Why I'm Leaving the Information Age for Walden Pond

On Saturday, June 27, 2009, I announced my intension to leave Twitter.com for a period of one year. Some have already inquired as to why I’ve made this decision. This decision has not come easily, and I suspect that I will struggle with it for many months to come. This announcement is a result of thoughtful deliberation that has been considered for quite some time now.

So why am I putting Twitter away for a year? First, my decision has nothing to do with Twitter itself. Twitter is many things to many different people. It is a networking tool to some, a way to connect with friends for others, a way to communicate with celebrity personalities and much more. There is no arguing that Twitter is valuable in many different ways to many different people. The decision I’ve made has everything to do a personal choice to search for the simplicity of life, much like Henry David Thoreau did at Walden Pond in the mid-19th century.

Thoreau left for Walden Pond on July 4, 1845 and stated “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

Thoreau lived on Walden Pond for two years and two months, meagerly, simply, in a cabin with little more than a bed, desk and fireplace. It was his search for simplicity that captivates me and is the reason I’ve decided to experiment, here in the 21st century, not by living in isolation, but by casting the fundamental standards of another place in time, which are timeless in and of themselves, on my current situation.

Thoreau’s quest, in part, was to cast away the clutter of life, the constant chatter which prevented him from fully experiencing the moment. Will I be a modern Thoreau? No, and I have no hopes of being. Are there things in my life that are distracting me from living in the moment and understanding what life has to offer me naturally? Yes, and Twitter is one of them.

During this year, I will struggle to replace the chatter of Twitter and the hour I allow it to consume each day, with something more simple, something unique, something real, something natural. What is that? I’m not sure at this point and assume that realizing the benefits of excluding it from my life will take some time to fully comprehend.

Will there be other things that I exclude from my life? Yes. I'm removing the Internet from my phone, and am commiting myself to consuming much less of the daily drabble of news, information and the like.

I hope to have something more to share with the world, something more to share with myself. Something from Walden Pond.

Officially Unemployed

Yes, the rumors are true. I am officially unemployed. I was laid off this week as part of a workforce reduction.

Everything is fine, and I am actually relieved as I now have a great chance at a new and fresh start.

There will no ranting or raving and if I hear you ranting and raving on my behalf, I'll have to ask that you stop. :)

Everything happens for a reason and this is an opportunity to start anew.

Keep yourselves tuned to the blog, as I'll still be providing the quality content that I always have.

Later.

BB

Telling your clients' story

Most marketers spend their days pondering how they might create or solicit publicity for their companies, as well they should.

Why do you pitch? You pitch to tell a story; a story about the services and products your company offers, who you are as a company and why consumers and the enterprise should buy from you. If you recall, I stated in an earlier post that your products and services are only as beneficial as your clients perceive them to be.

If you're doing your job and reinforcing the value of these services and products to your clients, you'll generate a select few that are willing to publicly associate their name with your company.

Your marketer is NOT your chief cheerleader; it is your clients who through word of mouth can become your most successful pitchmen and women.

So why not leverage that trust and assist in telling your client's innovative story to media?

No doubt you have clients who offer innovative and consumer-oriented products and solutions. By leveraging your media relationships, you can help tell their story. Pitch the client and you're pitching yourself in the same process.

It's much like a PR agency, but can be done internally from a SMB. If you're a marketer or you employ one, start thinking about the stories you can tell for your clients.

Huddle with your business team daily

Your company's leadership should be meeting daily.

The challenges of this economy demand a close knit group of individuals similarly bonded by strategic goals who work toward the successful completion of those goals on a daily basis.

Enter the Daily Huddle.

What would a football team be without a huddle before every play? They wouldn't win very many games.

The purpose of their huddle is to plan the next move, make sure everyone is on board and everyone is syncing on the same page.

Why would it be any different for your business?

Why not spend five minutes a day, gathering together, discussing your schedules for the day, relaying obsticals your face in completing certain tasks or goals, and reviewing important metrics?

This is the huddle format. "Huddle" daily and your business will benefit all the more.

Reinforcing your service value: Recall, remember, reinforce, and then repeat

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the value of retaining your current clients and the cost of losing them to a competitor.

Fact: it costs two to three times more to find a new customer than to keep an existing one happy.

A common problem that businesses encounter is that they provide services to their clients so well that clients often forget the value of the services being provided to them and eventually begin to wonder why they’re paying you.

Most businesses fail to find ways to reinforce the value of the services they provide to their clients. This can be a fatal mistake, especially given this economy. Your chief challenge in this economy is protecting your current client base and guarding them as if you were secret service and they’re the president. Hold down the fort, reinforce your value and you’ll largely destroy any chance of attrition.

If you’re doing a great job and you know it, your customer may have a differing opinion. YOUR opinion of your services doesn’t matter. Your services are only as valuable as your customers believe them to be. It’s a completely subjective mindset and you have a key opportunity to influence their thoughts by reinforcing your value.

Part of the onboarding process, the process of setting up a new account, which is often forgotten, is to capture the reasons why the client has chosen your services over your competitors. First you must understand what your customers value the most about the services you provide and documenting internally why they bought from you instead of someone else. These buying decisions can be used to directly reinforce your value as your relationship matures.

