Settlers from Spain, France, Sweden, Holland, and England had been claiming land in North America beginning in the 17th century. The French and Indian War was not only the final war of many deciding who would control the Colonies  - it also served to “unite” the disjointed collection of colonies in a common purpose.  That common purpose is distilled in the document…

The Declaration of Independence

American’s LOVE to cite the  second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

However, very few of us have read the document in its entirety.  While these are thrilling words of hope and inspiration,  the words that follow clearly illustrate the gravity of the chosen course of action.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

The founding fathers were not a bunch of hot headed hippies- ready to overthrow the status quo and take the plunge into anarchy.

They didn’t declare their independence from England lightly.

To say the Declaration of Independence of the American Colonies was a big deal would be an understatement. To create a “contemporary word picture”,  imagine if Jon and Kate Gosselin’s 8 children united and sued their parents for divorce.  That’s how “severe” this course of action was - and the Founding Fathers recognized the severity of the circumstances.

The severity and gravity of this course action is apparent in the eloquent words of the Declaration of Independence.  The remaining paragraphs carefully outline the course of events that left them no other choice than to establish a separate government.

While the opening words of the second paragraph are frequently cited and quoted, few have read to the end - where, in my humble opinion,  the most eloquent words of all reside….

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

I think the words above clearly illustrate that when Thomas Jefferson used the term “separation of church and state” in a letter to the Danbury Baptists in 1802 - he never meant for government to be “protected” from the influence of the church -  but rather he wished to protect the CHURCH from the influences of the GOVERNMENT.

However - church and state issues aside -  the sentence above illustrates the gravity of the situation at hand.  See, the 56 men who signed this document were committing an act of treason.

TREASON!!!

In the show “Arrested Development”, the father is charged with treason - and when his son confronts him  with this charge, the father deflects by saying “It’s just my first offense!”   His son responds, “I’ve never heard of a second!”

From  The Fate of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence

With only a few exceptions, such as Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, these were men of substantial property. All but two had families. The vast majority were men of education and standing in their communities. They had economic security as few men had in the 18th century.

Even before the list was published, the British marked down every member of Congress suspected of having put his name to treason. All of them became the objects of vicious manhunts. Some were taken. Some, like Jefferson, had narrow escapes. All who had property or families near British strongholds suffered.

Each had more to lose from revolution than he had to gain by it.

The last line - is a given.  There are many debates that rage over what REALLY happened to the original 56 signatories to the Declaration of Independence but one thing I know for sure…  this course of action was definitely not the “softer and easier” way.

It would have been far easier for not only these 56 men - but for every other Colonist who served in the first Continental Army - to “do nothing” rather than to act boldly.

Today I’m remembering the sacrifices they made.   As I reflect on this, my prayers go out to those in Iran who have the same yearnings for freedom that those 56 signers had years ago. I know that I frequently lose sight of all that was sacrificed so I could freely engage in the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness but the news from the other side of the world is reminding me of an important fact…

Freedom has never been and will never be free.

I had only recently caught an episode of Discovery’s series “Pitchmen“.  The series followed the late legendary pitchman Billy Mays and his British counterpart Anthony Sullivan, giving viewers a “behind the scenes” look at all that is involved in creating a successful marketing campaign.

One of the business building “secrets” to success practiced by Billy and Anthony was that they would only “pitch” great products.  In the episode I saw,  Billy believed a product had potential - but the inventor had to first work out every possible ‘kink’.

In the case of this episode’s  product, the spray on fertilizer which painted brown spots in your lawn green had to be environmentally friendly before Billy would agree to pitch the product.  An early version of the product could make pets and/or children ill if they came in contact with the treated lawn.  May was unwilling to pitch a product that could be harmful to pets or small children - so the product was sent “back to the drawing board.”

Billy Mays knew that his reputation as a “pitchman” was only as good as the products he promoted.   He knew that his reputation was on the line, so he fully vetted each and every product he pitched.  If Billy was pitching it - you could rest assured it worked as promised.  From Oxyclean to Kaboom, I have yet to try a product Billy pitched that didn’t work exactly as promised.

Billy Mays knew his ability to sell product lay in his ability to communicate with a vast audience - and repeat sales to that audience meant he had to continually to earn that audience’s trust. His distinctive delivery style - combined with his dedication to only pitching products he knew were worthy - made him one of the greatest pitchmen of our time.

If Billy Mays didn’t believe people were smart - he would have pitched any product - as long as the sponsor was willing to pay his fees.

