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How to Turn Lurkers and Listeners into Advocates

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(Updated in 2020)

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

10-Point Plan in Action: Living Online and Off

The Cameras Are Always Rolling

Many years ago, I commuted from California to Boston for my job as VP of Product Development for a Publishing Company. I also took several international trips to work with other publishers that had me out of the office for weeks. The travel meant that I often attended executive meetings via teleconference. Basically I was at the office on the phone sitting in the middle of the table.

When I first started attending meetings this way I had no idea how powerful it was to be in lurking inside the telephone during those meetings. Then I started to notice as folks began talking, particularly when they became invested in a conversation, they would forget that I was listening. In essence I was the proverbial fly in the room — they couldn’t see or hear me so I wasn’t there.

But I was.
And I heard everything they said, how they said it, and often when I jumped back in the conversation, they were startled in their seats. My voice had more power than if I had been sitting across the table because they’d lost their sense of what I knew and what and I didn’t because I hadn’t been a visible part of their experience.

And from that unique position, I could often bring a perspective that the people in the room couldn’t see. We all came to value the idea of having an observer — a lurker / listener outside of the room.

Would Your Lurkers and Listeners Advocate for You?

I think about those meetings when I consider the number of people who follow me on Twitter and the number I actually talk to, the number of people who read my blog and the ones I actually see. I think of those listeners and lurkers even more when events happen online that get folks riled up and defending their position on an issue that has more than one side. During those events, it’s easy for us to forget the far larger number of people who follow the story, but hardly ever, maybe never, comment on what they see.

Their silence doesn’t mean they don’t have opinions of our behaviors and our thinking. Their silence doesn’t mean that they won’t remember if they meet us somewhere in another context one in which we might want their support or partnership.

Lurkers and listeners can be powerful advocates, great sources of referrals, and even become customers and clients if we remember them and serve their needs. They can also remember our worst behavior. Here are three things to remember about the Internet and the lurkers, three ways to keep lurkers and listeners on your radar so that they stick around and become your advocates.

  • The Internet is the World’s Largest Reality Show. It’s not good to forget that “cameras” are always on. Lurkers and listeners are in the audience watching and thinking about what they see. In the heat of a moment offline we might have the luxury of forgetting our manners or ranting away with emotion on someone else in a private setting. Not so here.
  • The Internet might move quickly but it archives everything. I can still find a huge row that occurred in 2005 on a blog that’s been deleted and point you to the bad behavior that took place that day. Everything we do is indexed somewhere. Some of it sits in places we can never reach or erase. Lurkers and listeners now and in the future can find and see it on a distant day. One of those watching might be yourself looking back at yourself in a few years.
  • On the Internet it gets easy to tell what you value. Listeners and lurkers can be potential clients. When we make a public mistake or when we react to one, it’s important remember that those silent watchers — the people who might be our next bosses, vendors, partners, or clients — have a better chance to figure out whether they want to work with us than any interview, meeting, presentation, or resume would ever afford them. They if we “forget” that folks are listening — when we rant about a customer on our blog or complain about a client — we don’t know when they leave us without giving us business, thinking they could be our next victim. If you make a huge mistake and try to sweep it under a rug, they won’t be trusting us ever.

A wise man once said behave as if everything you do is going to be published. That pretty much describes the Internet.

That idea can make us better at our business. It can bring us to always align our values with our customers’ values. It can move us to keep the people we serve at the center of everything we do.

On the other hand, it can be what kills us. If we have a fatal flaw, if we forget that people like to be treated like people, some will find a way of reminding us we’re serving only ourselves. And the lurkers and listeners who decide that we’re self-serving will unsubscribe, click away, and never say a word – to us. That doesn’t mean they don’t have opinions that they share other ways.

Loyalty is a relationship with all the people we serve, not just the one who sing our praises. Lurkers and listeners are watching and perhaps deciding whether they want a relationship with us. How do we make sure the lurkers and listeners stay clearly on our radar? What can we do to serve them better so that lurkers and listeners are advocates too?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Punished for being too smart

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by Patty Azzarello

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Being the smartest one in the room is not easy

Really smart people who get to the answer before everyone else get frustrated because:

  • No one wants to listen to you
  • No one gets why you are right
  • Everyone seems to WANT to go slower (and it is infuriating)
  • You resent having to make the effort of “bringing people along”

Good guy or bad guy?

I have met and mentored many talented and genuinely kind people throughout my career that want to do positive things for the business in an unselfish way — but they get stuck because they are so smart that they piss people off.

If you are one of these people, or you have one of these people working for you – here is the trick.

You can either be Smart or you can be Effective

You can’t do everything alone.

