Tag Archives: LinkedIn Answers

Guest Post, LinkedIn, Sharisax Is Out There

Saying NO is easy in “cultivated” relationships — 5th in series

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The final two “chapters” in my Saying NO series will be based on input from LinkedIn members who helpfully contributed responses to my question:

How do you say NO to a client or customer?

I’m writing a blog post on Saying NO to Customers/Clients.
Do you have any tips or experiences on WHEN to say “No” and HOW to say “No”?

The question closed with 49 ANSWERS! Several of them will be included in my final chapter, but this post features one of the early responses I liked a lot — and hope you will as well.

Saying “No” is easy

Saying “No” in an effective and constructive manner is a function of a cultivated client relationship

Guest Post by Kenneth Larson: SCORE Volunteer Counselor and Founder, “Small to Feds”

Below are two examples of frameworks for “cultivated client” relationships.

Saying “No” is addressed in Step 3 of EXAMPLE A.

It is addressed again at Step 6 of EXAMPLE B.

EXAMPLE A – CONSULTANT AND CLIENT

1. Do not promise what you cannot deliver

2. Do not overextend your resources and get a reputation for poor performance.

3. Do not tell the customer what he or she wants to hear. Tell them what they need to know. They will respect you for it.

4. Network constantly on professional sites such as Linked In. Hit the “Answers” feature and accumulate an “Expert” rating from your peers in your field.

5. Blog like there is no tomorrow. A blog is quite different than a web site. Provide good, solid information free of charge and use blog searches for synergistic businesses to team with. Teaming is an absolute necessity these days.

6. Be prepared to provide information, samples and valuable service gratis as a marketing tool. Introduce yourself and then immediately engage the client with your presentation tools available to bring your expertise to whatever topic they are interested in. Let them take you where they want to go with their concerns and their needs. Apply your presentation tools and expertise dynamically on the fly in a sincere manner to those concerns and needs and you will be in demand for follow up business.

7. Quote and bill what the client can afford and grow with him (in content and resources).

8. Be dedicated to working yourself out of a job with a specific customer and having your client take over by training him. He will remember you and recommend you to 10 others.

9. Remember growth is a function of persistence and foresight. Know where your market is headed and get their first – then write and speak about your success indirectly by helping others. Demonstrate humility and a satisfaction in helping others succeed. They will find ways to give you credit. There are ways of tooting your horn without making peoples’ lights go out.

10. Word of mouth advertising from pleased clients is a sure ticket to success.

EXAMPLE B SMALL BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT AGENCY

1. KNOW – The contract value and its ceiling amount

2. KNOW – The incurred cost to date and commitments

3. KNOW – The scope of work and whether or not your current efforts are supporting it or some other objectives

4. KNOW – The estimated cost at completion based on where you are at today

5. KNOW – Your customer and who among the customer population is prone to direct out of scope effort.

6. KNOW – WHEN TO SAY “NO” to “Scope Creep” and say it officially in writing to the contracting officer specified in your contract.

Ken’s Link:

Previous Series Posts:

Post #1: Saying NO to a prospective client may be the Best Business Move

Post #2: Avoid future problems by saying NO Now

Post #3: Investigate client/project before saying Yes — or making it a NO.

Post #4: Three main reasons to say NO to new client

Guest Post, Sharisax Is Out There

If Webinars are the Way to Go, Here’s How to Do Them

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Should you be doing Webinars? That was the question I asked last week in a Q & A on LinkedIn — and then put some of the answers into a blog post.

Then the answers kept on coming, including one from Zak Pines, COO of Avitage — a content strategy and creation firm. Zak’s specialties include Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Solutions, Marketing Automation, Lead Nurturing, and Content Marketing.

Zak suggested that I use some information from his recent article for “Chapter Two” of my look at webinars. But I didn’t want to leave anything out, so Zak agreed to let me use his information for a Guest Post.

7 ways to take your webinars to the next level

by Zak Pines

Webinars are a key component to generate compelling,  relevant content to feed your lead generation, lead nurturing and content marketing programs.

We see all too often, however, that companies take a “show up and throw up” approach to webinars, and therefore are only scratching the surface in terms of capitalizing on the opportunity.

Webinars should not be a random act of marketing or a point production, but rather fall within a webinar strategy with consistent execution and production.

