Being Smarter

Today is quite the momentous occasion… my 1000th Tweet after a year or so of taking Twitter seriously. I felt that this particular Tweet needed to be profound (everything’s relative) – and so I’ve decided to use it to refer to this post and write a few words about what I’ve learnt from this bizarre social media application and explain why I use it and what it’s actually done for me.

Maybe my wife, parents, friends and anyone else who just ‘doesn’t get it it’ will have a little more of a clue as to what it’s all about if they get round to reading this.

1. Like every tool ever invented – how you use Twitter will change what you get from it.
2. Like every tool ever invented – it’s your choice as to how you use it.
3. Some people use Twitter for talking about what they had for breakfast. That’s fine. I don’t, because it’s not going to further me or anyone else in a business sense and that’s my primary reason for using the tool. Your reason maybe different and that’s fine.
4. I use Twitter to further myself (and I hope others) in business. Business however can be made up of many different things.
5. Entertainment, education, friendship, humour and knowledge transfer have all been essential parts of my 1000 tweets.
6. As of the time of writing I’ve 245 followers (thank you). I only follow 40 people. I only follow people I’m interested in understanding or hearing more from.
7. I’ve had people complain I don’t follow them or hassle me to follow them. Guess what – that’s not the way to do it people.
8. Part of the reason I use Twitter is for ‘legal stalking’. It’s not as sinister as it sounds. If I want to do business with someone, I follow them. If I am doing business with someone I follow them.
9. Who wouldn’t want to get closer to a prospect or a customer to find out what they are thinking? What’s the perfect way to understand what makes them tick and to find out what they are interested in? Following them of course.
10. I like communicating with people – I can’t help myself. If I find out something I think might be of interest to someone, I will share it with them. I used to do this using newspaper clippings (I still do). Twitter makes this a much easier process.
11. I like the fact I have virtual colleagues in Tasmania, Australia (hi @michellef) I also like the fact I’ve met them in real life too.
12. I like the fact I get to hear about the latest things happening in the world of WordPress (@woothemes) and get discounts off the latest themes.
13. I like the fact that I won a signed set of books from one of my favourite business authors (@dmscott)
14. 11,12 and 13 I did on Twitter in the last week and no point did I tell anyone what I had for breakfast, nor did they tell me.
15. I admit I have Tweetdeck open on one of my screens for most of the day (unless I’m focusing on getting stuff done, in which case I switch it off). That’s not a good thing – it should be turned on at certain times of the day and I’m working on my addiction there.
16. I happily paid $2.99 for Twittelator on my iPhone and use it every day (thanks @ed_dale). Why wouldn’t you absorb yourself in other people’s wisdom whilst sitting on a train/standing in a supermarket/waiting for your wife to try on clothes eh @ed?)
17. Do I still interact with real live human beings? Yes of course I do. Do I also benefit massively most days from other people’s wisdom via Twitter? Yes definitely.
18. Do other people benefit from my twittering? I’d hope so.
19. Would I ever follow hundreds or thousands of people – no… following others to get followers makes very little sense in my book. I’d prefer people to follow me who are interested in what I have to bang on about.
20. Do I recommend every person in business to at least consider using Twitter as a tool – yes I do. Is it right for everyone? No…
21. I try to make Tweets less than 110 characters to allow easy retweeting.
22. I like occasional random conversations with people I don’t know – it adds to the rich tapestry of life. #bbcquestiontime is a great example.
23. Be interesting and others will be interested in you. Isn’t that right @lesleyeverett?
24. So how will I change my use of Twitter over the next 1000 tweets? I need to turn off Tweetdeck more. It is distracting, and I need no help in that department. I want to get better at explaining the phenomenon in a simple way to people who don’t get it so that they can benefit too. I also want to find more interesting, relevant people in my niches and sphere of interest to follow to get even more tuned into my markets. That’s hard to do, so I need to listen even harder.

There. I’d like to think I’ve made the most of my 1000th tweet. But maybe you disagree…. comments are open below.

