I love keeping my eye on my Twitter stream.  It always amazes me to see the comments, discussions, quotes, and stories that quickly scroll down my Tweetdeck screen.  This morning, one in particular grabbed my attention. It was talking about how the Medical University of South Carolina had created a “social media newsroom” to share insightful and educational information to “the community.”

How amazing it is to finally have a case study

Over the past few months there have been numerous conferences and events around the high-level concepts of using social media.  A new “social media guru” pops up on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media networks almost every 10 minutes claiming that if you listen to them, you will be making “big bucks with 1 hour of work.”  Most of these individuals and talks at events seem to be regurgitating the same information in terms of trust, being authentic, having authority, and other high-level concepts. Many do not actually get into the details of presenting actionable steps and strategies on how to actually leverage social media in your organization.

While I am NOT saying that this high-level information isn’t needed or important and I do surely agree it is powerful, I just believe we’ve finally gotten to the point where we’ve beaten that “dead horse” and it’s time to move on to showing how it’s all done.  To reinforce that thought, there are numerous posts by other employed professionals, business owners, and even college students who are also asking for real-world case studies on how organizations are leveraging social media to create a positive impact on their business (whether financially or otherwise.) Unfortunately, not too many examples have been presented.  Even the cool, hip marketing firms that are usually “on top of the buzz” have not really come out to share how they use it to grow their business.  We’re all being held in limbo holding our breathe!

Side note: If you have heard of any, please share in the comments… it just means I’m not connected to the right people or attending the right events to hear about them! I do not claim to be a social media expert even though I operate a strategic marketing firm.  I just want to be taught like the rest of us!

The school that got “hip” on social media

Then there’s the Medical University of South Carolina’s new “social media newsroom.”  Yes that’s right, a freakin’ school has come up with what I think is a brilliant strategy for leveraging social media to provide insightful and educational medical information to the masses.  On top of that, the WAY in which they provide this information (through social media tools) was purposefully used to get individuals such as myself – who love to update my LinkedIn crew, share information on Facebook, post about topics on my blog, and retweet links on Twitter – to become the pathway that delivers their information to the masses. Ingenious!

Is this what those social media experts have talked about all along? Sure.

Did we have an example other than the followings around the social media experts themselves to see how it was actually done? Not really, but now we do!

Here’s a few things they’re doing with social media:

1. Posting a photostream on Flickr about events, individual patient stories, and doctors making a difference
2. Posting informative and educational videos on YouTube and on their site on topics such as swine flu, sports injury prevention, stroke, and hearing loss.
3. Maintaining a blog that informs and educates readers on advancements in technology, tests, treatments, and amazing medical stories.
4. And to top it all off, a Twitter stream that feeds links to this information out to their around 2,000 followers who keep it flowing to the rest of Twitterville.

Now that’s amazing to me!  To see an organization such as this take on such an effort and do it well thus far, in my humble opinion, should be a testament to any business or organization that the use of social media (with an effective and planned strategy, a.k.a. “the missing link of leveraging social media”) can successfully impact your business in a positive manner.

See, there is something worthwhile you can learn from school and they’re not all as outdated as many claim, at least not in South Carolina.

Read the original press release about the Social Media Newsroom at the Medical University of South Carolina here.

That’s one case study in the books, any more?

So, do you know of any organization that is creatively leveraging social media?

Share them with us in the comments below!

Many of you men (and/or women!) may not agree with me, but I absolutely love to mow my lawn. It is something that I look forward to every week and almost can’t wait when the time arrives where my grass has grown to the point it needs a quick snip of the tip. I know that’s strange. I know we work hard during the week and all we want to do when the weekend rolls around is to find something relaxing like scratch our bellies and watch football (in this case, I may not be referring to you women!) We look for almost anything that DOESN’T require work.

So why do I love it so much? Because it has become my “thinking place!”

