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How to talk interesting people

October 2, 2009 By Leave a Comment

How to get into really interesting conversations with new people that go beyond the usual ‘where I work, what I do’ kind of robotic answers that go no where?

AJ Pape over at the Making Organizations Awesome blog wrote a post that suggests asking these three questions:

  1. What’s your current passion project – the thing you’re pursuing that you’re most excited about?  It could be a result you’re working on, a big problem you want to solve, a breakthrough in your field. Note: this is not the same as your job title.
  2. Talk about the specific help that would make the biggest difference for you right now? What are the skills, connections, or expertise that others might be able to help you with?
  3. What kind of help do you love to give? What skills or connections do you most love using to help others with their passion projects?

You read AJ’s entire post here, and see a video of him asking someone  these three questions.

One heads up. I used  these questions last night at a dinner party and several people hesitated, not because they didn’t want to share, but more because  they’re not really passionate about much right now. A common theme in so many lives.

Another person, though, jumped right in — and boy was she interesting.  So know how to give people an out if they feel like you’ve found them “too naked.”  As for the passionate people? You’ll never shut them up — and they’re likely to really fascinating to listen to.

Filed Under: Communicating, Language Tagged With: , ,

Hiring your own beat reporter: LA Kings jump onto trend

October 1, 2009 By Leave a Comment

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If there are no media left to cover your company or sports team, what do you do to build a fan base besides Tweet and run a company blog?  For the past two years our company has created independent blog properties for big companies, written by independent writers, free of any control by the client.  (The blogs focus on issues relevant to the clients’ businesses.)

This week the LA Kings adopted a similar approach when it hired Rich Hammond of the Los Angeles Daily News to cover the team  — not as a publicist, but as a journalist covering his sports beat but being paid by the team.

Sports teams used to have several full time “traveling beat writers” covering them. Now major league sports teams are lucky if they have one. For the LA Kings, they’ve had no one covering them, aside from spotty AP reports. (This is hockey, not major league football, but still….)

By  hiring a verteran sports reporter,  the Kings expect to see much more news about the team, not just about games but about player profiles, previews, etc.  A steady stream to connect with the fan base and hopefully attact new ones. It’s a trend that we expect more and more companies to adopt as well.

Here’s what Rich Hammond wrote about the move:

To put it as plainly and simply as possible, I will draw a salary from the Kings, but none of the stories and/or blogs I write will be reviewed for approval by any member of the Kings’ staff. Topics will not need approval and interviews will not have any additional supervision. I have been hired to blog, write stories — including coverage of home and road games — and produce other content for the website. This is not public relations. I have been told, pointedly, by the highest levels of Kings management, that I should continue to report and write as normal.

Be certain of two things: I will not “go easy” on the Kings out of any fear of retribution, just as I will not take gratuitous shots at the team and the organization simply because I have retained the right to be critical. Things will continue on course. Praise and criticism, to the extent I feel either is warranted, will continue to be distributed fairly.

That’s out of the way. Now let me tell you what to expect. I can say, with complete confidence, that you will have better, more comprehensive Kings coverage than ever before. When the team is away on its 10-day road trip next month — and on all of its road trips — I will be there, giving up-to-the-minute updates on the blog and writing stories for the website. For the first time ever in my career, I will be able to dedicate every working hour to covering the Kings.

It will be interesting to see of the Kings do give Hammond complete editorial control.  In our experience, it’s hard for “the owners” to be hands off when a writer writes something they disagree with, or knocks — legitimately – the company or product in some way.   Yet  research shows that people believe sources that provide the good and the not-so-good. Those souces have more credibility than the “official company spokesperson.”

And, who knows, if the Kings get this right, maybe the good karma will help them win more games too. :)

Filed Under: Communicating, Marketing trends, Smart company stories, Social media strategy Tagged With: , ,

Google Sidewiki: 5 things businesses should do

September 29, 2009 By 2 Comments

Google just introduced SideWiki, which allows anyone to add information in a sidebar next to any Web page. Google positions SideWiki as a way to contribute helpful information to any site, providing additional insights to what’s on the page. Nice. They even show a nice example with John Maeda, president of RISD, adding a comment about Cooper-Hewitt.

For corporate people who have had to fight with legal and senior management to get a corporate blog or to  allow people to post comments on the corporate blog, this is big news.  I started saying “there is no control” of corporate information back in 2005. And now, really, there is no control.

