Archive for Social Media
Expanding Into the Twitterverse
Posted by: | CommentsI recently spoke at the Increase Sales with Social Media conference in San Diego with David Carleton (@DavidCarleton) Denise Wakeman 
(@blogsquad) of the Blog Squad, Mari Smith (@MariSmith) of Facebook fame, Paul Colligan (@colligan) – Social Media Strategist, and Warren Whitlock (@warrenwhitlock) of Twitter fame. I’ll write more about what I learned in a future post.
But the thing that sticks in my mind was that the place was "tweeting" like mad.
Now, I had been on Twitter.com for some time. But I had no idea about the power of the platform.
For those of you new to Twitter, it is a micro-blogging platform (you have 140 characters to get your message out) which allows you to follow key people in your networks and to build a following of friends, fans, customers, and partners.
Imagine this – as each speaker was presenting, people from the audience were taking the gems and sending them out to the people in their Twitter network. And a buzz got created out in the real world about what was happening in a conference center in San Diego.
Think about that. People built a following on Twitter, and then fed them with valuable information that they were getting at a conference which their followers couldn’t or didn’t attend. Talk about delivering value & building customer and partner intimacy.
This is something that savvy business development people have been doing for years offline – and now they can do it online – and deliver incredible value to the stakeholders in their success.
I also learned about a few cool management tools to keep up on what was happening in the Twitterverse.
- Tweetdeck – this platform allows me to search for exact terms out in the Twitterverse and respond personally to people who have an interest or ask questions in my area of expertise. I have been steadily building a following by doing just that. One of my students, Anita Leafty, introduced me to it.
- Twitter Search – Search allows you to do much the same as above, but doesn’t update automatically like Tweetdeck. Very powerful, however, to find people who are interested in areas in which you have interest.
- Hash Marks – If you want to be able to easily aggregate information or a flow of information, us the "#" followed by a short moniker. For example, the ISSM conference was #ISSM (go ahead, Twitter-Search it). I’ve started #LinkedInTips, #BizDevTips (go ahead, check them out too)
- Direct Messaging – While some people dislike it, DM, as it is referred to, allows you to send a special message directly to someone on Twitter, much like an email. This helps when you have something private to say and don’t have their email address. Very Useful
- Socialtoo.com – This service allows me to follow the people who follow me and to send them a special thank you message. As my following grows, it can be time consuming to do all the followup. This program automates the process. Now I just go and change the message every few days.
- Mr Tweet – A very cool service that tells me who I should be following given my "tweet" content and the people I follow & who they follow. Very good for network building and visibility.
Results, you ask?
I’ve been booked to speak at several more conferences (I’ll keep you in the loop); I had more sales come through for our LinkedIn Training Webinars from people who have followed me; Jack Canfield is now following me (wow – what an honor!); And with some generous help from Mari Smith and folks in the Twitterverse, I now have close to 300 people following me – in less than a week.
And I’m just starting to get the hang of this.
I HIGHLY recommend that you start to learn about Twitter. It can revolutionize the way you interact with, build, and leverage your network.
Find me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/chiplambert73
Raymond Chip Lambert
Network2Networth
Your Outsourced Business Development Training Partner
Share this post :
LinkedIn – In Plain English
Posted by: | CommentsLee LeFever Strikes Again!
One of my original posts to this blog was one of Lee LeFever’s videos on Social Networking.
I just got an email from a friend with this new video that does a great job of explaining the power of LinkedIn.
Please pass this on to the people in your network who are asking you what this "LinkedIn thing" is all about. You will be their hero.
And if we can help you or your organization – or even the organizations of people you know - master the use of the system for your bottom line business results, please contact us.
Raymond Chip Lambert
Network 2 Networth
Your Outsourced Business Development Training Partner
Share this post :
Social networking is not new for business owners and entrepreneurs. Many of you belong to Professional Associations, Chambers of Commerce, Leads Groups, etc. For some of you, it may be your single largest source of business. Some of you have given up on social networking as a business generation strategy because it was a “waste of time”. Regardless of your opinion, when done well Social Networking can be an enormous source of leads, deals, and connections to resources.
Well, you’d have to be in a cave not to have noticed that the process has gone online – and that has some pretty staggering implications for business generation and lead generation.
Social Media describes a wide range of on-line applications which provide a technological backbone where you can manage and create relationships with current and potential customers, suppliers, vendors, team members, channel partners and experts.
In future articles, I will be exploring how Social Media can impact your bottom line by taking the documents, articles, photos, conversations, problem solving, and issue management that you deal with on a daily basis and involving the people in your networks in such a way that they come to know and engage you and your business deeply and profoundly.
