Marketing for Solopreneurs

Data waves, dead surfers and marketing overload: there's too much stuff

There's a line in the romantic comedy, Duplex, where Ben Stiller's character asks his wife, played by Drew Barrymore, if the rent control laws in NYC mean that they can't evict their elderly, bothersome tenant.

She reaches to turn off the light on the nightstand. "I don't know," she says. "I'll have to look it up on the Internet."

That, my friends, is precisely the problem. The answer to that question is on the web, along with truths, half-truths, opinions and downright bad advice— on any topic you can think of.

The Internet, with chain after chain of entrancing links, is just a mouse click away.

Neil Postman, author, New York University professor and expert on culture and communication said:

Our defenses against information glut have broken down; our information immune system is inoperable. We don't know how to filter it out; we don't know how to reduce it; we don't know how to use it.

When did Postman make this sage observation? In 1990. 18 years ago.

Too much stuff

I'm feeling like information overload is a way of life.

The other day, one of my solopreneur friends said, "It's a huge time sink. At first I was enthused. Now I'm just overwhelmed. The tools like Google search have become less and less useful because there's too much stuff to search."

Speaking of Google, I did a search yesterday, using a few marketing-related terms. Here is what I found:

• 782 million results for marketing
• 21 million results for small business marketing
• 23,300 results for marketing for the solopreneur

Basex, a business research firm, predicted in December 2007 that the problem of the year for 2008 would be information overload.

In fact, $650 billion a year is the cost of unnecessary interruptions in work that result in lost productivity. The computing giant Intel estimates that each of their knowledge workers loses 8 hours of productivity a week to information overload.

What's the answer?

It seems that the challenge is not in finding things; it's in throwing stuff away, sorting and sifting through all the data streams to get to the gems.

A new wind's been blowing for a while. Even back in 1994, a few sharp people felt it. That was when Paul Saffo wrote in Wired Magazine:

An avalanche of content will make context a scarce resource. Consumers will pay serious money for anything that helps them sift and sort and gather the pearls. The future belongs to neither the conduit or content players, but to those who control the filtering, searching and sense-making tools.

Um, that's us.

If you've ever felt you were barely holding on, on a crazy little surfboard with that gigantic wave of marketing information headed straight for you, we can help. We throw away the lame, useless stuff so you're just left with the best of the best. And that saves you hours a week.

Visit our brand-spanking new web site, MarketingYourSmallBiz.com.

Become a free member. Sign up for Marketing Hotspots, our weekly e-tips. Poke around the site a bit. Check out the member benefits.

You just may want to spring for a membership, with all the practical, use-today ideas and samples that come with it.

Oh, and congratulations to Amy Woidtke of EcoKind Design, the winner of a full one-year MarketingYourSmallBiz.com SoloSavvy membership subscription at our drawing at BizJam!

Amy's reaction was, well, typically Amy: "Holy smokes! Neato!"

Would love to hear comments on our new site from you, our loyal readers.

What Do You Do Again?: A Blogger's Show and Tell Part II

In Judy's last blog post, she spilled her guts...and now it's my turn. Whether you like it or not, here is the good, the bad, the ugly.

Hi, I'm Bob (Hi Bob). You see in my photo that I have a coffee cup. Not a prop there, but a triple, dry, nonfat cappuccino. Yes, I love coffee and it's not just the "Seattle" thing. I started drinking it with milk when I was a kid at home. Year's ago, before espresso was the "in" thing, a friend of mine, when we were bartending, made expresso in a cast iron pot over heat. Seriously wired!

Speaking of, yes, I could make a mean margarita, mai tai and long island ice tea. Back in the early days of bartending I managed clubs, played bouncer, poured drinks to 6 deep at the bar, and stunk like cigarettes.

I like to read. A lot. Books are piled on my side of the bed. I often make the mistake of buying a book a second time. I like comedy. Funny movies are the best. Anything (almost) with Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler, Steve Martin, Woody Allen, John Cleese. Saturday Night live from the 70's and 80's. Monty Python. Laughing till tears run down my face and I have a case of the perma-grins.

I love animals, all animals. Found the love of my life. Enjoy good wine and dry vodka martinis. Can't help but nibble on any kind of cheese. Can almost name any song from the 70's in a few notes. Would still love to own a Miata. Able to do a great imitation of Roy Orbison's growl (or purr) in Pretty Woman.

