Work At Home Dad - Ty Tribble

eBay - Work At Home Mom Chat

Even though I am not a Mom, I will be a featured “chatter” this week as part of a series of marketing chats for Work At Home Moms.

I will be doing a chat titled ‘Q & A with eBay Entrepreneur’ at 11AM Pacific/2PM Eastern on Thursday, May 18th.

The chat will be hosted at: www.wahpromotion.com

You can enter the chat room directly via this link.

Word of Mouth Basic Training 2

Word of Mouth Basic Training 2 is coming to the Hilton in San Francisco, June 20th-21st.

Topics will include: WOM, Buzz, Viral and Blog Marketing.

Presented by WOMMA, Word of Mouth Marketing Association

What you will learn:

• Learn from real case studies and how-to lessons.
• Meet the world's leading word of mouth experts.
• Master the core skills to succeed with word of mouth.
• Discover how to implement word of mouth at your company.
• Network like crazy at the biggest word of mouth conference ever.
• Understand critical issues around ethics and honesty.
• Measure and track the ROI of word of mouth.
• Enjoy an official WOMMA event, the association that brings together the amazing people who are building this fantastic industry.

Register.

Smart Blog Marketing

How to market polo shirts on a blog:

1. Wear your product.

2. Go out at night.

3. Have your friend take pictures of you (wearing your product) with hot girls and interesting people.

4. Post the pictures on your blog with a link to your eBay store were you sell the polo shirts.

Naming a product is free

Seth Godin has been on fire. I sense a new book coming soon.

I (less eloquently) wrote about this phenomenon a while back - Vitacube changes name to gibberish.

Nintendo forgot to read my post:

Their new multi-billion dollar entry into the hyper-competitive gaming market is called Wii.

Pronounced "we."

Oh.

I'm sure there are ten good reasons to choose this name. I can't think of one of them.

The thing about picking a name for a product, a building or even a kid is that it's free. The single most important piece of free and fast marketing you'll ever do. You wouldn't name your daughter Elvis and you shouldn't name a device for male teenagers Wii.

PS there are more than a million google matches for "wii". None of them, as far as I can tell, are about video games.

PPS in talking with Fred today, he pointed out that a lot of people confuse "remarkable" with "different." Wii is a very different name. But it's not worth talking about, except in a negative way. Hopefully for Nintendo, the games will be worth talking about. The question: does the name of the device make it easier to talk about the games?

"You" Branded

We all know (or should know) that job security is all but gone in today's world. My dad was able to devote his entire career to Boeing and was well rewarded for it. The same can not be said for those that follow him 20 years later.

Tom Peters:

Instead of making yourself a slave to the concept of a career ladder, reinvent yourself on a semiregular basis. Start by writing your own mission statement, to guide you as CEO of Me Inc. What turns you on? Learning something new? Gaining recognition for your skills as a technical wizard? Shepherding new ideas from concept to market? What's your personal definition of success? Money? Power? Fame? Or doing what you love? However you answer these questions, search relentlessly for job or project opportunities that fit your mission statement. And review that mission statement every six months to make sure you still believe what you wrote.

No matter what you're doing today, there are four things you've got to measure yourself against. First, you've got to be a great teammate and a supportive colleague. Second, you've got to be an exceptional expert at something that has real value. Third, you've got to be a broad-gauged visionary -- a leader, a teacher, a farsighted "imagineer." Fourth, you've got to be a businessperson -- you've got to be obsessed with pragmatic outcomes.

It's this simple: You are a brand. You are in charge of your brand. There is no single path to success. And there is no one right way to create the brand called You. Except this: Start today. Or else.

Discount Tire Follow Up

I received a nice email from Linda Davis who apparently works for Discount Tire Co.  Last October I wrote about the terrific service that I got and here is what Linda had to say in response:

"Thank you for the nice comments you made re: your experience @ Discount Tire Co.! We appreciate your business! And to answer your question... a customer for life means we're doing our job right!"

Discount Tire Co. sells tires just like everyone else, what makes them remarkable is the service. Going above and beyond to satisfy a customer can pay off ten fold or more in the long run.