The first couple of months of 2010 have flown by. Being Smarter is delighted to announce five new clients since Xmas, a Spanish organisation, two companies in the FTSE 250, a new content partner here in the UK and one in Australia.

After a successful trip to Sydney and Melbourne last month, our partnership with Ed Dale, one of the world’s most prominent Internet Marketers goes from strength to strength as we launch the second of five courses next week under the Ed-ucationonline.com brand. If you’ve always wanted to know how to ‘Start from scratch’ in the Internet marketing space – watch out for 11 modules of pure delight from next week.

Our partnership with Kaplan Eduneering continues to grow, with another new course addressing local US government going live at the end of April.

Targets to Prospects, a service we developed by popular request, after we used it to target individuals successfully for a year was launched in January, and we’ve successfully delivered five installations in the last month. We’ll let you know the results from these first customers very soon. We’ve also added new functionality which we’re rather proud of…

Innovation continues too as we’ve also successfully delivered a ‘personalised video‘ project for one of the clients above… Imagine a video which appears to be built uniquely for a company or individual? Imagine watching a story unfold and seeing your logo / name / statement appear within it, seamlessly… you’d be impressed wouldn’t you? Well imagine no longer. Next time you want to run a campaign targeting a known group of targets, why not consider Targets to Prospects?

Exciting times – with more to come we hope.

OK – so it’s a day later than planned – the final part of my “5 days with Ed Dale”, founder of the Thirty Day Challenge. If you’ve missed the first three, you can see the intro here, How to do business in 2010 here and 3 golden rules to creating content here.

It was an inspiring few days with Ed and his team which I’ve enjoyed writing about. Today, however, seeing as a few people came to ask me during the event we were recording how I managed to persuade him to work with us, I thought I’d do my final article on how to get noticed… or more specifically, how we got noticed.

I’ve not had a great deal of experience of getting noticed in the B2C space, however I have spent the last 10 years or so working in the business to business environment, and believe me, it’s not an easy thing to do. Attempting to create new relationships with Directors of Marketing or HR in large corporates is difficult to say the least. Inboxes are crowded places, cold calls aren’t exactly the way forward, and snail mail will almost certainly end up lost in some strange basement post room.

So – how did I get Ed’s attention? What are my tips for getting noticed by your Targets?

Know your Targets

You are looking for new customers – you have to know who they are first. Remember, one size doesn’t fit all. You have to niche it down. If you are selling a service with mass appeal, focus on one niche at a time. Figure out 100 targets and then get to know them before approaching them…

Legal stalking

Do some basic searches on your Targets… find out all about them. Use Gist as a great tool to data mine and cross reference. If you can’t find anything on them, get to understand their company instead. People so often ask my why I bother with Twitter. Legal stalking is my answer – follow those of your targets who have a Twitter stream. Get to understand what makes them tick, so that when you finally come to approach them you can be personal and relevant. The key words in this whole article.

Email marketing is dead in the water

Broad brush, blanket, call it what you will, email marketing does not work when you are looking to target new customers. Sure, it’s fine to maintain a relationship (although I’d still question that) however you are never going to get noticed with an html newsletter. How many do you delete on a daily basis?

Get noticed

So – my personal favourite tack is to write a short, punchy email – question every single word within it to see if it is relevant and adds value to the approach. Make sure your target knows that this is not a cut and paste email. Write something personal in it… “I noticed you were interested in chocolate tea pots…” etc. Make it easy to read – and don’t send it straight away. Send it the next day. As the Lynx advert rightly says, you’ve only one chance to make a first impression.

Now comes the clever bit

I’ve been developing and refining a system for the last 8 years and have shown beyond reasonable doubt that the more personal you get, the higher the chance of a response. At the end of your email, refer your target to a URL, and do not make it your company URL – again, that’s not personal enough – if they liked you, they’d look it up anyway. Instead, make the URL personal. ie www.chocolateteapotsdemo.com/richard-fox.

That’s right – a URL with their name in it… put your mind in your Target’s shoes… they open the email, see the link and think  “Huh – they’ve done something for me? wow – I’m intrigued – I’ll take a look.”