Contrast that with the “people are idiots” business style of a self proclaimed “internet marketing guru.”  I subscribed to this lesser known “pitchman’s” newsletter a few years ago.  The reason I  subscribed  (using my “real” email no less)  is that I had purchased a book he had written.  His book was wealth of information and I was anxious to discover any other nuggets of wisdom this marketing expert had to offer.

I began to start doubting his great marketing wisdom when he shared some “complaints” that he had been receiving from newsletter subscribers in one of the early issues.

In essence, the letters he shared were from people who expressed disappointment at the content of his newsletters.  Instead of sharing ‘behind the scenes stories,” each newsletter was simply a long copy sales letter - with a “buy now to learn more” call to action at the end.  His readers were obviously asking for more…. more reasons to “trust” him before they bought from him.

His published response to the complaints was simple and along the lines of “I’m here to make money - not share free information.”

I continued to subscribe because - quite honestly - his newsletters were truly brilliant examples of effective sales copy.

It’s not surprising that one day, I fell victim to the master’s skillfully written marketing copy.  I purchased one of the reports he was selling.  I paid $39.90 for the report.  Because I had been so happy with the content in his published books, I was fairly certain I would be equally happy with the report.

Because his books had been previously published with a national publisher, he had to include a “disclaimer” at the beginning of the report.  In essence, the disclaimer shared that the information contained in the report was originally published as part of one of the author’s previously published books.

OUCH!!!!   Fool me once - shame on you.  Fool me twice - shame on me.

I have never unsubscribed from this newsletter because I will continue to keep his brilliant sales letters in my “swap” file.  However, I will NEVER make the mistake of paying $39.90 for one of his “reports” again when  I can just as easily pick up one of his books (new) on Amazon containing five times the material at half the price.

He made a one time to sale to me - but I will NEVER be his customer.

There’s an old customer service axiom  which says, “the customer is always right.” Maybe the marketing mantra should read:

“The customer is always smart.”

Ditech aired an ad a few years ago championing the concept that people are smart…

The commercial is more than a bit ironic given the state of the current mortgage markets.  However, I have to disagree with the vast wisdom contained in the YouTube comments and side with the commercial’s message - that people really ARE smart.  They will frequently make the absolute BEST choice - as they see it.

It’s your marketing materials job to show them that your product or service is the “smart” choice.

In my book Beyond the Niche: Essential Tools You Need to Create Marketing Messages that Deliver Results I suggest that you create your marketing copy with your ideal customer in mind… and to think of such “conversations” in the same way you would think of a conventional conversation at a dinner party or networking function.

You wouldn’t approach someone at a dinner party and strike up a conversation using a tone that implies that they’re an idiot - so why in the world would you adopt such a tone in your marketing copy?

Of course, in the end, it doesn’t matter how brilliant your marketing copy - if you truly believe that your customers are idiots - then that thinking is going to show up throughout your business.

If you think your customers are idiots, don’t expect to find long term success online - especially in the world where social media rules.

In an age of Facebook Fan Pages which can easily be created by your customers and which can operate beyond your control, you had better hope and pray the supposed “idiots” you call customers aren’t smart enough to figure out how to create a Facebook account - let alone a Facebook Fan Page.

See, there’s a difference between “idiots” and the “uniformed.”  The former are unable and unwilling to learn.  The latter are willing and able to be informed - and are open to enlightenment.  Check out Blogs and the Art of Deception for an example of the kind of “enlightenment” that happens online and you’ll see why it’s best to assume that people are smart - and ready to be enlightened.

After all - your audience won’t remain “uniformed” forever.  At some point in time, some blogger somewhere will eventually shed light on the subject during a Social Media Marketing Reality Check

“The Internet is VERY PUBLIC and it never forgets.”

It’s with the WIIFM mantra in mind that I will ask the question here - what’s in it for me to become a “fan” of your business on Facebook?

Facebook Fan Pages: The Facts

Do a bit of research on Fan Pages on Facebook - and you’ll see lots of marketer’s singing it’s praises.  Among the chief selling points:

1. It’s free.
2. Pages contain links.  (Links to your own site - even though you can’t control the anchor text - well, hey - see #1 … it’s free.)
3. The updates appear on every fan’s page (free publicity)
4. You can send updates to fans - for free.
5. Um - did I mention it’s free.

So creating a Facebook Fan Page is FREE.  Great - free is great - when there’s value. KFC discovered that free is a powerful marketing incentive - but it’s a disaster when you offer free without limits.