My Business in 360 Degrees While Riding Around My Lawn

When I jump on my lawn tractor, grab my iPod, start it up, and get going the world becomes a place I am completely separated from.   Now maybe it only works because I have a lawn tractor as opposed to a push mower that requires extra effort, but I essentially turn off the rest of the world and get lost in my thoughts and my music.

What ends up happening during this time is the part that I find the most amazing.  It’s when I am sitting there on my tractor riding around my lawn that I do some of my best thinking for my business.  I mean, I know my lawn. I’ve mowed it many times. So when I’m riding around for like the hundredth or so time, my body just naturally seems to know when to turn, stop, back-up, and go forward.  Therefore, my mind seems completely free to think about whatever it wants to!

Being a business owner, my mind quickly jumps to my business and whatever opportunities or growth ideas I’ve had on my mind.  I think and think and think and plan and plan and plan in my head and I can promise you, by the end of EACH time I mow, I’ve got something new figured out. I’ve got something new up my sleeve to try. I’ve got something new that could bring about some great change and results in my business. It sometimes just keeps me in awe how much I can come up with in 40 minutes while “figure-eighting” my way to the end of my lawn.

After doing this for almost 2 years (since I’ve owned a yard to actually mow) you know what I realized?  I’ve always needed to find my “thinking place” so that I could strategically plan and lay out the growth path of my business.  This time, this place has brought about some great things for mPower Consulting and I’ve come to get excited about that time because I’ve learned how to make my business the core focus while I’m there.

So, if it works for me, it can work for you!

I’m not suggesting that you all jump on your mowers and get to thinking strategically. What I’m suggesting is that you determine where you do your best thinking in regards to your business and then purposefully allocate time to be in those places to think strategically about how to take your business to the next level.  Trust me, you’ll be surprised by your results!

Here’s my top 5 tips for finding your “thinking place”:

1.It should be a task or place where there are no distractions, none, notta, zilch, nothing!
2.It should be a task or a place where if you are doing something, it requires little thought or effort (but keeps your body busy since if you’re like me, you can’t sit still!)
3.It should be a place where there is no opportunity to write down your thoughts. Now this is strange I know, BUT if you are writing down your thoughts, you are not opening your mind to flow freely because you’re too busy trying to write down the last thought. SO, this takes practice to remember what you thought, but allows you to follow thoughts to the end without interruption getting a clearer and more complete thought!
4.It is NOT in your home office, work office, or anywhere else you normally conduct business!
5.I recommend that it be somewhere outdoors. Why? Because how can you think “out of the box” if you’re inside a room… which essentially IS “in a box?”  Get out, breathe fresh air, change your scenery and open your mind up to the possibilities!

So, are there any other business owners or professionals that already have their “thinking place?”

If so, where is it or what do you do to get into that place?

*Photo credit to Brenda Anderson

This has been one crazy year has it not?  With the economy in the bottom of the barrel, people losing jobs left and right and consumer confidence and spending down, us business owners have had one heck of a volatile year to get through (and it may not even be over this year!)  We used to be able to project our next quarter now we can’t even seem to project next week!  All it takes is more sounding of the “recession is still upon us” horn and things get even tighter. It may be sad but guess what; you may be only making it worse!

How you could you possibly be making it any worse you ask?

Well, let me ask one question to you as a fellow business owner: Have you been reacting hastily and panicky to the whole situation or have you taken this as a time when you should completely step back and find out if and how your business has changed?

Before you answer, let me tell you, it’s likely that it has changed… dramatically! On top of that, every time you desperately make a quick move to try and keep your little world in perfect utopia, you kill another little piece of your business.  How do I know this?  Hey, we’re not all perfect you know!

Now is the time to stop the merciless killing and get smart about how we manage our businesses moving forward! But first we need to learn how we’re killing our business.

