So to help me and you, I sat down with Michael Garfield, The High Tech Texan, to talk about marketing yourself. Garfield is one of the best marketers I've ever come across. This conversation applies to both bloggers and non-bloggers.
Enjoy.
Mike McGuff: How did you even get started?
Michael Garfield: Well, way back when, I was just a television geek. This is before the Internet, when, growing up in the '70s and '80s, I watched literally about 14 hours of television a day. I lived for television and the medium, which is the reason, I'm telling you right now, I don't have a Texas accent. Because I grew up listening to dialect on television, and no one one television has an accent, and they all talk fast and animated. My younger sister, my parents have Texas accents. I don't. So I knew that's what I wanted to be.
My major in college--at "the" University of Texas, by the way--was radio, television, and film. It's a very hard industry to break into, at least back then. And so I like working smart, not hard. [laughs] I'm trying to think which is the quickest way to get into the industry. So I wanted to be an RTF communication major. Every one of my friends: lawyers, doctors. I'm the only one who just did not take that track. And I graduated, moved back to Dallas--I'm a Dallas boy, by the way--with my parents. It's a law. Lived with them for a while.
And QVC was on a nationwide hunt for new on-air talent back in the late '80s. My mom literally ripped the want ad in "The Dallas Morning News," taped it on my bedroom door. She says, "Go." And I laughed. I'm thinking, "I never watch this crap. Who watches QVC? Nobody watches this stuff."
Well, anyway. I had nothing to do, so I went down there. And there was about 1,000 people lined up, just like an "American Idol" type of thing back then, waiting for a two-minute audition. They did this in 10 cities: 10,000 people. Lo and behold, out of 10,000 people, they picked three people. I was one of them that made it. And I was like a 22 year old kid at this time, and I was the youngest person ever hired.
But what I did is I studied. I actually started watching QVC. I want to get in the minds of the companies who I represent and what I want to do. If I'm going to put my mind to it, I'm going to win. And so I started watching. I picked up every nuance of TV. I saw all these people selling this stuff. I see them when they talk off camera, and I picked up names and things. And I went in and I just killed this interview. I mean, the cameraman was laughing because he couldn't believe I knew the names of off-camera producers. It's just I watched it for about a week and a half solid.
They hired me. I went to the East Coast, hit the south side of Philadelphia. And that was--you talk about a sales job--national TV, no script, live. 10 minutes talking about a salt and pepper shaker: you'd better come up with a lot of bullshit to describe this salt and pepper shaker.
So I was taught to look at everything--objects, products, services--in a different way than you normally see them. I mean, if you look at a salt and pepper shaker, nobody really cares about the fact that it pours pepper. You literally have to talk about how that silver top shines off of your dining room set light, how this crystal is heavy, when your guests come over. That gives you the feeling of seeing it like it's a good thing. I can sell these things. That's what they taught us. It's carried me to this day. I sell myself, as everybody should. But I also sell any product that I truly believe in.
So the QVC was great. It was an interesting way to get a national exposure, how to work with the cameras, the lights, the producers in your ear. Of course, that was in the middle of the night. Nobody really watched except the West Coast and my parents in Dallas. [laughs] And I wanted something more: more money, bigger career track.
I hopped down to Washington, DC, after that, because I was on the East Coast. This is the only time I've ever anywhere outside of Texas. And I worked for a sports marketing company. And I was a 25 year old kid, and I worked for one of the biggest sports marketing firms back in the '90s. It was called ProServ. Literally, in the early '90s, they represented almost everybody in the NBA, including Michael Jordan himself.
And so, here I was. I was just walking down the halls, and I would see all these famous basketball players. This was when the deals would get started. Nike, Adidas, Reebok, Visa: I would be sitting in these presentations from our marketers, trying to sell endorsements.
And that's where I got the idea how these pitchmen, people are just paying them ungodly amounts of money, and they don't know anything. I mean, right now, what does Tiger Woods know about Buick? What does Michael Jordan know about Hanes underwear? They use them for their celebrity. And you know what? It really works.
And to this day, jumping forward, this is kind of how I do it myself. I represent myself, almost the same way that they do. I kind of structure the same contracts. I can do X number of appearances, and they can use my voice. They have the right to my likeness and my brand. It's exactly the way that the sports marketing did.
So I did that for a few years. That didn't pay anything, because it was sports marketing. [laughs] It was getting married at that point.
And then I worked for a real company. That's when I went to MCI. And MCI, I'm now in the communication era. This is the early '90s, when they had the long distance wars. I was on the advertising marketing team, where I saw the Friends and Family and how were their advertising, and I got how the whole company works.
