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The Wrong Idea About Friends

If you’re trying to use new media to bolster an archaic business plan you’re in for a few surprises. The old idea that you can’t sell without lying isn’t worth much when your customer can Google your name or your company and find out more than you might even know yourself.

A recent article in the Harvard Business Review quotes Theodore Levitt from the 1960’s as saying that the average salesperson often thinks “the customer is somebody ‘out there’ who, with proper cunning, can be separated from his or her loose change.”

A Two Way Street

When those customers “out there” can get “in” through simple web searches, the salesperson quickly becomes the victim of their own cunning. Communications technology is, not surprisingly, all about communications, and this is a two way street.

How is your sales force using new media? Do they have the wrong idea about friends?

Here are a few points for SMB’s to keep in mind when trying to execute an effective new media campaign:

1. Keep in touch with your community – Yes, it is possible to reach out globally with the technologies available today, but it’s also possible to connect with your community and deepen the partnerships that are already formed by close proximity.

2. You’re helping neighbors, not pillaging the village – The social aspect of communication technology allows SMB’s to effectively leverage the person to person service that they are already good at, don’t waste this by turning technology into another means of mass exploitation.

3. Give back – Another useful aspect of communication technology is the immediate feedback loop it creates; instead of using it solely to find out if you’re marketing is effective why not use it to see what your community needs?

4. Help others prosper – You may be successful at getting the word out about your products and services, but if you’re not helping other local businesses get the word out about their offerings you’re missing an opportunity to develop valuable relationships and strengthen your community.

5. Nobody cares – Nobody cares about advertising or marketing, they care about people, they care about passionate ideas, nowhere does this become more apparent than in social media. Rather than pushing an agenda make sure you are reaching out to connect and reciprocate relationships that create value for everyone involved.

Forget the Naysayers

There are a lot of naysayers out there when it comes to emergent communication technologies. They talk about how useless services like Twitter, FaceBook and LinkedIn are, but the proof of concept for these tools is obvious once you start honestly using them.

Ramsey Mohsen pointed out a very poignant truth in an article on his blog:

“Facebook sucks if your friends suck”

There’s an old saying, “If you look for the Devil, you’ll find him”, look for people posting garbage and you’ll get garbage, but that belies the whole point of communication technology. Connect to professionals and your network will be professional, connect to creatives and you’ll have a creative network, it’s a simple concept that so many seem to be overlooking.

Feedback Loops

Feedback is important in understanding the way social media works. If you feed bad data into the system (or ask something like “What are the most useless things posted on Twitter?”) you’re going to get a response based on the nature of the input.

Those critics don’t realize that due to the input/output nature of the net they are going to get exactly what they are looking for. They cheat themselves of a valuable experience by asking questions with answers that have no worth.

Why waste time feeding bad input into the system when you could be providing positive value?

Imagine what would happen if they started asking the right questions. With the amount of horrible content they’re able to dig up, how much good content is out there waiting to be found?

Or more importantly, waiting to be created?

The Media Convergence

Social media and what MIT’s Henry Jenkins describes as the “Media Convergence” are playing a decisive role in today’s entrepreneurial arsenal.  For SMB’s the tools to connect with their communities and other local businesses are becoming easier and more accessible every day.

One of the biggest questions with all of these new technologies is how to fit them into a solid and actionable strategic plan. Thankfully it seems as the dust gets shaken from the system this question is finding an answer on its own.

The answer? It seems that the best strategy is to get out, participate, add value and realize that the results are reciprocal.

Moving With the Current

Jenkins’ work has shown that effective grass roots efforts quickly catch the attention of more established media outlets through the natural life cycle of social media. The various channels of mediated (public, private, corporate and governmental) reciprocity are being merged together, through 3rd party applications as well as the simple fact that the users themselves provide centralized nodes in the communications network.

This give and take goes for B2B communications as well. If there is a drawback to this convergence, as Jenkins points out, it’s only that each participant is now expected to act responsibly and effectively to bring value to the system. It’s up to entrepreneurs and business owners to be proactive with their own campaigns in order to reach the potential audience of collaborators that exist in the mediated web.

