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Test your tone with this 20-point checklist

August 25, 2011 By rjones Leave a Comment

When I take on a new writing project, one of the first questions I always ask the client is, “What tone are you trying to convey?”

Half the time, I’m met with a long pause and a blank stare. So I’ll put it another way: “What impression are you trying to make? How do you want the reader to feel about you?”

Those are questions worth asking, because readers always feel something, even if it’s not completely conscious – and even if it’s not what you intended. For instance, maybe you’re trying to show that you know your stuff, but the tone comes across as pompous. Chances are, the customer will be less inclined to work with you.

To help my clients think through the issue, I developed the following checklist. The rule is, pick up to three terms describing the tone you hope to convey, and rank them in order of importance, 1-2-3. It’s an important exercise, because words, photos and design elements should all be chosen with your goals in mind.

Writing tips, writing for the ear

Is your writing tone-deaf?

  • Authoritative
  • Accomplished
  • Businesslike
  • Caring
  • Creative
  • Friendly
  • Funny
  • Helpful
  • Humble
  • Ironic
  • Inspiring
  • Personal
  • Quirky
  • Smart
  • Snarky
  • Sophisticated
  • Understanding
  • Upbeat
  • Visionary
  • Warm

It’s one thing to know what you’re trying to convey, but interpretation can be a funny thing. That’s why I like to use the checklist a second time to see how my message actually came across.

Try this simple test: Ask a friend to read your homepage or your latest blog post, then give her the checklist and ask her what tone she was picking up on. If you were going for “sophisticated,” but she reads it as “snarky,” then you may need to go back to the drawing board.

Go ahead, grade me

The checklist is a nice tool because many readers might otherwise have a hard time putting vague impressions into words. Feel free to use it any time you want to focus your thoughts for a new writing project or gather feedback on something you’ve already written.

What have I missed? Can you think of a term I should have included on this list? I’m always looking to improve my diagnostic tools.

Also, I’d love to take a dose of my own medicine, so please use the checklist to provide me with feedback on this post. What tone do you think I was trying to convey? I do have three items in mind, and I promise I’ll answer truthfully after I get a few guesses.

Nothing like brutal honesty, right?

Photo credit: clogsilk via flickr CC

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All “About” success: Brooke McLay

August 20, 2011 By rjones Leave a Comment

You think your business operates in a crowded field? Try being a food blogger, where the competition seems to include anyone with an oven and an Internet connection.

Even in niche fields like cupcakes or gluten-free cooking, you can find more recipes in one week than you could possibly make in an entire year. The supply is endless and the price is free, making the “recipe industry” quite possibly the world’s most competitive commodity business.

So how does one lowly blogger keep readers coming back again and again? In any competitive field where the product is much the same, personality becomes the key to forging relationships — and Brooke McLay had me at “Hiya!”

A voice I can’t forget

It’s been months since I combed through literally hundreds of recipe sites on behalf of a client, but Brooke’s distinctive voice still stands out in my mind. She grabbed my attention with that friendly, familiar greeting and held me through eight breezy paragraphs of introduction to her Cheeky Kitchen blog.

If you’re hungry for a more effective “About” page, you might try adapting Brooke’s successful recipe to suit your own tastes:

  • Show some personality, even when talking business. There’s not much life’s story here. This “About” page is focused mainly on the mission of the blog, yet Brooke still manages to convey her personality through word choice and writing style. When she declares that life “should taste pretty dang fantastic” or that meals should be “a celebration every, single, stinkin’ time,” you get a strong sense of the gee-whiz enthusiasm that’s being served up with every recipe.
  • Be choosy in sharing personal details. When Brooke does get around to her personal life — way down in paragraph 7 — she introduces her “four fabu kids” and her “one sexy man” mainly to show that she understands the way real families eat. Her kids don’t like Brussels sprouts and her husband doesn’t like “Spicy Tomato-Glazed Eggplant Fritters with a Caper Reduction Sauce,” but those aren’t just random, cutesy details. Instead, they explain Cheeky Kitchen’s mission to be “a resource for food that everyone will actually eat.”
  • Be relatable. Some food bloggers love to show off their drool-worthy “test kitchens” or name-drop their conversations with celebrity chefs, but Brooke maintains a laser focus on keeping it real and relatable. When she says, “I know what it’s like to wake up on Monday and have $40 to feed the family for the rest of the week,” you know foie gras probably won’t be on the menu here.
  • Soft-sell success. Brooke has written two cookbooks, won international cooking contests, hosted a cooking show and published hundreds of recipes, but you won’t find her touting those achievements on her “About” page. In fact, when she does make an oblique reference to her resume, she manages to turn the spotlight back on her community: “I certainly didn’t think I’d one day have a blog that would trip me around the nation, land me fantastic gigs, or introduce me to a world of lovely, kind, uber-talented readers, fellow bloggers, and friends.”

