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Brightidea is the market leader in On-Demand Innovation Management. Over 300 businesses around the world use its Software-as-a-Service suite to transform their employee, partner and customer ideas into a reality. The Brightidea platform is a flexible, scalable, and standards-based system that provides end-to-end tracking of the innovation process from concept through to realization. The company's software has been successfully deployed at: Adobe, Bosch, Cisco, Harley-Davidson, Experian, Emerson, British Telecom, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Honeywell, among others. Founded in 1999, Brightidea is closely held and headquartered in San Francisco, CA. For more information, please visit www.brightidea.com.

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Braden Kelley is the editor of Blogging Innovation and founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.

5 Ways to Prepare for a Social Media Disaster

by Mike Brown

I watched the @ThatKevinSmith and @SouthwestAir brouhaha erupt live on Twitter but didn't write about it last week. Bunches of tweeters and bloggers hashing out who was right and wrong based on second, third, or five hundredth-hand information simply wasn't interesting enough to warrant adding to the noise.

Getting ready for a social media presentation this week though, I've been thinking about service defects and service recovery in the world of social networking.

I sought an analogy to help think strategically about how a company prepares for an angry customer who wants to be heard and starts tweeting incessantly: handling a hostage situation is very comparable. Rather than a person though, it's a brand's reputation being taken hostage by a customer threatening irreparable harm unless demands are met. With the one-to-many communication capabilities of social media, this type of threat has never been more credible.

Here are five hostage negotiation principles and related implications for preparing to handle when your brand's good name is being held hostage:

1. Have a negotiating team ready - This means more than a single person monitoring Twitter and handling responses. In hostage negotiations, the primary negotiator, who is ideally the sole contact with the hostage taker, is joined by a coach/commander in charge of the situation and personnel along with a secondary negotiator to help monitor, listen, and offer input.


• Strategic Questions - Does your company have a pre-identified team and protocols for how it will work together in a social media-based service recovery effort? And how would you incorporate front-line employees when you're trying to recover from a service failure playing out both at one of your company's locations and online?


2. Gather as much solid information as possible right away - Beyond having standard questions to run through, there's added complexity in a social media-based service recovery effort. Suppose the customer issue IS taking place in-person. With social media monitoring removed from the scene, it may not even be possible from a customer's messages to determine where the issue is occurring. This creates an interesting implication for enacting rapid service recovery.


• Strategic Questions - If it's clear the issue is taking place in the presence of front line employees, what steps will you take to identify the location and establish communication with them immediately? Since multi-person communication with the angry customer is almost a given, how will you ensure your multiple contacts are speaking with one message?


3. Connect on a personal level - Social media throws a whole new wrinkle into this, especially when you want to move interaction with the customer to a private messaging stream. If it's even available, the company may have outdated phone information on the customer, making direct contact challenging to establish. A corporate tweeter may have to try to get a brand kidnapper to 'follow' the company so direct messaging can take place. And typically, the corporate tweeter is communicating under a corporate account without a personal avatar. It makes establishing a personal tone of, "I'm here to try and fix the situation," difficult when the customer is receiving tweets with the corporate logo.


• Strategic Questions - Are you following your customers on social media? Do you have multiple ways to reach out to customers? Do your company social media people have work-related, personal accounts they can use to reach out specifically in these cases?


4. Communicate openly and actively listen - When you have face-to-face contact, listening, and the silence that goes along with it, is easy to convey. It's a little tougher via phone. But in a medium geared toward short, back-and-forth messages, a pause associated with listening or contemplation comes across as being distracted or ignoring the other person.


• Strategic Question - Beyond having plans for migrating service recovery conversations to private channels, are you actively training your social media response team in dealing with the dynamics of these new service recovery situations?


5. Show empathy - One way hostage negotiators demonstrate empathy is by delivering on aspects of the demands that have been made. Granting small, detailed requests is done in real-life hostage situations to slow and drag them out, which is desirable. In a service recovery situation (especially one playing out in public), the last thing you want to do is extend it.


• Strategic Questions - Who is on your social media service response team? Have you included your best customer service people - the ones with strong understanding of what you can do to solve customer problems and are best at understanding issues from a customer's point of view?

No matter what your company is doing in social media, you have to address this reality. Even if your company doesn't want a proactive social media presence, there's a greater chance every day your customers will be talking about your brand via social media. When they do, and the discussion gets negative and brand threatening, you better have thought about your strategy, with a plan for what you'll do.


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Mike Brown is an award-winning innovator in strategy, communications, and experience marketing. He authors the Brainzooming TM blog, and serves as the company's chief Catalyst. He wrote the ebook "Taking the NO Out of InNOvation" and is a frequent keynote presenter.

PR is about the story, not relationships

by Matt Heinz

Maybe 10-20 years ago, PR was more about the relationships you had with the right press. Reporters and their publications were the gatekeeper to getting your story heard, and PR professionals were the gatekeeper to those gatekeepers. But even then, relationships were only as good (and ultimately as successful) as the story you had to offer.

Today, story matters more than ever. Yes, a good relationship with press helps you break through the clutter and get a few extra minutes to pitch your story. But a good story stands on its own.

Plus, you don't have to rely on a finite set of traditional media outlets to give your story a voice to the masses. Today, you can publish on your own. Self-publishing won't have the audience others have, but that's not the point. Share that story in a public forum, that both press and your direct customers/prospects/constituents can read, and a good story can get legs, find unique angles through other storytellers and redistributors, and be shared with countless others.

Traditional PR was about telling the story of the company in question. Press releases touted what a company recently accomplished. Those are stories, but not very interesting stories.

But it's more than just shifting focus from relationships to good stories. The stories that get noticed and retold today are about others. They're about the impact you have on your customers, their industry, and the people they work with in turn.

Tom Peters wrote recently that people don't care about your story. They care about their own story. Your job, he said, was to become a primary character in your customer's story.

So if PR today is about the story, and the best stories are about the impact you can have on others, how does that change the storytelling your organization is doing today? What do you say, where do you say it, and what do you want people who read or hear that story do next?


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Matt Heinz is principal at Heinz Marketing, a sales & marketing consulting firm helping businesses increase customers and revenue. Contact Matt at matt@heinzmarketing.com or visit www.heinzmarketing.com.

Social Media Expert or Wannabe?

by Mike Myatt

Determining whether someone is a social media expert or a just another wannabe can be a difficult task for the typical consumer. There is a tremendous amount of noise out there being created by a plethora of "consultants" professing expertise in what I refer to as the new social sciences: personal branding, social networking, social media marketing, etc. I just did a Google search for the term social media expert and had more than 96 million returned search results... give me a break. So my question is this: what constitutes a "social media expert," and how do you tell the posers from the players? Which of these professed miracle workers are true professionals, and which ones are simply attempting to gravy-train a rapidly growing market niche in pursuit of a quick buck?

