6 Cold Truths about Building New Business in 2010

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Strategy and Focus

Yesterday I was working with a serious professional on how to use the Internet to grow his national business. He had sent me a list of questions about strategy, productivity, time management, SEO and directories, how to use Twitter, how to write stronger headlines, and how to follow Chris Brogan’s advice from the SOBCon2010 webinar that online business should concentrate on finding revenue. We looked at his blog for a few moments and talked about what makes a compelling blog post.

Strategy and new business is all focus and knowing the cold truth.

6 Cold Truths about Building New Business

My business client said some thing like,

“I’m having so much fun figuring out Twitter. It’s hard to know that I’m doing the right things with my time.” I suggested he Google, “I’m addicted to Twitter” to see that he’s not alone.

Part of the Internet addiction is the lovely relationships and community that it brings to us. Keeping that going can be very alluring, even when it takes our time and focus away things that might be earning. Managing time and ourselves as we build and manage our relationships is crucial to surviving and thriving as a business.

Until you know and feel your focus as an Internet citizen, review these these cold truths often.

1. Perceived productivity won’t move you forward. Tweaking a blog, updating a status, and talking on Twitter can all be useful business actions. But stop often to make sure what you’re doing is on the path to getting new business and not work that doesn’t connect to it. Everyday I see folks who talk on Twitter only to their friends … as if some customers or clients will “discover” them. Just as often I guide folks who spend all of their time working their blogs, never meeting a potential client - kind of like someone who stays home forever, dressing up every night to go out, wondering why a date never shows.
2. Your friends don’t owe you work. A wonderful and cherished ethic of the social web is “givers get.” It’s true, but don’t over-invest in it. It’s not about friends taking their time, their work, and their reputation to build your business for you. We start our work lives getting told what to do and it seems natural to go to our friends and say “put me to work for you.” But a simple “what can I do to help you?” puts the work of finding your strengths, carving out a role, and figuring out how you might fit into their business on them. That’s asking more than most folks have time to do.
3. An idea is not an offer. Have you noticed that ideas are everywhere, but people who execute on their ideas are fairly rare? If you want to work with someone, go beyond the idea to a plan that shows at least in broad brush strokes how the idea would roll out. Be able to explain the benefits, the timing, and the budget. Even if the client you approach can’t buy in, he or she will be able to tell you more specific reasons. You can tweak the plan and have something tangible to present to the next one.
4. Most new business is outside your current network. It’s fun to hang on Twitter and talk about business with our colleagues. It’s also easy. We already know where to who’s there and how to start the conversation. But new clients and customers are usually not the people in our existing networks. Move into circles and networks that don’t know you or what you offer.
5. Negotiation is never about your goals. Align your goals for funding revenue with the goals of the folks you want to buy in. If you can sit on the same side of the table and show how doing what you want will make them a hero while it also makes their jobs easier, smarter, and more meaningful, then you’ll get the attention you’re looking for.
6. You can’t stay offline. You can’t stay online. Growing businesses are learning that a seamless existence of multiple channels that reach out to clients and customers. Telephone and email are still great social tools and many deals still need to get sealed in person. Don’t make the mistake of thinking the tools determine your strategy. Your customers and the worlds they habit do.

As the recession eases, you might notice that we’re hearing less and less about following links and “shiny objects.” Businesses are realizing that time well invested on the Internet can reap huge benefits.

What other cold truths do we need to know about building new business? Bet you know one I’ve missed.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Irresistible Value Proposition … Won’t You Always Wonder What Might Have Been?

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The Proposition of the Old Spice Super Bowl Man

blockquote>Designers of the former type loved the theater of their demos. They loved an audience. They loved performing. Designers of the latter kind of demo preferred participants to spectators. They wanted to watch people having fun with their inventions instead of putting on a show. Their demos weren’t props — they were playgrounds. — Let Your Customers Persuade Themselves

Both can work. Yet both depend on how well the features of the product are communicated in the demonstrations. These days allowing people to interact can have limitations … such as getting the people and the product into the same real time space.

Either way, could bring a customer to find what we’re selling is remarkable and worth purchasing. But neither will necessarily about the irresistible value proposition … that we, our brand, or our product knocks all competition out of the field.

