What Picasso can teach you about pricing[1]

The Commodity Trap

All too many products or services are seen by the marketplace as being very similar to one another and as a consequence they’re treated as commodities.

Most people, for example, consider one motor insurance policy to be much like many others, one brand of petrol or diesel to be much like the others, one Windows computer as much like many others, one accountant, lawyer, banker, IFA, web designer, printer or utility supplier to be much like many others, one hotel much like many others, one airline much like many others and so on.

Even in the best of times nobody wants to pay more than they have to for a product or service. So whenever your customers believe that they can get products or services that are similar to yours from other sources, your product or service becomes a commodity and your prospects and customers will always tend to shop around for the best price. And in today’s world of online search tools and web connected mobile devices anyone can easily compare your prices with others in a matter of seconds, wherever they are.

In a commoditised marketplace whoever charges the best price for a given product or service tends to win. And if you don’t want to lose out, you have to be prepared to match prices.

What Will The Market Bear?

But if you manage to set your product or service apart from all the others out there, you can charge what your product or service is really worth. Differentiation, as in so many things, is the key.

The question then becomes “what will the market bear?”

And in many cases it’s a lot.

What’s a Lexus Worth?

You can buy an entry level Lexus car for around £23,000 and they go up to £90,000 for the LS 600, without extras. Then Lexus introduced the LF-A supercar at £330,000. That’s around 50% more expensive than the most expensive Ferrari or Lamborghini, and on a par with the most expensive Rolls Royce Phantom.

If you think of a Lexus LF-A as “just” another Lexus, £330,000 seems like a ridiculous price. But that’s before you see how it’s made; what it can do; the astounding attention to detail; and above all how it does what it does so well. To hear one is to want one. And to drive one is to want one even more. So can it really be worth £330,000? Let’s just say that the entire planned production run completely sold out within two weeks. And I’d have one in a heartbeat, given the chance, in preference to any Ferrari, Lamborghini, or Porsche. It is SO astounding that anyone who is truly passionate about cars, and can afford it, will likely part very happily with the value of a suburban house to own a Lexus LF-A.

What’s Your talent Worth?

What about professional services? There are plenty of reports in the press of top lawyers with specialist expertise and high profile clients earning £ millions a year. Top PR consultants like Max Clifford make millions looking after clients such as Simon Cowell, Kerry Katona, Jade Goody, Freddie Starr and Rebecca Loos. The market will happily pay a fortune for anyone who can demonstrate that they’re not a mere commodity like so many others in their field.

• So what is your talent and thought really worth?
• Why is some talent worth so much?
• And what can you reasonably charge?

Those are great questions. But before you answer them, consider this story about Pablo Picasso:

A Pricing Lesson From Picasso

A woman was strolling along a street in Paris some years ago when she spotted the world famous painter Pablo Picasso sketching at a sidewalk cafe. She plucked up the courage to approach him and asked him if he could do a sketch of her and charge her accordingly.

Picasso obliged, and minutes later she was the owner of an original Picasso.

She then asked what she owed him.

“Five thousand francs” he replied.

“But it only took you three minutes” she politely reminded him.

“No,” said Picasso, “It took me my entire life.”

The point is, if you’re not just seen as another commodity you really don’t have to charge by by the hour like everyone else does. You can often charge by the years. And if you’re good enough, plenty of people will happily pay a premium for your special expertise, because like an original Picasso for FR5,000, it is still represents amazing value.

Charge for knowing where

It’s like the man who suffered from a persistently squeaky floor in his house. He finally called in a carpenter who had been recommended to him as a true craftsman.

The craftsman found the squeak, set his toolbox down on the floor and got out a hammer and nail. Then he pounded the nail into the floor with three blows. It took all of 30 seconds. But it fixed the squeak forever.

He wrote out an invoice for £95, which itemised what the invoice was for:

• Hammering £2
• Knowing where to hammer £93

The moral of the story: charge for knowing where.

Source: http://bit.ly/JhUhwO

Prof. C.J.M. Beniers

NL Zoetermeer 17-05-2012

© Copyright 2012

About Professor C.J.M. Beniers


Prof. C.J.M. Beniers is a well known authority in the field of modern and international communication techniques. He developed the Six-Component-Model. This model enables companies, institutions and politicians to communicate and negotiate with counterparts from all over the world successfully. His career began as international manager at Philips and later he earned his doctorate as professor in communication. He has more than 35 years experience as manager and management trainer. Thus he knows both sides – theory and praxis – very well. As scientist, Prof. Beniers conducts frequently research in the field of intercultural communication. The results of his interesting research can be found in news articles, free pod casts, audio books and his E-books such as “Bridging The Cultural Gap.” Here, modern managers learn how to prepare for business meetings with people from different cultures; they acquire the techniques and tools to handle situations in times of crises successfully, master intercultural barriers, country-specific communication patterns, looking into personal cultural values & systems. Knowing all this, men can prevent cultural misunderstandings and misinterpretations – not only in business but also in private life.

Contact:


Prof. C.J.M. Beniers

Amaliaplaats 2
2713 BJ Zoetermeer

The Netherlands

Telefone: +31 (0) 79 – 3 19  03 81

Mobile:  +31 (0) 6 2 061 8494

Email: info@beniers-consultancy.com

http://www.beniers-consultancy.com

How to Measure Social Media Return on Investment for the Complex Sale[1]

Are you trying to figure out how social media is impacting your bottom line? Are you already measuring but not seeing the results you had hoped for?

One of the reasons measuring the return on investment (ROI) of social media has sparked so many discussions is because it’s not easy. The main barrier to end-to-end measurement is the lack of a true social customer relationship management (CRM) solution.

While Salesforce and others are working hard to bring a full solution to market, many marketers are simply cobbling together data they receive from web tracking solutions and social monitoring solutions.