Let me begin by dispelling a popular myth oft espoused online - It seems to be fashionable of late to state that there is no such thing as a social media expert. The thinking (albeit flawed thinking) of those who hold this opinion is that social media is so new, and so rapidly evolving, that there simply could not be any real experts.

My answer? Ridiculous... Every industry has experts regardless of maturity of life-cycle. In fact, many of the real innovators and experts are those early adopters doing the heavy lifting and the ground breaking. There are experts in every industry and at every stage of maturation. Some early experts mature as the industry grows, and others fall by the way side because they don't keep pace giving way to new generations of innovators building on what the first generation of experts created. The issue is not whether experts exist, as they most certainly do. The issue is finding them among the hordes of pretenders and wannabes.

I'm going to cut right to the chase and give you six things to beware of when attempting to discern the true professional advisers capable of delivering a certainty of execution, from the rogues and scoundrels simply looking to separate you from your money:

1. Beware the Part-Time Expert: My father has an old saying that I've found to be very accurate over the years: "part-time efforts, yield part-time results." If the person seeking your business has a day job that constitutes something other than the services he or she is pitching, run for the hills. If your potential advisor is moonlighting then they really have no business asking for your business.


2. Beware the Shoemaker without Shoes: Your position should be one of "don't tell me... show me." If your would-be social media guru cannot be found online, doesn't blog, tweet, or is invisible on the major social networking platforms you might want to rethink their qualifications. Important Caveat: the mere existence of a blog, YouTube channel, LinkedIn profile, Facebook account, or a Twitter page doesn't guarantee competence... any idiot can amass thousands of followers on Twitter just by following everybody and their brother, so look for someone who has amassed a quality list of followers, who has more people following them than they follow, and who actively engages with their followers.


3. Beware the Expert without Clients: No referenceable clients equals zero credibility. It's one thing to show you their own work, but quite another to show you demonstrated success on behalf of paying and satisfied clients.


4. Beware the Expert without Industry Recognition: If your so called expert isn't published, doesn't speak, lecture or teach, doesn't have a column, hasn't won any awards, etc., then they might not be a true expert.


5. Beware the Expert too Aggressive in their Pursuit: There is a big difference between professional follow-up and desperation. Let me be blunt... most professionals at the top of their game haven't made a cold call in years. In fact, even in this down economy they typically have more business than they know what to do with. If your world-beater of a consultant is chasing you down like a hungry dog after the meat wagon then you may want to take pause.


6. Beware of Bargain Basement Expertise: In most cases the reality is that you get what you pay for... True expertise doesn't come cheaply, but is well worth the investment. Few things in business will get you in as much trouble as not getting advice and counsel when needed, or worse yet, getting poor quality or incorrect advice. I would much rather pay an expert a larger fee for 30 minutes of their time and get what I need rather than pay someone $50 dollars an hour who is faking it until they can make it... Questionable advisors will take much longer to get from point A to point B (if they get there at all), and will likely cost you more money at the end of the day when contrasted with true professionals.

If you need help in integrating social media into your business I would recommend the following individuals (some you may know and some you may not) as they all pass the litmus test mentioned above. Those listed below are in no particular order of preference and you can rest assured they are not "info-product" sales people masquerading as social media professionals, but they are in fact the true subject matter experts who can get the job done:

• Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) - Chris is smart, approachable, innovative, has a high degree of integrity, probably the hardest working man on the planet, and a heck of a nice guy. I've enjoyed every interaction I've had with Chris, and he has earned my trust and respect.


• Mack Collier (@MackCollier) - I don't know Mack personally, but have enjoyed reading his candid and ever straight foward opinions online. Mack is well respected and his the loyalty of his followers more than speak to his capabilities.


• Lee Odden (@LeeOdden) - I've known Lee for several years (before he was rich and famous). In fact, in a prior life as a corporate executive Lee was the consultant I chose to place on retainer. He is smart, seasoned and delivers on his promises.


• Amy Martin (@DigitalRoyalty) - I guess the moniker Digital Royalty says it all... Amy represents some of the biggest names and fastest growning brands online. Nothing bodes as well for an agency as success, and Amy has plenty of pedigree in that department.


• Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) - Ashton combines his celebrity status, a fascination with social media, and a disarming and ever inquistive intellect to head one of the fastest growing social media agencies on the web.


• Liz Strauss (@lizstrauss) - Liz is well known for her approachability, friendliness and candor. She also happens to be one of the savviest bloggers and social media consultants online.


• And if you're slumming @mikemyatt - nuff said...

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Mike Myatt, is a Top CEO Coach, author of "Leadership Matters...The CEO Survival Manual", and Managing Director of N2Growth.

Aligning Social Media, Marketing and PR

by Matt Heinz

I'm moderating a panel on the alignment of marketing & PR in a couple weeks at Dan Greenfield's PR + Mktg Camp in Seattle. Should be a great day of discussion. Earlier this week Dan and I talked how marketing and PR teams have traditionally worked together (or not), and how those relationships are evolving now - especially with the maturation of social media as a cross-functional tool set. Excerpts from our conversation are below:


Question: Are PR and marketing more aligned or less aligned because of social media?

Matt: The idea of separating marketing teams and functions is a remnant of the "old way" of doing marketing. When most marketing was one-way (i.e. customers couldn't react, respond and create messages of their own), it was more acceptable to separate PR from product marketing, and even lead generation activities. Now, especially because the customer has so much control and such a strong voice, it's critical that brands act as one. That means PR, advertising, social media, lead generation - they all need to work from the same playbook in a coordinated fashion. Easier said than done, but that's exactly what today's most successful brands are doing.

Social media has enabled the consumer to talk back in a powerful way, which is accelerating the need for this consolidation and integration of marketing strategy by products, services and brands today.


Question: PR is generally about placement, reputation, messaging, impressions and storytelling. Marketing is generally about transactions, click throughs, key words and web applications. How is social media changing that, if at all?

Matt: Everything is about getting the sale. It always has been, but now it's easier to see and map the progression of a customer from awareness, consideration, intent, trial, purchase - then repeat, renewal, referral, etc.

Social media is blurring the distinction between customer engagement stages. Ten years ago, it was easier to segment the functions - PR talks to the customer at the beginning, then product marketing takes over and offers demos, free trials, etc. Then once they're a customer, your loyalty/retention team takes over. That approach doesn't work anymore.

The way we measure different marketing elements, by function, probably still works. But it has to be put into the context of a more immersive, cohesive customer engagement strategy that blends messages and tactics across stages of a customer relationship.


Question: What disadvantages (inefficiencies, lost opportunities, customer confusion) and advantages (integration, cost savings) are these shared tools like Facebook and Twitter creating for PR and marketing?

Matt: The sales cycle has always been far shorter than the customer's buying cycle. Five years ago, the customer buying cycle was a black box for marketers. We had no visibility to what was happening, what prospective customers were thinking or asking, who they were even considering. Now, thanks to social media, we have insight into how customers are thinking well before they engage directly with brands.

