Help! I'm a Social Networker who Isn't Social!

Plan for Buyer's Remorse

2011-11-30T12:36:00.001-07:00

We've all bought something expensive, whether it was a college education, a car, a house, or a foundation repair project. The actual dollar value doesn't matter--it's about perceived cost--does it feel expensive to you? For some of us, buying a new laptop is just a run of the mill expense, for others that same purchase is a HUGE investment.

Have you ever felt a sense of panic or anger right after you purchase? We call this Buyer's Remorse and the phrase was coined in 1967 by Gerald Bell.

Buyer's remorse is the sense of regret after having made a purchase. It is frequently associated with the purchase of an expensive item such as a car or house. It may stem from fear of making the wrong choice, guilt over extravagance, or a suspicion of having been overly influenced by the seller.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Buyer's Remorse was the number 2 reason cited for product returns and contract cancellations in 2010. According to research done by the Harvard Business Review, approximately 7% of a company's gross sales are lost annually across the board due to Buyer's Remorse. This percentage was much higher in service related industries such as Real Estate and Home Improvement--in some industries, it was as high as 23%!

Buyer's Remorse manifests itself differently with different personality types. If you're familiar with DISC profiles, you'll really love this list of common manifestations:

COMBAT BUYER'S REMORSE--NOW!! Gerald Bell wrote the book on Buyer's Remorse--it's called The Automobile Buyer After the Purchase. According to Bell, "customer satisfaction immediately after the purchase is a key factor in brand loyalty. Managers are becoming keenly interested in how a new purchaser feels after buying" (p. 12).

Here's the cliff notes version:

Bell and his team determined that instilling confidence in service and products is the key to getting people over buyer's remorse.

Overcoming Buyers Remorse:

Tell what they bought, why they bought, and how smart they are for doing it!

Repeat these affirmations often when communicating processes

Provide receipts, communications, and "What Happens Next" steps

Receipts need to be received within 4 hours
Communications should occur immediately, even if you relay that you're working on it
Processes need to be written down and given to clients

Over communicate EVERYTHING

Most people start to experience buyer's remorse within minutes of committing to a project or contract, so have your processes in order BEFORE you sell something
Give people somewhere to go to find written answers and someone to call with questions

Thank them--repeatedly throughout the process and at the conclusion of business

Handwritten cards, a small gift and a final copy of all documents should be presented quickly without the client having to ask

Comfortable Selling Widgets? Sell a Gidget, too!

2011-11-22T17:04:00.000-07:00

Feeling a little like burnt toast right now?

You know the feeling--like all your creative moisture is gone, you're brittle, and somehow vaguely unappetizing. It's okay, we all feel that way by November. We've poured lives into marketing and selling our various widgets to the masses for 11 months. We've endured heartbreak, loss, hope being crushed, and the darker side of all things financial. We've felt some pretty amazing highs, too. Somehow, they are harder to remember when you're toast.
So, how do you recover from Burnt Toast Syndrome (B.T.S)?

Step 1: Acknowledge your Burnt Toast-ness
Everyone gets tired, everyone feels like toast once in a while. Putting yourself out there all the time is a huge risk and that takes a lot of energy--even on the good days.

Step 2: Create Healthy Boundaries
Good fences make good neighbors and frankly, they make for good marketers, too. Down time, uninterrupted down time, is essential to combating B.T.S.

Step 3: Delegate, Systematize, Organize
That's right, you have to figure out how to share the taxing parts of your job with others--whether that's paying your kids to stuff Christmas cards, or getting your assistant to schedule meetings for you. This delegation will force you to systematize your approach to marketing and keep you reviewing and revising your marketing plan--you'll be amazed how often that helps! Finally, it will make you organize your time, space, and events logically.

Step 4: Selling Widgets? Try Selling a Gidget on the Side!
If you're teetering on the edge of a nervous break down consider diversifying. Try to selling something completely unrelated to your current set of products. Selling houses? Try starting a Christmas Ornament business!

I market Foundation Repair and Waterproofing products--I started selling handmade Feather Earrings! Talk about unrelated! The benefit is that I've learned more about marketing principles than I ever imagined. I've relearned and reintroduced myself to building something from the ground up--I've had to reinvest myself in learning the latest and greatest technology, etc. It's made me a better, more flexible and well informed marketer and it's given me a place to try out new ideas without hurting my existing business!

If you're interested in learning more about my "spare time" business, you can check out the Best Feather Earrings on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bestfeatherearrings or at www.bestfeatherearrings.com

If Video Killed the Radio Star, did Apple Kill the PC-world?

2011-11-15T15:22:00.000-07:00

I don't know if you follow "Sing Off" on NBC, but I'm a total addict (don't tell me what happened last night, I'm watching on Hulu Plus later!).

This is my pick for who will win it all--Pentatonix! I was struck by how futuristic their sound is and coupled with this song, "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles, it was eye-opening. I mean, are any of these kids actually aware of what radio USED to be? Or what music videos WERE to us in the 1980's and 90's? For that matter, am I truly aware of what either of these mediums represented to people even 10 years older than me?

Actually, I do know. You know too. Remember computers? I'm talking those truly huge Apple 2GS models that we used in elementary school to play Oregan Trail and Number Muchers. I remember learning to program the "turtle" to make flowers on the screen as part of my DOS coding in computer class. Could we have possibly imagined that those computers would become the hub of our society?

Are we prepared to consider that we're living on the cusp of a post-PC world?
Shocking, I know. With the introduction of the IPad on January 27th, 2010, Steve Jobs and Apple began a revolution. Now, there are 9 major alternatives to the IPad and more on the way. Our Smartphones have become smarter, faster, and easier to use. We're loosed from the weight and trauma of a laptop and many people aren't going back.

What does this revolution mean for marketing?
Frankly, I'm making it up like everyone else. I've noticed more social media engagement, more blog readers, less hits on the website and more on our mobile site. At this point, I've got data, but not a lot of theories as to where we go from here. I do know that if I don't use social media to draw people back to my website, no one's going to see it. I know that my website has to work without Flash, display nicely on small screen, and have plugins for Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

What trends and new avenues are you exploring in this post-PC world?

We're Always Cheating Something

2011-10-31T13:18:00.001-06:00

(Here's the inspirational blog post behind this email: http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/questions-i-have-for-people-who-have-their-life-figured-out/)

I read a lot. Blogs, books, poetry, magazines, eBooks (shhhh, don't tell my dad--he works in book printing), and even the backs of shampoo and conditioner bottles while in the shower. Actually, I'm a pretty darn compulsive reader--I read every sign, every billboard, every bit of lettering that I can at any given moment. I am the woman who reads all of the directions prior to assembling the Ikea furniture.

I think it hearkens back to first grade. There was what would later be termed as a "curriculum hole" between kindergarten and first grade in my school district. In kindergarten, we learned the sounds of letters, how to write letters, etc. In first grade, we were supposed to be proficient readers, meaning that somehow, we were magically supposed to learn to read between kindergarten and first grade. Therefore, I was just getting the hang of this reading thing when first grade commenced. I was placed in the lowest reading group (consequently, that group has the stupidest, most boring books, which I think was a huge problem). Anyhow, I ended up really, really liking this reading thing and decided to show absolutely everyone that I wasn't going to sit peaceably in the lowest reading group, so I began reading everything.

I have figured out two important things:
1. No one has everything figured out
2. Everyone is cheating something

These two truths are essential to running a good business and a good marketing campaign. Everyone is an expert at something and there are people who need to learn what you already know. If you share that information, you are more likely to be asked into someone's life at that point of need.

The second truth is that everyone is cheating something. I tend to cheat my poor husband. I work like a maniac. I take on additional projects. I serve the community, my family, and people in need. I start side businesses (like feather earring making, candle making, custom knitting) and I pour large portions of my free time into them. I read and read and read. I spend hours coaching, teaching, and mentoring. I spend hours getting coached, taught, and mentored (sometimes, even by my husband). --BUT--I rarely spend honest to goodness "husband and wife" time with my husband. I choose to cheat my husband, to cheat my marriage in favor of things that I feel really well-equipped to deal with--successful businesses and people.

I have slowly been working at mastering being an expert at something, but I'm still struggling to find the right things to cheat. I know in one part of brain that I should work a little less (carve those work days down from 10 or 11 hours to 9), take on less, and be okay with slower growth in my side ventures. I have a hard time cheating those things because I feel so darn successful at them and it's really much harder to be an expert in marriage, or an expert in loving my husband.

The question that I'm struggling with and that I'd like to pass along (I just love keeping all the rest of you up at night) is:
What are you cheating and is it worth cheating that thing in the long run?

I know I have to start cheating something else because I plan on having my husband in my life far longer than I plan on making feather earrings or coaching people to engage via social media.

Enough to Make You Wet Yourself in Terror: Social Media Meltdowns

2011-09-13T15:44:00.001-06:00

We're all business owners, managers, or employees, right? Well, just between us, let's have a frank discussion about three little words that will make you wet yourself: SOCIAL MEDIA MELTDOWN

It happens. to EVERYONE eventually. Look at GoDaddy and their elephant butchering CEO, or Groupon's unapologetically condescending marketing team, or any of a dozen smaller companies on a daily basis. Look at Borders, in fact, to see that they suffered a SOCIAL MEDIA MELTDOWN about a year prior to going out of business. No one is immune.

--HOWEVER--

It's really, really easy to prevent a meltdown. You can heal wounds and boost business back up to pre-meltdown or better numbers if you understand how it happens and what to do to prevent and repair it.

We'll use an Un-named Company (I don't want to bash the guilty) as an example.

Un-named Company posts a completely innocent status update on Facebook: ‎"Like" this if you agree that starting the week with a clean house just feels so satisfying...

This is how all meltdowns happen. The company is doing it's thing and engaging customers. It's a normal Monday morning.

Un-named Company receives a complaint comment in response to the update: Just hired you guys.. A little disappointed that I got a phone call yesterday that the team would be here between 9:30-10:00 this morning and it is now 10:40 and no one has showed up..

Un-named Company has just received a complaint and has an opportunity to repair things. However, they do not respond to the customer with the complaint.

Un-named Company does not respond and over the rest of the day, 21 more complaints show up as comments on their entirely innocent post.

This is where bad becomes a MELTDOWN. A single complaint that went unanswered has snowballed into a huge social media issue.

It has been 19 hours and the Un-named Company has chosen to respond with a classic delaying technique: "Name of Original Complaining Customer, Please message us with your location and we will investigate this issue". They do not apologize or address the other 20 complaints directly. Clients are now rabid and encouraging each other to post bad reviews on OTHER social media sites.

It's obvious that this company hasn't been monitoring their social media, they haven't engaged the customers, apologized, or offered any solutions. They sound uncaring and negligent--which is what people in a social media world HATE.

Now, Un-Named Company receives an additional 16 complaints from clients, bringing their total to 36 complaints (all searchable online) in less than 24 hours. What did they do next? NOTHING...and the complaints are growing...

Steps to Prevent SOCIAL MEDIA MELTDOWNS:

Make Social Media Interactions into someone's job.
Respond to all comments left by all customers--whether the comment is positive or negative
Give an outcome to resolved issues and encourage clients to post the results, too.

Already Having a SOCIAL MEDIA MELTDOWN?

Apologize. Sincerely. Often.
Thank everyone for alerting you.
Call each client FAST with an action plan.
Refund money, offer incentives, fix the problem AND tell everyone what you're doing
Over-communicate to the world
Ask clients to post updates on how the situation is being handled.

Miss Manners was Right!

2011-07-25T13:46:00.000-06:00

Miss Manners is right.

There, I said it, and I know that you're hating me for it right now! I'm making something you do for fun and making it have rules. Yeah, I'm throwing cold water on your social media fire. I'm sorry, but much like real life, your social media life has consequences.

Why can I say such outrageous things? Because it's true. Experts will back me up. You can't expect to be liked and interacted with if you have bad social media table manners.

I just finished reading two really great pieces:
The first is the 7 Unwritten Rules of Social Media: http://www.openforum.com/articles/7-unwritten-rules-of-social-media?extlink=em-openf-SBdaily by Rajesh Setty

and the other is The Thank You Economy by Gary Vaynerchuk: http://thankyoueconomybook.com/
If you haven't read them yet, check them out. In fact, get Gary's book on Audible.com because he adds all sorts of tips and hints off-script.

Here's what I've learned about Social Media Manners:

Common trending indicates that the world has transitioned from a service environment to a friend and family environment. Service is just so-so now, we expect to be served. It’s sooooo 1990s.

Now, we expect to be allowed into the lives and hearts of the companies that we align ourselves with. We expect to know about new babies, first steps, marriages, small successes, promotions, bobbles and recoveries—exactly what the company is focusing on and why. Today’s clients believe silence is as severe as lying or committing a crime.

Why?

If a client believes they are family, they expect to be treated like a treasured spouse, not a stranger. Surprisingly, the same way to make a wife feel loved is the recipe for loving our clients:

Tell them we love them

Show them we love them in concrete ways

Continue to show and tell them consistently in new and creative ways

We need to be constantly innovating how to serve our customers better. Our customers should want to interact with us more often and for longer. As we offer more items to keep customers informed, more greatly skilled team members, etc, we can celebrate those releases with our customer family.

Are you a lone nut or a leader?

2011-07-14T11:41:00.001-06:00

Leaders used to be rare. Now they seem to be everywhere! In 1966, only 19% of college students considered themselves to be leaders for their generation. They often cited Martin Luther King, JFK, and other prominent figures as leaders they wished to emulate. They assigned these figures awe-inspiring characteristics like "superior wisdom", "extraordinary speaking ability", and "exceptional intelligence".

Today, we can find leaders for every niche market, category, and profession. This has translated to 87% of college students today responding with "I am a gifted leader". Two conclusions were drawn from this data: 1). Our college students are egomaniacs
2). We're raising better, smarter kids.
With leadership abounding, the question arises--are you really a leader, or just a lone nut with an ego?

Leadership is over-glorified.
In a recent study by the San Diego State University psychology professors, 48% of college students consider themselves above average and this survey is the one that yielded the 87% of surveyed students feeling they were gifted leaders. When the survey went on to question the students as to what leadership roles they held, 67% stated their academics indicated their leadership potential and all 87% stated they had "participated in causes, movements, and service".

Wow, that's a huge leap to make--the one from "I have high academic achievement" to "I am a gifted leader". Additionally, while many of these students participated in social movements, community events, and other great causes, they didn't lead in these areas. So exactly how important is it to be the leader--especially if most people believe they can do it?

I'm going to say that actually being the leader is over-glorified. A great man I knew once told me, "to become a leader, especially THE leader increases your visibility, but decreases your effectiveness". What?! It's true though, you can become busy managing the change-makers instead of implementing the change--that's what leaders do. It's been demystified to the point that we've got the message out loud and clear to our students: YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE SPECIAL TO BE A LEADER. YOU JUST NEED FOLLOWERS.

It's the first follower who makes a lone nut a leader.
What I think has really happened isn't that we've raised better, smarter egomaniacs. I believe that we've torn the veil of superstition off of leadership. We've studied it, we've torn apart what makes a good leader, we've packaged it and sold it on Amazon. More shockingly--that's not a bad thing!

We've made greatness and leadership accessible to anyone. In fact, we've required a certain level of social conciousness and greatness from our kids through community service and other endeavors. We've normalized standing up for what you believe in and rallying around causes. We've also broken down leadership into its component parts to the level that pretty much everyone agrees that they could do that.

One thing that hasn't changed, though, is that leadership requires followers. Anyone can have a cause they believe in, but unless other people bolster that cause, it's just another nutcase on the street corner shouting in a world full of street corners and nutcases.

It's the first follower that transforms a lone nut into a leader. We've instilled the value into culture that you CAN BE a leader even if you aren't leading right then. We've taken some of the stigma away from being a follower.

The new world order goes something like this--Want to start a movement? Find a lone nut doing something cool. Then follow them.

Full of Evil Clowns

2011-06-23T11:29:00.039-06:00

My latest obsession is "Funhouse" by Pink. Why? Initially because it was catchy and it gave me those little kid shudders. After all the best lines are, "This used to be a funhouse/but now it's full of evil clowns/I'm gonna start the countdown/I'm burn it down down down!" Okay, who hasn't had a pint-sized nightmare about a funhouse--shudder--and one full of evil clowns is even more shudder-inducing!

What really strikes me about the lyrics and mood in the song is that Pink's talking about something so serious in a light and playful way. Seriously, no one's laughing about evil clowns. They're evil. They've staged a violent coupe and taken over the best part of the carnival and made it into a horrible place. Pink has become a freedom fighter, or some kind of superhero, by deciding to burn down their stronghold. That's the sort of thing great comic books are made of, or cheesy action movies made from great comic books.

I'm drawn to the song because of the courage I hear in it.

I would love to be the heroine who burns down a satanic cult of evil clowns for the betterment of the carnival-going populace. I'd love to have the courage to burn down the funhouses in my own life that are filled with evil clowns. Let me give you an example.

I used to work in a medical office. It was extremely emotionally rewarding, exciting, and challenging. I loved working there and to this day, I miss it terribly. I miss watching children walk for the first time. I miss seeing men receive prostheses and being able to stand again. I miss seeing what was once mangled being made whole again. It's an ache in my heart that I'm not there. It was about as close to a funhouse as I have ever been in. It was entering into a whole new magical world where gravity and disability didn't matter and anything was possible.

