of the road ahead. Left to myself to conceive and achieve, I now see that I took on too much and accomplished too little from the many directions I charted.  Focus should have been my discipline.

Interestingly, I now find myself in a similar role - one where I am left to chart my future, one where I will measure my success, where I will envision the road ahead.

From my previous post this week I quoted CFO Scott Klossner of Backcountry.com when he wrote about General Robert E. Lee regarding leadership:

Lee said; “Ruminating over a decision keeps a commander from dealing most effectively on the next situation.”

As commander of Kendall Card 2.0 it seems that although these new shoes don’t quite fit right now they are the shoes I’m now wearing.  Any ruminating about what could have/should have been done, other than to glean points from which to enhance my forward motion will keep me from the greater accomplishments that lie ahead.

Adieu Backcountry.com. I too am letting go.

Death by Powerpoint. I’m sure you’ve “been there” but hopefully not something you can follow with a “done that”.

Back in May I gave my first public business presentation at a conference by Senator Bob Bennett for rural business owners. I was asked to speak about the use of blogs in businesses since I run the blog for Backcountry.com so I put together a powerpoint presentation, one that I hoped would not put the people to sleep but would give them something to remember.

I tried to use unique images that portrayed the points I wanted to get across. I know it resonated with a few people there (as evidenced by two business owners contacting me post presentation for advice in starting a blog) but I think that I may have committed Coma by Powerpoint which is nigh unto Death by Powerpoint. I’m scratching up as a rookie error and hope to learn from it.

While reading Seth Godin’s blog this morning I came upon an e-book that he wrote about Really Bad Powerpoint. Looking back upon my presentation I can see where I can improve the next time.  If you happen to have seen my presentation, sorry for the coma.