But this isn't an opportunity for selling. It's an opportunity to engage and become part of the community - add value, answer questions, provide valuable content. Earn trust, respect and credibility. Community engagement and social media are at the very top of the buying cycle, before the sales cycle, and it doesn't really matter which part of the organization manages and executes there, as long as the approach is right.


Question: Should social media ultimately be the responsibility of PR who manages reputation and conversations or marketing who is in charge of transactions and sales?

Matt: It doesn't really matter. Everyone in the organization needs to understand the customer, what they want, what they need, and how to address them - with or without a paid relationship current or pending. Every member of your organization should know how to address customers in a respectful, value-added way.

Social media has accelerated the tearing down of walls between customer and provider. There's more transparency, less formality. Brands need to be accessible, approachable and authentic to be accepted.

The social media strategy doesn't end when a customer enters a selling cycle. They aren't going to stop talking to their friends, and using Facebook, or commenting on Twitter, just because they're talking to a sales rep. Their interaction with and reflection of your brand continues across functional sales & marketing groups. That's why ownership of the social media "voice" within one marketing function or another is problematic. Today, that strategy (and especially the execution) is a job everybody has.


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Matt Heinz is principal at Heinz Marketing, a sales & marketing consulting firm helping businesses increase customers and revenue. Contact Matt at matt@heinzmarketing.com or visit www.heinzmarketing.com.

Secretly Famous

Clockwise: Jumble Room, The Randy Pike, Augill Castle, Little Town Farm as seen on 'Secretly Famous'

by Kevin Roberts

A key element of a Lovemark is secret ingredients (in the Mystery bucket). Think the recipe for Coca-Cola. The Harley Davidson sound. How you get the Caramello into the center. Some secrets however are for sharing, not locking up. In sojourns to the Lake District of England where I have a home in Grasmere (the most beautiful village in the whole wide world) I was introduced to Nathan Westgate and his team of 'secret agents' who search out the most unique places to stay, eat and visit.

Nathan has created a website Secretly Famous that shares recommendations of quirky and unusual places that have the real charm and character of the Lake District, one of the world's must-do tourism trails (read your Wordsworth). You'll find farms, barns, bars, beds and bakeries. His 'secretly found' places are all independently owned, are run by people who have amazing passion for what they do, and champion the best local produce.

My favorite place in Grasmere to recover my senses is The Jumble Room run by Andy and Chrissy Hill - "a small bohemian-style restaurant". You'll find this is now "Secretly Famous" along with The Randy Pike in Ambleside, Augill Castle near Kirky Stephen, and Little Town Farm near Preston, among many others.

Nathan, who is a brand consultant in Preston, has started with the Lake District and Lancashire, will venture to Cheshire and Yorkshire in 2010, and then the world.


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Kevin Roberts is the CEO worldwide of The Lovemarks Company, Saatchi & Saatchi. For more information on Kevin, please go to www.saatchikevin.com. To see this blog at its original source, please go to www.krconnect.blogspot.com.

Two Biggest Mistakes in Social Media

by Mike Brown


What are the two biggest mistakes in social media marketing?

1. Believing everyone sees your content

2. Believing no one sees your content

In the first instance, thinking you can simply dabble in social media and get lots of people to see what you're saying doesn't work. For nearly any traditional brand (and @shitmydadsays isn't a typical brand) wanting to talk about itself, audiences don't spontaneously emerge. It takes time to create an effective fan/follower base. Simply picking a fast-approaching date and saying "implement Twitter (or Facebook) by such-and-such date to get our message out" is asking for disappointing results.

The second mistake rests on the assumption you can ease your way in, make some mistakes, and find your social media footing. Maaaaaaaaaaaybe. But there are too many counter examples of brands that screwed up and got burned because of not knowing, understanding, or working within the evolving conventions of social media. If you've got a brand worth anything, you need to be ready for prime time the instant you step on the social media stage.

How do you avoid these terrible two?

Focus first on developing a solid social media strategy and ignore the ridiculous peer pressure you may feel to create a social media presence ASAP. This is a game made for deliberate, smart followers - not fast, unprepared, first-movers - to win.


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Mike Brown is an award-winning innovator in strategy, communications, and experience marketing. He authors the Brainzooming TM blog, and serves as the company's chief Catalyst. He wrote the ebook "Taking the NO Out of InNOvation" and is a frequent keynote presenter.

Role of Social Media in Creating Word of Mouth and Customer Experience

by Paul Williams


What's the role of social media in creating Word of Mouth (WOM)?

You could say there are two parts to WOM - the analog and the digital.

• Analog is person to person... face to face. I'll also put written and print media into the analog category.


• Digital WOM is converted and stored in a format that can be sent and re-sent electronically.

Social media refers to tools that allow us to easily spread the story electronically, digitally. Like a pyramid marketing scheme I tell my network, and they tell theirs, and they tell theirs... Social media tools (blogs, Facebook, Twitter etc) make the spread easy.

In fact, I may have to contradict my earlier statements indicating that Malcolm Gladwell and Seth Godin are the father's of Word of Mouth (WOM).


The REAL Originators of Word Of Mouth

I think the folks who wrote the Faberge Organics Shampoo commercials in the 80s invented it.

Do you remember those ads?

If you tell two friends about Faberge Organics shampoo with wheat germ oil and honey, they'll tell two friends, and so on... and so on... and so on...

Sorry about the poor quality - this is all I could find.


(Feed Link For Faberge Commercial)


Has the focus of Social Media had a negative effect on the Customer Experience?

I'll say potentially, YES. Marketers dazzled by the shiny object that social media is, may think they've solved their communication problem - or are engaging in a 'meaningful' way because - for example - they've created a Facebook Fan Page for their business.


False Sense Of Security

Let me pick on one of my favorite brands, Starbucks Coffee, as an example. Specifically, their "My Starbucks Idea" website. Through this site, Starbucks welcomes everyone to submit product, program, design, service, or ANY idea.

The My Starbucks Idea home page declares:


"You know better than anyone else what you want from Starbucks. So tell us. What's your Starbucks Idea? Revolutionary or simple - we want to hear it. Share your ideas, tell us what you think of other people's ideas and join the discussion. We're here, and we're ready to make ideas happen."

• Starbucks thinks they are listening.


• Customers think Starbucks is listening, and taking action.


• Starbucks thinks they've "checked the box" (to some extent) in being a social media player by having this site.


• Power to the people!

However, if you look at the "milestone" of the 50 Ideas Launched and Still Counting! - celebrating customer ideas implemented - Starbucks has technically only implemented six (6) ideas submitted by customers. If you dig into it - as John has on his Brand Autopsy site in his Tough Love For Starbucks post - you'll see that most ideas were already in the works, would have been done anyway, or aren't even customer-facing ideas (e.g. Employee discount on work clothes).

