I am becoming a big fan of the organic approach to StumbleUpon (SU) and the ways you can connect with members finding like minded users in demographic and interest areas.
The StumbleUpon social tool was built for discovering webpages that are recommended by your network of friends. The site allows for networking and the toolbar allows for finding and discovering new great content on the web. This is a powerful combination of Internet function and social web.
After using SU for a long while it seems that the tool will be able to grow in its use as a localized marketing tool. And though outwardly commercial sites tend not to get a great amount of traffic (rather fail miserably) – it’s all in the approach.
SU has been tested for the value of its traffic in a number of scenarios and discussed in relevant ways over the course of 2007. At 10e20, Tamar did a very thorough review of the benefits of StumbleUpon and how it can be used for business as a whole. Dosh Dosh did a really comprehensive guide to the ways and means of SU and how one can monetize and Loren Baker spoke of fun and useful techniques to employ in SU to bounce traffic to your site.
The Paid advertising program of SU allows you to purchase Stumble visits for 5 cents per. Others have looked at the paid program and assessed it, but buying traffic from Stumble just doesn’t interest me. SU is about finding users with like-minded interests. They are there for a conversation and a dialogue to find new and interesting content, stories and information. That’s why I think the local aspects and drill downs of geography in SU can be tremendously powerful for social networking and marketing a local business. Users want to know about new things. They are there for discovery. If you show a user something local, they will get excited about it and probably talk it up. Just like with all Social Media – you get the most out of it when you put a lot into it.
So how does one leverage SU for getting local? SU allows you to go to pretty much any state and find people who are there. The way I like to think of it is like Craig’s List or any other site where you might find others who have similar interests and needs in similar locations. Except, unlike Craig’s, SU is good because it has so many great social features like viewing avatars, photos, videos and so much more that people have tagged and thumbed up.
Say for example, I’m opening a new retail store location in
State –
http://www.stumbleupon.com/state/new_york/
City –
http://www.stumbleupon.com/city/brooklyn/
Furthermore, you can drill down by gender in these city areas. That’s pretty cool targeting.
It takes work, but it could very well be worth the time spent, as you can make actual connections. After you’ve made good local connections, messaging and blogging within this audience can be tremendously powerful. Note: if you have trouble finding a state (sometimes SU’s search features are cumbersome) you can just use the (.com/state/new_york/) at the end of the URL to get where you need to go; similar action can work with city (.com/city/brooklyn/.)
As in the boutique retail example above, if for example you’re opening a women’s accessory boutique in Brooklyn, New York you may want to sort by City (Brooklyn) and Gender (Women) and begin friending these users and getting the word out about your opening, location, website and your products, by tagging and submitting your site, product images and other sites related to Brooklyn and the other users likes and interests. And, begin thumbing up pages that this group of users have submitted and showed to you. Do make sure your profile page indicates what you’re all about (your site, interests etc.). After you’ve made good local connections, using the messaging and blogging tools within SU can be tremendously powerful to engage this audience and get word out.
So not only is SU helpful for bouncing your site traffic, but you can also connect with very targeted users on a local geographic level, gender and topical interest areas to bounce your foot traffic. You may find that this social media tool can help you grow your foot traffic in a local business and get the word of mouth buzz that you need to launch something new. Who says Guerrilla Marketing can’t be accomplished online? If I were opening up a location in Brooklyn, the 2,060 users from
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On Tuesday, Seth Godin, author of bestselling books and agent of change presented an informative session call 14 Trends No Marketer Should Ignore. This enthusiastic and informative presentation, sponsored by SEMpdx and Corvent provided a wealth of info on New Marketing.
According to the promos on this session, Seth was going to question if our marketing is out of sync. HE wants us to make the most out of today’s new marketing technologies – without making ‘meatball sundaes’!
I must admit the title of this session was intriguing (albeit a bit disgusting – a meatball sundae – YUCK!) and I was excited to find out what Seth had to say.
Seth started out by telling us that he has discovered that there is a disconnect between the people doing the work and the people writing the checks. The people doing the work recognized that it wasn’t working. They realized that the time was being wasted in meetings etc.
His book tries to combine the idea of the breathtaking opportunity when we deal with Internet marketing along with the sad side effect when people abuse the power of the Internet.
The Internet is everywhere – everywhere you go all people want to talk about is the Web and how it is impacting them. The web is an evolution – just like other evolutions like transportation, assembly line, mass marketing. He believes that right now we are in the middle of the next, possibly biggest industrial revolution. This represents a tremendous opportunity for people who understand it.
The Meatball Sundae. So, what about this term meatball sundae? He wanted to use a term that we can all use when someone suggests something you think is wrong – a meatball sundae – a meatball’s are delicious – the sundae is the fun stuff, the whip cream etc. Each one works great together – but doesn’t work so great when you mix it up.
If you are a mass marketer, you are used to making products that the mass wants to buy (Pop Tarts, Cap’n Crunch, Skippy). What made them successful is that they got good and selling stuff that people wanted no matter what type of industry. Being in the marketing, interrupting the market and selling average products for average people.
Now new marketing comes along and you want your share. Example, the Yellow Pages – one of the most popular marketing medium every invented. Good for being a directory. How come we go to Google and not Yellow Pages.com?
Another example, if I want to buy a piece of art I go to Sotheby’s. How come if I go online – I don’t go on Sotheby’s – but EBay?
TV Guide was the ultimate directory for what was on TV. How come when I go online to look for video – I go to You Tube and not TV Guide?
