What the hell is Jeff Barson doing?

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This is the blog of Jeff Barson. I'm currently running HireVue Labs, former Director at Sendside, founder of Surface Medical, Nimble, Medspa MD, Freelance MD, Frontdesk, Uncommon, and Wild Blue... angel investor and startup advisor. Oh, and I'm a artist. More >>

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    "Everyone wants to kill the king. But the prince, he just sails along telling all the ladies, 'One day I'm gonna be king.'" ~
    Vince Chase, Entourage

    Entries in Guerrilla Marketing (7)

    Tuesday
    May312011

    Frontdesk Waiting Room Videos For Plastic Surgeons & Medical Spas

    Frontdesk's truly awesome waiting room videos and DVDs for doctors, dentists, chiropractors, medical spas, and laser clinics...

    medical waiting room videoPutting a jaw-dropping, attention grabbing video in your waiting room or lobby is the perfect way to add additional sales and profits to a clinics bottom line.

    The benefits are obvious. You're marketing directly to a captive audience that's already in your business with information about your products and services. Your clients will be entertained at the same time that you're educating and informing them of the scope of your services. Special offers? New services? Packages or gift certificates? Video marketing will 'soft-sell' your clients and get conversations started that result in increased sales!

    I started this new business as a way to get my wife Shelly involved in some of our online ventures and it's worked out really well since she's a wiz at this stuff having been a long-time advertising director for DSW and then Euro-RSCG.

    She's bringing all of her experience with clients like Intel, Iomega, Microsoft and Alphagraphics, as well as her time with our cosmetic practices (Surface) and plugging it into this new venture.

    Tuesday
    Mar032009

    Stumble Upon brings Big Traffic at Light Speed.

    I wrote this Simple Curiosity post on 'Why Time Slows Down When Approaching the Speed of Light' a while ago. In fact it wa on the Simple Curiosity blog that I've closed and now host on this site.

    Someone found that post and Stumbled it, leading to an extra 20,000 page views in the last 48 hours and the addition of 700 RSS readers. Shazam!

    Of course, now I'll have to start writing Simple Curiosity? again to keep those RSS readers happy.

    Monday
    Apr282008

    How to explain the complex with paper cutouts and a whiteboard.

    CommonCraft rocks. 

    Here's CommonCraft's channel on Blip.tv.

    There are any number of ways of explaining complex systems. Duarte Design is another company based out in Silicon Valley who has built a business on information design. They produced Al Gore's presentation 'An Inconvenient Truth' and if you've seen that, you know that it's probably the most interesting two-hour Powerpoint presentation you've ever seen. (Although they did it in Apple's Keynote.)

    CommonCraft wows you with clarity rather than production values. They're not the first to use this paper cut-out technique or draw diagrams on a whiteboard, but they're great at distilling out the information that's relevant and putting that into a two or three minute spot that doesn't bore you to tears while you're watching it.

    Wednesday
    May162007

    Business Networking: How to build your personal value.

    network.gifBusinesspundit has a post on networking for introverts.


    So you're really not much good at networking. You keep a drink in one hand and the other in a pocket. You stand against walls. You avoid direct eye contact. You pretty much suck at it and since you suck at it you hate doing it. You're constantly standing around trying to look pretty and hoping that someone you're interested in meeting will come and talk to you. 

    Me too.

    It's interesting to watch the dynamics at a networking event. I've attended many but there's often a sense of being disassociated from the main conversations. The worst are the hard sellers.

    The Hard Sellers: These guys are there to pitch. For the most part they're talking to themselves. Whenever I'm near a hard seller I'm tuning them right out and trying to scrape them off my shoe asap. The Hard Sellers listen little and talk much. They've done this and that and would appreciate it if you validate their existence by doffing your cap. 

    I hate that and respond poorly to it as most people probably do.

    Poor networking is usually cause by embarrassment and fear of rejection... hey , it's just like dating. (Here's my eminently readable post on Horizontal Networking)

    I have a good friend Chia in NY who's a photographer. She's about 4'8" and 73lbs (I'm 6'3" and 260) Chia used to be an actress before she became a photographer and now she's the most sought after actor photographer in Manhattan.

    Chia lives down in the Flat Iron district (The triangle shaped building in Spiderman). A boxing gym opened up next to her building and  Chia thought it would be great exercise to take up boxing. (Here's her boxing photography)

    Interestingly, the gym owners thought this was kind of cool so Chia hired a trainer and started hitting a heavy bag. It was a scene straight out of Million Dollar Baby except that Chia was much shorter.

    Of course Chia never actually wanted to fight. In fact, the gym ordered her a pair of pink boxing gloves which, I have to say, were really cute.

    Anyway, Chia hit like a girl. She'd prance around and make 'hitting' noises while she punched at the air.

    Chia wanted to be more serious. She wanted to move and hit like a boxer, not like a girl. When she talked to her trainer he looked at her like she was as stupid as a bag of hammers. "Chia", he said, " Just act like a boxer." That was it... Chia knew how to act and she was a boxer after that.

    The point being: It's always something you can act through. If you're not a great networker... act as though you were.

    Works for me. 

    Thursday
    Oct052006

    Viral marketing done right: The Mormon Al Qaeda

    Viral video marketing performed to perfection. While this was for a comedy show, watch this YouTube video and you'll find a great marketing tool that could work inside a local market.

     

    Friday
    Mar172006

    VIPBlogger.com's largest buyer is incredibly good looking.

    Since my RSS feeds were full of VIPBloggers posts yesterday I trotted on over to see what all the fuss was about. It seems that Justin Bergener (another of those short haired Junto boys) thought that the million dollar homepage idea was just the ticket to pry a few dollars out of the blogger crowd and buy himself more hair gel. Justin's no dummy. You're only in for a 6 month run.

    button.gifThis little 9 box square is mine and links to a number of blogs I run or businesses I own including:  Fight Club, MedicalSpasOnline.com, Surface Medical Spas, Nimbleit.com, and this blog. I didn't want to have 5 little boxes so I made one icon and split it up 9 ways. Seemed like a good idea at the time. It made me the largest buyer to date but did little to affect my looks as far as I can tell.

    I would expect to see a number of these sites pop up much like the 'I'll tatoo your logo on my forehead' auctions on Ebay. Still, I hope it works. Justin wants the money.

    Monday
    Feb202006

    Why there so many sucky blogs and artists.

    Blogging's not easy. It often feels like you're actually haveing to write something for an audience.

    I've been reading a lot of business blogs lately and am struck with the number of posts that suck. (Not like this one.) While I  enjoy blogging I've come to realize that the actual writing is less than exciting. It reminds me of my artist days. As an artist you must be very comfortable being alone. All my paintings (almost all) we're created entirely by myself, in my studio, while I was working late at night and alone. Everyone thinks that the act of creation is exciting and fulfilling, and it is. But the joy of creation comes at the beginning and the end.

    478985-277062-thumbnail.jpg
    click to enlarge
    A painting is exciting at conception and fullfilling at completion. The actual act is not usually enjoyable at all. In fact it's rather tedious. The Jackson Pollock style of throwing paint on a canvas is not my experience. As a realist, I've spent countless hours painting and repainting. This is a painting I worked off and on for a year. (Total full time of maybe 3-4 weeks.) It's big. 5 by 6 feet.

    Click to read more ...