Successful Blog

Pay Attention to the Questions

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Rosemary O’Neill

Answer Questions, Build Relationships with your Prospects

In the classic movie Diner, Eddie subjects his fiancee to a 140-question quiz on Baltimore Colts football trivia in order to go through with the wedding. He loves Elyse, but is compelled to make sure she shares his passion for the Colts before getting hitched.

Have you noticed that your customers are constantly quizzing you, prodding, poking, trying to determine if you are a correct “fit” with their needs and mission? That you share their passion?

Pay attention to the questions


Flickr: Questions count

We’ve started using a gadget that allows visitors to ask questions via live chat on our corporate website. The results have been startling.

By offering a conduit for communication before the sale is made, we have learned what prospects are wondering, what content is missing from our website, how people are finding us, and where they might be confused about the product. In the live chat, they can quiz us with buying questions as well as relationship questions.

We save the transcripts from the chats and use them for sales training, content planning, website updates, and even technical support.

Find ways to bond in case you fail the quiz
Some buyers approach you with a detailed checklist of questions, often prepared by a committee. Many times these checklists include everything from “pie in the sky” dreams to absolute must-have items. It’s your job to help them sort out what’s important, and along the way, start building trust (Steven Covey on trust building: http://www.leadershipnow.com/CoveyOnTrust.html).

Along the path of sorting out the customer’s true needs, find nuggets of common ground to start building on. Train your mind to actively seek out points of connection. It could be with humor, common experiences, or commiserating over something. That’s the foundation of a real human relationship, which is essential for long-term customer retention.

Key takeaways for today:

  • Start building trust with prospects from the first impression
  • Provide a way to listen to and engage with questions
  • Be honest about what you can or can’t do
  • Share lessons-learned and common questions across your business
  • Build a strong enough human relationship that you can survive the “checklist”

Oh, and Elyse did fail the sports quiz by two points. He married her anyway.

Are you building relationships with your prospects so that they’ll marry you anyway?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Thank you, Rosemary!

You’re irresistible!

ME “Liz” Strauss

Humanize your LinkedIn Profile

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Rosemary O’Neill

Your LinkedIn profile can be a powerful calling card, even if you’re not looking for a new job. It will often show up on the first page of search results for your name in Google (try it), so why not take a moment to give it some personality?

Who’s searching for you?

In my case, I received two different invitations to speak at events after adding “speaker” to my LinkedIn profile. Coincidence? I also found out that my company had been highlighted on a “companies to watch” list based on the work we put into our corporate LinkedIn presence.

Both your personal and your corporate LinkedIn pages should reflect your style, personality, tone, and mission. Donâ’t make the mistake of using “corporate-speak” in your profile summary (unless you talk that way, in which case…stop it).

We’re all there to do business

Recent updates have made LinkedIn more visually appealing and more user-friendly, which may mean that more people are taking a second look. After all, Liz told you four years ago to start taking advantage of LinkedIn’s secret superpowers.


Humanize Your LinkedIn Profile

What are you waiting for?

Humanize your LinkedIn Profile

Grab those eyeballs with some LinkedIn profile bells and whistles:

  • Use your own tone of voice in your profile summary, and tell your story
  • Fill in the Volunteer Experience section; it makes you a whole person
  • Try adding the ReadingList app to show what books you’re reading
  • Add the SlideShare Presentation app and upload your marketing “deck”
  • Don’t forget to ask for recommendations when it’s appropriate, human voices on your profile are very compelling (be generous with your own recommendations too)
  • Try hard to include photo or video with your status updates

LinkedIn has said that they are working on enhancements to the company pages too, so start thinking about how you might spiff up your corporate presence as well!

Is your LinkedIn profile telling your story with pizzazz?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Thank you, Rosemary!

You’re irresistible!

ME “Liz” Strauss

Energize! Act like a startup

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by
Rosemary O’Neill

Energize! Act like a startup

You don’t have to work in a high-ceilinged loft in San Francisco to take advantage of startup wisdom. The energy, passion, and fast pace of startup culture has a lot to offer almost any business.

It’s not all about the perks

We did have a foosball table in the early days of our company, but what we discovered is that everyone appreciates less tangible perks. A collegial atmosphere, where everyone is respected for their ideas, is much more important than Aeron chairs.

Lessons you can take from startup culture

  • Go all in. Sleep under your desk if you have to.
  • Appreciate your colleagues.
  • Don’t build any internal silos; everyone pitches in.
  • Maintain your hunger for the mission; gather true believers around you.
  • Get all excited over every new customer.
  • Take advantage of guerrilla (free) PR and marketing opportunities.

Even if you’ve been in business for a long time, you can incorporate some of the ideas that make startups successful. But you don’t have to eat Ramen noodles.

What can you do this week to inject some startup energy and passion into your business?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Thank you, Rosemary!

