#simply educate yourself on the ways you might be contributing to the harm of marginalized people of color and try to help them | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

snekdood · 6 months

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naw i gotta say something bc this specifically is dumb.

whats the plan to "get rid" of "settlers" in america? bc usually ppl mean white ppl generally and conveniently they apparently forget not all white ppl came here as settlers. are we gonna do DNA tests to see who is distantly related to whichever settler? even though yall already think DNA tests are flimsy? so then what, is the plan to "get rid" of white ppl generally, ignoring the fact theres white ppl who came just bc of immigration? ignoring the fact that white ppl have mixed with even native people so theres native ppl out there that would predominately be read as white? do they leave too? does a mixed persons white parent have to leave too? to me, "land back" has always meant putting native ppl in positions of power, not "getting rid" of whoever ppl wanna label as settlers. bc if yall really feel this way, and im talking to the white leftist americans here, you might as well kill yourself now if you think you're such a scourge by default of being white and in america, esp since you probably dont even know who your distant relatives are and whether or not they were actual settlers or immigrants, might as well do it "just in case". like be real, when tf did land back mean "get rid" of "settlers" bc i hate to tell ya but none of those original settlers are still alive today, so who are we getting rid of and how? are we gonna put all american white ppl in europe (as if they'd let us to begin with)? so we're gonna enable the whole white ethnostate shit bc you got all your opinions from a black nationalist who hates white people and wants a Very Different-From-White-Ethnostates and Very Special Non-White Ethnostate? and ig you're gonna ignore how much black nationalists buddy up with neo nazis bc its an inconvenient fact for you to swallow? personally, I believe in a world where everyone can coexist regardless of race/ethnicity/etc. personally, i choose to ignore the opinions of hateful ppl no matter where they fall politically. personally, i dont believe in any ethnostate that would by definition require a mass killing of any race/ethnicity, but in general, human beings, esp since race isnt that cut and dry anyways and ppl have been mixing together since the conception of murica' in the first place. so genuinely, whats the plan?

#if you genuinely walk around like a dipshit going 'its cool if native ppl or black ppl wanna kill me!!!' put your money where your mouth is #bc i really dont believe any of yall who say this. or you're literally so indoctrinated into these weird ethnostate cults that hate you and #you've decided to take it??? like wtf is wrong with you have you absolutely no self preservation or are you like an incredible bottom #or something like??? is this a kink?????? explain yourself bc i just dont believe you lmao.#idk who needs to hear this but you Do in fact have a right to live in spite of whatever your ancestors might've done #the good news is- you're NOT them!#simply educate yourself on the ways you might be contributing to the harm of marginalized people of color and try to help them #rebuild their communities as best you can while also getting out of the way when they ask you to!#that doesnt mean you have to support the radical minority within those demographics who want fucking ethnostates!#ask yourself this- if everything this person says sounds like the same shit a nazi would say if you replaced 'black' or 'native'#with 'white' then maybe you shouldnt be listening to that crazy fucks opinion!

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rafaelthompson · 4 years

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Five Ways to Be Anti-Racist at Your Café

You want to be actively anti-racist, but maybe you don’t know where to start? Here are some suggestions.

BY MARK VAN STREEFKERK BARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE

Over the past two weeks, protests have erupted across the United States demanding justice for George Floyd and other Black people killed by police, along with calls to reallocate police funds and establish racial equity. America has reached, and surpassed, a tipping point around systemic racism that is long overdue. As we watch protesters take to the streets night after night from our TV sets, laptops, phone screens—and even from the streets ourselves—we’re witnessing a revolution. If you’re not Black, and haven’t been involved in anti-racism work, this is your sign to jump in and start.

What does race have to do with coffee though? A whole lot. For starters, coffee is a product of colonialism, ongoing and mostly unchecked. As part of the coffee community, we have to recognize the many ways this industry has failed Black people. If you work at or own a café, this is the time to set up anti-racist training, or renew your commitment to anti-racism. Below are five actions you can take at your café. For independent and mom-and-pop cafés, where profit margins are thin and there are scant resources for anything above basic functions, this guide is especially for you! Keep in mind, this is by no means a conclusive list. There are many voices more qualified than us, and we here at Barista Magazine are learning and growing right there with you.