You need other people — either to help or to get out of the way.

So if you can’t influence them, you will face road blocks and fail to get others working on your agenda. You will not be effective.

If you want to be effective, you have to suck it up and bring people along with you, even though it seems like a waste of time.

Here are some ideas…

First, slow down even though it goes against every grain of your being.

Include people: Don’t just announce the answer, go through the step of setting context and getting input.

Listen: In meetings, give others time to talk, and listen instead of arguing or shutting them down. You may feel like you are wasting time, but you will win favor by listening.  It will pay-off later when you need to get their support.

Don’t be mean. I know it doesn’t feel like you’re  being mean. You are not trying to be mean.  You are trying to be straightforward, practical, share the answer, and make progress. In fact, one of the things that is so annoying about these people is that they accuse you of being mean when you are not.

But they have the right to their perception. What they see may be your dismissing their inputs, ignoring them, or picking fights publicly. Say less. Be more gracious. Be more patient. Use more steps in your logic. Get smaller agreements along the way. Say thank you.

Make an effort to learn what their strengths are: You may be pleasantly surprised. Or not. But if you can get someone talking about what they are good at, and show some appreciation of that, they will be your friend, and you can get their support for your agenda.

Give them the benefit of the doubt: Keep in mind that these people might be brilliant in ways that you don’t see. In ways that you are not.

What if someone in the room is really gifted at networking and connecting and getting others to get on board? Even if they never understand your project, if you can win over that one person they can bring you all the others.

What if the numbers guy who is just not getting the big picture, has a relationship with the CFO that will get your idea funded if you can win him over?

Set your sights on effectiveness

OK. Even if you are truly in a room full of stupid people who can’t keep up, you have a choice to make. Jump to the answer alone and face roadblocks, or make the effort to bring them along, so you can get the job done.

It’s a choice you have. It may be frustrating in the moment, but the upside is that you will be getting things done – maybe not as fast as you want to go, but better than not at all.

What do you think?

Have you had this issue or helped others through it? What has worked for you? Please share your thoughts in the comment box below!
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Patty Azzarello is an executive, author, speaker and CEO-advior. She works with executives where leadership and business challenges meet. Patty has held leadership roles in General Management, Marketing, Software Product Development and Sales, and has been successful in running large and small businesses. She writes at Patty Azzarello’s Business Leadership Blog. You’ll find her on Twitter as @PattyAzzarello, and on Facebook. Also, check out her new book Rise…

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Green Blogging…Is It Possible?

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By Jael Strong

It’s hip! It’s socially responsible! It’s green! Everybody, every company, seems to be going green, making choices and taking stands so as to limit their negative impact on the environment. I heard a piece on National Public Radio about businesses becoming more environmentally aware and I started to think: Is it possible for bloggers to go green?

I immediately felt silly for asking the question. After all, it seems to me that blogging by nature is a green activity. So many bloggers write from home. We can’t really cut back on our commute. We do our work on the computer, so paper waste isn’t an issue. Aside from the choices that all of us can make, choosing locally grown foods, avoiding gas guzzlers, recycling, we don’t seem to be left with environmental options specific to blogging.

For those who really want to decrease their environmental impact, that answer might not be sufficient. Isn’t there something that bloggers can do to go green? I did actually come up with three ways: decrease paper use, blog at night and promote environmentally friendly activities on their blog.

We already established that bloggers don’t use a ton of paper, especially in comparison with other fields, but there are places that could take a cut back. For example, if you are a note taker, which I am, you could choose an alternative to the old pen and paper. A voice recorder may be a way to keep track of burgeoning ideas or a PDA might be a good fit. Those tiny notebooks and sticky notes could add up over time if that is your currently preferred avenue for note taking.

Another way to cut back on paper use is to not insist on printing a hard copy of all of your writing. Now, I know that most of you do not print hard copies every time you post, but I also know for a fact that someone used to be very attached to having a paper version for all of her writing (me, of course). This was a bad idea, especially as my writing became more prolific. I also know that some are very paranoid that they will need hard copies of everything when all of the computers in the world decide to crash. I think if that day ever comes, our writing might not be foremost in our minds. So, cut back on hard copies equals less harm to the environment.

Now on to blogging at night. Well, we put less strain on the energy supply if we use electricity at night, so I thought we could start doing our writing at night. Besides, running electricity during non-peak hours is often better for our budgets. Okay, I know this is a stretch, but I was brainstorming! Plenty of us already do our writing at night anyhow, but it’s a thought.

And finally, can more writers promote going green on their blogs? If everybody did this all of the time, every blog would become a platform for ecological change. That sounds like a bad idea to me, but if the opportunity presents itself I suppose there is nothing wrong with plugging good citizenship.

