Category Archives: Work

The most valuable skill in business

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The list of business skills is enormous, but which one is the most valuable?

Each non-fiction business book has it’s hot favourite.

Sales is always up there, especially because you can so easily convert the value into the metric of cash.

Communication and leadership skills are also important and often lauded as ones to work on at all opportunities.

One of my favourites is negotiation. It cuts across so many other areas of our lives and has a huge effect when you understand the psychology at play.

And the list goes on…

Marketing, coaching and project management…

Networking and looking after the numbers… 

Their importance can differ depending on who you follow or talk to.

What comes top of your list?

The benefits of showing up online

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Social Media is responsible for all of the worst things that happen in the world today – or so you would think if you pay attention to the news media.

The truth is quite the opposite in many cases. 

There will always be those who hide behind their keyboards and spread hatred from the relative safety of their sofa. These are also the people who think that spamming is a clever and profitable way to spend their time. 

I’m more interested in the positives of Social Media and feel there are many. Here are a couple, specifically based on a mini project I’ve been doing daily on Facebook:

Firstly, you develop confidence from learning new skills. 

Writers have to work harder at brevity, keeping posts short but effective at the same time. Artists and photographers have to work out new ways to stand out from the crowd. 

Lawyers also ask me how they can demonstrate to their clients how they solve problems rather than tell everyone how amazing they are (their favourite thing in the world). 

Next, you can make new connections and build an important new kind of network. 

Being part of old school face-to-face networking groups has its place. Being part of a fun, fast-moving and thriving Facebook Group can be just as good, if not better.

The connections and friends you make in these Groups online can carry over into real life, too. 

Not everyone behind a keyboard is a weirdo. Talk to them and work it out for yourself.

And, finally, the more you show up, the better things will be overall. 

I’ve been making a Monday to Friday Facebook Live called ‘Showing Up’ for my community and I’ve had some interesting feedback. 

It has started conversations, created a few discussions and plenty of laughter. 

It’s also helped me to reconnect with a few old contacts who tend to stalk more than participate.

But, most importantly, it’s got me to spend more time in a place where I wasn’t giving my best and that’s important for me. I’m an expert in this stuff and I always need to be at the sharp edge.

Can you sell?

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I had no money in my pocket and no ideas on how to make more. The job was gone, the part-time business was drifting along and I didn’t know where to start.

It was a few years ago but it was a tough time. 

I had a 9 mile journey to the place I was working at (for a couple of weeks before they made me redundant) and also had to buy some food, so the toss up was between the bus or food.

I walked. 

Learn skills and change behaviour

I had to learn how to sell. Sell myself, my skills, my experience at this stage and then, later on, my products and services. 

The alternative was to go hungry and start asking for handouts. I wasn’t ready for that.

I had to learn and change.

These sales skills have been incredibly important. 

How to overcome objections. How to handle difficult customers and clients through basic communications. How to negotiate for the best price and maximum value from any deal.

I use scripts to keep me on track and I review and refresh these scripts to make certain that I’m always improving. 

I know when to push and when to pull back. 

These skills are so important to me. They keep everything moving forwards and allow me to build new relationships, spot opportunities and build a more successful and prosperous life. 

Even a few basics will help you a great deal. 

If you don’t ‘like’ selling or feel you can’t do it, take a step towards it and do some learning. It will add confidence to everything you do and help you in many parts of your life. 

And you’ll always be in control of a deal. Very important!

Is your main message clear?

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I’m constantly looking people up online to find out what they’re all about. I might want their help, want to work with them, or just want to see who they are and what they do.

Half the time, I see what I want and don’t have to scroll too far. But the other half can be terribly frustrating.

How clear is your main message?

When people land on your profile (and you’re in business, whatever that might be) they need to be able to work out quickly and easily what you do and how to work with you. 

If they have to dive deep, click through a couple of pages and do a tonne of scrolling to work out what you’re about, the chances of them moving to another page are high.

Signposts work really well.

Some sites have ‘who are you and what do you want?’ buttons right there on the front page. They can be confronting but they make it easy for the user to find what they want. This is what matters most – it’s all about the user. 

Even profiles on places like LinkedIn matter when it comes to this.

Use the headline and the ‘about’ info to make it clear how you can help people and you’ll get better results. 