A problem with social media is that companies may think - simply by participating in the trend - that they're meeting customer need. Starbucks has invested in this suggestion site and believe they are checking the "we care and listen to customers" box. They think they've fulfilled the portion of their strategy, that supports the objective: to "Develop enthusiastically satisfied customers all of the time."

Starbucks isn't being as democratic with ideas as they claim (and think) they are. It really isn't "power to the people." Social media (or maybe improper use of social media) is giving Starbucks a false sense of security.

Social media isn't for everyone. To "engage in meaningful conversation" may actually mean a conversation. A face-to-face, human-to-human dialogue. For example, the kind a barista can have with a customer at Starbucks.


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Paul Williams is a professional problem solver at Idea Sandbox. He can help you create remarkable ideas to grow your business. You may read more at his website and find him Twittering as @IdeaSandbox.

Solid Service Principles are Crucial

by Damian Kernahan

Below is the latest blog I just received from Seth Godin. He (as he does most days) makes an important point especially for Service based companies and provides additional reasons why Service Design can be such a potent weapon for progressive companies.

It's not JUST the steak or the phone call or the insurance cover that your customers are buying when they look to buy something from you. It's not JUST the all the elements that make up the customer journey and everything within it. The touch-points that deliver it, the spaces where engagement with customers occurs through channels such as in-store, call centre, postal mail, or online. The 'moment' within each touch-point where there is an interaction and your staff or systems engage with your customers.

These are all crucially important and without it, your business will not thrive and grow new and recurring revenue streams. But how do you handle situations when the unexpected happens. When there is no script, no exact procedure?

We have been working with a large Australian based firm recently who is acknowledged as a great Service Innovator and relative to their peers, they are head and shoulders above in terms of customer experience and growth. However they also know that their competitors are quickly imitating them in marketing, minimising the perceived gap. It's time to leap ahead again with a sustainable differentiator.

Having developed deep insight through design research methods we have developed innovative human centered Customer Journey Maps, an Experience Strategy and undertaken Intention Engineering.

However you cant stop there. On top of that we have developed the mortar that holds all those bricks together. It's a set of Service Principles that allow their team to take the right decisions each and every day when there is no touchpoint, no planned interaction. It provides an important guide, a set or principles on how to act to remain customer focused even when no-one is looking and no one is listening. It fills in all those 'in between moments' that all add up to the delivery of an exceptional customer experience and transformed loyalty and profitability for companies.

As is quite often the case, the ideas are the relatively easy part, the real expertise comes in how you hang it all together and make it work in a repeatable, sustainable manner making it work within your clients organisational systems and infrastructure. That is our singular goal here at Proto Partners and should also be for each and every Service Design firm.


Seth's blog entry is below

Scott McCloud's classic book on comics explains a lot more than comics.

A key part of his thesis is that comic books work because the action takes place between the frames. Our imagination fills in the gaps between what happened in that frame and this frame, which means that we're as much involved as the illustrator and author are in telling the story.

Marketing, it turns out, works precisely the same way.

Marketing is what happens in between the overt acts of the marketer. Yes you made a package and yes you designed a uniform and yes you ran an ad... but the consumer's take on what you did is driven by what happened out of the corner of her eye, in the dead spaces, in the moments when you let your guard down.

Marketing is what happens when you're not trying, when you're being transparent and when there's no script in place.

It's not marketing when everything goes right on the flight to Chicago. It's marketing when your people don't respond after losing the guitar that got checked.

It's not marketing when I use your product as intended. It's marketing when my friend and I are talking about how the thing we bought from you changed us.

It's not marketing when the smiling waitress appears with the soup. It's marketing when we hear two waiters muttering to each other behind the serving station.

Consumers are too smart for the frames. It's the in-between frame stuff that matters. And yet marketers spend 103% of our time on the frames.


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Damian Kernahan is the managing partner of corporate growth consultants, Proto Partners, www.protopartners.com.au.

Five Nonprofit Marketing Fundamentals

by Matt Heinz

We've been working more closely with several local nonprofit organizations lately, and the more I speak with those responsible for fundraising and donor relations, the more I realize just how similar the process is to creating and managing a for-profit sales process.

I'm also seeing the same fundamental needs for those marketing a charitable cause or nonprofit organization. The below five fundamentals of nonprofit marketing are a starting point, but should be at the core of every nonprofit's strategy.

Donor Profiles: There are so many worthy organizations out there. Which prospective donors are going to be most predisposed to support your cause? What do those potential donors have in common - their associations, their history, their demo or psychographic make-up? You don't need to hone in on just one specific donor profile, but you should have a good sense for the 2-4 profiles that are your primary target. The more you know about them, the more self-evident the messages, channels and tactics will be to engage them directly.

Defining Your Product: What are you "selling" to prospective donors? It's not the tactics of what you actually do, but the outcome of that work. All too often, nonprofits tell their donors about the operations, or what additional infrastructure or materials they need. But what is all that for? What are you enabling? How are you making lives better? What's the benefit, the result, the outcome of what you're doing? THAT is your product, and that's the kind of vision your prospective donors will be attracted to.

Storytelling: Spend less time describing what you do, and more time telling stories about the differences you're making. Tell stories about the recipients of your work. Share the before and after. When it's an option, let the recipients of your work tell the story for you - in print, on video, and in person. Stories make an impression far longer-lasting than mission statements and operational descriptions. Stories can communicate the emotion behind what you're doing better than anything else.

Mobilizing the Community: Take your product definition, your mission, and think carefully about the ecosystem of people, groups, organizations, communities and businesses that relate to it. How can those various individuals and groups help you spread the word, or even contribute directly? If you're involved in transitional housing, how good are your relationships with local real estate offices? Are they giving directly? Are the individual Realtors involved, and getting their own buyer/seller customers involved? Be exhaustive and creative about mobilizing related communities on behalf of your organization.

Creating Evangelists: You have them already. Passionate donors. Highly-involved volunteers and board members. A variety of individuals and groups who feel strongly about what you're doing. No matter their level of passion, they won't help spread the word as widely as they could if you don't help them. Give them reminders to do so, give them content to pass along, give them the facilities and tools to share. This alone can be so simple, but so powerful. Identifying, arming and mobilizing the evangelists in and around your organization can be the very foundation of your marketing strategy.

Over the next several weeks, I'll go deeper into each of these fundamentals with more examples and suggestions for action.

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Matt Heinz is principal at Heinz Marketing, a sales & marketing consulting firm helping businesses increase customers and revenue. Contact Matt at matt@heinzmarketing.com or visit www.heinzmarketing.com.

Do you have a relevant message?

by Mike Myatt

It is simply not possible to have a well received message that is not relevant. Think about it for a moment... when was the last time you bothered to read, watch or listen to a message that wasn't relevant to your needs? Great leaders understand the power, influence, and leverage created by relevant messaging. Do you ever find yourself sitting back and marveling at those leaders who always seem to have the right thing to say? Contrast this with the feelings you have when you hear an awful sound-bite that makes a leader look either uninformed or unintelligent. The difference between the two aforementioned examples is that great leaders have mastered the art of finding the right message (the relevant message) regardless of the medium, market, or constituency being addressed. In today's post I'll share some of the messaging secrets used by the best leaders to keep their message relevant...

