You want me to write WHAT?

This article was first published in the June edition of Face Magazine.

Though few of us will serve as CEO of a Fortune 500 or run for governor, at some point in our lives we will likely be recognized for something. Often when we win an award or serve on a committee, the most painful thing we have to do is write a biography for ourselves. It's tough to sum up our histories, articulate our competence and show that we are human in 200 words or less. It's even more difficult to maintain objectivity without being tempted to hyperbolize. We all want to make ourselves look good!

So what if you are not a professional writer? How can you write the story of your life so that its main character is someone we'd all like to get to know? If you write carefully and thoughtfully, the process can actually be quite painless.

Keep it Simple

The most effective bios are understated. They rely on simple word choice and shy away from excessive adjectival adornment. A well-crafted bio uses content and personality rather than puffed-up biospeak to make the person in question shine. (i.e., don’t go mining the thesaurus a la Joey Tribbiani.)

Be Honest

If you don't have a lot of experience, don't exaggerate or make things up. You may just be getting started but you've obviously done enough of something to be writing a bio in the first place. Find relevant bits of information and let them shine in their own right.

Consider Your Audience

No matter where your bio will be published, your audience is made up of people who relate to other people. Focus on the qualities that make you extraordinary rather than the awards those qualities have helped you claim. Bragging about the trophies on your mantle will not help people relate to you.

Use Your Voice

Even when you write your own bio, it should be written in third person. It sounds much better and seems more natural for someone else to brag on you than for you to brag about yourself. It also helps your reader establish trust in the bio, even if they know you've written it yourself.

Engage an Editor

No one knows us better than we know ourselves, but we tend to see ourselves differently than a third party observer. Don't leave the fate of your public image to your own keyboard entirely. Call on a friend who will be honest and objective.

______________________________________________
Questions to consider when you write your own bio:

What do you do?
How long have you been doing what you do?
Where did you go to school and what did you study?
Where did you grow up and what brought you to the area you are in now?
What are you known for or have a knack for?
What types of problems are you good at solving?
Who have you worked with? What did you do?
What excites you? What can't you stop talking about?
Where can you be found when you’re not working?
What nonprofits do you love? Why do you love them?
Have you won any awards, medals, or trophies?
How do you want to be remembered?

Totem of Chat

(this article was first published in the May 2013 edition of Face Magazine)

Do you remember a time when faxes were high tech communication? If I'm being quite honest, I barely do. Nearly gone are the days of landlines, fax machines and snail mail. We are now inundated with hundreds of ways to communicate with each other. There's SMS, Facebook, Gchat, email and facetime just to name a few. But are they all equal? Which ones should we use when? (When do we use one over another?)

In the pilot episode of HBO's Girls, Marnie Michaels describes what she calls the "totem of chat." She observes a hierarchy of the various methods of communication starting with "Facebook, followed by Gchat, then texting, then email, then phone."

Just as some people are more attune to the nuances of offline social order, some are more attune to the unspoken rules governing various methods of communication. Certain messages will carry entirely different interpretations when expressed through different mediums. But does the "totem of chat" actually exist? Is there a specific place and time for each method of communication? Does the method of delivery have any bearing on how a message will be interpreted?

Phone:

The phone has long been thought of as the most professional way to conduct business. However, it may not be the most efficient method of communication and it is invasive. Using the phone to call someone implies that what you need to talk about is more important than their time. If a matter isn't urgent, email might be a better choice. Nevertheless, if a matter is complicated or personal, picking up the phone will certainly save both parties time and the risk of the message being lost in e-translation.

In the last few years, the line between office phones and cell phones have become blurred. Many mobile office professionals don't even maintain a landline, and instead opt for a strictly cellular method. That said, it's important to be conscious of business hours when contacting your colleagues. Make work related calls during business hours only, and remember just because you have someone's cell phone number doesn't mean you should use it. Especially not as your first call!

Email:

Email is my preferred way to conduct business. It provides a professional platform to get my point across without having to waste time on unnecessary small talk. Email isn't intrusive like a phone call and allows the recipient to respond at their convenience. But don't neglect to respond - it's expected.

When using email, it's important to use a subject line. It alerts the recipient to the subject matter of your message so you don't keep your reader in suspense. You will likely get a faster response and it will also help the reader reference your email in the future.

Text Message:

For being a relative newcomer, texting has become immensely popular over the last 5 years. I love texting, but I typically reserve using it for my friends. In most cases (but not all), I find it an inappropriate method for conducting business.

Texting provides a quick and easy method for communicating short messages but it definitely has it's limitations. Its casualness diminishes the strength and meaning of the message. More importantly, it (nor any other written communication) shouldn't replace all communication as it cannot convey the subtle nuances that come with a face to face meeting, or even a phone call.

