Marjorie Clayman’s Writing Portfolio

Professional writing profile of Marjorie Clayman

Margie Clayman

My open letter to LeBron: It’s not just business. It’s personal.

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Dear Mr. James (Your Highness),

You said last night that when you awoke yesterday morning, you knew your decision. When I woke up this morning, the first thing that popped into my head was a scene from the movie You’ve Got Mail. Tom Hanks’ character, who owns a huge book store meant to be something like Barnes & Noble, moves down the street from Meg Ryan’s tiny little family-owned book store. She knows it will destroy her business, but he says, “It’s just business. It’s not personal.” “It is personal,” she says. “It’s personal to me.”

 LeBron, the decision you made may have been business for you and your “team.” It may be business to Miami. It may be business for LA and New York and Chicago.

It is not business to us here in Northeast Ohio. It is personal.

We know the areas where you used to roam as a kid. A poor kid who was lucky enough to get guidance from people around you. Akron people. We know the shelter that helped out your mom, a shelter, by the way, that is having a hard time providing service to women like your mom today because their funds have been slashed and burned. We drive by your school, LeBron, where your first chapter of dreams came true. We went to those games and we thought, “Could this really be happening here?” We watched one of our own get signed to our basketball team, our poor Cavs, who were best known for crinkling up like aluminum foil as Michael Jordan hit “the shot.”

Our Cavs, by the way, are now known as the team that suffered most from “the decision.”

Do you remember when you were a kid and the Goodyear blimp would fly overhead? It’s something all of us Akron people get excited about. Back when you were a little kid, the blimp was called The Spirit of Akron. It would show up on television, soaring above games. It would fly over our houses and we would soar up there in the clouds in the Spirit of Akron’s wake.

A few years ago, the name of the blimp changed. It was the Spirit of Goodyear. All of our ties to that little bubble of air were broken after years of gazing upward.

You were our new spirit of Akron, LeBron. You were our proof that good things can happen here. Good things can come from here. You made people familiar with a side of Akron that had nothing to do with all of the jokes and mockery. You were putting us on the map in a good way, LeBron. And in these really dark economic times, when businesses and stores are closing, when our libraries and schools are dying here, LeBron, you gave us something to look forward to, something to be really proud of.

When I was 25 I felt the big 3-0 pushing down on me. I had goals I wanted to reach by age 30, and I felt like I would be a failure if I didn’t meet all of those objectives. Granted, I didn’t have the spotlight on me like you do, but I’ll tell you something that you come to appreciate after you get through your twenties. You appreciate your community. You appreciate being surrounded by places and people who have been there for you your whole life. That’s not to say that people always come back to where they’re from, but you start getting nostalgic. You will miss that in Miami. It will never be home to you. But because of the way you handled this, I’m not sure your emotional home here, your spiritual home, will be waiting for you.

You said last night that winning has always been the most important thing to you. It broke my heart that you couldn’t say that winning in Miami would be less sweet than it would have been to win a championship for your hometown. You will learn, eventually, that winning a championship is not enough to fulfill you, LeBron. And winning can mean different things. To us, your hometown crowd, winning would have been taking less money, as you are willing to do, and saying that you would stay with us till you brought a championship home. That is the true definition of loyalty. Saying that you don’t care how hurt the fans are, saying that you hope we treat you with respect, is like spitting in all of our faces, LeBron. How could you?

You always say that you are a big fan of the Yankees. So you probably know all about Lou Gehrig and the amazing speech he made when he had to retire. Lou Gehrig was from New York. He started out in tough circumstances but found that sports gave him a way out. He got to play for his home team, and he stayed there. You could say that it was easier for him to stay because the Yankees won. Maybe. But I think Lou Gehrig valued the reward of playing in front of his family, his friends, and all of the people that cheered him on from the very beginning. He wasn’t the luckiest man in the world, at the beginning of a crippling disease, because he had won championships. He was the luckiest man in the world, LeBron, because he had forged a powerful bond with his fans, with his teammates, and with history. That is a winner.

