Life Without Lorraine
As Lorraine has become a nationally recognized speaker, she’s spending more time out of the office, traveling the country. It’s great knowing she’s out there promoting our brand across the U.S., but the change comes with challenges-and growth opportunities for those of us left behind.
Business at Roundpeg starts with Lorraine. She’s the cog in the wheel, so it’s not uncommon for us to include her on every single business decision. Our’s is a fast-paced business, and sometimes things don’t go exactly according to plan. When thingsdo go wrong, or simply take an unexpected turn, my first instinct is to run to the boss so she can get me out of whatever mess I have created. She is out safety net, but when I depend on her, I know I am taking her time and energy away from what she’s working on and I am inhibiting my our own development.
When she is not here Taylor, Allison, and I are responsible for the success of Roundpeg. We have to trust our judgement, and make decisions. We have to be fearless. Slowly, I’m learning to figure things out for myself. I’m learning to trust my judgement and make decisions which affect our clients and our business. And I’m learning to do so without fear. ( It helps to know Lorraine will back my decisions. She may tell me later how she might have handled if differently, but she will support commitments I make to clients in her absence. )
For that reason, Lorraine’s speaking tours have been a blessing in disguise. The other VP’s and I are learning we can make the right decision most of the time. There’s a REASON Lorraine trusts us. We’ve had to grow up and realize the more ownership we each take in Roundpeg’s success, the more we will see that success become a reality.
Looking down the road, I’m excited. I can’t wait to see our entire team grow as problem-solvers, decision-makers, and eventually, corporate officers.
If anyone sees Lorraine out though…please let her know when she gets a chance, I have a couple questions…
Grow Your Business By Turning Away Customers
In the Indianapolis metropolitan area, there are 65,000 companies with sales under $1 million. 65,000! The reality is I can’t serve all these small businesses.
To use my time well, and do the right thing for my clients, sometimes the best thing to do is to turn the project over to a competitor. I know that sounds crazy, giving up a project especially, in a tough economy, but when it isn’t a fit, I have learned it is better to walk away.
Seth Godin had a great post recently on this topic. He argued passing a project to someone else better prepared to handle it will actually raise your image with that client. He said:
This is when you earn the right to be seen as a trusted adviser, not a self-interested shill. Two months or two years from now, when you interact with that person or organization again, he’ll remember that you were the one who spoke up on behalf of the competition, the one who helped us find a better fit, the clearly disinterested adviser who helped us choose between the two remaining good choices.
To make good suggestions, I work hard to get to know my competitors. I understand their weakness and their strengths so I can pick the best candidate for my client. I have good working relationships with companies like SpinWeb, Miles Design, and Deep Ripples. Each of these companies are best in class, and beyond their skills, I know they will treat my prospect the way I would have .
I am in this business for the long haul. So if I miss one sale, but in doing so, I establish my self as a trusted adviser I know it will be worth it in the long run.
Social Media: Repetition, Repetition, Repetition.
At BlogIndiana I heard an interesting statistic : Approximately 75% of the visitors to your blog or website are first time visitors. This didn’t sound right, surely people were coming back again and again. But I checked my own statistics and sure enough, 72% of my guests were first timers.
All that new content I was generating, was it going to waste? If I just wrote the same post over and over again, who would know? Well I believe it isn’t going to waste, because every post builds SEO bait. At the same time, the practice is improving my writing skills.
The fact that 3/4 of my audience is new every day presents an interesting challenge. If his is the first time you have arrived here, I want you to know a bit about us. – At Roundpeg, we are focused on small business. We write about marketing, social media, pr, web design, and business planning. Occasionally we show off samples of our work, and link to projects we do for our small business clients. Look around, we hope you will enjoy your stay, and maybe come back and become part of the other 25%
However, if you are part of my regular audience. I am glad you are back.. On this visit, I hope you will take the time to share some of your thoughts. What keeps you coming back?
Bring Your Date Home!
As Facebook expands their reach, launching a geographic platform ( Facebook Places) to compete with foursquare, it raises once again the question – Is Facebook All You Need? With custom fan pages, the simple user interface, the ability to take messages viral, why do you even need your own blog or web site?
The Answer … Control!!
While Facbook is an amazing tool, it is their tool, not yours. It is their game, their rules, and they can change the rules any time. This message was hammered home to me in several different presentations at BlogIndidana last week.
- After building a significant following on Facebook, Scotty’s Brewhouse had reached the maximum number of friends. Giving up most of their traditional marketing, they had come to rely on the platform to stay in touch with customers, promote location based specials and build a following. Yes they have a website, but it is their fan page and twitter stream which really allows them to connect with their clients.
When they reached their maximum Facebook shut them down. Now they were able to rebuild, but they had some significant scrambling to do, and some customer connections were lost forever ( not many, but some)
- FBML!!! – Facebook launched FBML – A quirky tool which allowed developers to create really cool Welcome pages as part of the fan page. I have met several designers recently who argued with FBML, they would never need to build another “real website” . Not convinced it would replace traditional websites, we still took on the challenge of learning the quirks of FBML. The result are some some really cool fan pages:
- roundpeg
- startingpoint
- Lipstick on the Rim ( This is my favorite)
The problem – Facebook is moving away from FBML – The first warning something was in the air, was a notice pages needed to be resized. So all of our designs have been downsized to 530 Px from 730. Not bad, but definitely not something I wanted to do. But the bigger issue? They are abandoning FBML. So now, instead of working on new projects, we need to find another way to add the custom tabs, and rebuild our sites and the ones we have created for our clients. Their game, their rules, their toys.
- As I was researching this topic, I found a blog by Jeff Bullas with one more reason: Facebook is not forever ( Think AOL). Sooner or later something else will come along. Their obsolescence becomes yours. With your site, you control, when, how and why you morph.
Have I given up on Facebook? Absolutely not. It is a powerful tool, which allows us to connect our clients with their constiuacy and DRIVE THEM TO THE CLIENT WEBSITE. That is the bottom line,: Think of Facebook as a giant party, where you can meet lots of people, maybe even the love of your life.. Meet them at Facebook then bring them home to dance!
Want to Boost Sales? Give Stuff Away!
Whenever I go to the mall, and walk by the food court, there is always that guy, handing out samples of the Chinese chicken. Why? Because if you don’t know what you are hungry for, very often a little taste is enough to convince you to buy an entire plate.
That same try before you buy strategy works in many industries, particularly when the product or service is really unique or radically different from competing products.
For example networking: Today, after more than eight years in the market place, most people are familiar with Rainmakers. That was not the case, eight years ago. Our model was so different, it was almost impossible to explain on paper or on-line. It is one of those things you had to experience to understand. To overcome the low understanding of our model, we started offering “free passes” to our events.
The result of our free trial program – We lost some revenue at the door, since guests no longer had to pay the first time they attended, but we had significantly more guests. the average event had an increase in guest count from 5 to 15. Since our closing percentage (guests who became members) remained the same, we tripled the number of new members each month.
That’s the key.. use free trials to introduce the product, build a loyal fan base, and offer an option for more services of a reasonable fee. It the value is there, you wil have no trouble earning the fee.
FREE TRIALS! Have you figured out how to use them in your business?
