Building Community With Social Media: RVA Chain Is Doing It Right

There’s no such thing as a free lunch, or is there?

Richmond has a very active Social Media community.  I’ve been told it’s the second biggest in the country (although I’ve yet to see hard statistics to back this up).  Many Richmond business owners have joined the conversation, but only a few are truly embracing Social Media and using it to constructively build their brand.

One such company is the chain restaurant, Arby’s, locally owned by The Restaurant Company, founded by Richard Ripp. ( An interesting aside is that Ripp also opened Can Can Brasserie located in Carytown, VA).  Upon visiting their website you can see their commitment to social media with Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and RSS feed links prominently displayed on the home page.  You’ll also notice that they ask, “Are You An Arby’s Insider?  Join our community for exclusive local savings and contests!”

So how are they fostering community outside of their website?  I became interested in them by watching what they do on Twitter. According to Twitter.com, ArbysRVA has been a member of Twitter since December 4, 2009.  They are always coming up with fun and innovative ways to engage the local Richmond community (#RVA).  For example, this summer has been a scorcher with record heat.  Recently, ArbysRVA offer a free lemonade drink to everyone if the temperature hit 95 degrees, which it has…numerous times.  Pretty sweet, no pun intended.

This week, I personally benefited from being part of their community.  Check out the conversation below:

Within three days of the last tweet, I received my VIP card in the mail, in a hand address envelope.

I asked the local company to describe what Twitter has done for business in 140 characters or less: “Social media has given us a new way to interact with our customers. It’s allowed us to create meaningful relationships and have some fun!”
So not only does social media give business owners a way to foster community and add customers, it’s actually a lot of fun.   Take a look at how well @ArbysRVA is doing:

They have a Twitter following of 1,054 and are listed on 100 lists.  That’s a pretty good community, especially when you remember they’ve only been in the game since December of last year.  Great job guys!

So, in closing I’ve got two questions:  How are you using social media to engage your community?

AND…

Who’s Hungry!?

Leveraging Success- The Online Paradigm

I have been bombarded with this concept lately, and it isn’t a new one. It’s been popping up in books I’m reading, mentioned over and over in podcasts I listen to, and mentioned by business owners I work with. It’s an idea as old as the hills, yet it’s still the topic of conversation all across the business spectrum. The concept is leveraging other successes to create your own success, and it is everywhere online.

In Eric Qualman’s book, Socialnomics, he gives one example of a facebook app created by a travel company that allows users to track where they have been and share it with their friends. Along comes a programmer who sees how it can be improved, and he creates another facebook app, very similar to the other app, and his app outperforms the first app. Then along comes TripAdvisor. They see what this programmer has done (he has almost a million users) and they want in. They offer to buy in, but the programmer’s offer is more than TripAdvisor wants to pay (the offer was $3 mil). So, what does TripAdvisor do, they hire an application developer for around $15,000 and build an even better version. As of today, TripAdvisor’s travel app, Cities I’ve Visited boasts 4,869,881 monthly active users! Imagine how much it would cost to acquire those leads in a tradition method. I’d be willing to be you’d shell out more than $15,000. Now of course there is maintenance and upgrades to the app, and costs associated with that, but the figure for acquiring the leads is still super cheap. Even if it cost TripAdvisor $100,000, that’s still only $.02 per lead!!!

This type of action is happening everywhere, and it’s happening fast. Really fast. It’s so commonplace online, that we’ve become used to it. Think about Search Engines. There was Alta Vista, then Netscape, then AOL, then MSN, then Yahoo!, now Google is number one and MSN has create Bing to attempt to recapture market share. In the future, perhaps Social Media engines will even top Google as the number one way to search the web. Each business was able to leverage success on the back of an existing company. Search wasn’t a new idea when Google came along, but Google did it better, and cut down barriers between users and what they where looking for. The concept of leveraging success is in every corner of business, online and offline. I think of it as the birthplace of innovation; or maybe it’s innovation’s point of conception.

How can you and I, as business owners, leverage success? A great way to start is by studying the success of others. By analyzing what other business owners have done, we can begin to understand what happened to make the innovation a success. I think it requires an open mind and the ability to ask the right questions. The ability to see the opportunities surrounding your company, and the ability to act when the time is right. What are other companies in your market doing that could be improved upon? What are barriers between you and your clients/customers that can be lifted to shed resistance? What are other companies outside of your market doing that can be adapted to your business to improve your client/customer’s experience?

How will you leverage success?