1) Pre-produce the webinar:

Pre-producing the webinar greatly improves the webinar experience for both viewers and presenters. When pre-producing the webinar, the webinar will still be presented as if it’s live (it has just been pre-recorded and edited), followed by a live Q&A.  The pre-production allows for removal of any extraneous segments, and multiple takes for the presenters as necessary to deliver their messages most effectively.

This also serves to greatly reduce stress on the presenters, and has the added benefit of helping to manage the all-too-common scheduling conflicts. We’ve had two cases in the past week where presenters could not attend their webinars at the last minute (one due to a client emergency and one due to travel issues), and this was a non-issue as the webinar was already produced.

Pre-producing the webinar also greatly simplifies and enables many of the additional points to follow.

2) Create a 90-second trailer:

This can be an easy edit job from your pre-produced content. Think “movie trailer” as a way to draw in an audience – a link that can be easily posted to Twitter, YouTube and social media.

3) Create an executive version:

Edit down the webinar to create a 6-9 minute executive version. Executives are likely in your target audience but most won’t have the time to view an entire webinar. You want someone from their team to view the webinar and have something of value to pass-along. A link to a 6-minute executive summary has much more pass-along value than the full webinar, and greatly increases the chance that your webinar becomes viral.

4) Create a chapter-indexed, edited archive:

The webinar archive should not have extraneous waiting music — go straight to the webinar content for your audience. The archive should also be chapter-indexed so that viewers can easily return and locate relevant segments, and viewers that did not view the original webinar can browse the webinar archive with the best user experience.

5) Create transcripts of the webinar:

Transcribe your webinar. You can then post the transcript itself within web pages as part of your webinar archive, which will have a substantial impact on search engine indexing of your keywords.

Webinar transcripts are also a key resource for writers if you are seeding articles before or after the webinar.

6) Create a microsite after the webinar:

Don’t view your webinar as a point event -– it is an ongoing magnet for you to engage prospects. The aforementioned webinar archive, trailer, executive version and transcripts should all be housed on a microsite to further engage with viewers, give them an easy pass-along step and give you content to engage non-viewers. And if you have marketing automation in place you will be able to track the ongoing impact of your microsite at the company or individual level.

7) Edit key snippets to enable sales and nurturing:

Lastly, extract key snippets from the webinar into vignettes (flash modules) and slides that can be incorporated into sales enablement and nurturing programs. The key is to maximize your return on the webinar well beyond the webinar itself.

Has your organization used any of these techniques. What has been your experience?

Guest Post, LinkedIn

Why re-invent the wheel? Maria Marsala wrote GREAT post on LinkedIn Q & A: THX, Maria, from me & my readers :-)

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woman sculptureI was talking with my brother Chuck yesterday about how many features LinkedIn offered that so many people were still unaware of — AND one of the big ones was the ANSWERS [and Questions] section.

Chuck said I should write a post about it, and VOILA, one already written appeared in my mailbox. It would have been awhile before I was going to do it AND Maria Marsala invited readers to re-post it, so THX Maria . . . and here you all have it:

LinkedIn Answers: Proven Tactics To Get The Biggest Bang For Your Time

By Maria | October 2, 2009

If your ideal clients are on LinkedIn, then you want to be there, too. So create a keyword driven profile on LinkedIn for yourself. Complete every area possible, take a look at the apps (applications/programs) you might want to add, and you’re done… right?

Wrong.

One of the best ways to dip your feet into a community of new business owners and executives, like LinkedIn, is to ask or answer questions. ANSWERS is a community where other members ask or answer questions to learn and connect with others. When you answer a question, chances are good that people you “don’t yet know from a hole in the wall” will see your answer, go to your profile and want, in someway, to connect with you.

Being a very eclectic businessperson with a brain like a sponge I looked at LinkedIn Answers and was overwhelmed when I looked at all the questions I “could” answer.

How do you determine which questions to answer?

Many of us can answer several questions in a variety of business arenas. However, since time is money, I’m sure you’ll agree that doing so may take a few hours a day to do! What’s a business owner to do?

