Are you getting your wires crossed on Faceook?

Using Facebook for business is an exciting concept.  Facebook is a busy and popular site.  There is so much activity on it.  You know you have to be there.  You know you need a Facebook presence.

You also know that you struggle with the technology.  You know you have a son or daughter – or a niece or nephew – who is just so good with all that social media stuff.

It seems an obvious thing to do to ask him or her to take the stress of managing your business’s Facebook page away from you.

Should you do this?

Well, if there’s someone in the next generation who is a social media consultant or who is building a business using social media, then get in there quickly.  If he or she makes you an offer, or if you think you can gain access to this expertise, then grab it.

If your child’s only experience on the social web is associated with talking to friends, sharing gossip and photographs, then perhaps you should think again.

Getting friends not likes

I had a call from a client earlier in the week who asked about Facebook likes.  She wanted to know where to find the “like” button on her business’s Facebook page.

We had been talking about “likes”.  She hadn’t really paid much attention to her page until after that conversation.  Then she went to look at her statistics.

Her daughter had set up the page for her.  Actually, she hadn’t set up a page at all.  She had set up a personal profile for her mother’s business.  The result is that the business has friends – not “likes”.

The daughter said she didn’t know how to set up pages so she set up a personal profile.  She knew about that because she had one herself.

She had then contacted her mother’s customers and asked them to come and be friends on Facebook.

When the mother realised what has been happening, she was horrified.

We have now set up a Facebook page and we’re encouraging the business’s  customers to come over and “like” the new page.   However, the incident has caused embarrassment.  It’s not good for the company’s image.

I’m not sure about the impact on mother-daughter relationships.

What should you put in Facebook updates?

Another client has got the business’s page set up.  The page has gained quite a few “likes” but the business owner doesn’t have time to put anything on the page on a regular basis.

In this case, the task of updating fell to the owner’s son and daughter.

They did what they do on their personal pages.  They talked.  They chatted.  They shared interesting “stuff”.  They kept the page buzzing.

They even amended the e-mail signatures on company communications.  They put   a message urging customers to visit and like the page.

Unfortunately, the content of the page is what appeals to teenagers, not to the customers of a service-based company.

The “likes” the page was receiving were coming from the people who liked the updates, not from individuals who were, or might become, customers of the company.

That page is now moribund.  The business owner isn’t using Facebook any more.

Technical skills are not enough

It’s great to have inter-generational working in family businesses.

It seems sensible when one generation has the technical skills to manage social media and the other doesn’t for the two generations to work collaboratively.

That didn’t happen in either of the cases noted above.

In both instances the older generation didn’t really understand the potential – or the power – of the medium being used.   You need technical skills to make effective use of any social media application.  That’s why it really is good that both of these businesses could call on the technical expertise they had within their families.

Both business owners had accepted they “must” be on Facebook and had gone ahead on that basis.   They hadn’t thought any further.

You’re on Facebook to build your business

When I talk to people about social media I always emphasise that it’s important to be on a platform for a reason.  The fact that other people and other businesses are using Facebook is not a good enough reason for signing up, too.

If you want your business to use Facebook you need a reason and you need some objectives.  Most businesses use Facebook to do two things:

• create interest in what they do with their target market
• drive visitors to their website.

If you can achieve one or both of these objectives, it’s worth the effort of using the platform. 

If you can’t, or if you don’t want to allocate the time needed to manage the process, then maybe another means of promoting your business to your marketplace would make sense.

Social media applications are great, but you need a strategy when you decide to get involved.  You also need to accept that it takes time and effort as well as know-how to get things right.

What are your thoughts about using Facebook?

Have you had this type of experience?

If so, what did you do about it?

Do you believe businesses are ready to think through why they’re using social media?

Be honest, do you allocate resource to using social media applications well?

Leave a comment below and if you like this article please tweet about it or share it on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Only yesterday I was told:

“Twitter isn’t for businesses.  It’s just for chatting and wasting time.”

Therefore, I think it’s worth reminding our clients, regular readers and new visitors to this site of three important ways in which Twitter can really help businesses to succeed.

