BusinessWeek: A Penny Wise, A Pound Foolish
Gene Marks is a best selling author. He’s also a writer for BusinessWeek. He should therefore be trusted, right? Well, not necessarily.
Not to be rude, but small business owners should not take marketing advice from a CPA (nor should you, for that matter, take accounting lessons from a marketer). That just seems silly to me. And it seems equally silly that Gene Marks, a best selling author of books on business accounting and a promoter of CRM solutions, would write an article like this one I found on BusinessWeek this week. The article is full of bad advice, inaccurate statements, lousy leaps of logic, and just plain silly and nutty examples of people who made bad decisions. I tried - I really tried - to see where he was coming from and it finally dawned on me. He’s a penny pincher. It makes sense then that he’s approaching this topic from a small business “I want to save myself some money” perspective. I can respect that.
Nevertheless, I still stand by my opinion that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Why Gene Marks Is Wrong About RSS Feeds
Gene Marks says RSS is not important. I think it is. You can control when you receive your information. You can also control how. And that’s what RSS is really for.
Obviously, RSS is an acronym. It stands for several things, depending on who you listen to. The most popular phrase for which RSS is used is Really Simple Syndication. It really is simple. You can receive news and information on any topic of interest in your e-mail box or online and read it when you want to read it. There are a ton of RSS applications you can use. I recommend Google Reader for the beginner because it’s easy to use and very simple to navigate. It’s also free.
Any time you see a blog or find something online you’d like to subscribe to, just click on the RSS feed button or syndication button and your browser will take you to Google Reader (you have to sign up for a free account first). With one click you can be a subscriber. Whenever the publisher of that news feed publishes their content, you’ll receive that feed into your news reader. You can read it at your convenience. Don’t like a feed? Just cancel. No fuss, no muss.
There are other feed readers. Google Reader isn’t the only one. Some of them allow you to receive your feeds at a predetermined time if you want to. However you do it, you can read them whenever you want and receive only the information you want. Believe me, it’s a powerful tool.
Why Gene Marks Is Wrong About Spam Filters
Who likes spam? No one I know. Then why is Gene Marks telling people not to worry about it? Yes, there are difficulties. You might miss a few good e-mails and you might receive a few spam e-mails you don’t want. No software package is perfect. You still use a word processor, don’t you? You still use a computer even though sometimes it crashes, right?
Most spam filters will let you define what is spam and what is not. Did it flag an e-mail as spam that you don’t consider spam? Whitelist that e-mail address.
The problem with spam is that you might download a virus or malware onto your computer from an unsuspecting spam e-mail. You do need protection. Don’t ignore that. I’ve recently discovered Mozilla’s e-mail application, Thunderbird, with its built in spam filter. It’s better than Outlooks. I like it.
Why Gene Marks Is Wrong About Antivirus Software
Do you like computer crashes? Isn’t it fun losing all of your information because that new kid you hired decided to download a cool game onto your computer? Sure it is. That’s why Gene Marks says don’t use antivirus software. I’ve never experienced a problem with Norton or AVG slowing down my computers and I’ve never needed an astronaut to fire up my computer. This one just has me baffled, Gene.
Why Gene Marks Is Wrong About Blogs
Do you know HTML? You can actually have a website without one. All you need is a domain name, which you can get for $10, and WordPress, a blogging platform that allows you to create web pages and write directly to a website without knowing any code. Why pay a web design team thousands of dollars to build you a cool website. Just have one designer design you a unique WordPress template for about $500 and you can have your very own website that you can update any time you want. Pretty simple.
Even if you’ve got a static HTML website, a blog will add fresh daily content to your website and bring the search engine spiders to your site more often to crawl it. Like high rankings? A blog will help. Want to fall to the bottom of the content pile in the daily search engine shuffle? Take Gene’s advice. You’ll never rank well for your key terms anyway so why bother (wink wink). Trust me, I’ve got two blogs and I’m so glad I do.
Don’t feel like writing? Hire a ghostwriter. Don’t want to post every day? Post every other day, or once a week. That’s better than nothing.
Why Gene Marks Is Wrong About SEO
Gene Marks doesn’t like SEO. Why? Because one guy had a bad experience with a bad SEO consultant. That’s like saying automobile maintenance is bad because you were ripped off by a car mechanic once. Come on, Gene. It’s the 21st century and the Internet is here to stay. It’s called marketing. SEO is the name of the game. Learn it, hire someone you trust who knows how to do it, or sit on the sidelines and watch. Oh, and Gene, you don’t need a lot of money to do SEO right. That’s big myth.
Why Gene Marks Is Wrong About Mobile Applications
And I guess it’s science fiction, Gene, that people are actually making money by marketing themselves to mobile phone users? How would you know since you obviously don’t use facts. No, it isn’t for everyone. Are you an auto mechanic in the smallest town in rural Kansas serving a small community and the few passers through who stop by on their way to Topeka? Maybe you don’t need it. But if you own a retail store in L.A. trying to reach a highly mobile target market then that’s a different story. Sorry, Gene. But wrong is wrong.