Business is not always something that is without emotion. Decisions cannot always be made separate from the results. The way you handled this process, the way you announced this, the way you so rapidly “moved on” last night, away from Cleveland, away from your home, and towards a city that only knows you as “the king,” may have all been good for your franchise. But when you retire, when your boys are ready to go to high school and college, when they want to see where your glory days were spent, where they were born, you will have to explain how and why that all ended. And that’s why I’m not angry with you, LeBron. You might not see the ramifications of your actions now. You might win 15 championships. You might become the King of Miami. But eventually you will have to explain to yourself and your boys and your grandkids that you left the hometown that you claimed to love because of business reasons, because it’s what the 25-year-old you thought would make you happy.

Good luck with that, LeBron.

It’s not just integrated marketing. It’s integrating marketing.

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There was a TREMENDOUS conversation in which I got to participate last evening on Twitter. Marsha Collier runs a weekly chat on customer service (#custserv for you Twitter users). Last night the topic was basically the relationship between marketing and customer service. The conversation, for me, solidified a thought that had just been ranging around my brain before. To wit: customer service and marketing need each other to succeed.

This also made me realize something new. “Integrated Marketing” may officially be an out-of-date term. It’s not just about integrating your marketing channels anymore, is it? Now, on a corporate level, marketing must be integrated with customer service. The one can enhance the other, and if not planned carefully, one can easily detract from the other as well.

How can a company weave together strands of customer service with strands of marketing to make a fully functional tapestry? Here are some ideas.

1. Build on testimonials: The easiest relationship to identify between marketing and customer service is a positive reaction from a customer. A testimonial, essentially, is a customer singing a company’s praises. Marketing can spread the word about this happiness, build credibility, and show that the company really does walk the walk rather than just talking the talk. It’s tangible proof of strong customer service.

2. Make customer service a pillar of your marketing campaign: If the customer service folk have really been kicking it into gear, don’t be afraid to capitalize on that strength. Market it, in other words. Talking about strong customer service is great for booth graphics at a show, a company profile, and more. Market your strengths.

3. From the fertilizer of a customer service mistake, make marketing flowers bloom: Everyone by now has probably heard the story of Comcast Cares. A company notorious for poor customer service used Social Media to become responsive, attentive, and the poster child of modern-day communication. If a mistake can be fixed, if an unhappy customer can become an “evangelizer” for your company or product, your marketing team can have a veritable field day. If that person is willing to be quoted in an ad, a press release, or serve as an ambassador for your company at a trade show or event, how credible will that person AND you seem? This company isn’t perfect and I wasn’t always happy, but look at how happy I am now!

4. Marketing should keep existing customers in mind: Research shows that people like to think that someone is listening. Even with all of these ways to share content, feedback is what people are really after. If customer service gets several similar complaints about a feature and that feature is changed or updated, make sure marketing knows about it. “We listened and our product is better thanks to you.” Domino’s Pizza recently carried this kind of campaign out using television commercials tied to a Social Media campaign. Keep everyone in the loop!

5. Customer Service should keep marketing in mind: One thing we always try to tell people we work with is that it is essential to find out how people find out about you. If someone calls or emails or visits your website and expresses an interest in your product, don’t be shy about asking how they heard about you. Marketers don’t get a whole lot of gold stickers, but a delivered lead is pure gold indeed. Keep track of what people say and let your marketing team know what’s going on. The marketing plan can be shifted to emphasize what is performing well.

Are there other ways in which customer service and marketing are or could be intertwined? Let me know!

Image by Glenn Pebley. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/GlennPeb

What is this Blogging thing?

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Well hello there, trusty readers! Sorry for the lag in posting. Truthfully, I have been on vacation! Had a lovely time in Cape Cod & Boston. I know, I know. I should have let you all know, but true to my word, I don’t believe in broadcasting to the world that I’m leaving my home abandoned. WHAT is wrong with me!?! 🙂 Anyway, due to various factors such as the stress of travel and lack of sleep caused by watching the Boston fireworks extravaganza Sunday night, I was not able to stay awake for my favorite Twitter chat, Blog chat. It looks like I missed quite a doozie!

To get caught up, I read this excellent post by Ian M. Rountree. The main topic of the chat, and hence of Ian’s post, is “voice” in blogging. But it seems like what happened is that a conversation about what Blogging is at heart blossomed. Is a blog something that should be written anonymously? If you have multiple people from your company blogging, should you broadcast that? Is Blogging writing? Is writing Blogging?