You’re irresistible!

ME “Liz” Strauss

How to make your own rules

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Rosemary O’Neill

Why you must ignore the food police AND the social media police

Eggs, coffee, wine, chocolate. This is just the short list of items that have been forbidden by the food police and then discovered to have benefits (thank heavens).

Automation, daily posting, subscriber popups, list posts. Social media gurus will jerk you around too.

The bottom line is that any prescriptive formula is not going to work for everyone.

I’m freeing you from the police.

When I was in the final weeks of my pregnancy with twins, my doctor prescribed a pint of premium brand ice cream nightly. (Let that sink in.)

What the heck?

Turns out that a pint of Haagen Dasz contains protein and calcium, as well as a big chunk of the calories that unborn twins consume. So while the “food police” would tell you NEVER to do that, I’m convinced that my preemie babies had fewer problems at birth because of ice cream.

Tweetable: When it comes to social media, do what’s right for your own business goals, not anyone else’s.

How to make your own rules

Write before you read – First thing in the morning, review your mission/goals, then do some content creation free of other people’s musings.

Look at your own data – Google Analytics can be intimidating, but it’s worth learning how to use it. As a free tool, it offers crazy good insights into how your website and your social content is resonating.

Pay attention to who has your ear – It makes a great headline to say, “8:00AM is the best time of day to Tweet,” or “Why you should NEVER post on weekends.” But is that advice right for you specifically? What if your audience is working moms, and you catch them with free time to read on the weekend?

Gurus are people too – Remember that the so-called experts are writing from their own perspective, based on their own experiences, which may not match yours. Also, they can be wrong.

Take a moment today to ask yourself why you are doing things a certain way. If it doesn’t move you toward your business goals, kick it to the curb!

Is there any social media advice you’re following blindly right now?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Thank you, Rosemary!

You’re irresistible!

ME “Liz” Strauss

Perception Is Reality

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Rosemary O’Neill

Success in Life, Business, and Golf

Perception is Reality

“Our policy is clearly written on the website.”
“Did he read the product manual?”
“That’s in paragraph 3c of the contract.”

And yet he is still disgruntled. Disappointed. Upset. Irate.

When it comes to customer service, perception is reality.

You can be right all day long and lose a customer for life. Or you can let the customer be right and gain an evangelist.

This is a key differentiating factor for the human-centered organization. In the traditional business, the representative simply points to the sign that says “no refunds” and closes the window. They shield themselves in the armor of policy.

In the humanized, socialized business, the representative is empowered to acknowledge the customer’s pain, and do something to alleviate it. There is a level of recognition and trust that the interaction between customer and business is a human to human relationship. There is a level of vulnerability that is often uncomfortable for a business.

If the customer feels that she has been wronged, then she has been wronged. And the 10 friends that she tells will share in her perception. In the end, that’s all there is.

Does that mean you have to cave to every customer demand? It’s worked out pretty well for Nordstrom over the years, but you have to do your own calculus. If you choose to “armor up,” do it with the knowledge that you are making a choice about your business. In that moment, you are deciding whether that person fits your customer profile or not.

You are building the perception and the reality.

Are your organization’s representatives empowered to build an awesome reality?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Thank you, Rosemary!

You’re irresistible!

ME “Liz” Strauss

Jump start your social media planning with Tony Robbins

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by
Rosemary O’Neill

Success in Life, Business, and Golf

Social media planning with help from Tony Robbins

Time to jump up on your chair and say “AYE!” No more messing around with a wimpy Facebook post here and a lame Youtube video there. Your social media plan should be vibrant, purposeful, and radiating crackling energy, just like live wire Tony Robbins.

How does he do it? He uses something called the “Rapid Planning Method” (or RPM). With RPM, you chunk your to do list into a few desired outcomes, and then take immediate, massive action to achieve them.

Tony Robbins is the reason I’ve been blogging here every week for almost a year. “Submit guest post to Liz Strauss” was an item in my massive action plan. At the time, I thought it was crazy on the level of “train to be an astronaut,” but guess what? When you achieve one crazy goal, it gives you the confidence to reach out for the next one. I’m thinking coffee in NYC with Seth Godin would be cool.

Jump start your social media planning with help from Tony Robbins

I thought it would be interesting to apply RPM to social media planning specifically.

Here’s your worksheet:

What specific result do I want to achieve? (For example, increase traffic to my corporate website.)

Why do I want it? (Could be to increase opportunity to convert customers.)

What is my massive action plan? (Write down two actions you can take today, right now, and then a list of action items for this week, the next 30 days, and the next 90 days.)

“Never leave the site of a decision without doing something towards its achievement.” (Tony Robbins).

Let’s go knock off a couple things from our list right now.

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Thank you, Rosemary!

You’re irresistible!

ME “Liz” Strauss