Dance With Strangers

When time permits I’ve been known to talk just a wee bit about sports, especially the Red Sox. Often those posts are housed over on Big Pabelbon, started by my friend Aaron Strout. Because of this affiliation, some would call it addiction, I received this email:

Hey Kyle!

How are you? I was wandering from Red Sox blog to Red Sox blog, and came across yours listed in the blogroll section of OverTheMonster. I know Red Sox fans are pretty die-hard (especially when it has to do with the Yankees), so I thought you might appreciate this contest that Overstock.com is holding, called “The Ultimate Red Sox Experience.”

You get a chance to win tickets to see the Red Sox pummel the Yankees on October 2nd- including round trip air-fare,a pre-game VIP tour and the chance to turn the numbers on the Green Monster scoreboard during one inning. If you’re interested in knowing more there’s also a video that goes over the details.

Appreciate the contest? I LOVE the contest, especially since I live in Austin now, so it would be that much sweeter. But as a long time marketer and PR guy, who kind of “dabbles” in this “social media” stuff I also loved the pitch. Kudos to Selena Narayanasamy, the Director of Social Media Outreach at BlueGlass. Not sure if Selena knew some of the folks behind the Papelbon blog including Aaron, Tim Walker, Bryan Person, Adam Cohen, and Jim Storer…but let’s just say they are a bit of a big deal in the social media world and even bigger deals within Red Sox Nation.

Too much time is spent on the best practices of social media, or PR, or marketing, or lead gen….but what it all really comes down to is a few simple things that Selena did right:

1. Research your audience
2. Tell your story succinctly
3. Tell me why I would care
4. Make it easy for me to share the story

You could say the same thing for a great white paper landing page or email newsletter. The more things change in terms of our medium, the more the old best practices come in handy. I was so excited about this pitch, not simply because it really does seem like the ultimate Red Sox experience, but because it was a perfect example of a great communicator at work. If you want to check out the video it is below:

Do you finish your day and realize you didn’t really accomplish anything?

Oh sure, you DID stuff, a lot of stuff. But nothing was truly accomplished. Ask yourself how you spent your time throughout the day. Were you going back and forth from task to task, biting of small bits of each task, only to swallow it quickly and move onto something else?

Or did you sit down, shut out everything else and eat up the entire task, while actually taking time to taste?

You will only be successful when you multi-task, not multiple-task.

It’s that time of year. No, not the dog days of summer. Trade show season is starting to rev up again for all of us B2B marketers. Looking around me in the hotel bar here in D.C. I think most of the folks are probably staffing booths over the next few days. This is how it is every year right around the middle of August. We all hop on planes and spend nights at hotels so that we have the privilege of sitting in a trade show booth for eight hours. Why do we do this every year?

Simple. It works. The leads from shows, assuming you did your research, are more qualified. They come out of the event already having seen a demo of the product. You can more quickly more to eval and shorten your sales cycle. What’s not to love?

Proper event marketing is a very disciplined practice and since we are doing more than 100 events this year we have had to practice ultimate discipline. Big to small. Major city to small. Each event poses different challenges and different techniques, but they all require one thing. You have to be ready to rumble.

Gearing up both mentally and physically for a trade show is important. It does take a toll and it is best if you are prepared going into the event. Tonite I will focus on what tomorrow’s event is all about, the type of prospect attending, what will resonate the most with these people, how to set up our presence and triple check that I brought enough business cards.

August through November is trade show season. Are you ready to rumble?

Conventional Wisdom is what knowledgable people know. / Conventional Belief is what the masses think they know.

Unfortunately we often times confuse conventional belief with conventional wisdom, particularly in marketing circles. For example, if you just listen to the masses, social media is still THE top vehicle for marketers. But shift through the noise. Log off Twitter and those annoying #chats and talk to some really smart marketers who are working in the trenches. The conventional wisdom has it that the tried and true practices of marketing are making an enormous swing back into the mainstream. But they have been rejuvenated by the social media assault of 2008-2010.

Direct mail. Email Marketing. Events. And, yes, even advertising, are getting the best results these days.

But today they are done in a smarter and more focused manner. Because of all the social media noise these smart campaigns have become a breathe of fresh air. Certainly creativity and strong content still win the day, but the “old school” delivery mechanisms remain the best way to sell your product.

I’m not trying to write some “social media is dead” post, not in the slightest, but it goes back to something I wrote in January of 2007, when the blog was the highest form of “social”, in the post “Blogs are to hieroglyphics as Scoble is to _______?“:

“Content is still King, the blog is just one form of transportation.”