And so that actually got me to Houston. MCI opened a very large call center in Sugar Land. I was looking for an excuse to get back home to Texas. I'm like, "I'll go start it." They moved me to Sugar Land in 1995, and that's where I was. And that was the start of the Internet. MCI was one of the first companies on the Internet: Internet MCI. And so I took a liking to this thing, and I'm thinking, "This is neat. This is a neat one." This is dial-up, too. [laughs] It took 10 minutes a page to load. I'm thinking, "This is huge."
So I got the Internet early on. I got the World Wide Web in the '95-'96 era, right before it really hit. A headhunter came a calling, from a little company called Microsoft. And they were opening a new local office, which would become Sidewalk.com, which is now Citysearch.com. It was the guide to the city. And the mantra back then was, "Put down the paper! Don't watch TV! You'd better log online to get your restaurant reviews and everything." And I knew more about the Sidewalk project than the headhunter did, because I knew the industry.
Microsoft hires me, and that's where the whole ball started rolling. I'm a networking guy, if anything. I like meeting people. I know that I can help people later on in life, vice versa. I want to meet networks of people.
And so, when I had what I call the M Card, the Microsoft Card, it opened any door I wanted to. I walked into the Astros, I walked into the city of Houston, I walked into the Enron: "Microsoft! Microsoft!" And I kept every single card. I kept every note of every lunch I made, every person, where we had lunch. I just had this database that was growing, thinking, "You never know where this is going to go."
Microsoft eventually kind of killed that division. I got an opportunity to move to Redmond, Washington. I think we were pregnant with our third kid. We looked at the prices of living out there. It's like, "Aye, chihuahua! [laughs] That ain't helping."
So I'm thinking, "You know what? I have a large enough contact over here. I have no job experience. But I'm in Texas. I can use the ex-Microsoft employee shingle. And I think it's a rule: once you leave Microsoft, you have to start your consulting business, or something like that.
[laughter]
But this is in 2000. This is the dot-com era, before everything died. And I got some good clients, of helping them set up how to market their companies via email and the web. And they were using me because they knew me and I'm ex-Microsoft, and it worked well.
About this time, the general manager of Channel 11, Peter Diaz, back in the day...
Diaz had made friends with me when I was at Microsoft, because they were really starting to pump up KHOU.com, and he wanted my advice of what they wanted to do. So he would take me to lunch, and I would give him free advice. Well, they started realizing they wanted somebody on-air, on a semi-regular basis, to talk about the web and the Internet. This is in 2000.
He knew I had some on-air experience, he knew I knew a lot about the web, and he offered me the position. And so I did a little demo. And I was going to be at 10:00 news on Channel 11, one time a week. I made it in. They were waiting around a week or two to make me an offer, and I'm all hyped up. And I don't like waiting. I'm one of those ADD guys. It's like, "Go!"
Well, one of my best friends is a producer at Fox 26 [KRIV]-- still is. And I said, "Hey, listen. This is cool. I'm getting ready to get an offer from Channel 11. Does this money, this deal seem right?" He goes, "Hey, you know what? I heard my news director say that we're looking for somebody like that. You should come over here and interview with us." The next day, I was in Fox, back in 2000, being their on-air guy, and they offered me a position. I think it was unpaid, at that time, to do it.
Well, lo and behold, I'm thinking, "If two of these stations want me, maybe there's somebody else who's out there." And I happened to know the general sales manager of Channel 2 [KPRC], who is a friend of mine who went through a course, Leadership Houston, which I'm a part of. And I said, "Fox and Channel 11 both want me to do this. Which way would you lean, as a friend?" He goes, "Wait a minute. They both want you? You better not sign anything until you come over here and you interview with me and Nancy Shafran and all the staff."
I'm like, "Oh my god, when it rains, it pours." Sure enough I went to Channel 2, did the test, and met all the Morning Show. They made me an offer to be five times a week, every single day, on the morning desk, live. I live in Sugar Land and it was convenient to my house. Turns out I went with Channel 2. So I thanked everybody, I thanked Diaz, and from 2000-2001 I was the on-air guy on Channel 2. I was the only electronic medium person here locally who would talk about it.
My shtick, to this day, is that I don't get too technical. I don't talk about megabytes. I don't talk about gigabytes. People don't care. They don't care that 802.11g is a 2.4 gigahertz frequency or that it'll mess up the baby monitor. They care about, "You mean I can surf wirelessly at a Starbucks?" That's what they want to hear. If I presented it that way, I could have a six-year-old listener, a ninety-year-old listener and everybody in between, and I figured that out. Plus, I use humor and I don't take myself too seriously.
