Who is telling the story?

Posted by dynamicbusinessmentors on Jun 3, 2013 | 0 comments

I was interested to open the Melbourne newspaper this morning to find an article criticising the Richmond Football Club and giving “expert” advice on what it would take for the team to improve.  The advice was supposed to be given with the intention of helping the current coach understand that the team was not improving and needed to make certain changes if it wanted to succeed.

The article seemed very logical and well-meaning unless you understand the full story underlying it.  The author was David King – a former premiership player with North Melbourne – who was once an Assistant Coach at Richmond and one of the leading candidates for the job that the current coach Damien Hardwick got.  So with this in perspective we now have a story written by a guy who was a coach at the club when it was doing very badly and then he was overlooked for the main job to the guy he is now criticising.

History is riddled with so-called facts that upon full investigation don’t really stack up. 

Even such well known facts such as the US government telling us that millions of lives were saved at the end of World War 2 by the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Fifty years later, when confidential documents were released we found out that the US government knew that the Japanese were trying to surrender anyway and the bombs may have even lengthened the war.

This happens in every group unless it is watched out for and investigated. 

I was with a client recently and got told that a staff member had left because of the boss and it was all his fault.  The facts were that the person was not producing enough to even justify their pay, despite being spoken to many times and had been told to improve their production or the role was unviable.  That person then went around the organization when the boss was on leave and told the other staff how bad the boss was.

So when you hear bad news, or something alarming my first suggestion to you is to investigate for yourself.

1)      Who is telling you the story and why.

2)      What condition is the area that is being talked about in.

Is it productive or is it really in trouble?

3)      What needs to be done to fix the situation?

You may even find the person who is perpetually bringing you bad news and problems is the one to handle or even get rid of, but don’t be fooled into accepting the wrong story.

If you would like to receive the Dynamic Business Mentors regular email newsletter email your details to newsletter@dynamicbusinessmentors.net

Best Wishes

Greg Paul

CEO

Dynamic Business Mentors

(C) Dynamic Business Mentors 2013

Can you control Social Media?

Posted by dynamicbusinessmentors on May 27, 2013 | 2 comments

A couple of weeks ago I was asked an interesting question during a seminar.

Yes, the person agreed; Social Media is a great way to get your PR or Public Relations message out to lots of people very quickly, but her suggestion was that it is also a way that a companies’ message can be twisted and bad publicity can be spread very quickly.

I was reminded of a funny story from many years ago about Ray Kroc, the founder of MacDonalds Systems Inc and a potential public relations disaster that he ran into.

The story goes that Ray had gone into semi-retirement and had a PR team that looked after MacDonald’s PR and he went fishing.  Whilst he was away the media got wind of a rumour that MacDonalds were putting worms in the burgers.  The story ran through US media like wildfire, how was such a household name ripping off the American people, and no matter what the PR team did they couldn’t find a way to stop it regardless of the fact that it was a complete lie that was being told.  After a week Ray Kroc returned from his trip and found out what was happening, he immediately called a press conference and appeared directly in his fishing gear with his reply.  He put a bag of worms on the table with a sign that said 20c per pound and a bag of burger meat on the table, the same size with a sign that said 5c per pound.  He then asked a simply question;

“Why would we want to send ourselves bankrupt by paying more to put worms in the burgers?”

The story immediately died and the rumour has not been heard of since.

Another story I know of occurred a couple of years ago when I was working with a firm that was unfairly getting attacked on the Internet by a group of competitors.  The competitors had used blogs and various other tools to put pages and pages of information about the company on the Internet that was grossly incorrect and threatened to send the company bankrupt.  In response we simply set about a campaign of putting regular information out that was correct and promoting what the company did as well as its good results and its message.  The end result was that the false rumours were pushed off the front page of Google for that business – in fact they went to page four – and the company grew at an amazing rate with all of the extra promotion that it was doing.

So I agree with the comment in the seminar, yes Social Media and the Modern Internet can create a challenge to all business – small and large alike.  The way to handle it though is to get out there and start promoting, get your message out to as many people as you can and promote your business as much as you can.

If you need any help getting started give us a call or check out our website now.

If you would like to receive the Dynamic Business Mentors regular email newsletter email your details to newsletter@dynamicbusinessmentors.net

Best Wishes

Greg Paul

CEO

Dynamic Business Mentors

(C) Dynamic Business Mentors 2013

The Biggest Mistake You Can Make in Business

Posted by dynamicbusinessmentors on May 21, 2013 | 4 comments

The last week I have been reminded of the power of communication in helping business grow and how the way a business communicates with its stakeholders is possibly even more important than the product and the results that you produce.

Before you gasp at that thought and wonder if I’m suggesting that producing something that doesn’t suit the market or is inferior in quality is OK let me explain.

I have a friend who found out about a new online system that sounded leaps and bounds beyond anything on the market for what he does.  The marketing of the company sounded great and my friend was looking at trialling this product and promoting it to his clients.

When he went to sign up the web site told him that he should pay and then it would take 9 – 10 days to open his account.  A little frustrating he thought but if it was worth the wait why not, so he signed up.  Two days later he got an email saying that they needed more data so he replied and sent the data to them.  Two weeks later he sent an email asking what was happening and that he wanted it fixed, the reply came from the “Customer Relationship Manager” saying that they were getting to his enquiry and that it was because they were so busy and the wait would not distract from the efficacy of the system.  In this email he was also told that these frustrations were part of life and that “life is like that”.

