Here’s a fascinating case study in the power of being nice.
Lawyers have customers too, and not just the people who pay the bills. If a lawyer can successfully market her ideas to an adversary, she’s far more likely to get a case settled quickly and to her client’s advantage.
Consider the case of Julie Greenberg and Hank Mishkoff. You can see the entire thing in detail here: Taubman Sucks!.
Ms. Greenberg represented (or I should say, mis-represented) a giant chain of shopping malls. A few years ago, she and Taubman went after Hank Mishkoff, who controlled a domain Taubman wanted for one of its malls. Her opening salvo was a classic lawyer’s demand letter, very formal and threatening.
Of course, most people respond to a note like that with fear and trepidation and then anger. And it spirals from there. I wonder if any law firm has ever done testing as to whether letters like that are actually effective. What if she had called first, or sent a friendly, clearly written letter that outlined mutually beneficial options for both sides?
Instead, Greenberg started mean and escalated from there. Classic litigator tactics, reflecting a "my typewriter is sterner than yours" age-old tactic. Sometimes people fold in the face of this approach (but even when they do, it’s expensive for both sides).
Hank responded by defending himself and taking it to court.
In the end, he won. It cost Taubman tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yet, it’s clear to me by watching the correspondence, if the very first interaction had been civil or even pleasant, Jill Greenberg could have ended with a win for 1% of what the loss cost her (actually, it didn’t cost her anything. She made a profit on it! It cost her client a boatload of money, though).
Even if you’re not a lawyer (or especially if you’re not a lawyer) the lesson here is pretty clear: it doesn’t matter who’s "right". What matters is that giving people the benefit of the doubt and treating them with respect is not only more fun, it works better too.
(Thanks to Doc Searls for the original pointer). (Actually, sorry Doc, it was Boing Boing: HOWTO: defend yourself against domain trademark shakedowns)
March 27, 2005
It’s made of granite.
Taking rock music to a whole new level.
Thanks to Alex for the image. Link: Nyfncr’s World Of Randomness.
Today’s New York Times reports that the Radiant Church – in Surprise, AZ spends $16,000 a year on Krispy Kreme donuts.
The health risks aside, this is smart marketing. (And is there anything wrong with a church doing marketing? Churches have always done marketing.)
Marketing doesn’t mean advertising.
March 26, 2005
James Paden points us to this story about vodka.
Link: Tito’s Vodka: How A Story Can Make Things Better.
March 25, 2005
Thanks to
Dina Amadril for the nice review of a past seminar.
And I didn’t even have to send a Fez!
Link: Marketing Improv: Get Your Fez on!.
March 24, 2005
Click on this link–> Seminars and you can read all about my two new Whiteboard Sessions.
One is Tuesday, April 19th (for big and small companies) and the other is two days later (a free seminar for non-profits).
I don’t really make much money doing these, and they’re exhausting, but the feedback I get makes it totally and completely worth it. I don’t think I do anything that generates the same sort of impact on an organization. I don’t sell anything (no consulting or whatever) and sometimes you win a door prize like a fez or a milk carton.
If you click on the link above, you can find out all the details about pricing, about location, about hotels, about testimonials, about the guarantee.
It’s a very small-scale event, so please don’t dither, dally or delay.
John Battelle pointed me to: trendmapper � Add a new search!.
This is a cool service that let’s you watch the google hits of a phrase or site over time. That’s interesting. What’s really interesting, though, is the list of phrases that people are watching. Some are not surprising (Joi Ito) and some are just sort of puzzling (ninja–did they not understand what this is for?)
Most interesting of all, though, is the way a small community of bloggers and webheads are always doing the next great thing. If you have a brand or a site or a cause, you should do this. But how does the word about it disseminate? Watch the link above to see who else is tracking…
As a shameless promotion for my new book (Link: Seth Godin – Liar’s Blog) I’m promising to post your picture and your story here on my highly trafficked blog.
Once a week I’ll pick the best submitted photo and story and post it, together with a link to your website.
All you need to do is send me a picture wearing the special liar’s nose. Don’t have a liar’s nose? Don’t worry! I just got a case of them. Send me $5 plus a self addressed stamped envelope (Seth Godin, Box 305, Irvington, NY 10533) and I’ll send you back your very own nose. (While supplies last, void where prohibited, your mileage may vary). I don’t expect to turn a profit here, but if I do, all proceeds will go to roomtoread.org.
Think of the fame. The traffic. The groupies. Tell me about the stories you tell, the lies your customers want to believe and how you’re making things happen. No promises, naturally, except that your nose is 100% virgin latex and you can get your money back if you don’t like it.
I did an interview yesterday with a magazine that specializes in marketing. They’ve got hundreds of thousands of readers, most in the direct mail business.
The reporter didn’t like the answer I gave her about how to build a email marketing list. I told her that the first step was to offer something in your email newsletter that people would actually want to read. That the second step was to promise people exactly what you intended to give them. And the third step was to create content that was so remarkable that people wanted to share it. I explained that if you take your time and keep your promises, it’ll build if it deserves to build.
She wanted to know about shortcuts.
At least three times she asked me what the shortcuts were. How to do it if you were in a hurry. Most important, how to do it if your message wasn’t that interesting.
Sigh.
It appears that marketing America still has plenty of time to do it over, but not nearly enough time to do it right.
If there were shortcuts, people smarter than you and me would have found them already. There aren’t. Sorry.
March 23, 2005
I just bumped into elance.com. (Link: Search: Service Providers.)
I picked a page at random. I discovered developers in Israel, Washington DC, India and Rochester. These are firms that earning $80,000 or more every six months just from elance work.
It’s now very clear that just about any organization can have what it wants online.
It’s got to be something real (no fair using the back of a napkin.) Find a site online that’s doing something that will help your mission. It could be a style of layout, a backend database, a search facility–it doesn’t matter. If it’s out there, you can have one too. One more excuse for delaying or mediocrity, shot to hell.
