The Fuller Brush Man

Posted on June 10, 2015 by johnmalik

I can remember one of these guys coming to the house. If I’m before your time, let me explain. Many years ago, it was not an uncommon practice to hire a sales force, equip them with everything they needed, then send them out into suburbia where they would go door to door. It was the ultimate in cold calling. Just knock on the door in the middle of the day. This was a fairly common practice after Word War 2 when most suburban women didn’t have jobs outside of the home. In our home in south Louisiana, courtesy the travelling salesman, we were exposed to vacuum cleaners, encyclopedias, life insurance, soaps, potato chips, milk, and of course Fuller brushes. The Fuller Brush Company made brushes for hair, toilets, grills, cars, pets, etc and these guys were famously pushy. They carried their wares in a huge suitcase and would walk through neighborhoods selling directly from their case. They banked on their pushiness and a housewife would often buy just to get rid of them. They were so common that in 1948 MGM made a movie titled The Fuller Brush Man featuring comedian Red Skelton.

Red Skelton as the Fuller Brush Man

Ever heard that saying, “just get your foot in the door”? That was a tactic of door to door salesmen. Stick your toe over the threshold of the door and a sweet housewife wouldn’t dream of closing the door on your foot. And that gave you enough time to be charming, or stubborn. The Fuller Brush guy that came to our house (I was probably four) didn’t count on Mrs. Virginia Malik asking him if he wanted to retain the use of his left foot for the rest of the day. And that was our first and last experience with Fuller brushes. But when the guy from Charles Chips walked up, you bet we all screamed for chips.

The Charles Chip company went door to door in big delivery vans. They dropped off a fresh can and picked up the empty ones.

In today’s world, social media is our new front door, especially Facebook. It’s so integrated into our daily lives that our wall feels like a front door and its Messenger has replaced the telephone. If you’ve got a Facebook page for your business, you’ve probably had that front door opened up long enough so someone can stick their toe in your door. Over the last couple years, I’ve intercepted spam from all sorts of well-meaning but clueless folks. Beauty pageant contestants, charities, authors, bloggers, city officials, and in the last few months I’ve seen an upturn in businesses spamming other business pages. One of my clients is a pediatric dentist and his office gets more spam than all my other clients combined.

Here’s the deal, folks. People buy from people they like. And in business, before you stick your foot in the door, perhaps you should take some time to understand your prospect. Maybe even consider doing business with them first. Care to guess how many half-pound burgers I ate before one of my restaurant clients said yes?

And if your business is ladies clothing, why on earth would you spam a pediatric dentist and demand (“I’ve shared your post, now you share mine”) he like your page and share your post? Especially since you’ve never set foot in his office.

I’m hardly an authority on professional sales tactics. But I know what works. Get to know people first, understand their business, then figure out if you can help them. If they’re looking for something I can’t deliver, I’ll tell them so then pass their info off to a real marketing professional. If they’re looking for affordable social media, without all the bells and whistles that a full service marketing company provides (and charges for) then maybe I’m the guy they’re looking for. So today’s lesson is do not stick your foot in the door and do not spam a Facebook page. Practice good manners, follow professional sales techniques, and do so every day and you won’t get your foot slammed in the door.

Googled

Posted on March 30, 2015 by johnmalik

A thousand dollars a month. That’s what my client was spending on Google Ads.

Yikes!

Yet when he came to me, he had one goal. “Keep me up front on my Google search results.” Well sure, that’s easy if one has a significant budget for Google Ads but eventually that money’s going to run out. Then what? He had a significant following on Facebook but lately it’s been tough to get noticed on that blue juggernaut unless you’re willing to put money behind your updates. And how do you get Facebook money turned into meaningful Google search results? Most marketers know that one needs fresh web content to make a dent in Google, but with everyone else in a competitive segment creating fresh content, one’s content better have legs.

Will your content turn the right heads?

And that means publishing something of value, an essay that will be enjoyed, shared and commented on. So I wrote an emotional post on how quickly our children grow and change. That’s a familiar theme that every parent can identify with, yet I kept it around five hundred words. Then I utilized his significant Facebook following by posting at the right time, in this case on a late Sunday afternoon. I put $20 behind the update to make sure that a majority of his followers had the opportunity to engage with his website. And 24 hours later, I had the desired results.

Keep in mind that my client is in a fairly competitive field and his business model requires a significant number of daily visits to his medical office. His patients are his lifeblood, but his patient’s parents are paying the bills. My post appealed to the parents, tugged at the necessary emotions and reminded them why they patronize my client in the first place. And the client got what he was looking for: Google search results, shares, comments, and thank yous.

