Why Facebook is BAD!! for business

Ok...so it's not all that bad, it can actually be VERY GOOD for your business, but most people who are on Facebook are not utilizing it correctly.

On facebook (http://www.facebook.com/jennifer.businessiibusiness), I have about 2,040 friends on my list. The people on my list are friends because my target market are CEO's, Entrepreneurs & Investors. My strategy is NOT to sell them something, but to introduce them to BusinessIIBusiness where they can network with other decision makers and grow their businesses.




Recently, I was reading a blog on how most of the business activity on Facebook is done by businesses marketing to their competitors instead of their target markets. I was stunned to think that people are actually spending valuable business time marketing and chatting with their competitors in the same industry instead of spending the majority of their social networking on growing their target markets.

Reading this...sparked a desire to explain a strategy to our members that I believe can be truly beneficial to your company.




STEP-BY-STEP FACEBOOK SOCIAL TARGET MARKETING STRATEGY




1. Change your mindset - As the leader of your company's social marketing strategy, you need to clear your time of past habits and begin to realize that your businesses social marketing profile should be viewed as a valuable tool to build brand recognition, create solid personal and business relationships with your target market and supply valuable information and resources to your potential clients.




2. Separate "Business" from "Personal" - If you are representing your company on Facebook, you need to separate your personal affairs from your business image. If you took a survey today of every friend on your list and asked them what their level of interest in your children, your husband/wife or summer vacation are...I'm sure the survey percentage would come out about 1% who have an interest.
You are placing walls between your customers and your business by posting pictures, updates or preferential information. They view you as a personal contact 80% of the time...and take your business 20% SERIOUS.


Create two accounts on Facebook:
----One account for business, using only your business email, business photo, business logos and your business expertise and information.


----The other account can be your personal account. Upload the latest photos of your kids, your dog and your last vacation.


3.Create Brand recognition for your business by starting a company Fan Page.

a. Invite your "targeted" business friend list to become fans of your product or service.

b. Update your "page" often


c. DON"T send out annoying useless information that clog up their inbox. Make sure your mass messages are relevant and ALL of your fans have a use for the information.


d. Remember "quality" over "quantity". Don't focus so much on the number of members who are fans..but concentrate on providing them with quality information they can ONLY find through your company and it's expertise in the industry.


4. Categorize friends into targeted business groups. Facebook has a feature to add friends to lists. They constantly add more automated features to utilize these friend lists and some of the more recent additions are "appearing online or offline" to certain friends lists via the chat application, or being able to post information to ONLY certain friends lists that do not appear to other lists.


In the world of Email Marketing, this strategy is termed "Segmentation", but can be used in the same way on facebook to target certain types of prospects or clients. Whatever your segment (type of list), Facebook gives you the option to create 100 of these lists and personalize them to your exact specifications (name a list). Keep in mind, Facebook limits message-sending to only 19 per list. So...when creating your lists, only add 19 per list and start a new one. Once the list is full (19 friends), place an X by it. Below is an illustration of my account and how I categorize my lists as well as how I know which lists are full by X'ing them out.

Marketing 101 - The 4 "p's" of Marketing

Marketing is technically the art of connecting a product or service to a consumer by the producer or creator of such a product or service.Many get confused as to what Marketing is or actually does. I've created an easy way to determine whether what you are engaged in is actually part of the marketing process:

The 4 "P's" of Marketing
PRODUCT - Marketing a product is when you specify details about the product or service and how this relates to the consumer's needs and wants.
PRICING - The Process of creating a price for products or services based on multiple factors such as: Competition, Initial Cost, Inflation, Promotion, Strategy...just to name a few.
PROMOTION - Promotion includes advertising, sales promotion, publicity and personal selling. It refers to a multitude of methods of promoting a product, brand, person or company.
PLACE - location or distribution refers to how the product gets to the customer

These four are often referred to as a marketing mix. When marketing, you will use these variables to create a marketing plan. For a marketing plan to be successful, the mix of the four "p's" must reflect the wants and desires of the consumers in the target market.

Trying to convince a market segment to buy something they don't want is extremely expensive and usually an unsuccessful attempt. Marketers depend on marketing research to determine what consumers want and what they are willing to pay for. If you are trying to marketing a product or service and have not yet done the research to determine the who's and why's...you need to go back and determine this first. Marketers hope that this process will give them a sustainable competitive advantage.

