Pro Sports Vs School, aka Andrew Luck Vs Marketing.

So...

Stamford's Andrew Luck has decided to remain in school to finish his education, rather than leave early and go pro for the money. That's awesome.

But it has nothing to do with marketing, right? I can almost guarantee it has about .000000001% to do with marketing.

Or does it?

Many of the sports websites, and most of the talk hosts on ESPN Radio are absolutely stunned and are pretty much bashing the kid for staying in school. That's right, I said kid. He's like 19 or 20, let the guy live his life and do the commendable thing and get an education! The fact that he's being put down for deciding to put education first is disgusting. He should be a damn role model for this decision!

Can you imagine how rediculous the scenario of leaving college early or not going at all would be in the non sports world? A smart kid comes out of high school, crazy good grades, tons of scholarships. Picks a school, and goes there. He arrives on campus, and is hot stuff in his major, kills all his prerequisites, and starts taking his important classes. Two years later, he leaves school to take a job with some big company somewhere...and not an entry level job like any normal people, some high powered job, vaulting over the people who did it before him, and people who were in line to do that job next.

But like many who turn pro early (many, not all), he flakes out. Maybe he creates a bad product, or a terrible marketing campaign, or blows his assignment to create a new vaccine for something. Whatever. Regardless, he fails. What's he got now? Nothing. Is he gonna go back to school and finish his degree? Maybe, maybe not. More than likely not, following the example of most of professional sports.

In the workaday world, just like professional sports, he's replaceable. The next guy comes along and does a great job...so the previous guy is forgotten, and fades away.

But maybe this guy succeeds. It could happen. It has happened. The kid goes through his career, and eventually makes CEO or some high position of some sort. Chances are to get there, he had to go back to school to properly educate himself to that level. So why not do that to begin with? Money? A chance to be the best? Sure. But what about injury, or failure, or something else that could affect your career. Leave early, and if you haven't gone back, and you flame out like many before you...where are you then? Lost.

Look, I get it...Andrew Luck is doing something he wants to do, rather than what people think he should do...and those people don't like it. It's not their decision, though.

I hope you do finish your degree, sir...and you do go to the pros, and become what they say you can. Become that role model, the guy who did it right, because that was the way it should have been done.

Ok, That's Enough.

This afternoon, on my way home from work, I officially have heard the end of the buzzword "Rockstar". Flat out, 100 percent, that word is now dead to me, and it should be to you now too, and here's why.

I listen to a lot of ESPN Radio - its good drive time listening, and heck, I drive by the place most of it is broadcast from on my way to work. I was on my way home, listening to the Scott Van Pelt show. There was a discussion on the terrible state of the head coaching position as a whole in the NFL these days - I agree, its terrible, but that's not the point of this all here.

I bring to you, the end of the word "Rockstar", as it has now been used to describe A TYPE OF FOOTBALL COACH!! Are you serious? The quote was something like "We don't need to hire another Parcells, or Gruden, one of those rockstar type football coaches"

That's it, its done. That word is officially dead. End. Of. Story. Of course, its been on life support for a while now, but the plug has been pulled, the beep is sounding, and the doctor is declaring the time of death.

Rockstar is gone. Good riddance, too. It's about time. You will not be missed...

I Want You Back

Hey you! Yeah, you. Remember when you used to read my blog? You even left a comment or two, which was awesome. Thank you.

The thing is, because I didn't post for a long while, you all left, and I understand. I would do the same if I was you. I'd like you to come back. I just wanna ask you a question or two.

What do I have to do to bring you back to my blog? Other than post, of course. What was it that brought you here back in the day? What didn't you like?

Id love to hear your thoughts.

Perspective

So. About not posting in forever. Sorry about that, but I was busy with a new job with crazy hours, and taking care of my pregnant wife. It's a girl, by the way, born on August 5th. Thanks, and you're welcome for all the "aww" and "congrats" and such that are undoubtedly in your mind at the moment.

Anyhow, I got to thinkin'. Dangerous, I know...me and thinking have a volatile relationship.

I've already started to see MANY things change in the past five days, I wonder what else might change. One big thing that I'm sure will change with the addition of a child to my life is my perspective. I'm no longer 31 year old married guy only looking for things for ME, I'm gonna have to start watching baby tv and listening to music for kids and such. Its undoubtedly going to change the way I see MANY things.

I'm okay with it. Marketing and its surroundings are ever changing, and so is life. It kinda fits together, in its own way.

Adventures In Unexpected Customer Service

This past week or so has been wildly interesting, it has probably been the single most emotionally draining period of time I have gone through in quite some time.

But even through it all, marketing and business and such is still on my mind. So, I have a story I would like to share with you all.

The morning of April 16th my wife and I were taking our cat to the vet to be put to rest. She'd rather quickly developed stomach and kidney cancer, and she was pretty old, and would probably not have survived any procedures, and just wasn't handling it very well, so we did what we had to do. Anyways, our vet is/was very nice, and that's what we'd expected. They sent us a berevement card with her footprint in it and such, it was very appreciated.

But that's not the story, even though it fits with the post. We chose to have the cat cremated so that we may spread her ashes in a couple different places, as well as plant something as a memorial and put the remaining ashes under it. Our vet said that private cremation usually will take a couple weeks, which is understandable, because it's a process, and who knows how often they deliver, and so on.

