You’ve heard all these (and more), haven’t you?  And, sometimes they really can’t. 

But then there’s “won’t.”  Ah, that word is awfully tricky. Sometimes people say “can’t” when they really mean “won’t.”  As in, they don’t want to…hurt your feelings (yes even in B2B)…spend the money (even if it’s for their “own good”)…make a change (even if what they’re using is broken. Change is scary and takes time.)

Here’s the tricky part. Figuring out - whatever we’re pitching, from burgers to software to helping others – whether we’re dealing with a legit sales concern or a dead-end.  (Maybe it really can’t be fit in the budget this year. Put that on in the tickler file for next budget cycle. Keep in touch.)

That’s why it’s absolutely critical to really qualify sales prospects.

Know their industry.
Know their company.
Know their culture. (If they’re all about tradition and small-bore growth, they’re almost certainly NOT going to be leading/bleeding edge early adopters). 
Research the people with whom you’ll be meeting; ascertain as best you can their position in the corporate food chain. (if the title is manager…of a division of a region of a global conglomerate…chances are excellent he or she has little or no approval authority.)

Don’t spin cycles chasing people who simply don’t wanta.

P.S. Note to entrepreneurs.  All the above applies to potential investors. The words may be a bit different, but the tune remains the same.

Related posts from the archives:
Selling: ABC is DOA
Start-Up Success: Sales Pros or Order Takers?
The bad news: You’re in marketing.  The Ugly News: You’re also in sales.
Three Things Investors Won’t Tell You
Treat Investors Like Third-Graders

Having braced myself against the initial wave of Pinterest excitement, I’m now preparing for the next wave. The one where all the instant experts flood us with special offers and claims of money-makin’ mojo.

As I noted on Grant McCracken’s HBR post: Pinterest as Free Market Research.

.. agree Pinterest could be a valuable market research tool. But, as with any tool, it has be used properly by someone who knows what they’re doing and why.

Then there’s the B2B sector. Does Pinterest really have a place there? Will it ever? (I can think of a couple of scenarios, but my answer would be “not yet.”)

Then there’s online reality.  Many businesses still have a hard enough time keeping their web sites up-to-date (if the sites work at all.) They’re still puzzling over Twitter.  Blogging? No time for that. Now, we’re throwing an online bulletin board at them. What? What?  I’m bracing myself for the wave of instant Pinterest experts who’ll “help” businesses, regardless if it’s the right tool or not.

Grant replied

very well said, “experts” will be legion and “advice” will be everywhere, deeply thoughtful and very expensive.

 
Today’s Google search results
“social media experts”: 11,700,000
“pinterest experts”:  416

Related posts from the archives:

I Hate Consultants From 2005. Still valid. Since I am - ahem - a consultant, this sounds like a terrible personal problem - and why should you care?  Here’s why:  You’re thinking about hiring a consultant or you’ve had a bad experience with one.  (If you are a consultant, think about the following when you’re pitching your services.) Check it out if you’re thinking of hiring a Pinterest guru (and any other type of consultant.) 

“I Don’t Need Any More Consultants. I Need People Who Do Things!”
Run, Run Like The Wind If You Hear…
Social Media for Skeptics: The Numbers

“You obviously haven’t figured out how to make gobs of money.” - response to one of my comments on LinkedIn re social media.

Okay, I admit. I like money. It’s very useful (and can be a ton of fun to spend).

However, the making of it as the sole reason for existence?  No, not interested. I’ve spent too much time in corporate boardrooms and around VCs.  I’ve seen up close and personal how greed and ambition can destroy a person.  Some of the saddest people I’ve ever met have been the most “successful” in terms of money. 

Of course, this perspective sometimes hurts my credibility as a consultant. So be it.  I even say on my LinkedIn profile, if you only want to make “gobs of money” don’t call me. If you want to change the world, I’d love to help.

That change can (and by necessity often must) start small.  And, the bigger, longer lasting the change, the longer it can take.  Patience (ack!) and compromise are often required. 

Have you done one thing this week for the better? Have I? Well, I’d like to think so. 

I’m still working to adopt a village in Indonesia. That’s a pretty big change when you think about it, especially since I’m hoping I can help more villages after we learn our social media lessons with Tanah Keke. 

But, I also do my best to throw big ol’ smiles at all the folks at my Mom’s assisted living home when I visit (and I visit most days). I stop and chat a bit here and there. Really old people have often led really fascinating lives.  Just imagine what it must be like to sit in that wheelchair every day watching the world go by. 

