Question

Topic: Our Forum

An Important Question About Questions

Posted by matthewmnex on 2/3/2008 at 8:48 PM ET 500 Points
Dear Forum members.

I have been following the KHE for some weeks now and adding several comments and advice as I go.

However, I would like to ask a serious question regarding the level of questions we are receiving here.

This is supposed to be a forum for marketing professionals (hence the title).

However, what is clear is that there are many un-professional people asking crazy questions here.

Many of the questions are far too broad in their scope and demonstrate that the questioner is just trying to get the real professionals inside here to do their work for them.

How can we raise the level of questions and professionalism of the group to exclude time wasters and free riders?

That is my question.

Kilndy place comments and agree and or disagree with me. let's make this a lively discussion so that we can raise the level of this forum to the benefit of all the professionals here who want to share top level experiences.

Thank you,

Matthew Edmunds
VP Busienss Development
Anxa Ltd.
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Inbox_Interactive on 2/3/2008 at 9:11 PM Accepted
    Hi, Matthew, and welcome to the forum.

    Your chief complaint seems to have been this:

    "Many of the questions are far too broad in their scope and demonstrate that the questioner is just trying to get the real professionals inside here to do their work for them."

    I've taken part in a number of forums over the years, and if yours is the worst complaint that can be made about a forum, then certainly that forum is in the Top 5%. There are so many forums that are simply over-run with spam and people replying only to offer their services; thankfully, MarketingProfs is not even close to this.

    Having said that, are there people who come here looking to get their jobs done for them -- for free?

    Absolutely. And frankly, I very rarely answer a question where someone basically says, "I just started this job, and need to get something done. Will you do it for me?"

    Mnay long-timers here share this approach. If the original poster has their own thoughts or position but wants feedback or guidance, many here will give it. But if someone just types up what is basically an order for free services, we won't take. Some will even chastize the original poster for not getting things started.

    There are others, however, who don't mind providing this sort of free advice (actually, it's more than advice...in many cases it's a deliverable that someone could have charged good money for), and that's completely their call to make. To each his own.

    By and large, however, I think that this forum is easily one of the most professional out there. In short, I don't think it's realistic to expect that there will never be a "time waster" or "free rider," especially as long as there are people willing to play along (and again, that's their choice, and I really don't mean to be critical of it...some people just enjoy helping that much).

    My $0.02.

    - Paul
  • Posted by Frank Hurtte on 2/3/2008 at 9:44 PM Accepted
    Here is the essence of your question...

    What is it about marketing that makes everybody think they know how to do it? And, why do they assume this to be true?

    The same people who would never ask a group of say, plumbers to tell them how to do a plumbing repair, dive into marketing like the La Quebrada cliff divers in Acapulco..

  • Posted by matthewmnex on 2/4/2008 at 2:56 AM Author
    Thank you all who replied so far :-)

    Of course I had a good idea in advance what the answers might look like but I wanted to just act as a catalyst to make people think about it.

    I too do not reply on questions that I feel are just wasting time or appear clueless :)

    Thank you Frank for your comment too.

    I will leave this post open for a couple of days and let's see if we get any interesting points of view.

    Matthew
  • Posted by Harry Hallman on 2/4/2008 at 7:52 AM Accepted
    The best course of action is to just not answer questions you don't think fit what your idea of the forum should be. I agree 1000% with what you are saying and I agree this is one of the better forums for keeping out spam.

    If inappropriate questions are ignored, at least that person won't come back.

    There was a recent question where a person asked for a critique of a web site. It was obvious that they were promoting it. It was bad and after 2 people said so it was the question was closed very quickly. Just a thought on how to handle some questions.

    We should promote free discourse of information and let the free market sort it out. In this case we are the free market.
  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 2/4/2008 at 9:21 AM Accepted
    It's like being at a cocktail party, and someone finds out you're a doctor, so they start describing this pain you've been having, hoping for a quick/free answer.

    People post questions hoping for answers from marketing experts. While it can be a forum for experts to help each other, it's not limited to this.

    For the most part, people ask questions that they need input on (for their business, their education, schooling, clients, etc). By having the asker categorize the type of question and assign a point value to it, you get a pretty good idea of the asker's perceived value for the answer.
  • Posted by cmalicki on 2/4/2008 at 10:31 AM Accepted
    I'm on board with if I think this is someone's way of getting free marketing consultanting or a student wanting me to do their homework I pass.

    Another way I use this is with my staff - we are an internal marketing group and it's very easy for our creative juices to run dry. We take an hour or so each week to respond to taglines, critique websites, etc. so that we can recharge, get fresh perspective and give back.

    What is the most annoying are the "students" that can't seem to write without using poor grammar and texting language. It's truly scary.

  • Posted by michael on 2/4/2008 at 11:22 AM Accepted
    Matthew,

    I'm on both sides of this. Some people just want others to do their work.

    Others have an idea but they really don't even know where to start. You can usually tell which is which.

    I answer the second kind.

    Michael
  • Posted by Peter (henna gaijin) on 2/4/2008 at 12:29 PM Accepted
    In the past, Moderator Val got a group together to look at this, and one thing they found was that many questions are asked by people who just appear on the site and ask a question. So they probably have not spent much time on the site to learn the etiquette (or perhaps even to read the rules closely).

    From this, a variety of changes were made to the site (automated emails from the site to the question askers reminding them of how best to work it, changes to the web site making the rules/etiquette information more visible, etc.

