Relationships Matter

That's the LinkedIn tagline. I started on LinkedIn last year and while I cannot say it has changed my life, it has provided a neat interface to stay in touch with colleagues who I don't see every day. Sure, we get jealous (or confused) sometimes when we see that someone has 500+ connections (who are these people?). The major complaint I hear about LinkedIn is that if you are not consistently using it (for recruiting purposes, say), you tend to forget about the service and therefore not check in very often.

So, from Guy Kawasaki, one-time Apple evangelist, author of Art of the Start, and currently an active venture capitalist in Silicon Valley, here is a link to one of his most popular posts: The Top Ten Ways To Use LinkedIn.

At the beginning he rattles of some very interesting statistics so don't forget to scroll down to see the complete list. Did you know...

• The average number of LinkedIn connections for people who work at Google is forty-seven.

• The average number for Harvard Business School grads is fifty-eight.

• People with more than twenty connections are thirty-four times more likely to be approached with a job opportunity than people with less than five.

• All 500 of the Fortune 500 are represented in LinkedIn. In fact, 499 of them are represented by director-level and above employees.
  

Let's Do Luntz

The Principles are everywhere, just face it.

Frank Luntz – celebrity U.S. pollster and enemy of lefties everywhere, credited for coining the term "Healthy Forests Initiative" for policies by the Bush administration that favor expanded logging by the logging industry – is the author of a new book, entitled: Words that Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear.

Now if you don't know Frank Luntz, here's an intro, courtesy Wikipedia:

Luntz is considered a master of the art of political propaganda, and his use of language has led to his career as what is termed a "compliance professional," someone who uses whatever means may be at hand (propaganda, marketing, polling, sales, politics) to induce the compliance of a target audience.

Glancing at the reviews on Amazon, it's no mystery that Luntz is a truly polarizing figure. As one reviewer writes: "Luntz offers insights into finding and using the right words to achieve your goals. The key to communication is to place yourself in the listener's situation and understand his or her deepest thoughts and beliefs. What the listener perceives constitutes the listener's reality." Another reviewer asserts the only reason to buy the book is to burn it.

In brief, Luntz recommends the following 11 rules for effective communication, and I've added a a notation next to those rules that directly invoke Dr. Cialdini's Six Principles of Persuasion.

1. Use small words
2. Use short sentences
3. Credibility is as important as philosophy
   {Principle of Authority}
   
4. Consistency matters
   {Principle of Commitment and Consistency}
   
5. Novelty: offer something new.
   {Principle of Scarcity}
   
6. Sound and texture matter.
7. Speak aspirationally.
8. Visualize.
9. Ask questions.
10. Provide context and explain relevance.
11. Visual imagery matters.

Full disclosure: When I was at UPenn in the 90's and just prior to his ascent of the Republican party political machine, Luntz was one of the Annenberg School's most popular professors. His legion of followers were called Luntzheads.

Web 2.0 and the Principle of Consensus

Do you remember when the web was just a series of lists and pages and it was up to you (or some people you trusted) to wade through and separate the worthwhile from the useless, the sacred from the profane? It was rough, I know...

Then Google came along with a new algorithm and transformed the architecture and organization of information. In its footsteps, user-generated content (one of the underlying notions of web 2.0) became not only possible, but mainstream. Think plastic, del.icio.us, digg, flickr, youTube, Plexo. Yahoo! Buzz Index and Google Zeitgesit now pull together search trends and patterns to let us know exactly what other people think is interesting. The New York Times online now updates every 15 minutes (!) a fascinating list of the most e-mailed, most blogged, and most searched articles on its site.

All of these sites, and there are countless others, empower consumers (of news, of services, of products) to receive real-time information on what other people think is worth your time, and in a world where time is becoming one of our most important, but limited, resources, anything that can save you time on the way to finding what you really want is going to be extremely valuable.

Amazon is another great example. Maybe you've seen this before while searching for something: "Customers who bought this item also bought...." Or this one: "What customers ultimately buy after viewing this item…" How about this this one: "132 of 142 people found the following review helpful." Has this information given you some additional confidence in your purchasing decisions? Of course it has. Amazon isn't sharing this information because it's cool, they're doing it to influence people to buy!

And that's exactly the result you can expect if you begin allowing your customers, clients, co-workers, anyone you're seeking to influence, to know what other people are thinking about your products, services and ideas. Why? Because as humans we have biases, and one of those biases is to behave according to certain norms.

Scientifically-proven, the Principle of Consensus, or Social Proof, demonstrates that when we are unsure of what to do, we look to what (similar) others are doing for guidance in making our decisions.