Unfortunately, this will only give you pieces of the story. Those with proprietary CRM systems will have the toughest hurdle, which is a challenge I have personally faced.  In the short-term, the only hope is to integrate tracking cookies on your site and work with a development team to integrate with your CRM.

However, you can build an effective measurement strategy if you take a holistic view to social media lead generation. Here are four tips to make sure you are measuring the full impact of social media on your bottom line.

1: Define Your Inputs for Lead Generation

In order for any type of measurement strategy to be effective, it’s critical to determine which key factors should be included. From a lead generation standpoint, there are two key lead generation inputs.

Indirect and Direct Response Conversion Points—These may be different based on your business model, but generally speaking, you would want to measure those who filled out your lead forms. These would then be given a lead score that defines the prospects’ interest level. Then you would break these scores into meaningful ranges and measure your social prospects within each range. Specifically look for the number of leads and the growth rate in each range.

New Business Campaign History—This is likely one of the most undercounted areas where social media plays a large role. Look at all of your new business for the month against the campaign history that has been reported in your cookies. How many times was social media an “assist” at any point in the campaign history leading up to the sale? How many times was social media the direct “conversion point” for the sale? How many times was social media the “originating lead source” for the prospect? Are these numbers growing at a healthy rate? If not, where do you need to adjust your strategy? Define a dollar value for different points in your lead cycle, define the costs for those efforts including the staff time required to execute and see where social media is showing the most impact for ROI.

 2: Use Lead Scoring to Place Leads Into the Proper Place in the Sales Funnel

When marketers talk about measuring the ROI of social media, many consider it a very cut-and-dried discussion. Either social media is delivering profit to the company or it isn’t.

While I agree with the premise, I also recommend that you take a step back before you make decisions based solely on numbers.

We discussed using lead scoring to define where customers are in the buying cycle. While there are likely very lengthy formulas for lead scoring that companies are using, I’ve found the best approach is the K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, stupid) philosophy. Break your leads into three distinct pools of prospects. Define timeframes for conversion based on your business and the standard buying cycle.

Slow—These prospects are likely in the pre-research/awareness phase. They find what you say interesting and they want to follow it, but they aren’t looking for a solution right now. You want to stay top of mind with these prospects for when they are ready to buy, but you don’t want to invest a lot of time from your sales force. This is a great opportunity to send these leads your relevant FREE content at some regular interval that isn’t annoying, but enough that you don’t fall off the radar.

 Medium—These prospects are in the research/consideration phase. They are looking at products to be considered as a solution. You want to find the tipping point for these prospects to move them into the next stage in the funnel. It is likely that most of your marketing dollars get spent converting these prospects.

 Fast—These prospects are in the decision-making/buy phase. They want a solution and they have a clear time frame for when they need it. It is likely that most of your sales team spends their time actively working these prospects. Generally, marketing takes a back seat on special marketing offers in order to not “delay” the sale.

This gives you a framework for what you want to measure along the way. For it to be a true measure of ROI, you have to compare the cost of social media efforts against the revenue brought in for each point in the campaign history and the cost associated with converting each range of lead scores.

3: Understand Where Social Media Efforts End and Sales Efforts Begin

Why are these different points in the buying cycle important to social media measurement? Because social media is just another lead generator. Once the lead comes in, your normal sales process takes over. That process may include marketing efforts and sales team efforts.

However, if you are reaching prospects at the pre-research/awareness phase with social media and you do not have marketing programs or sales processes to support it, you may cut bait on the only marketing effort that is touching this group. A hard-sell approach with slow prospects risks losing their business forever. Before you write off social media as not delivering the ROI you anticipated, make sure to review your sales and marketing efforts.

If you don’t have an awareness program as part of your strategy, it could be the reason you aren’t converting these leads. Evaluate social media for the value it really brings to the table and make sure you don’t overlook some of the areas where social media is already delivering ROI to your company.

4: Ask Yourself Where You Need to Optimize Your Social Media Lead Generation Efforts

Here are some key questions to ask when evaluating your social media efforts:

• Is there a bottleneck in your lead funnel? Review where leads are getting caught and

reevaluate your approach.

• Are you able to convert leads at the same or lower costs than other channels with social

media?

• Do you need to stop any activities that are causing leads to fall out of the sales funnel?
• Are you reaching people at points in the buying cycle when other channels can’t?
• Are you placing more people into the sales funnel at a lower cost? At what rate is it

growing?

• Have you aligned your sales process with leads that aren’t ready to buy today?

4 Ways to Measure Social Media and Its Impact on Your Brand[1]

Do you know how social media is helping your business? Want to find out how Twitter, Facebook and other sites are impacting your brand awareness?

The good news is social media has finally made it to the grand stage of “accountability.” A place where there are lots of people who want to measure it. The bad news is there isn’t a single clear-cut answer.

However, with a few simple steps, you can build a measurement strategy that accomplishes your goals.

Defining Terms

To start, let’s agree that brand awareness is a measure of how recognizable your brand is to your target audience. For those looking to get ahead of the curve on social media measurement, the first step is to align your social media metrics with metrics your company is already comfortable with.

Also, let’s agree that the measurements for social media aren’t all that different from how you’ve been measuring traditional media. To put brand awareness measurement into the context of the sales funnel, the key areas to evaluate fall into three categories:  social media exposure, influence and engagement.

With that understanding, let’s look at how you can level the playing field between your traditional media metrics and your social media metrics.

1 Measuring Social Media Exposure

How many people could you have reached with your message?

In social media, this measurement is about as reliable as a print magazine’s circulation, but knowing your potential audience does have value because it represents your potential sales lead pool.

Unfortunately, as of the writing of this post, some of these metrics have to be accounted for manually, so you’ll have to balance the level of effort to track the metrics versus the value you’ll receive from them to determine their importance to your overall strategy.

A good example of where there can be unreliability in social measurement is when isolating unique users for each of your metrics. You want to avoid counting the same person twice in the list below, but realistically it’s difficult to do.

