I remember my driver’s ed class – we would go to the place in the evening, watch a couple movies about how serious accidents are, go over to the Mr. Hero next door and have fries, and then come back and discuss the movies for 15 minutes. Then the instructor picked us up at our homes, took us driving in a variety of settings and wah-la. Two failed maneuverability tests later I had my license. At Drive Team, that doesn’t happen. At Drive Team, teens learn real, practical information about driving. They learn the limits of what a car can and can’t do. They practice difficult situations and Ken even has a skid car so he can take the control of the vehicle away and teach you what to do. The kids not only learn to be good, safe drivers, but how to judge others’ driving ability and to take responsibility for their driving.

One of the most important things Ken said is he looks at drivers as hardware with no software on how to drive.  He programs them correctly to drive well.  If a driver with several years experience comes in for his 2 hour skills course, he can reprogram them and fix the “bugs”.   I think this metaphor is fantastic.  Isn’t that exactly what learning to drive is like?  After driving for 24 years, I sat in his facility and found out that due to the pressure and speed with which airbags deploy, it is now much safer to have your hands at 9 and 3 or even 8 and 4 than at 10 and 2.  Until Friday, that was a question I was pretty confident I knew the answer!

So first, a big hand to Drive Team and their programs.  Second, how are you writing the software to use your products and services on the hardware of your clients?  Is the programming working?  At Drive Team, when it works it is saving lives!

Over and over people came in with their ideas that they held onto like children.  But when questioned, they were so focused on the person asking the negative question that they ignored the fact that others were still interested!  One couple actually blew the deal because one of the investors asked an, “I’m interested” question while another made a comment about why she was out and they addressed the “I’m out”!  They put all their energy into defense when there was a perfectly good chance of getting the deal if they had just listened and stayed focused on their goal.

If I knew someone going in, I would certainly recommend they accept the “I’m outs” for what they are and hear everyone before they started defense.  They should also remember, as we all should, questions are not negative or positive – they are an indication of interest.  In someone asks you a question, there’s a reason they want to know the answer. So answering it helps move the process along.  Answer them honestly – this is not the time to make promises  you can’t deliver.  If a customer does say “I’m out”, see if you can understand why.  One of the nice things the sharks do is they do explain why they are out.  Most of the time, there is no point in discussing – if the shark doesn’t feel they have any connection to an industry, your talking isn’t going to change that.  But, there are times when they say something that isn’t accurate and the presenter has a chance to explain.  That happens in our sales process too – if a customer says “I’m not interested because…”  you get a chance to really explain why they are wrong.

Now sometimes, they are right.  ”I’m not interested because we have filed Chapter 11″ isn’t something you can answer.  But, can you offer them something?  Put them on a mailing list to keep up with industry trends?  Call back in 1 month when their position will be clear?  The name of a good industry-focused recruiter?  Something? Offering something even to a “no” shows you believe in your product and actually interested in a relationship.  And that can go a long way to turning a no into a yes.

So be careful not to be defensive when talking to people.  If they ask a question, take it at face value and don’t try to read too much into it.  And if they are “out”, try to give them something so at some point they come back in.

So what can’t you offer that your clients need?  What areas would be great to have someone to refer to and have them refer business your way?  It is always important to narrow your offering to be easy to explain and allow you to deliver consistently.  Now, it is time to think about what areasyou haven’t covered. A solid partner who understands the value of what you do and how it fits together with what they do is invaluable and when you hand off that client, you know they will come back.

Once you figure out the area(s) you could use a partner, you need to find one.  Keep in mind this is going to be someone you refer clients to so spend some serious time talking to their sales team, understanding what they offer and make sure you are comfortable.  If they offer a demo, be sure to go through it and fully understand.  Then, do an experiment – referr only one person and closely track the progress with your client.  I have known some people who have split the cost with their client to test out a service.

Once you have this established, you get the benefits of knowing where clients are going for those services, you appear bigger than you are since you made the referral, your clients will begin to see you as a one-stop-shop which can be invaluable as you grow your business, and you get to know what’s going on in multiple industries.  Partners can  be a huge strength and seriously help grow your business.