Don’t be blinded by conventional beliefs that social media is a revolution that you must be a part of or you will never succeed as a marketer. Instead listen to the conventional wisdom and realize that social media is (still) just another fantastic tool for you to use. Use it as a compliment, not in place of fantastic content and creative results-driven marketing campaigns. Always trend towards the wise and away from the believers.

People love to talk about customer service stories. Good, bad and ugly. We all share them with each other as if they are our own personal scars. Head on over to Twitter, Facebook, Yelp or any other online network and you’ll read what people think about the customer service they just received. We all know that more people talk about horrid customer service. Sure I have a large amount of those stories (I’m looking at the continuously poor service of ING). Fortunately though people do take the time to provide some kudos when the service is divine. Today, I share one of those stories.

Marketing tools can often be confounding. They are overly expensive and over designed. They get deployed before they have a team to support the tool. They work, sometimes. But we try them all in hopes that they deliver what we need and provide us with more insight into the work we are doing. One of the tools I use each day is Act-On software and you can read how it provides real-time B2B marketing analysis, email management, demand gen automation and more, but it is not the tool I care to discuss today. Today I want to talk about Andrea and Dan, two people who work at Act-On and provided me with a wonderful example of proactive customer service.

One morning last week I got an email that Andrea and Dan, helping us with another issue, came upon something we had done wrong in implementing our forms. This was not a major deal, but it was causing problems in certain browsers (yes, that means IE). Now here is what could happen after they discover this issue:

1. Ignore the issue, AKA “Bad Customer Service”
2. Alert us to the issue, AKA “Customer Service”
3. Tell us how to fix the issue, AKA “Good Customer Service”
4. Fix the issue then tell us about it, AKA “Amazing Customer Service”

The fourth form of customer service is what I call proactive customer service and it goes way above and beyond what you expect of any company. But it is also that type of customer service that creates a loyalty to a company, a product, a person, a brand. That morning Andrea and Dan of Act-On took the fourth approach on customer service and it made a huge difference for my day. Rather than trying to figure out the problem and wasting a few hours I was off and running. Proactive customer service is the ability to put your customer’s needs completely ahead of your own, but then going even one more step further and providing a true solution.

Thanks Andrea. Thanks Dan. Thanks Act-On.

Take a moment and share your story of proactive customer service.

History is a harbinger of the future, it may loosen its grip on us, but it is always present. My past is filled with the scars of being a public relations flack, and a pretty good one in my own eyes. No matter the PR job I had, no matter the company I was representing, there was always one achievement that drove the adrenaline, securing a business press opportunity. Let me be clear that not once have I had the pleasure of working for a large public company, so an interview with mainstream business press was always my Everest. My mind clearly replays a Friday in 1999 when my first Journal hit appeared. I doubt I did one thing the rest of that day.

Time has altered us all, as is its natural tendency, and not only has business press not become as important to me personally or professionally, the business press themselves have endured their own deep scars. Today there are fewer publications and within those publications even fewer journalists. The odds now have become event more challenging and the return on the time it takes to generate ink is difficult to justify. This new landscape however does not change the thrill and pure joy a business press opportunity still brings to an old PR flack at heart.

Today I’m not even the one directly involved with landing such an opportunity, but when an email crosses your inbox with “BusinessWeek Opportunity” in the subject line it is funny that the heart still jumps like it once did. My gut tells me, from experience, that this is a long process and even with a great interview coverage is still a rarity. But for just a few seconds I’m back in 20th century and I’m pretty damn excited about this business press opportunity.

Dear My Former Facebook Friend or FBF,

Privacy is important, or at least it should be, but unfortunately most people ignore their role in this tale. On the other end of the spectrum we have an organization like Facebook that has decided that privacy is the least of their problems and they are going to exploit an inherent weakness in people: Online Privacy Ignorance. This blog is not the place to resurrect what is currently going on in the world of privacy and Facebook, you can get that from better sources. But this latest privacy run around and “fix” has woken me up to the fact that I had created a very large group of FBFs (1,400+), many of which might or might not fall into the Online Privacy Ignorance category. Most, however, did fall into the “why do I feel it is OK to share with them what I am sharing” category. Listen up now, what I need to tell you IS very important: It’s not you, it’s me.

