Successful Blog

Book Yourself into the Book Yourself Solid Webinar

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I love this! Check it out…

It’s hard to believe that any individual I’ve helped focus a business hasn’t heard me say, “Get Michael Port’s book, Book Yourself Solid.” I keep it on the stand by my bed. It’s a timeless book that delivers on the title by explaining in clear easy steps how to build a solid practice through focus on and care for the people you serve.

So it was pretty darn exciting to me when I spoke on the phone with Michael Port this week and he said that he has created a quick, easy, and inexpensive way for you to get all the richness of his experience in a 2-day webinar in September.

I’m not kidding. This is something very cool. It is not online marketing or get rich quick. It’s systematic and professional business building that sticks.

If you know my blog at all in 5 years, I’ve rarely taken on an affiliate relationship.

However, I want to support this program, because it’s the right information at the right time by the right teacher at a price that is way less than I would have expected. (In fact, I so believe in it, I didn’t even ask him what the affiliate relationship is.)

Check it out. See for yourself.
https://michael.infusionsoft.com/go/2day/lstrauss/

Michael’s marketing advice is the best around. He’s also a generous human being who “gets” the value of relationships.

Bottom line: he delivers what he promises.

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

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The Crucial Differences in Reach, Outreach, and Reaching Out

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Reach?

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Changes, variations, mutations, and interpretations have arisen around business “reach.”

Marketing, I think, can be divided into two eras.

The first, the biggest, the baddest and the most impressive was the era in which marketers were able to reach the unreachable. Ads could be used to interrupt people who weren’t intending to hear from you. PR could be used to get a story to show up on Oprah or in the paper, reaching people who weren’t seeking you out.

Sure, there were exceptions to this model (the Yellow Pages and the classifieds, for example), but generally speaking, the biggest wins for a marketer happened in this arena.

We’re watching it die. — Seth’s Blog, Reaching the Unreachable, May 03, 2007

Reach, as in Circulation

In the world of getting a message out to many people, the word reach has traditional meant “circulation,” how many unique people will receive the message we send out. That number has never been truly quantifiable because …

Basically reach is about broadcasting.

  • Consumption of the message is not guaranteed. We all know about TV and TIVO, and newspapers people don’t buy but read … but perhaps a more interesting example is SETI has been broadcasting active Intersellar messages since the early 1970s. No one knows if any have yet been received, decoded, or understood.

    How do you know anyone is listening?

  • Communication is uncertain. We can’t measure whether the message sent is the one received unless we check. The audience may consume a message other than the intended message. The words carry different meaning in different cultures and for different individuals. Voice, tone, word choice all work together within the context of the receiver’s experience and emotional relationship to the message content. A great example is the effect of the Motrin ad on the Motrin Moms.

    How do you know the audience received the message that you sent?

  • Response is unclear. Once the data requires testing samples, the very act of surveying flattens our understanding of the human response. We lose the singularities that add deeper meaning to what moves individuals to act as they do. The trending line graph that shows your message is having an effect doesn’t explain why that’s so. The particularities and individual responses have been leveled out.

    How do you know for certain that you can repeat the same response?

Reach is NOT the number of people who actually are exposed to and actually consume the message, but rather the number who have the OPPORTUNITY to see or hear the message. It might be described as absolute number (1,284,793 million) Twitters, a metaphor (the population of the state of California) or a portion of demographic (74% of the male population between 18-24).

Whether the reach was effective might be a function of time spent with the message or times exposed to the message.

Reach goes broad and far, but establishes minimal relationship between the sender and individual receivers who can inform the process. Relying solely on reach / circulation will always be shooting in the dark.

It’s naive to confuse the act of reaching to actually touching an unknown someone’s mind and heart.

Blogger Outreach to Spread a Message

In the place where Marketing and PR cross the social media, the term, blogger outreach has come to mean identifying bloggers who reach the same audience you do with your products and enlisting (or pitching) them to talk or blog about your products and services to their communities. Done well blogger outreach has the power of moving a message from one trusted friend who knows many to a group of trusting friends who may tell even more. Done less well it can be someone who is simply broadcasting in a new way.

To my mind, blogger outreach is the art of asking people to evangelize to their networks for you. It’s crucial that such things include three things for the message to come through whole, authentic, and as intended.

