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At some point in your day or week you are bound to encounter someone who is having a bad day. They may be just trying to take their frustrations out on something or someone and you may just happen to be there when they do. As long as we don’t take it personally many have skills to try to diffuse the situation and help that person onto a better day for themselves.

But what about when you really feel they need it brought to their attention that they could show better manners and a little composure?

I once saw a veteran schoolteacher handle a disruptive 8th grade boy with a tact that left a lasting impression on me. The class was working on individual projects at various locations in the room and this child became very frustrated and angry at something he perceived another student did. He loudly began expressing his emotions in angry, hostile words. As a first year teacher my first impression was to walk over and bluntly tell him something along the lines of, “Calm down! You do not act like that in this classroom! Knock it off!”

Instead, this teacher calmly looked up from her desk and called out in a cooing, mother-like voice, “Oh Bobbeeeee! Are you having a baaad daayyy?!” I was a little surprised that she was simply going to make this coddling remark and not do anything about the child clearly having misbehaved in a very innappropriate way.

But the child suddenly realized that his teacher’s remark caused all eyes in the room to stare at him. Realizing everyone was curious as to what exactly was going on with him that was so bad to cause him to behave in such a dramatic fashion, his eyes became wide with embarrassment. Now, of course, she had years of practice in using the right delivery and tone of voice with that remark.

Any variation in how she said it could have have catostrophic results in her standing with the other students, depending on how the boy reacted. He pointed and mumbled something about the desk then grew very quiet with the realization it was on record that everyone was witnessing him overreact to a very small matter.

On that day I saw a first hand example of what I instinctively already knew, that creatively diffusing a difficult situation with a frustrated individual is usually more effective than responding harshly.

A college professor I had told a story of a child who tried to get a reaction from a teacher by riding his horse into the classroom one day.

“Can you imagine how a first year teacher would react to this?” he said.

He went on to explain however that this was a teacher of 30 years experience, and he knew exactly how to react. The veteran teacher (who obviously had seen EVERYTHING) didn’t flinch, smiled broadly, and said, “My my, John, that is a FINE looking animal!” I have not always had people believe me when I have told this story and that this teacher gave the most effective reaction.

But according to the story, the students in the class then all looked at John on top of the horse, wondering what he was going to do next. He hadn’t anticipated the teacher’s warm and enthusiastic reaction; he planned that the horse would enrage the teacher and all the kids would be laughing at his efforts to make a monkey out the teacher. Instead, in this situation, it was John’s embarrassment that was now on display, with the whole class watching.

Most of the time, except for the exceptions of a very spoiled child, people who are behaving badly realize they are behaiving badly. When their behavior is acknowledged in a non-threatening way, they usually awaken to their senses somewhat.

But there are still people who do not always realize they are lashing out or using tone of voice and/or words that come across as demeaning or condescending in their informal daily interactions. And you may want to get your point across to them that you are not comfortable with the way they are treating you. While there is no such thing as the perfect response that works 100% of the time, here is a sugestion that allows you to communicate those things you are thinking towards that person in subtle way. (Be honest, you would like to say “Do you realize how annoying and rude you are acting? Here is the list of things you need to stop doing and stop doing now!….”

If you are thinking that person is clearly crossing the line in how they are talking to you, instead, try acknowledging or thanking them for their comments and then saying (in an appropriate tone of voice): “I hope your day gets better!”

Notice the emphasis on delivery, especially the tone of voice you use. A sarcastic or patronizing tone of voice will surely just make the person angrier and make the situation worse. But think of yourself in that situation. Someone tells you in a helpful way that you were not acting in a courteous manner; you probably will realize they have a point and your next step may be to possibly apologize to them.

If delivered in the right tone of voice, in most cases this simple comment can let them know they really should control themselves the next time they act rudely towards you. The worst that can happen is they will challenge why you said it and you will be able to respond that you were simply concerned that something may not be going right for them on this particular day.

I hope your day gets better!

