Both Ken and Barbie are very similar in nature. Each possesses a natural propensity to succeed, have a strong work ethic and want to grow their businesses. In the past, both have worked with and had less than desirable experiences with web designers and developers, so as they look to enter the online environment with their new projects, they are trying to be more efficient.

In any case, they both need:

1. A solid Internet marketing strategy
2. A website that is built around their online strategy
3. to Drive traffic
4. to generate online sales

There is one major difference between Ken & Barbie’s mindsets. Ken thinks that he needs to exercise greater control over his next project because of his experience with less than stellar web designers and developers in the past. With this control, he’ll ensure that the website is built, designed and laid out exactly as he wants it. He understands that conversions and sales will translate to online success – especially if he is intimately involved with each phase.

Ken knows that he can build his new vision on the cheap and is reaching out to ‘find a coder’ type websites and understands that he can easily get in touch with an offshore team via Craigslist to keep his costs way down. After all, his niece is 14 years old and had designed her own website so why not keep costs to the bare minimum?

Barbie on the other hand, believes that she can become successful online but only if she has all the right people in place. She knows that she’ll need a designer and developer to build her website, but that she also needs a team that really understands the online space to make her idea work.

Here’s why Barbie stands a much higher chance of succeeding than Ken though they both possess the same skills sets.

• Barbie is more likely start her questions with, ‘What is the most effective way to…” versus “Here’s what we’re going to do…”
• Barbie doesn’t care if she doesn’t understand terminology or all the latest trends, but she’s determined to learn as much as she can whilst forming a relationship with a good Internet marketing team. (Ken won’t ask questions about what he doesn’t understand. Ken’s the man with the plan, so why would he need outside consulting?)
• Barbie wants to bring in someone who has a thorough understanding of the online space, is willing to take the time to understand her business vision in order to reach deeper into the US market.
• Barbie believes that in order for her online business to succeed she needs an effective blend of creative design, web development, online marketing and analytics. Most importantly, she understands that all must be given equal weight.

1 Year Later

Ken has actually been faster to launch his program. He hired a team in India for $12/hr and got his new site up fairly quickly. He’s already started some pay-per-click efforts and driving some traffic to his new site.

Barbie launches her site a few months later and feels comfortable with the Internet agency she hired. Her site has little traffic but she’s already generating consistent online sales and is about to start her traffic driving campaign once her team shores up various bug fixes and improvements.

18 Months

Ken has double the traffic than Barbie’s site but is getting nervous because he has few online sales. India can’t keep up with Ken’s requests so he fires them and switches back to a local web designer and developer in the U.S. Ken is now re-thinking the entire site and isn’t very happy that he may have to re-do his entire website, content management system and online strategy.

Barbie at 18 months is starting to see significant results. Her team had challenges of their own but were able to come up with solutions on the fly given the increasing number of online sales. Not only is she happy with her web team, she’s turned over much of the consulting and management of the website to them, given their familiarity with her business goals. She’s adding more players to the mix and ramping up additional online marketing spend.

Paying close attention to analytics and cost of conversion, she is able to make accurate spending decisions. Additionally she’s making enough money and realizes that she won’t need a second round of investment. Her customers are starting to spread the word about her products via Social Media and her online business is taking off.

Two Years Later

Ken ends up firing his web team in the U.S. (again) – much to their relief. He spends the next six months trying to assemble another team to manage his current site but no one is willing to do it for the price he wants to pay. Ken is a trooper though and despite difficult lessons learned he realizes that he needs to do more homework and really immerse himself in the online industry.

Ken pushes on but it is becoming evident to him that he’s spent triple the amount he thought he would and that he could have hired a seasoned US team from the start, and for less than he’s already spent.

On a whim, Ken attends and Internet Marketing Conference – where Barbie Roberts is the featured guest speaker. Ken has heard of her online boutique figures it wouldn’t hurt to hear a little more about Barbie’s success story. (not to mention he thinks she is hot after seeing a picture of her in a popular magazine recently)

Meanwhile, Barbie has a full ‘online staff’ and is still using the original team that built her site and constructed their online marketing plan. The business has gained enough traction and is confident with her team so that she’s able to have more time to herself. She dreams of meeting the right guy and settling down one day…

We all know what happens next. Ken and Barbie meet at her web conference and fall madly in love. Barbie gives Ken the contact information for the agency that helped that get her company off the ground. The rest is history. Ken gets the girl, Barbie is no longer lonely and the agency gets a new client.

The moral of the story you ask?

“Just do the damn thing right from the start.”

You’ll save time, resources, money and have a better product.

My six year-old was quite disappointed when he wasn’t selected to learn the ways of the Force at the Jedi Training Academy at Disney’s Tomorrowland. I didn’t realize until our 2nd attempt that day, that kids will start lining up a half-hour early so they can be closest to the stage when the Jedi come walking out and seek that eager young soul that is ‘strong with the Force’. I didn’t realize at the time that this Jedi adventure would be a learning experience for my son as well as a fundamental marketing lesson for me.