America Online – in the 1990s was supposed to be the winner – how come when I go online to find friends I don’t go on aolbook?
The truth is – it’s really hard for existing players to give up what they got.
The First Marketer. Godin provided an interesting example of what he calls the first marketer. We all know Wedgwood – that blue china that we know from their grandmothers. Founded by Josiah Wedgwood. He was the first marketer. It was invented by this man. Grew up in a small town in England, son of a potter, brother of a potter – knew he was going to be a potter. Wedgwood looked at the changes and he started a factory. He hired people how to do things and didn’t hire potters. He realized he needed to add value to his brand; he shipped china to the crown heads of Europe (equivalent of $2 million in today’s dollars). More people bought his stuff. He was the first one to open a showroom. He was famous for walking around his factory and if he saw something that didn’t live up to his expectations – he would smash those pieces (quality control). He understood that transportation was changing things so he lobbied parliament to build a canal by his factory so that he could ship items around the world.
It could be easy to say – that’s not marketing. That’s exactly Seth’s point. Josiah’s brother made pottery and he died poor. Josiah Wedgwood died with over $40 million (current $) in his bank account. The difference between the two of them is really simple – the difference is the pyramid.
The Pyramid. Marketers think we are the most important people (top of the pyramid) the bottom (strategy, manufacturing, customer service) exists to serve us at the top. We wait for the guys at the factory to give us something good, we sell it – we take credit when it succeeds. We’ve figured out how to take money, apply it to average stuff, and market it – that’s what marketing has been about for hundreds of years.
Godin wants to argue that being at the top of the pyramid is overrated. Anyone who views marketing as isolated from what’s being made is going to fail. There are going to fail because they don’t have something that’s worth marketing. It’s the meatballs – are coming from the bottom – from the factory. If you are going to stand still and wait for the meatballs to arrive – you are going to fail – because you are going take average products for average people that are designed for the masses and you’re going to put on top of them whip cream and the toppings of new marketing and they don’t work – they don’t go together. Example. When Wal-Mart tried take on MySpace – WM is clearly a meatball company and they are great at it – but when they tried to put the stuff on top – the culture clash was too great; they couldn’t succeed at doing it.
Just because you have a lot of cherries doesn’t mean you should succeed.
SEO. SEO – if you need to trick the search engines into finding you – you aren’t going to have a long term advantage. The long term advantage is going to belong to people who don’t make meatballs. It’s going to belong to companies that make stuff that people seek out in the first place.
Godin exampled that what we are seeing is that marketers are discovering lots of ways they can get the word out for free. If what they are selling isn’t interesting to us – we are going to ignore them – no matter how much they yell. If what they have to say is boring – we’ll ignore them… boring is invisible, boring doesn’t get found, boring doesn’t show up on the Internet. A traditional marketer may be feeling some momentary panic. Maybe new marketing means the end – but Seth wants to argue that there are 20, 30, 50 trends that are making up this new marketing. He discussed 14 of them (and a bonus one).
He believes that if you put some of these ideas below and organize around them – the web and the world of new marketing will embrace you. Once you organize for these trends as opposed to fighting them, you discover that your products and your marketing are in sync. You discover that this is the greatest arsenal of marketing tactics ever – but only if you organize for it the right way.
1. Direct Communication – between users and the people who make stuff. Your organization should be open to this direct communication to users. Make it easy, seductive, and fun to contact your company.
2. Amplification of Consumers – every consumer has become a critic and every consumer has the power to speak loudly. If you own a restaurant, every person that comes in is the potential reviewer because of the power of the Internet. If you run a hotel – every guest has the potential to be a reviewer for Fodor’s. If you run a cable TV company and one of your installers falls asleep while he’s supposed to be installing cable and it ends up on You Tube – it will undo millions of dollars worth of advertising.
After discussing these two points, Godin switched gears for a moment to stress that we always have a choice – he am not suggesting you stop making meatballs- he is suggesting that you choose that you either make meatballs or you don’t. Need to pick an integrated solution that is coherent.
3. Authentic Stories – what we know now is that you can’t tell two different stories to one person. The constituents are going to talk to each other. Your stories must be authentic and consistent. If the story is coherent and is shared – then the story will last fall longer than the facts ever do. People buy stories – good stories hold up under scrutiny.
4. Speed – has reached whole new levels. Two types of organization – one’s that are organized around speed and those that have competitors who have organized around speed.
5. The Long Tail – simple law of physics/human nature. As you add choices – sales go up. If you can own all of those choices – you win. Example. Amazon gets ½ their revenue from titles that Barnes and Noble doesn’t even carry. The ones that go down the long tail the faster – wins
6. Outsourcing – we are no longer in the factory business. The businesses that you own that make the meatball is old fashioned – outsourcing takes the factory out of the picture. Ex. Jott.com – you call and say you want to Jott something to yourself. Within 20 minutes, you get an email written what you said. A great way if you want to remember something when you are on the road. Godin wanted to know how they did this – and it turns out that they outsourced it to the third world where people listen to your Jott and then send you that email.
7. The Dicing of Everything – Google has shred the world a little big. The internet allows Google to take front doors and bust them open. They take things that are in bundles and they unbundled them. When you need information, you go to Google for your information, no need to go to bundled sites like cnet for your info.
8. Infinite channels of communication- Now there is an infinite number of ways to get information out there. Ex. look at the selection of analgesics, brands of beer, you have to understand that scarcity is no longer the power there used to be. Those scarcity rules are gone – you have to come up with a different way. It isn’t branding – we are branding our ways to death. You aren’t entitled to my attention.
