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It looks like the Google guys are at it again making our lives better or taking over the world depending on where you sit.  With the official launch of Google Wave this week, Google has made an attempt to bridge the chasm between email, wikis, instant messaging and social media creating a truly interactive communications system where groups can collaborate to make decisions, create documents, flush out new ideas and catalog the entire process.

My web development team is spread out over several continents and having the ability to collaborate, pulling in rich content from the web and documenting the process for future reference has real potential. But before you get too excited, the devil is in the details. Even if your business team is not as geographically diverse you can use Wave to make your posse more effective and to build relationships with customers and clients.

Smiley Face: Wave benefits

1. You can keep waves private, invite defined groups or let the public
   in
2. In real time you can drag and drop web content into the wave (video, google maps, photos, etc)
3. Co-create documents with your team
4. Embed waves in your websites and blogs to add fresh content
5. Pull people together to quickly make decisions and document the process (the playback feature shows a recording of a wave’s history, how the wave was built up)
6. Wave robots can interface with other systems like Twitter that have an Application Programming Interface (API) enabling interaction with social web communities.
7. The translation robot enables real time translation, so you can communicate with people who don’t speak your language

Thumbs Down: Negatives

1. You will need other tools for voice and video chat
2. Requires the Google Chrome browser (with a special plugin), Safari or Firefox browser.  Currently there is no support for Internet Explorer which is a bummer for a product touted as anywhere/anytime access
3. With large groups it can be challenging to make heads or tails of the communications stream, the wave
4. There are no controls to pause input from your wave guests, so the “conversation” can really get out of hand quickly

Is Wave the future of web communication and collaboration?  Well, I’m not ready to cancel my Twitter or DimDim (web conference) accounts just yet.  After a few generations of refinement and evolution I believe Wave will become a useful tool for business cooperation but for now it feels a little like the iPad, a market test for the integrating multiple tools.  Add voice, video, tighter integration with the Google Apps environment and I think they have something but what the heck, it’s free!

If you are like me you were not raised on an entertainment diet of World of Warcraft or Nintendo’s Mario Kart and you can still remember the story of the Pied Piper; the little guy who traveled about the countryside playing a repetitive, hypnotic tune that none of the mice could resist.   Today I will reveal to you the mystical secret that Mr. Piper used to gain sway over his audience and how you can do the same with visitors to your website. Okay, get your thinking caps on and sharpen your number two pencils. Put down that DSi!!!

The Piper’s Secret?

He would never tell you this but the Pied Piper’s success lies in the theory of thought repetition which puts forward the idea that by implanting a suggestion in a person’s mind you give it structure and turn it from a wish into an expectation.  To make this work in your businesses you must find a “truth-message”;  a statement speaking to a proven, factual solution that your business delivers to a real problem your prospect faces. As a website development firm our truth-statement is that people do business with those they like and trust and to win new business your website can and should build trust. Your truth-statement will be different but you get my point. Truth-message in hand, you then implant this message in your website visitor’s mind by creatively presenting it in a way that your prospect can’t argue with or resist. Your next task is to repeat this mantra until it becomes tangible in your prospect’s mind which is why businesses without a web content strategy (regular blogging, monthly newsletter distribution, informative seminars, etc.) will fight upstream to establish their message.

When choosing a product or service your prospects will ask friends, do online research and look for clues that a provider can deliver the promise. Decision making is a process that takes time, so be like the Pied Piper repeating your melodic song, your truth-message to your audience and customers will follow you instead of you chasing them.

What is your song?

Have you ever known a successful business owner who didn’t know a lot about their products, service and industry? Communicating your knowledge through text, audio and video content is your single best opportunity to build authority that leads to explosive sales and adding a blog to your website is the most efficient tool for building your business’s content library.

Mastering The Rule of 8:16

Friend and mentor Steve “Doc” Yankee taught me the rule of 8:16 which states it takes 8 communication touches over a 16 month period before the person who wants to do business with you actually pulls the trigger. By blogging consistently (3 times per week, minimum) you can get to that magic 8 touches far more efficiently than picking up the phone 8 times.   Blogging also gives you valuable leverage allowing you to reach hundreds or thousands of people with the same piece of content.  Try doing that with a telephone call.

Efficient Publishing

Writing and posting pdf and Word documents to your website is an ineffective and clunky publishing solution. First, visitors must have the proper plugin installed. In addition readers can’t search, comment to or otherwise organize downloadable files.  Blog technology with it’s simple implementation, categorization capability and interaction through comments is a far more elegant and efficient publishing process than uploading a bunch of files.

