Marketing Turnaround
By Gail Z. Martin Using LinkedIn (carefully) for marketing Make the Most of Summer Marketing Spring Clean Your Marketing The Comeback Kid Persistence is the Key to 2010 Success Is it just me, or are you tired of the headlines, too? Forget Resolutions: Achieve Your Goals Where’s Your Map? Who Are These People and Why Are They Talking To Me? I use Facebook and Twitter to meet new people without the constraints of geography or time zones. When I invite people to be my “friend” or “follower,” I do so based either on personal knowledge of the person, or recognition of a shared interest. For example, we may both be members of an online marketing group (which would lead you to think we are both interested in marketing.) The vast majority of people are fine with this, and do the same to expand their personal circle of “friends.” The #1 Business Card Marketing Mistake I’m on Facebook: Now What? Power-Shift Your Personal Networking Are you getting the most from your in-person and online personal networking? Free Information Builds Trust, Relationships Can you ever give away “too much” information for free? Think about what it costs you to go to an average trade show, and then reconsider the question. Companies will routinely spend tens of thousands of dollars to stuff trade show goodie bags with all kinds of useless stuff, much of which is given to the attendees’ children or dumped on a breakroom table for office “vultures” who will never be purchasers or decision-makers. Is Real Estate Your Real Marketing Problem? They say that “location, location, location” is the key—but sometimes, it’s the problem. Social Media Takes Work Are you Twittering? If you’ve been on vacation for the last few months without access to the news, Twitter is a new micro-blogging program that allows you to convey ideas, tips, web sites and other goodies in “tweets” of 140 characters or fewer. What can you say in 140 characters of fewer? Surprisingly, a lot. And even more surprisingly, what you say can help you increase your business visibility and reach new people. It works like this. You start off by inviting the people you know to “follow” you on Twitter. For example —I’m on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/GailMartinPR. Hopefully, many of the people who read this will stop by my page and click the “follow” button. Now every time I tweet, you’ll get the message. If my tweets are helpful, funny or interesting, you can tell a friend, forward them or invite others to check me out. As with most social networking sites, the goal is to connect with as many people as possible in a way that adds value for them and makes contacts for you. I’m new on Twitter, but what I see being done out there was enough to get me involved. Here are some ideas for making the most of your 140 characters. Teach a mini-course. Break down something you’re good at into single sentences and tweet them once or twice a day. Let people know you’ve added new content to your web site. This is a great way to drive traffic. Hold a treasure hunt. Offer clues via tweets and have people respond with their answers via your web site or Facebook page or Squidoo lens. Another fund way to increase site traffic. Be sure to recognize the winner on….Twitter! Review the latest business books you’ve read. Pass along a one-line recap to let others know whether the book is worthwhile or not. Recap a conference or live event. You can set Twitter up to work from your cell phone. So if you go to a conference, you can tweet from the road on who you’ve met, how the speakers are and what great things you’ve learned. Forward links. Did your company just end up in the news? Tweet the link to the article. Did you just get interviewed on radio? Tweet the link! Find a cool web site with a great new tool? Tweet your friends. Just upload a video to YouTube—tweet it! Make an announcement. Let your Twitter friends be the first to know if you’ve won an award, signed a book deal or landed a new client. Ask a question. Invite answers to your website forum or social media page. This can be great for encouraging traffic to your Facebook group. Send reminders about live events. If you’re holding a get-together, speaking at a local meeting or hosting a coffee, tweet about it up to the last minute to encourage attendance. Your Twitter use is limited only by your imagination. So here’s my challenge—how are you seeing people using Twitter or how are you using it? Let me know your answer on my Squidoo page at www.Squidoo.com/GailMartin! And remember to add me on Twitter! Prepare now for pent-up demand ... While everyone is watching the bouncing ball of the Dow Jones index, the majority of people are missing an important fact. After lean times comes a spurt of spending due to pent-up demand. People are paying off debt and watching pennies now, and that’s an appropriate response. But once indicators start looking up, the companies and individuals who have put off essential purchases are going to start buying again. They may not start splurging on luxuries, but the things that are difficult to live without or do business without. Are you getting ready? Position yourself now while it’s slow and you have breathing room. Use this time to rethink, rebundle, and repackage your services and products. We already know that 2009 will be a banner year for start-up companies as big corporations have shed qualified, educated, proficient people by the hundreds of thousands. Many of those folks will decide life is better in the wild than on the game preserve, and they will need the tools to survive. If you offer coaching, consulting and professional services, they need you in bite-sized pieces to get off to a good start. Once the dust settles, existing companies are going to realize that the firms that survive are the ones that keep moving forward. You can’t grind to a halt and expect to make it. They will continue to need professional services, work-related products and expertise in order to compete in a new, leaner environment. Consumers also will continue to need essential goods and services with a few affordable luxuries thrown in from time to time. If you can offer a bargain and good value, they will respond. And here’s another thing to think about—the exodus of corporate talent into the small business pool is a great gain for those of us already in business for ourselves. We get access to corporate-trained experts who were previously out of our reach, people whom we couldn’t afford to hire full time but who we can afford piecemeal. As they become consultants, coaches and small business owners, we can now “rent” them and reap the benefit. This is a huge source of new ideas, best practices, and fresh approaches. So ride the wave! The best way we can help our neighbors and our communities out of this slump is to keep moving forward, making cautious investments toward the future, knowing that the upturn is the next natural part of the cycle. Marketing is one your best investments of time, effort and a little cash right now. That’s because marketing keeps your name visible as your competitors cower and fall away. If you meet a real, urgent need, demand for your services will continue among surviving businesses. Widen your net via online marketing to serve a global audience. But don’t stop fishing!
Smart Ways to Use Twitter for Business
If Facebook is a networking event and LinkedIn is like a personal referral from your Blackberry address book, then Twitter is the cocktail party of the social media scene.
Twitter is a “microblogging” site, which means that it’s like blogging, only shorter. On Twitter, users can share 140-character messages called Tweets. Thanks to an ever-growing number of applications and add-ons, you might be surprised at the power in those short Tweets to connect you to potential prospects and customers.
