Successful Blog

Simple Social CRM Tool: Rapportive

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Todd Hoskins Reviews Tools for Small Business

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Todd Hoskins chooses and uses tools and products that could belong in a small business toolkit. He’ll be checking out how useful they are to folks who would be their customers in a form that’s consistent and relevant.

Rapportive
A Review by Todd Hoskins

If you do not use Gmail for personal or business use, sorry, this review is not for you. Please come back again next week. If you do have a Gmail account, or your business utilizes Gmail, install the Rapportive plug-in. Believe me, it will be worth it.

Why?

Rapportive removes the ads on the right column of your Gmail page, and replaces them with the social network information of the person sending you an email. This is simple social CRM, immediate information on where to find and interact with friends and customers outside of email. A field to take notes. And, it’s free.

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The latest tweets, job information from LinkedIn, and geographic location all help provide context. For a salesperson, entrepreneur, executive, or customer service representative, the value of getting information right within your browser saves time, can help you prioritize responses, and allows you to know more about your customer than their email address. The notes section is handy for recording birthdays, kids, and conversation cues.

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Takes less than two minutes to set up. Privacy concerns are minimal because Rapportive only has access to your contacts, not your Gmail password. (Thank you OpenID). The Rapportive extension is available for the Firefox and Chrome browsers.

Summing Up – Is it worth it?

Enterprise Value: 3/5 – more complex CRM’s are available, but this is simple if you have corporate Gmail.

Entrepreneur Value: 5/5 – Bridges the personal and the professional and saves time.

Personal Value: 5/5 – Did you know Johnny had a Flickr account? Now you do.

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Thanks, Todd! You can find Todd on Twitter @ToddHoskins

I’ve installed the plugin. It’s not perfect, but it’s already way more useful than the ads it replaces!

What about you? Have you used it? What do you think of Rapportive?

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

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

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Social Media List: Interview with Marshall Goldsmith, Author of #MOJOtweet

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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, as an online promotion manager, I read a lot of books (and I love to read anyway!).
This week my offer for a weekly post is an interview with Marshall Goldsmith, author of What Got you Here Won’t Get you There, and more recently, MOJO and #MOJOtweet.

Please share with the readers a bit about yourself.
I teach executive education at Dartmouth’s Tuck School and frequently speak at leading business schools. I am a Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources (America’s top HR honor). In 2006 Alliant International University honored me by naming their schools of business and organizational studies – the Marshall Goldsmith School of Management. I earned my Ph.D. from UCLA. I currently live in CA with my wife Lydia.

What is your most recent book? Please share with our readers about your latest book.
Currently I have two books that came out on the same day. One is ‘MOJO: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back if You Lose It’ published by Hyperion. The other is its companion called ‘#MOJOtweet’ is part of the THINKaha series by Happy About, whose 100-page books contain 140 well-thought-out quotes (tweets/ahas) celebrating how to define and keep your MOJO.

For you, what is the definition of Mojo?
Mojo is that moment when we do something powerful, purposeful, and positive and the rest of the world recognizes it. To me, Mojo is about achieving two simple goals–loving what you do and showing it, and it plays a vital role in our pursuit of happiness and meaning. These goals are what govern my operational definition, which is: Mojo is that positive spirit toward what we are doing now that starts from the inside and radiates to the outside. Our Mojo is evident when the good feelings we have toward what we are doing come from inside us and our apparent for everyone else to see. There is no gap between the positive way we perceive ourselves—what we are doing—and how we are perceived by others.

What is one important aspect of this book you would like to share with our readers?
One of the key insights in the book says, “The only person who can define meaning and happiness for you is YOU!” This book will make you think, this book will make you act, this book can help you develop better Mojo and become a better YOU. Goldmsith says that “our general tendency is to continue to do what we are already doing,” but the paradox is that “this might not be sufficient for getting and keeping Mojo.” So, do something different–something powerful, something purposeful, something positive–and get and keep ‘#MOJOtweet’ today.


Will you share a few #MOJOtweets with the readers?
Certainly!
~Mojo is that positive spirit toward what you are doing now that starts from the inside and radiates to the outside.
~Mojo is infectious. When people pass their positive spirit to us, we feel like passing it back.
~Professional Mojo is a measure o the skills and attitude you bring to any activity. Personal Mojo by the benefits that a particular activity gives back to you.
~To change your mojo, you either create a new identity for yourself or rediscover an identity that you have lost.

How important does having a positive attitude play in finding your MOJO?
You won’t get to the top without it; to build it, you have to believe in yourself. You can’t worry about being perfect—you just have to put up a brave front and do the best you can. The building blocks of Mojo, which I discuss thoroughly in my book, are not self-esteem they are identity, achievement, reputation, and acceptance. Learning about finding your Mojo is what the book is about and those who want to find it, keep it, or get it back if they’ve lost it will get much from MOJO: for those who don’t want to change, this book can’t help!