9. Consumer to consumer – the fact is that your consumers are ganging up on you. They are talking to each other. You can enable that (Kiva, EBay) you can create industries where industries never used to exist. Connecting people who didn’t used to be connected.
10. Difference and the shift between scarcity and abundance – A good example is 6 years ago – a disposable cell phone seemed like a good idea. Today – we’d be queasy about the environmental impact. Used to be that fresh water was abundant – but today it isn’t. Take a hard look at what’s in short supply, and what’s not – and realize that our business is busy trying to make scare what is abundant and trying to use things that are abundant as if they are scarce – we can turn those things upside down.
11. Big Ideas – Big ideas are far more powerful than they were previously. Big product ideas. Example, the iPhone was hyped by the users because it was fun to talk about. When someone has something fun to talk about (example Numa Numa video) – it spreads like wildfire – Not because it’s a big marketing idea – not because it’s a big advertising idea – but because it’s a big idea in and of itself. Big reward for people who can find those ideas and bring them to market.
12. Who vs. How Many – Companies pay a premium to advertise on the Superbowl because of how many are watching. It used to be if you were selling to the masses, it matter a little bit that you reached the masses. Now, you care a lot more about who. A blog that only reaches a 1000 people could very well be more useful than the Superbowl.
13. The New Rich – The difference between the old rich and the new rich. The old rich were all the same – they were easy to find, they lived in Newport, they played polo, they played golf, they all read the same magazines etc. The new rich are like us – they are much more democratic, they do stuff that rich people didn’t used to, this idea means that there are some rich people in every demographic which changes the way you segment your marketing and the stuff you choose to make.
14. New Gatekeepers and No gatekeepers – People who used to have power as gatekeepers are finding their power disappearing. Instead, you have people having enormous of power and they are the gatekeepers. In addition, there are no gatekeepers, if you have a great idea, put it on YouTube – no one can say no, build your own website, your own Squidoo page – no one can say no.
15. The death zone between scarcity and ubiquity – In an inverted bell curve, there is a death zone between scarcity and ubiquity. Godin suggested that at either end of the spectrum, you win. You win if you are everywhere (Jerry Seinfeld) you win and if you are only a few places – but are in high demand – you also when. It’s when you are in the middle that you have trouble.
Conclusions
The scary thing about everything he has said is that many of your clients are going to want you to make better meatball sundaes. What he is hoping is that we can now embrace the fact that only can we say no to these people and that we should. But, the window is not going to be open for long, if we have a choice between clients and employers that get it and clients and employers who don’t, if you look back at this window in time – you are going to look back that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. This sundae is really big, extraordinarily powerful and leaving you lots and lots of options. You can embrace them now or regret them later.
At the end of the session, Seth answered a few questions.
Questions – What do you do when your sales force is older than your customer based and is technologically lacking (real estate). Do you recruit new ones? What we need to do is measure people on metrics that make sense today. Your job as a manager- how can I make this tactically simple but strategically important.
Given the power of the amateur reviewer – how can we determine between authentic and fake stuff? It is difficult to detect – people pretending/shilling obviously is going to happen. We are going to make our circle smaller – you are going to want to interact with people who you know from life or who you can trust through the respect of reputation.
Clarification – to choose one the meatball or the sundae? How do you make that choice? Starbucks is about the story and the experience. Didn’t try to reach the masses – once they tried to look more like McDonalds and a whole bunch of things changed about Starbucks. They tried to make meatballs and have the topping – now they have to try to pick and choose one.
With all the channels – how do we get noticed? That’s a pretty selfish question. It’s not how do we get noticed. How do we make a product or service that people choose to talk about. Because it helps their life/planet etc. If we make a remarkable product, we will be talked about in tons of different places.
Why is branding dead? People need to differentiate with all these choices? Branding isn’t dead. Brand is the shortcut that we use to remember the attributes of the product we love. If branding is the act of creating all the things that people will associate with your logo and name.
Why are BtoB companies behind BtoC in using the web? Starts with what kind of person goes to work for a BtoB companies. There is a lot of top down thinking. BtoB suppliers tend to respond by making commodity products, do RFPs etc.. BtoB buy that stuff only when they can’t tell the difference between brand a and brand b. There is culture problem in typical BtoB companies (there are exceptions).
Are there any older companies getting our attention effectively on their websites? Microsoft – told the truth and went online and told the truth to business customers about what was happening at their company. No one wants to hear a product manager blather about legally approved info about marketing brochures. We are seeing pockets of truth telling, pockets of authentic stories that are usually happening when the boss isn’t looking. But these are making a difference in BtoB companies.
It was a really informative hour and Seth Godin was a terrific and enthusiastic speaker. Thanks to Seth, SEMpdx and Corvent for a very worthwhile hour!
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Inc’edIn? Not exactly but it looks like Inc will be launching their new business social network shortly called IncBizNet. Details seem pretty scarce so far but it looks like they are looking to jump in and take on LinkedIn. So the question begs to be asked: is there really room for another one of these? Aren’t LinkedIn and Facebook enough?
It looks like Inc is initially going to be focusing on their built in customer base of the Inc 5000 list. Pretty smart move because which one of these companies wouldn’t join and/or encourage their employees to join. From there they will then likely open up to all private companies and then out to everyone. Could get interesting….
