Archive for the 'Networking' Category

The customer is now in control - get over it!

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on May 4, 2011
in Social Media and e-Business
. 2 Comments

As previously revealed in this space, the Age of the Seller is succumbing to the Age of the Customer. In the new Age, control of the relationship between Seller and Customer has shifted to the latter.

This paradigm shift is largely caused by online platforms that are: 1) increasing the access customers have to information about a Seller and its products; 2) allowing customers to express and share what they have learned about and experienced with a business.

To put two fine points on the first element of the shift, in the new Age: Customers have access to virtually all the information they need before you know they’re interested, and prospects are similarly informed before you even know they exist. Such access to information is changing - or disrupting - the way you market to and connect with customers, as well as how you train sales people. Plus it demonstrates why your greatest danger in the Age of the Customer isn’t being uncompetitive, it’s becoming irrelevant.

The second element is the new kid on the block, but corresponds to a centuries-old marketplace maxim, “If you make customers happy they will tell someone; if you make them unhappy they will tell 10 people,” which describes the ancient practice of word-of-mouth. The theory behind the 1:10 ratio is that all businesses, regardless of size, are motivated to perform, or risk a marketplace indictment by the judge and jury of word-of-mouth.

In the new Age, online platforms have caused word-of-mouth to transmogrify into a powerful dynamic called “user generated content,” aka UGC. This is when customers post online their experiences, questions, praise or condemnation about a seller’s products, services, and general behavior in the marketplace. In the vernacular, it’s word-of-mouth on steroids.

Indeed, if the word-of-mouth maxim were coined today it would sound like this: “Customers may post online their opinion – positive or otherwise – about your business, making it available potentially to millions.” To paraphrase Mark Twain, comparing word-of-mouth to UGC is like comparing a lightning bug to lightning.

In the new Age you have to do two new things: 1) anticipate that customers are already well informed; 2) track and respond to UGC about your business. And how well you do these two will influence whether the new customer control becomes a sales lever, or a disruptor that makes you irrelevant.

It’s the Age of the Customer - get over it.

Last week on my radio program, The Small Business Advocate Show, I talked with Alan Maites, President of Robinson & Maites, an unconventional marketing firm in Chicago, about the Age of the Customer and how it will change relationships with customers. Take a few minutes to click on one of the links below and listen to our conversation. And, as always, leave your thoughts on the Age of the Customer.

Marketing in the Age of the Customer featuring Alan Maites

Serve communities in the Age of the Customer featuring Alan Maites

A prediction becomes reality

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on April 5, 2011
in Online strategy and Social Media
. 0 Comments

Last week I compared the evolution of websites to that of social media adoption. I proposed that two things were likely in the future for small businesses: 1) They may be more likely to have a social media strategy than have a website; 2) More and more would employ both a website and social media to cross-collateralize content and e-commerce capability.

This line of thinking got me wondering how you’re using these two customer-connecting tools right now. So in our poll question last week we made this request: “Please choose one of these four options for how you connect with customers online.” Frankly, the answers surprised me.

Almost one-in-five respondents said, “We have a website for our business.” Of course, this would be way too low for this answer, except that we also offered this choice, “We do both - website and social media.” Those who chose this one represented more than 70%.

A very small percentage of our sample said they used social media as the sole method of connecting with customers online. In time, I believe this will change. And thankfully, those who admitted that they didn’t connect with customers online at all were also a small number of our respondents.

The good news I’m taking away from our responses this week is that my #2 prediction in the first paragraph is coming to pass sooner than I thought. Small businesses increasingly understand that in order to be relevant in the 2nd decade of the 21st century, you have to be prepared to use all methods of connecting with customers, the traditional and the new.

Recently on my radio show, The Small Business Advocate, I talked more about the connections between social media and websites, now and in the future. Take a few minutes to listen and tell us how you use social media in your efforts to connect with customers.

Comparing the evolution of websites and social media

What is the relationship between social media and websites?

Websites and social media will work together in the future

Let customers read about your authentic side

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on March 2, 2011
in Customer Care and Networking
. 0 Comments

Adam Smith, the father of modern economics and author of The Wealth of Nations (1776), identified writing as one of the three most important inventions of mankind – the other two being money and economic tables.

More than two centuries later, the Internet has powered the written word to levels unimagined only a generation ago, let alone during Smith’s era. Indeed, it is the driving force behind a handy new-media maxim, “Content is King.”

Today we’re consumers of many kinds of online content, including streaming audio and video. But even in the face of such multi-media majesty as iTunes and YouTube, most of the kingly content is still in the graphic form so highly regarded by Smith.

So what does all of this mean for small business owners? It’s simple: In an era when content is king, if you want to connect with customers competitively and stay connected, you have to produce more written words than ever before. But not just any words – authentic words.

Since 1999 – long before blogs and social media – two of the things I’ve encouraged small business owners to do is: 1) develop better writing skills and 2) publish more of their own words online that communicate to and connect with customers.

In the 2nd decade of the 21st century, prospects and customers want to read about the stuff you sell before they meet you. But they want more than marketing messaging; they want authentic, straight-from-the-horse’s-mouth information that delivers three things that are increasingly a big deal to customers: the voice, vision and values of the human beings behind the stuff, as unartful and unscripted as they may be.

So don’t worry if you’re not a professional wordsmith. When you need fancy words for strategic marketing messaging, online or otherwise, hire a pro. But you must become comfortable with conveying your vision and values online, in your own words – the voice – about a variety of issues from explaining how to use a product you sell to a local cause you care about to your philosophy on serving customers. And it’s just fine if some of these authentic words come from employees.