Obviously, I don't work there anymore.
Why? It was full of office politics and strife. I spent more of my time guarding my back from my fellow office staffers than I did doing my real job. As I rose in prestige and recognition, it only got worse. Sabotage, deliberate attempts to discredit me, threats. I started making policies and procedures that created double and triple back-ups of data. After one particularly good day (the other two office workers were both out--yes, all this happened in an office of THREE), I realized that no matter how rewarding the job was, it wasn't worth my innocence, my optimism, and my effort. I received a job offer that would propel me into the real estate industry and I accepted. I gave my practitioners at the medical office my two weeks. I sent out a memo to the staff that I was moving industries and the persecution stopped. It was my own moment of burning down the funhouse. It truly was full of evil clowns and I didn't have the power or ability to remove them. I burned down a funhouse to save myself from the evil clowns. It wasn't a victory, it was one of those last ditch attempts you see in Resident Evil movies. Throw the grenade in and walk out.

What about you?

Is your funhouse full of evil clowns?

Why do People Hate Works in Progress?

2011-06-21T09:06:00.001-06:00

"It's a work in progress"

This translates to "don't judge it harshly" or "it's really good, but I'm being humble" or "I'm embarrassed to show this to you" or "I'm ashamed of what I've done here" or "it's clearly 300 pages too long to turn in, but I did it anyhow".

Why is it that when someone says, "it's a work in progress", they don't mean "it's not finished yet"? It's a clear demonstration of prejudice. People are prejudiced against works in progress. They are filled with chagrin, shame, or depression over their novel being a work in progress, or their next great play, or their career. I've seen one person enforce this shame on someone else, or someone enforce it on their own soul.

We're all works in progress, though. We are each working through something in rough draft, hoping it goes somewhere and deserves revision. We are each desperately trying to self-edit, to add a little sparkle to our otherwise dull gray lives. Why would we stomp out the beauty and glory of a work in progress--why would we shortcut the development that could make a better friend, a better lover, a better employee by shaming ourselves about the process it takes to get there?

More importantly, are we willing to present our works in progress to be judged, edited, corrected, or even laughed at?

It takes great courage to present something less than perfect to those around us. I know that I can hide away some of my best work because I'm too concerned about what people will think now, instead of focusing on what I'll learn and achieve in the future.

One of my professors once said that "98% of the poetry that gets written is crap. Regardless of author. 98%. Do you know what the difference is between a famous poet and a each of you? A famous poet writes so much more poetry that by sheer volume, he overwhelms the critics so they forget he writes the bad ones. You? Without discipline, you'll produce so few poems that the crap will be self-evident."

I would say that most of us never produce even a small portion of the works in progress that are inside us. I know that I self-censor to the point that I don't do anything other than watch some possibly great, possibly horrible ideas go spinning past my mind.

In fact, I had an idea for a poetry collection about 11 years ago. It would center around a seed from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (wow, say that 10 times fast) and its descendants. I went so far as to sketch out the basic ideas for a series of 24 poems, the height of which would be poem 12 when a portion of a tree from the original seed was used in the construction of Jesus' cross. Naturally, the idea was full of holes, inaccuracies, and other problems. What happened to these poems? Absolutely nothing. I felt out the concept with a couple of people, tentatively sketched out some ideas, and based on those two things, I focused on the problem and shelved the whole project.

I am reminded often of that lost collection. I had the opportunity to work through some very difficult challenges in my art, including the misuse of historical/factual data, and I wimped out. I dismissed the idea because I was too scared that the work in progress was going to end up being part of that 98% of my crappy poetry. I definitely showed my personal prejudice against works in progress and I'm probably worse off for it.

Those 24 poems could have yielded half of a really good poem and I miss that really good half of a poem that I don't get to know about now.

Forget You! Emotions Over Words.

2011-06-16T11:12:00.000-06:00

"People will forget what you say, but they will never forget how you make them feel." ~Tom Asacker

Do you know why Cee-lo Green's song "Forget You" and "F@@@ You" are equally popular?

Cee Lo Green - Forget You (Official Music Video). Watch more top selected videos about: Songs About Breakups, Cee-Lo Green

It's because the emotion is the same. It's not about whether he's actually cursing, or not. It's about the emotion. We're wired to respond to emotion and we're actually wired to forget about the words people say.

It's completely bizarre to me, but I've been researching this propensity to just respond to the emotions of life and forget about what "actually" happened. Here's a great article from TIME on that exact thing--click here.

Apparently, our memories are wired to help us imagine the future and we're awfully prone to embedding experiences in emotion. So, what sort of emotional memory are you leaving your clients with--it's much more important and lasting than any words you say!

UPDATE: Sharing or Stealing? This time on a global scale!

2011-06-14T08:28:00.000-06:00

Now that I'm aware of the amount of intellectual property theft going on all around us, I see articles everywhere! Here's an article that really shocked me! http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/06/02/6774483-he-became-the-face-of-revolution-because-his-picture-was-stolen

Basically, a bored art student messes around with his camera, takes some self portraits, and his image inspires revolutionists, gets put on t-shirts, becomes a symbol for human anger and frustration. Shockingly, he's been paid exactly once for the use of the image--everyone else stole it from his Flickr feed!

Another person dealing with intellectual property theft: http://theoatmeal.com/blog. Matthew Inman, creator of The Oatmeal, a hilarious comic-blog, and he had his entire work stolen by Funnyjunk.com. I was amazed!

In another example, have you read about the blogger "Gay Girl in Damascus"? The blogger behind this blog stole profile pictures from Jelena Lecic, a Croatian and an administrator at the Royal College of Physicians in London! The whole story got even worse when it was discovered that the blogger was a 40 yr old peace activist--and male! http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43372835/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/

ORIGINALPOST:

I was recently in communication with one of my blog-thieves. I start out nice and ask for credit for composing the blog. That's really all I'm after--acknowledgement that I put in the 14 hours of research and numerous hours of writing to create something that was worth copying. Most people are pretty nice about it and agree. This person said, "you can't get upset that's how the world wks--you create, we take. i don't have time to get everything done and Google will tell the difference because you posted it 1st. get over yourself".

I started to think about this: how much of what I create is uniquely mine? How often do I steal pieces or articles? Frankly, probably not nearly as often as I could. But I don't. I'm obsessive about giving credit, getting permission, and doing the right thing. It's not because I'm shockingly good--I'm convinced that I will be caught. I was that kid who always looked guilty and got caught for everything, so I learned that doing sketchy things was like shouting in a bullhorn about my wrongs (imagine a Cassi/Sue Sullivester combo thing).

During my research, I ran across an excellent article by Bob Sullivan (RedTape Chronicles on MSNBC) about intellectual and digital copyright. (Click here to read the article)

Here are the quick take aways:

1. Photos are the copyright of the person who took them--use istockphoto or the like if you want to populate a blog with photos that you didn't take.

2. ReTweeting, or Facebook Sharing a link or article is NOT bad. It's giving credit where it's due.

3. Copying an article, or a section of an article without providing a link back and an author's name IS stealing. Get crazy about proofing your articles for stolen content.

4. Try to be nice when you find someone else using your stuff, or you get busted for using someone's stuff. Assume that it was innocent and try to get credit--DON'T DEMAND THEY REMOVE CONTENT. (At least, not until they refuse to credit you).

5. Try to be proactive. Email, message, or comment and ask the author if you can use, quote, or link back to their articles BEFORE you post the blog.

Stress Monster

2011-06-09T12:36:00.000-06:00

"I'm a stress monster! I live it, I eat it for breakfast, it's mine!"

Maybe we don't say it like that, but we live it. We consume stress like it's food--we horde it, we relish telling others how much stress we own. We take a certain amount of pride in being too busy to see straight and too burned out to do something about it. At some point, we look around and realize that everything we touch is sullied by stress. Somehow, we let our lives get away from us again.

Then, we get consumed by guilt for being stressed. It's a yucky cycle that we pass on to our coworkers, our families, our friends.

We're constantly struggling to get less stressed. That may not be the right way to go about it! A recent study suggests that some stress may help you live longer: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33482550/ns/health-behavior/t/chill-little-stress-may-help-you-live-longer/

The reason? Stress kicks your body in repair mode. You get frazzled and then you relax, you're body automatically starts rebuilding. What a thought! The key to equation is to rest after stress.

Here's a little relaxing video to start you rebuilding:

Lead Generation FAIL: 75% of Online Leads Get Ignored

2011-05-31T14:01:00.000-06:00

I read an article in Realtor Magazine that talked about how 75% of online leads are ignored! I shuddered inside. That's my lifeblood right there--I market and bring in leads for Peak. (For the whole article, click here).

My reaction to this statistic can best be expressed as a mathematical expression:

Frustration + Shock = Blame

Shockingly, I'm not a terribly good or understanding person at these moments. I think about how frustrating it can be to work so hard to get leads to flow in and it mingles with the utter shock that a lead would be ignored and I resolve to blame the Call Center until things get better. Yeah, did I mention that my formula does this?

Somehow, losing my temper and yelling at people doesn't do a whole lot to make this bounce back. I figured that out a while ago, but it doesn't stop me from WANTING to do that. Instead, I came up with a plan.

WARNING! This sort of program leads to EXPLOSIVE growth!

The secret to doing better is:

Create a plan
Create a quality assurance program to make sure people are following the plan
Create an incentive program to make following the plan make sense
Make your incentives trackable, understandable, and trustworthy

1. So, here's our plan:

I check the follow up program daily or more depending on how busy I am. As people have gotten used to the follow up program, I've had to review it less--but never less than daily.

2. & 3. Quality Assurance Program and Incentives go together. We offer an appt setting bonus at two different rates--outgoing call and incoming call. Frankly, it's much easier to set an appt when the lead comes in on the phone. Pretty much every rep will do it. It's much harder to get the nerve up to call someone who submitted a lead or inquiry through the website, so I pay higher rates.

The Quality Assurance part of this comes as a natural part of the Appt Setting bonus. In order to receive the bonus, the appt must be set on the calendar, entered correctly, and the pre appt materials must be sent out. If these criteria are not met, I do not pay the bonus for that appointment. It's called a chargeback.

4. Trackable, Understandable, and Trustworthy. The Follow Up program has a place for the caller's initials and the initials of who set the appt. At any point, reps can look up how many appts they have set and if they are outgoing or incoming. I award bonuses monthly, so it's easy to see the bonus on their check and know where it comes from. Also, I always email a rep when I create a chargeback, so we both have written, date-stamped records of what bonuses are charged back.

Sharing or Stealing?

2011-05-24T11:34:00.001-06:00

I'm a social media nerd and a marketing nerd. I own that. One thing that bugs me to death is the frequent stealing that occurs on the web. I've seen some of blog posts copied and pasted on other people's sites, my name taken off, and theirs inserted as "author". Thankfully, it usually means that they forgot to clear out the hyperlinks and things are still linking back to my site. It's usually the case, but not always.

I was recently in communication with one of my blog-thieves. I start out nice and ask for credit for composing the blog. That's really all I'm after--acknowledgement that I put in the 14 hours of research and numerous hours of writing to create something that was worth copying. Most people are pretty nice about it and agree. This person said, "you can't get upset that's how the world wks--you create, we take. i don't have time to get everything done and Google will tell the difference because you posted it 1st. get over yourself".

I started to think about this: how much of what I create is uniquely mine? How often do I steal pieces or articles? Frankly, probably not nearly as often as I could. But I don't. I'm obsessive about giving credit, getting permission, and doing the right thing. It's not because I'm shockingly good--I'm convinced that I will be caught. I was that kid who always looked guilty and got caught for everything, so I learned that doing sketchy things was like shouting in a bullhorn about my wrongs (imagine a Cassi/Sue Sullivester combo thing).

During my research, I ran across an excellent article by Bob Sullivan (RedTape Chronicles on MSNBC) about intellectual and digital copyright. (Click here to read the article)

Here are the quick take aways:

1. Photos are the copyright of the person who took them--use istockphoto or the like if you want to populate a blog with photos that you didn't take.

2. ReTweeting, or Facebook Sharing a link or article is NOT bad. It's giving credit where it's due.

3. Copying an article, or a section of an article without providing a link back and an author's name IS stealing. Get crazy about proofing your articles for stolen content.

4. Try to be nice when you find someone else using your stuff, or you get busted for using someone's stuff. Assume that it was innocent and try to get credit--DON'T DEMAND THEY REMOVE CONTENT. (At least, not until they refuse to credit you).

5. Try to be proactive. Email, message, or comment and ask the author if you can use, quote, or link back to their articles BEFORE you post the blog.

and All YOU'LL ever be is mean

2011-05-19T13:18:00.000-06:00

Have you ever felt like turning this video up and giving someone in the next cubicle a little hint? I called into a real estate office the other day and I swear the receptionist needed to hear this song. All she was ever gonna be was mean. It wasn't her fault, really. Can you imagine--she has 327 bosses running around with at least a pair of clients apiece, which means she has 981 people who needed something from her yesterday. Add in their lenders, the agents on the opposite side of the various transactions, their clients, and a home inspector per transaction and you get 4,251 people relying on her each instant and that doesn't tally people like me calling. Now if each person calls her once a day (and we know it's always more than that), or stops by her desk, or faxes something in that she must handle, then that's around 12,753 interactions in a day. No wonder she's mean!

That got me thinking...how often am I mean? How often do I make the people answering the phone turn into mean people?

I was going to write a nice post about being nicer to people. I had seven or eight little notes on how to make me happy when I talk to you. Then, I started writing and I thought that maybe I should stop demanding that overworked, tired, stressed out people be nicer to me. I should be nice to them. After all, I like people a whole bunch more than I like voicemail systems--maybe I should be nicer to that receptionist for being a person who can interact with me, remember my voice, and manage to thank me for my call.

Making Sense of It All

2011-05-12T11:11:00.002-06:00

At a certain point in our lives, we'll ask those difficult questions: "What is the meaning of life? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does living have to hurt so much? Why was I put on this earth in this place in this time with these circumstances?"

These questions generally crop up when we're going through something difficult. The death of a loved one. Getting laid off or fired. The loss of a cherished relationship. A natural catastrophe.

We'll all searching and that's why I believe Science Fiction is such a widely read genre. Sci-fi universes allow us to explore the themes, the what ifs, and look at ourselves as the ridiculous ants that we are.

The Tree Called Human: "You spoke a moment ago as if you believed that human beings have actually achieved intelligence. I think not. I think they have found a way to fake intelligence".

Hive Queen: "Self-delusion?"

The Tree: "Even at their best, they never as individuals never rise beyond the level of manual laborers. Who among them has the time to become intelligent? Not one. They never know anything. They don't have enough years in their little lives to come to an understanding of anything at all and yet they think they understand. From earliest childhood, they delude themselves into thinking they comprehend the world when really all that is going on is that they've got some primitive assumptions and prejudices. As they get older, they learn a more elevated vocabulary in which to express their mindless pseudo-knowledge and bully other people into accepting their prejudices as if they were Truth, but it all amounts to the same thing--individually, human beings are all dolts".

Hive Queen: "While collectively?"

The Tree: "Collectively, they are a collection of dolts. In all their scurrying around and pretending to be wise, throwing out idiotic, half-understood theories about this and that, one or two of them will come up with some idea that is just a little bit closer to the truth than what was already known and in a sort of fumbling trial and error, about half the time, the truth actually rises to the top and becomes accepted by people who still don't understand it. They simply adopt it as a new prejudice to be trusted blindly until the next dolt accidentally comes up with an improvement".

Hive Queen: "So you are saying that no one is ever individually intelligent and groups are even stupider than individuals and yet by keeping so many fools engaged in pretending to be intelligent, they still come up with some of the same results that an intelligent species would come up with?"

The Tree: "Exactly".

Hive Queen: "If they are so stupid and we're so intelligent, why do we have only one hive, which thrives here because a human being carried us and why have you been so utterly dependent on them for every technical and scientific advance that you make?"

The Tree Called Human: "Maybe intelligence isn't all it's cracked up to be."

Are we asking ourselves the big questions? Are our employees? Can we as a group of dolts accidentally stumble upon something a little closer to the truth?

Staying on Track with Timely Training

2011-05-05T09:15:00.001-06:00

It's not easy to come up with a consist plan for training people. Frankly, most of us fake it from week to week. We're convinced training is important, but we're throwing it together at the last minute. One of my mentors once owned it, he said, "If it wasn't for the fact that my guys would lose respect for me, I'd walk in tomorrow and tell them I just didn't have time to make a successful company".

I decided that I do have time to make this company a success, so I'd better figure out the time to plan the training to get us there. I sat down in November 2010 and wrote out what the focus should be for each quarter: Understanding People, Talking to People, Managing Stress (Related to People), and Goal Setting/Vision Casting. Then, in December 2010, on a day when the weather was bad and the phones were quiet, I wrote down a theme for each week's training:

Q1: Understanding People--training about personalities, attitudes, values, and interests

Week 1: Overview of DISC, Discussion on the Value of a Team

Week 2: Your DISC/PIAV results--know thyself

Weeks 3-6: Getting to know the "C", "S", "I", "D"

Week 7-10: Becoming a "D", "I", "S", "C"

Week 11: Introduction to Attitudes and Values

Week 12: How to Identify those attitudes and values

Week 13: How to Speak the language that persuades

Q2: Talking to People--training about communication, conflict resolution, alignment, and elevation

Week 1: Active Listening

Week 2: Validation

Week 3: Alignment

Week 4: Personal Growth

Week 5: Side-stepping Unnecessary Arguments

Week 6: How to be Transaction-Sensitive/Speak to a Realtor

Week 7-10: Practicing these scripts

Week 11-13: Making the scripts your own

Q3: Stress Management--training about self-care, internalization, visualization, etc

Week 1: Review of our own DISC/PIAV--focusing on stress reactions

Week 2: Validation

Week 3: Alignment

Week 4: Warning Signs for Stress

Week 5: Coping with Small Stress

Week 6: Deciding How to Handle Stress Before it Starts

Week 7-10: Personal Care practices for stress management

Week 11-13: Internalizing the Good, Visualizing the Successes

Q4: Goal Setting and Vision Casting--training about personal whys, goals, group goals, and where we're going

Week 1: Review Tribal Languages

Week 2: Review PIAV/DISC

Week 3: Review Active Listening and Alignment

Week 4: Capturing Your Why-beast

Week 5: The proper care and feeding of a Why-beast

Week 6: How does Your Why fit into this company

Week 7-10: Personal Goal-Setting

Week 11-13: Corporate Goal-Setting

What have a learned from all this? It's nice to have a little direction when I'm trying to prep for training time and I can shuffle the individual weeks around as needed without forgetting anything. It's a heck of a lot of stress off my shoulders when I don't have to be brilliant once a week, I just have to follow an outline while engaging the staff.