Increasingly, the current and potential stakeholders in your business are going online to find out about you and your services. If you are not managing the process of strategically placing information about you and your business online, your current and potential customers will be migrating to your competition.
Where do you start? I recommend www.LinkedIn.com. It is one of the largest B2B centric Social Business Networks online. By completing the profile well, you will become instantly findable on the Internet.
In my next post, we will discuss the impact Search Engines have on driving business to you and examine why Social Media – worked into your already existing business networks – can make or break you as your stakeholders move online.
Raymond Chip Lambert
Network 2 Networth
Deep Business Development
Share this post :
Getting to your Perfect Client via your Networks
Posted by: | CommentsI am constantly amazed at the resources that are available for those of us who work in the area of Business Development. In the last few weeks I’ve used the following resources to narrow down potential clients and potential target markets given my ‘Perfect Client Profile’. If you are taking or have taken one of our Business Development Intensives, you may find these resources invaluable.
ReferenceUSA – This database is available at your public library. If you are not a member, go to www.scottsdalelibrary.org and sign up for a card. It will allow you access to their databases.
Reference USA is an InfoUSA company. You can drill down on local businesses by multiple criteria (which we talk about in our classes) and pull up a list of companies and contact info for those companies. It’s a great way to begin to narrow your search for your perfect client.
LinkedIn – Now that you know what companies to target, you can go to your LinkedIn network and see who you know or who knows someone who you need to meet. It is likely that there is a pathway into these companies that will get you introduced to the right person THROUGH someone you know. Can you cold call? Sure. If you have trouble cold calling, check out my friend Connie Kadansky from Exceptional Sales Performance. Her programs get you out of the headgame you play with yourself. I highly recommend her. However, if you prefer to be introduced, LinkedIn provides a fantastic resorce to do that.
Furthermore, you can begin to do some research when you find the right people. The old Axiom "Birds of a Feather Flock Together" applies here. What groups do they belong to? Where do they hang out? Where might you "bump into" them or other folks like them? This is where social media gets interesting. You not only learn about the people you know, but you can learn about their companies, their interests, and as you aggregate this info across prospects/potential clients, you get some pretty serious intelligence about your markets. This leads you to get ENGAGED with your markets.
Remember, from the Cluetrain Manifesto, "Markets are conversations". If you learn the conversations in the environment they are happening, you are positioned to deliver the the correct message into the correct context. It’s like learning a foreing language – listen, repeat, learn, create.
These are a few of the concepts we cover in our Business Development Intensive. If you fit our ‘Perfect Client Profile’, please consider having a conversation with me about how it could dramatically improve your results!
Raymond Chip Lambert
Network 2 Networth
Deep Business Development
The Magical, Wholistic Nature of Social Networks
Posted by: | CommentsThose of you who subscribe to my blog know that I am as strong believer in building solid, strategic, well-thought out networks. Further, I am a HUGE proponent of LinkedIn (that’s why I teach courses on getting started with LinkedIn) because we spend the majority of our lives engaged in our professions – and the social falls out of that.
I got an email and a request to forward and introduction today that I thought I would share with you. It illustrates the magical, wholistic nature of networks. The introduction request looked like this:
Hi Chip, you’ve inspired me to explore LinkedIn in more depth! See my note to XXXX. This is a CLASSIC example how this power here.
A—-A—- R—’s note to XXXX:
Hello XXXX,
I found your profile today when I was doing a search for Bob Proctor. I love his work and get his Daily Insight email. Then, your profile shows that we have a contact in common, Chip Lambert. I also noticed that you have a Nikken site. My good friend J– W—’s wife is really into Nikken here in Arizona. You two should talk!Gotta love how LinkedIn works!
And it was quickly followed by an email to both myself and J–:
Just wanted to share this experience I have with LinkedIn this am. You and Chip have inspired me to explore it further, so I was doing some searches for people I know and admire. I typed in Bob Proctor to see what I could find. At the top of the list was a woman named XXXX. She must work for Bob’s coaching organization. Then, I saw that Chip was one of her connections! In reading here profile I saw that she is a NIKKEN rep! I contacted her and told her about (your wife) and that the two should talk.
This illustrates the power here! Literally one blind search connected several dots with people I know. (emphasis mine)
A—
While names here are withheld to protect privacy, this illustrates the power of networks. Especially online SOCIAL networks. The technology unlocks the true potential of your network because it connects the dot for HUMAN BEINGS.
We are social creatures. Our friends – social. Our colleagues – social. Our prospects – social? Our customers – social? You betcha. And if you miss that point, you are missing the opportunity of a lifetime.
Why do you think 18 million people use LinkedIn?
