Posted by: charhoehn@gmail.com | February 4, 2010

Free idea: How to combine free work and travel

You all remember this contest from last year?  Well, it was more than just a brilliant marketing campaign.  It’s also a great way for you to work doing something you love.

If you want to travel for an extended period but can’t afford it, consider drafting up a proposal for the tourism company in the city you want to visit.  Say that you want to do the same things that Ben Southall did for Queensland, “free of charge,” if they’re willing to fly you over.  Tourism companies need good public relations people, so prove to them that you can fill that role.

“In fact, I went ahead and got started on this.  As you can see, I already have a sizable audience that’s interested in reading about my travels…”

If your proposal is truly outstanding, they might even be willing to cover the majority of your expenses.

Free work doesn’t have to mean that every single thing you do for someone is coming out of your wallet.  It just means they’re not paying your salary… yet.

Posted by: charhoehn@gmail.com | January 19, 2010

Charlatans

I always stay up really late.  I like to work until awful hours of the night, and then watch a recorded episode of ‘Jersey Shore’ or ‘The Office’ to wind down before I go to sleep (watching guidos has a calming effect on me).  At 3:15am last night, my blood pressure instantly skyrocketed because right as I turned on the TV, this quote rattled out of Anthony Morrison during his infomercial:

A lot of people say to me… ‘What if I don’t want to spend any money to get started?  Is there any way I can get started and not spend money?’  And the answer to that is yes.  I have some techniques in this book that can show you how to advertise, drive traffic and customers to your website so you can make money without spending a single penny.

And one of those things is Twitter.  We hear about Twitter all the time, it’s everywhere you go, you see something about Twitter, right?  You can turn your Twitter account into an automatic machine that’s just driving traffic and customers to your website all day long.  Because there are millions of people on Twitter, right?  So it’s real easy to reach those people if you know the techniques.  And that’s exactly what I teach in this book.  Same thing with Facebook, Myspace, and everything else.

Anthony Morrison is lying.  Whatever positive takeaways his book might contain are negated by the statement in bold.  Anyone who has spent a decent chunk of time on Twitter can assure you that he is wrong.

Let’s set aside the ridiculous notion that it’s “easy” to reach millions of people on Twitter, and just focus on the assertion that you can make money through the site.  I know a few people who have tens of thousands of followers on Twitter.  I know one person who has almost a million followers.  None of them have ever claimed that Twitter is a good way to make money.  Why?  Because people do not use Twitter to help decide on what purchases to make.  They are not in a buyer’s state of mind, unlike when they’re using Google to find a solution to their problem and are much more likely to make a purchase.  Even if you’re posting affiliate links, the click-thru rate is going to be 10% at the very high end.  Conversion to sales?  Way lower.  Do the math, and you’ll find that it’s a waste of your time.

Not surprisingly, Anthony has just a little over a thousand followers… With that kind of following, it’s no wonder he’s rolling in profitable traffic!  Let’s follow his lead!  But first, let’s see if we can read some of his meaningless tweets without having a cerebral hemorrhage.

Look, I know there are always going to be con artists in every industry.  It’s a fact of life.  I try not to get mad about this stuff, but I can’t help it.  I hate seeing these jerks duping people into handing over three easy payments of $19.95 based on promises that I empirically know to be false.  Anthony is not the only guilty party; this has become a golden age for anyone with cursory knowledge of the internet to take advantage of the uninformed.

What’s most aggravating is that the internet truly has the potential to be something wonderful for so many individuals and companies.  With a lot of hard work, it can be a potent tool for earning trust, permission, love, and respect from all over the world…

But why nurture that potential when you can be making some fast and easy $$$?!!!

I’ve told several smaller companies that Twitter is little more than a fun distraction.  I’ve told them to shut down their Facebook accounts.  To focus on the few things that will help them accomplish their goals, and to ignore all the hype.  For many of them, social networks just don’t make much sense for their business.  But the temptation is too great, so they usually do all this stuff anyway.

If you really want to make $$$ on Twitter, follow this guy’s formula.  I guarantee you’ll get instant results.

Posted by: charhoehn@gmail.com | January 13, 2010

Anti-Anti-Wingman: Final installment

There’s a hot dog restaurant (not hot dog stand –  hot dog restaurant) about 10 minutes away from Wingman.  Hot dogs and brats are the only items on the menu, aside from the extensive list of toppings you can get.

According to my latest post, this restaurant is doing it right.  They should even be in the black!

Far from it.  They’re going out of business.

When they opened, I distinctly remember saying that it was a terrible idea, and there was no way they’d succeed.  There’s just no demand for hot dogs, unless you’re in a stadium or stumbling out of a bar.

