Two friends of mine are offering some cool free deals:
- Suzanne Falter-Barns is sponsoring a Marketing Makeover Contest with over $12,000 worth of donated prizes from some of the smartest net marketers on the web. Here are the guidelines:
Nominate yourself or a friend as one of the Worst Net Marketers out there. You must have a website or blog. And you’ll scoop up almost $300 in free prizes just for nominating.
On June 24, four finalists will be chosen who have:
1) A functioning website or blog
2) A sound business concept
3) A clearly defined market and niche
4) Provide a useful product or serviceThen you’ll come back in July to vote on the winner – American Idol style.
You have until noon/Eastern time on June 24 to register. Don’t be embarassed to admit that your site sucks and could use some help. The best entrepreneurs are shameless when it comes to leveraging freebies! Register here.
- My buddies at Startup Nation will put your name in a drawing for two free RT Southwest tickets to anyone who joins their new community forum. This is a great place to connect with other budding entrepreneurs to brainstorm ideas, share resources and pose questions you have about starting a business. I have found people there to be very generous and encouraging, a rare online environment these days.
It can feel very isolating to start a business, so I really encourage you to find ways to connect with others. Check them out and sign up here by June 27 to be eligible for the tickets.
Hi there. Suzanne Falter-Barns, creator of the alleged drivel, here. For the record: I’ve never sold a single name in my life to any list, ever, nor do I intend to. That’s simply too creepy to contemplate.
And because I’m a successful purveyor of information on the Net, I expect to take hits regarding the quality of my work from time to time. This is the cost of doing business on the Net.
All I can tell you folks is that I put my heart into my work, and hoestly feel I do the best I can for my clients. And I’ve seldom heard complaints.
Thanks for your frank discussion — I’m always learning!
I also understand from some writer friends of mine who signed up for some services from Falter-Barns, that they believe that somehow the information they provided to her site was sold to other lists. Don’t know if it’s true, but it kept me from signing up for the offer.
Hi Argos:
I have had a good offline dialogue with Larry about his comments, and I understand them better now. He was tired of receiving many emails from “experts” promoting other people’s work as free, with the true guise of trying to sell products or services.
We both probably came off a little over the top in our communication – perhaps I was a bit more “Ronco” than usual (But wait — there’s more!) and he was a bit more biting than intended. Such is the drawback to one-dimensional email communications.
I appreciate healthy dialogue about topics that impact all of us entrepreneurs such as when do well-intentioned referrals come off as marketing hype? Some of the current net marketing strategies are annoying to intelligent readers.
I stand by my solid endorsement of Suzanne and her generous offer. AND I am appreciative of the feedback I get from vocal readers like Larry and Argos who always challenge me to do my very best. As Don Miguel Ruiz says in The Four Agreements, “don’t make assumptions.” When we proport to know what another person is thinking without asking them, we can be way off base.
I am excited to take yet more learning into my weekend. This is good – it never stops!
Thanks,
-Pam
Are you Larry Hayden the artist? Give us some reflection of you and your certainty. I think Pam is doing a good to great job. Not that I don’t see through some of it as well, but one must begin with face value, then make decisions on the authenticity of others through experience. If they are con-artists, word of mouth would quickly kill them. You used considerably harsh language yet, you have no substance to share. I have run and started companies, have often given goods, services away with no stings attached. What are your gifts? what do you “sell?” Why are you here? I can tell you one thing, entepreneurs are always looking at making progress on many fronts. Help is worth money. Otherwise one invests the other resource…time, which you seemingly have a lot of in surplus. I don’t.
Hi Larry:
I appreciate your comment. I certainly don’t want to turn readers off with fluffy offers that have no meat to them. I get as annoyed as you do with seemingly ridiculous offers on the net.
I promoted Suzanne’s contest for a number of reasons:
-I have personally worked with her both as a student and as a colleague and find her perspective to be incredibly valuable and wise. She is the person who encouraged me to start this blog and move in a new business direction, something that I have enjoyed immensely.
-The people who have offered free coaching or information products for this marketing makeover are very well-known in the professional services world, (for people like coaches, freelance writers, therapists, etc.) and have a good reputation in their market. I realize that they may mean nothing to someone in a different industry, so maybe I should have clarified who the offer would be the most appropriate for. I have read many of their books and purchased their programs, and all that I have personally experienced have been very valuable. They are professionals offering services like anyone else, and their time does cost money.
-Suzanne is not selling anything in return for signing up for the contest. You will get her bi-weekly ezine if you sign up, which I find has great tips and information in it for my market and business. Like any ezine, you can choose to unsubscribe at any time for any reason.
-For the right person, someone who is just starting out their business or is trying to establish a web presence for the first time, this makeover will provide tons of value. Last year’s winner was overjoyed with what she received.
I guess there is always a delicate balance between providing content and promoting worthy causes on a blog. I feel very passionate about what I do, and don’t hestitate to support colleagues who I think are doing really good work. I didn’t do any official marketing my entire first 10 years in business, since all work came through referrals. I am so thankful to everyone that took a chance to refer me to new clients. I try to reciprocate whenever I can. But I certainly don’t do it to brown nose.
I will take your advice and be thoughtful how I present things. Sometimes I get carried away in my own exuberance and forget that not everyone sees the world as I do. I value my readers dearly, and spend lots of time writing on this blog for the sole purpose of helping people make positive changes in their life.
I learn every day from each post and comment. Thanks for the bit of wisdom.
-Pam
It’s obviously your choice to put these programs up on your blog. It’s your space and you can do with it what you will. However; in my opinion you cheapen your own valuable content with this rubbish. Really? Almost $12,000 of value. Most of what I saw on that site was over priced drivel that holds nothing close to the value claimed.
Linking to The Startup Nation seems like a good thing. Linking to the other stuff seems below what I had perceived as your standards. The continual back scratching of these “so called experts” is getting tiresome. I hope you rethink this strategy and quit insulting readers with so called “value” to overpriced gimmicks positioned to do nothing more than sell something else of even less value.
I wish I was ready for this. I am finished with product development but have not built a web presence yet. It’s taking months of study. My blog is just for personal artwork. Bootstrapping causes me to get out there and find customers first then, gather insight from them for proper web presence set-up. Maybe you could develop a similar program for companies about to launch, i.e., get it “right” from the start. (how to efficently and effectively put together proper supply chain, logistics, e-commerce software, etc. my company will need to service both wholesale and retail online.) This is tough to tackle as a solopreneur without wasting resources. It looks like a wonderful package of services you are giving away.