Successful Blog

FIRST, GIVE UP CONTROL

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A Guest Post by
Rosemary O’Neill

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It’s so easy to get caught up in trying to control every detail of your business. But if you’re trying to be real, be human, then control is all an illusion.

Part of being human is being messy, unpredictable, and wrong sometimes. Part of being a human-centered business is accepting messiness, being OK with unpredictability, and admitting when you are wrong.

There’s a scene in the Steve Martin movie Parenthood where the grandma compares life to a rollercoaster—you can either be terrified or thrilled by the ups and downs. And it’s the same way in business. When a deal doesn’t go your way, or a key employee decides to leave, or the power goes out at your data center (yeah that happens), you get to choose how to react. Choose grace and humor, and everybody wins.

Here are three ways to enjoy the rollercoaster:

1. Surround yourself with others who are thrilled.

2. Fasten your seatbelt (be sure you are as prepared as you can be, with options).

3. Remind yourself every day that the only thing you can control is your own attitude.

1.2.3. Go!

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

Are Your Customers Embedded?

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A Guest Post by
Rosemary ONeill

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Last week, my husband and I went out to eat at a new restaurant. It was obviously a family-owned affair. While we were waiting for our food, a guy appeared out of the kitchen hoisting aloft a plate of hot wings. He said, “these are for anyone who wants to try them.” Of course, I had to try them, and they were excellent.

I asked the guy what they were called. He said, “I don’t know, they don’t have a name yet, what do you suggest?” I laughingly said, “call them Rosemary’s Wings!” He said, “we just might do that.”

Do you think I might be curious to revisit that restaurant to see whether my wings are on the menu? You bet. And if they are, do you think I’m likely to return again and again? Yessiree.

That restaurant has the same opportunity all business owners have—to literally embed customers in the business. At my company, we’ve had a long-standing tradition of making little gestures that weave customers into our daily work; naming features after them, using their names on documentation, hiding “Easter Eggs” in the code, and thanking them for suggestions that lead to new software features.

Once a customer has been “embedded,” they have a feeling of investment that is very hard to break, as if your business is their personal project.

What are you doing to make it personal? Is there a small crazy gesture you can make that will earn you a customer-for-life?

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

Boilerplate Will Suck Out Your Soul!

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A Guest Post by
Rosemary ONeill

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Do you know the origin of the word “boilerplate?” Neither did I, until recently. Apparently, in the early part of the 1900’s it was common for large chunks of text intended for mass reproduction to be distributed on heavy-duty sheets (or plates) of steel. Ads, press releases, and other standardized pieces would be stamped into the steel and sent to newspapers for publication. These sheets (or boilerplate) came to represent text that was to be printed with minimal (or no) change.

Today, many businesses use boilerplate text as a time-saver. It might appear in an email response, a customer support document, a press release, or website content. It may be saved in the company Google Docs as “canned response” or “templates.”

Just as the publishing industry has moved away from carting around gigantic steel plates, the rest of us should leave behind the boilerplate language that drags down our communications and keeps us from freely expressing our business proposition.

Let’s challenge ourselves to start with a fresh piece of paper the next time we’re responding to a customer inquiry, a partnership deal, or a journalist request. Perhaps a fresh breeze of inspiration will flow across the page and create some magic.

Do you have any musty boilerplate paragraphs that need to go into the shredder? Yeah, me too.

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

Thanks, Rosemary!

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

Do You Rely on Analytics to Tell the Whole Story?

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A Guest Post by
Rosemary O’Neill

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The Tools Only Get You Halfway There

Many tools offer to help you analyze your customer community, so that you can capture the elusive “ROI.” These tools evaluate a multitude of data points, including number of followers, likes, blog comments, retweets, etc., to come up with the success equation. Small businesses can be overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of starting from zero in all of these social categories.

However, I propose that numbers only get you halfway there. The other half is composed of humanity. Information like, “dog’s name,” “has 3 kids,” “is insanely into photography.” The reason that is often left out in the cold is because it’s hard to automate that kind of connection. That type of information is only really gleaned from a steady stream of interactions over a long period of time. And many of us don’t invest the time to build up that data.

There’s an old-school sales trick that says when you walk into someone’s office, you look around and take note of the family pictures, fishing trophies, or other personal items on the desk. Those can be used to start conversations and begin building a connection…”hey, I went to UVa too!” If you want to build up your humanity data, you need to do the digital version of that; i.e., take note of the human information that is available online.

I’m not suggesting cyberstalking in a creepy way, but if your customer is sharing his/her interests publicly, it’s fairly easy to build on that. Here are some concrete ideas:

  • Build a web of connections, via Twitter, LinkedIn, or other networks
  • Promote your customers’ projects and content
  • Work on expanding the ways you connect—if it’s all digital, try the phone. If you’ve always emailed, try finding them elsewhere.
  • When you respond, try to read-up first. If your customer is reaching out to you on your FB page, why not show them you know them. Same with Twitter followbacks.
  • Find ways to allow your customers to be “whole people” in your community, include an area for off-topic socializing. And allow your reps to be human too.

The bonus is that, by including human data, you also build in “delight,” as people recognize that they’re being noticed. And that’s priceless.

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

Thank you, Rosemary! People like you are easy to remember and fun to do business with! 🙂

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

Is It Time to Bring the Social Business Back Home?

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A Guest Post by
Rosemary O’Neill

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Where are you having your most important conversations?

You’ve been wandering in the wilderness of social networking sites and tools, throwing content against the wall over and over again to see what sticks. Perhaps you’ve even built up a respectable base of fans or followers. But all of that won’t add up to a hill of beans if you can’t use it to move your business objectives forward. If you don’t have a permanent, active “hub” on your own website, you’re missing the boat on the best part of social media—the ability to draw together a wonderful community around your brand or business.

It’s time to reassess your strategy and take a look at the following:

  • Do you own the majority of the content you are creating every day? If it lives on Facebook, you don’t. If it lives on Twitter, you’d better be archiving or it’s gone after a week or so. Create evergreen content on your own website and you get to reap the value for years to come.
  • Are you building long-term equity with your customers/fans/followers? Research is showing that many social network fans stop following a brand as soon as the promotion is over, whereas most online community members tend to stick around. They even have the ability to help each other directly, building customer-to-customer relationships that further strengthen your community.
  • Will you wake up tomorrow to an unwanted change in your pages? You could be building castles in the air unless you control your online community platform. For example, Facebook decided to remove discussion tabs last week (you have until the end of October to find an alternative); why not build a permanent residence on your own site?

All of this does not mean you should abandon efforts on social networking sites; to the contrary, the ideal situation is to build an amazing online community on your own website (include blogs, forums, chats, media sharing, whatever suits your purposes), and then use your presence on the external social sites to draw conversation and traffic back to your community.

What are you doing to invite the conversation back home?

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Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata. Check out their blog. You can find her on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Thank you, Rosemary! See you on Twitter! 🙂

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