A pinch of this, a dash of that

In an interview, Brooke compares her “About” page to the family room of her home, a place where “good friends are invited to kick off their shoes and sprawl across the couches.”

Turns out, making people comfortable is actually hard work: “I studied a lot of other bloggers’ About pages,” she says, and even now, she continues to keep notes all year long for an annual re-write.

“On any one day when I’m feeling passionate about it all, I’ll sit down and type it out, edit it, and post it. I try to let it be a very organic process. I don’t want a highly stylized About page, I just want it to really show what my site is truly about.”

Brooke wants most of the site feels like “a chat over lemonade and tea, but I’m not always living that voice.” When it’s time to talk business with potential sponsors, for instance, the “family room” didn’t seem like the proper setting. That’s why Cheeky Kitchen includes a separate “resume-type page for companies interested in hiring or working with me.” It’s like the difference between a family room and a formal living room, she explains.

What do you think of the “About” page at Cheeky Kitchen? Does it make the same impression on you that it did on me? Are there any other elements you could adapt to your website? And who else would you like to see included in this series?

  • For last week’s post featuring Aaron Biebert, please click here.
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All “About” success: Aaron Biebert

August 11, 2011 By rjones 7 Comments

The perfect formula?

Remember the mad scientists of the Middle Ages who thought they could turn common elements into gold if they just got the chemistry right?

To a certain extent, marketers are still practicing alchemy today, and nowhere is the formula more elusive than it is on your “About” page. This is the ultimate laboratory, where words and images are supposed to produce a chemical reaction in the visitor’s brain. When it works — pure gold. But it doesn’t work very often.

With that in mind, I thought I’d start a weekly series on “About” pages that do work, hoping to analyze some of the ingredients that go into the perfect page. I won’t cover my own clients, since that would be a conflict of interest. If I include someone here, it’s because their page worked its magic on me — and might just serve as a model for you.

First victim: Aaron Biebert (@biebert), whom I just discovered this week on Twitter. His whole blog is intensely personal and revealing, and the “About” page is no exception. If your business depends on a deep, personal connection with customers, then Aaron’s page could well serve as a template:

  1. He starts with an attention-getting lead: “I’ve dedicated my life to giving away a Billion dollars and making a difference in the world.” Stops you in your tracks and practically forces you to click on the link, right? Aaron’s actually taking a bit of a gamble here. His claim could come across as braggadocio, but he quickly tempers it with a welcome dose of humility: “Since I didn’t start with much, I’ve got a long way to go. That’s why I usually work until 2am each night.”
  2. He respects his readers’ time. Above the fold is an executive summary that’s barely 100 words long. If you’re in a hurry, you get the quick version of what drives Aaron and what his blog is all about. The typical “resume” section gets pushed to the end. Very smart, very efficient.
  3. He writes from the heart. Some “About” pages are cool and impersonal. Some are actually written in the third person, which is downright frigid. By contrast, look at the warmth of Aaron’s page. He chooses words that convey his personality: love, passionate, optimist, inspired. Admittedly, that won’t appeal to everyone; cynics may find the tone annoying. But Aaron doesn’t want cynics in his tribe, so that’s okay. Attraction and alienation are two sides of the same coin, and it’s always better to focus on the former.

One other thing: Notice that Aaron breaks the oldest rule of selling by never asking for the sale. Other than a simple link to “like us on Facebook,” there’s no call to action here. He alludes to writing, speaking and consulting, but you won’t find a button to “Buy my e-book!” or “Schedule your consultation!”

“My goal for this page is to let people inside what I’m thinking and give them a vision for where I’m going,” Aaron told me. “I intentionally don’t sell anything because I’m trying to connect with people, not sell them anything. If they really like what you’re about, they’ll call themselves to action. That’s what I was going for.”

Is that a good thing? I’m not sure it’s a smart strategy for every business, but the low-key approach does help Aaron stand out from the crowd. By not asking for the sale, he helps to lower my defenses and raise my curiosity.

Personally, I just want to buy the guy a cup of coffee and pick his brain. And after the coffee, I’d probably sign up for whatever he’s selling.