Are you following the basics of the 4 p's? Do you have questions about your own products and services aligning with the 4 p's? Feel free to ask me questions on our Expert Form on BusinessIIBusiness at: http://www.BusinessIIBusiness.com/forum I am also available for BusinessIIBusiness members at a deeply discounted rate of just $20.00 per hour!! Contact me at: jennifer at businessiibusiness.com if you are interested in marketing consulting.

Contact Management (CRM) For Small Business - What Works Best?

Contact management for small businesses is a big deal often having a big impact on your bottom line. After all how well you connect and stay in contact with customers (and potential customers), track and manage your sales and marketing data, and drive business to your company is crucial to your overall income numbers.

Here is a quick "Guide" with strengths and weaknesses of three CRM software packages I'm comfortable recommending:

1. Salesforce.com

PROS: Integration with dozens of 3rd party tools including marketing automation. Hands down the most powerful import functionality of all CRMs. Salesforce.com allows you the most flexibility with mapping of data ..... and gives you full control of what data gets overwritten, merged, and updated. It is also easy to use and quick to navigate.

CONS: Expensive compared to other alternatives. Little to no contractual flexibility.

2. SugarCRM

PROS: Nice interface and powerful customization, most powerful if you count the ability to edit code. Flexible contract terms. More cost effective than Salesforce.com in the OnDemand version and free if you host the Open Source version yourself.

CONS: Little support for third party applications out of the box. Import process is limited in that you can only overwrite, versus update existing data records. This can be bad if you like to regularly update your database and import tradeshow and other marketing data.

3. QuickBase

PROS: Month to month contract terms, ability to host unlimited instances or have unlimited applications. As low as $15 per user per month. Easy customization.

CONS: Tedious import process with no ability to update certain fields versus overwrite. Little to no ability to connect to 3rd party applications.

My friends use Salesforce.com for their sales and marketing. They use Quickbase for delivery of their services.

Tidbits on a few others - Act and Goldmine require more IT resources for multi-user environments, and you will have trouble with people not syncing often enough. I have yet to meet anyone who has used Microsoft CRM and liked it.

Whatever program you choose really depends on what are your priorities and needs within CRM. Is it sales driven, customer service driven, internal help desk driven, campaign management drive. There are always some niche tools that are for specific needs and still people develop custom development. Proposal Making is a separate software in the CRM space for instance.

One thing to always remember when selecting, and integrating any CRM product. Installing and running the CRM is the easy part, no matter which one you chose. The hard part is tailoring the CRM's robust feature set to the unique aspects of your business, your sales goals, and the personality of your sales team. This tailoring will cost far more, take far longer, and incite far more arguments than you could ever imagine.

If it's so hard, then why even do it? Because that IS the payoff for CRM. A lot of people spend a lot of time analyzing all the features and choosing one CRM over another, and my point is, the feature sets aren't what matter.

The real beneit of CRM software isn't the automation, it is that in automating, it forces you to have all those tough arguments, make all those tough business decisions, and have all those debates about sales philosophy.

And if you do it right, you will be richer for it, no matter which software you choose.

CRM isn't simply contact management on steroids, it is your company's opportunity to identify best practices in customer life cycle management, codify those practices into defined processes, and an automated system to help your sales force understand and follow those practices.

Michael is the owner of FreedomFire Communications. Michael also authors Small Business Resources Cafe with resources, tools, tips, & insights for small businesses. The Cafe is always open. So .... grab a cup of Joe & sit
awhile!

Where Should Business Owners Focus In Today's Economy??

The times may be tough, but a lot of businesses are facing all the same issues they were before. And some of us are still very busy. I suspect some of your usual programs could be retooled slightly to help people take advantage of the opportunities that are the flip side of any downturn.

Put it this way .... don't panic, calm down, and think strategically. A recession provides many opportunities that only happen once every seven years or so.

LEVERAGE low interest rates, low prices, high commercial real estate vacancy rates to reprice your infrastructure and your supply chain.

ENGAGE in carefully calculated risks to finally acquire that competitor who is struggling much harder than you are right now.

TRANSFORM problems like a supplier's contract breach into an opportunity to renegotiate more favorable terms for the long haul.

Yes, we all need to be wise and frugal, but those who spend this year cowering in fear may later regret missing out on rare windows of opportunity.

