Social Media Savvy

No Reverse

2011-09-29T17:07:00.000-07:00

There's a good reason why it's easier to go forward than backward - we're built for it! Have you ever tried ice skating in reverse? Not so easy ey! It looks easy when the professionals perform, but for the rest of us, not so much. And we all remember how easy it is to ride a bike - going forward!

Have you ever been stopped at a traffic light and a vehicle next to you starts moving forward - and you feel like you're suddenly in reverse and you panic lest you be on a collision course with the car behind you? Well, in business as in traffic,we can find ourselves in 'relative reverse' unless, as we bop along in life, we determine intentionally to progress. Nowadays this concept finds considerable application in technology. Look at it this way: If everyone around you is moving forward, pressing on, advancing, and you're still doing the same-old, you might be in relative reverse. You'll be getting behind without even trying - and that, of course, doesn't make any sense. Just like we've learned from our earlier years, it's just easier going forward.

Social media is a good example of the forward movement, yet many businesses are spinning their wheels, standing still, going in relative reverse.

Ask yourself, should I go forward or can I just keep doing what I'm doing? Well I say you've got to take a step, but take it one at a time - going forward!

Long Walk to Freedom

2011-08-08T19:28:00.000-07:00

About two weeks ago I visited Robben Island, whose most well-known inmate—for 18 years—was Nelson Mandela. Touring the old prison under the guidance of a former political prisoner, it's easy to forget that many of those incarcerated there were serving time for treason—a jailable offence in any country regardless of its politics—and yet now that South Africa's Apartheid System has been abolished, these crimes are touted as just, with imprisonment for them as unjust. I have mixed feelings about that, but what I’m pretty unequivocal about is freedom, and how almost paradoxically Robben Island is both symbolic of and synonymous with it some 20 years after the last convicts were transported to the mainland. This is the legacy of Mandela, for whom Robben Island was an important stepping stone on the path he paved to freedom for a nation.

At his request, Mandela was permitted to plant and nurture a small garden in a corner of the prison yard, and it was in this garden that he concealed the writings that would become his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom (Amazon.com). Whichever way I slice and dice my opinion of the life that Nelson Mandela chose, walking the island’s old prisons it occurred to me that his personal emancipation through writing could quite possibly have preceded his physical emancipation in 1990. By not allowing the confines of the prison walls to confine his legacy, this great man turned his captivity into liberation not only for himself but for an entire nation.

Now back home, I contemplate how much we’re inclined to do the exact opposite, even under far less dire circumstances. So here’s the challenge: plant a garden and write a story worth hiding in it, one that will not only free you but that might help others. It doesn’t matter how you begin but that you begin, because without that first step there will be no walk to anywhere.

ENTHUSIAM

2011-06-07T17:21:00.000-07:00

More often than not, this word occurs almost euphemistically – I was less than enthusiastic about another late night, for example. And yet it is an awesome word: it doesn’t only feel good to say, it feels good to be! Enthusiasm is intoxicating, inspiring, infectious, and invaluable to success. If you’re ‘less than enthusiastic’ about something you can be assured that others will take their cue from that just as much as they would from your enthusiasm. So take a deep breath and determine to exude enthusiasm. Before you know it you’ll be like the Pied Piper with an equally enthused following!

GOOD LUCK WITH THAT!

2011-05-27T16:18:00.000-07:00

My husband is the luckiest guy I know. Personally anyway. He wins stuff all the time. One night after a golf tournament he won five out of the 20 draw prizes. He won a Waterford crystal bowl at another. He even won a Green Card and the only way he’d be luckier is if he’d won it 10 years earlier and saved us the price of a nice Corvette in the process. One thing he hasn’t won yet is the Florida (or any other) lottery, but I imagine that if I stick around long enough he will. Oh yea, and did I mention, he’s my husband, which means he’s married to me – how lucky can one guy be in a single lifetime?

Gary Player, a famous South African golfer in the 80s, once said (approximately) “I’m a lucky guy. But one thing I know, the harder I work, the luckier I get.” So here’s the deal. You have to do the work. Even if you believe in the law of attraction, you still have to do that work, you still have to figure out what you want so you can put in the effort to attract it. And I think that’s as good as it gets. We’re not in Eden anymore – work is a fact of life here!

Being in the right place at the right time takes effort. You have to do the research and book the tickets. It’s a bit like being a storm chaser – you don’t just wake up one day and decide to go looking for tornadoes somewhere in Kansas! No, you check the weather services, you research where – and when – the conditions are ripe for a twister, and you meticulously plan a trip to a set of coordinates most likely to deliver your quarry.

So what do you want from your life and your business? If you want to get in the way of the best kind of luck, you have to plan to do the best kind of work. Nothing is ever a waste if you’re always on a path to somewhere instead of a road to nowhere. And you’re more likely to get there if you don’t expect to arrive overnight.

So keep working at it – tweet, post, blog – and the best of luck to ya!

