How to Win Friends and Get Around Their Pride - Day 16 of COWpetition
Posted on June 12th, 2008 by John Cow under John Cow vs Garry Conn, Make Moooney Online, RamblingsWant to Learn How to Build a Business Not Just a Blog.. for FREE? CLICK HERE Now to Find Out How!
We are going to let you in on a little secret here… this was a huge part of how we were able to get some pretty influential contacts when we initially started in our online business.
You have to be a brown noser!
Now, you do not need to take this to the extreme but before you puff your chest out and say that you will never swoop to that level, let us explain what we mean.
Pride is a terrible thing because it is something that causes us to do some of the stupidest things. Let me give you an example. A couple weeks ago my office landlord called and asked for us to sign our new lease and pay June’s rent… well we told them that we have asked for our back door to be fixed for 2 months now and we are not doing anything until it is fixed. Well the door got fixed and the next day the landlord called and said that with holding rent was very unprofessional and not the way to get things done (which was proven otherwise but we will let that go). Then they started making up things like it took 2 months to get parts (which was a complete joke) and that if we did not pay right away they would come and change the locks.
Well we knew first hand that all the guy did to fix the door was replace the hinges and home depot carries them, plus he welded part of the door frame and added weather stripping. We had asked over and over to get this fixed and we were ignored until we refused to pay rent and then magically it happened. Well the attitude on the phone caused my pride to want to puff out… this person was lying and threatening and we are not going to stand for that… in fact we almost told them to come change the locks because we were moving the office. Well instead of that we took a couple deep breaths and simply said that we will have the rent for them in one hour and for them to have a nice day.
Why did we do that?
Well there are 7 people in this office and desks and computers and we worked out a good deal on rent since we remodeled the office… so would moving to prove a point and satisfy our pride be worth it?
Absolutely not but we can tell you one thing, our pride really made it hard to come to that conclusion.
What Does That Have to Do with Contacting JV Partners?
Every week we get many requests to partner with someone… it might simply be a link, a review or involvement in a project and 99% of these requests are simply deleted!
Why?
Because they are not truly WIN/WIN partnerships. For example, when someone asks us for a link trade and the site they will link from has barely any subscribers and low traffic… how is this a true WIN/WIN? Think about it… is this not really only a win for the person who has the site with low traffic and subscribers?
So how can you get around this?
Simply, you go for the pride… you satisfy the persons desire to be right (even if it is only in their own mind). This might sound conceded but it is just the way it is. Now take that same request we had above and tweak it to instead of saying a fair link trade, what if you said something like…
“We are such fans of your blog and we know that a link trade is not really a equal fair trade and if you are interested and since we are such a big fan of your blog, we would be more then happy to write a great review of your blog, submit an article that is a review of your blog to EzineArticles.com plus put a link in exchange for just a link from you”
Look at what we did there… we tried to satisfy the ego of the person by saying how much we love and respect them and that we know we are not equal but would be willing to go that extra mile just to be able to get a little of what they have.
So often we think of a WIN/WIN as an equal effort trade… but that is not what a true WIN/WIN is. For both parties to win, then both parties must get an equal value benefit. This is even more important for new blogs because you have absolutely no proof of results you can give them, so you need to get creative here.
What things could you offer above just a link back…
- Detailed post review
- You will write content for their blog
- You will do blog commenting for them with a link to their site
- Submit articles to major directories like ezine articles
- Create a quality squidoo lens about their site
…and the list can keep going. The thing is if you really feel that they could help your blog get off the ground, you NEED to make them feel important, you NEED to make sure your communication with them stands out from the crowd and you NEED to make it worth their while.
You need to understand that people who think that they are more influential then you in the market are going to have a certain level of pride about it. With that pride comes a barrier that you need to get over and that is where the “brown noser” comment comes in. You need to get over your pride that it is beneath you to do this and you need to suck up to the person, make them feel special and appease their pride so that they almost feel like they are being generous and gracious. This may sound silly but PLEASE consider it and try it… we promise you that the results will speak for themselves. With a few of these winning partnerships you will soon be able to start offering equal trade exchanges with people because you have the results to back it up.
Now a little word of warning, do not go overboard on this either, you do not want to sound like a creep or stalker but you need to sound like a fan.
In tomorrows post we are going to show you some of the exact emails we sent people and highlights from the phone calls we left with people and what the results of this were.
Hope this post was worth while!
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- Win Friends and Clients for Joint Ventures | Don't Be A Brown-Noser! | The Net Fool
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I’ll be looking forward to tomorrows post
Rajaie AlKoranis last blog post..Everyone Makes Mistakes, No Exceptions
Mr Cow,
Nice post, I think you also have to look at the long term aspect too, if you are a fan then you will keep reading and commenting. There is no harm in dropping a link to show your newest posts or offers here and there.