The fallacy of, “I don’t have enough time…”

I won’t lie to you; blogging takes time and commitment. Brainstorming post ideas, writing, editing and adding images is work; but doesn’t being successful take a lot of hard work? If your sales are through the roof then by all means pass on this opportunity but if you are struggling you can continue the cycle of lackluster performance or do something about it.

Whenever I hear people say, “I don’t have time to do all of that…” (after complaining about poor leads and sales, mind you); I tell them “You don’t have a time problem, you have an organization problem.” Hire an employee to take over some of your tedious work; find a virtual assistant to do article research; outsource all the mindless busy work that prevents you from doing your art…engaging opportunities. You will be surprised by how much time you find.

Now When Will You Start Your Blog?

Partnering with other blogggers in your niche is the single most effective tactics you can use to grow your online influence and business. If you have made it a part of your business marketing strategy to build relationships with remarkable bloggers, Feedly is a great tool to stay on top of their updates. For today’s lesson I prepared the following screencast video to get you started.

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Blip.tv video.

The Tools

Feedly’s free service bolts onto the Firefox browser through a plugin and arranges all of your blog rss feeds into an easy to read, magazine-like interface.  You can create groups to organize your feeds and it is in these groups where the power of Feedly as an online networking tool shines.

The Strategy…

Organize a group of 3 to 5 bloggers who commit to supporting one another through guest posts, blog comments, idea exchanges and promotion through social media. The best team members are those who sell a complimentary product or service to the same target customer. Complimentary business owners will find it easy to contribute to the collective, as their expertise will be naturally relevant.

Once you have a few good social media folk in your personal network add their blog feeds to a Feedly group to monitor new posts and jump into discussions that draw your interest by adding comments; promoting great posts on Twitter and pointing your Facebook friends in your partner’s direction.

Tell us about your online tribe?

Does researching, writing and editing images for blog posts three to five times per week seem like too daunting a time investment to make? Instead of pointing my finger and giving you a lecture about the importance of investing time and money in your business’s success I thought I would pass along a few tips to make the idea of blogging a bit more approachable. My lecture will come later (smile).

Don’t Kill Yourself

Blogging and social media are cornerstone tactics for building the necessary buyer trust that leads to sales and below are some shortcuts you can use to publish quality content and avoid killing yourself in the process.

1. Partner: Don’t do it all yourself! Invite a couple of good writers who cover topics that compliment your own to blog with you. Allow each partner to promote their interest on a blogger profile page and let them add links to their website or blog at the beginning or end of each post.
2. Hire an assistant: Hiring a virtual assistant can significantly ease the burden of researching post topics. If you find a savvy VA he or she might be able to further assist by editing images for your articles and help promote your posts on Twitter, FaceBook and other online communities.
3. Schedule:  Commit to a realistic schedule that works for you.  I get up early in the morning and write my posts while I workout and edit them soon after. By the time my kids are on the bus I am finished blogging and ready to move on to other things.
4. Use idle time: I blog or brainstorm post ideas while waiting on movies to begin, at auto service appointments or during any “dead” space in my schedule.

It is a fact that there is no ROI without “I”, so to make your business work you have to commit time and money towards its success.  Blogging is one of the most effective tools available to attract prospective customers (and Google) to your site and more importantly to engage visitors is an ongoing dialog that turns the casual browser into a willing buyer.

What is Your Blog Process?

As the social media elite wax on about the best ways to attract 20K followers on Twitter; in all of their singing they fail to realize that most of us haven’t even gotten our arms around adding email newsletters to our business marketing Kung Fu. Let me be the first to tell you that a good number of the gurus who built huge followings did so years ago when Twitter and Facebook were in their infancy and there was little noise in the channel.  That time is gone and many of the strategies that worked for them are almost sure not to work for you, so what about the rest of us; how do we make Twitter work?

From building relationships with powerful, “Oprah-like” local influencers to getting the attention of Google, there are many reasons to tap online social networks but I will share one strategy I use that is simple and almost guaranteed to get your phone to ring.  Are you sitting down? Okay, email your Twitter tweets to the next hot prospect you encounter, that’s it!

