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Mid-life Crisis Number 122 and What You Can Learn From It

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When I was 29, I had a full on midlife crisis sans the red convertible. I engaged in endless self reflection and mourned that my 20s were gone. I changed my hair and considered jumping from a plane but I was too busy with work to schedule it. I turned 30 and realized I had wasted the real last year of my 20s being stupid. I patted myself on the back for completing yet another milestone ahead of the norm. One midlife crisis down and I could cruise until menopause, or so I thought.

At 46 I seem to have a midlife crisis every week. I often resemble a deer caught in the headlights as I yet again question my purpose, value and my bathroom scale. And yes, even as I write this I am checking the mirror to see if I now have the acne (or worse chin hair of the later years) to accompany my unexplainable teenage like angst. Oh no, what will the cool kids think?

Unlike the teen years, I don’t have to wonder about the cool kids thanks to social media.

Judging from the tweets, updates and emails I could conclude that the cool kids are stress and problem free. But I am not 16 and now know with certainty that no one is perfect.

So what on earth does this have to do with business? A fair question given that this is a very official “business” blog. Social media has a way of distorting reality. Viewing the world through 140 characters or more can lead you to draw conclusions that are riddled with gaps. Even in the age of transparency, it’s impossible to get the whole story in the time and space allotted.

Rather than using social media as a barometer by which you measure your success or failure, use it to ferret out ideas, challenges or insights for deeper exploration. What worked for another business may not work for you but when ideas or approaches resonate it is worth the time to examine them closer.

When possible reach out to those that have presented something of interest and ask if they’d be willing to share more – what were the challenges, what led to the decision about the strategy – get the story behind the story. I have discovered that with the right approach people are willing to be helpful. Be respectful and don’t abuse their time, or cloak your questions as an opportunity to get free services.

As for me, I have decided that my ongoing crisis is actually a good thing. I am constantly questioning and challenging my own beliefs because I care deeply about my life and place in it. (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!)

There is an abundance of information available but we still get to choose what we allow in and what we ignore and most importantly how we allow it to impact us. The upside is that every day we have opportunities to expand our perspective and learn from others. Remember the cool kids really are just like us, albeit with better hair.

What about you, any midlife or other stories to share? Does social media ever make you feel overwhelmed or question whether you measure up? Add your comments, this is a no judgment zone.

Photo Credit: © Youths | Dreamstime.com

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5 Fatal Social Media Selling Mistakes

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I spent several years in Sales Management roles in Corporate Healthcare and the lessons I learned have helped me in my professional and personal life. Yet, let’s face it the mere mention of sales makes many people cringe. Even the dictionary defines it in ways that leave you feeling in need of a hot soapy shower.

to deliver or give up in violation of duty, trust, or loyalty and especially for personal gain : betray; to deliver into slavery for money  to give into the power of another <sold his soul to the devil>

However it also offers these definitions:

to develop a belief in the truth, value, or desirability of: gain acceptance for <trying to sell a program to the Congress> ; to persuade or influence to a course of action or to the acceptance of something <sell children on reading>

While the goal of sales is to influence a course of action the process of getting there does not require you to check good manners and ethics at the door.  It is what happens in that space between lead and sale that sets the tone for any future relationship.

When I was in Sales,  before I ever met with a prospective client, a great deal of work went into understanding their business, challenges, competitors, weaknesses and opportunities. Today, technology has facilitated the sales process but it has not eliminated the need to do the work.  Below are 5 fatal mistakes that are made when selling via social media:

Mistake #1: All talk no listening

Contrary to the myth, in sales you learn to listen twice as much as you talk. You ask open ended questions to engage. You want your prospective client to talk so that you can let them tell you their problems in their own words. In social media, you can listen by reading updates or blog posts BEFORE launching into a pitch.

Mistake #2: Failure to establish a connection

I learned to be attentive to details and my prospect’s surroundings. I would search for an “anchor” that could break the ice and allow us to connect. That anchor could be a photo, a book on their desk, or even a pen. In social media, tune in to the other person’s interests and use that to establish a point of discussion. Read profiles, updates and visit blogs to give you an authentic entry point for conversation.Mistake #3: Dear What’s Your Name

I developed a proposal template that was adopted company wide. The template made it easier to gather information that was commonly used – menu of services, company history, etc – but was always customized to fit the prospect. Do not send a Dear {blank name, wrong name, wrong gender} letter or email. Automated DMs on Twitter and copy and paste Facebook wall posts are other examples of this mistake.

