Most of us have learned our business skills during a transactional period of history. When business was based purely on a trading relationship and the Suspect, Prospect, Customer model worked well in our marketing strategy.
The subtle change we are experiencing in the new Digital World can be very hard to adapt to for this reason. In all my speaking at events and conferences, training courses I have run, workshops I have been privileged to deliver, it is never the technology of the social media world that throws people, it is the new culture and philosophy of attracting Followers.
We have now moved into a world that is social. With this social world comes the expectation that you should actually care about the people you want to transact with. Think about this. Business now needs to be about delivering support and customer care BEFORE you transact, not just after.
The business model for this is extraordinary, we not have to build a cost of supporting our prospects as well as supporting our customers.
You can call this the Freemium model of business:
“Give your service away for free, possibly and supported but maybe not, acquire a lot of customers very efficiently through word of mouth, referral networks, organic search marketing, etc., then offer premium priced value added services or an enhanced version of your service to your customer base.”
I first heard of this explanation through reading Chris Anderson’s Blogs The Long Tail
Online businesses and business people are seeking ‘followers‘. People who have decided that they want to ‘sign-in’ to getting updates from the companies and individuals that inspire them. This is very powerful. a process of ‘turning strangers into friends and friends into customers‘, the brilliant journey that Seth Godin talked about in his book ‘Permission Marketing‘ which I read over ten years ago and loved.
What intrigues me is the way business people are trying to over lap their early knowledge of business and how to achieve sales onto the new models of today’s economy and the tools we now have online. Many mindsets are still transactional and so they broadcast a message as ask people to ‘tell others’ or hope that it will be retweeted across the world. I often get contacted and asked, ‘Penny, can you tell your network about this ” my thoughts always turn to ‘why would they be interested?’.
What is missing in this thought process is that to gain an advocate or a ‘follower’, which is the gold at the end of the rainbow they need to be ‘Known and Liked‘ and then perhaps, and only perhaps, they will ‘follow‘ them’. To be known takes a great deal of visibility and use of Social Media, to be Liked requires you to be engaging and interested in them through conversing within the social networking world.
But why would any one follow your financial dream or desires, as Tony Heywood so brilliantly taught the world ‘it is not about you’. He lost his job at BP for saying the famous words ‘I want my life back‘, making the ultimate error in today’s world of implying that we should care about him. I guess this statement is his legacy to the world, a moment in his life where is highlighted the need for all businesses to care only about others.
To gain followers you have to communicate a vision, a mission, a shared purpose, a dream, a goal. Something that can become a shared effort. You cannot communicate you own personal desire for money or sound remotely transactional in your desires, unless of course you are driven to build wealth for a cause.
Never assume someone should follow you, you gain real followers because you deserve them, not because you asked or you pushed. Once you have those ‘followers’ serve them, care for them and nurture them with your words and deeds, they are your biggest asset and they took time to gain, don’t lose them.
Take a look at yourself and your business and ask one thing “why should anyone else care if my business survives and is successful?” if you can see that people rely on you, your thoughts and your business for their lives to be richer, happier, improved, more fun or inspired then you have created a tremendous asset and that is the asset of ‘followers’.
If you have achieved this then I congratulate you and would like to ‘follow’ you‘.
Warm regards
Penny Power
+447771 543478
Founder-Ecademy
Supporting Business People
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