Would you like to read my post? I’d love to share it but I can’t because I promise this particular client anonymity. When his clients tell him “I love your writing”, he just smiles and says “Thank you.”

Hey, he’s signing the checks, right?

May I help you? My rates are affordable and I can customize my services to fit your needs. And I’m a published author that knows how to get readers. Give me a call and we’ll talk.

Faster, Harder, Farther

Posted on February 13, 2015 by johnmalik

I’m a fairly emotional guy. I don’t mean that I cry often, rather I tend to linger over fond memories. Perhaps too much. Maybe that’s why I enjoy looking through old photographs. Recently my wife asked me to help her find a photo of us from Mardi Gras. We broke out stacks of real photos and spent a few hours reminiscing. The memories flooded past in glossy, colorful, slightly faded pieces of our lives. Four by six, five by seven, and a few wallets; California, Romania, Louisiana, New York, London, and South Carolina. And I found myself wanting to make memories worthy of a photograph.

Taking a photo used to be a big deal. You had to carry a camera, film, and perhaps an additional lens. Then the film had to be developed, photos were printed and paid for. So one only carried a camera if you were going to do something worthy of the trouble and expense. Today it’s so easy, it’s not uncommon to share a photo of a peanut butter and jelly in the process of being made. And where’s the adventure in that?

I want to take more photos like this one, and less of my sandwiches.

A poorly-timed photograph taken on the top of Looking Glass Mountain, late fall of 1998. That’s my faithful Jack Russell Terrier, Bonnie and my wife Amy holding her leash. As usual, Bonnie is waiting for me.

If you’re familiar with dogs, Jacks are notoriously high-strung. They’re smart, energetic, and relentless. Once they decide to do something, there’s no stopping them. And Bonnie was no different. If we went for a hike, a swim in the ocean, a long walk, or a car ride, it was never enough just to go. She had to go faster, harder, farther. Case in point, in this photo she is as usual, waiting on me.

In our relationships, both personal, and business, we should all have a Bonnie. A faithful companion that extols us to success. Someone that we love and respect, someone that we’ll go that last mile for.

In one of my endeavors, I have an entire team of Bonnies. In July, I’ll ride across the state to raise money for the SC Alzheimer’s Association and I’ve got some teammates to encourage and push me to success. Yet I still feel like I’m missing something. I need someone to encourage and push me in my business relationships, and it feels like that’s missing from my life. A friendly competitor, someone to race me to the top of the mountain then pat me on the back when I’ve come in second, or third. We all measure success differently and I don’t use money as a yardstick. Are my kids becoming responsible? Am I protecting my family? Are my clients happy and are they getting their money’s worth? Because life isn’t about the destination, it’s really about the journey and our journey begins anew every morning. And today I’m going to try and pray harder, run quicker, pedal faster, and make my clients happier. And I’d like to do this while I work towards taking more photos of real adventures, and less photos of peanut butter & jelly sandwiches.

Do you have a Bonnie in your life? Someone, or some dog, that is constantly pushing you to success? I think I do, I just need to remind them.

9 Reasons why Jack Russell is great at Social Media

Posted on January 10, 2015 by johnmalik

9 Reasons Why You shouldn’t Move or Visit Greenville, SC in 2015. Yeah, that was me. And judging by my recent success in the Huffington Post, I really should be a travel writer. And I would if I could get someone to pay me to travel, and snorkel, and ski, and hike, and sample craft brews…and I should really try to stay focused here.

In March, my wife and I spent a long weekend in St. Pete, Florida and when we returned I penned an article for the Huff Post. We had a great time, great weather and we thoroughly enjoyed the funky vibe, the wonderful Cuban food, and their craft beer scene. I shared this article with the visitor’s bureau in St. Pete and it took off from there. Within 24 hours it made a significant impact in the St. Pete area. Just as I expected. The St. Pete/Tampa area has maybe 3.5 million folks so that’s a hefty built-in customer base. As you can see, it received 6.4K likes and garnered probably 70,000 readers.

The first week of January I wrote this piece on my town and jokingly labeled it 9 reasons not to move or visit Greenville. Our county has about 460,000 residents. Our city? About 62,000. Yet the amount of shares, likes, tweets, etc it has received is more than double what the story on St. Pete received. And as of today, it’s still getting shared.