It all feels like a stretch to me. The piece that I heard on the radio was inspiring; I really wanted to employ some great green practices, but the more I think about, it just doesn’t seem like there’s much a blogger can do. Do you have any thoughts on how a blogger can lessen their environmental impact?

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Jael Strong writes for TheWriteBloggers, a professional blogging service which builds clients’ authority status and net visibility.  She has written both fiction and non-fiction pieces for print and online publications.  She regularly blogs at Freelance Writing Mamas .

Thanks, Jael

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Be Irresistible: 10 Steps to Consistently Develop Highly Viral, High ROI Products

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How Good, Great, and Elegant Is a Product that No One Uses?

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Yesterday while I was talking with @MichaelPort about solid.ly the software system he’s developing to support his Book Yourself Solid System. He told me about a conversation he had with venture capitalist who asked him, “What makes you think you can move from writing books into developing software?” I was taken by the perfectness of his answer. It was something like …

“I’m hiring the best people to do the development, but I know and care about the people who will be using it.”

That lead us into a discussion of what a product developers job is.

I spent almost 3 decades developing products for teachers — books, CD-Roms, websites, videos, audios, and others. During that time, I learned a lot about how products were made — what works, what doesn’t, and that the great idea that hasn’t made it to the market probably isn’t there NOT because someone hasn’t already thought of it, but because

  • it’s too expensive,
  • too labor intensive — to build or to use
  • or no one really wants it.

If I can’t afford it, don’t have time to use it, or don’t want it, it doesn’t matter how elegant, great, clever, cutting-edge, award-winning or beautifully you produce it.

10 Steps to Consistently Develop Highly Viral, High ROI Products

But the most crucial thing I learned as product person was that no matter how much I thought about my products, I had to think about my customers more. My role wasn’t to produce great products, but to produce great products people wanted to buy and use. Those are the products that folks buy again and tell their friends about. Here’s the secret I discovered …

It’s not my brilliance that makes a product irresistible. It’s not the awards the product might win that makes a products go viral and gain loyal long-term fans. It’s understanding my role as the product person is to know, love, and serve the customer.

Most of my intelligent customers could do or learn to do what I do.
But if they did what I do, they wouldn’t have time to do what they do.
My job is to make the customer’s life easier, faster, more meaningful and, if possible, more fun.

We turned around a failing company by developing highly viral, high ROI products by getting as close as we could to our customers. Here’s a few ways to do that before you even start planning that product execution …

  1. Know and live with the people you’re building for. Talk to the people you want to use what you’re building. Live in their natural habitat. Know the issues of their lives. Know the little things that bring joy to them. Know the prickly things that they don’t even realized irritate them daily. Know the influencer group of your customer group. Know the folks who understand both groups intimately and best. Invite the most interested from all three groups into your process as participants not just advisors.
  2. Use measurements appropriately. Data supports how people do things but rarely gets down to the why they do or the patterns of what moves them emotionally. When you think you know something, then, test and measure it. Don’t build a profile of customers through measurement only. Think about what companies would get wrong about you if they only used the quantitative data and scores from your medical check ups and school reports about you, without ever finding out about your personality.
  3. Respect the products that your customers are already using. Don’t fall into the trap of only seeing the faults of what’s already out there. That product you see so many flaws in has already solved a huge number of problems for your customers or they wouldn’t be using it. If it’s so bad, why does it have 100,000 or a million people using it? Ask people what they love about it. Be careful not to build something that takes away something they’ve made a part of what they’ve come to enjoy and they’re regularly doing. Lose what they hugely love and it won’t matter if you offer something that fixes a minor irritation.
  4. Start with a small offer built to your highest standards. Respect your customers’ time. Make the first release your best work, not a beta test. If you know your customers, if you’ve lived with them and invited them into the the development process, you know what works for them. Deliver it. Don’t play with their time or ask them to work out the bugs for you. That’s your job. If you want to attract the best, be the best.
  5. Simplify until there is no learning curve. Simple is not only elegant. It allows us to focus on why we got the product not learning the product first. Apple has mastered this. They can put the entire manual for using a product in a pamphlet that no one reads because we can pick up the product already knowing how to use it.
  6. Get paid for your product. Free samples are fine. Free products are not. The model of building things for free costs those who build products more than we might think. We release things unfinished at standards less than our best. We don’t build the appropriate support or service into them and we ask too much from our “free” customers who take us for granted. We work with people on promises. We lose money, reputation, and if nothing else, time we don’t have. Ever seen a tweet the equivalent of, “I’d gladly pay for Twitter if they’d guarantee service.”
  7. Systematically and strategically build your customer base as you build your product line. We no longer need to build a huge department store and fill it will products to prove we exist. We don’t need to stress our resources, cash, or infrastructure like that. Release one product that does one thing well for one audience. Let that product and that customer base finance the next. One customer group well served is better than 12 products less well defined — and one product is easier to market and easier for our friends and networks to share on our behalf. Know, love and serve that first group and they’ll tell their friends. They’ll also tell you what they want next and what group of their friends are your next best bet.
  8. Learn the life cycle of your product and know when to revise. Every product has a life cycle. It seems the way of the Internet to let the product die a slow death. Know how long that product is likely to sell well, then just after the peak selling point, carefully revise it to add new features. Once you’ve got a history to rely on do this on a predictable schedule. If your product life cycle is 9 months to a year. Plan your next revision at 11-12 months. Be careful not to revise out the features that customers love and not to add features they don’t care about. Look to make your product even easier, faster, and more meaningful at doing what it does. .
  9. Release new products on a predictable schedule. High tech companies might be slaves to the fast-changing conditions, but not every company is. If you can provide a predictable release schedule get fully behind that. It will build discipline into your infrastructure and your process. Predictability also builds trust. Customers will come to know that they can look forward to something knew from you when they’re planning their budgets. .
  10. And go back to Step 1 by getting to know your customers even better after they buy from you. Think of that first purchase as the first date in a long-term relationship. Value the customer who’s already shown a commitment above all others. Respect them by giving the best offers to them, not to the “potentially new” customers who haven’t been listening to you. .

