Black Rabbit Bullets

Charlotte Comicon December 18th, 2011

Marksman Services — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 05:12:49 +0000

It was another great day covering the Charlotte Comicon!

How to End an Initial Meeting with a Top Level Buyer (via McCann Motivations)

Garrett Marks — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 16:00:40 +0000

John McCann is a fount of sage business knowledge and one of my personal mentors. Visit his website a http://www.mccannmotivations.com .

A “top – down” approach to selling our accounts will allow us to manage the account in two directions. In a vertical direction, we can flow from one level of company officer to another with little to no difficulty. In a horizontal direction, we can easily flow from one department manager to another also with little difficulty, due to the fact that we started at or near the top of the organizational chart when we first penetrated the account. If I … Read More

via McCann Motivations

Marksman Services Civic Support Plan

Garrett Marks — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 12:46:34 +0000

If you are in charge of a non-profit, church, or other civic minded organization you may qualify for the Marksman Services Civic Support Plan. The plan incorporates the setup of a complete on line identity for your organization and guidance in maintaining it. To find out what you can qualify for simply fill out the contact form on the Marksman Services webpage and mention in your message your interest in the plan.

Our goal is simple: We want to make your organization look as good to the world wide community as your acts make you look to the local community.

I found this to be a valid opinion on an all too common experience…

Garrett Marks — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 04:44:53 +0000

Text me: I’ll over-analyze it..

Each fan of a Facebook page produces an extra 20 visits to the website..

Garrett Marks — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 19:25:48 +0000

I’ve been preaching on this for a while…

“A UK based study by Hitwise analyzed data from the top 100 retailers to find how much additional web traffic was generated by each Facebook fan. The metrics showed that each fan of a Facebook page produced an extra 20 visits to the website. In order to generate this number, Facebook traffic was analyzed and compared against Facebook Page data from Techlightenment.

The study also found that brands utilizing Facebook the most saw increased brand searches on Google, Yahoo! and Bing. A top UK retailer, Topshop, saw brand searches increase by 54% after a visit to Facebook. This was a trend that stayed true for all of the top 10 brands, with brand searches increasing from 19% to 54% if a user previously visited their Facebook page.”

Full Article

Stormtrooper!

Marksman Services — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 03:47:17 +0000

Thanks for the rendition!

What to do with all this information…

Garrett Marks — Wed, 25 May 2011 04:34:15 +0000

I’ve had some situations lately that have gotten me thinking about how social networking is affecting my life. Usually before I meet a potential client I do a bit of research about them on-line. When observed in this activity I was jokingly called a stalker, which I found mildly offensive.I see it as just doing old school preparation using modern tools. During a meeting a client referred to their two grandchildren and without thinking I asked if the “red hair” was a trait on her side of the family. She looked at me strangely and asked how I knew her grandchildren were red heads. I knew because she was pictured with them on her Facebook page. No harm right? Unfortunately she seemed rather put off that I possessed such knowledge…even after recognizing that she had placed the information out there for all to see. I’ve come to the conclusion that we have to come up with some new terminology that bridges the gap between invasive/creepy stalker information seeking and old school knowledge acquisition through word of mouth or some other medium.

Here is my entry: Borrowing on- omniscient: having complete or unlimited knowledge, awareness, or understanding; perceiving all things.

I submit: Webniscient : having demonstrable knowledge of information shared freely and rightfully on the web.

As in “That guy Barney two cubicles down sure knew a lot about what we did this weekend. I guess he is just webniscient. If it bothered me more I would increase my privacy settings.“

It’s not like people have to work very hard to get information anymore, social networking feeds it to us in nice digestible bits. Considering the wash of information thrust upon us we should almost be complimented that our activities draw any particular interest at all.

-G

So I guess I’m tweeting now….

Garrett Marks — Fri, 06 May 2011 16:38:37 +0000

I’ve had a twitter account for many moons and have used the service for clients on occasion but I’ve never really embraced it personally. Like many things, now that my wife has began to engage in tweeting, I am meekly following. I’m just going to have to see how this goes. I did witness an explosion of birds out of the shrubbery the other night and then the emergence of an owl…tweeted….then the Moon made me feel poetic last night so I tweeted my verse by phone and it only showed up this afternoon.

A comment I placed on Facebook…

Garrett Marks — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 16:09:24 +0000

This all began when someone I know and love had one of their facebook comments “reported” to a business associate of theirs from an unnamed party.

Here is my comment…

“I’m highly disturbed by the innuendo contained in these exchanges. Is it not clear to you that even as adults, talking amongst adults, that you need to sanitize every aspect of your conversation to please the unseen, yet vocal masses pouring over your every word? I know that even though my rights are protected under the first amendment of the constitution I should still constantly self censor lest I offend the most puritanical of internet voyeurs. Get it together people! You are being watched and judged! I mean let’s face it, despite the Bible’s clear stance on the judgment of others… that just doesn’t cut it on something as important as social media.”

It saddens me that so many people share the mentality of the individual who “reported” the original comment. Next time take the same amount of effort and go outside, reflect a moment, and if you still think your position is a strong one, approach the source of your irritation directly and have a discussion about it.

A few thoughts on Web Optimization…

Garrett Marks — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 04:10:23 +0000

I’m plagued with encounters with businesses specializing in “web optimization”. I’m just going to say two things…
1. If you are in the web business and don’t offer your client the elements of web optimization to the best of you ability then you are not offering them a quality product.
2. Basically the whole idea of “specialty web optimization” is completely backwards. You have someone forcibly “working the system” to artificially boost your result levels in search engines. See I thought that search engines were supposed to work on a principle where they reacted to the interest of the population. Now it seems, instead of developing a solid web presence that replicates the traits of your real business and enticing customers through quality, folks want to jump up in the results of a search engine before they have earned the right to be there. Websites court the engine and not the customer..and everyone loses with the exception of the company that runs the engine, and sells top level results outright.

The only way to beat the system is to starve it. Focus your money and effort in quality service, and a web presence based on those principles. If the search engine is worth its salt then the quality will naturally rise to the top, without the prodding of “optimization” snake oil peddlers.