Three Reasons You’re Killing Your Business

When I meet business owners at different events or sit with them as new prospects, I can quickly tell who are the ones who have a grasp on what this economic meltdown has done to their businesses and those that think their world will get back to normal if they can just “hang in there.”  Here’s the issue with that thought, the world has just about completely changed and each time you try something to get things “back to normal” (which no longer exists) you’re just opening up a new wound in your business to bleed your lifeblood… cash.

The three common culprits:

1. You are hastily making decisions about cutting prices using elaborate promotional schemes that cut into margins while not giving any focus to how that will affect the business in a long-term view.I call this the “well, we gotta get something out of our customers” syndrome. Stop it! You’re bleeding yourself dry!
2. Rather than reviewing the business as a whole and finding the fat around the operational processes and supply chain, you instead quickly apply cuts in terms of employees, marketing budgets, customer service operations and even to the extremes of cutting your operating hours (yes, like “not working” is going to help you grow and survive at all?!)This isn’t just cutting a hole to bleed business out of this is actually chopping off limbs that are key to providing your value! Why would you destroy the strongest assets of your business? There may be fat on them, but they are what deliver your value!
3. You look at the world around you with an “end of our world” perspective that you’re trying to prevent from happening as opposed to a “we have a whole new world of opportunity” perspective that helps you identify how to leverage opportunities in this new economy to that may only require minimal changes to how you currently operate.

So what am I saying in all of this?  If you cut your margins, cut your available resources to barebone levels or have a doom `n gloom mentality then it is likely you are a few months away from the doors slamming shut on you, permanently.

Stop Panicking and Start Thinking Straight

Now is not the time to cry “It’s the end of the world!” Now is the time to realize there is a whole new world of opportunities out there for you to identify and grab a hold of to continue growing your business.  What that requires is for you to NOT PANIC and make rash moves, but to step back to look at the whole picture and think strategically about each step.  We need to remember that every day is “Game Day” as business owner Monica Tate-Maile says in her post for Harvard Publishing titled “For Entrepreneurs: Every Day is Game Day.” Read it, get focused.

So, first off, if you are the panicky business owner: STOP… and breath, count to ten, do some yoga or whatever else lowers your blood pressure.  Now, let’s give ourselves a few actions we can perform and a few things to focus on to help us identify what has changed, what needs to change, where the opportunities are and how we can go after them.

Five actions to take to start thinking straight about your business:

1. Get away from the business with your management team (or with your family if it is just you) and focus on life.
   1. The key here is to relax and not talk about business.  It is to enjoy your time together to strengthen your relationship, which in turn strengthens your ability to work as a team, your ability to listen and be honest with one another and your ability to trust one another with the changes to come.
2. Schedule a “Our Changing World” meeting for your leadership team where you will take a look at the entire economy, not just your market, and point out what has changed
   1. Look at who the new consumer is (what makes them tick, what they want to know about businesses, what they expect from businesses, what makes them buy, how they like to buy, etc.)
   2. Look at your competition and see if and how they have changed or how they are reacting to the changes in the world around them. If you see growth in them, find out how to copy it and make it your own. If you see panic, use that to encourage your team to continuing pushing forward to overtake your industry adversaries.
   3. Look at other industries, whether complimentary or not, and see how they’ve changed and how they are reacting to the to the changes in the world around them
3. Do not look to find a market for your product, find a market that has a need/problem that you can make a product for.
   1. It may be a product you already have that you never thought of how it could help this market. This may require little changes in the product itself and just a new marketing campaign and message to redirect it to this qualified market.
   2. It may be a product you need to develop from scratch, but at least you have found a qualified market that has proven it has the money and will to buy.  This is a more drastic change, but drastic times call for drastic measures.  Can you make a product for them?  Why don’t you if your market has disappeared?
4. Redefine your messaging
   1. Listen, if the world is so dramatically different it’s a sure thing that your message no longer communicates the same value as it did before.  Start over. Again, listen to the market and find what they want first, not what you think you should now represent. Communicate how your product will fulfill their need.
5. Focus on the customer and not on sales
   1. Make every touch-point of your organization the best experience it can be for the customer, not for the business.
   2. Now is the time to beef up and improve the quality of your customer service operations to keep new customers satisfied and current customers loyal.