In the Age of the Customer™, now armed with as much information as the businesses they patronize, customers expect to be treated more like insiders. The good news is that no one makes this connection as effectively and authentically as a small business.

Recently on The Small Business Advocate Show, I talked more about using language to reach and connect with your customers. Take a few minutes to listen and leave some ideas on how you connect with your customers.  Authenticity through the written word

The powerful practice of networking

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on February 8, 2011
in Networking
. 0 Comments

Having moved his law practice to Chicago in 1896, Paul J. Harris missed the friendly relationships he knew growing up in a small Vermont town.

One fall day in 1900, while walking with his friend, Bob Frank, around the Windy City’s North Side, Harris noticed how Frank had made a connection with many of the shopkeepers they passed by. This kind of interaction was not only what he longed for, but he believed it would also appeal to other professionals (men in those days) who, like him, had emigrated from rural America to the big cities.

The question Harris mused to himself over the next few years was: Could such connecting activity be organized among professionals and business people? Today we know the answer to Harris’ question is civic groups. But at the dawn of the 20th century, this innovation had yet to be invented.

Then on February 23, 1905, Paul Harris put his connection question to the test when he and three friends founded the world’s first civic club. They named it Rotary because they planned to rotate weekly meetings between each member’s office. Now an international success story, 33,000 Rotary clubs are still based on Harris’ founding principle of “Service above Self.”

Harris’ original dream was to connect people for the benefit of all parties. He probably didn’t use this term, but Harris’ 1905 connecting formula is the modern definition of networking.

Three-quarters of a century later, Ivan Misner had a dream of creating a structured networking model when he founded Business Network International. Misner’s goal was very much like Harris’ but with the specific purpose of business people meeting regularly to help each other grow their business.

Though not a civic organization, the motto of BNI’s 6,000 chapters worldwide is, “Givers gain.”  In a sentence it sounds like, “Let me help you first.”

The significant international success of Rotary and BNI has revealed two important things: 1) networking is an essential professional skill and practice; and 2) putting others first is powerful.

This week, February 6-12, is International Networking Week. This month Rotarians will celebrate the 106th anniversary of Paul Harris’ dream-come-true. Whether you participate in a civic club, a BNI chapter, your local chamber of commerce or other gathering, become a more frequent, accomplished and selfless networker.

Face-to-face is the original social media and it’s still important.

Today on The Small Business Advocate Show, I talked with Ivan Misner about successful networking. Take a few minutes to listen and leave your thoughts and best practices on how networking has helped you in your business.

Celebrating International Networking Week with Ivan Misner
The educational component of successful networking with Ivan Misner
Two more networking core competencies with Ivan Misner

Are you afflicted with “networking disconnect?”

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on November 26, 2010
in Networking and Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

Recently I heard a story about a speaker whose topic was how to become better at networking. Not better at finding, scheduling or attending networking events. But better at having the right kind of networking values. 

So to make his point, this speaker asked how many in the audience came there hoping to make a sale as a result of attending this networking event.  Many in attendance raised their hands, and those were just the honest ones.  

Next, the speaker asked for a show of hands of how many came to the event wanting to buy something.  Wouldn’t you know it?  No one raised their hand. 

The person who told me this story is my friend and long-time Brain Trust member, Dr. Ivan Misner.  Ivan is the world’s leading expert on networking and the founder of Business Network International (BNI).   He heard this speaker ask these questions and then proceeded to identify this phenomenon – lots of networking salespeople, not so many networking buyers – as “the networking disconnect.”

Are guilty of practicing the networking disconnect?  Or do you have the right networking values that Ivan has tough by audience, which is based on the Law of Reciprocity, simply: Givers gain. 

Recently, on my radio program, The Small Business Advocate Show, Ivan joined me to talk about how to inoculate yourself against the networking disconnect syndrome. I hope you’ll take a few minutes to listen to our conversation and, as always, be sure to leave your own thoughts and/or experiences.

Are you guilty of the networking disconnect? with Ivan Misner

Networking is a key to success

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on October 27, 2010
in Networking
. 0 Comments

Here are the results of last week’s Small Business Advocate poll, followed by my comments:

The Question: How many networking events (any gathering of business leaders) do you attend?

30% - None

30% - Average about one a month

26% - Usually two or more a month

13% - More than five a month

In 1998, I began telling small business owners that one of the three most important activities we were going to have to get better at in the 21st century is networking (the other two are leveraging technology and building strategic alliances). This week, in our poll question, we asked you about your networking activity and got some very good news.

Almost two-thirds of you are participating in at least one networking event a month. And almost four of ten are attending more than two a month.  Unfortunately, almost one-third of you are not attending any networking events.

Networking, whether one-on-one at lunch, or participating in a gathering, like a club meeting or chamber mixer, is as important as ever.  If you’re one of those who are doing no networking, allow me to tell you what I’ve learned in the past 30 years: Whenever I’ve ventured outside the four walls of my business, even when I didn’t want to go, something good ALWAYS happened.

Get out of your four walls and find out what other people are thinking and doing.  And remember, networking is not all about you. Practice the law of reciprocity. Or, as my friend, Dr. Ivan Misner, founder of BNI and the world’s leading networking expert says, “Givers gain.” If you want to get more out of networking, give more first.

One last thing: Social networking online is fine, but it’s not a substitute for the original social media: face-to-face.

Thanks for being part of my community. I’ll see you on the radio, and on the Internet.

To participate in the current poll question, visit www.smallbusinessadvocate.com and vote.