By the way, Aaron is a terrific writer, so he makes this look effortless. But don’t be fooled. The current page is “version 3.1,” and he spent about 2 hours perfecting what you see here.

The lesson: A good “About” page should grow and mature — just like the person behind it.

What do you think? Does Aaron’s page make you feel connected to him? What is it in particular that really works here? And what do you think of his soft-sell approach?

Finally, I need your help in identifying other “About” pages that work. Please drop me a line or post your links below. We’ll be back next week with another installment.

Photo credit: petercat.harris via flickr CC

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Business briefs: Turning around bad word-of-mouth

August 8, 2011 By rjones Leave a Comment

Don't get screwed by word-of-mouth

If you ever get caught with your pants down, you’d better have a good story.

That’s my takeaway from a little online dust-up with Waiters In Boxers, a California company that provides … well, just what the name says.

Last week, reporter Chad Brooks profiled Waiters In Boxers as part of his “Funny Business” series for Business News Daily. After reading the story, I had to tweet my two cents’ worth, and several others quickly joined in the conversation, raising questions about the viability of this particular business model.

I figured that was the end of it until a few days later, when I received the following reply to my tweet:

@PenPointer @JeanetteBND maybe look at the actual concept not how it was re-written in bnd from chad brooks perspective :) much love!

Fair enough. Maybe this business model was more sophisticated than it seemed at first glance. I probably should take a closer look at their story, so I clicked through to the WIB site and found … not much of anything. I mean, lots of pecs, lots of abs, and lots of underwear, but nothing to change my mind or reverse a negative first impression.

Talk about a missed opportunity. Even negative word-of-mouth is a good thing, if you can turn the attention to your advantage. If Waiters In Boxers were my client, I’d urge them to do a quick A-B-C analysis of their site:

  • Anticipate customer objections. If there’s an issue you need to address, then hit it head-on, or risk raising more red flags in customers’ minds. For instance, WIB wants to assure visitors that their service won’t be “as tacky and tasteless as what others have done.” Huh? Now I’m really uncertain about this. More details, please.
  • Be yourself. Don’t hide behind the corporate “we.” Put a face on your company, make it personal. With WIB, I imagine a creepy, Hugh Hefner type behind the scenes. But maybe that’s all wrong. Maybe the company was started by a young woman who couldn’t find what she wanted for her bachelorette party. Maybe it was a hard-working waiter who was looking to create new opportunities for himself and his friends. When you personalize your story, you make it easier for customers to identify with you — and harder for critics to stereotype you.
  • Choose your content carefully. Words and pictures matter. WIB wants to convey a sort of fun, wholesome image, but the content often communicates just the opposite. Beefcake photos and constant repetition of the word ‘sexy’? That just says “objectify me.” Instead of pecs, I’d recommend personality: Show the waiters in T-shirts and include a brief bio that turns them into living, breathing human beings. Not only would it change the whole tone of the site, but it might also encourage potential clients to get in touch for additional photos.

Here’s the naked truth: You can’t stop the critics from talking about you, but you can change the conversation by telling your side of the story more effectively.

Photo credit: Thomas van Ardenne via flickr CC

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Biography building block #3: Drama

August 5, 2011 By rjones Leave a Comment

(Note: This is the third installment in an occasional series. Earlier posts can be found here and here.)

shakespeare, drama, business biographyIf you’ve ever endured a mumblecore film or forced yourself to slog through 100 pages of Proust, you understand why drama is indispensable to a story. Without drama or conflict, there’s no forward motion, and you’re stuck with the status quo, which is Latin for “boring.”

A business biography that focuses only on your personnel and products is every bit as dull. The solution: Spice up your storyline by letting customers know about some of the hurdles and hardships your company has faced.

That’s not to say that your business biography needs to read like a soap opera in order to be interesting. Drama comes in many forms, and even small conflicts can drive a story forward. Chances are you’ve experienced the drama of:

  1. Recession. Everyone knows the pain of the last few years, and shuttered storefronts are proof that small businesses felt the pain, too. When you share your story of survival, customers will feel more inclined to stick with you during the good times.
  2. Competition. Big-box stores may have low prices, but mom-and-pop shops have emotion on their side. You’re David in this story, so share how it felt when Goliath came to town. Don’t worry about bringing the giant down. Just standing your ground makes you the good guy, and it makes for a great story.
  3. Disaster. Fires, floods, earthquakes — nobody wants to experience that kind of drama, but when disaster does strike, be sure to make it a part of your business biography. It worked for Trae Wieniewitz, who uprooted his financial planning service following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, moving hundreds of miles away to Knoxville, Tenn., where he didn’t know a soul. Initially viewed as an interloper, Wieniewitz used his survivor story to help connect with the locals, and his business grew seven-fold.