The key to using Twitter for business is to think about what you can share in 140 characters that your prospects/customers need. Here are some ideas to get you going:
• Share short tips related to your area of expertise: saving money, exercise, diet, marketing, reducing stress, living green—short, actionable and to-the-point.
• Invite followers to live or virtual events
• Update followers on new blog posts or articles
• Invite discussion by posting a poll, asking a question or having a trivia contest.
• Stage a “Tweetup” or live event invitation via Twitter. Great for more spontaneous get-togethers or telling your followers about in-person sales or discounts.
• Publicize your “flavor of the day” whether it’s a daily special, soup, ice cream, coffee or tip.
• Invite participation in real-time when you’re on a live radio call-in show.
• Notify followers if there’s a last-minute event cancellation or weather-related store closing. If your web site goes down but you can get to a WiFi location, send out a Tweet to let followers know you’ll be back up soon.
• Offer a teaser by Tweeting the first chapter of an article (with a link to the rest) or the first chapter of your new book.
• Reward followers with links to special content, coupons or first-look content.
• Send Tweets from the road as you attend conferences and events. Make sure you use hashtags so your Tweets trend with others from the same event.
• Watch Trending Topics to see where the buzz is, and jump into the conversation if you can add relevant information or insight.
• Keep it interesting and helpful by reTweeting good posts by colleagues and opinion leaders, sending links to articles, blogs and videos and being on the lookout for great relevant content to share.
• Follow your competitors or industry leaders to see what others are doing and borrow best practices.
Excerpted with permission from 30 Days to Social Media Success, by Gail Martin, new from Career Press.
LinkedIn can be a powerful marketing tool, but because its culture is very different from other social media sites, it’s important to respect the rules and tread lightly. The best analogy would be successful in-person networking. You would never barge into someone’s desk and raid their address book or Blackberry. Ethical networkers also don’t pretend to be referred by someone who hasn’t given permission to use them as a referral. Apply that same networking etiquette on LinkedIn, and you’ll be on your way to success.
What can you do to market your company on LinkedIn?
• Create a profile that shows you and your experience at its best and most credible.
• Use your Update box to let your contacts know about speaking engagements, new projects, or job-related news.
• Use the My Travel app to share where you’ll be traveling if it’s important to you to make the best use of your travel time by fitting in extra lunches, coffee and dinner with out-of-town contacts when you visit the area.
• Use the Events app to invite your connections and increase your event visibility.
• Be generous in giving (truthful) recommendations, and ask your contacts to write recommendations for you. Give first, and others will reciprocate.
• Use caution in deciding who to add and whose invitations to accept so you protect the integrity of your connections.
• Use the “six degrees of separation” indicator to ask your connections to refer you to others in their networks.
• Use the Wordpress, Tweets and BlogLink apps to have your blog, podcasts, videos and Tweets automatically update your LinkedIn page to keep it fresh.
• Fill out your profile completely, and use a good, recent, professional photo.
• Offer to give referrals to your contacts, and introduce people you think might benefit from the connection.
• Use polls to get snapshots of what your customers and prospects think about key issues. Polls can also help you gather statistics for reports and presentations.
• Join groups and participate to add value. Virtual chapters of professional, industry and alumni associations where you’re already a member are especially valuable.
• Reconnect with mentors, colleagues, and subordinates whom you’d lost track of from prior companies. (The company and industry search functions are very helpful for this.) You expand your active network with people you already know.
• Start a group if your key membership organizations aren’t represented. If you remain active as a group leader, it can be a great visibility tool.
• Let your contacts know what kinds of new projects you’re interested in, so they know if you’re open to be approached.
Excerpted from 30 Days to Social Media Success, by Gail Martin, new from Career Press.
Summer is the time when nothing happens because everyone goes on vacation—right?
Maybe not. Once June rolls around, many business owners take a cue from school kids and decide that all the serious work is done until September. Oh, they’re technically “open” over the summer, but they drop back on attending marketing meetings (because “no one goes”), slack off on blogging, direct mail or newsletters (because “no one’s reading it”) and hold off on making contacts (because “nobody’s in the office”).
Then September comes and they’re in a panic because business is slow! In my opinion, summer is a fantastic time for cultivating business opportunities. Don’t worry—I believe in going on vacation as much as anyone, and I unplug when I go. But like warm weather and fresh fruit, summer offers seasonal possibilities that are too good to pass up.
Here are my tips for making the most of your summer marketing:
#1: Prospects have more time to connect. During the summer, the people you have been trying to reach all year may see a seasonal slow-down. They will probably adapt with a little more laid-back, casual pace themselves. Now is the time to catch them for a short phone conversation or even a meeting over coffee that they were too busy for earlier in the year.
#2: Summer is the time to set up events for next year. Whether you’re planning an event of your own or you want to be booked as a speaker at someone else’s event, there are only six more months left in the year, so many planners are already looking at 2011. This is especially true if their annual event has already happened for this year. Get a jump on the competition by putting in your pitch early.
#3: Summer slow-downs leave more time to read. If the target audience for your newsletter, blog and social media posts experience a little slower pace during the summer, they may well use it for more online reading time. Instead of taking a break from communicating, make sure that your summer written communications are especially spicy and good!
#4: Summer is the half-way point in the year. Because the year is half gone, it’s a great time to check in with clients and prospects to see if their revenues or goal-achievement is on schedule. If not (and if you can help get them back on track), you’ve got built-in urgency for them to hire you!
#5: Budget season is coming. Many companies prepare their new year budget beginning in October. If prospects have been stalling with a go-ahead “because it’s not in the budget,” now is a great time to update your proposal and re-submit it, with a cover letter that helpfully notes the fresh figures “for your new budget cycle.”
#6: Slow periods are great times to work ON your business. If client work really does slow down for you, seize the opportunity to tackle your own improvement projects. Update your website, blog more frequently, spruce up your marketing materials, and write articles to submit to industry publications, spiff up your speeches, and dust off your business plan to check on your progress.