1. If you can’t afford anti-racist training or consulting, ask for help.

Getting an independent consultant, or company, to help facilitate an anti-racist training or workshop for your team is a great way to start. But what if you simply can’t afford it? Molly Flynn, founder of the #coffeetoo initiative, and project coordinator/service repair tech at Broadcast Coffee, has some excellent suggestions: “For companies that can’t afford anti-racism training by themselves, I wonder if they could either: Go in on it with other coffee shops or with their vendor partners to split the costs, or host a throwdown + training or something, and obtain sponsorship from someone like Pacific to cover the costs,” she says.

Alea Shurmantine, Oatly’s market development manager for the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada, said Oatly’s national market development team—which is generally tasked with community engagement in the coffee world—is offering to help cafés and businesses raise funds or contribute toward trainings. “It’s our job to ask what the coffee community—and service industry as a whole—wants and needs, and to find ways to deliver on what we hear. Right now, we want to support shops and groups who are doing the work,” she says. “There are a lot of ways that we can look: donation-matching for folks who are fundraising, donating product wherever it might be needed, financial support for shops looking to create structural change, etc. So helping out with the cost of anti-racism training is one tangible thing we can do! We want to support our community partners who are actively working to be better, and we understand that some shops genuinely aren’t able to afford something like professional anti-bias training, so we want to help lower that barrier for them.”

Interested cafés are encouraged to reach out at [email protected].

2. Educate.

As ubiquitous as it is, don’t only take your cues about racial justice from social media. There are so many incredible books to read about anti-racism, African American history, and Black liberation movements that offer a greater perspective and cover far more ground. For starters, we recommend So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo, or How To Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi. Choose a monthly book to read and offer to offset the cost for your team. Instead of Amazon, order books through these Black-owned bookstores.

In addition to books, consider these TED Talks, podcasts, and movies and TV shows you can stream right now. You can also invite your community to join in via a monthly book or movie club.

3. Raise money and set up ongoing donations.

If there’s one thing a café can do well, it’s host a fundraiser. This can be anything from a throwdown, a raffle, or donating the sales from a certain item to a particular organization, bail fund, or nonprofit. Molly also suggests asking customers if they’d like to “round up” to donate to a particular fund. Ask other businesses in your neighborhood to match your contributions. Here’s a super list of places to donate. Make sure to check out the local groups doing racial justice work in your community, and see if you can set up an ongoing donation.

4. Use anti-biased application screenings.

Anti-biased software like Blendoor helps eliminate unconscious bias in the resume-screening process. Make sure you post job openings at local community centers and schools, and not just on a barista Facebook group. Check out this article for other ways to make hiring more equitable.

5. It’s OK to get called out. Keep going.

What happens if you or someone on your team get called out for saying or doing something racist? We guarantee you’re not the first. We are imperfect humans doing what we can, and this is a lifelong journey. Get used to discomfort, and get used to changing your mind. Getting called out is an opportunity to listen, reflect, take responsibility for your intent and impact, make it right, and change future behavior. Take a deep breath, give yourself time to regulate your feelings, and really listen to why you’re being called out. Really try to see it from the other person’s side. If you need to vent or process your feelings, do so with a friend or therapist, not the person who feels harmed. Apologize, and do better. Reach out for help if you need it. In some cases, a larger process of accountability might be necessary. If you’re honest and transparent about taking responsibility for your intent and impact, and actively change, you are modeling to your community and team that it’s OK to mess up, as long as you keep going and try to do better.

Many thanks to Molly Flynn for her help with this article.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Mark Van Streefkerk is Barista Magazine’s social media content developer and a frequent contributor. He is also a freelance writer, social media manager, and novelist based out of Seattle. If Mark isn’t writing, he’s probably biking to his favorite vegan restaurant. Find out more on his website.

The post Five Ways to Be Anti-Racist at Your Café appeared first on Barista Magazine Online.

Five Ways to Be Anti-Racist at Your Café published first on https://espressoexpertsite.tumblr.com/

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jmrphy · 7 years

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Two cultures of radical politics

While many people on the left still pretend that “free speech” and “political correctness” are fake right-wing concepts, a number of us are beginning to realize the profound mistake of dismissive moral posturing. Get your popcorn ready now, because it’s going to be a fascinating mess as more and more people on the left begin to realize that the cultural politics of policing moral symbols has been fully exhausted and defeated.