Be specific and do it with purpose and the enquiries you get will be from the right people.

Stop making noise

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I spend a lot of time every day looking at online content produced by businesses and professionals – it’s my job – and the majority of it is awful. 

Depending on what I’m researching or working on during any particular day, I’m lucky if I see more than a couple of posts that make me stop scrolling and click through for more. The majority is meaningless, purely promotional and lacks any true insight or depth. 

Stop making noise

You have to have a purpose when you post online. The content that cuts through drives us through emotion into action or solves a problem that we could do with fixing.

If you’ve won an award, I and many others don’t care. Awards are not an accurate reflection of the best businesses or individuals out there – the net has to be cast a lot wider than those who bothered to apply.

If you post a shot of you standing on a stage, tell me what you were saying that will change my life and then I’ll take notice. A photo of you speaking to a crowd adds credibility but tell us your ‘why’ – your reason for being on that stage. That’s more relevant to me and it might make me want to learn more about you.

Above all else, make the content about me, the reader. Show me what you do best. Show me the best of you. Open up. Be raw and honest. Tell me what I need to do and how that’s going to improve my work or life every day. 

Make it worth my while to stop scrolling or I’m gone. 

What would I do if I was a retailer today

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The post-coronavirus world is starting to take shape. Here in Australia, shops are reopening and cafes and bars are now allowing 50 people inside. There is still the danger of a resurgence of the virus but we have no incoming travellers without a quarantine period and this seems to be doing its job well.

Retailers have been hit hard these last ten weeks. Here are a few of my ideas for them to boost their businesses and use free online platforms and tools to get it done. 

The steps for retailers in the post-Corona world

Firstly, their Social Media profiles need to be put to work. Posts should be daily with offers for new customers and special offers for existing customers. All profiles should be checked over to make sure contact details and ‘about’ sections are up to date and on point.

Facebook Messenger is the ideal way to deliver offers online with high engagement levels – 80% open and 40% click-through rates – and I would be working to build my own chatbot to automate customer service as a minimum.

I would hire a comedic writer to create funny blog posts with a true sense of humour to increase the attention on my posts. Two funny posts on top of the offers content would work well. The funny writing should also be used to email my existing customers once a week to keep them engaged and updated.

I would use Instagram/Facebook Stories and TikTok to create video content every day. All of the attention is on video right now and I would use it to attract new followers and highlight the daily offer.

Every Saturday and Sunday would be ‘bring a friend’ day and there would be a voucher for everyone who turns up for them to use on another visit based on liking the Facebook page and subscribing to the chatbot.

And finally, I would say my prayers every night and be thankful that I’m still in business while many have already gone.

Add systems to increase efficiency

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The more systems I have in place, the better everything is for me. I have a long list of jobs to do most days and I feel demoralised if I don’t get the majority of things ticked off. There’s a regular daily battle between order and chaos in my life and anything I can do to help order win is always a good thing.

Systems and processes make the difference.

My mind works in a lateral, logical way so if I can stay focussed on a task for long enough I’ll always complete it. 

If a disruption happens – the phone goes off, incoming messages ding (I send a lot of direct messages to people every day) or I’m drawn to my inbox – it can be the equivalent of slipping on a banana skin – there’s no going back once you start falling.

If I can reduce the number of decisions I have to make every day, I can increase my outputs and efficiency. Time spent deciding what to have lunch, what to wear, and what job to do first may seem trivial but it adds up and if I don’t have these decisions to make when I sit at my desk, my brain avoids the banana skins. 

Something as simple as knowing what I’m going to wear the next day and eating the same things for breakfast and lunch most days makes a big difference to the flow of the day and the number of things I get done.

Simplicity is also important. Avoiding complexity makes every day run more smoothly and I work really hard at this. I try to avoid complex travel plans where possible and if I have to travel somewhere different I spend time creating a detailed plan with a couple of alternatives to keep the stress levels low. 

What systems and processes do you use to stay on track?

Why do many charities struggle?

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A quick conversation with a good friend last night (thanks N as always) triggered some thoughts on this question. There are a huge pile of charities out there doing amazing things in our communities every day but they struggle to grow and thrive.

Why do many charities struggle?

I’ve worked with a few charities and third sector organisations over the years and the problems they face seem to be very similar. 

Leadership – those in positions of authority can lack the basic commercial skills necessary to run a successful business. They get their job because they impressed the board with their passion or have some form of political clout but their skills for the job can be lacking. 

Investing to grow – budgets are managed in such a way that everything is done on a shoestring. My friend gave a fabulous example where a charity was able to raise millions of dollars from an event but they had to spend a million to make multiples on each dollar. If an event for a charity costs 50,000 and makes 200,000, people tend to see that as a success. Why not spend more and set bigger goals?

Ego – this one can get in the way of change and really slow things down. A leader in an organisation who’s been there a while and runs the show ‘their way’ can be extremely slow to consider change, even when the organisation desperately needs new thinking. I’ve seen examples where they have so much power that they’ve created a culture of ‘agree with me and do as I say or leave’ in a charity. Nothing stifles growth more than this.

The best charities bring in the brightest minds from the private sector and put them to work. It can be purely pro bono and cost-neutral, but it has to be supported by leadership who want their organisations to survive and thrive. 

I’m always on the lookout for these kinds of organisations and know others who feel the same way. Please let me know if any come to mind.

Write for one person

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The phrase, “Everyone’s a potential client”, was quoted to me last week and I immediately replied, “To those who don’t know how to sell”. All the evidence I have at my disposal from a few years of sales is that you can’t sell successfully to everyone, even if you think it’s possible.

Write for one person

Writing to an audience of one makes your content so much clearer. Your messages don’t become a fog of phrases attempting to catch everyone’s eye. You start to write as if you’re in a conversation and the writing becomes more readable as a result.

If you get to know the person you’re writing to, you can also tailor your message to be as helpful to them as possible. If you know what they find hard and what they enjoy the most, you can serve their interests and immediately become more useful to them. 

I write my weekly emails to a person I’ll call ‘Malcolm’. He’s a small business owner and a solopreneur. He’s had a mixed background in both corporate life and the arts and the business he now runs is focussed on training people in a very particular skill. We’ve also done some work together, both as clients of the other.

When I write each email, I ask myself if this is something Malcolm would find useful. I also think back to the conversations we have had and aim to add to those conversations through each email. And when I add a sales message to the email or a call-to-action, I always consider if the offer is something Malcolm would find interesting.

Think about how this concept applies to you and the messages you send out. Who’s your Malcolm?

Order or chaos?

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Everyone prefers a sense of order in their life rather than chaos – generally lower levels of anxiety, better outcomes to projects, work delivered on time, etc – but how many of us actually achieve that state?

How many days start the right way with goals being met and tasks ticked off to-do lists but then go off-track faster than a downhill ski racer taking a tumble at top speed?

It might be the phone notification for a new message, an unplanned inbound call, or some web research that opens up the slippery slope of the internet.

Whatever form a distraction takes, it becomes difficult to get back to the task you were working on once it hits. Your brain reacts well to being focussed and taking deliberate steps as part of your plan, but it loves the distraction even more. 

You then have to make a decision to get back on track – one that would not have had to happen if you’d avoided the distraction in the first place. 

And it’s in the removal of decisions as we go through each day that lies, to me, the secret of achieving a better order/chaos balance. 

I plan the parts of the day that need focussed work and avoid decisions in these slots in oder to deliver my best. 

The fewer decisions I have to make, the higher the likelihood I’ll achieve more in the time I have available. 

If I have order to the way I work – processes in place, systems to work to, proper scheduling and a set of really simple rules to follow – chaos is off the table. This way, everything continues to move forward and this is always the goal.

How ‘good’ is your network?

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When talking about networks and networking, it can be understood as a very general term. Our family networks, small or large, are as valid in a discussion as our wider business connections. 

‘Good’ is too broad a term to use, so I’m going to replace it with ‘effective’ – successful in producing a desired or intended result (from the dictionary).

A couple of ways of determining the answer here is to look at its strength and value:

  • Does it help you to answer important questions in your life and work? 
  • Is it a group of guys or gals you meet at the bar or coffee shop and hang out with weekly? 
  • Does being a part of it make you a better person? 
  • Is it somewhere you have fun and meet new people?
  • Does it make you money?

