Using the Power of Networking for Your Small Business

Networking is one of the most crucial skills any start-up entrepreneur must have. It is an effective and inexpensive way to grow your business by meeting the key people who could become your clients, suppliers and support systems.

In fact, networking is the best marketing device of even the most cash-strapped home-based entrepreneur. It is based on an inexpensive endeavor using a simple skill: talking. As a result, networking is also referred to as “word-of-mouth marketing” because it is based on talking to people about what you do and listening to find out how to serve them. The best networkers do not even know that they are networking – they are simply being good conversationalists; adept at becoming visible; talking and responding, and getting to know people.

However, many people are put-off with the idea of networking. Some view the practice akin to “politicking” requiring an extremely outgoing personality willing to approach anyone who would care to listen. Many start-up entrepreneurs also have a hard time approaching other people – particularly strangers – about their business. It may be the fear of speaking out to a total stranger, or the fear of coming on too strong or aggressive. Others let their insecurities take the better or them, while some people fail to network simply because of laziness. As a result, many formal gatherings and social situations become lost opportunities to spread the word about their business.

Everyone you meet is a potential customer or a valuable contact. Well, maybe not the old lady you met in the library if you are selling shaving cream. But then again, that old lady may have a husband, son or nephew who could use your product. Marketing is simply spreading the word around, and it is a big loss if you continuously pass up opportunities for networking.

Schmoozing pays. In fact, the growth of any business is directly correlated to the number of people who knows about it. Doing more of networking allows you to develop more contacts in your field and to exchange information with your prospects. It can help you find out the concerns of your prospects and who is fulfilling them; what’s happening in your industry; and who needs what and who offers what. It is basically an entrepreneur’s tool for relationship building.

Successful networking entails harnessing your people skills. But it doesn’t happen overnight, particularly for those who are not natural social butterflies. It requires careful orchestration and good manners, too. Here are several steps to help you become an effective networker:

1. Prepare a plan. Networking goes beyond greeting people. You need to prepare a step-by-step plan for how you’ll build relationships and how you can effectively tell your story. It entails getting to know people who will either do business with you or can introduce you to people who will. When people ask you what you do, make sure you have a clever opening line to introduce yourself and your business.

2. Use social networking sites. LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com , Facebook http://www.facebook.com and even the microblogging site Twitter http://www.twitter.com are excellent venues for virtual networking. Whether you are looking for potential partners, web site or blog contributors, or strategic partnership opportunities, these social networking sites allow you to expand and nurture your network in the comfort of your computer screen. LinkedIn, in particular, is most suited for professional networking as you can easily see the work and business background of the person.

3. Learn to communicate more easily. To be a good networker, you need to work on your ability to make small talk. You need to be able to articulate what you do in clear, easily understandable, and memorable way. Imagine yourself in a cocktail party or industry luncheon full of potential prospects. Set a goal of meeting at least two people in one event, slowly increasing the number as you become more comfortable with the art of schmoozing. Once you are at an event, do not stand around with appetizers in hand waiting for other people to approach you. Go out, head straight to people you do not know, and start a conversation. This will help you gain the interpersonal communication skills that you need. You will defeat the purpose of networking if you continuously stick with familiar faces. Get interested in what others are offering or saying without being abrasive. Good networkers are good listeners, too.

4. Identify your prospects. Know your most likely market, and learn where you will find them. Research as much as you can from the ideal prospects for your business. How do they get their information? Do they live nearby? What activities do they participate in? What organizations do they belong to? The more you know about your customers, the easier you can reach them.

5. Start with people you know. Look at your roster of friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and people you have come across in your lifetime. From among your friends, identify whom you think might be able to help you the most.

6. Get involved. A key to successful networking is to get involved and grow your people skills. Participate in organizations, events, professional groups and social clubs that offer opportunities for you to meet and greet. Participate in numerous networking groups, join your chamber of commerce, and attend conferences and training seminars. With the advent of the Internet, you can also network in online newsgroups and discussion boards. The key is to list every opportunity to network and develop win-win relationships with your contacts.

7. Make networking a part of you. Make it a point to meet new people wherever you go – whether you are on the plane, waiting in line at the bank, or fetching your child from school. Be generous in giving away your business cards, it’s an effective selling technique.

An established business has the luxury of satisfied customers spreading the word about the business. Until your business is self-sustaining, you need to start opening your mouth, spreading the word about your venture to all your friends, relatives, acquaintances, then later on, even strangers.

by Isabel M. Isidro Brought to you by DLDESIGNSONLINE.COM

Three Best Ways to Improve Your Online Reputation

Great article in The Wall Street Journal | Small Business By RAYMUND FLANDEZ –

These days, a great danger lurks just a few clicks away: the online review. By Googling your company’s name, anyone can read and track your business’s performance – including missteps, poor service or less-than-stellar products.

Protecting your company’s reputation is now a 24-hour vigil. Negative reviews – whether they’re merited or not – can turn away potential customers and vendors, and reflect badly on your company’s brand.

The good news is that small-business owners can be proactive in securing positive reviews by asking satisfied customers to share their experiences. But what if it’s already too late?

Here are the three best ways to improve your online reputation:

1. Reach out immediately to dissatisfied reviewers. Their negative comments don’t need to be the end of the conversation. Small-business owners should attempt a dialogue, experts say, as complainers might improve the review or take down the post. Oguz Ucanlar, president of SpaForever LLC in Chicago, managed to turn around bad reviews on Yelp.com by contacting the aggrieved posters. He apologized, explained the situation and offered the reviewers discounts or a free massage. The result? One bad review was deleted, and the spa’s overall rating went up. “I take it really seriously,” he says. It also helps that Yelp now allows business owners to respond publicly to any customer comment, giving others a window into how the business treats its most finicky customers.

When a bad review surfaces, an apology goes a long way, says Lisa Barone, co-founder of Outspoken Media Inc., a Spring Hill, Fla., Internet marketing company. “Most people just want to be heard,” she says. “They just want to know you’re listening and you care, and that you’re going to try and fix it.”

Keep in mind that a negative review can sometimes be helpful. Case in point: an online customer of Nationwide Candy LLC of Albuquerque, N.M., complained after she received the wrong bubblegum product. Turns out, the candy wholesaler had posted an incorrect image on its site. “It just casted a bad image on us,” says Ken Hanson, its general manager, who immediately corrected the error.

2. Flood search engines with content you can control. Use digital media’s reach to your full advantage, says Evan Bailyn, founder of First Page Sage LLC, a New York search engine optimization company. Mr. Bailyn says he often helps clients put “good publicity on top to knock bad publicity off the first page” of search engine results. To do that, he suggests releasing press releases through prnewswire.com or pr.com and building Twitter, Facebook and YouTube accounts since these social-media sites show up high on search results. “The overall strategy is inundating the Google results with as much good or neutral content as possible so that the bad seems like an anomaly,” Mr. Bailyn says.

3. Appeal to bloggers to review your company or your product. Getting others to weigh in can be an effective way to generate neutral or positive reviews to counteract negative ones. Influential bloggers in your niche market can bring instant credibility to a company. If you already know bloggers in your industry, read or reach others by simply scanning their blogrolls, a handy list (typically placed in the sidebar) of potential contacts. Alert them to news about your product or service as a first step in building the relationship.

While it’s controversial, some business owners say they’ve improved their reputations through sponsored blog posts. Netfirms Inc., a Web-hosting company in Markham, Ontario, is paying $10,000 to SocialSpark.com, a marketplace for paid reviewers, and to about 60 bloggers to write 200-word reviews of its new Twitter service. “The more positive feedback that we can have, the better,” says Dan Feferman, its product specialist and community manager. Other sites to consider are PayPerPost.com, SponsoredReviews.com and ReviewMe.com, Mr. Bailyn says. Costs can range from $15 to $150 per posting. While some business owners liken sponsored posts to traditional ads, keep in mind you could turn off potential customers. To prevent that, make sure the blog post contains a disclosure that it’s a paid or sponsored review.

Write to Raymund Flandez at raymund.flandez@wsj.com

Quick! Tell Us What KUTGW Means

he Wall Street Journal | By STEPHANIE RAPOSO, AUGUST 6, 2009, 6:42 P.M. ET

Kate Washburn didn’t know what to make of the email a friend sent to her office with the abbreviation “NSFW” written at the bottom. Then she clicked through the attached sideshow, titled “Awkward Family Photos.” It included shots of a family in furry “nude” suits and of another family alongside a male walrus in a revealing pose.

After looking up NSFW on NetLingo.com—a Web site that provides definitions of Internet and texting terms—she discovered what it stood for: “Not safe for work.”

Say What?
A sampling of some popular shorthand texting terms.

