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What make a consumer buy? This the core question of any business….and everything is business. Don’t mistake that. You are always selling something. Maybe you are selling attendance to an event, or a line of sweaters, or tax advice or yourself to get a new job. No matter what you are always selling.
So the major question of every endeavor becomes…..what makes a person buy?
The answer is quite simple and complicated at the same time. People buy a good story.
As humans we are all connected to our emotions, so more, some less. But all connected none the less. When we tell an effective story, one that combines our passion, our product, our beliefs, our struggle and our success…our listeners become engaged. They want to know more and they want to participate.
The greatest teachers I have ever had were great storytellers. The were able to wrap wisdom and learning into a great fable that answered the “Why’s” and “How’s”. I would also say the same of the greatest sales professionals I have ever met….and the greatest entrepreneurs.
Take a moment and think of Steve Jobs. He is responsible for selling the story of Apple. He has the most fanatical users and has established his company as an innovator by telling a story of the triumph of design. He is known as being ruthless on design specific details. His keynotes are riddled with references to poor design and it’s even prevalent in the uber-famous “Mac vs, PC” commercials.
His story is consistent and engaging. It speaks to a niche population but invites in anyone who may be listening with a small amount of interest. Mostly though, the story is authentically Steve Jobs. Some will argue that the story then will die with Steve Jobs. I challenge that it is too soon to see where the story will lead.
When you choose to root your business strategies in the art of storytelling, you are opening your business to be flexible and to grow. A traditional fable takes twists and turns, embraces new characters and takes on new risks. But it also has a core set of values. These are what guide the customer through the transition of characters and ultimately drive the engagement with the product.
In this day and age, a business cannot be nameless and faceless. Consumers are demanding that “Oz” be revealed. Let the world see that you are behind the business. Let them understand and relate to you as a person. Share your successes, failures, dreams and accolades. Your story is the story of your business.
Here are 3 steps to crafting and sharing your story.
1. Determine your core values – What do you and your business stand for? Many a motivational and business speaker have discussed virtues of having defined values. They were right. I’ll also say that these values should be realistic and able to be upheld. Identify 3 strong values that your customers can count on receiving each and every time they interact with your product. From “Fun” to “Honesty”, take the time to Identify and Define these.
2. Define where and how you communicate – Really these two are at the core of all marketing plans and should be at the core of your business strategy. If you don’t have a pre-determiend path you’ll spend all your time looking for the right path. Forget “right” for now and focus on movement. Will you reach your customers via Social Media, print ads, Radio, direct mail, phone call, horse and buggy, lighting of lamps….you get the point. Figure out where you want to put your focus and then start applying your values to that message. Think “soft sell” in this part and leave the hard sell to the so called advertising professionals.
3. Listen to the story you are telling – Too many business owners and professional marketers get caught up int he details of what they are trying to share. do yourself a favor, go find a six year old and ask them if they understand what you are saying. If they get it and are excited by it, your on the right track…if not, time to re-evaluate. Keep it simple and focus on the big picture. What gets people excited about your product? What builds engagement? These will lead to the deeper questions down the road.
Your ability to tell a great story will have a profound impact on your business if you take the time to build it. These tips and this concept is not a simple “How To”. This a concept and mind set that you must adopt….for the long term.
Happy Hustlin!
This evening I was preparing for an upcoming presentation and started brainstorming to get my head in the right place. I wanted to get down my basic, fundamental, beliefs about why a small business owner should embrace New Media marketing.
Here is my quick list.
It’s a place to get started when you are looking to answer the big question of “why”. The list should generate some insights or further questions as you read it. I recommend you read through the list once, to get it over with, then a second time to see how each point resonates with you and your goals.
Examine your own feelings and be honest. Are you excited, scared, worried or do you feel nothing? These emotions should also give you some insight.
Reflection is the greatest tool we have for improvement. Use it often!
…and now the list!
- Social Media builds brand equity. It’s drives participation in communities and groups by it’s very nature and provides a clean medium for sharing value.
- If you believe in your product and are passionate about what you do, you can build a community no matter how small your niche
- You make money by being involved and caring. It is that simple.
- It takes time to make money, you need passion and patience. If you do actually adopt a strategy, you’ll need to work it for at least a year before you start to see the full return on your investment.
