As business owners it’s easy for us to get caught up in the details losing the real reason why we do certain things. At a recent meeting with a client they are so caught up in how it’s always been that they’ve lost touch with their customers.

They bend to the whims of the few that complain and are afraid of change. They neglect to understand that true leadership in their own business means to be an example of what they can do for their clients.

They hate conflict, they hate friction. They choose to ignore that conflict exists regardless of whether they choose to acknowledge it or not.

The layout of their publication won’t change the business, nor will the content. Their focus on what is important (their customers) will change both content and layout allowing you to influence real change for your clients.

This structure is one of the few remaining original structures in the town. This town was alive and well until the price of silver plummeted in the mid 1890′s then everyone just left. It’s weird to see this and to think how people just up and left but it’s not that far fetched. When a business or website stops producing value we just leave, it’s human nature. Remember MySpace, people stopped seeing value and left.

My friend Chris Brogan is an amazing friend and businessman, he has this newsletter of his called Blog Topics that delivers weekly ideas of what to blog about. Now before I go further, writing about him and his newsletter isn’t one of the topics, that’d be kind of messed up wouldn’t it? (I’ll get back to the newsletter in a moment.)

A lot of people want to be him, well, they want to be how they perceive his life. They think this guy just types a few words and is making business happen, they don’t see the real work. Some even think he has some secret way of doing things that he keeps for himself instead of telling everyone in his books. No really, I’ve had someone tell me this personally. Over the years I’ve met many people who think they can be Chris, think that Chris does things wrong, or even think he’s a hack. From what I’ve seen Chris just sees things differently and that to me is he’s secret. You can’t replicate one’s perception of the world. That’s why I not only subscribe but pay for Blog Topics. I’ve had a few people ask why I pay for it and if I doubt my own ability that much that I would have to pay for help.

Sometimes people just don’t get it. Yes, my blog could always use help, who doesn’t need help? But beyond my personal pandering I see this as a vital tool for me to get fresh ideas every week for my clients. I write quite a bit for my clients and sometimes creativity escapes me and I’m staring at a blank screen wondering how I’ll meet my deadline. Chris’ newsletter helps me out when I’m stuck. One thing I learned from Chris is to keep writing topics and ideas down because when you’re in a rut you’ll have plenty of material to fall back on. Also, when a client ask me for blog ideas I always have some that will work best for them.

Now this may sound simple and you might be thinking to yourself that I’m incredibly lacking intelligence and in need of a good schooling. You’re probably right but that’s also why you don’t get it and why you don’t see value when it’s gawking at your face with a big, bright, money sign written on it.

I guess what I’m trying to say is haters are always going to hate and sometimes it’s worth spending money on things that help you become a better person. If you don’t then you just might miss your big “O” and no one wants to do that. (By “O” I mean opportunity, if you thought otherwise then your mind is nothing more than grotesque wasteland. I’m just kidding, I did that on purpose.)

Sometimes we need to buy things to see how others do things successfully or even as a way for us to help our clients. Too often people get stuck in this concept that we must be the expert, no exception. You don’t become an expert by having finite knowledge and understanding. To become an expert we must always be learning. We must always see things differently.

There is so much noise, so much information, so many tools, there’s too much. We’ve become a digital society that celebrates the tools of the process not the process or the end product. It seems we’ve put so much time and money backing the how-to rather than the doing. It’s simple to see why though, there’s no risk involved. With no risk there’s no failure, with no failure there’s no ownership of choices made. We are the greatest digital society but we are cowards.

Many might suggest that this is a fallacy of the precepts of our society but then why are there more blogs published on how to publish blogs telling others how to publish blogs.

Are we really sharing what matters most?

Are we really connecting with others?

Are we only posing to be connected?

When we reach out with something that matters to us we truly reach out with our hand hoping others will grab ahold. This is a matter of faith in motion not faith looking into a cloudy mirror only to vaguely see itself. When we leave the nest of familiarity we leap into a world that is hungry for genuine connectivity. It is dangerous to walk away from the herd, it makes us second guess every decision we make but those very dangers is what enables us to possess real ability to change not only our surroundings but the world at large.