All of these questions are both important and thought-provoking. They inspired me to ask myself what I think Blogging is, or what I set out to do with my Blog(sssss). After some heavy mental lifting, here’s where I am on the whole thing.

Blogging is a series of conversations aimed at one central goal

If you think about the Three Musketeers, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? For me, it’s “One for all, all for one.” And oddly enough, that’s what I think of when I think about a Blog. The “all” can be you and your readers, it can be you and your co-bloggers, or a combination. But the central core of the issue is that you are all generally interested in the same types of things, the same types of goals, and you want to share your opinions and anything you might have learned. That’s a recipe for a conversation, right?

So while I was sleeping soundly (and I do mean soundly), folks on Twitter were debating how to approach a multi-person or team blog. Based on my perception of a Blog as a conversation, I would say the following:

1. Be transparent. Let people see different perspectives, different voices, and let them attribute those characteristics appropriately.

2. Before you put virtual pen to digital paper, have a plan. What is the “one” that you are all for? No matter who is writing and no matter what each individual’s particular spin may be, a person visiting the Blog should not be confused at any point about what the conversation is about.

3. To show that there is an underlying sense of teamwork and cohesiveness, be interactive with your team members. Comment on each others’ blogs, comment on comments for a post you haven’t written, etc.

4. Don’t try to out-do each other. Blogging is not about ego, I don’t care who says otherwise! If one of your team members seems to get more comments than you, don’t worry about it. Maybe people respond more to their posts but read your posts and think more deeply about them.

5. Make sure you make accessible a link where your individual voices really do become one. This could be a link to your website or even a link to a Facebook page. Conversations are great, but they might distract someone who is just looking for straightforward information.

A quick PS

I do NOT think that a multi-voice Twitter account is a good idea. On Twitter you have so little room to make big connections with people that leaving doubt as to who is talking can be deadly. I recommend the way Dell does it, for example – include some corporate prefix or suffix (or name) in your handle, then personalize so everyone has a separate but related account.

Greedy Marketing

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There is a scene in the Lord of the Rings trilogy that describes the various flaws the different races of Middle Earth exhibit. Of the Dwarves, it is said that they delved too greedily and too deep. The Dwarves were miners, you see. They were good miners. They found riches galore, but it was never enough. Eventually, the Dwarves dug so deeply that they released horrible demons.

I’ve been thinking about this description a lot as I follow the tale of the BP oil spill. We dug too greedily and too deep. We didn’t exactly release a Balgrog, but it’s mighty close.

As a marketer, it is possible to dig too greedily and too deep, especially on the heels of a major project like a white paper or a webinar. An incident that happened to me last week illustrates this point.

Last week I received an e-mail from a source I trust indicating that there was a new white paper available. The white paper had been authored by a guest company, but since it came recommended by the source I knew, and since the title fascinated me anyway, I decided to take a look and I ended up downloading the document. After reading the document, I showed it to my boss and I also tweeted about it. Happy ending, right?

Wrong.

Every day since I downloaded this white paper, I have received an e-mail from the author of the document. The emails are bluntly “sell” oriented. They want me to sign up for a training that will expand upon the white paper I downloaded.

As a consumer, these emails seem well over the top to me. Getting an “open” AND a click on an e-blast is a win to begin with. For someone to download a paper and give you their personal info is even better.

As a marketer, I still feel that an email per day is overkill. By a long shot. Had the marketer handled the situation differently, I might well be blogging about their effectiveness right now instead of the point where they made me want to claw my computer’s eyes out.

What to do

Okay, I know what you are thinking. As a marketer, I should have known that submitting my e-mail address was an opt-in. Well, I get that. But you have to be really REALLY careful when offering information-rich content like white papers. A lot of people who are inspired to download white papers are in a learning mode or a research mode, not a buying mode. How shocked would you be if a salesman jumped out of a book you’re reading? Same kind of feel.

The conversion from content to conversion is a rough one, admittedly, but here’s an idea that might have prevented me from wanting to put a hex on this person’s email account.

1. Acknowledge that you appreciate the steps it took for someone to download your white paper. Whether they clicked from an eblast or from the web, they not only had to click, they had to fill out a form, then hit download, then wait for the massive document to load. That’s valuable time. Send out an email thanking the person for spending that time. Make yourself available via email and Social Media to answer any questions.

