This is an interesting year for real estate sales in Calgary. We have fewer homes on the market than usual so it is a good time for people to list their home who maybe have tried to sell in the past. A seller could get a real decent price, and possibly even more than they were asking, but where does this leave the buyers? Once you sell your home and you get what you wanted for it, where are you going to go to get a great buy? Have you thought about purchasing land outside of Calgary and putting a new home on it?

It may be time to get out of the big city, rat-race and think about the more peaceful and enjoyable surroundings of Okotoks, Black Diamond, Strathmore or even an acreage. A piece of land of your own can be a great place to raise some children or enjoy early retirement. There are lots of beautiful pieces of land that have river-front views, mountain views, hills, trees and an abundance of wildlife all within 45 minutes of the city limits.

If you are going to have a gorgeous piece of property you may as well go with the ideal home as well. Sure you could buy a carbon copy of everyone else, but why not design something unique that would meet your own personal needs exactly? Put the kitchen where you want it for the morning sun.  Go with the big windows and design the cupboards the way you always knew they should be. How many bathrooms are right for you? What do you want that walk in closet to do for you? Do you want extra bedrooms for all the kids as they grow or come home to visit, or are you thinking about keeping it simple?

Sun Brand Homes based out of Black Diamond, AB has been building fabulous ready-to-move homes for 35 years. They have a solid reputation providing over 2000 units and have continued in relationship with most of their clients for over three decades. This is the perfect option to get you into exactly the location and home that you have been dreaming about for years. They can build it and put it right where you want it. Custom-built and manufactured with the highest standard materials produces a home that you can be proud of. Create a legacy for your family and call Sun Brand Homes to see why their method is faster, better and more perfect for you than any other option!

We recommend Sun Brand Homes. Give them a call today! Toll Free: 1-888-933-3735

Custom built ready to move homes just the way you want it!

In 2011 there was a relatively low percentage of business owners on LinkedIn in Calgary. Many of my colleagues were not using the platform and even fewer seemed to understand Twitter. Some of the local businesses were seeing the need to be on Facebook because they could see that people were spending a lot of time there and with the introduction of increased quality cell phones and cheaper data rates everyone was logging on and it just made sense. The clock on social media activity is continuing to run however at a rapid rate. LinkedIn is now a powerful social media channel in the business to business sector. Every week corporate Calgary increases their presence there. Facebook is now a place where even industry has a page for credibility even though they have no intention of using it for anything else. Where is Twitter in all of this?

Twitter has its own group of followers. Those who don’t use this platform don’t realize it’s significance but it definitely has an impact on marketing in the city. When the Calgary Business Network runs events they track where the new contacts come from. Surprisingly their number 1 and number 2 source of brand new attendees come from LinkedIn and Twitter.

Some sectors are on Twitter more than others. Many college students love it. Those following political commentary use it for a faster news source than anything else on the internet. Realtors and mortgage brokers seem to be logging on more than ever. People looking for events and micro-blogging about their own life events. They use it for quick answers and finding a job. They check who is going for lunch, having a quick rant, or hearing about the next movie they want to see. Those who follow on Twitter are serious about following. The log on throughout the day or just stay logged on with their cell phones.

So is having a Twitter account important to your business? Yes. People will find you and then they follow you. Isn’t that a good thing for your business?

If they take the time to follow you then they do want to hear from you. So put up a Twitter page, get a Twitter handle and start to post consistently 4 – 6 times a day something interesting. Automate some of your posts to help you stay in an even flow. Use Hootsuite or some other aggregator to get it done. In a couple hours a month you can set up all of your Tweets and your LinkedIn postings to stay consistent and give your followers something to follow.

Listen to your customers when they come in and watch what they do. Are they continually looking at their cell phones? Nobody texts all the time. What else are they doing on that phone? Get your business into their feed. Put your handle on your business cards, on your literature and even on your car. You can be the bird they follow.

Sweet Tweeting!

Loyal2U writes content for your Twitter and LinkedIn posts as well as your blogs and your Facebook pages. Get consistent with a little help from your friends at Loyal2U. 403-397-1909

I have been getting a lot of endorsements on LinkedIn.  Did you know that you don’t have to accept them all? Sometimes people endorse you for things based on an assumption. Sometimes they don’t even know you well. Perhaps they are trying to create goodwill. Maybe they are hoping you will go and endorse them, but whatever their motivation is, we can’t be dishonest and accept endorsements that are simply not true.

