So, full disclosure on this post, the new collaborative networking tool I’m talking about is RGlobe and I am engaged with RGlobe as a consultant on their marketing communications. But I would still endorse the product concept even if I wasn’t working with them as they’ve hit on something really terrific for sales professionals.

Though they haven’t officially launched, RGlobe is working with their first enterprise customers and several analysts are extremely excited about the product. (Check out this upcoming event on October 7 with Forrester Analyst Tim Harmon in which the RGlobe CEO will be participating: Emerging Technology Trends for Channel Sales and Partner Marketing.)

RGlobe is the first company to offer enterprises a private collaborative selling network that allows their sales professionals in-house to network and collaborate on deals with their partner companies. Partner leveraging has long been an issue with channel partnership models because of inefficient processes and security risks in sharing information across partner sales teams. RGlobe addresses these issues with their private collaborative selling network allowing users to connect and communicate across their partnerships for real-time collaboration.

An enterprise builds their private collaborative RGlobe network and invites their partners to join. That enterprise then  instantly increases its social capital by expanding its prospecting funnel to include all their partners who they now have connectivity with through the RGlobe Network.  All of the sales and biz dev professionals within the enterprise company are now aligned by account coverage and competency with all of their counterparts at each partner. But the prospecting funnel expansion is mutually exclusive. The partner companies benefit from being on the enterprise’s RGlobe Collaborative Selling Network because they are able to connect, communicate and collaborate with the enterprise’s internal social capital pool, but they have no access to any of the enterprises other partners on the Network. Only the enterprise’s sales teams are able to connect with others across all their partners within the RGlobe Network, thus increasing the number of individuals they can now connect and communicate with considerably.

RGlobe utilizes many of the common social networking features to allow users across partnerships to collaborate efficiently and effectively. For sales professionals, being able to connect with their partners sales pros who sell into the same companies and industries offers terrific potential for them to share information with each other that will help them close deals. The RGlobe solution also encourages and facilitates the assisting of other users with User Incentive Recognition and a Trust and Value Rating System. It’s very much a Whuffie Factor enabler! And if you read my blog often you know I’m a big believer of the Whuffie Factor concepts.

Check out RGlobe for yourself.

If you’re looking for some great thought-leaders in marketing and social media check out this list below. Read their blog and the comments others make. Follow them on Twitter and attend meetups and conferences where they’ll be speaking. Many of them have terrific books available. For more details on these individuals and some others, check out the list on my personal website.

For quick and easy adding of these people to your “follow” lists, check out my Google RSS folder for Influencers and two lists from Twitter: Marketing Influencers and for a great list of many more individuals who I follow and participate with in the greater Marketing Conversation check out the marketing-conversation list.

Andrew Lark http://andylark.blogs.com/andylark/
Andy Beal http://www.marketingpilgrim.com
Andy Sernovitz  http://www.damniwish.com
Augie Ray   http://blogs.forrester.com/augie_ray
Jacob Morgan   http://www.jmorganmarketing.com
JD Lasica   http://www.socialmedia.biz
Mitch Joel  http://www.twistimage.com/
Blake Cahill   http://blog.visibletechnologies.com
Brian Solis   http://www.briansolis.com
Chris Brogan     http://www.chrisbrogan.com
David Meerman Scott    http://www.webinknow.com/
Jeremiah Owyang  http://www.web-strategist.com/blog
John Jantsch    http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog
Lee Odden     http://www.toprankblog.com
Seth Godin     http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/
Shiv Singh     http://www.goingsocialnow.com/
Tara Hunt      http://www.horsepigcow.com
Valeria Maltoni     http://www.conversationagent.com/

I met some terrific people at the meetup and enjoyed the discussions which focused on reviewing some of Seth Godin’s blog posts. I particularly enjoyed talking with others about his post What’s the Point (July 2010). After the discussion I started thinking back to a blog post by Forrester’s Augie Ray’s from a couple of days ago, Do You Want to Succeed in Social Media or Social Media Marketing.

All of this got me thinking more about the effort that companies aren’t putting into customer engagement. In Linchpin, Godin says, “Every day I meet people who have so much to give but have been bullied enough or frightened enough to hold it back.” He paints these people as “victims” of a societal education that teaches people to fit in: “For hundreds of years, the population has been seduced, scammed and brainwashed into fitting in, following instructions and exchanging a day’s work for a day’s pay.”

