Social Media, a one to many relationship? Why?

Most companies, if not all of them do social media on a "business" to "consumer" level.

That is, one entity to many consumers. Doesn't that seem a bit weird? Since when did a business have a single voice. The entity itself doesn't exist without the people.

When you walk into a retail store, you aren't greeted by the "business", you're greeted by one of the people of the business. Your experience is with that person and how you rate that interaction with the business is highly dependent on that single person.

So why is social media different? I find it so strange when a "business" responds to a post by a single person with a: "Thank you John, that's a really great question! We are looking at...". Who speaks like that in real life?? That's weird!

What if each social media business account was not administered by one person, but rather a community within which many people within the business could interact with others. More like a forum than a social media profile.

Many representatives of a business to many customers.

Makes sense doesn't it?

Now the warning bells would be going off for a number of people - what if people say the wrong thing, we don't have control over our brand, it could all get out of hand!

It's not really that different from your retail stores. Your team are constantly speaking with the customers anyway. Whatever they do will get spread by word of mouth. You're only augmenting what's already happening in real life.

If you're afraid of what your staff might say - you might want to look at why you're afraid of what your staff might say...

Internal dialogue

I've been spending a lot of time in my head this week, just noticing all the stuff I say to myself.

You know, all those judgements, opinions, reactions, thoughts and feelings.

By taking on this practice, I've been able to catch myself having thoughts that really undermine what I'm out to achieve.

Catching these thoughts allows to take an action contrary to the thought or take an action consistent with that thought. The key here though is that I now have a say in the matter.

This week I've taken actions that I normally wouldn't have and I've felt peaceful and been settled when I usually would've been stressed.

When you're next confronted by something, just notice the thoughts that you have. That's just all part of your survival mechanism.

If you're interested in learning more about this, I'd recommend Eckhart Tolle's book The Power of Now or check out Landmark Education.

Best example of product placement in a movie

...goes to Aston Martin in the James Bond series.

I marvel at how well they've been able to pair their car up with a story and fictional character.

It's such a perfect marriage that you can't help but think of Bond when you see an Aston - regardless of the model!

I just saw the new Bond movie and I can tell you it definitely makes me want an Aston that much more and it only had the Aston Martin DB5 in it for a short period. People actually gasped and clapped in the movie when they first showed it!! You could feel the excitement in the theatre.

I dream of creating something that revered and people get gushy about...

Struggling to keep momentum

This week has been tough.

I've not made the number of cold calls that I want to and as a result not booking the appointments I need to make sales.

There have been some other big priorities that I've been working on but I've noticed how quick I am to drop cold calling down the priority list.

The impact of doing this is that now my momentum has slowed and I'll have to build it up again and I always feel like I'm behind on what I'm up to.

Things I can do moving forward is to make cold calling and lead gen a priority - keeping the momentum is vital and it'll be a lot less work in the long run.

Getting clear on our value proposition

Yesterday we had a fantastic workshop session around our business with a very experienced specialist in our industry.

One of the most valuable things that I came away with was becoming much clearer about our unique value proposition.

Being in the grind day in day out was like having blinkers on and just having that external light shone on things made things so much clearer.

The end result I can see is a much clearer value proposition when talking about what we offer.

Emotional Value

Emotional value is the intangible value we place on products (and services).

It correlates with the financial value of a product.

It's subjective.

It has us be irrational when making decisions.

A great example of emotional value is in cars. Here's an example of a Ferrari 250 GTO, the most expensive car in the world - ever.

http://www.topgear.com/uk/car-news/ferrari-250-GTO-sells-for-35-million-dollars-2012-06-06

$35 million dollars it sold for!

This car was sold for $18,000 when it first came out in the 1960's and in today's equivalent price, that would be around $130,000. Less than a typical Mercedes!

How did it get to be so expensive? It's nothing to do with the features or the handling. It's a very old car and Ferraris back in the day weren't the incredible machines they are now.

It's all emotional value. The story behind the car, the pedigree behind the Ferrari badge, the story behind the history of the company, the one off unique nature, the prestige that comes with the car, the story YOU tell yourself.

The subjectivity of emotional value comes into the picture too as the emotional value would be near zero for someone not into cars.

As a result, this person that's not into cars would only pay material value. Nowhere near $35million. This illustrates so clearly how emotional value has a direct impact on financial value.

So when we're creating a product or service, we're limited with how far we can increase the material value of a product. There are only so many features we can put on a product or service. The emotional value however is limitless.

Instead of looking at how we can make things cheaper and better, how about looking at how we can create more emotional value?

Sweat the small things

My fiancee and I went to a place called Quirk dessert yesterday in Howick.