Follow Relevant Twitter Accounts

The first stage to business success for any business using Twitter is to follow a range of people.   However, you need to make sure you’re following the right people.

If you work with me on building your online presence your first piece of homework will be to go and find fifty Twitter accounts to follow where you can give me a good reason why you have chosen to follow them.

The answers I’m looking for include:

“I’ll learn a lot about our industry from following this account.”

“This is a company we would like to do business with.”

“This person’s opinion really counts.”

Once you are following fifty such accounts you have made a good start to building your Twitter community and a Twitter community that will be helpful to your business.

Talk to people on Twitter

Just about every one talks about joining in the conversation.  It’s what people remember about Twitter.  Unfortunately, this can lead you in the wrong direction.

Join in an existing conversation would be better advice.  Then think about the following:

• What are people already talking about on Twitter?
• What are they already interested in, and talking about on Twitter?

Before you think about starting your own conversations on Twitter, join in the ones that are already taking place.  You’ll get yourself known as an interesting person if you are an interesting person.   This is the basic building block of reputation building. It’s that simple.

Get involved.  Help and advise.  Add value.

If you do nothing else by working in this way you will find you are conducting excellent market research.   You will learn what your industry is talking about and what people in your industry are worried about.  With your business hat on you should then think about how to make use of what you now know.

Just remember you’ve gathered this valuable market intelligence for very little outlay.

Tweet regularly

One of the biggest problems that small businesses face is the problem of attention.

Small business owners, independent professionals, consultants, coaches and other experts have lots of different calls on their time.  That means they forget to tweet or they get too busy to tweet or they are just too tired to tweet (except at midnight – which isn’t much good, unless your audience is online at midnight).

• Create a Twitter schedule.
• Stick to your schedule. (The difficult bit)
• Tweet to a timetable – whatever else you’re doing.

It will help.  You’ll be noticed more.  Your tweets will be picked up more.  Your tweets will be retweeted more and so on.

Stop wasting time on Twitter

Your key aim with all of this is to stop wasting time on Twitter.  I always monitor our clients’ Twitter activity when we’re working on improving web presence, so I know that most people waste time on Twitter.

It is a waste of time to automate tweets that go across lots of different platforms if you don’t know who you want to reach or what impact you wish to have on the people you reach via Twitter.

It is a waste of time to tweet without purpose at any time.

It is a waste of time to log into Twitter and not look at who is talking about you, replying to you, mentioning you and so on.   You are missing opportunities to connect and to build relationships.

Focus matters, so focus.

What to do about Twitter

Give yourself permission to forget about tweeting until you know what you want to tweet about and what you want your Twitter presence to do for your business.

You’ll save time and you’ll bring in more business via Twitter if you work in this way.  That’s a promise.

And now …

You can read my free online Twitter tutorial by clicking on the link:

Online Twitter Tutorial

If you’d like to Stop Wasting Time Online then sign up to follow the ten part development programme.

Click on the term: Stop Wasting Time Online

It was called:

Seven Reasons Why You Should Ditch Your Five Page Website

Now I’ve created a Pin covering the same theme.

So here’s the question.

How do you prefer to access content like this?

• Would you prefer just to look at the Pin?
• Would you look at the Pin and then want to read the post?

These are questions that matter for people in business, because the answers must shape our approach to content marketing.

Leave a comment below or on Facebook on the Social Media Success Community’s page.

It’s a great way to showcase your offer in a different way.  It also drives traffic to your website.

Here are two simple pins I created to help the launch of my e-book:  The Solo Success Start-Up Guide.

Business Biscotti Digital Day

I was speaking last week at a business event.  It was Business Biscotti’s Digital Day held at The Grovefield House Hotel in Burnham, Buckinghamshire.

There were several speakers and they came from a range of organisations.  There were also workshops.  There were opportunities to have one-to-one meetings with presenters, and there were business networking opportunities.

My theme was social media.  In fact, I was speaking on:

Social Media Engagement Is NOT Enough

As you can guess I reminded  my audience that getting followers, fans, likes, pins and the rest is not why we’re on social media.  We’re business people and we’re using social media applications to help to build our businesses.

In my presentation I went on to cover five things people in the audience should be doing to make sure they are getting the right sort of return on their investment in social media.