I knew this story would be well-received for several reasons. I have a strong following on my social media, Greenvillians love their town, and the overall tone of the story was tongue-in-cheek, a far cry from most travel/tourism related features. But Holy Moly! This story went viral in a big way. (170,000+ impressions) I’ve got a few ideas as to why that is but I can’t say my ideas are fool-proof. In the past few years, Greenville has had a fair amount of press. Perhaps the level of interest is because so much has already been written about St. Pete as a travel destination, and Greenville is just finding its legs. The story on St. Pete went live at the end of a miserable winter for much of the US so I would think that had something to do with its interest level. And in the middle of a cold snap that’s settled over much of the country, perhaps a new story on St. Pete would receive more interest than the recent story on Greenville? The only way to test my theory is to return to St. Pete.

In the meantime, how may I help you? My company manages social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, Four Square, and Google+. And we do it anonymously. We’ll ask the right questions, discover your company’s strengths, conceive a voice, then go to work. We’re clever, funny, and mature. We’ll keep you up to date on your clients and provide insights and updates. We know how to get the most out of social media and we’re affordable. If you’re not leveraging your social media to its fullest potential, give us a call. Or a tweet.

And now for that return trip to St. Pete. Hello Delta?

I Predict a Tie

Posted on December 12, 2014 by johnmalik

As Rich Gore made his way to the front door of my restaurant, I put an arm around his shoulder, pulled him close and mumbled, “I’m gonna wipe the floor with Phillipe.”

Rich pulled on his jacket and smiled casually. “Malik, I’m gonna predict a tie.”

Once upon a time, I was a B list celebrity chef with an A list ego. And I’ve also had a competitive nature for a very long time, and while that nature has many positives, it also comes with a bit of a downside. And that’s what led me to spend an afternoon in a local shopping mall wearing a chef’s coat and a red silk boxer’s robe. The Food Network was in town with a travelling live show that included a wine tasting, cooking demos, cookbook signings and a cooking competition; but with a guy like me on stage, I planned on winning, no questions asked. Cue the theme from Rocky. But over in the producer’s corner was Rich Gore. And he was going to make sure the whole thing ended in a tie.

When show time came the next day, myself and Chef Phillipe Chin each had a mystery basket of ingredients, a picked-from-the-audience assistant, and a pantry of dry goods, the MC Bill Boggs, and a special guest in none other than Southern food authority Nathalie DuPree. We had thirty minutes to cook and an audience of a couple hundred shoppers watching and cheering us on. Like many other cooking demonstrations I’ve done, it was on a narrow stage with a minimum of equipment, and little room to work. But that can be a lot of fun, and I’ve always been good at making do with what I have. When Nathalie called time, I believe I had three different dishes. Likewise Phillipe. And I have no idea what I made, I can’t remember. But I will remember the next few minutes for a very long time. Mr. Boggs announced that the winner would be declared through the audience’s reaction and that our producer, Mr. Gore, would measure their reaction trough his computer. I looked down at Rich as he donned a pair of enormous headphones. In one hand he held a heavy laptop computer, in the other he hoisted what looked like the antennae from an old Chevy. The antennae had a wire wrapped around it and it was plugged into his computer. And those of us on the stage were the only ones that knew the laptop wasn’t turned on. Rich stood up and waved that antennae around and pretended to listen intently to the beeps of his reaction-judging software while Bill Boggs had everyone cheering first for me, then for Phillipe. After a couple of minutes, Rich whipped off his headphones and with unbridled enthusiasm announced: “It’s too close, we gotta do it again!”

Cue the theme from Rocky!

And I stood up there laughing myself stupid.

We did the whole thing again and Bill really got everyone screaming and yelling, first for Phillipe then for me. Rich directed his antennae towards the loudest screams and the shouts, his eyes wide and intent on judging their enthusiasm. Finally he ripped off his headphones, threw his arms into the air and with a look of shock and disbelief announced a tie.

“It’s too close to call. It’s a tie!”

Phillipe and I were both laughing so hard that Phillipe chided me. He was afraid we would give away the secret.

“Chef! Behave, behave.”

“Yes, Chef.”

What was at stake? From the chef’s point of view, not much. Phillipe and I both had solid reputations; there was no money riding on the outcome, no contracts to star in the latest cooking show, no kiss from the local beauty queen. What was at stake was Rich’s reputation and his desire to be successful. And he measured success in the audience’s laughter, smiles, and applause. So what if the chicken dishes were thrown together in thirty minutes or less, did the audience enjoy the show? And the answer was yes. When we came off the stage, me and Phillipe signed autographs, took handshakes and returned a lot of smiles. And the biggest one was from Rich.

“What’d I tell ya, Malik? It was a tie.”

That’s a lesson I’ve carried with me for a long time. Is your audience getting what they came for? Have you engaged your audience, your staff, your customers, or your family? Are they having a good time enjoying the show, their job, or just their day? When you’re on the stage, the real winner should be the audience.

Thanks, Rich.