While Others Worry

While industry journalists worry us with tales of lost revenue, proactive SMB’s across the country are experiencing positive growth through their new media marketing efforts and the simple realization that honest and direct relationships really do matter.

The ability for small and medium sized businesses to remain maneuverable, and quickly scale their operations, works perfectly with the immediate feedback loop that these technologies provide. For whatever failings exist within the social media sphere, as soon as more effective means are found SMB’s can change course and correct themselves immediately.

Caution is a sensible reaction to change, but what are you doing as a business owner to turn your caution into a proactive plan?

Are you saving yourself from a fast fading trend or missing the bend in the road?

Lost your ticket on the Twitter train?

Here’s a helpful set of articles from CIO Magazine outlining ideas for how businesses can better utilize Twitter to help increase brand awareness, customer communication and marketing: CIO Magazine’s Twitter Bible.

One great tip to turn your business around

This is a reprint of an article Arthur Zards, President and Co-Founder of XNet, wrote for the April 9th, 2009 edition of The Business Ledger, a newspaper focused on leading Chicagoland businesses.

This is not an article on the obvious things your business can do to survive an economic downturn. Cutting down your office supply expenses, not printing as much paper, and getting rid of the free coffee are all things that will help, but lets be honest, these aren’t magic bullets that will keep your business in the black. And as a small to medium sized business, don’t expect a government bailout either!

Thriving, not just surviving

Instead of all the obvious money savers, I would like to share a great tip on not just making it though a downturn, but something that can help you completely turn your business around.

One of the challenges of running your own business is that, well, it’s your own business. You’re in control, you make the rules, and no-one knows it better then you. And that can be a problem. It’s easy to gain tunnel vision on what you think works and doesn’t work. You’re wearing blinders right now and don’t even know it.

What if you could have an extra set of eyes and ears looking at your business from an outsider’s perspective, offering feedback and fresh ideas on what you are doing? Telling you from their perspective what appears to be working and what isn’t. Asking you probing questions that you would never think to ask yourself. It’s easier then you think.

The “Unofficial Board of Directors”

What you want to do is create an “Unofficial Board of Directors.” In short, you create a small handful of trusted, experienced advisers to view your business at a board of directors level. You meet with them once a quarter, you share with them everything, and they offer you feedback and direction.

Share everything? Yes.

It’s not an easy thing for a business owner to share a full disclosure of your business, your profit/loss, even your own compensation information. But you will be surprised at the value of having different seasoned sets of eyes and ears giving you valuable feedback. I personally know businesses that have turned around 180 degrees after starting this practice and this process helped XNet weather some tough times during the Internet bust.

SCORE.ORG

Your board can be anyone, a parent, a friend, an old teacher, or a retired executive. The key is you must trust them, and you must feel that they bring a level of experience that you need. What seems to work very successfully is retired executives.

Organizations like SCORE offer easy access to thousands of retired executives who bring decades of business experience and are all aching to get back in the game. Your unofficial board will sometimes point out things to you that you don’t like, nor do you want to hear.

That’s the best part. These tough issues are the issues the very issues you must hear and become aware of. The things you choose to ignore while running your ship are often the key items you need to handle to keep your business afloat, or to get to the next level.

A Century of Experience

Still not convinced this will help?

Just three retired seasoned executives can add over a century of business experience Or imagine that all your competitors each have their own unofficial board of directors offering all their years of business experience and knowledge, and you don’t.

So instead of canceling this year’s Christmas party to save some money, get your own unofficial board of directors. After all, it works for free, doles out invaluable advice, and leaves you in full control of your business.

If you don’t know of any retired executives or trusted partners in your community check out the website for  SCORE . At the very least try using their online mentor search to see the talent pool that you can access. You’ll be impressed.

Local First

Check out a great visual representation of economic flow within a community presented by Local First up in Michigan. Although the page describes West Michigan it’s obviously applicable to any community:  Why buy local?