All well and good.

There’s still a lot to do after making a business presentation or speaking at a conference.  You’re probably only about half way through the tasks linked to making a presentation when you finish speaking.

Do you follow through with at least some of these other tasks after you sit down?

Get some feedback

Okay, you get some feedback as you speak.  If people haven’t gone back to texting and using their iPads etc you know you’re doing something right.  If you can engender audience participation – that is they laugh when they’re supposed to laugh, or they answer your questions – you’re on the right track.

Of course, the round of applause at the end of your presentation offers you some signals, too.

But what else can you do?

The first is to make a point of talking to the conference organisers about the “buzz” over lunch or the comments that are being made by delegates.

By the time we got to the middle of the afternoon, Sue Reeves, “Mrs Biscotti” (one of the founders of Business Biscotti) had  sought me out and told me that there were three presentations that were being talked about very positively, and mine was one of those three.  Hooray!

There was also live tweeting going on during the day and the messages there were complimentary, too. I had several one-to-one discussions over lunch and into the afternoon session, so that’s all positive feedback

Follow up

We all know to follow up the people we meet at events, the people who give us their business cards and the people who say they would like to talk to us.

That means making a point of doing what you promised you would do when you spoke to people.  Actually it’s remembering what you promised to do that’s the challenge.

Then there are all the LinkedIn follow ups – sending out and responding to requests to connect.

There is still a lot more to do.

In the old days presenters would get hold of a list of attendees and contact them all.  Many of the follow up messages were just a rather dignified form of spam.  Some people still work in this way. They add every one they meet and every one on every list they get hold of onto their own email lists.

Well, I don’t think that’s good business.   What I do think is good business is making an offer at the end of a presentation to encourage people in the room to do something to get their hands on a resource of value.

My follow-up offer was a free report.

It’s called: Measuring The Return On Social Media.

In fact it’s a report on exactly the subject I was speaking on.  The logic of this is that if people liked my presentation, they might want to know more about my subject.

I gave the link to the page on one of my websites from which people could download the report and also explained they could get the notes for the presentation from the same page.

I stressed there was no need to sign up to get the report.  I decided I would be asking too much of people to require them to sign up to hear from me in the future in order to get the notes from a presentation they had already paid to hear.

However, there is a sign up box on that web page and some people have chosen to sign up to hear from me.  They’ll be receiving their first weekly update from me later today.

Thank

There’s one other thing to do.  That is to thank the conference organisers for the opportunity to present.

Presenting is a great way of building your reputation.  It’s a great way of getting more people talking about you.  It’s a great way of making progress towards becoming a market leader.

So I’ve thanked Business Biscotti and Sue Reeves and Graham Reeves for inviting me to speak.  I’ve thanked the people who have said such complimentary things about me on Twitter and I’ve thanked the people who have shown an interest in my work since the event.

Making business presentations

So, when you speak, how well do you follow up after the event?

What do you do to help to make the most of any presentation you make?

Have I missed anything that’s really important? Let me know in the comments.

You might also like to read my Twitter Tutorial.

How to use Twitter to build your business

If you’re looking for a speaker then please take a look at the web page entitled Margaret Adams. Keynote Speaker

Pictures courtesy of Business Biscotti.

And that presentation………..

…………….. If you’d like a copy of my presentation from Business Biscotti’s Digital Day, then get in touch.  Use the contact form or, if you’re on one of our lists, get in touch direct.

Have you made plans?

The series of posts on how to sell to high net worth individuals is attracting a lot of interest.

It continues now with a post about financial planning – a vital activity for members of this group.

Today’s post is by Paul Gorman, a chartered financial planner, who works with high net worth individuals directly and therefore understands their concerns and aspirations.

Working with high net worth individuals

A significant proportion of our clients are, or have been, business owners and in the main very successful too in building wealth ~ they fall into a category many describe as high net worth.

Over many years of working with this type of client certain characteristics do emerge that are quite common to all ~ similar issues and concerns crop up time and time again:

• How best to optimise your business for tax;
• How to incentivise and reward your employees most efficiently;
• How much do I need to earn, save or sell my business for to give me what I want out of life?
• When will I be able to retire, so I can spend more time doing the things I really enjoy?
• How can we ensure that our families are protected?