There are a lot of things to keep in mind about using text as a method of communicating with friends. It should not be used to inform people of sad or upsetting news. Be also aware that not everyone has unlimited texting as part of their cellular plan. Your recipients may actually have to pay for the messages you send.

One of the most frustrating and offensive types of text messaging is the infamous group text. It's important to realize that often when you respond to a text message that has been sent to more than one person, the whole group (not just the sender) will receive your response. This can become very irritating for the other recipients of the message. If you are going to respond, start a separate thread between you and the sender unless everybody needs to see your response. This of it as the bcc: vs cc: of texting. Perhaps just reconsider sending a group text in the first place.

Facebook/Twitter/Instagram:

Entire books could be written on the subtle implications of each social media site. While there are definite differences, overall they rank about equal in the totem of chat. Comments, wall posts, and status updates provide a fun way to keep in touch with family, and a great platform for casual banter between friends. They are also quite useful as methods for inviting people to casual gatherings through event invitations and message boards.

As for business communication, social media sites should be avoided. The only exceptions are if you know the recipient well or have no other way to communicate with them. In the latter example, social media messages should be limited to asking for a phone number or email with which to initiate more appropriate contact.

While it's important to be mindful of social conventions, it's equally important to realize that as with any rule, there are always exceptions. The key to being an effective communicator is making a concerted effort to reach people how they like to be reached. This applies to everyone and everything from witty banter between close friends to my business clients hoping to broadcast their marketing messages. If you can make people more comfortable, your message will be better received and lines will be more open and honest. Isn't that the whole point of communication anyway?

Write for your readers...not for google!

There are lots of people out there who are veritable experts in increasing web traffic and more specifically increasing a website's organic google rankings. But what happens when someone becomes one of the top experts in SEO? Google hires them.

Google is in the business of being relevant. They maintain the vast majority of the search engine market share because when we search for something, it produces relevant content in it's results. No matter how SEOs try to trick them, their business is dependent on not being tricked.

So what is the most important thing we can do to build and maintain a good search position? Create relevant content! If you create a site that is filled with content that is meant to be enjoyed by real people, you will do better in search results and have a better chance of maintaining that position long term.

That's not to say that if you build it, they will necessarily come. There are still basic things you can do to optimize your site for Google and other search engines. (but that's a whole different post!)

There's a better way to network.

(This article was first published in the April edition of Face Magazine)

Whether you own a business, work a typical office job or run a busy household, there's something to be said for being well connected. When a well-connected person needs something, they simply pick up the phone and make a call to a friend in the right place. It seems so easy. But how do people become well connected? Is there a secret that only those people know?

I avoid traditional networking groups and events like the plague. (Think of all the low-level sales sharks tossing business cards around like confetti.) Old-school networkers quantify new people from a transactional standpoint. How much is each new person worth to them? How many people do they need to meet to make one sale? In short, they pursue relationships based only on what the other person can do for them.

In my professional life, I choose to be a relationship builder. Relationship builders take the opposite approach of the old-school networker. We focus on helping others without necessarily keeping score. It isn't about meeting this month's goals or sales numbers, it is about building long-lasting, mutually beneficial relationships (which in the long run contribute those same results, but usually at a higher level).

The people I work with are more than just professional contacts; they’re people I care about. If I didn't care about them, I don't believe I'd be able to do my job well. And as for those people with whom I don't (yet) work, I view them as people who have taken their valuable time to get to know me, not just potential future income.

Focus on Quality over Quantity
Top professionals have five to ten active alliances. What makes a relationship an alliance? An ally is someone you consult regularly for advice. You proactively share and collaborate on opportunities. You keep your antennae attuned to an ally's needs and interests, and when it makes sense to pursue something jointly, you do. Most importantly, you stick up for your allies. You promote your ally’s brand. When an ally runs into conflict, you defend him and stand up for his reputation, knowing that he will do the same for you.

Be generous with your connections
Part of being well connected is acting as a connector for other people. Recognizing what each person brings to the table, you can make introductions that benefit all parties involved. If you genuinely seek to help others by sharing your connections, others will be apt to do the same for you.

Don't be a climber
We all know those people— the ones who suck up to the big dogs and treat the little people like dirt. It's usually blatantly obvious to the big dogs and little people alike. Treat everyone with the same respect. Even if they can't do much to help you professionally, there's something to be learned from everyone. (But if that's not enough to convince you, remember: it's usually someone at "the bottom" that serves as gatekeeper and makes the schedule for the man on top.)

Befriend your competitors
It's just as important to make friends with others in your field. Call competitors to go get coffee. There are always opportunities to work together. Even if it's just to send them a client you can't take or vice versa. Ideally, you can make a friend that you can even call on for advice when you run into a problem that most people won't understand.

