Successful Blog

SOB Business Cafe 12-18-09

by

SB Cafe

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

MuMBRELLA
And as Saatchi & Saatchi has demonstrated, it now goes without saying that you actually need to understand social media before you start. You can’t start learning on the client’s time.

Altitude Branding
Information hoarders are an endangered species. It’s not enough to know something anymore, because the internet knows it, too. If you don’t share it, someone, somewhere, will. Your value to a company is no longer your tribal knowledge, because knowledge is currency now, and it’s traded on a massive free market.

Grow Map
Most of your market is trying to find you by searching somewhere – whether that is on a search engine, blog search, on their favorite Social Networking sites, using search tools like FeelTipTop or in Local Search Directories.

Small Biz Survival
We’re 15 days from 2010. It’s time to give your small business a jump start. That means planning, record keeping, and goal setting. I have four suggestions for you.

Adam King Studio
If you’re a professional interior designer or architect, you no doubt are aware of helping your client express themselves with the overall design of their home. In essence you’re providing an expression of your client’s values, beliefs, and principles. Hopefully, you’re also working with the rare customer who is employing you to design around their passion as well.

Related ala carte selections include

One Mann’s Opinion
Seth Godin is one of the most creative minds we have in this world.
He is not curing disease or changing the trajectory of war, he
makes us think and create.

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like. No tips required. Comments appreciated.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

I’m a proud affiliate of

How Will You Reach Out Close Today?

by

I've been thinking . . .

about reaching out.

From the earliest days of our lives we are reaching and reaching out … it’s how we learn, how we connect, how we find where we end and the world begins.

887011_baby

We reach for what’s shiny, what’s new, what’s curious, what’s interesting, what’s tempting, what other folks have.

And from reaching and other folks’ teaching we gain bits of wisdom — wisdom that we have to reconcile and internalize into life skills and business strategies.

We learn that reaching for the stars can push our potential.
We learn that reaching beyond our grasp is impossible.
We learn that if we grasp at too many things, they lose their meaning.

We trust what we touch with our hands, our hearts, and our minds.

Still the obvious often escapes us, unless we stop to realize that the things that we need to thrive — the love one, the customers who value us most, the passions we prize, and the gifts we offer are the ones most within our reach.

How will you reach close to all that lets you thrive in business and life today?

Liz's Signature

Does Knowing the People Raise the Prize?

by

Staying Close to the People We Serve

When we developed an international strategy, I made an agreement with my boss about the relationships we would forge, We agreed that the people we choose to work with would be partners bi o matter their role, no matter their location around the world. It involved three basic points.

  • People at our own company would call the people we worked with “partners,” not vendors, not licensees, not other clients, customers, or any other.
  • We would adjust our process to meet theirs as well and as often as we could.
  • I would visit their companies at least as often as they visited ours.

Could we have completed our business by not doing any or all of the three? Most certainly we might have. Information can be shared without being in the same room. We all know that so well.

However, by keeping to these three “rules of conduct,” our company became the first partner of choice. We enjoyed special access to content, and special access to files — we participated in decisions that lowered everyone’s costs and made the work more fun in the process.

True relationships formed around and through the work. Those relationships and the access they afforded us, allowed us to save $1000s and to be involved in the process of our partnered product launch. And those people talked about how easy our business was to do business with us. Soon we had partners in more countries than ever.

Companies are buildings with people inside.

We keep saying people like to do business with people.
What’s your story that shows how knowing the people raised the prize?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Don't Make Your Clients the Market You Serve

by

Agency and Client Work Is A Cultural Communication Art

My first jobs after teaching were agency roles. I worked my way from presentations to conceptualizing whole programs, campaigns, and products. As project lead, I lived to serve clients — huge brands that made products for consumers, schools, teachers, kids, and parents. I translated the client’s needs, goals, and wishes into the final deliverables. I lived for success of our projects together.

Then, in the middle of my career, I was hired to take on the client role. I started hiring agencies, consultants, and developers to work on my own projects. That’s when I learned what many client facing business do wrong.

They made me their market. That left me to care about my customers on my own.

Keep Your Eye on Your Client’s Customers and Their Cares

909359_learning_the_rules

Once I was a client myself, I came to realize that the partners who were most valuable to me were those who cared as much about what my customers thought as I did. The folks who understood that became partner-thinkers. They made my job easier by improving process, product, and approach.

Being a partner-thinker is valuable to a client in so many ways.

  • We learn the client’s rules and process and the way it works when it works well, so that we can gently point out when it’s off track.
  • Seeing the client’s customer means we listen more critically to what our clients say. We share the burden of taking care of the client’s concerns and values rather than leaving it to our client.
  • Moving from the role of builder to thinker-partner allows us to offer ideas that contribute added value. The client gets engagement as well as execution.
  • As a partner-thinker, we involve ourselves in getting to know the customers, not just the client, in intimate ways that stretch our imagination to serve customers more fully.
  • The beauty of being “outside the client’s working system” means that we can see what people inside the system cannot.

When we look past our client to advocate for their customers, we can think with them. More thinkers ask more questions, test more possibilities, go beyond client information to meet their customers. The best agencies, developers, and consultants look to their clients’ customers and want to know them as intimately as the clients do. Then they can serve the client and the customer as a thinker and a builder both. more ideas, and seek more answers. Better products, campaigns, and communities are the result.