Product or Service
Strong Company Brand
Strong Personal Brand
Established or Create the need
Long or Short Sales Cycle
Known Industry
Established vs. Startup
Tech Savvy Customers

At each step, we analyzed the company and the customers to make sure we understood who people think we are, who we know we are and who we want to be.  That is the core of a good marketing plan.  And while no one knows your company better than you do, there are many details that have not been put into words.  That makes a huge difference when trying to target marketing.  The last thing we want to do is throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and see what sticks!

We’ve talked in the past about buyer personas and that is really the next step to your marketing plan.  Create 5-7 characters in your marketing story that are typical of your best customers.  What are they like?  What do they do in their spare time?  Married?  Children?  Where do they live?  Give these characters as much dimension as you can.  Then, when reviewing marketing options, ask “does this attract Scott” or is “this answering Mary’s concerns”.  Since you know so much about the characters, you should be able to answer the questions.  And we all know what my answer will be if you say you don’t know your customers that well. GO ASK.  If you are local, go sit down with them and if not, get everyone in your company together and put together what you know.  Then, the next time you talk, find out what’s missing.  Otherwise, you will not be able to tell if that new technology is the best thing to use or if traditional advertising works better.

Your marketing plan is vital to know how to steer your ship in 2010.  Many people are forcasting changes to social media this year with a tightening of networks and more depth in relationships.  If you have a strong plan, you will be able to adapt to those changes as they come and handle them immediately.  Bring on the plans!

In the Harvard Business Review this month, they talk about companies allowing people to take naps and forced time off. Having caught an employee napping on the job once I must confess I’m not in favor of it, but I have certainly made people take time off to refresh and bring clarity to their thinking. Kind of a “reboot” for a person. You give yourself a chance to empty out anything that’s stuck or left over and come back refreshed and ready to dive in again.

So, when was the last time you rebooted?

Yesterday in a conversation with a client, we were talking about a difficult situation he handled well for a client. It was an interesting story and one we are turning into a case study. Just because of the way he said something about the project got me thinking about a different way to approach his work and we then had an entire conversation about how that change could really put his process on its ear but at the same time improve the service he offers. It was an exciting conversation! But it wouldn’t have happened if we had been on email or instant message because the way he writes is different than how he speaks so that idea never would have been triggered.

So how do you pick up the phone? Here are a couple ways to help:
1. Make a deal with yourself that you can’t (fill in the blank) until you’ve made X calls. That may be get a cup of coffee, read your email, respond to something, etc. Whatever will be something you wouldn’t want to give up.

2. Create your call list so that every 7-10 calls is one to someone who is fun. That might be a client, a networking partner, a vendor, etc. (it should be work related; after all, you are at WORK) but someone that will take your call and be interesting. That way when you make the next call, your attitude will come through.

3. Take a break – don’t spend 4 hours making calls straight. While you’ll get through your list, how likely is in that the call at the end of hour four sounds as confident and passionate as the first three did?

4. Don’t fall into the research trap. If you find you spend your mornings researching the people you are planning to call and then don’t get your calls done, try setting a timer. Identify the key things you need to know about the company or person and then give yourself a specific amount of time to find it. Whether you find it or not, make the call.

5. Create your call lists the night before. It can be at the end of your work day, but never make a list first thing in the morning. By the time you finish it you will have missed peak call times and other things will demand your attention.

Whatever you do, don’t lose sight of the value of the phone. It is a key tool to any small business!

• LinkedIn – LinkedIn is a must in my opinion.  Being out there so you can be found and find others is critical no matter what your business.  I recommend getting your profile to at least 80% and joining a group or two that are relevant.  Some of the people I have met in the groups are truly facinating!
• Plaxo – I like Plaxo for the search engine optimization benefits but haven’t gotten as involved there as I do on LinkedIn. One extra feature I do like on Plaxo is they send you reminders of your connections birthdays.
• Naymz – This one is also good for SEO but I haven’t found it really useful on a day to day basis. Definitely not a replacement for LinkedIn.
• Ryze –  Have not been impressed AT ALL. I found the people there have been weird and the site very unresponsive.

There are other places you need to list your business / profile so that you can be found.