So, who wants lists and descriptions without context? Nobody. What we really want to know is what other people are searching for, purchasing, and reading. And if you won’t tell me, I will go somewhere else where they will. Because other people’s opinions matter, especially if they are similar others. It's no wonder that recent studies have shown that people have more trust in their peers when it comes to buying decisions than the corporations who are selling the products.

The take-away: because our time is limited we want and rely on shortcuts to make decisions. One of these shortcuts is a priori validation for our choices… we want to know what other people are doing before we make our own decisions. Web 2.0 enables that.

Now, ask yourself, how can apply the principle to my business? Here's one idea. That list of products or services on your website – why not let your potential customers know what other customers (who are just like them) think about those products or services? Not just standard testimonials (though your satisfied customers are your best source of consensus information), but a real-time feedback loop. If you can, let them vote on your offerings. If you can't let them vote, then provide some type of information that lets potential users see what other users think are the most valuable aspects of what you have to offer.

Consensus information is shortcut to accuracy. It's scientifically-proven. Use it.

The Ten Best Presentations Ever

One of my passions is presentation skills. I've facilitated close to a hundred workshops on the topic and coached dozens of professionals on their skills. My message is always the same – when you get up in front of an audience, 99% of the time you are, whether you like it or not, seeking to persuade or influence.

Ask yourself next time before you present: what is it that you want your audience to do as a result of listening to your presentation? It's the "call to action" and every great presenter knows the answer to that question before they even start building their slides (if you are even using slides, that is).

So, that said, here is a brilliant top 10 list of the best presentations ever...

Ten Best Presentations Ever

or here – http://www.squidoo.com/bestpresentationsever/

Next:2007

Proud to announce that I will be one of the keynote speakers at the The Canadian Marketing Association's 2007 National Convention & Trade Show, to be held this year in Ottawa, Canada. Entitled Integrated / Next: 2007, the CMA's annual trade show is Canada's largest marketing convention and attracts close to 1,000 marketing and advertising professionals. Among others, we're really looking forward to keynote addresses from "Canada's Rock Star of Digital Marketing," Mitch Joel (President, Twist Image), and the "Andrew Carnegie of the 21st century," John Wood (Founder & CEO, Room to Read). Are you planning to attend? If so, please stop by and say hello.

I'll be addressing delegates on the morning of Wednesday, May 16th, 2007.

Love your Customers

Ever heard of Joe Girard? The Guinness Book of World Records list Joe Girard as the World's Greatest Salesman, a title he's held for over 20 years... Working at a Chevrolet dealership outside of Detroit, Joe rose from poverty to become the top producer in the history of GM, outearning even the Chairman of GM in 1973, when he sold 1,425 cars in one year alone! It's a record that will likely never be broken and if you do the math, that's over 6 cars a day, every business day, for an entire year (FYI, all his sales were retail. One car at a time, no wholesale, lease or fleet sales were included.) Customers would wait weeks just to get an appointment with Joe, because they knew that he would take care of them, no matter the cost. You want to know his secret? Liking, pure and simple. But he took it a step further: he didn't just like his customers, he LOVED his customers... and told them so directly. To their face and in countless greeting cards (he would send personalized cards each month to every one of his 13,000 customers proclaiming "I like you"), Joe understood that by genuinely liking his customers (and the service people who repaired his customers' cars, and the secretaries who answered their phone calls, etc...), he gained a significant advantage - TRUST. And once he had their trust, the rest took care of itself. Would you like to know more? Well, in the summer 2006, the Harvard Business Review published an interview Joe Girard for their double issue on Sales. The first three people who post a comment with their e-mail address will receive a copy of the article. It's so obvious and simple that it's brilliant. Tell me what you think.

NICE is the new COOL

The "me-first" generation is on the verge of being replaced by the ''you-first" generation... Reviewed in last week's Sunday New York Times, "The Power of Nice: How to Conquer the Business World With Kindness" outlines a new paradigm for the "dog-eat dog world of business." Finally, someone (actually two women - Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval, owners of a successful advertising firm) is willing to pay tribute to the power of selflessness, which behavioural science proves will improve your ability to positively influence the people in your life. Laced among their constructive tips on listening, admiring, and praising is advice on how to "exercise your niceness muscles: Every day for the next week, do five nice things that have no immediate payoff for you." The smallest good deed, "can have a multiplier effect strong enough to change the world." Linda and Robin attribute the success of their advertising firm to the power of nice. What could it do for you? Go ahead, try it for a week...