Mistake #4: Rushing the Sale

Hi my name is Karen buy my junk. Would you do this in real life? Yet, somehow people believe that technology has eliminated the need for common courtesy. Here too the ugly automated DM rears its head. Your first tweet to a mutual follower should not be “Hey thanks for following, here’s my link buy my stuff.” Build a foundation, find out their needs and then offer solutions.

Mistake #5: Tuning into the wrong station

In sales we talked about station WIIFM (what’s in it for me) The acronym was a reminder that your prospect could care less about what you needed to sell to make your quota, they always want to know what’s in it for them. Forget about what you want to sell and focus on what people need from their perspective.

All of these mistakes can be quickly eliminated by putting the focus on your prospect and not yourself. Make sure that your web copy, and your social media communications focus on them and not you. Ditch the spammy wall posts and automated DMs and instead focus on participating in your community and listening for needs. Selling when done with integrity and a focus on the other person will leave you and your prospect like winners and that is the true beauty of the process.

What has been your experience online? Any other mistakes or recommendations to add to the list?

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Hit and Run Marketing

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Dramatic Auto Collision - Don't Drink and Drive
Image by Creativity+ Timothy K Hamilton via Flickr

You know that you must promote your business to succeed. After all if no one knows you exist, you kind of don’t. You read in a forum post that Facebook has millions of users and that every business should have a presence. You create a fan page and write updates for a week. Five people like your site.

The next week you see an article that talks about the value of article marketing. The author shares her success with article marketing and how it drove traffic to her site. You write and upload ten articles to article directories.

You receive an email from a well known marketer that shares the value of press releases. You hire a freelancer to write a press release and upload it to press release distribution sites.

Later that day, you read a forum posting touting the value of twitter for small business marketing. Eager to succeed you immediately sign up for twitter and write your first update – “Trying out twitter.”

At the end of three months, your traffic is stagnant, and you have signed up for so many sites you have lost track of where you’ve been. Yet, the only business you have is the result of old fashioned networking and meeting. You go back to one of the online forums and declare that online marketing and social media do not work. You join the ranks of those who profess that this “social media thing” is nothing more than hype that will soon be exposed for a lack of results.

I tried Twitter but it did not work.

I sent a press release but they didn’t respond.

Social media is nothing more than a time suck.

If you have ever uttered any of the above phrases you may be among the hit and run drivers. None of the above tactics are bad but the only results you will get from a hit and run strategy is a pile of bodies in your wake so deep that you will not even remember the roads you traveled.

The best marketing tactic is the one that you do consistently. You do the work in advance to develop a strategy. Where is your target audience? What is the best distribution channel to reach them? What are you goals? What will you measure? How will you measure it?

You plan, implement, monitor, test, tweak  and repeat. You refine your approach but you do not give up.

Social media and digital marketing strategies are not a replacement for all other strategies but another tactic for your marketing toolbox. Decide how and where it fits into your business and then choose a tactic that you can sustain.

When you commit to a marketing tactic, give it your best. Do it well and do it consistently. A self promotional update on Twitter every 5 days is not a strategy. Think a self promotional piece of drivel labeled a press release uploaded to a free site is going to land you on the pages of the Wall Street Journal? Think again.

You can market your business successfully using the telephone. If that’s your thing and you commit time to do it consistently, it will work.

If you are looking for a magic bullet that will cost you neither time nor money, then you should pack up your marbles and go back to the ranks of the employed. There is always a cost to marketing even when it’s free. However, if you do the work, you will get the results and with more business you can enhance your marketing even more.

How about you? Have you tried and abandoned techniques believing that they did not work? What marketing do you do consistently?



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Facebook, the Illusion of Privacy and Loud Mouth Quitters

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Facebook logo
Image via Wikipedia

Sigh. I was not planning on writing a post on Facebook although I have been sharing extensively on the issue. Still, I was not going to step out on my own and say a word until Brad Shorr and Joanna Paterson double teamed me. Okay, they did not intentionally double team me. Unbeknownst to one another both published posts yesterday on Facebook. Both, in their typical style, examined the issue and offered honest, balanced opinions. That however is not what prompted me to write, no it was a comment by Brad on Joanna’s post that reminded me of my social responsibility to educate others on a key issue that is in fact in my area of expertise. Sigh.

So, is Facebook evil? I cannot pretend to know the hearts and minds of the Facebook team but in a word “no.” Like Joanna and Brad, I have a love-hate relationship with Facebook. To be fair, I also love-hate email, twitter and coupons. Welcome to my world. Yes, Facebook has convoluted, unbelievably complicated privacy controls, and I take my stand with others seeking a change, but evil is pushing it in my opinion.