These measurements highlight the number of people you’ve attracted to your brand through social media. To mitigate the potential for duplication of users, track growth rate as a percentage of the aggregate totals. This is where you will find the real diamonds.

• Twitter: Look at your number of followers and the number of followers for those who retweeted your message to determine the monthly potential reach. You should track these separately and then compare the month-over-month growth rate of each of these metrics so you can determine where you’re seeing the most growth. A great free tool to use for Twitter measurement is TweetReach.
• Facebook: Track the total number of fans for your brand page. In addition, review the number of friends from those who became fans during a specified period of time or during a promotion and those who commented on or liked your posts to identify the potential monthly Facebook reach.  Facebook Insights provides value here.
• YouTube: Measure the number of views for videos tied to a promotion or specific period of time, such as monthly, and the total number of subscribers.
• Blog: Measure the number of visitors who viewed the posts tied to the promotion or a specific period of time.

Email: Take a look at how many people are on the distribution list and how many actually received the email.

2  Measuring Engagement

How many people actually did something with your message?

This is one of the most important measurements because it shows how many people actually cared enough about what you had to say to result in some kind of action.

Fortunately engagement is fairly easy to measure with simple tools such as Radian 6, Biz360 and TweetEffect. These metrics highlight who you want to target to retain on social media channels.

For a starting list of key performance indicators for engagement, this post by Chris Lake is a great start.

• Twitter: Quantify the number of times your links were clicked, your message was retweeted, and your hashtag was used and then look at how many people were responsible for the activity. You can also track @replies and direct messages if you can link them to campaign activity.
• Facebook: Determine the number of times your links were clicked and your messages were liked or commented on. Then break this down by how many people created this activity. You can also track wall posts and private messages if you can link them to activity that is directly tied to a specific social media campaign.
• YouTube: Assess the number of comments on your video, the number of times it was rated, the number of times it was shared and the number of new subscribers.
• Blog: Evaluate the number of comments, the number of subscribers generated and finally the number of times the posts were shared and “where” they were shared (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, email, etc.). Measure how many third-party blogs you commented on and the resulting referral traffic to your site.
• Email: Calculate how many people opened, clicked and shared your email. Include where the items were shared, similar to the point above. Also, keep track of the number of new subscriptions generated.

3  Measuring Influence

This category gets into a bit of a soft space for measurement. Influence is a subjective metric that relies on your company’s perspective for definition. Basically, you want to look at whether the engagement metrics listed above are positive, neutral or negative in sentiment. In other words, did your campaign influence positive vibes toward the brand or did it create bad mojo?

You can also use automated tools like Twitalyzer, Social Mention, Radian 6 or ScoutLabs to make it a little easier, but ALWAYS do a manual check to validate any sentiment results. Influence is generally displayed as a percentage of positive, neutral and negative sentiment, which is then applied in relation to the engagement metrics and to the metrics for reach where applicable.

A great application for influence is to look at the influence by those who engaged with your brand in the above categories. Do you have a nice mix of big players with large audiences engaging with your brand, as well as the average Joe with a modest following?

If not, your influence pendulum may be about to tip over, because it’s important that you spend time engaging with both influential users and your average user. Note: many of the automated tools that track sentiment and influence are not free. And many times, you will need a combination of tools to measure all of the different social media channels.

 4  The Lead Generation Funnel

After you’ve measured through the influence portion of the funnel, you’re now creeping into where too many companies are starting their measurement efforts: the lead generation funnel. This is where the brand awareness portion of the funnel ends and the traditional ROI-driven action begins.

Exposure, influence and engagement represent brand awareness in the measurement funnel.

Understanding your reach, engagement and influence through these primary social channels will allow you to define your presence and impact, which can then be applied as a model to other social networks.

Now that you’ve tracked all of this information, how do you make it meaningful? Excel is a great tool to help organize your data. Build yourself a standard dashboard in Excel that highlights the key metrics that matter to the organization. Create a tab for a high-level overview of multiple campaigns, and a tab for each campaign for the time period you’re reporting on. Ultimately, you should put the information into the same format that you’ve used to report on traditional brand awareness campaigns, with social media as just another vehicle in the overall marketing mix.

How to Ask a Question[1]

 Last Wednesday I attended a debate at St. Francis College in Brooklyn, at which three men engaged in a lively, literate, and deeply-informed exchange. After they finished and the moderator opened the floor for questions, the usual thing happened. The questioners by and large had no questions. Instead they offered up prolix piles of words that led nowhere in particular. Some sought to show off what they mistook as their own superior knowledge. Others scolded. A few got lost in their own labyrinths. The closest we came to a question was the j’accuse rhetorical jab more or less in the form, “Don’t you agree that you are an ignorant buffoon?”

Some of the questioners were deliberately abusing their opportunity. That’s bad manners and an erosion of the civility that is needed for worthwhile public debate. But a good many of the questioners simply didn’t know how to ask a question. They were caught in the fog between wanting to communicate something that seemed to them urgent to declare and the need to ask.

Why has asking become so hard?

For surely we have all seen this. Events open to public response these days are swamped with people who don’t know how to ask questions. College campuses present some of the worst spectacles of faux-questioning prolixity and inconsequence. In principle, students and faculty members should have long since mastered the art or know enough not to display their incompetence. But no, they seem more and more possessed with a demon of self-expression that has recklessly discarded restraint.

The debate at St. Francis College focused on “the virtues of liberal Western Civilization compared to its Islamic rivals as expressed in author Ibn Warraq’s new book, Why the West Is Best.”  Warraq spoke first and was answered first by Paul Berman (The Flight of the Intellectuals), and then Sohrab Ahmari (Arab Spring Dreams).  The moderator was Fred Siegel (The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York and the Genius of American Life).  I was there because the National Association of Scholars, along with St. Francis College, Telos Press, and Encounter Books, was one of the sponsors.

