Imagine Your Reality

Christopher Koch brought up a point recently about lessons companies can learn from people such as Steven Slater and Mark Hurd. That point is that people are making it easier and easier to find out what they have to say and what they are doing all the time. And the question for business is simple: Are you listening and responding to what people have to say?

When you don’t listen to what’s being said it creates problems that could’ve been contained if people had just made the effort to find out what the problems actually are. But businesses tend to react to situations, instead of putting some thought into how they can actually get on top of a situation meaningfully. In many ways businesses don’t even care what people are saying or make a lame effort to show they care, when they don’t. While that may sound harsh, it’s worth saying especially when businesses don’t seem to make an effort to address problems conclusively or with respect to the employees or customers that have problems.

A business is only as good as the level of service it provides customers and employees. Businesses that make efforts to listen to employees and to customers will definitely benefit in the long run, especially if we consider that a happy person is much more productive than an unhappy person. Monitoring what people say and making the effort to respond can pay off in the long run, especially if the business makes inroads with the community overall in their communication.

One of the prevailing attitudes about customer service is that its just about damage control: Dealing with customer complaints. But customer service shouldn’t just be about damage control, and while social media is a wonderful medium for tracking what customers are saying or aren’t saying about your business, it also offers the opportunity to simply get into conversations with clients.

It seems to me that one part of customer service that’s ignored is customer retention. So while customer service will handle customer complaints, they won’t necessarily be proactive and actually talk with customers to establish a relationship with them based on trust as opposed to distrust. With social media, it’s easy to actually get involved in the conversation with a customer.

Here’s a tactic I use with my clients, that could also be used by other businesses, (even large ones) provided they are willing to assign customer service reps to specific clients. In Twitter create a specific list called clients and put all of your clients on there. On Facebook become a fan of their fan pages (if they are a business) and make it a point to visit those pages once a day. For each social media site there is a way to check up on clients, and engage them in conversation, provided you are willing to invest the time in doing so. Start conversations with your clients, or make a response to something they say that has nothing to do with your business. In short, show support for what matters to them, instead of waiting for them to contact you when they have a problem. By doing this you’ll be showing them that your interested in having a relationship with them, regardless of whether or not you’re doing business with them at the time.

Customer service should be about relationships first and damage control second. No business has an excuse for not investing in customer relationships, because each business is ultimately successful because of the customers. The product or service offered is only useful if someone wants to buy it, use it, and tell people about it. So ask yourself this: Is your customer service about damage control or actually getting to know your clients?

In my recent post on advertising too much, I was asked if I was referring to people trying really hard to get a job or just people advertising goods and services. The answer actually applies to both cases, or if you will to anyone who is spending too much time trying to convince you to buy and not enough time on actually providing good content that will justify interest in finding out what someone has to offer.

So how do you balance advertising of any kind with good content? I hear suggested ratios of 4 to 1, where you give four pieces of information away and then make an offer. And I think if that works, its useful to do. I’ll admit that I tend to just give away a lot of information and occasionally make an offer. I don’t have a specific ratio down, but I know I’m offering more than 4 pieces of information. However, my focus is more on interaction and specifically on trying to start conversations and then take those conversations into a direction where possible business can result. So my focus is really about providing content and from that content creating discussion which may or may not lead to business. As I continue to develop my product line, this may change some, but overall I prefer to focus more on content and socializing as a way of creating relationships.

I think, if you are going to advertise, that you do need to keep in mind that ultimately you are creating relationships and as such you need to ask: How do I want people to perceive my interactions with them? The example I used last week of the person who mentions his book in every post shows me someone who hasn’t really thought through the kind of impression he can make on someone who visits his website for the first time.

Successful marketing, networking, sales, and advertising has to include some awareness of the perception you want people to have about your activities and the actions you want people to take. You also need to know what perceptions and actions you don’t want people to take. Once you know what you want people to do or not do, then you need to determine if your activities are encouraging your preferred action. This can be determined by surveying people (irritating to fill out) or by simply observing how people respond to what you are doing.

For example, on Linkedin groups I regularly post excerpts of my blog and a link back to it. I do this to offer content and get some discussion to occur. Sometimes I’ll be contacted by people who want to connect and I use that invitation as an opportunity to not just connect via Linkedin but also offline, if possible. Only once have I been contacted by someone who complained about the posting I do, and once he understood I was primarily focused on offering content to start up conversations, he saw the value of my activity. Is there some advertising of some kind in my activity? Just a bit, because I am using my postings as an opportunity to establish reputation, but overall the focus is on providing to the community, instead of trying to get something from it.

What do you think? How would you balance content and advertising?