Drama works because it humanizes the players and gives us someone to cheer for. We identify with struggle. We connect with emotions such as fear, uncertainty and disappointment.

You don’t have to be a Shakespeare to harness the power of drama; you just have to be honest, vulnerable and human. For instance, take Erika Kotite, the founder of a brilliant and beautiful online magazine called Toque. I’ve enjoyed Toque from the start, but it took this newsletter item to get me truly emotionally invested:

Toque was hacked two weeks ago. Seems a gang of phish-farmers decided they wanted to harvest some bank customers and chose one of my sites as control central. It was like having bad case of head lice: miserable and damn hard to get rid of.

In her newsletter, Kotite recounts the struggle to get Toque up and running again, shares some of the lessons learned, and then closes with this:

Adversity builds character, crisis tests resiliency. Although worn out from the drama of resuscitating Toque, I am gratified to realize that it’s well worth saving.

Kotite’s little drama won’t make the evening news, but it will likely make readers rally to her cause — and therein lies the power of a story well told.

Photo credit: tonynetone via flickr CC

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How to get publicity of biblical proportions

July 28, 2011 By rjones 2 Comments

What does this story remind you of:

A burned-out Internet entrepreneur decides he wants to spend more time with his family, so he opens a small retail shop that sells and services Apple products. He makes a decent living, eats lunch and dinner at home every day, and life is generally good — until Apple announces plans to open one of its sleek corporate stores in the same sleepy Georgia town.

Rather than run away, the entrepreneur fights back. He adds more services, more workshops and five times the number of accessories carried by the typical Apple store. Lo and behold, the giant fails to crush the little guy. In fact, PeachMac grows to a mini-chain with five locations.

Even if you weren’t brought up in Sunday School, the words “David and Goliath” might spring to mind. I couldn’t help but think of the analogy this morning as I read the story of scrappy little PeachMac and its improbable battle with the retail giant. That got me thinking about other stories that resonate far beyond the church pew — and the lessons they might hold for business communicators.

David-vs-Goliath is one of those universal stories that everyone can relate to. We’ve all felt like “the little guy,” so we love it when the giants fall. Customers aren’t immune to that feeling, and neither are reporters. Everyone wants to see the little guy win, which means you can’t lose by emphasizing the David-and-Goliath aspect of your story.

Here are three more biblical phrases that have found their way into common usage, along with suggestions for applying the universal themes to your own business story:

  • The patience of Job. Sounds vaguely familiar, right? In case it’s been a while, Job was the one who lost everything through no fault of his own. Even in poverty, sickness and personal tragedy, he never lost his faith — and in the end he was vindicated with more than he ever had before. How it applies to you: Everyone loves a comeback story. Rather than hiding your hardships, make them part of your narrative. If customers can identify with your struggles, they’ll be more eager to contribute to your success.
  • Walking on water. This phrase comes from the story of Jesus walking across the waves to save his followers who seemed certain to perish in a storm. How it applies to you: Everyone wants to believe in miracles. Sometimes success can be so fast or so improbable that it boggles the mind. That makes for a great story — provided you handle it with care. Walking on water should be slightly bewildering, even for those who have done it. If you appear to take it for granted or take full credit, you’ll just come across as arrogant, and your reputation will sink like a stone.
  • A good Samaritan. The biblical good Samaritan took pity on a robbery victim who had been ignored by previous passersby. He interrupted his own journey and spent his own funds nursing the man back to health. How it applies to you: Everyone loves a “good guy.” We identify with people and organizations that help others and make the world a better place. Find tactful ways of establishing your Samaritan credentials and letting others know what you’re doing. Just make sure it’s sincere — no one likes somebody who exploits the less fortunate.

I’m sure there are plenty more examples I’ve overlooked, plus similar stories from other faiths. Feel free to contribute below.

Photo credit: humancarbine via flickr CC

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When to share, when to shut up

July 27, 2011 By rjones Leave a Comment

Sometimes on the tennis or volleyball court, I’ll get a shooting pain in my left knee that forces me to stop and bandage up. When my opponents ask what’s wrong, I always give the same reply: “Old soccer injury.”