The Sony Breech, Hackers, and Gaining Understanding

2011-04-28T12:09:00.000-06:00

If you haven't heard by now, you must be unplugged: Sony's vast network of 77 million users was breeched by hackers. (Read about the fall out here).

That's right, some person or people hacked in and stole usernames, passwords, dates of birth, email addresses, physical addresses and more. Besides the obvious fear of one's gaming skills (or lack there of in my case) being open to anyone, there's an additional risk that credit card information was leaked. Shockingly, even if these hackers didn't get to the credit cards, they can still manage it.
How?
Well because most of us use the same username and password for our email, our PS3 account, and our online checking service. We find a password that we can remember and we never change it, so it becomes the key to entire online financial future.

Suddenly, that stupid news story about Sony gives you a bit more of a pause than before.

It brings into the light a motivation that we overlook. We hear a friend say that their corporate website got hacked.

We think, "that sucks, why would someone do that?"

Or, we go with, "You must have really pissed a customer off!"

The reality is that it isn't nearly so personal or so meaningless. It's about money. I'm sorry, Jesse J, you might just want to make the world dance, but when it comes down to it, it is about the pricetag. (If you haven't heard the song, click the video.)

How to Resolve a Conflict Professionally

2011-04-20T08:03:00.000-06:00

I don't know about you, but I hate conflict. I hate dealing with the ickiness of stress and emotion and tension. I prefer to avoid it at all costs. That's not realistic; however, especially because I'm human and I work with humans. For those of you who deal with computers on a daily basis--I'm sorry, I have no computer conflict resolution skills.

ACTIVE LISTENING

1. Repeat back what you heard the person say in your own words

2. Ask—is that correct?

3. Listen for additional information

4. Repeat Steps 1-3

Active listening is practice that allows the other person to feel heard, it keeps the conversation from escalating in speed and ferocity, and it allows you to overcome linguistic difficulties.

Try it on your significant other next time you're in a conflict--it's awesome!

VALIDATION

Use FEEL, FELT, FOUND

“I can understand why you FEEL that way, many of our clients have FELT that way too! What they have FOUND is…”

The FEEL portion of the statement tells the person that you are listening, FELT normalizes the emotion, and FOUND creates a bridge to alignment and resolution.

Try this one with a dissatisfied client over the market value of their home objection. It works wonders!

ALIGNMENT

Before providing a response, ask yourself:

1. Is this something that I CAN fix?

2. Is this something that I SHOULD fix?

3. Is there a third way to proceed?

During the alignment, use Active Listening and Validation to create alignment.

This step is a personal check--is this a problem that you can solve or is it a problem to which there is no resolution you can effect? Is this a conflict that you should be allocating resources to fix--can you move this problem on to a better equipped person like a manager or a mentor? Finally, is there solution to the conflict that is neither what the person is asking for, nor you proposed solution?

PERSONAL GROWTH

After a conflict, reflect:

1. Am I having a stress reaction?

2. Have I internalized this conflict?

3. How can I learn from this conflict?

The Personal Growth section is an important step--are you reacting out of scale to the conflict? Are you noticing that you're personalizing this conflict and internalizing it? Finally, what can you learn and how can

The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything...just kidding

2011-04-14T10:52:00.001-06:00

42--that's the answer.

How did that become the answer? Well, Douglas Adams wrote a book called The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and in it, a group of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings demand to learn the Ultimate Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything from the supercomputer, Deep Thought, specially built for this purpose. It takes Deep Thought 7½ million years to compute and check the answer, which turns out to be 42. Unfortunately, the problem is The Ultimate Question itself is unknown.

Isn't that just the way it is? You demand an answer and ultimately figure out that you don't know the question--I do it all the time. My life is full of answers, it's the questions that beg asking. So I ask--often on Facebook. My most frequent question is what to write about on this dang blog! I keep running ideas down to answers, but unless someone else offers up a question, my answers are useless. So I keep asking. Recently, my friend Aaron Hanley asked me these questions, which I feel compelled to answer: Why treating women like crap always brings them back for more? Why do women like men who drive pickup's? Why is it that a man carrying a baby is a women magnet?

I feel compelled to answer these questions because I feel strongly about them--I actually care about the fictional women in these questions (and frankly, the fictional men are worth caring about too). Upon examining myself, I discovered that I can, in fact answer these questions! Thank goodness I have a counselor to bounce these off of for accuracy. So, Aaron, this is for you:

All of these questions boil down the idea of Tribes. Humans are innately drawn to community and the most primal measure of community is a tribe. Therefore, we modern humans often align ourselves into tribes without really knowing it on a conscious level. Like draws like. I would suggest the book Tribal Leadership to study further on how you can create and influence the tribes around you to make a better workplace.

We can identify the 5 main philosophies of any tribe within the following phrases:
1. Life sucks and you die.
   This philosophy is only present in about 2% of tribes. It's the despairing survival mentality that shifts people into gangs or other survive and die based groups.

2. My Life Sucks.
   In this philosophy, the crappiness of life is personal. A tribe in this phase believes there are other possibilities than life sucking, but often focuses on the way their life is terrible. Lots of tribes in this group.

3. I'm Great/Special (and You're Not).
   Like #2, this group is very self-focused. It's about an individual who is great and by extension that MUST mean another individual is not great. This philosophy is the root of most office politics. Lots of tribes in this group.

4. We're Great/Special (and They're Not).
   This philosophy includes other members of the tribe, but excludes the importance of other tribes. It's the basis for teambuilding and is a pretty good place to be.

5. Life is Beautiful
   This is the philosophy that creates world change. Members of a tribe can see the value of other tribes, the value of themselves, and the value in creating community. Only about 2% of tribes are here.

You can only communicate meaningfully one level above or below where a person is resting and tribes move between the middle 3 levels all the time. Someone in the "My Life Sucks" category can't truly understand what the person in the "Life is Beautiful" stage is even talking about!

Back to the Original Questions:
That's why women with daddy issues, who are used to being treated poorly will tend to come back for more when a man treats them like crap. Literally, they equate love with being treated poorly. The tribal alignment principle draws women who equate love with being treated poorly to men who treat women poorly.

The question about women liking guys who drive pickups is a little less clear, but here's my stab at it: women are looking for mates, they want a mate who can provide for their future children. A man who drives a pickup is generally getting poorer gas mileage than a guy in 4 cylinder Honda, so he's obvious making more money than that other guy. Additionally, he probably has a 4x4, which makes him able to get around despite the elements. Finally, he has to be a better driver because trucks flip easier. All of these characteristics make for an image of a good future father and mate. Boom, women like guys who drive trucks.

Men carrying babies are women magnets for the same reasons as I outlined above. It demonstrates to women that that man is a capable and responsible potential mate.

Phew! That was a lot of ground to cover! More on Tribal Languages next week!

The Old Spice Guy and Miniature Giraffes

2011-04-12T13:54:00.000-06:00

What do the Old Spice Guy and Miniature Giraffes have in common?

It sounds like a bad joke in the making, doesn't it? Okay, I can't resist, I have to say that the Old Spice Guy and Miniature Giraffes have the commonality that I WANT BOTH OF THEM. Yeah, I admit it, I'm a total sucker for the brash self-assurance of Isaiah Mustafa and his ridiculously amazing wash board abs. I'm also absurdly drawn to the idea of a lap-sized giraffe. I can't quite explain it, but both of these characters tend to make me squeal like a teenage girl and start daydreaming.

From a serious standpoint, these two creations have something in common--they have both gone "viral". In marketing circles, going viral is akin to finding the magic lamp, or cold fusion. It's virtually impossible to know when or if something will go viral--and in a good way. Let's not have a repeat of the GoDaddy CEO's viral elephant shooting debaucle.

Can you plan to go viral? Can you set up something to be appealing and perhaps go viral?
My answer would be yes, you most certainly can plan to go viral and should. It doesn't mean you will. I'm pretty sure, though, that Old Spice wanted to create something off the wall and a little brash when they came up with the Old Spice Guy. It just so happens that most of us like things that are a little off the wall. So perhaps the secret to viral success isn't proper SEO, or finding the right keywords, or even having the prettiest actors. Maybe, just maybe, it's about making the world laugh a little and sigh a little and want to send it on to our friends. I think it may even be about making us revert to those crazy, mostly innocent days before we realized that all guys don't look like Isaiah Mustafa and miniature giraffes are not scienfically possible...yet. But if they are, by golly, I'm 832, 483rd in line for one!

Creating Space for Artists in Your Business

2011-04-05T08:43:00.000-06:00

Artist.

What do you imagine when I say that word?

Some person with an easel, a smock, some paintbrushes, and wild colors?

Artist with words.

Did it change? Did I lose you?

I wouldn't blame you if did. Most of us don't think of what an artist is, but rather what an artist DOES. We think in verbs. Painting, sculpting, dancing, writing. All of these are artistic expressions, backed by people who should be called artists.

I challenge you to look at yourself as an artist. Whatever you do really well--whatever you pour your creativity and energy into--you are an artist expressing yourself in that form.

As a business owner--do you leave room for people to be artists in their jobs? What outlets for creativity and expression do you have available?

Now, I'm not talking setting up a pottery studio in the bathroom, or allowing interpretive dance in the call center. I'm suggesting that you can get more out of your employees by giving them somewhere and some way to invest their creativity and energy.

When I interview a new Call Center representative, I ask a crazy question: Tell me about a time that you expressed your creative side through clothing, makeup, whatever.

You wouldn't believe some of the completely blank stares I get--I've even had people walk out of interviews. That's right--they left rather than tell me about being creative. Why? Well, one's creativity is deeply personal and really shows you the inner core of someone.

When someone does answer, I find moments of pure joy. They smile, relax, get excited. It's like finding the key to the door in their soul. It gives someone permission to be themselves.

Today, I dare you to find space for the artist within you and within those around you. Give yourself permission to explore the artist's soul and you might just rediscover a passion for your work that you had forgotten.

Online Reputation Management: Sometimes, We are Our Own Worst Enemies

2011-03-31T09:34:00.000-06:00

What happens if you're the world's largest provider of..let's say domain names, web addresses, etc. Let's say that you spend millions of dollars getting sexy female race car drivers to hawk your wares and you enlist "America's Toughest Trainer" to whip up demand. Pretend for a minute that you are the CEO of this corporation that has built it's reputation and managed it in such a way that you're able to take an expensive private safari vacation to Africa. What's a CEO of a company like this to do for a good time in Africa? Apparently, he videotapes himself shooting and killing an elephant, then invites "hungry" villagers to slaughter it for food--while wearing bright orange hats with his company's name on it. --Too ridiculous to be true? Nope, check it out: http://www.businessinsider.com/godaddy-ceo-videotapes-himself-killing-an-elephant-2011-3

Is it true: All PR is Good PR

Leaving aside the stupidity of videotaping yourself shooting a critically endangered species and posting it for the world to see, let's look at the possible messages that video sends:

"I am a humanitarian, feeding the poor and protecting the downtrodden" (this is obviously what Bob Parsons was going for, but I'm not buying it, are you? I mean, bring food to the people and get the elephant corralled, that's humanitarian work)

"I am so disconnected from life that I think a video of slaughtering a dead elephant won't be gross" (I'm inclined this direction, seriously who videotapes that??)

"I'm a wealthy idiot who thinks I am above the law" (Most of the comments that I've seen seem to lean this way)

"The law? The law does not apply to me! I am too important" (There is an important legal consideration, you've set yourself up for legal trouble)

"Why run a successful company when I embroil it in PR snafu the size of Africa?" (The ultimate consequence of the video)

Not all PR is good PR, right?

To weigh in with my very small amount of influence, I'd have to ask how stupid can this man get and still breathe?! It's bad enough to have Groupon throw out horrible PR with its Superbowl ads, then have the CEO royally escalate the whole situation by mocking and talking down to consumers for "not getting it--it's funny and ironic". I mean, that happened a month ago and it appears that no one learned a darned thing about how quickly a public relations piece can lead to a public relations nightmare.

Then, we had the debacle where Dominos Pizza told us they improved their food, then asked us ON EACH PIZZA BOX to go online and tell them what we thought--publically, on social media--AND tied all the social media to their stock ticker abbreviation. That happened two weeks ago! What did Dominos find out? Their food still tastes worst than the pizza box and now, it's out there effecting their stocks with every irate tweet! It's going down as one of the worst social media strategies of all time and may topple the company after they finish hemorraging investors.

Now back to the CEO of this unnamed company who videotaped himself shooting an African bull elephant and posts the video "for publicity". Really? Really, Bob, really?! The world is no longer a series of isolated countries, states, or cities. We have the ability to share our thoughts and opinions GLOBALLY in minutes and those opinions don't go away. They are cataloged and searchable for a really long time. Congratulations, I hope it gets buried before you can issue a statement making it worse.

Living Within the Rhythm of Your Business

2011-02-28T09:32:00.000-07:00

There's a fabulous rhythm to my work life. I don't know how many industries have it, but the foundation repair field definitely does. We have seasons.

Mid-December to March: The Freeze
We're currently coming out of the Freeze season, which is usually from first blizzard to first melt. It's a slower time of year for us, somewhat due to the temperatures, and somewhat due to the post-holiday slump. The soil is frozen, or mostly frozen and dramatic shifts are less likely. It's a time of year where the staff schedules family vacations, major surgeries, and physicals.

It's a time of year where life slows down and I get to all those projects and brain-storming sessions that I've jotted down through the rest of the year: organize the marketing materials on the server, create new blogs, kill off poor ideas, etc. I usually start having hot chocolate at work and wearing warm boots, reading more, and dreaming of Cozumel.

April to early June: Spring Melt
Life begins in the Spring Melt season, where frozen ground is introduced to melting snow and all sorts of soil problems begin. Houses settle, basements flood, garages heave. Leads and phone calls start coming in like fresh leaves to breathe new life into the chilly weather. It's the time of year where I begin searching for new employees for the Call Center and life picks up pace considerably.

It's the time of year that I start adding extra cups of coffee and a sugary snack in the afternoon. It seems like projects crop up urgently and there just isn't enough time in the day to get things done. I realize that it's just that adjustment phase between winter and spring, but I still get tired.

June to August: Wet Season
Life really picks up in Wet Season, it's the time when rain comes often and people start to notice basement flooding, damp crawlspaces, and heaving clay soils. It often coincides with real estate transactions because lots of clients choose to move in the summer (I agree, moving in the snow is awful). It's the time of year where the Call Center gets humming and the days fly by.

For me, this season is one of duality. I spend my week days working like made on relevant content and my weekends camping and riding dirt bikes. I start to forget what sleep feels like and I usually show up to work with new bruises to cover the old ones and really great stories on how I got them. Wet Season is exciting and full of life for me, so I think I'm naming it my favorite.

Mainly in this season, I start noticing that coffee is a staple, sugar is creeping in at any moment, and I'm constantly craving Wild Cherry Pepsi.

August to mid-December: Piering Season
Piering Season is crazy. It's the time of year when the rain stops and the soil goes into super dehydration mode. Homes drop by inches, basements crack overnight, the whole world cries out for moisture. Colorado feels like an Alpine Desert again. This is the time of year when marketing holds sales, when volume discounts abound, and when crew guys start gets exhausted. The Call Center starts asking questions like, "how are you doing? Need to take 5? I'll get the phones while you take a break".

This is the season that I kill myself. Literally, 14 or 15 hour days and most weekends, getting up at 3am to write up all the great ideas that clients are giving me over the phones each day. It's hectic, creative, and completely consuming. I love it even as I drown in it. It's like living in a giant ball of infinite possibilities and getting to put as many of them down on paper before the ball collapses. It's also the time of year where we really get to help the most people with the worst problems and I live for that.

Piering Season happens to be the time of year that we start going through gallons of coffee a day, even people in the office who don't like coffee start drinking it as a coping mechanism. I find myself consuming pretzels, a Wild Cherry Pepsi and gummy bears for lunch (if you can call it that) and then eating ice cream for dinner. Since camping season is ending, I'm definitely short on healthy meal options and I find myself eating out almost every night 'cause I'm just too darned tired to cook! On the plus side, this is the time of year that I get massages monthly (at least), pedicures, and facials--anything to take some time and calm down. I have found that I do my best self-care in Piering Season.

How Do We Live Within the Rhythm?