It’s a whole new world out there and us business owners have to be willing to realize that we may need to start over in order to survive and thrive.  Clearing out the panic and opening our minds to the new opportunities that may be all around us is the only way we’ll make it through another year of this mess. So start now before it’s too late!

So what about you?  How have you handled the change in the economic world of your business?

I had the privilege of attending an event yesterday that simply blew my mind. First off let me tell you that as a business owner, I hate answering the question “What do you do?” You know that one, the one you are always asked when attending networking meetings or anytime you’re face-to-face with a potential new connection. My answer always just seems so standard and impersonal and though I have an “elevator speech” (which I hate,) I find myself constantly trying to change how I answer the question to seem somewhat differentiated from everyone else in the room who is going to spew out their 30 seconds of “We do blah, blah, blah.”

Then I got to listen to my new friend Bill Whitley.  Bill is the author of the book “The Art of the Rainmaker” and is a successful serial entrepreneur three times over (literally… that many successful businesses!) Now Bill hates elevator speeches just as much as I do and what he did was to come up with a new concept for how to attract new business and new clients by engaging them initially as prospects with what he calls a “Customer Attraction Story.”

The basic definition I would give to this new concept: “It’s your elevator speech on steroids!”

We All Grew Up Listening to Stories

Now why would think that if the person in front of you barely wants to listen to your 30 second spiel about what you offer, that they would listen to you tell a whole freakin’ story?

Well, we want to be engaged don’t we? We would rather be entertained than simply spoken to right? The most followed bloggers on the web and the best professional speakers all tell stories don’t they?

Let’s face it, we just like stories!  We especially like stories about heroes who faced a challenge and overcame it to a “happily ever after ending.” Hercules, Achilles, Oedipus, Perseus & Andromeda anyone? (OK, so I’m partial to ancient Greek heroes… keep reading!)

The point is there is something engaging in stories that captivate our attention and make us focus on the characters, what they went through, and how the story ended. So if we are that captivated by stories and what you want when explaining what you do to others is that same level of attention, then why don’t we use stories to communicate what we can do and have done for our clients (our hero) to our prospects?

Start Pumping the Story-telling Juices

Bill’s concept behind this “Customer Attraction Story” focuses around the fact that instead of talking about “what you do” as a list of your products, services, and how you operate; you instead tell a story about one of your clients that faced a huge challenge, how you provided a brilliant solution to that problem, and what amazing results came from those actions.

Now doesn’t this make sense?

You are telling a prospect an engaging and detailed story about how someone just like them faced a challenge that could be very similar to their own and you show them how you did something that helped them overcome the situation to some form of a happy ending.

Do you see it now?

While your client (the hero) is the focus of the story, you are shown as what pushed them over the hurdle and that communicates your value clearly and effectively to your prospect. Then, it follows that up with stating how it made life so much better for the hero!  At the end story to potentially get the reaction you desire from your listener, all you have to do is say, “So what about you? Can you face that challenge?”

Let Bill Tell You Himself

Bill put together a great video explaining this concept in his own words. Check it out and get his book!  If you can, attend one of his interactive workshops. I promise it will help you turn your pitch into a powerful story that will start attracting new business!

Watch Bill’s Video »

Connect to Bill on LinkedIn »

It has always surprised me when meeting fellow entrepreneurs how many have a plan to take over the world in their areas of expertise that includes no one but themselves.  Sure, in my little world of “one” I reign supreme, but attempting to press my will in the world around me will quickly land me in the middle of a mutiny!

If there is anything that history has taught us in the world of business, it’s that collaboration – one or more individuals working together for a common goal – is a strong breeder of success.

