Successful Blog

Thanks to Week 300 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

Selling to People: How to Be the Value Not a Necessary Evil

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Guest Post
by Doug Rice

I am in an interesting position as a sales professional. I see things from the rather optimistic perspective of a salesperson. I see myself as a value creator and a problem solver for my customers. I help them achieve their goals. I make their lives easier and more fulfilling. I believe that I am valuable to them. They don’t just need a product or service. They need ME. I make a difference to them.

But, then again, I buy stuff too. I am a consumer and a businessperson as well. And I have to ask myself, “Do I view other salespeople in the same way?” You see, when I take off my sales glasses, and come back to end-consumer reality, I realize that I may be a little delusional. It seems that most people have quite the opposite view of salespeople. They see them, not as value creators, but necessary evils.

When people go shopping for a car, they rarely want the salesperson to help them. They tolerate it because they have to in order to get the vehicle they want. I recently read an article about an increasing number of doctors refusing pharmaceutical reps from making unsolicited sales calls. “If we need something,” reads a sign on one doctor’s door, we’ll call you.” We hate shopping for furniture because we don’t want to be “hounded” by the salesperson. We find the house we are interested in and THEN contact the real estate assigned to it to see if we can negotiate a better price. We send out an RFP to decide between suppliers.

We want the car. We want the house. We need the drugs. We need the supplies. But the salespeople? They just stand in the way of us accomplishing our objectives. They just make the buying process more difficult for us. We don’t want them and we don’t need them. They are necessary evil.

How to Be the Value Not a Necessary Evil

If you are a salesperson, you are probably feeling rather indignant right about now. I know the feeling. I hate admitting this to myself. But let’s face facts. This is the perception that most buyers have of us. The question is, “what are we going to do about it?” You see, it really doesn’t matter if we truly are value creators or simply sheisters trying to squeeze out profit. If customers perceive us as barriers, that’s what we will be. We can create all the value in the world but, if it goes unnoticed, we are just exhausting our efforts in vain. So, how can we change perceptions? Well, it isn’t easy, it won’t happen overnight, and it will take a lot of upfront effort before there is any payoff. But it is possible to transform your image from that of a necessary evil to that of a value creator. Here are a few tips:

  1. Never fail to qualify. Asking open-ended questions signals to customers that you care about helping them find solutions. Never talk features and benefits until you know what the customer needs. If you do, you may offer a benefit that is irrelevant to the customer. And customers seem to view benefits as mutually exclusive. If it works in one way, then it must not work in the way they need it too. Always know your customer before attempting to sell your customer. If you don’t learn about your customer, you are going to be irrelevant. And value that is irrelevant isn’t really value at all.
  2. Never emphasize price. It doesn’t matter if you have the best price in your market, bragging about it will commoditize you and make you unnecessary. And an unnecessary good is just as bad as a necessary evil. I’m not saying to hide your price. Be upfront about it, but present it in a matter-of-fact manner, as if it really isn’t important. Your customer is trained to seek out the best price but really wants the greatest value. Sell the value, not the price.
  3. Always have a reason. Whether you are sending an email, making a call, or giving a presentation and whether it is your first, second, or third attempt, always have a reason for contacting your customer. Never simply “check-in.” This kind of activity says to the customer, “Hello, you haven’t bought from me yet. Are you going to do it or not?” Newsflash for salespeople: they probably haven’t bought yet because you haven’t yet convinced them. Pestering them with calls basically asking them to hurry up is not going to motivate them. Have something valuable to say every time you contact them. If you do, you are reinforcing to them that you actually have something meaningful to contribute.
  4. Always follow up. Nothing says that you were merely an obstacle to overcome more than the customer never hearing from you after the sale. When you turn the sale into the beginning of the relationship, you are signaling to the customer that you are in it for the long haul. Make sure they don’t just have your product or service after the sale. Make sure they have you. Closing is the new opening.

    5. These tips aren’t guaranteed, of course, to turn you into a knight in shining armor for your customer. But they do send the signal that you are not merely a transactional salesperson. You do not sell businesses a better service but rather a better business. You do not sell consumers a better product but rather a better life. If sales is your career, you’ve got to start working on changing your perceived role. Commoditization is all too easy in today’s world. You’ve got to stand out if you want to stand at all. Soon, “necessary evils” won’t be necessary at all.

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    Doug Rice who writes for How Does that Make You Buy? You can find him on Twitter as @dougricehdtmyb
    Thanks, Riley

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

Are you rejecting smart ideas?

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by Patty Azzarello

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by Patty Azzarello

Thrown Overboard

Very early in my career (I emphasize “very early” as this is not an incident I am proud of and didn’t want you to think this was last week!).

I was in a sales training session and we had to do a lifeboat exercise.

The Lifeboat…

You are probably familiar with this.