Allow me to contradict myself: Being the only business in a category can certainly yield great results, but it is not a clear-cut recipe for success.  Nor does it mean that you can expect profits.

My last post was admittedly simplistic, and I was wrong.  The conclusion I came to clashes with countless examples of successful restaurants that don’t play by my rules.  Ryan Holiday rightfully called my wording and logic into question:

Charlie – Be serious. This fallacy has a number of different names, but it’s mostly just empty writing. You found a fun example. It something to think about. What it isn’t is a base of evidence use for generalization.

Frankly, 97 million dollars is a paltry number when you compare it to essentially every other restaurant in existence since no one else abides by this “rule.” Besides, what’s really going on here is a compromise between two important goals companies have – which are first to get customers through the door and second, to convert as much as possible once they are there. Simple, clear category differentiation is critical and that’s what only selling a single product can do. Adding additional items to the menu generates units-per-transaction which is an incredibly important metric as well. Why do restaurants serve desserts they don’t make themselves? The same reason the have a bar: the margins are better.

The fact of the matter is that these things are rarely as simple or clever or concise as the first impulse implies. In any case, it’s certainly “not more profitable to be the only one that does what you do” as many multi-billion dollars brands can attest. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t.

Quite a few of my peers and readers are pretty smart.  If I’m being a naive jackass, speak up in the comments.  That’s what they’re there for.

Or you can softly chuckle and let my foolishness go unchecked.

Posted by: charhoehn@gmail.com | January 12, 2010

The Anti-Wingman

Ryan Stephens directs our attention to Layne’s Chicken Fingers.  The description from their website:

Twelve years ago we started off as a small fast-food restaurant, in a dumpy looking building.  Today we are a thriving small business and one of the most popular places for Aggies to eat, in our same dumpy looking building.   Our tables and booths don’t exactly match, our landscaping looks terrible and our building is not exactly sturdy, but our chicken fingers are why people come.

Their menu?

  • Chicken Finger plate
  • Chicken Finger sandwich
  • Chicken Finger club sandwich
  • Grilled chicken sandwich
  • French fries
  • Potato salad
  • Texas toast

And if you think specialization is only a practice reserved for smaller restaurants, Jen points out Raising Cane’s.  From their Wikipedia page:

The restaurant offers fried chicken fingers as its only main course. Raising Cane’s total revenue in 2007 was $97.3 million.

Seems like it’s a lot more profitable to be known as the only one that does what you do, rather than simply trying to be the best.

(Or it could just be the chicken fingers.)

Posted by: charhoehn@gmail.com | January 10, 2010

Ah, Wingman

There’s a restaurant I used to go to called Wingman.  As you can probably guess, they serve Buffalo wings… but they also serve:

  • Hamburgers
  • Hot dogs
  • Philly cheesesteaks
  • Grilled chicken
  • Chicken strips
  • Popcorn chicken
  • Potato salad
  • Macaroni salad
  • Coleslaw
  • Garden salad
  • Mac and cheese wedges
  • Jalapeno poppers
  • Cheese stix
  • Fried mushrooms
  • Fried zucchini
  • Funnel cake
  • Apple pie

But of course!  They’re called Wingman, so why wouldn’t they be serving fried zucchini?

“Oh they’ll come for the wings, but they’ll stay for the apple pie!”

This is obviously stupid just from a financial perspective, as they’re wasting money on ingredients they use for 10% of the orders.  And it slows down their order times drastically because new customers are suddenly overwhelmed with an abundance of choice that they didn’t expect (probably not a huge problem, as the place isn’t very popular).  But what aggravates me most is that THEY’RE CALLED WINGMAN, yet they serve uninteresting foods that have never been associated with wings.

“But Charlie, maybe they get orders for outdoor corporate events!  It’s always good to have potato salad at the company picnic, LOL!”

Of course they get bulk orders from time-to-time — all restaurants do — but that doesn’t mean they should accommodate every buyer’s random needs.  Just because some of your customers love apple pie, it doesn’t mean it should be on the menu.

Why are they even serving salads?  To accommodate vegetarians?  SCREW VEGETARIANS!  If you don’t eat meat, why the hell are you in a restaurant called Wingman?  Put up a big sign that says, “Want salad?  Go back to Whole Foods, hippie.”  Then pelt them with frozen chicken wings as they run out.

Nothing pisses me off more than a good product or service that gets completely diluted because the owners wanted to please everyone.

So polarize the crowd.  Instead of matching your competitors’ offerings, veer in a different direction that everyone else is too afraid of.  Stop adding, and start taking things away.  It’s far more interesting when choices are reduced, and people are excluded.

Source: GoComics.com

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