That’s right, we are no longer friends on Facebook. Please. Stop. Crying will not help us get through what are sure to be trying days. Instead I want you to think back on all the good times (cue cheesy flashback music and start montage):

• Hiding your Farmville updates as quickly as humanely possible.
• Removing that disgusting comment you made about me when I posted a family photo.
• The hours I spent building lists thinking that it would create different pockets of privacy.
• Hiding your MafiaWar updates as quickly as humanely possible.
• Disabling my wall to protect me, and you if I can be so frank, from malware and Phishing expeditions.
• Hiding your updates altogether during the last Presidential election cycle.
• Laughing out loud at the fact that you are still the only person that uses the “Poke” function.
• Wondering why you post drunken updates every Saturday night…with accompanying pictures of you in the restroom of local bars.

It is always hard to remember all those good times. Speaking of remembering, can you remember when we became FBFs? Or why? Strangely enough, I can’t even remember ever having met you in real life. When you have those types of challenges in front of you it is a wonder that our relationship, even this digital one, lasted for so many years.

The time has come for us to no longer be friends on Facebook. You may not even notice the change, since there is no way for me to contact you once we are no longer FBFs and we don’t even live in the same state and in some cases the same country. But thank you for being my FBF during a time when we all felt comfortable sharing intimate details about our lives with complete strangers. Today the world is simply a different place, and FBF, I’ve grown.

Perhaps one day I’ll regret this, but with my cursor poised over the “Remove Connection” button I bid you and 1,200 of my closest FBFers, adieu.

Warm and deep regards,

Kyle

Fortunately I work for a company that is witnessing amazing growth. And with tremendous growth comes a lot of interviewing. Last week alone I interviewed ten separate folks for four different positions. During each interview I like to examine how I performed; the questions asked, the information given, how much data I truly feel I got out of the person. Proper interviewing is certainly more art than science and over the years I’ve learned a great deal from those around me on how to get what you need when interviewing a person for a position.

Mix It Up

One of the most simple steps you can take is to mix up the people who will be conducting the interview. This is particularly important when interviewing marketing personnel, but it can also bring a fresh perspective to any role you are trying to fill. Many of the folks who came in to interview last week met with a variety of people outside of the marketing department, including our CTO. Obviously everyone in the company has a stake in who gets hired, no matter the position, but I often get the best opinions on a candidate from those outside of the marketing realm. These people know what is needed, but they can also remove any potential bias they may have about marketing talents and really cut to the core of the candidate as an overall talent. Just last week my CTO provided me with some terrific interview questions based on his conversations with a candidate. Make sure you include people outside of your own department in the interview process, it will open up your eyes to the strengths and weaknesses of a candidate.

Go Back For More

Traditionally people usually have one or two rounds of interviews and then make a decision. That seems a bit brash for someone that you’ll be spending 50-60 hours with a week, don’t you think? Would you get engaged after the second date? Don’t be afraid of having an extended interview process that could be 3-5 rounds. They don’t have to be all marathon-day sessions with multiple people, but it is good to get in front of a person several times to get a sense of when they are being a “job candidate” and when they are being themselves. Set up an initial phone screen, follow it up with an interview session with the marketing team, bring them back in for the interviews with folks outside of your team and then maybe close it up with a one-on-one session. Over time you will get a good handle on the different “flavors” of the candidate, their ability to schedule time into their calendar, attention to detail on how they remember items over a period of time and more opportunities to get to know this person you are about to spend so much time with over the coming months.

Spice Up The Locale

OK, I’m taking the “work relationship” metaphor too far, but what I mean is that you should interview the person at least once outside of your own offices. Personally I like to use the coffee shop across the street, especially for the first interview. There are many reasons for this including:

• Introduction–Did they do their homework and connect with me on LinkedIn, hence they know what my ugly mug looks like?
• Manners–How do they treat the folks working at the coffee shop?
• Personality–Out of the office, but still in a business-like setting, can they relax a bit and let out their personality?

I posed this question on Twitter and Jim Storer had an interesting suggestion, get the candidate on the golf course and you’ll learn a bunch of things:

Certainly a bit more intense than the coffee shop, but I think Jim would agree that one of the reasons the golf course works is because it is outside of the office space. Our friend Natayna Anderson had a good point of course, not everyone plays golf, but again I do think one could find a setting that would truly place a candidate out of their element and provide you with a much deeper understanding of their skill set.

