I bet you are wondering, “What is THIS? What is it that I should be doing that other businesses are doing? What’s the secret? How will it help me grow my business?”

Before I tell you, I’m going to warn you. It’s not sexy. It’s not easy. And it’s not free.

Ok, how many of you are still reading? 

Good, that means (1) you care, (2) you want your business to succeed, and (3) you know that the economy, and the way that people do business, and what consumers are looking for, is fundamentally changing.

So what is THIS? It’s Content Marketing.

I wrote a blog about this very topic nearly a year ago. Do yourself a favor and take a quick read of it and refresh your memory. If you already know and understand content marketing, you will still want to keep reading because THIS…what you are reading RIGHT NOW…these very words….Yep, you guessed it, THIS IS CONTENT MARKETING.

Even more importantly, you’ll want to READ THIS ARTICLE, a research report from the Content Marketing Institute (Who even knew such a thing existed, right?) on 2012 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgents and Trends. 

Some quick highlights to entice you: 

1. On average, 60% of respondents indicate that they plan to increase their content marketing budgets over the next 12 months.
    
2. 9 out of 10 organizations market with content marketing.
    
3. Most popular B2B content marketing tactics: Articles (79%), Social Media (other than blogs) (74%), Blogs (65%), and eNewsletters (63%).  
    
4. Blogging as a tactic increased 14% from 2010 to 2011.
    

5. Every social media channel is seeing increased adoption, often by 15-20%:

   • YouTube: 47% increase
   • LinkedIn: 39% increase
   • Twitter: 35% increase
   • Facebook: 30% increase
      
6. As content marketing budgets increase, so too does the percentage of companies that outsource.
    

Ok, the ball is in your court to read the articles I’ve highlighted in this post…and then to TAKE ACTION.

And remember, it’s not sexy. It’s not easy. And it’s not free. Plus everyone else is doing it.

Well, at least 60% of smart B2B businesses are. 

I so appreciate Jason’s enthusiasm and passion about what they do at BlueGurus…his years of experience make him a well-rounded valuable resource that is always ready and willing to help.
- Gina Stuelke, CEO at Kenton Brothers, Inc.

I have done business with Gina Stuelke, President of Kenton Brothers, for many years. Gina approached me about a new website because she trusted me from past experience and knew I would give her the right solution.

The goal was an updated look and feel and being able to easily change the content on the site. WordPress is almost always the right answer for this type of situation and Gina decided to move forward with Blue Gurus! 

About the same time that Gina was talking with me about this project, I had done a general “quick tips” LinkedIn Training seminar for the sales team at Kenton Brothers. As a result, she also wanted 1×1 training for her people to help them improve their LinkedIn profiles. She also agreed with the overall strategy of updating their blog weekly and then publishing the links to the blog articles in the status updates of those same employees.

The site was done within 6 weeks and we meet on a monthly basis to add new features and functionality to the site. This highlights one of the powerful features of WordPress: As your needs grow, the tool grows with you. There are literally thousands of plugins and features that extend the functionality of WordPress, which makes it easy to keep your web site fresh and current.

Click here to visit kentonbrothers.com

From creating a workable website complimenting our company image to integrating our current marketing/advertising strategy with a  social media marketing plan, Jason did it all.  The passion and enthusiasm Jason injects into the project is contagious!  The results are real! I recommend Jason and the Blue Gurus to anyone who is serious about developing and maintaining quality professional relationships!
- Gene Cullinane, Owner of House of Diamonds

I met Gene Cullinane , Owner of House of Diamonds, when I was buying an engagement ring for Trista.  Gene asked me what I do for a living and was thrilled to hear that Blue Gurus creates WordPress web sites and does social media training.  Gene was excited to hear this because he had gotten complaints for months about his web site and had no easy way to update the look and feel or even the content.  Gene also knew that he needed to get his strategy together on how House of Diamonds was going to start connecting with customers through social media.