What inspired you to write this book, #MOJOtweet?
In my work, the most frequent question I hear is: What is the one quality that differentiates truly successful people from everyone else. My answer is always the same: Successful people spend a large part of their lives engaging in activities that simultaneously provide meaning and happiness. In other words, and in terms of my book, truly successful people have Mojo. Because the only person who can define meaning and happiness for you is you, that’s what this book is about. It is to help people to define and achieve Mojo.

What did you learn from writing this book?
It may be the most vital piece of advice within these pages: You should not feel obligated do any of this alone! If you want to improve your performance at almost anything, your odds of success improve considerably the moment you enlist someone else to help you.

Where can readers learn more about you and your book?
First, I want to say thank you for allowing me to share with you and your readers about my books.
You can pick up a copy of #MOJOtweet at ThinkAha website.
Or on my website Marshall Goldsmith Library.

Special Note: April 1, 2010 Marshall Goldsmith will be conducting a FREE webinar to discuss the vital elements of MOJO as described in his book #MOJOtweet at 2pmET/11amPT. You can join in by phone: 218-339-4300 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              218-339-4300      end_of_the_skype_highlighting Participant code: 715975#.

9 Truths About Social Media Big Business Wants Us to Know and 2 Proofs They Want from Us

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Let’s Start Over with Them in Mind

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It’s a typical conversation. Try to explain why the conversation with with customers has changed and often the person listening will tell you why he or she can’t listen. It might sound something like this.

Chief Marketing Officer: [confused, frustrated] I don’t understand why this doesn’t work. I’m an intelligent person. I should be able to do this. Why don’t customers behave? Legal will never go for this.

Social Media Practitioner: Let me tell you what to do …

Chief Marketing Officer: [Not listening] But I have a business to protect and employees that I care about. I know my market and I’m fairly sure what they want. I have to manage up. Where’s the ROI?

Social Media Practitioner: Let’s start over. … Let me listen first. What are your goals?

That last bit is the moment at which you will get the attention of a big business.

9 Truths About Social Media Big Business Wants Us to Know

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Take a minute to to tap into the the CMO’s feelings of confusion, disappointment, and frustration. Everything that has made him or her successful is being challenged by social media and the Internet. Some of us find that exciting, invigorating, and inviting, but at times when we see our friends without work, it’s also downright perilous. Every marketing manager is being asked to succeed at things that have never been tried.

We sometimes act as if what big business needs is to learn from us. That’s where the misconceptions start. Here are some cold truths every big business wishes every social media marketer realized. By now it’s getting to a point where …

  1. Big Business “gets” that social media is not about broadcasting. They get that it’s about listening to customers. Great CEOs listen long before they make suggestions.

  2. Big Business brings an entire culture to the social media playing field. It’s a problem of training and re-processing, not just un-siloing and re-tooling.

  3. Big Business understands that we need to connect with individual solutions. Great social media practitioners offer a unique strategy to each company — one tailored to their goals.

  4. Big Business “gets” that content and networks connect. Yet, a social media strategy and the tactics that draw from it has to fit naturally and move slowly through a business culture that will execute it or the strategy will fail.

  5. Few big businesses undervalue their customers. That’s how they got to be big companies. The older and larger the company, the more they value and want to protect what they have. That they want to mitigate risk is a good thing. To value their hesitance can raise our game.

  6. A social media strategy is a business deal on which people’s jobs, people’s products, and customer’s satisfaction depend. Great social media marketers never lose sight of that.

  7. A business that already understands its community and it’s brand message knows more about how to lead a social media plan than we usually give them credit for.

  8. If you’ve not worked inside a company and talked to their customers, it’s naive to act as if we better understand how best to serve their national or international market. We can offer new options, choices, and opportunities that might suit them. We see from outside the system that’s our value and our flaw.

  9. Businesses dream about social media folks who do their homework, know the competition, and come to the process ready to join a working relationship.

“Great” social media strategies don’t mean much, if the company isn’t built with the processes to sustain them. You can turn a house into a houseboat without investing time. Great social media starts with understanding how a company functions and what is possible within the culture and the people who drive it.

The 2 Proofs Every Big Business Wants from a Social Media Mentor

So what does it take to get get the confidence of a big business?
You can overcome these cold truths with two proofs.

  1. Prove that you can connect with customers in ways that make the big business a hero, make the customers lives easier, faster, and more meaningful.
  2. Prove that you can listen long enough to understand the business, you’ll be pleasure to work with, and bring value to the process.

Want to teach social media to big business? Are you willing to prove it?

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

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

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7 Real Ways a Blog Raises Influence and Increases Expertise

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How to blog series

140 Ch Can’t Say It All Intelligently from the Heart

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Every day I greet the Internet with my coffee and a clear purpose and I find lots of opportunity — information, ideas, and input — offering itself. Never a question about finding that.

If I’m not focused my head is filled with thoughts and energy sparking and flaring in directions that look something like this …

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Unfortunately without focus so much can stay dispersed in that beautiful, but disintegrating way. I can end up responding to and considering bits of data like swatting gnats. Not much progress is made in a world of randomness.