You can enjoy the summer and make headway on your business goals by keeping these six points in mind. Not only will your summer marketing soar, but you’ll find that come September, you are still top of mind with prospects who are ready to buy!
It feels good to do some spring cleaning. I’ve been purging my office of old files, deleting old emails, cleaning out closets. Getting rid of old, unused stuff makes the room seem bigger, makes me feel better, and makes the whole building seem a little lighter. When’s the last time you did some Spring Cleaning on your marketing? Many of the business owners I talk to market on autopilot. They found a few things that worked for them during the first month or year they were in business, and they’ve kept on doing those same things ever since.
Even when the economy changed drastically. Even if their product offerings, service portfolio or target audience went in a whole new direction. They cling to that familiar marketing like a lucky rabbit’s foot, afraid to do something different. Other business owners were fortunate in that when they started up, they didn’t need to market themselves. Referrals poured in, word of mouth sent them more business than they could handle, and life was good. Until it wasn’t. Eventually, they tapped out all the friends of their friends and family, word of mouth brought inquiries but didn’t close sales, and life suddenly wasn’t as rosy. So it’s time for some Spring Cleaning.
You know you need to Spring Clean your marketing when:
• Your target market has changed in the last year
• You have added new products or services
• You’re changing your pricing or altering how your bundle or deliver your services
• The economy changes (hint—this means everyone)
• There are fundamental shifts in your industry
• A major new competitor enters the field, or a big player exits the market
• It’s been over a year since you really sat down and thought about how you’re communicating about your business.
Why Spring Clean your marketing? One reason is because we fall into comfortable rut and over time, the rut takes us where we’ve been, not where we want to go. Another big reason is that the world is constantly changing, and our marketing needs to stay nimble. Finally, and maybe most importantly, our goals change, and if we don’t update our marketing, we’re selling the company we ran last year, instead of building our dreams for tomorrow.
So here are my top five ways to take a mental broom to your marketing, vacuum out the dust, and give your business the fresh, clean smell of success.
Tip #1: See if your goals have changed. Maybe last year, or two years ago, your priority was on getting more consulting clients, but now, your top goal is getting more paid speaking engagements. Are you putting your time and energy into marketing to achieve your new top goal? If that’s not where the time and energy are going, it’s time to do some cleaning.
Tip #2: See if your market has changed. If you’re a local business, how have the demographics changed around your store in the last two years? If you’re a neighborhood business, do you still know your neighbors well enough to meet their needs? Take the time to update your market research.
Tip #3: How is technology impacting your industry? Do you serve a market that welcomes text message coupons? Can you promote for less money by using social media instead of direct mail? Should you have your own iPad application? Have your customers abandoned print newspapers to read online? Find out how your customers are using technology and make sure your marketing reaches them in the way they now consume information.
Tip #4: Has your network changed? No matter how much business you’ve gotten from any club or association, membership changes over the life of an organization. Are you still getting value from your membership or event fees? Are there fresh faces coming to programs, or is it a social hour with the same old crowd. Re-think the time and money you spend on personal networking by re-evaluating your memberships, and make sure you know where your target audience is congregating.
Tip #5: How is the economy impacting your buyer? Yes, we’re rebounding, but there’s some debate as to whether consumers will ever return to their spendthrift days. Likewise, the rebound hasn’t touched every community equally. Some are booming, while others have a way to go. Cautious consumers need more touches to go from prospect to buyer, and they want more assurance of value. Make sure your marketing messages are in sync with your consumers’ mood. It feels good to throw open the windows and toss out old junk. Get the same sunshine-fresh feeling with your marketing by opening the windows of your mind and tossing out the outdated marketing approaches and messages that no longer serve you. It’s a new year and a brand new economic recovery. Are you tuned up and ready to go?
How well do you “process failure?”
The April 12 issue of Newsweek Magazine featured an article by Daniel Gross entitled: “America’s Back! The Remarkable Tale of our Economic Turnaround.” http://www.newsweek.com/id/236190. I loved this article for two reasons. First, it stands in direct opposition to the drumbeat of negativity you hear on the street with compelling evidence that we’ve turned a corner. Secondly, Gross notes that one of the things Americans do best is bounce back from failure.
According to Gross, in America, failure does not have the stigma attached that it does in other countries. We pull ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and resolve to do better next time. Our system is more tolerant of failure than in many other countries. (Heck, when you really mess up, you get your own reality TV show!) And in a quirky, entrepreneurial, genius-inventor-in-the-garage kind of way, we celebrate failure because at least it means you tried. Recall the quote attributed to Thomas Edison that he had found 10,000 ways NOT to make an incandescent light bulb.
Gross called the freedom to make mistakes and get a fresh start, along with the willingness to make mistakes in pursuit of a big dream “processing failure.”
How well do you “process failure?”
The last year and a half has been a rough ride. Banks failed. Companies failed. Stock portfolios failed. And individuals who had worked hard found a lot of their gains swept away in an economic hurricane even bigger than Katrina. We’ve spent quite a few months nursing our failures. And yet….
We believe in the power of tomorrow. Annie said it on Broadway: “The sun’ll come out, tomorrow.” Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’s girlfriend said it: “There’s always tomorrow for dreams to come true.” Even Scarlett O’Hara said it: “Tomorrow is another day.”
Process failure.
Maybe you tried a new line of business and it didn’t meet expectations. That’s OK. Learn and move on. Process failure.
Perhaps you experimented with a new type of marketing and it didn’t pay off quickly enough. Take a lesson and do it differently next time. Process failure.
The quintessential American attribute, at least according to Gross (and I agree) is the ability to shake off disappointment and start over, with dreams that are even bigger, better and bolder than before. Many of the immigrants to America left behind old failures along with their original names when they came to this country for a fresh start. Many more shed their failures and headed West for to start over. Our legends are full of people who did what others said couldn’t be done, and along the way, failed publicly plenty of times before they hit it big.
How can you “process failure” to emerge from the downturn bigger and better than ever? Are you planning for a comeback?
Research shows that companies that keep marketing during a downturn and remain visible are the ones that get the lion’s share of the business once consumers begin to spend again. Are you using inexpensive, effective marketing to stay visible and offer value?