If people don’t agree with the company’s information, they get write their views in Google Sidewiki, which appears as a browser sidebar. If they think your marketing claims are misleading, they can write that in Sidewiki. If they think a competitor’s product alternative is a better choice, up it goes. (Or should I say “side it goes” as the Google Sidewiki opens to the left side of the Web page.)

While the product was just launched , I think there are five things marketers and corporate communications people need to pay attention to:

1.  Claim  your Google Sidewiki for your Web site; that way your company information will always appear at the top of the wiki. Bill Hartzer has a good tutorial on how to do this.

2. Give management the heads up about Sidewiki before you’re called on the carpet for not knowing about “this.” Reassure people that there are unlikely to be a lot of bad comments, unless of course there is a reason for them. People can only add to  Sidewiki if they use their full name.  As bloggers have found, simply asking people for their name and a legitimate email  filters out most ranters and haters.

3. Respond to people who comment in the Sidewiki, just as you would — I hope — if they commented on your company blog, forum or community.  Engaging in the right way can build brand fans, correct misperceptions, and help you learn how to make your company better.

4. No corporate blog? This is the time to get one. If you have no way to easily and quickly communicate your company views via social media, you’re at risk.    SideWiki is another example of making it easy for people to have a voice.  They’d probably be interested in hearing from people in your company in their real person voices, too. So what are you waiting for? Make it easy for people in your company to share their views.

5.  Follow the trend and follow what people write — not just on your pages, but on your competitors’, on industry sites, on blogs and online magazine pages covering your industry.  SideWiki could provide some incredible intelligence for sales, marketing, customer service, and product innovation.

Here’s a video with more information.  You can also follow @googlesidewiki on Twitter to see track adoption and issues. It’s too soon to tell how influential Google Sidewiki might become, but it’s not too soon to start paying attention.

Filed Under: Activating change, Marketing trends, Social media strategy Tagged With: , ,

Don't ever send a press release like this

September 29, 2009 By 1 Comment

People send me a lot of press releases, hoping I’ll write about them in this blog.  This one came yesterday, which is just terrible. Instead of making the marketing agency look big, it makes them look like small-town, small potatotoes.  I’ve omitted the company name, but shared the release so you can avoid ever doing one like this — even if the client or CEO insists.

PS — if you’re moving, send an email to clients, partners and vendors; add the new address to your employees’ email signature, your web site, blogs, Facebook pages, etc.

King of Prussia, Pa., September 28, 2009 – XYZ Group, the premier strategic interactive marketing agency serving the healthcare industry, today announced that it has moved its headquarters from West Conshohocken to expanded professional office space in King of Prussia, Pa.  XYZ Group has experienced significant growth since it started business and is now a leading provider of interactive marketing solutions for the healthcare industry.

XYZ’s Group’s new headquarters office is located at ….  The 31,000 square foot space is an open floor plan with numerous technology advancements to enable increased innovation and collaboration by its employees.

Filed Under: Communicating, Dumb company stories, Public Relations Tagged With:

Marketing tips for resort retailers

September 29, 2009 By Leave a Comment

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Yesterday was one of those precious few Sept. New England days where the sun is bright and the temperature balmy. So at lunch I skipped out of the office and went to  Newport, RI for a walk on the beach and a tour of the shops.

The beach was great and Newport’s downtown was jammed because a huge Bermuda-bound cruise ship was stuck in the harbor, forced to stick around due to impending bad weather. What a boon for retailers, who have had a poor sales season due to the rainy, cool summer.  Yet I  think some  of these retailers may be struggling for other reasons.

Here are some observations and marketing advice for retailers at a resort location like Newport:

Be open: many shops were dark, with ‘closed for Monday and Tuesday’ signs on the doors.  When the weather is good and a cruise ship with thousands of people are in town,  open the doors and make some money. Cash flow is king. In another six weeks the tourist traffic is going to dry up. Catch up on your rest then.

Be different: so many stores looked the same, carrying similar merchandise, having similar looks and feels. The bland and blander tourist tee shirt storefronts,  hippy clothing stores and   pizza shops made it easy for me to just skip past them. One store caught my attention because of its name, “Gossip: a boutique to talk about.”  Alas, it was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.  Stand outs, however were Tyler Boe, with a unique collection of cashmere-cotton sweaters in unique colors. But Tyler Boe has no web site.  I want to  give some positive word of mouth marketing but the store makes it hard for me to do so. No Web site is being different, but not a smart marketing strategy.