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via PaidContent and screenshot via sdk @ flickr
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In Today’s Internet Landscape, Age is Really Just a Number
Sep 24, 2007 by Chris Winfield | Business
Every time that I see one of my younger cousins or nieces/nephews I implore them and their parents to get them involved with the Internet right away. Forget having to work at a supermarket for their after school job (nothing against this – I did) but they can be working right from their house, earning good money and more importantly learning skills that will prove invaluable later on. And in many instances companies are looking for younger people to help them understand what their customers want and in many cases market themselves online. This is why I got my 16 year old cousin Kayla involved with my company.
Last February, the Wall Street Journal profiled a bunch of top users from different social networks in a story titled The Wizards of Buzz. The person that got a lot of people’s attention was Adam Fuhrer, not only because of his mastery of Reddit but even more impressive was his age:
On Reddit, one of the most influential users is 12-year-old Adam Fuhrer. At his desktop computer in his parents’ home in the quiet northern Toronto suburb of Thornhill, Mr. Fuhrer monitors more than 100 Web sites looking for news on criminal justice, software releases — and the Toronto Maple Leafs, his favorite hockey team. When Microsoft launched its Vista operating system this year, he submitted stories that discussed its security flaws and price tag, which attracted approving votes from more than 500 users.
Adam was also profiled by the Toronto Star in March:
Adam is also a member of an Internet vanguard which is helping, through its own naïve enthusiasm, to impose structure on a rapidly expanding, increasingly chaotic Internet universe.
“At the beginning, I didn’t think anyone would vote for my articles,” he says. He was quickly proven wrong, as he climbed user charts and stayed there for months. When the Wall Street Journal, in a story about the Net’s most influential players, recently revealed his age, there was a furor online.
“Is Adam Fuhrer fictional? Is someone at the WSJ playing with our heads?” wrote one user, laprice. “Don’t believe a word of it,” wrote jamal, another user. “BUT he is 21, not 12.”
An understandable, if entirely incorrect, assessment.
Recently I have spoken to Adam and he knows more about many of the social networks (especially Reddit) than most people. I have seen him on Digg, he knows what people want and knows how to deliver it. And he’s 12. Age is really just a number though.
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Install Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs: We are replacing approximately 90% of our light bulbs with ener
gy-saving compact fluorescent bulbs. The EPA recommends this, and though there is some debate as to weather or not these bulbs pollute if they are broken, we believe that energy saving benefits outweigh any environmental risks over the long-term.
- Conservation? With this effort, we save on lighting energy consumption and since the florescent bulbs emit less heat than incandescent light bulbs we use less air conditioning. We’ll also be throwing out less expired incandescent bulbs as the new compact fluorescents last for years as opposed to weeks. We estimate that with the new light bulbs we’ll save tons of Kilowatts in lighting and cooling energy consumption. The EPA’s Energy Star Website says: “If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.â€
Use Hot/Cold Beverage Mugs: We all love our coffee mochas, lattes and green tea in the morning and some in the afternoon! We encourage all employees to use less paper by drinking their beverages from reusable hot/cold beverage mugs instead of paper cups.
- Conservation? We estimate that we will prevent approximately 2,400 paper and/or foam cups from going to waste dumps over the next one year. Some of these cups are produced with oil products, so in addition to conserving trees we are also reducing oil consumption in an indirect way.
Print Less & Save Paper Ink and Cartridges: We encourage all employees to think twice before printing emails, presentations and proposals. We suggest: share a screen to share an email, or note your emails by saving them to Word and commenting, then emailing to share. Think how many reams of paper we can all save by not printing emails as soon as we have the urge.
- Conservation? We estimate that over the course of the next year, with the “think twice about printing†attitude, we’ll save over 45,000 sheets of paper or 90 reams. That’s a lot of paper. Imagine if all companies in your building, on your block and in your city implemented such a policy!
Drive Less / Use Public Transport: We’re beginning to have several employees work from remote locations 2-3 times
per month in order to cut back on daily commutes and auto emissions. We also encourage the use of public transportation for business meetings. NYC and the NY Metro area has a great transit system and we love to use it!
- Conservation? We believe we’re preventing the consumption of over 1,200 Gallons of gasoline through the course of one year – that’s approximately 24,000 pounds of C02 emissions we’ll prevent from being emitted to our beautiful
New York air!
Power Down and Unplug: We are powering down all unnecessary hardware, monitors, pc’s, laptops and servers over night and on the weekends. Why leave a computer on if it’s simply not needed? We are also unplugging appliances over the weekend. Did you know appliances drain small amounts of energy even when they are not in use?
- Conservation? Since we’ve implemented this policy, we’ve noticed our energy bill drop a bit, and we are working each day to decrease our Kilowatt hours more and more.
Recycle: 10e20 recycles plastic, glass and paper and is committed to our local recycling programs.
- Conservation? We’re recycling well over 1,500 bottles and cans over the course of a year. That would be a lot of
unnecessary waste in our local dumps. And, it’s all coming back to us in new products in a reused format preventing factories from producing new containers thus using more oil, mining and transport operations.
With our Green effort we’ll be doing our part to help our environment -and we’ll add some small money to our business bottom-line 
So we are really excited about working toward being Greener in every way.
We are interested to know what the rest of the Search and Internet Marketing community is doing to go Green, and any thoughts or suggestions on how we can help conserve more are welcomed. Mother Nature will thank us all and so will our children!
