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Introduced by Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE, and presented by award-winning international speaker and Guerrilla Selling author Orvel Ray Wilson, CSP. This half-day seminar was created exclusively as a program for NSA Chapters, and recorded live at NSA/CA in San Francisco.
In this fast-moving program, you’ll learn:
- 10 Guerrilla Strategies to Double Your Business
- 31 Guerrilla Marketing Weapons, covering everything from Business Cards to Bureaus.
- How to create a professional demo video, for free
- When, and how, to negotiate fees
- How to integrate your website, social media, and new online tools
- Common marketing myths and expensive mistakes many speakers make
- And hundreds of insider tips from a 30-year veteran of the platform
This program consists of four files: three MP3 audios plus a PDF workbook. Total run time, approximately 3 hours of pure, usable, step-by-step content for the pro speaker.
And, for just 24 hours, you can get the entire package for just $39! Yes, you read that right! Only $39! But only if you buy on Wednesday, January 11, 2011 or Thursday, January 12, 2011.
This product normally sells for $129.00! So, act quickly before the price automatically returns to $129.00 on Friday, January 13th and Buy Now.
Orvel Ray Wilson, CSP is a co-author of the legendary Guerrilla Marketing series, which now spans 47 titles and 22 million books in print in 67 languages. He has been a full-time professional speaker since 1980, and built a multi-million dollar seminar and consulting business. Unconventional, engaging and funny, he has addressed audiences large and small in more than 1,000 cities, 44 countries on every continent except Antarctica. He was voted one of the world’s TOP 5 SALES SPEAKERS for 2010 and 2011 in an international Internet poll.
“Thank you so much for delivering your program, Guerrilla Marketing for the Advanced Professional Speaker for our chapter. Both our emerging speakers and seasoned veterans found tremendous value in your low-cost and no-cost marketing ideas with maximum
– David Newman, NSA Mid-Atlantic.
Guerrilla Guarantee: If you are not completely satisfied with this purchase for ANY reason, call us at 800-247-9145, and we will cheerfully refund all of your money, no questions asked.
Eight Expensive Lessons Learned
DoIt Marketing
With all the buzz about “Social Media Marketing,” you can understand why I was intrigued when a fellow speaker, David Newman who promotes himself as a marketing coach, called with a pitch for his new venture, DoIt Marketing. He had assembled a crack team of experts who, as I understood their promise, could improve my SEO and make my phone ring.
No stranger to social media, I’ve been teaching “Social Media as a Guerrilla Marketing Weapon” for years. I just lack the bandwidth to manage it for myself. So I made a few calls, and his references were for-the-most-part, positive. After meeting for lunch, I was skeptical.
Then, one afternoon David called in a panic; “Can you cover a keynote for a group of financial planners, in Denver, at noon? Tomorrow?” The speaker he had booked for this event was grounded in D.C. by thunderstorms. The fee was less than rack, but I agreed to help him out, delivered the speech, and the client was thrilled.
But then David didn’t want to pay the speaking fee. Instead, he insisted we put it in my “bank” and use it (after deducting a 25% “bureau commission”) to fund his proposed social media campaign. And lucky for me, they had one slot open.
Instead of a check, I got a 10-page questionnaire, asking all about my books, my business, my clients, and the passwords to all of my social media accounts, website, and blog.
As instructed, I sent DoIt Marketing everything they asked for: market analysis, book manuscripts, articles, audios, videos, top-performing keywords, and passwords for my blog, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube and other accounts. I should have known better.
My understanding was that the DoIt Marketing team would take clips from my books and other material, and systematically post them all over the web: multiple daily Twitter tweets, multiple daily Facebook updates, article submissions, new LinkedIn groups, two blogs a week, and more.
I thought it was expensive: $1,500 just to “set it up” (never mind that all these profiles were already set up and optimized, with thousands of fans and followers.) Add another $1,800/month to launch, with a minimum commitment of three months. Just enough in my “bank” to cover the setup and two months in advance.
Maybe my expectations were unsually high, given my background as a Guerrilla Marketing author, but I felt disappointed right away. Like when they couldn’t spell my NAME correctly, let alone, “Guerrilla”. The first (and only) blog they put up was a duplicate of one that had already been published. They signed me up for five article hubs, two of which I was already writing for. I believe I could get this level of work from a college intern! The only results I noticed was a dramatic increase in SPAM.
I sent David an e-mail with detailed feedback and branding standards, and agreed to give his team a chance to prove themselves once the campaign rolled out. I should have known better.
I felt that the work was not only sloppy, but in some cases, downright inappropriate. Most of the Facebook postings were dead-ends with no breadcrumbs. One tweet that I felt was very inappropriate simply read, “24 Reasons Why Sales is Better than Sex.” And the last straw, a book review I hadn’t written, of a book by ANOTHER speaker, with a link back to HIS bookstore. Sorry, but I thought I was paying DoIt Marketing to review MY books and drive traffic to MY website and MY bookstore, thank you.
So, I complained directly to the young woman assigned to my account, pointing out examples from specific posts that I felt were wanting. Within minutes, I got a call from David Newman, not to apologize, but scolding me for being “abusive” and “impossible to please.” Deaf to my complaints, he threatened to just drop the whole project, in effect, chopping down the tree before it could bare fruit.
My response was, “In that case, I want a full refund.”
“That’s not even on the table.” Instead he sent a check for the unspent balance of $1,800. He did NOT, however, keep his scheduled appointment for a reporting call, send the promised written reports, or do any of the setup work for which I had already paid so dearly. When I repeated my demand for a full refund via e-mail, and threatened to take my story public, I got a letter from his lawyer threatening to sue for libel. That’s certainly ONE way to discourage customer complaints.
The Lessons:
- Check references thoroughly. Anything less than glowing isn’t good enough.
- Never agree to trade out. Collect fees for your services, then pay as you go.
- Never pay in advance. You’ll want to cut your losses quickly if they bugger it.
- Understand what social media can, and can’t do for your business. Don’t expect miracles.
- Exhaust more affordable resources like Craig’s List or elance.com before engaging a boutique firm. Smart people are out there, and they’re hungry.
- Vet everything before it goes live. It’s your good name at stake.
- Insist on visible, measure results, reported weekly, in writing; not double-talk.
- File reports on Ripoffreport.com, ScamBook.com, and the Consumerist.com if you’ve been the victim of one of these scams. I did.
Throwing $3,300 bucks away on useless marketing really hurt! And I had to change all my passwords. Social Media, managed correctly, can certainly boost your business. But there are FAR too many vendors making wild claims that they can’t fulfill.
And when they ask you to give them “The Keys to the Kingdom,” just don’t.
If you would like to share your experience with David Newman or DoIt Marketing, I encourage you to comment on this post. You may call me directly at 800-247-9145 with any questions.
This article is not intended to disparage or defame David Newman or DoIt Marketing in any way, but solely to warn readers about the potential pitfalls of working with vendors in general, and Social Media Marketing vendors in particular. The contents of this article merely express my personal opinion and point of view on this topic. Use the links to his website to make your own assessment.
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How to Select the Right Speaker for Your Next Sales Meeting, Conference or Convention