The topic all by itself was sure to bring out some multiculturalists bent on sharing their irritation, as well as some Muslims determined to express their disdain for the apostate Ibn Warraq. And they indeed showed up and unselfconsciously testified to the accuracy of Warraq’s praise of the West for its openness to the expression of dissenting views and his criticism of modern Islam for its intellectual narrowness. But what happened during the questions-from-the-audience section happens all the time, regardless of the topic. Had this been the annual meeting of scholars at the Modern Luggage Association, there would have someone at the section on knapsacks pontificating on the superiority of the portmanteau, and someone else lost in an obscurantist account of baggage handlers in Baghdad.

Clearly we need help. This isn’t a matter of a deficit in “critical thinking.” It is a problem of recovering a lost art. Television and radio producers acknowledge this by filtering questions in advance or asking would-be questioners to submit their interrogatories in writing. We lose something important in this filtering. The questions that get asked are the ones moderators pick out to make their own points. We would be better served if people could ask their own coherent and pertinent questions.

Here’s how.

The best reason to ask a question is to contribute to the quality of the discussion that has already begun. You can do this if you can draw something more and perhaps unexpected out of the speaker you are addressing. “Mr. Rasputin, I admire your tunic. Do you consider fashion to be a revolutionary statement?”

Think of yourself as someone who seeks to enhance the occasion, rather than as an opportunity to show yourself to advantage. “Mr. Darwin, your description of odd wildlife in the Galapagos Islands is fascinating. Do you think evolution works differently on large continents?”

You have not been invited to give a speech. Before you stand up, boil your thoughts down to a single point. Then ask yourself if this point is something you want to assert or something you want to find out. There are exceptions, but if your point falls into the category of assertion, you should probably remain seated. “Mr. Nixon, you are unworthy of being president,” is not a question. “Mr. Nixon, what else would you have done as president if Watergate hadn’t gotten in the way?” is a question.

Question periods are not really the right time to ask for factual details. You are not interviewing the speaker. “Mr. Hillary, what brand of shoes were you wearing when you topped Everest?” is a real question but not one that is likely to enhance the discussion. There are exceptions to this, as when the fact you ask about evokes a larger meaning.  “Mr. Hillary, what do you consider was the most important piece of equipment you carried in your assault on Mt. Everest?”

Likewise, never offer up a roll call of your own facts or belabor them into a Perry Mason pseudo-question. “Mr. Malthus, are you aware that as economic development proceeds, birth rates decline, and that crop yields can be multiplied by a factor of x with the proper use of fertilizers, genetically-enhanced hybrid species, and market-based incentives?”

Weigh the usual interrogatory words in English: who, what, where, why, when. If you can begin your sentence with one of these you are more than half-way to a good question.  “Who gave you that scar, Mr. Potter?”  “What is a black hole, Mr. Hawking?”  “Where is the Celestial City, Mr. Bunyan?”  “Why are you wearing that letter, Ms. Prynne?”  “When will our troops come home, Mr. Lincoln?”

You will discover that, if you think in terms of these simple interrogatories, you will be able to skip right over the prologue. The right question evokes its own context. If, having formulated a question, you still think you need to set the stage for it, try again.

Don’t engage in meta-speech. “I was wondering, Ms. Steinem, if I might ask you a question that I am really curious about.” Go directly to the question. “Ms. Steinem, who is the man you admire the most?”

Look at the person you are addressing. Speak your question directly; don’t read it. Wait for the answer before you sit down. Don’t try to ask a follow-up question. If the speaker evaded your question the first time, he will evade it again. If the audience applauds your question, you are grandstanding and have failed an important test of civility.

The best questions are poised between attentiveness to what the speaker has already said and the chance to deepen the discussion. That means you should not try to introduce a divergent topic. “I appreciate your analysis of the space-shuttle disaster, Mr. Feynman, but are you not morally troubled by your work on the atomic bomb?” attempts to wrench the discussion to a new place. But, “Mr. Feynman, your analysis of the space-shuttle disaster shows the frailty of human judgment. How do you think that bears on other areas of advanced technology?” builds on the theme at hand.

A few people have a gift for witty, memorable questions. You probably aren’t one of them. It doesn’t matter.  A concise, clear question is an important contribution in its own right.

If someone ahead of you asks a similar question or if the speaker gets to your point before you ask, sit down. The audience doesn’t need to hear it twice.

Keep your autobiography to yourself.  This isn’t the occasion for a memoir. There may be exceptions. If you are the Count of Monte Cristo come to settle the score with the man who unjustly sent you to prison for 20 years, then have at it.  The audience will enjoy the show. Otherwise stick with the topic.

But don’t imagine you are there to right the grievances of humanity by shaming one of the oppressors. If you try this, you will annoy people, look like a fool, and most of all cast discredit on your cause. “Mr. Carnegie, aren’t those ‘free’ public libraries you keep building just meant to distract the workers from their exploitation?”

If you are tempted to speak “as” the representative of some category, resist. “As a native of Pittsburgh, I find your characterization of the open hearth Bessemer steel process historically uninformed and offensive,” accomplishes nothing. “Were there any viable alternatives to the Bessemer steel process in the 1860s?” would suffice. Declarations that begin, “As a woman…” “As an African-American…”  “As a Christian…” all carry the same instant discount in the audience. They claim a privileged form of knowledge that no one need grant you. Other people in the same category may have quite different views. Who appointed me to speak for Pittsburgh or you to speak for all womankind?

Lastly, you have a duty to be interesting. Brevity can’t repair a truly dull question. Knowing the difference between powerful concision and powerless vapidity is a matter of discernment, and the same words could be either. “What caused the Civil War?” asked at just the right moment in a debate about civil rights could be a brilliant question, but “What caused the Civil War” in a discussion of the Civil War would probably come across as tedious. If you aren’t sure which it is, silence is your best friend.

5 Steps to a Stronger Social Media Presence[1]

 Social media and social networking sites present tremendous opportunities to all kinds of business, including web design. If you’re not currently active with social media you are missing out on one of the best methods for networking and for free or low-cost marketing.

