Imagine Your Reality

There are times when Do It Yourself (DIY) is the way to go and other times when it’s time to go to your expert. Do you know when to go to your expert?

I’m a firm believer in delegating work to other people. For me, going to an expert happens when it becomes more work to do something than is worth the time, or when I’ve reached the limit of my knowledge and skills. I know I don’t have the time or skillset to do everything. And I really don’t want to do everything, if I can help it.

At the same time, I also think its important to have a basic knowledge about any and everything. I’ll never be a bookkeeper, but I know enough to keep track of my expenses, and if I ever hire one, I’ll also know what to look for to make sure the records are accurate. Likewise I know enough about web design to make tweaks to my site, but if I need to make a major change, I’ll hire the website designer.

Having some basic knowledge can help you immensely when it comes to hiring your expert, as well. You’ll know what questions you need to ask, as well as what to look for from that person, so that you can make an informed decision about the person you are hiring.

Go to an expert when you know that the time your investing in doing something isn’t worth what you are getting out of it. You’ll feel a lot less stressed when someone is taking care of that task, so that you can free up your time to do what you love.

The other day, a client and I decided to do some research to see what kind of social media policies similar organizations had. What we ended up finding looked really thin, a brief description of what social media was and that it was only to be used on break. There was no focus in the policy on how the organizations would actually engage and use social media, and the type of organization I was developing the policy for definitely needed more than just a brief descriptor of what social media is and when employees could use it.

Good social media policy defines not only what social media is or when employees may or may not use social media. It defines how the company will use social media, what sites the company will be on and who has the authority to post information related to the organization, as well as handle positive and negative commentary.

The reason a good social media policy focuses on all of these details is because they are essential to understand, in order to successfully integrate social media into the rest of the marketing and outreach efforts the company engages in. Good social media policy asks who is responsible for what message and defines how social media will be used and what forms of it will be used. Without that kind of clarity, a social media policy doesn’t begin to effectively address where social media fits into the marketing strategy of a business. A good policy allows a business to begin allocating resources and personnel for their social media effort, while channeling that effort into productive outcomes that generate more traffic and leads for the business.

It will become more important for businesses to develop a social media policy that isn’t something you would find in an employee handbook. While what’s in an employee handbook is useful, businesses need a more sophisticated outlook and awareness of social media and how it fits into their overall plans and goals.

I was in a conversation the other day with Miles Austin and he said the following quote: “Inform for free, how to for a fee.” Chris Brogan recently wrote a post on price points, and essentially pointed out that if you wanted his time you had to pay him what it was worth. Good point. The more you give away your services, the more you undervalue them, and the more people will take advantage of you. That’s what I’ve learned from the past year. And when people balk at paying my prices, it means they aren’t my clients, and if I try and take them on, I’ll be wasting my time chasing them.

I no longer offer free half hour consultations and I’ve determined what my price points are and I’m sticking to them. And as you may have noticed I no longer offer free webinars, and what I’ve found is that price doesn’t substantially change the participation in the webinars.

If you want free, read my blog or subscribe to my newsletter. I’m happy to inform you. But I recognize that how to always needs to have a price. If it doesn’t, it ultimately isn’t valued or followed through on. This is true regardless of what service you offer. There will, of course, be some people that will do their best to get something for nothing or for a reduced price. And I think the best choice in those cases is to walk away. They can tell you they can’t afford you because of the economy, but even if the economy was better they still would come up with some reason.

Know your value and stick to it. That’s really what I’ve been learning, as well as how to say No to bad business deals. When you do that, a lot of stress falls away because you aren’t trying to chase after clients. Instead you let them come to you, when the time is right and they recognize they are ready for the how to.

I met with another entrepreneur, who like me, offers social media consulting to businesses. And I learned a really good lesson. He had with him a flyer and he was going to spend the day walking around PDX handing that flyer to businesses to advertise his services. And initially all I could think was, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

The reason: I’ve gotten so used to social media, and even the phone that it hadn’t occurred to me to think about using his approach. He also has a decided advantage of being about a decade older than me, and so his experience includes that concept of taking a flyer and walking door to door with it.