Spence Kimball

If so, then we ought to imagine how today’s successful internet marketers would seek their fortune if they lived during the early days of the original California Gold Rush. Would they be the first to arrive in the hills of California, pick and shovel in hand, eager to bust their fortune by delivering the real gold?
Maybe.
Probably not.
But most certainly, you would see a plethora of books come out on the subject, “How to Make Your Fortune Mining For Gold.”
Prospective buyers would read “You would be a fool going to the hills of California without reading my gold-mining course first of all. Everything you need to know on purchasing the right minining tools to the science of where to look for gold. My course will give you an unfair advantage in WHERE to look for gold so YOU WILL NOT WASTE YOUR TIME looking for gold where there is none to be had! Any serious gold prospector would not be caught dead rushing off to the gold rush without first buying my ‘How to Find Gold” course!”
Hence, the real fortunes of the Gold Rush would be made not in finding the actual gold but in marketing the “HOW TO” courses on mining for gold!
And they would certainly deliver the information. Every tidbit on minining and prospecting available from every library book would be compiled and thrown together for the would-be prospector.
This would be necessary because the authors of these courses would be savvy enough to provide their customers with LOTS of mining and prospecting information, and probably throw in some instruction on weather trends, travel tips, survival guides, shelter construction, mapping and surveying to boot. You name it, if it could relate to mining for gold in any way, by any stretch of the imagination. it would be included in the marketing package for these instruction manuals.
This makes the guarantee possible, “We guarantee if you do everything we tell you in this simple course you will find your fortune in gold!”
And a quick learner with a hefty dose of ambition combined a two week’s supply of caffeine or similar stimulant could theoretically muster the energy to learn and master the material in just a few short weeks before leaving for California. On the other hand they would also have learned several professions in addition to mining (surveying, carpentry, trapping, etc. ). THey would learn so much about the many professions witha possible tie to gold mining they would probably have the option to open up a business for themselves.
And so there is also the sad thought of there being SO MUCH material to learn that the most conscientious gold-rush candidates would probably spend a year or two just studying “HOW TO DO IT RIGHT” before leaving for their dream to prospect for gold. Not to mention having to support themselves in the meantime, which means they could not quit their day jobs. And with any added burdens of supporting themselves or their family the combine weight of all of these burdens would probably cause a significant delay in joining the rush or even prevent them from leaving to look for gold altogether!
Any differing opinions?

Right now there are lots of companies offering tons of information and courses on internet marketing. Many of them get quite in depth into the many complex facets of how to market successfully and make an income selling products and how to get a large amount of traffic. If you want a comprehensive “encyclopedia” to internet marketing then there are plenty of companies that sell good comprehensive resources.

So, you have found that perfect internet marketing company that has a compelling presentation that they have the latest and greatest system to make big money and just about everyone else on the internet is a bunch of crooks and chumps? I advise anyone who runs into these kinds of claims to run, because the internet will never be that simple. One person or company could never tame the internet in that way, yet many internet marketers try to sell themselves as the top gurus of how to make a fortune on the internet.

Anyone who is familiar with Star Trek is familiar with the Borg, one of the greatest movie villains of film history. The Borg is actually an alien race that is half man and half machine, and the term “Borg” refers to the race as a collective mass of individual units that may appear at first to be separate, but actually are part of an interlocked technology driven conscience that think and act in unison.

So what does this have to do with social media and internet marketing? The Borg actually embodies the most uncaring and ruthless traits of a corporation. When the humans successfully kill one of the Borg, the Borg is able to collect and analyze the data of how one of their members was killed, then put their collective minds together to come up with a way to enhance their defense systems.

Before long, the Borg adapt the new defense technology into every one of the representative Borg units. Then the humans find their weapons can no longer kill the Borg at the same setting that they used to kill the Borg even minutes before. They have to increase the intensity and strength of their weapons to kill the next Borg, and that only allows them a few more minutes before the Borg adapt once again. 

At some point it is expected the Borg will adapt so well to the weapons that they will no longer have any effect and the humans will be defenseless. You as the internet marketer start to feel you really are like Captain Picard, you get “assimilated” somewhat, then when you finally realize what it is you are dealing with you find small ways to forge your own identity.

So what does this have to do with social media and internet marketing, you ask? Millions of individuals have investigated the internet to see if it will help them supplement their income. Millions of men and women are frustrated with their jobs and struggle paying their bills. They often take on a 2^nd or even 3^rd job, but find that this means they have to accept even lower pay. They end up working like a slave their every waking hour, just to keep up with their bills.

 The internet seems to be the only alternative for many of these individuals. So they search the internet for ways to make money and find there are hundreds, actually thousands of eager internet marketers offering to “help” them make money on the internet. Almost without fail the crafty sales letters brag about the latest “killer” internet marketing technique that is going to drive thousands of visitors to this new prospect and they will be making money hand over fist.

The sales pitch usually addresses the fears of the average working class individual and promises that all they have to do is buy this great internet marketing system; then pretty soon their life will change and they can quit their dead end jobs and buy a mansion and a boat and take six month vacations to the beaches of Cancun. All the individual has to do is put the several hundred dollar charge on their credit card for the “heavily discounted” internet marketing system, and they will be set.