Do we simply want to connect with only others who do exactly what we do or do we want to connect with people who seek change that matters?

Everything we choose to do matters, it only depends on who it matters to? To ourselves, our digital egos, our colleagues, or real people who struggle with the very thing we’ve solved?

Are we propagating the problem or the solution?

Is it the journey or the destination?

When we risk we choose to live.

What does rice have to do with the social web? When you look at rice, there are many different types of rice and different ways to cook it, all yielding varied results. There’s rice for a quick meal, rice for sushi, rice for risotto, rice for healthier conscious (brown rice). You can have rice as a side dish or you can have rice as the main course, you can even have rice as a dessert. So how does this compare to the social web?

Too often we become consumed with one platform or medium that best suits ourselves. We begin to gravitate towards what’s easiest and where our friends are. This makes us feel most comfortable. But remember, there are friends and then they are clients. (It’s not every day that they can be both. Thankfully, one of the best aspects of the social web is uniting friends and clients as one. This type of unification is great but often comes with its own complications.)

With rice before we start cooking we decide whether it will be a side dish, main course, or dessert. Then we decide how much time we want to invest, the time invested will often be weighed against who we will be entertaining that evening. If they are important to us then we might invest more time for a more impressive, tasty rice dish or course. However, if it’s just the family, the standard quick rice will do, satisfying the need without too much time invest. We know these things instinctively, without training, without cooking prowess, we know and understand what we can do and what we will need to make it happen.

Why then do we ignore this type of innate knowledge and processing skills when it comes to the social web? We will waste time, energy, and money into fruitless social endeavors that will not yield the desired results while conversely we will hardly attempt other platforms or networks because we don’t think we need to impress anyone over there.

If we take our rice skills and apply them to the social web we might be able to make better business decisions about our time and money spent. How much should we invest to impress a potential client? How will we fill the needs of current clients without abandoning them for new clients? How can we make long-term clients feel special and exclusive on the social web? All of these are important questions that should be asked every day of ourselves and our marketing messages as we communicate through the social web.

How are you cooking your marketing messages? Which one is right? What do you think?

Photo Credit: Abstract Gourmet

I was reading Thinkertoys by Michael Michalko and there is an exercise about finding inspiration. He says that everyone should have a personal Hall of Fame that exhibits people who inspire you in. Just like any good Hall of Fame it should be well-rounded, remember, inspiration isn’t just needed in one aspect of your work. So I’ve been compiling a list of people that inspire me in multiple areas. While compiling this list you should note that you should have something from those people that you can read or watch that will inspire you. This is the important part, if you write, read what others wrote, if you film, watch what others filmed. Having a go-to list of inspiration before you are needing it is being properly prepared.

“Chance favors the prepared mind.” – Louis Pasteur, 1854

Who is in your Hall of Fame?

This was originally posted at Coffee House Ideas where I write about this stuff but I know you guys would appreciate me sharing something since it’s been so long. Enjoy.

With the mass of social networking tools and marketing gimmicks it’s no wonder that people continue to tune out marketers messages.

It seems that everyday that spammers, scammers, and low-lifes are vying for you attention, your misdirection, and naivety. These marketers are always attempting to trick you into clicking and buying their piles of worthless subscriptions or product. However, it’s not just the slimy marketers that are attempting to maneuver you into their sales funnel. Many, many upstanding companies use these marketing techniques to ruse you and many other companies into buying their product or service. It’s amazing that no matter how many times you are presented with these tricks of the trade we all say, “Who would do that, don’t they know it rarely works?” However, marketing tactics, strategies, and campaigns wouldn’t continue on with shadiness if they didn’t work. But just because they work doesn’t mean it’s right or truly effective in the long run. Just because you gain customers due to a campaign that tricks people doesn’t mean that they are happy or that they will continue to be a customer. With this type of marketing you’ll find that your attrition rate will always continue to rise no matter how many people are schemed into buying your crap.