For that to be so, we need to add one further idea that this ad from Old Spice does beautifully.

The message is in every frame:

• he gets it — seamless, flawless work.
• he sees you need — heart.
• and you’ll have getting things done with him.

Did you notice how it doesn’t seem self-promotional or pitchy? Despite the humorous over-stating of his abilities. Imagine just walking into meeting and talking about who you are, what you brand and your products do that the others can’t. When we are fully expressed in our message it looks like that.

Simply stated it sounds like … “Work with all of the rest, they aren’t me.”

Look at them. Look at me.
Look at them. Look at me.
Won’t you always wonder what might have been, if you choose other than me?

A true value proposition sets you apart from the rest of the world.

And delivers on that promise consistently.

What’s your irresistible value proposition?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Want help with your value proposition? !!

When we want to get a customer interested in ourselves, our brand, or our products … common wisdom has been that we can sell them — give them a demo and tell them — or we can let them sell themselves, give them a problem and let them use the product to solve it.

3 Serious Benefits of Social Media for Entrepreneurs Testing the Tools

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A Guest Post by Brenda Harris

We live in a social world, one that has not only completely redefined terms in the English language, but also invented new ones to fit the changing face of communication. “Friends” now refers to people who barely know you but connect on your social network page. “Tweets” refer to communications sent out using Twitter not the sound from a bird, and “unfriend” is now a legitimate English word that describes the process of removing someone from your list of friends on a social networks such as Facebook.

In short, social media is taking the world by storm, and if you haven’t jumped on this bandwagon, you can bet you’re going to be left far behind.

The atmosphere is less informal. The people on your pages are called your friends or followers, but that does not mean that entrepreneurs and businessmen can discount social media. They do so at their own peril. Taking advantage of social media is a powerful and inexpensive way to promote and market your business. Social media tools help business keep a finger on the pulse what’s happening in the world.

Entrepreneurs can gain three serious benefits by tapping into the power of social media:

• Visibility: When businesses establish a presence on the Internet and actively use social media tools, they become more visible to both current and potential customers. They customer relationships, awareness, and knowledge, which in turn can get customers interested in their products and services.

  Social media is takes time in order to reap its immense benefits as a marketing tool, but as you develop relationships, your customers become part of your effort. They talk about you and your products when they become fans of your page or follow you on social networks. Sometimes they talk so much the ideas go viral …they get others to view your pages and decide if they want to jump on the bandwagon too.

• Awareness: When entrepreneurs make the effort to find and meet their customers on social networking sites, entrepreneurs are able to keep abreast of what people are saying about their business. Whatever people are saying, good or bad, the entrepreneurs can be part of the conversation. They’re aware and can respond to correct the misinformation, fix the mistake, or change the situation in ways that build stronger relationships.
• Relevance: Social media is a great way for entrepreneurs of all ages to stay current and keep their finger on the pulse of the business world. Information about new tools and trends is readily available. Entrepreneurs can move quickly to modify products and services to cater to changing needs of their customers. In other words, social media makes it easier to stay current.

Social media tools are more than just new communication tools – when entrepreneurs harness the people power behind the tools to connect with customers in the right way, small businesses grow and reputations are made.

If you’re just starting in social media, what scares you?

—

Brenda Harris writes on the topic of online executive mba programs.

Thanks, Brenda!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Social Media List: Tweets, Business and Getting Started in a Career

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A Weekly Series by Teresa Morrow

I’m Teresa Morrow, Founder of Key Business Partners, LLC and I work with authors and writers by managing their online promotion. As part of my job I read a lot of books (and I love to read anyway!).  I am here to offer a weekly post about one book I am working with and one book I have put on my reading list. The books will cover topics such as social media (Facebook and Twitter), organization, career building, networking, writing and self development and inspiration.

#EntryLevel Tweet: Taking Your Career from Classroom to Cubicle

This week I would like to start off with a book I have read and working with entitled #EntryLevel Tweet by Heather Huhman.

When asked why she wrote #EntryLevel Tweet, Heather replies, “Hiring managers expect young professionals to be job hunting experts. And there’s a strong need for quick, easy-to-digest
information about entry-level job searching.”