If you are desperate at some point you will give one of these programs a try. Then you have to try to come up with a way to explain to your friends and family that you did not fall for a “get rich scheme,” explaining you will not be pressuring them to buy or sell a miraculous vitamin fruit jelly, like some of the recent network marketing trends.

So what does this have to do with social media and internet marketing, you ask? Please be patient, I’m getting there.

The company that used to be the best analogy to the Borg is Google. In the early days of Google, many scheming internet marketers found it was easy to “game” the search engines by exploiting the loopholes in search engine technology. This would include gimmicks like embedding keyword rich (but not visible) text into webpages to fool Google into giving the web pages top search engine placement.

This is why it was so difficult to find much relevant content when you used Google to do research in the early days. The sites that had great content were buried in the search engine rankings by the sites using all of the gimmicks. Google refers to them as “Black Hat” strategies and seeks to ban those from the search engine rankings when it is discovered they are trying to game the system. This did not go over too well with the people who initially designed the Google search engine algorithms; they sought a way to eliminate non essential websites that were clogging up the Google search engines rankings.

So, like the Borg, Google gradually began developing software to more efficiently seek out and eliminate or “ban” the imposters, but the technology was still not perfected and legitimate websites still struggled while the imposters kept coming up with new tricks to “beat” the search engines. They came up with special rules for keyword rich articles and what they deemed to be “relevant content.” In the process the new Google SEO requirements sometimes made it hard for the smaller websites who may not have intentionally done anything wrong to achieve decent search engine rankings. 

We have since seen Google get even more sophisticated and the algorithms for ranking sites have become very complex, to the point where Google has rooted out most of the imposters. In the process they have imposed stringent requirements for any website to be taken seriously. A simple “Mom and Pop” simple website advertising the family business gets little respect from Google, even though the owners of that website never intended to break any of Google’s rules.

And thus the Borg effect. Google got tired of lazy internet marketers scheming ways to exploit search engines and laid out their own rules to “assimilate” or be destroyed (banned from search engines). And since Google controlled the majority of search engine traffic and only few search engines are completely independent of Google, Google got its way. And Google called the shots for how they expected internet marketing to be done.

Until social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook came along. Social Media, which was once considered a fad, is now the primary target of just about anyone who has expertise in marketing. And although they still have a lot of power on the internet, the search engines are adapting to social media. In a radical shift, it is becoming more difficult for businesses to get ranked in search engines without having strong social media presences.

As the internet changes rapidly, anything that cannot keep up tends to be diminished or fall by the wayside, much like being “assimilated” by the Borg. Social Media started out with the perception that it is where a lot of college aged students and teenagers like to go and hang out and socialize, and this is still basically true.

But people of all ages have gravitated towards it and it has grown to the point that we all have heard Facebook would be the third largest country in the world if it would be a country. So we see Social media sites “assimilating” a lot of the traffic that used to belong to sites such as Google or Yahoo. Not that the search engines are struggling, it is just that they now have a lot more competition.

Although Facebook is not quite arrived as Faceborg, by the year 2013, Facebook users are projected to have grown past the populations of either China or India. As social media sites like this have overtaken sites such as Google for most internet users it has caused a radical shift in how internet marketers approach social media.

If you are a complete newbie to the internet marketing world then the best way to break down and understand internet marketing is to think like the human trying to kill the Borg. Someone may find something that works for a little while but the competition will likely figure out a way to catch up and push you out of the way if you ever get complacent and comfortable with internet marketing.

So while you will find lots of helpful information on the internet to help you get started, the competition is constantly upgrading and evolving and looking for ways to take over the dominant role in your market share.

I avoid most internet marketers because while they have learned the art of salesmanship and hype, once you get their products you may find they can be poor teachers when it comes to covering all of the nuances of marketing.

But what is “How to Slay the Borg Marketing”?

 It is when the marketer makes claims such as “No one else but me has this information” or “My Program is the only one you can buy that guarantees your success!” …Only by purchasing my program will you get the ‘secrets’ to dominate your competition!”

Some get quite boastful:

“Most of the other people trying to sell you information on how to slay the Borg don’t know what they are talking about, only my program tells you how to slay the Borg and keep them dead permanently!”

The truth is that it is possible to make money on the internet. It is also true that you can get lost in all of the hype and salesmanship of Internet Marketers who make bold claims about their way being the best or only way. But what is the right perspective for sorting out the scams vs. the innovative marketing products on the internet?