Too many times people want to categorize what is shady, what is slimy, what is ineffective; they list rules, guidelines, manifestos and claim this will fix the problem. The problem isn’t that we all ignore the rules, it’s that we aren’t relating enough, we aren’t reaching out with genuine concern for our potential clients. It’s seems all too easy for this to be the fix, for this to be the answer to this epic problem of people increasingly ignoring the messages of marketers. I’m not saying that knowing this and practicing this is simple or easy to scale but it is a much better approach that helps customers become loyal fans not because they just buy the product or service but because they love the people behind it and that’s why they stay and hand over their money.

Often, marketers feel that it’s all about giving away free samples or some type of value based freebie which lures them in. How many times has that ever worked out for both parities in the long run? Most of the time the potential customer takes the free product, not because they necessarily saw value or quality, they saw free and that’s what drew them. I’m in no way worthy to speak on the subject of business and the basics of how businesses work and succeed but I’m pretty sure that at some point in a businesses life it must actually sell something to make money. I’ve always thought that how the economy of business works, you have a product or service and you want to sell it to me who obviously needs it and in turn I give you money. But with so many online properties (businesses) giving away free crap they begin to cheapen the customers that they might have had if they had only taken the time to relate and reach out to them rather than con them into using their free sample. Now I’m not saying that giving away free samples is wrong or incorrect but you know what I’m talking about. Those gimmicks that say you can win money if you tell the company how much you love them or tell five other people and you’ll get free product. Those gimmicks and the like are the ones that bring down the entire industry of marketing.

It’s amazing how many marketers are solely interested in moving the needle purely based on the now, how well the trick worked, basically. They aren’t measuring the customer sentiment from beginning to post-purchase. And if they are, it seems only to validate that the scheme worked today and it was successful and that they should dump more money into that avenue. At some point though for marketers, there has to be a line drawn in the sand with those who give a shit about their customers and those who don’t. If we lead with how our customers feel about us when we do this, then I think we can eliminate many foils that might reach our brain as an amazing trick that will convert millions of dumb, sheep-like people into purchasing machines.

So I know that right now you’re asking who are you to tell me how to market and how not to market. And I know you’re totally asking yourself who they hell is the design company think they are by telling marketers how to “truly” do it right. First, by no means are we saying our methodology or approach is the only one or that it will make millions with the click of a button. Second, we aren’t marketers, we are designers who understand people and since we get projects from a lot of marketers. We have designed a lot of stuff that has worked well, and we have had a lot more that have not. Now one might suggest that it isn’t the message but it is the designer, sure, you might be right on a few projects. But we have found that when we have suggested new options to our clients and they embrace them and worked together to make it hit the right corporate marks, that’s when we found that there was something more than a witty, flashy, exhilarating design or well-planned marketing trick. That’s when we knew there was more to this marketing arena than just stupid advertising banners, websites, giveaways, and email newsletter asylum.

There is a better way to communicate with customers and it has nothing to do with what platform you use, what cool presentation or call to action you show them.

It’s called being human.

[The following is a journal entry of mine but felt it was worth typing up and sharing. Enjoy!]

Life is always spinning, flipping, changing, and reinventing itself. To wake up and say my life is the same as yesterday is futile. Lately my seemingly repetitive life has been constantly challenging me, pushing me further into a place of change. Just when I think I have my grasp on what life should be, how it should be lived, I find myself reconsidering my very worth.

Somehow life is always cared for, not to say it’s not difficult but in the midst of my darkest day there is always light leading me down a path. A path that is so unfamiliar and unwieldy but in some strange way comforting.

Of all the ridiculous things that have crowded my mental landscape, the only thing that continually brings things into focus is love. The love of your other half, the love of your friends, the love of your family. All of them make the trail of life less taxing. One thing that I have learned is a simple yet powerful aspect of business that many overlook: speaking with their customers. Lately, we’ve engaged in conversations about our clients’ products, the struggle of cancer, the times we laugh at ourselves, the times we’re happy children are in our lives, and the times when someone passes on. This path and experience has been fruitful and worthy of my time.

