crowdSPRING

crowdSPRING is a great place to find creative resources. Here is the concept behind this innovative website:

1.) Post a creative project and attach a cost for what you are willing to pay to the winner.

2.) Creatives contribute actual project work (e.g. logo, widget, website design, etc.)

3.) Pick a winner of the entries: You receive the creative work and they receive the prize money.

Is Your Salesforce Doing Its Job?

In his article, Don’t Sell to Bar Owners, Seth says:

“Marketers are guilty of hoping for too much from a typical salesforce. In my experience, 90% of the salespeople out there are below average (because performance is a curve, not a line). The superstars are hard to find, hard to keep and hard to count on scaling. So that means you must create a product that doesn’t require a superstar to sell it. And the only way you’re going to sell an ad to a [insert difficult marketplace here] is to create a product/service/story that sells itself.”

From my encounters, people who are in sales typically think they’re really good at it. Are they disillusioned? Or are they all selling great products that don’t need much persuasion to sell through?

Website Optimization ROI Calculator

ClickZ has created a Website Optimization ROI Calculator to help you determine the value of optimizing your website.

To utilize the tool, you do not need to be exact on the values or percentage lift, but try to be consistent with your estimates. This tool can be used as a way to prioritize your opportunities, forecast the impact of certain initiatives and measure the impact of actual tests.

Don’t be a Door Checker

I heard a new term this week – “Door Checker”.

A Door Checker is the person that asks you to lock the doors.

After you have done so, they ask you “Did you lock the doors?”

After you reply “yes” and have resided in the fact that you did an awesome job at locking the doors, they go back to each door to make sure you locked the door. And, if you didn’t lock the door exactly the way they would have, they will re-lock the door.

Why would you hire a Door Locker if you are just going to go back and make sure he or she did their job the way you would? You should hire a Door Locker so that they can do their job to their best of their ability, and you do not have to feel worried about your safety.

Avoid being a Door Checker – hire the right people and then let them do their job.

Find Your Passion

My mother raised over $2,000 so that she could walk in a 60 mile 3-day walk in order to promote a cure for breast cancer. Can you imagine training for half a year to walk for 60 miles over the course of 3 days all while using port-a-potties, taking open showers in an 18 wheeler truck and sleeping in tents at night?

My mom’s so passionate about finding a cure for breast cancer that she has purchased every single pin ever made available and actually wears a different one each day of the year. (Okay, I don’t know if she actually wears a different one every day, but I promise she has enough to do so.)

Why is she so passionate about finding a cure for breast cancer? Because her mom is going on 25 years of being a 2 time survior of breast cancer. Breast cancer almost killed her mom – twice – and she wants to do something about it. She actively showed her passion by raising money for the cause and walking in a 3 day event.

What are you willing to walk that far for? If you can’t think of something, find something. Be passionate about a cause and carry the torch that will educate and invigorate others to join you.