  • To ensure the message is consumed, the blogger-brand match has to be true and lasting. An authentic message spreads more quickly and more deeply though trust agents who have a mutual commitment to the brand and its values. Campaigns and contests that go quickly don’t really seal the connection between the audience and the brand. It’s easy for a gift meant as a ‘thank you,” to be turned in to an expectation if it’s delivered in the wrong place, at the wrong time, in the wrong way.
    Unsophisticated bloggers with no P&L experience can find the attention heady, competitive, and begin to over-value their input. The act of outreach has to be a relationship — an example of your message in action — not a single date meant to get your message out.

    How do you identify the right partnerships in your “grassroots” blogger outreach efforts? How do you invest in bloggers as partners rather than as channels of distribution?

  • Every outreach interaction has to underscore the credibility of the message. Bloggers are experts at the needs of their communities. Great bloggers have earned their reputation and influence by being filters and standards of visible authenticity. Those bloggers can extend and enhance the power of your message.

    The right bloggers understand the businesses that are a good match for them and their readers in product, service, and philosophy. Tap into their expertise, rather than just a blog post, and you’ll have lasting value and a relationship.

    How do you demonstrate your message by the way you bring partners into your brand?

  • Authentic, relevant experiences inspire messages that communities want to share. Many companies simply hand a product to a blogger and ask for a review. It takes more creative time to develop an experience and a community that connects people around a product, however, those memorable experiences show people how products and services naturally fit into their lives. The time invested in putting things where people need them and use them is appreciated. The Tweet to Drive program that GM is doing in Chicago has fabulous potential for doing just that.

    How do you use all of your creative resources to make your outreach experiences most relevant and authentic?

Leaders are learners who let people participate in building things no one of us could build alone. Don’t just reach out, but bring bloggers into your brand if you want them to understand, own, and protect your message, to stand up for your intentions. Then when a message gets misinterpreted Actively investing time online and off listening to each other and sharing expertise and you will give them reason and opportunity to own, protect, defend what you build.

Reach Out and Touch Someone …

The power of connecting people to people is not a new thing. In 1979, AT&T needed to soften it’s image as a possible monopoly and reconnect with it’s customers in a more human way, Ken, D’Ambrosio, Marshall McLuhan, and N.W. Ayer all contributed to what became the famous “Reach Out and Touch Someone” media campaign. Reach out and touch someone …

Though the AT&T commercial is still broadcast and still the idea of reaching out to touch someone is a great example of what a traditional campaign in as part of an integrated marketing effort might look like today. It shows people connecting because of the experience a product allows.

Reaching out to connect is the goal.

  • Clear messages reach out to connect minds, hearts, and lives. A great message connects minds, touches hearts, and has meaning in people’s lives. It’s about what moves them; not about how we want them to move. Build a message like that and folks will join you.
  • Clear messages get consumed and passed on when they are about the audience. We can grow our businesses by understanding that it has now become easier than ever before to connect. We can to reach out to find great minds who have been where we’re going and invite them to participate in what we’re doing in new and exciting ways that benefit us both.
  • Clear messages reach out to connect through outstanding behavior and satisfying, meaningful experiences — in ones, some, and masses. True relationship one-on-one may not be scalable, but experience, behaviors and values are. We can reach out person by person and throug every action can demonstrate the values we respect to offer outstanding experiences. We can set a standard for what and our customers can count on and expect from us. We can do that in stores, on the phone, via email, in meetings, at trade shows, in all online venues, in every visit off line too.

When we know we’re about growing their business, we listen, use their language, and choose the right tools to meet their goals. Reaching out becomes connecting to their need in a way that lowers the risk and shares the benefits. We raise the goal to something bigger than we could alone.

The crucial differences in reach, outreach, and reaching out are the differences in how well we communicate what we do and how deeply we demonstrate that we do it.

Do you have reach, do outreach, or do you reach out? Do do you all three?

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

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Do You Know Your Limits? Are You Reaching Customers or Confusing Them?

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Are You Thinking Brick and Mortar, but Working Online?

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The first was supposed to be a short phone call with a client about how to get visibility for his book. The second was supposed to be the initial meeting on how to launch a new product.

The question that caused the chaos was simple really …

What group of customers do you want to reach first?

Neither guy wanted to commit. Both were sure that they were meant to sell to everyone.

The problem isn’t who might buy your product, but the visibility, strength, and power of your reach.