Now my friend started to get a little frustrated at the suggestion that “life is like that”.  If he was going to be sending his clients to this business to him it is important that they care about the results they are producing so he emailed back, telling him who he was as well as what he did and if they had a problem they should get it fixed urgently rather than brush it off.

A few days later he got two emails in short succession, one saying that the extra information he had sent was not sent through their ticketing system and if he wanted it handled he should use the right system and then another saying that they had no problem and if he had a problem it was his and he should get it fixed.

Needless to say my friend emailed and cancelled his subscription to this system and asked for a refund of the money he had paid, obviously he doesn’t intend to recommend their system to his clients.

Another friend who runs a consulting business has been sick the last few days and fell behind on his work.  Normally he is someone that gets great results for his clients and rather than simply create a problem for those people he simply did as much as he could and called all of the clients expecting him to complete work for them and told them what was happening and made arrangements to handle the work as soon as possible.  As the sickness lasted over a week he kept in communication and not only kept the clients happy but got all of the work done in the end.

I hope that each of these stories highlights the importance of communication with our clients and keeping the lines open so that you work with your clients as a partner in what you do.  If you do that more often than you don’t you’ll find that they will support you and what you do in return.

If you would like to receive the Dynamic Business Mentors regular email newsletter email your details to newsletter@dynamicbusinessmentors.net

Best Wishes

Greg Paul

CEO

Dynamic Business Mentors

(C) Dynamic Business Mentors 2013

What Social Networks are relevant in Australia?

Posted by dynamicbusinessmentors on May 13, 2013 | 0 comments

There is a lot of hype about Social Media and a lot of ideas as to what you should do and what you shouldn’t.

I come across people every day that have opinions about what social media networks are the most important ones for Australians and where you will create the most impact.

Twitter, facebook and Linked In are probably the best known social networks but are they the most important for Australians?

Pinterest, Google + and Tumbler are amongst others that get a lot of hype, but what are the stats?

When I am talking to clients my recommendation is always this:

1)      Facebook is the most important network in Australia.  Over 9.8 million Australians are reported to use it every day, which is a big chunk of our 23 million people.  If you are business to consumer this is where you should put most of your attention.  If you are business to business you still can’t forget to be on a site with nearly half our population.

2)      Linked In is where you will want to be if you are business to business based organization.  Last week as part of their tenth birthday Linked In issued reports about where their users come from and over 4 million are Australians.  Again 4 million business people in a country of about 23 million people are a lot.

3)      Google + is where we recommend the next lot of attention should go.  I haven’t found the numbers on this,  Google has been less open about them but what I can tell you is that there are a lot of things that Google + let you do that will help you build your business quickly at little cost to you or your business.  It’s also the fastest growing network and one that you are better off getting on board now, not when it’s the size of facebook and harder to crack into.

4)      Twitter is one that we create for all of our clients as another resource.  There is a lot of hype about Twitter and it’s growth, but to be perfectly honest with you, it has a lot less impact in Australia than the others.  Don’t spend a lot of time on it, but run it alongside the others.

We have helped Australian businesses of all sizes and types grow their sales and marketing so I hope this little guide helps.

If you would like to receive the Dynamic Business Mentors regular email newsletter email your details to newsletter@dynamicbusinessmentors.net

Best Wishes

Greg Paul

CEO

Dynamic Business Mentors

(C) Dynamic Business Mentors 2013

Why does 64 million fans on facebook equal no more sales?

Posted by dynamicbusinessmentors on May 6, 2013 | 0 comments

Over the last few years a lot of businesses have tried to increase their sales by using social media.  Some have been successful whilst some have failed to convert facebook pages even with large followings to increases in sales.

Recently I was interviewed by Tom Poland for his online channel, about Social Media and he asked me why a company like Coke could get 64 million fans on facebook and then complain that they saw no increase in sales of the product.

I’ve included a link to the whole interview for you to watch but read on for more information on what is missing from Coke’s facebook page.

Unfortunately it seems there are a lot of successful marketers, particularly Internet marketers who don’t understand Social Media and the role of Social Media marketing.  They take what works for other forms of advertising and then transplant that to Social Media without understanding Social Media and then complain that it doesn’t work.

In order to understand the role of Social Media it is first important to understand that it is a social medium not an advertising one.  People don’t go to facebook for example to watch ads, they go to facebook to talk to their friends or find out interesting things about the brands that they love.

If you look at Coke’s page they simply used it as an outlet to post all of their ads into facebook.

So whenever you are working out how to get your customers or potential customers engaged on facebook, firstly work out what they would be interested to hear about.  For example one of our clients is an auto electrician, their customers are interested in cars so we post a lot of pictures of cars, videos of cars etc:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Melita-Auto-Electrical-Services/360848680666554?bookmark_t=page

After you have customers engaged you then put into the page tools that can increase visits to your web site or encourage your fans to give you their emails addresses so you can send them offers via email.

For example the page above has three buttons you can hit and give the company your details, and in return you can claim a discount to get your car fixed or a free gym session which are at local businesses that they cross promote.

As well as that it is a good idea to include a link to your website in each post so people can go and find out more about what you sell when they are interested in your brand.  Check out the following page to see that in action.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/DIB-Australia/481135485274357?bookmark_t=page

If you keep in mind that your posts should be social and encourage someone to want to look at them, then put in social tools to encourage more sales you will get results from Social Media.

If you would like to receive the Dynamic Business Mentors regular email newsletter email your details to newsletter@dynamicbusinessmentors.net

Best Wishes

Greg Paul

CEO

Dynamic Business Mentors

(C) Dynamic Business Mentors 2013