The collective-emancipatory gains of genuine truth-seeking are now so massive compared to the rapidly diminishing marginal returns to the moral model, that there is no reason to spend much effort trying to convince the remaining moralists. First, If I am right that the truth-seeking model is better, then it will win because it is better, whether I convince anyone in a blog post or not. Second, I am practicing it, so if I am right then by simply thinking and doing what I am thinking and doing, you’ll see how it works in practice. If I’m wrong, my ideas will fizzle out and I’ll go away. In any event, what I would like to do here is simply unpack some of the notions I have been referring to in not-fully-explained shorthand. To begin, what do I mean when I refer to the “moral model” and the “truth-seeking” model?

The moral model vs. the truth-seeking model of radical politics

By “left moralism” or any of the other cognate phrases I sometimes use to this effect, I am referring to the model of political activism that seeks to change society by enforcing moral prohibitions. I think this is far and away the most widely held mental model of how progressive social change can and should be achieved, in moderate as well as radical circles. Make a list of words and ideas and types of behavior that are good, and try to get people to identify with them, talk about them, and go to meetings around them. Sometimes these words seem very concrete and action-oriented (such as “strike”) but nonetheless, if you observe like an anthropologist would, you find that an overwhelming portion of the energy is organized around identification with certain words and ideas believed to be in some sense normatively good or desirable. Always curiously lacking is impartial assessment of effects. Also, make a list of words and ideas and types of behavior that are bad and politics means discouraging these by whatever means necessary. Radical politics means really strongly discouraging these things. An important feature of this model is that what, exactly, should be on the list of bad things is a question that is not in principle open to question or debate. It is a characteristic of the moralist model that questioning its basic premises is itself one of the bad things to be discouraged; “good politics” means granting the goodness of the list and it’s enforcement, simply because that’s the moral thing to do. In practice, today, what’s actually on the list of bad things is generally determined through reverse dominance hierarchy in which deference is given to the most institutionally dominated individuals and groups you happen to be around. To be clear, I don’t think this is a totally unreasonable model. It kind of makes sense: society oppresses people unequally so give some priority to oppressed people in defining what is bad and everyone try to stop the occurrence of those bad things from happening. Not necessarily perfect but fair enough.

I use the phrase “truth-seeking” as an informal and intuitive name for what I could just as well call “scientific method.” The problem with “scientific method” is that for a lot of people this will sound too grandiose for thinking and acting around everyday cultural questions. Not to mention a lot of people think “scientific method” applied to social questions is impossible or harmful to begin with (it’s not, it’s just harder to apply to social questions than to something like physical objects). But most people agree that our ideas about the world around us can be more or less accurate, more or less consistent with how things actually work outside of us, and most people can admit they have an inner sense of when their ideas are proven true by reality (something works as you expect it to), and when their ideas are proven false by reality (something you are doing produces unexpected, undesirable outcomes).

So when I talk about “truth-seeking,” all I mean is informally but seriously subjecting all of one’s beliefs, opinions, and mental models of the world to the basic guidelines of scientific method in an everday, intuitive fashion. Basically: everything you think is just a theory, and everything you observe at all times is data you compare to what your theory would have predicted; you need to actively consider all plausible alternative theories and you update your mental models of the world accordingly. You can, and should, have unique background experiences and feelings and creative quirks; scientific method in no way discourages or disqualifies any of that, as it is popular for naïve humanists to suggest. Indeed, truth-seeking is actually the only way to remain loyal to your unique experiences and quirks: the scientific method provides the key for translating your unique data into power over your unique environment, by subjecting your thoughts to objective rules that are guaranteed to give you the best possible command of your unique situation. So this isn’t just an academic protocol; it’s the only way to live a basically honest and mature life, and I would argue it’s a basic pre-requisite for anyone who would hope to contribute to the elimination of oppression by complex social structures.

So the “truth-seeking” model of radical politics is fundamentally opposed to the moral model. The moral model says to begin with what is currently defined as morally bad (typically through reverse dominance hierarchies), and devote yourself to discouraging and generally reducing the prevalence of those things. The moral model requires specifically that nobody question the fundamental goodness of that model, or the wisdom of certain items being placed on the list of prohibitions, because the whole strategy is based precisely on forcing conformity to Goodness. The truth-seeking model’s only rule is that you must be honest about your data and how you’re making inferences from that data, but otherwise everyone should just do their best trying to understand how oppressive structures function and how to think/speak/act with others in the precise ways that will predictably overthrow those structures in favor of equality and liberation. The moral model’s final endgame is a world in which all badness goes away through mass conformity with moral criteria. The truth-seeking model’s final endgame is, through diverse and totally free experimentation, we collectively unlock our true functional relationships to oppressive social machinery while immanently rewiring them into correctly-functioning liberation machines.

