I wanted to share this with you all, because I think it might shine a little light on the "marketing university" nature of what we are all engaged in here.

Not too long ago, I thanked my realtor (who gave the most wonderful service imaginable) by publishing a testimonial in the form of a Squidoo lens.   He loved it and got excited enough about it to post it on his Facebook page.  That alone sent traffic to his main website (through the link on the lens).  Then more traffic came from (I think) the use of the keywords I saw in the meta-tags on his site.  And, for all I know, some Twitter tweets and other social media link-sharing from their friends and clients.

Anyway, here's what happened as a result of that just-to-be-nice Squidoo lens.  The realtor's boss (who operates a high-volume realty office in my region) saw the traffic boost in Google Analytics.  Saw how much traffic was coming from that Squidoo lens.  Went to my website...called to ask me to discuss internet marketing services with her.

This morning I met with her and her team to explain what I could do for them.  PowerPoint and everything.  I almost felt like Darrin Stevens from Bewitched pitching his latest cool ad mockups--but without Larry the boss smirking and eye-rolling next to him.  I listened to myself explaining keyword research, back-links, article marketing, keyword-optimized blogging, social bookmarking, and product creation.  And I thought, huh?  Me?  The newbie?  I didn't sound so much like a newbie, I realized.  I actually sounded...confident.  Why thank you, WA.  You (and a few generous-hearted souls on forums) have begun to make a marketer out of me.  Anyway, after the meeting, I went home and submitted a proposal for a multi-faceted IM campaign. 

I admit, I'm a bit out of my comfort zone.  I described things I still don't have much experience in, and I got anxious thinking about how much it would suck to fail.  It's one thing to fail among strangers--another thing to fail among people who are your neighbors.  But no more failure thoughts allowed, I tell myself.  Look where all that got ya in the past.   And besides, I'm already used to ducking behind produce displays in the grocery store to hide from boundary-trampling people who trigger all of my deep-seated, limbic-region anxieties. 

(Oh yes, and last week when one of those anxiety-triggering types started approaching me, I shook my head and kind of tapped my ear as if to say, hey, see the bluetooth?  Can't talk right now.  Except...I didn't have a bluetooth in my ear.  I was PRETENDING, you see.  With my imaginary bluetooth friend.  Oh so convincingly.  The woman looked at me all squinty-eyed, like oh you are one strange duck, honey.  But she did roll that cart right on past me.  Whew.  Near miss. But, I digress....)

My point in all of this is...even though I'm having a week in which (in the strictest sense) my WA training is on temporary hold while I court clients and earn $, I'm finding that thinking like a marketer is making me more confident as a writer and researcher.  

You want to know something funny?  The word "marketing" has always put me off a little.  Like, you know how there's a certain granola-y type who's always resisting "the man"? "Dude, if I sell my flax-and-algae organic granola to Wal-Mart, I'm in bed with THE MAN.  No waaaay." Well, I'm not granola-y, but I have a real distaste for "spin."   For slickness.  For phoniness.  And it's easy to be all high and mighty and say about a franchise or politician, "Ah, that's all just marketing." (Cluck cluck, sad shaking of head.)

But THEN, when you find yourself in a place where you realize there ain't no one in this world gonna pay/appoint/elect/date/befriend/refer if you don't market yourself...eh, it just starts to seem like a pretty dumb stance.  And, in my case, I had to admit to myself, I'm really just afraid of marketing self/stuff/services and falling on my backside. 

Anyway, I should hear next week whether I'll be allocating 15 hours a week to the real estate broker for the next three to six months.  Keyword-researching, backlink-building, site optimizing, article marketing, ghost-blogging, social-media-page maitaining...ooooh, all that good stuff. Less time spent looking to string small gigs together means more time training on this site (and taking action outside of this site).  Which is all a very good thing, since I'm realizing just how much I have yet to learn.