Life as a Carny - Day Four

July 31, 2006 | Leave a Comment

Yes, this is a buzz marketing blog, but I am working a carnival with my daughter this week and I am recording my new marketing insights as a carny through Sunday. See here , here and here for earlier posts.

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Sunday the carnival ended.

I am so tired from the whole thing. Alexandra made about a $40 profit for the whole four days of work.

I believe the carnival was most effective from the Marketing standpoint for vendors, and not from sales. Steak and Shake was giving away tons of free food coupons when you signed up for the raffle. They donated $600 to the band, but more importantly, when we stopped down to collect on on milkshakes, the restaurant was packed.

While the carnival was a bust, it did teach Alexandra about money and work. When her foot started getting soar and bleeding a bit on Saturday night, she refused to leave. When people told her about other shows, she knew she did not want to waste her time and money again. That gave me the chance to talk to her about not judging too quickly based on one result.

She will be doing an analysis over the next day or two and post it on her blog at Kids Roar.

Thanks for tolerating my divergence from the core buzz marketing topic.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

Life as a Carny - Day Three

July 30, 2006 | Leave a Comment

Yes, this is a buzz marketing blog, but I am working a carnival with my daughter this week and I am recording my new marketing insights as a carny through Sunday. See here , here and here for earlier posts.

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Yesterday was the big day. 13 hours of work with no breaks. In the office it would not be a big deal, but in a tent on black top in 85 degree weather….yuck.

Alexandra did a good job with being elastic on price. At first she would drop the price right away, but we made the rule that she would offer to drop the price if they took a step away.

She will probably loose money. She is up to $230. If she sells $60 more today she will break even on the booth…

Speaking of booths. I guess my carny slang is not very honed yet. Tom Hoey wrote in a comment

“FYI. Carnies do not call their games or food operations…booths. They call games their joints and food operations are grabs. Check out the Carny Lingo at http://www.carnytown.com/

They occasionally do say, “we’ll make the rent” or it’s a blank or a bust. They would never say booth. A booth is in a restaurant or bar…where you sit.

Just a little info from a real carny.”

Here is the cool thing. I wrote my blog post about being a carny and within 24 hours I had carnies reading it. My post was quoted in other carny blogs and I never promoted it. It just shows how quickly you can reach different people. It also shows how quickly you can reach your target market if you know what your target market is.

Carnival Business Lessons Learned:

  • Wear sunscreen even if you are under a canopy.
  • Coming down a buck or two does make a difference.
  • Many vendors at carnivals are highly educated people just trying to create buzz in the community.
  • Be nice to the other vendors because they will buy things from you. (It is almost a BtoB setting. Or I should say Joint to Joint setting)
  • Talk to the other vendors and get an idea of where the good shows are. They all agree this one we are at is not a busy/profitable one….but then why are they there?

I know I am looking forward to going back to my nice cool office, where I do not have to move heavy boxes and try to talk kids into buying $11 dinosaurs.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

Life as a Carny - Day Two

July 29, 2006 | Leave a Comment

Yes, this is a buzz marketing blog, but I am working a carnival with my daughter this week and I am recording my new marketing insights as a carny through Sunday. See here and here for earlier posts.

——

Friday was tiring. I talked to some of the other booths and they are getting worried as well. “Will we make our booth”, they were asking. That is new carny slang I learned for making enough to cover the cost of booth rent.

Alexandra, my nine year old, spent $145 for the booth, $600 for inventory, $95 on a tent and $20 on a sign. In two days of hard work she has brought in $85. Of course, Saturday will be a big day and she is selling some of that inventory on the kids roar website as well.

Alexandra quickly learned that when people say they are coming back they are liars most of the time. (I would lie too, it is just human nature.) I told her then she needs to close the sale when they are at the booth the first time. Today she might try dropping the price one dollar if they buy the first time.

On a different note, beside us is a Steak and Shake booth that is doing a raffle. You buy a ticket and get in the raffle to win a bike…..but then you also spin a wheel and get coupons for free stuff at steak and shake. It always works out to be worth more than what you put in. They are donating the proceeds to the band boosters. What great buzz marketing. Alexandra and I have already had shakes.