Why Gene Marks Is Wrong About CRM Software
Gene Marks works for a company that sells CRM software, but he doesn’t think small businesses need it. So why does he cavort with the devil?
Well, he does make a good point. If you aren’t going to use it then don’t spend $20,000. That’s just throwing money out a window. But if you’re a small business on a limited budget, why not just get a free open source application that does the trick? I recommend Joomla or Drupal. Both are adequate CRM systems for small business owners. And since they’re free, if you don’t use them then you haven’t risked anything.
Why Gene Marks Is Wrong About AdWords
I’m not an expert on AdWords, but I do know people who have used Google AdWords and other pay per click models to turn a profit. You don’t need thousands of dollars. You can make money on a $200 per month budget. Many have. You just have to learn how it’s done. You didn’t know how to run a business either until you tried. Right, Gene?
Why Gene Marks Is Wrong About Online Video
What do Madonna and Radiohead have in common? They both made money and sold albums by using online video. So have other entreprenuers. Even nonmusical entrepreneurs. And you don’t need thousands of dollars. You need a digital camera and some creativity. Just look at the YouTube videos that people are using to drive traffic. Do all of them work? No. But then, 90% of all business start ups are out of business in 5 years. Gene doesn’t recommend you work at McDonald’s flipping burgers.
Why Gene Marks Is Right About Web 2.0
Most small businesses don’t need wiki or some high-tech gonzo gadget. If you want it and you can make it work for you, fine. But all you really need are useful tools for conducting your business. I’m not quite sure what Web 2.0 is. No one else is either. But I am sure that your business can use the Internet to market yourself. You likely don’t need every tool available. But it’s nice to know what is out there and how it works in case you can find a use for it.
Melberg Marketing
Blue Chip Marketing Tips
Small Business Mavericks
Tags: businessweek, gene marks, Internet marketing, small business
January 8th, 2008 at 9:10 am
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January 8th, 2008 at 9:24 am
[…] a section of a blog post about BusinessWeek columnist Gene Marks’ absurd assertions that small businesses don’t need Internet marketing, Caroline Melberg had this to say: I’m […]
January 15th, 2008 at 11:15 am
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January 15th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
[…] number of these costs have been guesstimated over at Blue Chip Marketing Tips. She also mentions that Gene Marks is a “penny pincher” by his own admission, failing […]
January 15th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
[…] components including blogs, RSS feeds, online video, and search engine marketing tools. The Blue Chip Marketing Tips blog did a wonderful job of eviscerating his article from the January 4, 2008 issue of Business […]
January 15th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Here are some other reasons:
RSS allows you to choose the information you want to read.
Small business doesn’t have the resources (time, people, & money) to clean up after a spam infection. Better preventative spam medicine.
Same for anti virus. I wonder if this guy waits until he has a medical problem before seeking medical advice. I don’t think he understands what preventative care means.
A web site is like a billboard in the dark. who cares if they don’t know its there. Why have one if it not tune so that visitors come to it. Do you have to pay to get your customers there. Then it is just another useless piece of marketing collateral. This guy doesn’t understand basic marketing marketing. In fact I daresay he doesn’t understand basic business principles.
I’m beginning to get mad so I’ll stop right here.
Very nice post.
What an idiot Gene Marks is.
January 16th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Wow. I really enjoyed reading this post, and completely agree with you on every level. Gene really DOESN’T know what he’s talking about. I think people with perspectives like him want to move backwards and cling to the past. The marketing world is changing, and those that thing their current marketing media are working, simply don’t want to learn something new, even if it could work even better.
I wish more would embrace the ideas of e-marketing and new media. THEY are the future.
January 22nd, 2008 at 5:33 am
I agree with your post. I think the advice offered by Marks and Business Week is dangerous from a security standpoint alone. You nailed each issue, save one. You recommended “Joomla or Drupal” as a CRM solution. Those are actually Content Management Systems not “customer relationship management” systems. These are very different. Customer Relationship Management is a very useful tool for the small business person because it allows you to leverage the potential of each customer as well as grow your business by leveraging referrals and new business from the original crop. There are many ways to do this, and yes some cost thousands of dollars. Frankly, I like my notepad and stack of business cards, but that makes it difficult to send a broadcast email announcement. (oh… that’s free too eh? LOL)
Another quote you offered, “Don’t take marketing advice from a CPA.” After I wiped the coffee from my chin, I had to laugh out loud. I went into business with an accountant and he suddenly became the marketer of the century… well in his own mind. After he slashed the budget and eliminated all forms of advertising, I walked away from the business and consider it one of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever made. FACT: Marketing and advertising costs money. FACT: The return on each dollar should exceed the dollar spent. FACT: Saving the ad dollar now can cost you not only now, but in the long term through loss of momentum, loss of revenue and loss of identity. FACT: The first quarter of our partnership resulted in more than $250,000 in sales. FACT: “Pinching pennies” and removing the “expense” of advertising resulted in less than the first quarter in the next 3 quarters combined. … …. ….. Okay, this turned into a rant about taking advice from an accountant, sorry. Your point is quite valid; consider who you’re taking advice from. Are they qualified? Or are they simply persuasive?