Don't be afraid to ask for help
I help people out when they need it but I'm also not afraid to ask for help. People are usually more than willing to help but often won't volunteer. Asking someone for help doesn't make you look weak; it shows you respect his opinion or position enough to recognize he can help you.

It's ok to say no
Don't be a doormat. You don't have to do everything and you can't be all things to all people. No matter how hard you try, not everyone will like you. It's important to realize that if you spread yourself too thin, the most important relationships in your work and home life can suffer.

Maintain your relationships
Over the long haul, it takes more work to build a relationship than it does to maintain one. Value your contacts enough to realize that letting them slip away can sometimes be as bad as burning the bridge altogether. To avoid losing touch, work to keep yourself on their radar. Check in from time to time, ask to meet up for lunch or send articles and bits of information that you think might be useful.

Tired of the same old same old? Here are some places to meet new people and expand your network.

Get social. Engage with organized groups that already share your values and interests, such as the705 (the705.org) for young leaders, Junior League for women or CrossFit for those focused on fitness.

Volunteer and attend fundraisers. Organizations don't typically struggle to find people willing to buy a $1,000 table but they are always short on helping hands. Most would be happy to have you work the registration desk. Not only do you get to enjoy the event but you get to meet everyone who walks through the door.

Be the leader. There are two ways to meet people: (1) Seek out people to know or (2) Be the person to know. Put yourself in positions of authority and higher profile. Be the person people need to know to get stuff done (e.g., Marketing Chair, President, Activity Director, Volunteer Coordinator).

Make it fun. Meeting new people is awkward enough without the pressure of formality. Have fun with meeting new people. Join a softball or kickball sports league like Acadiana Sports Leagues (GeauxASL.com) that is focused on helping people meet, or start up your own club (Monthly Wine Tasting club). If you are having fun – you will stay committed and be successful.

Never meet again

I used to wear it like a badge of honor; the evidence that I am important and successful. I didn’t realize it was killing my business and my reputation.

In the last 3 months, on average, I was investing my time into 3.4 meetings per day… PER DAY! Assume each meeting is 50 minutes (as is common) and that then equates to 170 minutes or 2.83 hours. Now, lets assume that the meeting generates an additional 30 minutes of follow up work immediately. We are now at 260 minutes or 4.33 hours per day. All meeting generated! Seriously, shoot me.

Being abreast of what is important is critical to the success of any business, however, being informed and being over-informed is a slippery slope of time consumption. Sometimes it is just better to be ignorant… let me explain.

Meetings are usually limited in structure resulting in 25-30% of the meeting being consumed by chit-chat. Another 20% is consumed by “figuring out” what we are talking about. The next 30%, which is critical, is the “guts” of building consensus of what needs to be done (tasks). The remaining 20-25% is the most crucial – the assignment of specific tasks and deadlines (for those that actually get to real accountability in their meetings).

What if… a 55-minute meeting was cut down to the crucial 20% that really matters? What if the meeting was 11 minutes long with a 4-minute pre-meeting addressing of the agenda from your calendar invite attachment?

I contest that you can accomplish more in 11 minutes than you can in 55. I also contest that you can build greater consensus in 4 minutes than you can in the usual 15 it takes in a “normal meeting.”

Meeting structure and core agreements of the values of meetings must change to create efficient and productive groups. In order to GSD – you must eliminate as much of the meeting as possible.

Become the Time Nazi :: 15-Minutes Maximum

“NO MEETING FOR YOU!” Go ahead and say it just as the Seinfeld character protecting the integrity of his soup. You should be just as prideful in protecting the integrity of your time.

If possible, avoid meetings. When you do meet, limit your meetings with a time constraint. No more than 15 minutes per meeting. It is VERY ACHEIEVABLE if you use the formats in the lessons below.

For the record, meetings should be “quick huddles”, just like in football. A brief chat with one leader to ensure everyone is on the same page for the next play (or business day). Huddle, communicate in the same way every time, execute, and repeat.

For meetings with existing team members: Use lesson #1 agenda

For meetings with new persons: Use lesson #2 agenda

Lesson #1 :: Never Meet Again

Unless something needs to be discussed that is complex in detail or private in nature, do not meet – ever. Sales meetings are reports of current standing towards goal, immediate opportunities, goal for the day/week and requests for assistance where necessary. Team meetings are reports of current team standing towards goals, immediate opportunities, goals for the month/quarter and requests for assistance where necessary. Executive meetings are reports of current team standing towards goals, immediate opportunities, goals for the quarter/year and requests for assistance where necessary.

See a theme here?

