This is slick. Maybe you’ve seen it before, but I hadn’t. Now we are being sent awards of complete irrelevance. I’m a professional speaker on social media, relationship marketing, and strategic business growth. I also speak on life design and success architecture. While I do coach and consult with business owners on marketing, customer service, and branding, I am not a life coach, never have been, and don’t plan to be. Yet, I’m being allegedly recognized for my “life coaching.” Huh?
REally, last week an email arrived in my inbox with the subject line . . . Melissa Galt, Inc Receives 2011 Best of Atlanta Award. I was dumb founded. I wasn’t aware of having submitted for any award, nor was I aware of anyone else submitting me. I had to open it and found out that for a fee, I could have my very own irrelevant award. This is hilarious on some level. You no longer have to win recognition, instead you can buy your own trophies!
Of course, I’m familiar with the services that call you up after you’ve gotten some nice press and they offer to put it onto a plaque for you, for the Very Special Price of ONLY $197 or something like that. I actually fell for it a time or two until I realized my money was way better invested in reprints of that same press that I then sent out to both existing clients and to prospects.
Yes, your press isn’t as well used when stroking your ego from the wall. It is much better leveraged when you create reprints and use it as strategic marketing material and credibility builders.
This latest scam is closer to the Who’s Who books that they market. I am embarrassed to admit I fell for one of those some ten years ago. They like to impress you with all their fancy numbers and tell you how you can use it to network and usually the charge is anywhere from $500 to $1500, pretty outrageous really but then ego-driven marketing usually is. (Did I just admit that?)
This is personal branding run amok. Buying credibility does exactly the opposite of what you intend, don’t do it. In fact, I’ll let you in on another little secret that I fell for a few years ago. A local association I belonged to honored me with an award. I admit, it seemed out of the blue and I graciously accepted. Shortly thereafter the head of the association (founder) approached me about doing PR for me. This was clever, I felt somewhat beholden for the award and did hire her. Ironically (or perhaps not) despite a poor reference from a colleague.
Wow, (insert head slap here), it took me only three months to realize this was a marketing ploy she used and I’d been had. She wasn’t any good at PR, at least not for me nor for the colleague who’d shared the poor reference. Each year, I see this same person sucking in new clients by awarding them, tricky business to say the least. (By the way, this is a local association only, no national affiliation or I might have shared my experience with top management.)
Recognition only builds your credibility when it is real and bonafide and not some ego driven form of personal branding gone awry. Particularly in today’s age of social networking and relationship marketing, there is no need for this form of expensive and ineffective brand boost. Invest your dollars more wisely in forming real connections that count and contributing genuine value to your market as well as your peers. Being a guest blogger on a hot blog in your market, may require effort and focus but the payoff is far greater than anything you could pay your way into.
Be honest, what have you blown money on that stroked your ego instead of built your bottom line. Some of us have to make a few of these mistakes before we have our AHA! moment. Oh and for more on the mistakes I’ve made, lessons I’ve learned so you don’t have to, and in the trenches business growth and social marketing strategies find me online . . . twitter, linkedin, facebook.