* UG2BK . . . . . . . You got to be kidding
* GBTW. . . . . . . . Get back to work
* NMP . . . . . . . . . Not my problem
* PIR . . . . . . . . . . Parent in room
* GFTD. . . . . . . . . Gone for the day
* FYEO. . . . . . . . . For your eyes only
* BI5 . . . . . . . . . . Back in five minutes
* DEGT . . . . . . . . Don’t even go there
* BIL . . . . . Boss is listening
* PAW. . . . Parents are watching
* 99 . . . . . . Parents are no longer watching
* PCM . . . . Please call me
* IMS. . . . . I am sorry
* TOY. . . . . Thinking of you
* KUTGW. . Keep up the good work
* CID . . . . . Consider it done
* FWIW. . . For what it’s worth
* HAND . . . Have a nice day
* IAT . . . . . I am tired
* NRN . . . . No response necessary
* 4COL. . . . For crying out loud
* WRUD. . . What are you doing
* LMIRL. . . Let’s meet in real life
* ^5 . . . . . . High five

“If I would have known it wasn’t safe for work, I wouldn’t have taken the chance of being inappropriate,” says Ms. Washburn, 37 years old, a media consultant in Grand Rapids, Mich.

As text-messaging shorthand becomes increasingly widespread in emails, text messages and Tweets, people like Ms. Washburn are scrambling to decode it. In many offices, a working knowledge of text-speak is becoming de rigueur. And at home, parents need to know the lingo in order to keep up with—and sometimes police—their children.

One reason for the surge in texting abbreviations—more than 2,000 and counting, according to NetLingo—is the boom in social-media sites like Twitter, where messages are limited to 140 characters. Text messages, too, are limited in length, so users have developed an alphabet soup of shorthand abbreviations to save time, and their thumbs.

Taking time to learn the jargon may seem like a WOMBAT (“Waste of money, brains and time”). But with over one trillion text messages sent and received in the U.S. last year, according to CTIA-The Wireless Association, an industry trade group, you run the risk of feeling out of it if you don’t.

“If a CEO does not appear to be tech-savvy, people may start to wonder, ‘Is the company not plugged into today’s technologies also?’” says Stephanie Grayson, a corporate speech and media trainer based in New York.
Translation Sites

The confusion has given rise to a number of resources that provide English translations for terms like WRUD (“What are you doing?”) and TTYL (“Talk to you later”)—among them independent Web sites like NetLingo.com and UrbanDictionary.com and corporate ones like LG Mobile Phones’ DTXTR.com. Textapedia, a pocket guide to texting terms released last year, is sold in over 4,000 stores nationwide. NetLingo reports a 391% increase in the number of unique visitors over the past five years, while UrbanDictionary says it saw a 40% jump in its unique visitors last June from June 2008.

Both the AP Stylebook and Merriam-Webster Dictionary recognized texting shorthand for the first time in their 2009 editions, which were released in June. The AP Stylebook now includes IMO (“In my opinion”), ROFL (“Rolling on the floor laughing”) and BFF (“Best friends forever”), among others. Merriam-Webster defines LOL (“Laugh out loud”) and OMG (“Oh my God”).
Related

* Texting Truckers, Motorists on Mobiles and Other Reasons Why I Hate Driving
* Cellphones: Better Than Your Spouse and/or Alcohol
* Iowa Teen Wins Text-Messaging Championship
* Beware ‘Cellphone Elbow’
* Its Ovr: Breaking Up by Text Message

“These abbreviations have shown they are very likely to be a part of our language for a long time,” says Peter Sokolowski, editor at large at Merriam-Webster.

Branding strategist Elizabeth Kanna, 50, maintains a “Mom’s Text Talk Sheet,” a cheat sheet of over 30 textisms created and updated constantly by her three teenage daughters, on her desk at work. Ms. Kanna, who lives in Sacramento, Calif., says she refers to it daily as many of her clients prefer communicating through text shorthand like SWDYT (“So what do you think?”) and WDYM (“What do you mean?”).

Bert Martinez Communications LLC, a Houston-based consulting firm, hired a 20-year-old and two teenagers last fall to help teach texting vernacular to its staff of six. “It gave us the confidence that we could use the lingo and connect with the younger clientele on their level,” says Bert Martinez, president of the firm, which now conducts about 20% of its communication with clients via texting.

Teenagers, for their part, text in code for a reason, says Anne Mitchell, president of the Institute for Social Internet Public Policy, based in Boulder, Colo. “It is usually because they are involved in activities which they don’t want their parents to discover, such as casual sex, drugs and alcohol,” she says. Indeed, parents may be startled by such popular terms as GNOC (“Get naked on camera”), POS (“Parent over shoulder”), LMIRL (“Let’s meet in real life”) and IWSN (“I want sex now”).

OMG!!!! WSJ’s Andy JORdaN witnesses the crowning of AmErica’s top txtr. It’s LOL!

Susan Avery, senior editor at ParentDish.com, AOL’s parenting Web site, says she has observed parents becoming more concerned about not knowing what their kids are talking about. “The best thing is to embrace it and use it as a bonding experience with your child,” she says.

