B2B & Social Media: Provide A Solution

Posted on August 4, 2010 by Scott Gould

You’ve probably heard at one point or another the question “does Social Media work for B2B?” Perhaps you’re even asking it yourself.

One of the main things that helped with me this is a post by Dan Blank called “Creating Interest vs Providing Solutions” from late last year. Dan says a number of pertinent things in this post, my favourite being:

If you can’t properly monetize 18 million unique visitors a month, how will another 5 million help clarify the way forward?

The point is that charging for interest is different to charging for a solution. Dan argues that many B2Bs, and publishers in particular, are thinking very narrowly about what their real asset is, and desperately trying to cling onto it, rather than actually start from the users point of view and explore what needs they really have around their interests:

Even in the cases where pay walls will work, it is not a complete solution, it is just one revenue stream. And in all likelihood, it is not one that will restore revenue and profits to the levels being lost by print.

Ads & Sponsorships are one model, but getting customers to pay you is another. If you rely solely on ads & sponsorships, how many page views is enough for your market? How many webinar sign-ups? How much growth can you garner year after year?

To differentiate your revenue streams, you may want to consider developing products that provide direct solutions. What service do you provide – could you provide- that people couldn’t live without?

Dan then linked to an exceptional presentation by David Cushman, called “a new era for specialist media.” Any regular here will find the ideas similar to our discussions on spreadability and people-to-people, but it is most certainly worth a look.

[slideshare id=2509580&doc=sipakeynotedc-091116051033-phpapp02]

All of this discussion makes me think again about the need for Social Media to be useful. And by useful I don’t mean useful for you, I mean useful for your users and/or community. We really need to understand them, with quantitive and qualitative research, and deliver what lifts restrictions for them – what enables them to do what they previously could not do.

For a really good case study on this, watch Yann Gourvennec’s Insight at Like Minds. His work as the Head of Digital and Internet at Orange Business Services is very, very inspiring.

Your Leading Thoughts

Are you a B2B player in Social Media? If so, are you providing a solution?
How do we begin to think ‘solution’, because I think at the moment we are very caught up with interest over solution.
How do you communicate solutions, without making everything a sales pitch?

You Lost Me At Hello?

Posted on July 6, 2010 by Scott Gould

Ever had such bad service right at the start that they had lost you from that moment on? Or perhaps it wasn’t bad service, perhaps it was bad planning?

Experience planning isn’t a simple task, because if it was, everyone would be getting it right. I think it actually takes a lot of thought to not loose someone at hello.

Lets take my church, for instance. When a visitor arrives they are subconsciously asking themselves the question ‘who here is like me’, all the time wanting to feel safe and secure, and not having to be noticed or attract attention to themselves.

As you can imagine, it doesn’t take much to knock one of those.

The trick to keeping someone at hello, I think, is to get into someone else’s shoes and really into their mind and understand what it is like to approach you for the first time.

Your Leading Thoughts

How have you learnt to keep someone at hello? What are your tactics?

Under Promise, Over Deliver

Posted on December 18, 2009 by Scott Gould

When I started working at my Church in 2003 I quickly learnt that the largest part of my work, both in the office and on Sundays (game day), was one of managing expectations.

Thus when I repeatedly failed in delivering expectations, I learnt the further lesson that expectation is closely linked with communication – or the lack thereof.

Yesterday, out of the blue, I received the package pictured here. When I opened it was I both surprised and excited by the gift of Thorntons chocolates sent to me by Optix Solutions. I was surpised because, of course, I wasn’t expecting it – it hadn’t been communicated to me. So therefore when I received the chocolates, my expectations (which were nil) were delightfully over-delivered on. Continue reading →

Free From The Factory

Posted on November 5, 2009 by Scott Gould

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpIOClX1jPE&fmt=18

In this modern day fable (if you can’t see the video, click here), notice the reoccurrence of themes we’ve been talking about: Continue reading →

The 6 Types Of Social Media Presences You’ll Meet In Heaven

Posted on October 22, 2009 by Scott Gould

For all the skepticism of ‘love’ and other such metaphysical language in the marketplace, it’s interesting to watch the TED Talks. In fact, it’s interesting to watch this TED Talk in particular by Rory Sutherland. Listen to the language – it’s about value, perception, resources, persuasion, emotion, compulsion, desire – all from the mouth of a highly respected advertising genius. In other words – the guy who gets paid millions to bring home the bacon for the brands, talks about emotion.

In actual fact, as you listen to these wonderful people appearing at TED, they continually reduce incredible things down to things of the heart. Emotion.

As I first stated yesterday, and refined with help from @Claire_Sloane , the successful social media practioner is a master of relationship before they are a master of ROI. Everyone who successfully uses social media is doing something different from the businesses that don’t get social media – they are aiming to add value, not aiming to sell stuff. We all recognise that business is about relationship – especially with small businesses – and social media is simply an enabler that magnifies and intensifies this. You can check out and use my framework that looks closer at this on the concept of lifting restrictions here. Continue reading →

Solving Not Selling

Posted on October 14, 2009 by Scott Gould

I read this awesome article, Stop Selling and Add Value on Monday from the N2 Growth Blog. Mike Myatt, and his awesome moustache, writes:

Call me crazy, but I don’t want to talk to someone who wants to manage my account, develop my business, or engineer my sale. I want to communicate with someone who wants to service my needs or solve my problems. Any organization that still has “sales” titles on their org charts and business cards is living in another time and place while attempting to do business in a world that’s already passed them by. It’s time for companies to realize that consumers have become very savvy and very demanding. Today’s consumer (B2B or B2C) does their homework, is well informed, and buys…they are not sold.

This is right in line with what we’ve discussed on the subject of ‘Making It Personal‘, and in the ‘PR 2010 Framework‘. By making your product or service an experience by actually solving the problem (of course, the user may not see the problem until you highlight it) rather than providing the tool to do it, you are engaging far deeper with your customer, and can also charge a higher markup.

In fact it’s not just Mike and I thinking about it. Jeremy Epstein (have you seen his client list?) wrote an article yesterday entitled “your value = your relevance“. What a title. Your value to your customer is equal to your relevance to your customer. Beautiful. But also very conceptual. Let’s break it down:

The History Of Economic Progression

A hundred years ago, tell a commoner that they’d paid £50 for a haircut and dry, and they’d laugh at you – why pay when you can do it yourself? 10 years ago, tell average Jane she’ll pay for shopping to be home delivered, and she’d reply she’d rather save the cash and pick them up herself.

The history of economic progression is one of paying for someone else to do what you used to do yourself, for free. My examples are rather peice-meal and conceptual, but there are very intelligent people out there writing about this is hard cover books. My simple understanding is that as technology enables us to become better specialists, and as we culturally have more responsibilities and roles, we are more willing to pay others to handle the things that we don’t have time to.

Of course, we don’t pay them just for their labour. We pay them in accordance to their expertise, their relevance to our needs, the results – the value they impart. Quite simply taking a book, we know that we aren’t paying merely for the product in our hands, but the time and effort that produced the intellectual property that we are reading and receiving value from.

An excellent example is Nike+. Consider the fact that to measure your running day on day, you can simply use a map and a stop watch, and then a some paper to graph it out. But Nike solve a problem by removing the map, watch and effort of drawing by simply giving you something to put in your shoe, and watch in amazement as it charts everything online for you. In fact, what Nike have done is lifted restrictions and just made everything easier by doing all the work for you.

And the happy catch is this: you are paying far more than the free DIY version. But you are getting greater value through expertise, technology, and the reduction of your time, effort, and in some way, the stress of having to do it. As I often say to clients “make it one less thing your customer has to do.”