Successful entrepreneurs do worry about money, and matters associated with it, but not having the time to do anything about it in a really constructive and effective way and entrusting someone else are key factors that lead to inertia.

Financial planning and high net worth clients

Building up a trust for what you do and why and how you do it and gaining their confidence that you understand their needs, wants and desires and can implement and manage them going forward is key.

Offering and presenting a service that is advice driven and not sales led with examples of how you’ve managed to help similar clients like them can be an excellent starting point to engender that trust you need.

Delivering solutions that release time for them to focus upon what they do best can remove the inertia as they are able to see and realise that improvements can be made and objectives and desires attained without it impinging on their day-to-day activities and workload.

We look to take a “helicopter view” of our client’s life to help them identify key issues, plan and desires along with concerns and issues and work with them to create and implement solutions.

Simple and straightforward financial planning

Our focus is very much on keeping financial planning straightforward and simple yet effective. High net worth individuals by their very nature often have complex financial lives ~ moving from a state of complexity to clarity can be an excellent driver for getting things moving and plans implemented and achieved.

But it’s not just about creating some order and setting the wheels in motion.  It’s equally important to support on an ongoing basis and re-visit and review.  Our clients tell us that they place a high value on the ongoing support we provide.

Entrepreneurs and the high net worth do experience financial paralysis, largely as a result of lack of time and no one to trust. Instead of doing nothing in the face of these concerns, they tend to continue to do what they are brilliant at and love to do ~ Build more wealth.

Therein lies the conundrum ~ solve it and great opportunities await.

About the guest author

Paul Forman APFS is a Chartered Financial Planner and Resolution Accredited IFA.

Learn more about Paul’s work at: Ifsproconnect 

Follow Paul on Twitter @IFS4Advice 

Here is my review of The Laptop Entrepreneur.

I like this book.  The Laptop Entrepreneur: How to make a living anywhere in the world by Nick Snelling and Graham Hunt offers practical and easy-to-understand guidance for anyone who is seriously considering making a living via the internet and using the freedom that such a style of working delivers to live just about anywhere.

Nick and Graham are experts in doing the sort of things they write about.  Both are British and both live – and work – in Spain, using the tactics and techniques they write about in The Laptop Entrepreneur to build the type of future that’s right for them.

In this book they explain in straightforward terms that it is possible to earn a living via the internet.  They show readers that they can adapt their existing skills and expertise to suit a new way of working and possibly a new way of life.  They then offer step-by-step guidance to help readers to fulfil their aspirations.

Laying Firm Foundations

The Laptop Entrepreneur spends more than forty pages on the overview of how to make a living via the internet and on the important topic of market research.  This makes the book particularly valuable to people who have not, to date, thought seriously about how to become a laptop entrepreneur. The advice is grounded in common sense, experience and an excellent knowledge of the subject.

As the authors say:

“Nothing is more important than market research.  Failure to do this properly may result in battling against impossibly strong competition or within an area with no commercial potential.”

Guiding people to success

Having helped readers to create a firm foundation for their businesses the authors then systematically and methodically work through the most important topics that would-be laptop entrepreneurs must address.  The topics they cover are:

• Domaining – choosing the right domain name etc
• Blogs
• Website copywriting
• Article writing and promotion
• Affiliate marketing
• Social media marketing
• Terms and definitions
• Useful resources.

The issue dealt with in each section is explained thoroughly and in ways that the internet novice can understand.   The style is encouraging and informative.

Most of the chapters are supported by case studies about people who are employing the tactics dealt with in the book to make a success of their businesses.  What I found particularly helpful about the cases studies is that they give insights into some of the mistakes people can make as they create their internet-based businesses as well as dealing with success.

At the end of the book is a very useful list of terms and definitions and a section on resources that readers will find valuable as they implement the advice they have read.

Is there anything missing?

I was surprised when I finished reading the chapter on social media marketing to move straight into terms and definitions.  I would have liked a final chapter where the writers draw together their themes and give readers just a little nudge to encourage them to make a start on their new careers – soon.   This does not detract from what the book offers; it’s just a suggestion about a useful addition for future editions.

