“The times are tough now
Just getting tougher
This old world is rough
It’s just getting rougher”

These days, it’s all too easy to hear the opening verse to Bruce Springsteen’s “Cover Me” and pull a muscle in your neck from nodding your head in vigorous agreement.

Times are tough, which means that agencies and contractors and consultants and such are working harder than ever to land new clients. Which means that all that time and effort spent to land a new client that winds up going elsewhere can be a big disappointment.

Or not.

I first heard from — well, for the sake of this post, I’ll call them Company X — back in April. A friend of mine knew about my online experience and thought they should talk to me: Company X has a modest Web site and they desperately need a redesign and some SEO 101 work done.

It took about two months before the initial conference call was set up. I spoke at length with the President and CEO of the company. We emailed back and forth. A designer-programmer team I know and respect got involved and provided estimates. By July I had assembled a detailed proposal and sent it over.

A month after sending over the proposal, I still hadn’t heard anything back from them. No acknowledgment of receipt. No “thanks, we’ll keep you posted.” Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Squat.

I continued to follow up without being too pushy, and in August received this message from the President and CEO: “We haven’t moved forward with anyone yet on this … still trying to determine the right price/value. Thanks for checking in.” Fair enough. That’s part of being in business: You propose, then you wait. And wait. And wait some more. And eventually, if you’re lucky, you get the gig and everything needs to be done yesterday.

But back to the timeline: In early September I receive this message from a manager in the company: “We have been doing some research and would like to speak to you.  Please call me when you have a chance.” Sounds promising. We speak. They want me to come to their New York office in September to deliver a capabilities presentation.

Nearly two months pass before I get a response from Company X regarding timing and specifics of the presentation. We set a date for early November. I circle back with my designer-programmer team, spend some significant time assembling the Powerpoint presentation and incorporating the inevitable and appropriate revisions to my original proposal called for by the passage of more than six months since we first spoke.

The presentation seems to go well enough, though I’m given the last slot of the day, they keep me waiting nearly 45 minutes before we can begin, there’s a room full of people (plus several more on the phone) they never told me would be there (despite my asking how many people would be there, since I wanted to bring the appropriate number of hard copies with me) and one person seems to be falling asleep during the time we spend together.

The meeting ends with an agreement that they would follow up immediately with additional information about a new component of the work they want done. After one week, it doesn’t arrive. It doesn’t arrive after two weeks, either. Three weeks after the meeting, they respond to yet another follow-up email with this curt and impersonal response:

“Thank you for your follow up email.  We have decided to go with another company.  We will keep you in mind if it does not work out.”

Thanks, but no thanks.

Yes, it’s always nice to bring on a new client, but the signals were there all along: Clearly Company X does not respect my time. They’re unable to respond to emails without relentless prodding to do so. When they do, there’s zero recognition of effort spent or value added. For example:

At one point, they wanted to know why Competitor Y was receiving so many inbound links when Company X and others in their industry received only a fraction of the number of links (as measured by HubSpot’s Website Grader). I researched the issue and provided a detailed answer. Never a word of thanks from Company X.

Working on a Web redesign project with Company X is clearly going to be a nightmare. I don’t know who got the gig, but I genuinely pity them. Whatever the number was at which they priced the job, they should have doubled it.

New clients are always welcome. New clients who are rude and/or disrespectful and/or arrogant and/or have a sense of entitlement are not.

Okay, there. I got it out of my system. But there really is a larger point to this rant:

Takeaway for marketers: The Golden Rule has a place in business. If you’re going through an agency or a consultant selection process, take it to heart.

We’re in the middle of a short work week. Lots of people are taking Black Friday off to make it a four-day weekend, and lots more will slack off tomorrow to travel and to make those last-minute shopping trips for cranberry sauce, stuffing and hors d’oeuvres.

So how do we make the most of this short week at a time when it seems like no one else is picking up phones and answering emails? Here are a few ideas:

1. Back up your data — When was the last time you backed up the important data on your hard drive? Come on, you know you’re overdue: That Blue Screen of Death is just lurking over there in the corner waiting for your weakest moment.

2. Create a status report for yourself — Whether you’re handling multiple tasks for a single employer or juggling a variety of jobs for multiple clients, take a step back from your work and create a line-item list of what needs to be done and the tasks necessary for getting there. Seeing your ToDo list articulated this way helps you wrap your head around what needs to be done … and makes it all seem just a bit less overwhelming.

3. Read that business book you’ve been meaning to read — If you’re like me, you have a stack of business books you’ve been meaning to dig into sooner or later. It’s sooner. Pick one and go for it.

4. Clean the useless files off your hard drive — Actually, you ought to do this before you address number one above. Take the time to go through your hard drive and delete those folders and files you no longer need. If you think you’ll need them someday, burn a few data DVDs. Remove those programs you installed two years ago and haven’t used in 23 months.

5. Learn something new — Now that you have that Google Wave invitation, take the time to view the instructional videos and play with it. Set up that LinkedIn group you’ve been meaning to create. Download and play with Hootsuite. All those cool Web things you’ve been hearing about and wanting to try? Pick one (or two or three) and … well, try them.

6. Update your spyware and adware software — It’s not just about Norton or McAfee. Make sure your Ad-Aware and Spybot and others are updated. (Here are a few software suggestions.) Scan your system. in fact, do this after you do number four above and before you do number one.

7. Relax and recharge — In the long run, it’ll probably make you more productive. So have another turkey leg and a third piece of pie. Enjoy!

