In a previous post I discussed five guidelines a business should follow when it comes to engaging in social media.  They are question, plan, location, test, and measure.  In the coming posts I will be discussing each of them in greater detail.  This post will focus on the questions you need to ask yourself and your business before you begin.

Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.

Tony Robbins

The Foundation Question

Why should anyone listen to you?

Is anybody listening?

That is a pretty humbling question.  It makes you have to justify your existence in social media.  It puts you on the spot and can make you feel narcissistic in answering.  Yet, in its answer you will find the foundation for your social media plan and how you will measure your success/failure.

When you started your business you asked yourself the same question.  Slightly different in its wording – Why would anyone buy your product/services? – but basically the same.  I am sure you answered that question with a burning passion to fulfill the unmet needs of your customers.  Only you could make them be better off.

You must have the same faith in yourself in engaging in social media.  You have a profound message and that those who listen to you will be better persons, will learn something new, will find answers to their questions, etc.

My client Rocky Mountain Roots knows that their services will lead their customers to lead healthier lives.  They know that their community has a few misunderstandings when it comes to alternative medicine.  So my clients engage their community to educate them.  They hold the passionate belief that they are the best people to educate their community.  That is their why.

What will yours be?

We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.

Friedrich Nietzsche

The Voice Question

Some confuse this with persona, which is how your network perceives you.   Your voice is how you will write, post, tweet, and otherwise engage with your audience.  You need to determine what your voice is going to be and make sure that it is consistent across all social media networks your are engaging in.

Typically most businesses engage in the third person as their voice.  This only gives credence that companies are cold faceless entities that care little for their customers’ needs/complaints.  It is best to have a first person voice.

Speaking in the first person has to match with the social media persona you are going to be using.  The first person creates an individual bond with each person you are engaging with.  They feel as if they are speaking with a real person as opposed to a faceless entity.

Understand that you will not please everyone.  That is okay, because pleasing everyone pleases no one.  So define your voice that best represents your business and make sure that it is personal.

I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.

Ernest Hemingway

The Listening Question

If you have been engaged individually in social media already you know that some people and/or businesses are only focused on themselves.  Just like in real life.  It is all me, me, me, and more me.

One of the tenets – one would say laws – of social media for businesses is to listen.  The question that needs to be answered is what kind of listening will you do?

Will you listen just to customers and potential clients?

Will you listen to your markets?

Will you listen to your competition?

Will you listen to learn?

Will you listen to bad/good news?

Will you listen to comments about you?

The answer should be a resounding “YES!” to all of them.

I hear what your saying but I am not listening

The great thing about the different social media platforms is that you can set up searches for items you want to know about, keep tabs on, and to educate yourself.  With many social media platforms providing real-time updates, you can passively monitor and listen.

The key to listening is being active in it.  This means that you cannot listen to everything or it becomes white noise.  When you develop your social media plan you will need to identify specifically what it is that you want to listen to.  Therefore you will be more actively engaged and focused on the information that matters to you and your customers the most!

HINT: Listening is always about them, never about you.

It is even better to act quickly and err than to hesitate until the time of action is past.

Karl Von Clausewitz

Once you have answered these and the other questions mentioned in the previous post, you will have a strong foundation to build a social media strategy and tactical plan.  You will be able to engage your audience and create loyal fans.  You will be in position to outmaneuver your competition and grow your business.  You will become a social media success!

Additional Reading For Your Success

Make Twitter Successful For Your Business

22 Traits of Successful Happy Bloggers

13 Truths About Social Media

5 Social Media Guidelines For Beginners

What questions would you ask your business, customers, or yourself before you jump into social media? Don’t be shy; share!

The alluring call of the Siren has finally gotten you to succumb.  You are going to market your business into the social media realm.  Here are five guidelines you need to follow to be successful in leveraging social media for your business.