- Be a Hustler! Work harder, longer and more passionately than the next person in the room. Most still don’t realize that it is not luck, but hard work, that creates success.
- People ask how many tools they need to use…….use as many as you can sanely handle. Be everywhere a potential customer may be. Make a few mistakes along the way and continue to find the ones that yield the most contact.
- You must be authentic to win a community of fans. Once you have a solid base of fans who believe in your value, put a plan in place for monetizing.As your building your community you should be looking for the core structure of that plan
- Where do your customers live on the web? Breathe, play and work there. Look for the new locations and the tried & true.
- Adopt video!!! If nothing else, start recording 1 minute of advice a day. It’s easy, cheap and conveys emotion to those who are watching.
- Don’t try and please everyone. Please a core group who will use your product. Be yourself.
- Work when others aren’t. The most successful entrepreneurs work at night. Just two hours each night is an extra 10 per week…and they generally are uninterrupted.
What do you think? I am right, wrong, idiotic or crazy? What skills or strategies have worked for you?
Happy Hustlin!
Storming– Eventually the “it’s all good” feelings fade and people begin to engage in the community by sharing their feelings on the topics, discussions, styles, formats and whatever else pleases them.
Let me stress now…..This is a good thing!
When your community begins to engage and start the questioning process, you know you are gaining momentum. It is through this process that your community members begin to cement their willingness to be part of the communities growth. Essentially what they are telling you is that they care enough to voice their opinion.
How you react to that sharing will be a defining moment for your community. You can strike back and let them know who is the boss or you can gently guide them in a direction. You can encourage the sharing and moderate for positive growth or you can limit the comments. It’s your choice.
Understand that whatever you do, and don’t do, will have an impact on the outcome. I’ll humbly offer the following advice.
The greatest communities grow from villages to towns when their leader is strong enough to provide direction and listen for answers. The community will tell you what it wants, and in the beginning this voice will come the loudest from a few of the members. This conflict is productive because it challenges the norms that are useless and the drives you to define the content and quality of your product.
Listen to them and then ask the rest of the community for feedback when it comes to changes. You’ll be challenged to stray for your niche of information, stay strong with regard to the vision, but encourage the community to help participate in the growth of the product.
Again, some of them will leave during this phase. Those who stay will be stronger members and more committed to your growth.
As in the forming stage, your job continues to be the driving of the core content you committed to sharing and engaging your members in conversation. Help them to feel special and wanted. From that you will burst forth like a phoenix and begin to embrace the longest section of the growth process, Norming.
Earlier I wrote about the four stages of Developing a Social Media Community. I briefly touched on the stages of Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing. Upon further reflection I realized that it would be best for me to explain those a little further.
With that said….lets start with Forming.
Forming – In the beginning, it is always, all good. People are happy, positive and quiet about your new venture. They’ll join because they see something that they like and connect with. From those who decide to join, you won’t receive much more than positive feedback at first, and this is natural.
Don’t be fooled by that quiet though. It doesn’t mean they don’t care or that you are an all knowing god. It means the members are settling in and watching for the norms of the community. How do people speak to each other and share information? How and what can they share? What will they get out of the group?
All these are important questions for them to be asking themselves. Some will decide that they don’t want to be a part of the community based on these norms and some will become even stronger participants. It’s natural selection at work.
Your job at this time is to help set these norms. They may be your specific thoughts that you want to enforce, it may be a gentle guiding in a particular direction or it may be that you moderate and let the community decide. In the forming stages of a community a strong leader is required.
No matter what, it is imperative that you are actively involved in the community during the forming process. you must be the strongest voice in the beginning so that others can also be heard. It is your job to encourage interaction between the information and the members. It’s also important to encourage interaction between the members themselves. Only through this interaction can you be assured a community that will thrive with feedback.
This is what drives the initial interest of your readers and community. You are speaking about and sharing content that defines a topic they are interested in. YOu are the catalyst, the creative volcano and the dark whole from which forth information is spewed! Keep your content focused on your niche and don’t stray beyond the confines of the information you have promised to share. By staying within those confines you are embracing the most powerful tool you can. You are defining your community as a preferred portal for specific information and or services.