All this may be interesting to you, probably because you're my mom or my friend and have been wondering at my wild shifts in availability and mood. Then again, you may be recognizing a pattern to your own life as well. The Real Estate industry has amazing seasons throughout the year, I've been a part of that industry and I know that it can make or break a young agent--can they survive the back to school downturn?

There are three important things to remember when living in the rhythm of your industry

1. Plan ahead: save money and ideas during the heavy times in order to see you through the

slow times.

2. Self-Care is not optional: during the busy times, you must block out times to keep yourself in

peak physical condition. During slow times, use the time to create memories that will sustain

you during the heavy times, rest and rejuvenate.

3. Work smarter: Many of us get caught up in the process of life, rather than riding the

rhythms. When you have time, work ahead--such as composing all your email newsletters

during the slow times to use when you're busy, so you don't have to be creative and be busy.

Teambuilding Conference for Estimators

2011-02-14T10:12:00.001-07:00

Training Conference for Systems Design Specialists

As many of you know, we love our Systems Design Specialists. They are our Foundation Repair, Waterproofing, and Crawlspace Repair Experts, who interact with our clients from the initial appointment through the project completion. Jack McGuire, Aaron Moore, and Tom Henes have over 70 years of industry and real estate knowledge between them! Each year, our General Manager, Aaron Henes spends the months of December, January, and February preparing our estimators for some of the important work that a homeowner will ever need. Aaron creates an intensive goal-setting and training program that focuses on proper diagnosis of problems, new technology, and more. Why during this time of year? Aaron says, "The end of one year and beginning of the next is naturally a time for reflection. Each one of us takes stock of where we've been and where we want to go. Let's embrace that tendency and create a forum for development, discipline, and discussion".

Development

January 2010 saw some amazing goals coming from the estimators and management. We decided to grow by 50% this year as a company. We decided to get in shape, opted to do more community service and outreach, asked to learn about networking and follow up, and determined our own income goals. Aaron Henes challenged Jack, Aaron, and Tom: meet these goals and Peak will take you and your wives to Mexico in 2011. It was an audacious suggestion and Paul Sutton, our owner, leapt at the chance to create a new culture--one of discipline and service. In fact, he made it better! Aaron Henes set a steep goal and when achieved, could take his wife with him to Mexico, too.

Discipline

As with any goal, there was a period of excitement that waned a bit. It was time for discipline to come into the picture. Aaron worked individually with each guy to create a success plan and then created accountibility. Each person was required to provide weekly, monthly, and quarterly updates. Aaron Henes and Paul met once a week for over 3 hours at a time to discuss the growth and movement of the company and how to reach Henes' goals. It was an amazing huge undertaking for each person. In the end, Jack, AMoore, and Tom turned to their wives for inspiration. "My wife was my biggest motivator. She really wanted me to make it. She pushed me whenever I lost focus and I'm proud to bring to Mexico," said Aaron Moore. Aaron has the distinction of being recongized by the entire network of foundation repair and waterproofing companies for his efforts and was inducted into the 2K Club, which recognizes the best estimators in the network.

Discussion

Along with creating and developing discipline, Peak facilitated a lot of discussion. Everything gets talked about, whether it's how a single homeowner is doing, or how the company is dealing with a particularly difficult growth phase. Once a week, Paul and Aaron lead a book discussion group over breakfast at our local diner. Aaron H. hosted two training sessions a week for estimators. Paul developed two training sessions a week for production members. Cassi held a training and a Quality Assurance meeting each week for Marketing and Call Center employees. All in all, there was a lot of talk that lead to action!

A Training Conference---on the beach?!

In February 2011, Aaron Henes will be escorting Jack, Aaron Moore, Tom, and their wives to Cozumel, Mexico for 5 days of...training?! That's right, this is a working vacation. "It's not about working your butt off then stopping dead. Living life well is about balance--learning to take care of yourself and your clients. Doing the best job you can for someone and having something of yourself left to bring back to your family at the end of the day." said Tom when I asked him about taking time off. What Peak learned during 2010 was that tremendous growth and opportunity can lead to tremendous stress and result in physical and mental breakdown. "I found myself working day and night. Getting up at 2 or 3 am to write blogs, then up at 7am to post them and heading into work by 8. I was staying skipping lunch and sometimes missing dinner. I felt compelled to work harder because the whole company was doing such a great job! The Systems Specialists were taking on large goals and the production department was a machine! It was all I could do to keep the Marketing and Call Center Departments just ahead of the curve. I stopped taking care of myself and everyone suffered." said Cassi Henes, Director of Marketing.

"Part of the goal with this trip isn't just to sit on our laurels and pat each other on the back about what we've accomplished. It's about learning good self-care. How do I relax in a way that recharges? How do I create calm places in my life? How do I stay vibrantly married to my wife? These sorts of questions don't answer themselves--they take practice." said Jack.

So, you'll probably notice that the Peak Basement Systems parking lot is a little emptier than usual Feb.2--5. You'll probably notice that Jack's smiling face isn't running around Black Forest, that you don't see Tom's signature hat floating through the crowd at the next InterNACHI meeting, and that Aaron Moore isn't at his weekly investors meeting. These dedicated professionals will be learning about proper self-care habits for a lifetime from Aaron Henes and Cassi Sherman Henes. On the beach. In Mexico. Awesome!

Good is the Enemy of Great

2011-01-20T08:53:00.000-07:00

We all want to be great--great at our jobs, our marriages, our friendships, our businesses. So what keeps us from truly being great? Actually, it's quite simple. Being good. That's right, it's weird, but true. When we're good at our jobs, we rarely strive to be great at them. When we have a good marriage, we don't often think about having a great marriage. If you don't believe believe me, I can understand that. Don't take my word for it, let's explore some stories:

1: Carnival Cruise Ships

In recent years, Carnival has switched from allowing vacationers to tip their staff as they see fit and has changed to automatically charging a set fee on all staterooms to the vacationer's credit card. The vacationer cannot stop this gratuitiy from being assessed, althought they can complain at the Purser's Desk for a reduction. So, what would you do if your tip was automatically given to you regardless of the level of work you did? Okay, I know what you're going to say--you'd still do a good job. Oops, there you go--doing a good job, but not a great one. What real motivation do you have to do something great? You're doing a good job and being compensated accordingly. The process of tipping and cleaning has become an endless, changeless cycle where all you have to do is be good enough.

2: Commissionless Jewelry Salespersons
There's been a trend at various jewelers to transition their salespeople from commission to flat fee based wages. It sounds like a great plan, one that I have heard owners praise. It seems to have the best intentions at its heart--no pressure to buy, happy clients, soft sales. It sounds appealing. What happens to the salesperson? Well, the motivations are radically different--now, when a customer comes in the door, you aren't paid any more money to serve them than you are to shuffle off to the back to count boxes. You can see where I'm going with this. Some employees will still be motivated to do a good job for clients, others will fade into the background. Wait--did I just use the word "good" again?! That's right, in this case, being a good salesperson is enough because there is no motivation to be great anymore!

3: Paid for Performance Foreman

I recently got to hang out with some of the most amazing foundation repair crews! Their foremen make tons of money and have extremely high customer satisfaction ratings. Their performance and commitment are truly great. So what separates these great foremen from good ones? Well, they don't ever settle for being good at their jobs. What's "good" in their estimation? Well, the company assesses the cost of an installation project through materials and labor. Labor is calculated based on what a good crew can install. What inspires these foremen to become great is that they have a great incentive. The labor budget is fixed, but if a foreman can finish a job well faster than the labor budget allowed for, that foremen is given the extra money as a bonus to divvy among the crew. Thrasher Basement Systems in Omaha, NE swears by this amazing program. It's inspired their crews to be efficient, helpful, and consistant. Not only do crews get bonuses, but these crews are ranked based on their bonus amount and jobs are assigned accordingly. It's a great system that weeds out good and promotes great!

As I look around at my department and the company that I work for, I've been looking for places to promote great and eliminate good. I'm looking for the places where the incentives for employees are no longer pointing to great and are allowing good or worse. For example, we recently lowered our hourly rate for Call Center representatives because I noticed that during 2010, many reps were just babysitting their desks for their 8 hours a day. We've always had a bonus for setting appointments, but when I really checked that as a motivator, it wasn't juicy enough. Someone could make $14 an hour sitting at the computer, or make a $5 bonus for calling a lead and setting an appointment. Shockingly, it wasn't motivating. When you're making $10 an hour, getting a $5 bonus per call is basically half your hourly. It's way more motivating. Additionally, we used to pay $5 for outgoing calls, and $3 for incoming calls. What did we end up with? A good outgoing to incoming ratio: 1 outgoing to every 3 incoming.
When I lowered the incoming rate to $2 and boosted the outgoing rate to $6, we ended up with a dramatic reversal! Now, reps jump on those outgoing lead opportunities! We're seeing a 1 to 1 ratio, which is pretty darn impressive!

Naturally, I'm not saying that a good employee will never be a great employee, or that doing a good job is a bad thing. I'm drawing attention to the fact that when we see someone doing a "good" job, it means that many people are doing a "so-so" job and eventually, those underachievers will drag that good employee down to their level or the good employee will leave for a better job. If we develop practices that create "great" employees, it challenges "good" employees to be great, and shines the light on those employees who are just "so-so". It makes it easier to decide who is adding to your bottom line and who is pulling down the team.

Peak Saves Santa's House

2010-12-23T13:13:00.003-07:00

Okay, for those you who have no reference to how nerdy I am, I'll set the stage: I wrap all presents in boxes in a single color of wrapping paper, with identical bows. I frequently wake up in the middle of the night with an urge to knit, or redecorate the house. I have been known to tear down or put up drywall because I am bored. I have also been known to soar on cloud nine and rapidly plummet into the depths of despair. To summarize: I have an artistic temperment (that's my husband's code for "crazy lady").

I am a poet--in fact, I have a BA in Poetry, which clearly qualifies me for the nearest psych ward. Can you imagine what happened when I informed my parents?! Anyhow, it quickly became apparent that I could and would be able to support myself financially and indulge in my love of the written word. I'm usually busy generating content for the 8 some odd blogs that I maintain, as well as compiling and blasting out a large amount of social media content and writing educational articles for Peak Basement Systems and Peak Structural. In short, I write long stuff A LOT!

Every year, though, I get to indulge that poetry major and submerse myself into a holiday classic, throw it in a blender, and make it related to our business. I love it because I think they are the most original Christmas cards EVER! I do have some rules for how it has to happen: I must complete the rough draft in 30 minutes or less, it must be a popular poem or song, and I cannot reuse the same poem for at least 10 years!

Last year, I tackled "T'was the Night Before Christmas" and pounded out a pretty cute poem in about 29 minutes. I thought that this year, I needed a challenge--I needed a song! So, I reviewed my all time favorite Christmas carols and came up with Elvis Presley's version of "Here Comes Santa Claus". (There really wasn't enough to work with in "Blue Christmas"). So here's my rendition of Elvis' classic. I know it doesn't scansion perfectly--come to find out, it's got a complicated little rhyme and rhythm thing goin' on.

Peak Saves Santa’s House (To the Tune of "Here Comes Santa Claus")
By Cassi Sherman Henes

Here comes settling, here comes settling
Right down Santa’s Chalet.
Vixen and Blitzen and all his reindeer
Can see it bright as day
Bricks are gapping, walls a’ cracking,
All in all, it’s a fright,
Santa needs help, he makes a call
And Peak is coming tonight!

Here comes the van and here’s the mini ex
Coming to Santa’s Chalet.
They’ve got a rig that’s filled with tools
For lifting the right way
Hear jack hammers go jingle jangle
What a beautiful sight
Jump up and down and run ‘round
‘Cause we’re fixing Santa’s tonight!

Here come piers and here comes the drive shaft
Right under Santa’s Chalet

Peak will lift and level
The deadline’s Christmas Day!
We’ll get the workshop back to running
We’ll make everything right.
Fill your hearts with Christmas cheer
‘Cause the inspector comes tonight!

The crew saved Santa’s house, the crew saved Santa’s house
It’s the Peak Company way!

We’re all finished, packed and ready
With time to load the sleigh.
Christmas now can come to all
All is merry and bright
Let’s give thanks to the lord above
‘Cause Santa can come tonight!

Yeah, ‘cause Santa Claus comes tonight!

Waning Work Desire Meets Christmas Specials

2010-12-20T12:22:00.001-07:00

There is an epidemic sweeping the nation. (Cue dramatic music, roll of drums, and cymbal clash). That's right, we're currently under attack! (Pause for effect).

We're under attack by the complete and utter inability to complete the most basic tasks necessary to be productive. Today, I found myself standing in the street, wondering exactly why I was here, what would have possessed me to stand in the street, and how in blazes to get myself back to safety.

It wasn't a complicated task and I had come prepared--I've started labelling myself and other objects.

Honestly, it's surprisingly necessary at this point. My question is this: how did I come to be so darn absent-minded? How did I get this lost in thought?

I have to think that it has something to do with the holidays and/or the additional stress of shopping for kids. In case this is a news flash to anyone--I don't have kids and the last time I shopped for them, Polly Pockets were cool. I have three kids to purchase for this year--two nephews and niece, who range in age from 9 to infant. Conclusion: I'm horribly ill-equipt to purchase for children. I'm likely to think, "ooh, blowtorch! Totally need to get that awesome toy for a 9 year old! I'd be the coolest auntie ever!"

Thankfully, my husband persuaded me that arming the children may result in a coupe that will produce unsatisfactory Christmas memories for all involved. Phew, avoided that present faux pas. We settled on taking the kids to a hotel and letting them drown each other in the pool, resuscitating them, and throwing them back in. I, however, came prepared:

Come to find out, though, snorkling masks and diving toys do keep kids sufficiently busy that they will resist the urge to dunk the adults.

Now that the kiddies are all taken care of, my thoughts should be less scattered, right? No! Wrong! Do not pass GO, do not collect $200. The second problem is all the thinking and planning that goes into the actual Christmas event. I envision it like this:

Basically, there can really only be two outcomes to this much thinking. Exploding Cassi or Angry Cassi. I'm hoping for an explosion.

The Great Debate: Social Marketing ROI

2010-12-06T16:05:00.001-07:00

I was attending a debate today on the future of social media and I wanted to pass along some information that was rocking the worlds of most CEOs, etc who attended. It has to do with how we measure the ROI of social media and how we measure our effectiveness.

For a while now, the marketers who handle social media have been in a struggle with management to find a way to determine if social media is “working” or not.

Here were the debate points:

1. How long should it take to establish a following?

2. How long should it take to get results?

3. How do you measure results?

4. How do you determine worth?

#1: How long should it take to establish a following?

The current information is stating that a good following (ie: loyal individuals) takes approximately 18 months of solid interaction, but the sides agreed that since most companies have only been doing social media that long, it is not definitive. Many experts believe it takes 2 years.

In our world: Peak Basement Systems’ Social Media presence is about 25 months old, while Peak Structural is about 10 months old. To get an idea of growth, here are out Like counts from Facebook and our followers on Twitter:

We’ve noticed significant increases in Followers and Fans on Peak Basement Systems in the last three months, it feels like we have passed some sort of staying power test in the social media realm.

2. #2: How long should it take to get results?

Results were a huge portion of the debate. The most important part of the discussion centered on what results were! Number of fans isn’t really a determining factor anymore according to the experts—now, it’s about impressions. It’s about how many times people look at, or click on, the items you post.

The final consensus on how long it should take to get results stated that solid content should produce participation through impressions and likes immediately. Depending on the industry, common measure tools considered a "successful" post should garner between 30% and 50% of fans engaging it (ie: clicking on the post).

#3: How do you measure results:

Common wisdom today disregards the number of Fans that you have as a function of time--the longer you exist, the more fans you should have. It's like business--if you're any good at what you do, you will have clients one way or another. The real debate is about how to measure results. The experts that I've heard from indicate that the number of impressions, interactions, and shares are the real measure.

aHere's a sample of some insights from Peak Basement Systems. Keep in mind that we have 124 fans, so my target for impressions, like, and shares should be between 37 and 62. Things below 37 impressions are flops, and items above 62 are good engagement. My top engagement pieces are all blogs--this indicates that my followers tend toward information:

Next, you can see that photos produce a good impression rate:

Finally, personalized comments that ask questions get good responses:

4. #4 How do you determine worth?

loThis was hotly contested among various industries. Restaurants said that number of patrons in the door was an excellent indicator, retailers said that cashing in on social media centered coupons was a good measurement. All in all, everyone agreed that you have to use Google Analytics no matter what industry. Knowing where people came from to get to your website is the key to determine how worthwhile it is to socially market your company.

Surrounded by guys who didn’t take “I’m a girl" as an answer

2010-11-10T23:56:00.000-07:00

So now that I’ve started posting again, I think I’ve started a flood of reflections. I think I‘ve also realized how funny I can be, or how much people like the tragedy of a terribly socially awkward person muddling their way through life. Yeah that’s me. Perpetually uncool, unpopular, and awkward. I’ve known it forever. Pretty much from the moment that I realized I was a girl surrounded by boys. I had awesomely wonderful cousins, all of whom were older, cooler, and maler than I. (Is maler a word? It sounded good and macho in my head, but now that it’s on the page, I have to wonder). Yeah, I had great cousins and I have the pictures to prove it. In one picture, I am dressed in a brown velvet pants suit (how very early 80’s of my parents to dress me this way), and I am surrounded by doting cousins. At least, I assume that they are doting, as they are all apparently fawning over me. What do I notice? They are all male—it’s my teenage cousins Jim and Travis, my tween cousin Josh, and my slightly younger cousin Luke. They all appear to be listening intently to something that 2 year old Cassi is saying. I have no clear recollection of what I’m talking about, but they all appear to be hanging on my every word. Perhaps that is the start of my constant desire to be heard and listened to. I got used to it. I grew up being listened to and acknowledged. At least in the picture, and my own mind, I am somehow an equal with people much older and cooler dressed than I.