2. Give people 3 days to read the white paper in peace. Assume that they spent their free time downloading the thing. Assume they are hanging on your every word. Don’t drive them crazy.

3. After 3 days, send out a brief survey. IF you are trying to sell something, mention it briefly in your introduction. Ask if the person has passed on the article to a co-worker or boss. Ask if they have shared it via Social Media. Answers to these questions will establish a relationship (potentially) and inform you as to whether you have a budding “brand evangelizer” on your hand.

People responding is the gold

Never forget that someone clicking to and downloading your content is a major gift. It’s the gift of time. It’s the gift of interest. If your content is good, that person will look for more from you. They’ll promote you. They’ll quote you in blog posts. They’ll look for you on Twitter. And eventually, if you decide to publish a book or host a paid webinar, that person will likely not only pay themselves but they’ll also recommend that other people do so.

This person’s content was extremely good, but I am not likely to promote them by name because I don’t want other people to get bombarded with sell emails. If I really wanted to be ruthless, I could name the person and say, “Hey, don’t download this person’s stuff.” That would be an epic problem.

Don’t delve too greedily. Don’t delve too deep. If you are just in it for the money, content is probably not your game. If you are in it to help educate people, you probably won’t rake in the cash right away. Build your brand. Build your credibility. Build your network of supporters. Be patient. Don’t release the demons.

Image Credit: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/QR9iudjz0

Antisocial Media?

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I was going through some Facebook messages last night and thinking about how a lot of my friends have 400 friends or more. I have about 150 friends. They are primarily people I have met and/or liked in real life, or ya know, family. I take as much time as the day allows to get caught up on everyone’s news. I comment, I interact. And I really enjoy it.

On Twitter, I like reading posts a lot more than I like making them. It’s hard to get conversations started on Twitter if you initiate them unless you’ve already got a lot of pull. This is because people are highly driven to gather their own followers. When we’re on Twitter, we post hoping that someone will respond or even better, retweet. We’re not really looking to engage. When you read, you’re the one who is replying or engaging.

This led me to yet another thought. If you are focused primarily on attracting followers or friends on Social Media networks, and you’re not really conversing with anyone, are you really engaging in Social Media? Methinks not.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy sharing my ideas. Boy do I. Anyone who has about 17 blogs going in various states of completeness clearly has too much to say! And when you post something that sparks a conversation, it’s extremely rewarding. However, I encounter more people than I would have guessed who just post post post. People respond. People ask questions. People try to lure this person out of their “I post therefore I am” mentality. But it just doesn’t work. What is the point of this?

I’m curious to know how you (yes YOU) approach Social Media from a business and/or a personal perspective. What do you look at first? If I have limited time, I look at the replies section to make sure I can respond to anyone that may be talking to me. Other people might check their number of followers, while others might go straight to the retweet section. Where do you go first on Facebook? Homepage to see updates or friend requests page to add followers? Why do you go where you go?

Let’s talk. Your turn 🙂

Image Credit: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/ilco

Twenty Time Management Tips

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A lot of people over the years have taken note of what I like to call my efficiency, my organization, my neatness, my punctuality, and other fine traits. They don’t necessarily call these traits out by name. They might say things like, “Geeze, loosen up.” Still, I feel like I have some pretty good insight on how to manage one’s time effectively. Since it seems like this week is National Time Management Week, I thought I would take the time to list my ideas here for your reference.

1. Early is the new “on time.” “On time” is late. I was at an appointment yesterday and the person helping me noted that the receptionist wasn’t there. It was 8:15, or close to. “I like to get in early so I can see what I’m dealing with,” said the woman who had helped me out. She is right. By the time you take off your coat, check the 20 blogs you read, get your coffee, go to the restroom, eat your granola bar, and check Twitter, you are officially starting your WORK day late.

2. As new things to do pop up, write them down on a list. It might seem like this takes time, and it does, but having a single place to find everything you need to do cuts down on time, increases efficiency, and makes you feel more productive as you cross things off.

3. Use your favorite website as a carrot. Everyone has a favorite website we like to visit, whether it’s ESPN.com, a shopping site, or something…else. Part of the work day has been delegated specifically for checking out the site. Don’t do it as soon as you sit down. Promise yourself you’ll finish a project or send a certain amount of emails (work related only). Then reward yourself by scanning your favorite online destination.