• Google business – Google offers businesses the ability to post a local business listing. These listings are guaranteed to show up on the first page of results for a Google search for your company so clients will always be able to find you.
• Google profiles – Google also offers profiles of individuals and those are guaranteed first page results as well.
• Wink – wink.com is a site that is trying to summarize people’s profiles on social media.  It is a good idea to own your profile.
• ZoomInfo – ZoomInfo currently allows you to claim your individual profile and say in the near future you will be able to claim a business profile as well. Be sure to set those up!

There are many other services out there under the social media header, but these are the primary places I recommend all businesses list under.  While I personally like Twitter and use it to stay on top of trends, I still do not recommend it as a business-generating tool.

I hope this helps and if there are other sources you like, let me know and I’ll update the post!

The way I identify what makes sense for you is to first discuss who are your target customers or “buyer personas” as David Meerman Scott calls them. Who are we trying to find that is the right person for YOU to contact?  Why exactly are they the right person?  And these descriptions aren’t for general consumption. I would never post them on a blog because some of the ways we describe people may not sound flattering.  If you are bad with people who are sheep, we aren’t going to look for followers.  We’ll look for leaders. But we certainly aren’t going to build a marketing message saying “no sheep need apply” because people don’t think of themselves that way.

Next, we’ll find out where those people are. I mean, there is no point it trying to reach neurosurgeons through an on-line game. Just like you wouldn’t use a healthcare magazine to find a programmer to work on a manufacturing app. That sounds pretty obvious, but when it comes to social media, it seems like EVERYONE is EVERYWHERE. The reality is they just aren’t.  And there are ways to identify the right venue.

Finally, we’re going to determine the right vehicle.  Again, you wouldn’t advertise on a billboard to attract subway riders so use the same logic for how to communicate. Many of my clients need information that is more thorough than a blog entry or post somewhere and they like to print things so I write a newsletter. I am sure there are some clients that keep each copy and print it when they need to read an article again. There are others that read it on the screen and others that don’t read it at all (some on purpose, some who intend to get to it and don’t).  That’s fine – I have other ways of getting to them as well. Most of the time it is by PHONE.  My favorite social media tool, by the way.

So I am not claiming to be an expert so please don’t lump me in that category.  I am just a person trying to help you market your business as effectively as possible.

But I think there is more to it than that. During good times, you put pieces together to drive your business and many work. If they don’t quite fit, well, that’s okay. But during a recession, every piece counts and you have to make sure it is all working together. A good puzzle is the same – the pieces go together and make a unified picture. I think that is what we are all trying to do in difficult times.

As you put those pieces together, just remember you are building the future. My friend Mike Gionta uses a puzzle as a reason to have a business plan – you wouldn’t do a puzzle without the picture in front of you, so how can you build a business without a plan so you know where you are going? I love that metaphor because a. it is so right and b. I’ve done those puzzles where you don’t have a picture or the whole thing is white and they take MUCH longer and are much more difficult.

So my recommendation is look at the elegance of a puzzle and see how you can fit your pieces together to grow in the future. Or, pick up a couple jigsaw puzzles. They are a fun way to spend an evening!

Bill is co-author of “Happy About LinkedIn for Recruiting” which is a great resource on using LinkedIn. He has been listed as one of the most influential people in the recruiting industry and in his show, he interviews people to get a sense of what is happening in the recruiting world.

I did say a couple things that were controversial. For instance, I truly believe there are many, many people who would like to have a social network for work, and one for home. Several people have said this is an age issue but I have found people right out of college who would like to keep their private life private and met some people close to retirement who mix it all up together. But, because I know there are many people who feel that way, I do stand by not connecting to business associates on Facebook.

I also recommended following Boolean Black Belt, Glen Cathey. He gives a great deal of information on how to search the web for candidates that typically would cost thousands of dollars to get through seminars.

I also recommended Geoff, Peterson, also featured on xtremerecruit.tv this week. Geoff does more webinar training on searching as well as provides a number of other services through his company.

I was really pleased to be in the company of these and other impressive people in the recruiting community. Hope you enjoy!

An infomercial is so different than the type of marketing we all do every day.  We don’t get to talk to people who don’t even realize they have a problem or even who know they have a problem but haven’t focused on it to find a solution yet. We are talking to people every day who know their problem intimately, know what solution they want, and know what they don’t want. So what do we do differently than the guy selling the chopper that requires you to be a body builder to operate?