    Definitely not the perfect solution, but I think it did help.
  • Posted by darcy.moen on 2/4/2008 at 2:43 PM Accepted
    Where DOES a lonely, frustrated, confused, and 'business newbie' go to ask advice to solve their most vexing business issue? WHERE indeed!

    I came across Marketing Profs as a reference in a magazine article, opened my web browser, and became hooked.

    I tell you, when I opened my first drycleaning shop, the first day of sitting on a pail waiting for that first customer to come in, oh how I YEARNED for somehwere I could turn to for advice. At that time, nothing existed except the good old phone a friend or hire a consultant.

    Today, all that has changed. Sure, there are some easy questions, and there are some tough ones. Some are 'soft' questions that someone in business 'should know', but then again, there usually isn;t an entrance exam to weed out who should or shouldn't be allowed to open a business. Of course, question quality will vary, just like the skill sets of those involved in their forum vary. We simply have to take the good with the bad, the smart with the intellectually challenged.

    Despite the accumulated knowledge here, there is still much to learn, and as much to share. The worst question there is, is the un-asked one. Ask away, and the answeres fall where they may.

    And yes, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, repeat after me: THE SEARCH BUTTON IS MY FRIEND!

    Darcy Moen
    Custoemr Loyalty Network
  • Posted by matthewmnex on 2/4/2008 at 8:00 PM Author
    Wow! great everyone :))))

    I think I touched on a nerve here because it really stimulated a lot or replies and lively discussion which is exactly what is was supposed to do.

    It validates my theory about good online marketing; 'Challenge people', then they will get involved.

    What I love about the internet is that it was launched as a free tool for all to share or not, that is the wonder of a true democracy.

    To clarify a couple of my points, I have no problem to share ideas and experience with newbies if they come with a genuine need and pose sensible questions. In fact I go out of my way to try to add some perspective to some of these questions.

    One of the best business quotes I ever saw (I forget the name of the author), was: All this questioning does not lead to answers; just to better questions' :))

    Let's all of us please try to take an extra five minutes to think carefully about what we want to ask so that we all might 'Ask Better Questions'.

    Thank you all, I accepted all the comments to share the points equitably :)

    Matthew

  • Posted by BlueSage on 2/4/2008 at 8:21 PM Member
    Well, johnny come lately though i be...i agree with jay and juliet and couldn't have said it better. i DID get my feathers ruffled on the elitism of the question. But I've read the responses and go with Gentleman Jay and Gentlewoman
    Juliet.

  • Posted by BlueSage on 2/4/2008 at 8:24 PM Member
    i think what 'gets' me is the people asking for *business* names for their 'new business'. If they are creative enough to even THINK to start a business, why wouldn't they know what they wanted to call it?

    and why doesn't anyone that wants a name for a dog store, read the previous suggestions?

    Janine,
    who finally came up with a good marketing slogan
  • Posted by steven.alker on 2/5/2008 at 6:50 AM Member
    Dear Matthew

    Sorry to be coming in after the points but Juliet only alerted me to this last night. It’s a bit of a hen and egg problem. Luckily for hens, they never developed the reasoning skills to pose the question of which came first, so they, unlike us, don’t have to feel insecure about apparently not being able to come into existence.

    How does someone who has just taken up marketing get to improve their grasp of it without asking questions? Even questions about a basic subject might be appropriate if they are new to it or simply don’t know. There’s no point in deriding people who want to learn and who need to learn.

    Should we put up a big “Not welcome here” sign unless you are already skilled? There’s not much point in having a forum if everyone is afraid of asking questions for fear of being branded stupid or lazy or inelegant of thought.

    Salesmen are the same and sales training, no matter how advanced is always filled with rather basic points. It has to be, not because salesmen have forgotten the basics, but because they’ve convinced themselves that they don’t need to apply them. So the mentors answer their questions by telling them about asking open ended ones, closing and the disposal of objections. Over and over again. How to shine in a sales course? “Keep on asking simple questions”

    I’m lucky enough to have nearly forgotten whether there was a time when I didn’t know very much about the basics of marketing. In those days, I was astonished at the lack of basic micro economics knowledge in my company. No one had studied the elasticity of demand for the products and no one had attempted to optimise the sales effort for a given price. My boss kept asking goddamn questions about market share and suitability of fit and niche penetration which I knew couldn’t be answered with our poor resources and which I though I knew were less important than getting the pricing thing right.

    Only he drove the Jag, not me and kept on at me to ask questions, no matter how stupid they were. So he coaxed me into a mindset where I appeared to know what to do. A bit like a process of osmosis I suppose. And when he was satisfied that I had asked all the questions, he’d set me the impossible-to-answer ones again, but this time, with the confidence of having grasped the basics, I came to startling conclusions.

    Conclusions which were rejected by him 90% of the time. I railed, “Why are you always rejecting the good ideas I keep on coming up with” and he said that it was my job to come up with 10 possibles so that he could choose the winner and thus do his job.

    To an extent that’s what the more experienced here can do, if they want to. We can listen, guide and see if we can be of assistance. My old MD never did my job for me and rarely rescued me at the outset of a problem, but he would assist me with the ideas as they developed and if necessary step in to stop me from self destructing.

    Funny thing is that I don’t think that I’d have lasted 10 minutes if I hadn’t kept on asking silly questions so that he could tweak cajole and point me in the right direction.

    Good question, but let’s not be too harsh on those who want to know a bit more or paint them into the same dark corner as those who cut and paste their questions.

    Steve Alker
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