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What I Learned This Week – 6/12/2010
by Jamie Gorman on June 12, 2010
Another great week of weather and business. If you are willing to listen and reflect there are always oppotunities to learn.
Who Cares?
A great tip came from Asha Sedalia Bruot of ASHA Public Relations during a MAPS committee meeting this week. When preparing to write your next press release, ask yourself “Who Cares?”. Her point was that choosing the right audience is a must in deciding what to write, how to write and which media channels might be interested. The upcoming MAPS (Marketing, Advertising and Public Relations Strategies) Conference on September 22nd will be focused on developing a good public relations strategy – more to come!
“Customer Service” should always be top of mind
Kris Johnson of the PWCGM Chamber shared a story at Friday’s MB3 breakfast that we can all probably relate to. She was calling a relatively new member to offer a sponsorship opportunity and was deep into her explanation of the benefits of this particular sponsorship. The member gently interrupted and jokingly said, “Oh, you’re calling to sell a sponsorship, I thought you were calling to thank me for membership and see if all is well”. Knowing Kris and her record of customer service, she surely recovered and impressed by the end of the call. Her point was that we can all learn much more about customer service Wednesday at the Insight Series Luncheon “Customer Service” , with guest speaker Bobbie Walker, Partnership Marketing Education Director for Virginia Tourism Corporation, but this was a quick reminder for me. Everyone says that repeat business is the most profitable, but make sure you have successfully delivered on the previous sale before launching into the next!
Gas Mileage, Gravity and Centrifugal Force
I learned this week that a late model Toyota Avalon can go from Warrenton, VA to the PWCGM office in Manassas, then to the Western Chamber Office in Gainesville and finally to the Sheetz in Haymarket with the orange gas light on. In further news, on that same day I learned that a well placed gas cap wedged between the rear windshield and the trunk will last against wind and centrifugal force from the Sheetz in Haymarket to Warrenton and that 2 of 5 people on the road will take the time to slow down and try to point that out to a motorist on a cell phone. And for those kind people – Ok, ok, I know now what you were trying to tell me! Thank-you!
Shout Out!
News and events on the friends of SigmaBiz
Happy Birthday and Happy Anniversary to my little sis Kristy MacIntyre and her husband Jamie at MacIntyre Engineering! Congratulations to the “Rev Man”, Scot Small of RevBuilders who hosted a wonderful Grand Opening at his new office in Gainesville this week. I heard that Chow Now was featured in an article in an upcoming Flavor Magazine – looking forward to reading that. My daughter Jessica Gorman finished a summer semester of classes in France this week, with flying colors I’m sure. Way to go Jess! And finally, a big Sigma Shout Out to all the recent graduates of Leadership Prince William “Third is Superb” class. I hear nothing but great things about this program and they are currently recruiting for the next session. Congratulations!
Posted in Blog, Business Networking, Leadership and Management, Marketing and Sales, Online Marketing, What I Learned This Week
Tagged business, classes, culpeper, development, education, elevator, email, free, gainesville, groups, haymarket, learn, management, manassas, marketing, networking, online, optimization, prince william, sales, seo, small, training, Virginia, warrenton, web
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What I Learned This Week – 5/22/2010
by Jamie Gorman on May 22, 2010
One of the best things about educating small business owners is that many times you get to learn right along with them. The “YouTube: Grow Your Business with Online Video” class we hosted with Abe Erickson was a great learning experience for me – Abe presented a great segment on shooting online video with a shoestring budget. We will probably repeat this class in July.
Speed and Accuracy, Serving Customers
The first lesson comes from Andy Budd of Country Chevrolet as he presented “Exhilarating Customer Service” as part of the Greater Warrenton Chamber Series, “Accelerating Your Business Out of the Recession”. Andy covered a lot of great points but what hit me were his two most important things; Speed and Accuracy. Do it fast and do it right! When it comes down to it, delivery is the best way to satisfy customers and doing it fast and doing it right are a great place to start. That must be why the Corvettes are out front down at Country.
Your Customer Book, Communicating Value
A struggle for many in the service sector, especially those who provide continuing services, is to constantly remind customers of their value and not be taken for granted. Sandie Barkeit, owner of Deer Park Cleaning, in her effort to ensure open communications with her customers places a notebook at each customer site. The notebook lists out all tasks agreed in the contract and each one is checked off by the member of the cleaning team that completes it. This way, customers who work during the day can check that things were cleaned per the contract at night and leave notes. It also serves as a reminder to the customer of the work that is being completed while they’re not there to observe. If you provide continuing services to customers, how are you ensuring customers are periodically reminded of your value to them, what is your book? Thanks Sandie for a great presentation at B2B Networking in Gainesville this week!