Answer A Few Questions

We thought that we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong. – Bono

Before you begin blogging, posting, tweeting, and linking you need to answer a few questions first.  The answers you provide will help you establish a focused effort that will result in a better use of resources.  So take your time to really answer them before you jump feet first into social media.  Here are the questions:

• Why should/would anyone listen to you?
• What is your persona?
• What is your voice?
• Where will you engage?
• Who will you want to engage?
• Who will execute your social media plan?
• What do you want to accomplish?
• When do you want to begin?
• How will you measure success?
• How will you listen?

Ten questions that you should have strong answers to before you begin your social media campaign.  All of them are weighed equally in importance.

Is your team asking the right questions?

It is has been my experience that where companies fail is in answering the first, third, and tenth questions sufficiently.  The result has been that these businesses present an unfocused approach that repeatedly misses opportunities to build a strong brand.  So take your time in researching your answers.

Make A Plan

The path to success is to take massive, determined action. – Tony Robbins

You made a business plan for your business, you made a marketing plan to market your business, and you may even have your salespeople use sales plans to beat their quota.  You know that plans keep your company focused and on target.  So why would you not have a plan for your use of social media?

This plan should layout the overall strategy for your social media campaign.  It will be particularly strong if you have successfully answered the questions above.  Primarily knowing what you want to measure and how you define success in social media are key components to your plan.   It will keep you focused and away from wasting time.

Your social media plan should be incorporated with your marketing, sales, and customer service plans.  It should not be a stand-alone entity.  Doing this will allow you to keep a

The Secret Recipe

single voice and representation of your brand not matter where your customers may engage you.

Your social media plan – like other plans for your business – should be a living document that is updated and adjusted to take advantage of opportunities for your business.  It is best to break down your tactical components of your social media plan into 30-60-90 day increments.  It is easier to execute in more manageable bites.

Choose The Right Platform

Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm. – Abraham Lincoln

It is important that you research which social media platform is right for your business.  Do not get caught up in the initial hype surrounding some of the platforms out there.  Facebook may not be where your customers are if you are a manufacturing B2B that sells ball bearings.  Go where your customers and where influencers of your customers roam.  This means that you might not go on to Twitter or Facebook, but set up a blog or network intensely on LinkedIn.  Business is still location, location, and location.

Test With Patience And Adjust

Distance tests a horse’s strength. Time reveals a person’s character. – Chinese Proverb

You need to measure your actions.

If you are entering into social media for the first time or coming back to it after a failed attempt, remember that patience is a virtue.  Social media is not a quick sale or a fast customer service resolution.  Social media is about being social and building relationships.  In essence social media is about what you and I do everyday at the office, with our customers, and how we make friends.  All of the things we have learned in the real world apply in social media: it takes time to get to know someone.

The great thing about that time is it allows you to test ideas, messaging, and service models while receiving feedback (that can be brutally honest) about your products.  If you enter into this medium with honest intentions you will be rewarded with insights that you would have most likely been overlooked.

Measure Your Effort

People love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results – Albert Einstein

When you have established what it is that you want to measure in your social media campaign – measure it.  It could be gaining new followers, subscribers, fans, or customers.  Whatever it may be, the measurement you have selected is the best indicator of your efforts and if they are in alignment with your plan.  This is the same as how your measure your sales versus a quota or the return on a capital investment your business has made.  Otherwise how do you know what you are doing is correct?

Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being.  – Ghandi

Odysseus had his crew put wax in their ears so they would not row his ship upon the deadly rocks where the Sirens lived.  Only he heard their song.  Your business needs to have the same focus.

When you decide to enter into social media as a marketing tool it can be easy for everyone to want to be involved.  That will tear you business apart and waste valuable resources.  Your effort needs to be focused.

There is no need to rush when it comes to social media.  Learn, observe, research, plan, and then execute a campaign that focuses on building strong relationships.  You will be rewarded.

Happy New Year!  In an effort to join the chorus of blogs, posts, and tweets wishing you success and tips for planning for your resolutions, I am going to add a bit of twist.  When it comes to your business, especially when it comes to your business plans you should build into this New Year the concept of backwards planning.

Backwards planning is a method.

What is this planning backwards you ask?  Well, it is a method used when you have specific date(s) in mind.  Let’s say you are launching an herbal and alternative health business.  You plan to hold a Grand Opening for your new business venture on the first of April.  You are smart, you know what items you need to make this Grand Opening a success.