That answer is 100% accurate – even if it’s not 100% complete. I did tear my ligaments playing soccer and spent weeks hobbling around on crutches. What I don’t normally tell people is exactly how it happened.

I’m not especially proud of the rest of the story, but it may hold some lessons for business owners who wonder how far they should go in sharing their personal tales.

My friend Mike Figliuolo over at thoughtLEADERS convinced me to spill the beans in a guest post for his blog, so please head over there for all the embarrassing details.

Just promise you won’t think less of me.

Photo credit: jbelluch via flickr CC

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5 ways to get a reporter’s attention

July 12, 2011 By rjones Leave a Comment

(Note: For part 1 in this series, please click here.) press, media, media relations

It’s not yet 9:00 on a Tuesday morning, and I already have more than 150 requests this week from reporters seeking input on stories they are writing. I’d say 100 requests per day is pretty average, and the emails from HARO and Reporter Connection come five days a week. So the math is simple: If just 1/2 of 1% of those queries are applicable to you and your business, that’s more than a dozen chances every month to share your story with a much bigger audience.

How big, you ask? So far this week I’ve seen requests from USA Today, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, NBC News and TheStreet.com, just to name a few. That, as they say, is the kind of publicity that money just can’t buy.

Naturally, plenty of other business owners have caught on to this little secret, so you’ll have to work hard to ensure that your reply stands out from the rest. Based on 20 years of writing for the small-business press, I have a few suggestions for doing just that:

  1. Wait for the right opportunity. Reporters are usually very specific about what they’re looking for, so there’s no point in responding if your story doesn’t fit their criteria. You’ll only waste your time, get discouraged and quit too soon, before the perfect opportunity comes along.
  2. Be specific. Every time I post a query as a reporter, I get multiple replies along the lines of: “I have a great story to tell you; please contact me for more information.” Uh, thanks but no. I’m getting dozens and dozens of replies, and I can’t possibly follow up with every one. The ones I do follow up with are the ones that show they understand my angle, and they have the kind of information I’m looking for.
  3. Offer anecdotes. The No. 1 rule of good writing is, “Show, don’t tell.” That means reporters are looking for anecdotes rather than sermons or platitudes. If you want to catch a writer’s attention, give a concrete example from your experience as a business owner. Leave the sermonizing up to the consultants and B-school professors.
  4. Offer additional resources. Most journalists — aside from Larry King — like to do their homework before conducting an interview. If you give me details about your website, blog, Facebook page, Twitter stream and so forth, I’ll probably be more comfortable about contacting you.
  5. Start small. The best-known media outlets always get the most responses to their queries. You’ll stand a better chance of getting noticed if you reply to posts from lesser-known blogs, regional magazines, industry journals and so forth. Bonus: The audience may be smaller, but they’re usually better targeted and more engaged.

If all of this sounds like a lot of work, then give yourself a pat on the back — you’re a very discerning reader. Keeping up with queries and sending well-crafted replies can be a time-consuming task. Yes, the payoff can be huge, but it probably won’t come right away, and you may run out of steam before you start seeing results. At the outset, try limiting yourself to just one story per week. That should help you get the hang of the process without risking burnout.

Can you hire a professional to take care of all this for you? Sure, marketing and PR firms can monitor daily feeds, alert you to the best opportunities and approach reporters on your behalf. Just remember: The higher the retainer fee, the less pressure there is on the agency to actually produce. The best arrangement is a nominal monthly retainer, plus an additional fee each time a media outlet picks up your story.

At PenPoint Group, we’re not actively taking on new clients at the moment, but I’d be happy to share our fee structure with any business owner who’s trying to collect some baseline pricing data. Just contact us here for more information.

(Photo by flickr user Simone Ramella)

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How your story can make a reporter’s day

July 8, 2011 By rjones Leave a Comment

Help a reporter tell the story of your business

As a reporter, I’m always looking for good stories to tell. As a business owner, you should always be looking for new places to share your story.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out there’s a huge opportunity here.

You can — and should — tell your story constantly through your website, blog, brochures and other media that you control. But when someone else tells your story, it’s even better. Consider just a few of the benefits:

  • You gain legitimacy. Reporters don’t have a stake in your business, so when they suggest that you know what you’re talking about, people tend to believe it.
  • You gain links. Most reporters will link back to your website if you ask them to, and that can provide a big boost to your search engine rankings.
  • You gain endorsements. No, a reporter isn’t technically endorsing you by quoting you as a source, but the effect is much the same. You can use pull quotes throughout your site or simply note that you’ve been featured in X,Y and Z.
  • You gain engagement. Readers who find you in a media story and click through to your site are generally more engaged than those who stumble across you via search or some other means.