And it makes me realize as well that it’s rather easy to discount tried and true methods of marketing when we have the glamor of new technology in front of us. Don’t get me wrong: social media has value and can do a lot for your marketing, but as I’ve advocated before it needs to be complemented with traditional marketing. I’ve done that with written letters and cold calling, but actually beating the streets with a flyer? It’s not something you see as much anymore, and yes that’s what makes it precisely so valuable to do. When people aren’t doing something, and yet it can be effective, its worth your time to do it.

I consider this a lesson learned for me, as well as a valuable recognition of how important it is to meet with other people and learn what they are doing, that you could also be doing. Find out what other businesses do to stand out and see if you can adapt what they do to your own methods. You’ll be surprised at how well some of it will work and also how you’ll continue to be challenged in all the right ways to improve your business.

Chris Brogan wrote an intriguing post about social media and engagement on twitter, noting that for some people, engagement isn’t as important as getting and sending information. He makes a good point, in his post, that people define a site’s use by what is important to them. So some people don’t necessarily feel that engagement is as important as sending information streams, and of course some people will think that advertising is more important than either sending information or engagement.

I agree with his point, and I find that it’s worth the effort to ask yourself why you are on a given social media site. And the answer, “To get business” isn’t sufficient as it’s a rather vague answer. Of course many people aren’t on social media to get business, in any case, but to network, or converse with friends, or do research. And those reasons are just as valid, but often ignored by the people who are on social media to get business.

So my next question is: Why are the people you follow on social media? What do they want to get out of social media? And I believe the answer to these questions can and should cause you to think carefully about the answer to the first question, because it will tell you if you are reaching your audience or if you are in the wrong venue.

I can tell you that my followers seem to be on social media sites to do research, network (i.e. develop relationships) with friends and fellow professionals and exchange information about what’s going on in their industry. And not surprisingly these are my reasons for being on social media sites. Consequently, while I certainly welcome the opportunity to “get business” and would admit that it is another reason to be on social media, it’s not my primary reason. And to explore this reason of getting business, I would say explicitly, I am on social media to establish my reputation as a credible commentator on my industry and, to help people solve problems and develop strategies for their social media, as well as being on there for the reasons I mentioned previously.

So what about you? Why are you on social media, and why do you think the people you follow are on social media?

“Access and attention are finite currencies” Chris Brogan

From my own experiences teaching at a university, I’m inclined to agree with Chris that access is a finite currency and resource. Some students will have more access than others to contemporary technologies and consequently have an advantage over others. This also applies to some degree to businesses. Some businesses will have more resources available to them that provide them more access, while others will not.

From a social media perspective it could be argued that access to social media is infinite, particularly with the mobile phone technology, but I’d argue that if we conceive of access as more than just being able to login…specifically if we think of it as the ability to use technology fluently, then access is limited by the amount of time and also tech skills a given person has. And with businesses an additional layer is finite access due to the need to run a business and pursue other avenues of marketing, networking, and promotion.

Attention is also limited, especially in this age of information overload. Because we have so many vectors of information now available to us, we need to be able to monitor that information and also parse out the useful vs non-useful information. The amount of attention you can give is also divided by other factors such as the relationships you cultivate and activities you are engaged in.

Attention is a finite currency due to physiological demands such as sleep and eating. Ultimately what captivates attention is what interests a person the most, and being able to hold a person’s interest is dictated by what that person wants. The currency of attention is the interest a person feels or expresses.

Taken together both access and attention can determine what a person will spend time on, and how that person will access what s/he wants to spend time on. In fact, we could argue that time is the expression of the currency of attention and access as ultimately it is the time we spend that determins how that currency is used.

When we think of times of trouble, we might think of it in the broad sense of a recession, where everyone is in effected, or we might think of it in terms of a personal experience that occurred to someone. On Sunday, January 17th, I found out that I was getting a divorce. Needless to say the initial shock I felt melted away into panic as I realized my support system was going to change and in fact already was changing. What I realized however was that panicking was the last thing I wanted to do, so while I did allow myself to feel it, I also started thinking of what I could to handle this situation.

I realized immediately I needed to reach out to my network, both personal and professional. I need to reach out to my personal network for comfort and talking about how I felt, and I needed to reach out to my professional network to get advice on what I could both about the divorce and also about finding a way to stay self-employed full time, especially when my business isn’t currently bringing in enough income to enable that.