Once upon a time, when a store had a location, that a target market was gated by geography. An answer such as

I want to reach every small business.

really meant every small business in a certain in a limited geography. It was too expensive to think much wider than that.

The Advantages of a Location Limited Community

Before the Internet, geographical communities often served as niche markets. Thus the famous mantra, “Location, Location, Location” became important. Location meant traffic and visibility. We could saturate a market simply because it was limited and then go find another market to saturate. Huge companies such as Wal-mart started out just that way.

  • Limited geography meant limited competition. People could only walk or drive so far to get to the product or service they wanted.
  • Limited geography meant limited reach. The local community shared certain values and only grew so large. Our values had to be their values for us to succeed.
  • Limited geography meant visibility and familiarity. When we were the only pizza bar in the neighborhood, the only marketing firm on our street, or the only leadership coach in our neighborhood, location we were a lot easier to see.

We could say that everyone was our customer because everyone was limited to everyone in a certain area. Customers got to know us because we were there every day in the same community.

Do You Know Your Limits? Are You Reaching Customers or Confusing Them?

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Now that we’re online and offline, location is no longer geographic. We need to limit our communities in other ways to get that same visibility, traffic, and saturation before we try to conquer a second community.

Now we have to define our limits so that our customers can see us above the competition in a global playing field.

  • Limit your playing field. You’ll have a clearer picture of what you need to know and how to reach the people you want to reach. Choose service professionals, corporations, or b2b companies.
  • Focus on that specific community or group as your market to raise your visibility and establish your expertise.
  • By picking a limited community, you can be everywhere they are. You can can concentrate on them, their needs and how they change with the context of each new environment. You can the knowledge of intimacy, nuance and depth of experince.

Try to reach everyone and the result will be confusion. Lawyers and People who run Day Care Centers just don’t have the same needs. Even small business owners in different industries recognize when we’re being generic with them. We’re all looking for solutions that meet our needs not “sort of” answers that might fit a problem “somewhat like” what we’re facing.

The focus of a smaller niche makes it easier to know, understand, and serve the people who love what we do well. Reach out for the customers who will help your business thrive, not the ones who will take any answer and leave any time.

Having a relationship requires limiting and focusing attention.

Do you know your limits? How do your ideal customers know you’re here for them?

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

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How to Power Up Your Power Network and Bring It Closer to You

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It’s Always Been About Showing Up

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It’s fun to connect with people who do the same things we do. It’s also great business. But a quick hello and a conversation about what we do doesn’t make a relationship. If we don’t let our new friends know where serious about a relationship things often stop at that point.

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Suddenly we can find ourselves with idea, an adventure, or trip somewhere that would be a perfect fit for someone we’ve met but hardly know. We might have a product that would be a perfect fit for their network, but we’ve never gone past that first hello. We’d love to share the benefits with someone that we’ve met, but we’re not so comfortable that we’re not stepping over the line by even suggesting that.

Here are five highly effective ways to power up your power network and bring the people in your network closer to you.

  1. Be a good surprise. Keep a list of people who have referred you, recommended you, tweeted or retweeted your work, or done something large or small to help you. Write an unexpected email, direct message, handwritten note to one person on that list to say you appreciate the contribution that person has made in your life.
  2. Be a new encounter of the very best kind. As we travel Twitter and get introduced at meetings, we encounter more than a few people who have skills or interests that compliment are might add value to what we do. Once a week, make an appointment to talk on the phone with one or two people from that group. Ask about their goals for the next two quarters. Explore how you might align their goals with yours.
  3. Be a sincere fan. Email someone you respect and admire, but don’t know well. Write the email solely for the purpose of explaining the way that person has added value to your life.
  4. Be on a quest. Make it a quest to request help from someone you’ve never worked with. Every week, decide on one thing you probably would do better if you brought in some other brain, hands, or eyes. You’ll be surprised what you learn simply by deciding on what to request and then by listening to the answers.
  5. Be an idea explorer. Use a search engine, Wikipedia, books, magazines, and a rare group of friends to seek out new ideas on a subject your network cares about. Then share them generously online, on the phone, and in person whenever you interact.

Make time for all five of these every week and your network will explode with true connection — people you know, people who know you, and who know what you do. Every burst of energy in that direction with be a reminder that the people you’ve connected with are more than contact information to you.

How do you keep the power in your power network?