So what is the point? What could I possibly be driving towards? I think that the fabulous men in my life have made me into a confident woman. I have never felt that I should shut up, or that my opinion wasn’t equally as valid as anyone else’s. Sure, this is a problem when you’re 14, but it’s a gift when you’re a 30 (almost 31) year old woman in a male dominated industry. I think that the variety of men in my life have developed my confidence—from fabulously supportive and intelligent Jim, to wildly outgoing Travis, to quietly rebellious Josh. Each man has, in his own way, always told me that I was worth it. That I had something to contribute. Each cousin read my terribly twisted and tortured teenage poetry, gave me feedback, encouraged me, and even supported my crazier moments—like becoming a poetry major. They have taught me that life involves risk—that being socially acceptable is just settling. That being anything other than me is robbing the world of a beautiful gift.

Some of these men have gone on to raise daughters of their own, some have determined to remain independent of their birth parents, and some have chosen to stand for equal rights in marriage. All have given themselves to something more than just their lives and I am honored to consider them the men who raised me, along with my parents. I am shocked to see and hear their voices, so many years after they have stopped actively coaching me through adolescence. So my point here, other than bragging on some fabulous men, is to ask—who are you encouraging? Who are you influencing? Who will replay the tapes of you in their heads when tough times come? Are you investing in someone? What is your legacy?

Self care and Marketing

2010-11-10T13:44:00.000-07:00

So, you've probably noticed that I haven't posted for quite a while. I noticed. I felt really guilty. I mean really, really guilty.

I would wake up in the middle of the night and think I could hear a ghost giving me crap about how utterly I had deserted my obligations to writing.

Yeah, I know. That sort of neurosis should really be confined to one's head and not shared with the public at large. I have to admit that I'm not really sure anybody actually reads this thing, so maybe both the guilt and the sharing won't really matter. Hmm, interesting thought: if a writer completely cracks up and no one is around to read about it, did the writer really need to crack up in the first place?

Maybe, just maybe I'm freaking out and being consumed by guilt for nothing! Suddenly, I feel a lot better. Which brings me around to what I actually wanted to write about.

I wanted to share about a very important topic: Self-Care

Self-care is a pretty easily defined term that I usually ask people about when they come to me about marketing. I have little to no idea why I go there first, but I always ask, "What is your self-care strategy?" It probably comes from the fact that I feel you can really only fit so many things into your day and why bother getting busier through marketing if you're going to have a nervous breakdown?

Seriously, do you have a plan not to lose your mind? Perhaps normal people don't have to worry about, but we artistic types are constantly questioning our sanity, so it seems logical to have a contingency plan in the event of a mental breakdown.

It was actually my husband, who has a counselling degree, who really started asking me audacious questions like "do you have a plan to PREVENT a meltdown?" Isn't it great when someone comes along with such startlingly new ideas that you literally go slack-jawed in amazement?!

That is an absolutely real expression. I swear that PREVENTING a mental breakdown had not occured to me. In fact, I think that the fact that it had not occured to me and I constantly worry about losing my mind, might mean that regular non-artistic personalities may not have considered it either! So, I ask again, "what's your plan for self-care?"

Here's my mood-mender, preventative strategy to make sure that I can function in the world:

Every day:

--I listen to music that makes me happy, I even sing if the mood hits me. I have been known to shake my groove thing in the bathroom mirror while blow-drying my hair.

--I take 5 five minute breaks a day to google whatever I want that will make me laugh. I even pass it along if it's really funny.

--I eat 6 jelly bellys in flavors I like. Frankly, the calories are low and the flavors just make me smile.

Every week:

--I knit on my latest project. Even if it's only for five minutes because my wrists hurt. I love to create and knitting is something that creates and soothes for me.

--I read a book that has nothing to do with anything work-related. Sometimes, it takes a while to finish that book, but it's purely a pleasure read. Right now, I'm reading "The Girl Who Played with Fire".

--I complete a soothing skincare ritual. Some weeks, it's a home facial, or a long bath, or a manicure, or soaking my feet, or even deep conditioning my hair.

Every month:

--I take 10% of my monthly bonus and spend it on myself. New clothes, a massage, and possibly shoes.

--I take one day off of all social media. I don't check my Facebook, I don't write, I just live without the computer.

--I take a little time and browse for jewelry, makeup, new yarn. I don't necessarily buy those things, I just window shop on the web. I like it because I know what the trends are, or where the sales are, but I don't shell out for those items. No guilt.

Every quarter:

--My husband and I take a day off or two to spend time together. We try to go out and get out of the house. I like taking a three or four day weekend, so we can go camping or to a BnB.

Every year:

--My husband and I take 7-10 days off in a row (hopefully with no cell phones). Previously, it's been right around Christmas, but that ended up being really stressful and not nearly as fun as you would imagine. So, this year, we're taking off in early January for a cruise! With my sister and her husband and my lovely parents!

How Can You Become Worth More to Your Readers and Listeners

2010-09-16T11:09:00.000-06:00

I've recently begun mentoring again, which is completely different than coaching. I coach constantly. Coaching is about having an outsider's perspective and bringing that perspective and a certain set of specific skills to bear on someone else's blindspot. Coaching is focused, like a laser beam. I like coaching because I don't necessarily have to like the person with whom I'm working. It's also scheduled, fairly low maintenance, and (this is my favorite part) easy to fire people who won't do what they should be doing.

Mentoring, on the other hand, is completely different. It's about opening your entire being to another person. It's terrifying and consuming. Sometimes, it's heartbreaking and other times, it's rewarding, but either way, it is draining. Mentoring is more like sculpting--it's hands on and messy. In fact, there's nothing more alarming than creating a little version of you--warts and all in a short amount of time. I can't seem to stop doing it, though. I don't advertise and I don't really volunteer. People find me. I'm always confused by this turn of events. Is anything I do really that special that someone would want to learn to be more like me? Apparently, the answer is yes. Let me know if you figure out what those special things are because I would love to know.

Due to the fact that I have just gained not one, but two new mentees, I have been revamping my training sessions. I call these the "Prep Courses". These are little sessions that I introduce to new mentees to help both of us identify a starting line and a series of goals to reach. It creates a comfortable path to walk on and makes the relationship less weird.

I want to pass along a list and explanation of my favorite Prep Courses. I recommend going through the list and identifying areas that you would like to work on, checking out the resources I list, and then finding someone who is better at these things than you are to coach or mentor you!

Prep Course 1: Professional Dress and Decorum

Every society, culture, or subculture has unspoken rules that govern interaction and you move up or down in that society based on how you follow or break those rules. What you wear and how you act create an impression--a lasting one. Are you setting yourself up for success? Are you limiting your success through ignorance or disregard?

Favorite Quote: "Luxury is not the opposite of poverty. It is the opposite of vulgarity." ~Coco Chanel

"There are no ugly women, just lazy ones" ~Helena Rubenstein

Resources:

The One Hundred, A Guide to the Pieces that Every Stylish Woman Must Own by Nina Garcia

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Why Manners Matter: What Confucius, Jefferson, and Jackie Knew and You Should Too by Lucinda Holdforth

Public Speaking for Success by Dale Carnegie

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

Prep Course 2: Increasing Your Vocabulary and Scope of Knowledge

When you have an extensive vocabulary, you are able to more accurately communicate exactly what you mean. The catch is that you have achieve a vocabulary, it won't just show up one day. In fact, many people tell me, "you use such big words, it's hard to understand you. Dumb it down for me". Well, that's impossible. The more I dumb down a an idea, the more fuzzy and less helpful it becomes. This is my challenge: stop asking the world to be stupider for you--rise to the challenge and become more intelligent!

Favorite Quotes: "The personal vocabulary, the individual melody whose metre is one's biography, joins in that sound, with any luck, and the body moves like a walking, waking island." ~Derek Walcott

"One forgets words as one forgets names. One's vocabulary needs constant fertilizing or it will die." ~Evelyn Waugh

"The ambiguities of language, both in terms of vocabulary and syntax are fascinating: how important connotation is, what is lost and what is gained in the linguistic transition." ~Marilyn Hacker

Resources:

The Weighty Word Book by Paul M. Levitt (children's section)

Weighty Words, Too by Paul M. Levitt

The Words You Should Know to Sound Smart by Robert W. Bly

30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary by Wilford Funk and Norman Lewis

Smart Words: Vocabulary for the Erudite by Mim Harrison

Prep Course 3: Critical Analysis of Your Reading and Watching List

Many people read for entertainment, but they don't stop to consider what that entertainment is teaching them, or what it is communicating in relation to morals, values, political ideas, economics, etc. Take time to consider what you currently read, watch, and listen to. What are they actually saying? Can you create an opinion and defend it based on what you are already reading or watching?

Favorite Quote: "My mother was right. When you've got nothing left all you can do is get into some silk underwear and start reading Proust." ~Jane Birkin

"Do you think you remain unchanged by reading crap? If you are what you eat, then you are even more certainly what you read. You cannot live on cotton candy and treacle, nor can you live on self indulgent literature. Both will make you fat and lazy." ~Jane Hillbery

Resources:

How to Debate by Robert E. Dunbar

Logical Self-Defense by Anthony J. Blair and Ralph H. Johnson

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead DVD with Gary Oldman, Tim Roth, Richard Dreyfuss

Moulin Rouge DVD by Baz Luhrman

Twlight, New Moon, etc by Stephanie Meyer (excellent debate on Team Edward vs. Team Jacob

Harry Potter series by JK Rowlings (excellent debate on what age should read them, etc)

Prep Course 4: Learning to Read Things You Disagree With

Most people use reading as entertainment or relaxation. It can quickly disintegrate into a situation where the brain isn't actually engaged in the learning process and cognitive reasoning is atrophying. By reading things that make you uncomfortable, challenge your morals and values, and cause you to stretch, you will be better equipped to handle adversity and a workplace with many conflicting viewpoints. You learn to de-escalate tense situations because you don't feel threatened. Note: None of the books below will seem challenging unless you read them critically, not just for entertainment.

Favorite Quote: "If you only read what you agree with, why bother reading at all? All you are doing is reinforcing your own self-importance, your own blindspots." ~David Mason

Resources:

His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass)

Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Nineties by Paul Johnson

The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

The Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams

Shardik by Richard Adams

The Lexus and Olive Branch by Thomas L. Friedman

Bra Fit and the Internet Revolution

2010-08-30T11:50:00.000-06:00

The internet and the upswing of social media have revolutionized many industries. Most importantly for the women of America, it has changed our entire silhouette. Before you can truly be amazed about bras and the internet, let’s review a brief history of the undergarment industry in America.

Mainstream department stores starting stocking Lingerie and underclothes in their stores pre-1942, but did not dedicate much floor space to them. Frankly, it was too expensive. Can you imagine tying up revenue in flimsy garments of various sizes? American retailers figured out pretty quickly that their sales remained the same regardless of the number of sizes they offered to the public! That’s right, women were stuck and they would buy whatever was on the shelf.

Fast forward to 1977, when Victoria Secret marched onto the scene and further revolutionized the retail bra market. They made bras in fashionable colors and further shrunk the spectrum of bra sizes and cup designs. All of this scarcity and such is the product of a very real problem. Retailers have to sink thousands and millions of dollars in inventory to keep a store in business. It’s expensive and unsold inventory is money down the drain. By limiting what they stock, retailers can keep their stores profitable and open. Sad news for those of us who wear odd sizes, but it’s a fact of life. Or is it?

So what does this have to do with social media, marketing, and my blog? I’m setting the stage for a concept that has revolutionized most retail businesses.

Online retail businesses. That’s right. The concept of inventory as lost revenue has been revolutionized by the internet. It’s no longer more expensive to sell tons of sizes. As an online merchant, you can sell anything and if someone orders it, then you place an order with the manufacturer. Voila! Instant change in the way we do business.

Can you imagine the talk around the boardrooms of various retailers? It would be extremely difficult to decide to change an accepted business model for something so radical and new! In fact, I bet you can name retailers that do business the old way and ones that have embraced the new way.

I had an experience recently where I got to pit two giants against each other: Zappos and Dillards. I’m looking for a purple dress for my cousin’s wedding. I need something that will work in mid-October in Colorado Springs, which means that it could be in the 70s or snowing. I visited lots of websites. I landed on two dresses that I liked in similar styles—one at Dillards and one at Zappos. Dillards said the dress was available online only and well, Zappos is already online only, so I ordered both.

Let’s outline the differences in experiences:

Dilliards:

30 day return policy

$6.95 return shipping or drive to the store

Grilled for 27 minutes by C.S. rep on return

Zappos:
365 day return policy
FREE return shipping
Friendly C.S. rep finds me a great dress on jcp.com

Honestly, I returned both dresses. I can say; however, that I will probably never order from Dillards online again! Their customer service site and personnel were so rude! They acted like I was a felon for wanting to return something. Zappos was cheerful and apologetic and offered me tons of advice on dress sizing. In fact, their rep found the dress that I will wear at JCPenney for me!

So, my question to you: Where are you on the spectrum between Dilliads (old thinking) and Zappos (new thinking)? What attitudes and services are changing due to the internet that you provide to your clients? Are you keeping up?

Who Moved My Cheese and other Such Challenges

2010-08-09T21:09:00.000-06:00

Have you read the book, Who Moved My Cheese? It's a fabulous explanation of personalities. Okay, so I am a certifiable Type A, total control freak. The weekend is coming, I plan. Convention is T-minus 9 days away and I am planning. Friends call to have me plan things for them. How they should break up with their boyfriends, their best friend's baby shower, their third cousin's wedding. That's right, I am the Planner.

This translates to me also being the perpetually frustrated one in the group. I am always achingly aware of when things are out of place. In fact, when we tested my PIAV (Personality, Interests, Attitude, and Values), I am off the chart aesthetic. That means that when a deadline is looming and the clock is ticking, I am the crazy lady cleaning her desk with a toothbrush because things have to be order for me to think. On the minus side of life, there are, well, lots of minuses. On the positive side of life, I am more like our everyday clients than I had ever realized before.

Customers hate change in certain areas. That's not to say that they dislike innovation, everyone loves when things get better. I'm talking about upheaval. Big Changes. For example, I know of a company that decided after 6 years in business that they need to change their name. You heard me, COMPANY NAME! Do you know that 5 years later, this company still can't train it's clients to call it by the other name! Experts say that it will take this company 12 years of constant, heart aching work to overcome this NAME CHANGE issue. Why? Because people dislike upheaval. So, just in case you were thinking of changing some of your BIG unheave-ally things, here's a short list of things to keep the same insofar as you can possibly help it:

1. Company name
2. Domain name of your website
3. Your main contact number

Believe it or not, these items make up a major portion of who you are to the outside world! Are you surprised at how small the list is? I am.

What this means for us as service-oriented companies
Having such a short list of "must stay the sames" means that we have the unique opportunity each and every day to innovate, create, and introduce the global market to our own personal brand of normal. That's right, our normal is someone else's "WOW" moment. For example, I fielded a call from a gentleman today who saw one of our structural repair trucks at a stop light. He called because he was curious about our services. He hosts a home improvement radio show and was shocked to discover that there was something called "Foundation Repair" as a service. His world was so out of kilter that pretty much the only thing he could ask me was, "how could I have missed an entire industry when this is my job?!" and I couldn't really give him an answer.

What I could give him was something that I take for granted: my knowledge of my chosen industry. I passionately explained about the soil conditions of Colorado and how they crush homes like tin cans and moved on to our commitment to permanently stabilizing foundations across the Front Range through the most reliable engineered methods available. Frankly, this guy's cheese was so far left of his center that I doubt he really absorbed most of what I had to say. What he did absorb was my interest in him as a person and our company's commitment to educating our community about all the available options. He was so impressed that someone answering the phone could answer a question intelligently that I think he would have taken a sledge hammer to his foundation if he thought it would give him an excuse to have us out to meet with him. The part of this story that makes my point is that no one else in the office was interested in the least in what I was doing because explaining and educating passionately is our normal.

So, while that list that I talked about above is short when it comes to what a client needs to feel comfortable, remember that you and your company has a list of things that you need to guard jealously and protect from change because they are what makes you stand out from the rest of your industry. Think of what pieces of your culture need to be jealously guarded in order to make you continue to stand out from the rest.

Stolen Content, Weight loss, and a China Teacup

2010-07-27T13:05:00.000-06:00

I love the title of this post. Mostly because I made it up myself, but also because it feels very Douglas Adams-ish to me. If you're not familiar with Douglas Adams, I will forgive you for your total disregard for wonderful literature like "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", but I may question you about your total disregard for the medium you are currently experiencing. Namely, I mean blogs. Yes, the visionary who brought us the idea that a human can travel the universe in bedroom slippers, and a bathrobe, while carrying a towel also dreamed about writers posting content online in a way that actually enhanced the lives of others.

On top of that Douglas Adams advocated technology and all new stuff with a feverish passion that made me (almost) buy a Mac. I'm no diehard PC girl, but I can't swallow the price tag on those gorgeous, glossy Macs (you were wrong there, Douglas, they haven't come down in price like you envisioned). I have; however, whole heartedly abandoned myself to iPods, iTouchs, and my biggest want ever--an iPad. I have come to look with the same reverence and ire upon the masterpiece that is Apple.

