Linkedin: Tool for New Business

How are you using LinkedIn to generate new business? The social networking site for business is certainly a place where you can reach clients. However many industry professionals are still sorting out how this makes business sense. Have you been asking yourself this question?

What was the “old school” method for networking before social media? There were industry events, cocktail parties, trade shows and other venues where you were face to face with clients. What was the platinum networking opportunity? I believe it was when you were talking with a client who viewed you as a trusted advisor and someone you were pursuing to become a client joined the conversation. When your client started talking about all of the great things you were doing and had done, what was the reaction of the potential client? It was always great to go fishing for new clients at these events, but you often went away like the Disciples who had fished until dawn without success. Using the strength of an existing client to open the door for your next client was always the best outcome you could expect.

The old ways are still the best ways to use LinkedIn. It is really about creating a three-way conversation between you, your client and the universe of potential clients active on LinkedIn. The problem with LinkedIn and other social media outlets is lack of private chat rooms. There is a process that will bring results and it is a three-way conversation. It just doesn’t happen at the same time. In order to get started you need to know your client is active on Linkedin. The next step is to ask the client for a recommendation. While most recommendations are from people you have worked with or for in current or prior positions, the most powerful are those that come from clients. Offer the client some suggestions for what to put in the recommendation. If your company is on Linkedin, your firm should pursue recommendations as well. Think about it this way. When an RFP asks you for reference letters from previous clients, what do you do? I used to send the person a draft of the letter to help him out. Although the client wants to help you, their time is limited. You make it easy for them. The same is true with LinkedIn.

Recommendations are always posted in Linkedin’s weekly updates sent to everyone you are connected with. In addition it will be posted on the update that goes to every one of your client’s connections as well. You can independently post it on the groups you are a member of. How many potential clients will then end up becoming part of this three-way conversation?

Finally, when I first started marketing professional services, my mentor told me to join allied organizations. But, he warned, don’t simply join the organization. Be an active member. He said, “You only get out of the organization what you are willing to put into it." The same is true with social media. You will only get business from it when you are willing to become an active participant.

Use Marketing Meetings to Change Corporate DNA

What is the best process for changing the DNA of your firm and turning it toward a corporate culture of business development and marketing? How often does the team meet?

It is not the frequency of meeting, but the content that matters. People are tired of attending meetings where the same thing is discussed and no action is taken. One way to change that attitude is to vary the content. One meeting might look at pipeline and hit rates and the next look at action items like calling on clients.

The pipeline meeting will look at short lists, upcoming interviews, results of past interview debriefs, secured revenue versus goal, etc. The next meeting looks at the status of the contact database, with emphasis on who is doing what. Do your BD people, principals and project managers know when client milestones like birthdays and anniversaries are coming up? Are they helping clients extend their business networks?

Sometimes you need to challenge people to make more calls. A contest to determine who can come up with the most useful information about a client is one way to get action started.
The person making the least calls might be required to bring donuts to the next meeting.

Lastly, your meetings should open discussion about your marketing and the tools that need to be developed to expand marketing opportunities. When your meetings begin to focus on action, you will be surprised at how many new marketing ideas come forward during your meetings.

Delivering Bad News

Receiving bad news is no fun. Giving it isn't either.

Whichever end you're on, here are three tips to better deliver and handle bad news:
Tell early and often. Get surprises out there as soon as possible. If you're not going to make your numbers, your boss can manage the situation better in June than she can in October.

Remember the past. It's likely you have some past experience you can draw from. Let this help you prepare mentally, but be humble — don't assume you know exactly what this bad news will bring.
Don't shoot the messenger. If you want people to be open and honest with you, don't blame the person delivering the bad news. Thank them for sharing and reward their courage to speak up in difficult times.

How to Keep Your Team Hungry

Marketing and business development people are a unique breed. In fact, some of your best project managers and principals also fall into this category.

What is it?

They don't look at market conditions and ask, "Why," or complain about tough economic conditions. They look beyond the trouble, sort through the chaos, understand competitors and find creative solutions. They bring optimism into the office every day. Not the pie-in-the-sky, nothing is ever bad kind of optimism. But, optimism that however bad things are, their hard work, intelligence and creativity will make a difference. The glass is never half-full or half-empty for them. Any amount of water is good enough for them.

They are also always hungry.

Many firms decide the best way to keep their stars hungry is to not feed them. Although this sounds counter productive, it is true. Sometimes this is simply a default position. Let me explain. When I was marketing in the parking industry, many owners deferred maintenance on parking structures because they believed these facilities were indestructible. Unfortunately, their understanding of deterioration mechanisms usually came with a multi-million dollar repair price tag.

If your firm is like the parking structure owner, you might think these people are never hungry or give them a bland diet that doesn't satisfy. Either option works for a while. People on a diet know that not eating will start them on their way to losing weight. However, this is only a short term fix for the dieter, who will end up eating more when the results are not worth the pain of starvation. The same thing happens when they switch to a bland diet.

The diet you need to feed your superstars (aka marketing business development, principals,and project managers) are the three Rs: Recognition, Reward and Resources. Most firms concentrate solely on Reward. However, even this element of the diet can have unintended consequences for principals and project managers. For example, the yearly goal includes a 20% commitment to marketing for a project manager. That goal is not met, but all of the projects have high multipliers. During the yearly performance appraisal, you reward the person anyway and send a message to the superstars that marketing isn't really that important. It is the equivalent of management telling Babe Ruth that home runs are not important and he should try to reduce the number of strikeouts.

If you aren't doing it now, you need to begin offering a balanced diet that will keep these people hungry. You need to develop ways to recognize peak performers in the areas of marketing and business development. Affirmation of a job well done is not the icing on the cake for these people, it is the cake. The main course is winning the work. Going into battle with the competition and bringing home the prize.

Resources are considered the appetizers, salad or soup. They get you ready for the main course. Resources include allowing them to participate in appropriate training, personal development and education programs.

Are you now ready to develop a plan to keep your people hungry in 2010? You need to do more than the CEO of one firm told me recently, "Why do we need to send them to training or develop recognition programs? We pay them to deliver results." He was also the guy who complained about losing his best people to competitors.

Marketing and business development people are a unique breed. In fact, some of your best project managers and principals also fall into this category.

What is it?

They don't look at market conditions and ask, "Why," or complain about tough economic conditions. They look beyond the trouble, sort through the chaos, understand competitors and find creative solutions. They bring optimism into the office every day. Not the pie-in-the-sky, nothing is ever bad kind of optimism. But, optimism that however bad things are, their hard work, intelligence and creativity will make a difference. The glass is never half-full or half-empty for them. Any amount of water is good enough for them.

They are also always hungry.

Many firms decide the best way to keep their stars hungry is to not feed them. Although this sounds counter productive, it is true. Sometimes this is simply a default position. Let me explain. When I was marketing in the parking industry, many owners deferred maintenance on parking structures because they believed these facilities were indestructible. Unfortunately, their understanding of deterioration mechanisms usually came with a multi-million dollar repair price tag.

If your firm is like the parking structure owner, you might think these people are never hungry or give them a bland diet that doesn't satisfy. Either option works for a while. People on a diet know that not eating will start them on their way to losing weight. However, this is only a short term fix for the dieter, who will end up eating more when the results are not worth the pain of starvation. The same thing happens when they switch to a bland diet.

The diet you need to feed your superstars (aka marketing business development, principals,and project managers) are the three Rs: Recognition, Reward and Resources. Most firms concentrate solely on Reward. However, even this element of the diet can have unintended consequences for principals and project managers. For example, the yearly goal includes a 20% commitment to marketing for a project manager. That goal is not met, but all of the projects have high multipliers. During the yearly performance appraisal, you reward the person anyway and send a message to the superstars that marketing isn't really that important. It is the equivalent of management telling Babe Ruth that home runs are not important and he should try to reduce the number of strikeouts.

If you aren't doing it now, you need to begin offering a balanced diet that will keep these people hungry. You need to develop ways to recognize peak performers in the areas of marketing and business development. Affirmation of a job well done is not the icing on the cake for these people, it is the cake. The main course is winning the work. Going into battle with the competition and bringing home the prize.

Resources are considered the appetizers, salad or soup. They get you ready for the main course. Resources include allowing them to participate in appropriate training, personal development and education programs.

Are you now ready to develop a plan to keep your people hungry in 2010? You need to do more than the CEO of one firm told me recently, "Why do we need to send them to training or develop recognition programs? We pay them to deliver results." He was also the guy who complained about losing his best people to competitors.

First Key Habit of Highly Effective Marketing Services Professionals

Habit 1 Communication Procedures

5 Habits of Highly Effective Marketing Services Professionals may help those who are struggling to improve their job performance.

Habit 1: Communication Procedures
Without question, one of the most essential elements of any good relationship is clear and open communication. As a marketing services professional, practically everything that we do is communication in one sense or another.
With this in mind, it becomes evident why communication procedures are the most important skills for us to develop.

I have previously written regarding some positive ways to communicate with others. This article is well worth the reading. However this time, we’ll look at some procedures that can be set up that will facilitate greater communication.
The first step to more effective communication is to eliminate unnecessary informational inputs from your life. We have to do this first by getting organized. Since I’ve written about this before, I’ll summarize very briefly here:

How do we eliminate information?

Inbox – Have one place where all incoming physical information goes and process it no more than once a day.

Email – Do not leave emails in your inbox after you are finished with them. Email responses generally yield more emails, so be conservative with responses.

Trash Can – In most cases, when in doubt, throw it out.

Phone – Marketing folks can get bogged down with unimportant telephone calls. However, don’t dismiss calls from sales professionals out of hand. Consider the marketing person who told me she hated telemarketers. Did she think clients thought the same of her when she called trying to market the firm’s services, or does she view the business development team in the same light as telemarketers.
Highly effective people respect the work of other professionals and will take a call from someone with a service they might be able to use. The key is knowing when to end the conversation and how to tell the person their service is not needed at this time.

Another time waster with the phone are people in your network who call to chat without a specific business reason for the call. It is important to keep these conversations short. You can end the call with an agreement to meet sometime in the future to talk about business opportunities.

You have now been shown how to eliminate some of the communications overload. Remember, these tips do nothing to reduce the 4000 advertising messages you receive each day, but they are a start. Now what can you do to improve your communications methods?

1. Answer every important email Clients love knowing that their question is important to you. Even if it’s a rude email, be sure that you answer it in as peaceable way as you possibly can. I had an irate client who emailed me while I was at a convention. I happened to check my email that evening and responded immediately. I told her I was at a convention, but the person who could help was also at the convention. I subsequently had lunch with him the next day, we laughed about the problem, and solved it. I got back from the convention and had a lovely email from her telling me she knew I would solve it.

2. Return every important phone call How do you handle calls to and from clients? Are you in the habit of returning calls the same business day? What about colleagues, people in your network or vendors? I have put together a prioritized list (from my standpoint) of important people. The lower they are on the totem pole, the less necessary communication is with them. If they’re not on the list, communication is usually not vital. However, do not confuse vital with important. Vital might be the difference between winning and losing a client. However, important might be the one call that connects you to your next client. This is why time management and priorities are so important. Highly effective marketing services professionals have a system for handling phone calls. On the business development side they even have developed methods for handling voice mail when their reach potential clients.

3. Encourage communication How do you handle communication with your team? As marketing advocates we have to work successfully in a collaborative and interdisciplinary environment. The firm’s brand really depends upon the communication you receive from your team. If this isn’t part of your plan, you need to incorporate it soon.

4. Set up a blog I like the functionality of a blog. Make sure your firm’s experts are contributing and get the word out to all your clients, prospects, suspects and vendors. Have your experts and other team members tie it in with their alumni associations as well.

5 Habits of Highly Effective Industry Professionals

Next week the Rising Market Newsletter will feature the results of an industry survey and 20 years of experience marketing professional services to edify subscribers as to the 5 habits that are reflected in highly effective leaders who market professional services. The newsletter is published by Business Development Professionals. You can subsribe by sending an email to customerservice@businessdevelopmentpros.org

The complete results will be posted on this blog over the next two weeks. Join the blog and you will be emailed the complete White Paper.

Extending the Reach of Social Networks

When your career is marketing professional services, how do you use your networks to expand your business base and careers?

You must approach each person in your network not only in terms of whether they personally have contacts or information that can help you reach new clients, but whether they can introduce you to people who do. In my sales training programs I tell attendees they need a mentor. A mentor is someone who can help them navigate through a client's decision matrix and who is interested in seeing them succeed. If you have been selective in building your social networks, the people you have connected with will want to help you like a mentor.

Why else have you taken the time to build a social network, if there wasn't an expected business outcome? You have agreed to join others and help them. Why shouldn't there be a quid pro quo?

Also, look for friends or colleagues who are competitors, partners, vendors or clients of the firm you are interested in. This part of your client acquisition strategy not only allows you to learn more about the organization, but you also may be able to discover value-added information you can use to show your knowledge of the organization in a way your competitors can't.

When you work you network like this, a few hundred contacts can turn into thousands. You can imagine the impact that expanded reach will have on your ability to build business.