Go Ahead...Jump Into the Fishbowl!

If you haven’t started using social media to market your business, don’t wait another day. Even Facebook has evolved from a way to connect with old friends and collect farm animals to a dynamic business-to-business marketing tool, a way to announce new service offerings with lightning speed, see what your competition is up to in real time, and research prospects and potential employees at virtually no cost to you, except for your investment of time. We’ll discuss that in a minute…

Social media guru, Jeff Bullas, has amassed some staggering statistics on the use of various social media platforms. Would you believe…

• One in every nine people on Earth is on Facebook ( This number is calculated by dividing the planets 6.94 billion people by Facebook’s 750 million users).
• More than 250 million people access Facebook through their mobile devices.
• More than 2.5 million websites have integrated with Facebook.
• 30 billion pieces of content are shared on Facebook each month.
• YouTube has 490 million unique users who visit every month (as of February 2011).
• If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s 3rd largest (after China and India) and 2x the size of the US population.
• 80% of companies use social media for recruitment. 95% of them use LinkedIn.
• 71% of all companies use Facebook for their businesses. 39% of all companies use blogs for marketing.

(For more, read Jeff’s entire article here.

LinkedIn is a must do for businesses and is typically viewed as the ‘professional’ social media site, although Facebook is becoming more of a player with the advent of ‘brands’ and ‘companies’. YouTube allows you to produce your own video marketing messages and Twitter is like a mini-blog…you share what’s on your mind (hopefully, pertinent information) 140 characters at a time (that should keep you focused!). Personally, I'm not a huge fan of Twitter, and haven't found it to be as effective for businesses as blogging and keeping an updated LinkedIn presence.

Now...back to the time element involved in all of this. While social media should be a component of your marketing strategy, be careful not to make a career of it. Just like surfing the net, it can be addictive and time-sucking if you don’t manage yourself appropriately. The point of using social media, as with any other marketing tool, is to create interest in your business...leave your prospects wanting to know more about your company and what you do. You want your profiles and postings on the sites you use to drive traffic to your web site and entice people to contact you.

So, if you’ve resisted jumping into this 21st century practice which I like to call ‘fishbowl marketing’, think again. How else can you potentially reach a Super Bowl- sized audience with the click of a mouse and not spend a dime? Have fun, make it count and let us know how it works for you!

Slaying the Social Media Dragon

Where on your schedule does is say update blog, create a business Facebook and check LinkedIn updates? If you are like most businesses who have just ventured into the social network maze or have been struggling with it for a while, finding the time and the topics to keep up can be a challenge. At Open Lines Training we have recruited an expert to get us up to speed and make sense of the current social media highway madness. Patricia Geesaman, Marketing and Content Specialist has taken on the challenge to keep the flow of information coming out to you in short and concise bytes. She is also offering her expertise as a content specialist consultant to help businesses get up to speed on this crazy mass media train ride. Look for fresh new postings every week. Watch for news of how to be a member of the boardroom, upcoming training workshops and helpful tips to help keep your customers interested. If you are ready to slay the social media dragon, email  patricia@openlinestraining.com to request information and share your social media stories. Since social media is here to stay, we just as well get good at it!

Missing Pieces

Missing Pieces in Processes
Evaluating processes is a good way to see what is missing in your business. Look at every area and make notes of the strengths and weaknesses. Patterns start to emerge with scary consistency that show in most cases the patterns are tied directly to the business owner or manager's own strengths and weaknesses. This is where an objective point of view becomes very important. Bring someone in to review some of the areas you have concerns about and get a different viewpoint or suggestion on how the process could work better.  This creates a well balanced business floor plan that can be tweaked and improved upon as you grow. Don't be afraid of change or moving forward to try something new. Not everything may work, but in the long run your business will keep a competitive prospective and adding the types of services that matter to your customer base.

Find Success From Within

We love the start of a New Year. It brings hope and energy and renewal to most of us. It is a chance to review what is important, how we spend our time and evaluate balance in the things that matter most. Often we get lost in the details of the day to day activities. We can be good at planning the priorities but how do we keep them in the right order? Often we get on the permanent schedule of other people's to-do lists and can't seem to get off. In the beginning of the day we have a perfectly executed plan that somehow gets derailed in the first hour. When we realize that success comes from within, we learn that all the plans and good intentions will not stick unless they are attached to our core values and dreams. If you are feeling frustrated and even lost it could be because you are going through the motions without really knowing why. Our WHY for doing what we do starts from within. Determine the authentic path that you once dreamed about and evaluate the key areas of your life like your career, community activities, family time, spiritual time and overall well being and see how they line up with that path. Going through the motions is not very satisfying if you are not looking at the bigger picture and long term goals. What you do today ripples through many of your tomorrows. Look at your eating habits, family time, TV time, and work time. How has the past affected today? Are you on track with your long term goals? Are you healthy, are you happy? What about your relationships, are they deep and caring or casual acquaintances? This year, take some time to soul search and re-prioritize what matters most to you. Get off the roller coaster of cramming in too much and stick to the things that build and achieve the lifetime dream stuff.

Re-Energize Your Business

There are a lot of ways to add energy to your business. First and foremost, be prepared for Change. The economy fluxuates, employees come and go, products and services are being updated or outdated and change is required for business to grow. The next thing on my list is Attitude, it affects everything in business. Ever notice how one negative person in your company can drag down everyone if you let them? Raise your awareness of the attitude atmosphere, is it healthy and fresh or polluted with negative vibes? Next, freshen up your company's Processes, maybe the old way of doing things is not the best way anymore. Can you be more efficient? Is there a different way to do things that makes more sense? Are you getting ideas from people who you share common goals with? Are you letting people or things stay in place longer than you should? Are you and your employees utilizing your strengths and doing things that you enjoy? Have you crossed trained to fill in if a position becomes vacant? Have you reviewed job descriptions lately? Now, let's add Enthusiasm to the list, do you still have it or has it been put on a shelf to gather dust with some of those great ideas you use to believe in? Becoming cynical is the number one enemy in business. It takes the life out of the dream. Gather up all the great stuff you believed in when you first started working and throw it back out there. Get up in the morning with full intentions of making things happen. Negative thoughts and discouraging emotions will prevent success. So raise your awareness, embrace change, stay positive and enthusastic and review your processes. Use these tools to re-energize the workplace and rock your world!

To Network Be a Information Gatherer

It's easy to find a comfort zone in networking. You show up, tell a few people about your business and call it a day. That kind of comfort zone probably does not give you the results you are looking for. Before attending a networking event, determine what you want to accomplish and who you want to meet that can help you grow your business. Networking works best when you find others who work with the same type of clients you do but is not a competitor. By working through the crowd and asking good questions you will discover those people who can help you and you can help them. Your referrals grow by 40 to 60%. A trusted referral is a warm market contact. The new relationship grows faster because someone they trust recommended you. Visit http://www.openlinestraining.com/ for training information.

Give Good Synergy

Effective networking is a learned skill. Often a networking event is dominated by people running around to see how many individuals they can dump information on. Talking fast is not the best way to network. Listening makes sense. Asking questions makes sense. Adding value as you work to build relationships makes sense. Connecting and gathering information is a good way to network. Organizing the information and staying in touch with the people you meet will add customers and referrals to your business. Evaluate your actions at the next networking event you attend. Spend time being interested in others. Make notes on the back of the their business card so you remember the highlights of the conversation. Schedule follow up calls to learn more about them and see if there is a fit for you to work together or refer others. Be on the look out for ways you can help others build their business. It always comes back to you and will build solid relationships along the way. Good luck as you add quality and information gathering to your next networking event.