Should you buy?

Overall this is a fascinating and informative book and one well worth buying and using, if you’re keen to develop an internet business and, as a result, gain the freedom to live and work where you would like.

The Laptop Entrepreneur is available in several different formats.  It’s in print.  There’s a Kindle version and there’s a pdf version with plenty of illustrations, too.  The link below is to Amazon.

The Laptop Entrepreneur: How to make a living anywhere in the world by Nick Snelling and Graham Hunt.

Summertime Publishing – November 2011 – 240 pages

I write a weekly newsletter for my subscribers called: One Hundred Per Cent Change. Each week I offer a small piece of guidance that will help readers to improve their businesses.

Follow the advice each week and you will improve your business rapidly.

If you’re not a subscriber yet, below are the tips I’ve published so far this year.  Take heed of the advice and you can improve your business rapidly.  You might even like to try to implement one of the actions each day.

Claim another week for your schedule by better planning – 5 ways to plan your business that will help you gain an additional week during the course of the year

Measuring a metric that really matters – how many hands have you shaken this week and why it matters.

Who do you spend your time with? – Save emotional energy by spending more time with the right sort of people.

About your website, content isn’t king anymore – So what matters more than great content on your website, your blog and in your social media activities?  Find out here.

Break the rules! – Sometimes the rules we set for ourselves hold us back.  Time to think differently.

Now for a different sort of list – Do you have a “don’t do” list.  Here’s why you need one.

Are you a boring person online? – How to check out your situation.

How to accelerate your business’s growth – Here is a four part formula for success.

Pay attention to the one word that matters – success is all about what has your attention.

Now, if you think these tips are interesting you might like to join us each week to learn more.  Sign up over on the right of the screen.

Will they buy it?

It’s all very well aspiring to sell to high net worth clients, but precisely where are they?

How will you find potential high net worth clients to sell to?

Conventional wisdom about selling encourages you to find the places where your target market congregates.

Then you do your best to join them.  You try to rub shoulders with your client group and move on to build a relationship with them.

Eventually you make your sale.

If only …

As you probably know, selling to high net worth individuals isn’t as easy as that.

Selling to the affluent is different

For all sorts of reasons affluent people are often very discreet about their wealth and their assets.  That means they’re not easily identifiable.  They don’t necessarily have a luxury lifestyle.  They don’t necessarily show off their wealth.

What’s more they don’t necessarily congregate in places where you could readily have access to them.

Your potential clients will want to make their purchases when they choose and in the way they choose, not in accordance with your timetable and your selling process.  In other words, conventional sales campaigns won’t always work with this group.

So what can you do?

The answer is simple: get the right high net worth individuals to come to you.

Get affluent clients to seek you out

Getting business to come to you is easier said than done, but you can organise your approach to sales to encourage the right potential clients to look for you.

First, ensure you have a product or service that addresses a need, an interest, an aspiration of your target market. That is make sure your product or service will help your clients to address something that matters to them.

You must get this right.  You’re working with a market that can choose what to buy, when to buy and whether or not to buy at all.

Let’s use the example of finding investment opportunities that are low risk and that are, in the eyes of potential investors, safe.   In this instance, for your potential clients, safety is the key concern.

Everything you say about your product or service must be geared to addressing this issue.  Don’t try to cover:

Making low risk investments AND getting a good return on your money.

Making low risk investments AND getting a quick return on your money.

Making low risk investments AND anything else.

Focus on the investor’s desire for safety.

By all means deal with types of investment, including overseas investment, if you wish.  Just make sure you do this in the context of offering low risk investments.

Then promote the low risk investment theme via:

• your website
• your use of social media
• guides you produce for your clients
• speaking opportunities
• press and media releases
• … other appropriate communications channels.

What you’re doing when you use this approach is to set out to become known for one thing and for one thing only.

However, word doesn’t travel instantly.  It will take time to draw the investors who are looking for safety above all else to you.  Don’t confuse your message by promoting one type of investment now and another in six months time.

If helping the investor who is interested in safe investing is what you intend to do, then stay in your niche.