Various resources on Energy Conservation:
Con Edison: 100 Things to Know about Saving Energy
EPA: Energy Star Products Listing Page
Power Scorecard: 20 Things You Can Do to Conserve Energy
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Do you consider yourself as someone who’s “in charge?” Do you manage and motivate other people to accomplish a task or get work done, other than yourself? If so, you’re probably in some sort of managerial role.
But are you a leader? Believe it or not, there is a difference. Managers, well, manage people. They sort out what it is that has to be done, and then make sure the right people do it. Leaders, however, share a unique vision with people and supply the necessary values and skills to move people to really want to accomplish things; leaders touch people emotionally. If you consider yourself a leader, or are interested in becoming one, you must first understand that becoming a good leader is a process, one that never ends. Here’s a few tips (actually 99 of them) to guide you on your journey to becoming a better leader and manager.
Planning & Strategy
1. Understand what the core principles of being a leader are. It’s not about power, but rather about installing direction and influencing others to follow that direction.
2. Do you have the character traits to be a successful leader? If not, can you learn them?
3. There are different ways of managing people; Develop a leadership style.
4. As a leader or manager, you’re constantly soaking up information. Know how to properly collect that information.
5. Know how to use proper coordination between people and technology.
6. As you build your machine, know how to maintain it.
7. Constantly analyze progress.
8. Be prepared. Not every disaster will involve nature, but the process of preparation can be the same.
9. Use prevention methods, keeping filth out of not only your trash cans but out of your employees as well.
10. If a bomb does drop, be ready to recover from it and move on.
Team Building
11. Know how to hire good employees.
12. During the interview process, make sure to ask the right questions.
13. Compensate: know when and how much to pay your team.
14. Build trust; this has to work both ways (you trust your team and your team trusts you.)
15. Develop and communicate your vision so the team can help achieve goals.
16. Show commitment to those goals and ask the same from your staff.
17. Understand the core value of employee inclusion and it’s effects.
18. Interdependence – making sure your employees are sharing responsible principles.
19. Guide your team by being a strong influence, and let yourself be influenced by other leaders.
20. Control the climate or the feel of your organization.
Communication
21. Make sure you are aware of proper etiquette, especially amongst other business elite.
22. Ethics play a huge role in both the workplace as well as your company’s image in your industry.
23. Strong public speaking abilities will help you get the message across to larger groups.
24. Keep your employees up-to-date with things they need to know.
25. Don’t be shady with your team.
26. Be aware of not only your body language but everyone else’s as well.
27. Improve your listening skills.
28. Speak clearly and concisely.
29. Develop your ability to negotiate.
30. Make sure to keep your cool when dealing with difficult situations.
Build Trust & Confidence
31. First, be sure to really understand the definition of trust.
32. Try to believe in your team, and work extra hard to find the good in people.
33. Reduce your sense of competition, as well as the same within the company.
34. In order to accept new people, things, and ideas into your life, you’ll need to have an open mind.
35. Appear more creditable and real by allowing yourself to show a little vulnerability.
36. Be prepared to face your fears, because doing so will conserve your energy and empower you.
37. Know your strong points and when to use them.
38. Work hard to improve on your weak points and shortcomings.
39. Look at yourself in a different way.
40. Exude confidence and your charisma will draw people to you.
Time Management
41. Setting goals will help you focus on getting important things done first.
42. Have an action plan you can use to achieve those goals.
43. Stop procrastinating, and you’re attitude about work will change.
44. You can’t do it all yourself; know when and how to delegate work.
45. Get rid of any and all kinds of distractions while working.
46. Keep track of your life by writing things down.
47. Learn to say no; you’ll save lots of time focusing on the most important tasks.
48. Just like in college, you can’t party and study at the same time. Try to keep a schedule.
50. Know your bad habits (and how to break them).
Being Responsible
51. Show character by being responsible for your actions.
52. Be responsible for your name, brand, and company.
53. Make sure you practice what you preach.
54. As a responsible leader, you must always be aware of what you’re saying.
55. Create responsible employees, but also be responsible for their actions.
56. Assume responsibility, even if something is not your fault.
57. Take care of your health. If you don’t care for yourself, why would anyone think you care at all?
58. Teach responsibility to others, including your children.
59. Constantly work on building a strong team.
60. Showcase social responsibility.
Never Stop Learning
61. Continue to build your leadership skills by reading management and leadership books.
62. Subscribe to some of the many business and management magazines on the newsstand today.
63. Keep a leadership blog to document your learning.
64. Don’t feel ashamed to take some online leadership courses; it’s always good to brush up on things.
65. Attend management seminars.
66. Find yourself a mentor; their wisdom will prove to be priceless.
67. Hone your skills through community involvement.
68. Don’t be afraid to learn from your employees and associates.
69. Embrace new technology, for it will only help you grow smarter.
70. Understand and learn from yourself.
Become a role model
71. Maintain a positive attitude – always.
72. A great leader portrays strength before power.
73. Lead by example.
74. Demonstrate acts of chivalry.
75. Treat customers and coworkers with respect.
76. Be sure to dress for success.
77. Always encourage others; they will probably encourage you back.
78. Be calm and show patience in your efforts.
79. Know how to properly manage life’s disappointments, both inside and outside of work.
80. Value all life.
Know When to Be Real
81. Show your employees (and customers!) that you really do care about them.
82. Know that it’s okay to share your emotions from time to time.
83. Allow people to see your shortcomings.
84. Try not to sugarcoat things because you’re afraid of conflict.
85. Do not lie to your employees about what’s going on.
86. Times will come when you have to put your foot down and correct employees when they are wrong.