Why do you think the blogosphere is so enormous?
I suggest that we are in the middle of a revolution in our capacity to relate. And revolutions cause chaos, confusion, misunderstanding, uncomfortableness, skeptics, zealots, humbugs, and millionaires.
Which are you?
Jump in. The water is profitable.
Raymond Chip Lambert
Network 2 Networth
Deep Business Development
A Big Mistake in a Social Media
Posted by: | Commentsreceived a message in my LinkedIn Inbox today from someone who says they are an expert in Sales, Marketing, and Advertising.
Except I didn’t ask for it. In fact, I’d never really indicated any interest in him or what he does. We had connected via LinkedIn. Except he never cultivated any kind of relationship with me.
I may have had an interest. I may have even been a good partner for what he does.
But because he never took the time to really get to know me, I disconnected from him and sent an email explaining myself.
His email read as follows:
Thought this dynamic event might be of interest to you.
Hope all is well and you’re staying booked! I am taking a moment to write you personally to tell you about an incredible program coming up here in Atlanta with myself, Fred G. . ., and Matt B . . . This is a superstar lineup of master marketers.
It’s all about product development and information marketing. Please check it out. (his website) If you are interested we’re accepting only 80 students. Please help us to spread the word and help us get people involved. I wanted to send you and a few of my friends this personal, one-on-one note before we mass marketed the event. Please take a look at the website, its beyond your wildest expectations.
Hope everything is good and prosperous for you.
No personal greeting. A thinly veiled attempt at cordiality. A request for me to promote him and his stuff. A thinly veiled offer with an impending event – standard sales letter stuff.
And he expected me to be interested? And to help him. I don’t really know this guy.
My response was a follows:
XXX,
I’ve removed you from my connections for the inappropriate use of this platform.
Sorry that you’ve misunderstood my willingness to connect.
Chip
Do yourself a favor. Remember that the people you are connecting with are just that – people. If you want them to opt-in to receive your marketing, have them do that. Make them an offer. Make it attractive. Give them lots of value. But have them opt-in.
If you want them to help you – contact them personally. Ask for their help. See if it is appropriate for them to participate with you. Remember that this is a SOCIAL media.
Old time shotgun marketing doesn’t work in a SOCIAL context. It just pisses people off.
And you could be shooting yourself in the foot and damaging relationships than can really make a difference for you, your partners, and your potential clients.
Raymond Chip Lambert
Network 2 Networth
Deep Business Development
Share this post :
Social Networks and Prospecting
Posted by: | CommentsA good friend and colleague of mine, Michael Goodman, posted this question in LinkedIn Answers this week:
"Wtih all the social media available, including linked in, Blogs, twitter, plaxo, second life, et al, what is the best way to utilize all this stuff, stay ahead of the techno-bleeding edge, and really, just find another customer to tell my story to?
I can’t keep up with all the social media, web 2.0 marketing movement. Really, all I want to do is find the next customer. I am hoping someone has figured out the magical answer to taking advantage of technology and simply find new people interested in what I have to offer. Anyone?"
Now what you need to understand is that Michael is a brilliant man. In fact he’s a fantastic resource for the Sales Community as founder of the International Sales Pros Association.
His question, I posit, goes to a fundamental misunderstanding of Social Media, Social Networking and its relationship to sales.
Remember, these tools are there to help you tell your story when you are NOT able to be in front of a prospect. They help your potential prospects have somewhere to go to find out more about you than you will ever be able to disclose to them. Social media tools are a way to "tell your story" not only to the prospects you do know, but the ones you’d never be able to get to in a million years of calling on people.
LinkedIn is especially valuable. Because not only are you putting yourself out there and giving people a chance to check you out, but you have advanced search tools to do some serious targeted prospecting – AND finding a way into said prospect via referral or introduction.
Most sales people who use LinkedIn do not have any true understanding of this. Precisely because they are focused on the next transaction. I spoke about this in a different post.
Network Building, positioning, marketing, and such activities are not Sales. But done well, they position us in front of our perfect client so our likelihood of having a sales conversation goes up dramatically. And, again, when done well, it removes a lot of the barriers that sales people experience when they cold call.
Network development is a medium to long term strategy. Prospecting for sales is something that MUST be done to meet quotas. I don’t argue that either is more or less important.
The important thing here is to have a keen understanding about what you are trying to accomplish with social media, and then go to work building that – via blog, twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.
As a sales person, you will always need to tell your story to another potential client. The point with social media is can they relate to you and interact with you both before and after the sale in a way that is meaningful to them.
That’s the formula for a long-term clientele that grows virally!
Raymond Chip Lambert
Network2Networth
Share this post :