I think an effective network has to have a mixture of these things going on within it. 

Not all networks make money and some of them would never fall into this category directly, but there could be cases where a network can bring up a conversation that leads to a meeting or sale further on down the road.

The informal meetups with your friends can also be strong and supportive networks. Sometimes a chat with a trusted friend makes all the difference if you have a difficult decision to make.

It all takes an investment of time and effort (all the good stuff needs both these things). Even if it’s only making a couple of calls and being the organiser to get a few folks together every now and again, it’s worthwhile.

I’m a member of a couple of formal networks where we pay membership fees and attend regular events. These networks are great because everyone involved is well and truly committed to being a part of it and puts in effort to make sure they get value for the fees they are paying.

But being part of a sports team or a club, a yoga studio community, a book club or a music group can have the same effect. 

The bottom line, for me, is that you get out of it what you put into it. And the same applies to online communities, too… but I’ll save this discussion for another day.

Share your best stuff

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There is fear around when it comes to sharing your ’secrets’. The stuff you do that gets results. The best stuff you have to offer. 

I often hear from clients, “oh, there’s no way we can put that out there.”

My reply is always a challenge to this. 

It comes down to time. 

I’ve spent four years now creating content about my subject, Social Media. If someone took the time to watch my hundreds of videos on Facebook and YouTube, my daily LinkedIn posts and articles, and signed up for my weekly-ish email, they wouldn’t need to work with me because everything I know is in this content.

It’s all out there because I want potential clients to see the best from me.

The tips I’ve shared, the advice I’ve given and the stories I’ve told about experiences with clients is out there and it’s all free. 

And the reason why it doesn’t cause me any problems is that my work is saving my clients that magic ingredient we all have not enough of – time.

The content is giving people a taste and I want this taste to be something they want more of. 

I want them to get a practical tip, work on it themselves and get success from it. I’m then ‘top-of-mind’ as the person that helped them out and solved a problem for them. 

And when they want more help, the chances of them coming to me are much, much greater. 

They don’t have time to do it themselves and the work we do saves them lots of it. They also don’t have time to review everything that’s out there already from me. 

When they see a post and it’s something really helpful and useful, rather than something I’ve just dialled in to make sure I’m showing up, it will be remembered. 

And then when they need more, they’ll pick up the phone.

What I want a Social Media Expert to know and do in 2020

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Here’s a list that could work well as a checklist when looking to hire someone to help with Social Media for your business. 

There are a lot of people offering Social Media services because it’s a ‘hot’ sector right now. 

Businesses that traditionally don’t play in this space – web and graphic designers, for example – are adding it to their list of things they can do to help you, but beware.

Some are amazing and have tremendous skills and experience, but there are a vast number who should be avoided at all costs.

Here’s the list:

  • Their own Social Media profiles are excellent examples.
  • They show up frequently creating helpful, informative content.
  • They are not ‘post and disappear’ merchants – they engage online and do it all the time.
  • They are on the main platforms – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (yes, Twitter), LinkedIn and YouTube – and have live platforms with content posted in the last few days.
  • They do the work themselves rather than offshoring it to keep the costs down.
  • They have decent numbers of followers because they have been online and creating content for a long time. 
  • They use a mix of content – writing, video, audio and images.
  • They have excellent testimonials and recommendations (Facebook, LinkedIn and Google especially)
  • They value their skills and charge appropriately. (If prices seem cheap, the services usually are, too.)
  • They don’t claim to know ‘everything’ on any specific subject.
  • They can help to identify ideal clients and position brands the right way.
  • They know the difference between a blog and a website. 
  • They know how to listen online and spot key trends.
  • They understand how to interpret data and use it to improve results, especially on websites and working with written copy.
  • They have basic how-to knowledge as well as strategic ability.
  • They’re not afraid to make public predictions about where Social Media is going.

I’m sure there are more things but this is a good plcae to start.

Please use this list as a guide and add to it wherever you like. Also, let me know where you think I may be wrong and leave a comment. Thank you!

Not all content has equal value

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I spent half my Saturday at a workshop yesterday. I won the ticket in a raffle so I showed up with an open mind and plenty of space in my notebook. 

The alarm bells started ringing after 30 minutes when we were hit with the first sales pitch. 