Technology and Testimonials

I just watched a tech documentary made from the TED conference in 2006, which doesn’t sound that long ago until you realize how long 4 years is in tech time. The idea of touch screen technology was a huge deal and going green still wasn’t main stream. Considering that the telephone was invented in the late 1800′s, we’ve come a long and the gap between the creation of technology and it’s adaptation by the mass consumer (early and late majority folks) has decreased considerably. I still remember when the Motorola StarTAC dropped around 1996 and everyone thought that thing was AMAZING. My entire town had no cell phone signal back then. Now a cell phone is much more than a phone, it’s a device that allows people to connect in more ways and more rapidly than ever before.

I was reading a blog post earlier today by Dan Patterson (here’s a link to his post) and he said something that stuck out to me:

“Look, I’m a strong believer that people – human beings – are inherently curious, inherently social, and inherently lazy. By that I mean that people want the path of least resistance between people, other people, and information.”

There is a lot of truth to that, and this is what technology is allowing us to. By default, we are reverting to the ways in which we most prefer to do things, word of mouth communication and socialization with people we like, know, and trust. It has just taken technology a while to catch up.

Now that technology HAS caught up and, in doing so, given a voice back to the people, it’s more important than ever to have good word of mouth. Enter my good friend, testimonials. I’ve talked with hundreds of business owners over the last 4 years and they all have one thing in common: their most consistently rewarding marketing is word of mouth, referral based marketing. The funny thing is, most of them have no idea how they did it, so they can’t replicate it!

Here’s a quote from Dan Kennedy, a very sharp marketing mind:

“What others say about you, your company, your products and your services is infinitely more credible than anything you can say on your own behalf. When you make a statement, it’s a claim. When your satisfied customer makes the same statement about you, that’s a fact.”

The collection of testimonials is one of THE most important things you can do to market your business, period. It’s been that way and it’s not going to change.

Think about buying habits online. People read reviews before going to restaurants, watching a movie, buying a book, buying a new phone; the list goes on and on. And they may be looking for a review on your business. Testimonials are the way to pre-sell your products and services before you even open your mouth. Now, with technology, your testimonials and what other people say about you is more important than ever.

Here are 5 ways to tap into this technology:

1. Use a Google Local Page and encourage reviews

2. Use a Linkedin Page and encourage people to “endorse” you

3. Use your Twitter account, not to sell, but to establish a community and be part of the community

4. Use your smart phone to capture testimonials on the spot. Most have voice and/or video recorders, just be sure to ask permission first. You can always transcribe the testimonial later.

5. Post testimonials to your site and refresh testimonials as you get more.

We’ve Got A System For That

Ever been amazed when something you thought was happening isn’t? Ever blow up on an employee because “there’s a system for that”? If you created a system, or even bought a system or borrowed a system, then it should be working, right? Once you have a system, you can put the plane on autopilot and cruise towards your destination of greater profits and no headaches, right?

Yeah, right…

Ok, so that sounds ridiculous. Yet so many business owners create a system once and never revisit it. It’s as though the system is a decree; “I hereby decree that this system, no matter how old, antiquated, or inadequate will be our system for doing this task until the end of time.”

Or there’s this one, “I’ve got a system (or six) for that. Why can’t you follow it. It’s right here in one of these six binders. Anyone can plainly see there is a boatload of information on that.” Again, how asinine does this sound as you read it? Yet I see it over and over again (see the picture above which is a real picture of an office with SIX different policies on the same subject! SIX!!!)

Both of these instances happen far too often, yet both are completely unacceptable. If you created your system 20 years ago, it may be time to look at it anew. Ask these questions of an old system:

1. Does it still function as efficiently as it once did? If not, why not? How could it be improved?
2. Do I have problems with this system working sporadically? Could these be resolved?
3. Are other businesses doing it differently with more success? How can I emulate that?
4. Is this system causing other systems to back up or function less effectively?

On the other hand, some businesses TOTALLY RECREATE a system every now and then and end up with 6 different “systems” for the same protocol or operation. Hmm, kinda defeats the purpose of a system doesn’t it?! Here are some ideas to avoid this pitfall:

1. If a system has some kinks that can be ironed out, rewrite the existing system. Don’t recreate the wheel and leave the old wheel laying around for new employees to be unknowingly roll out ten years from now.

2. If the system has been proven ineffective, destroy it completely and replace it with a system that works. Leaving an old, dysfunctional system around is a recipe for disaster.

