by Dotun Adeoye on 22/11/2010
It is quite obvious that Albert Einstein is legendary. It does not matter what side of the fence you are sitting. We still talk and write about him today. The most famous of quotes from Einstein that this blog is about is quite powerful.
Developing a community for your ideas, product or services is never going to be successful if all you are doing is having a one line of action. I have witnessed many promising ideas and ventures run out of steam and existence for lack of plan B, C or D. I like the cliché ”expect the best, prepare for the worst”
The bulk of successful people in life spend a lot of time thinking, visualising and mapping out different routes and strategies about their ideas, products or services. The road to success in any business development venture is never straight.
I will share the story of my friend, Tony with you. Tony runs an IT support firm. He started out in 2001 and today has three office location and he employs around 65 people. About thirty of that number are sales people whoa are involved in business development via various means.
I had a quick coffee with Tony two weeks ago. He shared his experience in business so far with me. The bulk of our discussion was centred on the recession, how he has managed to forge ahead and even grow his business in the last three years. The secret of his growth in the face of downturn has been employing six different strategies of business development at any given time. He listed them as online networking and advertising on the right social media space, niche business networking , mobile marketing , affiliate marketing , running free seminars, collaborations and just pure old school sales.
Try the following:
1. A business development strategy for your venture
2. Three to four different plans to generate new business
3. Ensure the plans are cost effective as much as possible
4. Review your plans daily
5. Check out what is working for your competition
6. Make sure you are constantly providing a solution
7. Using a multiple approach to business development is the only sure way
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same result” – Albert Einstein
by Dotun Adeoye on 03/10/2010
It’s never easy to build, it’s always easy to demolish. We can never forget how the world trade centre collapsed on television before our very own eyes. This generation will continually remember that picture!
In friendship or business, it is always an imitation of life. Building a profitable community to achieve a continually profitable enterprise is never a walk in the park. The approach must be systematic and strategic.
What is a Social Business Community?
My simple definition for a social business community is a group of friends and associates who believe in a particular product or service to continually recommend the product or service. The community members will go as far as endorsing the brand.
Starting Point and Possibilities
At every point in the day we make contacts with new people. We also have friends, acquaintances, neighbours, colleagues and many more people we know in the real world. In the virtual world, there are many sites for making new social or business friends ; Facebook, Myspace, Bebo , Hi5, Linkedin, Twitter and many more give an opportunity to grow your own tribe.
I run groups on Facebook and Linkedin. It is amazing how it is relatively easy to attract new friends and acquaintances.
My Story
I’ve kept in touch with some of my childhood friends via facebook. Infact, I have created a group for this set of friends. I have about 180 members in this group. I haven’t really used the group as effectively as I can, however, there is a community I can always dip into.
In the last eight years, I have been involved in various online networking groups, forums and sites. Yahoo groups, Hi5 , Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and many more has been interesting sources of new business for me.
For new business communities, I focus on Linkedin and Twitter. For people non corporate type networking, I focus on the other sites.
In face to face networking, I have experienced BNI, London Chamber of Commerce, Institute of Directors, some regional chambers of commerce and many more one off events.
ABC of business source
Always keep details of every contact you meet. Make a note of where you meet them and definitely establish contact with them via email not beyond twenty four hours after the meeting. Make sure you refer to something obvious or remarkable during the meeting. Depending on the nature of the meeting, you may opt for something personal if it was a less formal meeting.
Be very focused in building up your communities. I will recommend the following:
- School friends spreadsheet
- Facebook friends spreadsheet
- Place of worship contacts
- Charity event contacts
- Face to face business networking contacts
- Business networking sites’ contacts
- Work colleagues
- Other contacts
Once all the contacts are pulled together, it should be progressed to the next stage.
Customer relationship management tools should be employed to get the best out of these contacts. For a free, basic very functional purpose, zohocrm.com is a great tool to start with. If you want to go very robust and sophisticated, ubix.com is a fantastic tool for community development.
The way you relate to your contacts will be different to the way I relate to them. You may wish to invite them to an event ; eventbrite.co.uk is very great for this or you may wish to send them a monthly blog/newsletter. Blogger.com is a free blogging site. I use wordpress, jimdo.com could also be a fantastic platform.
The steps
- Think out of the box. Make a list of the various places you frequent from your local supermarket to your church or even your place of work
- Get out an excel spreadsheet. Challenge yourself to have at least ten contacts on each sheet
- Connect to them on facebook,linkedin,twitter etc. Make a positive comment about their updates or statements
- Employ a customer relationship tool to manage the data
- Initially employ free event management tools to invite them to events
- Employ google analytics to track which of your events or contact sphere is working better
- Have a concise plan and continually revise it
I hope this will work for you as a practical way of building a social business community for your business. Will it work for you?