Once that webmaster has a taste for your site and appreciates your visits they are often much more inclined to help push your site by exchanging a link and in some cases even plugging you for free.
It’s not very quick but it has definitely helped me out (slowly but surely).
Another thing you could do is…. get a guest post on another blog and then mention the blogger that you are brown nosing in that post.
Forests last blog post..Darren Rowse Hates Cats… But Full Tilt loves them…
Excellent advice, show the person that you offer value to the market… thanks Forest!
I’m looking forward to your next post. It’s always good to learn a new trick from the experts in the marketing field…
John,
Great advice. I am often surprised how often people respond so generously to sincere appreciation. My SmartWoman post today is an interview with the founder of a very successful entrepreneur resource website (approx. 10K uniques per day) and all I really had to do was ask. I had added content on his blog, recommended his site, and he immediately said yes to my request when I asked him for an interview. He told me he is even going to link the interview page to his media/promo page so others can check it out too. Sweet! traffic galore!
This technique doesn’t work if you don’t mean it so I just steer clear of people I don’t click with (pretty much no matter how important or big they are—I have a strict no a_ _ hole policy). I work on getting to know the ones I jive with best and that has been successful. I would encourage everyone to give it a whirl. It really is exciting to get a phone call or email from one of your heroes!
Together, we are stronger.
Vicki Flaugher, the original SmartWoman
Vicki Flaughers last blog post..SmartWoman Exclusive: Evan Carmichael Interview
I routinely turn away brown-nosers (or k.a.’s which is what I would call them
)… just because I hate dealing with fake people. While I think you can win some cheap friends by sucking up to the big guys, you need to know where to stop. At some point, you need to establish confidence and authority, or people won’t have any respect for you. I take a different approach and try to be as authoritative as possible from the get-go, despite the fact that it may be undeserved, because I like people understanding that I mean business. 
Jims last blog post..Creating A Blog - Part Six: Optimizing Your Blog for Search Engines and More
I’m not to the point yet where people are sucking up to me, but when I do get there, I can spot a smoozer a mile away and will want no part of that.
Winning Startupss last blog post..List of Blog Contests to enter
We think you and Jim are missing the point.
It is not a matter of being fake but it is a matter of looking at it from the perspective of how to give the person you want something from the greater share.
Relationships are not always a 50/50 split… instead it is the end result that matters. If you refuse to do this because you feel it is beneath you and you do not think others deserve to get a bigger chunk of the prize then ask yourself why you feel that way? We are not saying you you do this forever, but if you want to get jv parnters to help you when you are starting out you need to make it worth thier while and in fact in our post we mentioned that it will not be long after that you will be able to offer equal trades.
We think this is proof of what we were saying that we let our selfish pride get in the way and hate to ever have to give ourself a lesser piece of the pie.
Hey Cow, I agree with this attitude. Although, I still waiting a reply of my email
.
Nice and very informative post.
Mr. Javos last blog post..Under What Name Is Best To Leave Comments In Other Blogs?
Great post, but I have a slightly different viewpoint on a couple of points.
Creating a win-win scenario is something you should be proud of - there is absolutely no reason to lose any of your own pride to do this.
It doesn’t have to involve brown nosing either. A true win-win should be able to stand on it’s own merits. And you can simply point out the things you do like about the site and neglect to mention the bits you don’t.
Maybe with this I’m being a little pedantic, something tells me Mr. Cow used this phrase in order to create a more compelling post - great marketing
Thanks a lot John.
I remember what the Lord Jesus taught: “It’s better to give than to receive.”
In fact, we experience that more things we can give, more things we receive.
You have shared to us many things John, and we are your fans reply each of your post gladly and link to your homepage with joy. It’s not caused you offer us some big prizes, but because we love you and we want to have a good relationship with you….
Hope you don’t mind to remember us in your heart ( and to exchange link with us too.. ehm ) ….
MESs last blog post..A case study for Making Money Online
Thank you for this post, I learned a new vocabulary today: brown nose. I even blogged about it :p
Back on topic: I think brown nosing only works if you already have something to bring to the table. Maybe you cannot offer pure 50-50 WIN-WIN arrangement. But with some flattery you can offer 30-70 arrangement and it might get accepted, simply because, as John said, our Pride is a terrible thing
Vabulouss last blog post..The Brown Nose
Like my previous post, I have a project/product that I am working on and have made in-roads networking with great folks that I met at Ken McArthur’s JV Alert Live! event. Gotta name drop, because he is a such a great guy. Truely knows the meaning of reciprocity. He’s living proof that there are good folks in this biz! Check out his book here: http://theimpactfactor.net?id=475
Once completed, I will work with the pros I met and see how we can all benefit from JV-ing together.