Your meetings can be simplified to SCHEDULED REPORTING that includes the below agenda:

Whats up? – Where do you stand towards achieving your goals?
Immediate Opportunities – what do you have cooking right now?
Road Blocks – Where are you stuck and need help?
Goal Review (to be noted but not updated until goals change or are completed)

For highest effectiveness and efficiency, have a huddle as often or infrequently as needed based on the speed of your business. Some groups, with high volume of activity across many members, prefer to huddle daily. Others that are project based with slower activity levels, tend to huddle twice per week.

Huddle as often as needed – but no more!

Lesson #2 :: Never Meet Again (Without an Agenda)

If you are forced to meet (and make sure you are forced), control the time and quality by presenting and managing by an agenda. Yes, seriously, set an agenda to meet with anyone. At first, you will feel like a tyrant and maybe even an assh*le, however, once you see how productive your meetings are – for everyone – you will start to lighten up on yourself.

What should the agenda entail?

Topics for Discussion

What’s up?
What is the goal?
Where do you need help?

Immediate Action Items

What are the next steps?
When are they due?
Who is responsible?

Road Blocks

Is anyone else needed to assist?
Who will engage them?
What is required of them?
When is it due?

Follow Up

When will we report our progress towards goals?
How? (i.e. email, online submission of a report)
Format

Whats up? – Where do you stand towards achieving your goals?
Immediate Opportunities – what do you have cooking right now?
Road Blocks – Where are you stuck and need help?
Goal Review (to be noted but not updated until goals change or are completed)

Ultimately, you will be tempted to be drawn into meeting after meeting, over and over. Set your goals to be simple and achievable.

Week 1: Reduce your meetings by 1 per day.

By week 3: Reduce your meetings by 2 per day

Continue until you have limited to as few meetings as able. Seek for a perfect score of ZERO meetings per week (although it is likely impossible).

Once you begin to control your time, you will find that its value will increase. Your ability to achieve will increase and the people around you will begin to work more diligently. As a final push of motivation… you will also see that those whom truly respect you will begin to mimic this behavior as well. Those that do not share your same core values of time protection and high valuation will become very apparent as well. Consider changing their role or position within your team (as an employee, contractor, client, vendor, etc).

There are only a few ways to do more with GSD… work more hours to do more work or eliminate all wasted hours, work fewer and get more done in the valuable hours you invest within.

Now, lets go #GSD

How often should I be blogging?

Last week I attended a web.com seminar for small businesses in Lafayette. One of the questions that was asked was how often should we be blogging.

IMHO, It depends on a lot of factors. Why are you blogging? Is it ifor SEO? To further your marketing message? A lot of people don't even know why they blog. They blog because someone who sounded smart told them they should.

While there is no true correct answer, the rule of thumb that I tend to follow is 2-3 posts per week or 10 posts per month. That averages to about every 3 days.

However, I think there are two things more important than the frequency at which you blog:

#1) Content is key. If you are blogging just to blog, don't waste your time. Blog about things that matter and blog about things that are relevant to your target audience.

#2) Be consistent. Pick one thing and stick to it. Don't skip weeks or months. Not only will your website content begin to look stale, you will likely start to lose readers.

Struggling to find inspiration? We all do. It seems that on my creative days I can come up with 10 good topics about which to blog and then can't think of anything good for a month. Keep a running list of ideas you can blog about. You may never use some of them but it definitely helps to be able to look back at it when you are stuck.

(P.S. If you want to look back on our blog archive and call me a hypocrite, hold off. Lack of inspiration and busy lives affect us all but we've recently remedied the situation. Zach and I are now holding ourselves accountable to one blog post per week each. There will be punishment involved if either of us does not live up and produce ...)

Small businesses better learn how to edit photos... and fast!

Just when I'm barely adjusted to the new graph search and have been running scenarios in my head about how it will affect my clients, Facebook announced Thursday that they'd be rolling out yet another update. This time it's the newsfeed.

Personally, I think it looks pretty nice. Since I'm not that cool and I'm still on the wait list, I can't say much about how it will affect small businesses. But one thing is for sure: Images are more important than ever.

In a world where many small businesses don't understand photo size, resolution and orientation, there's lots of opportunity for those who do to rise to the top. Pixilated pictures and those whose words are cut off look pretty amateur now. Once the new newsfeed rolls out, they'll look downright awful.

My advice: invest in some decent photo editing software and start learning it now! You will need it really soon.

What do you mean you don't tweet?

(This article was first published in the March edition of FACE Magazine and was written by Caroline Barry)

Since Facebook ended up so ubiquitous that David Fincher made it into a feature film, we have been force fed that social media is revolutionizing the world. Not just contacts, friendship, and networking, but the world. What exactly encompasses this revolution? What keeps people from launching a Twitter account or joining Instagram? What good have we arrived to at this point? Many are asking (and rightly so), “what is the value of social media?”