Balance of Power

2011-05-23T18:50:00.000-07:00

At a blogging conference this past weekend, Susan and I were privileged to sit down with Guy Kawasaki following the release of his new book “Enchanted.” Well technically we sat in the same room while he regaled the audience about being better at business, although Susan did actually sit down with him while he autographed our copies of his book!

For my part, after an hour of ear-tickling about enchanting others, it was surprising to find that Kawasaki’s tips are easier said than done. Well, as ‘they’ say, if it was easy everyone would be doing it! But, I had determined to take away one thing to actually act on from each session I attended, starting with his, and today presented the perfect opportunity to put my plan into action.

Kawasaki’s first few tips are really simple good manners and genuine interaction (yes yes, these are in short supply these days, so worth repeating, particularly in his finessed format!) Smile a genuine smile (duchenne smile – rock those crow’s feet y’all!), dress appropriately, have a good handshake. But when it comes to habitual manners, he advocates that when someone says ‘thank you’, that you DON’T just default to ‘you’re welcome.’ Say what? Isn’t that polite? Well yes, but it falls short.

As a mom with middle school kids with separate schedules and a commute to school, I rely on ride sharing. Several of us do. Between school plays, band and choral concerts, athletics events and full-time jobs there’s frequently a friend in need. It’s often a well-oiled system and not something anyone can keep track of who owes whom from when. And yet I feel like I’m the one who needs help the most and am always struggling to keep the status quo and not be the ‘freeloader’ – not easy in the generous circles I run in! I need a solution but more than that, I need others to be the solution so that no one feels obligated and no on feels indebted.

Kawasaki recommends ‘invoking reciprocation.’ It’s a principle that enables people to pay you back, so that then they feel free to ask you to do more things, and that keeps relationships going and deepening. How do you pull it off? Gentle reminders. Next time someone says ‘thank you,’ Kawasaki says, respond with ‘you’d do the same for me.’ I’m glad I heard him say that on Friday, because when I got my friend’s text saying, ‘Thank you so much!’ as I arrived at school to pick up our daughters, I texted back ‘YW, u’d do the same 4 me!’

And she would, and does. I just hope she’ll do the same 2 me next time I send her a TY text.

In the Mix

2011-04-27T15:35:00.000-07:00

I have a green pool. OK, it’s a turquoise-green now but not quite the Caribbean azure it should be even if it isn’t the pond-green of yesterday. Why am I telling you this? Well, at my house, the pool, like the rest of the surrounding outdoors, is my husband’s domain. I am far less equipped for turning the screws on the filter etc than I am for stirring a made-from-scratch cheese sauce. Be that as it may, there are times when compromise is called for – like yesterday.

Based on long-distance telephonic instructions, I ventured into uncharted territory—the pool store—with a water sample. Scott was super-helpful: he tested the water, diagnosed the problem, and dispatched me with detailed instructions and forty dollars worth of chemicals. But here’s the thing: the pool has been getting greener by the day for almost a week. Every day my husband treated it with more chlorine – figures: color to clear takes bleach, right? Wrong!

Like many things, the solution wasn’t that simple. It has entailed a specific treatment with acid, anti-phosphorescents, and a clarifier, together with filter cleaning twice a day (this is a very big deal) and sweeping the walls and floors of the pool to assist the Barracuda’s lame suctioning.

So what’s my point? Sometimes a successful solution isn’t what you think it is and it’s seldom just one thing. It’s a case of testing your commercial waters, mixing things up to target an exact problem or goal, and maybe even a bit of work out of the starting blocks to kickstart the process. Let’s not just do a website and hope people visit from your business cards! That’s like dousing the pool with chlorine—it’s necessary but not sufficient and may end up just being plain wasteful. You need a mix, finely tuned like a tasty recipe, that includes an intentional balance of social media, online presence, an eye on trending, Ezine articles, and solid website updates.

It’s time to test the waters and determine a solution—our workshop coming up this Saturday is a great start (kinda like a visit to Scott at the pool store) but you can call us, find us on Facebook, look us up on LinkedIn or tweet us and we’ll be happy to help turn your green waters blue.

SOCIAL NETWORKING IS NOT SOCIALIZING

2011-04-18T18:50:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I had the rare opportunity to run with a friend of mine I did a triathlon event with 18 months ago. We’re in the same running group but haven’t connected on the road in a long time. But we’re friends on FaceBook and I’ve stayed up to date with her life through her posts. I thought.

As we ran she shared, "I've gone through hell the last six months." I never saw an inkling of that on FB! What I saw was several trips to CA, living large, having fun with her middle school daughter, chilaxing on the beach, running and riding for charity - I sponsored her - and all the time I wondered how she was fitting it in with her high-powered job and I couldn't!

Turns out she wasn’t. Her job went away in December and her husband was transferred to Cali (hence the trips)and now they’re selling their house and trading sunny South Florida for chilly San Francisco. Now I understand the pithy quote posts – she told me she posted those when she had nothing good to say - but until we actually talked, who knew?