Many designers who are using social media are not getting the most out of it. In this post we’ll look at 5 simple steps that you can take to improve your effectiveness with social media, regardless of whether you are already a user or if you have not yet gotten started with social media.

Step 1: Identify Your Goals and Priorities

It’s important to set a solid foundation for your efforts with social media by first defining what you hope to get out of it. This is a critical step that many designers and freelancers overlook. Yes, social media can have a significant impact on your business, but you need to have some direction or else you will be wasting your time.

Some common goals or priorities for designers who are using social media include finding new clients, networking with other designers, increasing traffic to their website or blog, improving name recognition and branding, finding a new job, and simply enjoying activity with the community of users. It’s possible to improve your business or career in any number of ways with social media, but you need to be aware of what is important to you because it should shape the way in which you use social media.

Step 2: Target a Few Specific Social Media Sites

There are literally hundreds of social media sites out there, and there is no way anyone can or should use them all. In order to make the best use of your time with social media, and to avoid having it consume all of your time, it is best to choose a small number of social media sites that you want to use actively and on a regular basis. For designers it may be major sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Digg, or it could be smaller niche sites like Design Bump, The Web Blend, Design:Related, and many others.

When choosing your targeted sites, keep your goals and priorities in mind. If you’re looking to send traffic to your website or blog any of the major sites will have potential, and smaller niche sites can be a great choice for getting targeted traffic. If you’re not interested in getting traffic to your site or sharing useful links with others, social news sites can basically be eliminated and you can focus on sites that are more networking-oriented. If you’re hoping to use social media to land a job, being active on LinkedIn or other professional sites would be a good decision.

So as you can see, the different social media sites have their own distinct characteristics that you should consider. Take some time to check out the audiences of the sites that you are evaluating and find out which audiences would be the best fit to help you achieve your goals.

Once you have a few sites targeted (I would recommend 2-5 sites), set up your profile if you have not already done so, and start to participate.

Step 3: Find Tools to Help

While social media presents great opportunities for you and your business/career, it is also very easy to spend way too much time using social media. You can make the most of the time that you have available and keep yourself organized by finding some tools to help. Here are a few to consider:

Tweetdeck – With Tweetdeck you can update your profile on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Google Buzz and more. Tweetdeck also helps to organize your conversations across social media and to see when other people are talking about you.

HootSuite – HootSuite is an online app that acts as your social media dashboard. You can organize your use of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and more. You can schedule messages for the future, track your stats, and even collaborate with team members.

Twirl – Twirl is similar to Tweetdeck and HootSuite in that it helps you to manage your various social networking profiles.

There are hundreds or thousands of other useful apps that may be able to help you. You can search marketplaces like the iPhone app marketplace, Android app marketplace, or you can follow leading sites like Mashable and ReadWriteWeb that often post on various apps.

Step 4: Set Time in Your Schedule for Social Media

If social media is a priority for you and your business, you will need to set aside time to participate at the sites you are targeting or else you will probably get busy with your other work and never get around to it. They key is not to spend tons of time on these sites, but rather to make an impact with the time that you do have. If you’ve done an effective job with the first 3 steps you can easily have an impact with 30 minutes per day, or even less.

Setting aside some time for social media will help to ensure that you consistently use the sites, consistency is key, but it will also help to limit the amount of time that you spend so you don’t waste the whole day browsing through links that you’ve found through social media.

Step 5: Focus on Quality Over Quantity

When it comes to social media there is a huge difference in high-quality connections and low-quality connections. Try not to get caught up in comparing how many Twitter followers or Facebook fans you have in comparison to someone else. Having a high number is not required in order to be successful with social media. Having quality interaction with others and making an impact is possible even without having a lot of followers, fans, or friends.

Focus on using your time with social media to have genuine interaction with other users, and don’t take shortcuts or use tricks to build up numbers that really don’t matter anyway.

How to Increase Online Sales by Increasing Website Conversion Rates[1]

Stop hiding the fine print, and close more deals by simplifying self-service on your website.

Is your our website causing you to lose customers?

Great design, on-target messaging, compelling calls-to-action, and valuable content are just the baseline for engaging your market online. But can your customers make a buying decision solely using content from your site? Too often websites address only the discovery phase of a buying process.

Even the most creative, pithy, or in-depth description of what you do for whom and why you’re the best is not enough. Your prospects must be able to evaluate your offering, believe your claims are credible, and understand what you’re like to work with—all from within your site. Leaving these key purchase criteria questions unanswered interrupts prospect attraction, creating a barrier to buying.

At Great-to-Market Labs, my executive consulting firm in San Francisco, we hit that decision-wall with a vendor last year and ended up buying from a competitor.  We were in the market for an e-mail-marketing tool and were partial to My Emma.  Its website clearly identified our problem and explained how it presented a solution.

The hitch? We couldn’t see the product.  There were no pictures, videos, or free trials. Instead, the site asked us to call and talk to a representative for product details. Yes, we were curious enough to call (although I would argue that most prospects won’t).  We asked why they wanted us to call before we could see the product, and they said they wanted to qualify prospects because they were wary of spammers.

There are plenty of excuses for not giving potential customers exactly what they want to see on your website.  Here are some. We can’t:

• List pricing on the Web because then the competition will just beat it.
• Put demos online because sales people need to personalize the experience.
• Describe the implementation process because each customer is unique.
• Develop FAQs because that will point out unnecessary concerns.

Face it: It’s time to let these go.  In the age of Google, Yelp, and Groupon, customers are in the sales process driver’s seat, and they’re happy to be there.  Your customers want immediate access to information to help them buy. The solution is logical: Put it all on your site.  You’ve got to answer their questions, address their objections, differentiate yourself and do it all credibly. Withholding information might feel safer, but you risk alienating buyers—they’ll think your claims are suspect—and injecting unnecessary friction that extends sales cycles.