The one and only trick to marketing that I know is to be human. Laugh. Cry. Shout. Whisper. Agree. Argue. It is the compassion from our loved ones that help us remember how to be human. Don’t miss these aspects of life. It’s what defines us! The moment we lose our human aspect or stop feeling is the moment we lose our humanity.

We all desire to communicated to in truth, loyalty, compassion, and friendship.

When we reach out, it is incredibly vulnerable, scary, and sometimes risky, but when someone reaches back to you, that is when it becomes worth every moment of vulnerability. Dare to human, dare to be transparent, dare to embrace your customers. You might find yourself surprised by the results.

Part 1 of a 4 part series in building a Network Powerhouse

Parts and Pieces

You’re building your network; it’s growing but now what? How do you manage it? Is your network balanced enough? I’ll tell you I’ve always had a problem maintaining an acceptable balance in my network. Mainly because I see my network in three categories: Information, Support, and Referral. It’s tough work maintaining all three categories at the same time but it is worth it.

Most people think that having a network is only gaining referrals however it is not the only network to work on. Obviously, the goal is to have a powerhouse referral network but that doesn’t happen without cultivating your other networks. To break it down quickly, there is a reason why you should categorize your network. First, it makes it easier to manage your network, if you need help on a project you immediately know who to access in your Information Network. Second, it provides balance to your professional life, giving you options when you need help from growing as a professional or getting a reference for a new vendor. Third, allows you to save time, you won’t have to search and call a bunch of people when you need something, you already know what everyone does and to what extent. Fourth, it allows you to assess strengths and weaknesses, enabling you to put people into situations that they will succeed in.  Fifth, it helps you remember everyone in your network, as you’ll constantly be referring to your network.

Definitions

So now you know why you should categorize your network, here are the definitions for each category. Information Network: your source of expertise and experience. Support Network: your source of help and encouragement. Referral Network: your source of business opportunities.

Information Network

What does your Information Network comprise of? Being a business samurai requires you to know certain important pieces of information. Whether it’s trends, issues, every changing technological and economic conditions; it keeps you on the cutting edge enabling you to always stay competitive. For instance, I am in the technology and design industry; I have contacts that specialize in technology and design, we share information helping each other when needed. I also have contacts that are not in my related field such as fashion who I speak with often to find inspiration and diversification. Having people at this high level of contrast enables you to refine who you are, where you are going, and how you can help your clients. Fortunately for me, my lack of knowledge is always one of my contacts specialties. It is one thing to have a large network; it is an entirely different thing to know whom your network is and how to tap into each other’s resources.

Support Network

What does your Support Network comprise of? In business we learn to rely on certain people, some who build us up and others who bring us down. Knowing the difference is an example of your business maturity. This part of your network should consist of people who respect, love, and think highly of you. These people like you for who you are not what value you bring them. Most often these people are not your ideal prospects nor are they your information powerhouse. They offer you emotional, practical, business, and/or financial support. They extend what many cannot and will not do for you; they give you their time. These people are the ones you’ll call on when you’re in need. They can also be your crutch when business is crushing you. It is important to remember that these people give a lot to you, never take it for granted, ensure they know how much you appreciate their time and advice.

Referral Network

What does your Referral Network comprise of? Sustaining a business through referrals is ideal but often never achieved because of the time and dedication required. A sale in referral marketing/networking is slightly more complicated as the prospect always comes from someone who tells them about you. That sale will depend on many variables; the quality of the referrer/prospect relationship, previous purchasing history, economic conditions, ease to purchase, and so on. Your Referral Network is the most profitable aspect of your network as a whole. It is important to know who your largest referral sources are, treat that relationship appropriately; don’t be a taker!

What To Do?

Remember to give back to your sources cultivating your network; don’t hunt it. Know that you may not fall into the same category that your source does. Such as you may be in an Information Network to one of your sources that is in your Referral Network. This path doesn’t create a large network quick but it does build a strong influential network that yields real results.

So what’s my call to action? Get off your ass, stop whining about the economy and cultivate the land you have and yield your own amazing results. You get what you put into it, everyone knows someone who can help somebody else.