FileSlinger™ Favorites

My client Blake Hendrix and my fellow BACN member John Todor have co-written an article containing one of my favorite pieces of business advice: Don’t Compete on Price:

Court the engaged buying personality and you will win over highly profitable customers who will want to be your customers for a long time. Let the Wal-Mart’s battle over market share. By winning mindshare you sell the experience; customers stick with you and become your best source of word-of-mouth marketing. You will not have a direct competitor. You have found your niche!

Download the complete article here.

Blake Hendrix draws upon 20 years experience facilitating small business. His practice stresses perspective and simplicity in defining and solving the issues that confront the small businessperson. His keynote is integrating Strategy, Logistics and Tactics to achieve the goals of the organization. His latest book, “Strategic Decisions for Small Business” was published in 2006. The second in the small business series is due for release in June 2007. Learn more at www.saltmineconsulting.com.
John I. Todor, Ph.D. is the Managing Partner of The Whetstone Edge, LLC, a customer experience consulting and training firm that applies scholarly research on human behavior to buyer-seller dynamics including customer loyalty, trust, retention, customer service, CEM—customer experience management, and marketing strategy. He speaks and consults worldwide on these topics. www.TheWhetstoneEdge.com

Oh, frabjous day. Lee Hopkins tapped me for the Four Things meme, which is a blog version of those “getting to know you” e-mails. It is, at least, a meme appropriate for a Favorites Blog.

I don’t mind answering the questions, but you have to figure that by the time something gets to me, it’s probably jumped the shark, and there may not be four more bloggers left to pass this on to.

Four Jobs I’ve Had

• Sales clerk at a children’s clothing store
• Proofreader for the Duke Digital Papyrus project
• University lecturer
• Caregiver for the elderly and disabled

Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over
I probably see four new movies in a year, so it’s not a particularly large pool I have to draw from.

• The Princess Bride (”Inconceivable!”)
• Anything by Miyazaki
• Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
• The first “Star Wars” trilogy (the second trilogy combined doesn’t add up to one good movie)

Four TV Shows I Love to Watch
Yeah, right. I stopped watching TV in my early teens.

Four Favorite Cities
Apart from San Francisco, where I live:

• Siena
• London
• Barcelona
• Boston

Four Favorite Dishes

• Bacon scallops (ask for the recipe)
• Butternut squash chips
• A good cut of rare steak
• Eggplant in garlic sauce

Four Websites I Visit Daily
Daily? Are you kidding? With 200+ unread items in Outlook/Newsgator? Besides, isn’t the point of RSS that you don’t have to visit the site? Sites visited most frequently are:

• Google
• MapQuest
• Wikipedia
• Local public library catalogs

Four Places I’d Rather Be

• Enjoying the ministrations of Sven at the Podcast Institute
• In perfect health
• Caught up with everthing
• New England in Autumn

Four Bloggers I Am Tagging
And I hope this is less laborious for you than it was for me!

• Christopher Richards
• Laura Bergells
• Dawn Rivers Baker
• Denise Wakeman

Yes, I’m back with more podcast recommendations. Since I seem to have evolved into the local podcasting expert (which I think is kind of funny since I’m not a podcaster myself, only an obsessive listener and serious researcher), people frequently ask me for recommendations, and one category I haven’t listed favorites in yet is podcasts produced by print media, radio, etc. So here they are.

Slate Magazine Podcasts
Witty, wacky, and provocative, with selections from Ad Report Card, The Human Guinea Pig, and others, as well as the weekly political gabfest.

NPR Business Story of the Day
The closest thing I do to keeping current. NPR has tons of other podcasts, for a variety of shows.

The Daily Telegraph Podcast
I wasn’t a Telegraph reader when I lived in Britain (I favored the Guardian and the Times), but the podcasts provide a non-American and more conservative perspective to balance that of the People’s Republic of Berkeley.

BusinessWeek
I get the Cover Story, Tech and You, and Cutting Edge (formerly “The Blog Elite”. I like them all, but have one complaint: there are no ID3 tags on the MP3 files, which means they all come up as “unknown” on my player.

Wired News
I just started listening to these. They’re short, opinionated pieces about new developments in technology, from games to cell phones and wilder things.

Quick trackback test for SND.

Linen Life Park Avenue (1375 Park Avenue in Emeryville) is more than an art gallery. It’s a car showroom, for one thing. It’s also a performance space. The gallery’s tagline is “An Artistic Space…A Spiritual Place,” and it’s appropriate.

Unfortunately, TLL doesn’t have a website just at the moment (they did for a little while, back when they were still on Hollis), but if you’re interested in holding your party, reception, wedding, business mixer, or other event there, you can contact development director Baylan Megino (that’s pronounced “by-lahn meh-hee-noh”) at 510-526-1575 or linenlifelounge@aol.com.

Baylan holds regular Wednesday morning networking events there, which are always a joy. I’ve also been to evening arts and business mixers, which combine live music, free chair massage, and a chance to hang out amidst wonderful contemporary art (predominantly African) and the artists who create it.

This month the Bay Area Consultants Network asked its members the following question:
To what end do we network? What happens to the cards we collect? How do we make the most of networking? What will enable you to say “I know someone who can help you with that?” when someone says says “I need an XYZ”?