Twitter, in particular, offers ideas I can encounter and pass along, but if I do that, most of what I think vanishes into past thoughts considered and soon forgot as unconnected bits.

If we want folks to know us we also need longer conversations in stronger venues. Telephones help. Personal conversations at meetings are great. If only we could stretch and scale our resources to share that way. So we write.

It’s why I keep my blog. In fact, that fact makes me passionate about why I write every day. But it’s not just the connections that keep me writing.

7 Real Ways a Blog Raises Influence and Increases Expertise

Writing is one way to share our thoughts with more folks more efficiently. Publishing makes the connection more natural and accessible. The words stay present and available through time for anyone who wants to access them. We get visibility and benefit others when we write, but we benefit ourselves as well. By recording our thoughts we make them more in so many ways.

  1. Writing gets us to clarify our thoughts. We have to find words to communicate ideas. We think the ideas through for ourselves. In that process we make them more concrete.
  2. Writing teaches how to see what we think. We have to find words to articulate what’s on our mind. We think the ideas through for ourselves. In that process we make our ideas more concrete, more transportable, and more memorable.
  3. Writing teaches us how words communicate meaning. Every time we write we choose the words we need to express a thought or idea. The more we practice the more we learn how to make choices that help people connect to what we mean.
  4. Writing helps us develop a voice that is natural and consistent, strong and confident. Even when we write for ourselves, we go back to read, listening to what we wrote. We question. We consider. We critique our choices.
  5. Writing teaches to manage our internal editor — to value our own thoughts and to be quiet until feedback is useful. Too often when we just think ideas we can shut them down before we’ve fully considered their possibilities. Trying to put them into words keeps us going to a longer process.
  6. Writing is an opportunity to share our expertise. Everything we write has an audience. Every time someone shares something that we write they add value to our ideas — when they change them and when they don’t.
  7. Writing makes us more thoughtful readers and responders. We bring the insights and appreciation of a writer to what we read. It gives us a venue to ask questions and solve problems with help from the world.

As efficient as Twitter is for conversation, it’s not enough for working out ideas. 140 characters can’t express a full-on deep thought. A soundbyte might get attention, but it doesn’t show depth of knowledge.

Writing is clear thinking made visible. — Bill Wheeler

 

I heard that quote a long time ago and I hold it close every day on the Internet. It keep as a reminder that writing raises my game.

We meet more people in print than we can ever possibly meet face to face. Many people will know our written voice as well as they know our names. Writing is a huge opportunity in a noisy world to teach what we know and to learn from the best of the people we meet.

What sort of thinking have you shared today?

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

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SOBCon? Develop strategies and tactics with the best of the Social Web for an entire weekend.

Forget About Your Ship Coming In – Think about the Captain

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For @ChrisCree , @SheilaS , and @BeckyMcCray

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about how often we end up looking and caring in the wrong direction.

A friend is going for a job or a contract and does everything she can to be all that person wants. Then hears “I’m sorry, but you’re just not a great fit for this job.” She’s so involved in that one position that she’s crushed and any other option is a loss.

Another person so needs a sponsor to move his project forward. He puts together what is a most compelling argument. The potential partner, unfortunately, doesn’t have the resources to help. He sees time lost and his inability to convince someone.

Both are waiting for their ship to come in.

Every day I talk to someone who’s got a grand plan for how things will lay out or how things should be, will be, if only that ship comes in. Listening to them talk you can almost see that ship in the distance on the horizon. The hidden assumption is that the ship will come in and pick them up.

That’s the problem, even if that is a ship in the distance, you don’t own it. Who knows where it’s going? Even if it comes in, where it goes is up to the captain.

What if we slightly shift our vision — stop looking at that one ship and starting thinking about a world full of captains?

Sometimes the harbor is filled with ships waiting to take on working staff and paying passengers. Sometimes is not. But one thing’s sure more than most. Some of people who run the ships have gotten to know each other.

It’s the person, not the job or the sponsorship, that my two friends should be tracking … care about the “captain,” not the ship. Lots of folks have reasons to want to ride along with them for some reason. You can’t negotiate your way on board if the right person doesn’t care about you.

If you want a chance at the real opportunity …

Get the “captain” to fall in love with your vision and to believe in its reality. Move the “captain” to feel like a hero and smart for helping you.

You see …

Even if the captain’s ship isn’t going where we’re going, that person still knows a whole network of other “captains.” If we communicate the value of what we’re doing, chances are most captains will start looking for a ship going in our direction.

Care about the captain and not the ship.

How can you shift your vision to the people who can get you where you’re going?

Liz's Signature

Thanks to Week 231 SOBs

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Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

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They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Should anyone question this SOB button’s validity, send him or her to me. Thie award carries a “Liz said so” guarantee, is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and is backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

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Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame– A-Z Directory . Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss