Archives for July 2014
The Most Common Networking Mistakes
Networking isn't always fun, but it's important to get the word out about your business and to make important connections within your industry that could be beneficial to your company down the road. However, there are certain networking behaviors that could actually wind up doing more harm than good for your company.
Here are a few examples:
1. The cold call/email.
Rather than randomly sending out introductory messages to businesses or people, ask for a chance to introduce yourself, or find a mutual acquaintance to do the introduction for you. It's a much more organic way of making a connection and much more likely to be successful. Cold calls or emails only typically serve to annoy the recipient. If you must email or cold call, do so via the media's internal process.
2. Being overly detailed or personal about your life early on.
It isn't about you! Make new connections about them. It's important to have an “elevator speech”, or better yet a position statement, prepared for networking situations, but this speech should only be a few minutes long, not a 15-minute oration on your entire personal and professional experience. It's important to hit on some key details, but spending too long talking about yourself makes the other person uncomfortable and makes you come across as being obsessed with yourself. A good rule of thumb is to think of three takeaway points that you want the person you're talking with to remember about you.
3. Being vague about your intentions.
The person you're talking to isn't a mind reader. When you're attempting to build your network, you need to be clear about exactly what you're hoping to accomplish. What are your business and personal goals? How can that person help you, if at all? And remember, always be clear and concise.
4. Being overly informal.
Ok, you don't necessarily need to talk like a buttoned-up business stiff, but don't talk to someone the same way you talk to your best buddies down at the bar, either. Profanity and vulgarity has absolutely no place in networking sessions. If you find a way to make a personal connection with a person, then great. However, there are boundaries that you shouldn't cross in these situations, just like when you're building relationships within your own business.
What are some other common networking mistakes you've seen made? Avoid these types of mistakes and you'll be much more likely to create some great relationships for your business that will help you to achieve your goals.
Watch out elephants! This slayer of business challenges comes with 30 years of record breaking sales, marketing, operations, training and leadership experience . He has worked face-to-face with 100âs of small business owners as well as large firms. His love of creating, communicating, developing and executing results for clients shines with each project, publication and training event. His entrepreneurial spirit, passion, industry experience, education, problem-solving prowess, charismatic personality and been-there-done that attitude leads his client focused approach.
Maybe They Donât Like You: Dealing with Negative Feedback
Say itâs not so. Someone just left a scathing review of your business on Yelp or an unflattering comment on Facebook. While everyoneâs entitled to their opinion, negative feedback on social media is there for everyone to see. Should you delete it (assuming you can), fight fire with fire, grin and bear it, or hope no one sees it? Take a deep breath.
You will receive negative feedback. After all, some customers will have legitimate issues that they need help resolving. Plus, youâll get your fair share of people who simply canât be satisfied no matter what, and theyâll air their complaints with gusto. Youâll also get your share of misguided complaints from people who may have mistaken your business for another.
No matter how or why someone has complained, youâll need to respond. Doing so shows both the complainer and anyone else who may stumble across the thread that you care and are willing to resolve the issue. In fact, this is an opportunity to shine!
Dealing with negative feedback requires a calm, well-thought-out approach. Ideally, you should create this approach in advance so that you can respond promptly and professionally from a strategic, rather than emotional, perspective. Use the tips below to plan your negative feedback approach.
Understand the different types of feedback. Negative feedback on social media tends to fall into the following categories:
- Spam – Is the message from a real customer with real concerns or is it a bogus message from a spambot? Signs it might be spam include links to irrelevant webpages, nonsensical language, inflammatory language, and messages that are clearly unrelated to your products and services.
- Angry / upset feedback â Users who leave angry feedback may have legitimate issues that need to be resolved. They are clearly upset. However, their anger level may cloud their judgment. They may also blow a simple problem out of proportion.
- Urgent feedback â Those with urgent feedback may be experiencing a problem right now or may be alerting you to a problem that needs your attention. For example, if someone leaves a message stating that she canât buy a product from your website because it wonât process her credit card, thatâs an urgent problem. Not only is her sale at stake, there could be a systemwide problem with your website.
- Constructive criticism – Constructive criticism is intended to be helpful. Those who leave this type of feedback arenât mad but they see a problem that they believe can be addressed. Not only that, they offer ideas for doing so.
Respond according to feedback type. Each type of feedback should be addressed. Below are a few examples of how you might respond to different types of feedback:
- Spam – If a message is obviously spam, delete it and be done with it.
- Angry / upset feedback â Youâll need to use your best customer service skills here. Though the comment may look as though the customer has blown the issue out of proportion, keep in mind that the problem is very real, and very upsetting, to the individual. Start by reassuring the person that you understand their concern and apologize for any difficulties that they may have experienced. If the conversation looks as though it might escalate, suggest a phone call or some other less public communications method. Once the issue is resolved, you can update the post to thank the customer for the opportunity to resolve the problem.