We worked with Gene to set up new web hosting, a new WordPress powered web site, trained their staff how to update content on the site, helped them clean up their LinkedIn profiles, and helped update their Facebook company page.  We also worked with Gene, his wife Karen and their staff to set up a weekly content strategy making sure their stories were being shared consistently.  Their postings about custom jewelry (all with great pictures!) are some of their most popular posts.

Gene and I have become good friends and get together socially.  This is something we hope for… meaningful, lasting relationships with our clients.  We never want to be perceived as just a vendor!

Click here to visit mybigrock.com

Blue Gurus is the company to call if you want a sharp website on time, on budget. Blue Gurus brought more than just a website. They helped integrate LinkedIn, culture, values and valuable suggestions to give the site personality. I will use the Blue Gurus again in the future. Thank you Blue Gurus!
- Mike Pasley, Owner/President at Central Packaging

Mike Pasley, owner of Central Packaging, called Jason and let him know that he wanted to update the look and feel of his web site. He said he had been referred to Jason from “multiple people in the Helzberg Entrepreneurial Program”.  Jason met with Mike and talked to him for an hour about the process, including web site, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and more.

The thing that blew my mind is that this was the first time that a business owner had listened to our entire strategy and was then able to explain it back to me in detail at the end of our time together.

Before we started the project, Mike had also indicated that he was looking for a better email solution, so I connected him to Tony Sheets at UMZUZU to set them up on Google Apps (Gmail, Google Calendar, etc.) The other advantage to moving to Google Apps is that the email accounts at Central Packaging were no longer tied to their web hosting service. In short, this makes the move to a new web host easier because email is no longer tied to the web site.

After Mike and I agreed to move forward on the project, Mic coordinated the calendars and we were able to complete the entire project in one month (4 half-day sessions on site).  Our typical development and launch cycle is 4-6 weeks and the industry standard is months.

The other thing that we celebrated with this WordPress project is that it was the first project that the newest Blue Guru, Melissa Zarda, worked on. She provided tremendous WordPress expertise and also brought some graphical expertise to the site to make it that much better. 

This was a great project for Blue Gurus! We loved working with Mike and his team and are thrilled to have them in our portfolio!

Click here to visit centralpkg.com

Working on our new website with Jason and Mic was a great experience.  They listened carefully to what we thought was important to the success of launching our new site, thought outside of the box to create solutions to give us the results we desired and empowered me with the knowledge and experience to tackle a variety of issues to maintain our online image.  I am looking forward to working with the Blue Gurus again!
- Andrew Hinrichs, CPA

I met Andrew when I was the speaker at an event covering the importance of social in growing your business.  Andrew manages the branch for BWTP here in Kansas City. We LinkedIn together and stayed in touch over a period of many months.   When Andrew heard that Bob, a partner with BWTP was driving a new website project, he called me to see how we could help.  This is another great example of why LinkedIn matters so much.  There is a good chance that Andrew and I would not have been able to effectively stay in touch across so many months.  Andrew mentioned that he saw my regular status updates on LinkedIn that helped keep me top of mind when this opportunity surfaced.

We did the project here in Kansas City with Andrew and Bob provided input from their corporate headquarters in St. Louis.  This project went incredibly well because Andrew came to the table prepared.  He had done his homework and collected the content and images that we had requested for the web pages.  We had the basic site up and running with a lot of the content loaded by the end of our second 4-hour session together!  The remaining sessions were used to enhance the content, find new pictures, incorporate new marketing pictures with the white stick man and more.  We were able to integrate their web based financial tools and client portal within the original budget, even though these were not in the scope.  Mic and I enjoyed doing this project with Andrew and Bob, and look forward to working together in the future as we continue to help BWTP be a social company!