I did it for a year. While I was on Channel 2, because I'm a marketing type of guy, I needed a moniker. I needed something funny, other than my stupid name of Michael Garfield. I'm thinking there's Tony the Tiger, there's Toucan Sam; everybody has got these monikers.
I do a lot of running in marathons, so I'm running one day in my neighborhood two to three months into my Channel 2 stint. I'm thinking that I need a moniker and it just pops into my mind: I'm from Texan--High-tech Texan. High-tech Texan--I keep saying this to myself as I'm running.
I've probably never run a three-mile stretch so fast in my life. I was about three miles from home. I ran as fast as I could. I'm dripping sweat, run in to my computer and nobody has "High-Tech Texan.com" so I quickly registered. The smartest thing I've done did to this day is that I got a trademark lawyer and I trademarked it. So Channel 2, Clear Channel, nobody can get it. I own it. And I created the logo, a funny nice little hat with the little thing like that.When I wrote my scripts from Channel 2, they would CG me as "Michael Garfield, Nothing but Net." When I started writing scripts for anchors like Don Armstrong and Pauline Chiou, I said, "And now it's time to introduce our High-tech Texan, Michael Garfield." They started reading it because I wrote it. The next thing I know, I look at the screen and they start CGing me as the High-tech Texan, and that's how the whole thing started. There was my moniker.
About that time is when the Road Runner people came in. Road Runner from Time Warner was just getting ready to launch. Road Runner was sponsoring my segment on Channel 2. Obviously, I had no dealings with them. That was all through the sales channel of Channel 2, and I know that Channel 2 was making a ton of money by running this 30-second spot.
Road Runner was apparently attributing a lot of their membership and new subscriptions to me, tracking it back to my segments because I would talk about Internet gadgets and all of a sudden you would hear this commercial, "The fastest, cheapest way to the Internet is Road Runner." So, the Time Warner people just called me and I blindly introduced myself.
It just so happened at that time that I was one of the first people to use Road Runner, because I was in one of the first areas in the southwest part of town that used it. They asked me to speak at a conference. I was like, "Anything that keeps you happy and Channel 2 happy, I'm happy. I'm getting no money at all." We started striking up a relationship and then the next thing I know, they said, "We really want to ramp this up. We have a nice advertising budget. Would you do a TV spot?" and "Would you do another TV spot? and then "Would you do radio ads?" Then they started making a billboard campaign.
The next thing I know, this is about 2002, I can't turn on the TV or drive down a freeway without seeing billboards and it was just amazing. At that point, I realized that there was something going on over here. I think the lesson to be learned is that at that point, I was probably on television more than Mattress Mac. The big difference was that I wasn't paying for my own spots like Mattress Mac does.
Probably one of the largest communications companies in the world, AOL-Time Warner at that time, was using their multi-million dollar campaign, and they were branding me. If you look at the commercials, there were people running and chasing after me because I was their answer guy. So, they were building my brand with their money: "Here's Michael. He knows it all in the world of technology." It was really a right place, right time feature.
At that point, Clear Channel came calling. Now Clear Channel, eight stations as we talk about this, called me out of the blue. They said, "Michael, what you're doing on TV for Channel 2, I bet you can do the same thing for us on all eight of our stations." Obviously, I think they were smarter than all of us, thinking that I'm the Time Warner and that maybe their advertising dollars would follow me to Clear Channel.
The second smartest thing I did that year was that I made Clear Channel--I love the idea--hire me as an employee, which is key because I needed benefits; we had the third kid. So to this day, from day one, I've never bought advertising time. I am an employee. Believe it or not, I'm one of the longer tenured employees at Clear Channel, here since 2001.
Mike McGuff: Right.
Michael: They put me daily on 94.5 The Buzz [KTBZ], Rock 101 [KLOL], I was with Greg Pruett and the Boner, I was on 740 KTRH as news warranted, I was on Sunny 99.1 [KODA], and I was on Mix 96.5 [KHMX]. You couldn't not only turn on a TV, you couldn't turn on a radio without hearing my voice. Now, I'm really puking when I hear my voice.
That led to my own show. Back in the day, Ken Charles, the program director, and Brian Purdy ran the Clear Channel AM side. To go along with our gardening shows and home improvement shows, a technology show was natural. So, they gave me my own show on KPRC in 2002, and I'm proud to say that I'm the longest running local live voice on KPRC to this day.
At that point, ad dollars started to follow, that the sales guys did, because I'm this local person. It started off only in the technology business. There was only like HP, and Verizon would want to do it. But once you realize that you see this guy on TV, you see him out at events and he's a regular guy. He's got three kids. I eat, I drive cars and I mow lawns: there are other products out there. That's the business in the radio business. You're allowed to do endorsements.