She had heard about it and we thought we'd give it a try. She'd read a few good things about it so I expected something pretty awesome.

It was 7:30pm and it was more or less dark by the time we got there. I walk in and my first impression is how the fitout is cheaper than I expected. Fluorescent tubes lit up the place with sterile blue light, the decor was a bit of a medley of things you'd find from garage sales and there was a cheap t-shirt with the plain text "Quirk" printed on the front for $40.

I grabbed a menu, cutely shaped in a big wooden "Q" and the inside pages were cut pieces of laminated paper - not cut very neatly I might add. I flip through the menu and check out what's on offer. What I order is a Kiwiana Sundae. Two big scoops of hokey pokey icecream, flake, crushed crunchie bar and cream.

All for $10.50.

What I want to point out is that I would have happily paid $10.50 for a great experience and that dessert. Or alternatively, an excellent dessert and that average shop experience.

The problem was, neither was that impressive. Now none of what I described was anything major. Changing the fluorescent tubes, cutting the menus properly, taking that t-shirt down would make a massive difference. Their service was good, the place is reasonably popular based on reviews and the dessert wasn't horrendous. However, it was plain and that's why that place will never take off like it could.

As business owners, we need to sweat the small stuff. It's the small things that come together to create that full experience that we crave.

It's the small stuff that creates a believable and memorable story.

Getting it all done

I'm getting to grips with the fact that I will never get it all done.

The temptation for me is to take it all on, and make sure that I complete everything that I set out to do. The reality is though, if I'm up to a lot of things and I'm ambitious, I'll always have more to complete than I have time to do.

The pitfall for me is to work into the evenings and beat myself up when I don't get it all done.

The thing to notice is when I go into that mode. Acknowledge that I won't ever get it all done and simply reorganise things as I need to and communicate with anyone that is relying on me to get something done.

Then I get myself some icecream and just relax. It's all good.

Cold calling tip #3

#3 - Respect their time

When we get cold called, doesn't annoy you when the person on the other end is just talking a million miles and hour and not giving you an opportunity to respond? A lot of us just aren't rude enough to hang up - we're left feeling frustrated.

So the first step I take is to ask permission to talk. I ask them "have you got a couple of minutes to chat?".

Sure you'll get some people that say no they're busy - but that's no problem, just ask them when the next best time is to call them.

For those that say yes, that's great. The key here then is not to speak too quickly and throw everything at them before they can respond. You've now got permission to talk to them so take your time and have a conversation, not throw a sales pitch.

My rule of thumb here is to let them speak. Listen more than talk. Just because it's a cold call it doesn't mean you have to do all the talking.

The end result if it's all gone well is that they'll end up suggesting we meet. They already know that's what I'm after and it becomes natural once all their concerns are resolved.

Cold calling tip #2

#2 - Being Prepared

I do a decent amount of research before calling someone. I think about what value do I bring to the call? What do I know about their business? What are they doing in terms of marketing already? Would my solution give them a good return on investment? All sorts of things.

Now there's a fine line between doing enough research and too much research. After all, you could do all the research in the world and they may just hang up on you straight away.

However, in my experience, the difference the research makes is not necessarily the fact that you can spout out lots of info about their company, but it's rather the confidence having this knowledge brings.

When they say, "What makes your service different from every other man and his dog that rings me?"

I can say "Well, I see that you're doing Yellow Pages advertising, spending a decent amount on Google Adwords and based on your radio advertising I know you're trying to promote office furniture. Our solution is a specific approach that could drop your Yellow and Google Adwords spending to nothing and whilst bringing you more office furniture customers. Based on what I've found about your business - I know we can provide a realistic return on investment."

That little amount will make you stand out from the rest - it's simple.

For you others that aren't into business. Think about using this for job interviews and networking.

Doing your research shows interest and respect.

Cold calling tip #1

Recently I've been having some great success with cold calling and I thought I would share some of what's been working for me.

In this post I'll share #1.

1. Being Authentic
When I call someone, I don't try and strategise or fumble my way through things. I don't run through a script or get attached to any sort of result. I say what's honestly there in my mind. This is especially important when they throw curveballs at you, like "you're the 5th person that has called me today" or "what do you want?!".

By speaking from being authentic and not trying to have the perfect answer, you come across as a human and honest. That really lands over there with the person you're calling.

Sometimes from a cold call, I'll end up dancing in a conversation for 5 minutes before it gets concluded. That's quite long for a cold call. More often than not, after dancing around for this long, the appointment gets booked. They're satisfied I'm not hiding anything or trying to manipulate them in any way.