The Problem with Fear

I was driving to work this morning listening to a great track by Sufjan Stevens… reminiscing about my “musical” days in college. I played guitar for a long time and have just recently put it aside for other hobbies and activities. I want you to know that I have never… ever… ever talked about this with anyone. This is the  “I’m Being Completely Open With My Blog Readers Morning with Kyle” show.

Get Ready.

During the years of guitar playing… I had always wanted to perform in front of a group of people and honestly… I don’t think I knew exactly what that entailed… maybe it was playing my own songs or playing a popular song from John Mayer… who knows? The deep down desire was to play in front of a group of people… my acoustic guitar and a mic.

It never happened.

I can associate most of my hesitation with fear. It is a hard thing to admit… that you were actually afraid of doing something and it kept you from actually realizing some sort of… success or maybe pride? My fear of being laughed at and individuals not enjoying my music kept me from walking up and just doing something… crossing it off my list.

Is anyone connecting with me on this?

Fear is an extremely powerful thing. It can paralyze you in business and in life… destroying the dreams that you were building over the years of work and preparation.

The problem with fear is that… sometimes… it keeps ordinary people from doing extraordinary things. And let’s be honest… do you really want to admit you didn’t do something because of fear? Steve Jobs would laugh in your face.

I decided to screw fear and take a stab at doing what I wanted… without hesitation. There may come a time when I step on a stage and perform for the.. two people in the room. Until then, I am going to move forward with my head down. I would rather deal with the ramifications of my actions than never know the outcome because of hesitation.

Quality, Service, and Expertise Do Not Matter

I am currently in a sales training class at Trustpointe, a Sandler Sales Company, who I highly recommend  to anyone looking for sales training and expertise. We were talking about the idea of quality, service, and expertise not mattering when involved in marketing communications. I have been wrestling with that concept over the past 48 hours and decided… who best to ask?

I have been under the assumption that it is absolutely idiotic to use “best customer service” in marketing communications. I’m still convinced that you have to be a little more creative  to gain the attention of a consumer base when using traditional marketing… even more when using social media marketing.

Plain and simple… everyone has quality, service, and expertise. What makes you different from everyone in your industry? If I get hit with marketing that says “Best Quality since 1889
“… Do I really care? No. I don’t.

I care about how you personally take care of your customers. I care about how you go about your daily routine.

Seth Godin has always said that people have come to expect that you have quality, service, and expertise… you do not have to keep telling us… show us.

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Sell by Educating Through Social Media

Seth Godin had a great blog post yesterday talking about the fear of apples and the top two reasons people are not buying your product:

1. They don’t know about it.

2. They’re afraid of it.

Haven’t we been dealing with fear quite a bit this year? If you are a sales person (which most small business owners are) you may have seen the effects of this fear on your bottom line. The down economy has been killing the “risk-taking” gene of many professionals from corporate level employee to small business owner. The “risk-taking” gene is that diamond in the rough that allows for business to exist… to flourish. It reminds me on the William Shedd quote: A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.

Are your clients clamming up? Are potential customers not buying because they do not know about your product or service…. or they are just… afraid?

Companies that use social media for lead generation and product information have a huge advantage over the companies that do not use the tools. Social media gives you the ability to inform your potential clients on products with stories! What better way to inform?

Be honest with me… would you rather read a story or boring product/service information?

I would rather read a story… every… single… time.

What stories are you telling your clients?What about your potential clients? Do you have a blog where you are writing your business stories? The marketing for your business should read like a book… a book of stories… a book where your potential leads learn about your company.

When the time comes to buy on a product or service… who do you think they are going to call? You or the business who doesn’t care about educating through stories?

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Diamond Marketing and Selling the Experience

This morning I was listening to a local radio station when a diamond store’s advertisement played across the speakers… I sat there at the stoplight listening to the words…

“We are the ONLY diamond store that buys direct from the manufacturer… cutting out middleman pricing… best quality diamonds… friendly service…”

Truthfully… the ad was lame. There was no story telling… there was no emotional buy. There was nothing that invited me to continue the conversation. I decided to look into the other diamond sellers and manufacturers in the city. You guessed it… they were all the same. They all said the exact same thing.

Frankly, I do not care that you had to fly to Hong Kong to buy your diamonds. I don’t care that you are cutting out the middleman pricing. I care that you treat me the right way when I walk in the door. I care about the experience of the purchase not the purchase itself.

When we are selling a professional product or service it is important to DIFFERENTIATE. It is a lost art. How do you differentiate in a world where everything is starting to sound similar… sound bland?   It is essential that you gain the trust of the individual before they buy. It is essential to encourage your customers to tell the story.

You can buy as many radio, yellow pages, or newspaper ads as your budget allows… it only breaks the surface. The experience sells the product. How are you using your website, social media, traditional marketing, and networking to tell your story.

Do not bore the world with details… tell them the story!

