Intrepid LLC

Be An Intrepid Marketer – Recommendation No. 22

Every day, someone asks me what possible business value Facebook has for their business? Actually, I can cite many reasons. But today, I am going to talk about using it to learn more about your community.

I once had a client ask: “Why should I give a hoot – and waste my time – looking at photographs from someone else’s family trip to Disney World?”

I tell you why – that information is money!

My friend and business partner, Mark Walker, taught me that the critical first step in the sales process is developing a rapport with your prospect. He’s right. And usually – it takes time to develop that rapport.

Spending time on a person’s Facebook page allows you to look a little deeper into who they are: their politics, their friends and family, their favorite TV shows, favorite movies, and yes, even scrolling through and viewing pics from their recent trip to Disney World.

Now, the most common push back I get is this: “But that means I actually have to “friend” that prospect on Facebook.” To that I say: well, yeah.

This makes a lot of people uncomfortable. They don’t want to just “friend” someone they don’t even know.

I don’t actually friend anyone for no reason. In Facebook, I only friend people who share a lot of common connections with me, or is someone I met at a networking function. If you meet someone personally, it is perfectly appropriate, in my opinion, to friend them on Facebook.

If you have NOT met this prospect in person, but do want to approach them about doing business – you might consider using these two social media tactics:

Find a connection on LinkedIn that knows your target, and ask their help in making a connection. Or, see if you can strike up a conversation with that person on Twitter – which actually is an easy tool to meet new people.

Assuming you get connected in one of these two ways, it becomes much easier to friend them on Facebook.

But once you friend them, start reading about them – see what motivates and moves them. Learning about them, trying to find that connection – that common bond – so that you have something valuable to talk about when you do sit down face-to-face.

And when I do finally land that opportunity to grab a cup of coffee with them, I can hit them with “wow, that trip to Disney looked fun! My family went their a year ago! Wasn’t it great?”

Boom. Suddenly you are connected. You just made a big jump in moving that rapport along. And now you are on your way to moving that relationship forward!

Share with us some of your strategies for leveraging Facebook for your business!

Be Intrepid.

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Over the past several months, I have done a lot of thinking about how to better assist my clients with their business. One thing we are doing is focusing on the customer experience.

Here are a few things you can do to improve your customer’s experience:

1. Get your customer’s FEEDBACK. While you may not want to hear negative complaints from customers, trust me – you do. This is the only way you can solve problems – and actually it is the best way to build loyal customers. They will appreciate when you bend over backwards to handle their concerns, thereby building a stronger relationship. Here are ten questions you can ask your customer.

2. OBSERVE your customer. What they say, and what they actually do, are sometimes different. Point is, you should always monitor the behavior of your customers, and see how they go through your company experience. It won’t be a smooth as you might expect…

3. Be sure they understand the VALUE you bring. Tell them that story. Often. Be sure they understand what value you bring to their business – how you are making them better. This enables them to better spread your story to their network.

4. EMPOWER your employees. It is critical that you give your employees the freedom to handle customer complaints and needs – on a moment’s notice. If you do not empower your employees to make decisions on their own – then you are seriously limiting your ability to satisfy and serve your customer.

5. Make yourself ACCESSIBLE. Make it easy for your customers to find you when they need you. In this day and age of easy communication – there is no excuse not to be easily found.

6. BE your brand. You must always live your brand. If you position yourself as a green company, you better always live that brand. If at any time you deviate from your brand, you will injure that reputation, and business will suffer. People will pay a premium to live the brand with you.

7. Never stop INNOVATING. Looking for ways to improve your service, product offerings, and customer experience – never stops. The minute you stop seeking improvements is the minute your business begins to fade away. As soon as you bring a new innovation to market isn’t the time to start looking for the next one – you should already be on that path.

8. Make your website EASY. Sometimes you, the business owner, may like the look and feel of your company website, but what does your customers and prospects think? Your site won’t always make the same sense to a new user as it does to you.

9. Make the experience UNIQUE. A person makes lots of transactions and decisions each day. They buy goods from the grocery, pay a utility bill, buy songs from iTunes, etc. What you should strive for is a unique business experience – one that stands out and is memorable. And what happens when your customer experiences this? They come back. And they tell others!

10. COMMUNICATE. Reach out to your customers. Often. Use social media tools. Blog. Send newsletters. E-newsletters. Progress reports. Keep them in the loop about what is going on.