Business Planning Meeting

You need advertisements, fliers, mailers, business cards, a website, press releases, and etc.  Without adequately knowing how long each of the above items can take to completion or believing that everything can get quickly accomplished before the big day can lead you, and your business, to a very poor start.  So, you apply the principles of backwards planning.  You research how long each piece of your Grand Opening will take.  You take into consideration back ups just in case something cannot be completed on time. With this information in your hands you can assign the resources needed to make this Grand Opening the best loudest mother of all Grand Openings ever experienced.

To plan effectively you need to know how long everything takes.

The above was just a glossing over of what is involved.  Here are the nitty gritty details to backwards planning.

With the Grand Opening date set, as we said April 1^st, and the information on how long each part of the project can take you from your research (see figure 1), here is an example of what backwards planning looks like:

Figure 1

April 1 – Grand Opening

March 27 – Advertising Campaign Begins

March 29 – Wave 4 Mailings

March 25 – Wave 3 Mailing

March 15 – Wave 2 Mailings

March 1 – Wave 1 Mailings (Save the Date)

March 1 – Website launched

February 22 – Final Mailing List Delivered

February 15 – Mailing List Broken into Waves

February 8– Proof Mailing List

February 1 – Mailing List Building Begins

Now of course actions would be assigned to members of your team and capital resources determined ahead of time to keep costs down.  There would also be more detail.  With a calendar in hand (which is an essential tool for backwards planning) you can mark down when the events or milestones should be met.

It allows you to clearly see targets.

To refresh, the concept of backwards planning is that you work backwards from the date you want to achieve a specific goal or task.  It allows you to clearly see when targets should or must be met and allows you to quickly assign resources to the most prioritized tasks.  The best part of this business planning tool is that it allows you to get rid of the non-essential items that waste time and resources.

Goal for Business Plans

Unlike GANTT charts, which plan items in a forward looking fashion, therefore allowing items to creep in and cause delays, this tool is easy to grasp and use.

How do you plan for your business?

About the author:

Erroin A. Martin is a Business Advocate with the Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC, a coaching and consultancy provider for businesses and medical practices. He has over eleven years experience working within the pharmaceutical industry in various levels of leadership across six continents. He currently coaches business leaders and physicians in the tools needed to plan for their success. Learn more about the Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC at www.vongehrconsulting.com or call +1 203 433 8079.  You can follow him on Twitter at @Erroin

An article in the recent edition of the Harvard Business Review talks about the need to bring conflict into the workplace.  Picking a fight about the future direction for a brand, product, or company can be key in bringing out innovation and a stronger plan.

The article gives you the tools you might need to set the conditions and manage the fight within the organization.  Allowing for controlled and open “combat” can let the company challenge assumptions and keep “lemming thought” under control.

An Earnest Fight For The Future

While a company will benefit from the open conversation and honesty that comes with fights, if it is not clear that the winning side has total victory the grudges will lie in wait.  This means that the leader must have clear rules on who wins and who loses in the fight.  The losers must set the example that once they have lost the fight they will follow without question.  The winners, after winning, will not gloat.

We have two examples to draw from here that demonstrate the pros and cons of fighting within an organization.  The first is from the fashion industry and the second from history.

“…after the clear winner was chosen the other three fell in line…”

A fashion designer takes her woven sweater design to a Chinese knitting factory.  In order to determine the best method in making the sweater, the factory owner assigns four master seamstresses to make the sweater by hand through their interpretation of the design.  After one day all four seamstresses came back and shared their knitted product with the designer and the factory owner.  After inspection the designer picked one winner.  The other three seamstresses matched the winner’s style and duplicated the sweater. The lesson here is that after the clear winner was chosen the other three fell in line and followed the plan of action for the launch of a successful sweater.

“They, the defeated, paid him back through the ultimate boardroom revolt.”