Social media marketing is so much more than just Social Networks.
Yes Facebook is important, yes Twitter is effective, yes you are meeting new contacts through LinkedIn and yes….you are introducing new customers to you and your product through your YouTube videos. And yes….there is much much more to the idea of Social Media Marketing!!!
Social Media Marketing is your ability to think creatively about how you can engage your potential consumers in conversation and interaction.
Through Web 2.0 technologies this primarily in a digital format and there are a wealth of opportunities that live outside the sacred four (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube). The gauage of true success will be your organizations ability to expand beyond these four and look for new and fun opportunities for your customers to interact with your product.
Can you create a fun public service annoucement that is picked up by Digg and ultimately drives new consumers to yoru website? Can you create a viral video which effectively communicates your message is shared throughout Facebook, Digg, Twitter and email? Can you develop a campaign that drives traffic to a landing page and ultimately creates a new database of potential clients for yoru sales team?
The true success of Social Media Marketing lies in your ablity to move beyond the sacred four and into a new world of creative marketing. A world that combines new and old ideas with the power of instant gratification. Youe customers are looking to be entertained and engaged!
Are you up for the challenge?
“Being maniacal about something is very helpful.” – Bill Gates
I have no doubt that maniacal is the correct word to use in this instance. True passion is maniacal! It is ludicrous and cannot be stopped by anyone. No amount of rejection can squash ultimate passion. As entrepreneurs and BizDev Mavericks we need to have that passion. No one faces more rejection us. No one!
It is the saving grace the keeps us motivated and moving forward…..so I ask again…..
Are you crazy enough to be successful?
My guess is that about 75% of the people out there are not. If I was wrong, the Bill Gates of the world would just be ordinary.
Passion drives us to work longer, harder, smarter, faster, and with more gusto than anyone else. We do this because we are driven to succeed by the beliefs that we hold. It may be a passion for your product and service or it may be a passion to make money or a difference in the world. No matter what it is, your success hinges on that understanding.
Take the time to understand what drives you
It is rare that anyone takes the time to truly reflect about a subject like passion these days. Even in an age of enlightenment, most are afraid of what they might discover. It took me a long time to admit to myself that I am indeed to passionate about making money. I felt ashamed of that. Once I did though, I was able to clarify what that meant and understand the deeper passion of living a full life and providing for my family. More than money, these were my passions, my drivers in life.
Remind yourself daily of that driver
Once I understood what my real drivers were, I could again focus on achieving that success. I am now surrounded by reminders of the joy I have created for myself and my family on a daily basis and the dreams we still have to accomplish. The trips we want to take and things we want to experience or have. Create a dream board that is a collage of elements that represent your passion and driving factors. Then be sure to look at it often…daily is an absolute minimum. The more you see it, the greater opportunity you have to achieve it. We get what we are most often focused on.
Share it with the world
Quite possibly the hardest step. By sharing our passions, we are committing to them. We open ourselves to the criticism of those who are scared of our success and also to the power of those that can help us stay focused and on course. Both of which provide us with challenges. Yet, we must share for the same reasons. So that we can stay committed, so that we can be supported and so that we do open ourselves to being successful. Share it on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and your family picnic and with your closest friend.
We all have a choice when it comes to our level of success. Passion is a crucial element to making that choice. Find your passion and your success is almost guaranteed.
One of my biggest challenges when building a business development strategy is getting someone to sign off on the social element.
Everyone is currently in favor and generally supportive of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn because they are safe and offer a relatively low risk of complete and utter failure. The problem is not the portals, but the lack of risk taking. The true power of social media lies in it’s ability to draw attention and make connections. These connections can then lead to actual sales and referrals when they are followed up on by more traditional forms of sales and marketing. Social provides the first touch and friendly reminder that makes everything else a warm call.
Don’t be afraid to take a risk. One of the biggest advantages of Social media is that it is relatively in-expensive. You design a cheap, fun and easy website for next to nothing these days and use it to drive exposure. Create a funny PSA and blast it to Digg and everyone else. Create a promotion that is literally out of this world and the actually give it away when you reach a level of followers you would have not thought existed. And do it all organically……not stupidly.
Take some risks people. It’s not the end of the world.
CORE Business Development 