Be interested: one of the biggest challenges for any retailer is staff. Too many stores had help that looked  bored  to death, probably lamenting the departure of their hip friends and cool summer people, left to wait on cruise ship patrons whose taste looked more J.C. Penney than J. Crew.  Disinterested staff dampens the shopping vibe. Perhaps it’s wiser for owners to work the floor more themselves  or pay more to get better help.

Be helpful:  conversely the stores with friendly, helpful people were great shopping experiences that earned my word of mouth recommendations. I walked into Sovereign Bank to ask for change so I could feed the parking meter. I fully expected them to say they didn’t do that, as I had already seen signs in stores saying this. Instead, the teller was delightful and gave me my quarters and a few insider tips about what’s going on in Newport. I might even change my bank account if that’s what every Sovereign branch is like. Similarly the owner of RoyalMale on Bannister Wharf and Spring St. was an example of superb customer service, providing suggestions, pulling out sweaters not on the floor that she thought might look good on me. No wonder that the store was doing a brisk business  even though the items had a relatively high price point.

Be ready: Running a retail business in a resort is unpredictable, but that’s no reason not to be ready to take advantage of happy surprises, like a cruise ship pumping thousands of people through the town on a typically “off” day.  Have a back up plan to get more help into your store when lucky breaks happen. The Rockport shop on Thames street was jammed, but staffed by just one person.  What a shame to see people come in and leave empty handed because they couldn’t get help.

Filed Under: Dumb company stories, Musings, Sales, Smart company stories, Word of mouth Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Renting eyeballs or owning the customer platform?

September 24, 2009 By Leave a Comment

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Seth Godin nails the big, big change in marketing in his post, “The platform vs. the eyeballs”: it’s not about renting customer “eyeballs” by advertising in media, whose purpose is aggregating a big volume of eyeballs. And where you might get a .5% conversion rate.

Value comes from owning your own platform, e.g., a communities, blogs, and filling it with people who people who want to hear from you, and maybe getting 90% conversion rates.

Suddenly the new media comes along and the rules are different. You’re not renting an audience, you’re building one. You’re not exhibiting at a trade show, you’re starting your own trade show.

If you still ask, “how much traffic is there,” or “what’s the CPM?” you’re not getting it. Are you buying momentary attention or are you investing in a long term asset?

The challenge we’re seeing is that marketers are measured by old metrics, so they don’t have the time or interest to build a platform of fans.  The measure of big volumes still dominates — we have  40,000 page views a month, we had 800 people register, we had 4,000 people watch the video.

But, as Godin points out, this is momentary attention. To build interest and affinity, marketers have to give to get, constantly providing value in new ways to customers and potential customers.  They have to be more interesting to get interest.  This new fan-based marketing is expensive and hard work. But those companies who do it will ultimately realize much greater ROI on their marketing investments.

Filed Under: Communities, Innovation, Marketing trends

Tips for succeeding in sales — and dog training

September 15, 2009 By 1 Comment

I recently had dinner with Joanne Lekas, a high school friend  who was a highly-successful sales executive selling big ticket, high-end enterprise management software to CIOs, CTOs and IT directors of Fortune 500 companies before retiring to start Happy Dog, a Boston-area dog training service.

The wine just about blew out my nose when Joanne told me about this career switch. She hadn’t grown up with animals and had always been comfortable playing with the tough decision makers in board rooms vs. playing with mutts in the backyard.

But Joanne said there are far more similarities than differences between a career in consultative selling and dog training. Here are some of her observations and lessons.

You’ve said that you see similarities between dog training, which I guess is really dog owner training, and sales. What are those similarities?

My sales efforts involved making presentations to large groups of disparate people – educating them before I could ‘sell’ them anything.  These presentations involved fielding questions and keeping things on track – just like teaching a puppy class.

My sales efforts also involved a fair amount of consulting – gathering information, asking the right questions, uncovering problems, assessing the priority of these problems and offering up solutions that would be feasible based on the environment and budget.  My ‘products’ were actually a combination of hundreds of software applications that could be sold individually or in combination depending on the complexity of the situation.