So, how do you know what information your prospects need to complete a buying decision?

Start by interviewing your best salesperson to build a map of your sales process in action.   Ask her or him to write down their view of the sales process from the first contact to final contract. Check out all of the materials your sales team members use during the sales dialogue (links to the website, presentations, demos) and at what point of the process they employ them. Finally, ask them to comprehensively note questions that the customers ask and the most effective responses to those questions (objections, comparisons).

Now, step into the role of your most promising prospect. Attempt to look at your website with fresh eyes, and try to make a decision to buy your product or service from your website.  If you can’t be objective, then ask a contemporary or mentor outside your company to be your prospective customer. Follow this path:

1. Do a Google search to get to your site (it never hurts to check up on the effectiveness of your keywords).

2. Can you easily identify with the problem being presented and the solution being offered enough to want to continue?  If not, then you need to work on your targeting and messaging. For example, a provider of healthcare services sold to employers, but used by employees, would separate content specific to each audience, emphasizing competitive evaluation for the employers (the buyer in this case), while focusing on service benefits for employees (the users). You can see here where Castlight Health separates its value proposition into employer and employee categories, minimizing confusion and speaking clearly to each audience.

3. Look at the sales process created by your sales rep.  Does your site enable prospects to easily find information while in each stage?

For instance, while in courting prospects in discovery, you need to establish credibility. Great sites establish credibility by offering third-party validation (product or service reviews, awards won), customer testimonials (short video clips are effective), and lists of customers (think logo walls).  For example, HubSpot is a relatively new vendor to the lead generation space, so it knows that advertising how and which companies are using HubSpot will create credibility. With that in mind, the company actually uses one of the six precious tabs on its home page for ‘Who Uses HubSpot.’

While in evaluation, the prospect is looking for you to differentiate yourself.  Show photos, screenshots or video tours so prospects can experience your product or service. Demonstrate thought leadership by offering education content for free. Provide frequently updated, valuable insight via your blog and social media feeds. Offer contact information for domain experts within your company. For example, check out how 37Signals uses tours to demo its products.

Customers also want to know exactly what happens after a purchase (implementation, adoption). Have you posted case studies of successful customer experiences? Make sure you describe how you will deliver your product and service as well as what buyers should do for post-sale support. You can see how salesforce.com, one of the pioneers of self-service, has a section of its website dedicated to explaining how to implement.  In addition to aiding the sales process, this is also an effective way to reduce implementation costs and increase user adoption.

4. Is all of the information that the sales rep is using in the sales process available on the site?  Is it easy to find?  Be careful not to hide information that feels uncomfortable to you just because you haven’t created your answer.  Pricing is a great example of this.  We talk to a lot of clients who don’t want to post it because they aren’t sure they have it right.  Resist the urge to withhold.  By putting it out there, you’ll find out if it’s right or not.  And, you’ll once again move the sales process along for your promising prospects.  See here how Vertical Response makes pricing very clear.

5. Do your FAQs answer the tough questions provided to you by the sales rep or is your prospect going to get the real truth when they start calling around or Googling you?

This can be an extremely effective test of the effectiveness of your e-selling (or rather e-buying from your customer’s perspective).  When I became the VP of Sales for Vindicia, an online billing SaaS vendor, several years ago, I informally went through this process and found that the customer had to call to talk to a sales rep for nearly everything.  And here we were selling online billing to e-merchants!  It wasn’t that the executive team was opposed to exposing information; rather, it was that the material just hadn’t been created.

Salespeople are still critical to business models, but communicating effectively to prospects online can generate efficiency far more valuable than the risk of exposing too much information, even in wildly competitive markets. Use your website to bring prospects as close to a buying decision as possible and focus your sales teams on consultative, strategic selling, which is really what we pay them to do anyway.

While it seems counterintuitive to lessons of the past several decades, self-service of the buying process will create a positive relationship with your customer.  It is not only what they expect, but also what they need in order to feel comfortable with you as a vendor.  They will view you as current, transparent, and confident about your products and services.  And that will win you more deals.

What The New Facebook Groups Mean For Community[1]

Well firstly, phew!, finally Groups and Pages are different again and groups appear to have functionality that would make you want to use them! I don’t know about you but as a marketer and community builder, I struggled between knowing which to use for what, based on the benefits of both.

However now these new Groups have been built from the ground up with a new resolution to facilitate real world groups and communities that already exist, something that gets back to the core of Facebook’s early mission of ‘helping you connect with the people you know.’ And within this, I think there is not only opportuniy, but also it acts as a confirmation about what we’re now thinking about communities in general.

COMMUNITIES ARE MADE OF MICRO-COMMUNITIES

Let me take church as an example, seeing as I used it recently already to illustrate community. A church meets every Sunday for their service, which is the macro community, where all the people come together, no matter what age, demographic, class, gender, ethnicity, etc. But it isn’t the virtue of Sunday in itself that brings this community together nor holds it together. In actual fact, we find subsets of communities within this community, micro community if you will, where people exchange life on a more frequent and deeper level.

Therefore, macro community is the product of micro communities. The strength of this macro community is the strength of these micro communities – the strength of the bonds between the people in them, and the strength of the bonds that link these micro communities together.

This isn’t just a church thing. Take #LikeMinds and you’ll find we have micro communities within our macro community. Take your school, your family, your friendship groups, and so on.

What this reminds me of is this slide below from “The Real Social Network“, an exquisite and mind-shifting, a-ha moment presentation from Paul Adams at Google. It basically says that we can’t approach social networks from the point of view that we have one community, because we don’t. We have different sets of friends who we might say totally different things to. In other words, micro communities that make up our own personal macro community.

FACEBOOK ISN’T A SINGLE COMMUNITY

Whilst Facebook isn’t a single community, we currently have to treat it like it is. I have to send my Church updates to everyone, and my work updates to everyone. It’s just one community. And when I do share any of this content, it is quite clearly owned by me, not by anyone else.