If you are a local business with a targeted customer list, it may be that your primary purpose of using the internet and social media is to simply add to the communication arsenal you need to serve your customers. You can start small with a simple social media presence, and your initial goal should be to have a place for you and your customers to interact.

Don’t worry too much about the learning curve. With a little persistance you will have a strong social media presence before you know it. Add special incentives and opportunities for your customers to get hooked on the benefits of following you on social media as soon as you are ready. Look for free marketing opportunities such as foursquare.com and build as you go.

As a teacher I have found that I have had to try to address each of various learning styles in a lesson in order to get an entire group of students to understand a subject. With hundreds, if not thousands of social media sites and internet marketing approaches available on the internet is there such a thing as a “best” way or learning style to get a grasp on social media?

This article is more of an overview for anyone that has a “big picture” learning style. That means before you master a task you typically like to get an overview of the “big picture” so you can know exactly how to prioritize your learning steps and efficiently organize them in your mind.  If you feel you need to get a “bird’s-eye view” of the internet marketing landscape then this may be a place to start.

People who have this learning style sometimes like to take things slowly when they undertake a new skill, because they feel they need to take the time to look at everything available that they will need to master. I myself am a combination of big picture and analytical learning styles.

Maybe you’ve come to the realization that the more you try to “wrap your brain” around social media and internet marketing the more you need to learn. Attempting to grasp what the internet and technology has to offer can be overwhelming. You find sometimes all you can do is walk away from it for a few minutes to rest.

There is only one way to approach internet marketing and now the effective use of social media and that is with an open mind. That is with the understanding that with hundreds of millions of websites and as many 2 trillion individual pages and counting, that the internet is the mirror image of the real world with all of the good and bad intermingled.

There is no book in existence that has successfully summarized and encapsulated the internet into an all comprehensive guide that will leave the reader feeling they have learned everything there is to know about the internet.  It is because it is obviously impossible to compile such a document or even a series of books. In the next post I will address those internet marketers who try to represent themselves as knowing everything important there is about the internet, what I refer to as “How to Kill the Borg” marketing.

Do you have something you are extremely good at? Is it a musical skill, a passion for animals or cars or a technology related device? Are you so good at it your passion spills over when you talk about it to friends and family, so much so that your words cause many of those people to develop an interest and eventually get hooked like you are?

Maybe you are one of the skeptics about making a living on the internet, wading through a sea of questionable spam or Get-Rich-Quick schemes, claims to make you rich without any serious effort on your part. You may have doubts about where on the internet you really should be looking to supplement your income or whether you should just go get another job in order to make ends meet this year.

But what if you discovered that as a result of talents and skills you already possess, you may already hold a magical formula for success that was going to lead you to a more financially stable lifestyle, even riches?

There are universal principles that only have slight variations in the manner in which they are applied. But the formula for success in and of itself has little differences from field to field. This true whether it is becoming a financial tycoon, a great athlete, or becoming a musician.

A few years ago, I was at an internet entrepreneur workshop and had the privilege of hearing very well-known entrepreneur speak. Like all of the other speakers he was speaking about the principles of entrepreneurship for making money, but I noticed one thing about this speaker that stood out from the rest.

He was a TEACHER. He spoke like a teacher who was not only very confident in his own ability to accomplish what he was preaching, but in terms of someone who understood the minds of his listeners. He had an answer for any possible doubting members of the audience before those questions could come up in the listener’s mind.

Now of course, the other speakers at that conference were no slouches and gave very motivating talks. But many of them seemed to have a singular approach that did not anticipate all of the self-doubts and questions the audience may have had as did the speaker to whom I am referring.

He was the most seasoned speaker at this event, and with a wealth of life experience stories to draw on was therefore also the most effective speaker. I knew this speaker was absolutely confident in his description of a charted and incremental course that when applied, was close to fail safe in its success.

The man’s name was Brian Tracy. He spoke like a teacher describing a proven and detailed curriculum he himself had written on successful entrepreneurship. He described a learning pattern each of his pupils must go through as if he had seen this tried and tested method work each and every time it was applied. I felt a strong connection to his words because I am a teacher myself, only I teach instrumental music to elementary through high school age students.

As a matter of fact, I was able to visualize myself standing next to this man and giving the same talk, only I would be talking about the benefits of learning a musical instrument, rather than the habits one develops to become wealthy. But I am personally not rich like Brian Tracy.

Yet, I felt if he were simply to substitute a few words in the way he spoke about making money, and instead explained that these are the things you do to become a successful musician, then he could easily step right into my classroom. Although I was not teaching anything that guaranteed my students financial riches, the realization was reinforced that by instructing students in proper work habits, they can apply the same habits necessary for successfully mastering a musical instrument to any area of their life.