- Urgent feedback – Urgent issues need a prompt response. Depending on the nature of the issue, you may need to get others involved. For example, you might need to call the credit card merchant to report an outage or have your IT team troubleshoot a problem with your website. Make sure to thank the customer for the heads up about the problem and let him or her know that you are working on it. Periodically return with status updates.
- Constructive criticism â Thereâs no rule that says you have to agree with constructive criticism or implement the userâs suggestions. However, look at the advice objectively and consider whatâs been said. If it makes sense to implement the change or evaluate the problem in greater detail, by all means do so. Make sure to thank the user for offering this feedback. If you do implement the suggestions, update the thread accordingly.
Watch out elephants! This slayer of business challenges comes with 30 years of record breaking sales, marketing, operations, training and leadership experience . He has worked face-to-face with 100âs of small business owners as well as large firms. His love of creating, communicating, developing and executing results for clients shines with each project, publication and training event. His entrepreneurial spirit, passion, industry experience, education, problem-solving prowess, charismatic personality and been-there-done that attitude leads his client focused approach.
Running Social Media Contests on Facebook, Instagram, and Google+
Social media contests are a fun and effective way to interact with followers, grow your follower base, and build brand awareness. You can use them to generate leads, entice users to sign up for your newsletter, get more likes, and much more. But where should you host them? Facebook and Instagram allow social media contests (with some caveats, of course), but Google+ doesnât. That said, you can still mention your offsite contest on Google+. If youâre building a presence on any of these social networking sites, holding a contest is a fantastic idea.
Last year, Facebook changed its promotional guidelines to make it easier for businesses to hold social media promotions and contests. In the past, contests had to be contained within a tab. Now, they can reside directly on a business pageâs timeline. Other changes included the ability to use 
likes as a voting mechanism and collect entries by having users comment, like, post, or leave a message on the page.
While you could create a simple contest on your timeline â and follow all of Facebookâs promotional guidelines, consider using a professional Facebook contest app to create, administer, and manage your contests on Facebook.
Due to its photo-centric platform, Instagram contests revolve around photos. According to Instagram Help Centerâs âHost a Photo Campaignâ page, you should use hashtags to organize submissions to your Instagram contest. Ideally, youâll come up with a unique hashtag for your contest so that only those images specifically tagged with your contestâs hashtag will appear in the hashtagâs RSSfeed.
In addition to coming up with a good, unique hashtag, youâll need to create a webpage with the contests details such as contest length and deadline, prize, eligibility requirements, rules, how the winner will be selected, how the winner will be notified and so on.
Once youâve completed your contest page, the next step is to promote it. Options include pay per click advertising, sponsored Facebook posts, general Facebook posts, email, newsletters, and Twitter.
Google+
Google+ prohibits the running of contests and promotions on its network. However, according to its Contests and Promotions Policy, âYou may display a link on Google+ to a separate site where your Promotion is hosted so long as you (and not Google) are solely responsible for your Promotion and for compliance with all applicable federal, state and local laws, rules and regulations in the jurisdiction(s) where your Promotion is offered or promoted.â
Thus, if you are running a Facebook or Instagram contest, you could link to that contest on your Google+ page.
Running social media promotions on Facebook and Instagram is relatively easy. Make sure to follow each siteâs guidelines and consider using a third-party tool to create the most engaging contests possible.
Watch out elephants! This slayer of business challenges comes with 30 years of record breaking sales, marketing, operations, training and leadership experience . He has worked face-to-face with 100âs of small business owners as well as large firms. His love of creating, communicating, developing and executing results for clients shines with each project, publication and training event. His entrepreneurial spirit, passion, industry experience, education, problem-solving prowess, charismatic personality and been-there-done that attitude leads his client focused approach.
Why Customer Relationship Management Software is Great for Business
I was browsing the internet the other day when I came across this ridiculous article, which refers to CRM software as “complacent rep management.” Aside from being a veritable wall of text that was difficult to get through, it made some outrageous and flat-out uneducated claims about the value of customer relationship management tools.
The main point of the article seems to be that CRM software bogs down sales people and is a general nuisance, but this couldn't be farther from the truth. When used correctly, CRM software is beloved by salespeople because of its ability to better help them get to know potential customers, which in turn makes it easier to close sales.
You have to remember that in today's marketplace, the buyer already has his or her mind about 80% made up when they approach a salesperson. Salespeople are now simply answering final questions for the customer, yes exceptions exist everywhere, which means they need to be better experts about the 
products they are selling. CRM software helps greatly with this, as the job of a salesperson is now usually more about closing sales than creating sales opportunities. And this is the purpose of a great system!