Most competitors are cutting their costs and rearranging their pricing structure. You clients that are lured away from you because they can get a similar service for a bit less are usually a direct result of your failure to reinforce the value of your services. In today’s market, saving a few bucks is trumping peace of mind, at least in more instances than usual.

That’s why it’s more important than ever to reevaluate your clients’ buying decisions and ensure your services to them are meeting those initial needs.

Recall, remember, reinforce, and then repeat.

Failing to calculate risk during a recession

My father is in the golf course industry. He’s a superintendent and his course recently underwent a change in ownership.

I don’t have to tell you that the golf course industry, or entertainment industry at large, is an industry prone to suffer during an economic recession.

Some guys bought the course, threw every dime they had into purchasing it and now have no additional capital. They can't cut prices to lure in golfers, they can't pay for a promotion and can barely pay to fix critical equipment when needed.

Some say, why buy a golf course during a recession? I would answer, if managed and marketed correctly, why not? What if Disney, founded during the 1923 recession had said “nah, forget about it”? What if HP, which began during The Great Depression had balked? What if Bill Gates nixed the idea for Microsoft during the recession of 1975?

What did these three entities have in common? They had a plan. Entrepreneurship is reserved for those that can see surviving not only through times of economic uncertainty, but also beyond. Like the old saying, failing to plan, is planning to fail.

Just gathering the capital you need to invest in a business and throwing every penny into becoming a partner is a key example of poor planning. You leave yourself with no room to invest in infrastructure, invest and continue maintenance and more so, no capital to market the business.

Marketing, especially during times of economic uncertainty, is the key most often overlooked by businesses today. The idea that you have to spend some money to make some seems novel to some, yet still folks are buying or investing in businesses and once they become part “owner” they believe their work is done. It isn’t until there’s no additional capital to execute promotions or invest in new enhancements to service until they realize the real work starts.

They find themselves in the middle of a high stakes game of Texas Hold’em wondering how the heck they’re going to explain to their spouse they lost the shirt on their back.

It’s never a wise choice to buy or invest in a business without a plan, it’s actually incomprehensible. There’s nothing wrong with risk, but it must first be calculated and planned for.

Knoxville media and Twitter: New Meets Old

Traditional media (print, television and radio) in the Knoxville market don't get it. Social media that is.

I've watched over the past six months or so as these outlets have struggled to build some sense of relevance on Twitter specifically.

News Sentinel

The region's major print publication, the News Sentinel (knoxnews.com and @knoxnews) uses its Twitter account as a news feed but fails to capitalize on creating and fostering conversation with those following the paper.

Instead, Twitter users interested in fostering a conversation with the Sentinel must look and search for individuals associated with the Sentinel who may have separate accounts. There are a few.

@jacklail is actually doing the best of all. Jack also has a blog that's pretty informative. He's the news director for innovation at the Sentinel. It's his job to be on Twitter. Good job Jack, now get your staff (editor, publisher and columnists specifically) to sign up.

Specifically disappointing is the absence of Twitter accounts for News Sentinel columnists who are traditionally known as the most opinionated associates of print publications.

ABC, CBS and NBC Affiliates

The three major television affiliates perhaps struggle the most.

The NBC affiliate has a couple of reporters and staff Tweeting and I expect, as the most progressive of the three networks, they'll catch on soon enough. (Disclaimer: our company @clarisnetworks serves as tech contributors to the NBC affiliate). They'll catch on because I'll help them.

The ABC affiliate can't be found. Period.

The CBS affiliate has a few folks using Twitter accounts but fails to use those accounts to foster and create conversation. Again, these accounts are more robotic news feed than anything else.

Radio

I can't really place blame on radio outlets, mostly because they haven't even tried to enter the social media arena. I guess the thought process is better to not try at all if there's a chance you'll screw it up.

The major broadcast company in the region, Citadel Broadcasting which owns WIVK 107.7 (the nations most popular and award-winning country music station), WNOX NewsTalk100, and WNML The Sports Animal, has no presence on Twitter.

What’s the Deal?

It may be that social media tools are just too new at the moment. Some organizations, specifically media, worry about privacy rights, getting scooped or their employees using social media tools screwing up and saying something they shouldn’t. Mostly, it’s a fear of change. It’s a reluctance to admitting the way people communicate and consume news is changing dramatically.

Most media outlets also aren’t aware of the benefits of social media tools like Twitter. Check out what Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) has to say about the matter http://www.chrisbrogan.com/newbies-guide-to-twitter/.

Two Recommendations for Traditional Media Using Social Media Tools

1. Don't expect results if you use your account as a news feed. We can visit your Web site. Plus, it's robotic and gives folks a false sense that they can start a conversation by at-replying or direct messaging your account. Truth is, you're not checking these accounts (@knoxnews, @wbir, etc).
2. Encourage your hosts/anchors to sign up for individual accounts. Use social media conversation and feedback as a source for creating more informative stories and pieces. Follow Rick Sanchez's lead of CNN (@ricksanchezcnn). Rick's got it down to a science and his show is 100 percent better for it.