Think about it – you’d click the link wouldn’t you?

Get them engaged

So they click the link – and you’re thinking it’s just a redirect to the main website? Wrong. Big mistake, I’ve tried that too. Instead, that link needs to go to a page which is personal to them. A page which carries on the conversation and then tells your story. Typically in a short video format. Here’s an example of one we use… (imagine this at the bottom of your email).

http://the845club.com/five_minute_coffee_break/richard-fox/

The feedback loop

You then need to know if / when they clicked the link so that you can follow up, or if you do it well – so that you can predict when they might respond to you.

How to automate this process

Having used this technique for a while now, I started to get my targets asking whether they could  buy the system.  My first answer was no, but now it’s yes…. Targets to Prospects is now born and in 30 seconds, you can create a personal page and personal link for your target. This is the exact technique I used to get Ed’s attention. This is what he said to me once we’d started to work together…

“I get dozens of approaches on a weekly basis and 99% of them tend to get ignored. I noticed Mark’s email to me, because it was personal. The link with my name in stood out from the rest of the crowd, and the page it landed on hooked me in, due to the excellent video story… As a result, I’m now looking forward to working with him over the coming months.”

He is a busy man to say the least. No one was more shocked than me when I got a response from him in 12 hours. I created cut through, because the communication was personal and relevant.

Tell me more

To see a full demo and details of how to buy a system for your choice of domain, you can check out Targets to Prospects here.

A big thank you

To Ed for a cracking few days and for the quote above. I learnt a load and am looking forward to bringing together his expertise in 8.45 Club style courses over the coming months.

I’d firstly like to thank everyone for their interest in the posts from the last two days. 5 days with Ed Dale and 10 ways to not do business in 2010 have been amongst the most popular posts I’ve ever written – so I’m hoping you’ve found them interesting. Let’s get back to it then in day #3 of our series of articles on my experiences and learnings of spending 5 days with Ed Dale, the creator of www.thirtydaychallenge.com.

The three day seminar he gave last week has been inspiring to many (Hashtag here). Today, as someone that creates content online in various guises every day of the week, I wanted to add my take on Ed’s thoughts on creating content online.

#1 Overcoming writer’s block

“It’s all been done before”… Oh no it hasn’t… not with your spin on it… not for your audience – think about a different take. Add your opinion. Leave your own web footprints around the Internet by creating opinion. Create an audience for yourself. Granted, it won’t happen over night – but it will do eventually if you are discipined in your approach. Go find the prominent bloggers out there – Chris Brogan didn’t say that everything’s been done before… he just started writing and created an audience.

“I’ve got nothing to say”. Of course you haven’t, because you aren’t following rule #2.

#2 Be a selective  information sponge

Google Reader without question is the most awesome free business tool you can possibly use. It is your very own personal information database, which pushes the information you need to you… If you don’t know what it is and how powerful it is, then take a look here.

Get into the habit of:

• Using the ‘note in reader’ button on your browser toolbar, collect information as you go. Don’t get distracted by it – store it away for when you need it.
• Use the TAGS function. If you see an article you want to share – note it and tag it as tweet. When you’re short of something to say – head into reader and dig it out again. When you are going to write a blog post, look at the blog post tag for articles you’ve filed away.
• Clean up your RSS feeds on a regular basis. Your information needs change over time – so manage your feeds accordingly.

HEALTH WARNING: be obsessed by relevance. Don’t collect information unnecessarily and don’t get distracted by it. There’s a time and a place for reading – schedule it.

Get into the groove

Ed talked about having a process for creation – whether it be writing or video recording or whatever. This is great advice. I write blog posts at the start of each day – never in the middle or at the end. It’s when it’s quiet. Some people literally put their writing hat on to get into the zone. What could you do to help you focus? Turn the phone off, turn your email off and turn the children off if you have to … that’s the only way it will happen.

Once it’s happened – whatever it is on the page – then take a break, and go back and edit… add the images, add the links, tidy it up and make it fit for purpose. Key to success is – don’t edit as you go.

