One shamefaced admission and one funny Bird Story – both instructive

Two big mistakes – one mine, and I got my wrist slapped – the other applies to most of the people I come across

A day or so ago I got an email from Firestarter Video in Hollywood with a very good heading:

How we are getting quality web traffic for 10% of the cost of Google pay-per-click traffic?

It read:

“Recently we started using a new online marketing strategy called “retargeting”. Using this strategy we are getting high quality clicks to our web site for as little as 10% of what we pay Google for pay-per-click traffic and it’s super easy to implement.”

Now I have many faults, but one of the most irritating and stupid is that I am a smart-arse. So as I know all about re-targeting I replied “Wow, talk about last year’s news!”

Adam Hudson of Firestarter chided me saying my comment “sounded more like the arrogance of a young entrepreneur rather than a response from a seasoned marketing pro such as yourself.

“I simply sent an email about something I have only just discovered and is working for us. I was trying to add value, something someone in your line of work should understand perfectly well.

“Earlier today I received another email from a client worth around $100M who had never heard of retargeting. He was delighted to discover how it works and thanked me for sharing my limited experience so openly.”

I apologised to him because I was being rude and stupid. I may know something and you may know something – but many people don’t. And goodness knows, I have made much of my living from repeating such things. What a fool.

This brings me to my other story – a riddle my colleague Al told me.

Three birds are sitting on a fence. Two decide to fly away. How many birds are left on the fence?

Answer: three.

Deciding is not the same as doing.

If you subscribed to my helpful ideas, you may recall that the very first is about the difference between people who get things done and those who sit around having meetings.

The good example was Hargreaves Lansdown who do get things done and in this country are the most successful in their field  by a very long chalk, many times bigger than their nearest competitor.

I have a very funny video interview with Peter Hargreaves where he talks about meetings – which most people in most firms could benefit from. I shall show an extract on Saturday at EADIM, which is completely sold out, Praise the Lord.