Shannon Snyder, a writer in Vancouver, B.C., uses DTXTR.com to monitor her children. “I don’t want my kid to be the racist or the rude kid because he’s repeating a random composition of letters he heard someone else say in school and thought it was cool,” says Ms. Snyder, 34.

The fact that 15-year-old Jack Beisel’s mother uses texting shortcuts like HBU (“How about you?”) and CIL (“Check in later”) strengthens their relationship, he says. “It makes her seem like she’s a little more understanding about modern culture,” says Mr. Beisel, who lives in Bayport, N.Y.

The consequences of misunderstanding the lingo can be mortifying. Cassandra McSparin, 23, of Jim Thorpe, Pa., knew a woman whose friend’s mother had died. The woman texted her friend: “I’m so sorry to hear about your mother passing away. LOL. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

It turns out she thought LOL meant “Lots of love.”

Write to Stephanie Raposo at Stephanie.Raposo@wsj.com

Free Publicity or Keeping Tabs on Competitor for Free

Google has a very helpful service which can help you get more publicity or keep tabs on your competitor. And the best part it’s FREE!

It’s like a having an media clipping service which scrutinizes both the web and Google News database, then sends you an email as soon as something you’re interested in appears in the search results.

For instance, let’s say you’re a big fan of “Star Wars”. You can set up a Google Alert for
“Star Wars”. Then whenever Google finds any mentioned in a top news story or on the web, you’ll get an email including the web site address so you can go see where
and how “Star Wars” is mentioned.

To set up your own Google Alerts for free, just go to http://www.google.com/alerts (read further down for using this service and its paid alternative).

The exciting thing is you can use this service to grow your business in all sorts of ways.

Some of the obvious ways to use it include setting up alerts to see what others are saying about you online, ‘discover’ what they saying about your competitors, find out about new developments in your field of expertise and/or discover some other prominent with whom you might want to ally yourself in some way.

This service is also one of the best publicity tools ever created and it’s FREE! Here are three tips to use Google Alerts to get media exposure:

STRATEGY #1 –
Obtain IMMEDIATELY publicity by tying-in with breaking news stories.

One of the best and easiest ways to get FREE publicity is to be able to comment on what’s already in the news. For instance, one of my clients, Gerry Robert, book writing coach, wealth expert and author of Millionaire Mindset.

One of the strategies we employ whenever an alert pops up having to deal Wealth, Book Writing, Economy somewhere in America or Canada, you need to contact newspapers and radio/TV shows in that city immediately and let them know you can comment on what’s happening.

Robert then asked, ‘But how will I know when a related story hits the news?’

My answer: “Google Alerts.”

The results will blow you away!

STRATEGY #2 –
Building friendships with media contact who discuss your topic.

Another of my clients, Patrick Snow, also uses Google Alerts service in a very systematic way to get publicity.

Here’s what Patrick does: First he set up alerts to track stories written on his area of expertise, which is Success, Selling and Families.

When he gets an alert email pointing him to a good story on that subject, he then sends the journalist who wrote the story a short email saying he enjoyed article and offers a sincere compliment.

His email stands out because journalists don’t often hear from their readers and when they do it’s usually to complain. Within his email Patrick mentions his website CreateYourOwnDestiny.com to reinforce his credibility.

If the journalist writes him back and thanks him for his comments, Patrick then offers to send them a free copy of his book and mentions he’s happy to be a resource for them on any future stories they might do on this or similar topics.

Patrick Snow has made the front cover of USA Today and multiple TV/Radio interviews.

STRATEGY #3
The Hook is more than Book

Authors are always asking me about a good ‘hook’ or angle should be when approaching the media. I’ll immediately ask them, “What hooks have others used in your industry?”

Usually they don’t know, but by using Google Alerts (or even just searching the Google News database at http://www.google.com/news) you can quickly find video clips, articles in which others with similar expertise are quoted.

For example, let’s say you’ve written a book about Selling. Suppose also that you’re based in Houston. One day you discover a story in the New York Times about Selling in the New Economy. Well, if it’s newsworthy in New York, it’s probably going to be considered newsworthy by the media in your city. So pitch your local media on doing the same story, only this time they’ll be interviewing YOU as the expert.

Here are a few words of advice on implementing this strategy:

Use quotation marks to narrow your alerts, for instance, I have an alert set up for Bert Martinez and because he’s not the only person in the world with that name, I was getting a lot of off-target alerts. Every time Bert or Martinez pop up I received an alert by using “Bert Martinez” it allows be to receive more exact searches.