There’s no doubt that a Facebook Fan page can provide GREAT value for the businesses that create them.  Ann Smarty at Search Engine Journal writes in evaluating the difference between creating a Facebook GROUP and creating a Facebook FAN PAGE:

• Pages are generally better for a long-term relationships with your fans, readers or customers;
• Groups are generally better for hosting a (quick) active discussion and attracting quick attention.

Ok - so there are a LOT of benefits to smart marketers by creating fan pages or groups on Facebook.

Notice, I qualified the above statement - SMART MARKETERS.

Because - again - creating a Facebook Fan Page without keeping in mind the WIIFM mantra (or worse yet, applying that mantra to your OWN selfish needs and desires instead of focusing upon the satisfaction and delight of your adoring fans) - means that you won’t get much other than free links with meaningless anchor text (worth exactly as much as you’re paying for them)  from your Facebook Fan Page.

Before you create a fan page - ask yourself - WHY would anyone want to become a FAN of my business?

WHAT’S IN IT FOR THEM?

In order to answer that question - you’ve got to have a clear vision of your customer’s GDP (Goals, Desires, Problems).

Seriously - if you don’t know the answer to “what is my ideal customer’s GDP?” - pick up a copy of my book Beyond the Niche: Essential Tools You Need to Create Marketing Messages that Deliver Results

Knowing what makes your customer’s buy is the most important piece to the marketing puzzle!  If you don’t know - you need to figure it out!

Sometimes - if you’re lucky - your fans will take matters into their own hands.

One of the most searched for recipes online is the recipe for Red Lobster Cheddar Biscuits.  The chain has a closely guarded secret recipe for those delightful little biscuits which overshadow every other offering on the Red Lobster Menu.  (Seafood… really, they serve seafood there too?)  The biscuits are by far the best thing on the menu so it should come as no surprise that the Red Lobster Cheddar Biscuits fan page on Facebook has over 400,000 fans.

What is surprising is the fact that the fan page was not created by Red Lobster!!!

It was created by true “fans” of the delicacy - likened by the page’s creator to “the Krabby Patty on Spongebob”. A fan of the product had time on his hands and created a fan page.  The “viral” properties of a Facebook Fan Page took over from there.

Every time a fan of Red Lobster Cheddar Biscuits posted a comment on the fan page - it showed up in the fan’s news feed.  Other “fans” found the page and many of the fans write disturbingly amusing love notes to the delicacy … and provide other social commentary.

The page creator posted on April 30 that he “just talked to the President of Red Lobster…. he approves of the page!!!!”

Um - if you’re a business owner, the fact that anyone can create a “fan page” for your business should cause your blood to run cold.

I’m just saying - a fan page can get ugly FAST!   Read The shit fight is beginning- should you join in? for how fast - and ugly - things can get in the social media universe.

The fact that the Fan Page not being controlled by the Red Lobster chain may be the reason it is so popular.  Even though the President of Red Lobster approves - he has to be uncomfortable knowing that one of his flagship products branding is now in the hands of a true “fan”. (The fan page is #6 on a search for the keyword by the way- well ahead of any “official” page sanctioned by the Red Lobster chain.)

What’s in it for fans of the Red Lobster Cheddar Biscuits?  Well, a recipe for the delightful treat along with a lot of witty banter.    What’s in it for Red Lobster?   Perhaps the real value of this fan page is to provide insight for the chain as to what people REALLY love about Red Lobster - and unfortunately it isn’t the seafood entrees!

In the course of building a business - every business owner is faced with the dilemma of trading time for money and money for time.

In her post, Delegation: How Do You Scale Up and Still Do Your Best Work? Liz Strauss writes:

When we pass on the tasks that we don’t like, don’t do well, and don’t need to do, we can put the best of our time where it makes the most difference — doing what only we can do.

For many business owners, the tasks they don’t like are web related.

Unfortunately, it’s common for people who don’t know much about computers to think that “computers” is an all encompassing term. They think that someone who knows hardware also knows software. They see a computer “expert” as someone who can install a hard drive, write code AND manage an Adwords campaign - all with equal ease. After all- those tasks all have to do with “computers”.

In Business Success Formula - Recognizing Nonsense I wrote that

“Unfortunately, when you don’t know what you don’t know - finding someone who does know [what you don't know] can be difficult.

No where is that more true than on the web.