I think very highly of Seth’s ideas and am a fan of his blog and books. In Linchpin he reaches out to inspire people to understand that they have a brilliance and a genius to be more and break out of the norm by contributing value and creating something precious. I love that idea and hope people take heed, but I ponder whether he’s right about society’s guilt. Societal norms certainly have a major impact on how people act and behave in their careers, but I think it has much more to do with the high value our society seems to place on laziness.

Too often workers in every industry look to do the least amount possible to still receive their paycheck and move on in their career toward desired goals. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with efficiency or looking to accomplish a goal by using fewer resources, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Our society, particularly in America, seems to think freedom means free and doing as little as possible is good. But that’s not very rewarding. Freedom as a right doesn’t mean you deserve to get things for free. Doing as little as possible to get by doesn’t inspire others and rarely results in amazing innovation. I say it’s time that our society reconsiders the value proposition on putting in time and effort to accomplish something. Remember the saying, “an honest day’s work?”

Now I’ll turn my attention on these ideas stated above in regards to businesses. So many companies are jumping on a social media bandwagon of some kind trying to get at consumers in a new way, but they look at hiring interns and consider social media a free activity. Many wonder why their social media efforts are not yielding a high return on new customers. Do these businesses really think they’ll get something for nothing?

Social media as a platform (or many new types of platforms depending on your view of social media) is a major innovation in communication and companies should be taking advantage of the fact that this new medium gives them a greater opportunity to engage with their customers. To Listen, Speak, Care, Share and Build Relationships with their customers and other stakeholders. Instead, companies are being lazy. They’re using social media as a new means of talking “at” people and expecting people to just accept that. Just because they put up a Facebook Fan Page doesn’t mean their interacting with customers. Think of how often you go to a store or a restaurant and you’re treated badly or ignored or have a bad experience trying to find items, return purchases, understand a glitch in your bill. How long have you sat on hold waiting to talk to a customer service representative only to be rerouted to another person who also couldn’t help fix your situation and eventually you’ve spent 10 hours, hundreds of dollars and now don’t even want the service you are locked into for a year on contract?

I hope that this blog post helps inspire companies to understand that putting a bit of time, money, effort and other resources into using social media, and consequently, improving their customer service, store offerings, products/services and support lines so that people had a reason and desire to “friend” them on Facebook or tag new products and recommend their services. Offer your customers something novel–offer them an energized commitment to caring about their needs and wants and providing them with the best possible services and products. Then put up your fan page and Twitter stream as a means of sharing information with them, but also as an invitation to engage with your company, to provide feedback and build trust so that they want to remain your customer and recommend you to others.

Running a Smart Deal-of-the-Day

1. Define your goal
   What are you trying to get out of running a deal-of-the-day? Hint: “I want to increase my sales,” or “I want to book more service appointments,” are not the right answers. Of course you want to do those things—you’re in business to do business! The answer you need here is more specific. “I need to boost appointment bookings on Tuesdays,” or “My business is launching our own product-line in addition to our services and we want to let people know.”
2. Understand the DOD Site Contract
   These programs don’t have an upfront cost, but that doesn’t mean they’re free! The price tag for deal-of-the-day programs is more about the cost of acquisition. Think of it this way, you aren’t spending money to advertise upfront but you are selling your products or services at a greatly reduced price—much more than just the discount percentage of the deal.The DOD site takes a commission percentage on each deal sold. Some DOD sites will negotiate the commission amount. They need deals to offer to their members, so don’t just agree to a 50-50% split—negotiate.
3. Check for Additional Fees
   The DOD sites often charge a percentage per deal sold as a credit card processing fee. This is often 2 or 3% of each deal sold. If this is the case, your revenue per deal is now less the commission paid to the DOD site, as well as less the processing fee.
4. Don’t Loose Money on the Deal
   Be sure to understand your profit margins on products and services so that it doesn’t cost you money to provide the service or give away your product. If you’re a service provider who works with contractors to provide the services, such as hair stylists or massage therapists, how much do you have to pay them to perform the service? Remember, you may already be taking in less than 50% per service—if you have to pay a contractor up to 50% of the standard price, you’ve now lost money on each deal sold.
5. Don’t Put Yourself Out of Business
   Keep in mind that you may sell a lot of deals! If that happens, can you provide the service or fulfill the orders to meet the customer demand? If you sell 1000 massages deals, can your business actually provide that many? Can you provide that many AND keep up with your current customer demands? How angry will current customers and/or deal customers be if they can’t get an appointment for 6 months because you’re now booked (and booked with appointments that are not raising any revenue for you)?
6. Be Prepared to Create Repeat Customers
   Many businesses are willing to take a small loss per deal sold on this new form of marketing because their goal is to bring in new customers who will then come in often to spend money and pay full-pricing. First, be sure you have a client/customer retention program in place. Don’t just bring these new people in and hope they’ll return. They need to be enticed to come back and spend more!Second, don’t put all your hope into the repeat customer basket! Many people that will buy your deal-of-the-day just want a deal for a one-time service or product. In addition, your current customers may also see the deal and purchase it, leaving you providing a regular customer the same service or product at a big discount. If the person would have paid full-price because they were already a customer, you’ve now lost money.

DOD advertising is a valid form of marketing that can help businesses attract new customers and increase sales, but only if you’re smart about using DOD sites. Be sure you think everything through and that you understand what you’re getting into. You might want to think about consulting a marketing or business professional before you jump in.

With the explosion of these deal-of-the-day sites I’ve had a lot of small businesses asking advice about jumping on the bandwagon to boost their business during these tough economic times. Particularly, it seems that service-oriented, luxury-purchase small businesses, such as spas, restaurants, hair salons, etc., are looking to these new outlets to draw in new clients. One spa owner told me, “Had I understood all of the implications that running a deal-of-the-day would have on my salon, I would not have done it!”

So, what went wrong for this salon owner? Why wouldn’t a small business want to run a Groupon or other deal-of-the-day?*

Word of Caution Before Running A Deal-of-the-Day

Ask Yourself, “What Will It Really Cost My Business?”

These online companies offer businesses “no upfront costs” to do this type of advertising, but that doesn’t mean it’s free!

Most DOD sites require that your company offer products or services at a minimum of 50% off. So already, your revenue is cut in half. Then, the DOD site takes a split of the commission on the sale for each deal sold. Standard cuts seem to be about 50-50% up to 70-30% split between the business and the DOD site. Then, many of these DOD sites charge a credit charge fee per transaction of 2 or 3% on the price of the deal. So what is the math on that?

• Your company offers products or services which are typically worth $50 for 50% off.
• The DOD site gives you a commission contract of 60-40% split.
• The DOD site charges you 3% of each transaction (deal sold), 3% of $25 = 75 cents each for processing or charge fees.
• 100 deals are sold.
• Retail value of all… $50 x 100 = $5,000
• Your company actually makes on the deal… ($25 x 100) – 40% commission to DOD site = $1,500. Oh, but wait… Minus 3% processing/charge fee which works out to 75 cents per deal. You’re left with $14.25 per deal.

So, the retail value of $5,000 is out the door and you’re company has just made $14.25 (oops, typo) $1,425. Or did it?

1. Are you a service-providing business? If you’re a salon or spa, you may have contract employees and you’ll still need to pay them according to their contract at the full retail value. Example: Your hair salon business uses contractor stylists who split the income of each service with your business 50%. So, your $50 haircut sold on a DOD site bringing in only $14.25, but you have to pay your massage therapist $25 to perform the massage.
2. If you sell products, be sure your profit margin is high enough. Example: You sell $50 worth of product for $25 and actually only bring in $14.25, you’re profit margin must be high enough to at least cover that cost. Did the $50 product you sold cost your company more or less than $14.25 ?
3. And then there is the cost of hassle or angry customers. If your business offered something for $25 for $50 in product/services, but the consumer comes in and buys something that is only $48, they don’t receive the $2 change. Seems reasonable as the business, right? But for a consumer who didn’t read the fine-print…
4. But you’ll get repeat business, right? That’s what you really wanted from the deal, new regular customers. Well, maybe, but likely not. 1st, does your business have a client retention plan? How can you help ensure this new customer is going to come back? And, is your DOD offer something that most people just want to get a deal on or where they looking for a deal to try out a new place and then decide to become regular customers? (My 2 cents… I have yet to return to even one place where I bought a DOD from! Not that they were bad, but I just wanted a deal!)

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post on “Getting the Most from a Deal of the Day offer”.

*Disclaimer: The salon owner did not use Groupon for their deal-of-the-day. Sorry, Groupon, you just happen to be the most well-known of these sites. In addition, the examples of DOD sites are cumulative, general examples and do not reflect Groupon’s exact policies/programs, nor that of any specific DOD site.

The most popular social media question is: “Where do I start with social media if I want to use it for my business?”

The post goes on to show an image illustrating 15 categories into which you could logically sort types of social media into. I think her categories are great and can really help people understand the social media landscape. However, after a very lively #sm72 tweetup today on The Lifespan of a Social Community, my belief that Mirna’s opening statement is a false assumption holds. Or, if businesses are asking that question (to Mirna or others) they should be educated to understand what social media can and can’t do in relation to their business goals.

Social media isn’t a magic box. Just like any other marketing communications or business tool or process, social media, before even looking into which type of social media you might be interested in, is an option available to a business to achieve goals and objectives. Businesses should never ask a consultant “where do I start if I WANT to use social media?” They should be talking to their consultants or internal departments about the goals they need to reach and inquiring whether types of social media can help them achieve those goals.

All businesses need to find the optimal mix of Listening, Speaking, Caring, Sharing and Building Relationships so they can connect, participate and engage with their customers, prospects, investors, employees and other business stakeholders. Chances are, there is a lot of room for social media in there, but just because social media is available, doesn’t mean every company should do it. Social media isn’t free–it may not cost anything to put up a blog or set up a Twitter or Facebook account, but planning and execution take time and resources, especially if you want to do it right AND get people to come.

Social media is incredible and many companies are missing out by not utilizing it, but be sure you know what you’re using it for and why.

79% of US hiring managers & recruiters look for information about job applicants online.*

_{*Microsoft commissioned research, December 2009.}

An online profile also allows you to communicate and engage with the people who can help move your career forward. It will also allow you to discover interesting career growth ideas and bring opportunities to you. A an online profile, as referred to here, is more than just one profile on one website or social network. An effective online profile is:

• Multi-Locational
• Interconnected Locational Accounts
• Static and Dynamic Locations
• Free and Paid-for Locations

All Linked Locations/Accounts = 1 Online Profile

Watch the following presentation to learn more about building an online profile.

Request a free consultation for help building your online profile and marketing yourself to make your career happen!

Maureen’s post is terrific and a must read for any marketer who considers themselves a “branding” professional, as well as for any person who provides a service, thus needs to market themselves as their “product”.

So, with the two blog posts swimming around in my mind, I went back to what I’ve been working on lately, a seminar to teach individuals how to build an online profile that will help them increase their professional opportunities, as well as enhance their personal life and hobbies. The blog posts were causing me to rethink some of the terminology I was using in the seminar presentations. I was actually about to use the term “brand yourself” to try to get across to seminar attendees that they will want to illustrate who they are beyond boring data points. But as my Tara has been heard to say, “Instead of a personal brand, why not just get a personality?”

The line makes me laugh, but in my former career life (working with and counseling host families, schools and high school and university students from around the world) I discovered that for many people, sharing very much of your personality with people you don’t know yet can be a scary thing. Some people need a bit of guidance or perhaps a better way of looking at it is, they need a plan.

Sure, there’s no doubt that many, many careers can benefit from creating a thoughtful online presence and actively participating in online conversations, building relationships with influencers in specific industries. And, many people already understand the entertainment value of online gaming and social networking sites and others realize the enhanced enjoyment of personal hobbies when they connect with groups and individuals online who have common interests and share and tag information and multimedia. But perhaps I should define what I’m talking about regarding “Online Profiles.”

What is an Online Profile?

Many websites and social networks have users create a “profile”, but in this case I’m talking about creating a profile as a collective presence online. Search engines will do the work for anyone looking for you. All you need to do is have your information out there and know where to put your information in places that make sense for your career, your goals and your personal interests. Just because a social network or a web community is popular doesn’t mean you need to be there. It may be more appropriate for your career, goals and personal interests to be on niche sites. The best coarse of action is to understand the differences, choose what’s right for you, share information that is appropriate and that you’re comfortable with and participate in the conversations that are taking place.

An Online Profile is:

• You, in Digital Form
• As much or as little as you want to share
  • Personal Details, Contact Information & Calendars
  • Images, Videos & Audio Files
  • Communications & Documents
  • Medical, Lifestyle & Financial Accounts
  • Social Media & Web 2.0 Networks, Accounts, Communities
• What others share
• Information you “claim” or “tag

So, now I’m thinking I won’t use the term “brand yourself.” Maybe, “personalize your profile.” Or how about, “create a Profonality.” Get it–profile+personality… Oh, that’s just terrible! Back to the drawing board.

But now the revelation is going somewhere and I’d like to share it with you. You may not know this about me, but in my first, errr I mean second career incarnation I managed international educational exchange programs. Much of those responsibilities focused on marketing, which lead me to a master’s in marketing communication, but I digress. And I am the co-founder of Peace4Kids, a J-1 visa high school exchange program, which I still work with. I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for working with teens and college students, which brings me to my revelation.

In the beginning we were animals, right. Then, at some point we were thought of as something more because, well, we thought more–we were humans. Then, someone thought a bit more about it and broke out of the proverbial box and said, “Hey, no. I’m not just a human. I’m a person.” Well, then wars happened and religions started getting all up in our business and the dark ages occurred and then some enlightenment or something and then the industrial revolution and suddenly we were cogs. Just cogs in the wheels. Then… there were so damn many of us and computers came around and we needed something easier to track all of us because there wasn’t just one or two John Smiths, there were 457 in Dubuque, Iowa alone, so we became numbers!

So here it is. The big revelation. We aren’t numbers anymore. Or actually, I should say, we are each so many numbers now–numbers and passwords, and bills and invoices, and accounts and rights and responsibilities–that we are each a business unto ourselves. It is so complicated to be a human being that we must all become business experts if we plan to succeed at our own lives. Oh sure, we can survive without any business training, but chances are that means you’ll end up one of the millions of Americans in major credit card debt or without medical insurance or someone who can’t figure out how to pay your taxes. And hell, think of how many people you know who don’t vote because it’s too complicated to figure out ballot measures (sorry if I’m now making fun of you.)

So this little tirade is not really about marketing, really. But in a way it’s related. We need to consider that each individual person is more like a business now than they ever have been in the past. Life is complicated and as a society we don’t seem to be doing much to catch up and teach the next generation. We need to be letting teens and college students know that they need to not only understand the basic business principals to prepare to run their lives, but they’ll also need the advantage of a bit of branding and messaging for their own career and personal lives as well. Be looking for more on this topic to come. I promise not to be gone so long again!

Or perhaps you don’t spend much time with family because conversation feels awkward because you don’t have things in common. The same is often the case in a business situation. It may turn out you have things personally in common with a business contact, but when you’re meeting for the first time you won’t know this off the bat. Or if your addressing a large audience you don’t have the opportunity to address everyone on an individual level.

As a child you learned, through family interactions and school situations, how to behave and what you were interested in, and you were subsequently drawn to others who wanted to talk about common interests. Unfortunately, in the business world, you can’t simply rely on having the common interest of your products or even your industry to make conversations lively and ignite engagement from your audiences. Many of the audiences you need to reach (particularly potential customers) come to the market conversation because they have a need or want and not because they want to discuss your product or the industry. This conversation is very different in nature than the conversation you would have with an industry analyst or reporter or engineer within your industry and this distinction should not be taken lightly.

Though most people learned how to “make” conversation by doing it—as an after affect of learning how to speak and interact with other people—make no mistake, it is a skill and has many outside influences and factors. And as with most things in business, as opposed to your personal life, it should be planned out and not done off the cuff. Conversation coaching is a best practice to consider and being done by many companies today, particularly with the growth of social media and the expansion of the number of employees who are now becoming spokespeople (whether officially or unofficially) for their companies.

Conversation Coaching

Conversation coaching can include a variety of techniques and exercises to build skills and develop comfort levels with different types of situations. Coaching activities might also include role playing, media/interview preparation techniques and active listening exercises. Re-evaluating the corporate messaging and understanding it from the perspective of how it helps people/companies fulfill their wants/needs is of key importance. It will also, undoubtedly, cover identifying what type of audience an individual is part of and what that means in terms of directing the conversation you have with them.

Conversation coaching will often include preparation materials for one-on-one conversations. When possible, it’s always best to know as much as you can about the person you’re going to meet with, so you can make the conversation personable. This is particularly important in influencer relations. At the very least you want to know as much as you can about the influencers work focus, the outlets for their work, their audience, their specialty/focus, what they feel about your company/competitors and any possible connections between you/your company and the influencer. Come prepared to have a conversation on a topic of mutual interest, not give a pitch. Share how your product/company approach might be shaping the industry/mutual interest and inquire on their opinion. See where this is going? (I digress.)

Who In the Company Needs Conversation Coaching?

Everyone. Certainly the company executives and management teams and anyone with an outward-facing role in the company such as the sales and marketing teams, but in today’s business climate, everyone in the company should have some level of conversation coaching because everyone in the company represents your company.