Will you marry me? NO? (I’ve heard that before…but I digress).OK…I don’t want to get married, but I do want to build a relationship where we know each other, like each other, and trust each other enough to do business together. When we find someone we are attracted to, obviously we don’t run up to them on the street and ask for their hand in marriage and guarantee live-happily-ever-after bliss. Building a business relationship is no different. If you’re jumping into social media or making cold calls and asking for a new client’s hand in business wedlock, maybe you’ve got the wrong approach.Here is the wrong approach:

ME: “Hi, I’m Dan! I’m a Solutionist! Can I have all of your business?”

YOU: “NO! Go away!” (again, I’m having flashbacks).

A better approach is this:

ME: “Hi Paul, I see you know Bill Gates, I think he may be a good prospect and I can save him money. Can you make an introduction for me?”

YOU: “Hi Bill, I’d like to introduce you to a friend of mine. He’s saved me money and he may be able to save you money. His name is Dan! He’s A Solutionist!”

BILL: “Never heard of him Paul, but if you recommend him, I’ll meet with him.”

The key to building a long-term client base is to create long-term relationships. The new prospect may be a total jerk, but you don’t know that until you do a LITTLE business together. But you can’t do a LITTLE business together until they know you a LITTLE bit. On the other hand, the prospect may think you are a jerk as well. If either or both are true, then that relationship is not a good fit…and we haven’t even started talking about your product. Asking for an introduction through a mutual contact may be able to avert this problem.

PAUL: “Dan, I know what you can do for Bill, but I don’t think he could hang intellectually with your sarcastic wit. It’s probably not a good fit.” (That’s Paul’s polite way of saving my valuable time and money.)

When we start dating, maybe we are introduced to each other through a friend. We start with a conversation over coffee, then maybe dinner, then a movie, then we can begin a relationship. A business relationship is not unlike a courting process. The first contact could be or is becoming more likely a connection via a social media site or, I know it sounds crazy, you may make first contact with a phone call (crazy huh?). When you are jumping onto the social media bandwagon and finding a lot of new prospects, please remember what my Mom used to tell me. “Remember your manners young man!”

• Be polite - Don’t be pushy.
• Provide information - Don’t be selling.
• Look to give something - Don’t look to get something.
• Help others make connections - Don’t force yourself on others.
• Ask questions about others - Don’t be self-aggrandizing.
• Look to learn - Don’t look to impress.

Sometime I am the master of the obvious, but I hope you found some value in this article. But if we do end up doing business together, remember that my Mom told me to be polite, she never said anything about sarcasm (wink wink).

Signing into a social media platform and not contributing is like going to a networking event, sticking your name on your lapel and standing in the corner. You come out of the networking event and say “Well that event stunk.” That doesn’t sound like a good way to make contacts, does it? Well it gets worse. Now imagine going to that event, but you are not standing in the corner. You are walking around and sticking your ear over the shoulder of a group in conversation. Here’s another scenario; somebody walks up to you and introduces themselves but you simply walk away without saying a word. If that’s your way of networking, then stay home, it will save more finger food for me.

If you are getting involved in social media, be sure you are committed to the “social” part. It’s called social media for a reason and that is because you are supposed to socialize; to connect; to introduce; to meet; to learn; to engage. Is it NOT called “Lurking Media” or “Talk to the Hand Media”.

Social media is exactly like a networking event. Here are some tips for being a better networker and getting more from your social media:

• Show up. It sounds silly doesn’t it? But you’d be surprised at how many people want to make new contacts, but never network.
• Introduce yourself, but don’t start your sales pitch. Shoving your business down somebody’s throat is a turnoff. Go stand in the corner with the lurker.
• Before you throw the iron bars of your privacy settings around your profile, remember that this is social media. You don’t have to reveal intimate details, but leave your privacy settings open enough that other can determine if you are somebody they would like to engage. If somebody looks at your profile and finds “Dan only shares his information with his wife and his mom”, then chances are you are going to move along right past Dan to the next person and never give Dan a second thought.
• Ask questions. Be genuinely interested in the person you have just met. Find out about their business, what their challenges are, and why they are there. You may have nothing in common with them, but you also may know somebody who does. The more you are interested in the other person, the more that person will find you interesting. After all, people love to talk about themselves.
• Get involved in topics of discussion or even start a discussion. The more you contribute RELEVANT information, the more you will be seen as the expert on the topic.
• Thank people for engaging in discussion and that you appreciated their input.
• If you really want to make an impact, go out of your way to get back to them with information or a contact that they were looking to make. They will be astonished that you remembered them. They, in turn, will want to go out of their way for you.
• Ask somebody you DO know to introduce you to somebody you would LIKE to know. The person making the introduction is like a bridge over the chasm of unknown-unliked-untrusted.
• Be cordial. If you engage in conversation and you are not comfortable, you don’t have to become their Facebook friend, LinkedIn Contact, or Twitter Follower.
• Be genuine. Successful business people are very intuitive and are able to identify that you are trying to be something you are not.

