My Promise to Myself

I have been neglecting this blog badly as of late and other blogs, still read my favorite few and what others linked on twitter.  This has to stop, today I went back into my Continual Education and have been watching the Inbound Marketing Summit today.  I have stopped well, slowed down, because with my new job I have less time to spend reading the latest news and posts or viewing webinars.  My current part time job is just that a job and I have stopped what I was doing before so I could get my perfect job and be ready for it, I was content.  That is until I got my paycheck and realized this would barely cover a car payment and that was the, pardon my language "shot in my ass" that I needed.  I am back on my proper path and determined once again.  What my new promise to myself includes

• Continue to write blog posts - Personal posts such as this during the weekday when I have time and the drive AND a weekly marketing related post EVERY Sunday.  I will write that post in advance to post at 5 am each and every Sunday.
• Get back to my old ways - Watch and participate in Webinars, Read and discuss marketing bogs, monitor my LinkedIn daily, continue to search and apply for jobs that suit me.
• To remain hungry -  Keep my drive and intensity until I get my perfect job.
• Determine what that perfect job would be, should have done this before but it keeps changing.

How you can help

Help me find my perfect job that is in marketing/ advertising (outside of sales, I can do sales but do not enjoy it).  I also understand that I may need to have that sales position so I can move horizontally in the company and am willing to do so.  Something that will let my creativity flourish, a copywriter, account executive are two examples of that.  Where I can utilize my current skills with Social Media.  Because of my limited experience it would have to be an entry level position.  Some of my areas of expertise and where I excel are: 

Advertising -  Consumer and B2B in Print, Social Media, Billboard, and Transit.  

Design - Branding and Identity.  

Promotions - Increasing Visibility, new product launches, Rebranding and new campaign launches.

Public Relations - Event Planning/ Management, Social Media

Planning - Strategic Development, Marketing Planning, Integrated Marketing Campaigns

I can do much more but that is where I am comfortable and have experience.  If you know of any jobs that would fit that please let me know you can email me at Raymond.Lutzewitz@gmail.com if you or your company has an opening or know of one please let me know.  

The other way you can help is by reminding me/ hassling me to make sure I wrote my weekly marketing blog.

Thank you

Why It is Better to Have No Experience

So many job openings require 1-3 years experience in the industry or I did not get a job because another candidate had much more experience than me.  Granted I just graduated college and my experience is limited but I find that as an advantage.

It takes much longer to unlearn a false information, a bad habit, or a wrong technique then to just learn it.  The experienced individual has to first forget the way they conducted themselves and if done for a long time this can be extremely difficult and time consuming and then learn the new and correct method.  If you do something everyday for weeks, months, or years that is how you are going to do something.  So if the new workplace has a different policy, structure, or way to conduct business than you are use to it will not just be unfamiliar but also weird, awkward, and just seem wrong.  An employee that thinks they know how something is or should be done is not only a hinderence to the company but also a liability.  I know from personal experience of the new guy coming in and not learning the operating procedures and just going right to work.  Well this is how I do this and how we did this where I use to work.  Not only did that destroy the flow and order that we had in the workplace but also those "shortcuts" were a safety violation.  Despite the supervisors warnings and instructions he would still on occasion "forget" and do it his old way.  Remember Pluto the planet that is no more?  How hard is it for individuals to remember and consider Pluto no longer a planet.

Fresh clay, it is the material you want to work with, it has the ability to be whatever you want it to be, like a bowl.  But after the clay is worked and no longer new and fresh and has some experience it can no longer be anything you want it to be.  The already made clay might be a bowl, but that experience might have molded and formed it into a bowl of the wrong size or fit.  It takes a lot more work, time, and effort to turn that made bowl into the bowl you want it to be than just using the fresh clay.

Photo Credit: Scott Ableman

Would you prefer to have an experienced piece of clay or  fresh clay?  Any other analogies you can think of that would work? Do you have some bad habits that you need to unlearn?  

Continual Education: Always Learning

I graduated in December 2009 and I am learning MORE now that I am out of college. All being self taught for my enjoyment and to stay on top of the changing trends in the business world. I am putting more time and effort in now than I did during college.  I am also having to absorb a lot more because of how much information I am taking in daily.  Honestly I am not sure how long I will be able to go at this pace.  I am currently teaching myself about SEO, proper social media use for different brands and other topics.  My class load is huge right now and it is getting harder for me to retain this information.  To help aid myself in this task I am starting to teach myself like this was a class and taking notes to review later and less like a hobby.

