Rob Frappier: Marketing Writer, Blogger, All-Around Nice Guy

Chris Brogan, famed communications consultant, author, and President of New Marketing Labs, set the social media world a-twitter (if you’ll pardon the pun) when he non-chalantly shared his consulting day rate in a recent blog post. The number, an impressive $22,000 a day, struck many readers as extremely high, particularly when juxtaposed against another blog post in which Chris solicited an unpaid intern to be a part of a new project he has in the works.

Now, in my opinion, if someone is willing to pay him $22,000 to do what he does, then Chris deserves to earn that kind of money. This is the United States of America baby. If you’re a consultant and you want to get paid big bucks, set high rates and do awesome work. We are all the keepers of our own souls. Do what works for you and don’t sweat it if you’re not at Chris’ level of success.

Of course, I’m not here to ramble on about my thoughts on the issue (I already did that in a comment here), what I’m interested in is bringing together some of the interesting and insightful analysis that sprung up AFTER Chris dropped the bomb. So, without further ado, here are my three favorite blog posts on Brogan-gate! (Is it okay to attach “gate” to this, or am I overreaching?)

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• Does Chris Brogan’s Day Rate “Anchor” the Cost of Social Media Consulting?

In an extremely insightful post over at Incentive Intelligence, Paul Hebert explains how, due to his level of celebrity in the social media sphere, Brogan’s revelation has set an anchor for the high end costs of social media consulting. In other words, though there are those who may charge more, Brogan’s fees are a good benchmark for what the highest earners could be making. Obviously, the majority of consultants don’t make that kind of scratch, but Hebert explains that Brogan’s anchor may still help lower or mid-level consultants earn more money.

Quoting from the post:

“Assume you are a very, very good social media consultant with great references (maybe even Chris himself) but you only charge $1,000 per day.  Congrats – you can probably give yourself a big raise.  Not that you’re doing anything better – just that the anchor for the work you do is now known and you can point to it and say – “hey, I do similar work as Chris and I’m only $10K per day.”  Your clients may now think your $10K rate looks like a bargain. That’s what anchors do.  They provide context for discussion and allow for comparisons.”

• So How Do You Figure Out Your Self-Worth?

In an interesting post at Justin Kownacki’s blog, Justin expounds upon some of the same themes brought up in the Incentive Intelligence post. In essence, Justin says that the reason people were upset over Brogan’s day rate is because they never knew that money like that was a realistic goal. Rather than sulking about how much money you’re not making, however, Justin suggests that you should reconsider how valuable your own services are.

In an excellent six-step strategy, which I won’t repeat here because you really should just read it at his blog, Justin outlines some of the ways that you can accurately determine your own consulting rates.

Quoting from the post:

“Valuing yourself according to other people’s self-estimations is the easiest way to drive yourself crazy.  But valuing yourself according to your own self-estimation is the easiest way to go hungry, because you never truly understand what your assets are actually worth to the people who don’t know what you know.”

• Why Do Price Discrepancies Exist and What Do They Mean For You?

In a wonderfully lengthy and deeply analytical blog post, Mike Myatt, Chief Strategy Officer for N2Growth, explains the important role that pricing plays in all aspects of business, and why some people will pay $30,000 for a Rolex but “feel a Timex isn’t worth more than $50 dollars.”

What I like the most about Myatt’s post is that he carefully explains some of the complex issues that can impact pricing – the strength of your brand, your competition, whether there is a demand for your services –  and how this complexity must be acknowledged in order to fairly assess your own value.

Quoting from the post:

“Bottom line…pricing is not a taboo subject to be avoided, but rather a key metric that needs to be well understood as well as proactively measured and managed. Pricing needs to be dealt with in the most embryonic stages of strategic planning and needs to constantly be evaluated based upon changes in market dynamics”

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Do you have any insights into Brogan-gate that you’d like to offer? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Almost one full year ago, I started a blog called They Are Coming For Us!, a humorous website dedicated to exploring the inevitable robot uprising. The purpose of the blog was two-fold: I wanted to use it as a testing ground for SEO experiments, and I wanted to have an outlet beyond my professional writing obligations to talk about some things that I really enjoyed, namely robots, science-fiction, and other nerdy delights. I even started a Twitter account for the blog, which, for a time, was even more popular than my actual Twitter account.

After a few months of steady updating, however, I found myself visiting the site less and less frequently. There were viable excuses to stop writing on the site, including some work changes and a couple of new marketing-related blogging opportunities that I didn’t want to pass up, but, honestly, it came down to the fact that I just didn’t know what to with it anymore. The project had become a burden to update, rather than something that I actually enjoyed doing, so I let it fall to the wayside.

For months, the disappointment of walking away from something in which I had invested so much mental effort weighed heavily on my mind. Eventually, I realized that I had made a mistake. What use was there in blaming the site for my lack of inspiration? After all, the reason I was uninspired is because I was creating uninspiring content, and there’s nothing worse in the world of blogging than that.