Start planning now to turn last year’s “failures” into this year’s big breakthroughs. What have you learned that will make you better, smarter, more adaptable or faster than ever before? What next-big-thing idea do you have floating around in your head that you haven’t recognized yet?
Yogi Berra said “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” So when the sun comes up tomorrow, are you prepared to make the most of it?
Move Forward or Be Left Behind
Are you making steady progress towards your 2010 goals, or waiting for something to happen?
Maybe you’re waiting for the economy to turn around. For hiring in your area to pick up. For the stock market to trend upwards. For second quarter…summer…something.
If you’re not moving forward, you’re setting yourself up to be left behind once the recession finally ends. Why? Because lots of other companies aren’t waiting. They’re moving now because they know this is the best time to actively reposition their company for the coming upturn.
It’s true that no one knows the exact date when the economy will turn around. But research shows that companies that actively market during a downturn are the winners when customers start to buy again. Why? They’ve remained visible. They’ve retooled and improved their products. They’ve developed new products that are attuned to the needs of the market. They haven’t been asleep at the switch. They make their own destiny.
What could you be doing right now to move forward so that you’re first in line when the economy trends upward? You could update your website, or add a new social media component to your strategy. You might add new events or newsworthy activities to your calendar and increase your PR. As a business owner, you might seek out speaking engagements to get yourself in front of other decision makers.
You could contact all your recent prospects with an update about what you have to offer so that your solutions are fresh in their minds. Most of those activities are free, so cash flow or a tight money situation isn’t an excuse for inaction.
No marketing activity can guarantee results, but doing nothing is a sure way to get nothing. A farmer can’t wait until the warm summer days to plant crops. He’s got to put down seed in the cold, wet spring weather believing that summer will come. You can’t wait until the economy gets a jump-start to move forward on your marketing plans.
When you take action, you create your own future. Taking action puts you in control, and it gets you out of the passive, victim role of waiting for someone (the grown-ups?) to do something to save you. Collectively, we are the economy. Small business creates most of the jobs in the U.S. and accounts for a huge slice of the GDP. We’re supposed to be smarter, faster and quicker to maneuver than the lumbering, committee-driven corporations. (Remember, the mammals won the battle of evolution against the dinosaurs.) It feels good to be the captain of your own ship.
The community looks to small business and solo professionals to lead. When small business hangs back, waiting to be saved, consumers lose confidence. When consumers aren’t confident, they don’t spend money. Everyone is waiting for someone else to move. So….MOVE!
Your voice will be louder and your position more noticed when you take action now because so many others refuse to take a risk. Count the benefits to being bold: You position yourself to be first in line to serve consumers when the economy revives, you are perceived by your industry, employees and community to be a leader, and you actually participate in improving the economy instead of being a bystander.
What will you do TODAY to position your company for the rebound?
Let’s see: “Politician hits an obstacle, gives up.” Then there is, “Doing the right thing is hard; Congress goes out for coffee.” Or how about, “Honest work takes energy, CEO embezzles instead.” Or the ever-popular, “Working out is boring, athlete takes steroid short-cut.” And of course, “Diets aren’t fun; have another donut.”
Unfortunately, we’re a quick-fix culture, but life (and business) doesn’t work that way. Grandma was right: “Anything worth having is worth waiting (and working) for.”
What are you working for in 2010? Is there a goal out there that seems far away, looks like a lot of work, might be difficult or is going to take some boring elbow grease to attain?
In my experience, the number one reason business owners don’t generate results with their marketing is that they give up too soon. Marketing and PR are like the water that carved the Grand Canyon, one drip at a time. You can’t force a customer to buy products or services on your schedule. All you can do is educate them about what you offer and how it solves their problem, and then stay visible until their own need creates an urgent reason to buy.
Persistence and consistency are the keys to marketing success in 2010. Yep, good old 1900s values, not swanky high tech tools. Don’t get me wrong: the swanky high tech tools can help you reach global audiences at a fraction of the cost of old fashioned media. But without persistence and consistency, all you’ve got is a tool. It won’t do the work for you.
We all love to see immediate results. Sometimes a marketing effort hits like lighting in the right place at the right time. It becomes viral, and suddenly, you’re all over the Internet. But just like winning the lottery, there’s a reason campaigns like that make the news. They’re rare.
I learned the unglamorous truth back in grade school with piano lessons. I had a good memory, so I found out I could get through my lesson without doing all the practice my teacher required. Another student didn’t memorize as quickly, but she diligently put in the hard labor of practicing. Guess who ended up the better piano player? (Hint: It wasn’t me.)
If you want to see a difference in your marketing results this year, whether it’s in PR, social media, networking or online marketing, then it’s time to roll up your sleeves. There are no short cuts or cheats. Create a plan, break it into action steps, work the action steps week-in and week-out, and see results. That’s all there is to it.
Do those three simple things, and you’ll be miles ahead of most businesses who give up because the real work of marketing isn’t fun.
It works for piano lessons, and it also works for marketing. Funny thing, I have the feeling it applies to most of life, too.
Most of us make New Year’s Resolutions every year—often, the same resolutions year after year because we don’t put the resolve into the resolution to make it happen.
It’s easy to get distracted by all the bright, shiny ideas that dart across our paths, and discover that we’re not only not arriving at our destination—we’re completely lost.
With that in mind, I’d like to offer my tips for setting goals that get accomplished:
#1 Start at the beginning. For marketing, that means go back to your business plan and re-think your top goals. Are they still your priority? Has the economy changed your thinking? Make any adjustments at the business plan level first.
#2 Make sure you’re in sync. Now that you have your business plan goals straight, take a look at your marketing actions. Do you have actual goals with ways to evaluate each to know if they’re working? Do they tie into a specific business goal? If not, line them up!
#3 Re-think your time. Does your calendar corroborate the goals you say you want to achieve? For example, if you say you want to be more active on social media but there’s no time blocked out (and ferociously guarded) to spend on social media, you’re kidding yourself. Put your top priorities on your calendar first and work everything else around it. (This includes exercise, family and self-time, too.)
