Just call them “Dream Killers™”

Seth Godin’s blog last week talked about how we allow not just situations, but business associates and significant others to stop us from doing something remarkable. I have a name for these situations and people: Dream Killers™.  Dream Killers can be well meaning friends, colleagues, family and, more importantly, oftentimes ourselves. Dream Killers, whether a real barrier or a fabricated one, have the power to kill off our dreams before we can make them a reality.  Even your significant others could have self-interests that run counter to you going for it and creating a remarkable new business, book or project this year.

But it is time.

Time to reinvent yourself.
Time to figure out what you are here to do.
Time to push past the fear and pain and just go for it.
Time to take your passion and purpose and build a platform in the social Web around them.
Time to stop listening to the Dream Killers, including yourself. 
It’s time for me. It’s time for you.

Marketing In The New Normal

Is marketing in the new normal easy?  In a word, no.

When I started my marketing career in 1981 at Y&R in nyc I remember what media planning was like.  In those days we had a “computer room” where we all had to go (b/c we did not have computers on our desks) and “run the numbers”.  That was, keep running reach and frequency reports till the cows came home and/or you finally discovered the optimal mix (theoretically) of media to maximize your reach, frequency and effective reach.

Remember effective reach?  How many times you clobbered your prospect over the head with your message till you thought it finally registered?  Well, 28 years later the customer somehow got control.  And they do not like getting interrupted very much. They like to learn about new products and services that might fit their needs, but they want those messages delivered to them when they are seeking answers…by people they trust and know. Read more