People will leave your company, even the good ones, and you don’t want old renditions of your systems surfacing in your business again. They needed to be removed for a reason; having them come back could spell months of unnecessary work and could cost you big time.

Remember: The entire concept behind an effective business system is that ANYONE can use it.

One Final Thought: Everything can’t be systematized

Building Momentum and the Upward Spiral

The economy is in a tough spot. Millions without jobs, a government that bickers more than they actually solve problems, investments have tanked, banks have closed…hell, even Tiger Woods has fallen from grace. With so much negativity spinning around, it can be easy to allow your inertia to take a turn for the worse. It can be easy to become jaded and start looking outward to find blame for failures.

That’s one road to take.

Another is to Build Positive Momentum and create an Upward Spiral of success. Take even the smallest wins and celebrate them. Take one sale and turn it into three sales. Look for people who are succeeding and “hang” with them. Success begets success or the old adage I prefer, “You are who you hang with”. Instead of looking for ways to cut back, look for ways to expand. Look for new areas of opportunity that may be hiding under that rock over there. By the way, expanding and looking for new opportunities doesn’t necessarily mean spending more money, it could be accomplished by a little sumpin sumpin called networking. The power of many brains thinking about solutions to a problem is almost always more effective (except in government).

I like the word “stratification”. Wikipedia refers to stratification as “…the building up of layers. Stratified is an adjective referring to the arranging of layers, and is also the past form of the verb stratify, to separate or become separated into layers.” When you think of stratification, start to picture your business this way.

For example, is your marketing stratified? I mean, do you have layers of marketing like a website, mailers, social media, a solid name in your community. All of the elements allow you to stratify your business and help you to Build Momentum towards the Upward Spiral of success.

Do you have multiple offerings that allow you to stratify your business across different market segments, or even different demographics? You should. If you’ve only got one thing and that one thing is suddenly no longer valuable, you don’t have a business anymore. Plus, by looking at the layers of your business like this you may find ways to stratify and build momentum that you hadn’t seen before. I know I’ve had some big discoveries and helped clients have some big ones too, just by thinking about my business stratification.

So, instead of watching CNN or reading all the depressing crap in the papers, focus on your successes. Write ‘em down. Multiply them and trend towards the upward spiral. You’ll be better off for it and so will everyone around you.

-Brian

The iPhone Opportunity

Apple has created a remarkable piece of technology in their iPhone (AT&T’s service is another topic) that has allowed us to connect to the web and the world in new ways. As you may have noticed by the influx of iPhone commercials “there’s an app for just about everything” on the iPhone.

With this new technology comes a new opportunity to reach out to your customers and potential customers. Custom Application Development allows you to turn your iPhone app idea into a reality. Let’s take a quick look at how one forward thinking company is doing so profitably.

My first example is grocer, Whole Foods, who has a great (and free) iPhone app. Now you may be thinking, “yeah, but if it’s free, and it cost them money to get it developed, how is it profitable?” Good question, let me explain.

What Whole Foods has done is create a robust, user friendly app that give the user a TON of great recipes and cooking ideas based on a bunch of different categories including “Course” (Brunch, Snacks, Beverages, Main Dishes and more), “Category” (Entertaining, Budget, Family Friendly,etc) and Special Diet (High Fiber, Low Fat, Gluten Free, etc). You can target exactly the type of meal you are searching for in seconds. For example my search for “Vegetarian,Entertaining, Appetizers” yielded recipes for Homemade Hummus, Tomato Bruschetta Spread, Roasted Peppers with Marinated Feta and Greek Olives and on and on. I’m getting hungry just looking at some of these pictures.

And that’s exactly what they want. You see, they don’t only offer all these great recipes, they tell you exactly where to find the ingredients in their grocery stores! Now you can see how this could be profitable. People who already shop at Whole Foods will be more likely to buy more items as they experiment with these recipes, and people who have never shopped here will be more likely to come in, knowing that they can easily locate all of the items they need for their new recipe under one roof. Brilliant!

I think you can see the impact a simple app can have on a business.

Now take a look at your business. How can you extend your reach through a free or even paid application? How can you harness the power of this evolving marketplace, step in front of your market, and provide a service that your clients/customers may not even be anticipating? This is a provocative question which deserves your attention.

Creating a custom application can extend your reach and influence well beyond your current market, and has the power to grow virally without much promotion. It can become another tool in your evergrowing arsenal of marketing and communication firepower.

What are you doing to step up your game?