Day #4 of my experience of working with Ed comes tomorrow…

So, first things first, this is not a sycophantic rant about someone I have admired for afar for a while… this is going to be a 4 part series of articles explaining what I’ve learnt over the last few days from a man who’s been there and got the t-shirt in many ways. I hope you pick up something from the wisdom.

You may not know who Ed Dale is. He’s the architect behind www.thethirtydaychallenge.com which simply put, is a free 30 day online video training guide on ‘how to make your first dollar online.’ It runs every August as live, but is available all year round for the price of your email address. 80,000 people went through the process last August.

It’s the course I stumbled upon about 18 months ago when looking for the next ‘thing’, and being frank, I’ve not looked back since. It may be over the top to call it a life changer, but it’s not far off, as it changes your view on the Internet Marketing world (for the better) and explains in detail the principles behind it and how to do it. Ed’s not the only one in front of the camera. He’s assembled a great team who’ve helped research the principles and then go on to present it.

I’m delighted that Ed has now partnered with us here at The 8.45 Club and so we spent some time together filming, had a very nice lunch and followed that with a three day seminar we recorded and so I got quite an insight into the guy…

Business can be fun

Ed brings humour to most things he does… he records a lot of video (as we did together) and humour is a key element. Not humour for humour’s sake – it’s appropriate and injects personality into everything he does. He passionately believes in making business fun. The  three day seminar was based around the FUNdamentals of business. Think about it.

• If you are doing something repeatedly in your day job which is potentially a chore, for goodness sake, make it so it’s easy and fun. (Have you read FISH! ?)
• If you are not doing, creating or writing around a subject you enjoy, then it is not going to be fun. You’re never going to excel in that space until you change your subject matter or role.
• Have fun and celebrate success with your teams. He’s made that mistake of not doing that before and won’t make it again.

Newton’s 3rd law is an essential rule of business

Newton’s 3rd law for those of you who hated physics at school is simple.

For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction.

It was a superb piece of advice someone gave me 10 years ago which I value and Ed is a prime example of someone who embodies this law.

• He’s a self-made man who’s taken action throughout his life. He’s created and sold businesses and created quite a following. You don’t do this by prevaricating and sitting on the fence. You don’t create a following (eh Seth?) without taking action, without expressing opinion, without helping people.
• So – taking action is all about making decisions… and making them quickly. Don’t take 3 months to write a technical spec. Sketch it on a side of A4 and review as you go.
• Don’t spend months trying to create a brand and spending thousands on an agency to do it for you… keep working on the content behind the idea and the brand will come. (Sometimes in the shower or on a tube train – true story).
• You will make mistakes, regret actions (or inactions) and there will be disappointments along the way. Dust your selfdown – take a day out and then get on with it again. Even if that decision cost you millions, you can’t get it back – so go find another way to make it back.

You can be a good human being and still ‘make it’

This is an interesting one. So often in business, you come across successful people who have sold their own grandmother at least twice to climb to the top of a greasy pole. You don’t have to – and I’ve seen this a few times now – which is really rather good news for us all don’t you think?

• Don’t try to be someone you’re not. Be YOURSELF.
• Live your values – and stick to your principles. If you don’t believe something is the right way to do things, despite many others doing it to further themselves – then find another way. A way you believe in.
• Go out of your way to help others… give something back. Good karma will come around. Eventually.

Tomorrow – what I’ve learnt from Ed and his team on how to get your web business started.

By the way, you could do a lot worse than following @ed_dale (oh and @ME of course…)

Update (March 2010)

You can see the results of the photo above at www.ed-ucationonline.com

Today, we are proud to announce that after an extensive search, Mary Gober International (MGI), a world-leading customer service training organisation has selected The 8.45 Club (part of the Being Smarter group of companies) to provide custom ‘sustainability training’ to its customers.

For some time, MGI, like many training organisations used traditional methods to reinforce training messages taught during face to face during a campaign.

“MGI has been looking for new, cost-effective and innovative ways to enable organisations to embed and sustain skills learnt on our Seminars – to complement the sustainability activities we currently use” said Shona Cooper, Managing Director, MGI. “We are delighted to be partnering with The 8.45 Club to offer engaging, practical video training, delivered to inboxes in bite-sized chunks over weeks or months as a way of reinforcing our face to face Seminars.”