I’ve used social media as a platform for staying updated and remaining close with friends and family who would probably have drifted from my radar. I’ve relied on various sites to build and maintain my professional network. In fact, I even built a somewhat unconventional career around the concept.

I firmly believe that social media has been a tremendously positive force in society, having fostered the more open and collaborative environment that we have today. The platform provides a dialogue for diverse feedback, insights, and constructive criticism from a personal level to professional matters. It presents an enormous potential for good in society by bringing attention to worthy causes. Quite often, a simple picture of a cute kid or funny video can add joy to an uneventful or bad day.

Many people remain afraid, unconvinced or suspicious of social media. They raise valid concerns, such as how we can protect kids and teens from its evils. The biggest hurdle for most is that they simply don’t understand each platform. However, if you are smart about what you post, and seek to be a good citizen of the online world, there is nothing to fear.

Check your Privacy Settings

Instagram and Twitter accounts are both set to display publicly by default. It is your responsibility to change those settings if you don’t want your pictures, tweets, and personal profile to be publicly accessible. Be smart about learning the particular privacy settings for each social system you enter to make sure that what shows up in search engines matches what you are comfortable for the world to see.

Facebook is notorious for changing its already confusing privacy options. Last year, even founder Mark Zuckerberg’s sister accidentally shared content that she meant to only share with friends. Lately, Facebook has made improvements, and the options are more accessible and easier to understand. Still, there are several things to consider. Determine who can see your posts, check-ins, personal information, friends or connections, and pictures. Then consider if you want them all to see those items. Is everything public? Can only your friends see, or can friends of your friends also see?

Another overlooked and lesser known Facebook option is the ability to review posts, photos and check-ins tagged by others before they will be added to your profile. This allows you to filter what gets posted to your public (or friends). To access this setting, go to the timeline and tagging section of your privacy options.

Be Respectful of Others

No social media site is meant solely to be your personal megaphone. Be mindful that a lot of people are subject to everything you post. Don’t inundate them with sales messages. If your child is selling Girl Scout cookies, that’s one thing, but it’s something else entirely to post relentlessly about the skincare line you sell for extra income. Things like that can be marketed by creating a page for your business that interested parties can choose to follow.

Though you shouldn’t hide your personality or controversial thoughts on politics, religion or anything potentially offensive, you should take note of the line and keep the personal rants to a minimum. The best rule of thumb: if it would annoy you, it will probably annoy your friends. Even better, if you know it’s inappropriate and wouldn’t be caught dead saying it in person, you really shouldn’t say it digitally either.

Beware of Third Party Apps

Third party apps are one of the biggest sources of spam on Facebook. Often, users don’t even know that these apps are flooding their friends’ newsfeeds with incessant updates. Games like Farmville and Bingo or music apps like Spotify are a few repeat offenders. They’ve even been known to use the pictures and personal information of their own members to recruit other users through e-mails or ads.

Still, these apps can be fun and useful. To avoid trouble, make sure that when you add these apps you disable their ability to post to your newsfeed. It’s an option that comes up in the process but often gets overlooked. It’s also another decision you can make about what kind of information you’re broadcasting and at what frequency. Look at it like this— do you want to be the friend who shares clever insights and anecdotes, or that friend who shares her entire life on multiple digital channels?

Be Mindful of the Future

2013 marks the ninth year that I’ve been on Facebook. When I joined the site as a freshman in college, the last thing I could imagine was that nearly a decade later I’d be a young entrepreneur with a business and brand that’s basically indistinguishable from my personal image. It’s important when using any online medium to realize that what you post now will stay with you forever. What may seem harmless in the moment might not be so innocent in the future. Remember those drunken declarations of love (or hate) to friends and significant other turned ex? How about the Mardi Gras status updates from a few years back? Are you remembering them fondly or cringing because you know they still exist somewhere out there while you sit in your corporate office or PTA meeting?

Goodbye Mr. Groupon...

RULE #1 + The “BIG 2”

In the house of BarkLoud, there is one rule – GSD. There are 2 focuses to which said rule applies – (1) Increase Revenue and (2) Increase Database.

If I were only able to offer 5 words of business wisdom to business owners it would be “Increase Revenue and Increase Database.” If I had a few more words, I would say “…Within budget.”

MR. GROUPON

Alas, the world of discounting has seen the biggest discount of them all this past week when Andrew Mason, GroupOn’s CEO, announced he had been fired (see the letter). FIRED?! The guy that started the business is fired?

Yes friends, the king of discounters has discovered that cutting revenue is the worst possible decision a business can make. Moreover, his business was based on it.