In my previous post, I talk about what you could do to stand out when going to meetings. With social media, it’s different because to stand out in a social media you really have to be on top with the content you offer, more so than in-person where appearance can be just as important a factor. But great content alone won’t work unless you’re also consistent in your activity. So this means you need to plan on posting on a social media network regularly and also keep track of who’s responding and what someone is saying.

To stand out in social media also involves personalizing your posting. It’s very easy to post to multiple sites at once, but not always advisable, especially if the audience differs on a given site. And personalizing your postings also means you keep on top of responses on the actual sites those responses occur at. So for example, if you get a response on your Facebook page, make the response on Facebook, and make an effort to visit your page a couple times a day, just to check if someone has commented there.

While it’s true people want content on social media, they also want social interaction, so make it a point to be social and comment on what other people are writing about. It gives those people a better feel for who you are, which is always nice, because I want to know that I’m interacting with other people.

Finally, when it comes to standing out in social media, make the effort to move communication beyond social media to other mediums. I’ve met several people I was initially connected to through Linkedin, and by making the effort to meet them in person, I was able to learn more about them and also explore some business possibilities. Don’t limit your contact with someone to social media. A person will definitely remember you more, if you make the effort to contact him/her offline as well as online.

The other day at one of my chamber meetings, a fellow member remarked on my hat and noted that even if people didn’t remember my name, they’d always remember my hat. I think he’s right, because it’s a fairly distinctive hat. In fact, that’s one reason (though not the only) that I wear it. I know people will remember me by my hat and that if they ask someone else about me, chances are that person will also remember if the hat is alluded to. Of course, I also dress up and I make it a point to have a memorable tag line, because I realize that sometimes it will be some of that information that helps someone find me.

Still appearance alone isn’t enough and neither is a clever tag line. What will really make you stand out is showing people you can walk that talk you give out. So be able to back up what you do and you’ll be pleased with the credibility that also gets associated with the image.

What do you do to stand out to the people you know? Each day, I meet lots of different people. Some of them are new, most of them I’ve already met a couple times. What makes someone stand out to me is going to half involve appearance, and half involve what they actually say. Afterwords I’ll research them and find out more, and see if my initial impression is confirmed or disproved. Depending on what I find a conversation may follow or it might not. That’s what I do to check up on people who stand out to me.

There’s also a social media component to this and I’ll cover that in the next post.

Book Review Social Media 101 by Chris Brogan

Social Media 101 is chalk full of useful tips and suggestions for how to leverage social media for your business. Best of all the writing is not only approachable, but its to read a couple of chapters, put it down, and then come back to it later. I’ve found numerous useful tips that I’ve tried out, from the book, and I’d recommend it to anyone who is wanting to learn more about how to use social media for business. Then check out Chris’s blog, which will have more useful information for you.

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I clicked on a link to an article on a website, and quickly found myself irritated when I realized that in each article the person wrote there was a link to the book he’d written. Additionally, he had a link to his amazon wishlist, if you found his article helpful…the premise being that you would buy something for him. It was clear to me that while he was offering valuable information, he was also going overboard on the advertising of it. Instead of interesting me in the book, I became less interested, because it was clear that he wasn’t offering information to be helpful, so much as to get people to buy his book.

I think making an occasional mention about a product you have to offer is perfectly acceptable. You want people to know about your products and ideally they will buy from you if they see value in what you offer. But if you always are trying to get people to buy you will turn them off pretty quickly  because it will be clear that all you really value is their money.

I usually make an offer once a week on this blog, in regards to the DVD tutorial videos I now have available. You can watch the videos and learn how to use different social media sites. In fact, by mentioning them here, I’m making my offer for this week. But for the majority of my posts I avoid doing this. I do post affiliate links, but I also make it clear that they are affiliate links so that you can knowingly make a choice.

When you are blogging or writing articles you want to develop trust, and develop a relationship. Cutting right to the sale doesn’t enable that to occur. It just tells you the person is more interesting in getting your money than actually helping you with your problem. When I visited the website where the person was trying to sell his book with each post, what I saw was too much advertising with an attempt to disguise it with content. He probably does get some sales, but how many people don’t come back to the site because they feel like he’s more interested in selling than actually helping?

The other day, I got an email from a person I’d done business with, offering up a date when he was going to be doing a conference. I really admire the fact that he doesn’t rest on his laurels. He has every right to, because he’s done a lot with his business, but he’s always trying to innovate and change and offer the same to people he works with.

Business doesn’t stay the same and neither can you. As I look back on the last year, I’ve realized that I’ve evolved or change my approach to running my business and explaining social media because of the very necessary need to innovate and change my understanding of the services I offer. And while it can be occasionally tempting to rest on the laurels of success, I know I can’t rest for long because there’s always something more to do and learn.