87. Be sure to look and learn from your employee’s vantage point.
88. Promote job “ownership”, even if it entails seeing the ups and downs of business.
89. For everybody’s sake, make sure you have a life outside of work.
90. Have fun at work! It will show..
Give Back
91. Make it a point for you and your business to donate to charity.
92. Or, start your own charity or benefit.
93. Help your employees learn and develop.
94. Good leadership means sharing your knowledge
95. Give raises to your team; just be mindful of how you do it.
96. Recognize good performances and award it.
97. Give your employees discounts and perks.
98. Use your skills and knowledge to write a book.
99. Reach out to youth and become a teacher.
You may be thinking to yourself, “how can I learn how to be all of these things?” You can’t, at least not all at once. Understand that becoming a better leader can only be done by growing, learning and practicing. It will take a lot of time and even more effort, and is not going to be learned overnight. Just make sure each and everyday, both at work and in your personal life, that you take the time to better yourself as a person and strive to make the world around you a better place as well. People will start to take notice, and before you know it, you’ll be well on your way to becoming that great leader you always wanted to be.
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Why nurture a client?There is nothing more valuable to a business than its existing clients; not one thing. First thing in the morning is the client and the last thing at the end of the day is the client. Why? You can generate more business and fatter profits buy nurturing them and taking good care of them. Your current clients are one of the best sales and marketing tools available. Why? 6 words: Word of Mouth and Repeat Business.
By nurturing your client you can improve your ROI on sales and marketing spend by lowering your client acquisition costs (CAC). The more new business that you can generate with current clients, the less you’ll spend on salespeople’s salaries, direct marketing, advertising, PR, media buying, search marketing and client intake / service costs.
One of the best things about a current client who is nurtured is that they refer new business through Word of Mouth (WOM). This referral business by Word of Mouth is easier to close than other leads and is usually a much higher quality business lead.
When you nurture a client, they talk about it. They talk to their clients, colleagues, friends and family about the great service that they receive from your company. This leads to new business and propagates. Word of Mouth is more powerful marketing than anyone could ever purchase, conceive or deploy. Word of Mouth rules the day and while it’s not free, it’s probably the lowest cost form of marketing and provides great ROI on client acquisition costs.
When you nuture your client, your building loyalty and they come back to you over and over.
So what are some handy ways to Nurture the client relationship?
Treat your client like family, with meaningful attention, care, respect:
- Be puncutal: If you promise your family that you’ll be at brunch on Sunday at 12 Noon sharp, you’ll show up on time. Do the same for your client. And if you going to be late, you’re going to call and find a damn good reason to explain why you are late. Your time is worth money; so is the their’s.
- Understand their day to day routine: Find out everything about their business and do as much research on where they’ve been and where they are going and what their day consists of. You’ll be in a better position to solve their business problems if you do this.
- Keep in touch on a consistent basis: on phone, email.
- Buy them a gift on special occasions: Birthdays in particular. Some people say they hate celebrating birthdays, but deep down everyone wants to be recognized for the day that they arrived into this great world of ours.
- Send them a hand written note.
- Share an interesting article online.
- Invite them to connect in a database - Linkedin? Make them part of your world.
- In passing, ask them how their family is? Did they mention a wedding, new-born, vacations etc…ask them how it was, how it went, what they thought and how they are involved. Do not ignore this stuff.
Take an interest in personal stories, hopes and aspirations:
If you know your client likes golf, ask what type of clubs she’s using or where she likes to play? You’ll build a personal bond and they’ll know you understand who they are. Are they training for a marathon? Ask them if they’ve reached a milestone. Explain how you are interested in running as well. You need to connect. If you don’t connect, your goose is cooked.
Stroke your client’s ego:
Pump up their ego and you’re on their team automatically. And the next time you speak with her and she says that she did not play golf well over the weekend, as her what her score was and regardless of what it was, tell her “mine was MUCH WORSE!”
When you see your client and their company mentioned in good press – forward them the article and let them know you saw it and took a great interest in it. If you tell them about it before they tell you about it, they’ll know you are on the ball and they’ll feel inflated.
Listen and learn:
Let your client speak and let them teach you a thing or two. When you listen to your client, you learn their needs and you can serve them better. Take any signal seriously, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem.
Deliver results and provide value:
If you promise a result, deliver that result. Do not stray from this. If you are not going to deliver, hedge yourself and let them know well in advance. Chances are, you’ll get time enough to make up for it, if you are nurturing in other areas. Constantly assess your relationship to make sure that you are providing value. As soon as someone feels they don’t have value, you’re done.
Always be ethical:
Don’t try to take advantage of client relationships by leveraging anything in unethical ways. Always provide a client with the information that they need to make appropriate business decisions. A client in the dark is bad client. Keep everything up front.
Go above and beyond:
When you go above and beyond your allotted commitment, you’re nurturing and you’ll be paid back many times over. Don’t go too far with this though. Make it worth it.
Be Responsive
Don’t make a client wait a week for a response to a question.
Develop Trust
Provide insight, guidance and solid advice. When you provide accurate business insight they’ll see you as a member of their team. They will trust you more, leave key decisions to you and be more loyal to you and your company; your products and services.
Make a Positive Impression
Be clean, neat, dress well and match the mode as best as possible. No one wants to be associated with a dirt bag.