How am I continuing my education?

• Watching numerous webinars on topics that interest me including social media, marketing, and engagement. 
• Reading numerous books on marketing. Some books I recommend are UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging (affiliate link if I did it correctly) and Twitter Works.
• I read numerous blogs every day a quick list of my top 5 because of the content, quality, and consistency are:

1. Social Media Examiner
2. The Brand Builder
3. Jim Raffel
4. UnMarketing 
5. Translator Digital Cafe

• Writing blog posts talking about marketing and getting my ideas out onto the web.
• Conversing with other marketing professionals on Twitter and Linkedin.

Photo credit: ZadorSpain

What webinars are you watching and participating in?  What books are you currently reading or would recommend that I and others read?   Which are the blogs you read daily, I read more than those 5 but they all offer consistent quality posts.

Brand Loyalty - A Symbiotic Relationship

Brand Loyalty is something that is established at an early age.

From commercials for what cereal to eat to what shows you watch for what products to buy. The relationship with the brand grows and strengthens over time, as does your loyalty. The loyalty you show the brand is returned with continued great service and

products. Many brands have also established loyalty programs for their valued customers.

For the quality brands your relationship strengthens over time and the brand already has a product or service for you in your next stage in life. For instance McDonald's, they have a happy meal for when you are young and meals for when you get to old for a happy meal. Other brands don't have this ease of transition. Once you reach your a cut off age where that brand is no longer cool or popular there is nothing more that the brand can offer you. All that brand loyalty that was built over the years has vanished. A personal example was my younger brother who loved Barney, he had Barney & Friends toys, games, clothes, bed sheets. But once he reached that age where Barney wasn't cool he got rid of all of that.

What could Barney have done?

Not much could have been done when you focus on an age demographic and have no follow up once they get beyond that age range. Once the brand locked themselves in with the 1-8 age range they were stuck with it. They could have attempted to make a spin off show for an older audience of 5-12 to run with the original. But with such a narrow demographic the brand was doomed for a cliff of brand loyalty. Some brands that managed a better job are the Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus brand with a larger demographic and numerous complementing industries. The brand has movies, music, video games, clothes, jewelry and much more that appeals to a wider age range than the original brand. Two other brands are my childhood favorites of Ghostbusters and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. For me I started with the cartoons at a young age, 5 or 6, and expanded into their toys. Over time expanding further with their video games and movies. With the additional arenas for me to follow the brands to my loyalty and fandom grew and expanded.

Ways brands can destroy the relationship.

There are many ways of destroying the relationship and loyalty.

1. No Room to Grow -As stated above one way you can destroy the brand loyalty is by not having a way to continue to evolve the relationship once it reaches a point (age range or end of brand product line).
2. Poor Customer Service/ Brand Deterioration - can whittle away at the established brand loyalty as described by Scott Stratten in his blog post Why I changed my coffee religion.
3. The Competition has Arrived - Someone else has came and has a bigger, better, and/ or cheaper product or service. But if you have brand loyalty they should wait for you to come out with a similar product, as long as you let them know.
4. Any others I have missed besides these big three let me know.

What brands are you loyal to and why? What have they done that others haven't?

If you enjoyed this post you can read my post on Brand Value - It changes with the tide

Photo Credit to ArbyReed

Social Media Experiment Part 1

In an effort to get some comments and increase my interaction with my online community I will be posing a question across my social media accounts to see where I get the most interaction then I will share the results with you, my readers.

The most difficult part is coming up with a good question that will invoke a response to comment. I have known for a while what I want the question to be, just not how to word it. I choose this question because I never get the same answer, and it is hard for me to answer about myself. It can be my Achilles heel of job interviews, so your input and views would be highly appreciated.

The Question:

What adjectives would you use choose to describe me (Raymond)? Or what personal impression(s) do you have of me?

If you can give a reason to why you pick or feel that way, and I will be glad to give my opinion of you as well. If you never meet me that is fine since when I write I try to insert my persona into it. It's human nature to have an opinion on anything and everything and I want to hear it. When I write want to be honest, so if you do meet me in real life you will get the same guy who is writing this blog, or sending out those tweets, or posting stuff to LinkedIn. (Is that the correct verbage for LinkedIn?) I want to come across the same on all medians, well maybe more laid back on Twitter.

Thanks for your input

If you want me to give you my opinion of you feel free to ask it in the comments.