In the last few days, we’ve received an incredible surge in votes supporting Bobby Darnell’s “Building New Business” Blog. Yesterday afternoon, Darnell’s primary competitor (and the former competition leader), Tim Nagle at Remodelbuddy.com, threw in the towel, with this email:
Mark,
I loved your article on “Asking for Referrals.” It resonated with me. Many times I preach to business owners about permission based marketing and a two step approach. Effective marketing and the entire premise, is to earn peoples Know, Like and Trust. That is my foundation for success too.
I have fallen into the trap of wanting to win the blog competition, but realize that I am a one man operation. I don’t have a staff and a long history of clients. I have built my coaching business after selling my partnership in a national remodeling business, two years ago.
My mantra is, personal attention and dedication.
I have networked for votes and haven’t felt right asking for them, so I am stopping. My networking for votes goes against what I preach. How did I let myself get caught up in that? What is important to me isn’t as much winning, as it is being noticed for trying to put up good content and having my loyal following and relationships with people. I could use Duct Tapes “audience”, which has thousands and thousands of followers, and have been asked permission to let them request votes for me. My answer was no, even tough that would almost assure winning. My reason is, I would rather win by people honestly feeling I am worthy, vs. my ability of recruiting votes.
I appreciate the recognition and look forward to meeting you one day and getting my resources page live so I van exchange links with you. I would like to ask if you feel comfortable posting a guest blog on my site this week or next( when you have time). I would like you to reach my readers and spread you knowledge to them. I think you are a wealth of knowledge, professional and what I like the most….your writing many times is genuine and from the heart. I appreciate all that you do and would love to promote your advice and wisdom.
Thanks Mark,
Tim Nagle
I responded to Tim, questioning his decision, and observing the distinction (in my opinion) between encouraging votes in the competition and pushing or abusing online relationship processes.
Thanks for your email.
I really don’t see much problem ethically or otherwise in campaigning for votes. Obviously, the voting process requires no money and virtually no time so you really aren’t inconveniencing anyone and allowing people to deliver a small favor to you. In the end, of course, I will report that campaigning has been a process in determining the “winner” and I will recognize everyone who entered the competition (and perhaps my personal favorites as well). (My error, and it is a serious one, was using some of the names for the direct mail campaign seeking referrals — voters give their identity but only those who check the box requesting the “Construction Marketing Ideas” newsletter should receive any form of communication outside the context of the competition — and that does not include combining competition emails with any other message, which I did.)
As far as I’m concerned, if the people at Duct Tape Marketing want to help you, why not let them?
Tim’s answer:
Thanks for the reply. My point was that I feel people should want to vote on their own and being a one-person business, I find it challenging to find the time to request votes. Why should I request votes from people that I haven’t personally been in contact with, just to win? That’s why I mentioned it is nice to be involved. By recruiting Duct Tape followers, I wouldn’t be getting their personal vote . . .It’s just a recruiting technique and not what I am about.
In a final email exchange, where I confirmed and received Tim’s permission to report these emails, I observed:
Tim, well, the vote gathering process will introduce people to your worthy blog (good), and again it doesn’t demand anything from them other than they might want to read it before voting. It seems to be one of the few cases where you can engage people in viral marketing without breaking the rules of engagement/solicitation.
Tim replied:
……..because networking for votes is about me- and I want to focus on my client. It doesn’t feel right;) Personal preference. I did some, but have halted it recently.
In fact, the Best Construction Blog competition rules are structured so that the results favor the smaller business owner/consultants, with a truly large extended network and the willingness to reach out to second-degree referrals to pull in the votes. Larger businesses can broadcast a message to all of their employees, but if multiple votes arrive from a single IP address/server, the additional votes are disqualified. (This prevents someone sitting at a computer and voting several times, but it also means that a group of employees in a networked office system will only have one vote for the entire group.)
Consultants like Bobby Darnell and Tim Nagle have achieved success by building their network (Nagle has been especially successful with social media, reflected in his Facebook fan page), and so they can put the word out easily enough. Nagle suggests in his email he could take things forward to the second degree — through the Duct Tape Marketing network – - to win votes from people who don’t really know him, but he decided to draw the line.
Does Nagle’s campaign for votes, then withdrawal, suggest a fundamental flaw in the competition – That the true “Best Construction Blog” when voting closes on Feb. 28 could be someone other than the ultimate winner? Are all votes equal? Do family and friends, or second-degree referrals from large networks count the same as individuals who have truly read the blogs in detail? And, under these rules, why should employees who work in larger organizations with centralized servers not be able to vote from their office computer? (They can, I suppose, vote from their homes, but that requires significant extra effort and thought.)
The answer, I think, is that any competition is fair as long as the rules are understood in advance and, if the rules are unjust and don’t reflect community values, they can be changed.
We’ll see how rules can be seen in different lights in the upcoming Olympic games. Behind the scenes of the intense multi-national sports spectacle, are questions about Government athletic funding, the decision to allow professional athletes to take time off and play for their national teams, and technological advances in equipment and performance enhancing substances which might be either against the rules or considered healthy innovations.
Olympic marketing has its own set of rules, as the Games organizers seek to protect the Olympic’s trademark/brand value with official sponsors, and outsiders do everything they can to game the system so their marketing advantage isn’t lost.
The Best Construction Blog competition has some of the rule-making and bending characteristics, as, I think, as most business and marketing competitions. The challenge for marketers and construction industry practitioners is to find the edge; the extra advantage, and the opportunity to stack the deck in their favor — but to do this “stacking” in a manner which complies with their underlying values and the basic rules of fair play and integrity. In practice, we see this every day, where supposedly fair and open competitions are decided long before they are publicized, and one of the cardinal rules of AEC marketing is to never enter a public competition unless you either know you are going to win, or (as a second, poorer, choice) you know in advance the primary competitors and have built a solid relationship with the competition organizers long before the competition is announced.
Best Construction Blog voting will continue for the next two weeks. Personally, I think Nagle should not worry about calling on the extended Duct Tape Marketing network for additional support and votes, and I will remember my obligation not to use the voting data for anything other than its intended purpose. I believe anyone who has entered the competition is a winner, regardless of the final results.
Here are the “live” results of the Construction Marketing Ideas blog competition. The results are dynamic and will change as votes are entered.
The contest concludes on February 28. You can vote from this link.