• Check to see whether the person is on LinkedIn and connect with them there.
• Go to other networking groups such as BNI. Networking is about relationships built up over time through regular meetings.
• Go through your database every week and e-mail, call, or write to someone with a suggestion that can help them.
• Keep in mind that the search for the ultimate contact manager is like the search for the Holy Grail.
• Stay in front of people you network with by being visual: send a gift or postcard which is attractive with your contact info on the back so they’re constantly reminded about you.
• Try to find something right away that might help that person. For instance, go on the IMC database and look for someone and pass on the name. They’ll remember your helpfulness.
• If you can be a resource to someone that creates a better relationship.
• Note: don’t automatically add people to your newsletter if they give you their cards. This is more likely to anger than attract them.
• Don’t take cards from anyone you haven’t had a real conversation with.
• Forward job announcements from your new contacts to your distribution list. The position will be filled and the contact will remember you.
• Be clear about what you do and what it is that you want.

There was a record turnout at today’s Bay Area Consultants Network meeting this morning, where I was speaking on a panel about “Virtual Marketing Magnets.” For those who couldn’t make it, there’s a web version of my PowerPoint (complete with the text of what I said, or at least, the text of what I was planning to say) and a clickable imagemap of my handout. You need Internet Explorer to view the PowerPoint properly, I’m afraid.

As January got underway, I noticed something strange happening with my pointer. It would start wandering across the screen when I wasn’t anywhere near the trackpad or the stylus. The problem got rapidly worse, until I couldn’t do any “mousing” at all. (And I was right in the middle of something that really couldn’t be done by keyboard navigation alone when it happened, of course.)

After a brief interlude of panic, I remembered that when I bought my used Dell Latitude 610, it still had time on the service contract the original purchaser had signed up for. So I dug up the information and called Dell Gold tech support.

To my considerable astonishment, I found myself connected almost immediately with a living, breathing human being—and a native speaker of English, to boot. After asking me a few questions and attempting a couple of diagnostics, the consultant on the phone arranged for a repairperson to come to my house the next day to replace the parts most likely to be the source of the problem, to wit the keyboard and trackpad.

The repair guy showed up comfortably within the allotted time, carrying a stack of boxes. He lacked a bit in the personal hygiene department, but made up for it in efficiency. The repair was finished in less than half an hour, and the computer works fine now.

I’m not normally the type to sign up for service contracts, but I’m sure glad I had this one!

The November 18th BACN forum posed the question “What have you learned this year that you’re going to apply next year?”

Here are the answers:

• Do less thinking and take more action.
• Follow Robert Middleton’s suggestion about offering something in exchange for people’s e-mail addresses and get more contacts to add to your mailing list when you speak.
• Make an appointment with BACN member Nora Wolfson to figure out what you most need to do for the success of your business.
• Automate your marketing structure.
• Create a marketing structure with Robert Middleton’s Marketing Plan Workbook and Infoguru Marketing Manual.
• While you’re at it, subscribe to Middleton’s More Clients e-zine and his free monthly conference calls.
• Get your own advisory group.
• Start speaking in public.
• Focus on one thing at a time and you’ll get it done.
• Examine your priorities: what’s your purpose and where do you want to go?
• Give yourself maneuvering room.
• Redefine persistence: give something a one-month trial rather than a six-month trial.
• Align what you do with your identity: if it’s not important to you, you can’t sustain it.

Remember: these tips are the suggestions of individual BACN members, based on what has been helpful to them. Your mileage may vary.

This month the Bay Area Consultants Network asked its members “What’s in your bag of tricks?” Here are the answers.

10-28-05: What’s in Your Bag of Tricks?

Tools and techniques used by BACN members.

MARKETING

• Use your outgoing voicemail as branding opportunity. Make weekly changes to include a short tip.
• On your second contact with a prospect, send a video intro by e-mail (for samples see www.christopherrichards.com)
• Ask prospects what kind of company they want to see in 5 years.
• Speak slowly and clearly when leaving your name and number on voice mail.
• Send your top 10 tips to new clients/prospects.
• Ask your prospects “What are your hopes for___? And why is that important?”
• Listen and ask questions-go away without proposing anything until you’ve thought of what’s appropriate to the prospect.
• Follow up quickly and with something unusual, e.g. Red Jellyfish e-cards or an actual handwritten note.
• Start writing a blog. Personalize it a bit and tie it back to your
  business. Make sure there’s an e-mail link to you in your posts and on
  your main blog page.
• Use Camtasia for Windows or SnapZ for Mac to make screen-capture videos and send them to clients and prospects.
• Invite prospects to look at your website while on the phone with you instead of sending them off to do it on their own.

RESEARCH

• Hoovers Premium is free if you go in person to the San
  Francisco Public Library main branch. You can get not just contact
  information but background information about your prospects there.

WORKING WITH THE CLIENT

• Pass out something clients and seminar participants can play with
  and remember you by, for example Koosh™ balls to represent frontal lobe brain cells and help them think.
• Be aware of an organization’s shadow culture, which is what you’ll have to deal with.
• Show up early for your client appointments-you can learn a lot in the lobby.
• If clients aren’t taking your advice, you need to charge them more money.

SELF

• Do it now-you’ll only get more things to do tomorrow.
• Attend BACN every month.
• Focus on your vision and the big picture.
• Create a roadmap for your business.
• When networking, focus on what you can offer the other person.