Our own introductions were given 5 minutes each, maximum (there were five of us attending). The person running the session then spent the next 30-40 minutes telling us part one of her own story.

Part one!

And so it continued. It was a 3.5 hour sales pitch. I took a few things from the session, especially towards the end, but most of it was filled with the sound of our presenter’s voice.

Which brings me to the title of this post. The labels you put onto your content and the experience you give to people who take time out of their weekend (my weekends are precious and not to be messed with – can you tell this??) has to do what it says on the tin as an absolute minimum.

The content in this one could have been delivered in under an hour as a webinar. Throw in some Q&A plus a (brief, interesting) sales pitch, promo or offer and I would have been content. 

Instead, it left me with a couple of uncomfortable feelings. 

Firstly, that I’d been sold to. For a long time during the weekend. My precious weekend. No-one likes this feeling, ever. 

Second, it made me highly unlikely to refer someone to this event as it didn’t live up to the billing of a workshop. I spoke twice, maybe 15 minutes total in 3.5 hours. The definition of a workshop is “a meeting at which a group of people engage in intensive discussion and activity on a particular subject or project”. This was not a workshop, it was a seminar/webinar.

Thirdly, I genuinely like the person who ran the session and know she can do so much better. I want the best for my contacts and connections. I want them to thrive and grow. This session could have been amazing but it wasn’t. 

Time to write my feedback email….

How fast does Social Media deliver results?

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I get asked a lot by clients about how long it will take for Social Media to ‘work’. In most cases, this is roughly translated as ‘how fast will it make me money?’.

The golden age of online influencers and cheap Facebook and Google ads are long gone. The days where you could buy a keyword on Google for pennies on the dollar and then run ads against it for days are also nothing but stories we tell ourselves as marketers to remind us of those halcyon days.

It’s a lot tougher today in a world where attention online is the holy grail and those who have it are extremely reluctant to give it up. 

Today It’s about making a wider set of strategies work. Engagement with potential customers one-to-one works well once trust is built and the rewards for this are huge if you can stick at it for long time periods. 

Let’s pick this last sentence apart a litte to make the point here…

Engagement

It rules the day online. ‘Post and disappear’ is so over and those still practicing social media this way are the ones to avoid. Have you ever sent an email to an info@ inbox and then never hear back? This is the ‘post and disappear’ crew at work in their natural habitat – set-and-forget.

One-to-one

This is the world of messaging apps. Facebook has its own, Messenger, and it’s a real killer for increasing open rates and click throughs, e.g. how effective your marketing is. LinkedIn, Instagram and everyone else also give us these tools to play with and this is the way we love to interact today as humans. Even Google has a messaging service for businesses to receive messages straight from customers in ‘search’ mode, so it’s now a must-have.

Trust

This is where the winners win big and the losers stick to leaving piles of leaflets in coffee shops and running small ads in newspapers and magazines nobody reads. Trust is built up over time and it comes through giving huge value to your audience in all of your content. If you can give your followers a practical tip that will help them make more money or save time, trust will come. We at Fit For Social spend all of our time doing this as a brand every single day for all of our clients.

Long time periods

Here’s the big ‘punch in the face’ for those who want quick returns with no real effort: it takes time and effort. In some cases, there is little reward or payoff directly attributable to your social media content for months and months. Miss out any of the pieces of the puzzle I’ve just broken down above and the clock will keep ticking. Audiences are testing brand promises made online every day and if your brand makes any it can’t keep or rushes too quickly to the sale, it’s a black mark. These black marks can also add up fast. The switch back to someone we already trust, or who’s engaged with us multiple times through Messenger or email with an offer or special deal, takes place in seconds.

It’s a long game. The stories of quick cash and big things happening in a matter of hours or days are definitely out there, but be wary of how much work has gone into it behind the scenes and how it can translate to a business like yours before you put it to the test. 

Those who understand what it takes are clear on this and are reaping the rewards after they’ve ticked all the right boxes for their customers over months and years. If you can adopt this mindset and are willing to knuckle down and do the work, your customers will thank you in all the ways you’re looking for when the time is right.

The New Reality

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A conversation yesterday gave me a nice frame of reference for our current situation. We move from a crisis (stage 1), to recovery (2) and then a new reality (3).