These 10 steps work. I know because I’ve used them successfully and two well-respected financial guys have put their names on that fact.

It takes two things to win a loyal and growing customer base,

  1. products customers truly want that live up to their promise
  2. and more opportunities to get those kinds of products from a business they can trust..

Simply being that business who knows, loves, and serves their customers better than anyone else can save those customers the time of having to look in other places when they need what you offer. Who wouldn’t value that?

Have you had any experience with a company that consistently builds highly viral, High ROI products.

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

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The Riskiest Question We Ask When Introducing Our Business and a Much Better Approach

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People Ask It All of the Time

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We meet on Twitter or on my blog. Perhaps you came up to talk after I spoke at a conference or a mutual friend said that we should meet and talk. We have a lot in common and a lot of expertise that supports each other. We both think the other is smart. So we decide to sit down to talk more.

Things are going great. So we begin to introduce ourselves and our businesses to each other.

I ask about what you’re doing. You tell me more. We’re getting somewhere that looks like we could find a way to build something together that might move our businesses forward. Then one of us asks what appears to be a simple question that people ask often and the other one starts to buy out.

The question — one that people ask all of the time — might surprise you because on the surface it sounds smart, other-centered, and on target. But, it’s not because of how it shifts the burden of thinking and how it changes my perception of who the person who asks it.

The question?

How can I help you?

What’s wrong with that?

When we ask How can I help you? here’s what happens. We throw the burden of thinking (and the evaluation of our fit) to the other person. The person we’re talking to has to stop to consider within their entire realm of possible jobs, tasks, and future dreams,…

  • where he or she might be able to use some help.
  • who we are, what our skills are, how they might fit the culture and brand of what he or she has planned.
  • whether he or she might be able to manage putting those two together in the context of what’s already going on.

That’s a huge amount of thinking, considering, and evaluating to answer even to someone we know really well. The risk is huge that the answer will be wrong — that the person answering will misjudge our skills (too high, too low) or not think of the perfect fit for what we have to offer. Inside that situation is also the risk that the person will be uncomfortable at being unable to give a quick answer and the chance that he or she will wonder why we already don’t know.

Why take those risks at all?

A Much Better Approach

For almost a year now, I’ve reserved the How can I help? solely for situations in which people are outlining specific problems that fall into my area of expertise. And even then I try to avoid it, reaching instead for Would it help your situation if I offered a way to … ? I find that opens the discussion to more concrete exploration of where my skills fit the person’s business goals.

And when it’s a conversation that’s with a new business acquaintance rather than leading with How can I help? which is really about me. I turn the conversation to them by asking

What are your goals for the next two quarters? What are you hoping to achieve to move your business forward?

Then I listen and as I listen I ask more questions about vision of those positive outcomes.

So, would that look like a new product? a growth in awareness? a larger community? a more functional website?

And I listen more until I can clearly see their goal, their vision. Then I can also see how I might use my skills to help them achieve it, how we might align our goals to build something together that benefits us both.

A leader is someone who wants to build something he or she can’t build alone.

Do you see how a new approach to introducing your business can help your business and their business grow?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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