Other endorsements don’t really matter. I see people accepting endorsements for using Word Documents. Really? Isn’t that kind of lame? If you can’t use Word – get off the internet! Seriously, an 8 year old can teach you all you need to know in 15 minutes. So it is a good idea to go through these LinkedIn endorsements and get rid of ones that don’t matter or ones that are not really true.

I am in social media. I write content. I write a lot of content. If I sucked everyone would know and I would have no clients because we are all over the internet. Just google my name if you want to check. There are some subjects that go with social media that are standard endorsements on LinkedIn, but lately I have gotten rid of them to make room for others that are more important to our direction. I removed the Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn buttons. Why? Because who cares? If I am supposed to be a social media expert I should obviously know about these platforms. That should be a given. What someone may not know however is the reach that we have because we own the Calgary Business Network and the Canadian Imperial Business Network. They may not know how involved I am in networking with other business people or that I can connect them with people they need to know. I may also want them to know that I do a lot of public speaking on the subjects of social media, networking, team building and entrepreneurialism. I would like that to be more reflected in the endorsements than something I am not necessarily proven in like “strategy.”

Don’t get me wrong. I love strategy. I am very strategic about our next steps with the businesses that I oversee, but until they are all doing a couple of million in volume+ each year, that is not something I want on my endorsements. “Team Building” is better. I can point to successful teams that I have built. I have others who will attest to that skill in real life. It is not based on theory or the fact that I like the way it sounds. I like the way “Strategy” sounds. Who doesn’t love a good game of Chess or Monopoly? Who doesn’t want to believe they are great at it? You have to win at the game though, over and over to be called a champion. There are way better people to follow on strategy if that is what you are looking for. Here is an expert for you. www.harrytucker.com  He has a great blog. If you want strategy follow him…

If you want to combine your real life business networking with your social media strategies… ah now that is a good reason to follow me…

@createloyalty2U

What are the good reasons that people should follow you? That is what you want endorsements for…

Kerry George can be found on LinkedIn and on Facebook posting and overseeing content for Loyal2U, the Calgary Business Network, the Canadian Imperial Business Network, Velda’s Grower Direct, Okotoks Day Spa in Okotoks and a variety of other clients who like to remain anonymous. Why? Because we write for you, like we are you, so nobody needs to know that it isn’t you. We learn your heart, create your message the way you want it, then you approve all of the content and we automate your life to make it easier.

Always Loyal2U,

403-397-1909

So how does it work? I can go into my own account and add skills and if you visit my page you can with the click of a button agree that I am good at those things and “endorse” me. I can then do the same for you. Sounds good doesn’t it? Except for a few problems:

1. I may not even know you. So why are you endorsing me?
2. I keep getting requests from others to endorse them or recommend them on the previous feature and again if I don’t know you, why would I do that?
3. If I accept connections with people who don’t even put their photographs on their profiles my endorsements look unprofessional. There are a lot of blank silhouettes that don’t look like real people and it gives the blocks a trashy appearance. Fortunately for me, I have made it a policy to not accept connections without pictures unless I actually know them, and then I send them a message encouraging them to put up a photo. If they continue to not show themselves, I usually remove them from my connections list. So my endorsement collection looks better than most. It is just another good reason to have a good head shot on our profile. If we are going to recommend or endorse someone, others should be able to see who we are to make that credibility real.

Over the last few months my personal profile has had a lot of endorsements and I think it has actually caused the legitimate recommendations to slow down. People feel that an endorsement was enough. I am not sure that it is though. A recommendation is more personal and more meaningful.

Some days I look in surprise to find out that 9 people endorsed me today on a dozen different talents that I possess. Most however are just following the crowd. They don’t even know me. At least I don’t think they do, but on the other hand I also got a phone call from someone asking my company to do a job for them because they got a live recommendation from someone on LinkedIn. I didn’t know the person who recommended me either. I can only assume he was watching me online and thought I looked capable for the job he recommended me for. Doesn’t social media make this a funny world? Who would have thought 10 years ago that one could get business with this kind of technology?

Are the endorsements harmful? Not to me, they are not. I have lots. They all have real heads in them. It makes me look real knowledgeable about many subjects. However, knowing that I don’t know these people who are so quick to make an endorsement does make me more skeptical when I look at your page and see whatever I see there…

I still believe in real recommendations of real people that I really know. I hope that you take the time to show real appreciation for the ones that you know too and write a real note that is true that represents the nature of your actual relationship with that individual.

If you need help getting your LinkedIn profile current and pimped out, check out one of our previous blogs for help with that.