Prioritize. Use your Ideal Client Profile to determine which categories or sub-categories would best highlight your company and it’s services, (once someone learns about you). Example: If I looked at my company, the two main services that bring me the most amount of clients in the least amount of time are business planning and pricing. So I joined those two ANSWER areas first.
Then I joined a few others “just because” I’d like to learn more about those areas, or I have a few things on my mind I’d like to say about those things from time to time.

How do you answer questions, to connect with others who value what you’re saying WHILE not giving away your knowledge for free?

Carefully of course. You want to say enough to help the person, without giving away the bank. I use the Links area of the answers to post links to an article or resource on my website or the website of others that answers the question. I use affiliate links when I recommend a product for someone to use, too. BUT I never post affiliate links or any links “just because”. Make sure that the links are 100% meaningful to the answer or someone will FLAG you as a spammer.

With 21 main categories on LinkedIn, which questions do you answer?

Take a look at who your ideal clients are. Where would they be asking questions? What’s your expertise? Choose those categories or sub-categories.

I’ll answer questions whose answers are simple to answer, i.e. I can answer them in 1 sentence, some bullets or less than two paragraphs. Sometimes I write more than two paragraphs, but not often. HINT: If you’re continually answering similar questions because your company has answers to those questions, keep a MS Word file with your answers. Then cut/paste.

Sometimes when I view a question to answer, I’ll take the time to look at the requestors profile to see if I think they’re my ideal clients. I stay away from answering questions from students, or individuals in India, for example, because that’s NOT who my clients are. I move quickly to answer questions from women who own service businesses, independent service providers, etc. (my niche) And I will answer some questions that I feel I can contribute to when I have the time or the answer is a “quickie”.

How do you easily determine which questions to answer from the tons of questions asked each day?

First, I chose each category that I felt I could contribute my knowledge to; places of course where my ideal clients hang out.

Next I downloaded each of those categories or sub-category’s RSS feeds. To learn more about RSS feeds click this link . So the first two RSS feeds I downloaded were Business Plan and Pricing. Then I added 10 other categories or subcategories that I might be able to answer questions.

Also consider the RSS feeds for areas of business you want to do better. I’m learning so much by seeing the ideas and thoughts of others.

My RSS feeds download into OUTLOOK which keeps each of them very organized. But I can tell you that at first I was reading way too many subject lines in each category and wasted time. So much so that I just stopped answering questions.

I thought there had to be an easier way. And I found one that I use every day.

How to easily sort through tons of LinkedIn Answers each day
How to easily sort through hundreds of LinkedIn Answers each day
The directions I’m about to provide you uses a feature in MS Outlook. If you use another email program or search program, see if you can do something similar with what you use.
1. Set up the RSS feeds in all the categories or sub-categories you choose to answer to download to your email program. When you download your email, it will also download any new ANSWERS

2. Open MS Outlook. Under the RSS Feeds (small orange graphic under Outbox) you’ll find Send Items and then Search Folders

3. Right click and add a new search (we’re going to customize it) using the word LINKEDIN.

4. Listen to this training module and create a SEARCH that searches through all your LinkedIn RSS feeds for keywords you’ve deemed important to growing your business. To listen click here

5. When new ANSWERS come through the RSS feed that contain those keywords, they’ll show up in your new LINKEDIN Search.

6. Look through the LINKEDIN Search file for subject lines and if you want to answer the message, click on “view article”.

7. You’ll now be online and can answer the question.

8. AFTER you answer the question(s) you want, scan the original RSS feeds to see that you didn’t miss important keywords (and therefore questions to answer). If some were missed, go back to your LINKEDIN Search and add more keywords. If none, move to #10.

9. OR, if you end up with too many items showing up in the LINKEDIN Search, then remove or change some keywords.

10. Once you think or feel that your search is A-OK, and you’ve answered the questions you want to answer, you can delete all the questions that weren’t filtered to your LINKEDIN Search in confidence.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE, BLOG, OR WEB SITE? If you want me to change anything before you print it, you must ask for permission. And you are welcome to use it anytime in its entirety, with the following author/copyright information:

©2009 Maria Marsala, Profitability Specialist at Elevating Your Business. We provide insightful input to high-achieving women business owners looking for powerful results. Specializing in boosting the productivity, profitability and performance of their company simpler, easier, and faster! Will you be next? Visit www.ElevatingYourBusiness.com today and take our free Business Checkup.