You imagine you are lost at sea in a lifeboat with others, and you have set of items in your emergency kit.
But you can’t keep them all, and you need to decide which few items to keep (while you pursue or await rescue) and which to throw overboard.  It’s stuff like a flare, a rope, a mirror, a flashlight, food, a compass, drinking water, matches, etc.

What’s supposed to happen…

The way the exercise goes is that you first create your list of must-keep items individually, and then you discuss it as a team and build a team-generated list.

This is an exercise where there are, in fact, correct answers, so you get a score on how well you did as an individual, and as a team.
The point of the exercise is to show how no individual scores come out higher than the team score, and to demonstrate the value of teamwork.

OK, So our team was pathetic.

This was an international meeting, and on our team we had 7 English-as-a-first-language people, and one French guy.  Although he spoke English, (loads better than any one of us spoke French!), the language issue was difficult and distracting to the team.

Every time he advocated for his choices we basically ignored him because it was just too slow and difficult to get what he was saying, and it didn’t sound that smart to us anyway.

You can guess the outcome here

1) Our team not only lost, but failed spectacularly, in an unprecedented way…?2) Our team score was lower than ALL of our individual scores…?3) AND the French guy not only had the highest individual score on our team, but of all the individuals, and all the teams!

OK, so what are the lessons?

He was the smartest guy in the room.  He tried to share his good ideas with us – over and over again.  We basically threw him overboard.

So for me, although miles from the lesson intended about teamwork, this provided a good slap in the face, and some real lessons about communicating.

I think about this tragically “American” moment in my career very often when I am working internationally.  And it serves as a reminder to be a better human!

1. Modify your expectations of communicating

When there is a language issue, treat is as YOUR issue.

They are speaking your language as a favor to you.  You don’t speak THEIR language.  So remember you are putting the other person in a difficult position.

If you have never tried – just try to learn another language.  Appreciate the great chasm that you would need to cross to speak as well in your colleague’s language as they do in yours.

Don’t just accept a weak meeting outcome, and blame it on the other person.

Take responsibility to get the necessary business outcome and give the person a chance to communicate on their terms.  It’s up to you to make sure you get their best thinking.

2. Don’t equate capability with ability to speak your language

I recall from one of Jack Welch’s books that even he made this mistake when he first started hiring people in Japan.  He hired the Japanese people that spoke English best because they seemed more capable to him.

He later let native Japanese leaders choose talent in Japan and got much better hires.

If something is critical, let people work in their native language and make it your problem to process and understand it.

3. Revert to writing

Writing can be much easier to understand because both parties get to communicate at their own pace.  Nothing gets lost as the conversation goes by.

I have had meetings where we literally wrote out, in sentences, our conversation, decisions and agreements on the white board.
The discussion moves slower, but the communication moves much faster.  Writing can often be much more easily understood than talking, and it is very easily translated.

Use writing in parallel with social media
I also heard a brilliant idea from a colleague who manages an international team. 

On all of their multi-country conference calls they use an additional IM window where people in each country type out the key points being made, translate any jargon, highlight questions and decisions, and clarify areas in the discussion that were moving fast, or unclear.

They also use blog updates which capture the key ideas and decisions from the conference call in writing, to re-inforce the key outcomes and have a record for later review and understanding.

This improved both productivity and relationships dramatically.  Brilliant!

How do you communicate with global teams?

Please leave your ideas in the comment box below!

—–
Patty Azzarello is an executive, author, speaker and CEO-advisor. 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. Also, check out her new book Rise…

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The Book List: Social Media Geek-to-Geek and Launch: How to Prepel Your Business…

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The Book List: a weekly series by Teresa Morrow

I’m Teresa Morrow, aka The Author’s Cheerleader and I work with authors & writers to help them with their online book promotion and marketing. As part of my job I read a lot of books (I love to read anyway!). The books in The Book List series will cover a range of topics such as social media, product development, marketing, blogging, business, organization, career building, finance, networking, writing, self development, and inspiration.

‘Social Media Geek-to-Geek’ by Rick & Kathy Schmidt Jamison

“Social Media Geek-to-Geek is a great resource for technologists who use social media to communicate and share real-time information. In our business environment, where transparency and relevancy rules, it’s the perfect time to equip geeks alike to join the conversation and have fun!”
Michael Brito, VP, Social Media, Edelman Digital

“A fresh view, based on up-to-date marketing experience, and particularly welcome at a time when the ground rules are changing so quickly.”
Andrew Betts, Technical Sales & Marketing Consultant, Iconda Solutions

In Social Media Geek-to-Geek, authors Rick Jamison and Kathy Schmidt Jamison explore the increasingly vital role that social media plays in technology marketing efforts. They lucidly share how you, in a tech marketing strategy, analysis or implementation role, can harness its energy for your company. Peppered with actionable wisdom from start to finish, this enlightening book kicks off by highlighting a truism that is often overlooked–the fact that social media has been made possible purely by geek innovation.