A look at history is strewn with lessons of losers holding grudges and winners gloating over the defeated.  We will pick just one for today’s blog, Julius Caesar.  One could argue that the civil war between Julius Caesar and the Senate was an organizational fight over power in Rome.  Caesar’s victories over the armies of Pompeii Magnus and the Senate were total and complete on the battlefield.  Yet, Caesar did not follow the clear Roman rules of dealing with the defeated, which usually meant killing them.  Instead he “forgave” them of their offenses and tried to co-opt them.

This did two things.  The first is that it did not give the signal of a total victory and second, it made the defeated feel beholden to Caesar and therefore stoking their feelings of revenge.  Each action Caesar took after his battlefield victories looked as if he was gloating over the defeated.  They, the defeated, paid him back through the ultimate boardroom revolt.

How do you apply confrontation to the betterment of your business?

Listen to our podcasts

Somewhere it is written that it takes 21 days or more to change a habit or establish a new one.  (Although I am sure under the right pressures those days can be shortened.)  If it is really the case that it takes 21 days then you should use that number when establishing how many times you are going to speak with your customers/clients.

Meeting With A Client

First, you cannot bug your clients/customers for twenty-one straight days.  That is simply insane and they are in their correct judgement to bar you from the door.  If you have an established call cycle that you are working with to obtain clients then you can spread those twenty-one days over a number of weeks or months.

Now you are probably saying to yourself that spreading out twenty-one customer contacts over the calendar can really make your sales cycle longer than it should be.  Yes, that is very true, it would definitely do that.  Unless you are sitting on a huge pile of cash, that probably is not going to be a good thing for you to waste that time.  So instead divide that number by three and you will come up with seven different times you are going to contact your client/customer.

Okay, but didn’t you just say that it takes 21 days to change a habit, you ask.  I did and the number seven is the number of times you are going to contact your customer through three different means.  Those different methods are:

• Face to face meetings

• Telephone conversations

• Webinars

• YouTube Videos

• Podcasts

• Mailers

• Newsletters

• Blogs

• Tweets

• Emails

• Brochures

• And anything else that puts you in front of the customer.

The key is to keep your message consistent and with value to your client/customer.  Remember they have reached out to you and/or have done business with you in the past.  Therefore they are initially receptive to the information you have to offer.  If you have done your intelligence of the market and customer correctly then it should be easy for you to offer value.

Learn more from our podcasts.

The healthcare debate that has been raging in the United States since the beginning of the summer has been filled with claims and counter claims.  Truths, falsities, assaults, and mud filled attacks have been lobbied by both sides.  What seems to be lost in the details of the debate is a serious discussion of a third way.

Currently both sides can agree upon the fact that the costs of healthcare delivery keep growing.  Both sides would like to control those costs, but both are counting on different forms of regulation to contain those costs.  Whether you are for a final government ownership of a the healthcare system or you prefer to have a third part i.e. health insurance, pay your bills, you are continuing the practice of regulation in the marketplace.

A simple question for you:  how much does it cost you, the healthcare consumer, to visit the doctor?

$5?

$10?

Free?

The real answer is unknown.  Why?  The marketplace does not actually communicate that price.  It does not communicate the price because of the overly cumbersome regulation of the healthcare marketplace by insurance companies, the federal government through medicare/medicaid, and the inability of physicians to advertise price.  Regulation of any marketplace that removes the final consumer of the product from knowing the actual price adds substantial costs beyond the value of the services rendered.  Therefore the current system of regulation of pricing by the insurance companies or the possible complete government takeover of the healthcare marketplace will not prevent costs from continuing to rise.  Simply put, overly complicated regulation of any marketplace breeds inefficiency, poor quality, and high prices resulting in costs to all involved.

The third solution that no one, in our knowledge, has actively talked about is free up the healthcare marketplace to compete on price.  The deregulation of every healthcare dollar being controlled by third parties and given back to the patient.  Allow the marketplace to compete on price, quality, and value.

We are sure, like the legal profession, in some locales this may result in gaudy advertisements from physicians and practices.  That comes with the competition of ideas.  What the deregulation will really do is allow for the communication of price and costs to the marketplace.  Over a long term the price of services will go down and the over testing, drugging, and coding of procedures will subside.