Finally, and most importantly, each new person you meet will know somewhere around 200 other people. Be careful of whom you are quick to dismiss.

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube. I’m sure you have heard of them. They are what the kids are doing on the computer, right? WRONG! They are the internet media channels through which engaged professionals communicate, gather and disseminate information in real time. It is called Social Media and if you and your organization are not engaged, you are missing out. That’s OK as long as your denial is intact, but consider these statistics:

• If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia. (socialnomics.net)

• Twitter has more than 6 million unique visitors and 55 million total visitors per month (Compete study).

• 15% of online time is spent on Social Media (Compete).

• Facebook has recently hit the 100 Million monthly user mark (Facebook).

• Social Media reaches virtually every age group. (Ad-Ology)

• 80% of companies used LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees. (socialnomics.net)

I don’t normally post a bunch of statistics in my articles, but I realize there may be some left-brainers who like to crunch numbers and need some convincing. The numbers tell me that if you are not engaged in Social Media, you need to start. Start somewhere. Start anywhere! A good place to start is at www.SMC.org, where a growing of business are gathering to participate in PA Business Social Media.

There is opportunity lying in wait for those businesses who are engaging in social media. Corporations understand this. While gathering my research for a social media training seminar, I came across a study of the top 100 global brands’ social media practices. The study establishes a direct correlation between profitability and the number of social media channels and the depth of involvement within those channels. Are you still not convinced? How about this statistic; those highly engaged in social media reported an average of 18% increased growth, and those least engaged reported an average of -6% growth. These companies consider it significant enough to establish social media marketing departments to engage that segment of their client base.

Another study shows that CEO’s and Presidents are not personally engaging as quickly nor do they understand why the need to and that’s the reason I’m writing this article. In light of the study sighted above and the fact that most CEO’s are not yet engaged, what does that tell you? Engage and engage now! There is opportunity to exploit.

The good news is that social media is just beneficial to the large corporation. Any size company can get into the social media market. A small pizza place in New Orleans reported a one day sales record when 68% of their customers called in orders from Twitter. They also reported that 85% of their new customers resulted from their Twitter efforts. (I’ll take the thin crust with sausage and onions please.)

If you are engaged, you are filling a huge void that other Presidents are business are not. Potential clients are digging for information online and if you are the one giving it to them, you are automatically building a relationship. If you don’t have an online presence…(insert cricket chirping sound here). The other side of this equation is the peer to peer relationship for business owners to build with other owners. Social Media is incredibly powerful to build relationships and immediately spread your name and information.

How do you become engaged? I mentioned in the beginning of this article that LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are channels within social media. They are the big four on which to start  (ideally after you have a website and a blog, but that’s another article). Your website provides basic information and your blog provides up to date and timely information and articles. Your social media channels help to distribute the real-time access channels to your blog. Tracking and controlling the social media channels is accomplished with additional tools such as Hootsuite, Ow.ly, TweetDeck and Bit.ly. These are some of the additional pieces of the recipe for successful social media engagement, but not something to worry about right now.

Social media, as with any program, is most effective when you enter into it with a plan, a definition of a success, and a tracking system to measure the success of the program. Except for your website, the wonderful part about the tools mentioned above is that they are FREE. To make your social media program successful, you must be committed to the program. You must be willing to commit your time and your effort to work the program. Your social media program is an investment. If you don’t invest, you get no return.

If you’re already engaged in social media, CONGRATULATIONS! If it is working for you and you are ready to take your entire organization to the next level, then there are Social Media Platforms available which allow you to create your organization’s own Social Media Network. SMC Business Councils, for example, has recently launched their members-only PA Business Social Media site. This autonomous community is a platform for members to share best practices and research, stay up to date on government advocacy efforts, take advantage of members-only benefits, find human resource, marketing, healthcare and legal expertise, share business successes and communicate information only to those within the walls of their membership community. (www.SMC.org)

Remember that feedback and tracking is essential to measuring the success of your social media program. The information and the industry is morphing daily, so please contact me to share your social media successes and challenges or if you have additional questions. If you are Social Networking neophyte, that’s OK. We’re here to help.

