Contrarian: 40 Business-Related Things I Do
My Own Way - Part Two

by Marcia Yudkin

For my 25th-year business anniversary in 2006, I published "Insights From 25 Years in Business." For my 30-year anniversary, I posted "My 30 Favorite Business Books." Now that I’m reaching 40 years in business, I’ve compiled a list of 40 ways in which I part company with received wisdom or common beliefs.

Catch up on Part One of this essay, which discussed Mindset, Productivity, Knowledge and Client Relations, here.

Part Two

Marketing

21. "Follow what works." Many marketers feel the fact that something tested better than another option ends any argument about which tactic is better. I disagree. Warren Buffett expressed one issue with this perspective very well: "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it."

An option can at the same time bring in more money and damage the public’s respect for the company. In my book, that would be ample reason to choose the less profitable path.

23. "Share your struggles." Supposedly, blogging or tweeting about your doubts, fears and mistakes endears your followers to you. Sure, they may like you more for that, and feel you’re on their level. But it can have the opposite effect on how they view your competence. And this advice would not preserve the zone of privacy that’s important to me. So I’m not a fan of vulnerability follies.

24. "Marketing is a numbers game." One of my surveys of introverts sensitized me to this issue. Quite a number of survey participants volunteered the idea that they cared more about quality connections with clients and others over quantity of responses.

Looking only at numbers means you run the risk of overlooking problems that affect rapport with ideal customers and their loyalty or satisfaction. It also ignores your own contentedness with how your business runs.

25. "You must target prospects’ pain points." Some marketing gurus drum this in obsessively: Only if your product alleviates a pain people feel can you succeed in the marketplace. But that’s patently false. Most of my products don’t solve a problem. Rather, they help people achieve a goal, hope or dream, such as obtaining more traffic, mastering the art of copywriting or enjoying passive income.

(If you reply by redefining, say, someone wanting to look beautiful as addressing a pain point, then the original principle about pain points becomes meaningless.)

26. "Without social media, forget success." I have a website, a Twitter account and a few videos on YouTube. No Facebook, no LinkedIn, no Instagram, no blog. The urge to follow the minutiae of other people’s lives or keep friends and strangers informed of my latest experiences is foreign to me.

If social media floats your sailboat, fine. But don’t pontificate that people are doomed to poverty if they don’t invest energy in social media, because this hasn’t ruined me.

28. "Guarantee their success." After learning about the power of guarantees, I tried one out in a coaching program - guaranteeing that I would keep working with the client until they earned back the cost of the program. What I discovered, though, is that the guarantee attracted people who were more fearful and less apt to take personal responsibility than the mentorees whom I usually worked with. Consequently I later ditched the guarantee and relied on pre-program screening to select mentorees with attitudes that made them likely to succeed.

29. "Follow the leader." According to this orientation, if big names in marketing do something, that’s necessarily a model worth emulating. I once complained to a website that posted names and home towns of people who had just bought something there that this violated customer privacy. They responded with a list of prominent companies that used the same software enabling them to do this.

"Please, you are not listening," I wrote back. "I don’t care how many companies do it - here’s why it’s wrong." I did get a more thoughtful reply then, which was my goal in writing to them in the first place.

30. "Do it my way." Countless marketers teach only one route to success: what worked for them. I feel this is lazy and short-sighted. Accordingly, I normally describe multiple options for achieving a goal.

For instance, when you’re launching a service business, you may not mind doing targeted cold calls. But if you’d rather not approach strangers, you can contact local media for publicity, start a content-rich blog, participate actively in LinkedIn or Facebook groups, teach a class or send direct mail.

Communication

31. "Exaggeration is necessary." We talk about this a lot in a language learning forum I belong to, where we discuss the many programs falsely (yet appealingly) claiming they’ll make you "Fluent in three months!" Given the unrealistic expectations of people who’ve never learned a second language, could you sell anything in that industry with a realistic timeline?

One forum member said, "All modern media/sales/content/politics relies on exaggeration." Yet time after time I’ve seen unflashy, honest marketing achieve solid success even though it may not end up creating a market leader.

33. "Brag, brag, brag." I’m not shy about celebrating my achievements, such as getting my company featured on page 1 of the Wall Street Journal. (I tell that story in my book 6 Steps to Free Publicity.) But as I discuss in No-Harm Marketing Ethics, I believe it’s wrong to stretch the truth and claim accolades that you didn’t fairly earn.

I will not allow anyone to describe me as a "bestselling author," because I never landed on a major Best Sellers list. Many ebook authors claim "bestselling author" distinction because they engineered sales of a few dozen copies in one day on Amazon while being well aware that that label makes them sound more accomplished than they are.

34. "Everyone knows that!" We all get tripped up by what’s called "the curse of knowledge": forgetting that others aren’t familiar with what’s obvious to us. I’ll never forget my primary care doctor asking me, during our get-to-know-you consultation, "What is marketing?"

Again and again I have argued with clients that they are wrong to assume all their prospects understand a certain concept. I always try my best not to leave novices out in my marketing writing, through unexplained jargon or cultural allusions. A snobby attitude toward those not in the know simply hurts you yourself.

Money

35. "Money is the measure of success." Someone who makes more money than I do or who has a bigger house or boat isn’t therefore more successful in my eyes. Do they genuinely serve their customers and clients and help make the world a better place in some way? Are they happy and feel fulfilled by what they’re doing? If they encountered setbacks, could they quickly regain their equilibrium? Do they have admirable values besides earning big bucks?

37. "It takes money to make money." When I recently heard someone say she spent $20,000 to create her first online course, I gasped out loud. I accomplished that goal spending $5. I have always chosen to invest time and creative energy rather than money in my projects, and that’s worked extremely well for me.

38. "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." I’ve seen numerous service providers caught in a trap where they understand that having products would provide a line of revenue for future slow times yet they can’t let go of "money now" clients to make time to develop the products.

In contrast, the book royalty checks I received year after year early in my career persuaded me to always make time to put things in place that would bring in money years later. I’m still doing this even though financially I probably don’t need to. After all, the year 2020 proved that a healthy world economy can go haywire at any moment.

39. "Get paid what you deserve!" This popular exhortation contains a thinking trap: No one "deserves" a particular level of payment - or any at all. After all, in the right circumstances, we’ll clean up, fix things, provide feedback or share what we own with others without payment.

Fees are mutually decided upon between practitioner and client. If you want to be paid more and need to plump up your self-confidence to do so, fine. But toss myths about deservingness into the trash bin where they belong. More on this in Pricing for Entrepreneurs.

40. "You can’t make money doing that!" It rankles me when experts with a substantial following make blanket pronouncements about the unprofitability of certain niches or topics. Almost always, such generalizations just show ignorance and prejudice.

For instance, many say you can’t make a living as a marketing advisor for small businesses. Wrong! My best clients have been high-earning one-person or two-person businesses that want to extend their success.

If you enjoyed reading this two-part piece, would you do me the favor of sending a like-minded friend or two a link to this page, or posting about it on social media? Thank you!