So why is great messaging so important? In the business world, as a chief executive officer or entrepreneur, corporate messaging is the key to both your personal and professional positioning strategy. A leader's message has a direct impact on their personal and corporate brand equity, how they manage a crisis, marketing initiatives, investor relations, press and public relations, team building and employee engagement, customer loyalty and virtually any other mission critical area of chief executive responsibility.

The reality is that your messaging will often times have a greater impact on your career than your performance. I have witnessed on numerous occasions CEOs with average, or even sub-par performance histories fare well because they possessed great messaging skills. Let me be clear that I'm not advocating form over substance here. I'm simply pointing out that they understood how to message their shortcomings and flaws, while engendering confidence around their planning for corrective measures to critical spheres of influence. The message was on target, it was relevant and therefore it was believable. By contrast, I have also watched CEOs with excellent performance histories not do so well because they did not possess the messaging skills necessary to keep stakeholders engaged. They did not address the needs or concerns of the audience they were addressing, and therefore the message was irrelevant and subsequently ineffective. Simply put, the relevancy, savvy and sophistication of your messaging will have a direct impact on the sustainability of your tenure as a chief executive.

CEOs who become recognized as great leaders are prepared, articulate, consistent, and crisp in their messaging. They speak with authority, clarity, and certitude because their messaging is relevant. In fact, it is the relevancy of their messaging that engenders confidence and serves to inspire and unify. Perhaps most importantly, a great leader's message is never in conflict with their values. They will not compromise their core beliefs simply to manipulate the outcome of a specific situation. They rest in the comfort that doing and saying the right things will ultimately put them in a favorable position, and if not, they are comfortable in assuming any negative consequences that may come as a result of right thinking and decisioning.

When it comes to the construction of messaging, I have found that people will tend to fall into one of the four following groups.

1. The Medium "is" the Message: People that fall into this camp believe that the medium will do the work for them. They believe in the reach and power of the medium to overcome any flaws in the message. This view of messaging constitutes a numbers based approach where the business logic states that if you reach enough people with the message some acceptable percentage of the people reached will embrace the message.


2. The Market "is" the Message: This view of messaging values the target audience above all else. The message is so targeted and niche specific that it is sometimes almost unintelligible to those who fall outside of the intended target market.


3. The Message "is" the Message: This group believes that content is king. The emphasis here is that if the message is creative enough, or valuable enough, nothing else matters. This view of messaging is all about the teaser, the hook, the calls to action, the design, the concept, etc.


4. The Messenger "is" the Message: This is the branded approach to messaging. If the person delivering the message has enough credibility and influence, nothing else matters. This iconic, ego-centric approach to messaging places a high premium on the spokesperson.

My view of the aforementioned four theories is that their sum total value is greater than their independent stand alone value. Other than in matters of character and principle, I don't tend to be an absolutist. Over the years, and especially in the genres of marketing, branding, positioning, and messaging, I believe a collaborative and cross-disciplined approach to be the key to success. While content can create credibility, credibility can also enhance the view of content. Furthermore, the best content or spokesperson in the world communicating to the wrong audience, with the wrong message, or through the wrong medium is likely to miss the mark. It takes a blending of approach to craft the right message and this will not happen when operating in a vacuum. Following are a few final thoughts for your consideration when crafting your message:

1. It Must Be the Truth: The truth always comes out in the end. If your message won't pass public scrutiny over time, then you have the wrong message.


2. Use a Multiple Medium Approach: Long gone are the days of one size fits all mediums…the best messaging campaigns take place across mediums creating multiple touch points to various constituencies and demographics.


3. Know Your Talking Points: Don't allow the message to get lost in the medium. Remember that the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. You must be consistent and convicted in your opinions and your positions. Be clear, concise and don't compromise on key points.


4. Know Your Audience: All messages should be tailored to the audience being addressed. This does not mean you should compromise your position, rather it means your message needs to relevant, timely, and of significance. While your talking points need to remain the same, they also need to address the concerns and areas of interest of those being communicated to. The message must be relevant to be successful.


5. Don't Forget Your Critics: The tendency is to believe that your audience is comprised of friends and allies. You need to assume that every message given will find its way into the hands of your worst critics, and furthermore, that they will attempt to use your message against you.

Keep the message relevant and real and you'll stand apart from the masses. Good luck and good messaging...

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Mike Myatt, is a Top CEO Coach, author of "Leadership Matters...The CEO Survival Manual", and Managing Director of N2Growth.

Better to be Honest than Sneaky

by Hutch Carpenter

I'm generally not tracking the "post ads to your social networks" movement, be it sponsored blog posts or tweeting ads to your followers on Twitter. There is one aspect to it that I think is most important: disclosure. Robert Scoble has a post up, More thoughts on in-Tweet advertising, where he notes that he unfollowed people on Twitter who were running ads:

So, I unfollowed and won't be looking back. Actually I unfollowed Pirillo too. I don't think he's disclosed everything clearly or explained where his ads were coming from and until he does I'll stay away.

His perspective reminded me of an experience I had years ago in the late 90s when I worked as an investment banker for Bank of America. It taught me the right way to disclose unsavory facts.

Selling a Superfund Deal: The Wrong Way

You know what the Superfund is? It's the federal government's program to clean up the nation's uncontrolled hazardous waste sites. Throughout America, there are parcels of land with dangerous materials in them. Superfund is there to help get them cleaned up.

We had a client, a rising star in the software world, that need financing for a new headquarters in Mountain View, CA. A headquarters built on a Superfund site. That designation, from 8 years before, meant the land had been declared a hazardous waste site. By the time of the deal, the site itself was cleaned up, and was in an "operation and maintenance" phase. Its status was sufficient for the company to build on. But anything with "Superfund" on it is a big red flag in banking. And we knew it.

I was in the debt financing unit, and I worked with our real estate group on this one. After deliberating, we decided to bury the Superfund status deep in the materials selling the deal - in the prospectus, in the deal presentation. Act essentially as if it was a non-event.

Which at this point, was true. The property was clean and ready for development.

It was also a mistake.

Other banks got to the Superfund status of the site as they went through their analysis of the deal, and saw that it had an afterthought treatment. They didn't like that.

And they didn't participate in the deal at the levels we had expected. We got stuck with a larger percentage of the deal than we wanted. We scrambled, got one other bank to join and accepted holding a larger portion of the deal.

Wasn't a pleasant experience. Nope, not at all.

Selling a Superfund Deal: The Right Way

It's not often in life you get a chance to rectify a mistake so readily. But I did. Several months later, the software company approached us to increase the deal size, by nearly double. You might imagine the trepidation that request caused internally.