The other day, I saw a new discussion posted to the Digital Marketing group on LinkedIn titled: “Are Articles Really All That? Learn How To Explode Your Traffic Generation Using The Written Word.”

Having done a significant amount of article marketing over the last two years, and having been an editorial professional since the Reagan administration, the post naturally caught my eye. I anticipated, though, that it would probably be a sales pitch for the kind of cheap article creation I ranted about last year.

Well, what the hell, here’s the whole post — unedited:

There are many ways of promoting your business and generating traffic. Some of these methods available to you are completely free and will not cost you a dime. One way in particular has proven itself to double and triple your traffic, even over time. This method only requires you to put the work in once and then you can reap the benefit for a long time thereafter. Through this method, you are providing great content for free and helping out other people by giving them value.

This tried and true method is writing articles. Articles are easy to write and only require the time it takes to compile them. After compiling just one article, you can then upload it to many different places such as your blog, facebook, linkedin, and article sites allowing that one article to market for you in front of far greater numbers of people. Now, lets just say that you only right two articles per week and upload them to 30 or so different locations, that is 60 articles per week, 240 articles per month, and 2,880 articles per year. That is only two articles a week doing all that work for you. You can certainly right more than that if you desire, the sky is really the limit. Just bring real value to the table with each one and no one will mind.

A word of caution in article writing is this – remember to keep the pitch to a minimum. There is 95:5 ratio to keep in mind. Always give 95% and just take 5% and your readers will appreciate you all the more. No one wants to be sold so do not try to sell. Instead truly focus on a problem that they are having and help them try to fix it with the information you provide. A good rule of thumb is too only sign your articles with your signature which can include a headline and link about your site. That is all the take that you get from the article. In other words, do not try to sell water to someone. Instead focus on the horrible thirst that they currently have and identify with them that there is a solution. Then leave the solution in your signature and let them make an informed decision for themselves.

If you are one of those who is trying to right articles and feel like you are not getting anywhere, I encourage you to be consistent. That is key in this game. People who do anything sporadically are never going to achieve their goals at anything, article marketing is no different. Stay on top of your writing skills and stay on top of returning comments and you will be fine. An easy way to stay on course is to think down the road and see the thousands of articles you have generated and leveraged in your favor. I wish all of you the best of luck.

I debated whether or not to provide this guy’s name and Web site, then opted not to. I don’t want to give him even the tiniest iota of SEO benefit.

But look at this: Here’s someone who is advising people to “stay on top of your writing skills” and is also advising people to “right two articles per week” and “right more than that if you desire.”

Good Lord.

The proliferation of profoundly crappy information is a serious issue in LinkedIn discussions. The good news in this particular case is that when I went back to the Digital Marketing group this morning to see if any other comments had been posted to the thread, the discussion had been deleted.

Takeaway for marketers: If you’re not participating in LinkedIn discussions, please do; the community needs you more than you know. And if you are participating, don’t be hesitant to call out the crap for what it is when you see it.

While waiting on line in the post office yesterday, I was flipping through the latest copy of DMNews. Susan Pepperdine of Pepperdine PR has a letter in the September 28 issue that really nails it. It’s in response to “Has New Media Changed Copywriting?” I couldn’t find the letter on the DMNews site so I’m reproducing it below. I couldn’t have said it any better; thanks, Susan.

You ask, “Has new media changed copywriting?” (Gloves Off, August 17, DMNews) I agree with “contender” Suzanne Darmory Dunleavy, who says that copywriting must still “be on brand, be on strategy, be engaging, target the right audience with the right tone and have a clear call to action.” Contender Steve Caputo, meanwhile, says that new media have affected the writing process in part because of “unprecedented speed.”

Unfortunately, speed seems to have become an excuse for sloppy writing. Yet reporters have always had to produce accurate copy — and follow Associated Press style — while racing against deadlines. Since my background is in journalism, I’m acutely aware of a daily parade of typos, misspellings, poor grammar and style errors. Careful writing in any medium still helps ensure (not “insure”) that your message is clearly communicated. When someone writes, “Your welcome” or “Please bare with me” — both of which I’ve seen lately — I think the company doesn’t care about quality.

Other mistakes I’ve seen:

• Confusing “Everyday low prices” and “Low prices every day.” (“Every day” should be two words in the second usage.)
• Using apostrophes to form plurals.
• Misusing “its” and “it’s” or “their,” “there” and “they’re.”
• Confusing “principle” and “principal” or “complimentary” and “complementary.”
• Not bothering to check the spelling of tricky words (“impostor,” not “imposter;” “mantle,” not “mantel;” “trooper,” not “trouper”).

These days the fingernails-on-the-blackboard error I see most frequently is “Get it for free.” Writers seem to like the alliteration, but the “for” is unnecessary.

One last quibble: Most stylebooks still hold that the word “media” requires a plural verb. So your article’s headline should have been, “Have news media changed copywriting?”

Ironically, DMNews printed “Associated Press” as “Associate Press.” (I corrected it in the version above.) I hope the typo didn’t cause Susan to grind her teeth to bare nubs. Or nub’s.

I saw Dr. Wayne Dyer speak in New York City last night. He spent part of his three-and-a-half hours talking about this must-read opinion piece that appeared in a Philippine newspaper in July 2008.

It’s a story about a remarkable cab driver who doubled his income in one year, then quadrupled it the next, by simply changing his attitude.

But it’s not just a story about how to make more money, it’s a story about how to not be a part of the Sturgeon’s Law majority in whatever area of life you choose.

Just read it. I bet Wally the cab driver becomes your newest hero.

Take away for marketers: You have choice: quack or soar.