Here's the funny part. At first, I would get a push from the salespeople at the radio station. They would call me and they'd want to know, especially Rock 101 back in the day, they wanted to know if I wanted to do a commercial for ricksonline.com. Initially, I was like, "I'll do anything" because I didn't understand this business. Then as time went on and I realized that I've got companies like Time Warner behind me and I'm giving out real good information, I really should be careful about who I'm endorsing. To kind of paraphrase Spider-man, "With power comes great responsibility."
It's been flipped. Now, I'm very happy to say that I'm turning down 60% or 70% of the clients that come in because I want to position myself and my brand with these large clients. Now I work with AT&T, Toyota and HP. These are the companies. I know that if I want to grow, I'm not going to get anywhere working with seedy businesses.
And it just grew. A lot of people come up to me and say, "Michael, you did such a great job of marketing yourself. You're always out there promoting yourself." To some extent, I scratch my head and think, "Everybody should be doing that." If you can't sell yourself, you're stuck in a rut. You're stuck in a bad job. You've got to sell yourself during interviews. But it wasn't so much about me selling myself; it was working with other companies and clients.
I know I have something to offer. Maybe I can explain a complicated piece of gadgetry. Let me help you, and then obviously they're gong to buy some advertising and they're going to use my name. They're really helping me. It's really about networking and working with companies. It's about over delivering, too. I have in my contracts with a lot of companies that I'm only supposed to do X number of appearances or talk about X. Whatever I can do to network and get them more business, I'm there. That's why there's not a lot of turnover with my partners. And they're really partners, not my clients.
I still scratch my head and laugh at myself when I hear myself on the radio or see something on TV. This was a wacky idea that I had a few years ago. In some sense it's entrepreneurism and it's marketing, but it didn't happen overnight. I have a family that's understanding, because we had no income coming in when we had a third kid coming in.
It was a lot of talking and working, but the end result is that I don't have a game plan of where to go from here. I want to keep working and growing. I joke, but I'm serious: I don't know what I want to do when I grow up.
Mike McGuff: Yeah, because there was no way you could have planned for this.
Michael: There's no way. It was the right place and the right time. I mean, I'm going to walk out of here today or tomorrow, I'm going to meet a potential new opportunity, a new client. I met a ton of new people at the CES show, wherever I go.
Once they understand that I'm this guy--in a huge market, in Texas, which has a ton of consumer people, and certainly business to business--that I have a large reach, and they go to my website, and they see that I'm legit, and they see I do videos and work for companies, it's like, "Maybe you can work for us." I mean, you've got to continually be out there thinking of your next move.
I speak to a lot of schools and a lot of kids. I keep saying, "Even Bill Gates. Bill Gates should not be resting on his laurels. He's got to be thinking the next step ahead." It's not just business deals, but where do you want to go next in life? It's not about the money. It's just the challenges.
And nowadays, I'd like to be remembered as, "Oh, that's Michael. That's the father of Justin, Josh, and Adam." I'm out there with the soccer. I make sure that I still mow my own lawn. You know why? Because I've got three young kids, and boys are supposed to go out, in Texas, and mow lawns and do yard work. I don't want them seeing anybody else do it. But my family does a hell of a job of keeping me as real and as low as ever. [laughs] They just think every daddy is on radio or TV. They don't know any difference.
Mike McGuff: What's your advice to people? You said that you need to keep marketing yourself. I think a lot of people are afraid they'll come off as almost conceited. They don't want to look like, "Oh, he's just a shameless self-promoter."
Michael: Right.
Mike McGuff: And they think that's a negative thing, but you're saying not necessarily.
Michael: And that's a very fine line. And I'm sure I've been accused of that, and people probably still see me when I'm walking around: "Oh, there's the guy who's always talking about himself." And that's not really the case with myself. I'm talking about what everybody wants me to talk about. KTRH has me on almost daily. They want me to talk about what's happening in the technology world. The TV stations, they come sometimes with the cameras: "Michael, can you provide a sound bite?" I'm not talking about myself. They're using me for the knowledge that I have.
But what I tell kids and people who are not happy with their jobs: you've really got to be out there looking for that next step, not only internally. This is a different climate than our parents grew up in. My dad was with EDS, Electronic Data Systems, backed by Ross Perot, for 29 solid years--just white shirt, dark suit, red tie, and the buzz hair cut, which I think that's [laughs] why I totally went opposite. But you stuck with a job for a long time.