To raise double the amount, after having a number of banks turn us down, meant we were going to have to go much deeper in the market. It wouldn't be easy.

We decided to do it, but with a big shift in approach. We led with the Superfund status. Put it out there, and directly address issues. Create a separate write-up that specifically addressed the Superfund status, the remediation efforts, and the reasons Bank of America was comfortable with it.

When I got out there and presented the deal at the prospective lenders meeting, I talked in detail about the Superfund site, upfront. Amazingly, no one got up and left the meeting. They seemed to take it in stride.

And the result? Easily got the larger deal done, and even increased its size a bit.

Lesson: Don't Be Cute

What did I learn? People aren't stupid. Treating them that way is a sure recipe to piss them off. Scoble's comment illuminates that fact.

I'm not saying openly declared ads will be welcome, but for sure trying to slip 'em in to the tweet stream is the wrong way to go. There is a "right" way to go about this advertising thing, if it's going to happen. Acknowledge people's concerns, and address them intelligently. You'd be surprised the effect that has.

Don't make your Twitter account a hazardous waste site.


Image Credit: dbking

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Hutch Carpenter is the Director of Marketing at Spigit. Spigit integrates social collaboration tools into a SaaS enterprise idea management platform used by global Fortune 2000 firms to drive innovation.

Do You Have Social Media Influence?

by Mike Myatt

Social media influence; the harsh reality is that you either have it or you don't. I'm going to tell you the cold hard truth about social media...what you need to know that most people won't tell you. While anyone can have a social media presence, not everyone possesses social media influence. It's clear to those in the know that social media is a universe of the haves and have nots. It's the difference between relevance and irrelevance, visibility and anonymity. You might have something to say, but without influence, nobody will be listening. Put simply, having a social media presence without influence is little more than an exercise in frivolity. In today's post I'll share some thoughts on the importance of social media influence in the building of personal and corporate brand equity.

The amount of influence, or lack thereof matters in all areas of life, and social media is no different. That said, before we go any further I think it's important to address social media critics and the naysayers by answering the questions: Does social media work? Is social media right for business? Can you generate an increase in revenue and brand equity with social media? How does social media compare with other mediums? Watch the video below and judge for yourself:





Okay, it should be clear after watching the Socialnomics video that social media can produce huge ROI, but only if you know what you're doing. The one thing that each of the personal and corporate brands profiled in the video all had in common is that they leveraged social media influence to accomplish their objectives. If you choose to dive into the social media world without a strategy, without understanding how to create social media influence, you will not be pleased with your results. Like anything in life, if you're going to do something, you're better off to do it right or not to do it at all.

There's nary a week that passes where I don't have a conversation with somebody who proudly proclaims that they created a Twitter page, to which I usually respond; "that's great, but why?" Don't get me wrong, recognizing the value of participating in the most powerful medium on the planet by getting in the game is a good thing, but it's an even better thing when coupled with a plan. Let me say this as clearly as I can...a ready, fire, aim approach will rarely find the target.

For all you well intended ad agencies, consultants, marketing managers, brand managers, entrepreneurs, and professionals ready to dip your toe, or your clients toe in the water that is social media, keep in mind that it does no good whatsoever to have a blog that only has one published post in the last 6 months, a Twitter page with 4 followers, a LinkedIn profile with 18 connections, a Facebook account with 7 friends, etc. It's like flashing a neon sign that says I'm irrelevant and nobody cares. It won't do anything to help you, it will only hurt you. In today's world no one wants to do business with a company that's not connected, has no influence, isn't engaged, and that doesn't get it.

While having little or no online following can easily brand you as being without influence, having legions of followers solely for the sake of amassing large numbers doesn't necessarily mean you have any real influence either. Anybody can amass tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of followers just by following as many people as they can and waiting for them to reciprocate. The important thing to understand is whether or not anything of substance or value underpins the numbers? Think about it for a moment...almost nothing can hurt a brand faster than constantly messaging irrelevance to a large constituency. Not a good move.

Who you choose to follow on Twitter, which blogs you read and comment on, who you add as a friend to your Facebook account, or which invitations you accept on LinkedIn speaks volumes about what you're attempting to accomplish online. Like most things, building and maintaining your social media footprint should be engineered by design, but the truth is that most people allow it to be constructed by default. In a perfect world you would build relationships with the largest possible universe of targeted constituents where you can productively engage and contribute. Just as you don't want to add to the noise, nor do you want to remain part of the silence. Having a relevant, highly engaged social media following means you have influence and can create action.

So, how do you start to build social media influence? The best way is to start off on the right foot by not tainting your brand or reputation. Don't begin by trying to sell something, but rather by listening, engaging in conversations, building trust, and adding value. Contribute knowledge and information to the constituencies that you want to build influence with. Become a part of them as opposed to a vendor to them...This is a difficult concept for old-school marketers to get their arms around, but a critical one nonetheless. I would strongly suggest reading two previous posts: "Shut-up and Listen" and "Stop Selling and Add Value" as support for these positions. Following are a few tips to help you build influence online:

1. Don't breach trust - you work far too hard to create a trust bond with your followers, so don't blow it by not following through on your commitments. I would also suggest resisting the temptaion to have all your communications be self-serving. Do this and you'll be viewed as just another sales broadcast. When you do sell, do it properly, and for the right reasons.


2. Don't be a jerk, hater or taker - People don't want to hear from those they don't like. If you want to build lasting social media influence you must be seen as valuable resource and not a taker of other's time, resources or ideas.


3. Have command over your subject matter - If you don't know what you're talking about, remain silent. Voicing your opinion isn't nearly as important as helping someone else refine their thinking with wise counsel. The easy rule is to stay out of conversations where you don't add value.


4. Listen and respond - If you're forcing an agenda rather than responding to the needs of your followers you'll lose any chance at creating influence. Remember that most people will go to great lengths to help someone who has been of assistance to them.


5. Publish quality content that adds value - what you produce in terms of content will be become synonymous with your online reputation. It will either serve you well, or be your undoing.

As I've espoused before, I'm not a huge fan of one-size-fits-all strategies, and this opinion holds true in regard to building your network as well. Despite countless opinions to the contrary, I've come to the conclusion that while no single 'right' methodology exists for building your online network, I regularly observe many 'wrong' approaches...

The bottom line is that you'll be successful in creating real social media influence when you take the time to seek out wise counsel, and implement an authentic approach to a well crafted social media strategy.

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Mike Myatt, is a Top CEO Coach, author of "Leadership Matters...The CEO Survival Manual", and Managing Director of N2Growth.

It is NOT who you know

Why Trust Trumps Volume

by Matt Heinz

The assumption that a big network - thousands of followers on Twitter, an enormous rolodex, a really big mailing list - directly translates into influence and performance is ridiculous. Anybody can build a big list of names.

The more important question is whether those people care about you.

• Do they respect you?


• Do they trust you?


• When called upon, will they help you?


