Marketing Your Small Biz Blog

Renton BizSchool - The Lights Came On

Yesterday I presented at a day-long biz school for startups and small business owners. I was fortunate to have these presenters accompany me. Dan McComb - Biznik.com; Merry McNutt - McNutt CPA, Pamela Ziemann - Ziemann Enterprises, Jim Rosemary - New Tech Web, Karen Waddington - Beyond Marketing, Elizabeth Paulsen - Cascade E-Commerce Solutions, Jim Kallenberg and Zev Siegl with the Small Business Development Centers.

I always find it rewarding to teach these kinds of seminars, especially when you see a light on come in someone's eyes. Every one of the instructors presented at no cost, and each one walks out knowing they helped someone.

It is interesting putting together these events, as it has always been a bit of a challenge to get individuals to attend. Some of them may not understand that they need this kind of information— or may be a bit reluctant to admit that they need it. But the people who attended the BizSchool yesterday were eager to learn, serious about their need to "run their own business" and willing to listen. Because of the attitude of both the presenters and attendees, the event was an unqualified success!

But most importantly, I believe that we presenters always learn new things as well. Even though we may be "experts" in our fields, someone always comes up with a question or idea that pulls you out of the box and gets you thinking in a new way. And for the presenters, that's when the light goes on for us!

What a Middle Schooler Can Teach Us About Relationship Marketing

Bob and I were at the annual Ahead of the Class Excellence In Education Awards the other night, an event that has never failed to touch me deeply in the eight years we've been a sponsor.

The local Chamber of Commerce organizes this event, helped by lots of business owners who have a tremendous sense of community. The coolest pastor in the city was the emcee this year and leaders from many segments of the community turned out to celebrate our best and brightest teachers: the board chair of the local hospital, the president of the college, city councilpersons, school board members, the school superintendent, teachers, parents and students.

I have to admit that I have a passion for education. I have been a teacher and know just how much heart, soul and energy goes into every single day in the classroom.

One of the awards that night was given to a high-spirited team of middle school educators. Something the school principal said as he introduced this team of 6th grade language arts and social studies teachers struck me.

He asked us to recall our own middle school selves, or those challenging days when we might have been parenting one.

He talked about how special the middle schooler is, how unique. But he also said that as a principal, he is still amazed at how many times he stops a student in the hall and says (and he pointed his index finger to his temple as he said it), "It might be better if you just keep some of it up here. Maybe think before you open your mouth?"

Of course this broke the audience up because we all know how 13-year-olds think, talk, behave. They are transparent. And yes, sometimes they can be downright weird.

I got wondering, though. In this day of relationship marketing, where it's all about coming out with who you really are, being authentic, being unique and not trying to be someone you're not, would being more like our middle school selves be so bad? Wouldn't being more spontaneous, less canned, make us more real to our customers? Would being "a little weird" kill us?

Or would it maybe attract the right kind of people, customers who are weird in the same way we are, who fit our niche perfectly? (Yes, I'm getting a little Long Tail-ish on you here.)

So much energy goes into trying to be something we're not. A little more of "this is who I am and this is what I feel, and this is what I'm passionate about" will not only help us find the work we were destined to do. It'll help us connect with the people we were supposed to be working with all along. And it'll make us real to our clients and customers.

Try it. Call your middle school self and see what happens.

Invite Bruce Springsteen, Mick Jagger and B.B. King to Your Next Networking Event

The other day I hosted a lunch for a few people in my networking group. These events are fun and provide good opportunities to learn more about each other. The agenda is usually quite predictable. Each biz owner gives their two-minute commercial. After that, it's food and causal conversation.

Typically, when the time for introductions comes, the host will ask people to answer one of these questions:

Who's your ideal client?
What do you need right now?
What makes you, your product or your service unique?

You get the picture. (Yawn.)

But because I enjoy mixing things up, sometimes I like to ask different kinds of questions, ones that give everyone a peek at the real person. When this happens, the "elevator speech" goes right out the window. (You know, that comfortable sentence or two that you could say in your sleep?)