Recently, my emails have been dealing with this very subject. A recent email  from a client began with this…

Briefly, I have just escaped from a virtual assistant from hell. I swear, she was paranoid, borderline personality, and /or chemically dependent.

I wish this was the first time I had a “I just escaped the VA from hell” email - but it’s not.

My first VA from Hell story is almost 10 years old… when a client of mine had hired a virtual assistant to make updates to a site I had created for her.  My client couldn’t reach her VA to find out why her website was down so she contacted me.

When I logged in via FTP - I found the web hosting account was empty! The VA had deleted every single file from the server. She was never heard from again. (Fortunately, I had the original files and we restored her site quickly.)

Another - and more recent- virtual assistant horror story was when a client contacted me for help with his Google Adwords campaign. Turns out he had asked his virtual assistant to handle this “simple” task and was horrified when his first monthly Adwords invoice came in at over $2,000. (He had a monthly budget along the lines of $200 in mind.)  It was only after the fact that his virtual assistant shared that she had never managed a Google Adwords campaign before.  She thought, “Hey!  How hard can it be?”

Unfortunately, there are a LOT of freelancers - not just virtual assistants - out there who don’t know what they don’t know… and that makes them positively dangerous to turn lose in your small business.

However, my experience of dealing with VA’s from hell doesn’t just come from my client’s mouths - I have my own stories as well.  The worst was the VA recommended to me by one of my own clients. This woman required that I sign a 3 month contract and pay her $700 per month for 20 hours of her time per month.   I was swamped and desperately needed the help. Since my client had been signing her praises - I signed the contract.

Unfortunately, at the end of the three month contract, she hadn’t completed the first project I assigned her.  I hadn’t expected to have to “manage” her  as I would a college intern.  She claimed she knew what she was doing and I assumed she was telling the truth.

As I was terminating her services, this woman confessed that she had purchased the software she claimed mastery over a mere two weeks before it was time to renew our contract.   She promised to do better if I’d renew my contract with her.  I pointed out that I had paid $2100 for less than 10 hours of her time.  I said that I’d consider renewing her contract once she had provided me with the 50 hours of her time I had already purchased.

I never heard from her again.

It turned out, my client who had given her a glowing recommendation was also discovering that this woman wasn’t capable of managing her time and had fired her as well.  The last I heard, she had abandoned her VA business and she was becoming a real estate agent.

So I’ll open this topic to discussion …  If you have a great VA - how did you find him/her?    Share your tips and tricks below….

Harvey MacKay

No matter what business you’re in, never forget that time and money are your two most important business assets.

It’s called a “paradigm shift“… a radical change in your view of the world.  It’s roots are in the scientific community - where radical discoveries lead to paradigm shifts.  An example of a paradigm shift…the world is flat - OH NO!-  now it’s round!  To quote Weird Al,  suddenly “everything you know is wrong.”

I had my own paradigm shift several years ago and it was the result of a message on an old style online bulletin board.  The words were amazingly simple - yet they rocked my world….

You can always get more money - you can never get more time.

Prior to reading that statement - I’d been running my business in reverse so to speak.  I’d been operating like I had all the time in the world.  I’d spend hours performing a task instead of buying software to automate said task.  There was virtually no limit to the amount of time I would invest to save a little bit of money.

I’ve since learned that this mode of thinking is also referred to as a “poverty mindset”.

When I began operating my business like my time was more precious than money - a surprising thing happened - I began making more money!

I had been fooled by the fact that time is free.

I had failed to realize that while time may be free, it’s also priceless.

Often, in the course of building a business - we’re faced with the dilemma of trading time for money and money for time.

• Should I hire a lawyer or should I try to create my own articles of incorporation?

• Should I hire a CPA or do I handle my own taxes?

• Should I design my own logo or should I hire a graphic artist?

In the early days of your business - it’s a given that you’re going to have more time than money.  However, don’t make the critical mistake of not understanding the importance and value of your time.

Time may be free - but it’s also priceless.

Which brings up yet another “gem” saying I’ve come across in my internet travels …

“You’ve either got plenty of time or plenty of money.  If you’re lacking both - then you haven’t spent either wisely.“

I’ve got to admit - I didn’t LOVE that saying when I first read it.  To be honest, reading those words for the first time almost made my eyes water- that’s how badly they stung!  However, over time I’ve grown to love those words and the accountability inherent in them.

How effectively are you using your two most imporant business assets?

If you don’t like your answer to the question above - check out Tom Volkar’s post on getting on “right track.”