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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.

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I’ve become quite the podcast junkie, as those who see me with my earbuds running down into the beaded pouch I got at Target to hold my MP3 player can attest. In fact, thanks to my contributions about podcasting syndromes, I am now listed as co-founder of the Podcast Asylum.

As a professional writer, naturally I’m interested in podcasts on the subject of communications. Here are four business communications podcasts I listen to, comment on, and even get mentioned in (which of course biases me in their favor). They’re listed in alphabetical order, not necessarily order of preference.

• Across the Sound is a relatively new podcast produced by prolific bloggers Joseph Jaffe and Steve Rubel, with an emphasis on what is and isn’t working in marketing, PR, and new media. The “Sound” in question is Long Island Sound
• Better Communication Results: Australian Lee Hopkins provides brief, often humorous tips for improving your business communications.
• For Immediate Release: One of the longest-running podcasts, FIR is the brainchild of two members of IABC, Neville Hobson (in Amsterdam) and Shel Holtz (in California), who conduct their discussions via Skype. (Which is another of my favorite things, but that belongs in a different post.) Shows run up to 90 minutes in length and conclude with a different choice of music each week. Ordinarily I’m not too keen on music in spoken-word podcasts, but Shel and Neville have good taste.
• Trafcom News by Canadian Donna Papacosta is another recent offering, with short shows aimed at “people who care about communicating with employees, customers, prospects and the world.”

Note that all of these people listen to, comment on, and contribute to each other’s podcasts. Podcasting is a conversational medium, and listeners get to join in on the conversation—and perhaps become podcasters themselves if they stick around long enough.

Don’t expect to hear me podcasting myself any time soon, though. It took half an hour to record a two-minute audio comment to send to FIR. Writing is much faster and easier for me.

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Really sophisticated power networkers not only enter all these cards into their contact management program but create e-mail follow-up templates along the lines of “great to meet you at _____. Here’s a link to something useful I’ve written. Let me know if you or any of your clients ever need help with _____.” By means of grouping the contacts and mail merge, they can send these personalized follow-up notes to everyone they met.

I’m not quite that organized or sophisticated, and while I go to lots of networking events and meet (by my own standards, anyway) a lot of people, I haven’t become quite this systematic. (I did recently set up a CardScan for a power-networker client who collects business cards by the bushel, however.)

My current preferred follow-up technique is to send my new acquaintances e-postcards from Red Jellyfish. This organization is dedicated to saving rainforests and endangered wildlife, but I have to admit I mostly stick to the free e-cards. You select one of the gorgeous images and can, if you wish, include an appropriate quotation, as well as your own message. Red Jellyfish sends you a copy of your card and a notification when it’s received.

I’ve gotten very positive feedback about these cards. They’re a simple way to stand out and stay in touch, and I’ve begun sending them to friends as greeting cards, because I think they’re a lot classier than most of what I see from Blue Mountain and the like.

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