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Book review: Selling without selling

Without being a sales person or having any professional trace in this domain, I found a couple of inspiration for my daily professional, academic and even personal journeys in this book Selling without selling. The title in itself is an invitation to open the book and I didn't wait too long until I lost myself for a couple of hours into the comfort of my couch.

Don't expect nothing spectacular from this book. There are many simple reminders we have to deal generally in our social life: control the body language, keeping a medium to high level of social interactivity, use a positive vocabulary, think and observe twice before intervening in a conversation, care and relate to your audience. It might be easy and at the beginning of the book I was about to leave the lecture as convinced that it is nothing new I will learn out of it. But, in fact, although there were well-known ideas and practices, I realized that I didn't use them in a coherent way. Or that despite the fact that practicing some of the advices, the connection with other aspects of my PR and communications activities are rather superficial.

Overall, an easy but useful lecture for a lunch break or for a cloudy Sunday morning!

Review and win!

This is a very interesting post about the role of online review for increasing the visibility of your business. Of course, it is always a risk - as for example, to do not read permanently nice words about you - but what it is the most important is to be visible and to make people talk about you. And, remember, they are doing for free - no need for special budgets dedicated to ads. Just be creative and you'll win - credibility.

Related articles

• Review: So many coupon sites, so little time (AP) (cash-bandit.com)

About blogging, travel and good marketing

I enjoyed a lot this interview, with a successful blogger passionate about what he is writing about.

From my point of view, doing what you enjoy is the first step to success. Of course, you need lots of effort, passionate dedication and as much time as possible.

Just plant the seeds, take care of the tree and wait.

Lesson of the day: How to use 5 minutes for your best

Very good early morning article, via Harvard Business Review.

Skype's next move

Offices and cellphones?

Six Social Media Trends

Image via CrunchBase

The last weeks of 2010: time for evaluations and predictions.

Here is one of them, about Six Social Media Trends.

As for me, I will bet a lot on Foursquare like networks, in terms of increasing profits and creating content and targeted relationships. In terms of innovation, I am sure there will be a couple of small but long term ideas that will orient the more and more intricated networks for turning them into smart tools - for consumers and users and companies - taking into account the feed-back offered by the users themselves. I am curious what Google will offer in this respect.

Here is another interesting article I've read today, about the limits of the Facebook-based activism, by Malcom Galdwell. All we need: people able to use the content and the opportunity of the network. The 2.0 citizen is on the run for the moment.

Related articles

• Trends for Companies Searching for a Social Media "Something" (cloudave.com)

The relationship with the client

Image via Wikipedia

Preparing for the evaluation of my last three intensive years in various kinds of PR, I reached a couple of conclusions regarding the importance of the relation between the agency, respectively the consultant, and the client. In many cases, for not clearly and rational reasons (the empathy being very important), it may happen that the client is not only very demanding, but also unpredictable and not very clear in formulating the requests.

I do not think it is a universal receipe to win the hearts and minds of the client - meaning the whole mechanism governing a company, from the CEO, PR manager, marketing manager, other consultants. But, a conflictual relation is at a great extent detrimental to the well being of the project as such. A pro-active attitude, tolerance and the capacity to impose self-respect could be some tips for solving such conflicts - personality or education based.

Here are some of the musts a consultant or a PR agency have to do in relation with the client:

- To know the project working to in the smallest details, by heart in every moment of the day. Only in this way you will be able to size possible opportunities of intervention on behalf of your client or to find media or communications windows. When you talk with a journalist, for example, you can identify the possibilities of better promoting your client or to create sympathy lor awareness for your projects.

- Before starting the effective work to a project, take a couple of days to document. Ask the friends and the enemies, the former clients and agencies. Ask internal documents and read media reports step-by-step.

- Be able to identify what do you need from your client. Maybe he or she is not having the knowledge of working with the media and don't know what questions the journalist could address or the pressure faced for meeting the deadlines.

- The client is busy and don't waste his time with hundreds of e-mails asking thousand of questions. Be concise and organized enough to address all of them once and in the simplest possible way.

- Deliver finite products to your client. Avoid misspellings, omissions, bad grammar. Check the documents over and over again. Document your presentations and make them reader-friendly. Power Point management is very important.

- Deliver the documents in time. Respect your deadlines, the deadlines of the media and the deadlines of the client. If not possible, explain in due time the reasons and the next time schedule you can meet.

This is my wisdom pill for today. Happy working.