Limitation, What Limitations?

I had the pleasure of meeting Nelson Marquina, PhD today. He is doing some amazingly innovative things with lasers in the health care field.  Dr. Marquina is a physicist who once worked with NASA and has now turned his passion for the laser into a life mission.  He actually created a laser (this is what physicists do for fun) that is unlike any other laser on the planet.  He is using this “pulse laser” (which pulses at up to 80,000 pulses per second!) to treat every type of ailment imaginable at the mitochondrial (cellular) level.   These ailments include everything from muscle, joint and tendon injuries, to liver and kidney diseases, to hair loss.  He has even successfully treated patients in Peru with life threatening heart conditions which some of his peers found unbelievable.  This is truly ground breaking stuff.

Now what does this have to do with you?  Everything.  You see, Dr. Marquina has been fighting against all odds for most of his career.  He is constantly being told that he cannot achieve what he is setting out to do, even when his data conclusively proves it!  The FDA and other regulatory agencies won’t even let him preform clinical trials in the U.S., so he travels to Peru where his work is literally saving lives.

The point is, there are no limitations.  The only limitations to human achievement are those that you allow yourself to believe.  The human mind, along with willpower, imagination, determination and hard work- can achieve anything.

Think about it, before the Wright brothers flew their first airplane, everyone said it couldn’t be done.  Even close friends and relatives of the Wright brothers said they were crazy.

It used to be, if you lost a limb, you were confined to a wheel chair for the rest of your life.  But that wasn’t good enough, and now there are artificial limbs that allow amputees to run marathons and participate in competitive sporting events.  Unbelievable, the human spirit.

We’ve gone from thatch huts to skyscrapers, wooden canoes to jet boats capable of 200mph+, not flying at all to landing on the moon, the candle to light bulbs that last 5 years and up, stone tables to teraflops of information available in a matter of seconds.

There are no limitations to what you can achieve, if you put your mind to it.  Don’t have all the pieces?  Don’t be discouraged.  Build from what you have and search out other resources to help you fill in the gaps.  The important thing is to keep pushing forward.  Dr. Marquina may discover a way to fight cancer, heal muscle, joint, tendon, and ligament injuries, even fix previously irreversible spinal injuries.  But if he had given up when the powers that be told him he couldn’t do that, all of that would be lost.  The key is to persevere in the face of adversity.  See a setback as an opportunity for advancement.  Study failures to glean information about how to improve results in the future.

Be passionate about what you do, no matter what you do, and you will see that there are no limitations to what you can achieve.

-Brian Forrester

How is Trust Factoring Into Your Business?

I just finished Chris Brogan and Julien Smith‘s book, Trust Agents about a week ago. If you haven’t heard about these guys, you should swing by there blogs and check them out. A lot of business owners (maybe you included?) are wondering how the hell to use Social Media in their business.

It’s a touchy area. It can be extremely powerful if you know how to use it, and it can be very detrimental if you don’t know what you’re doing. These two guys are among many who have it figured out very well.

The largest principle about using social media correctly goes back to trust. That one little word. It’s what all businesses should be built on (along with a good product that people actually want) and it’s what social media is definitely built on.

The most important thing to understand about social media is that it creates trust (if done correctly) which can be used as a lever (a powerful ass lever) for your business. This trust must be protected at all costs, because it takes time and sincerity to pull it off.

I was talking with someone today about their take on social media and they had an interesting (although probably not 100% accurate) analogy: Social Media is like a party. You go to the party to socialize with people you like and trust, and occasionally refer them to someone you trust if it’s appropriate. You don’t walk into the party and start selling your crap. If you do, you won’t be invited back to the party. If you play it cool, you will get introduced to other people who can become valuable resources in the future. But you have to be trusted first.

If you want the real scoop on building trust through social media, read Trust Agents. The important take away is that social media is a powerful part of building trust in business. I see it getting more important, not less important. And this is one party you don’t want to be late to. But take baby steps, when you join a social media platform like Twitter, Facebook or Foursquare, sit back and watch the action before you dive in.

If you’re unsure about how to do it correctly, find someone to help. You can always contact us and we’ll put you in touch with the right people. You can get our contact info here

My Golden Rules Of Business (which mostly apply to everyday life too)

Ok, so I’m super exhausted. It’s been one of those days where my body couldn’t keep up with my brain. You ever have one of those? Of course you have. Well, I didn’t want to neglect my new baby, so I’m taking the easy way out and posting a little excerpt from a book I’m working on. I think we all need to reevaluate our golden rules of business from time to time.

