Here is your NoSpin Debunker for August 4, 2003

Please take 5 seconds for my current poll: What's the best thing about the NoSpin Marketing website? (lower left of my homepage) Next time it will be, "What is the worst thing about my site?"

Brag About Your Business

Whoa there-isn't that the NoSpin guy talking? No hype? No spin? Yup, but you can brag--without being obnoxious and without the spin-and effectively market your business.

Spin is the propensity for organizations NOT to tell it like it is and thereby avoid the tougher things like building good products, listening to customers and markets, and communicating with employees--and hence lose out on better financial results. Unlike having a "point-of-view," persuading, or telling a real, positive story, "spin" is a conscious effort to deceive, distort, deflect, or disavow. More about "spin..."

Bragging, on the other hand, is more than just tooting your own horn. It's creatively telling people the straight scoop about your company. Not what you might be "fix'n" to do but what you are actually doing. I've touched on this subject before, but most companies do a terrible job of bragging about what they are good at. It's too easy to say nothing, or stick with the status quo, or to be paranoid that (if you do brag) somebody out there might learn a "top secret" about your business, or to simply exaggerate and fib (to try and be perceived) better than what you really are.

Bragging is Central to Good Marketing

Marketing is all about persuading people to take a look at your business, products, and services--to get them to buy. Bragging works IF you shoot to:

  • Cut the hype and spin
  • Be accurate
  • Be concrete
  • Be fresh and new
  • Be creative, different, unusual, interesting
  • Be enthusiastic and engaging
  • Be brief when first grabbing their attention
  • Tell a lot of folks
  • Tell them regularly
  • "Show" (as much as possible) vs. just "tell," paint "pictures" for them
  • Use examples, analogies, and rhetoric that make connections with your prospects

A Few Things to Brag About

Your Customers and Customer Successes

  • Who they are and what they do.
  • Their business performance: financial metrics, growth, other stats, ratings, awards, etc.
  • What they say about you and how you provide benefits: testimonials, case studies, white papers, articles, press releases, etc.

Note that bragging about customers also helps those customers, especially if you do it online (and include their links on your site). In turn, this can help you get your links on their sites. Truly a win-win.

Your Business

  • Your current products/services: by showing them in part or whole, providing free use, giveaways, doing demos, etc.
  • Tangible benefits of your products/services: as evidenced by customers and other 3rd parties.
  • Your business performance: financial, growth, longevity, 3rd party comparisonsand ratings, awards, etc.
  • Your cumulative knowledge: articles, other publications, white papers, advice, educational sessions, etc-online and offline.
  • Your individual people, their knowledge, and their performance because individuals do make a difference to clients.

My Turn to Brag

First, I appreciate your continued interest in my NoSpin Debunker newsletters. This is my 71st Debunker over the past two years, and I hope that many of them have been of value to you in your respective businesses. Sometimes it's hard for me to find the time and energy to write that next Debunker, but knowing that I have loyal readership (that has grown from a handful to hundreds) spurs me on.

I started NoSpin Marketing from dead scratch two years ago and have managed to build my very own business. I've made more money in past jobs, but I've never had close to the same level of satisfaction in my everyday work. It's the most challenging and rewarding thing that I've done in 26 years of business. Undoubtedly, I've learned more in two years-mostly from my customers-than in the past decade. Thanks to each of my clients--even the most difficult ones--for giving me the opportunity to learn from you.


Two of my current clients, Integra Software Systems and ZHealth Publishing made the 2003 recently announced list of fastest growing entrepreneurial companies in the Nashville area. A key part of my business model is providing ongoing marketing outsourcing to companies that need senior expertise--without adding the expensive FTE(s). Integra, ZHealth, and InfoAdvantage are my current marketing outsourcing clients.

As Nashville-based marketing consultant, I also help businesses take a big step with their websites--and transform them into true marketing vehicles that bring in prospects and sales. I'm not a web designer but rather a marketer who focuses on results vs. web glitz. The Nashville Business Journal is running a series of my articles on website marketing. See my July 25-31 column: Search Engine Optimization Key to Web Marketing Results.

Here's what Jerry Pratt, President of Integra Software Systems (that sells high-end software to the mortgage lending industry), says about the results he's gotten by investing in SEO: "The work Tom has done for us with search rngine marketing has definitely proven its worth. We recently signed a client as a direct result of our Web marketing initiatives. There are numerous other web originated prospects which collectively could add hundreds of thousands of dollars to our bottom line."

Last week I completed a Level I website evaluation for a resort in Bar Harbor Maine. Joanne Cough Smith (co-owner) of Atlantic Oakes by the sea (hotel, conference center and B & B) had this to say about my "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" website evaluation. "This was my first time requesting this type of service and I was extremely pleased with the positive and the negative (which was presented tongue in cheek yet was very constructive). Tom took the time to conduct a personal interview and presented a report that covered aspects ranging from content to appeal to Internet advertising and more! I am especially pleased that he was quick to answer emails with questions and requests that I had. He also completed the helpful, thoughtful and refreshing analysis in a very timely manner."

Time for a NoSpin Marketing Website Renovation

Yes, marketers are worst offenders in not keeping up with their own marketing. FINALLY, I am in process of revamping my own site. I hope that you take my poll "What do you like best about the NoSpin Marketing site? And next time (or anytime by email) you can give me your opinion of what think I need to change. I have long lists of things that I'd like to do, but I'd like your feedback to help guide me. Remember that good websites are meant to be dynamic works in process-and never "perfect."

615.383.7157