I do like computers. Technology is my friend. I admit I am a Crack Berry. Learned computers way back on a Radio Shack TRS (trash) 80. Finally get social media. Would like an iPhone if they come down in price. Love Macs, don't like Windows.

I have a hard time saying no to nonprofits. I love to listen, don't talk so much. Not much of a sports fan, but can handle watching football. I bite my nails, sometimes move my lips when reading, and get indigestion from one of my favorite foods, nachos. I have a terrible singing voice, but have often been told I should have been a DJ or minister. When I was a teenager, I had hair down to my butt, now I don't want it even touching my ears.

I like to work, but probably do too much of it. Am pretty good with a camera, and have an eye for print design. Fairly intuitive when it comes to most technology, but lousy with numbers. I like to build relationships and gain the trust of our clients and customers. I'm honest, straightforward and despise BS.

I want to keep working, meet great people and never grow old and stodgy. Will continue to reach out to all new technology, try my best to relate to anyone, any age, and not become an old fart. And if at all possible, someday still learn to play the harmonica.

What Do You Do Again?: Show and Tell for Bloggers

James over at the Men with Pens blog wrote a post a few weeks ago that got me thinking. He said that readers still ask him what he does for a living. They know he writes great blog posts, but, really, what's he all about?

Most blogs have an "About Us" page. This is the place most of us try to give our readers some sense of who we are, I mean who we really are.

But people are impatient. If they click on it at all, they may read only a few lines before something else pulls them away. I'm one of those fickle, click-crazy readers myself.

So I decided to clear things up, right here and now:

Hi. I'm Judy.

I love words of all kinds. When I was in kindergarten, I could recite every one of my classmates' names, in alphabetical order and syncopated rhythm, from Georgia Bushnell all the way to Andy Zooka. (I still remember their names. That's pretty scary.)

I write ebooks and website copy and how-to articles and e-letters and newspaper and magazine articles and children's stories and, yes, blog posts. But I couldn’t write code for websites if someone put a gun to my head. I am working on two other writing pieces now—a middle grade novel and a memoir.

I'm crazy about new ideas, especially creative ones. I spend too much time going down "what if" paths, which are incredibly fun but suck up great gobs of time.

I like black licorice, the smell of crayons, and the sound of foghorns. And rain. I really love rain. I know. It's weird.

I know every line of the movie The In-Laws by heart. Not the remake, but the original—the one with Peter Falk and Alan Arkin.

I am a writer.

Bob and I started this cool Internet business called marketingyoursmallbiz.com. We can help the solopreneur whose last e-mail sales letter bombed. The person whose ad got not a single new client. The small biz owner who wants more customers but doesn't want to sound like a used car salesman.

I can give you more ideas for promoting your business in one month than you can possibly wrap your brain around. I can give you practical, downloadable marketing takeaways to make your life easier. Things like sample press releases, advice on how to hire a copywriter, and the thirty all-time, best words to use in headlines to get sales results.

Oh, and I can give you a monthly e-zine packed with more information on the very best marketing trends and strategies. I also know how to juggle. And I can say, "Four knives will be sufficient" in Swahili.

The one thing I can't do is play the harp. I guess I never got the hang of making cappuccinos, either. Or shooting one of those bright colored balls into the corner pocket. Those three things. Everything else I can do.

I write …

Because I don't know anything about nuclear physics. Because I can't put the melody and chords together on the piano. Because I tried waiting tables and I always dropped the trays. Even spilled a strawberry milkshake in some poor guy's lap once. I write because helping solopreneurs succeed is what I care most about. Because writing brings me joy when I find just the right word to make a piece shine like the paint on a brand new Jaguar XK.

My customers are…

That tired mortgage planner who just wasted three hours on the Internet looking for information on writing ad copy that sells. That event planner who found a great article (or was it a blog post?) on getting new clients with word-of-mouth strategies but can't remember where she saved it. The home-based "mompreneur" who can't afford to join the Chamber of Commerce but needs to improve her networking skills. People who want advice from someone they can trust. Someone who isn't trying to hook them in just to sell them way more expensive products.

Next on my plate...

I'm joining Bob with balloons and hats and those crazy whistle thingies to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. I'm going to try to move from three- to four-ball juggling. I'm going to biznik.com's two-day BizJam and indie party in July. I'm going to write three more e-books and try to stir things up more on this blog. And I'm going to brush up on my French so I can order cheese and a bottle of the finest red when we visit Paris.

And you?

Are you ready to tell me who you are?