PICKING BATTLES

I give you the lesson that could have been learned though – remember to increase database. Groupon’s primary market was restaurants, consumer good stores, oil lube shops and other small to medium businesses. Has those small businesses – often privately owned – taken their total focus to “increasing database” in their decision to reduce revenue, they could have won!

REAL LIFE APPLICATION

Consider this: If you sold your product at 25% of its original revenue (usually at a loss) but were able to gain 1,000 new, highly qualified, highly interested contacts into your database and had a functional plan on how to communicate your value, offers and build an ongoing relationship, you could have won!

If you lost $2.00 per consumer and had 1,000 new consumers, you would have run the equivalent of a $2,000 print ad EXCEPT you could have collected the names, contact info and even measured the effectiveness of your medium through the coupon return rate.

What are you spending on radio, TV, print and other mediums? If you cant measure them… are you effectively (1) Increasing Revenue or (2) Increasing Database?

Not sure?

Maybe you are just running a discount program in a disguise.

Work smarter. Not Harder. #GSD

Maximizing Abilities...

"You can't make a racehorse out of a pig... But you can make a pig run pretty damn fast."
- Mark Perez

This past weekend, I heard the above quote, which is one of the BEST quotes I have heard in months... and I have to THANK my friend and supporter, Mark Perez.

A frequent question asked by LEADERS is, "How do we MAXIMIZE our talents abilities?" The FOCUS is on helping others attain their top achievement through their given skill sets. The CHALLENGE is that, on occasion, LEADERSHIP has unfair expectations of an individual's ability. Hence, the above quote.

UNDERSTANDING the capacity of someone's skills, in addition to their DESIRE for achievement and finally, their DEFINITION of success is CRITICAL for any leader in business. As you are ASSESSING talent, you must recognize that some team members are limited by SKILLS, which you can provide training for. Others are limited by DESIRE, which can be enhanced by personal growth. Most CHALLENGING, is the person that is limited by THEIR definition of SUCCESS...

If you are trying to get a sales person to generate $4M in revenue next year, yet they are HAPPY with the income resulting from $2M - how will you get them to $4M? If you have a manager that believes SUCCESS is making sure you never LOSE a client - how will you get them to take one the ONE extra client that challenges their system?

2 DEGREE SUCCESS STEP:
It is true that a pig cannot be a racehorse. It is also true that pigs are pretty damn fast. Just understand that the goals may be different...

The horse wants to run FASTER, STRONGER and MORE OFTEN... that's what is in the "make up." The pig just doesn't want to become bacon...

Know your team. Know their goals. Understand THEIR success... then build around it. Every player is a piece to a PUZZLE.

No one person is "the answer," unless, of course, your team is really into bacon. :)

Cheers,
Zach

How not to waste money on Facebook ads.

Facebook ads are great. For a reasonable amount of money, you can reach a lot of people. It’s easy to target based on demographics and easy to track. (There’s nothing I love more than numbers, charts and graphs... I did go to school for ECON after all!)

But the bottom line is Facebook is in the business of making money. They love to show ads to people who are more apt to click (it makes the numbers look better and people spend more.)

That’s why they love to show ads to people who already like your page. Sometimes this is useful if you have something specific to promote but usually the goal is to get more fans. In that case, it makes no sense to advertise to people who are already your fans.

Most businesses don’t even realize that Facebook is doing this. The consultant in me always wants to help them when I see them wasting money. But it’s pretty easy to avoid wasting money on ads: make sure when you set up your ad that you check the box that says “people who are not already connected to my page.” It gets lost in the many demographic options and often gets overlooked. But it will save you a lot of money in the long run!

Likes are about to get a lot more valuable.

I’ve never really liked the search feature that was built in to Facebook. It was not very intuitive and it’s results never really seemed to match what I was actually looking for. I recently added myself to the beta for Facebook’s new graph search (expected to be rolled out to the public soon.) It’s been quite fun to play around with and I really think it may be a game changer for online search (watch out Google!)

Using the graph search this weekend in an unfamiliar city, I did a search for restaurants nearby. The results were easy to understand and gave me a lot of insight. I was able to see pictures and menus and make an informed choice about where I wanted to eat.

What does this mean for local and small businesses? How will they be affected? The most important difference is that Facebook likes, check-ins, and recommendations are about to become a lot more valuable. Unlike Google’s method of using keywords and links to determine which results will be at the top of your search, it's "likes" and "check-ins" that will get your business to the top of the list.

This should come as a relief to the many local businesses who have invested both their time and money in building up a Facebook following only to have their newsfeed reach stripped down to a fraction of what it once was over the last few months.