On his first attempt, Evan stood in the second row haphazardly waving his hand, hoping that the Jedi Master who was choosing the young Padawans would look his way and just appreciate him for the simple fact that he was there. He wasn’t chosen, left the stage area upset, and I had to pull him aside and explain to him a few of life’s little lessons while other young Padawans were learning to yield light sabers against Vader or Maul.

I pulled him over and said, “Look son, sometimes in life you do have to stand out if you want something. You can’t be in the back row if you want to get picked” A frown on his face, he continued to growl at me as if he’d been condemned to the Spice Mines of Kessel, “You’re going to have to find a way to get that Jedi up there to notice you!”

What was I saying?!! Was I telling my kid to be a pushy, win-at-all-costs young competitor – teaching him that unless he pushes all others aside, he’s not going to win the prize? I felt the pull of both trying to be a responsible parent versus that overbearing, Great-Santini like character who wants his son to win at all costs. But as much as my advice went against my natural inclination to just say, ‘well, maybe next time kid,’ I started believing  my own advice the more I thought about it.

Just a minute or so later as we watched the ‘chosen’ Padawans fighting their way to glory with their new light-sabers, my wife, who was standing nearby, started talking to a woman with a huge smile on her face. This woman was  hoping that her son would get picked and it turned out that he had. She went on to explain that they had made the long journey to Disneyland for a few years and each visit, her son had not been picked as a Padawan. So instead of wanting to go 0-4, she came up with a plan. At the hotel in Disneyland she had her boy construct a sign out of cardboard they found. What did the sign say? Simple. “Pick me!”

Her son did get picked and was now fighting Lord Vader in a pitched saber battle to save the Rebellion.

This re-affirmed the comments that I had just made to my son. I leaned over to my son again, told him that the next show was in a couple of hours, and that we should take this time to enjoy a ride and come back after. So we hit up Pirates of the Caribbean, hung out with ’Captain’ Jack Sparrow in the greatest ride ever built, danced through the dreary night of a harbor bombarded and listened to the eerie echo of the voice that repeated:

“Deead meeen teeellll noooo taaaaaleess”. What a ride!

Two hours later, we made our way back to Tomorrowland and I had my Padawan-hopeful sit up front just behind the red line that was painted on the stage floor. We were there early, waiting…watching. Soon after, Stormtroopers blazed out of some back room and the game was on. They were followed by Maul himself: evil, menacing, and yet stopping to give me a quick smile.

The Jedi’s came running out and talked a little about the Force and how ‘it is an energy field created by all living things,’ and that ‘it surrounds us and binds us together.’  The Jedi Master then defined the light saber, as not being ‘as clumsy or random as a blaster, [but] an elegant weapon for a more civilized age.’  At one point, the  Jedi Master made a joke and no one laughed.  He then repeated the joke and with a wave of his hand said, “You will all find this joke funny…”  That was enough to make me laugh. Good stuff and not so subtle reinforcement of his message–don’t we all wish it was that easy?

Anyway, the time came where he started picking kids. “You there in the red shirt.” “That young boy there with the Star Wars shirt on.” (Note for aspiring Padawan parents: it seems your odds to be picked as a Padawan increase exponentially if you have proven your worth by purchasing and wearing officially licensed merchandise.) “And you there Miss, in the pink shoes.”  He made one last sweep over to my boy’s corner where Evan was gallantly waving his hand at the most feverish pace I’d ever seen. He stood on his toes as tall as he could and with all his spirit and might, he did his absolute best to capture the attention of the sole determiner of fate. Could my son try any harder? Could he reach any higher? Could he wave his hand faster? Could he say ‘Oh, oh, oh, ew, ew, ew..pick meeee’ any better?

Blam! “You there, the eager one, in the skeleton gloves and long-sleeved blue shirt.”

He got picked. Immediately after the Jedi said, “Thank you but we have all the trainees that we need for this session. Do not be discouraged but support your fellow Padawans on their journey to become a Jedi.” He had been picked, for the love of Jar Jar’s death…he had been picked!

My boy went on to let go of his conscious self and act on instinct. He learned to ‘unlearn what he had learned.’ Okay, enough of the quotes– he did end up fighting Maul and won (perhaps Mr. Maul may have been going only 75% but who’s counting?).

In retrospect, I think we both learned a lesson that day. And that is, sometimes we do have to be out front and grabbing the attention of those whom we are trying to reach. That doesn’t mean we have to step on others, do something that brings shame or offend others, or create a Superbowl commercial-esque type of campaign every time we want to say something, but it does mean that we have to be noticed sometimes, and by the right people.

This notion is echoed by Simon Cowell on American Idol. He occasionally makes the comment that some people are forgettable during their audition despite the fact they can sing well. On the other hand, some people get their 15 minutes simply because they got noticed..and were memorable.

So, in trying to grab someone’s attention,  win a new client, get a job…etc., we should never underestimate the power of simply getting noticed.  Once we are in, well… then it is all about results.

“Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you’ve never been hurt and live like it’s heaven on Earth.”

— Mark Twain