Entrepreneurs Question Value of Social Media
Marketing via Facebook, Twitter Yields Results for Some, Others Say It’s Overrated; ‘Hype Right Now Exceeds the Reality’
Last year, Jackie Siddall described in a blog post how a message she received on Twitter prompted her to buy a folding kayak for around $1,900.
The vessel was one of about just 600 sold in 2009 by Folbot Inc., a small retailer in Charleston, S.C. “You can’t buy that exposure,” says the firm’s co-owner, David AvRutick, who claims the incident speaks to the value of using social media for marketing.
But Mr. AvRutick’s experience may be the exception, rather than the norm. In its short lifetime, social media—services like Facebook and Twitter—have become popular marketing tools for small firms due to the low cost and easy-to-use format. Some entrepreneurs say they’re highly effective, but new evidence suggests otherwise.
“The hype right now exceeds the reality,” says Larry Chiagouris, professor of marketing at Pace University’s Lubin School of Business.
Last year, social-media adoption by businesses with fewer than 100 employees doubled to 24% from 12%, says a survey released in January of 2,000 U.S. entrepreneurs from the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business and Network Solutions LLC, a Web-services provider in Herndon, Va.
Meanwhile, a separate survey of 500 U.S. small-business owners from the same sponsors found that just 22% made a profit last year from promoting their firms on social media, while 53% said they broke even. What’s more, 19% said they actually lost money due to their social-media initiatives.
“It could harm you if you end up inadvertently saying something stupid, offensive or even grammatically incorrect,” says Mr. Chiagouris.
A business owner’s time and energy spent on social-media marketing—Folbot’s Mr. AvRutick says he dedicates about an hour a day—could also go to waste. Fifty percent of the latter survey’s respondents say it requires more effort than expected.
To gain positive results, entrepreneurs need to regularly interact with consumers through these sites and not simply create static profiles, says Jacob Morgan, co-owner of Chess Media Group Corp., a consulting firm in San Francisco that specializes in social media.
Some small businesses opt to hire outside firms to handle their social-media marketing or advise them on the best ways to use it, but such services can cost hundreds of dollars a month.
For Chris Lindland, owner of Cordarounds.com, an online clothing retailer in San Francisco, converting consumers into customers using social media has required a “patient investment.”
“My business has been visited millions of times, but I haven’t made millions of sales,” says Mr. Lindland, whose four-person staff spends up to 90 minutes a day managing Cordarounds’s accounts on Twitter and Facebook. “People have told me they finally got around to buying from my business after reading about it on social media two years ago.”
Some entrepreneurs say they’ve found early indicators that their social-media efforts are paying off.
“The people coming from social media have been buying,” says Stephen Bailey, who oversees social-media and other marketing initiatives for John Fluevog Boots & Shoes Ltd., a footwear and accessories retailer in Vancouver with about 100 employees.
As evidence, Mr. Bailey points to a 40% increase in online sales in 2009—the first full year the company engaged consistently in social-media marketing—compared with 2008 when it was just getting started. He says he can draw a correlation between those figures and social media by looking at traffic to the company’s Web site from Twitter using Hootsuite, a free Twitter-management service from Invoke Media Inc. Other free services that track Web traffic from social-media sites include Google Analytics, CoTweet and Lodgy.
“The second we started using social media, it became one of the biggest drivers of traffic outside of search engines,” says Mr. Bailey, adding that his research shows these visitors spend as much time on Fluevog.com as those who come from other online destinations. The company doesn’t invest in paid advertising on social media, he adds.
Other business owners are soliciting customer feedback and monitoring what’s being said about their firms to determine the impact of sites like Facebook and Twitter on consumers’ buying decisions.
Mr. AvRutick says he regularly searches Twitter for tweets that mention kayaking and then sends messages to the people who wrote them. He connected with Ms. Siddall, the blogger who credited Twitter for exposing her to Folbot, after she posted a tweet that mentioned she wanted a kayak.
Ms. Siddall, a 37-year-old senior designer for Idea Couture Inc., a creative-marketing agency in Toronto, says she was unaware that folding kayaks even existed until she heard from Mr. AvRutick. She spent the next few months researching different brands, which included perusing a networking forum on Folbot’s Web site about kayaking.
Ms. Siddall says she later asked Mr. AvRutick via Twitter if he would send her some photos of her folding kayak being made, and he provided about 20. After it arrived, she says she decided to write a blog post about the whole experience.
“I didn’t find the same level of information or communication online from the other brands,” she says.
Write to Sarah E. Needleman at sarah.needleman@wsj.com
How to Manage Multiple Business Locations
How to Manage Multiple Business Locations | Inc |By Darren Dahl | Mar 4, 2010
Thomas Friedman was onto something when he wrote his book, The World is Flat. Companies increasingly feel the need to expand their reach into new markets—both domestically and internationally—from a very early age.