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

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Be the ONLY: How to Claim Your Ground and Own It

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A Real Contribution

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Last week, Jeff Bezos announced plans to release a new-generation Kindle that will be even cheaper ($139) than the current generation, but will make only a few modest improvements in quality and performance. Even as analysts applauded the success of the Kindle thus far, they wondered why Bezos and his colleagues weren’t making the device much more functional, colorful, and powerful. In other words, why weren’t they taking the simple Kindle and enhancing it to go head-to-head with Apple’s iPad and other companies searching for an iPad killer?

To which Bezos offered a strategic insight about his business just as compelling as Andrea Guerra’s take on his business. “There are going to be 100 companies making LCD tablets,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “Why would we want to be [company] 101? I like building a purpose-built reading device. I think that is where we can make a real contribution.” — Bill Taylor, Do You Pass the Leadership Test, Harvard Business Review. Aug. 03, 2007

It was still the 20th Century when someone told me that I could count on these four words to always be true …

This too will change.

And since the 21st Century has arrived, those same four words have become a part of my daily reconnaissance.

Like Jeff Bezos and Bill Taylor, who wrote about him, I believe that being good at something is no longer an option. In this ever-shifting, high-noise environment, we

  • have to be the only and best at something
  • have to be the first trusted source
  • have to claim our ground and own it.

And this is more than 20th century specialization, it’s making a real contribution. It’s leadership focused to serve a distinct customer group with a clear solution. It’s irresistible service.

In the 20th century we had the advantage of geographic protection. People could only find sources as far as their shoes, their cars, and their catalogs would show them. Now the Internet has not only brought the world to their door, but Google is willing to sort it for them.

The Ground Rules to Claiming Your Ground

Apply what Jeff Bezos said to the massive opportunity that is today’s marketplace and it becomes obvious that our ideal customers are faced with overwhelming choices. The number of options for whatever anyone wants to purchase are outlandishly huge at every level: value, relationship, and cutting edge-luxury niches.

The leaders in the field have decided exactly which customers they are selling to and they signal their commitment to serving those customers on every level. Narrow your niche and you’ll still have a world of ideal customers, but you’ll be able to serve them.

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Every choice of text, image, offer, or even white space in the Apple Education website reflects their commitment to educators. That focus is key to becoming the first, trusted source to the ideal customers you want to serve. But before you can own that space you have to be able to name that space and claim it.

Three simple questions can help you identify a space that holds the best opportunity for your skill set and your brand. Let’s call them the Ground Rules.

  • Where do the rules of the game / industry / current trends favor you? Make your own game. Check where your skills cross your mission. Look for opportunities where they meet. The same computer can be positioned and packaged differently to meet the needs of a specific trend or group. We can do that too. Be the best, the most, the fastest, the only. Do you write the lightest code, offer the most unique design, or maybe tailor your service to each individual?
    Example: Let’s consider that last one. As technology moves us faster, people have less time to do what they used to do and less time to do things that are meaningful. Can you configure be the simplest, fastest solution and still an outstanding value? Can you do one outstanding thing for less cost in less time? Can you make that contribution easier, faster, more meaningful, more fun?
  • What ground works for you? Be obsessed with easy. Reach out to the customers you can reach easily. If you can’t reach the customers for your idea, partner with someone who can holds that ground …. or recongfigure your idea for the customers you can reach. Repurpose products you already have to attract new customers to you. Build for the customers who already love you.
    Example: Amazon started with readers and moved out from there. Apple moved into education by offering their computers to schools and grew new customers. Software companies extend their reach by partnering with computer companies who load their offer on new computers. Who has a list that serves the people you want to reach? Who is already within your reach now?
  • Where will you find the best rewards? Claim an audience and serve them. Don’t claim a tool meant for everyone. Tools don’t make relationships people do.
    Example: It’s better to claim service professionals moving online than to claim to sell a service to all small businesses. If you clearly claim a group, you can serve them well. They’ll tell their friends about you. Not everyone who buys a book on Amazon reads it. Some give books as gifts. Some use them to fill their book shelfs. Some intend to read and never do. It’s easier and more efficient to grow a clarified customer group than to try to grow a group from individuals who have nothing in common.
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Narrow your space to your ideal customer group and your unique expertise become clearer and more defined. It’s true. Show up with the skills, expertise, integrity, and competency and deliver on what you say you do.

Once you own your ground everyone else becomes a “knockoff.” You become the barrier to entry … the ONLY. There can be only one Cirque du Soleil, only one Mac, only one SOBCon – those who follow will be facsimiles.