Why is that? Well, mainly because I have loved Douglas Adams' books, articles, and zany writing since I first picked up a Monty Python habit in middle school. From that time on, I have been a fan of Douglas Adams and the way that he sees the common sense end of life and technology. I will never forget the first time I heard his speech on the "Four Ages of Sand" and what it means for us in the future. The truly amazing part is that the wants and desires he expressed in 1994, HAVE COME TRUE! That's right, after his death on September 26th, 2001; Douglas' ideas came off his Mac and came to life through the hands of others.

Idea #1: Stealing Ideas or Content will become trackable

Douglas Adams was a writer. Not just any writer, but one who used computers, laptops, and PDAs to produce a startling amount of hilariously "well, duh" commentary on technology. He had well thought out ideas on how eZines could revolutionize the world and stop forcing useless information down the mouths of people who didn't give a crap. His take on how search engines would empower people to find relevant information seems so 2009 to us now, but honestly, he was advocating this in 1997 and it was astounding. In fact, his idea that you would be able to pull up all the articles on a topic and compare them, thus determining what was original content and what was stolen, is already used by well, everyone! I firmly believe that Adams was right when he said that communities would protect the rights of those individuals who produce the original content and chastise those who steal. I draw the line at some of his punishments, which include rotten bananas and other comical items.

"So what in the blazes does this have to do with us, you silly ninny?!” you might be saying if you were written by Douglas. Well, it has everything to do with how we work in the social media communities that we occupy. Are we helping to create new ideas, new thoughts, and new approaches to things? Are we being contributing members of this living, flexible world that is Facebook, for example? Or have we jumped on the bandwagon and are riding rough over the delicate ecosystem? I think that in order to be successful, you can't be prolific, or really, really noisy in a social media community. You must seek first to understand the community, and then find your niche by contributing to the pieces that are already present. This means that you comment on others articles, statements, and pictures more than you spend time uploading your own. You offer insightful comments rather than just "liking" everything, which has completely lost its appeal because no one likes their "likes", it's just boiled down to some sloppy "thumbs up for you, but not enough that it's actually worth my time of respond" type of button. I believe that you have to earn the right to be heard, or the community will quietly hold a conference and universally click a "Hide" button on your ass.

Idea #2: The Things People Care about will be everywhere

According to Douglas, the demand for certain content will lead to more of that type of content on the internet. I wholeheartedly believe that is true. Why? Because I have seen tons of ads for two things that Americans want more than anything else--Weight loss Remedies that don't require work, and Large Incomes that don't require work. Upon reflection, I think I've stumbled on a truly revolutionary idea: We don't like to work at things. So, the question remains: what are we doing as social marketers that make our clients, or potential clients, work too hard? Lately, it's been online contact forms. How many of us truly want to read an article on something we care about, click on the link, find the contact page, enter too damn much information, and wait for someone to call us back when it's convenient for them? I hate it. I won't do it. I put in fake phone numbers just to make the person have to email me! It's too much work for too little return on my time! After all, when should I have to plan my day around waiting for a person to call me back, only to have them call the instant I head to the bathroom for 5 seconds?! Let's think about simpler solutions. My hair stylist had a brilliant idea--she has booking software on her website. It could be 3 o'clock in the morning, and I can go on her website and book my appointment. I don't have to talk to her staff and her staff doesn't have a million voicemails waiting in the morning. On top of that, I happen to get my hair cut every 7 weeks, instead of postponing the phone call nonsense until 9 or 10 weeks.

So, I invite you to look through these prevalent ads and find out what the appeal is to people. Then figure out how you can capture that feeling in something you do. Here's a real estate example, what photostream on Flickr is most relevant to people:

"1234 Applewood Blvd"
"Ranch Style Homes"
"Springs Ranch Subdivision"
"Homes under $250,000"

In fact, another of my favorite Adams statements goes like this: "Why don't other people do it this way? Well, because they are dumb".

Idea #3: A China Teacup

I don't know about you and your wedding china, but I didn't pick out my pattern. I received my china pattern and china collection from my Great Grandmother Icle. It's beautiful with silver edging and pale gray-pink roses with light silver-green stems on a misty white background. In short, I would have picked it had it been available to pick at a store. Alas, like most beautiful and tasteful things, it stopped being produced in the 1970s. This means that my china is now even more precious because I can't actually replace it. I love it so much, though, that I refuse to box it and forget it. Unfortunately, accidents happen and I am currently short 9 dessert bowls, 4 dinner plates, 6 salad bowls, 2 saucers, a sugar bowl and a teapot. In fact, I'm not even sure there was a teapot to begin with, but there are 12 lovely teacups and saucers, as well as a cream pitcher, so I feel a teapot and sugar bowl existed at some point.

So, prior to 2009, what was a girl to do? Nothing, you could scour pawn shops and Goodwills hoping some other person got rid of their partial set, but that was the end of it. Enter 2009 and the advent of customer driven acquisition sales sites. (Those are sites where the customer asks for a hard to find item, the site finds someone who has that item, and then pairs the two people up for a cut of the profit).

Adams had a great story that sums this up, but I can't remember all of it so I'll muck it up a bit and try to get you the important parts. So Adams was looking for the 1960s version of Romeo and Juliet on DVD. He went to Amazon. He discovered that in fact, it did not exist. He could purchase it on VHS, but he didn't want it that way. Transaction was null. Amazon had amazing software at that point that was tracking every bit of data on the site from transactions. Unfortunately, Amazon couldn't track what didn't occur. In other words, they weren't tracking why people were on the site, but did not purchase something. Douglas ended up writing to Amazon and telling them that they should develop software that allowed people to submit requests for items that weren't available. Well, now, it's standard practice at Amazon, isn't it? It's standard practice at Zappos, too. Is it standard practice for you?

That's right, are you asking your potential clients for information as to why they aren't becoming clients? You can be nice about it and you might be surprised by what you discover. After all, making sales and even making friends is about more than yelling the loudest, or simply being there, it's about serving the next unrecognized need.

Culture of Creativity vs Culture of Fear

2010-07-13T15:51:00.000-06:00

Social media has a way of holding up a mirror to your company. Sometimes, it is that "my-god-did-I-have-that-on-my-face-all-day?!" reactions. Other times, it can be less amusing. For example, social media now enables all your internal customers, or employees, to market for or against you. Basically, everyone is sharing everything! So, when your company is behaving like a looney bin with bedbugs, you better believe that the world is going to know about it. On the flipside, you now have a pretty uncensored portal into your employees' minds through status updates, or twitterfeeds. So, is your reaction to limit, control, badger, and abuse? Or, is your response to embrace, encourage, and enlighten?

Here's a great article from Liz Ryan, Blomberg Business, about the worst type of culture--one of fear and control: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38206989/ns/business-bloomberg_businessweek/

One portion of this article that really spoke to me was #5: Rules number in the thousands. The reason that this spoke to me is because I've been there. I've worked in heavily controlled corporate environments with strictly enforced rules on everything! In fact, I worked for a place that required me to have my nails done. They tracked what I wore on a week to week basis, made criticisms of my hair, noticed everything! Could you imagine how it felt to work there? I was constantly worried about what trouble I would get into next!

After that, I got out of corporate. I mean way out! A number of years later, I joined a company that actively resisted making rules to make rules. Naturally, that company is the one I still work at. Most recently, we had a transplant employee--you know the one, one of those "just out of corporate" types. This hire and I have spent several hours of training time discussing and re-evaluating Rule Based Culture. It's been quite a trip to rediscover my passion for a culture of creativity. Here are some good indications that you're working in a company who values creativity:

1. You have the ability to schedule meetings--no matter what level you are.

2. You have a venue to submit ideas through, whether it's email, blogs, a idea box, whatever and those topics are actually discussed.

3. You are allowed to fail. This one is counterintuitive, but if your boss gives you room to try something, rather than controlling you constantly, you might actually fail at some point. After all, not all ideas are good ones.

4. Rules created for one person and enforced for everyone. We've all been there, someone won't wear an appropriate length skirt, so all the sudden, everyone has length rules enforced.

5. You are recognized both when you fail and when you succeed and the credit remains yours for both.

Step 10: Examining Your Personal Biases

2010-07-02T15:11:00.000-06:00

This week, I want to look at something that can be difficult to grab on to, but can really help your business in the end. I'm going to start with a story...

My husband and I have been married for 8 wonderful years now. After about four years trying to having children, we've been told that we're not able to carry children to term. In fact, we have just gone through our fourth miscarriage. Now before you start thinking of ways around this, or start thinking of solutions to this "problem". I want you to do two things: STOP and Read ON:

I'm using this example to illustrate the human propensity to try to "fix" an awkward situation. As a human who cares (that's you) about people (that's me and my husband), you naturally want to ease suffering and bring joy. So, the natural reaction is to offer solutions, or to minimize the situation. Humans also have a natural desire to avoid something that feels bad--it's a good desire, it keeps us from burning ourselves on stoves, or stabbing ourselves through reckless scissor use. This natural desire often manifests itself in the bizarre practice of jumping to conclusions. In this story, the most frequent response we get is: 1. "Oh, don't feel bad. Kids are a pain" (minimizing), 2. "You're going to adopt then?" (jumping to conclusions), or 3. "Have you thought about surrogacy?" (solutions).

Okay, after getting this sort of response several times, I started examining my own natural reactions to things. I started thinking about what preconceived notions I bring to my business and pass on to the marketplace. So here's a list of questions to think about as you are interacting with customers, creating marketing pieces, and making your personal goals:

1. Do I make an assumption about someone's relationship status, sexual preference, financial status, etc based on gender, appearance or age? (ie: they must be married, widowed, etc)

2. When my presupposition is challenged, do I assign a motive to the person's circumstances? (ie: She is divorced, so she must have been cheated on...)

3. Do I exclude potential clients by creating language, marketing pieces, or situations that feed on assumptions? (ie: My Open House sign in sheet says "Last Name, Husband's Name, and Wife's Name".)

I found the answers to these questions weren't always pleasant. I discovered that I have been trained not to refer to a woman as "Mrs.-----", but rather as "Ms.----". This can be very offensive to some of the homeowners with whom we interact.

Here are a few other assumptions that can derail your report with your client:

1. Married couples sharing a last name--in Colorado, about 35% of married couples do not share a last name.

2. Which parent provides the primary care for children--there are larger and larger numbers of stay at home, or work from home dads caring for kids.

3. Assuming someone is married to their partner, or is going to marry their partner in the manner you feel is traditional--it's awkward at best when someone has to correct you about if they are married, but imagine how that destroys the camaraderie that you've developed when they explain they have no intention of marrying this other person.

4. Political Affiliation--well, that one is pretty easy to see without an extra explanation

5. Age-based deficiencies, like hearing problems, forgetfulness, etc.

6. Step-parenthood vs. birth-parenthood

7. Financial acumen or prosperity, or lack there of

More on Evangelical Fans

2010-06-24T14:09:00.000-06:00

Today, we're learning more about evangelical fans!

As we learned before and evangelical fan is someone who converts other people, convinces them to love you and your brand. These fans are the ones that shout your name from the roof tops. There are two types of evangelical fans--internal and external.

Internal Evangelical Fans

Are you marketing to your internal customers? If you're a business of one, I'm talking about you. If you have employees, I'm talking about you and your employees. Have you created an environment that breeds loyalty, that emphasizes morals and ideals larger than yourself? Are you growing? Are you challenging yourself and others to become more than they are?

Let me tell you about the company I work for. Peak Basement Systems has two core values:
1. do unto others as you would want them to do unto you and
2. Always error on the side of generosity.

These are values that form the basis for everything from how we take a phone call to how we handle a complaint. I can tell you story after story of how we've lived these values, but I won't. I could tell you that we have decided that the only limiting factor of an employee's future with us is themselves. The only story that I really want to tell you is about is that while it is not all laughter and giggles at our office, I would never hesitate to recommend my company to any of my family members, my friends, or a stranger. I know that Peak Basement Systems is the last bastion of defense between a homeowner and that homeowner getting screwed by a bad company. I feel like every appointment I set, every lead I bring in is a victory against bad practices and terrible companies. I'm passionate about follow up and getting our clients served well. Peak has made me an evangelical fan because I have recruited family members to work there, I have hired friends, I have recommended their services to my grandmother.

How did my company make me an evangelical fan?
They:

learned about me and motivate accordingly
valued the work I did and offered genuine appreciation
instilled larger values and held me to them
emphasized quality of output over quantity of input

In fact, Peak has internal customer service goals each quarter that we as a company strive to meet. We have two meetings per department a week and one as a company each month to discuss and train on these goals. In Quarter 1, we wanted our departments, employees, and managers to learn about DISC testing and use that to better serve each other's needs. We grade each other on our ability to handle conflict, our professional skills, our personal responsibility, and our overall attitude every two weeks. Our company average grade is a 96% out of 100%.

In Quarter 2, we wanted to take those skills and learn how to apply them to our external customers. We decided that we wanted to raise our customer satisfaction score from a 90% to a 95%. We named the quarter goal, "Hitting the Target". With the increased training and dedication of everyone on the team, we're currently at a 97%! To celebrate this awesome victory, we decided that we'd take a day and head out for a company-wide paintball tournament tomorrow! Talk about a great bonding experience and reward! I'm thrilled to work for a company that celebrates success with fun!

So, the next time that you're planning out your marketing goals and budget, remember to lay aside some time, energy, and money to market to your internal customers--you and your employees.

Step 9: Make Flickr Work For Your Business

2010-06-17T15:34:00.000-06:00

I know that I said I would cover more on Evangelical Fans, but that can wait! I have new fun toys to teach you about on Flickr! For those of you who aren't using Flickr to capture and promote your listings, projects, or great events, YOU ARE MISSING OUT!

If you've got a Flickr account, you're going to want to open this blog in one window and your Flickr account in another. I'll capture some screen shots for you too. You're going to want to install Mozilla Firefox as a web browser for these features to work properly. (To download Firefox, click here).

Flickr has just released their Mapping feature that will geotag your photos, photo sets, and other collections on a map. This is useful because properly geotagged items will increase your organic ranking for your geographic area. Basically, you have to tell Google where your listings, your office, and your business are in the world. If you don't have things properly geotagged, then you won't show up well when someone searches (for example) "Realtor Colorado Springs".

Just a small disclaimer before we begin--you must properly tag and describe your photos for full optimization of your photos. If you are not doing this, then geotagging isn't really going to do much for you.

First, you log in to your account and it should look something like this:

Next, click on the Organize and Create tab, then select "Your Map":

Here's a brief tutorial on using the "Your Map" feature to geotag your photos:http://www.flickr.com/help/screencasts/vol1/

You can then click and drag 1, 2, or bunches of photos onto the map. Not only will this populate "Your Map", but it will fill the Flickr main map, and it will add geotag coding to your photos.

Step 8: Evangelical Fans

2010-06-10T15:33:00.000-06:00

Step 8--Creating a Community of Evangelical Fans

The next step in social media expertise is to start creating a community of both internal and external evangelical fans. What is an evangelical fan? Well, let's start with an overview of people that you do business with:

Dissatisfied Customers:

Thankfully, most people aren't like these clients. These clients are the ones that absolutely everything that occured was below their expectations. They may or may not actively seek to bring your attention to their dissatisfaction, but they will generally tell their friends to avoid you. They are an unpleasant reality that you have to make an effort to find and learn from. I suggest sending out an online survey to get feedback after your listing appointments, closings, etc. A good resource for this is www.surveymonkey.com

Satisfied/Neutral Customers:

Why do I group these types together? Because these people aren't necessarily active. They don't refer, they don't complain, they also don't answer surveys. They are basically uninvolved in social media. Some of these people aren't even clients, they can be coworkers, team members, family members, or employees. These customers need to swayed to provide you with feedback. I suggest doing the survey over the phone with these clients.

Fans:

These customers are great referral sources! They take your cards to their friends, family, coworkers. When asked, they will tell people how good you are, but they don't volunteer. This is a group that requires rewards and incentives to risk referring you. I suggest purchasing small denomination gift cards, groupons, and other pieces and regularly thanking people for their referrals. Several frequent, small reminders that you appreciate them will do more good than a big thing every year.

Raving Fans:

These are your loyal Facebook contributers. When you give them somewhere to sing your praises, they will do it! Identify who your raving fans are and give them several places to post rave reviews about you!

Evangelical Fans:

Evangelical fans are the ones who really go out of their way to drive referrals to you. They will demand their friends and family use you or else! They will find a way to refer you, they will send you letters, emails, and cards telling how much they love you. These fans are the ones that truly drive your business.

So, how do you create more evangelical fans? If there were one simple, magic bullet, then we'd all be rich. There's not, by the way. There are ways to increase the odds of having evangelical fans, though. One way is to constantly refine your customer service plan to provide things that not only exceed your customer's expectations, but also meet unrecognized desires. When we go above and beyond what people were expecting, then they become effusive and convert others.

Next week, more on evangelical fans...

Foundation Technology is now available in print edition

2010-06-08T15:01:00.000-06:00

Peak Basement Systems believes that understanding the underlying causes of foundation settlement is an important step for every homeowner. Our creative director, Cassi Sherman Henes, has compiled a book called Foundation Technology, A Guide to What Goes on Under Your Feet, which has sections dedicated to soil conditions present along the Front Range, as well as helpful checklists, solution sections, and soil mapping. This information can help you to match soil characteristics in your property with common foundation concerns. In fact, Peak is thrilled to announce that the Foundation Technology eBook will be available in printed format June 14th, 2010! We'll be rolling out the book at Keller Williams Partners at 1307 Aeroplaza Dr in Colorado Springs during our 2 credit COntinuing Education Class with the Realtors in the office.