4. Work ahead. We all have times, whether it’s an hour or a whole day, where things lag a little. Use that time to write blogs. Just don’t publish them yet. Do prep work that’s hard to get done when you’re crunched for time.

5. Do not post to Facebook about how busy you are. You know that we all have done this. Or have seen other people do this. Yes, that’s better. I’ve heard rumors that sometimes a person will try to be funny about it. “I wish someone had told me to bring my shovel to work.” “I didn’t know I’d need a submarine to see my desk.” If you are thinking of these little gems, you are either not really all that busy or you are really going to be stressed out when deadlines are coming down the pike.

6. Do not post to Twitter about how busy you are. See above.

7. Keep your work area clean and organized. How much time do you spend in a day looking for a job jacket or a stapler or a paper clip or a note your boss taped to your computer screen 2 days ago? Keep things organized. Take a little time to put things away. Save time in the long run.

8. Do not complain to a co-worker about how busy you are. You’re not only taking up time complaining, but now you’re also throwing off your kind-hearted peer.

9. Do not freak out. When I was in high school, I had a lot of homework to do every single night. Being a teen, I thought this was completely unfair. I wanted to watch Seinfeld. I didn’t want to study Geometry. Had I not spent the half hour freaking out, I could have had my half hour of Seinfeld. There’s a moral for ya!

10. Hide your phone. Sometimes it’s hard to make people in your life understand that you have a job and tied to that job is stuff you must get done to keep that job. You love your friends, you love your family. But you don’t need to talk to them every 10 minutes via phone or text. Give select people your work phone for emergencies. Let your iPhone or Blackberry or flip phone rest during the day. It’s tired.

11. Prioritize. This comes back to a list. Despite what we believe at any given moment, everything does not need to be done NOW. There are projects tied to deadline, there are projects that are just pesky everyday things, and there are projects we’re looking forward to doing. Get the deadline stuff out of the way, then switch off between other types of projects.

12. Get little stuff done, then focus on big stuff. This is a matter of personal preference, but I find this works really well for me. If I have a million little things to do, I can’t seem to concentrate on the 2-3 huge things I need to work on. Set out a block of time and get as many little things done as you can. Then set up larger blocks of time for pure concentration.

13. If you know you’re going to talk for 2 hours, hold off on calling. We all have work contacts that we love to talk to. These are the people we have long and winding conversations with that might begin with the family, travel to current events, and then at an hour and 45 minutes get to the reason for the call. If you know that you have that pattern of action with a person, email them or wait until you have time to talk a marathon.

14. Take care of your ducklings. If you work with other people, and if these people often need information or insight from you, call a meeting. Review projects, try to answer as much as possible, and then say, “Give me a couple of hours. I need to work on X project.”

15. Set realistic goals. It would be great if we could all start our work day with one mammoth goal, like “create world peace,” cross it off, and then be done. Sadly, this is not so. Set small, reasonable goals. We all know that there are going to be fires to put out, unexpected events, and who knows what else. Build in some fluff to absorb those distractions.

16. Stay away from Twitter and Facebook altogether. I don’t know if some people know this, but you can actually log out of sites like Twitter and Facebook. Or you can navigate away from them. Try to go an hour without logging into your account. Compare this to an hour where you have 1 or both sites open. Publish your results.

17. Repurpose. If you are blogging or tweeting or facebooking for your company, repurpose. Tweet the same link that you post to your Facebook page. Use a blog post as an e-newsletter story or try the reverse.

18. Delegate. This is something a lot of us are terrible about. So many people now feel obligated to do everything tied to our jobs, from the mundane to the huge. Don’t be afraid to delegate if you have that ability. Just make sure you don’t get into a habit of delegating, then jumping on to a Social Media site to chat with friends. That’s abuse of the system!

19. Multitask. Listen to an important podcast while answering emails. Cross things off your list while talking on the phone. We’re getting trained to wire ourselves this way. Scary but true.

20. Refine the company process. If you work with and for others, you should all work together like a well-oiled machine. Everyone should know where everyone is and what everyone is doing. Avoiding the time it takes to track down people and projects is a HUGE time saver. Communicate now, save time for later.

These are some of my ideas. Do you have anything to add?

Image by Jonathan Natiuk. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/jnatiuk