What often comes out is the part of someone that truly makes them unique—memorable. And because the new way of doing business, especially for the solopreneur, is being transparent and letting your colleagues and customers see the real you, these new questions are great tools.

At lunch that day, I asked: "You are looking for a new business partner. I take you into a room where three people sit: Bruce Springsteen, Mick Jagger and B.B. King. Which would you choose as your new partner and why?"

I could sense a little uneasiness as my friends realized they had to let go of their canned commercials. But their answers were unique, funny, and good clues to their personalities. One picked Bruce because he understands the concerns of common folk and comes across as honest and open. Another chose B.B. King because he identified problems and showed that he understood peoples' challenges when he sang the blues.

Interestingly enough, no one chose Mick, although someone did say, "Now that guy knows how to market himself!"

How much better we would get to know each other if we took the time to ask the right questions. So, I'm already thinking, what will I ask next time?

Pay More! Get Less! Who Would Want That?

Prices are going through the roof. Gas, food--everything, it seems.

Yesterday, Bob brought home a new carton of our favorite brand of frozen yogurt. He dropped it on the kitchen counter. "Looks smaller, doesn't it?" he said.

I looked closer. It was wider and shorter, but I couldn’t tell. Until I pulled the old carton from the freezer. Sure enough, the net weight on the new one had a lower number. And the yogurt’s price had increased by $1.50. So we were paying more and getting less.

Not a good thing, right? Who would use the marketing slogan, "Pay More! Get Less!"

A good friend of mine, a newspaper publisher, told me something that stuck with her over the years. One day, as she sat in one of her classes for her M.B.A. degree, her professor asked, "Is there anything you would pay more to get less of?"

At first his students were puzzled. But, as they gave it more thought, the overwhelming consensus, the most common answer, was: "information."

The Internet has caused an explosion of new information, the likes of which we have never seen before. If you google a topic, even narrowing it down from "e-marketing strategies" to "building a reliable, opt-in e-mail marketing list", you will have to wade through pages and pages of entries to find what you are looking for. And after you’ve sorted through it all to get to the good stuff, there’s the task of figuring out what it means to you, the solopreneur and small business owner.

There is a new and growing trend in information harvesting. Resources like our marketingyoursmallbiz.com e-publication,
The Solo Way, are combining the very best information with expert advice to help their readers solve real-world problems. If you pay just a little more, you’ll get less information, especially bad information—and a whole lot of practical, solopreneur-focused ideas and activities. Now, if we could just help you with your frozen yogurt prices

Online and In-Person Networking: The Best of Both Worlds

Over the years, I have been a strong believer in networking. But whether it was a Chamber of Commerce event or coffee with a prospective client or colleague, it was always a face-to-face thing. I had to start up the car and drive somewhere. It was time-consuming. And staying in touch was difficult.

Recently we joined an online networking community called Biznik. It is based in the Seattle area, so the largest part of its membership is local. Biznik is unique because they offer opportunities to network both online and in person. The members themselves plan and host the events: networking breakfasts, lunches, even happy hours. And members can share their business expertise and build their credibility through “real time” workshops and articles posted online.

Why does it work better than traditional networking? Because the online and offline parts complement each other so well. Say you meet someone online and post a comment on their article in the Learn section, or welcome someone in the new members thread, or discuss a topic with another member in the forum. You can invite that person to join your online network. Or you can watch to see when they’ll be attending an upcoming event, so you can meet them in person and start the relationship building.

Or maybe you meet someone at a live event. Where follow-up was a difficult thing in the past, you can send a message through Biznik, or respond to a post of theirs on the forum, and the connection can be strengthened, without having to wait until another event that may be weeks down the road.

Business is all about growing relationships, not exchanging business cards. And Biznik does just that. Their tagline says it all: Business networking that doesn't suck.

You can tour the site and see for yourself at biznik.com.

Why Many Profit-Driven Blogs Fail

I am a fan of marketing guru and author Seth Godin and regularly visit his blog. Godin talked a couple of days ago about the questions he gets from beginning bloggers. Invariably the most common one is how they can make a lot of money blogging. I hear this a lot, too.