Shout Out
News and Events on the Friends of SigmaBiz
Kenna Cuomo, owner of Kenna’s Cookies was featured on WUSA Channel 9 news making her shortbread cookies. Click here to see the video. Kenna, we’d love to hear the whole story – please leave a comment. BB&T’s new Heathcote Branch in Haymarket, VA was a top performer last month. Branch Manager Amelia Stansell and her crew are doing a great job serving the community and especially their small business customers. They also have cookies and coffee in the lobby! Prince William – Greater Manassas Chamber Excellence in Business Awards on Tuesday, Greater Warrenton Chamber May Member Luncheon on Wednesday and “Business Networking for the Non-networker” free class at Sigma College of Small Business on Tuesday evening. Have a great week!
Posted in Blog, Marketing and Sales, What I Learned This Week
Tagged business, classes, culpeper, education, free, gainesville, groups, haymarket, learn, management, manassas, marketing, networking, optimization, prince william, social, VA, Virginia, warrenton
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What I Learned This Week – 4/10/2010
by Jamie Gorman on April 10, 2010
What a great week of weather, business and family!
Molly’s Rule – “You MUST be present to win!”
While announcing the door prizes at events for the Prince William County – Greater Manassas Chamber, Chairman Molly Grove frequently reminds us – “You must be present to win, that’s my rule”. It hit me this week that this is not only a good door prize rule, but a great networking rule. To get the most out of a chamber of commerce or any networking group, you must attend, engage and participate. If you aren’t willing to “be present to win”, the networking opportunities will pass you by, and this is just as true with online social networking. Thanks Molly for reminding me of this networking fact!
YouTube Video Benefiting You Even More
Abe Erickson of Ugly Chair Productions sat down with me this week to discuss a joint class on using video in your marketing strategy (more info in the weeks to come). He mentioned a blog entry he was working on that described how, Google owned, YouTube is now transcribing the audio from YouTube videos, primarily for accessibility for the hearing impaired. However, another resulting benefit is that it provides text based content for search engine indexing – and any SEO expert will tell you “text is king” when it comes to search engines. This makes video an even more important part of your online strategy. Read more on Abe’s blog.
Exclusive: Abe also let me in on a new video production package Ugly Chair is developing where they will produce a 3 minute intro video for your business for less than $300. WOW! I’ll keep you posted on availability as I know.
- Jan’s Insurance Jeopardy!
Business Sign on Car =
Commercial Auto Policy
Jan Sutton of Farmer’s Insurance gave a near perfect demonstration of an effective way to use your “10 minutes” at the Piedmont Professionals. Insurance Jeopardy! was interesting, educational and most importantly, it gave Jan an opportunity to build credibility and point out some things that will help us all identify potential referrals for her. Great job Jan in making the BLAH, BLAH, BLAH a RAH, RAH, RAH, and thanks for the lesson. Don’t be surprised if I use this example in my next class.
Shouting Out!
Amelia with the #33 Car
News and Notes on the friends of SigmaBiz
Thanks to the Prince William County – Greater Manassas Chamber for adding Jessica Melander to the team! Jessica is hitting the ground running, making an already great team even better! Vince Buono and Costco in Manassas, VA will be hosting the Business Before Hours on Tuesday morning (4/13). Food, networking and early bird shopping – even for non-members. It’s free, so see you there and bring a guest. Amelia Stansell and her BB&T Heathcote Branch in Haymarket, VA hit a home run yesterday at the Grand Opening Celebration (see pictures). Thanks for the hospitality and all the people who came by to bank and help celebrate. Haymarket Earth Day on Saturday 4/17 – fun for the whole family and there are still sponsorship opportunities. Marketing on a Shoestring – I’m teaming up with Scot Small of Revbuilders and the Greater Warrenton Chamber of Commerce to present “Marketing on a Shoestring” Thursday morning, 4/15. We’re gonna put out some great info. Scot Small is also presenting at the “Business Making a Difference” Luncheon on Wednesday 4/14, hosted by 89.9 and 90.5 Virginia’s Positive Hits.