What Facebook now appear to be doing is giving us a way to groupalise content. Remove my made up word and you’d have ‘co-owned content’ or something similar. The groups allow you to have  group photos, group tags, group emails, group documents – a space where no one is really the owner but where everything is shared.

This means, it I use the image above, I could now form a group for each of those 4 communities above, and govern or guide it accordingly.

GROUPS IN THE STATUS FEED

From my early testing, these new Groups insert the updates into the news feed for those who are following them, meaning I have a new way to keep track of information that relates to an area of my life. Previously, it was this ability that gave Facebook Pages a competitive advantage over Facebook groups. Facebook Social Plugins, however are currently still only with Pages or customised content, so Groups don’t have a weigh in there yet.

GROUPS ARE LIKE CONTACT GROUPS IN YOUR EMAIL CLIENT

When I use Mail to send an email to certain teams, I can type the name of that group. Now, I can do the same with the new Facebook Groups, as well as see it in the news feed. This is a powerful move towards what The Real Social Network was talking about when it said that we don’t have one single community.

The way that I plan to use them is like I’d use this email contact group, a place to foster micro community through curation of people (not so much content.) The difference over the old format of groups is that I get notifications on all the activity. This is really lacking when it comes to Pages, but now means I can track everything in that group. Considering that for many Facebook has replaced email, and is their top communication method other than talking, it makes sense for me now to conduct work through a Facebook group that will automatically keep me up-to-date on all the activity.

THE BIGGER CHANGES

Facebook making this change tells me a lot about how we are changing in our knowledge economy. Facebook has become strikingly powerful at both reflecting and shaping how we think and interact. I’m interested to see how this changes us. ‘Friend’ was their first big thing, then ‘wall’, and then most powerfully with ‘like’. Whats the new verb or noun going to be now?

YOUR LEADING THOUGHTS

▪    Do you see a use for Facebook groups? Or is it effort that you just don’t have time or interest for?

▪    Do you observe my same observations about macro and micro community? What has Facebook taught us about how we really approach community?

[1] http://scottgould.me/?p=2909

Prof. C.J.M. Beniers

NL Zoetermeer 01-04-2012

© Copyright 2012

About Professor C.J.M. Beniers


Prof. C.J.M. Beniers is a well known authority in the field of modern and international communication techniques. He developed the Six-Component-Model. This model enables companies, institutions and politicians to communicate and negotiate with counterparts from all over the world successfully. His career began as international manager at Philips and later he earned his doctorate as professor in communication. He has more than 35 years experience as manager and management trainer. Thus he knows both sides – theory and praxis – very well. As scientist, Prof. Beniers conducts frequently research in the field of intercultural communication. The results of his interesting research can be found in news articles, free pod casts, audio books and his E-books such as “Bridging The Cultural Gap.” Here, modern managers learn how to prepare for business meetings with people from different cultures; they acquire the techniques and tools to handle situations in times of crises successfully, master intercultural barriers, country-specific communication patterns, looking into personal cultural values & systems. Knowing all this, men can prevent cultural misunderstandings and misinterpretations – not only in business but also in private life.

Contact:


Prof. C.J.M. Beniers

Amaliaplaats 2
2713 BJ Zoetermeer

The Netherlands

Telefone: +31 (0) 79 – 3 19  03 81

Mobile:  +31 (0) 6 2 061 8494

Email: info@beniers-consultancy.com

http://www.beniers-consultancy.com

5 Steps to a Stronger Social Media Presence[1]

 Social media and social networking sites present tremendous opportunities to all kinds of business, including web design. If you’re not currently active with social media you are missing out on one of the best methods for networking and for free or low-cost marketing.

Many designers who are using social media are not getting the most out of it. In this post we’ll look at 5 simple steps that you can take to improve your effectiveness with social media, regardless of whether you are already a user or if you have not yet gotten started with social media.

Step 1: Identify Your Goals and Priorities

It’s important to set a solid foundation for your efforts with social media by first defining what you hope to get out of it. This is a critical step that many designers and freelancers overlook. Yes, social media can have a significant impact on your business, but you need to have some direction or else you will be wasting your time.

Some common goals or priorities for designers who are using social media include finding new clients, networking with other designers, increasing traffic to their website or blog, improving name recognition and branding, finding a new job, and simply enjoying activity with the community of users. It’s possible to improve your business or career in any number of ways with social media, but you need to be aware of what is important to you because it should shape the way in which you use social media.

Step 2: Target a Few Specific Social Media Sites

There are literally hundreds of social media sites out there, and there is no way anyone can or should use them all. In order to make the best use of your time with social media, and to avoid having it consume all of your time, it is best to choose a small number of social media sites that you want to use actively and on a regular basis. For designers it may be major sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Digg, or it could be smaller niche sites like Design Bump, The Web Blend, Design:Related, and many others.

When choosing your targeted sites, keep your goals and priorities in mind. If you’re looking to send traffic to your website or blog any of the major sites will have potential, and smaller niche sites can be a great choice for getting targeted traffic. If you’re not interested in getting traffic to your site or sharing useful links with others, social news sites can basically be eliminated and you can focus on sites that are more networking-oriented. If you’re hoping to use social media to land a job, being active on LinkedIn or other professional sites would be a good decision.

So as you can see, the different social media sites have their own distinct characteristics that you should consider. Take some time to check out the audiences of the sites that you are evaluating and find out which audiences would be the best fit to help you achieve your goals.

Once you have a few sites targeted (I would recommend 2-5 sites), set up your profile if you have not already done so, and start to participate.

Step 3: Find Tools to Help

While social media presents great opportunities for you and your business/career, it is also very easy to spend way too much time using social media. You can make the most of the time that you have available and keep yourself organized by finding some tools to help. Here are a few to consider:

Tweetdeck – With Tweetdeck you can update your profile on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Google Buzz and more. Tweetdeck also helps to organize your conversations across social media and to see when other people are talking about you.