In addition to providing bespoke learning for its clients, The 8.45 Club also plan to be producing a public courses throughout 2010 in conjunction with the Mary Gober team.

Shona Cooper added, “One of the initiatives we will undertake together is to host an innovation session with learning professionals to show examples and discuss the potential of this bite-sized video training. From there we are looking to trial these techniques with some launch customers. It’s an exciting time in MGI’s evolution.”

Mark Copeman, founder of The 8.45 Club said, “We’re delighted to be working with Shona and the team at Mary Gober International. After seeing their trainers in action, it became clear to us that their methodology naturally lends itself to video training, because what they do is so visual and so engaging. We hope that this partnership will enable more and more customers to take advantage of their excellent coaching and that lessons taught will now be reinforced even more successfully.”

If you are interested in learning more about the innovation session Shona discusses above, please contact us using the link at the top of the page.

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We hope you enjoyed this article. What can we do for you now?

• Would you like to see how to use bite-sized video chunks to deliver messages to your teams or customers?

• Would you like to see a demonstration of how to convert sales targets into prospects?

• Would you like to follow the founder of Being Smarter on Twitter?

Being Smarter Ltd is delighted to announce that its 8.45 Club venture has partnered with Kaplan Eduneering (NJ, USA) owned by The Washington Post.

Kaplan Eduneering will be adding our 8.45 Club style of learning to its already innovative portfolio of elearning capabilities designed for its corporate clients. The partnership has already delivered three video courses on Building Sustainable businesses, featuring Jeffrey Hollender, founder of Seventh Generation, Business Ethics training and an Instructional design course. All feature subject matter experts from the Kaplan stable.

Whilst these are private, subscription only courses – you can see screenshots below… (click for larger image).

Over the coming months we will be releasing new, engaging courses together, delivering short, practical and to the point videos, delivered by expert presenters. Knowledge workers can be safe in the knowledge they will still be back at desks for 9.00.

Mark Copeman, founder of The 8.45 Club said, “We are delighted Kaplan Eduneering found our service – they are training experts, have been delivering training to 100′s of corporate clients for many years, yet they still see the value in what The 8.45 Club style of training can deliver. We are looking forward to continuing with our vision for innovation and providing Kaplan with a solution to the problem of people not having time to learn any more.”

Kent Malmros, director Business Development, Kaplan Eduneering said, “Our mission at Kaplan EduNeering is to help companies promote behavior change through effective online training and knowledge management. That means we’re always looking to provide clients with the best adult learning tools and The 8.45 Club has developed one.

They have blended traditional news delivery and sound instructional design to create a compelling new methodology for delivering knowledge. As partners with The 8.45 Club, Kaplan EduNeering passes this progressive new approach on to its clients and has the privilege of working with them to stay at the fore of training’s evolution.”

The partner page can be found here.

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We hope you enjoyed this article. What can we do for you now?

• Would you like to see how to use bite-sized video chunks to deliver messages to your teams or customers?
  
• Would you like to see a demonstration of how to convert sales targets into prospects?
  
• Would you like to follow the founder of Being Smarter on Twitter?

Or leave us your thoughts below….

It’s always a good feeling when the industry trade press feature one of your innovations. Lesley Everett’s Walking Tall personal branding course has been featured today in PersonnelToday.com.

One of our esteemed partners and a true expert in her field, Lesley Everett commented…

“In the current climate, providing people the ability to access highly effective, but low cost training solutions has never been more important. Our personal branding modules launched on the 8.45 Club will show subscribers how to develop their personal brand in order to develop executive presence, confidence and marketability.

Lesley is one of a number of partners The 8.45 Club works with to develop courses for business audiences. If you are a true subject matter expert with a story to tell and an audience who wants to hear it – why not consider using this virtual presenter format as a way of reaching untapped audiences as well as generating an additional source of income… while you sleep.

Use the contact us link at the top of the page to request a call.