Privacy online is a myth. I learned this years ago when we had nothing more than email and bulletin boards. I sent a “private” email to a recently fired colleague. My “private” email ended up as “evidence” in my friend’s lawsuit against the company. A simple gesture of kindness, and solidarity sent “privately” was in fact discoverable. The lesson stuck and 9/11 pushed it deeper.

If you want private, don’t share it. I am not excusing Facebook’s privacy policy but we should be clear that our words and actions are rarely private. Do you use reward cards, credit cards or buy any products or services? Do you have a driver’s license, social security card or insurance? Do you live in a place that has public cameras (street lights, security cameras)? Information is collected about us all the time and used in various ways to monitor and/or predict our behavior.

Yet, the platforms we use also have a responsibility in making it easy for us to manage the flow of information. This is the “hate” part of my relationship with Facebook.

There are those that will diligently plow through the information, read the policy carefully and take precautions. Others will ignore or tune out the hubbub and continue to play Farmville, chat with friends and post funny pictures. Still others will protest loudly and lead an army of people to quit altogether.

The people who will ignore the warnings are largely the “real people” that brought many of us to Facebook in the first place. You know the people who don’t live in the social media echo chamber, are not opted in to a million lists and simply take the web and its content at face value. Yea, the people we marketers salaciously went after once we discovered they were on Facebook.

I find it hypocritical that “we” descended upon Facebook in droves and happily took advantage of the freedom to grow our networks and market our careers, products and services yet we now spit venom at the “evil ones” for daring to actually collect and use that information.

Again, this is no defense of Facebook’s policy but perhaps we should take the plank out of our own eyes before we remove the speck in our brother’s eye. We created this with our sharing and connecting. Did we really believe that a free tool would not see an opportunity to monetize our actions?

I am all for protesting to make things better and safer for everyone. I am joining the one day Facebook black out and I will continue to loudly add my voice to others urging for change but I will not cry foul and leave entirely. We have a responsibility to protect ourselves and I believe our communities. So, I will continue to love-hate Facebook but I will not blame them for a monster we collectively created.

How about you? What precautions do you take online? What are your feelings about online privacy?

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Age of Conversation 3 – Available Now

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Age of Conversation 3, published by new digital publishing company Channel V Books is now available through all major online retailers, as a Kindle e-book and will soon be available as an ePub for other digital readers. The book features 171 authors (including yours truly) discussing social media practice with bite sized lessons that instruct in the new art of conversation. All proceeds from the book will be donated to an international children’s charity.

Age of Conversation itself demonstrates the value of social media and the power inherent in collective conversations. Age of Conversation emerged from an online conversation between two marketing pros in two countries. American Drew McLellan and Australian Gavin Heaton took their conversation and turned it into a collaborative writing effort by more than 100 bloggers from nine countries.

The third volume comes at a time when social media is no longer the shiny new outlier but an essential component of integrated marketing. The book covers more than social media although the topic is omnipresent among the ten sections that include: Getting to Work, Friends and Trusted Strangers, At the Coalface and In the Boardroom.

Please join the conversation by picking up a copy today. With 171 authors from 15 countries it promises to be a fascinating read. Age of Conversation 3: It’s Time to Get Busy!

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Social Media: Will the Free World Begin Charging Admission?

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Neon "free" sign
Image by jking89 via Flickr

One of the early attractions of social media was the low barrier to entry. Basic access to all of the platforms was free and many services did not even have a premium option. The accessibility empowered small to medium sized businesses who had felt outspent in other areas of marketing by big business. A small company blog could compete with big business on a level playing field. Video put commercial production in the hands of anyone with a flip camera. Now that may all change.

Ning has announced an end to free. Twitter now offers “promoted tweets.” Many other free services have either dissipated or switched to premium models. There was always a danger in relying too heavily on platforms that we neither owned or co-opted with our dollars. The very thing that drove social media’s growth may force these companies to shift to paying models in order to support traffic and innovation.

While we still likely see free or low cost services available to all, the introduction of premium services may once again mean that he who has the most dollars can gain an edge.

I do not believe that we should abandon the tools but it is imperative to develop strategies that are not dependent on a specific platform or current day business model. Let us not forget that free also means lack of control. The recent issues with Twitter illuminate this fact.

We must have plans and contingency plans and all should hinge on the non-negotiable asset in all marketing – your customers. Relevant, quality messages will survive any delivery method. The ingredients are the magic not the plate on which they are served.

And yes, we must watch for those telltale signs of change and be ready with a plan should our tactics need adjusting. Change is one of the constants of this digital age.  The one thing we cannot do is build a business or marketing strategy on the foundation of free, at some point, we will pay the price.

Have you ever used something that was free and then moved to a premium model? Did you continue using? What impact did it have on your business or life?

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