HootSuite – HootSuite is an online app that acts as your social media dashboard. You can organize your use of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and more. You can schedule messages for the future, track your stats, and even collaborate with team members.

Twirl – Twirl is similar to Tweetdeck and HootSuite in that it helps you to manage your various social networking profiles.

There are hundreds or thousands of other useful apps that may be able to help you. You can search marketplaces like the iPhone app marketplace, Android app marketplace, or you can follow leading sites like Mashable and ReadWriteWeb that often post on various apps.

Step 4: Set Time in Your Schedule for Social Media

If social media is a priority for you and your business, you will need to set aside time to participate at the sites you are targeting or else you will probably get busy with your other work and never get around to it. They key is not to spend tons of time on these sites, but rather to make an impact with the time that you do have. If you’ve done an effective job with the first 3 steps you can easily have an impact with 30 minutes per day, or even less.

Setting aside some time for social media will help to ensure that you consistently use the sites, consistency is key, but it will also help to limit the amount of time that you spend so you don’t waste the whole day browsing through links that you’ve found through social media.

Step 5: Focus on Quality Over Quantity

When it comes to social media there is a huge difference in high-quality connections and low-quality connections. Try not to get caught up in comparing how many Twitter followers or Facebook fans you have in comparison to someone else. Having a high number is not required in order to be successful with social media. Having quality interaction with others and making an impact is possible even without having a lot of followers, fans, or friends.

Focus on using your time with social media to have genuine interaction with other users, and don’t take shortcuts or use tricks to build up numbers that really don’t matter anyway.

40 Tips On How To Be A Social Media Rockstar[1]

 Social media has provided a means for people to make a name for themselves globally in their niche if they are prepared to put in the hard yards and publish, promote and leverage their passion. This can be done by using the the different media that are available to them on social media such as online video on YouTube or images on Flickr and create content that displays their passion for the world to see.

This article is a compilation of 4 blog posts that I recently wrote that took the one best idea from thought leaders on what they think is important to increase your influence online in the world wide web of social media networks.

Hubspot sponsored the Influencer Project where the social media influencers and experts were given 60 seconds to state their number one tip.

Here are some of their thoughts on what they see as being important in being influential in a digital world.

There is one secret here that if you don’t have it you will not be successful.

1. Create valuable content that helps people solve their problems

You can do this on many diffedrent social media channels whether that is YouTube, a blog post or an eBook

David Meerman Scott of Webinknow.com

2. Be really transparent about everything that you’re doing,

Then sharing a lot of that information, being really open. And that will help you build your digital influence - Mike Volpe of Hubspot

3. Be consistent

Consistency demonstrates commitment. So, for the people that you’re trying to serve, if you are consistent, they’re going to keep coming back –  Michael Port of MichaelPort.com

4. Follow better people

so then you will read and view great content then enabling you to produce great output (content) – Robert Scoble of Scobleizer.com

5. Create relationships with outstanding strategic partners

Carol Roth at CarolRoth.com.

6. Make connections with people online, and then go and meet them in person in the real world offline

Scott Porad of  ScottPorad.com

7. Create content that stands for something, which is remarkable, divisive or inspirational

Joe Pulizzi founder of Junta42 and  The Content Marketing Institute

8. Lead your customers with the latest trends in your industry

Laurel Touby – founder of MediaBistro.com.

9. Develop and nurture multiple circles and multiple spheres of influence

Don’t rely on just one type of social media networks but get involved in several and you will create synergy

Chris Guillebeau from the blog  The Art of Non Conformity

10. Start talking to people-

Laura Roeder from LauraRoeder.com

11. Develop your storytelling skills

To improve your digital influence have a story that is worth telling don’t try and sell a product or idea - Michael Margolis, fromGetStoried.com

12. Co‐create some products with people who have your audience already but are not selling them the kind of things you’re selling

Make real quick teleseminars with them, or do special reports that are just for their audience, and kind of co‐make them with those people, and basically get yourself co‐billed with as many other people as possible. Because what happens is their audiences, goodwill, and credibility shifts over to you, and you get to be associated with some of the larger names in the business

Dave Navarro from TheLaunchCoach.com

13. Give your content wings and give it roots

Roots means to ground it solidly in who you are (your passion and being) and have a point of view. Give it wings means to let it be shared easily across social media platfroms all over the web buttons easy to share frictionless and free - Ann Handley of MarketingProfs and co‐author of Content Rules

14. Get offline and meet people in real life

When you meet someone, introduce that individual to someone else that you know, they will standout significantly in their eyes - Joselin Mane at BostonTweetup.com

15. Get very, very good at filtering and aggregating content

Be able to sort through all that content and be able to deliver it to people at the right time, the right size, the right amount. Second thing is,  be veryinformed about what matters to those folks, what they’re saying in the social technologyand the social space - John Jantsch  of DuctTapeMarketing.com

16. Be topical and early in the news cycle

This can be on any conversation of general interest  and detect and articulate patterns, make connections, and make context explicit and  just  hustle - Marshall Kirkpatrick from ReadWriteWeb.com

17. Use online video

This probably the fastest way to get your message out there, to increase visibility, and to get clients and customers online. Come up with some great content—it can be two to three minutes, it does not have to be a lot. Create content around your area of expertise and then distribute,distribute with gusto - Shamana Kabani author of The Zen of Social Media Marketing

18. Be remarkable

So defy convention where appropriate, people take notice -  Johnny B. Truant of JohnnyBTruant.com

19. Let your passion shine

It’s about people—real human beings, just like you and me, it is not about the technology. It’s about passion, conversations, not product conversations - Robbin Phillips of word of mouth marketing atBrainsOnFire.com

20. Learn how to talk more about other people

So if you’re looking to influence a certain thought leader, or even just a group of people, talking about them, talking to them, instead of about yourself - Yaro Starak from Entrepreneurs‐Journey.com