#4 Revise your vision board. You’ve written down your goals in #1 – 3. Now it’s time to picture them. If you had a vision board for 2009, remove the items you’ve achieved with an attitude of gratitude, taking the time to celebrate each one. Then, as you add new ones, picture achieving each one in your mind as you paste them on. Put the board where you’ll see it all the time.
#5 Surround yourself with the right people. No one does it alone. If you can’t find a group that suits your needs or inspires you to reach your goals, make one! Think about who you know who might be trying to reach similar goals—losing weight, gaining clients, launching new products, etc. Invite them to create a mastermind group, book club or monthly lunch meet-up so you can encourage each other, be accountable, and share ideas and resources. Plan to connect online in between to keep the energy going.
#6 Spend money to make money. Success requires an investment of both time and money. If there’s an area in your business (or life) where you need help to do better, then commit to making it happen by finding a way to pay for some assistance. Buy a book (or borrow it from the library), sign up for a teleclass, watch a free video on YouTube, Google search for free articles or papers on the topic, and spend a few hundred dollars to get an hour or two of professional advice. Most coaches, consultants and professionals have the ability to offer one or two hours for a reasonable price with no long-term attachment. You and your business are worth it.
#7 Step outside your comfort zone. If what you’re doing now is working for you, congratulations! I bet there are still some ways to tweak it for even better results or more efficiency. If you’re not achieving the goals you’ve set, it’s time to get bold and try something new. (The coaching and resources in step 6 can help with this.) You’ll be amazed at how opening yourself up to new opportunities can change everything for the better!
We’re coming into the season when everyone makes New Year’s resolutions. Most of the time, these resolutions are personal: lose weight, eliminate debt, make more time for relaxation, and go on that vacation you’ve been postponing. As valuable as those kinds of resolutions are, it’s also essential to use this time to make resolutions for your business goals for next year.
Grab a piece of paper and work with me. If you have a written business plan, pull it out, too. Take a moment to read through your business plan. First, congratulate yourself on all the goals you accomplished. We often shortchange ourselves in the congratulations department because we’re so busy flogging ourselves to do more. So bask in your accomplishments. Make a list of what went right. Let yourself feel the glow. That’s important, because in a moment, you’ll be making another list, of things to do next year, and you need to feel the glow of success to be empowered to take the next steps.
Now look at the goals that were not prioritized for this year, or that just didn’t get done. Are they still important? Has the marketplace or the economy made them irrelevant, outdated or less essential? You may have some good goals that just need to wait a year for the market to rebound. The changing business environment may have given you a different perspective on what you really need, or changes in cash flow may make it necessary for you to do high priority items more slowly. Make two new lists. In one list, write down your new top three priorities for your business. In the other list, write down the things that have to wait. Scratch through and eliminate anything that just doesn’t make sense in the new economy.
The first list is your road map for the new year. Now that you have your priorities straight and your goals are in sync with today’s market realities, it’s time to make sure that your budget and target audiences are also aligned. Take a realistic look at how much money you can spend in the new year to accomplish each of your top goals. Your most important goal should get the most money, and so on down the line. Maybe you can only afford one goal this year. That’s ok. Next, jot down who the target audience is for each goal that will need to be reached to help you accomplish that goal. Sometimes market conditions will make it necessary to change or reprioritize your audiences, so please don’t skip this step.
Now that you’ve gotten your basic road map, let’s talk about the tools to get you where you want to go. Here are some of my favorite tools that I use to make my business vision into a reality.
Vision Board: A vision board is a poster you create with photos or cutouts from magazines to remind you of your goals. It’s a way to constantly program your subconscious with directions and to keep yourself moving toward your goals. Place your vision board somewhere you’ll see it daily.
Affirmations: Come up with a list of five to ten spoken goals and repeat this list every morning when you wake up and every night before you go to sleep. Make the goals specific and put a time limit on them. For example, perhaps one of your goals is “I want to increase my opt-in list by 30 percent by June.”
Laser Coaching: One of the best ways to put your road map into action is by getting help with the details. Laser Coaching is a one-hour consultation with a professional on one particular problem. You and the pro brainstorm solutions and you leave with a detailed action list.
Mastermind Group: This is a small, supportive group of professionals who meet on a regular basis (live or by phone) to encourage each other, act as a sounding board, brainstorm possibilities and suggest resources.
Education: The business environment and market are constantly changing. That means successful business people must be constantly learning. Sign up for teleclasses and workshops to help you keep your edge.
Assessment Tools: Getting an assessment of your strengths and areas for improvement can be useful to find blind spots and identify areas you might be better served to outsource. An assessment can be a great lead-in to laser coaching because it will help you identify areas for attention.
Marketing Tools: Many entrepreneurs are doing their own marketing in today’s economy, but maybe marketing isn’t their strength. Even if you’re not a natural marketer, you can learn to create effective marketing that gets results. Look for a home study course or a bundled package of educational materials and one-on-one coaching—you can get some great deals on very useful programs right now since many coaches are offering specials due to the economy.
What are you waiting for? You can make 2010 your best year yet. Prepare now to reach your goals in the New Year and get the tools you need to make your vision happen.
What amazes me is the number of people who seem to have forgotten the part about social media being, well, social. As in meeting people you don’t know. At a recent luncheon, one woman asked me: “Why do these people I don’t know try to friend me?”
Well, for the same reason that people at the luncheon you don’t know try to introduce themselves to you. Because the goal of the event is networking–which means meeting strangers in a business setting.
If you want to use Facebook just to talk with your extended family or old sorority sisters, that’s fine, but you should make your page private so that it’s an invitation-only site. That’s also a good idea for teens, because it’s true that “friends” aren’t always who they claim to be. (They aren’t in real life, either.)
But if you go onto Facebook or Twitter and join business groups, don’t be alarmed or defensive when someone you don’t know offers to be your friend or invites you to be their friend. That’s how the whole idea of social media works.