When I was reading #EntryLevel Tweet I found myself shaking my head in affirmation because many  of the things stated in the book are right on. Such as:

~You need to choose a career that makes you happy and excited about going to work, but remember that not every day on the job will be fun. —>there is some part, it may only be 1% of your job, that you will not like doing as part of your job.

Also, she adds, Don’t beat yourself up for not making the right choice at first–most of us don’t! —>How true this is! I was going to be a marine biologist, until I went to college and found out I was not as good as math and science as I thought I once was in this subjects.

Huhman then goes on to discuss how the world for those seeking their first job out of college has changed. “Even in a candidate saturated market, there are many more (and better) ways to get in front of hiring managers than there used to be. —>Oh, yes, this is certainly true. There are people who can do a video resume for you. *Actually that is how my niece landed her first job as a reporter.

She continues to help recent grads by providing them stepping stones to secure the proper tools to obtain in order to be more successful at landing the job.

About the Author:

Heather R. Huhman is a career expert and Founder of Come Recommended, an exclusive online community connecting the best internship and entry-level job candidates with the best employers. As an experienced hiring manager and someone who has been in nearly every employment-related situation imaginable, Heather knows and understands the needs of today’s employers and internship and entry-level job seekers.

Her expertise in this area led to her selection as Examiner.com’s entry-level careers columnist in mid-2008. The daily, national column educates high school students through recent college graduates about how to find, land, and succeed at internships and entry-level jobs.

You can pick up your copy of #EntryLevel Tweet here.

@collegegrads read this #book if you want a quick, easy-to-read guide on how to go from a confused graduate to a confident entry-level worker.”
Dan Schawbel, @danschawbel, Author of ‘Me 2.0:Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success’

Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant

Now it is time for me to share with you a book I have not read but it is on my reading list. My choice for this week is Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne and published by Harvard Business School Press.

Blue Ocean Strategy provides a systematic approach to making the competition irrelevant. In this frame-changing book, Kim and Mauborgne present a proven analytical framework and the tools for successfully creating and capturing blue oceans. Examining a wide range of strategic moves across a host of industries, Blue Ocean Strategy highlights the six principles that every company can use to successfully formulate and execute blue ocean strategies. The six principles show how to reconstruct market boundaries, focus on the big picture, reach beyond existing demand, get the strategic sequence right, overcome organizational hurdles, and build execution into strategy.

About the Authors:

W. Chan Kim is Co-Director of the INSEAD Blue Ocean Strategy Institute and The Boston Consulting Group Bruce D. Henderson Chair Professor of Strategy and International Management at INSEAD, France.

Renee Mauborgne is The INSEAD Distinguished Fellow and a professor of strategy at INSEAD. She is also Co-Director of the INSEAD Blue Ocean Strategy Institute.

You can purchase your copy on Amazon.

Will Your Brand Survive the Culture Shock and Thrive on the Social Web?

Filed Under Business Life, Marketing, Successful Blog | 4 Comments

New Tribes, New Rules

It seems like every day now I meet someone who is trying to make sense of the social web. Most folks seem to understand that something important is happening, but just can’t connect to the value of what they’re seeing.

The social web is a vibrant new culture. Corporations, small business, and individuals are bringing their best to be a part of what’s happening.

47 million websites were added in 2009.
The web is a new culture occurring in a new virtual space.
Talking through a computer or smart phone doesn’t return the same results as talking in person does.

It helps to start out knowing that.

We Have the Problem of Speaking the Same Language

Anyone who’s been a military brat or moved around for their professional life knows that every new location meant learning the rules of the new school and the new community. Somehow that cultural difference is easier to see when we go to a foreign land, where the language has different sounds and a different alphabet. With such obviously linguistic differences we’re more likely to expect differences in values, traditions and how how people choose to connect into business and social groups and tribes.

When I traveled internationally, it took me about three years to identify those same cultural differences in the English speaking countries. We had the disadvantage of speaking the same language. So we often thought we were saying or doing the appropriate thing — We thought the same words meant the same things. We thought we were doing what worked in one place … but found it didn’t work in another.