Why the moral model will not go down without a fight

The reason the opening of a free-speech cleavage on the left is going to be really messy is that a large number of people have so long schooled themselves in the cultural politics of moralism, and have for so long avoided the very different protocols of truth-seeking (i.e. scientific method), that such a paradigm shift will understandably be experienced as a mortal threat to their identity. And we know that human beings will sooner go to war than reasonably reflect on anything that threatens fundamental dimensions of their identity. People have staked years of effort and many of their social relationships on a model that is suddenly obsolete, so it’s reasonable for such people to be confused and fearful about their place in the future of radical politics, let alone society. Fortunately, scientific method has an extraordinary egalitarian feature that goes woefully under-celebrated in radical circles: it’s equally demonstrable (ultimately) to anyone who is willing to work at understanding it.

The whole politics of left-moralism is actively anti-egalitarian because it’s logic is not readily and equally available to all interested parties. There are many social and economic factors that make access to scientific method unequally distributed, of course, but it has the uniquely egalitarian-emancipatory feature of at least being intelligible and employable by all who can find their way to it. The protocols of the left-moral model are not only beset by the same basic problems of unequal access (this is why educational privilege is curiously the single non-demonized privilege in left-moral culture), but the protocols of how to think and act politically on the left-moral model are not available to all in principle. They are unequally accessible by definition, so even if they start out noble and true, there is no way for large groups of humans to hold each other accountable to them in a fashion equally consistent with their truth. The magical techniques of being an ideal ally in the moral war—in which, one day certain words are declared good and the next day they are designated impermissible, according to a logic that does not exist out of the declarations of those groups and individuals who happen to be at the top of constantly shifting reverse dominance hierarchies—is therefore inegalitarian in principle. This is not to cry woe for the exclusion of white men from power (as will be the immediate rejoinder to my point here), it is to cry woe for anyone anywhere who might like to enter revolutionary movements for liberation from diverse starting points. The left-moral model is inherently illegible for anyone who is not able to go through narrow, fickle, local person-driven power dynamics to receive the day’s edicts on what is good and bad. Scientific method, while beset by problems of unequal access as with everything under capitalism, at least has the egalitarian virtue of being written down, basically unchanging, and citable to all.

The two models represent two different bio-chemical equilibria

I think a lot of smart and genuinely good people on the left operate on this model simply because, as a really-existing cultural structure, it can always inflict very real punishments they are not personally able to risk at the moment (ostracism) and it really delivers rewards they are not personally able to forego at the moment (social stability, standing and status in the in-group, efficacy, purity, etc.)

But the whole point of being a radical or revolutionary is to actively cultivate a higher tolerance for social punishment than bourgeois normies, and less reliance on the everyday psychological payoffs that bourgeois normies require to make their sad lives livable.

The revolutionary life, the life that genuinely risks itself in the name of what it believes, operates on a totally different equilibrium. Through cultivated attitude and iterating behavioral practice, we push our social punishment tolerance to the human maximum (but no more), our reliance on disingenous bourgeois psychological tricks to the human minimum (but no less), but we set our truth-seeking and truth-speaking/behaving high enough that it becomes a unique and inviolable source of two key resources. First, it provides motivation/energy replacing that which is lost by foregoing the convential bourgeois channels, because any genuine process of truth-seeking is by definition interesting, inspiring, and endless. Second, it provides actual power, for oneself and for whoever you wish to share it with, insofar as increasing your understanding over the social average unlocks concrete pathways to change the world around you despite that most people are content to leave the world as it is. Read the biography of any well-known revolutionary in history (anyone whose life itself participated in world-historical effects), whether it be a political revolutionary or creative/cultural revolutionary, and you will find they are not just different or more extreme than their contemporaries. You will find they organized their life on this fundamentally different equilibrium, a qualitatively different organization of energy inputs and ouputs, which provide the sustainable bio-chemical basis necessary for producing systemically transformative truths despite extreme social punishment and very little bourgeois subjectivity-maintenance.

Conclusion

The left-moralist model will protest the new school loudly and insistently until one day you just don’t hear from it anymore. This day is probably much sooner than most people think. Very soon the whole fashion of generalized moral condemnation will be so fully outed as an intellectually disingenuous and practically conservative tendency, that everyone will soon be pretending they never engaged in that embarrasing old fad. And the new cool kids on the block will be all those who are currently risking themselves on truth-seeking, those who were willing to take a little bit of heat from sad moralists in favor of seeking what really works for producing large-scale liberation dynamics. The reason I know this is not because I’m special; quite the contrary, it is because some version of this pattern characterizes all epochal transformations. A scientific outlook makes you larger by making you smaller, for it allows you to find a humble but real role in a set of infinitely larger objective processes.

from Justin Murphy http://ift.tt/2pISIls

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riichardwilson · 4 years

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How and where to fight for your marketing budget

Though digital marketers felt pressure before to justify their marketing agency spend, this is a whole new ballgame. marketing agency is often an easy target for cost-cutting because of how frictionless it is to adjust course quickly. There’s often no contract or penalty for reducing ad spending, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences for doing so. Will cutting spend in top-of-funnel and brand marketing agency while maintaining only the areas of highest direct ROI help in the short term, but leave the business less competitive in the long term?

If you’re finding yourself faced with the prospect of budget cuts, you aren’t alone. The majority of businesses are facing at least some impact from the coronavirus pandemic, and 65% of CMOs are expecting “moderate to significant” budget cuts still to come, according to a report published by Gartner. Clearly, marketers will face an inflUX of additional budgeting discussions in the coming months. Here’s how you can prepare to keep your business on track now, and be in position to power back during the recovery.

Plan around your business, not the competition

A natural instinct in times of uncertainty is to try to find out how the competition is faring. In fact, one of the most common questions we get during this time is, “What are other advertisers like us doing right now?”

Benchmarking the competition can be great for some strategy formulation, like messaging. Seeing what competitors are doing can help you understand what you need to cover with your own ads, but also what white space might exist for you to stand out right now.

But making decisions based on where and how much others are spending is a surefire path to bad outcomes. Avoid the trap of wondering how they’re doing it, and what that means about how you’re doing. Every business is unique, for everything from cash position to organizational strengths to how diversified it is, and all of those factors will determine what ads, budget, and performance standards they choose. This is unprecedented territory for everyone, so you could very well be trying to emulate a company that is making the wrong call. Let your own business metrics and needs dictate the choices you make.

Determining what to cut, and what to keep

One big caveat here: If you need to make short-term cuts, do that. We might be an ad agency, but we run a business, too. Sometimes you just need to make quick changes in triage, and there are worse things you could do than dialing back your spend. However, that should be the start of a running clock for understanding how and when to dial things back up. Making moves like that can relieve some pressure, but are likely creating losses at least on the margins. Give your team a little breathing room, but then get to work on the following steps to capitalize on the available opportunity.

1. Look beyond the top layer of data

Start by looking at the data trending, which goes beyond the ROAS of each channel, and possibly even each campaign. Even where the high-level performance is down in aggregate, some products or areas of search intent might actually be performing better. Buyer behavior is changing right now, but that doesn’t mean it’s negative for everything. Bread machine sales are up 652%! Sure, those trends are obvious, but there may be some that aren’t as obvious, or that are hidden by lower budgets due to past performance. You’ll need to dig in to find your opportunity. A children’s retailer we work with found an opportunity with their puzzles and games category, which was small before relative to clothing.

Some opportunities might not emerge through data, but rather come from listening to customers or considering how they’re impacted by the changing market. We work with an online consignment retailer that is shifting focus to attract new sellers to the site at a time when people are in need of ways to bring in a little money. Shifting demand doesn’t always equate to less demand; you’ll need to highlight the opportunity in your own product or service offering.

2. Consider your measurement strategy

Hopefully you’ve done the prerequisite work to set different goals for prospecting campaigns and closing campaigns, or in calculating how your prospecting campaigns should perform in order for you to reach your overall goals. Even if you haven’t, you may need to explain why cutting everything that’s not profitable or above a certain goal won’t deliver the maximum business result. Make sure you’re holding channels accountable with respect to their position in the funnel. Prospecting ROAS will almost always see a lower click-based ROAS than campaigns at the very bottom of the funnel. However, if prospecting performance is steady, or even stronger, compared to pre-COVID periods, then you have a good argument to keep it going.

3. Keep track of where competition is waning

Some industries are feeling the effects of the pandemic more than others, and that’s going to impact ad competition. We’ve seen CPMs on Facebook advertising across our client base decrease 40% over four weeks, while consumer buying propensity has already begun to rebound. So while that equation may not immediately work out in your favor, impressions and clicks are available at a discount, and that’s an opportunity.

4. Review and update messaging

With buyer behavior changing, pulling back momentarily should give you time to regroup on whether your messaging is contributing to the performance decline. Is your offer still relevant? Are you potentially turning people off with your image or copy choices? There’s plenty of potential to chip away at performance degradation simply by revisiting your ads. Take B2B sales, for example. There’s a lengthy research process, so this might be a time to switch from demos to educational assets, or invest more in research campaigns than closing campaigns.

Making the case for top-of-funnel budgets

Once non-marketers get involved, it’s often the case that the first thing to get cut will be everything except that which has the highest direct ROI. In digital marketing agency terms, that’s often channels and campaigns like Brand Search and Remarketing agency. But does it sound like a winning strategy to simply try to catch whatever demand is left from pre-pandemic marketing agency? Maybe for a couple of weeks, but for how long?

No one knows, but at a certain point, reduced investment in top-of-funnel advertising will stunt your growth once a recovery begins. If you know that on average it’s 30 days or more from first ad impression to purchase, things could look quite a bit different at that time than they do right now. If you chose to choke off introducing your brand to new prospects, you might unnecessarily extend your business’s slump.

This is especially true of B2B marketing agency. While closed deal flow is slowing for a lot of firms, research and evaluation is not. If you have a 3-6 month sales cycle, then that reduction in top-of-funnel investment now will leave you out of the running in many cases when businesses make decisions on new systems in Q4.

The more you know about your path to purchase and customer journey, the easier it will be to make this case. If you know the campaigns and channels that most often contribute to new customers discovering you, then it’s logical to argue that shutting those down could do more harm to the business than good. If you’ve previously mapped the customer journey or created personas, revisit them and plan for changes to who might be involved in purchase decisions, or what might change in their discovery process. That kind of proactive strategy will help you make the case to continue investing where it makes the most sense.

Parting thoughts

When uncertainty reigns, conservatism will, too. While many businesses should consider reduced top-of-funnel ad spend, very few should abandon it altogether. Businesses ultimately need to spend money only where it makes sense, and while available budgets for testing and expansion may be scaled back in the months to come, there are probably a lot more places where it will make sense than what meets the eye. The time to start understanding that, and to start planning for the budgeting conversations down the line, is now.

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Adam is the Chief Client Officer at Metric Theory, where he leads a team of more than 100 digital marketing agency professionals across the US, expanding Metric Theory’s impact with their clients by building and refining its services. With over 10 years of performance digital marketing agency experience, Adam has helped grow some of the most disruptive brands in technology and retail and is an alumni of the SF Egotist’s “32 under 32” list for marketing agency professionals.

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source http://www.scpie.org/how-and-where-to-fight-for-your-marketing-budget/ source https://scpie.tumblr.com/post/624411326013440000

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scpie · 4 years

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How and where to fight for your marketing budget

Plan around your business, not the competition

Determining what to cut, and what to keep

1. Look beyond the top layer of data

2. Consider your measurement strategy

3. Keep track of where competition is waning

4. Review and update messaging

Making the case for top-of-funnel budgets

Parting thoughts

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/how-and-where-to-fight-for-your-marketing-budget/

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laurelkrugerr · 4 years

Text

How and where to fight for your marketing budget

Plan around your business, not the competition

Determining what to cut, and what to keep

1. Look beyond the top layer of data

2. Consider your measurement strategy

3. Keep track of where competition is waning

4. Review and update messaging

Making the case for top-of-funnel budgets

Parting thoughts

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/how-and-where-to-fight-for-your-marketing-budget/ source https://scpie1.blogspot.com/2020/07/how-and-where-to-fight-for-your.html

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samuelfields · 6 years

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Why Households Need To Earn $300,000 A Year To Live A Middle Class Lifestyle Today

In order to comfortably raise a family in an expensive coastal city like San Francisco or New York, you’ve got to make at least $300,000 a year. You can certainly raise a family earning less as many do, but it won’t be easy if your goal is to save for retirement, save for your child’s education, own your own home instead of rent, and actually retire by a reasonable age.

Although $300,000 is a lot compared to the median household income in the United States of ~$59,000, it’s not an outrageous sum of money once you look at the realistic income statement I’ve put together for this post. All expenses in my example use current prices. I’ve also cross checked the expenses with my family’s monthly expenses to make sure they are within reason.

Finally, I use $300,000 in this post because I believe it is the ideal income for up to a family of four to experience maximum happiness. At $300,000, you aren’t paying an egregious amount in taxes, you probably aren’t killing yourself at work, but you’re still earning enough to live a comfortable lifestyle anywhere in the world.

Half the US population lives on the coasts, therefore, this post is directly targeted at folks who need to live on the coasts because of their jobs. This post should also provide insights to non-coastal city residents on how good you’ve got it if you enjoy living where you are.

Who Makes $300,000 A Year?

Before we look at the income statement, I’d like to go through a list of various workers who will eventually make ~$300,000 on their own or in household income if they find someone who also works.

* A Bay Area Rapid Transit janitor made $234,000 + $36,000 in benefits in 2016

* A Bay Area Rapid Transit elevator technician made $235,814 + $48,429 in benefits in 2016

* Starting salaries for 22 year old employees at Facebook, Google, and Apple range from ($80,000 – $120,000) + ($10,000 – $50,000) in annual equity grants.

* 30 year old first year Associate in banking earns $150,000 in base salary + ($0 – $120,000) in bonus

* A 26 year old Airbnb employee shared he got a $250,000 total compensation package back in 2015

* A 26 year old first year law associate at a firm like Cravath make $180,000 base + $20,000 sign on bonus. By the end of their 6th year they are making over $300,000.

* A 29 year old Director of Marketing at a startup makes between $120,000 – $180,000.

* A personal finance blogger with 500,000 pageviews earns between $150,000 – $600,000

* A 42 year old college professor at Berkeley makes $235,000 on average and $279,000 at Columbia and NYU

* The average specialist doctor finishing his or her fellowship at 32 makes $300,000. The average salary for a primary care physician is $200,000.

The permutations of people making $300,000 goes on and on. You can have one person make $300,000 and another make $0. You can have a teacher making $65,000 married to a 5th year engineer making $250,000. The amount of households in big coastal cities making $300,000 is ubiquitous.

Living A Middle Class Lifestyle On $300,000 A Year

Please study this chart closely. Every expense has been carefully vetted to give you the most realistic budget possible that’s not out of control.

Gross Income Review

This dual income household puts away the maximum $18,500 a year each in their respective 401(k)s. With the passage of new tax laws in 2018, they’ve lost their ability to deduct more than $10,000 worth of state income and property taxes. As a result, I’ve used the new $24,000 standard deduction for married couples to keep things simple.

They have a marginal federal income tax rate of 24% and a marginal California income tax rate of 9%. I estimate their combined effective tax rate is roughly 27%, +/- 1%, for a tax bill of $64,530. Yes, their total tax bill is $5,530 more a year than today’s median household income, so hopefully folks who earn less can give them some slack.

What’s nice about 2018 and beyond is that this family now gets a $2,000 child tax credit. In the past, the credit began to disappear for married couples who earned more than $110,000 and for single filers with AGI above $75,000. Now, singles and married couples can earn up to $200,000 and $400,000 respectively, before their child tax credit begins to disappear.

Child tax credit income thresholds have risen

Expenses Review

Childcare ($24,000): There’s no getting around this expense if both parents are working. Babysitting and childcare for $20/hour is the standard rate I’ve found in San Francisco. I know some families who only pay $10/hour because they are co-sharing the sitter with another family. Either way, childcare for a baby/toddler before they attend first grade costs between $17 – $40 / hour in a big city.

If the parents decide to send their child to private school, this $24,000 annual expense will continue. It’s a shame that so many expensive coastal cities have troubled public school systems. In San Francisco, there’s a lottery system for the sake of social engineering. In other words, even if you buy a $1.5M median home and pay $20,000 a year in property tax, you are not guaranteed to have your kid get into the public school down the street.

Food ($25,200): When you are a dual job household with a baby, there’s little time to cook. Further, given the family is living in a city like New York or San Francisco, food is world class, and on demand food delivery is ubiquitous. It makes little sense to spend hours cooking when you’re already tired and want to reserve your remaining energy for taking care of your baby. However, food is where this family can cut expenses if they start feeling a little tight.