With Brian Tracy’s message, my students would not “miss a beat” in terms of their attitudes to develop good practice habits, set goals, stick to the plan and be persistent. This was the epiphany that I was sure many of the audience members felt as much as I did. The unspoken point was that most people ALREADY have wealth building habits they currently use to be successful in other areas.

Becoming wealthy really is a formulaic process when an individual puts the correct actions into motion, just like learning a musical instrument or any other skill or profession where a level of excellence has been developed by the individual.

He mentioned the hard work and failures that lay ahead and most people have only learned to travel obstacle ridden back roads in their life’s work. But he emphasized the results would be there by applying goal-setting principles, which will transition your life’s journey to the highway designed for speed. To change course, each person simply needs the roadmap and directions.

And in attendance, there was a student in most the need to make this transition. I realized I was that student, and to escape my financial struggles it was a matter of redirecting success building habits already formed.

It is this fact that success is actually a universal formula comprised of goal setting and habits that made me realize how it is anyone can overcome the mind-set of being poor.

Almost everyone has something in which they are extremely good at. Typically they are very good at it because they are passionate about it and love doing it and therefore spend large amounts of time at it.

What you are passionate about is likely the area of your greatest skill. Whether it is your current job or a leisure activity, it probably took hundreds or even thousands of hours of your leisure time to learn to excel at it.

If the expertise you have gained from this passion does not represent an area you can leverage into a lucrative full time career, you have still given yourself a success template you can use to develop the proper habits to be successful in internet marketing.

Having a social media profile in the Social Media sites is now much like having your own website. Social media – whether you like it or not – has become a part of the everyday fabric of life for hundreds of millions of people. And this number is growing exponentially. It’s certainly not too late to jump into social media.

You may be able to stay in business and be prosperous, but it is getting more difficult to do so while ignoring what is widely becoming accepted as a routine business practice. Even if you have a website social media is an important part of having an established online presence. You may have been able to get by without one five years ago but in the future it will become extremely difficult to run a professional business without a professional social media profile and website. Potential customers are at your fingertips each day, and many of those will slip away if you can’t find a hook.

Google now requires social media presence to get good rankings. A properly run social media campaign can boost your Google results, get more traffic to your website and get more paying customers and clients for your business. No less 10 % of the world’s populations were on Facebook alone in the year 2011, and this number keeps growing exponentially.

National and local businesses jump into social media each day because it is a cost-effective way to market on-line. Sometimes they need help and would like to know the right way to set up their social media business profiles. A good social media manager can help you bring this plan together. Choosing choose the right social media manager is important. some will be able to help you with basic social media management but others may have additional marketing knowledge that may be of assistance to you.

In business, time is money, and the most efficient people always win the most business.

 Climb Social Media offers a wealth of useful information that would probably take the average business months to learn if attempting to figure these out on their own, including Audience Building, Audience Targeting, Reputation Monitoring, help with social media reputation management, cost-effective marketing and most importantly the bottom line: how to use social media to ask their customers to spend their money.

As the internet world grows so do the thousands of options available to businesses, some very effective and cost-effective, others less so. Climb Social Media offers various packages in Social Profile Management. Climb Social Media can help your business with anything from the basics of marketing on services such as LinkedIn, YouTube, Friendfeed, Facebook, Twitter to managing your online presence to make sure you get the maximum value of the time you spend online.

Climb Social Media can show you the tools you will need to manage these sites in a short amount of time each day to manage your traffic and sales and you will know how everything works, plus how to use it in the most effective ways.

In the future you may want to consider Climb Social Media’s services by managing Twitter and Google alerts relevant to you and your business. When you don’t know what others are saying about you online when you are not looking, this can be invaluable when you are serious about social media marketing. You as a small business want to hire someone who “gets it” on how to treat your customers; company founder Spencer Kimball is different  from others in this industry by leveraging a combination of teaching experience, corporate experience and customer service (Two separate Employee of the Month for the Customer Service Centers of two large national brands, Albertsons and Chrysler).

We can also help you with  internet marketing and your marketing copy needs.

Social Media Management Services Include:

Basic Profile Management

Content Distribution

Audience Building

Audience Targeting

Reputation Monitoring

Strategic Consulting

Reputation Management

Content Creation

Facebook Advertising and Contest Management

Blog Management

And More…

More information on services offered by Climb Social Media in following reply,

by Spencer Kimball, Climb Social Media: