On Words and Business

Here’s a great post from iMedia Connection about why creating a social media policy can help you keep your focus. Especially for small businesses and entrepreneurs who have to divide their time between so many tasks.

My favorite hint: Avoid bandwagon-jumping. I’ve heard all sorts of fabulous stories about people who’ve made good contacts and gotten work through Twitter. That’s great. For my business right now, though, it’s not in the cards. That doesn’t mean I’ll never consider it. It’s just that given my bandwidth and other current strategic considerations, it’s not part of my plan.

My second favorite:  Keep an eye on consolidation. I’m looking forward to more of this. Especially with LinkedIn, since the social media policy for my business does not involve Facebook (my social media policy for my personal life does, but that’s a different story).

Happy strategizing…

As discussed on MarketingProfs:

1. LinkedIn
2. Facebook
3. Twitter

Hmm. I only use one of these for business (I keep Facebook for personal connections).

Although…I like the ancient proverb the author quotes: a “cord of three strands is not easily broken.”

As a small business owner, I encounter hundreds of prospects each month. And I need to keep track of things like when I communicated or last did business with them and details about each encounter. My current method of managing contacts is almost unmanageable–an Excel workbook that I started when I had only a few contacts.

My quest for a usable contact management system has been unsuccessful. But I see I’m not the only one afflicted. Like Ms. Bram, I need more than a glorified address book. If I only need a list of names and contact information, it wouldn’t be hard to find something easy and inexpensive. But I need something flexible, searchable, and easy to use.

For example, I need to be able to find all the contacts who received a certain mailing or email, or all the contacts I’ve haven’t been in touch with over the past month. Or all the banks. Or everyone with a fiscal year end of December 31.

So far, I haven’t found a prepackaged product that can do any of this. And I’m not thrilled about the idea of having to design my own database from scratch.

Any suggestions?

BTW…I’m a Mac user, but I’d also consider an online solution. Thanks!

When I write, I think I’m fairly adept at writing examples of whatever it is that needs to be illustrated. But when I’m speaking, for some reason, all bets are off.

Last night at a networking event, I proved, yet again, that I just can’t give examples extemporaneously in a conversation. Or, more accurately, I can’t give good, clear, enlightening examples. I saw that look that my conversation partner’s face; and I knew I’d just confused the heck out of him. I hate that feeling.

When talking about my business, I’ve got examples in my back pocket, ready to go. Just so I don’t have to worry about coming up with one of my wonderfully obscure and perplexing examples. But other kinds of conversations can trap me.

Have you found some sort of challenge, or something that makes you cringe, in your networking or conversations? It’s not possible that I’m the only one who’s got a bugbear like this!

Online business networking at it’s finest. If you haven’t checked out LinkedIn yet, and you’re serious about networking with professionals and business owners, this is the place to be.

It’s a networking tool, so the most benefit comes when users share their connections. You never know who the people you know know.

I use LinkedIn to identify and connect with people in organizations I’m trying to target. I just took a class in how to best use LinkedIn as a networking tool (this probably gives you a hint about which generation I am not part of!). It really opened my eyes to how online networking can be successful, and how it supplements networking in person.

See if we are connected:

Anyone in a business with customers knows they have to listen to what their customers want or need. This is, as with many things, easier said than done. The MarketingProfs Daily Fix has some hints about the art of listening. A few of the good traits include being prepared to take notes, repeating what you hear and asking for clarification, being present, and being interested. All of these work when you are sitting next to or across the table from someone.

Listening to customers in other ways takes different forms, but is effectively the same–being interested in what the other person has to say. A blog, for example, is supposed to be a two-way conversation. But in many cases, it is really a one way communications tool. That can be by the choice of the blogger–to disallow comments–or simply that the blogger hasn’t said anything worth commeting on. The article ends with this:

However, most of us continue to use it as a talking tool (one-way communications), evidenced by our blog posts, podcasts and vlogs. We need to do better. But two-way and 360-degree communication only happens if our readers and listeners choose to participate. That is our challenge, not theirs.

So, how do we create a communications environment, where listening takes place? I think that is the key question surrounding the use of Social Media and that dreaded acronym, ROI.

This is a question I struggle with every day I write a post. What can I do to let you know I’m here to listen?