I once signed a contract with an Australian friend. I thought it described a partnership. As things progressed I realized she thought she had engaged a channel of distribution. Each of us behaved according the premise we believed. Until we figured that out, we were constantly wondering why the other didn’t behave.

Will Your Brand Survive the Culture Shock of the Social Web?

Whenever we meet a new culture, we have the problem of figuring out what’s the same to all humans, what’s just our individuality, and what’s the culture. It’s no wonder that wise folks approach the social web with varying degrees of caution, suspicion, or confusion, fearing missteps or problems. It’s still a bit foreign that people connect via computers and smart phones. For others, it’s a problem of learning a new set of social rules and words that have different meanings in different contexts.

Until we sort those, we can be in a bit of a culture shock. After studying the tradtional symptoms of culture shock, I find that online, culture shock shares these common characteristics. The ones I list here are those that apply to both individuals and brands. With each I’ve added some ways to help you survive the culture shock to thrive on the social web.

• Sadness, loneliness, melancholy; Lack of confidence; Feelings of inadequacy or insecurity; Feelings of being lost, overlooked, exploited or abused — Does the sheer volume of noise on the Internet overwhelm you and minimize your effort? Does so much noise sometimes make it seem like you or your brand will never get the attention and respect that could be, should be, or once was yours? Find a community where your message makes sense. You’ll be louder and make faster progress.
• Loss of identity; Preoccupation with health — the health of your business. Have you less idea of who you, your brand, and your customers are now than you did when you got here? Do you or your brand find advisors to help you focus on a healthy Internet presence? Do you blame lack of productivity on Internet ADD and then seek out facts to prove it? Do you treat the Internet as a huge time sink? Are you overly occupied with statistics and connections that are meaningless to building your business? Look to what healthy online businesses are doing. Talk to the people who run and advise them. Learn what goals drive them.
• Insomnia, desire to sleep too much or too little; Unable to solve simple problems — Do you or your business have trouble stepping away from the computer? Do you binge blog and then avoid it? Have you gotten so caught up in the tools and numbers of followers that you no longer know how to fix simple issues without turning them into bigger problems? Do you meet your online customers offline? Develop habits that match the habits of your audience or the people you want to reach. Talk with them, write for them regularly where they are and when they are online. Their feedback will be the support to keep things going. Not every online problem needs to be solved online.
• Changes in temperament, depression, feeling vulnerable, feeling powerless — Does it overly affect you or your brand when you don’t get enough pageviews or a response from an influencer on Twitter? Are you certain those are good metrics? Do you spend the right amount of time figuring out why? Keep the Internet in perspective. It’s only one piece of a total business plan. Now more than ever, we need to be meeting our customers and friends online and off. Have a true strategy. Choose a mission and goals that support growing your brand and your business. Then choose the tools that will systematically move those goals forward in a realistic and practical way.
• Identifying with the old culture or idealizing the old country — Do you play a defensive game? Do you or your business try to make the web work the same as the offline world? Do you hold on to the old tools and the old office rules because they once made your business successful? Pick up the tools and learn how the culture uses them. Look for how the new ways make your business faster, easier, and more meaningful to you and your customers.
• Trying too hard to absorb everything in the new culture or country — Are you or your brand willing to join with a beginner’s mind? Pace yourself to set simple goals, meet one friend, and learn one tool at a time. Cultures, like businesses, are built, learned, and grow over time.
• Developing stereotypes about the new culture — Do you or your brand believe that “the Internet is the Wild West,” “Twitter is narcissism,” “Bloggers work in the PJ’s” or any other stereotypes? Putting people who want to buy from you into boxes with labels is not a great way win their interest and loyalty.

Culture shock is a lot less when you find a friend who can translate what’s happening and introduce you to others who live the culture every day. Don’t let the tools decide how you act, lead with the relationships you make.

As my friend, Chris Brogan says … “it’s always about the people.”

Great countries and great companies have been built by ideas and innovations that develop when two cultures connect. The key is being aware that VALUES ARE THE KEY TO BUILDING VALUE.
Listen, engage, interact, learn, and meet up at the core of the matter where our values align well.

What are the keys to integrating into this new culture of the social web?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz to learn the culture of the social web!!

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