Plenty of small business owners are investing in growth and expansion, preparing for new venture launches, and otherwise using this time to make wise competitive moves to come out well-positioned when we reach better days. I believe that the small business sector will drive the recovery again this time, just as they usually do.

To make things simple here's 2 areas worth focusing in on ......

1st, now is the perfect time to change your routine and stop being driven by the tyranny of the urgent, now is the time to really pay attention to working on your business, not in it. It is time to plan for the future and to position yourself for the recovery before it happens. Now is the time to put your energy, as the leader, into making sure your team is aligned and focused on the right goals .... those things that will be valuable to the business in the long term.

2nd, there has NEVER been a better time to buy another company. No company has ever grown into a large company organically. They all grow into large companies by buying other firms. Whether you are large or small, or want to buy someone smaller or bigger than you are, now is the ideal time to do it.

Fighter pilots like to say that "speed is life." Likewise, prudent business owners must believe and act as if "cash is life." Buttressing and improving cash flow should be a business owner's top priority in good times, and especially in turbulent times.

Business owners must also recognize that we are witnessing a massive deleveraging of capital - despite the current bargains we see in interest rates. Over the long term, capital will become much dearer. This will drive well-run businesses to insist upon funding only the most robust projects and spending, those that exceed "hurdle" rates in significant excess to the firm's projected cost of capital.

Finally, business owners must be wary of opportunities predicated upon significant government underwriting (through tax incentives, subsidies, etc.). Many of these will prove to be shorter-lived opportunities than the business can justify. And what the Congress giveth, the Congress can take away - often with breathtaking speed.

Michael is the owner of FreedomFire Communications. Michael also authors Small Business Resources Cafe with resources, tools, tips, & insights for small businesses. The Cafe is always open. So.... grab a cup of Joe & sit awhile!

5 Ways To Delegate Without a Payroll

1. Assign Tasks to Kids
Do not underestimate the potential of your kids. Kids can handle some task that you do not have time to do: filing, recording messages, paper shredding documents, etc. My 15 year old daughter is responsible for inputting information from business cards that I collect from meetings, into my contact management system, proof reading documents, filing, typing and other small administrative task. She loves it and it gives her great employability skills and inclusion in my business. It is a great way for kids to receive an allowance and special privileges. It allows me to concentrate on other task without having to hire someone.
2. Trade or Barter Services
If you are in need for a service that requires the expertise of another professional, trade services with the another business owner to avoid any cost. I currently barter by utilizing the expertise of a marketing coach and she utilizes my time management expertise. I've heard of a hair stylist and message therapist bartering each other’s services. It also creates another satisfied customer which will provide referrals for your business. This is a win- win situation.

3. Get Family & Friends Involved
Your family and friends have an abundance of talents that you can take advantage of for a project or task. You can ask for help from a family member or friend and return a favor or take them out for coffee or lunch in return for their solicited help. Notate their special talents for future reference and include it on a spread sheet for when you may need that particular help. You may need babysitting services for an evening speaking engagement or maybe your aunt is an English teacher who can edit your articles or your cousin has an excellent voice that can be used for your voice mail recordings. Utilize the talents of all!

4. List Projects on Elance.com
You can list a project on www.Elance.com. It allows your project to be posted for free and you then receive professional bids on completing the project. You the liberty to decide on the most affordable bid that fits your budget and review the bio and expertise of the person or company completing the project.

5. Contract Projects to A Virtual Assistant
You do not have to hire a virtual assistant to handle all administrative tasks. You can hire a virtual assistant per project, once the project is complicated, the contract is over. The virtual assistant can be hired per project which eliminates hiring a full-time employee, paying health insurance, and it requires no long term commitments.

6. Hire College Students
Call your nearby university, community college or training program for available internships from students preparing to enter the workforce and who are in need of work experience to include on their resume and will also require a letter of reference from you for future employment.
Don't feel that you are not alone when there is no room in your budget for additional employees or delegation. Use the above resources and proceed with your projects.
Remember you went into business to work on your expertise; don't allow other tasks to take you away from that path!

© 2007 Bridgette Boudreaux
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Bridgette Boudreaux is a member of BusinessIIBusiness and a Business Coach & Time Management Strategist to Female Small Business Owners & Independent Professionals. Get a copy of her FREE report "Quick & Simple Time Saving Tips" at www.YourTime2Soar.com
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