• Will they buy from you?

The trick is translating that big list into an army of evangelists, a group of individuals who respect and trust you.

That's how to measure the value of your network. Not by sheer volume, but by trust.

Trust drives influence, and influence enables action.

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Matt Heinz is principal at Heinz Marketing, a sales & marketing consulting firm helping businesses increase customers and revenue. Contact Matt at matt@heinzmarketing.com or visit www.heinzmarketing.com.

The Right Way to do Social Media

Click above to Enlarge
by Braden Kelley

Unfortunately, more often than not I see examples of social media strategy gone wrong. So, it stands out when I see a company like Lufthansa doing social media the right way - at least with their MySkyStatus site. Let's look briefly at why this is a good execution of a social media strategy:

1. Easy to use


2. Gives the customer something of value with minimal effort


3. The value is something that people naturally want to share


4. Works just as well with the competition's product as with their own


5. Gives customer a visual idea of what they are going to get before they invest any time or effort


6. Brand impression is minimal, and no fear of mentioning the competition


7. It gives the user a choice of how much information they want to disclose

Now if we can convince the airlines that charging people for extra bags and other pointless fees are a bad idea (like Delta Airlines charging me $50 for the "privilege" of standing by for an earlier flight with open seats), then the world will be a better place.


What other examples of well-executed social media campaigns would people like to share?

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Braden Kelley is the editor of Blogging Innovation and founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.

Generating Social Leads

by Matt Heinz

Let's face it, the term 'social media' doesn't mean much. It's passive, and speaks more to the channel vs. the intent or objective of what's actually happening there.

Your customers are talking to each other. They always have. Only now, they have tools to do it faster, in real-time, and in front of everybody else. That's social media.

But social media, as we know it now, is really the new PR. It's your best channel to reach prospective customers in their current environment. You have less control than you used to, sure, but make no mistake - social media is at the top of your sales funnel.

So let's stop calling it social media, and start calling it social lead generation. At least amongst ourselves.

Today's buyers are presenting themselves to you like never before. They're sharing their interests, their needs, their feelings, their pain. They're telling you, in front of everybody else (including your competitors), exactly what they want.

It's a perfect opportunity to meet them, engage them, earn their trust and respect, and give them exactly what they're asking for.

That's social lead generation.

Don't treat it like lead generation. That runs the risk of ruining its authenticity. But as a core component of building credibility, attention and respect for your products and services, know that - in the end - what you do with this opportunity is measured by its value in engaging and creating new customers.

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Matt Heinz is principal at Heinz Marketing, a sales & marketing consulting firm helping businesses increase customers and revenue. Contact Matt at matt@heinzmarketing.com or visit www.heinzmarketing.com.

Are you turning leads into sales?

by Matt Heinz

Leads alone mean nothing.

Leads don't equal revenue. By definition, leads are just prospective buyers who haven't yet bought a thing.

Marketers get upset when their executives think of them, and their budgets, as a cost center. But those same marketers often focus on generating leads, and that's it. They don't hold themselves accountable for the sale.

What happens after the lead is what's really important. So you have someone who qualifies as a prospective buyer. Maybe that prospect has even shown interest, shared a pain that you can ease.

They still need to buy. They will still have objections. Some may buy on their own, but most need to be walked through the sale.

Smart marketers know that leads are just the beginning. They know that their job isn't really done until leads buy.

Successful marketers go beyond setting a common definition for qualified leads with their sales counterparts. They also work with sales to define stages of the sales process, and develop tools to help sales reps sell, and make it easier for buyers to buy.

The best B2B marketers think, work and execute like they're in sales, not marketing. Because your sales reps know that generating the lead is at the top of their funnel, not the bottom.

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Matt Heinz is principal at Heinz Marketing, a sales & marketing consulting firm helping businesses increase customers and revenue. Contact Matt at matt@heinzmarketing.com or visit www.heinzmarketing.com.

Seven Reasons Your Business Should Be On Twitter

by Matt Heinz

I can think of seven specific, revenue-producing reasons why most businesses should be on Twitter. If your customers are using Twitter, you probably should be to. But how, and why?

Here are seven places to start:


1. Get New Customers

What do you sell? There are prospective customers talking about it on Twitter right now. Do a search for that product or service or topic and you'll find them. Reply to their tweets, and engage with them directly as prospective new customers. Better yet, start sending your own tweets with the same keywords or hashtags (which is the keyword with a # in front of it to help others find it). That way you'll start attracting new customers to you with the same topics or products.


2. Keep In Touch With Customers & Fans

Find out which of your customers are using Twitter, ask them to follow you. Follow them in return. Share news about your business, your new products, and topics your customers collectively will care about. Reply directly to your customers & fans, and retweet their Twitter posts that would be interesting to the rest of your followers. Twitter is a great way to keep an ongoing, interactive conversation going with your customers between purchases.


3. Watch Your Competitors

Who do you compete with? They're either on Twitter too, or are being talked about there. Do searches for them directly, and you'll not only see what they're talking about to their customers and prospects, but you'll also see what their current customers are saying about them - good, bad and ugly. Not a bad way to find new prospective customers, but at minimum you'll keep closer tabs on the competition - including gleaning things you could be doing to grow your own business.


4. Announce Sales & Specials

Putting that summer line on sale? Tell your Twitter fans. Announce that anyone who retweets the discount to their own followers is entered in a drawing for free product. Send special coupons and offers exclusively to your Twitter followers (which will encourage more customers to follow you).


5. Generate Referrals

Contribute content or links that your followers will retweet to their own followers. This will drive new customers to discover and follow you. Run a contest for anyone who retweets about your business today - all new followers and those who retweet are entered in a drawing for a gift card, or free product.


6. Cross-Promote Neighboring Businesses

If you're in retail or a restaurant in particular, and physically sit with other businesses, you're in it together as far as foot traffic goes. Help promote your neighbor businesses to your followers - even if they themselves aren't yet on Twitter. The more business you help drive to them, the more they'll help drive to you - either directly or via the increased foot traffic to your general area.


7. Cross-promote Similar Businesses in Other Markets

You're a unique hotel in Seattle? Partner with similar hotels in other markets and cross-promote each other to travelers. High-end French restaurant? Do the same. Build a partner network via Twitter to quickly accelerate the volume of out-of-town traffic you generate.


What did I miss?


How are you using Twitter specifically to generate new customers and repeat business?

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Matt Heinz is principal at Heinz Marketing, a sales & marketing consulting firm helping businesses increase customers and revenue. Contact Matt at matt@heinzmarketing.com or visit www.heinzmarketing.com.

The Art of Seduction

by Matthew E May

Just a quick weekend note.

The idea behind the elegance element of seduction is very simple: limiting information creates intrigue and engagement. Why? Because not having the whole story leaves us without the symmetry we naturally seek. So our curiosity is piqued and our imaginations sparked, and off we go to chase closure.