Geeks have created this unique, powerful medium of communication just as they have created and enabled every digitally-based form of creative expression that makes social media interesting, engaging and popular.

Entertaining and informative, the authors of Social Media Geek-to-Geek very rightly point out that there is no rulebook or manual or IT department for social media. But the incisive and handy volume they have put together surely comes close to filling that gap.

About Rick:
By day, Rick Jamison is disguised as a mild-mannered corporate communications contractor. But at sundown, he reveals his real superpowers as author and cartoonist. Part illustrator, part subject clarifier, and part Big
Business underbelly tickler, his words and cartoons enlighten, enliven, enrich, entertain—and, from time to time, even educate.

About Kathy:
Kathy Schmidt Jamison is a blogger, photographer, and humorist. She is Director of Strategic Communications at Synopsys where she’s privileged to work directly for and with one of the finest übergeeks on
the planet, Chairman and CEO, Dr. Aart de Geus.

You can purchase your copy of ‘Social Geek-to-Geek’ either at Synopsis Press or on Amazon.

‘Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition’ by Michael Stelzner

“Launch is your road map to success in an ever-changing world.” Guy Kawasaki, author of Enchantment –from book

“What Stelzner shares here is proven! He’s already built a community that propelled his brand not only beyond the competition, but ahead of an entire industry.” Brian Solis, author of Engage! –From book

About the Book
If you’ve been let down by the undelivered promises of marketing, this book is for you. Launch reveals a new way to grow your business that involves focusing on the needs of others, giving gifts, working with outsiders, and restraining your marketing messages. These principles are precisely the opposite of traditional marketing. Yet they work. And they are the future. If you follow the formula outlined in this book, you can attract countless customers and prospects, resulting in amazing business growth.

This book will show you how to:

Create highly sharable content that meets people’s needs
Identify and work with outside experts, many of whom will gladly promote your content
Attract and retain raving fans that will help your business grow
Creatively market and sell to people who will gladly purchase your products and services

Launch isn’t like other marketing books. Rather than making keen observations about others who’ve achieved success, the ideas and principles in this book were developed, refined, and practiced by the author to great success.

About Michael:
Michael Stelzner is the founder of SocialMediaExaminer.com (one of the world’s largest business blogs), author of the books “Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition” and “Writing White Papers: How to Capture Readers and Keep Them Engaged.” Michael is also the man behind large summits, such as Social Media Success Summit.

Twitter: http://Twitter.com/mike_stelzner
Facebook: http://Facebook.com/smexaminer

You can purchase your copy of ‘Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition’ on Amazon.

Slow Down the Revolving Door with Your Employees

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As a business owner, have you ever stopped to smell the roses?

You have a good mix of employees on hand, yet some of them come and go like there is a revolving door at the entrance of your company.

While things have changed since our parents spent 30 or 40 years at one company, that doesn’t mean you need people coming and going like at a yard sale. For those employers tired of the revolving door, stop and review your company’s practices when it comes to hiring and firing.

Among the items to look at are:

  • Training process – Have you ever taken the time to review your training methods for new employees? Given most companies have probationary periods of anywhere from 30 to 90 days, review your process to see if it is productive or not. Since your company spends time and effort on training new employees, you don’t want the door opening and closing every after you’ve successfully trained an employee. Not only have you wasted their time, but also the time of those on your staff who trained the individuals.
  • Employee satisfaction – It is inevitable that some employees will get the “seven-year itch” and want to leave, oftentimes before seven years. That being said, what are you doing to keep employees motivated, happy and successful? When an employee is at your company for several years, they develop relationships with both your staff and your customers. Should they leave, you then have to find the right piece to the puzzle to make sure the next employee co-exists well with others. Encourage them not to leave by providing opportunities for growth and happiness within your company.
  • Managerial skills – For every 100 good managers, there are always handfuls that stop just short of terrorizing your employees. Whether it on purpose or by accident, they are not doing a very good job relating to those under them. That being the case, some of your employees are working on their resumes during the day when they’re supposed to be working for you. While regular employees get reviews, it is important for business owners to review the efforts of their department managers. Meet with those working under the managers to see if they’re happy with the direction the managers are taking. Are they letting those under them be creative and do their jobs, or are they micro-managing them to the point the employees are tuning out? A bad relationship with one’s immediate boss is oftentimes the top reason solid employees leave a company.
  • Meeting employee needs – While there have to be rules in place in every office, business owners who can’t have a little flexibility will oftentimes see good employees say bye-bye. Whether it involves medical issues, children, commuting etc. company heads should offer some leeway when it comes to an employee’s personal matters than only can be met during the 9 to 5 day. Companies that do not allow employees to meet such needs either through excused absences or making up the time run the risk of losing these individuals over time.
  • Room for growth – Does your company have an environment where employees can grow and achieve their career goals or are they left just spinning their wheels? Whether it is through financial incentives, opportunities for more of a say and how things work, time off from work, be sure to have some markers in place where your employees have added motivation to do a good job. Nothing turns an employee off more than knowing that they’re essentially in a dead-end job.