Posted in Blog, What I Learned This Week
Tagged business, classes, culpeper, education, elevator, free, gainesville, google, groups, haymarket, learn, management, marketing, networking, online, optimization, pitch, prince william, small, video, Virginia, warrenton, web, youtube
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Refining The “Elevator” Pitch
by Jamie Gorman on February 22, 2010
“What do you do?” We’ve all been there. It happens at those business networking events, business meetings and even at our family and social events. What do you say and how long do you spend saying it. Depending on the situation we may dive into our well rehearsed pitch with tag line, give a short one-line answer or just start talking only to stop when we are interrupted or alone.
The thought of the elevator pitch is that you should be able to convey important information about yourself and your company in less than a minute – the estimated time that you would be on an elevator with a prospective customer. The value of the elevator pitch is that in less than a minute you clearly communicate the value you provide (not a list of products) to that customer and establish a path for further communication. It seems simple and yet many of us, on a daily basis waste our moment in the spotlight because we don’t connect value to customer need in that short time.
Tuesday evening, 2/22/2010, we will be presenting a free class titled “What’s Your Business? The Art of the ‘Elevator’ Pitch” to walk through how to create and deliver a powerful one minute brief for your company. Here are a few tips that we cover in the class in greater detail:
- Know your value – the first step is to identify what value you and your products bring to each potential audience. What is in it for them if they buy or recommend your product.
- Define the audience – the message is different for each audience. Be prepared to address the person you only meet once differently from the networking group you see each week or a buyer differently than an influencer.
- Suggest a follow up – depending on the situation and your product the follow-up may range from an invitation to lunch to just an invitation to visit your web site. Either way, open a door for a future communication so you can start building that relationship.
- Listen – especially in those one-on-one initial meetings. Listen to what they do and what they need so that you can relate your value directly their needs. You may be better off spending 15 seconds giving your name, company name and arranging follow-up, then giving them your 45 seconds so that you can listen and be better prepared for the follow-up.
- Don’t talk too long – keep it short. Get to the point. In most situations people didn’t come just to listen to you, so keep it short and then arrange follow-up to get into details.
Many of us struggle in networking situations and that initial intro is always a bit awkward. Creating a mix of “elevator” pitches that we can draw from will help. If you belong to a networking group or have somebody who will give you honest feedback, ask for it and use it to improve.
Posted in Blog, Marketing and Sales
Tagged business, classes, education, elevator, groups, marketing, networking, pitch, sales
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Subscribe! Part 1
In our Network@Noon at the Western Office of PWC-GM Chamber discussion this week the topic was “RSS”. For those who don’t know, RSS or “Really Simple Syndication” is an easy way for anyone to syndicate their online content. Just like syndicating a radio show, syndicating a blog or other online content means that many others can subscribe to the content. So it really is just a method for distributing, receiving and managing online content.
Visit Subscribe! Part 2 for a step-by-step guide to subscribing.
Here’s how RSS works, well close enough
When a web page is designed there is code that allows the page to be syndicated so that others can subscribe to the page or site. As a subscriber they can now receive updates in a number of ways – email, browser, social media and through special “reader” apps. There is nothing else required really, any time the site is updated it automatically “feeds” to you so you can read it, and then comment. There is of course a few technical details I’m leaving out, but you probably don’t really care about them.
Here’s why RSS is important
Let’s say I’m interested in 5 different news sites and 10 blogs for my industry. The news sites post daily and the blogs post new content twice a week on average. Without a subscription service I would have to go to all 15 sites independently to see the latest posts, and most of the blog visits will be a waste of time because they only post twice a week. Now, let’s say I subscribe to all 15 sites and have them feed new content to my web browser. Each time there is an update to one of these sites it will show up in the “RSS Feeds” area of my browser. Instead of going to 15 sites, most of which have no updates, I can now see and read all the updates in one place without actually visiting the independent sites. More importantly, you’re audience can subscribe and be notified every time you update!
But, how are you using it in business?
A great question raised by Jim Aram of Advantage Physical Therapy.
Every expert in social media will tell you that it is important to interact with your online network. One critical part of this is to comment on the blogs of those people in your network. Using a subscription service let’s you track a large number of blogs and easily monitor topics that you want to comment on. In fact, even if you just have a web site and haven’t done anything else with social media, commenting on blogs is an easy entry point. Pick a few blogs in your industry, among your friends, vendors that you use, and even your personal interests. Subscribe to these blogs and then set aside a little time each week to monitor and comment. The “bloggers” will be encouraged and you will start to build trust and credibility with your online network, before you even get into your own blogging, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn efforts.
In Subscribe! Part 2….
We’ll walk through how to actually subscribe to a blog and the options available for managing your feeds.