Let's address a couple of the points that the author brought up in the article:
“The computer thinks it knows how to sell better than I do.”
This point mentioned in the article shows a hesitance (and even a fear) of adjusting to the latest technology. The “computer” isn't there to sell for you, it's there to provide you with the information you need to close the sale. There's still no replacement for great interpersonal interaction. People still buy from people and established brands that exude quality. The best of the best are such, because they have great systems, processes, accountability, form and function. The CRM is just one of those tools. Counterpoint – yes I use Infusionsoft and it can outsell 80% of sales people without such a system, and it makes our company more effective, efficient and raises sales per employee – while you're sleeping.
“What's the point of learning the software when we'll have a different one later?”
 The article brings up a point that the average tenure of a sales vice president is about 19 months, and says that a new VP will bring in a new CRM. First of all, the latter part of this is complete speculation; second, even if you do switch to a new CRM software at some point, the basics of each software are pretty similar. It's easy to adapt from one to another. As a consultant and high performing sales person for nearly 30 years, rarely the problem is the software, it's usually the internal processes, procedures, economic factors or failed leadership. Okay, but let's play the devils advocate here. What if the new VP throws out the CRM and instead goes back to legal pads and stacks of business cards in the desk drawer? The difference between the two is accessibility, retained knowledge and actionable information beyond the key holder!
“There's something fundamentally wrong with a technology you have to force people to use.”
I agree! Bad system choice or management of the system? Could be! People aren't capable of adapting to today's consumer sales process? Highly likely! The easy counter argument here is that there's something fundamentally wrong with salespeople who do not want to make it easier to close sales. Do you really want people working for you who are going to be purposefully resistant to the progress of your business? Study upon study has confirmed the effectiveness of CRM software. A system matched to the business, a system that your team is highly trained to use and a system that stops a sales funnel from leaking will make your top 20%ers even better, the rest will always need hand holding and attention. I've managed hundreds of them, myself included!
If you have any misgivings at all about using CRM software, I encourage you to contact us today at Viral Solutions for more information. We'll be happy to put you at ease with the benefits that it will provide to your business.
Watch out elephants! This slayer of business challenges comes with 30 years of record breaking sales, marketing, operations, training and leadership experience . He has worked face-to-face with 100âs of small business owners as well as large firms. His love of creating, communicating, developing and executing results for clients shines with each project, publication and training event. His entrepreneurial spirit, passion, industry experience, education, problem-solving prowess, charismatic personality and been-there-done that attitude leads his client focused approach.
How to Empower Your Employees
One of the best ways to ensure that your employees are motivated and producing great results for your business is to give them a sense of empowerment. Employees should never feel as though they're just trudging along and have no control over their work. But how do you foster a sense of empowerment within your business?
Here are some ideas that you may find helpful:
- Â Reward employees who strive to improve. You can't just assume that the prospect of a raise or a promotion will encourage employees to strive for greatness. Instead, you need to focus on other, less conventional awards that will make employees feel that their efforts are truly
being appreciated.
- Â Avoid micromanagement. Take a good look at your management style. You need to be able to step back and let employees do their jobs without interference from you. When you delegate tasks to your employees, tell them what they need to accomplish and when they need to accomplish it by, then let them handle the rest.
- Â Give employees opportunities to be leaders. Let your employees have a chance to take the lead on certain projects or tasks within your business. It will give them a chance to try something new and test their capabilities, and will encourage them to strive for improvement and greatness.
- Â Make sure they know their job. All roles within a work place need to be clearly defined so that your employees know where their responsibilities start and end. They can take a greater sense of accountability within their own realm because of this, and it allows you to avoid people getting in the way of others accomplishing their work, or perhaps having redundant roles in your business.
- Â Encourage small failures. Let employees know that it's ok to fail every now and then, because this will encourage them to try new things. So long as them trying new things doesn't put your company at risk, there's no harm in this policy. In fact, it could lead to employees coming up with new ways to improve your company.
Empowering your employees is necessary to make your business operate at its peak efficiency. Contact us at Viral Solutions today to learn more about how you can do this.
Christine Kelly | Queen Bee | Viral Solutions LLC
Prior to joining Viral Solutions, Christine held executive leadership roles at some of the largest small business consulting firms in the USA. Her experience includes leading direct reports of over 130 remote sales agents who generated $38mm in annual revenue. She obtained her Marketing degree from British Columbia Institute of Technology. Bring her C-Suite experience to your small business. Although our company is virtual, and we can work with you wherever you are located, she is located in Denver, Colorado and owns a second home in Vancouver, BC Canada.