I expect that the biggest trend for Facebook in 2013 will be the rise of the location page. Large corporations and franchises have tended to wrestle with the idea of maintaining one large brand page or several smaller location pages. With the addition of graph search, they won’t really have much of a choice. They will either have to build individual pages for each of their locations or seriously miss out on potential web traffic.

The Importance of Asking Questions

"He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever."

-Chinese Proverb

We are all guided by fear and pride – more than other by fear. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily – it prevents us from danger, poor decision making and long term detriment. However, a fear. of asking questions may be a cause of all the above! Are you afraid to ask questions of people – your supervisor, your colleagues, your loved ones or authority?

The one distinctive trait that allows humans a slightly superiority over other animals is the ability to educate ourselves to higher levels of logic. Now how do you get there? Read a book – ok. Listen to a tape – sure. How about go ask someone that already knows what you want? How about questioning something that is good, in an effort to make it great? Yes, I am that annoying guy that asks questions all the time (and sometimes just to get a different point of view). Asking questions is a critical key to your success – unless you ask YOURSELF questions, you will never know the answers you are seeking internally. Do you ASK yourself QUESTIONS? Do you know WHERE you are GOING?

SUCCESS STEP:
Should your gut tell you to ASK A QUESTION about information you are receiving (or not) – ASK IT! Don't be afraid… there is no harm in asking questions and the person you are communicating with WILL appreciate you desire to be accurate! (wow – this one was simple, eh?)

Cheers,
Zach

Thoughts on using Facebook events.

Facebook is a fantastic tool for inexpensive marketing but it seems the rules and best practices for businesses change every week. One feature that has not changed much in its utility and application is the ability to create and invite friends to events. While a few of the nuances of events have changed in recent months, using events to promote your business is still pretty straightforward.

I won’t get into the how-tos. There are plenty of tutorials for that (just google it.) But here are a few tips and suggestions on how to best utilize the events feature without being a spammer.

Make sure your event is actually worthy. By over-saturating your friends and fans with event invites, your message gets lost and the good events get overlooked. Every business is different and each has varying degrees of customer loyalty (some kool-aid is stronger than others.) There’s no right answer for how many events is too many. Use your judgement.
Use discretion when inviting friends. The same way that it’s annoying to you when your friend invites you to the opening of every envelope in Texas (especially when you live in Louisiana) it will be annoying to your friends. It might be easier to indiscriminately invite all of your friends but you should take the time to pick only the friends who might actually be interested in attending. Rule of thumb: if it would annoy you, it will annoy your friends.
Use the power of peer pressure.What’s the first thing I want to know when I’m invited anywhere? Who’s going! By allowing your guest list to be available publicly, you allow your friends to answer the question they all want to know but probably won’t ask for fear of being rude. Facebook is inherently social. Take advantage of that.
Stagger your invites. If you invite all your friends at once, they will likely all respond within a day or two. By staggering invites over several days or even weeks, you can harness the power of Facebook’s viral nature and keep your event in your friends’ friends’ newsfeeds and thus in the forefront of people’s minds for much longer.
Pay to promote? With all the changes to the way that newsfeeds are organized and filtered lately, it is much more difficult to get your message out (even to your devoted fans.) Facebook’s pay to promote feature is a reasonably inexpensive way to get your message out in front of exponentially more people. Is it worth it to pay to promote your event? That depends. In my experience, it has been much better to “promote” posts on my page’s timeline about an event directly to my fans than to promote the event from the option given within the event itself. I seemed to attract an awful lot of attendees from Malaysia when i let Facebook take over the promotion.

Many books have been written about Facebook and this post could go on for days. The most important thing to remember is to use discretion. Nobody knows your business and your customers better than you do, reach them how they want to be reached.

SPAM® vs. spam

Given that we work so hard to brand our businesses and maintain brand awareness, I've often wondered what the makers of SPAM® (the canned meat product that I'll admit I've never tried) think of the fact that the name of their product has become synonymous with unsolicited emails and other forms of unscrupulous advertising.

Today I came across this position statement on their website.

Use of the term "spam" was adopted as a result of the Monty Python skit in which our SPAM® canned meat product was featured. In this skit, a group of Vikings sang a chorus of "spam, spam, spam . . . " in an increasing crescendo, drowning out other conversation. Hence, the analogy applied because UCE was drowning out normal discourse on the Internet.
We do not object to use of this slang term to describe UCE, although we do object to the use of the word "spam" as a trademark and to the use of our product image in association with that term. Also, if the term is to be used, it should be used in all lower-case letters to distinguish it from our trademark SPAM, which should be used with all uppercase letters.
This slang term, which generically describes UCE, does not affect the strength of our trademark SPAM. In a Federal District Court case involving the famous trademark STAR WARS owned by Lucasfilm Ltd., the Court ruled that the slang term used to refer to the Strategic Defense Initiative did not weaken the trademark and the Court refused to stop its use as a slang term. Other examples of famous trademarks having a different slang meaning include MICKEY MOUSE, to describe something as unsophisticated and CADILLAC, used to denote something as being high quality. It is only when someone attempts to trademark the word "spam" that we object to such use, in order to protect our rights in our famous trademark SPAM. We coined this term in 1937 and it has become a famous trademark. Thus, we don't appreciate it when someone else tries to make money on the goodwill that we created in our trademark or product image, or takes away from the unique and distinctive nature of our famous trademark SPAM.