Constant Innovation: Step 7

2010-05-20T13:30:00.000-06:00

Social Media is commonly referred to as the Wild West of Marketing. It’s a constantly changing, rapidly evolving field, where the rules change overnight. It makes many people nervous because they don’t want to “waste their time” on things that might not create tangible results for them. I’ll admit it, I’ve been there sometimes. Is this just another time suck? Will this really help us at all? How do I balance social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, while keeping my blogs, ezines, and eHow articles coming?

Well, the beauty of this field is that everyone is just as stretched thin as I am. Thankfully, I can benefit from their innovations.

So here are some of my personal favorite innovations—THEY ARE ALL FREE:

Demographics Tool: Ever wonder where your demographics come from? Where they go to? Here’s a tool to find out. After all, Jay Baer, a social media expert, says that business should follow their customers into social media outposts, not the other way around. So find out where your clients are most likely going: http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell/profile_tool.html

Hootsuite.com: I don’t know about you, but I can’t always keep up with all my social networking sites. I am essentially running social media profiles for three divisions of the Peak Companies—Peak Basement Systems, Peak Structural, and Peak Environmental. Naturally, each of these divisions has a Facebook Fan Page, a Twitter Feed, a Linkedin Group, various blogs, and flickr feeds. It’s exhausting. Well, Hootsuite is a website that will allow you to link all these profiles to feed one another, autoshare, and give you the stats that you need. Hootsuite is constantly evolving, so they offer the newest tools available—and it’s free: http://www.hootsuite.com/

Contxts.com: This site has been an amazing tool for our representatives! Basically, this Denver-based business allows you to create a SMS txt message friendly business card. When someone txts your code to a shortened number, your client receives a txt message back with all your contact info. They can save this to their phone in a snap! No more lost contact info! This is a beautiful tool to pull out during a listing presentation. You can describe your dedication to your clients and then walk your client through the process and they have YOUR info on their phone. OH! Giant bonus—you can join for free right now because it’s brand new! www.contxts.com

SurveyMonkey: SurveyMonkey is a site where you can create and distribute surveys to clients. I’ve used it in the past with my Realtor clients to gather showing feedback and listing presentation feedback. I love this survey site because the FREE account gives you a good amount of functionality and the site itself is easy to use. We currently use Surveymonkey to gather feedback on our CE classes, on my coaching efforts, and for our monthly employee satisfaction surveys. http://www.surveymonkey.com/

Flickr: Okay, not a new one, but it’s really popular and has helped us to upload, update, and stream before and after photos to various parts of our websites. This cuts out the down time between web developers and people like me—they don’t have to load the photos and I don’t have to mess with transferring large numbers of photos to them. This one does have a paid option available, but it’s not necessary. http://www.flickr.com/

Staying Safe on Facebook

2010-05-06T14:53:00.000-06:00

Today, I would normally take on the next Step, which is “constant innovation”, but I wanted to take some time and really focus on keeping people safe from hackers on Facebook. I’ve had three Friends hacked in the last two days and it’s really starting to freak me out! Why are so many people getting hacked? How do I keep from getting hacked? What’s a girl to do in this “no-privacy” world?

Here are some fast facts as to why hacks are on the rise in Facebook:

• Facebook offers a big target: it’s the #1 social network in the world—they have ½ billion users that login daily. The only site that ranks as more popular is Google.

• Their users are entry level: Most users are on and active at least an hour a day. They play games, never change their password, and sign up for all sorts of crazy things like apps and causes.

• They represent tremendous buying power: 68% of buyers said a positive referral from Facebook made their purchasing decision. Many Facebook users store important personal information on their profile.

In the past, people have tried to combat these hackers in some creative ways. For example, many people created an alias or a fake account. Unfortunately, these practices are against Facebook regulations. This means you can have your account deleted, deactivated, and blocked. Yick! It’s messy and can have long term repercussions.

Here are some better ways to keep yourself safe without breaking the Facebook Terms of Use:

• Hide your year of birth

• Don’t reveal your home address

• Change your password regularly and don’t share. In fact, use a Random password generator: http://www.pctools.com/guides/password/

• Don’t join causes or accept applications—most of these are created by Phishers, Scammers, and Hackers to get to your info and your friends.

• If a person only plays games, unfriend them—their use opens their Friends to hackers

• Use the Friend List feature to limit what different groups of people can access on your account—Don’t be afraid to block or unfriend.

For more safety tips, here’s a great article: http://bit.ly/10fbsafety

BECOMING A SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERT Step 7

2010-04-29T14:12:00.000-06:00

STEP 7: EXPANDING YOUR NETWORK

Most people think of the internet like a vending machine. You put something in and you get something good out of it. This type of thinking comes from our experience with search engines. We put in some phrase related to what we want, and we expect to get results on the page below.

The entire nature of the internet has changed radically over the last 2 years. It’s no longer an input/output system. Now, the internet looks much more like a giant, complex spider web.

Your website is the center of a very sprawling web of connections made through blogs, social networking sites, review sites, and picture uploading sites. Having a widely disbursed network helps yield more organic search results on you and your website.

You, as a business owner or marketer, are responsible for making that network expand. The more connections you have will help you to pop up more often on searches. There is a catch: your network must be both reputable and thriving. This requires oversight and management on your part. Here’s some practical help:

Becoming a Success Means:

“Friending”, “Liking”, or “Linking” on social networking sites to other industry professionals, or service providers, and to clients.
Unfriending, or disconnecting from inactive individuals, or individuals who engage in poor practices.
Seeking out and networking with people who do social media well.
Keeping up on changes and innovations (the previous bullet point will help you with this).
Creating groups of individuals that do things together, rather than “team” or “organization” hubs. Think of it like having several tiny arrows pointing to your site, rather than one big arrow pointing there.
Remember: facebook pages, flickr accounts, etc are for individuals, while “Fan Pages” and “Networks” are for groups or businesses. Create groups to promote your business, then have your employees join the group.

Superpowers and a Toothpaste Cap

2010-04-27T16:29:00.000-06:00

I am a systematic person (the words anal retentive have been bandied about, but I won’t say by whom—you know who you are). As I said, I have a system, or a routine for everything. There’s a way that I get up in morning. It’s not really because I’m anal retentive, exactly, it’s because I’m a terrible morning person and am likely to cause bodily harm to myself and death to others if left to wander on my own in the wee hours of the weekday.

This Tuesday morning began like any other. The alarm sounded promptly at 5:03am and I reflexively sprung from the bed. But that’s where the good part ends. I hadn’t properly set things the night before. I came down from my alarm induced shock straight onto a sprung bobby pin.

You know the ones I’m talking about. It’s a bobby pin without its safety plastic bubble on each end and was probably mangled by the Dyson at least twice before wedging itself strategically into the gap between the floor and the baseboard at an angle that perfectly introduces itself into the arch of one’s foot. The pain shoots from my foot directly into my brain (!) and I crash onto the bed. Thankfully, my husband and dog are heavy sleepers and my whimpered mutterings go unheeded.

Upon surgically removing the instrument of death from my foot, I lurch through the bedroom into the bathroom.

With bleary eyes half closed, I fall ungracefully over the edge of the tub to start the shower. I vaguely recall gathering my toothbrush and toothpaste to gain extra time for the water to heat up. While attempting to remove the toothpaste cap, I feel a gooeyness on my hands.

Hmm, no toothpaste cap is evident. I pry one eye open to verify this fact. Yes, I have just squeezed whitening toothpaste onto my hand in a vain attempt to remove a nonexistent cap. The question now becomes: where is the toothpaste cap? Did I already remove it before while in a sprung bobby pin pain induced coma, or has the cap been off all night? If the cap is not on the tube, where is it? Do I need it? Should I just take a shower and forget about the stupid cap and go on to blame the husband for it? I scratch my head in perplextion. I realize that I have now spread whitening toothpaste into my hair.

I opt to shower. Perhaps, it will cause a sudden toothpaste cap revelation. Maybe I’ll find it in the shower. Maybe my husband will wake up in the meantime and locate it for me. Yes, that’s definitely the best option. So after managing to both get in and out of the shower without further blood loss, I look around and note that toothpaste is now leaking out of the tube.

Crap, I really need that cap! (Yes, I rhyme quite unconsciously). My sleep fogged brain decides that the cap must be located prior to further preparations for work.

Fast forward several minutes: I’m dripping wet in a towel climbing around on my hands and knees while rummaging around in obscure corners of my bathroom for an odious, vengeful little toothpaste cap. I keep repeating, “please don’t let anyone see this, please don’t let anyone see this”. I shove my hand into the gap between the heater vent and the floor only to discover yet another mean little sprung bobby pin, an old needle, and something hard that breaks two of my nails. No toothpaste cap. Cursing now and staring balefully at the toothpaste tube, I continue through the bathroom. Alas, no stupid, mean little toothpaste cap appears to be present. I blame the dog. I rail upon the husbie. I contemplate that terrorists might have stolen it to use for some nefarious scheme.

I slam my poor, bruised hand down on the counter and I hear a spinning rattling sound. The toothpaste cap! My loss of temper seems to have caused the cap to materialize out of thin air. I decide that I have discovered another super power.

I shall call myself Angry Woman. My superpower is the ability to make dumb, inanimate objects appear simply by losing my temper and wounding myself. I believe this will coincide nicely with my other super powers: the ability to bleach dyed cotton by touching them to my skin and the ability to find lost things when properly stimulated with caffeine.

I stop my super powered happy dance and reach for the toothpaste cap; thereby hitting it with my broken finger nail and sending it shooting around the bathroom in an oddly beautiful ricochet pattern reminiscent of the 3 cushion billiard game in Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land. At this point, I decide that the toothpaste be damned, I give up.

Really Monday? Really?!

2010-04-26T12:40:00.000-06:00

Today is so not my day. I really tried to turn it around but I discovered the main problem: morning came too early. My alarm went off at 5am, so I could get to work early to get done all the things that I didn’t really want to do, but thought I probably should since I’d like to continue to have a job.

(I was going to insert a silly zombie picture here, but I searched “tired” on google and came up with a bunch of pictures for auto mechanics! So inserting random “tired” pic now)

At this point, my zombie-like brain would like to know what exactly this person is doing? Frankly, it looks like a giant is using a staircase to flip cars. He or she may possibly be throwing donuts, too. I haven’t quite gotten that part figured out yet.

So, I’m tired and this morning I actually got up twice and reset the alarm, which is never a good sign to start a Monday. My husband informs me I wailed something like “Dear God, please not yet” while stumbling over to the clock and resetting it. It turns out that I’m actually quite talented. I can reset an alarm with my eyes closed.

(me this morning. They are either tears of sorrow at the alarm, or I’m drooling. I can’t tell).

I was also tired enough this morning that I sorta forgot that I dyed my hair last night. I was shocked when I looked up from washing my face to discover :

It was shocking! I thought maybe I was dreaming, then I figured out it really was me and I should stop screaming ‘cause I might wake up the husband.

Anyway, morning came too soon. That is the major problem, retention the second. I mind is doing something like this:

It was horrible, I kept asking the same three questions, “So, did you call this lead? What did they say? Are they scheduled yet?”. It got so bad they did this:

I’m starting to feel like maybe I’m getting on people’s nerves. Hmm, perhaps I need more coffee.

Ahhhhhh, now that's more like it!

Step 6: Pictures and Words

2010-04-22T10:36:00.000-06:00

Regardless of the industry out of which you operate, you’ve probably started using digital photos in some capacity or another. In the Foundation Repair industry, we take photos of problems areas in a home, each step of the project, and final results. Realtors take tons of listing photos for the MLS. Mold remediators are using photos to document existing mold problems. Waterproofers use photos as records of tests performed on their installed systems and sump pumps.

So what do you do with the photos you take? Most of us delete them or store them on servers, but your photos can become an excellent source of social media content. Here’s a site to learn about, master, and promote: FLICKR. That’s right. Flickr started as a photosharing site for people to people connections, but now, it’s so much more. You can actually create photostreams that can be embedded on your website, or shared through Facebook and other sources. BUT there’s a secret to Flickr success. Flickr success is found in these areas (which I put in order of their importance: 1. Tags, 2. Descriptions 3. Set Titles.

If you complete these areas well, you will notice an increase in your web traffic over time.

Becoming a Success Means:

Tagging every photo with descriptive key words like regions, areas, zip codes, websites, company name, etc. NO tags and POOR tags are pretty much the same. If you don’t tag, don’t bother using Flickr.

Completing an accurate and interesting description that actually describes what’s in the photo. Using the same description for every photo is really just poor marketing.

Flickr lets you make photo sets. Let’s use real estate as an example. Photo sets that are useful would be: Houses in Central Colorado Springs, Houses under $300,000, or Ranch Style Homes. These sets work because they mirror the searches that buyers are doing on the web. Bad Sets would be: 132 Table Rock Rd, 4555 Lost St, 6789 Whatever. These sets won’t attract buyers because a buyer probably isn’t looking for a specific address until far later in the process. To expand this out to your industry: use photo sets in categories rather than specific projects unless the projects are large scale enough to warrant it.

Embedding your Flickr on your website, linking to your Flickr, etc. If you want Flickr to be useful, you have to let people know it’s there.

Update your Flickr account regularly with new photos. Try putting between 3 and 5 photos on your acct a week. It’s constant updating, not large scale photo dumping that will yield the best results.

My Day in Series of Graphs

2010-04-20T13:46:00.000-06:00

Today is that day--the day that I go through the data from the last week, month, quarter, and year to date. I come up with fun theories as to why the numbers are doing what they do, assess strategies, and basically go blind staring at Excel spreadsheets for hours.

Why do I risk this blindness? Well, I have yet to make the all important leap to the software that will make my day, week, month, quarter, and year to date--BizWiz. Basically, the waterproofing and foundation repair world has the coolest software ever available to us and the Peak Basement Systems team is holding our collective breath waiting for the switch to get flipped. Building software takes time, though, so in the interm, I am going blind with Excel.

So here's how the whole thing started: I'm trying to prove that social media actually helps us get leads. This means lots of graphs like this:

Isn't that beautiful? Well, it's beautiful to me, except the dipping down parts, but hey, data is data.

Anyhow, I start working on the data for today. This is my overall outlook on life:

Notice how I don't even have a small inkling of doubt? That's because I was hopelessly naive when I started my work for the day. As the day drags on and the data because fishy and quite stinky, my utils begin to decline. (Seriously, the measurement of personal happiness is called a util--your happiness is your personal utility).

Now, I've become mired in doubt, fearful that I will never climb out of this hopeless pit of data and despair. I think I may have yelled at someone, or eaten my coffee cup because my lunch is still sitting here and I can't find my cup. Here's where my brain function is headed:

Okay, so about lunch time, I hit an all time high in thoughts that didn't revolve around my data.

I took a small break and checked my email. I found my coffee cup in the microwave. I ate lunch. I returned to my desk with a renewed sense of purpose:

Do you see how this time, I have an inkling of doubt? I think it's the little hamster in my head trying to tell me that something...

It's true, something is going horribly wrong. My brain hamster is right! The numbers aren't adding up! My entire day comes crashing down around me. At this point, my brain does something like this:

A Little Fun on Friday

2010-04-16T08:54:00.000-06:00

As a paid social marketer, I’m on places like Facebook constantly. I read tons of blogs, I go through Twitterfeeds, I comb Flickr for bits of information. Yes, two or three years ago, I would have been fired for fooling around on the internet at work. I also would have been labeled a tech geek or something.

Thankfully, I’m still a Geek, but it’s a cool kind of geekiness. The kind of geekiness that gets you emails from all sorts of people hoping to be as geeky as you are. So I’ve started a list of commands that I wish emails, texts, and other correspondence didn’t offer me.

I get txts with lines like, “Never Look Back”. Really, never? Should I stop using my review mirror when backing out of a parking space at Walmart? Is it because you’re stalking me and don’t want to get caught? Or are you trying to tell me that Buns of Steel isn’t working?

Or emails that say, “Make it a Great Day”. What if I don’t want to make it a great day? Are you going to beat me? If I’m not having a great day, should I now feel like a failure, too?

I’ve also received the popular spin off command, “Make EVERY Day a Great Day”. If I make every day great, are any of them really great anymore? No seriously, think about it for a second. You’re having an awesome week, all you touch turns out great. You go home at night and your spouse asks, “How was your day, honey?” You reply, “Great”. Imagine doing that for a month. Is it really great anymore, or is this great that you speak of now just “eh, normal”. Isn’t what makes a day truly great, the fact that other days aren’t great?

I got a Facebook message that ended with, “Make Today YOUR Day”. How does one go about doing that? Is the federal government selling days off now to stimulate the economy? If I do make this my day, will someone else try to do the same? Isn’t this just a way to start a really big thumb war for dominance or something?

Someone ended a voicemail message to me with the phrase, “Never live in Fear”. Excellent advice, I feel that living in a town, city, or province named Fear is probably just asking to be involved in some sort of reality show turned horror movie. Let’s not forget the book series, “Fear Street”. Now that’s somewhere I wouldn’t want to live.

“Today’s the Day”. Oh THAT day. The day that I’m finally going to finish those yodeling lessons? The day that I will finally successfully trap that pesky roadrunner? What day?!

“Aim High”. Maybe I’m just stupid, but isn’t aiming high just another way to tell someone to miss the target? If this is the type of advice you’re giving me, are you really my friend?