I hold doors. I let people cut in front of me in line.  I don’t always say what I’m thinking or “correct” someone (I don’t really consider patience a virtue. Kindness is.)

Now, if snarky, self-involved, impatient me can do this…IMAGINE what you can do!

More: The GoodMaker. Ideas and more. Take up the Good challenge. Submit your idea. You might even win some money.

Now, I’ve got to go work on some ideas to - um - make money.  Have a great Do Good Do Well Friday, one and all.

Mr. Dimon is one of the most powerful CEOs in the world. He’s at the very top of the 1%. He’s been on the cover of Fortune as the “Toughest Guy on Wall Street.”  JP Morgan Chase & Co. is one of the largest financial conglomerates in the world. They spend gazillions on customer marketing and support.  They support many worthy causes.  Their 4Q 2011 net income was $3.7 Billion. 

So, why on earth would he need to hire me?  Here’s why.

I’d tell him:

What he doesn’t want to hear. I’ve worked with and for a number of big-time C level people. Rarely if ever does anyone tell them what the customers are really saying (screaming).  Minions spend DAYS scrubbing, fluffing and puffing presentations (“Oh, he won’t like that color of blue.”  “Oops. She will hate that number.”)  By the time the “field report” makes it to the board room, it bears little or no resemblance to field reality.  (Sorry, “three to four levels down” isn’t enough. And, I’d bet that a whole lot of pretty, triple-checked spreadsheets are involved.)

Of course, if you believe what you read, he intentionally surrounds himself with people who’ll disagree with him.  Well, that sounds great.  How many of those people actually talk to customers? Visit field offices (in fly-over country, not just Manhattan)? Answer their own phone? Consider the people behind the numbers on those purty spreadsheets? Hmmm….

Don’t ignore your customers. Those frightening barricades around your home, Mr. Dimon?  I feel for you. (Really, I do. I don’t think he’s evil incarnate.)  But, all the signs were there (in some cases literally) way before the mob showed up at your door.  It’s actually pretty amazing we don’t have more marches and demonstrations, given how the financial sector treats most of its customers. 

I wrote two letters to Chase regarding my mother’s retirement account over a couple of months. (I’ve got POA). Both ended with my contact info if they had any questions, concerns or issues.  No response. Nada. No letter. No call. No email. Not even a postcard. (And, I’m ridiculously easy to find on the Web. Do a google search and I pop right up.) 

Fix the phone system.  I’ve called Chase several times.  Flaming IVR hoop after flaming hoop.  By the time I get to a live person, I’ve moved beyond upset to frothing anger.  Which is further frothed as I deal with the person’s tenative grasp of the English language and his/her lack of authority or empathy.

Of course, I’m one of the little people.  I’m sure if you’ve got a few million, you have a direct line to your very own Chase banker.  Which is fine, really.  I understand that.  However, all those “little” accounts add up, don’t they?  And, he might want to chat with the folks over at Bank of America about how the little people get together online. (Apparently, Chase understands that little numbers add up.  Why else would they decide my mom’s money is really theirs?) 

Here’s a reality check for everyone (not just Mr. Dimon): When you install that terrific, automated phone system, are you doing it to save money or keep customers? Years ago, I was meeting with Compaq (Remember them? Big-timus company at one time) about their outsourcing their tech support. Their whole focus? 1. Saving money; 2. Never having to actually talk to a live customer.  Ouch.

...and that’s just the first 10 minutes of my first meeting with Mr. Dimon…:) No spreadsheets will be harmed in the exercise.

Oh, and I’m writing Mr. Dimon directly regarding my mom’s account. No more IVR hell in Bollywood for me.
More to come on that as it develops.  Wonder if anyone in his office (maybe only five or six levels down) will actually read it?  I typically make it at least as far as the executive assistant when I go to the top. Shaping up to be a great marketing troubleshooting case study.

Related posts from my archives:
CEOs Are Walking the Wrong Street (From 2006. If Mr. Dimon had read this, he might not have had all that nasty unpleasantness with barricades around his home.)
Customer Service: Are You Gruntled?
Customer Service Tip: Hire Grandmothers
Of Customer Service and Bovine Biosolids
Corporate Inbreeding (Why I became a corporate refugee)

As Al Hahn and I continue to put together our Social Media for Skeptics workshop, we’re doing a lot of research (and thinking and talking).  As a former research wonk and full-time data hog, I’m particularly fascinated with market sizing.  I know from personal experience that numbers may not mean much. So, this grabbed me immediately when it crossed my LinkedIn “desk” ZDNet: The hollow emptiness in social media numbers - most accounts are fake or empty.