Okay, there’s a bit more too it than that but the technique is really simple. Let’s get ‘er done:

1. Commit to posting three or so knock out, helpful bits of information to Twitter each day. Resist the urge to post any sort of advertisement or sales pitch. You can automate the process using tools like Tweet Later.
2. Setup your first sales meeting:  Over here I use a 2 presentation approach consisting of a needs assessment presentation and a solutions presentation.  This is a powerful 2 step process that if done right positions you as the “must have provider”.
3. Bite-sized Chunks:  Email your prospective client one Tweet from step one above each day in between your needs assessment and solutions presentations.
4. Prepare your business for a rush of new customers or clients.

Now that really is it!

Why this SYSTEM works

We can assume your prospect is interested in your product or service, afterall you were able to set up the meeting, right?  The question in your prospect’s mind that the Tweet-a-day process answers is, why this person should purchase YOUR solution vs. moseying down to the shop a few doors away. Assuming your short tweets are “light bulb” bits of information gold that your prospect can instantly put to work (at no cost) you will build in your prospect’s mind a powerful sense of trust and liking. Who was it that said, “People do business with those they like and trust…”?

How do you engage vs attract followers?

I bet you are much too savvy to jump on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn and start furiously posting your latest in-store specials or gift card offerings. If you are using this hopeless “jam it down my throat” technique by the time you reach the end of this post I hope you will see the light. If you have adopted this method, good news your competitors probably use it too and armed with a bit of magical information soon you will be leaving them wondering, “what just happened?” as you zoom to the top of your niche.

Online communities are not advertising mediums.  They are SOCIAL networks with people discussing and sharing ideas in communities of like mindedness.  You wouldn’t walk into your friend’s house party and start handing out advertising flyers would you? Well, I won’t be mailing that invite if you do. Adopt the “get what you GIVE” philosophy and start using social networking in place of social advertising.

Networking reloaded!

Just like its offline counterpart social networking is all about building relationships with interesting people whose goals and skills COMPLIMENT your own.  Helping others in social spaces is the best way to build your brand. Consider taking some time to expand your network of friends and associates becoming more interesting, educated and valuable in the process.

Get creative with your engagements…

Use tools like Twellow (the Twitter Yellow Pages) to find influential people in your geography who offer a service or product that is an exceptional compliment to your own.  Make contact with this neighborhood influencer by commenting at their blog, promoting their Tweets to your network (retweeting), or emailing them a tip that might help their business.

While your relationship grows you will ride the reciprocity waive as they return the favor and your profile grows along with site visits, newsletter registrations and your customer base. Haven’t you ever wondered why those companies whose products you know are inferior to yours always seem to get recognized at the awards dinner?  Chances are they understand the power of networking. Stop selling and start connecting.

Now, what are you going to do with that next advertisement?

Chip’s website Chip’s blog LinkedIn Training On Twitter

Okay, your friends have been saying for months that you need to sign up for Linkedin, the social networking site built for business professionals like you.  The day isn’t even over when you whip open your gmail (please don’t tell me you use Outlook…) to find a Linkedin join invitation from one of those pesky friends. To heck with it you take the plunge.  Four weeks in you have connected with 10 old work buddies (man, you hated that job!) and 20 others you have no idea who they are.  Crickets break the silence as you blankly stare at the monitor wondering, “now why am I doing this?” Read on…

Raymond “Chip” Lambert is a professional trainer, business coach and all around business development specialist that I met while following a group of Twitterers talking up a conference where Chip was presenting.  The rain of positive comments about Chip’s expertise on creative ways for businesses to use the LinkedIn professional networking site led me to tap Chip to share his insights with our community. Get ready because you are sure to walk away with the answer to those crickets.

Give me a quick overview of your business

[Chip Lambert] I train successful professionals how to leverage their book of business and existing relationships to build their “Ideal” business.  I do this through time-tested business development strategies and new social media.  Knowing how to close a prospect is a critical skill - but so is acquiring that prospect in the first place.  Most successful people are sitting on a gold-mine of potential referral business, but they are not mining it because they are caught between “selling” and “servicing”.  I help people to break free of that trap and move to the next tier of success.

What are the mistakes most people make using LinedIn as a business development tool?

[Chip Lambert] They think that because they are “there” something will happen.  There is a parallel offline - networking events.  People show up and assume that because they are “there” that something will happen.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  LinkedIn is a technological infrastructure for what successful people have been doing for generations - building and WORKING their networks.  It takes strategy and consistent action to really make LinkedIn - or any social media for that matter - work for you.

Say you have 100 direct LinkedIn connections and thousands more indirect…how does one effectively communicate with the network so that people understand what you do and what you are looking for?