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Quantify and then Qualify Your Social Media Relationships

Corvida has an awesome post on Chris Brogan’s blog called Decreasing Our Connections While Increasing Our Networks. The basic rundown of the post (which you should go read) is her exasperation over the amount of “friends” she has over various networks and the lack of a deeper and real connection. This conversation surfaces quite a bit when I am speaking to groups of people about social media. Where do you draw the line on relationship building in the social media environment?

From the post:

Maybe growth on some of these networks isn’t the best thing in the world. Should there be self-imposed limits on how many people you befriend? No because in the end, while your network growth may increase, your connection with your network still increases. However, the rate at which the connection can increase actually decreases. Did that make sense? Unless your friends are constantly questioning you or keeping tabs on you, it’s going to take a lot longer to make deeper connections the more your network grows.

We have been talking a lot about creating deeper relationships through social media. When you are adding hundreds of people on networks like Twitter, Facebook, and other networks it is hard to make the same connection as before! I wrote recently about turning friends, followers, and subscribers into a deeper connection. After all the purpose of sharing in a community driven environment should be relationship building whether for business or personal use.

The question has been presented: How do you take the massive amount of users on social networks and par them down to create meaningful relationships online? Quantify and Qualify.

Quantifying Your Social Media Experience

There are some networks where a huge following is necessary to gain the full experience of the site. Some would argue that Twitter is the site to use for a massive follower base. I am still torn over the notion of having a huge amount of followers on any site. I tend to use Facebook and Twitter to quantify my follower based. I want people to experience my personal side . Quantifying in a social media world basically means I gain an increased quality of experience based on the quantity of the people I am following.

Qualifying Your Social Media Experience

I qualify my niche networks in social media. I have found that I have an increase in quality without necessary having a huge quantity of followers on my geographically direct communities. Smaller Indiana and LinkedIN have been my niche quality sites for my social media experience. Smaller Indiana is a geographically located social network for people in Indiana. And for LinkedIN? I only tend to add people I have met in an offline environment on LinkedIN. My niche networks tend to be the place where there is a direct form of quality conversations.

How do you manage your networks? Do you find you get more or less quality based on the quantity of your friends or subscribers?

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REMAX Loves Social Media and I Love Them

I had the pleasure of speaking at the Indiana RE/MAX sales rally yesterday and it was AWESOME! I loved debating, questioning, and teaching about social media and the use of the tools in the real estate industry.

I always try to post videos of the attendees screaming for social media. You will find the videos below. (sorry for being shaky)

Session 1

Session 2

If you attended the rally and are interested in the information shared. You can either click the REMAX button on the right side of this page or CLICK HERE.

Again, thank you for all who attended! It was encouraging to see such enthusiasm for social media!

25 Reasons Why Your Company is Boring

(This was sparked from a Seth Godin post called You’re Boring. It was brilliant. I had to write about it.)

You know you a boring business if..

1. You have a tri-fold brochure with little business cards that you hand out to everyone you see… and I do mean EVERYONE.

2. You designed the tri-fold in Publisher.

3. You are using a type-font called Arial, Times New Roman, or Courier for your logo… and you made the logo in Microsoft Word.

4. You decide not to blog because “I just don’t have the time.” Your potential customers don’t have the time to read it anyway.

5. You use your initials for your company name. (This is a give or take depending on your initials)

6. Yellow Pages is the only marketing for your business because you have been doing it for a decade. Why change a good thing? (ha)

7. You attend networking events and take as many business cards as possible but never help another business professional.

8. If your website says “Copyright 2002″ or anytime before 2007.

9. All your collateral material looks different… different colors… old logos… better yet… no logo.

10. You refuse to think outside the box and go out on a limb (marketing or anything else).

11. You get up after 9am.

12. If you photo-copy a flier and hand it out. Spend the extra money and get full color. Better yet, don’t use a flier. Doesn’t everyone?

13. You have an individual answering your phone that sounds like they just woke up from a nap or smoked a bowl.

14. YOU USE AN EMAIL THAT Ends with a phone or cable company: AOL, SBCGLOBAL, or the like.

15. You refuse to act on ideas until they are safe or your competitor does it. Ready, Fire, Aim. Fail.

16. You do not attend networking events because you have “better ways to spend your time.” You will be spending your time closing your business account at the bank.

17. You never have a new idea. You just copy others.

18. Social Media is scary to you. So you do the next best thing… you ignore it.

19. You hard sell EVERYONE. Nobody cares. Put away your product or service. Can I get to know you first? I don’t give a crap if you can save me 20%.

20. You have goals. Wait. Well, you HAD goals but you didn’t write them down so…

21. You look down your nose at everyone who is younger or less experienced. You never pay them but want to share services.

22. You actually cut your marketing budget because sales are down.

23. Your Twitter account has no interaction… just a broadcast message.

24. You send an Auto-DM on Twitter. Period.

25. You cut your business cards yourself and left the tattered edges.

The best things about having a boring business is that you can change. You can turn into the vibrant and growing company that will be the pride and joy of your life. Well, other than your children or significant other.