In my upcoming buzz marketing book I talk about unexpected booths and organizing fund raisers to create buzz for yourself and this is an excellent example of restaurant buzz marketing. Their booth is always packed.

There is also an insurance agent that has a booth and it has been interesting to see him work. He is so friendly and knows enough people in the community that he always has a bunch of people around talking to him. He also keeps giving the vendors free drinks, and when one vendor accused him of trying to buy him as a client, the insurance guys response was “hell yeah”. Not beating around the bush and a great way to work the vendors.

All in all I think that promoting on the web is more effective than being a carny, but I have heard that some of these festivals you can really do well at. For now I am just trying to keep Alexandra’s enthusiasm high. She is tired, but gets very excited every time someone buys something.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

Good Stories Spread

July 28, 2006 | Leave a Comment

A good story that makes people smile will spread without a lot of effort. The same goes for eCommerce.

Thanks Guys

Posted by Buzzoodle Ron | Filed Under Blog 

My Life as a Carny

July 28, 2006 | Leave a Comment


OK, so working one day at a carnival booth may not get me into the inner workings of carny life, but it is a different environment.

For those that do not know, my daughter started a business called Kids Roar last year when she was 8. She sells her products on the web; she does speeches and puts on events.

To pump up sales we decided to try a booth at a local fair. Here are some observations from the first day.

  • I didn’t realize so many people still smoke.
  • Teenagers love carnivals and buy silly things at them.
  • People are very guarded at a carnival, even when a little kid tries to hand them a piece of paper.
  • Vendors buy a lot of stuff from each other. The steak and shake booth was responsible for half of Alexandra’s sales yesterday.
  • People do not notice stuff lower than 3 feet off the ground.
  • The crowds have more tattoos than the carnies.
  • Always have a back up plan. Many parents bulked at Alexandra’s items that are over $10. She gave them the option of buying 3 small plastic horses for $1 so that kids did not walk away with nothing. Some adults bought these from her just because they wanted to contribute to her success.
  • It is possible to create a buzz in schools. Kids were coming up to Alexandra and saying they had studied her in their class, and that what she is doing is cool

So ends my carny diary for day 1. Absolutely something outside of my comfort zone, which means I am learning a lot. We will return to your regularly scheduled buzz marketing on Monday.

Posted by Buzzoodle Ron | Filed Under Blog 

Kids Roar Booth

July 27, 2006 | Leave a Comment

This post is purely personal. My daughter is having her first booth for her company, Kids Roar.

If you are in the Akron, Ohio area please come over to Streetsboro and say hi. It is This Thursday through Sunday. Here are the details on the kids roar blog.

Posted by Buzzoodle Ron | Filed Under Blog 

Your most important trait

July 26, 2006 | Leave a Comment

What is the most important trait you can have, personally and professionally, and how does it manifest itself at home and in the workplace? I guarantee that this one trait defines your success, or lack of success, at home and at work.

Only today it hit me that people carry traits from work to home, home to work, and they just show up differently even though they have the same root. I know that I am going to get blamed for ruining people’s day with this post, but here it goes….

The trait is: Taking responsibility instead of looking for people to blame.

You have heard this before, I know. But have you considered how it manifests at work and at home for the same person?

Keep reading. There is a marketing point I am getting to.

At home and in social settings, someone that takes responsibility will give people the benefit of the doubt. They will get burned occasionally, but they will chalk that up as a learning experience. Since they see themselves as the master of their domain, they will feel confident that they are improving and they are helping the people around them improve.

The opposite of this trait are those people that blame. The world is not easy for them and it is everyone else’s fault. Sometimes it very well could be someone else’s fault, but by not taking responsibility for their contribution to a situation, they are not learning or improving. These people start building arguments for why other people caused a situation or why they failed before it occurs.

Based only on my own unscientific observations over time, which has included many years as an entrepreneur and manager, I am going to make a troubling statement:

There are many times the numbers of people that blame than there are those that take responsibility, and people that blame are not employable.

Ouch.

Why are blamers not employable? It is probably obvious by now.

Blamers will never be happy. No amount of money, no cushy job and no relationship can ever make them happy. They are planning for the failures in their head all the time. At work, they will try to take less responsibility and they will be upset with any task that is outside of their narrow job description. Instead of thinking about how to be successful at a new task, they will start devising excuses for the failure that they are sure is coming.