11. TRAIN. If you want your employees to behave a certain way, and learn habits that will serve customers well, you need to establish good training programs. But also know that training never stops. The best athletes never stop practicing.

12. Install SYSTEMS. Establishing set processes and systems that are meticulously followed by you and your employees can create a standard that customers will come to trust and expect. Don’t get trapped into never changing (always be looking for improvements), but a system allows your company to perform consistently, and systems bring comfort to customers.

13. Have FUN. If you aren’t enjoying yourself and having fun running your business, you are not providing an environment suitable for you and your employees to give a good customer experience. Make working your business fun – and the customer will certainly benefit.

14. Think Customer FIRST. It is a mistake we all make. When we make decisions, we sometimes don’t think about how those decisions will impact the overall customer experience. You should not do ONE thing (however remote) in your business where you don’t question how it will impact the customer.

What are other ways to improve the customer experience?

Be Intrepid.

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Be An Intrepid Marketer – Recommendation No. 21

Sometimes you just stumble onto something that works…

It’s not a new idea, or a new concept, it’s just something I accidentally did. And it’s working.

When I need to get creative – to think about messaging or a new design concept, I need quiet time to think and brainstorm with myself. Oftentimes I sit around my office and jot down ideas on my whiteboard.

But, as fate would have it, I started doing what I now jokingly call my “marketing meditation” hour! This is where I get to a quiet place – with nothing but a comfortable chair and my moleskine notebook – and think. I shut off the computer and turn off the phones.

I don’t know if I am actually meditating – cuz when I actually come up with a cool idea I will pause and write it down in my notebook. But I am going to call it that whether anyone likes it or not!

And I just sit there for an hour. Doing nothing – nothing but thinking about an ongoing and/or upcoming project that require a little creativity.

Usually, I am easily distracted by the phone or a pinging blackberry – and I lose concentration and current thoughts. I really have to force myself to remove those distractions. And it’s hard…

I have read for a long time that doing things like this helps remove stress, recharges mental batteries, etc. I think for me, it is really just disciplining myself not to let the phone or email distract me. But I am so pleased with the results when I perform this exercise – I really do achieve some fresh ideas and new thinking.

Point is, we all need to find a way to put ourselves in our own creative mode. For some, it’s exercise. For others, it’s brainstorming with others. Find your way.

What strategy do you employ when you need some creative thinking?

Be Intrepid.

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We present our second blogging and social media workshop for 2009.

Conducted by Russell Fair and Todd Schnick, the workshop will take place on Saturday, 18 APRIL 2009!

Workshop goes from 10:00AM to 3:00PM.

LOCATION:

Harry Norman, Realtors
3744 Roswell Road
Atlanta, GA  30342

Bring your laptop – there will be wifi available (we encourage live event Tweeting!). And lunch will be served (if you are counting on a healthy balanced meal from the two of us – don’t).

Fee will be $100 (the first few people who DM me on Twitter get in for $50 per).

Russell Fair will teach you about BLOGGING:

• What is the right blogging platform for you?
• Plug-ins and other cool tools.
• Maximize your SEO strength.
• Commenting and “Blogging by thirds!”
• How to grow subscribers and increase traffic!

Todd Schnick will teach you about SOCIAL MEDIA. Here is his program from the last workshop!

To reserve a spot (limited seating) call me at 404.931.0969, email me at todd@intrepid-llc.com, or leave a comment below!

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A new logo designed for ML Healthcare…

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Here is an outline of my social media presentation at today’s workshop:

SOCIAL MEDIA – ASSUMPTIONS

• There is no clear definition.
• There are no clear cut rules.
• The learning NEVER stops.
• It works differently for each individual person and business.
• Gotta be part of the conversation/Connect and share.
• Transparency.

SOCIAL MEDIA – GUIDELINES

• Networking Rules Apply.
• It’s NOT about YOU.
• Size doesn’t matter.
• Give value – ALWAYS!
• You DO need a strategy.
• It’s just one part of your marketing.
• Communications/PR/Branding
• Measure/Track results

SOCIAL MEDIA – YOUR GOALS

• Build community.
• Distribute Thought Leadership.
• Build BRAND.
• Build AWARENESS.
• Become known as an EXPERT.
• Get to know PROSPECTS.
• DEVELOP YOUR OWN PROCESS/SYSTEM!