Click here to visit bwtpcpa.com

We evaluated multiple firms recommended by peers for our new website.  I cannot stress enough how happy we are with choosing the team at Blue Gurus.  Exceptional service, finished products and all under original budget!  I will recommend them to anyone seeking a new and very trusted website partner.  Awesome to work with and we will continue to use them as we grow!
- Kevin Briggs, President at SpectraGraphics

We were referred to Kevin by our good friends over at Umzuzu.  (Thanks Tony!)  Kevin trusts Tony with all things technical and when he mentioned that he was in the process of updating his web site, Tony suggested that he talk with us.  I met with Kevin at Panera, walked him through the power of the WordPress platform and explained that we do our work on site in a collaborative format.  Kevin was specifically looking for this kind of model.  By the end of our meeting,  Kevin had agreed to move forward with us!  Definitely proves the power of being referred by someone you trust.

We did the project at the SpectraGraphics facility in Lenexa and enjoyed getting to know more about Kevin’s business.  The site tour was amazing.  There are dozens of huge machines that crank out full color printed labels at an incredibly high speed.  We were able to see how the plates for the labels are made and how their engineers monitor the job batch process to make sure the machines are printing perfect labels.

This was a great project that included Mic, Melissa and I and resulted in another happy customer.  Kevin can change the content himself quickly.  He is blogging.  And he knows who to turn to if there is something he can’t figure out!

Click to visit spectragraphics.com

Why do you think that is? Have those people never done anything memorable in their careers?

Have they never impressed someone with their work ethic or excellent customer service?

Are they just bad at their jobs?

While that certainly could be possible for a few people in your network, that probably isn’t the case with most of your LinkedIn connections. 

So why do most people have no LinkedIn Recommendations or maybe just 1 or 2?

1. THEY HAVEN’T ASKED.
They haven’t taken the time to ask long-time colleagues for one. In general, we don’t recommend you ask people for recommendations unless you have worked with them extensively and you know they are someone that would gladly recommend you. When asking for recommendations, don’t email the person or send a note through LinkedIn.

Instead, pick up the phone, see how they are doing, see if there is anything you can help them with…and then let them know that you are working on your LinkedIn profile and would appreciate it if they would write a recommendation for you. 

2. THEY NEVER GIVE RECOMMENDATIONS.
Even better than asking people for recommendations, instead take time each week to GIVE recommendations to people that you have worked with throughout your career that have done great work, impressed you, delivered in a pinch, have an unwavering commitment to customer service, have referred people to you consistently, and on and on. 

Once you write a recommendation, that person receives an email saying “Mary Jane has recommended you on LinkedIn”. They open the email, read your recommendation (that made their day because it came out of the blue), and then they click the button that says they want to add the recommendation to their profile. Then what happens? A little box pops up and asks them, in so many words, if they want to return the favor. 

To write a recommendation, just click on the link that appears on the right hand side of your connection’s LinkedIn profile. (see image)

I often brag about Jason Terry who has 58 LinkedIn recommendations. (Please let me know if you ever see anyone with more. I’ve been on LinkedIn for about 7 years and that is the most I’ve ever seen…and it’s not even close.)

But you know what the more impressive number is? Jason has recommended 77 people on LinkedIn. (Again, that’s the most I’ve ever seen, so let me know if you ever see a profile with more!) 

Recommendations matter. Whether it’s someone looking to hire you personally or your company to do work for them, it’s always better to hear what OTHER people say about you. At the end of the day, every single consumer out there wants to do business with people they can trust, who provide great value, and who do what they say they are going to do.

You can tell people all day long that’s how you work, but it’s so much more effective if they can read it for themselves from other people you’ve worked with throughout your career. 

So do yourself, and a connection, a favor today….and give a recommendation. You just might be surprised by what you receive in return. 

Let’s step away from technology for a minute and refine the question:

• Do you communicate with your staff about the things your business is working on? (New products offerings, new market segments, new hires)
• Do you have company events like town halls, summer picnics, movie or bowling outings, volunteering or any other activity that puts your people together?
• Do you have open lines of communication with your clients?  (Take them to lunch, give them a call, customer surveys)

If you answered yes to these kinds of questions, then I would consider your company a social organization.  This doesn’t mean you have any idea what you are doing with social media or social marketing, but at least you have the building blocks to build a social media practice within your company.

Why Do You Want To Be Social?

We have all heard how social can help us grow our business more quickly and efficiently than ever before.  We have heard about Dell selling millions of dollars of computers through deals posted via Twitter.  Companies doubling their revenue in 12-18 months using LinkedIn and effectively selling through relationships.  Groupon crushing a small business with a deal that is so good they can’t meet the demand.  Viral YouTube videos of a guy that helped sell a ridiculous amount of after shave for men. 

The list of social media success stories is endless.  So we all want to “do social media” to reap the rewards.  Before your company takes that leap, you might want to consider why and how. 

Why do you want to use social in your business?

• Increase sales
• Tell your customers about new products/services
• Strengthen the relationships with your customer
• Strengthen the relationships with your staff
• Provide better customer support

The logical next step is to figure out how you will use social in your business.  Don’t just dive in without giving this some serious thought.

How Do You Get There?

Please don’t set up a Facebook account and a LinkedIn profile and tell everyone you are all over social media.  It requires people, training, content and strategy.  It also requires an ongoing, long-term commitment to execution.

How are you going to use social in your business?

• Which people on your team will be coming  up with the content?
• Who is going to push the content out to your web site and social media sites?
• How many cameras should you buy for employees to keep with them to capture great moments?
• Do you need to hire someone to do this full time?
• Are you going to train your sales team how to use LinkedIn effectively? (Increase sales)
• Are you going to look for new team members on LinkedIn as part of your recruiting process? (Prospective employees will check out your existing team member profiles)
• Are you going to blog regularly? (Keep everyone up to speed on what is going on at your company)
• Does Facebook matter for you? (If you are a business to business services company, not sure the answer is yes)
• Does Twitter matter for you? (How many customers or people in your industry are using Twitter?)
• Does < insert popular new social media site here > matter for you? (Pinterest anyone?)

I encourage you to think about these questions.  Be honest with yourself and your employees about social media.  Are you using the tools effectively?  Do you have the right people in place?  Have you provided appropriate training?  Do you have a “Don’t Be Stupid” social media policy?  Are you following a content strategy?  Are you paying attention to the number of connections, likes and followers growing over time?  Are you seeing comments or discussions?

The sooner you can answer these questions confidently, the sooner you will be able to answer yes to the question of whether or not you are a social company.

When I was younger, probably 16 or 17 years old, Grandpa Johnson took me off to the side one day and said he had something he wanted to talk to me about. Curious, and a little nervous, I asked him what it was. He told me that he knew someone in the family had sent me a birthday card with a little money in it and they hadn’t heard whether I received it or not.

Feeling that knot in my stomach, the one you feel when you have disappointed someone, he went on to say (and I’m paraphrasing):

“If someone takes the time to think about you and send you a card, money, gift or something else for your birthday, it’s not asking much to give them a call or write a note telling them Thank You. If you don’t do that, then they may stop doing it because they don’t think you appreciate them.”

He went on to give me a little pocket calendar in which he had hand written the birthdays, wedding anniversaries and other important dates from all of our family members.

From that point on and to this very day, I put recurring annual appointments on my Google calendar: birthdays, wedding anniversaries, anniversaries of the day people lost loved ones, and other important dates.

Each year, I send them a note or call when those days arrive. Additionally, I make sure to thank anyone that does the same for me. 

I’ve shared that story with many people over the years and it recently got me thinking about things that I (and I imagine Grandpa Johnson) would consider common courtesy. And as I’ve gotten older and wiser, it seems like common courtesy isn’t as prevalent as it used to be…in life…or in business. 

I want to bring it back. I’m going to do my best Justin Timberlake impression and try to make common courtesy sexy again. I’m far from perfect and I’m sure I’ve missed some important dates for people along the way, but my heart is in the right place. This list is far from all inclusive, but we have to start somewhere. 

This blog post is dedicated to my Grandpa Johnson. I guess you could say it’s my final Thank You note to him. 

15 Ways To Bring Common Courtesy Back

1. Say Thank You. A lot.
2. Say Please. A lot. 
3. Do at least one nice thing for someone else every day.
4. The next time you are thinking about someone, act on it. An email, a phone call, a text…don’t let the thought slip away. 
5. When you ask someone for help, return the favor. 
6. Hold yourself accountable. Once you learn to do that, then teach others to do it.
7. Open or hold the door for someone else. 
8. When you tell someone you are going to do something, do it. 
9. Reply promptly to emails, phone calls, texts, Facebook comments, Tweets, etc. 
10. Show up to ALL meetings on time. If you’re going to be late, call and let the other person know.
11. If someone invites you to do something and you can’t go or don’t want to go, at least thank them for thinking of you.
12. Refer business to someone at least once a week. Or at least tell people in your network about them.
13. If you see trash anywhere, pick it up.
14. If you end a business relationship or friendship, take the road less traveled by and tell them why.
15. If you love, appreciate, admire, respect, are inspired by, or look up to anyone, TELL THEM. It will make their day.

Thank you for reading. I really appreciate it. If you know others that might enjoy this post, please share it with them. If you have other common courtesy tips, share them!

Networking Groups

I would define a networking group as a group of people that get together on a monthly, semi-monthly or weekly basis with the hopes of sharing leads.  (Personally, I think weekly is WAY TOO OFTEN)  I think the basic premise of these groups is solid… the fact that people will refer business to people that they like and trust, so you need to get to know people that are out in the community selling to the same companies that you are.  The problem is that most networking groups suck.  Not pulling any punches here. 

If we can agree that the primary goal of being a part of a networking group is to find leads and new opportunities for your business, how do the groups you are involved in measure up?  Are you getting regular leads to good companies that actually need the product or service you are offering?

Often, networking groups become a hit and miss social event.  Once or twice a year you might get a good lead from someone in the group.  You know it, and I know it.  There is also a social stigma attached to how people are going to feel if you LEAVE the group because it is not an effective way for you to grow your business.  When I say all these things in public speaking engagements, I get a whole bunch of head nodding… everybody gets it and wishes it were different. 

My advice?  Take the opportunity THIS WEEK to leave any group that isn’t having a measurable and positive impact on your business.  The impact can be leads, business advice from your peers or simply brand visibility… but your investment of time needs to have a return.

Current Process = Waste of Time

First, let me describe how a typical networking group operates.  The members go around the table and do a 60 second elevator pitch on what they sell to make a living.  Then, there is social time.  Then, at the very end, people say to each other, “Hey, if you know of anybody that needs <insert your product or service here>, be sure to send them my way!”  Here is the problem… you are putting all the burden of the referral on your peer, who might even have a good relationship with your prospective client. 

What I mean by this is that:

• They don’t really understand what you do to help your clients whether product or service.
• Therefore, they don’t really feel confident in referring their trusted relationship to you.
• They are busy, just like everybody else and don’t need another thing on their plate to think about after the meeting.
• So NOTHING HAPPENS.

Sound familiar?  The exception to this rule is when you refer a good client to them and they feel obligated to return the favor… often with a half-assed attempt so they can cross that burden off their list.

Game Changer : A Better Way

The best thing you can do to make your networking group more effective is a simple change to the program.  Go around the table and give each person 5 minutes.  In that time, they need to tell the group the 2 or 3 most recent clients they have signed up, and then talk about 2 or 3 prospects they are trying to land as customers. It’s that easy.

Do you see the difference here?  Now all the burden is on YOU to be prepared when you come to the table.  Think about it… you mention the 2 or 3 clients that you are starting to do business with and all of a sudden various people around the table are saying, “oh yeah!  I do business with them too!”  I like to call that moment Real-Time LinkedIn.  The simple fact that you are doing business with the same companies will create trust and respect.  You will find that all kinds of conversations are stirred up based on the simple fact that you started doing business with a company that others know about or do business with also.

If you are tired of feeling like your networking group is a waste of time, I really hope that you will try my suggestion on a format change.  Please let me know if you agree with me about typical networking groups, and especially let me know if my suggestion makes a difference in the effectiveness of your groups!