Now we understand that this is an overt simplification, but it is a mode of reform that no one is talking about.  Our question to everyone who has a stake in this reform is why not?

In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal on September 21, 2009, discussed how larger companies like Starbucks and Avon are consolidating the power base into the CEO.  This is done by combining the CEO and COO positions and/or President positions under one person.  In essence the combination of those positions eliminates the #2 person in the organization.  What was once a clear line if succession has become a bit obscured.

The benefits in eliminating the #2 position in a large company are as follows:

• The CEO can be more involved in the daily operations of the business.
• The CEO will have a greater grasp on the major issues facing the day-to-day business.

The faults in such a combination of power are as follows:

• The CEO has more power consolidated within the company and can be swamped with too many decisions to make.
• A power vacuum can result with the abrupt loss of the CEO — not know who will follow can create quite the controversy, paralyzing an organization.
• Lack of a succession plan can indicate to investors that the company is not invested in the long term growth or does not see a future for growth.

While larger companies, given their depth of capital and long line of investors, can play with the fates a smaller company does not have that luxury.  It is in the best interest of a small company to have a succession plan in place.  If a family owned business a clear path of succession can make it easier for all family members involved to know what happens after the owner retires or passes away.  Does that eliminate conflict? By no means does it whatsoever, but it does lay out a clear vision for the future of the small business.   It also signals to potential investors, lenders, etc. that the business has a plan for the future and anticipates a leadership change.

A great example about the need for a strong succession plan by any company can be seen in Apple, Inc.  When Steve Jobs was ill and disappeared from the daily operations of the business Apple quickly placed the number two person at the helm. The result was the continuation of innovation, new product launches, continued profits and a well deserved stock price.  While Mr. Jobs is the embodiment of Apple, the company is much larger than him.

While we all wish that we could live forever, the reality is quite different.  A company that plans for the definitive change that will occur will be better off than companies that do not.

Learn more by listening to our Podcast.

Assumptions provide the leader with a foundation to seek the truth behind questions and/or guide them in making decisions.

Assumptions are dangerous things.

Assumptions may blind them from asking demanding tough questions.  Unchecked assumptions will have a leader reject the answers to their questions.  Assumptions can make a leader miss opportunities to change course or set a new expansive direction.

How can you, a leader, check your assumptions?

• First, you have to admit to yourself that you are human.  Your background, experiences, your education, and everything else from right now to your birth are your foundation.  All of those items form your assumptions.

• Second, you need to find varying viewpoints and sources of information.  You cannot ignore sources or views that are a direct affront to your assumptions.  Doing so will make you miss opportunities and lead you to false conclusions.

• Third, never stop learning.  Leaders who think they know everything usually get steamrolled. By seeking out new experiences and challenging positions you will make your foundation strong, deep, and broad.  You will approach problems, decisions, and other leadership points with multiple assumptions.  You will not be myopic in your vision.

Now go out and challenge your assumptions!

Undoubtedly you have sat through many meetings to plan your business throughout your career. Many times (possibly too many to count) you have discussed the strategy your company is going to take, deciding on who will do what when and how. Yet do you realize that you have just spent countless hours discussing tactics?  Do you know the difference between strategy and tactics?

Without going through a dictionary definition of the two, here are three things for each you can remember.  This will help you keep your perspective (or sanity) during business planning meetings.  You will look like the smartest person in the room.

A Course of Action

Strategy is:

• Quite simple the big picture of where you want to go and who you want to be.  It is the end to your means.   Or to make it really simple for some… it is your goal(s).
• It is the road map that all actions are to align with in the advancement of your business goals.
• A plan that is always looking forward into the future with a visualization of the end.

Tactics are:

• The day-to-day actions you and your team are going to take to help you achieve you goals.  They are the courses of action that will be followed by the different divisions of your company in the achievement of your strategic success.
• Always adjusting to the business environment, new information, and resources you have at your disposal.
• They are what you do to win.

So, next time you are stuck in a business-planning meeting remember the three items for strategy and the three items for tactics.  If your meeting on strategy starts to get bogged down in the nuances of who will do what and when, you can put a stop to it.