Imagine that someone opens a store on a busy street. Friends and family drop by to wish the new store owner well. All of a sudden, a person the storeowner doesn’t know walks in. He says hello. He offers a business card and asks for one of the store owner’s. He tries to strike up a conversation on a shared interest, one he deduced from looking around the store.
What should the store owner do? Call the police? Scream? Start shouting: “Who are you and why are you talking to me?”
Gee, it might just be that the person wanted to buy what the person was selling. At least, before she went medieval on his butt.
Or imagine that a business person goes to a networking luncheon (presumably to get more clients) and it all is going well until someone she doesn’t know walks up and introduces herself. What now? Throw silverware? Call 911? Yikes, a stranger!
As an adult, we have reasonable methods in place for meeting new people. Common sense says you don’t offer your credit card or Social Security numbers, give them a key to your house, or arrange a blind date with your daughter. But despite the advice your mother gave you when you were in kindergarten, it’s OK for adults to talk to people they don’t know. We call it….business.
Social media is new and many people are confused as to how to use it for business. That’s OK. But the next time someone you don’t know friends you on Facebook or follows you on Twitter, treat it the way you would if a newcomer greeted you at a networking meeting.
It’s OK to ask them what made them choose you, but try not to sound defensive or angry. After all, it’s nice to make new friends—and some of these new Facebook friends just might become clients. Remember that a one-time greeting is not spam and the person is probably not a serial killer. That stranger might just buy what you’re selling, assuming you can get past hello.
If you’re confused or scared by social media, contact me for further suggestions.
Drumroll, please. The number one business card marketing mistake is…..not putting your email address on your business card! (OK, imagine that I’ve just smacked my palm to my forehead to say ‘duh-oh’).
Now I can guess the excuse–you don’t want to get spam. But you know what? You’re in business to be contacted. Some of those contacts will be new clients who want to spend thousands of dollars with you. Some will be people trying to sell you recycled toner cartridges. But pull up your big girl panties or your big boy tighty-whiteys–the price of being open for business means being “bothered” by contacts.
Today’s economy works on email. Phone calls are intrusive and time-consuming. If I send you an email, we can arrange an appointment for a phone call. No phone tag, no string of missed messages. That is efficient for your time and mine. If you give me a card with no email, now I’ve got to call you. Odds are I’ll get your voice mail. Then you’ll call me, and round and round we’ll go. Or I might catch you at your desk in the middle of a meeting or on deadline, so you can’t talk, which leads to another round of calls.
All that time wasted because an email address wasn’t on the business card.
When you give someone a business card without an email address, you’re asking them to work harder to reach you than to reach your competitor. Most people hate searching for email addresses or filling out an email forms. If I have a choice between two providers of a service and one has an email address on the card and one makes me call or search for it, guess who I’ll spend my money with? That’s right. The person I can contact at my convenience, 24/7, with an email.
How much business are you losing because your email address isn’t on your business card? How many people would have sent you referrals from your last networking luncheon, but it was too much trouble to do so since you didn’t have an email address? How many people passed your card on to a prospective client who took a look at your card, didn’t see an email, and gave business to the competitor who was easier to contact?
If you’re only doing business by phone, you’re behind the times. I have to ask myself when I don’t see an email address–is this person using best practices or living in a 1990s world?
Not only do you lose out on new business, referrals and replies from people you’ve met, but you’re also making a statement about your accessibility to potential new clients. I interpret a lack of an email address on a card to say, “I don’t care about your convenience; it’s all about my convenience.”
If you hung out a shingle over a store or office, you’d have to deal with the “bother” of people walking in off the street. If you have a phone, you deal with the “nuisance” of hearing it ring with those troublesome calls. And if you have email, you might get some messages that don’t interest you. I’m not sympathetic. That’s the price of being in business. As the comment goes, “we could get more work done if it weren’t for those darn customers.” Not having an email address on your business card could just give you all the peace and quiet you desire. (And that’s not a good thing.)
It seems like I’ve been speaking a lot about social media, and that’s because people have a lot of questions!
I’ve talked with a lot of small business owners and solo professionals who either aren’t sure why (or whether) they should be on social media, and with others who have set up accounts and aren’t sure what to do next. Social media, of course, refers to online communities such as Facebook, and MySpace, sharing sites like YouTube and Flickr and specialized sites like Shelfari. It also includes blogs and Twitter, the popular “micro blog.”
Social media may be a new tool, but it works best when some basic marketing principles apply. First of all, social media will only work effectively when it’s part of a plan. Secondly, for social media to work, you have to understand who your audience is, where they are congregating and what message will resonate to move them to action. And thirdly, you need to have a good idea of what any tool actually does in order to use it effectively.
Get a Plan Many companies fail to market effectively because they don’t have a marketing plan that’s based on their business plan goals. A surprising number of solo professionals don’t even have a business plan! As they say, failing to plan is really planning to fail. This is true for social media as with any type of communication. Marketing is only as good as its foundation, and if you aren’t clear on your business goals (“make more money” is not a business plan-level goal), then your marketing will be imprecise, your message will be muddled and your results will be unimpressive (but how would you know if you have no plan by which to measure them?). Social media works best when it is part of an overall marketing plan. It should be targeted to a specific segment of your target audience, and its message should reinforce and extend your overall marketing themes. Social media is a great way to deepen relationships with existing clients and prospects and to reach a whole new group of potential prospects whom you might never have otherwise had the chance to meet. It can also help you create and sustain a two-way dialogue and drive traffic to your other sites.
You should know what you hope to gain from using a marketing tool, whether you’re using social media, traditional advertising, PR or direct mail. You should have a budget for time and money and some quantifiable idea of return. Your marketing actions should be linked directly to the business plan goal advanced by that action to keep you grounded in return-on-investment. Your plan should make it possible for you to assess your results and decide whether or not to continue investing resources in a specific marketing action, including social media.
Know Your Audience Social media success requires that you understand your audience, their needs, their culture and the language that moves them. Different social media sites have very different primary audiences, who go to those sites for differing reasons.