My friend Iain Thomas of my favorite blog I WROTE THIS FOR YOU put it very elegantly in a recent note he wrote me, sharing with me of the story he heard designer Alexander Gelman tell. Says Iain:

"Alexander used the metaphor of a door. If a door is completely closed, no one wants to go inside the room because they assume that it's closed for a reason. If a door is completely open, there's no need to go inside the room because you can see what's in it already. But if you leave the door slightly ajar, you create intrigue and interest and they want to go into the room. People actually enjoy doing a bit of work now and again."

Exactly right!

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Matthew E. May is the author of "IN PURSUIT OF ELEGANCE: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing." He is constantly searching for creative ideas and innovative solutions that are 'elegant' - a unique and elusive combination of unusual simplicity and surprising power.

Start with the Why

by Matt Heinz

Too many sales & marketing messages, unfortunately, talk about "what" and "how". And at the front of the sales process, that's a shame.

You're proud of what you've built, which is great. You have six new features in the latest version, awesome. But if you lead your pitch with a description of what you're selling, or how it works, you're skipping the most important part of the conversation.

Why the customer cares.

When you write about why, you're addressing your customer's world. You're speaking their language, feeling their pain, building credibility by associating with the challenges they face. Those challenges, that pain, is what drives demand for your product or service. It's why people buy.

If your prospect doesn't have that need, or you haven't established or created that need, selling the prospect on what you have and how it works isn't going to help. You've done nothing to build value, and given the prospect no context for which to understand why they need to talk to you in the first place.

In the end, it all comes down to why. Yes, you may eventually get to a product demo and operational training of how to get started.

But the top of the funnel is all about why.

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Matt Heinz is principal at Heinz Marketing, a sales & marketing consulting firm helping businesses increase customers and revenue. Contact Matt at matt@heinzmarketing.com or visit www.heinzmarketing.com.

10 Rules for Small Business Success

I attended the fantastic first Small & Special conference one afternoon in July, with more than 100 other small business owners (some just weeks into their new venture) and several excellent speakers. The energy was palpable, and the agenda was inspiring.

It was clear throughout the afternoon that starting and succeeding with a small business involves a lot of hard work, but for nearly everyone that spoke it was a true labor of love.

Several themes developed throughout the afternoon, which I believe make up ten critical lessons or rules for succeeding with a small & special business. Here's what I took away:

1. Do What You Love (Follow Your Passion)

Fleurish was started with a $15K loan from a friend, and is now a highly-successful floral arrangement and consulting business. A gentleman whose business is laser engraving spoke at length about the history and usefulness of lasers, which culminated in a trivia contest about lasers for samples of his products. He's that passionate about lasers!

Moral of the story is to start and work on a business not because you think it's something that can make money, but because it's something for which you're truly passionate.

2. Past History, Education or Experience Doesn't Really Matter

Eric LeVine started CellarTracker.com without much experience or knowledge about wines at all. Just a growing passion for wine, and a knowledge of how he wanted to help other collectors organize their cellars. Rachel Venning now teaches sex ed in addition to operating four sex toy shops across the country, but admitted she didn't know much of anything about "that" (her word) when she started.

Others may know more than you now. But if you're passionate and willing to learn, it's your oyster.

3. Overnight Successes Take Years

The current revenue and margins for many businesses presenting today was impressive (to put it mildly). But most of those stories were preceeded by years of hard work oftentimes while still losing money or barely breaking even. Oliver Chin of Immedium spoke of hos important it was for his wife to have a "day job" to keep good health benefits for him and their two kids. Others spoke of difficult and lean early times (and early years) before they caught their stride.

If you're passionate and determined, you can get there. You just may need to be patient.

4. Be Open to New, Unexpected Opportunities

Joe Mansfield of EngraveYourTech.com stumbled upon an opportunity to do custom engraving on Moleskine notebooks. It was a new business like with hockey-stick growth until he realized the toxic PVC impact of lasering Moleskine covers. A promising, fast-growth business came to an immediate halt overnight.

Undeterred, Joe started experimenting with engraving on other media, including tech devices such as laptops and iPhones. He actively posts his new creations on Flickr, which generates significant new business on a regular basis.

Be open to new opportunities, especially when existing opportunities shrink or vanish. Your business likely won't evolve the way you think, but opportunities are everywhere.

5. You Can Start Now

Start it part-time. Several business owners spoke of doing research and starting initially during nights and weekends. Eric LeVine wrote code until the wee hours of the morning while keeping his day-job at Microsoft before deciding he was ready to take the plunge full-time.

Rachel from Babeland wrote a business plan, but really just got started. She said the advantage of "just doing it" gave her much better on-the-job learning, and better visibility into opportunities emerging in real-time. If you have a business idea or passion, start exploring it now. Do it for fun, start it as a hobby. You may be surprised how quickly you're ready to make it a full-time focus.

6. Ask For Help

Rachel had long admired a popular sex shop in San Francisco called Good Vibrations. She cold-called the founder to ask for advice, and that founder ended up serving as a quasi-advisor to Rachel and her partner as they launched and grew their own business. A successful founder helping a prospective competitor!

You'll be surprised who will help you - with advice, with their time, even perhaps with their products and services. It never hurts to ask.

7. Work With People You Love

Some speakers recommended finding a good partner. Steven Bristol from LessAccounting.com said his partner was critical to the success of the business, if for no other reason than they help each other "say no" to things they don't really need (helping them maintain focus and keep costs low).

What's more, working with people you love makes it fun! Andrew Bennett from Deneki Outdoors realized one day that he was working 50 weeks a year to spend two weeks a year doing what he really wanted. He now spends most of the year managing his fly-fishing lodges and working with people who share his passion.

8. Execute, Every Day

Jon Rimmerman from Garagiste talked about the importance of working hard, every day. You may occasionally hit a home run, but successful businesses are build from hitting a lot of singles. So, as the analogy goes, keep swinging. Keep a good attitude, keep your head down, and execute.

9. Embrace Competition

Steve Bristol loves competing against bigger brands like QuickBooks and Quicken. Competition is scary, he said, but it's important. When there's no competition, there's no market.

What's more, embrace your role as an underdog and you'll draw customers to you.

10. Focus On Your Customers

Last but probably the most important. Every single successful business speaking today not only had this as a central focus of their business, but they did it not as a proactive initiative but as a natural, critical part of doing business.

Jon Rimmerman talked about the conversation he has with his customers, not at them. He writes his wine emails (sent daily to nearly 100,000 recipients) as if he's writing a 1:1 correspondence.

Steven Bristol talked at length about the loyalty customers will have when you treat them right. Even if you screw up occasionally, loyal customers will stay with you if you treat them right. Make something people love, and you'll create long-term passionate users who tell your story to others.

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Matt Heinz is principal at Heinz Marketing, a sales & marketing consulting firm helping businesses increase customers and revenue. Contact Matt at matt@heinzmarketing.com or visit www.heinzmarketing.com.