Be well mannered. Use table manners and greetings and salutations to their maximum. Don’t act corny or over the top, just proper. a la Emily Post
Enlighten them to wholesome issues and subjects that they are not yet aware of, or have not explored business or personal. Open their minds to positive and important subjects. Share something new.
Maintain a sense of humor, but be relevant, don’t abuse, overuse and don’t be vulgar, ever! PC.
In correspondence, do your very best to pay attention to detail, spelling and grammar.
Barter with Care
If you end up bartering do this with care and caution and only if you are willing to lose the relationship. Try to get as much as possible in writing.
Refer and Introduce
Refer your client to other beneficial products and services that are not associated with your company or your work. They’ll appreciate the solid advice and direction, and it will likely come back to you in the form of something positive.
Show Your Face
It’s the old adage; a picture is worth a thousand words. I believe a seeing a person’s face is worth time and money helps to nurture your client relationship. Make sure you are visiting your clients on a regular basis. If geography and travel pose limits, show them pictures and videos of you and your colleagues. Share your work world with them. Put your pic in an email signature – they might save it in their outlook or personal device, so that you are part of their world. Suddenly they know you, remember you and you’re indispensable.
New, repeat and referral business from current clients is so much cheaper to acquire than new business from a prospect, cold call or client off the street. They know your products and services have used them before and have likely benefited and can be easily sold to again. You have the process with that client nailed and you’ve invested the time to get them on board.
That’s why I’m a big fan of nurturing your current clients and gaining repeat business from them. It improves their business and your margins. In nurturing your current clients they gain more from you and you’re on your way to fatter profit margins, smoother business operations and long term success. By nurturing your client you’ll gain tangible bottom line business results and the client’s business will thrive as well leading them to refer and come back for more business. It’s a real virtuous cycle and a win-win for both parties.
Some Interesting Resources and 1 Quote:
Emily Post’s The Etiquette Advantage in Business: Personal Skills for Professional Success, Second Edition (I’ve not read this but it looks good)
The Business of Consulting: The Basics and Beyond by Elaine Biech (I’ve not read this, but it looks good)
A tool from ProcessSpecialist.com to calculate Client Acquisition Costs and associated ROI.
A quote from Mr. Gavin Ingham: “Most salespeople make a sale to a client and then move on to the next one. Most clients think that salespeople only ring them when they want to a) sell something new or b) renew their contracts.
If someone only rang you when they wanted to sell your something or get you to commit to a new contract what would you think about them? What feelings and emotions would you associate with them?”
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Quick story. Yesterday I got an instant message from a good friend of mine, let’s call him “Bill”. Bill doesn’t work in our industry. Bill works for one of the biggest finanical management companies in the world – in the software purchasing department. Here’s the jist of our conversation:
Bill: Have you heard of FireFox?
Me: Yep.
Bill: It’s amazing – I just found out about it and downloaded it over the weekend.
Me: Nice, I mostly just use that.
Bill: I like how you can have different websites open at once.
So many times I take it for granted that everyone uses FireFox or has at least heard about it. So many times I assume that people know exactly what Digg is or even what I mean when I say SEO. Its important to sometimes step back and take a look outside of your own little world. Are your marketing messages too technical? Are you using so much industry jargon that your customers might not know what you mean? A lot of times the person signing the checks won’t be the most technical. Heck they might not even know what FireFox or MySpace is. But they will know about their need to increase sales and grow their business. Give them that…
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Mobile Web Usage is on the Rise – What it Means for Your Business
May 30, 2007 by Jake Matthews | Business
Mobile web usage is on a steep curve northward and everyone from major corporations and small companies continue to push mobile device web usage for good reason – more eyeballs with more time on websites will yield better sales and hopefully better revenues. In a recent study Comscore points out that 30 million Americans accessed the Internet from a mobile device in January 2007.
There is nothing more convenient than traveling and being able to find what you need while on your mobile device or to get your personal chores or business affairs in order on your mobile while you are commuting from place to place. For and end-user, mobile web access is a great convenience and a big time saver. For a business owner, it is the difference between gaining or losing a sale or enriching that ever so valuable client relationship to extract more lifetime revenue. For major corporations, it’s about retaining existing relationships in increasingly competitive business environments. In an economy dominated by services, to be competitive, you must offer better services, and mobile web is one way companies are reaching out.
Mobile device web access + mobile search = Sales.
It’s true: while on a recent vacation, I pulled up Google.com web search on my mobile device. After typing in a specific local query: restaurant + town + state (to find a restaurant), there was a result. A local restaurant’s phone number was readily available right in the search result and I booked dinner for two immediately. The restaurant got my business because they were available through a mobile web search and because they had a clearly defined search result with relevant business information.
Major corporations are reaching out too. In today’s New York Post, Citibank has a full page add on page 13 (New York Late City Final Edition), prompting mobile phone access to their website stating “not caring what time the bank closes” – such that with their mobile website access, all of your banking problems are solved day or night, wherever you are. Now, you don’t even have to have your laptop with you!
Here is a preview of what they are offering through mobile access:
Citi Mobile gives you the convenience of banking virtually any time, anywhere. You can use it to pay bills, transfer money, see your balances and activity, find a Financial Center or ATM and get Customer Service-right on your cell phone.
Web access from wireless phones and PDA’s is really reaching new levels and the major handheld producers are reaching out with the major service providers. Even the most basic of telephones are now showing standard features of access to mobile web and email. There are various “browser” versions, but all of the major providers are striving to provide advanced equipment and services at affordable prices.