Solving Not Selling

All this stuff appeals deeper than fiance. It gets down to advocacy, passion, experience, change. Sure, there are inventions that are cheap and cheerful, but the majority of these game changers are lifestyle products and/or services in some shape or form. And very often, they are ahead of the curve.

I’m sure right now that you can think of plenty of ways to solve problems, rather than sell stuff. But as is the nature of innovation, only certain people buy it – early adopters. Many times I thought I had a great idea and everyone would swoop at it, only for it to flop. So I have realised that the need to 1. know you target market, and 2. grow by trial and error, is significant when solving problems. Some tips:

The best place to start, in my opinion, is with Guy Kawasaki’s ‘Art of Innovation‘. It’s helped me no end, and continues to.
Sound the depths. Segment some clients and experiment. Use social media to test the waters, as it is very cost effective and quickly helps you draw conclusions.
Continually re-think and re-write to get down the core of your ‘solution’. I’ll be honest with you, I still haven’t got mine down to a single phrase. If you can only describe it using examples or a paragraph, then you know that you have too much of ‘you’ in mind, and not enough of your customer.
Draw on others. Pass it round the office, bounce it off your friends. Their perspective with save you lots of time, and open new paths to explore.
Adapt in public, rather than perfect in secret. This way you gather a following while you are growing (even if things are unclear), you pick up people who do get it, and you also get criticised and challenged which will sharpen you and help you cut out the rubbish.

I trust these points help you solve a few more problems this week!

10 Tips For Creating Spreadable Service

Posted on October 7, 2009 by Scott Gould

Delivering a great customer experience is equally about sales and service. Great sales gets you market share, but great service gets you both wallet share and makes your customer a brand advocate. Pretty much every business / church / charity / individual, right now, is offering fist-clenchingly bad service – so when you serve them like they are royalty, hey presto!, you are being unique.

Another thought: when you deliver great service, it is often issolated – in other words, between the customer and you. By following the few tips (well, 10) below, you can also begin making your customer service spreadable, in other words, so that people can see how well you are serving. FYI, I define spreadbility as easy of access, ease of use, and ease of share.

Provide multi-touch support. Become more accessible by also taking service issues over Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter in addition to your website and/or blog.
Clearly illustrate, that if out of your operating hours, how your customer and get emergency service. Perhaps points them to the social media above. Perhaps, get an emergency phone and sleep with it. In other words, lift the restriction of time.
Provide a non 0845/0870/0871 number, i.e. give them your local office phone number. This creates reassurance. When they call, give your name. Make sure the same person handles the service all the way through, or clearly give the name of the person you handing the issue to.
Remove your ugly call queuing systems and other such nonsense – or if not, reduce them to the simplest thing possible. Insider hint: people get angry waiting on call queuing systems. Also, remove voice activated stuff. It doesn’t work.
When you engage with your customer, tell them exactly how things are going to progress, and keep communicating this. This makes them feel safe, and everyone wants to feel safe when something is broken.
Give your employees who handle customer service more room to offer compensation, and to offer it more quickly. It may cost you, but you will create an advocate. If they want to escalate, let them, and have a great attitude about it, like it is you who is inconveniencing them – because as far as they care, you are!
Exceed expectation. If they are looking for one thing, give them something better – preferable something that they can share. Scale the pyramid of expectation.
When you resolve an issue through a social media enquiry, if the info is not sensitive, publicly answer it so others can see. This way you are both marketing and serving at the same time.
If they provided their social media details, or contacted you through social media, then do this: when you have resolved the issue, publicly Tweet / Facebook them two days later to see how it’s going. If they called or emailed, then call or email them instead. This extra touch shows that you care, and also helps with ease of share because others will see it.
Go to the nth degree for every customer. Turn a bad experience into a compelling experience. Relish the opportunity to turn an average customer into an advocate, and do whatever you can to succeed in this task.

Have fun serving.

Thanks to Conductive for the photo.