Are you seeking to gain momentum for your service brand or product?  If you are reading this blog, I have to assume (begs for another topic on assuming), that you are.  I am reading a great book, CONVERSATION CAPITAL.  At its core it is really a book about building word of mouth and how very simply that is more cost effective than any other brand of marketing medium you could choose.  I am not a big fan of the typical business books because they often present an idea without the how to get there part of the equation.  This book tells you the essentials and then provides real world examples with real world how this happened scenarios.

I read somewhere else recently that the reason BIG BRANDS  buy so many ad dollars is that they have no other way to get to the consumer consciousness.  They either do not want to take the time it takes to build by word of mouth and/or want the fast return.  Therefore they spend big dollars on high impact advertising campaigns for fast returns.  It was suggested that small business should in fact abandon the practice of patterning behavior after what the big guys do, because the end result might be bankruptcy for the small business.  Instead, their behaviors should employ the principles of true WORD OF MOUTH, by creating the following eight techniques.

#1 Create Rituals, i.e. how and when and why a consumer does something, this could be something as simple as a checking your favorite site for weather news, etc

#2 What is your Exclusive Product Offering?  Why is what you do better than the next one? Why when we are faced with so much mass production do you stand out?

#3 Over Delivery, Setting the bar high so that all clients walk away feeling like they got much more than they paid for.

#4 Relevant Sensory Oddity, what about your product gets people talking on a sensory level, i.e. sight, sound, touch, taste, or smell?

#5  ICONS, what is recognizable about your brand? A logo, another associated image?  What visual be it image or person is tangible to your business?

#6 Tribalism, what FACEBOOK   qualities does your site or business offer to your customers?  Just who else are they buying into, who else is sharing the experience you offer?

#7 Endorsement, if your consumer connects with what you do they are likely to spread the word over and over again.

#8 Continuity, are you always delivering what you say, when you say and is it reflective of you are?

Thinking about all these components is the best way into a consumer’s heart and “pocketbook”   The Paralelles challenge is to ask each of you to identify a business that meets all these deliverables and post them on T3 as business you would like to help grow by word of mouth.

I also highly recommend Sid Lee’s book, there is much more to learn than the 8 points I outlined.

You’ll do better, when you know better… Maya Angelou

Such a simple thought and yet so potent.  A life saver of sorts.  We are all guilty of beating ourselves up over the how‘s and why’s of making a decision or not making a decision.  Even it seems the administration is guilty!

However, this past Labor Day weekend, as Hurricane Gustav bore down on the Gulf Coast, the Bush Administration seemed to be faring much better than three years ago when Hurricane Katrina hit the same targeted coast. 

We have done better this time around; our local and national emergency preparedness has been at the forefront of both getting the word out and executing its directives!  All five governors in the region forgoed their own convention in order to be on the ground in their own states should Gustav bear down in a category 4 style hurricane.

Thankfully, that did not happen, but we learned a hard lesson from Katrina and we learned it well.  It seemed that residents cooperated with the demands of government to evacuate and that government acted responsibly moving people early!

So, just how does this impact your business?  Crisis in business occur all the time, every day, from losing an employee to much larger and more impactful events.

There are several things you can do to mitigate the crisis and learn from past mistakes.

#1   Evaluate the crisis from an arm’s length, i.e. you may have to call on a trusted advisor or two to get perspective and plan

#2   Gather your key staff to help execute your plan.

#3   Take action quickly!

So we all do better when we know better,  Liberating!!!!

Its not business its POLITICS

After having taken the summer off to get a fresh perspective on blogging, I find it fitting to kick off the new season, September 1 with the business of politics that is on everyone’s minds and lips.  We have been stirred, shaken and delivered two campaigns that bear close resemblance to action packed Hollywood thrillers.  If you miss a news cycle you have missed “big” news on the political front.  If you don’t read today’s headlines, they will be gone tomorrow replaced by an even bigger story, case in point, Thursday night August 28^th, Barak Obama delivered a momentous speech, an inspiring speech with passion and impact.  Surely we would all be discussing it in the morning! 

Well, his opposition had other things in minds, Senator McCain’s  running mate was announced and swept Obama off the news cycle for not only the morning but the entire day and as I write this Saturday morning, it looks like the whole weekend as well.  Everyone is talking about Sarah Palin, the first woman ever to run on a republican ticket!  Whew what a whirlwind!  She appears at first blush, as the 2-year governor of Alaska to be fairly well rounded, a mother of 5, an avid sportswoman and is called a political reformer! 

Senator Mc Cain has leveled the political playing field with his own brand of history making and now we as Americans can discuss the “ISSUES” facing our nation instead of dwelling on the histrionics of the time.  Not to down play the historical nature of the first ever elections to promise us either a woman as vice president or an African American man as president, but truly at the end of the day, it is about the ISSUES, not gender and not race!

 
Mc Cain has shown himself to be an astute business like performer and taken everything BUT the issues off the table. At the end of the day we will be discussing issues, and what are those issues? and where does ‘Small Business” line up with the other major issues of the day?!.  While I believe we, small business owners should be at the top of either candidate’s short list, we are often not.  As the engine that keeps this economy running and keeps people employed (amid massive layoffs in every other sector of the economy).  The engine that is fueling the tax base and the supplying jobs, both campaigns need to be very careful in courting our opinion and making sure that our “ISSUES are part of their issues and certainly my own pet issue of “Access to Capital” are discussed and part of their policy packages they bring to the table.

So as a woman business owner, I find this season of American Politics refreshing!  However, I also challenge each of them to really get out of their box and look at their voter base as 50% either own business or are employees of small business!  What is good for us is good for them!

Last week while I was attending the Simmons Conference on Entrepreneurship, the morning keynote was delivered by Mirielle Guillano, author of French Women don’t get Fat. She began her keynote with a story about her arrival in the US. Needless to say it involved a man, but her mother’s advice was “What is the worst thing that can happen? This was in response to whether or not Mirielle should move to the US. The upside of that story was that 30 years later, she is still married to that same man.

She has continued to live her life with this as her mantra and guide. I think for most of us this is as good a guide as any. I too, live a bit on the edge and think well what is the worst thing that can happen. As long as I am not breaking the law, endangering another person’s life or my own what is the worst thing?

Entrepreneurs are mostly risk takers by nature and certainly the definition, “he/she that assumes the financial risk of a company” describes many of us. However in terms of risk, how do you access it? There are financial models for accessing risk that assumes money, there is your own inner compass for accessing good and bad risk and there is Mirielles. worst case scenario

When I started developing this platform, Paralelles, it was my third business. After one not so successful run and one very successful run at owning my own, I was more adventurous. I also felt that this was my calling and much more passionate about what I was about to embark on! So my worst case, I would have this great site, meet all these great women and have to fold it because we could not get enough of a base to support us. One year later, my worst case has not come true and I have met some great women and I believe that Paralelles is a great site!