SOCIAL MEDIA – BUSINESS APPLICATIONS

• Listen to the chatter (about you, your business, your industry, your competition)
• It’s just one of several touch points…moving the buying cycle along!
• Customer Feedback – build more LOYALTY?
• Market Research – Surveys/On-line polls
• Customer Hotline
• Improve the customer experience (both pre-purchase and post-purchase)

SOCIAL MEDIA  – THE TOOLS

• Blogs (blog by thirds)
• Twitter
• Facebook/MySpace
• Podcasts/Video
• YouTube/Flickr
• Bookmarking Sites – Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Technorati, Alltop

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I was fortunate to be invited to appear on Stone Payton’s High Velocity Radio show earlier this week.

My second appearance on the show, Stone, producer Lee Kantor, and myself had a great discussion on social media.

Click here to listen!

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Be An Intrepid Marketer – Recommendation No. 20

Guest Post by Rebekah Lovell

Twitter has really made a difference in my business since I’ve learned how to ‘give back’ to the online community and reciprocate any help or advice I receive. I participate in a weekly chat called #Journchat that’s a mix of people related to my field. The rapidly paced conversation sparks new ideas, provoking thoughts, and questions for best practices.

I always learn something new, share my opinions and views, and end up with a few good contacts and about 100 new followers at the end of the night. You’ve got nothing to lose and are probably missing a lot of value and potential profits by not networking with your Twitter Posse and adding to it!

Here’s My System for Participating in Twitter Chats:

• Research for chats relevant to your industry or interest on www.search.twitter.com
• You can search for key words or phrases that will be marked with a # sign, meaning ‘Hash tag.’ Ex: Small Business Owner looking for a chat? #sbbuzz
• Find out the times of the weekly chats and plan to log on accordingly-‘coming in’ late is rude and a disruption to the flow of the conversation
• Choose an application for following the chat such as TweetGrid or TweetFall
• Once in the chat, follow any rules in context for participation, these are common sense rules such as play fairly, don’t self promote the whole time, and stay on topic. Don’t get called out for being out of line, not a good way to bring attention to yourself!
• The general game plan for chats is set up for a few minutes of introductions (You say hello to everyone and tell what you do), questions and conversation for the majority of the chat, followed by a general session or promotion time at the end
• Pay attention and ‘listen’ to other’s contributions. Give back thoughtful input and insight-this not only lands you followers and friends, but may get you ReTweeted as well across the chat-maximizing your exposure and visibility
• ReTweet any great content you feel needs to be seen again
• Promote yourself at the end or at relevant times but not excessively
• During chat, you can “Favorite” tweets to look at later. This is a great way to bookmark content for yourself when the conversation is moving too fast to really take note of good content
• “Favoriting” certain tweets can also be a reminder to go back after the chat and Follow these thought leaders
• After sign off, make a point to sort through your new followers and thank them and/or Follow them as well

Still not convinced of Twitter’s relevance? Read how one business owner doubled his customers with this microblogging tool. Also, my personal success story may have some worthwhile tips for you.

(Hope you’ll join us for #brandchat on Wednesday – all about branding!)

You can find Rebekah’s blog here, or follow her on Twitter!

Be Intrepid.

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Be An Intrepid Marketer, Recommendation No. 19

When I first joined Twitter (feels like ages ago), I selfishly believed it was the perfect tool to promote my latest blog post.

If you spend even a few minutes monitoring chatter on Twitter, someone inevitably says something along the lines of “it’s not about you – it’s about a relationship.”

How right they are. Oh sure, I still drop notes on my latest posts – because I do really think they will be of value to a few people. But it is so much more than that.

People ask me every day why they should spend time on Twitter. I tell them it is an easy way to meet NEW people – to bring new people into your community.

And that is today’s tip on being an intrepid marketer – just start a conversation. That’s it. To me, Twitter is the closest thing to face-to-face networking as you get in social media. But you have to take INITIATIVE to start a conversation.

But networking is only successful when you can provide value to your new friend – value that maybe – just maybe – will be repaid someday. And it seems to me – more often than not – it is easier to do that on Twitter than at the Chamber mixer. Why? A lot easier to immediately send them an article, a white paper, the name of new connection, or a referral – right then and there.

So jump on Twitter. Find a conversation going on – and join in. Don’t worry – it’s encouraged. I promise you will make new connections – and strong ones at that. And you just never know – someday they might be your next client. Or at least refer you one…

Be Intrepid.

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