Magnus Marketing Blog

I love to write, especially if something strikes me and pushes a button. My passion is business and the world of sales/marketing and I love to talk about lots of areas within that. That and pointing out the extreme stupidity of many of my former employers - actually, it is precisely because of the idiocy of my former employers that I started Magnus Marketing Group. To prevent other small businesses from making the same dumb mistakes they did.

Well, I realized as I passionately wrote things about my experiences that I am not only educating nice people who may really need my help, but I am also feeding information to not very nice people or competitors who don't possess the level of intelligence that I do. The last thing I want to do is share yet more insight or ideas with people who will claim them as their own and market it as such. I am not in the business of educating competitors who may have better networks than me, who have more visibility, or who will take my advice packaged as their own for their clients. As I said before, as many have said to me, there is only one Rachel - this one has some unique talents with Sales Intelligence research and prospecting that very few possess. Doing business with anyone else will NOT give you the same results.

I noticed that a former employer visited my LinkedIn profile a couple of times in the last few weeks. I have no idea what they are looking for or why they even are looking. This is one former employer that I will never deal with again, other former employers are clients and I am glad they recognized my value and engaged with me again. Those are the smart ones. :) I have a feeling this one is searching for ideas or looking for something that they can call the legal dogs out on. Not that they have anything to call them on, in fact the reverse may be true. Anyway. But that made me realize yet another downside to Web 2.0 and social media - with lack of privacy comes lack of protection.

My blog will continue with general comments or developments, things that may still help people. But I am not in the business of educating my competition. If anyone wants to know how to intelligently go to market or win business in down economic times - do what others have done: email or call me. I will even chat with you for free!

I was anticipating the return of Jay Leno and the new Tonight Show episodes. As a fan of the Tonight Show, I was interested to see what his show would be like while the writer's strike was in effect.

I believe his subsequent shows were better than the ones his writers created! More relaxed, more mature in subject, and more targeted - they were funnier and more interesting than any of the other stuff (which I was getting a little bored of). My hat is off to him.

Some points that came out of this:

Never should a small group of people so disrupt the operations of a business. As Jay mentioned, he could not let a group of 19 people stop the employment of 150 people. The needs of the many override the needs of the few. He did the right thing by going back on the air. Why should 100+ people suffer because a few people aren't happy about their situation.

Jay is obviously very talented and probably a great manager. Why? Because he was able to continue to do the work even though his people walked out on him. Ask a question of yourself, if your marketing staff quit, talent acquisition staff quit, or sales staff quit - would you still be able to run those functions? If the answer is no, then you likely don't have the right leadership. This highlights issues in management: like the sales department run by a Sales Manager who never did sales, or recruiting departments run by HR people who never recruited....do they really understand the job enough to direct the activities of others and step in to fill gaps when needed? Probably not. Jay picked up right where he left off many years ago and did the job of what he does: comedian. And he did a fantastic job as well.

Kudos to Jay Leno. Love his stuff. Admire him even more.

A colleague/friend decided to stop speaking to me. Like gone cold turkey. I enjoy the Christmas season working in my favorite place - Kohl's! This 28 year old "mature" woman now passes by me with nary a word, acting like I am invisible. She also answers simple questions with rude, hostile, single word sarcastic remarks - Hey, J, did you fold all the tables on this side. She replied, "Yeah. Don't they look folded to you" dripping with hostility. For the life of me and my other colleague (who is also made her "invisible" list) we cannot figure out what set her off - this time. J pulled the same grudge-holding, invisible, not speaking to anyone act earlier this year. It started with the same issue; the way I sort clothing on a garment rack. Was it because of the way I sort clothes? Is it jealousy due to my happy times with our colleague S? Is it because I, D, and S planned a "Santa and the Elves" store event and she wasn't included? I have no idea because J won't communicate. She won't communicate in a professional and civil manner. S and I can't work with her, because she won't talk or work with us. Yes, the management was informed. Her hostility and anger is somewhat frightening, if you hear of an incident where some blonde chick pulled a gun in a Kohl's and shot up her teammates - you will know it is J.

Happy New Year - J needs to be terminated. Immediately. And get some desperately needed mental illness counseling.

This made me think back to my last job. The 25 year old inexperienced marketing associate who worked on sales intelligence reports. The incident was as follows: The team had to produce 3 reports that would be demonstrated for the VP of Higher Ed at Sun Microsystems. The account executive sat down with me and told me, under no uncertain terms should these reports be less than "A" quality because it was an opportunity to showcase our capability and get a lot of business from Sun. One of the reports was assigned to a junior analyst who I supported for her incredible insight and smarts. She was a superstar analyst in the making. I had a promotion in mind with more money for her. Anyway, she had one major problem - she could not take criticism and got defensive to the point of freaking out. Well, you can imagine what happened. She produced a very, very substandard report - half finished, poorly written, terribly researched. I called her in to a closed door office meeting and did the "U" compliment, critique, compliment. Halfway thru, she walked out, just got up and walked out without a word. When, on instructions from my boss, I went to get her to finish the session - a screaming match ensued - high pitched shrill shreiking against getting any feedback. Another colleague intervened to calm her down. She ended up with the feedback. A week later, she and I were called into a disciplinary meeting, my "helpful" colleague stabbed me in the back (claimed I was a bully and intimidating. Considering that I openly favored the girl and was not a fan of his - consider the politics here, I was warned he was "sneaky" and was out for my job), and we both were suspended. Ultimately both of us were dismissed from our positions, she quit and I had many issues (divergent views, honest communications, high standards on quality, etc). Within six months of my departure, the team was gone. Everyone agreed that it wasn't worth it.

Happy New Year. This immature girl who couldn't handle criticism needed to go. I heard she is in a marketing job. I am sure she will not go far in any career, especially marketing where criticism is a daily occurrence. PS: The backstabber who wanted my job quit and is sitting in a low level government job. He never got anywhere.

Employees who are negatively disruptive, unproductive, immature in action need to be terminated. In addition to the deadwood, as mentioned in previous posts, consider unprofitable clients and processes that don't work - and get rid of them. Because in the end - it isn't worth it.