It is important to acknowledge and enjoy your success when you have it, but you can’t rest on it too long because doing so will cause you to miss out on what your competition is doing and also on how your industry evolving. To be on the cutting edge means to be looking at what you can change and improve in what you do, even if you already think its successful.

Success is an indicator that your process is working, but it doesn’t mean it can’t be improved. Resting on your laurels doesn’t allow you to see where the improvement could occur, so it’s important to actively examine your processes at all time. Look at your client interactions and ask yourself, what could I improve for the next client? By looking at your process and looking at what you can improve, you avoid complacency and you continue to improve your business.

I read an article recently which noted that only 50% of companies that are entering into social media actually have a plan for how they will use it. The companies that do have a plan tend to be much more successful at realizing a profit from using social media, because the plans provide actions and stream line the activities of the people doing the activities. Nonetheless, what was most revealing was how many companies that have plans haven’t embraced using social media throughout all departments or developed policies that defines what’s acceptable and unacceptable with the use of social media.

The entire concept of a social media plan, as I’ve seen it written by many different social media “experts”) revolves around marketing, but ignores customer service and Human Resources, as well as networking, which is somewhat ironic. But social media isn’t just marketing or visibility. It can and should be about customer service (Comcast does an excellent job with social media customer service), and it should include HR, particularly when it comes to developing guidelines for how businesses will use social media, and what employees can and can’t do, as well as having an escalation process in place for dealing with negative situations.

In fact, in general, there isn’t a lot of talk about social media policy. I notice that social media strategy gets buzzed a lot, but what good is strategy if there is no policy to provide guidelines or a foundation to support that strategy? Businesses need strategy and plans for using social media, but they also need policies in order to effectively integrate and streamline social media into their business culture and environment.

A company that is just starting out into social media should develop a plan, but make it a point to include policy development with that plan. I’ve mentioned a couple things that a company could add to a policy, but what would you include? Does your company have a social media policy? Why or why not?

Over the last couple of months I’ve been getting more involved with chambers of commerce as an alternative to lead referral groups for my networking and one of things I’ve noticed about each chamber I’ve attended is the focus on the local community and supporting local businesses. What I’ve found is that chambers are an excellent resource for local businesses, both in terms of advocacy for businesses and for the networking opportunities they provide.

As you spend more time at chamber events and get more known, you also learn a lot more about your local community and the needs it has. You learn about the school district that’s making more cuts and is trying to figure out how to preserve its programs, employees, etc., and how you can actually help out with that work.

The more I’ve gotten involved in the local community, the more I’ve come to realize just how important it is to be aware of what’s happening at the local level, as well as how you can help your local community out. For small businesses, the local community is the lifeblood of the businesses. Involvement in a chamber provides insight into the local community because not every member of the chamber is a business person. You get interaction with people from across the community with their own concerns and perspectives on issues.

Reaching out to your local community is essential to really understanding the bigger picture of having a small business. A small business doesn’t exist in isolation and the networking contacts you make can help make your business grow. Networking at a chamber provides a benefit of enabling you as a business owner to connect with your local community and with people in that community who can support what you are doing.

Attending chamber meetings isn’t enough. Get involved on a committee and also learn more about situations that are occurring in your community and figure out how you can help out. And take time to frequent other local businesses. Show your support of them by visiting them and buying from them.

The more you reach out to your community, the more your community will know about you. Your chamber of commerce is one way to reach out and connect with your community. What about you? Are you involved in your chamber? How else would you suggest reaching out to your community?

You’ve probably heard the saying, “Do what I tell you to do, not what I do.” While it is a bit of a cliche, there’s some truth to it as well. How often have you worked with a client and and after you’ve helped them with your particular, you’ve said to yourself, “I should be doing that for my business?” If you’ve found yourself saying that, don’t worry you’re not alone. I also find myself saying that on occasion, when I’m providing business and social media advice to other businesses.

It’s all to easy to not follow your own advice. You’ve got a client who needs you, a project that needs to be attended to, or something else you need to accomplish for your business and in the process you forget to put time toward doing the very activity you would advocate your client to do. So how do you stop and find time?

First, keep a pad of paper on hand that’s just for you. If you find yourself saying to yourself, that’s something I should do, scribble a note down for yourself.

Second, put aside fifteen to thirty minutes to review any notes you made. By putting aside that time you can then review the notes and determine what activities you will follow through on. Use that time to not just review, but also follow through on activities you feel you should be doing for your business.

Third, do it every day. Make notes, review them and follow through every day. Think of the 15 to 30 minutes as a time to reflect and review what you’re doing with your business to make it successful. And remember you can’t really take care of anyone else, until you take care of yourself. This applies to your business as well, so making that time to follow up on your internal business activities can make a big difference in the work you do for your clients and also in attracting new prospects.

What do you think? What would you add that I haven’t?