Its All About Relationships 10 09

Kanata Chamber of Commerce
Small Business Week
Oct 23, 2009
It’s all about the Relationship.
The Social web is Relationships on Steroids

Truth
People buy from people
People buy from people they like
People buy from people their friends like
Takeaway: Get lots of people to like what you do and not only will they keep buying, they’ll recommend you to others, who will also buy

Getting people to like you
They can’t like you unless they engage with you or your team members as a person
Customers
This is easy
Prospects
This is more difficult but not impossible

Getting your customers to love you
Not so fast. According to a Bain & Co survey, 80% of businesses believe they deliver a superior customer experience, but only 8% of their customers agree.
Deliver value and great customer service
Doh!

Rules to live by
Ask your customers what matters to them
Do what you said you’ll do
Train, acknowledge, reward your employees for great customer service
Follow up with your customers and ask how you did
Embrace complaints, they can strengthen relationships
Be polite and genuine – ALWAYS. Customers can always smell a FAKE
As long as you are not selling, you CANNOT over communicate

Reaching out to new customers
Most Common
Print Advertising
Radio Advertising
On-line Advertising
Email marketing
Direct Mail
Publicity
Events
Website
Networking
Referrals/Reputation/Word of Mouth
Most Effective!

People talking about you
One of the best sources of business
One of the best sources of sales prevention

Limited Impact
Back “in the day”, most talking about you was done on the phone, or in small groups
This method did not scale very well
TIMES HAVE CHANGED!

The Social Web
Web 2.0
Internet tools and applications that made it easy for people to share information on-line with lots of people simultaneously: Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Ning, FlickR, Youtube, LinkedIN, Yelp, AskAround
What all these have in common
Communities of interest – engaged and passionate
Decentralized content creation. Decentralized power. Decentralized voice.
Speed with which information can travel - Accurate or not
Reach exceeds anything ever seen before. You tell two friends who tell 260 friends with one mouse click

The multiplier effect of Web 2.0

Power to the little people
They’re out there talking right now, some are talking about you
They have power – the power to share their thoughts with many others
They can use their power any way they choose

What does this mean to you?
The time people spend on social media now exceeds time on email and is eating into TV and other pastimes
People are talking to each other about you more often than you are talking to them about you
Opportunity – join in the conversation, it’s another channel for your message and another way to build relationships
BUT – It’s not your normal sales channel

She blogged, she tweeted, got RT’d, thousands saw it.

He put his complaint on Yelp, then tweeted about it

His customers wrote about him on AskAroundOttawa

Their customers wrote about them on their Facebook page

YouTube 40,000 people saw this great testimonial to a taxi business with great customer service - it’s well worth watching: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG48U5iPESA

Key Takeaways
This is not about you, it’s about them
It’s happening whether you want it to or not
You can’t control it but you can influence and leverage it

How to Leverage all this
At the end of the day, you want lots of people saying great things about you to lots of other people
You’ve developed fans
You’ve asked, done what you said you’ll do, trained, followed-up, embraced complaints, and communicated in a genuine manner
Next
Listen to what’s being said
Ask your customers to speak for you
Join in softly, add value, don’t sell
Don’t!

Listen In Twitter Search & Google Alerts are free

Start talking to your existing list – don’t sell, offer value: news, advice, fun. I’ve never bought from Roy but I feel like I know him. I will be his customer one day.

Leverage what others say “ professional and reliable..does a great job! Check him out on AskAround.ca” John Smith Happy repeat customer

Invite Conversations
Update your web presence
Personalize it
Encourage user feedback and participation
Start a blog
Put “contact us” all over it
Go where your customers’ conversations are happening
Create a Facebook fan page
Join Twitter
AskAroundOttawa.com
Yelp
People are expecting you to create more ways for them to talk to you. Seize the opportunity - invite them in, its easier to sell if you can create a relationship with people and relationships require conversation

I know what you are thinking
This sounds so hard
This sounds time-consuming
This sounds expensive
What you should be thinking is
How can I use some of this to help me grow my business?
What happens if I don’t do this?

Last thoughts Don’t feel you have to do everything right away, but start something to become a better relationship marketer, even if it’s just listening

Lynda Partner www.partnersinc.biz www.linkedin.com/in/lyndapartner [email_address]

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Its All About Relationships 10 09

by lpartner on Oct 23, 2009

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