Comments on: Social Media: 3 Social Media Mistakes in Business

By: MKEGreenworks

MKEGreenworks — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 15:56:45 +0000

PS: As my father-in-law taught me in 1988. The easiest way to tell if someone understands their business is to ask them what their break even point is and at what average gross profit margin, with the bonus question being, what day of the year will you break even. If they cannot answer at least the first two questions they are simply running their business by the seat of their pants.

And our long time mentor provided me with the best analysis. We all know 80% of your profit comes from 20% of your customers and the other 80% of your customers are sucking up your profit, so why not simply develop the 20%. And if you can identify your client to the point of being a zebra your life becomes very easy. If you were to take all of the land based animals and put them on an island you can always, always pick out the zebra. But if you have only defined your client as detailed as say a wolf and you look down in the mass of animals (clients) you might mistake a dog, or a jackal, a fox or a hyena as your wolf (client).

We can tell you our clients avg. per cap household income, age range and value of their primary home. Yes, there is always the one off client, but 99.9% of our clients fit our Zebra profile and we can pick them out of a crowd and cut down on a lot of wasted energy and profit.

By: TheRelationshipInsider

TheRelationshipInsider — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 15:49:34 +0000

Here’s another Blunder Beware: A local “natural” pet store posted an article link on its Facebook page about a variety of recommended natural products (originally published in a pet magazine) to prevent fleas on dogs and cats. I read the article (they successfully engaged me), and one particular product caught my attention. I called the store (they engaged me more) to see if they carried it…”NO”! Big mistake. The employee told me they had “other” products that served the same purpose but the article convinced me I wanted “that one.” I hung up and found the item online. (they sent me right out the door before I ever got there)

By: MKEGreenworks

MKEGreenworks — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 15:33:37 +0000

Obviously I will be in the minority here, which is fine with me. Both small and large long lasting fortunes were built before social media because those people and companies understood the importance of face time. Not on their phone, but actual face time without the use of technology. They understood customer service. They understood value and relationships instead of commodities.

I had the good fortune of reading Customers for Life by Carl Sewell in 1990 at the suggestion of my mentor and it was the groundwork for our success the past 30 years.

We enjoy a comfortable pace of life in both business and personally because I am not worried about the latest tweet, post or like. Instead, when I know our clients are happy I am out riding my bike, sailing and enjoying family and shooting photography.

Now we have embraced technology in our business and run it on an iPad, share Gantt charts with our clients via the cloud and use photostream to market our company on our website. We also can share live streaming video from a project site when a client is traveling and unable to see what we are doing. We also provide clients with coffee table books of their completed project because we know they enjoy looking back at the process and we also understand these books will be shown to their equally successful friends. We write hand written thank you notes when I get back to the office for signing a contract with us because 1) I used to see it as marketing and now 2) I have come to understand that I am indeed truly grateful for clients choosing to work with us.

I think social media is the new Emperors New Clothes for business and no one has the moxie to talk about the elephant in the room.

Deliver great products at a fair value for everyone and back that up with not good, not great but outstanding customer service and you will have a waiting list for your goods and services. But then again…..thank goodness we are in the minority because it makes it so easy to be successful

By: ambrking

ambrking — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 03:35:44 +0000

Be social. Engage. That’s why they call it social media right, because you need to socialize. Engagement is one way to start building business relationship.

By: Doug Cohen

Doug Cohen — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 18:55:49 +0000

Ha – great post – just wrote one listing the “9 reasons your studio is failing at facebook” and it reads a lot like yours. :-) It’s targeted towards photography studios but many of the mistakes are universal. I think another one is when brands have all their eggs in one basket. You don’t need to be on every platform especially if your clients aren’t, but you cannot afford to be on just one. A lot of people panicked when Facebook changed the algorithms because facebook was the only platform they were using and they abandoned their strategy as a result (started moving their content to their personal page – ugh – or overposting to make up for the diminished reach of their boring content which used to get a free ride).

By: lorisica

lorisica — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 13:35:06 +0000

Great post Carol; the best no nonsense strategies are offered here. And they combat the often heard “i think Twitter is a waste of time” . I can’t find a reason for the entrepreneur NOT to use social media. It is about using it correctly and avoiding the mistakes you talk about here. It is a small investment of time, the ability to communicate and the vision to see beyond the screen. Thanks for sharing.