While business owners must decide what is best for their companies and not follow everyone else, it is important to have a culture in the workplace where employees come to work each and every day motivated.

For those companies whose employees just show up because they need a paycheck, expect that front door to get a lot of use over time.

Photo credit: hollywoodrepublican.net

Dave Thomas is an expert writer on items like credit card processing and is based in San Diego, California. He writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs at Resource Nation.

7 Key Steps to Being Seen as the Best in Your Field

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What Good Is an Expert No One Knows?

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Whether we’re part of a large organization or working at home, to be successful and recognized, people have to see the quality of our work, know its value, find it relevant and worth coming back to. Without that we won’t be working long. It’s not enough to have knowledge, know-how, and be able to deliver extraordinary value, if we’re the only ones who know that’s what we can do.

To succeed in business, we need to share our expertise in ways that are relevant, real, and understandable and the more quickly we do that the faster we’ll be able to get on with the real work. These are the 7 Steps to becoming visible as the best in your field, the expert worth knowing, the first trusted source.

  1. Debriefing your successes to find your unique expertise. Inside your successes you’ll find your natural strengths and how they are best used. Capitalize on your strengths and match them with your deep interests — those things that you talk about and do even when you don’t have to talk about or do them. Your unique talent and experience differentiates your expertise — makes it uniquely your own. Know your strengths and play to them.
  2. Chose ONE key area of expertise. Find ONE niche that fits your strengths. With the noise of a crowded market, one niche, one offer, one specific expertise is a clear, easy to share message. People like a “go to” person for a specific need. Having ONE key area of expertise makes it easy for people to share what you do. It makes it easy for the people who want that expertise to find you. Once you’re working together, they’ll discover the other wonderful things you know.
  3. Network online and off to find people who need your expertise. Get to know the groups offline that attract the people who want to know someone who does what you do. Use tools like Listorious.com and Twitter search to find people to follow on Twitter and talk with them. Make friends on LinkedIn one by one. Align all of your profiles to showcase that one area of expertise that is your strongest suit. Introduce yourself with your best true story and a build your powerful personal network systematically.
  4. Share Your expertise as content. New customers and clients want information about how to run their businesses and their lives better — top-notch, quality, relevant content. Find opportunities to write, speak, or teach for your business. Share wht you’ve learned in contexts that are appealing. When you speak, write, and casually answer questions give them information, answers, AND analysis that shows them how much you love what you do. People can get news anywhere, but they don’t want to do what you do. What they want is your experience and the expert opinion, analysis, evaluation, synthesis, and predictions.
  5. Use online tools to curate relevant content around your expertise. Make finding interesting content tidbits your expert quest. Get to be friends with Google Alerts and similar services. Follow terms around the Internet. Choose several publications, blogs, and writers who stay on top of the areas that your customers and clients care most about. Retweet their articles on Twitter. Share them on Facebook and LinkedIn. Add a comment to the article as you send it out. Use popurl.com or alltop.com to locate
  6. Learn as much as you can about those who do what you do. Get to know the other experts in your niche. Talk with them. Visit and comment on their blogs. Ask them for an interview. Share war stories. Discuss ways of working together. Discover the ways that your expertise is the same and different from theirs. Volunteer to guest post on their blogs and determine who you might want to invite to work with you on larger projects and referrals. That’s a great way to build the base of people who know what you do.
  7. Go deeply into your area of expertise. Saturate yourself in the trends and the traditional ways of doing things. Find out what researchers are thinking so that you can offer clients and customers the perspective they don’t have the time to gather on their own. Be the first trusted source of the highest quality and most relevant information so that people begin to look to you for an analysis of their situation.


    8. PLUS ONE: Love what you do. . Nothing is more appealing than an expert who is fully engaged in what he or she is doing. It’s easy to trust that someone who is so engaged will be upbeat and easy to work with when problems come. Share the joy of your niche with the folks who come to see you. They’ll want to know more about what it is that you do.

    Focusing in on your expertise gives customers and clients insight into who you are and why they should keep coming back to see you. It becomes a key centerpiece of your offer — quality, knowledge, and credibility as promotion. Now, you’re ready when that person comes to look with the reasons founded in the relevance and the results that you represent. Just keep counting to seven — seven key steps to being seen as the best in your field.

    What has been the single most useful strategy you’ve found in building your own business expertise?

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

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