via Flickr by Seattle Municipal Archives

Dear Telemarketers,

I understand your job is difficult. You have to make dozens if not hundreds of calls every day. You have quotas to make. You’re judged not by the quality of your conversations but by the quantity that you make and how many result in the desired outcome. You have it rough and I don’t envy you.

I receive a lot of these calls. On average 3-5 a week. I’m not sure how I ended up on these lists but I have a sneaky suspicion that those “free”subscriptions to industry publications exact the price of selling my name for marketing purposes.

I’m extremely busy and your calls interrupt the flow of my day. Sometimes, I answer the call – either because I thought it was from a colleague or contacts (caller ID does have it’s drawbacks) or I decided to pick up the phone. Since this is an unsolicited call, you have a few precious seconds to 1) catch my attention and 2) communicate your value.

Yet, 99% of the time, I abruptly end these calls!

Now, don’t get me wrong. I believe telemarketing does have a place within marketing, when used strategically – either to support an existing campaign, as a follow up from a conference or to provide a valuable offer.

But the bottom line is, telemarketing teams are typically inexperienced folks with minimal phone training. And when you’re trying to reach a purchase decision-maker, it’s painfully obvious.

So what I am seeking from the next telemarketing call? Who hasactuallycaused me to stay on the phone? It’s very simple.

1) Say my name correctly. I know there are folks with unusual names. But seriously, mine isNOTone of them!

2) Practice your pitch. It’s funny how many times the person on the other line seems surprised to get me live that they fumble away the precious seconds trying to get the first sentence out of their mouths. Practice. Practice. And then practice some more.

3) Call in the early morning or late afternoon. Yes, you probably have stats about the best time to reach people. For me, anytime after 8 am or before 4 pm is my busiest time with meetings, calls and frankly work.

4) Be courteous, respectful and even funny. I seriously had to chatise a recent telemarketer who not only fumbled on the first 3 steps but then had the temerity to tell me that I should take her call as I was being rude for not listening to her. Hello? Yoe called me with an offer or request. For the few who have been courteous and humourous, I have been willing to speak with them.

So what do  you say? Give me a call and we can discuss this further.

This past week has transfixed the entire country. From the bombings at the Boston Marathon to the unbelievable climax in Watertown, I’ve been overwhelmed with a mix of emotions.

* With my husband originating from Boston, there were waves of relief as each person checked in to say they were safe
* Sadness as I learned about the lives forever changed by this heinous act
* Empathy for our friends who were on shift at the hospitals receiving the injured
* Elation as I watched the eventual capture of the infamous suspect #2

But what struck me most about this past week, as I can only begin to digest the week’s events like everyone else in the US, is the sheer ability of people to rise above this terrorist attack. We’ve seen incredible examples of it:

* Marathoners finishing the race and continuing on to hospitals to donate blood
* Brave first responders rushing in to help the injured without knowing if more jobs would be ignited
* The spirit of Bostonians (though they can be a crabby group, their heart is unquestionable ) to take in strangers and help one another
* The running community showing solidarity with memorial runs, fundraising and more

More importantly, as the president said:

All in all it’s been a tough week but we’ve seen the character of our country once more. As president, I believe that we have the courage, resilience, and spirit to overcome these challenges and to go forward as one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

This incident, no matter how horrible, no matter how unbelievable, no matter how disgusting it is, showed me the better side of humanity and to appreciate my loved ones that much more.

As an adopted daughter-in-law of Boston: Go Boston, Stay Strong. Go Red Sox!

Note – I have disabled comments for this post.

Small part to show support at my company – 2.62 mile run on April 19.

The last two weeks has been a master class on how to present brilliantly or poorly as that may be. While I am admittedly a Democrat and mainly watched the Democrat National Conference, my points are not based on party affiliation. Rather it’s about the power of speaking simply to convey a message.

This is an issue not related solely to politicians, but any person who presents publicly. A powerful speaker is remembered long after the speech has concluded. And the single quality that all memorable speakers have? Simplicity.

Here are four tips to brilliant speaking:

Tell a story

Telling a story helps to draw your audience in – it has a beginning, middle and end. A story can convey a message so much more powerfully than any talking point. When possibly, weave your key points into a relevant story to personalize it for your audience.

Eliminate jargon

Too often, we fall into the habit of speaking in industry acronyms or jargon. While there are appropriate occasions for this language, from my perspective, the jargon gets in the way. It can become a crutch to using clear language to convey your message.

Vary your cadence

Be mindful of the cadence of your presentation. We tend to fall into one “speed” when we speak, which can lead to a “monotone” presentation. Review your presentation to pinpoint what type of emotion you want to convey. For example, if you want to highlight an important point, pausing for 1-2 seconds before delivering the key point signals to your audience to pay attention.

Whereas, in some points, you may want to use stacatto, brief sentences to quicken the pace and excitement of what you’re stating.

Be direct

Our tendency is to build up to our main point. We lay out the facts. Point out the supporting points. And then with the flair of a magician, ta da! We unveil our key point. Instead, turn this paradigm around. You audience has a short attention span. Start with your conclusion first and then map back to it.

Conclusion

After watching the DNC most of last week, the presentations I remembered did not happen to be President Obama’s. Rather it was President Clinton and John Kerry. Each had his own style. His own message. But each delivered well and incorporated one or more of the above four points.

What tips would do you have?