That got me thinking about social networking for business. Social networking is not socializing. It’s the difference between making small talk at a bar versus hanging out with friends on your patio over a barbecue. Social media is a platform for putting your best foot forward, not for divulging your down-and-out business details or airing boring laundry in your status updates. It’s also the best reason to keep your business and personal pages separate!

Take a leaf from my friend's book. Instead of posting "business is quiet today," think about what you can put up that will change that (like a coupon they can share with friends and thus share YOU with them). Or write about what is good, and true, and good, and powerful that will be music to your friends’ and followers’ ears. You never know where it could lead!

Brad Paisley’s song “Online” shows how unreal we can be online, but I prefer to use social media as awesome opportunities to keep it real, keep it true, and keep it on the up-and-up. That’s how you boost your brand and build your business online!

BUSINESS IS LIKE A MARATHON

2011-02-22T03:17:00.000-08:00

You know the adage, life isn't a sprint, it's a marathon. Here's why that is true - and this is coming from someone who just ran their hardest 26.2-mile event ever. The distance demands a goal, an advance strategy, and at least an acceptance that several adjustments to that strategy might be necessary depending on the goal. It is never, ever, to give up. DNF - did not finish - is not an option, unless there is severe illness, death, or the bus that comes by picking up stragglers after the cutoff time has been reached.

I started out hoping to improve my fastest time by three minutes. Not too much you might say, but how could I know I'd end up with my slowest time ever? It was a tough day. As any marathoner knows, all you can do is all you can do and hope everything else lines up for you that day. Outside things, beyond your control. But when they don't, you have to control what you can - shift that strategy and do what you need to do to come away with no regrets.

Like life, business is more like a marathon even if it seems to be pace at sprint-speed. If your strategy hadn't changed in 10 years, you might still be relying wholeheartedly on management books, business journals, faxes, and brick-sized cellphones. But you're not. You're considering social media at a point in your race where you have to adapt or die. Where you make a different decision than you would have a year ago because the outside things, beyond your control, have changed, and if you're going to finish strong you'd better change how you get to the finish line.

I wanted to give up yesterday. I even cried. Twice. I stopped and contemplated quitting. Then a friend drove by cheering. My family took a load off - first my pouch, empty of nutrition packages, and then my water bottle - my security settings that I thought I couldn't run without and came to find out were actually bogging me down as I fought for a finish I knew I'd regret forfeiting in the cold light of Monday morning. I chatted to folks and joked with other struggling runners. I leaned on a friend who ran me to the finish line and got me water after I crossed it, concerned only with getting me back to family before she went home to feed her dogs. Humbling, sure, but every runner has a rough race - and that was mine. The important thing is to have people around you who know your goals, who support you in accomplishing them, who cheer you on as you change strategies, shift to accommodate external changes, rehash some of the goals in light of what you sit with right now.

You may not want to blog about your business, but you must. You may not want to be 'out there' on Facebook, but if you're not and your competitors are, you're not going to reach your goals. Twittering? Well if I hadn't told folks I was struggling, they would have left me at 18 miles and met me at the finish who-knows-when, but they didn't. They stalked me on the course every couple of miles, making me smile when I wanted to scream, and run when I wanted to to jump into their cars and be driven like Miss Daisy to the finish. The were there egging me on, screaming and yelling for me to go, to not give up, they-didn't-get-up early-to-watch-me-quit and they knew I could do it.

Social networking. Like a friend cheering you on from an SUV, your children running with you so you don't have to think about it, a husband who hands you his cold water because there isn't any cold at the tables anymore. That's what it does. It gets you to your goal come hell or high water. It shows you who you are and then tells others about it. It's an essential element of your survival strategy and the sole reason behind any medal of business success you may earn. Don't neglect it to stick with your tried and trusted, knee-jerk stratagems. This is your race, but there are other runners who will pass you and soak up more of the resources and slice out a thicker segment of the proverbial pie that you could have as you check your fax or search your email for orders that went to them through a Facebook friendship they nurtured online for months.

Don't get behind on meeting your 'marathon' goals. Tweak your strategy, include social media, and then work the relationships for all you're worth. Because you're worth it! Call us if you need a cheerleader, or an adviser, or just a cool drink of water to get you through the next mile. That's what we're here for!

FIND OUT WHO YOUR FRIENDS ARE...

2011-02-21T07:09:00.000-08:00

Want to find out who your friends are? You may not even have met them yet. But we know they exist, and we can help get you out there into virtual society to meet them. The adoption of social networking and using social media for business is like a conga line at a party. It started with one, and slowly others have joined in, weaving through the partiers, picking up participants and building cool relationships with them, transforming them from potential customers into raving fans. But the longer you wait, the more fun you've missed out on. And let's face it, you know you're going to join in sometime, so why wait?

Do it on your own or do it with our help, but do it!

Welcome!

2011-02-18T07:49:00.000-08:00

Thanks for checking out Enduracom's blog! We'll be posting news you can use shortly! But feel free to post away until that happens... we'd love to hear from you!