A message to recruiters of the world.

If you’re gonna call me with a job opportunity, and you’re calling from out of state, you had best tell me in the message and/or by a followup email where the heck your job opportunity is.

I’m willing to consider full time employee and contract work… but I’m not going to waste my time with a call about a job in a place there’s no chance in a-very-hot-place of me moving to.

That is all.

My business cards and business checks (with free logo to boot!) showed up this week. It’s all making it seem like more of a real business. Doesn’t hurt that I’m bringing in some good income as well.

In any case, if you’re reading this and you need a web site, I’m actively prowling for clients. So, drop me an email.

So, I picked up my business card box from my neighbor (she picked it up right after the UPS guy dropped it off because I was in San Fran at the time) and got this. It’s pretty much in the condition I got it.

And it was empty.

Looked like it’d burst open or been mauled by UPS and they retaped it without checking to make sure there was something in there.

When I called the printer (I can’t file a claim with UPS, I’m not the shipper) I got a load of ‘tude ranging from “did you open the box?” to “did your neighbor take them out?” to “if it’s UPS’s fault, we won’t reprint them at our expense.”

Last thing was “email us pictures of the box”… which I did. I gave them until close of biz today to do something. Next call on Monday is to my credit card company. They’ll not only lose the $77 I paid them, but get hit with $25-50 on top of that for a chargeback fee.

My buddy James asks what I think about this article on branding being dead as it relates to my previous post on the matter of getting a brand. I figured I’d reply here, because it’s a damn good question.

I think Hugh has a lot of good points… as usual. But I think we’re talking about different kinds of things. I don’t think he’d disagree (at least I hope he wouldn’t) that branding is one of the reasons Google is where they are today. Now, when I say branding, I mean the fact that “Google” has become synonomous with “searching for shit on the Intarweb”.

After reading it, I have to assume he’s talking about visual branding more than branding an experience. When I wrote this post, I was talking about experience branding. Making your product notable within the marketplace… and that’s so little about a flashy logo and more about being out there and talked about. And it’s really hard to be out there and talked about when your product is wearing someone elses’ packaging. Even when Google provided search results for other companies, it was usually with pretty obvious “powered by Google” tagging.

So, I think the days of the HUGE branding budget are dead… and good riddance. But branding in terms of making sure people know who’s behind that great experience is more important than its ever been.

I don’t think you’re ever too small to start pursuing a brand. Unfortunately, so few small companies these days actually work at having a brand. Why? I think it’s easier to whore yourself out than remain consistent and stay the course to building a brand.

Think about it. You have a brand new web app… someone comes along and says “I’ll work with you, but you gotta let me brand your product.” Chances are good they have something you want. So, you sell yourself. You tell yourself it’s ok… branding is hard, it’s easier to remain the anonymous player behind the scenes.

The problem with that is you’ve just created/expanded/strengthened someone elses’ brand. And they own you. If no one knows who you are without your “partner” and you can’t make a decision for fear of pissing them off, then who owns the company? Hint: It’s not you.

So, stick to your guns and build your brand. It’s the only way to stay independent (and that’s why we got into business to start with, isn’t it?).

I think the best way to put this is sometimes you have people who just hurt morale for the business as a whole.

These people can be classified into two camps, in my opinion… the Ne’er-Do-Wells and the Boat Anchors.
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The four P’s of Marketing are:

1. Product
2. Price
3. Promotion
4. PLACE

Just a public service announcement.

We all have them. Some are great. Others, well, they could be better.

Signal vs. Noise has had a series of posts (well, if two makes a “series”) on meetings. The first one Meetings Considered Harmful mentioned a U of M study that basically said that organizations with lots of meetings tend to also have a lot of negative employee effects.

Makes complete sense to me. I find my worth within an organization by the amount of innovation and “cool stuff” I can put together for the company. Meetings, for the most part, get in the way of that goal…
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