Kerry George is the owner of Loyal2U Communications & Marketing as well as the CEO of the Canadian Imperial Business Network and the CBN. She has taken these networking companies and put them on the map commanding the Calgary Market in only two years using LinkedIn and social media as her primary marketing tools.

Keep your endorsements cleaner by only accepting people with photos as connections!

Recently we posted some beginner steps to using LinkedIn. Now here are some more intermediate steps to up your game and get more business. These are the LinkedIn Manners that will set you above your competition and establish you as a community and team player.

1. Re-post  relevant statements made by your connections.
2. Add links only 25% of the time, and make those links to blogs and pictures.
3. Only soft sell. Add value by giving advice and no hard selling techniques like “Buy Now!”
4. Stay professional. You don’t want to share the intimate details of your life here.
5. Unless you are running for political office keep your political statements really toned down and don’t be frequent with them. This is for business and you may alienate potential clients because of your political allegiances.
6. Unless you are a Minister of the Gospel or religion is somehow your business, keep your religion toned down. A Scripture on a Sunday may be tolerated if you are a regular poster of other great things, but if you are continually jamming your faith down people’s throats you will lose connections and credibility. If it is important to you to share, do it more on a one-to-one basis and build relationships first or you may alienate potential clients from you.
7. Don’t be boring. You can’t afford to be boring. Be creative instead.
8. Join 2 types of groups. 1) Join professionals from your own industry – in those groups be a fly on the wall. Don’t give them all your secrets, just learn their secrets… 2.)Join the groups where you are most likely to find your ideal client – watch and listen before you speak, be intelligent, add to the discussion, ask questions that others also would like to know the answers to, respond sparingly and do not monopolize the conversation, only one paragraph at a time, you can add more later after someone else responded.
9. While on LinkedIn engage in conversations in groups and with individuals through private messaging. Listen before you respond. Dale Carnegie said “People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
10. Take the time to recommend people that you know and those that you have done business with that provided a valuable service or product. Don’t recommend people you do not know.
11. Ask for recommendations and endorsements from people who have done business with you.
12. Actively work on increasing your connections for at least half an hour each week until you are over 500. After that nobody knows how many you have and you look “connected.” You can weed out ones you don’t need at that time.
13. Who is making intelligent comments? Tell them that you appreciate their comments. Be social this is social media.
14. Who could you connect with? Sometimes if you are trying to make a valuable connection it is worthwhile to pick up the paid applications. That allows you to send an inbox message to a potential connection. Remember to remind them where you met them, or how they came to your attention and also share what benefits a relationship with you would lead to. Talk about them and not about you.
15. Be specific in your invitation to connect. Don’t just use the standard provided greeting. Tell them where you seen them on LinkedIn and why you believe it would be mutually beneficial to connect, or tell them who your mutual connection is.
16. Follow what your connections say and re-post when it is interesting. Engage in the process.
17. Use an aggregator like Hootsuite.com to post 4 intelligent comments a day. You can write them all in an hour and then copy and paste them or have a staff member do it so you are always saying something relevant to your industry.
18. Follow your connections on Twitter.
19. Who could you meet for coffee this week? Social media works better if you are social in the community. Book an actual appointment and get out of the office. Try a high end coffee shop for a great impression .
20. Before you meet them look at their website and their LinkedIn profile carefully to prepare for the time you will have with them. Have questions ready and make it about them and not about you.
21. If you do not make a sale on your first time with them continue to use LinkedIn as a follow-up tool along with your other techniques like a card or a personal note.

Play nice and use your social media manners...

Here are 21 reasons why you need LinkedIn:

1. It is where your business can connect to consumers and consumers who are connected to the decision making processes of businesses.
2. If your target market is consumers or businesses with money to spend you should know that the average user of LinkedIn is more affluent. The highest number of social media users making more than $100,000 per year can still be found there. http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-media-income_b34460
3. You can be found on LinkedIn through a search and it is currently easier to be at the top of that search list than it is to be on page 1 of a Google search. Even on Google yourself if you search your own name your LinkedIn profile ranks at the top or close to the top. You should definitely pimp out your profile and use your social media real estate. Own it. It is yours.
4. You can display everything good about yourself and your company and speak about your unique offering in a thorough way.
5. You can post your resume and increase your job possibilities.
6. You can link to your website on your profile and in your postings increasing the search engine optimization of your webpages.
7. You can connect to famous and influential people. Especially if you watch who has been looking at your profile. It will surprise you that very interesting people look you up, and if you are bold enough you may even gain a relationship from it or even a strategic alliance.
8. You can receive recommendations from clients, peers, and occasionally even your competitors; and people actually read those recommendations.
9. You can recommend others and gain relationship value with clients, co-workers, and staff as you do so.
10. You can participate in groups with others from your own industry and learn cutting edge tips for your success.
11. You can establish yourself as a thought leader by the things that you post in groups and by the content that you post leading people back to your blogs and articles.
12. You can join the groups of your ideal target market and learn more about what they really need and want from you simply by listening in on their discussions.
13. In your personal feed on your home page you can post marketing pieces, email content and relevant helpful information about your services that goes to your front line of connections and then is seen again by the second level and occasionally even by the third level of contacts, giving your material HUGE marketability online.
14. You can use LinkedIn along with a Facebook business page, a Twitter account and your website rss feed to generate a social media vortex that keeps potential clients engaged and watching your activity, leading them right back to you for your business.
15. You can expand your territory through the locations of your connections.
16. You can target territories or even individuals that you want to do business with, have an introduction through one of your existing connections and see it through to an actual real live time engagement.
17. You can gain credibility by being associated with others in your list of connections.
18. You can make appointments with connections who are local to you for a coffee and those who are not local can be met through Skype or Google+.
19. LinkedIn now offers Advertising.
20. You can start a group of your own where you can be the main influencer in the group.
21. You can identify, find and connect with people who are your most qualified leads.

LinkedIn can be very profitable for making appointments, building pre-client relationships, staying in contact with your customers and learning more about your own industry. Overall you could increase your bottom line substantially just by being on there and having a good profile where people can find you. So it is definitely worth while especially for B2B who do not fare so well with Facebook and other platforms.

Here are some good tips for getting started, and stay tuned because next month we will give you some more intermediate steps to really pimp out your profile and up your game.

1. Google linkedIn and sign up; Just follow the prompts putting in your email address and picking a password.
2. Completely fill out your profile. This is your opportunity to share all of the great stuff about yourself that you need to share. Nobody is going to dispute it, but be honest. Your integrity is important.
3. Get a nice headshot of yourself looking approachable but professional. Casual picks are fine on Twitter and Facebook but not on LinkedIn. This is where professionals connect. Let them see your face, many of the connections you want will refuse to connect to a picture of a logo or something other than your face. They won’t say anything about it, they will just reject your connection. You will never know the reason why (that is why we are telling you.)
4. Follow the basic instructions to add connections from your current email accounts.
5. Go to that stack of business cards that you have been collecting for years and start adding all of those people as contacts. Write them each an invitation as you do it reminding them how they know you.
6. From now on whenever you go to a networking meeting or a trade show all business cards get entered into your LinkedIn connections before you do anything else with them.
7. On your home page on LinkedIn you can now post to LinkedIn and Twitter simultaneously by checking off  the little birdie symbol when you make a comment.
8. Put your phone number and your email address right in your summary. Never make people look for how they are going to connect to you. You have their attention now real them in.
9. Say something positive and quote positive people. When they go through your recent activity to try and discern who you are they should find you saying good things that are uplifting. That makes them want to look you over some more and possibly even visit your website.
10. Give away free tips and advice linking to your blog. LinkedIn is not about selling. It is a relationship building tool. Build faith and good will by giving away information that many people need. Use that as an opportunity for them to see who you are and why they need your product and/or service.

We are in Calgary, Alberta CANADA! When I explained this to the man on the phone he was laughing. He did not even know where Calgary was. I had to explain the concept of a couple thousand miles and another country!

That is the power of LinkedIn. We have been posting regularly on LinkedIn and Twitter now for over a year for our client the CBN. My personal connections are 1900+ and I have staff and partners that also have a huge list of connections. I usually use the free applications but every once in a while I will pay for a month just to see the extra stats and demographics. I am always surprised by what I find. It seems that many of the people that I have in my own connection lists that are mostly from Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto are widely connected themselves. Their greatest points of contacts are reaching mostly to three American cities. New York, San Francisco, and LA. So as I am happily posting away here for my clients and my friends and staff are doing the same we are coming up a lot in the feed. So much so, that this gentleman thought we were in New York!

LinkedIn can be a very powerful tool to get you noticed in other regions. We have helped another client who wanted to take part in a trade show in the US to have 20 appointments booked with key prospects upon arrival. The sales from the appointments covered the cost of the event for them. Another time we trained an entire sales team how to use LinkedIn to book their own appointments at an American event before they left. Each of their employees had successful one-on-one sales calls set up before their feet hit the ground at the airport.