For example, Facebook is primarily a social site, where business takes on a more conversational, low-key approach. Meeting new people on Facebook is easy and encouraged, and it’s ok to approach total strangers and invite them to become “friends” on the basis of shared interests or people you know in common. On the other hand, LinkedIn is a power networking site with very strict rules about who you should invite or accept into your network (only people you actually know in real life) and with penalties for breaking the rules.
You will probably find many people on both Facebook and LinkedIn, but they will react differently depending on where you approach them. This isn’t so different from realizing that a business person may act differently at the office than when you encounter them after hours in a local pub.
To use social media successfully, it’s important to know the rules for each community you join and watch how others interact before plunging into the action. Then adapt your approach for that community, making your site more social and casual on one site and all-business somewhere else. This also affects how much you share about what you’re doing and your personal life. Facebook tends to encourage showing more personality and even quirkiness, along with some insight into the person behind the suit. LinkedIn, on the other hand (using these two as polar examples), sticks to business. You’ll need to adapt your message for the particular site as well. Continuing with the examples of Facebook and LinkedIn, on Facebook, invitations abound to attend teleseminars, online groups and other real or virtual events. On LinkedIn, it’s up to the individual to find the groups and choose to join, and invitations to events tend to be more low-key and restricted to the one-line “what are you doing” box.
Understand the Tool Facebook and MySpace are a lot like meeting people at a cocktail party, where conversation can range from serious to frivolous. LinkedIn is like a business networking luncheon. Your blog is like a short personal conversation about a given topic, while Twitter is more like a quick comment. Each of these social media tools (and the other sites like them) has strengths and weaknesses. For example, Twitter can be great for asking for immediate feedback on a topic. I tweeted while I was live on a radio interview to ask my followers to call in, and got people calling on the studio line while we were on air because of it! Facebook and MySpace are great for sharing information and interacting with people in more than one way—by posting photos or video, integrating the RSS feed from your blog or podcast, creating and running your own discussion group, and having a relaxed, personal conversation about your area of interest. LinkedIn is fantastic for making connections to the friends of your (real) friends. YouTube and Flickr focus on sharing interesting visuals, while bookmarking sites like Digg, Delicious or StumbleUpon are like a global bulletin board where people can post links to articles or content they found interesting, useful or just truly bizarre.
There is no one perfect social media site, just as there is no universal power tool. Sometimes you need a hammer and sometimes you need a saw. That’s why it’s so important to really understand the pros and cons of the social media sites you’re considering. You’ll avoid making embarrassing mistakes, be able to connect better with other users and get better results from your investment of time. Social media isn’t a short cut or a miracle cure. It requires a learning curve to understand how it works and which sites are best for you. Used correctly, it can be a powerful part of your marketing plan that can connect you with people around the world—including new prospects for your business.
Personal networking remains one of the top return-on-investment marketing strategies—IF it’s done strategically. How do you network strategically? First, make sure that the group delivers the audience that buys from you. Not just the type of company that buys from you, but the actual decision-makers who sign the contracts. If you’re not networking with the decision-makers, you’re networking inefficiently.
Next, see if you can be considered as a speaker or host for an upcoming event. This is a great way to provide a valuable resource to the group while also increasing your own visibility.
Look for ways to help, not just ways to gain. Offer information, referrals and resources to help the people you meet grow their businesses. You’ll be remembered. A note of caution here: Don’t expect every referral or tip to be rewarded tit for tat on the spot. On the other hand, if a few months go by and no one offers similar resources to you, re-evaluate whether the group is worth your time. The giving should even out over a few months if it’s a healthy group.
Go with a plan in mind. Have a clear idea of the type of person you need to meet and the kinds of resources you can offer to meet that person’s needs. Know whether your primary goal is gaining referrals or closing business. Take plenty of business cards (seems obvious, but you’d be surprised at how many people show up without any at a luncheon). Make sure the cards are updated with your current information, and that they include your email address.
If you’re attending a weekend conference, you can make the most out of your investment of time and money by thinking ahead. Always size up the event in advance. Get a detailed program as soon as it’s available. First, look at who the speakers are. Is there anyone you need to meet from a networking or deal-making perspective? If so, who else is going who could make introductions? Do you have a friend among the organizers? Next, look at the session titles. What sessions will be most useful for your business? Which sessions look like a waste of time? Realize that your best opportunity to meet a presenter may be after a session. It could be worth it to attend a so-so session to meet a hotshot presenter.
Now look at the vendor list. Which companies do you need to do business with? This is where you find your short-list of companies from whom you need to purchase resources and with whom you want to create collaboration. When are the networking opportunities? These are meals, cocktail parties, mixers, brunches, coffee hours, etc. When are the “dead” times? These are the times when you aren’t planning to attend a session or breakout. This is the perfect time to schedule coffee with someone you need to talk to, or to spend quality time in the vendor room when the crowd is gone.
Plan to get up early and stay late. Always wear your nametag and make sure it is turned right side out. Take more business cards than you think you’ll need. Take your laptop—you’ll need it even if you don’t plan to work remotely. Hang out where people gather. Be in the coffee shop, at the bar, in the lounge. Greet others with the organization’s nametag and invite them to join you.
Don’t hang out with your friends. Don’t skip out to shop, fish or vacation.
Review the organization’s online membership directly months before you attend. Contact high-possibility people with a personal email introduction. Follow up with a phone call. Arrange to meet at the event during “dead” time. If your organization offers an online profile, make sure yours is updated with current contact information, a good photo and a benefits-oriented message of what you do to solve clients’ problems. Then check out the people you meet online via LinkedIn and Facebook. Make sure your profiles are updated and professional because they’ll be checking you out, too! Invite your new friends to follow you on Twitter (add the Twitter address to your business card), or have a link on your card for a free bonus item on your web site to drive opt-ins.
Make notes on the business cards you collect so that you can refer to the conversations you had at the event in your follow-up email. Send personal follow-up emails within a few days of returning from the event. Include a link for a free white paper, free e-book or other bonus item to get opt-in permission. And please, don’t automatically add everyone you met to your newsletter list without getting opt-in permission. Most importantly, follow up on the deals you started. Show your initiative by keeping things moving.