Skip ahead to yesterday (April 23rd) - we got a phone call from our veterinarian, there is a "package" waiting for us at the office. Needless to say it's obvious what that is, of course.

Of all the places to have good customer service, and to make due on a promise better than the promise, I would have NEVER expected an animal crematorium to be such a place. In the wake of a truly horrible situation, you don't think to hope that promises will be kept, and things like that.

I would like to thank the staff at Chippens Hill Veterinarian in Bristol, CT for being so awesome in general, especially at this time. I have no idea where you sent the cat, but they're cool too, in my book.



This was my cat, Abby. She was awesome, I will miss her.


What kind of unexpected experiences have you had with customer service, good or bad? Please share...

Free Advertising For Your Blog! Plug Away!

Alright, here it goes. Several of my friends have done posts that are specifically for their readers to share their blog, or a favorite blog that they read quite often. I have decided to do the same.

First, a non exclusive list of some of my most read blogs:

Shelly Kramer/V3im
Sarah Robinson/Escaping Mediocrity
Scott Stratten/UnMarketing
Random Shelly/I'm Not So Random
Julie Roads/Writing Roads
Social Media 101

I don't want to describe them, because the owners of the blog can do a much better job of it, and I do hope they decide to do so.

Now that you have a partial list of my favorites, lets see what you've got!!

A Chance To Market Myself

I have been given a relatively unique opportunity. Last Wednesday, I was laid off from the retail sales job I had held for nine months. Its unfortunate, and it sucks, but they laid off almost half of my coworkers instate as well, so its not like I was the only one, and it wasn't my fault.

So. The opportunity...I should probably get to that, because getting laid off sure isn't what I was talking about.

I need to find a new job. NEED. There is no other solution right now. The house needs some things done to it, I'm going to have a baby living with me come August, and there are bills to pay. Here I go again, getting away from myself. The opportunity.

I referenced it in the title to this post, I have a chance to market myself. I am my own marketing project, and the end result is not sales, or customer service, or PR, it's a big fat case of brand awareness.

But the question is, does my brand need to change? How much, if at all?

Update: The company that laid me off apparently kept my application for a promotion on file after I was laid off. I filed in the week before, and they're just now doing interviews for the position. Wish me luck.

UPDATE # 2 Had an interview on Monday that went really well. I was very happy with it, and was convinced I'd nailed it. They said they would call me Tuesday with their decision.

They didn't. So I freaked a little, but was ok.

They called this morning, instead. I'm back among the employed. With the same company that laid me off. In a corporate position. For more money. So I got a short vacation for a little less pay and I got to work on my yard and start prepping for baby's arrival. An interesting couple weeks for sure.

Sponsors Gone Wild??

No, it's not a variation on Girls Gone Wild...sorry about that.

I've written about my old jobs before, specifically the time I spent working for an ampitheatre where concerts are held. I worked for the head of advertising and corporate sales, and one of her jobs, and by proxy mine, was to come up with new and/or different places to utilize as advertising space. Among the things we did were sticker the garbage bins, wrap the fences, and even sticker the seat backs.

People would jump at the chance to have their name and logo in a different place that they hadn't thought of, or to sponsor sonething you wouldn't think they would, in order to get their name out there.

But in all my mind, I never would have come up with this one. The olympics have an official car, the NBA has an official drink...

...and the NCAA basketball tournament has an official LADDER. That's right, an official ladder. Genious or insanity? I say both. The name gets said every time espn talks about the tournament, which is about a million times a day. I'm sure when the winners are cutting down the nets, there will be a nice long logo shot, too.

I ask you, have they gone too far? When do you think that was? If you don't, what IS too far?

Down With Social Automation

UnMarketing has talked about it.

Shelly Kramer is constantly speaking out about it.

Twitter-Fail has a whole separate CATEGORY about it.

Remarkablogger talks about it.

Dozens of websites talk about it, both in favor and against it. Generally the ones in favor of it are the ones providing or selling automation services.

Now, since you won't listen to anyone above me...maybe you'll listen to me. I can dream, can't I?

Stop it already with the automated Twitter messages. We know. You cannot disguise them. You've tried personalization. We figured it out. You tried automating public messages. We fell for it for about five minutes, then we looked at your stream and saw the same message sent out to many, many people. You're NOT fooling everyone...let alone anyone.

There's a reason it's called SOCIAL media...its about socialization. If I wanted to talk to a robot, I'd fire up IRC or some other old chat client. I'm not the first to admit it, but anyone who sends me an auto DM with an ad or a blog link in it before even saying hello or anything is immediately blocked. Surprisingly, there are several big names I don't follow because of this, and I'm no worse off for it.

If you want followers...just talk to people. Do what honest, social people do. Follow some heavy hitters in your industry, and mine their follower lists. See who they talk to, and so on. Before you know it, you've got a good list of legitimate follows and followers, and you're engaging with them happily, all without having to automate anything, and without pissing everyone off. It's really not that hard. Just try it, I promise we won't bite....unless you auto DM us.

Choose My Adventure

Alright, I'm going to try something I've never done on The Marketing Mark before. I have a bunch of ideas for entries, and I'm having a hard time deciding what order I should do them in. So, I look to you, dear reader, to help me out.

I'm going to spend a while writing about what YOU want, not what I want. Leave a comment below, or send me a tweet HERE and I will write a few articles from the list of appropriate topics that I get.

Sound cool? OK, go!!