The whole idea of giving more than 100% is goofy. How do you give more than all?

With the passing of Trey Pennington over the Labor Day weekend, a few blogs wrote about the pressure they were under in today’s economy and ever changing marketplace.

I’m confused by that. While I am not as well known as some social media personae, I am a consultant, marketer, author, speaker and an event planner.

I strive to give my best. Every time. I want every event to leave the audience with an A-ha moment. I look for improvement at every opportunity. I try to write better, clearer, more concise. I try to leave my audience with valuable take-aways.

The blog is part of not only the fremium revenue model, but the gift that I give to my audience. Actually to my tribe. I don’t write for everyone. I don’t create events for everyone. I do what I do for the success of my Tribe.

There’s a concept in math of getting closer and closer but never reaching the target. Each step is half the other. Each step is as hard or harder than the last. Yet never quite reaching the target. That target for some is perfection. It’s great to strive for, but it is overwhelming and exhausting to be obsessed with perfection.

You can’t top every speech.

Every blog won’t get a favorite in someone’s reader.

Every tweet doesn’t get a RT.

Maybe the social media audience allows for immediate feedback, but for many they don’t even see your posts in their stream.

If you have 20K followers how many actually pay attention?

You should be focused on your Tribe.

In Linchpin, Seth Godin talks about being an Artist, a Genius and shipping. Good enough often is.

I’m not saying do sloppy work. I am saying focus on your Tribe – not everybody. If everything you do – blog, speak, plan, write – is done with the intent to improve the business of the tribe members, then it will all work out.

In Seth Godin’s blog post, Secrets of the biggest selling launch ever, he writes 10 tips for shipping as secrets that Apple utilized for its iPad launch.

The biggie is “Don’t try to please everyone!”

I spend a good portion of my day convincing clients that their target is NOT Everyone. For example, if you are B2B, that eliminates a lot of the audience right there. If you have a geographic limit to your delivery area, you just shrunk the audience. See? Get it?

The other side to that is Seth’s point that you can’t please everyone. And why would you want to?

In sports, fans love their team and hate everyone else. Other examples include:

• Coke versus Pepsi
• Chevy vs Ford
• Burger King vs McDonald’s
• Democrats versus Republicans

Brands polarize.

If your brand doesn’t have haters, you don’t have any Brand Loyalty. You don’t have enough people emotional attached to your brand. They haven’t had a great experience with your product or service or people (like say Zappos or Tom’s Shoes). They don’t have a story to tell about it.

Yesterday, I was reading this blog post where social media was re-defined as conversational media — or as I am going to call it conversational marketing.

Let’s face it, social media is about conversation. It is about spreading a message, an idea or a story. But at its foundation it is marketing, because what is marketing but spreading an idea, a story or a message.

Unfortunately, most people are spreading manure and pumping up their own egos. How many were not very good at traditional marketing? Ego doesn’t work well in marketing because it isn’t about YOU, it’s about THEM. The Client. The Customer. The Ratepayer. The Prospect.

Marketing is about getting attention. That’s why people talk about eyeballs and the number of followers or some other metric. It is about Engagement and Listeners. Jeffrey Gitomer asks, “Would you rather have a loyal wife or a satisfied one?”

The same with your followers. Sure, 10K people following you strokes your ego, but if no one is listening or responding or re-tweeting or commenting, what’s the point?

There is a story about 1000 customers being profitable. And 2000 customers makes you lots of profit.

There’s also the mental limit of about 250 – that’s about all the people we can effectively remember and engage with. People with a network of more than 5,000 will tell you it’s possible but I’m going to stick with you can have a Rolodex of thousands, but can only maintain a relationship with about 250.

That brings us around to sales: in sales, it’s about the relationship. They have to like you and trust you to buy from you in most cases.

We forget in this digital age that pre-Internet, PR, marketing, advertising and branding were not always done under one roof. There are still many firms that just handle publicity. Still others only handle branding; while others just do advertising. It’s all under the Marketing umbrella, but they are different arms of that octopus.

Remember too, that in traditional advertising, there was a media buy component and a creative piece. The creative piece was the charge to come up with the campaign – whether it was the story board for the commercial (TV or radio) or the billboard and newsprint ads. The firm created the story that would resonate with your target audience. (Unless it was just a cool ad to win an ADDY, which also happened. A lot.)

The firm would do the media buy for a commission to get your ad on the radio – on the right radio station that hit your demographics; or on the right TV channel, on the targeted TV show, aimed at a targeted demographic. Or the same with a newspaper or magazine ad: who is the target demographic and what do they read.

We seemed to have forgotten all that in the online marketing world. We don’t story board or check where the demographic is or target like a sharpshooter. Instead, we aim for numbers and noise and throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks. If you are going to spend the time, the effort and the money, do it right. The Internet has a long memory.