Look around at the winners, they claimed their ground before they owned it. Amazon claimed the world’s readers before they captured that market and now they serve readers products of every sort … including a simple Kindle that will never compete with the iPad.

What space can you claim? What unique value will you deliver to the people you want as your ideal customers?

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

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3 Agency Models: How to Sell Pencils to Attract Fiercely Loyal Fans

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Which One Gets Your Buy In?

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I’ve been visiting a lot of social media agency websites lately and I’ve been thinking about how good people are saying one thing and doing another. For example, how many times have you started a conversation with It’s important to listen. then proceeding to talk about why, without listening first ourselves?

Take my advice. I’m not using it.

I was visiting websites to find a great example for the keynote I’m working on. What I found is that companies sell products one of three ways.

Let’s imagine that execution is a given and that all agencies want to deliver high value to their clients. In other words, let’s say that they’re all basically offering the same set of pencils in a few different colors, a different package, and with a different experience.

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Here’s what I found about how most agencies approach communicating what they do — how they sell that pencil and their ability to deliver the best pencil to the client.

Traditional Transactional Selling

Critical Mass cuts to the chase by answering the question of how to get customers to experience something they have to taste. They underscore their strength in application building and getting to the solution.

We knew that to truly appreciate Budweiser American Ale, you had to taste it — not an option online. The solution? Drive people offline. Our “Alefinder” app guided people to the closest American Ale, and closing the site (literally) for an hour every day, created the perfect window of opportunity to go get some. Cheers!

Critical Mass does a beautiful job of explaining their qualifications and experience. That’s information that new clients surely want to know. I can’t argue with that. [ I do find this ambiguous phrase closing the site (literally) for an hour every day from the quote above and others on the site show a struggle with seeing things through other eyes.]

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That’s traditional transactional selling — features and benefits. Sell a pencil by explaining the specs and why your pencil is better. No matter how creative you get with the words, in the end you’re talking about how good you are at making pencils. You win clients who are fans of the best pencils.

Selling Through Prestiqe, Reputation, and Narrative

Sapient, which bnet called the Top of the Top 50 Interactive Agencies starts with story. They explain how their unique experience has given them one-of-kind abilities.

The same customers, and the very same technology, that are now responsible for the dynamic, consumer centric business world in which we live.

A world that most businesses are neither prepared for nor equipped to address.

Sapient does a beautiful job of using narrative to pull back the curtain, reveal something about their values, and defining themselves in a category of one. That last sentence in the quote raises them above the competition. The want elite clients who value prestige.

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That’s selling though reputation and narrative — features and benefits are expected. Sell a pencil by explaining why your pencil will be the Stradivarius, because it will be made by people with unique pencil-making skills who transform pencils into art. In the end, the story is still your story and you win clients who value the prestige.

Selling to Attract with Fiercely Loyal Fans

Brains on Fire changes the game entirely — connecting and demonstrating what they do. They talk to the client about creating fans not customers, not about themselves. Everything they discuss is in context of how they serve the mission of creating fans. The site is written with the personal pronoun “you” — something missing from most others.

Before people can evangelize for you, they have to identify with your cause. So we help create and articulate that identity. A place of belonging that’s bigger than themselves. A shared sense of purpose that lifts people up and celebrates and validates their beliefs.

And believe us, it’s not about influence, because influencers can be MADE. But passion can’t. And it’s not about evangelizing your brand.

Brains on Fire does a beautiful job of demonstrating that they believe in and have achieved a culture that thrives on building communities of fiercely loyal fans.

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That’s selling to build community and attract fiercely loyal fans. Execution and hard work are straight out stated as expected. The usual buzzwords — such as influencer — are pulled out and revealed as what they are. It’s the communities that are featured in the work not the agency. Sell a pencil by making heroes of the people who use your pencils. Feature their fabulous mathematical equations, poetry, art, writing and invite them to celebrate the role your pencil have played in making their lives easier, smarter, faster, and more meaningful. Invite them to swap stories and strategies for making pencils last longer and work better for them. Let them personalize and customize the pencils in ways that let them own your brand.

From the beginning, it’s been about the client and their fans. Fiercely loyal fans understand what it takes to attract fiercely loyal fans.

Who do you see that does a great job of selling a pencil in a way that attracts fiercely loyal fans?

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

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