Hi kids!  It’s Social Media Fable time, and you get to pick the moral:

Once upon a time, there was a Facebook fan named Jerry.  He was going about his days on Facebook, enjoying his interactions with his virtual friends, and life was good.

One day, he received an invitation form one of his Facebook friends, Mr. G, to become a fan of a bakery in a far-away town.  Since Jerry had never been to the bakery or tasted their confectionery delights, he hit the “ignore” button and thought no more of it.

A few days later though, Mr. G repeated his request to become a fan of the bakery.   Since he still hadn’t tried the bakery’s cupcakes, Jerry clicked the ‘ignore’ button again, and again thought nothing of it.  ”Just an oversight on Mr. G’s part, that’s all,” he thought.

The very next morning, though, the invitation appeared again!  Jerry started to get annoyed, but, as always, managed to keep his cool.  He simply hit ‘ignore’ again and went about his day.  His annoyance grew, however, when later the same day there was another invitation!  ”This is madness,” he thought to himself, clicked ‘ignore’ again, and wondered what he should do.

No more than an hour had passed, though, before the invitation appeared again!

“Enough!” he cried.  ”This is insanity!  What would cause Mr. G to annoy me so?!”

Jerry considered several possible solutions to the problem.  He could report Mr. G to Facebook for abuse.  He could remove Mr. G as a friend.  He could make a public display and call Mr. G out in a public forum, say, for example, Mr. G’s wall.

Jerry, being a kind soul, opted for a more civil solution.  He sent Mr. G a message.

“Dear Mr. G:

First of all, thanks for reaching out. I’m glad to make your acquaintance here on Facebook. I hope things are going well for you and your business.

I’d like to ask a favor. I’ve received several “page suggestions” from you over the past few weeks requesting that I become a fan of a particular bakery you like. I appreciate your enthusiasm for this business, but I’m really not interested in becoming a fan of it at this time.

I have elected to ignore the previous invitations to this page, and I’m going to do so one more time. I’d really appreciate not receiving another request for this page.

If you have other pages you’d like me to consider in the future, I’m happy to do so. Just not this one.

Thanks again for your friendship,

Jerry”

Jerry wasn’t sure what would happen next.  He waited in anticipation of Mr. G’s next move.  Would he receive the invitation again?  Would he be forced to remove Mr. G as a friend and mock him mercilessly in public?

No, for as it turned out, Mr. G was one of the good ones.  ”I’m sorry, Jerry,” Mr. G replied.  ”I didn’t realize I was doing that.  You see, I’m new here, and I didn’t know that hitting ‘Message All’ would re-send my invitations to people who’d already ignored it.  Thanks for the heads up!”

“No worries, Mr. G,” said Jerry.  ”I appreciate your sensible response.  Good luck to you, and may your bakery eventually have 100,000 fans!”

The End

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So kids: what do YOU think the moral of this Social Media Fable should?  Leave your responses in the Comments section.  The best moral for the fable will receive a special prize: a copy of “Motivation 101: Five Steps to Activate Your Potential In Any Economy”, autographed by yours truly.

Have fun!

I wanted to talk a little more about the topic of customer engagement.  I’ve been giving this a lot of thought, in light of the changes that business is facing.  Social media, web 2.0 and a shrinking world are putting tremendous pressure on businesses to adapt to the new expectations of their clients.

Traditional companies, especially those who are looking for their customers among Generations X and Y, have a new challenge to rise to.  That challenge can be summed up in one question: Is it fun to do business with you?

There’s no denying it.  Baby Boomers have for years decried the fact that “kids these days” need to be constantly entertained.  And they’re right, of course.  Just look at phones: modern phones are not made for placing calls, they’re made for entertaining.  So if you’re selling a product or service to this group who need to be entertained, what are you doing to entertain them? Again, are you making doing business with you fun?  If you’re not, there’s a pretty good chance you’re not going to survive.

Tomorrow’s customer isn’t going to base their buying decisions primarily on things like features and benefits or price.  Their expectation is that every company will offer great features, benefits and prices.  After all, this is a generation of buyers who knows how to research, and if you’re not in line with the market, you don’t stand a chance.  No, tomorrow’s net-savvy consumer is going to decide whether or not to buy from you based on the entertainment value you provide.

A lot of traditional businesses are having a hard time figuring this out, as evidenced by the way they are using social media and the web.  They put up static web pages and use social media as a mode of free advertising to promote their own agenda.  Folks, that just doesn’t work any more (if it ever really did).  Have a look around: look at the Zappos’ and Chipotles and 37Signals of the world and you see companies who not only are excellent at what they do, but that are fun to do business with.  They get it, and they are thinking, not of their own agendas, but the agendas of the ones who really count: the customers.

So have a look at your own business and ask yourself: am I (or is my company) fun to do business with?  Is there entertainment value in my/our offering?  If not, how can I add it in and be more fun?  Beacuse even if you’re not targeting Gen’s X & Y now, it won’t be long before you will be.

Oh, and their younger siblings and kids?  Let’s just leave it at this: you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

While I was driving around yesterday and thinking about some things I wanted to do with this blog to make it better for you, the readers, it occurred to me that I needed to take a bit of my own advice from Monday’s post about the new rules for business, the 3 Cs: content, connection and conversation.

I realized that while the content I’m writing seems to be striking a chord with readers (thank you again for all your support!), and while I’m conversing with you all when you leave comments, I haven’t yet provided a place where we can all connect.  I realized I needed to remedy that as quickly as possible.

Now, call me lazy if you like, but I’m not inclined to take on the responsibility of creating and managing a Ning site right at the moment.  So, I opted to create a Facebook fan page for the blog instead.  A couple of clicks later, it was all done, and I’d like to invite you all to join in the connections and conversations over at the Motivation 101 Blog fan page.

Here’s what I’d like to see on this page: your ideas, suggestions, links, tips and tricks for getting and staying motivated to press forward in your businesses, careers and lives.  I’d like for this to be a place where you can come and ask questions and get advice on how to be a better salesperson for your business.  I’d like to see everyone helping each other in the true spirit of community.

That said, it really doesn’t matter what I want; this page was created for YOU, the readers of the Motivation 101 Blog.  So do what you like.  Engage, interact, tells stories and jokes: whatever.

So let’s have some fun.  Click here to join the fan page, and I look forward to our conversations!

The old rules of business were pretty simple.  In fact, William Dillard once summed them up in three words: Location, location, location.  The idea was that any business could be successful, so long as it was located on the right street corner in the right part of town.  Well, things aren’t that simple any more.

With the rise of the internet and e-commerce, the physical location of your business is less important than it was in the past, especially when your business is service-related or when you sell intangibles or products (like software or web design) that can be delivered online.  Even traditional brick-and-mortar businesses are feeling the effects of this revolution, many of them adding an online store to augment their retail sales and shipping their products around the world.

If location is no longer of primary concern, what, then, are the new rules of business?  I call them the three Cs: content, connection and conversation.

Let’s start by saying that if your business hasn’t joined the online community and started participating in social media, you’re missing the boat in a big way.  It’s time to get on the bus.  That said, you need to pay attention to how you are conducting business online.

Do you see social media marketing as a form of free advertising?  Think again.  If you join the party with that outlook, you’re dead before you begin.  This is where the three Cs kick in, starting with your first step: content.

If you’re going to participate online, start by paying attention to the content you’re providing to your prospects and customers.  And by content, I mean everything you provide to your customers: your websites, your social media profiles, videos, e-brochures and anything else your customers see need to communicate that you are an authority on your subject.  That goes without saying.  But they also need to demonstrate a high level of interest in your customers: what they find interesting and entertaining.  You also need to clearly communicate that you care, not just about their wallets, but about them.  Today’s consumer wants to see that you have a vested interest in them.  Once they do, they’ll be ready for new rule #2: connection.

Once you’ve grabbed the interest of your prospect by providing great content, you need to make it easy for them to establish some kind of connection with you.  Whether it’s a Facebook fan page, a Ning community, an active Twitter stream or a forum on your own website, give your customers somewhere to hang out and chat with other customers.  This is how you start to build a community for your brand; it’s also one way you can really set yourself apart from all the other companies who do exactly what you do for the same price (otherwise known as your competition).  Providing a place for your customers to connect with one another and with you will naturally lead to rule #3: conversation.

Take a quick minute to compare the way Chipotle uses it Facebook fan page to the way General Motors does (or doesn’t).  On Chipotle’s page, you see steady interaction from the folks at Chipotle.  They interact with their customers who take the time to stop by and leave a comment.  They banter, they joke, they fool around, and their customers LOVE them for it.

Now look at GM’s fan page: at the time this post was written, I had to scroll all the way back to December 10th to see a dry, boring reminder about some webinar they were conducting, reminding people to dial in and listen.  Nowhere on the page do you see them engaging with their customers, whether fans or detractors.  As a result, you see a lot of comments on the page making note of the fact that GM is essentially non-responsive to customer concerns.

You’ll notice another difference, as well: General Motors, one of the best-know brands in the world has around 106,000 fans on Facebook while Chipotle, a relatively small chain of burrito restaurants in North America, has almost 530,000.  That’s the difference that conversation makes.

So if you want to make 2010 a banner year for your business, make sure you’re paying attention to the new rules, the three Cs for success in business in our modern era: provide the best content you can to demonstrate that you have your customer in mind, provide them a place to make a connection with you and other customers and, one you’ve got them there, engage them in a conversation to show your level of commitment to their satisfaction.

Those are the new rules of business.  Are you up to the challenge?

I wanted to take a minute to give a tip of the hat and a hearty congratulations to Shane Gibson and Stephen Jagger on the upcoming release of their new book, Sociable!

As you probably gathered from the title, this is a how-to guide for using social media and Web 2.0 tools to create communities and be more profitable.  In their own words, Sociable! is about “using social media to create real relationships that impact you, your business and your community in a positive fashion.”

I had the chance to read an advance copy of Sociable!, and I was really impressed with the quality of the information it provides about the impact social media is having on business.  I’d highly recommend you jump over to the book’s website and download Chapter 1, which includes a Foreword written by none other than Kyle MacDonald, the blogger who, through a series of trades carried out over the course of a year, exchanged a red paper clip for a house (if you’ve never read Kyle’s story, you have to check out OneRedPaperClip.com…it’s a hoot!).

I’m glad to see these two social media thought leaders tackling the subject head on and providing valuable guidance for those of us who sometimes feel like we’re making this up as we go along.  Sociable! is a great reminder that no sales technique in the world can substitute for building and maintaining great relationships with your prospects and clients, whether on or offline.

Thanks guys!

After reading an insightful article about social media by my friend Jim Keenan, I started thinking about the way a lot of businesses and individuals are using social media.  Is it just me, or do the majority of users seem to think that social media sites are just free advertising space?  I see it every day, and I’m sure you do, too: the thinly veiled ads, the blatant pitches, the sales copy in “Free Report” clothing.  It’s got to the point where my Twitter stream is so clogged up by spammers, I’m having trouble staying one step ahead of them.  I wonder how the folks with 20,000+ followers do it!

So here’s the thing:  I want to challenge everyone involved in using social media in their business to remember the key word (and no, it’s not media…guess again).  This is supposed to be social. In other words, it should be about conversations.  Instead of worrying about how many Facebook friends or Twitter followers you have, you should be thinking about how many of them you’re interacting with.  This was brought to light recently at one of the companies I work with.

The company has two teams of of people in charge of using social media sites to connect with potential customers.  Team #1 took a “scorched earth” approach and started slamming their pre-packaged message out to as many people as they could and directing them back to the company’s website, relying on the site to make the sale.  Team #2 took a more deliberate approach of engaging prospects in conversations and walking them through the buying process.

Can you guess what the results were?  I probably don’t need to tell you that, after on week, Team #1 had contacted 500 prospects with zero conversions and Team #2 made far fewer contacts (about 60) with a 10% conversion, and the results are still trickling in from Team #2’s activity as they follow-up on their initial contacts.

I know we all want to chant the mantra that “sales is a numbers game”, and to some extent that’s true; it’s just that we’re usually focusing on the wrong numbers.  Instead of obsessing about how many cold calls you can make in a week, why not focus instead on how many new conversations you can start with prospects in a week.

A friend of mine said it best when he said, “You can’t sit at your desk and answer calls and make a lot of money until you’ve knocked on at least a thousand doors.  And if you’ve knocked on a thousand doors but nobody ever answered, those doors don’t count.”  In other words, it makes no difference how many calls you make a day unless at least some of those calls turn into meaningful conversations with your prospects.  It also means that, no matter how many people follow you on Twitter, if you never say anything meaningful to them, they don’t count either.