Here is a brief sampling of some that are out there and I can tell you that consumers are hot to trot and pick up these devices and services and utilize them:
Verizon Wireless pushes mobile web access dubbed “Mobile Web 2.0”
Mobile Media
- Mobile Web 2.0
- Get It Now®
- Picture and Text Messaging
- Email, Mobile IM, Mobile Chat
Cingular (The New AT&T ) offers MEdia Net:
Q. What is MEdia Net?
A. MEdia Net gives you access to all the cool things you can do with your wireless phone-email, Web sites, games, and more. It is wireless Internet access for your wireless device.
- Mail & Messaging: Check your Yahoo! Mail, MSN Hotmail and chat with friends with Yahoo! Messenger and Upoc.
- Sports: Get the latest scores from CBS SportsLine and ESPN.
- Ringtones, Games, and Graphics: Personalize your phone by downloading your favorites.
- News & Finance: Stay informed with round-the-clock headlines from CNN.
- Entertainment: Get local movie times and reviews, dining recommendations, and more.
- Weather & Travel: Check your forecast from The Weather Channel, get flight times, and traffic reports.
So how do you make sense of the mobile web as a business owner?
The mobile web and the access that consumers have to it will take many forms. Some wireless providers only have “skeleton” networks, while others have full fledged World Wide Web access with normal HTML browsers (albeit with smaller screens). But as people go mobile in any form, there should be more eyeballs on your brand and more opportunities to reach out to existing and new clients. The better prepared you are for mobile devices and these networks, the better positioned you are to succeed at capturing new customers and communicating with your current customers. Users will be in MEdia Net and Verizon’s Mobile Web 2.0 – it’s inevitable, it’s well beyond 1st adopters and “mavens” as Gladwell would have it.
Search Marketing Sidenote to Citibank: A Google search for “Citibank Mobile” does not bring up the site in Google organically and not even a paid search result! If this is a new ad campaign, I would not neccassarily expect an organic result, but certainly I would buy some sponsored ads around it. I’m sure Citibank is spending tons on banners and other portions of the campaign, so why not cover yourself with a couple of paid keywords?
Citibank is not taking advantage of the dot-mobi extension: http://www.citibank.mobi/ that page comes up as “server not found”. Why don’t they just register this top level domain and forward it to the area that they want people to go to? I covered some of the benefits of this strategy in another recent dot-mobi post.
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I heard about this neat viral thing that Verizon was doing where you could create your own movie starring yourself on the Internet. This seemed pretty cool to me and I figured I’d give it a try. I had a blast last summer with the Scissor Sisters music video going around that you could insert yourself into. (don’t try it because it doesn’t seem to work anymore)
At first I thought that it would be a cut out of my head on top of some moving parts, but then I saw that these movies take about 24 hours to generate.
So why is Verizon doing this? Well luckily they answer that question right on their website:
“The Power of Verizon Broadband”. I am about to be entertained in ways that I’ve never dreamed possible. Totally cool. Seems like fun. I will definitely give it a shot.
Step 1 – Plot. The premise of the movie is that you are an action hero who saves the world from some impending doom. You get to pick who you do battle with. I chose “E=MC SCARED!”, a mad scientist who plans to take over the world.
Step 2 – Upload Your Photo. At this point I am getting excited. They give good instructions. You basically need a photo of yourself looking straight ahead with your hair off of your face. Having just gotten 1400 wedding pictures back from our photographer I luckily had one.
Step 3 – Map points on your face. With each step I am actually getting a little more invested.
Step 4 – Select your body. They let you choose male, female, slim, or athletic. I chose to be a slim female.
Step 5 – Select your personality. Quirky, newlywed into fashion and marathon running? Nah, they basically give you the choice of Femme Fatale, Girly Girl, and Cute, Brainy Type. I went with Femme Fatale, A Hero to Die For. It’s my movie right?
The longest part of this process is the time you spend customizing your character.
From here you get to “direct” your movie. There are choices like soundtrack, your enemy’s vehicle for the opening chase scene, lines at the end, and the title of the movie.
So after you are done with all of this customizing you get to invite your friends to the “premier”of your movie. I put me and Chris in, sat back and waited for my movie premier. All in all I would say this process took me about 15-20 minutes. Finding the picture was the most time consuming part.
About a minute later I get an email that says this:
We’re sorry but there was a problem with the photo that you uploaded to create a unique face for your Action Hero Character. We were unable to use that photo to render the face on your character.
Thank you for experiencing the power of Verizon Broadband.
At Verizon, we believe that broadband can entertain you in ways that you never dreamed possible, and this is our way of proving it.
Explore the broadband power of the Verizon network at VerizonSurround (http://surround.verizon.net)
This email was sent to you by Verizon at your request.
Your privacy is important to Verizon. You may review Verizon’s online privacy policy at www22.verizon.com/privacy.
This is an auto-generated email. Please do not respond to this message. For customer service issues, please visit us online at www.verizon.com for more information.
There is one line about this email that disturbs me. “At Verizon, we believe that broadband can entertain you in ways that you never dreamed possible, and this is our way of proving it.” I don’t feel all that entertained, and just a little frustrated. I mean it’s not like my happiness hinges on whether a free movie creator works or not, but I know that nothing has been proven to me. At the very least they could have dropped the photo part and moved on and created the movie with the other selections I’d made. Great idea, great design, poor execution.
Here’s the link to try it for yourself – hopefully you’ll have better luck then I did. If you are able to complete it, please drop the link in the comments below so I can check it out.
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