Mortgage ($46,800): Although the payment is $3,900 a month for a $900,000 mortgage at 3.25%, $2,000 of it goes towards paying down principal and building net worth. Therefore, you can theoretically add $24,000 a year to their $37,000 a year in 401(k) savings. Their $1.5M assessed house is a standard 2,000 sqft, three bedroom, two bathroom home on a 3,000 sqft lot. But this is where the SALT cap deduction really hurts homeowners in expensive real estate markets. In the past, they could have deducted $29,250 of mortgage interest to offset part of their income. Now this deduction is capped at a maximum $10,000.

Vacation ($7,800): Some will say that spending three weeks of vacation is a luxury, but I say spending three weeks of vacation is normal for two working parents who want to keep their sanity.When I left my job in banking at age 34, I had been taking six weeks of vacation each year for three consecutive years and I took every day I was allowed off. Three weeks had felt too little for me. By law, every country in the EU has at least four weeks of paid vacation days. Meanwhile, Brazil gets 41 paid vacations days a year. Yes, their respective economies might be a mess compared to ours, but at least they are enjoying life!

Car Payment ($7,400): When you have a baby, all you want to do is protect him or her from harm. Even if you are the best driver in the world, one reckless drunk driver might t-bone you one evening. No longer do you feel comfortable driving a compact city car while transporting your family. Instead, you want a larger vehicle that has the highest safety rating. Related: Safety First: Finally Bought A Family Car

Baby/Toddler Things ($6,000): You can spend as little or as much as you want on your baby. But this family buys disposable diapers, not washable diapers, tons of baby proofing material, lots of toys, the best car seat, and two strollers. It’s funny, but one of the best toys for our son is a tissue box.

Entertainment ($6,000): Date night can easily cost $200+ an outing for two once you include tickets to a ball game or a show and transportation. Entertainment also includes the cost of sporting equipment, memberships, Netflix, cable, internet, and more. If your friends invite you to a weekend getaway, a bachelor or bachelorette party, or a function or two, your entertainment budget will be blown to smithereens.

CPI for all urban consumers has increased by 68% since I graduated from HS in 1995

Final Cash Flow Review

The end result is annual cash flow of only $4,090, which could get spent in a hurry as things always pop up. But overall, this middle class family is building roughly $53,000 in net worth each year through principal pay down and 401(k) savings plus any appreciation in their investments and primary residence.

After 22 years of work with no change in income or expenses, this household will likely amass a net worth of over $2,000,000 and the ability for at least one spouse to retire since their son will have graduated college. However, based on my recommended net worth goal for financial freedom equal to 20X annual expenses, this couple needs to accumulate closer to $3,500,000 to really feel comfortable for both to retire.

2018 Federal Income Tax Rates

After analyzing all the numbers above, the ideal household income to raise a family is $315,000 after deductions. At $315,000 you pay a 24% marginal income tax rate and avoid having to paying a whopping 8% more in federal income tax on each dollar over $315,000. This jump is large compared to the 2% jump from 22% to 24%.

Based on my experience, happiness did not increase for me when I began making over $200,000 as an individual. Happiness did not increase for us when we began making over $300,000 either. Therefore, due to the increase taxes and increase stress, it seems pointless to put yourself through the ringer simply to try and make more from a day job.

However, if this couple were to earn $376,000 and then take the $24,000 standard deduction and contribute $37,000 in their respective 401(k)s to bring taxable income down to $315,000, they would have an additional ~$43,000 in cash flow each year. For financial security and retiring earlier, that’s a nice extra buffer.

Perhaps It’s Time To Move

In order for this household to achieve financial independence, they’ve got to either up their 17% gross savings rate, figure out a way to reduce expenses, or boost income. Since boosting income probably hurts their quality of life, the best way is to reduce expenses. After 10 years of aggressive saving and earning, moving to a lower cost area to work or retire could be the perfect final move.

There’s a moving truck shortage in San Francisco because so many people are moving out of this expensive city. The trend is towards relocating towards the heartland, which is where I’m investing some money. Thanks to technology, there’s no need to grind so hard in cities where the median home price is over $1M. The country is large. Go explore it!

Readers, what do you think is the ideal household income for raising a child in an expensive coastal city? What do you think of this household’s expenses? I estimate that a $300,000 household income is equivalent to roughly $120,000 in a non-coastal city if this helps folks get a better idea of the numbers.

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ronaldmrashid · 6 years