Okay, so on a more serious note, I do have a pet peeve with pithy, somewhat blasé statements that get sent out to everyone. The name of the game is being interested in other people. Pasting the same phrase at the end of every email is like walking outside, shooting a flaming arrow, and walking away. It’s a clear statement that you’re not really paying attention to consequences. Or pedestrians.

Becoming a Social Media Expert Step 5: Names

2010-04-15T09:00:00.000-06:00

Have you seen Avatar? If you have, you know one of the most powerful lines in the film: “I see you”. It’s used in a way that means so much more than just being able to look at a person. It means something deeper. It’s saying, “I recognize you. I see your spirit, mind, and body. I give you value. You have a place”. The reason this resonates with us is because human beings are innately wired to be social, to live in community. We desperately ache to be valuable in someone’s eyes, to have a place that is uniquely ours.

So, how do we communicate that someone is seen? One of the best ways is to use their name. I think most of us have heard this a thousand times and we file this sort of idea in the “well duh” category, then go on with our lives. Take a moment and really think about using a name as sending someone a message that says, “You have value. You are seen”. Suddenly, it makes correct pronunciation and spelling vital and it invests you with an amazing power.

In the social media world, this power of naming is elevated to cosmic. Everything is run by a name—Linkedin, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter. You can take someone’s name and hyperlink it from a mention in a blog to their face book page. You can use the “@” symbol in front of someone’s name to tag them in Twitter and Facebook. Suddenly, names are not only identifiers, they are windows into a whole world.

Becoming a Success Means:

Giving credit where credit’s due—if someone sends you a tip, or a review, you thank them by hyperlinking or using @their name.

Obtaining permission to use people’s names in any review, case study, or other media that you are placing on the internet or in print

Posting links to someone else’s content rather than copying and pasting that content on your social media. For example, “Just found a great article by John Smith on Buying Sump Pumps! Check it out at www.johnsmith.com/blog10”

NEXT WEEK: STEP 6: PICTURES AND WORDS

Writing an Educational Article for an E-zine

2010-04-14T14:51:00.000-06:00

12:06pm to 2:49pm Researched and outlined an
educational blog for popular e-zine. I feel
extreme elation about imparting
knowledge to consumers. I’m so ready
for this! Finally a blog on
expansive soil and water!

2:49 to 3:15 wrote blog on water and clay

3:15 to 4:00 Blog declined--how can it be
declined?! Question sanity, reread
rules on posting. Cry a little
inside.

4:00 to 4:15 Decide there must be some mistake.
I followed the rules. I didn’t do
anything wrong! There must be some
mistake. Committed to repost the
article. Clicked submit again.
Still declined.

4:15 to 4:17 think about this ezine thing and how
to get help. Take article and submit
to Support for help and corrections.
She sympthasizes. Find that this site
is highly rated due to this vetting
process.

4:17 to 5:57 worked on Support Girl’s suggestions--
despair if the article is even
salvagable. Wonder why you do this at
all? Remember that articles
help, wonder how anyone else ever gets
anything accepted.

5:57 to 6:03 Resubmitted the revised article.
Detestable article. All the fun stuff
is gone. The detail is gone. The
facts are no longer hyperlinked.
Despair as to the effectiveness of
said article. Develop an intense
hatred for this pathetic shell of a
once great article.

6:03 to 6:04 Submitted article. Receive
notification that article will be
reviewed and posted. No sure whether
to laugh or cry—it can take months(!)
according to the FAQ.

On the lighter side...

2010-04-14T13:54:00.001-06:00

Today is one of those it's-a-Wednesday-but-it-feels-like-Monday" days. I woke up one side of my face swollen, my eye red, and i itch like crazy. To combat this extremely unfortunate set of issues, I've been consuming benadryl on a four hour schedule and slathering on Aveeno anti-itch cream. Good News: the swelling is going down. Bad News: I look like a pink marshmallow Peep. Really Bad News: Only I think I'm funny. Generally, this would be a bad day to write a blog. It's probably specifically a bad day for me to write a blog. I went with a lighter flavored blog in honor of my newly discovered sense of humor. ;-)

As a paid social marketer, I’m on places like Facebook constantly. I read tons of blogs, I go through Twitterfeeds, I comb Flickr for bits of information. Yes, two or three years ago, I would have been fired for fooling around on the internet at work. I also would have been labeled a tech geek or something. Thankfully, I’m still a Geek, but it’s a cool kind of geekiness. The kind of geekiness that gets you emails from all sorts of people hoping to be as geeky as you are. So I’ve started a list of commands that I wish emails, texts, and other correspondence didn’t offer me.

I get txts with lines like, “Never Look Back”. Really, never? Should I stop using my review mirror when backing out of a parking space at Walmart? Is it because you’re stalking me and don’t want to get caught? Or are you trying to tell me that Buns of Steel isn’t working?

Or emails that say, “Make it a Great Day”. What if I don’t want to make it a great day? Are you going to beat me? If I’m not having a great day, should I now feel like a failure, too?

I’ve also received the popular spin off command, “Make EVERY Day a Great Day”. If I make every day great, are any of them really great anymore? No seriously, think about it for a second. You’re having an awesome week, all you touch turns out great. You go home at night and your spouse asks, “How was your day, honey?” You reply, “Great”. Imagine doing that for a month. Is it really great anymore, or is this great that you speak of now just “eh, normal”. Isn’t what makes a day truly great, the fact that other days aren’t great?

I got a Facebook message that ended with, “Make Today YOUR Day”. How does one go about doing that? Is the federal government selling days off now to stimulate the economy? If I do make this my day, will someone else try to do the same? Isn’t this just a way to start a really big thumb war for dominance or something?

Someone ended a voicemail message to me with the phrase, “Never live in Fear”. Excellent advice, I feel that living in a town, city, or province named Fear is probably just asking to be involved in some sort of reality show turned horror movie. Let’s not forget the book series, “Fear Street”. Now that’s somewhere I wouldn’t want to live.

“Today’s the Day”. Oh THAT day. The day that I’m finally going to finish those yodeling lessons? The day that I will finally successfully trap that pesky roadrunner? What day?!

“Aim High”. Maybe I’m just stupid, but isn’t aiming high just another way to tell someone to miss the target? If this is the type of advice you’re giving me, are you really my friend?

Okay, so on a more serious note, I do have a pet peeve with pithy, somewhat blasé statements that get sent out to everyone. The name of the game is being interested in other people. Pasting the same phrase at the end of every email is like walking outside, shooting a flaming arrow, and walking away. It’s a clear statement that you’re not really paying attention to consequences. Or pedestrians.

Measure My Social Media? Is that Possible?

2010-04-13T12:30:00.000-06:00

I've been trying to determine how to prove to my company that our social media efforts are paying off. I mean, I have to justify the copious amounts of time I spend glued to the keyboard on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. So I went Searching...to Google after all, because it is a verb now.

Here's what I found on an awesome blog (check it out: http://econsultancy.com/blog/3407-10-ways-to-measure-social-media-success)

Measuring the effects of social media in 10 steps

1. Traffic
This is one of the more obvious ways of measuring social media. Remember that quality often beats quantity, though not always (as many CPM-focused publishers will surely testify).

2. Interaction
Participation is a valuable indicator for many publishers (and brands). It says something about the kind of traffic you are attracting. Remember that an engaged customer is a highly valuable one. Interaction can be anything from leaving comments, to participating in support forums, to leaving customer reviews and ratings. It can happen on your website and on other websites. Keep your eyes and ears open!

3. Sales
We at Econsultancy are tracking sales from organic Google referrals and also paid search. It didn’t seem like much of a leap to track other channels, such as Twitter. Try it. Dell did, and discovered that it made $1m from Twitter in 18 months. Blendtec’s ‘Will It Blend?’ campaign on YouTube helped to drive “a five-fold increase in sales”.

4. Leads
Some companies simply cannot process sales online, because their products or services do not allow for it. For example, the automotive industry, which tends to measure the effects of its online ad campaigns by the amount of brochures requests, or test drives booked in (as opposed to car sales, which is, in marketing terms, an altogether more macro effort). B2B operators are in a similar position. If you are a consultant and spend time interacting on LinkedIn Answers then there’s a way of tracking that activity to enquiries about your services. The same applies across the spectrum of social media sites. Choose your weapon, thought leaders.

5. Search marketing
The SEO factor cannot be understated. Social media can be far more powerful in this regard than you might initially imagine. For example, a well-placed story / video / image on a site like Digg will generate a lot of traffic and a nice link from Digg itself, but the real win here is that it will generate a lot more interest beyond Digg. Bloggers and major publishers are following Digg’s Upcoming channel to unearth new and interesting stories (Sky News now has a Twitter correspondent). One link and 20,000 referrals from Digg might lead on to 40,000 referrals and 100 links from other sites. The long tail, in action. 100 links means that your page might well wind up being placed highly on Google, resulting in lots of ongoing traffic. Remember too that you can use sites like Twitter and YouTube to claim valuable search rankings on your brand search terms (‘social search optimisation’).

6. Brand metrics
Word of mouth and the viral factor (inherent in sites like Twitter, Facebook and Digg) can help shift the key brand metrics, both negatively and positively. These include brand favourability, brand awareness, brand recall, propensity to buy, etc. Expensive TV ads are measured in this way, so if these metrics are good enough for TV then they’re surely good enough for the internet? Positive brand associations via social media campaigns can help drive clicks on paid search ads, and responses to other forms of advertising. We know that TV ads boost activity on search engines, resulting in paid search success stories, so I'd bet that social media can do the same.

7. PR
The nature of public relations has changed, forever. The last five years have been largely about the traditional PR folks not really being able to figure out the blogosphere. But if PRs cannot control the bloggers, then how on earth will they handle consumers? The distinct worlds of PR, customer service, and marketing are fusing. Twitter means everybody has a blog these days, and somewhere to shout about things to their friends (and beyond). Social media sites are the biggest echo chambers in the world! In any event, if you can measure PR (beyond adding up column inches and applying a random multiple to the equivalent size on the rate card!), then you can measure social media.

8. Customer engagement
Given the prevalence of choice, and the ease with which consumers can switch from one brand to another, customer engagement is one of the most important of all metrics in today’s business environment. Engagement can take place offline and online, both on your website and on other sites, particularly social media sites. Customer engagement is key to improving satisfaction and loyalty rates, and revenue. By listening to customers, and letting them know that you are listening, you can improve your business, your products, and your levels of service. The alternative is to ignore customers, which sends out a terrible message. Our research found that an engaged customer will recommend your brand, convert more readily and purchase more often.

9. Retention
A positive side effect of increased customer engagement - assuming certain other factors in play work in your favour - is an increase in customer retention. This is going to be a crucial factor in the success of your business in the years to come. Make no bones about it: we are moving into an age of optimisation and retention. Watch your retention rates as you start participating in social media. Over time, all things remaining equal, they should rise. Zappos, which is a case study in how-to-do-Twitter (and active on MySpace, Facebook and Youtube), is closing in on $1bn of sales this year, and “75% of its orders are from repeat customers”. Go figure, as they say.

10. Profits
If you can reduce customer churn, and engage customers more often, the result will surely be that you’ll generate more business from your existing customer base (who in turn will recommend your business to their network of friends, family, and social media contacts). This reduces your reliance on vast customer acquisition budgets to maintain or grow profits. It makes for a far more profitable and more efficient organisation. I really hope that more businesses will find a better balance between acquisition and retention, sooner rather than later, from a resourcing standpoint. Too many acquisition strategies appear to be ill-conceived, are not joined up (both in terms of marketing and also operations), and as such are ripe for optimisation. Plug the leaky bucket and you won’t need to turn the tap so hard to top it up. And remember that old adage about it being cheaper to keep existing customers than to seek out new ones.

Are You Attending the Social Media Success Summit 2010?

2010-04-12T12:08:00.000-06:00

How many of us are really "social media experts"? With the exceptions of some really talented, knowledgable people whom I know at Basement Systems, INC, I can think of only a couple of people really worthy of that title. Can you imagine putting that title on your business card? I certainly couldn't. I have a hard enough time just describing to people what I do on a daily basis. It usually ends up with the other person saying something like this, "Oh, so they pay you to play on Facebook all day".

While it's true that my Facebook account is linked to my phone, laptop, itouch, and probably directly into my brain at some point in the future, I can say that Facebook barely scrapes the surface of my social networking. There's a giant internet world, out there, Charlie Brown, and I'm desperately trying to keep my feet on the right hyperlinked line.

So Cynthia Freeney at BSI Facebooked (yes, it's a verb now) that she's attending the Social Media Success Summit 2010. Now, I know enough about Social Networking to know when Cynthia is attending an event, I'd better pony up my entrance fee and be prepared to be blown away. So, for the rest of you out there, here's a great chance to learn a lot. A lot Alot.

Social Media Success Summit 2010: The Web's Largest Online Social Media Conference

This fully online summit starts Tuesday, May 4 and runs through May 25. It's spread over many weeks (and recorded for later playback) to accommodate your schedule.

Cost: $297.00--a 50% savings!
This provides you one pass to attend Social Media Success Summit 2010 at the early bird discount of $297.00 (Regular price: $597) PLUS you get $797 in FREE bonuses. NOTE: If you have signed up for one of our prior events, you MUST select a new user name.

Steps 4: Making Others Feel Important

2010-04-08T16:16:00.000-06:00

Thus far, we’ve really focused on skills specifically geared toward Social Media and Networking. Today, we’re going to start our journey towards being better human beings. Why, you may ask? Well, a good social networker is basically someone who is enthusiastically pursuing people. It’s someone who cares about what people are doing and what they need to get there.

So, I’m going to shameless plug a book. That’s right, I want you to sit down each night and read a little. Not just any book—the book that will change your life. It’s called, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. I know, I know. You’re groaning and considering trashing my email right now. STOP. Just wait a moment because I want to tell you about the secrets to becoming a successful person who does whatever it is that you do.

Spend Your Time Making Other People Feel Important.

Here’s a scary bit of trivia: In the average 5 minute cell phone call, a person will use the word “I” 7.8 times. That’s more than any other word and more than 1x a minute.

Why is that? Well, there are a couple of options. We’re either narcissistic, self-centered individuals, or we’re an increasingly isolated society desperately crying out to be important to someone. Most scientists are choosing the latter. People are aching to be validated. Men are begging someone to tell them that they have what it takes. Women are silently questioning if they are worthy of adoration. Frankly, it’s why we all have Facebook accounts. It gives us a place to cry out from.

This means that you have a unique opportunity to touch lives and validate people, while helping grow yourself and your business; simply by taking the focus from “I” and putting it on someone else.

“It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow man, who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others.”
—Dale Carnegie

Becoming a Success Means:

Become genuinely interested in other people’s lives—read and respond to posts, comment on their articles, like their pictures, be amazed and show it!

Ask questions to create a place where someone else can feel like the expert.

Don’t criticize, condemn, or complain about or at others.

Give sincere appreciation for reviews, comments, suggestions.

Step outside internet social media at times and use snail mail—it really means a lot to people.

Eliminate the word “but” from your vocabulary. Can you remember a time when hearing that word was EVER positive? Think about it, “I like you, but let’s just be friends”, “the tumor is small, but it’s malignant”, “That’s a great idea, but…”

Steps 2 & 3: Specific Content and Local Flavor

2010-04-08T16:14:00.000-06:00

Today, we’ll tackle two steps that go together like peanut butter and jelly: Specific Content and Local Flavor.

The beauty of being specific in your topics means that you’ll automatically be creating a local flavor to your posts. Basically, local flavor is just a catchy way of saying that you use the terms and phrases that mark you as a person who actually lives in the area. For example, what would you call the strip of land between the sidewalk and the street in a residential area?

In Florida, it’s called a “devil burm”. In London, it’s a “verge”. In Canada, it’s called a “tree lawn”. In Omaha, they call it a “city strip”. So, what should it be called in Colorado? Commonly, people refer to it in the MLS and other publications as “the easement”.

Using the right words at the right time really shows people that you are local. Throw in a little information about a specific concern and you’re sure to garner leads.

Becoming a Success Means:

Learning the language by listening to people.
Being a good translator—if your clients are from out of state, you’re their language teacher.
Making technical terms accessible to the public when you’re blogging, posting, or updating. Lots of tech-speak is hard to understand—tell us what you mean when you use big words.
Keep status updates short
Use the notes feature on Facebook to deal with complex or long topics.

Becoming a Social Media Expert Step 1: Immediacy

2010-04-08T16:03:00.000-06:00

In this series, we’ll be learning about Social Media and Social Networking. There are 10 Steps to becoming proficient. Today, we’ll hit the single most important aspect of Social Media—IMMEDIACY.

That’s right, the ability to react immediately to a situation is what separates the successful networker from the amateur. In fact, you have about an hour to react to things before your voice is lost in the crowd.

Becoming a Success Means:

You react to a local situation like weather patterns, school closures, real estate market changes as soon as you learn about them.

You post status updates, pictures, etc as soon as you take them. Anything over a week old is just old news to the social media world.

You post links to articles that you’re reading, other blogs, and/or news sources rather than re-telling the same story.

You spend 75% of your time commenting, “liking”, or “fanning” other people’s posts.

Avoid Being “That Person” on Facebook:

Are you an opinion columnist? Don’t be. Being a success means you take on the role of a reporter—not an opinion columnist. Much like discussions over the dinner table, try not to voice your political or moral judgments on social media unless you’re an expert in that field.

Avoid complaining about current events. Nobody likes a whiner. People “hide” whiners.