Who wouldn’t want the best thinking when the success of a project, profitability, and my team’s jobs are on the line?

How do you show your value as a thinker-partner?

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

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

I’m a proud affiliate of

Word of Mouth and Social Media Aren't the Same …

by

But You Already Knew That!

relationships button

My son is an introvert. He thinks long before he talks and rarely wastes words. He’s not one to volunteer extraneous information. Ask a question and you’ll get exactly the answer it takes to fulfill your request. Some days that makes conversation a bit of a challenge. A digital native by age, birth, and technological era, he would never be a social media maven. It’s just not his personality or his inclination.

However, if you get him talking about something he believes in, he’ll tell you exactly why and how you should be participating. Then he’ll tell the person sitting next to you, if he thinks that person might listen. If he knows how to do something faster, make something easier, or has an insight into something more meaningful, he’ll share it because it feels good to do so.

That’s the definition of a word-of-mouth natural. It’s not promoting. It’s sharing what we care about with the people we care about.

World of Mouth and Social Media Aren’t the Same Thing

Recently, Andy Sernovitz and I were talking via email about his new SuperGenius Word of Mouth Conference on December 16th in Chicago. He made some great points worth sharing about the difference between social media and word-of-mouth marketing.

Social media is an incredible tool. But social media is not word of mouth marketing. It’s a tool we can use for the online portion of word of mouth. But it’s not even the main tool there. I would argue that more recommendations go by plain old-fashioned email than all the social networks combined.

On top of that, offline word of mouth is so much bigger than online word of mouth. A tweet still doesn’t beat a personal recommendation from a close friend.

So why are we talking about social media so much?

1. Because real word of mouth is hard. It requires big ideas, long-term commitment, and an honest dedication by a company to earn the respect and recommendation of its customers. You can’t just call your agency and order up some WOM.

2. Because social media gives us an action step. It’s fairly straightforward to do a campaign on Facebook or Twitter. You can call your agency and order up a social media campaign. And your agency, who is totally freaked out by this WOM stuff, can deliver a pretty good campaign. Then you can show the results to your happy boss. Everyone feels good and gets paid.

Except… we completely miss the point.

The point of word of mouth isn’t ecommerce; it isn’t to count clicks and CPAs.

The point of word of mouth is to be a brand worth talking about. To be a company that people are proud to tell their friends about. It’s to replace paid marketing with personal connections. To replace cash with love. To be fantastic.

And that’s what this conference is all about: A revival of TRUE WOM. A home for the simple idea that HAPPY CUSTOMERS ARE YOUR BEST ADVERTISERS.

True WOM is a movement.

Andy didn’t ask me to share what he said, but I agree with every point he made here and I wanted to pass it on.
He offered me a discount seat at the conference and he offered a scholarship code for my readers.

Learn How to Be Great at Word of Mouth Marketing An incredible word of mouth marketing conference. Learn to get more people talking about you the very next day. 12 How-To Classes, 12 Case Studies, 6 Authors Word of Mouth Supergenius! Chicago, December 16

Register here: http://gaspedal.com/supergenius Use the code VIPSUCCESSFULBLOG for a discount of $144.

Andy wrote the book on Word of Mouth Marketing. No, I’m not an affiliate. I think it’s important that we know everything we can about getting folks to talk about the good things we have going on.

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

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

I’m a proud affiliate of

Using Cooliris … Here's How You Do It!! Part 2

by

Brand New Today

relationships button

Social business has left the world of broadcasting to enter the world of making customers into heroes and celebrities. Every chance we get to bring them together and allow them to shine, shines well on our business too.

Our customers are the fuel that lead our businesses to thrive. Why not give them some traction and support by letting the world know what they mean to our success?

One easy way to do that is choosing great tools from those the social web supplies.

As you might remember from two days ago, I started to make a Cooliris wall from some photos of my SOBCon09 heroes …

A typical use case to share rich media involves selecting content from Flickr. So I’m making a Flickr Set from SOBCon09. I’ve been playing with it to see how I might include some SOBCon09 heroes in my blog …

expresssharepage

Unfortunately I got stuck in the middle … with a static screenshot.

cooliris

I couldn’t find a way to fully integrate it yet.

Good Customer Service Still Happens

A few hours after I blogged about it, Matt from Cooliris called offering to help. We decided that it might be easier if he sent me directions that I could share with you.

To embed your cooliris wall in your blog post … start your journey at cooliris.com/express/builder and follow the instructions below.

  • Copy and paste the URL of your Flickr photostream (based on your blog post I think this is http://www.flickr.com/photos/14089532@N08/). You should see your Flickr albums and many photos in the wall.
  • To only display one album, click the “Filter by” drop down and select “A single set (album)”
  • Go to the appearance tab and customize your wall!
  • Go to the destination tab. Since you’re on a custom WordPress installation – copy and paste the embed code that shows up beneath the share options.

I did that and here’s the result!!

Thank you, Matt and cooliris! I appreciate your patience, your help, and your service!
You’ve converted my photos and converted me into a fan!!

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

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversion. .

I’m a proud affiliate of