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Kanata Chamber of CommerceSmall Business Week

Oct 23, 2009

It’s all about the Relationship.The Social web is Relationships on

Steroids

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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

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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

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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!

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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

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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 MouthMost Effective!

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People talking about you

• One of the best sources of business• One of the best sources of sales prevention

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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!

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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

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The multiplier effect of Web 2.0

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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

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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

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

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He put his complaint on Yelp, then tweeted about it

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His customers wrote about him on AskAroundOttawa

Their customers wrote about them on their Facebook page

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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

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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

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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

NextListen to what’s being saidAsk your customers to speak

for you Join in softly, add value, don’t

sell

Don’t!

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Listen InTwitter Search & Google Alerts are free

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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.

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Leverage what others say

“professional and reliable..does a great job! Check him out on AskAround.ca”

John SmithHappy repeat customer

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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

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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?

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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

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Lynda Partnerwww.partnersinc.bizwww.linkedin.com/in/lyndapartnerlpartner@partnersinc.biz