Reaching out to my network involved telling them what was going on, and being vulnerable. Admitting that my business was not as solvent as I would like it to be wasn’t easy, but I realized that if I wanted their help I needed to be upfront about my circumstances so that I could get the best possible advice from them.

It’s important to reach out to your network in times of trouble, and to do that you need to be open and vulnerable. That’s not easy to do, because culturally we are told to keep our feelings to ourselves, to put on a stiff upper lip, but I found that being so open was helpful and I realized that if someone came to me in a similar situation, I’d want to know what was going on, so that I could really help the person. The advice I got definitely helped me start to put a plan together that I could use to help me deal not only with a difficult emotional situation, but also a difficult financial situation.

When you go through a difficult time, don’t pull away from your network. It might seem that’s the best way to handle the situation, especially if you are hurting, but reaching out to your network can help you find the strength to deal with a difficult situation and develop a strategy for moving forward, while still being able to do something you love.

I’m featured in an article on 21 areas of self-improvement for small business owners and entrepreneurs.

The other day I was talking with a prospect about her needs and what she was looking for from a business coach. As we talked, I quickly realized that the person she really needed to work with was someone else she was contemplating doing work with. That person had a program more tailored toward the needs of that prospect. I ended up telling my prospect that and she agreed and we came to the conclusion that she might need my services at a later point, but that for the moment she should work with this other person.

One of the most valuable services you can perform for a prospect is recognizing when that person should be referred to someone else. In face, if you know someone should be referred elsewhere, but you work with that person, you may be doing more harm than good, both for that person, and for you, because if that person realizes that s/he could have gotten better service elsewhere, then s/he will leave your business and may tell others as well.

It’s best that you be honest and acknowledge what your strengths are and the client you can best serve. And if the person coming to you is someone you could help by referring that person, then do it. That person will remember that you helped them by referring them on to someone who could really help him/her and s/he may just come back someday or send referrals your way as a result. That kind of helpfulness makes an impression on someone, because it shows that you think its more important that s/he gets the best service possible, and your willing to refer them to that service.

What do all of you think? What are your policies when you have a prospect and know someone who could be a better fit?

One of my favorite aspects about social media is the ability to cross-promote people in your network by tweeting about a blog entry or special one of those people is offering. The value of such cross-promotion is that you can help other businesses out by mentioning what they are doing and also help out people in your social network who may need to know information that the other business is offering.

The real value of cross-promotion is that it also creates a tighter network. What I mean by that is that you are more aware of what your network is doing and that way you are able to remember someone in your network when a conversation comes up that tells you someone needs that person’s service.

With someone promoting you, you also don’t need to worry that you’re spamming people. That person is promoting you instead and it’s just part of the rest of the information s/he is putting out there. People will be a bit more receptive because that person is vouching for you when s/he promotes your services.

Cross-promotion works best if you do it frequently. If you see someone in your network post some information about classes or an article s/he wrote, promote it. Get the word out for that person and do it consistently. That person will then start to consistently promote you as well, and the benefit will be that both your networks know a bit more about the classes and articles that each of you is putting out there.

Here’s a good example of cross-promotion: I was recently featured in an article on business owners and their resolutions. The author promoted me by writing about me and I’m promoting him by including a link to the article and his blog.

I was at a talk that David Rabiner gave about how to grow your business. One of the most insightful points that I got from that talk was the value of having a dream that made you create stretch goals. Stretch goals are goals that you aren’t sure you’ll accomplish. So why would you want to create those? The value of them is that they force you to take action to try and achieve them. Even if the goal seems unlikely, knowing that you’ll make an effort to achieve it can make the goal into a reality. But to get stretchable goals and motivate yourself to pursue them you need to have a dream, an idea of what the end of the journey will look like.

A dream is where you want to be. It’s having everything you could possibly want and it’s something that motivates your actions and the goals you choose to create. It may not be attainable, but that isn’t the point. The point is that it gives you something to shoot for, and thus you can create stretchable goals that get you focused on trying to achieve your dream.

Your dream is your motivation so make it as big as possible. Shoot for the stars, because then you just may find you’ll get there because that dream will motivate you to do what you know you need to do in order to be successful. Certainly every time I need a little reminder of why I’m doing what I do, my dream gets me focused because I know I’ll never get my dream if I don’t put my best effort toward realizing my goals.

What is your dream? Are you creating stretchable goals that push you to achieve that dream?