One direct result of this expansion is that you may now be forced to manage multiple locations and oversee employees in distant offices—a fact that can cause quite a few challenges and headaches, says Eric Bloom, president of Manager Mechanics, a management-training firm based in Ashland, Massachusetts.
“No matter how widespread your organization becomes, you need to work hard to retain team cohesion and the philosophy that everyone is on the same team regardless of where they work,” he says.
Dig Deeper: Why You Should Expand
Managing Multiple Locations: 6 Challenges
1. Out-of-site-out-of-mind syndrome. When things get busy at your primary location, it can be hard to give your employees based at other locations the time they deserve.
2. Loss of spontaneous communications. Because you do not see your employees in the hallway or at meetings, there is very little natural or unplanned communication.
3. Attenuated logistics. Anything that cannot be sent electronically, must be mailed, which causes time delays and increased effort.
4. Complicated work assignments. It is harder to perform certain types of jobs or collaborate on them when employees are based in remote locations
5. Lack of team cohesiveness. Your team members will not know each other as well. This can easily lead to an “us-versus-them” mentality.
6. Concerns over general supervision. If you have a remote office that clients visit, it’s virtually impossible to see if your employees are arriving on time, working appropriate business hours or wearing proper business attire.
To tackle these and other challenges, then, organizational leaders need to focus on three key areas: systems, technology, and communication.
Managing Multiple Locations: Put Systems in Place
The old adage is that systems run businesses, and people run systems. “You must have systems in place to be able to standardize the quality of your communications, products and results,” says Bert Martinez, founder of Bert Martinez Communications, a business training and communications company with multiple locations. “Systems will allow you to duplicate offices and grow faster with reduce training times and supervision.”
The key is to establish clear responsibilities, boundaries, and authority, says Ann Latham, president of Uncommon Clarity, an organizational-behavior consulting firm in Easthampton, Massachusetts. “Vague responsibilities create the proverbial cracks into which everything drops,” she says. Muddy boundaries create disasters ranging from personnel problems to legal ones while insufficient authority can become a source of delay and demotivation. “An employee with everything needed to exercise good judgment except either the authority or sense of responsibility to do so is worth little,” says Lantham.
The point, then, is to make each employee’s responsibilities clear through an organizational structure combined with a system that measures each and every employee, and holds everyone accountable for delivering on their work responsibilities regardless of where they are based.
Dig Deeper: Building Systems to Manage Your Business
Managing Multiple Locations: Adopt New Technology
With the advent of the Internet, and the prolific surge in the number of collaborative tools that have spawned from it, technology has become an integral part of the backbone for any far-flung organization, says Bloom, particularly because it can help your organization cut down on business travel expenses.
While many organizations rely on custom-built software platforms and intranets as collaborative platforms, some of the most commonly-used tools by small businesses in particular are also either free, cheap or available as a software-as-a-service, which means you can access these tools over the web for a monthly fee. Some of the best and cost-effective options include:
• Google Documents, Gmail and Calendar for internal training and communication.
• Basecamp: An popular project management tool.
• Facebook : The now ubiquitous social networking tool is just as useful for business as it is for personal applications.
• Skype: The surge in VOIP technology and software means that you can communicate with remote employees cheaply and effectively.
• Salesforce.com: One of the most popular tools around, Salesforce.com allows remote sales team to collaborate in real-time on maintaining your company’s sales pipeline.
A new wrinkle in terms of technology is that many firms have begun to equip all of their employees with smart phones such as the iPhone as a way to enable them to access any web-based technology regardless of where they are, including many new applications.
Dig Deeper: The Latest Small Business Technology News
Managing Multiple Locations: Focus on Communication
Systems are a must, technology is important tool however, none of these will work with out real communication, says Martinez. “Communication is the key to collaboration with your offices, coworkers, and clients,” he says. If you neglect this aspect of running your business, you do so at your own risk, particularly in a business with multiple locations. That’s why Martinez also makes having his employees have time face-to-face a priority by having his offices take turns hosting each other once a year to enable communication between people on all levels.
Other tips for fostering communication between your employees based in the office and elsewhere include:
1. Establish full team weekly staff meetings via phone or webinar to get your whole group together.
2. If possible, have web cams so your team members can see each other.
3. Make each physical site responsible for a specific type of work, rather then assign random tasks associated with a central project.
4. When doable, have the CEO or management members personally visit each remote site on a scheduled basis, every month, for instance.
5. Establish weekly phone-based staff meetings individually with each remote group so that each physical location will get time with top management.
6. If possible, get your whole group together once or twice a year for staff meetings, brainstorming and team building.
Dig Deeper: How to Improve Your Communications Skills
Managing Multiple Locations: The Global Workforce
Managing multiple locations across the U.S. is hard enough. But when you add a new sales office or manufacturing plant overseas, says Bloom, you can actually run into a host of new challenges associated with cross-cultural communication that include:
1. Time zones. There is limited or no overlap in the standard workday.
2. Language. Even if everyone has a common language, English for example, differences in accents, language fluency, and the use of slang expressions can make communication extremely difficult, particularly on conference calls and speakerphones.