Nowadays, I think jobs are almost like projects, kind of like the Hollywood studios. You're going to get hired for this movie for six to eight months, and you're going to move on. A lot of colleges, and a lot of people who don't even go to colleges right now, they're getting very proficient in web development, blogging, photography, Photoshopping, and they're almost becoming consultants. You're always going to have to look out for the next gig and the next job.
And if you're working for yourself, you don't have an ad budget to advertise for yourself. And when I was a consultant and looking for a job, I figured, if one of these TV stations, like Channel 2, hired me, it was a great, convenient way to get my name out there for a calling card for consultancy. Not like I was begging for a job from them. I just looked: what benefits could this provide me? And you've got to keep rolling.
Mike McGuff: What's your advice to people? I mean, obviously, there's a lot of bloggers reading this right now. What do you suggest to them? How do they promote their blogs? Even if someone doesn't have a blog and is reading this, how do they promote themselves? What are some easy steps to doing it?
Michael: Blogging is great. Who could imagine blogging got us here? [laughs] We talked about your blog. You're getting 10,000 a month hits. You're getting people from outside of the city. And that's amazing, because you're a Houston-based guy talking mostly about Houston media, and you're getting people from East Coast and West Coast reading you.
Mike McGuff: Oh, international.
Michael: It's word of mouth. Here's the thing. Even I have trouble, because I don't have time. If you write regularly, once a day, even more times a day, you're going to get more traffic, because people aren't going to see your information being stale. So write regularly.
Blogging, for the most part, is informal. Use some humor. You don't have to follow the typical journalism rules.
Oh, yeah. Technology now, like RSS feeds, you know, it used to be the fact is, I have a hundred different pages I have to check. Nowadays, if you can make sure that people say, "Hey, click this, add me to your RSS." It automatically is going to feed into your inbox.
I know that is how a lot of people read me and I know it is how a lot of people read you right now. Make sure that, if you really want your blog to be read. If you can hone in on a specific topic or target. And, if you can get someone or some people in the media to read about it regularly and use you, there going to give you credit online. And, this happened, a lot of talk radio hosts, right here locally.
I remember Chris Baker read several local bloggers. What is going on in the city? I am sure a lot of people continue to, I do so also. And, if I see it, I am going to say, "Man did you see what Laurence Simon wrote about? He is going nuts on METRO." Well, the fact is, I just said Laurence Simon's name to tens of thousands of people. And, it just flows. So, if you can make sure that the media, not just radio, TV, but also other print journals. Let them know that this is what you hone in, this is your expertise.
Tell them to check it out, add your RSS. Or if you have got something really hot, send them a note. Send the reporter a note, "Hey, Michael, I just want to let you know that I updated this." They are going to come back regularly. And, again, any word of mouth is going to continue to help.
Mike McGuff: People clearly need to learn the Internet right now. That is a great way to market yourself. I mean, besides blogging, if you are not interested in doing that, you do not have time to write it. I am sure there is a way you can use the Internet, right?
Michael: Right, you know what, if the Internet, as we know it, was around in the same way, shape, or form, fifteen years ago, I would probably be international right now. But, what is happening, look at the way colleges are now taking applications. I mean, people putting YouTube videos for resumes on a thing like that. Understand, you better, I mean, years ago I used to say, man, if you could not do Microsoft Word or Office, you could not get a job in an office.
Nowadays, if you do not know what Twitter is, if you do not know how to blog, if you do not know what an RSS is, if you do not know how to shoot and upload things to put it on YouTube on the fly, you are almost going to get lost. And, people are becoming world famous for blogging or videotaping.
Which, believe it or not, is turning into careers for these people. Paris Hilton, same thing, I mean, there is another one. Use the Internet for what it is worth. Especially the kids. In high school, my twelve year old son, who is in seventh grade, he is taking a web developing class. And one of their assignments is to create a blog. I mean, they are twelve. When I was twelve, I did not know how to turn on a computer. That is the times now.
Mike McGuff: It sounds like it takes a lot of work to do this. You can't just rest on your laurels and sit back on the couch and say I will get to it tomorrow.
Michael: You cannot, and you do not need to. The fact is, you still cannot sit on your couch, on your cell phone, and on your laptop and surf anywhere to do it. But, you have to keep it out there. If you are looking for an initial job at a college. Right now, you know you can post things online on websites. I remember looking in the Want Ads. I can not tell you if the newspaper still has a 'Want Ads' section, because now there is Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com.
You can post your credentials now and have jobs come after you. You cannot beat that, that is interactive. So, always be online and you keep up with, not only, the world issues and world news but, there are new ways to make sure that your name and your face and your talents are out there.
[Interview end]
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