So you’re convinced that you need to get yourself interviewed by a reporter. That used to be a costly and time-consuming chore involving blind press releases or paid listings in big, fat directories that got updated once a year. Fortunately, the Internet has made it all cheaper, simpler and much more targeted by turning the process on its head. Instead of experts going out in search of reporters, sites like Reporter Connection and Help a Reporter Out (HARO) allow reporters to post the specific stories they’re working on.

The variety of stories is huge — there is literally something for everyone on any given day. Here’s a tiny sampling of topics I’ve seen recently:

  • How to set goals for your small business
  • Looking for successful restaurant ad campaigns
  • How has your executive MBA helped your career?help a reporter
  • How has flex time worked at your small business?
  • Seeking expert on antique appraisals
  • Seeking business travelers
  • What “toys” do you have in your office?
  • The best new smartphone apps for moms
  • What sites do you use to improve your job skills?
  • Small business leadership success stories

When you see something that looks like a fit, you can pitch directly to the reporter, making your case for why you should be included in his or her story. But be warned: The competition will be stiff. For a story in AllBusiness.com, I recently posted a query seeking very specific anecdotes from business owners who had tried daily-deal websites. Even with a narrowly defined topic, I still got more than two dozen responses in just the first two days. At that point, I stopped reading.

How do you break through the clutter and really grab a reporter’s attention? I’ll cover that topic in my next post. For now, though, do yourself a favor and sign up for a free membership at both HARO and Reporter Connection. Get a feel for the topics, get familiar with the process, and get ready to tell your story to a broader audience.

(Photo by flickr user Shavar Ross)

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In business biography, less can be more

July 6, 2011 By rjones Leave a Comment

In an uncertain economy, it’s big news that Go Daddy is selling itself for a reported $2.25 billion. So why do terms like “elephant hunt” and “Danica Patrick” keep popping up when reporters analyze the deal?

Chalk it up to the power of storytelling — for good or ill.

Go Daddy dead elephant

Go Daddy is synonymous with its flamboyant founder, Bob Parsons, who built his Phoenix-based company into the world’s leading domain name registrar, with revenues estimated at more than $1 billion a year. Parsons realized early on that low prices and high volume would drive growth in domain registrations, and he hired scantily-clad “Go Daddy Girls” to help spread the word among his core market of young, male technology types.

Every year the company gets tons of press for its risque Super Bowl ads featuring celebrities like race car diver Danica Patrick and personal trainer Jillian Michaels — plus the accompanying “too hot for TV” clips that drive traffic to the Go Daddy website.

In other words, Parsons created a story about sexual mores and social boundaries that helped to differentiate his company in what is, essentially, a commodity business. But the funny thing about pushing boundaries is that you never exactly where they are until you’ve inadvertently stepped over them, as Parsons seemed to do earlier this year with an elephant hunt in Zimbabwe.

Rather than quietly jetting off to pursue his hunting pastime halfway around the world, Parsons posted a video on his blog, including footage that showed him grinning proudly over the carcass of his fallen prey. When animal-rights groups protested the killing, he indignantly portrayed himself not as a sportsman, but as the Great White Hope of the poor, benighted African villagers whose crops were being trampled by the elephants.

While many supporters rallied to Parsons’ defense, tens of thousands of exasperated Go Daddy customers voted with their wallets, transferring their domain registrations to competitors such as Namecheap and Network Solutions.

Parsons insists that nothing will change at Go Daddy after his billion-dollar payday, but I suspect that’s not entirely true. Big investors are buying the company for its steady revenue stream, and they won’t have much patience for a founder who doesn’t know the difference between self-aggrandizement and self-immolation. Just look what happened to Ted Turner, the “Mouth of the South,” after Time Warner bought out his media empire.

For other entrepreneurs, the lesson to be learned from Go Daddy is this: Every founder has both a personal brand and a company brand, and same stories that build up one can tear down the other. When you’re trying to decide how much of yourself to reveal, make sure the decision is based on economy rather than ego. Still not sure? Imagine yourself in a buyout situation, and ask whether your new corporate bosses would wince at your revelations.

When your reputation is at stake, sometimes less is more.

Filed Under: Communications, Rants & Raves Tagged With: , , ,
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