Sefossifoco

Plus One is Not the Loneliest Number

I was just reading about the Plus One button from Google. Essentially, it’s going to be a way to vote up things you want to share in search and on sites that implement the button. It’s “like” for Google. Here’s a quick video:

If you can’t see the video, click here.

Will it be useful? I say yes. Google dominates search. Will I implement +1 on [chrisbrogan.com]? Absolutely. Will it lead me to billions of new customers? Not likely, but it will amp up certain search terms, that’s for sure.

Here’s hoping it’s out and touchable soon.

Social BOOM! Book Release Event Photos

Thank you to everyone who was able to attend the book release event for Social BOOM! Here are some photos from the event:

Do you have photos from the event? Share them on my Facebook page today.

Have you bought your copy of Social BOOM! yet? Click here to buy it now.

Fishing Off the Back Porch

Sometimes, we online marketer types get lazy. We look no further than our tweet streams and our email list for new clients/customers. And when we don’t find them, we scratch our heads and wonder what’s wrong.

I call this fishing off the back porch.

Fishing off the back porch

If you’ve got the best bait, the best rod and reel, and a lot of experience fishing, that’s wonderful, but it won’t matter if you’re casting off onto your lawn. There aren’t any fish on your lawn (one hopes). They are elsewhere, in the water (one hopes). And that means you have to go to the water to get them.

More so, you can’t just go to any water. You get in trouble for fishing in someone’s pool. I found that out the hard way. No, it turns out, you have to fish where the fish are, where it’s okay to fish, and where the locals know that they’ve been biting lately.

Acquisition Is the Trick

Luring fish in with great bait is wonderful, but first, you have to know where to acquire them. Where are your buyers? Where do they spend their time? It’s quite likely that you might have to branch out your marketing into other spaces.

Whenever I’m written up in a newspaper, I get a lot of emails and messages from people who knew me before I was in social media. These people never make a peep the rest of the time, but if the Boston Globe writes me up, I get a bunch of contact from a bunch of people who never connect with me via Twitter or Facebook (and rarely even email).

There are plenty of fishing holes we’re not looking into but we should. For instance, for all the greatness that digital publishing is bringing the world, when my book is at a Hudson News at an airport, I get offers for speaking. Why? Because the CEO who stumbled onto my book suddenly realizes that his organization needs what I’m selling, and that he should have me in to say a few words to the team. That’s a fishing hole I don’t always get to fish in, but where I get some really big catches.

Get Off the Porch

The simple message today is this: you’re not looking far enough. There are opportunities to grow your business that aren’t right off the porch. We talk about this a bit sometimes at Kitchen Table Companies, and I want you to start thinking about it, too. For every way that you’re trying to reach your would-be buyer, which ways haven’t you tried because they’re not as easy as fishing off your social media porch?

What’s your take?

Compared to perfect: the price/value mismatch in content

Order Your Copy Of Social BOOM! Today

Social BOOM! contains every aspect of social media, including the business periphery (blog, personal website, e-zine) that you need in order to create the real law of attraction. When you create a connection, it’s an indicator that that prospect, or that customer, or that person wants to continue the online relationship, which may lead to real business. Graduate from social media to business social media by creating value that others will perceive as important to fulfilling their needs.

A slow news day

Today We Are Rich

No, this isn’t because I started taking ads on [chrisbrogan.com]. It’s because Tim Sanders just released his great new book, Today We Are Rich: Harnessing the Power of Total Confidence (amazon affiliate link). It’s a book about confidence, and how to stay true to yourself, and how to grow your way through to the kind of world you want to live. These lessons come from Tim’s grandmother, Billye, and are what Tim has applied in his own world. This is, according to Tim, a kind of PREQUEL to his smash book, Love is the Killer App.

Here’s what I have to say about it (and there’s a note in here to Bob Burg, too!):

If you want to work on your own self-improvement, jump in and grab this book.

Ads Baby

For visitors who come directly to [chrisbrogan.com], you might notice that I’ve posted some advertisements. I’ve accepted a contract from Federated Media to place select ads on my site for products and/or services that might be of interest to you. If you swing by the site, you’ll notice them and maybe sometimes find the product or service interesting. If not, then not. There are tiny Google Adsense ads at the bottom of the RSS subscription, too.

I’ve worked on a Federated Media project, American Express OPEN Forum for a while now, writing articles for the small business world. This is an extension of that relationship.

Why Take Ads?

I have ads so I can make money. That’s easy to answer. Why work with Federated Media? I like John Battelle and I like what I know about the company and I found their inventory relevant to the people who come here.

But Ads are Icky

No. Intrusive ads are icky. Ads that promote something you don’t like are icky. Ads are how we come to be aware of something. That’s all. It’s how they’re implemented that often bugs us. For instance, I’m not anxious to have any ads that block what you’re reading. And, if you wanted to never see the sidebar ads, you could subscribe to my site via email. THAT makes them invisible to you.

Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address of choice in the box, and get ONLY the blog sent to you from that address:

So, Ads It Is

The content remains the same. The ideas are all mine. I will never allow for an editorial conflict. If I wrote it, it was my words and I mean it.

I understand if you have an aversion to ads. I’ll do my best to keep you happy enough not to care.

Small screens and big decisions

You Are In Sales

There’s what you do to sell, and there’s everything else. There’s your main business and there’s everything else. If you’re not bucketing your time and your chores and your day’s plans accordingly, how do you think the results will turn out?

I lead with sales because I’m convinced that everyone in every organization is now part of the sales force. I also think you’re part of customer service, but there are no customers without sales. Sales comes first. No matter if you’re the bagger at the grocery store to the CFO, your job is sales and then customer service, and if you don’t think it is, your company’s health is probably just as questionable as the rest of the businesses out there.

You Are In Sales

Put sales into every day. Put customer service into every day. Do something to touch both buckets every day. You might also have to do promotion. You might also have to do the grinding chores that make up the rest of the role you play, but your role is sales.

What are you selling? Who knows? Jon sells religion (though I’m sure he’d prefer I not call it sales). Margie sells social media musings. We all sell ideas, at the very least.

When I say it, I tend to mean sales sales, but that’s up to you.

You are in Customer Service

Peter Shankman and Marsha Collier both wrote good books on the new customer service. Read these and think in the ways they talk about it. Customer service is now as important to marketers and operations engineers as it is to the people who answer the phones. And the social phone is ringing. Are you there to answer it?

Think Sales

Sales people don’t push a product; they listen for people’s needs. The really good sales professionals I’ve met sell other people’s products just as readily as they sell the one they’re paid to sell. Get in that habit, the habit of being helpful. Find people’s needs as a matter of fact. Find them even when you’re not really on duty. Listen to people. Listen to what they’re really saying versus what is coming out of their lips. This will pay you forever.

Think Customer Service

The #1 trait of excellent customer service is empathy married to action. Sometimes, empathy is all you can deliver. I’m sitting in an airport writing this at 5AM because our plane was rerouted due to an emergency onboard. It’s no one’s fault. But none of the passengers really want to be here. Everyone has dealt with us with empathy first and foremost, and that’s what matters. They’ve spoken from our side of the fence. They’ve been personal with all their interactions.

Empathy plus action is what makes great customer service. You can practice this as often as possible, too. You can do it at home. Get on the other person’s side of the table as often as possible. Look for potential ways to help. And remember, listening and making someone feel heard is every bit as important an action as any other (note to men: we tend to leap to action instead of helping a woman feel heard – that’s from studies I’ve read and John Gray’s work).

And You?

How are you selling? What works? What feels uncomfortable? When I say you’re in sales, are you feeling it? Or are you still reluctant to accept that?