We have now had two draws for free work
and three winners!
My blog tonight is going to be brief - mainly because I have nothing really burning to say . . except that I'm tired, I had another down day and that poor me because none of that makes a spot of difference to the fact that this onefreeday idea is starting to catch on. Ahhh, that's better . . . ok, here goes . . .
Let me tell you a couple of funny things:
1) I have a google adwords campaign running (more about on-line advertising in another blog). The funniest thing is this: the most hit ad has been one that I just put in there for a joke.
Ok, background first: When I was doing my day of work for free for our baby sitter was when the idea dawned on me. I txt my wife something like "How about I give away one free day of work every month, advertise it on our website and see how much work we get?" to which she responded, "Have you lost your mind?"
So I thought I'd put that up as an ad on Google - it reads "Have you lost your mind? That's what my wife said when I told her I would work for free" - and that is the most hit ad. It tells me some things about advertising (be they true or assumed, I'm not sure!)
A) Have some fun, people like fun.
B) The truth might just work!
C) Say something that leaps out and grabs your audience, shakes them around and drags them to your product. - that's what it told me . . perhaps I added a bit too much coffee, but you get the gist.
Ok, funny thing number two - or maybe funny peculiar, not so much "ha ha" funny.
2) I was contacting some landscaping companies in Auckland offering them a potential customer to follow up on. My phone call to one company went like this:
"Hi, I'm Ben calling from onefreeday, how are you"
Mr Landscaper Business Owner as gruff as he can muster: "Good".
Me, keeping up the cherry; "cool, I'm just calling you because we have a landscaping lead that has come in from our website. We are a lead generating websit..",
"Not Interested" he shoots back,
"well, why the heck did you answer your phone?" I thought while saying "Oh, so you're pretty busy then ay?" I queried thinking of how I'd congratulate him on his successful business and wish him all the best when he said how busy he was,
"I wouldn't exactly say that!" He shoots back, now with a tone of annoyed resentment, like it was suddenly me who was to blame for him having no work.
"oh, ok, well that's no good" I offer, thinking I'd try a different way of giving him the work to follow up on; "anyway, we've got this lead that needs some lan . . "
"not interested",
ok, this makes about as much sense as a . . . man, I don't know! Is there an analogy that could describe this level of stupidity? I politely terminated the conversation, hung up and had a good laugh!
But was it really stupidity?
Perhaps he was just sick of sales calls, those vultures (of which, perhaps, I had become one), interrupting his day, trying to scab his last dollar, or maybe he's beyond that, maybe he's now roaming in the land of the cynical and hopeless. Just like some who see "onefreeday = one free day of work, register now and get yours" the first thing that goes through their head is a whining voice that rings "You can't get nothing for nothing" or "there's not such thing as a free lunch"
Ok, Ok, I'm not writing this to convince you about onefreeday and how it all works - If you are this far already you probably have a pretty good idea how much of a pretty good idea it is.
It's funny though (peculiar, not ha ha), that now ALL my advertising revolves around breaking through to the cynical mind. People struggle to accept something for nothing, struggle to believe that there isn't some sort of catch to it all.
Now, I'm not insulting the cautious. No, if your life has any kind of access to the great world of the virtual then you would be wise to be cautious, even dare I say it, cynical.
Be cynical about what e-junk-mail comes your way, about all the virtual viruses that seem to cause more damage to our wellbeing than a real one.
Yes, be cautious about those scammers who setup fake banking sites and rob thousands of accounts, and be very cynical of that special letter that you and only you are the last remaining relative of some prince from ancient persia and they need your bank account details to pass one hundred trillion dollars through before midnight or the whole country will starve to death and look at this photo of this little boy, his family haven't seen his pet snail for weeks and you have to pass this message on and on just incase his snail is on the internet. If you do then you will win ten jumbo jets worth of diamonds for every 25 people you pass this message onto and your PC will suddenly make you a cup of genuine java coffee all the way from spain, (believe me, this really worked for me!) [how did they know it worked for them before they sent you this message?] and if you don't send it on your toes will rot through your shoes and your email will crash and burn and you will never ever have the chance to save a snail again - ever - in your whole life -
ever.
ok, enough! It's late - I must go to bed!
So my parting question is this, How do we break through into the cynical, cautious mind of real people? How do we convince them at a glance (which is all you have in advertising) that what we have to offer is genuinley great and beneficial to them?
Your comments would be appreciated.
Truley!
Thanks,
Ben