3. Social norms. Cultural differences from country to country can accidentally cause tension, embarrassment, and miscommunication.
3. Holiday schedules. Scheduled meetings, reporting deadlines, cash flows and standard business processes can be derailed or delayed based on local holiday schedules.
4. Technical connectivity. Not all countries have high-speed connectivity at all locations.
5. Labor laws. Laws regarding hiring, employee termination, hours worked, layoffs, sexual harassment differ from country to country.
6. Business-related laws, ethics, and practices. Business is conducted very differently from country to country.
7. Personal-privacy laws. In European Union member states, the laws regarding the personal use, storage, and transport of personal information are quite stringent compared with those in the U.S.
Dig Deeper: Building the Best Virtual Workforce
Managing Multiple Locations: Adapting to Different Cultures
Bloom suggests tackling these challenges by considering the following tips:
1. Find one key contact in each country that is very knowledgeable in local customs, business practices, and laws.
2. Learn to pronounce people’s names correctly.
3. Gain a basic understanding of country politics and current events.
4. Know the names of your managers and leaders in those countries and pronounce their names correctly.
5. Find ways to take advantage of the time zone differences.
6. Be respectful of the differences between people and cultures.
The bottom line in managing multiple locations, says Martinez, is to help make everyone in your company feel motivated and part of the team, regardless of where they do their work. “When your people feel good and that they matter, they will perform better,” he says.
Dig Deeper: How to Be a Lead Teams in Emerging Markets
Managing Multiple Locations: Additional Resources
Corporate Agility: A Revolutionary New Model for Competing in a Flat World, by Charles Grantham, James P. Ware and Cory Williamson (AMACOM, 2007.) This book will show you how to get your company to embrace new technology, understand the ever-changing workforce, and rethink the way you structure work environments to deal with the global economy.
Competing in a Flat World: Building Enterprises for a Borderless World, by Victor K. Fung, William K. Fung and Yoram (Jerry) Wind (Wharton School Publishing, 2007.) A book filled with solid tips to create a flexible organization capable of competing anywhere.
The Facility Management Handbook, by David G. Cotts Kathy O. Roper and Richard P. Payant (AMACOM, 2009.)
A great reference guide for understanding and implementing best practices for the modern workplace.
Seven Strategies for Sales Success
Two common questions that I hear all the time, what do I need to learn to succeed in sales and what do I need to do to succeed sales? Here are a few strategies of sale success.
Succeeding in sales is a learnable skill. Being poor in sales is a learnable skill. You may need some sales team training, but whatever you choose sales is a learnable skill.
Number one; grow your people skills – remember the customer buys you first. Sell yourself before you even try to sell your company or your product. The client looks to you for assurances and trust.
Number two; sell the benefits – make a list of your benefits that your competition does not have. Use questions that your competition does not ask is good strategy.
Number three; master the objections – there are no new objections so get rid of the existing ones. Make a list of the objections that you hear over and over again. Not interested. Happy with present provider. No budget. Better offer from your competition, etc. And role play the answers.
Number four; target your ideal customer – Make a list of your ideal customer’s traits, B credit, 5-10 employees, 5 plus years in business, 3 plus locations. Make a list of the prospects that match those traits, contact only those “ideal” prospects. It’s a smaller but better list.
Number five; be, do, have –BE a student of sales team training, never stop learning. This is how I mastered sales. After you learned a new technique, DO it – role play it with friends and associates, teaching is a great to role play it too. Then use it that day. Doing leads to HAVING and the more skills you HAVE the faster you be come a master of your craft. Remember to adapt what you’ve learn to your personality style.
Number six; how you feel is more important than what you know – you heard it before “ attitude is everything” learn how YOU keep a positive attitude, what triggers attitude changes in YOU. Study emotional strategies every morning. The secret to attaining sales success is how you feel about money, yourself, sales, and success. Rich sales people are rich because how the feel, broke sales people are broke because how the feel.
Number seven; save money – this was a big turning point for me, when I started to save just 10% of my income. The savings created peace and confidence that comes with knowing that you have thousands of dollars in the bank. I’ve met hundreds of good and broke sales people, they spend everything they make. Begin with saving 10% of your income and get to the point that you can save 20% or more.
Here’s a final thought. Succeeding in sales is a learnable skill. Losing at sales is a learnable skill. You may need some sales team training, but whatever you choose sales is a learnable skill. Getting ahead is a result of doing certain things over and over again. And you are in charge. You decide how much you want to succeed by remembering 6 words. “Repetition is the mother of skill.”
Let me ask you – if I blind-folded you and placed you in a dark room and asked you to tie your shoes could you do it? Why? Because you repeated the shoe-tying process a zillion times, right? Again mastering sales takes repetition to master the skills.