So, taking inspiration from a couple of other go-getters whom I follow on Twitter (including Matt Cheuvront, Tim Jahn, and Brandon Zeman), I decided to redesign They Are Coming For Us! from the ground-up by changing the site from a general blog to a robot-themed web comic with a blog on the side.

Over the weekend, I put in a few hours here and there tinkering with different layouts until I hit on a brilliant Wordpress theme called ComicPress. After installing ComicPress, everything else started falling into place, and I began publishing comics at the end of last week.

Is the website perfect? Far from it. I still have a lot of work to do in fully connecting the site to the vast world of social media.

Is it a good start? I think so.

The truth is, even if what I’m writing isn’t funny, at least I’m enjoying what I’m doing with the site, which is something that hasn’t been the case for a long time. Besides, like everything else, it’s going to take some time for me to figure out what does and doesn’t work. To this point, if you have any feedback on the redesigned site, feel free to leave a comment here or there (or in a message to either Twitter account).

I look forward to hearing your comments, and I hope that They Are Coming For Us! will soon become a must-visit destination during your day.

I originally wrote this blog post for my company, ReputationDefender.

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By now, the odds are good that you’ve heard about film director Kevin Smith’s recent clash with Southwest Airlines. If you haven’t yet heard the story, or you’re a bit fuzzy on the details, here are the essential details.

Kevin Smith, who is famous for directing Clerks, among numerous other popular comedy films, purchased two tickets for a short Southwest Airlines flight from Oakland to Burbank. When offered the opportunity to board an earlier stand-by flight, Smith took the option. Once on board, Smith seated himself and waited for the flight. At this point, according to Smith, it was determined by a Southwest employee that he required two seats to sit comfortably under Southwest’s “Customer of Size” policy and that he would have to be removed from the plane.

Being understandably embarrassed about the situation, Smith demonstrated that he could buckle the seat belt and put down the arm rests (two key requirements of the policy), but he was told to exit the plane anyway. At this point, Smith turned to his more than 1.6 million Twitter followers. In response to his status updates, many of his followers began lashing out against Southwest, prompting a Southwest employee to tweet an apology from the official Southwest Twitter account, along with an official apology at the Southwest Airlines corporate blog.

While you would think that might be the end of it, Smith still has a bone to pick with Southwest. The reason? As he clearly indicated by passing their test, he isn’t in fact “too fat to fly.” Despite this fact, however, while Southwest has agreed to review their “Customer of Size” policy to make sure that it’s appropriate, nobody has gone on record as saying that Smith was not in violation of the policy, which is all that he wants. Unfortunately, because of all the drama that this incident raised, the moniker of “too fat to fly” will now be a stain on his reputation for the rest of his life.

Kevin Smith on Southwest Airlines

As much as I like Kevin Smith as a director, and as a person in general, I can’t help but wonder if he isn’t responsible for all of this media attention. Now before you get mad at me, I want you to know I’m not blaming the victim. From my understanding of the incident, Smith was not necessarily treated fairly and I’m glad that Southwest is reviewing their policies to make sure nobody else must be embarrassed unnecessarily. However, if Kevin Smith hadn’t taken to Twitter with his complaint, it’s likely that the story wouldn’t have made national news (even the New York Times got involved) and he would still be known as one of the world’s most beloved indie-film directors and not the “too fat to fly” guy.

While social media websites like Twitter, Facebook, and Yelp have made it easier than ever to voice your displeasure over bad service, that doesn’t mean that you should automatically jump onto the web to plead your case. As Kevin Smith found out, when you complain about something, not everyone will be on your side. In this case, the sheer volume of angry, obscenity-laced comments against overweight people that the Smith/Southwest story has brought up is enough to show that perhaps it would have been better for him to suffer in silence, and then work with Southwest behind closed doors on resolving the issue.

If Smith had waited to try and sort out the issue privately, he may have been able to reach a more satisfying conclusion that wouldn’t have led to major media exposure. If Southwest wanted to play hardball, he still would have had the option of sharing his negative experience with the world, but he could have done it in a full-length blog post (like he eventually did here and here) where he might have been able to control the story better. Consider how much more impact Smith’s complaint would have had if he weren’t forced to try and explain the story in 140 character outbursts.

Social media has made it easy to give in to our impulses, particularly when it comes to complaining about something. As such, it is very important for companies to engage in proactive social media monitoring and maintain a full support staff for responding to customer concerns online. However, as consumers, we must also understand that Twitter and other social media sites are not always the proper forum to bring up a customer service issue.

Give the company a chance to respond to your concerns through traditional means of communication before pulling out the big guns. If you play your cards right, the company may offer a more satisfactory resolution to your concern than they would if they were forced to play defense online. Besides, even if a web rant does bring you swifter justice, consider the long-term effects in could have on your reputation. Do you really want the first results about you on Google to be a Twitter tirade?

What do you think? Is social media the first place you turn when you have a customer service problem, or do you use the good old-fashioned 800 number?