"Free Prize Inside" Market Testing

I am known as "The Popcorn Guy" at my daughter's school. That's right, the Work At Home Dad is chairman of the popcorn/treat committee. Twice a month we sell popcorn and treats to the kids at their lunchtime recess.

While shopping for today's treat, Easter candy, I got this idea to give away one chocolate Easter bunny during each of the three recesses. So we put a sticker on three of the 350 bags of popcorn and let the kids know that if you got the bag with a sticker, you would get a Free Prize!

Picture in your mind a group of crazed teens getting a glimpse of the Beatles in the 60's. Now multiply that frenzy by 5 and you have a good idea of about what happened when we introduced the "Free Prize Inside" concept to the local elementary school.

$5.07 worth of chocolate bunnies created a frenzy. I wonder what would happen if an Internet specialty retailer put an iPod in one or two random packages a month. I'll tell you in May.

The Official Shoe of Work At Home Dad

The "shell toe" came out in 1969, and I followed soon thereafter. Word.

According to Cool Hunting:

In 1986, Run DMC paid homage to their favorite shoe – the adidas Superstar, a.k.a. the “Shell Toe.” Now, at 35 years old, the ubiquitous shoe is again being honored, this time by its creator -- adidas -- by introducing dozens of styles in five different series (ed note: check the city series here), including, of course, a Music Series.

Adidas tapped seven artists – Run DMC, Ian Brown, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Roc-a-Fella Records (Damon Dash), Underworld, Bad Boy Records (P. Diddy) and Missy Elliott – to create their own shoe. Each shoe reflects the artists’ individual style and dedication to the brand – of course adding personal touches, like Missy’s crown insignia on the heel or Run’s signature black and white color scheme.

Run DMC:

my Adidas only bring good news
and they are not used as selling shoes
they're black and white, white with black stripe
the ones I like to wear when I rock the mic

Solution Marketing - Information Mining

When you purchase concert tickets at Ticketmaster, you have the option of answering a few questions about your music, arts, and sports taste and Ticketmaster will send out email updating you on events that are of interest. I gave them permission to let me know when stuff I like is coming to town. Chances are if they do a good job with this, I will buy tickets to events that interest me.

This mornings email was titled: "Don't miss Megadeth"

Hmmmm. Megadeath? Admittedly I am a fan of hard rock from the Grunge era, such as Alice in Chains, Nirvana, The Screaming Trees, and Soundgarden, but I can't recall ever being a fan of Megadeath or Metallica, who I guess are categorized more as Heavy Metal.

In addition to the Megadeath suggestion, Ticketmaster took the time to put together a listing of other events that might interest me...

Leo Kottke? Never heard of him.
Ernestine Anderson with Houston Person? Nope.
Bill Engvall? Uh Uh.
Holly Near & Cris Williamson? Nyet.
Keiko Matsui? Sorry.
Craig Chaquico? Ummmmm No.

Who are these people, Ticketmaster?

Amazon is really good at mining information and giving solid suggestions based on what you purchase. As a customer, I want to hear about things that interest me. In fact let me know that something is coming (that is of interest to me) before releasing the information to the general public and I will feel special. I will buy and I will tell others to buy. I may even tell others to sign up for your updates and newsletters so that they can get the great deals that I get. Get it?

What is a Customer For Life Worth?

My wife and daughter are in Paris this week so this morning I decided to drive our Suburban to drop off my son at school, (I usually drive our other car). When I started to drive I noticed that wheels seemed to be pulling to the right, so after dropping off my son, I went to Discount Tire Co., where I bought the tires a little over a year ago.

Turns out there was a razor blade and a nail in one of the tires and the right front tire was shot because it had been driven on the side wall. My first thought was, "here comes a $400 bill". Would you believe they replaced both tires for free? I only paid for the additional warrantly of $22 per tire.

So this company gave me almost $400 worth of tires today, and driving away I thought about what that gesture is going to be worth to the company. There is no doubt that I will forever buy my tires at Discount Tire Co., which will no doubt be worth thousands of dollars to the company, and there is little doubt that I will tell a lot of people about my experience, potentially worth even more money.

Seth Godin, author of Permission Marketing calls this "sneezing". Whereas your experience with a product or service is so remarkable, you must tell people.

AAHHHHHCCCHHHOOOO! Discount Tire Co. 4 Life, Baby.