Here are a list of fundamental business principles that I try to abide by at all times:

1.Offer a valuable product/service that people need/want- If you have a quality product or service that you stand behind it, AND it is viable in the marketplace (meaning people actually want or need it) then you’ve got a business idea that can work. Pretty simple concept yet so many people I know try to skip this one.
2.Know your market- This ties in with number one. You have to know what your market wants, and that changes. The big American automotive industry was building bigger and bigger gas guzzlers year after year. They were way behind other automotive leaders who understood that buyers were asking for a smaller, more fuel efficient way to get around. Now (with the help of the huge government bailout) they are playing catch up and completely revamping their marketing and their inventory to regain market share from companies like Toyota.
3.Measure- You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Always keep precise measurements and set goals with exact numbers in mind.
4.Be trustworthy- People buy from people that they like and trust. You don’t have to be best friends with every customer you have, but building trust from the start is an essential part of successful business no matter what you offer.
5.Deliver- I think every consumer has had a bad experience where they purchased something on a promise of a certain desired result, only to be sorely disappointed when the product or service failed to deliver as promised. My motto has always been to over-deliver on a promise. This is the best way to insure client satisfaction and get clients that refer for life.
6.Get Involved- If you personally oversee quality and delivery of your product and service, your employees and your clients see it, and appreciate it. Outsource the menial tasks, but stay involved with your company to stay in touch with what your market and your employees are thinking and feeling.
7.Be respectful- Treat your clients and your employees with dignity, care and understanding. Handle issues that arise professionally even if you want to ring someone’s neck! As a business owner you must always take the high road. It will pay off in spades.
8.Give back- As a successful business owner it pays to get involved with your community.

Now it’s your turn. Take 5 minutes and write down your rules of business, then share them with your staff, business partners, and mostly, every day with your clients, customers, patrons, patients…whatever. And yes, it’s ok to use some of mine if you are having a brain fart

Should You “Ctrl+A” Your Marketing?

What the hell does that headline mean? I obviously wrote it to grab your attention. Now let me earn your attention.

“Ctrl+A” or “Command+A” for you Mac users is a common key command used for selecting everything within a defined area. You literally hold down the Ctrl (Control) key and push A and you will select “all” of the contents within the area where your mouses cursor is. It’s a handy little short cut to know. So what does this have to do with me, my business or anything for that matter?

Well, savvy business owners understand that marketing helps fuel sales. They also understand that it’s never “just one thing,” meaning at any given time you should have multiple marketing channels out there generating new leads. Here’s the rub. Many times, business owners will do a bunch of stuff, all at once, without effectively tracking what is working and what is not. I call this “Ctrl+A Marketing”. You select all, and go for it without figuring out what is actually working.

This almost always is a big waste of time and money.

Just because you got sold into some ad in your local paper and the phone is ringing, doesn’t mean that ad is working. Let’s say you also have the same phone number on your website, a direct mail piece you did, and a radio ad you are running (and probably paying too much for). You have no clear picture of what marketing is working and what marketing may be draining money from your marketing budget. Perhaps that direct mail piece has generated 20 new phone calls while your newspaper ad hasn’t generated any. You see where I am going with this.

In the day to day activities as a business owner, it’s easy to get caught up and stop accurately tracking your marketing. In fact, you may have inadvertently omitted tracking your different marketing altogether. It’s O.K. I’ll forgive you this time. But let’s not let that happen again, agreed?

Instead of “Ctrl+A” style marketing, where you blast it all out there hoping that something works, I prefer “Ctrl+Click Marketing”.

For the uninitiated, holding down the “Ctrl” key while clicking precise files allows you control over which files you select, versus the Ctrl+A which automatically selects everything. With the “Ctrl+Click Marketing” attitude, you can fine tune your marketing based on what is working. If you are not noticing a return from a specific marketing piece after it has run for a while (depends on frequency but use your good judgment on how long it should run before you see a response) then can it. Conversely, if you are seeing a good return on a piece of marketing, invest more marketing dollars until you cap out on ROI. At some point, no matter how good the marketing piece is, simply throwing more money at it won’t help get you better results.

The point is, don’t assume that just because you are “doing it all” that it is all working. Hand pick the best of your marketing and cut out the filler. Monitor, track, analyze and assess your marketing. There are lots of dollars to be made and lots of dollars to be saved in that zone alone. (no rhyme intended)

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