I'm not sure that I'd take such a generous and understanding position. However, considering that the term "spam" has become so entrenched in the American vernacular, there's no way that they'll ever be able to take control of their trademarked brand again. So I guess it's best that they learn to embrace it.

Plant the Seed

"Just having the thought starts the success."
- Anonymous

When was the last time you planted the idea of your success? Do you even believe that you can control your success? Do you believe that it is something that results from lots of effort?

Much of innovation in our era is based off of creative imagination and belief in engineering. Creatives "plant the seed" that something can be manufactured, the someone with the "want" goes out and makes it happen.

The ability to create from concept is how success is manufactured.

2 DEGREE SUCCESS STEP: Creative planning is not something that should be done in an annual planning session. It is something that should be an integral part of your weekly workload.

Consider Google. They do not jus encourage, but require, that employees spend 20% of their week (or 1 of their 5 workdays) working on personal creative projects. They WANT their people to plan for innovation and success beyond their "grind."

Are you spending time focusing on new innovation? Do you invest in planning future successes? As you planning on ways to plant the seed for new, better ways to do more for you and your business?

Maybe it is time...

Become a Hacker

"If you give a hacker a new toy, the first thing he'll do is take it apart to figure out how it works."

- Jamie Zawinski

Do you know what makes great salespeople, well, great? They have "hacked" near every aspect of their clients business, mindset and apprehensions. They know more about what their clients need than the clients are even able to see.

Hackers are an amazing breed of professional (yes, I said professional). Sure, the ones you hear about are the bad guys stealing credit card numbers or launching viruses, but what about the Hackers at Google which "engineered" a better algorithm allowing us faster and broader access to information. What about the printing company that hacked the ideal formatting to maximize your exposure and effectiveness in their publications? or the doctor that hacked a new vaccine for the flu?

Hackers are not all evil. Matter of fact, most are just curious individuals "reverse engineering" their way to understanding the inner workings of a model. They are the intellectuals seeking a better way, better understanding and greater control over end-results.

2 DEGREE SUCCESS STEP:

I often ask if you are spending time working "on" your business, not just in it. Analyzing systems, processes, procedures, workflows and more. Breaking down the decision pathways of a reluctant client to ensure you "know" what questions or hesitations will arise on the way to a successful integration.

Take a few hours (if you cannot afford a full day) each week to "hack" a system you work in. Look at it inside and out. Tackle only one at a time. Look for the nuances of its inner workings and functionality. See if there is not a step that can be circumvented or streamlined.

Most often the greatest innovations are an improvement on a existing process or product, rarely a new creation. Innovation is improvement and hacking your way through a problem to its root allows you the understanding and power to make innovative change!

Here is to becoming a hacker... the legal kind that is.

How not to be a Facebook Spammer

I might spend more time on Facebook than anyone I know. I have to because it’s my job (or at least that is my excuse.)

I also know better than anyone I know how to build and maintain a strong facebook presence and an engaged fan base. (At least in my real life, not my online life.) I work hard at it and I’m constantly trying to learn more.

My biggest pet peeve on facebook: facebook spammers. I’m focusing on individual people who spam their friends but most of these concepts can easily be applied to business pages.

Stop shouting about what you do. Facebook is a community. The people who read your page and posts are your personal friends and in all likelihood, they already know what you do. If you constantly advertise your business, people will not only be annoyed, they might even hide you from their newsfeed (you have officially been warned…. I do this all the time.)
Stop inviting everyone you know to every event that you create. If you really want to invite your friends and you think they would legitimately appreciate the invitation, be courteous and take the time to go through your list of friends. Invite only the ones who are might actually show up (i.e. not that exchange student from Brazil you met in middle school)
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you bring your friends into the spamming business. I’ve seen many friends tagged in an ad for another random friend’s business or next big thing they are promoting. Not only is this just wrong, it might be the most egregious facebook spamming violation.
On that same note, you shouldn’t invade someone else’s community or page to post a link to something you are selling. Likely you will be deleted anyway by the page’s administrator. Want to really be effective? Start participating in the conversation that is already going on. Likely what you do will come up in conversation and it will be much better received when invited.