Related articles

• New Survey: Clients Value Flexibility, Senior Counsel of Boutique PR Firms (eon.businesswire.com)
• Brands Should Focus On More Than Just The Size Of Their Fanbase (customerthink.com)
• Five Things I Learned On The Client Side (crenshawcomm.com)
• When Clients Want "The Truth" (pr-squared.com)

Suggestions for December presents

Image via Wikipedia

Incredibly or not, we are approaching rapidly the end of 2010. Time for evaluations, promotions, parties and, very important, for connecting with the human side of our clients and supporters or potential customers and business connections. Sending personalized e-mails or cards, inviting them for informal dinner or directly calling them for sharing with them the best wishes for the next year.

It is very important that these presents have connection with our domain of activity. We are consolidating our position, our identity, we share our loyalty to the values we are sharing. All these presents have to be personalized and share the logo of the company and a letter signed by the general manager.

If you are, for example, active in the area of IT, you can create a calendar with significant pictures from the industry, sending the message of your identity. Or, if you are part of the automotive industry, to create gadgets as small cars with your logo, or agendas.

Don't forget your own employees. Personalized agenda or calendars for internal use sharing working moment - celebrating the ceremony of receiving a prize, shotings from the weekly meetings or funny quotes of your colleagues, may create a certain internal cohesion and give the idea of the big family you are part of.

And, of course, never forget about the yearly casual gathering. Beyond work, you need to have some fun - a dancing party, attendance of a concert, a two-day trip in a mountain resort with your family - are some suggestions for saying a decent good bye to 2010 and preparing to face the challenges of the next 12 months.

Related articles

• Amazon Lets Users Send Gift Cards Via Wall Posts, which Recipients Must Redeem through Facebook (insidefacebook.com)

Consumers will share everything

The trends for the next decade, by Lisa Gansky, via Forbes.

What social media contact would you put on your business card?

A good question, I didn't figure out, even I prepared a new pack of 100 business cards only one month ago.

I will not put my Facebook, as it is mostly designed for friends, relatives, acquaintances, not exclusively for business purposes - despite the fact that I am posting many links and conversations of professional interest. I will mention, for sure LinkedIn, my blog and, last on the list, the Twitter account - even here I mixed many personal interests with the professional ones. A lot of space, isn't it?

Creative thinking

Why the businessmen would need arts, other than as part of their investments? Is, for example, the direct experience of painting useful for a financial accountant? Why an investment in arts might be desirable as part of the professional career? A possible answer is the possibility of developing new skills and looking for better sources of innovation and knowledge management. Thinking the business as a design to be improved, tested and experienced, combining creativity, the courage to think outside the box and the interest to know and better use your knowledge. A good lecture for the start of the week or for the beginning of a new way of way of thinking. Any start is challenging and it is always up to us to face the challenge of something new every day.

My new interest: the start-ups

So, let's start reading something.

Essential Tips for your Business Plan

Or how to better use your words to offer tailored content.

Top Five Social Media Mistakes

of companies. I recognize all of them in the ways in which the business environment is approaching social media. But, even hard to believe, it is not a game or, if considered so, it costs more and more.

Freelancing success

Again about ideas gathered at a webinar, the last week, with Eric Butterman, about "Freelancing for more money".

So, there are:

- first of all you have to be very organised - the first advice in any kind of success-driving activities: schedule carrefully the working days and the time for making your documentation and the interviews. Whatever great writer you are, without a proper organisation you will fail (mostly in our current world, when speed is one of the successful key-words).

- technically speaking, be prepared to be contacted and to be in touch with your editors: available internet connection and phone

- be able to communicate efficienty with your editor: concisely and with enough content for rising the interest

- identify what kind of subjects you gonna cover. According to Butterman the most popular topics are: health, entertainment, business, technologies, travel

- be able to slice your subject and to find possible further developments, up to the various target audiences of the media you want to write for. Diversify your sources and angles and be able to get easier a lot of articles - and money, of course.

- exercise your pitch-writing capacities

- start promoting yourself - create your own clips, make a website, even be ready to contribute for free for various platforms

- if you do not have too many - or at all - assignements, you could choose a transition period to your freelance life, during which you will test your capacities and your chances.

And, good luck!

Twitter for businesses

A couple of new features, designed to deserve the business interests are to be released by the end of this year. Some of them, as the "verified accounts" options is already accessible. What I am wondering is why this business orientation was so much delayed, as for a very long time Twitter is an important tool used for business and having an account here is a must for various companies, bigger or smaller.

How to use

Google Places for business purposes.

The impact of social media on businesses

The beginning of the conversation.

Writing for businesses

could be more than a monotonous boring show-up of words. Good to know, good to think about this. And, I faced this situation in many cases as needed to convince my clients that trying to have open messages and interesting messages do not diminish at all the level of seriosity and the sober image of the company. Sometimes I won, sometimes not.