Traditionally we have tried to convince them that we have the solution to their problem. We have tried to convince them we know what they don’t want and we don’t do that. AND we’ve tried to convince them that we will fix it. This kind of discussion put the customer and the sales person on opposite sides of the issue.  The prospect still had the problem and it becomes almost a game of tug-of-war; give it to me! I want to take it away!

Now, with the new tools available we have the opportunity to show people we really mean it. We are on their side, we arent taking things away, we’re making them better. And we show them not when we interrupt what they were doing that was important to them – we get to tell them when they come looking. Now, we are like the person at the front of the store who hands the person walking in exactly what they came to buy. Wahoo!

Granted, selling through relationship-building takes a lot more time. It is time-intensive in fact.  In prepping for the economy to come back, what are you doing with your time?  Doesn’t it seem like a good way to spend some of the time you have now in building these avenues?  Start by determining who your target customer is or the Customer Persona as David Meerman Scott calls it. Once you understand that person, make sure you are where that person will look when they are ready. Can they find you? Does the information that comes up reflect who you are as a person and company? Because I promise, when they are ready, they will come looking and when they do, you will be better than a ginsu knife!

What I really loved was his pointing out that the new media doesn’t “kill” the old.  While there are some people out there saying Twitter will replace everything, I just don’t see it.  In fact I think in the not-so-distant-future, Twitter will be incorporated into something else and be a part of something more concrete. Now, if you want to take a conversation off line, you go to another media. I think in the future you will have an option to move to a longer dialogue format.   Also, while LinkedIn and Facebook are great, what I have found is they have led to more phone calls and getting together.  It doesn’t matter if it is a member of a LinkedIn group that is local or a Facebook connection that will be in town for a meeting, I have met more people in the last two years that were new people and I met them in person because I met them on line first.  That is a whole different side of social media than I’ve read about lately.

Finally, his other big point is to consider the source of the information.  I recently was solicited to buy the newest, greatest Twitter tool and it was pushed by the creator of the tool but disguised in a training seminar. The entire talk was about how you can’t live without this tool and you really had to dig to find out the guy had written it. He has since updated his materials to be more clear but at the time, it felt shady.  So always know who is providing the information.

I do enjoy social media and think it has a significant place in any marketing strategy but which programs that means or where you have profiles depends on your goals.  Thanks to Scott for putting that out there!

Be sure to check him out!!

In the past, computer users were taught to file things in folders and sub-folders to keep everything organized, much like you would in a file cabinet. Organizational specialists told you to file things based on your first reaction to where it should go so you could easily find them again.  Many people embrace this organizational structure but just as many file everything on their desktop (scary – I know).

Several years ago I implemented a content management system that used metadata to store and retrieve records. We struggled for a long time as to what would be assigned to each record until the vendor asked the magic question – what is the minimum information you would accept to find a document?  Suddenly we had a context. If someone came to the counter and wanted a document, what was the bare minimum information they had to have to get what they wanted.  Example – they couldn’t ask for “some student who was female and graduated in 1992″ (this was a student records program on a campus) but they could ask for “Kathy Breitenbucher, graduated in 1992″.  If the peson requesting had the student’s social security number that was enough, etc.  And so began my discussions of metadata.

Shortly thereafter operating systems started talking about metadata. The idea is you create a document and then assign the metadata to it. Then, when you need the file, you just run a search and there’s your document.  We’re all used to searching the Internet for stuff so what’s the difference?  Well for me, it is changing everything about the way I work.  I considered using the “find file” feature a failing of my organizational structure. I mean, if I put it somewhere, I should know where, right?  So now I’m suppose to do away with all of that and always search. Hard to get used too.

I know David is right and this is the smart way to manage data.  It is more efficient, leaves less room for error or misfiling and in the long run should save time. But giving up my folders?   I’m just not there yet.

All of us have had times when people have taken advantage of a situation and then wanted to prevent it in the future. But if you ever hear yourself say, “sorry we have to go through this – it is policy” you should really stop and think about WHY it is policy.  What is in it for the company that makes it important?  Is it more important than getting your client through the process quickly and focused on their needs?