Social Media is NOT Another Way to Scream

Frankly I am getting tired of seeing the “Grow Your Twitter Followers 10x Faster” crap that is rolling across my dashboard every thirty seconds. When are we going to reach the point when marketers realize that screaming to the masses is not going to yield the same return that it did 20, 30, or 40 years ago? Many marketers view social media as another way to scream at people with a message… albeit a more niche mass… but it is still the same process. And it is going to kill you in the long run.

Design a message and broadcast it as much as possible. You know… Repetition, Repetition, Repetition…it is the best form of marketing!

Give me a break.

The the last thing you should be doing as a communication professional is trying to figure out how to scream… louder, faster, and stronger… by using social media. This does not show any type of intelligence on the part of your company. This does not show any type of evolution in strategy or marketing concepts. There is a reason why businesses evolve, adapt, and change.

When is the last time you acted friendly towards somebody screaming at you… unless it was Bono at his concert? And even then… it is kind of annoying.

Put down the megaphone and use social media as a communication tool and not a screaming tool.

But most of all… listen… and then talk.

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People Interpret Your Message on Their Terms. Control It.

There is talk going around about how blogging, Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites can help control your marketing message.   I completely agree with the assertion that you can help sway a particular message to the public but.. the world has a tendency to misunderstand where the CONTROL takes place.

It’s impossible to control HOW people interpret your message, but it IS possible to control WHERE the conversation takes place.

People will interpret your message in a way that is congruent with their beliefs and values.  You can’t change that.  When you start broadcasting your message through the social media sphere you will most certainly be misread, misinterpreted, misquoted, and you will be wrong… from time to time.  That’s fine.. it is all part of the game.  Don’t let that bother you.  Focus on the things you can control.

Where you have more control is the conversation.  If an unhappy customer is spouting bad news about your company on Twitter, you have the power to take the conversation offline… if you respond quickly.  If you’re using social media for lead generation, you have the power to lead prospects to your blog where you have the chance to convert them to customers.

Bad news can only hurt you if it stays on the social web.  Interested prospects are no good to you if you don’t lead them to your doorstep.  Your message will be warped by social media.  Spend your time thinking about where you want people to go and how to get them there.

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5 Ways To Help Face the Fear of Social Media

“It’s easy to be against something that you are afraid of. And it’s easy to be afraid of something that you don’t understand.”-Seth Godin

As social media evangelists, many of us run into road blocks when it comes to usage of social media with coworkers or clients.

Fear has kept many people away from this wonderful tool because of a misunderstanding… or better yet… a lack of understanding. Every person on the planet has had to deal with fear in at least one point of their lives.  Well, minus my social media acquaintance Duncan Riley, who seems to have no fear. Period.

Kyle. We get the point. People have fear of something they don’t understand. This fear keeps them from opening up and becoming involved in something that could help them in the long run. So what? Why do we care? Should we care?

Absolutely we should care! It is our job as social media users to convince the fearful among us to embrace this medium. Shouldn’t we tout and spread the word on something we love so much? How do we help the non-believers face their fear of Social Media? I have 3 points to help you along your way. Please Pass GO and give me your $200.

1. Put It Into Their Context

We (Brandswag) were recently on a conference call discussing the concepts of membership websites. We were trying to explain to them the concept of a NING Network to help with the facilitation of training for new and current employees. Needless to say, there was some push back. No one was at fault for this. It was new territory and it was our job to explain it to them.

One of the conference call attendees decided to explain the community network in terms of the conference call the pastors were currently on. He proceeded to liken an online community dialogue with that of the conference call. The sharing of ideas between people to create one solid idea that care be shared by a community of “believers.” Needless to say… they got it.

2. Throw Them Into The Water

There is no better way to experience something than to throw yourself into it head first and learn on the way down. It may not be the easiest way to face fears and shift paradigms but it will work all the same. There are times when I am consulting with a client and I will tell them, “Maybe you should take a couple of weeks and just try your hand at LinkedIN and Plaxo? I want you to write 5 blog posts and link them. When you are done with that… email me.”

Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. You have to judge the person you are helping and plan accordingly.

3. Hold Their Hand (In Public)

Sometimes the only thing a person needs is to be taught how to use a platform. I’m not talking a word document that has the necessary step by step actions to add a picture to Facebook. I’m talking about sitting down with someone and physically walking them through the steps of a social network.

I have found that once you teach someone a social network it doesn’t take long for them to grasp the other networks. It only takes one network to get rid of the fear and head-trash. After that one thing, you have created another evangelist.

4. Use Case Studies. Your Case Studies.

Many times a case study can help calm the fear in all of us. People are looking to qualify every marketing vehicle on the face of the planet. If you have the ability to show proven results it is extremely important to do so… and do it first.

If you do not have the proven case studies and you are talking about other success stories… quit. You are making it hard on all of us.

5. After Everything. Create A Strategy.

It is easier to sell social media to your boss, a potential client, or a business partner if a strategy is in place to create success. It is about writing out goals and processes over the next 6-12 months. It is about creating financial data for the return-on-investment when using the tool (both in financial and human capital).

I am convinced we should all be using social media for some type of brand awareness campaign or lead generation tool. It is about creating a worthwhile plan and communicating the process effectively to winning overwhelming support for your cause.

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