Buzz Marketing with Winners

Buzz Marketing with employees is only going to be successful if you have a group of people that take responsibility and enjoy the challenge. They accept the responsibility of helping create a more successful business and they do not feel entitled to anything that they did not earn. People that take responsibility are winners even when they fail. They are not afraid to make a mistake and take responsibility when they do make one, and learn from it. They also enjoy life and celebrate success because they take responsibility for the good and the bad.

The good news is that once a blamer becomes aware of this, they can work at it and make the shift. I would suggest reading all kinds of empowering books and keeping aware that they are in charge of their life.

Two good friends of mine have books that, at their root, address this issue.

Career Intensity is excellent at taking responsibility for your career.

Make It Great is about not settling for good. Make your life great.

Posted by Buzzoodle Ron | Filed Under Blog 

More Stuff vs. Better Stuff: How feature creep effects buzz and your future?

July 25, 2006 | Leave a Comment

This is a buzz marketing note to those technology entrepreneurs out there.

Feature Creep is when people keep asking for new features and you keep adding them for clients. You end up with a bloated system that is difficult to manage.

It is easy for entrepreneurs to fall into a trap. The trap is in your mind when you rationalize that it is a good idea because it will make the product better. It is also difficult for new entrepreneurs to say no.

The simple truth is, you should listen to your clients and you should consider every suggestion, but keep some simple things in mind.

  • People buy software that they understand and can easily use. Not because the software has 100’s of features.
  • Better software that is easy to use and easy to achieve results with, will be sticky and generate buzz.
  • If you continue to add features but not improve the base product, you will end up with a support nightmare at some point as you try to support many features that each have a few users and are mediocre.
  • Just because one person wants it does not mean everyone wants it.
  • Just because you can do it does not mean you should.

Feature Creep is a big Buzz Marketing issue, believe it or not. Buzz and Word of Mouth happens for products that are easy to use and have a surprisingly big benefit. If you are a technology entrepreneur focus on making a great product and choose your new features wisely, and you will be on your way to generating the sales you dream of.

Posted by Buzzoodle Ron | Filed Under Blog 

The Long Tail and Buzz Marketing

July 23, 2006 | Leave a Comment

I am currently reading The Long Tail.

While I already had an understanding of the basic premise, it is still a fun read. It got me thinking about how Buzzoodle is the Long Tail of buzz marketing.

A normal buzz marketing or word of mouth marketing firm is going to try to sell you on a campaign. A set of activities that will climax and achieve incredible buzz. Of course, the idea of 3 or 6 months leading up to buzz that changes the company is not practical. In some cases it may work, but in many more it will just produce noise and a blip in marketing that will quickly fade.

The Long Tail says that the majority of products are not best sellers. But when you take them in aggregate, they produce incredible sales. (I am simplifying)

Instead of focusing on one buzz marketing or word of mouth marketing campaign, create a culture of buzz. Buzzoodle instructs clients to get everyone involved in creating a little buzz on a regular basis. In aggregate, you get more buzz and longer lasting return on your investment most of the time.

The long tail makes perfect sense in marketing.

If you consistently choose marketing that continues to give you a return after many months, you will develop a long tale of people hearing about you.

Posted by Buzzoodle Ron | Filed Under Blog 

Why Smart Employees Create Buzz

July 22, 2006 | Leave a Comment

The Employee as Advocate

It is obvious that organizations benefit from employees creating buzz. How do the employees and other advocates benefit?
The reality is that employees who create buzz for an organization benefit in many ways.

  • The organization has more success which provides employee with more security.
  • Employees that contribute more to organization’s success could expect more opportunities and rewards in the future.
  • A work atmosphere that encourages buzz is frequently a more open and fun environment.
  • Creating buzz gives employees an opportunity to learn about and use new technologies and improve communication skills.
  • Employees who become active buzz creators become can become respected as industry experts over time and may get invited to speak and write.
  • Employees who are good buzz creators will have other opportunities from within an organization and from outside as well.
  • Good buzz creators tend to know more people and can accomplish more in life via their extensive network.

Remember it is a win/win situation. Sell yourself, sell your expertise and sell your employer.

Posted by Buzzoodle Ron | Filed Under Blog 

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