Here’s just a few success stories that were bread out of collaboration:

• Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google
• Bill Gates and Paul Allen of Microsoft
• Steve Jobs and Steven Wozniak of Apple
• Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Roebuck of Sears, Roebuck and Co. (it’s official name)
• Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana of Dolce & Gabbana
• Sonny and Cher
• Bert and Ernie
• Tom and Jerry anyone?

Sure, there are those individuals like Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com and Pierre Omidyar of eBay fame that did it pretty much on their own. But I bet behind each of those individual success stories are key influencers that gave advice, feedback, and assistance as these entrepreneurial rockstars were just getting started or beginning to hit growth.

How I Learned to Collaborate for Business Growth

My consulting practice, mPower Consulting, has undergone a powerful strategic shift that has centered around the idea of collaboration.  I originally started it as a web design/online marketing consultancy since that was a strong skillset I had developed that I knew could get our foot in the door with clients.  At that time, it was all about everything our clients wanted and how we could make sure we offered all of it.  We were buying books, manuals, taking courses, anything to be able to have some level of expertise in all of these service areas.

What I soon realized was what I already knew, we were not the best at everything! We know what we know what we know and that’s it.  Now, I’ve always been a fan of the idea of being a “life-long learner” but let’s face it, our brains can only hold so much and to keep trying to fill it with a little knowledge of how to do a million different things begins to dilute those things that we know a lot about and are great at.

So then it hit me: “Why don’t we just focus on what we’re best at, what we know we can provide value with, and then team up with other great organizations who are experts at the rest?”

Duh! That should have been simple to figure out, right?

Not so much! Those of us in business have always been in love with the idea of being the “one-stop shop” and the “everything to everyone” where we can provide (and charge) for all sorts of products and services, but unlike Wal-Mart, it’s not really a possibility for most businesses, especially for those who are just starting out.

So now with collaboration as our driver, we’re working with 15 other local businesses that we pull into our client projects to collaborate with based on their areas of expertise.  This has allowed us to focus on what we do great and funny enough, we’re able to charge more for it! Our partners (or “resource network” as we call them) bring in their value and we all look like the heroes to the client.  What was I thinking all this time?

Through the continued development of our relationship, we’ve also been able to learn from one another and offer advice for how we can improve different areas of our businesses.  Our collaboration has gone internal and helped us build better businesses. It has been absolutely invaluable and mPower Consulting has begun to attract new, exciting, and challenging projects from clients we never may have reached before as we tried to be the everything to everyone.

Learn this, collaboration can fuel growth faster than you by yourself can!

Eight Steps to Start Collaborating

You might be thinking, “Well how do I find businesses to collaborate with.” Well, I’m going to tell you.  To truly find great business collaborators, it will take time and it will take effort.  You will have to search, research, analyze, test, measure, and continue testing to find the right businesses you should be connected to.

Though that sounds challenging, here’s eight simple steps I started with to find the organizations we collaborate with:

1. Identify your top 5 weaknesses in what you are trying to offer your client (trust me, you have weaknesses)
2. Join a networking organization, review the membership, and identify at least 3 organizations who appear to be strong in your areas of weakness
3. Research their business and determine if you could provide their clients value (This is important because why would they want to collaborate with you if there was nothing really in it for them? Make it about helping each other.)
4. Reach out, connect and have an informal meeting with the owners of those organizations (it needs to be the owner)
5. At the meeting, first talk about how you think they can provide your clients with value, then compliment with how you think you could provide value to their clients (Make it more about what they would want than what you would want.)
6. If you both agree you can provide value to one another, just find some projects to work on with each other and work through them as a test to determine if this is true and if you can work well together
7. In-between projects, continue meeting and building a relationship between your organizations
8. Repeat steps 6 & 7 as it will take some time to really start opening your collaboration to be both externally with one another’s clients and internally with one another’s businesses

How Do You Collaborate?

So what about you? Do you collaborate with other individuals/businesses? How has it helped your business?