If you keep these tips in mind, I guarantee you’ll be ahead of 99.9 percent of the people who attend networking events—and you’ll have the increased business to prove it!
Now think about who is likely to download a white paper or a limited-use trial subscription. These are not casual freebie collectors. These are likely to be people who are seriously shopping for a current need.
Much of what is given away on the internet is really re-purposed content. That is, it was created for another use and has fulfilled its initial purpose. Now the choice is to have it lie around collecting virtual dust, or be out helping to sell your company.
So are you giving away the store? Only if you are giving away something you could actually sell. If you created audio recordings of a five-part teleseminar series that is still fresh and relevant, maybe you give the first session for free and offer the other four recordings for a nominal fee. If it’s more than a year old and you are routinely creating new content, give the whole thing for free but use it to plug this year’s new content. Or, give away one level of information (white papers, articles, short web/audio) and then offer a paid level of access to get more in-depth information (teleseminars, webinars, trial products or beta downloads).
Remember that customers need to trust you before they buy from you. The more intangible your product, the more difficult it is for them to “test-drive” before they commit. That’s why case studies, articles, etc. are so important for knowledge providers, and why limited-use downloads and limited-access trial periods are essential for product/service providers.
When you allow visitors to your site to download “free” information, make sure you are gaining their permission to add them to your newsletter list so you can stay in contact. This is very valuable, since a “house list” of opt-in email addresses is the basis for permission-based email marketing. Once visitors opt-in to get the freebies, you have a way to nurture that relationship and lead them down your sales funnel.
Internet culture has strong roots in sharing information freely. When you share information with site visitors, you’re not only being a good Internet citizen, you’re also being a savvy marketer.
I was just at a business function where the owner of a local printing company bemoaned the fact that Internet printers are putting pressure on long-time printers. His company hadn’t invested in digital printing, relying instead on being one of the largest offset printers in the area. For years, that was good enough. But it’s not working anymore.
Here’s why. In the “old days” (pre-Internet), companies could carve out a market by being the only local whatever. There are fewer and fewer products and services where “local” alone is good enough to guarantee you a market.
Sure, you can’t order a fresh-brewed latte from out-of-state, but you can buy a latte maker and order the coffee from anywhere in the world. You can even order pizza and a gourmet dinner via one of the many upscale frozen food companies that deliver anywhere in the US. (You may not save on the cost of the entrée, but there’s no charge for your drink, tax or tip.)
Location alone won’t save you. If you can’t compete on price with the people who provide the same service via the Internet, then you’re going to have to compete on turnaround, exceptional customer service or really tangible value-addeds to keep your business.
Most companies are stuck thinking of themselves as limited by a certain local geographic region—usually the distance they or their customers are willing to drive for a face-to-face meeting. Who said that had to be the limit?
Most of my business is done via phone with customers I have never met in person. Much of the work I contract out is done by talented people who had the right skills at the right price all over the world. Welcome to the global economy.
Wake up! How can you repackage, repurpose or rebundle your services to provide something that could be provided to anyone, anywhere?
Real estate is supposed to be the ultimate “local” business. But a growing number of real estate agents in high-growth areas are connecting with agents in areas where people are leaving due to relocation. They work out a referral fee that benefits both parties, and suddenly, the whole of North America is their territory. Restaurants may find a way to mail a favorite menu item (the Penn State Diner has been mailing its oh-so-wonderful Grilled Stickies to hungry alums for decades), or even a sauce or dressing. Think you’re limited by licensure? Oh really? Does “WebMD” ring a bell? How about the places that sell pet medications or contact lenses via the web?
The problem isn’t with the market; it’s with the mind. Envision yourself as a national or international business person. Now—how do you supply your service or product to your market? Yes, it means making changes to your mindset, your pricing, your business model and your goals. Suck it up, pull up your big boy tighty-whiteys or your big girl panties and get over it. Shift happens. And when the market shifts, those who don’t figure out how to shift with it get left behind.
If you’re having a real estate problem with your marketing, it’s time to foreclose on old ideas and flip your intellectual property to a whole new way of looking at the world.
I was at a conference recently, and a colleague of mine bemoaned that with Facebook and Twitter and the rest of the social media sites, there really is no such thing as privacy anymore–and we’ve given it up voluntarily.
My response was to ask whether he’d ever lived in a small town. Because if you hail from a small town, you know that there are pros and cons to being in a place where everyone not only knows your name–but where you’ve been and what you had for dinner last night.
In a small town, people feel as if they know each other because they see one another around a lot. They’re not really best friends–but they make small talk, something that doesn’t happen much in a big city. And since everyone knows everyone else, talking about what other people are doing is high entertainment.
As a businessperson, it also means that you have plenty of opportunities throughout your day to make a good impression, say hello, and remind someone that you are waiting to hear back from them or recommend a good book. In other words, to make human connections.
Having a good reputation in a small town will get you far. And having a bad reputation will sink you. There’s no place to hide because everyone knows where you live.
Where am I going with this as far as business and social media?
I hear a lot of small business owners struggling with what to do with social media and how to use it. It seems alien and mysterious to them. But those same business owners would be right at home in a small town, saying hi to people who are “friendly strangers” and wishing someone a happy birthday and making chit-chat about a good TV show or the local team’s win. And business owners know that being seen and being friendly is a big step toward winning new customers.
Has the light bulb gone on yet? Social media is bringing a sense of that small town connectedness to the bigger world. There’s a sense of transparency that may be new to big city folks but that everyone from a small town understands. There’s a “superficial” friendliness that doesn’t imply that someone is a confidant, but that makes a brief human connection. And there’s the chance to pass along news, a good story, a funny joke, or something interesting to your friends.
Are you starting to get ideas yet? You use blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and the other Web 2.0 tools to create the same sense of community. It’s the biggest small town in the whole world. You know how to network with your neighbors. You understand how to being friendly creates new customers. You do it in your neighborhood offline. Now it’s time to rethink your boundaries.
Who are the people in your neighborhood?
The people that you Tweet each day.
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