Crisis has two parts – the twilight zone and then a new dawn. We are definitely in a new dawn phase now as things are changing in so many ways (mass communication, working from home, lockdown, etc) and the whole world is adapting to what we all face in the form of the pandemic.

What’s your new reality going to be? This is something I will be thinking about over the next few days and weeks. What’s the new dawn telling you about how you operate and how this change is affecting your life?

When we hit the recover phase it will be interesting to see what becomes the norm. I think we’ll all react like it’s the end of a war and we are all allowed to come out of hiding again! But working from home is definitely a step in the right direction for modern workforces (all of our team work from home).

But, for now, it’s back to the twilight zone…

The top 5 reasons for not producing content when you know you should be

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Grumpy Cat

You business has social media profiles in all the right places – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc – and they all look great. Your beautifully crafted logo looks fabulous on all of the profiles and your team are in a larger background picture having a few drinks in the sun at last year’s Christmas party… but apart from this, it’s eerily quiet on those pages – because there’s nothing else there!

tumbleweed

You’re not producing content and you know you should be. Your biggest competitor has just run a campaign on Facebook that has even had your staff taking notice and they seem to be flying with every other post talking about new business coming in from all angles. They’re taking business that you know you should be getting and this is getting you and your senior team very, very frustrated.

So why aren’t you getting these profiles moving, filling them with things that your customers and clients would be interested in? Maybe one or two (or all) of these excuses might sound familiar:

1 – I don’t know where to start – the beginning is the right place and you’re beyond this as you have the profiles set up. You need to think about what your objectives are from using these tools and then construct a plan that will get you there as quickly as possible.

2 – I haven’t got time – It takes time to create content but this is time well spent. You can also get your team to help out and have some fun in the process. Once you know what you’re doing and get on with it, the process speeds up significantly

3 – I don’t know how – There are mountains of blog posts out there that will help you to learn about this subject, plus a wide away of people who can do everything from hold your hand through the first baby steps, right through to writing content for you. Dedicate a bit of time to learning and you will be up to speed in no time.

4 – I don’t know what to say – Finding your voice and developing a style will take some time but there is a huge amount out there already to give you ideas, inspiration and topics to work on. I find it easiest to write/comment about things I know and my own experiences. The words tend to flow much more easily this way.

5 – I can do it later – Of course you can! It’ll go on the to-do list along with everything else you know you should be doing. Take the bull by the horns on this one and get started today with a couple of tweets and sharing of someone else’s content that you’ve enjoyed and would be useful for your followers, such as this post 🙂

Take the plunge and get started and the results will come in time. You’ll also need some help to get your strategy aligned to your business objectives – this is where I come in so give me a shout when you have seen enough business disappearing in front of your eyes and we can get to work.

What’s the style that’s going to make you successful?

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tailors

Spend half an hour on Twitter (or less) and you will be able to identify the way people operate and how you would define them to someone else. It could be video content – lots of it – or it could be the way they interact and respond to the comments of their followers and start a debate on a daily basis. It could be their stunning photography or it could be their longer posts that tell amazingly detailed stories.

So what makes a style successful? It’s really down to you to find what feels comfortable and delivers the best results. Experiment with a few things before deciding that you’re going to be doing all of your work on video, for instance, especially if you’ve never done anything to camera in your life. That $1,000 Canon SLR might get a lot of attention from your creative friends but it might be gathering dust pretty fast if your videos don’t hit the mark.

Once you have put some content together and are sharing it on a regular basis, you should listen to the opinions of others you trust and take their feedback on board. It might mean that some time spent trying out another style is worth a try but it might also mean that you’re pointing in exactly the right direction, so don’t be afraid to ask in the first place.

When you find the style that fits you best, it’s time to build on these strengths and take some bold and confident steps. Aim your writing towards controversial subjects or take on more ambitious projects if you are creating video content. Use templates to build infographics into your work or create some some graphics to go at the beginning and end of your video to enhance the style you are developing and also help to build your brand with your audience.

Whatever it is that you’ve begun to deliver, create a plan to help keep you motivated and ensure you know where you’re going. But above all else, keep delivering, be ambitious and work as hard as you can and the success will come.