I’ve put together a two-part training session to show businesses how to use Social Media as a Marketing Tool.

1. Social Media Marketing: The Pieces
2. Social Media Marketing: How the Pieces Work Together

If your organization is interested in the training, email for more information.

This is a distilled version of “Healthcare Marketing: 8 Strategies to Accomplish More with Less“. This is for those of you who don’t think Healthcare Marketing applies to you….

On everybody’s radar today is dollars generated versus dollars spent. The question everybody is asking is how we can do more of the former with less of the latter. If there were one magic answer, everybody would be doing it. Well, there are answers, they’re not magic, they may not be easy, but they work.

1. The single most important and most obvious way to do more with less is to make sure you have a marketing plan in place. Trying “this” today and “that” tomorrow will only work if message and your target audience happen to intersect by accident. Targeting a specific audience through a specific medium or media with a specific message with a specific plan to track results and a specific measurement of success is the key. Yes it can be a lot of work, but it’s the only way to determine what works and what doesn’t. Not everything will be successful, but the only way to know is to target, to communicate and to track as best you can.

2. Consider client sources. Marketing directly to clients helps but going directly to referral sources is even better? I’m pretty sure clients aren’t lining up like the day after Thanksgiving at the front desk of your facility to buy your holiday bargains. They seek you out in hopes that you can solve their problem. Answer this question: “Where do they get the information which leads them to you?” If you have the answer to this question, then you have the target you should be directing your messages toward.

3. Look at your farm system. As a slightly fanatical Steelers and Penguins fan, I can’t help but consider what successful sports franchises are doing. Today’s younger employees are tomorrow’s mid level management and somewhere down the road will be executives. Different stages of a career are target audiences, but also guaranteed to grow to the next target audience. Do you have a plan in place to carry your clients through the changes in theirs careers? Conversely, do you have a plan in place to bring the best up and coming talent to you organization?  Better talent will bring fans to your stadium. How are you attracting that future talent?

4. Better customer relations leads to word-of-mouth marketing, which is the least expensive but most powerful form of marketing. In a climate where many clients feel like the next person in line, the provider/client relationship is more critical than ever. Take care of the details with your clients. Do you really know anything about their families, or birthdays, or anniversaries, or alma mater? There is great CRM tool out there. If you need help in that area, contact me today!

5. Look at the structure your message and how it’s being delivered. It’s great that you just spent a pile of cash on the latest technology, but the harsh truth is that nobody cares. Clients cannot develop a relationship with a machine (although there are times when my wife thinks my laptop and I have something special going). Instead of bragging about your latest equipment, focus on its benefit to your clients. “We will increase your annual productivity by 230 house by helping you accomplish in five minutes what currently takes you an hour.” That sounds better doesn’t it? You haven’t mentioned the equipment and have already solved the problem. Don’t forget to throw in something to convince them that they can believe what you are telling them. Finally, convince them why their experience with you will be much better than their experience with the next facility that may be making the same claim.

6. Leverage the knowledge bases of your most trusted vendors. Your relationship with your vendors is just as important as your relationships with clients. I am one of those vendors, but there are several out there like me (well, not just like me because I am The Solutionist). With years of experience under our belts, a good vendor can be a good consultant and a good insurance policy by steering you around the rocks that lie beneath the surface. The key is to leverage a vendor you trust and can bring multiple solutions to the table The better your relationship with your vendor, the more your vendor will want to help.

7. Billboards are effective, but the way you are buying may be a way to do more with less. Billboards consist of two distinctly separate items. One is the rental of the board space itself and the second is the poster or vinyl. Many advertisers don’t know that they two are separate. The companies that show up in your office own the board itself, but also, in most cases, they will subcontract the visual to the same place as a vinyl broker would, but with a higher markup. Ask your billboard company to break out the vinyl printing from the contract.

8. Social Media Marketing or Web 2.0 is new to a lot of marketing departments. You hear about it, you understand a little, but you can’t wrap your brain around it. Do not discount its effectiveness because you don’t understand it. It can be fairly inexpensive or fairly elaborate. One thing is for sure; it’s not going away. Effectively combining the reach of your website, your blog, and social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn and a strategy to utilize the above is becoming increasingly effective. Throw in the power of relationship marketing direct mail and PURLs (Personal URLs), you can create an information stream which can turn target marketing into bull’s-eye marketing.

The bottom line is that effective marketing is an investment and not an expense. There are forms of marketing that will allow you to do more with less. Effective marketing is not to be confused with cheaper marketing. If your marketing strategy is effective and you can prove that with tracking, then there isn’t any reason you wouldn’t want to do more.