Be Consistent

Asking the same exact question every single time is not only boring, but will also not give you a fair representation of different people. However, it is important to have some benchmark questions to ask each candidate, even if you tailor them to their personality or the flow of the conversation. The reason is obvious, you need to have easy ways to compare and contrast candidates. This becomes even more important when comparing two very strong candidates, providing you with a potentially tie-breaking formula.

Put Them To The Test

Some people are just really, really good at interviewing. You know who I’m talking about. Perhaps you are one of those people. But guess what those people can’t do, handle a challenging test. Don’t feel like you can’t tax your candidate with homework. A few suggestions, again from the marketing world:

• Rewrite the company boilerplate using all the information at your disposal.
• Provide a 90-day demand generation plan.
• Write a post for the company blog.
• Detail the five things you believe our competitors do better than us.

The ultimate lesson in interviewing is to be hard on the candidate, because their job is going to be hard.

Mix it up with the people interviewing, because they will have to have relationships with multitudes of co-workers.

Take them out of their element, it will provide a small light into their personality.

And don’t be afraid to ask for more, because the person who goes above and beyond is the person you’ll want to keep.

Thanks to Andrew Davis and TippingPoint Labs for interviewing me at the Social Media Breakfast in Boston a few weeks ago. We sat and talked about measuring ROI, including social media marketing ROI, and I thought I would share:

Kyle Flaherty on ROI from Tippingpoint Labs on Vimeo.

A lesson we all learn early in life is to not give in to peer pressure, it only leads to bad things happening. Typically this is a lesson steeped in fears around alcohol, drugs or reckless driving during the formative teenage years. Yet it applies throughout life, including when that teenager grows up and enters the world of business. Even in the relative safety of corporate America peer pressure can be a constant theme, leading to cutting corners, ethic violations and simply bad decision making. Peer pressure certainly prompts action, but using negative influences and causing adverse repercussions.

Peer motivation, on the other hand, provides the necessary inspiration from those surrounding you, but in a positive environment. This happens all the time in business, often through the creation of challenges amongst teammates to hit goals of self-inflicted peer motivation for folks driven to out perform others. Overall, peer motivation is something that we can harness in appropriate dosages to push ourselves and our teams to achieve great things, oh and it really works for parenting, but that is for another blog.

Peer Motivation and Athletics

When it comes to sports and athletics peer motivation is a critical part of the success recipe. Players often find themselves in situations where their peers raise their game to another level, not simply through the play of the game, but the influence of their workouts, diet or studying game tape. In fact, peers within sports are not necessarily on your own team, it could be your greatest opponent. Last night I was reminded of how powerful peer motivation can be watching “Magic & Bird: A Courtship of Rivals“. Growing up in the 80s, in Boston, it was a great honor to watch Larry Bird and Magic Johnson take each other to new levels, and along with it an entire professional sports league. This peer motivation happens all the time in sports, although not always to the level of a Bird & Magic, and it also happens for individuals who are…well…um…not professional athletes.

During the last part of 2009 I was training to run a half-marathon in Austin and for this ex-offensive lineman running isn’t exactly a natural physical state.

But throughout the training process peer motivation kept me going, and the “peers” didn’t even realize the effect they were having on getting me through my goal. One of those people, Tim Walker, has been chronicling much of his work out regimen and discipline on his blog and on Twitter. Seemingly, each time I thought about skipping or skimping on a run Tim would Tweet or post about a workout technique. Undeniably this would make me run longer and faster, helping push me to finish that half-marathon in February. Peer motivation.

Peer Motivation and Social Media

Social media is full of peer pressure, that has been well documented, but peer motivation is also a fantastic side benefit of social media. One great example is ChallengeApp, a new social network that allows you to challenge your friends or network to any type of challenge. Not surprisingly, Tim pointed out ChallengeApp to me and immediately we were in a challenge for the month of April. Our challenge is to get through 20 substantial workouts in April (join us?). We are only a few days into the month, but already I can tell this is going to drive me since we remind each other over Twitter and ChallengeApp about our workouts and don’t think it isn’t killing me that Tim has one more workout than I do already!

Peer motivation using social media or any other means is not just for athletics, in fact ChallengeApp (or really any collaborative platform) is a great tool for a team of bloggers looking for more production, fundraisers looking for more donations, company departments looking to out produce another department, the options are endless. Understanding how much power your words have on others may inspire you to be more proactive about peer motivation, and on the flip side you should search for people who will motivate you.

How are you going to motivate your peers today? Who motivates you each and every day and might not know it?