Selling high value products and services

There’s no quick and easy route to success in this field.  If you want to draw the right clients to you, then you’ll need to make sure they know what you do and how you address what’s important to them.  Convince them of that and they will start to look for you.

Don’t fall at the final hurdle.  When they seek you out, ensure they can find you and start a dialogue with you easily.  They’ll go somewhere else if your communications systems are poor and if they can’t speak to someone in your organisation when they want to.

Remember it’s not just the people selling low risk investments who will benefit from using this approach.  It’s a strategy for all businesses selling into the high net worth marketplace.

• To succeed you’ll need to be sure you’re fulfilling a need.
• To succeed you’ll need to be very clear about the outcomes you deliver.
• To succeed you’ll need a plan for the long term.

What to do now

If you find this article helpful, please consider linking to it.

Share the details with your Twitter followers.  Use the hashtag #highnetworth to get your tweet seen by more people than just your followers.

Finally, leave a comment or get in touch if you’ve got a point about selling to high net worth clients that you’d like to make.

See also:

Selling to the high net worth marketplace: five essential tasks

Selling to high net worth individuals – what are their concerns?

Learn more about our Selling To High Net Worth Individuals programme by clicking on the image to the right of this paragraph.

Which ones could be your clients?

As earlier posts in this series on selling to high net worth individuals have noted, the high net worth market is not an homogeneous market.

As a result, anyone who tries to sell to people simply because they have more assets, or a higher income than the majority, is probably going to be disappointed.

What’s important – after you have ascertained that people have resources behind them – is to do a lot more thinking about who the customers really are.

Start by considering the following.

Find out if your potential customers are young or old

It makes a big difference.  People have different concerns at different points in their lives.  They have different interests. They have different health issues.  The live in different situations.  The younger people could have small children.  The older people could have grandchildren.  They will also have different buying habits.

Age makes a big difference to a person’s perspective on life, so take it into account when selling to high net worth individuals – always.

Find out if they got rich quickly

Attitudes to money, wealth, spending and lifestyle are affected by how quickly someone became wealthy.

The lottery winner and the long-term property investor, the small business owner and the person who has inherited wealth will view money and wealth differently.

The wealthy person who never forgets how long it once took him, or her, to earn £1000 or dollars or euros will probably remain a careful spender.  Others may have different relationships with money.

Work out where high net worth individuals are

High net worth individuals are found just about everywhere in the world.  There are still more of them in Europe and in North America that elsewhere, but the Asia Pacific region boasts a rapidly increasing number of High Net Worth Individuals.

If a wealthy or affluent person lives somewhere where the economy is growing and that person feels prosperous, he or she is likely to spend in different ways from the person who sees threats at every turn.  Many investors in Europe are facing diminishing returns on their investments, falling property prices and rising taxes.

People’s views about their future are shaped by where they live.  Their views about the future shape their spending habits.  Location matters for lots of reasons.  Take this into account when shaping your offer.

Establish if your high net worth client male or female

More than 80% of high net worth individuals are male.  If you’re selling into this marketplace remember this important statistic when shaping your offer.

It’s not just who does the buying that’s important.  You also need to think about who buys what for whom.

Ask yourself if your products and services out of the ordinary

People have more choice in what they buy these days.  The internet has given every one with access to the net the opportunity to shop around more than ever before.  This means that there is plenty of choice in most marketplaces.

If you want your product or service to stand out, it needs to be a bit special.

If you’re just one of 500, or 5000, selling whatever it is you sell, expect to be forced to sell on price.  Expect to have your price beaten down.

If you’re selling something different, something exceptional, and above all something that people – including high net worth individuals – actually want to buy, you’ll be more successful.

Now review your offer

Really think about that high net worth client’s interests, concerns, passions, needs, aspirations, expectations etc.

Find out what the high net worth individuals you want to target are actually buying.  Then ask yourself if this is what you’re selling.

Be brutally honest with yourself when you answer the question.   The high net worth potential clients will be just as brutal when they come to make their purchasing decisions.

See also:

Selling to high net worth individuals – what are their concerns?

Selling to high net worth individuals – what do they buy?