The other day an acquaintance of mine called and asked me to check out her new blog. She had read a book on the benefits of business blogging, got all excited, and within days her blog was up. Unfortunately, the two posts that were up were miniature sales letters, with links to click on for many of her products and services.

Godin’s point, well taken, was that the best, most successful bloggers did not set out with the purpose of making a profit. Though it turned out that they made money, it wasn’t their reason for starting up. They just had something to say and a service they wanted to provide.

It’s one of those things that’s true in most aspects of our entrepreneurial lives. The monetary benefits will eventually kick in, but we start with our passion, our reason for creating our business and our desire to make our customers—and ourselves—happy. And the rewards flow from that. If you have a blog, what’s your purpose?

Running Your Solo Biz: What's Passion Got to Do with It?

The other day I was chatting with some of my colleagues—fellow solopreneurs all—and the topic of discussion moved to our passions. My massage therapist friend gestured wildly as she talked about freeing people from their pain and giving them a one-hour vacation from stress. My financial advisor pal had a gleam in his eye (yes, we're talking a financial guy here!) when he described the satisfaction of, as he called it, financial architecture: taking the modest nest egg of a widow nearing retirement and building a portfolio that gives her a nice monthly income for the rest of her life. For me, as the editor of marketingyoursmallbiz.com, it is the fun of "mining for gold," discovering the new, best-of-the-best marketing ideas and figuring out how to help solopreneurs use them to increase sales.

It got me thinking. We all started our businesses because we wanted to do something. Maybe it was to help people solve a particular problem. Maybe it was because we were sure that there was a better way to make or do something. Or maybe we just found a way to turn what we love to do and think about into an income stream.

Sometimes we get so wrapped up in our daily tasks and challenges we forget why we started our business in the first place. And that’s a really important thing to remember. Because when you communicate to your prospects and customers, if the spark isn’t there, if they don’t feel your passion for what you do, how can you expect them to get excited about your product or service?

Look What YouTube Started: Shine in Your Own Online Video

First it was the boring “About Us” website page—all text and no personality. Then some of us, kicking and screaming, were dragged into the still photo stage. The advice: Smile, but don’t look too goofy. Be yourself. Above all, don’t look frozen.

It can be difficult—and a little scary— showing out real selves to our customers. What if they don’t like me? What if they don’t even see the real me? (Does anyone really think that their photo looks like them?)

And just when we think we’ve figured out the photo thing (be friendly, think about what you most love about your job when the camera clicks, look the lens straight in the eye, now don’t forget to be authentic), along comes the newest form of connecting with your customers: the online video.

A friend of mine, Pamela Ziemann, has written an article that helped me understand what a good video needs to do. Pamela, an incredibly talented presentation skills trainer and coach, thinks it’s key in a video to show three traits: your authenticity (there’s that “real you” thing again!), your expertise and your passion.

How to make a video that will make your listener stand up and take notice? Pamela’s advice:

1. Organize and get crystal clear with your message. If you have three points to share, tell them. The more organized and focused you are, the easier it will be for them to connect with your message.
2. Use short sentences. Each sentence should be able to be said in one breath. Think of each sentence as a complete thought and avoid pesky filler words like “um” and “ya know.”
3. When you say your name, make the pitch go down at the end. If it goes up at the end, it sounds like a question and makes the listener wonder if you know who you are.
4. Avoid distracting gestures. Maintain eye contact and keep your feet on the floor, even if your viewer will only see your face. Make your facial expressions show your passion about what you do, rather than making distracting, repetitive gestures with your hands.
5. Use descriptive words. Give your listeners sensual stimulation by using strong verbs and adjectives. It makes your story so much more interesting.
6. Wear solid colors. Cameras don’t respond well to small patterns or vivid colors. Try dark blue or one of the pastels.
7. Before you go on camera, warm up with deep breathing exercises. Shake your body and let it move however it wants to. Think about the passion you have for your product or service, why you started your business in the first place. Speak from the core of your values and don’t be shy about it.

I am preparing to make my first online video and Pamela’s tips were perfectly timed. Hope you can use them, too.