In some anecdotal cases, the number of users, active and actual, could be as small as one-third. And nearly one-half of user accounts could be fake or contain no user profiles…

With the possibility that nearly 50% of social network users could be fake or empty user accounts — this is a massive issue for social media marketing…

Social media marketing mavens and gurus will have to reign in their rhetoric and reset expectations for social marketing campaigns. But will they?

So, there ya go.  As with any other marketing tactic, you’ve got to get to the facts behind the numbers of social media.  Beware of rhetoric. Check for reality.

(Read the entire article at ZDNet.  Mucho good info, including what a former Wired editor found when looking at the 560,000 G+ users who had him in their circles. Like a good ghost story?)

More from my blog archives:
Market Research - Indiana Jones’ Style
Before Evaluating New “Target Demographics”
The Three “R"s of Social Media
Sanity Check: The Social Media Stampede
So You’re Doing Social Media. Are Your Customers?
More & More Social Media Snake Oil
Wasting Your Time on “Thousands”
Brace Yourself For the Pinterest Wave!
Why I Hate Your Tweets

Well, maybe “hate”  is (usually) too strong a word. I probably just ignore them. Nothing personal. Or is it?  Maybe the problem is TOO much personal, too many, all the time.

Sometimes, I feel like I’m eavesdropping on a private conversation. One so full of inside references, abbreviations, #hashtags and @references I have no clue what’s going on, and don’t want to. (Sure, we all occasionally get carried away with our own little glorious world, but insider gabbing seems to the majority of some people’s tweets.)

From marketingprofs, What Others Like (Or Dislike) About Your Tweets.

Twitter users say only 36% of the tweets they receive are worth reading, 39% are mediocre at best, and 25% of tweets are not worth reading at all, according to a study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, MIT, and Georgia Tech...Among all types of tweets analyzed, “Presence Maintenance” tweets (e.g., “Hullo twitter!”) were the most strongly disliked, registering a 45% probability of being Not Worth Reading (NotWR), compared with 18% for “Question to Followers” tweets.

To be fair, one person’s mediocre or waste of time is another’s brilliant or fascinating. How else can we explain all those people who followed Ashton Kutcher and his wife? (I do, however, wonder how many people actually read their tweets…but I digress…)

Of course, my reading decisions depend on the person I’m following and why.  For example, I always read anything Craig Ferguson, Steve Martin or John Cleese tweet. They’re (usually) entertaining and smart.  (I still have a small lingering fantasy about being Mr. Ferguson’s next wife…but, oops, I’m digressing again…) The Dalai Lama is always inspirational and applicable to every part of my life, including my work.  I follow The Bloggess for my dose of weird chick fun every day (Really, the woman is brilliant.)  I follow several writers because I love to read.  VCs for investment world perspective (and, no, I don’t care what they had for breakfast or even with whom they’re having it).  I just started following Ann Handley (@marketingprofs) and have already found new ideas and topics…and other people I want to follow.  And so on. 

Sooo…it all comes back around to the fundamental of any type of marketing.  Know your target.  Plan and write accordingly.  If you’re not Craig Ferguson, I almost certainly don’t want to hear about your hotel room.  I don’t expect the Dalai Lama to be funny.  (I’d also appreciate it if companies wouldn’t assume that if I follow them on Twitter, I want to be added to their spam list.  Yes, Cisco, I’m talking to you.)

Now, I’ve got to go work on some tweets. Aiming for at least “more than mediocre.”  The 140 characters is tough, especially for someone like me who likes correct spelling, periods, spacing and other such outmoded things.

“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”  Mark Twain

P.S. Remember that there is STILL such a thing as Too. Much. Information.  Sure, we live in a weird world of personal mingling with professional, and we each must detemine what’s best for us and our readers, customers, and clients. However,  it’s a sure thing that not everyone wants to know everything about me or you.  Think before you type.

More: How to deal with Twitter Overloads, MacWorld, 02/13/12. Tools & tips

Look, I’m all for thinking positive.  If you don’t try for the impossible, you’ll never accomplish the probable.

And, entrepreneurs would never make it out of bed in the morning.  However, some people try to substitute happy thoughts for hard work. 

By all means - chant, write, meditate. Whatever helps your frame of mind.

Then get busy. (And focus on doing at least one thing you can actually accomplish today. You can start small.)

“Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”  St. Francis of Assisi

Related posts from the archives:
My Second-Best Advice to Start-Ups. Be Prepared to Stop
Success Takes More Than Showing Up
If The Advice Isn’t Working Maybe It’s Bad Advice
Delusion or Optimism?
Feeling GOOD About Failure! (So, your coach is supportive. Is he/she investing in your biz? Hmmm…)

So, kudos to Global Hope Network International for inviting us to JOIN a village

100 people can join for 40 cents a day ($12/month).  That’s four dimes. (I probably have six months of support in my spare change jar right now…)

...oh wait, make that 99.  I’m the first. 

Won’t you join me? (We also have the opportunity to visit the village in May).  You’ll be helping people who are often forgotten in some of the poorest parts of the world.  With your 4 dimes (actually, it’s 39.5 cents a day, but what’s 1/2 cent among friends?)  GHNI can help villages become self-sustaining, solving the root causes of the problems (such as lack of access to clean water, illiteracy, .etc.)

Still thinking about it?  You can’t even buy a bottle of water for 40 cents. 

Still here?  GHNI won’t send you any free tote bags, really. 

I’ll be making the official big announcement on Monday at other blogs.  Now’s your chance to join up and feel good for a whole lot longer than a day.

Student Group Challenges Facebook on Privacy
Facebook IPO Will Create A Money Machine
Facebook Cagey About Mobile Monetization

One of my mentors/role models/bosses in a past corporate life had a saying, “We’re not the fresh air fund.”  This coming from one of the kindest women I’ve ever known.  She would do just about anything to help anyone.  However, she was/is also extremely savvy.  In business - like it or not - there are hard realities. 

I always remember this whenever people start with the squishy.  A business is supposed to make money.  If it doesn’t, it doesn’t last long. 

That’s why Facebook has (all along) been doing things its users (including me) don’t like. Changes in the formatting. Accessing your private data. Ads, ads, and more ads (personalized, schmersonalized). Then there’s the filing for trademarks on the words “face” and “like.” (Really? And Donald Trump tried to own “You’re fired!” *Sigh*)

Facebook is fun, just like that crazy, bad boy (or girl) you dated in college. Let them drive home from the bar? Trust them with your bank account? Uh. No. (And remember, it all started with some college guys looking for the hotties)

It (and it is an IT) isn’t your friend. And, that’s a point often forgotten in much of the social media discussion. 

None of the social media tools - FB, Twitter, Google+, YouTube - aren’t there for you (and your biz) out of sheer goodwill. (And Coke never really wanted to buy everyone in the world a coke either.)  Plan accordingly, for both your and your customers’ sake.  What data must be shared? How/when/if you link? Etc. etc. 

P.S. That dog should be really, really nervous. Chomp!

My question (as always) is, “Why?”  Why do you, I and apparently everyone else in the webverse need it? How many social media tools can we use before we implode in a mass of mental exhaustion?

Pinterest Hits 10 Million U.S. Monthly Uniques Faster Than Any Standalone Site Ever!

‘k. (And while some of you are thinking “what’s a ‘unique?”) Let’s move along to my next question.

So what?  10 million.  Can you sell something to them? WIll they care about your product?  Do you really need a"branded pin?” (Now, I’ve lost many of the rest of you, haven’t I? Hey, I’m barely hanging in there and I practically live on da web.) 

From the techcrunch article:  “Unlike most web startups, Pinterest’s core user base is not the typical early adopter set from the west and east coasts of the United States. While the Pacific and North East regions contained the most Pinterest users in May, now its strongholds are in the East South Central and West North Central States, such as Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, and Mississippi.

Next, the question will be when should Pinterest start to seriously monetize. branded pins, and brand pages are all options, and the site may already be earning money through affiliate links. Suddenly, it seems the investors that got in at that rumored $200 million valuation, and especially that $40 million valuation from September pinned a real winner.”

Pinterest is an “online pin board.” You can set up any number of “boards” and pin all kinds of things on them.  (Now I can practically hear YOU saying, “So what?”)

Hey, I think it’s kinda cool.  And, it could be a good way for some businesses and groups to deepen relationships. (Key word here - “relationships” That’s why I started a board for All The Single Girlfriends on our Adopt-A-Village project,  including video links.)

...and yet…somebody has to maintain it…more complicated - think about it.  What are you going to do to fill up all that blank board space?

What else are you doing today? Exactly.

P.S.  Nothing but Kudos to the founders of Pinterest.  Getting investor attention is tough enough. Good job!

Read more, from Monetate: Five reasons Pinterest works and four weaknesses that may kill it.