[Chip Lambert]  This is a several pronged asnwer: 1 - Write a stellar profile.  People read them. And update it as you and your business change.  LinkedIn notifies the people in your network when it changes - this drives them back to read your updates.  Tell them who you are, why you are on LinkedIn, what you are looking for and what you have to offer.  Then tell them what you want them to do next - provide them a next step - ie. follow the link to you blog - read it;  sign-up for your newsletter - with a link to do so; etc. 2 - use the “What are you doing now” status update feature.  It keeps you in front of your connections regularly.  If you have multiple social media properties - link the status update features with http://hellotxt.com or http://ping.fm.  That way all of your networks or properties are updated simultaneously.  LinkedIn isn’t the only game in town - it has its place.  Mass marketing strategies don’t work here.  But driving them off linkedin can.

What are some third party tools that can add efficiency to managing your LinkedIn account?

[Chip Lambert] Hellotxt.com - Ping FM.  RSS reader - for subscribing to important threads or questions inside linkedin.

What parting words do you have to help people better use LinkedIn?

[Chip Lambert] Get strategic - the tactics fall out of the right strategy.  If you are looking for clients, get clear about who and search them out.  If you are looking for JV or Channel Partners, take some time and set some parameters and get to work.  To get the most from LinkedIn, get active - not passive.

Your Thoughts

Whew, I told you Chip knows his stuff but enough of our rambling. How do you make use of the LinkedIn community? Do you have questions about LinkedIn that we did not answer?  Comment below and let us know.

“Do your Twitter?” “What do you mean you aren’t blogging?” “You must be crazy not to have a Facebook fan page!” These questions and similar statements fill the air these days at networking functions, within the blogosphere and on the pages of trendy business publications. Succumbing to the temptation to jump at the “riches for free” promise of social media will sink your business’s ship faster than my daughter’s rubber ducky with a hole in it. Let me tell you she loves that ducky.

Use more practical tactics first

Truth be told if you aren’t already engaged in a business generating system that uses more practical means of winning new customers stay away from social media because it will suck the air right out of your business. Where social media is short on financial investment it requires a tremendous amount of time to acquire a following and to then convert your followers into dollars for your business.

Before Jumping In Head First!

Below are some business building systems you should be working well in advance of an active social media push.

1. Public Relations: Pitch stories about your company to newspapers, TV news, bloggers and work to position yourself as a trusted source for media in your niche. You will be seen
2. Email Marketing: Take the time to build a strong opt-in email list (500 or more contacts) to send monthly email newsletters to.  In addition use email autoresponders to automate the delivery of valuable information to prospective customers (ex. An email course, 5 days to a better “whatever” with a product mention carefully woven into the message stream). Contrary to popular belief, email marketing is not dead!
3. Seminar Marketing: Organize in-person, live seminars for your prospect audience to position yourself as the go-to expert. In addition to generating leads, seminars are powerful list builders.
4. Referral Lead Generation:  Exchange leads with 3 to 5 awesome businesses who sell a complimentary service to your customers.
5. Strategic Alliances: Become an outsourced provider of services that other businesses in your market need but don’t have the in house capability to deliver.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not a Facebook hater; heck I am thinking up my next blog post as I type this article. What I am saying is build your core marketing and sales system first then enhance it with a well planned social media strategy. As PT Barnum once said about focus, “A constant hammering on one nail will generally drive it home…”

What do you say?

Apple Tablet Device

Okay, if you are like me (what am I saying!?) you plan on having multiple browsers, phone gizmos and Twitter applications open to follow the announcement event for the new Apple Tablet which is touted by futurists as being game-changing bridge technology for the consumption of media (books, magazines, newspapers, audio and video).

I was helping a friend this morning pull togeter a list of sites that will be providing live event coverage and thought to myself, why not make my readers’ lives a easier as well so here goes.  Make sure to have your pocket protector when you watch…Below is my short list.

1. Engage Net Live Coverage (Most Reliable):  www.engadget.com/2010/01/27/live-from-the-apple-tablet-latest-creation-event
2. Technologizer:  http://technologizer.com/appletablet/
3. Ars Technica (Live Blog): http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/01/tablet-live-event-liveblog.ars
4. MacWorld Live Coverage:  http://www.macworld.com/article/145805/2010/01/apple_event.html?lsrc=top_1
5. Huffington Post:  www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/26/apple-tablet-announcement_n_436859.html

Feel free to add to my list below.