Here is your Damn OFFLINE GOLD COW

I have two words to really express how I am feeling at this particular moment in time…

ENOUGH ALREADY!!!

Please people, enough with the catch phrases that belong to others.

Andrew C. coined the term “Offline Gold” and David Preston coined the term “Cash Cow”. Why do we as marketers feel the need to use these EXACT phrases in our products?

Do you understand what you are doing when this happens? You are selling a product and making money off of someone elses property. No, the name may not be trademarked, but come on, have some respect. Use a little imagination and come up with your own catchy name for a product, it’s not that hard.

And for pete’s sake, stop starting threads with those terms in the title! Again, be original, there is no need to ride on the coattails of someone else’s popularity when you have the perfect opportunity to do the same for yourself!

So go out there and make the next damn “Offline Gold” or “Cash Cow” thread or product…Just call it something else. There IS such a thing as over-saturation.

Rant over.

Today was a good day for me as I got to get a really good insight into some of my local small biz owners.

I attended a gathering put on by the Mayor and Small Business Development department at our local library. The goal was to announce the creation of an orginatation designed to help businesses within our city help themselves.

During the meeting, I managed to get a feel for the state of business in our town. Granted, I already knew that things were not going well for most, but to hear it from them first hand, in a group of 35 was discouraging and promising.

Discouraging because you don’t like hearing the woes of a small business, especially if you have owned one. Promising because I know that I can make a great impact on alot of their businesses.

Most of what I can offer to these people will be free advice, but I did walk out with two appointments, one for a long standing Italian restaurant that I frequent. This restaurant for example has a generic site(brochure) with not a single keyword and there is no promotion whatsoever. Also, a problem I know about and will address with the owner, is their clientelle. Most people that go there are very old italians, and then anyone younger is the older crowds offspring. I always see the same people every time I go. So they do not attract new customers, and rely on existing. That is of course a good thing to have a loyal following of steady customers, but it leaves no  room for growth. Something for me to work on.

Back to the meeting…Out of the 35 in the room, there were a good 5 that did not have websites. Out of the other 30, there were only FOUR that kept up with their site and did any kind of marketing to it.

All of them were stumped on how to promote themselves, as money was tight. I know, money is tight so that does not bode well for me income wise, but I will get accounts(I already have 2 paying ones from this). Any other work I do will be in the consultation arena, which will ultimately help me anyway, as these owners are well known and liked, and will spread the word.

I have no problem “Giving back” to the community. If that means I need to dedicate an hour or two a week to help someone, so be it. I have found in the past it comes back 10 fold.

Remember, there are lots of ways to help business owners, even in tough times. I created a report for this meeting to hand out and put it as a download for Special Forces members in the “Free Downloads” section. Use it as you will, add to it, reword it, whatever. But it shows owners how they can promote themselves using some basic free tools.

Spend a little time now helping them, and when times are better they will remember you. Start building your own dynasty today!!