Need Appointments?

Sales generally come from good appointments with pre-qualified buyers. This is an excellent way to get some of those.

The work for that we do for the Canadian Imperial Business Network is much the same. They need to fill up their business networking groups with one person from each industry. We have a lot of LinkedIn connections and this social media platform will sort them by industry and location. We are very active and consistent in our online chatter, giving away tips, sharing good stories, and asking great questions. We have developed a lot of fantastic online-relationships and moved many of them to real in-person-relationships. So how hard do you think it is for us to invite our connections to awesome lunch meetings where they can get referrals? It is not hard at all. Last month we had over 45 people visit these chapters and 18 of them joined the network. The soul method of recruitment was LinkedIn. We hardly picked up the telephone until after the person had already been out to a meeting.

LinkedIn is an extremely powerful tool. If you don’t know how to use it to get your phone ringing your company should hire our team to come and train your staff immediately. The more people you have who know what they are doing the greater your impact. A small team of 3 people spending 20 minutes a day could double your bottom line this year if they know what they are doing. Your competitors have not figured this out yet so there is a phenomenal opportunity to be ahead of the curve on this one.

Call us today for a consultation. 403-397-1909

Social media can be an awesome way to gain more exposure for your business but you do need to grow a healthy following and then you need to maintain it. Consistency is where many businesses drop the ball. It is hard when business picks up to get those blogs done in a timely manner and when followers want to see something four times a day on Twitter or LinkedIn who can keep up?

Automation is your new best friend. There are many choices to select from. We like Hootsuite. You can have up to 5 accounts posting in their free offering, but what are you going to Tweet about?

If you are concerned about staff posting inappropriate things you need to know it is going to be hard to stop them from interacting. So instead of trying to dominate and control them why not give them some training? Why not help them by providing Tweetable material that you have approved?

Sit down with a social media consultant and figure out a game-plan. What is your message? What is your brand? How do you want to be represented online? How will Twitter fit with LinkedIn and Facebook?

Did you know that you can have 2 years of Tweets written and pre-approved? Did you know that you can make a social media marketing plan and integrate it with all of your other marketing programs?

You can decide how much you want to Tweet and then you can decide what message you want to put out there. Four or five categories of Tweets can be constructed with your vision in mind. Hundreds of Tweets can be designed to represent you online. It is a simple process.

Making Sweet Tweets

1. Pick four subjects you want to Tweet about. One category could be statements from your website or your industry. You may want to have a category of positive motivation quotes. You may want to re-post articles of people who blog about subjects related to your industry. Humor can be fun if it fits. Free advice or tips are good too.

2. Write 100 Tweets per subject.

3. Put links on ¼ and phone numbers on ¼.

4. Use Hootsuite or another automated system to program them. Put 2-3 months into place Tweeting 4 – 5 times a day. You can still use impromptu Tweets as the business owner, but think them over before you send. You can’t get it back once it is out there.

Programmed Tweets are sweet. No thinking about it. Consistency is yours!

If you are having difficulty preparing content give us a call. Loyal2U is willing and able to help you prepare your message and get it out where your ultimate client will find you. Our first half hour of consultation is free so book a coffee appointment today.

Call us at  403-397-1909

Recently I met a businessman who felt that LinkedIn did not bring him any real business. After quizzing him I realized that he had not been active on the platform for almost 2 years. Yikes!

Here is a heads up for those living in the past. If you are in a B2B business the increase of membership in the Calgary market is over 60% in the last 12 months. What does that mean? It means that just because your ultimate client was not found there a year ago, many of them are there now. Many business owners and entrepreneurs have a very heavy presence there. Oil & Gas, educators, not-for-profits and large conglomerates are working their profiles and making connections with the intent of doing business with those that they find there.

Once you have been at a tradeshow, attended a networking function, or exchanged business cards in any arena LinkedIn should be your next stop. Connect with these people. They likely won’t find you because you gave them a card, but if you connect with them on LinkedIn your photograph immediately reminds them of you. They feel more connected and it is easy to book an appointment or a coffee after a LinkedIn follow-up message has been sent.

Be sure to have an updated profile with your current contact information at the top. Include your phone number and your email address so they can connect with you if they see a potential partnership. When you see that they have been looking at your profile go have a peek at theirs as well and send them a quick note of appreciation of something that you see that they posted. Engage in conversations and go ahead and book an appointment for a coffee if you see a good fit. Be a good social networker and use LinkedIn in your social networking plan.