When a Happy Dog client calls with a serious behavior issue that their dog is having, I have to first gather information, ask the right questions, uncover the real root of the problem, focus on the most serious issues first, and offer up a training and behavior modification program that will work for that owner based on their time, budget and focus (ie, single owner vs. family with 3 kids). In my dog training bag are dozens of training approaches that may be used to address the problem. Sound familiar?

Do you see any similarities between the most difficult sales prospect and the dog owners who have the most problems with their dog?

A difficult sales prospect is one that constantly gives  excuses about why something will not work.  One that constantly challenges the information I provide.  One that can not focus or follow through on their end of the bargain.   Or it could be someone who is just overworked and overwhelmed.

A ‘difficult’ dog owner can have these same issues.  They may not buy into the positive reinforcement approach to training.  They may not be able to manage the situation to prevent the behavior.  They just may not have the time or motivation to practice any of the training or techniques that I teach them.  Or they may just be too busy with full time jobs and families.

What makes for a great relationship with a customer — and what are the parallels to dog training?

A great relationship with a customer required that I be able to  put myself in their place and understand what they really need and how I can help them.  It is based on mutual trust (trust that I am really trying to help them vs. just get the sale) and good communication (instead of just agreeing with what I say – they challenge and question it so they can truly understand it and buy into it).

It’s the same with a Happy Dog client.  Interestingly, I can put myself in their place because it was not that long ago that I came home suddenly with a new puppy and I had no idea what to do.  I can empathize that they are tired and struggling with house training.  I can communicate effectively in a way they will understand as to how their puppies really learn so that they can have a foundation for communicating with their puppies that will reward good behavior and not the bad.

Looking back on your successful sales career, and reflecting on success in your new one, what three pieces of advice would you provide to sales reps and dog owners alike?

  • Take the time to build a good relationship – understand your customer and work to give them what they want in order to get what you want.   Take the time to understand how your puppy learns, understand what your puppy loves and ask your puppy for what you want and reward your puppy with what he wants.
  • Understand your customer – understand their issues, priorities, needs and goals and constantly reassess this. Work towards addressing their needs and goals with this thorough understanding.  Understand your dog – his need for care, exercise, attention and training and work to meet these needs.
  • Follow through – respond to your customer thoroughly and completely.  If you say you will follow up, make sure you do.  If you say you will get them information about something, make sure you do.  With this, you will earn the right to ask things of them.  Follow through with your dog.  If you ask your dog to Come – make sure they do it – otherwise they will learn they don’t have to listen to you or respect your requests.

To learn more about Happy Dog, email Joanne@happydogtrain.com.

Filed Under: Communicating, Sales Tagged With: , ,

IBM's Innovation Jams

August 28, 2008 By 4 Comments

For the past few years IBM has been inviting its employees to be part of 72-hour online innovation jams, brainstorming about everything from IBM values to new product and service ideas. It’s a great example of the business value of social media, which at its core is a platform of participation and sharing.

The Fall 2008 issue of the MIT Sloan Management Review has an in-depth article about IBM’s experience: “An Inside View of IBM’s Innovation Jam.” IBM brought 150,000 employees and stakeholders together to help move its latest technologies to market. Both the difficulties it faced and the successes it achieved provide important lessons.

Filed Under: Activating change, Innovation, Social media strategy Tagged With: ,

8 sins of the stupid smart person

July 23, 2008 By 2 Comments

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Why is it that many of us who are fairly smart do stupid things? While doing research on why CMOs fail, I came across a book that has some relevancy, Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid, by Robert J. Sternberg, IBM professor of psychology and education at Yale. The most interesting chapter is by Harvard researcher David N. Perkins, who believes that you can be really smart but not know when to engage your smartness, and the extent to which this happens is “stupidity.”

Perkins highlights eight deadly sins of the stupid smart person:

  1. impulsiveness (doing something rash)
  2. neglect (ignoring something important)
  3. procrastination (actively avoiding something important)
  4. vacillation (dithering)
  5. backsliding (capitulating to habit)
  6. indulgence (allowing oneself to fall into excess)
  7. overdoing (like indulgence, but with positive things)
  8. walking the edge (tempting fate)

While I’m early into the research, my hypothesis is that CMOs fall into stupid territory most often by engaging in #s 1, 5 and 8.

Your thoughts?

Filed Under: Activating change, Leadership, Musings Tagged With: ,