Sending generic invitations to connect: I’ve received dozens of invitations to connect via LinkedIn. In the past, I would automatically accept invitations, even from complete strangers. However, as LinkedIn members have become more aggressive with emails and connections, I evaluate each request carefully. One mistake is not customizing the canned invitation. Take 2 minutes to explain why you want to connect – prospective partnership, mentorship, job hunting, etc. Otherwise, I will click on reject versus accept.

Incomplete and boring profiles: Yes, I have to admit that my profile is slightly out of date for my current position With that said, my profile is more than just a listing of positions I’ve held over the past 15 years. It needs to read more than just a timeline. Rather, I’ve taken time to consider who may be viewing my profile – recruiters, current colleagues, prospective employees and more. And for those seeking employment, write your profile to capture someone’s attention within the first 10-15 seconds. Be bold. Be eye-catching.

Keeping profiles private: This one totally confuses me. While Facebook is for family and friends; hence why I maintain a private profile, to me LinkedIn, it’s about business networking. Keeping a profile private communicates you’re seeking to hide something. Not a good start for any relationship.

Spamming groups: I see more and more spam in my LinkedIn Groups. This reminds me of spam comments on blogs. While there is a way to limit this on blogs, it’s up to group managers or community managers to monitor groups. Take a step back and reconsider how your participate on LinkedIn Groups – it should always be educational and helpful. Otherwise this reflects poorly on you and your company/employer.

Mass LinkedIn messages: As LinkedIn has opened up premium services, I’m seeing more spam in my LinkedIn in box. I am receptive to receiving emails from individuals who have clearly reviewed and pre-qualified me based on my profile. Otherwise, sending LinkedIn messages is worthless spam.

What are your don’ts for LinkedIn?

Broadcast stage:While we recognize that social media is about conversations and engagement, I’ve found that the first stage is getting comfortable with publishing on this medium. As such, the first phase will mainly be broadcasting – upcoming events, new blog postings, product announcements, etc.

Inquisitive stage: Once an organization becomes comfortable publishing on social media, the next stage is being inquisitive – asking others for their comments, feedback, including polls and other similar activities. From my perspective, this is the first step from broadcast toward engagement.

Participatory stage: It is at this stage that an organization moves from broadcast to a participatory level. In addition to promoting it’s own content, an organization begins recognizing the contribution of others. This includes retweeting, commenting, and sharing links to blog postings, articles and other content of interest to your followers/target audiences.

Conversation stage: This is the most intensive aspect of a social media program and most desired stage that all aspire to. At this stage, an organization is engaging in an active conversation with their audiences – responding in real-time to constituents while adding value.

Are there other stages to consider when starting a social media program?

While virtual technology has progressed to become part of a larger strategy to engage audiences, I believe the holographic performance came closest to achieving the goal of this technology – seamless blending of “virtual and live” experiences.

Relevance

Coachella is a 3-day music festival known for its music – up and coming and legends, cutting and bleeding edge, folk/acoustic to rap and hip hop. Levering innovative technology to showcase a performance by a holographic Tupac was relevant to the nature of the festival and its audience.

It evoked an immediate response

Our industry is about evoking a response with our audience through engagement. Tupac’s performance not only evoked a response – initially shock that transitioned into elation, but also promoted conversation and engagement (between the festival and audience members and the general community) long after the festival concluded. That is the ultimate goal for our industry.

Blended well into the “live” aspect of the festival

The technology was used strategically as part of the festival’s penultimate performance that also included Snoop Dog, Dr. Dre, Eminem, and 50 Cent. The temptation to do a whole set by Tupac or have him “walk through” the crowd must have been high. Rather, the festival featured Tupac for two songs – achieving the desired result while blending well into the overall nature of the festival. Any more could have negatively impacted the event.

1. Search Engine Optimization: I believe it was Jeramiah Owyang who said that search is your new website. If your website is not optimized to place highly on key search terms related to your business, then you are missing opportunities with your business. It’s important to understand what factors help or hinder your website and the key search terms for your company, products or services.

2. Content Marketing: Placing highly on search engines relies on strong content marketing strategy. This includes not only understanding your keywords, but also understanding your buyer personas and the questions they will ask during the purchasing process. If you’re able to create content that addresses their questions, then not only will your pages ranks highly, but also when they click through, it will be highly relevant.

3. Public Relations: Previously, PR was seen mainly as a way to increase brand awareness for a company, with minimal connections to how it truly impacted a business. With better tracking tools and the importance of online marketing, public relations is an integral element in driving SEO through quality links which promotes traffic to your website – both direct and indirect. It’s integral that marketers understand how to leverage PR and properly measure it as part of a larger marketing strategy and event marketing campaigns related to product launches, tradeshows, and more.

4. Social Media: When you look at the first three things above, then social media becomes an important avenue for distributing your content, driving SEO and increasing brand awareness. I think it’s also important to engage on the channels where influencers, customers, partners, and employees are engaging. This requires understanding where the conversations are happening. For example, new prospects may be asking questions on LinkedIn groups, influencers are on Twitter and customers are in dedicated online communities.

5. Pay-per-click programs: PPC programs are a science. While you may not implement them directly, it’s important to understand the concepts and how they can be leveraged for your overall programs. The goal is to find ways to be present when someone is searching on your company or products/services related to your company. It’s about filtering through all the noise that a person encounters online. An article, a tweet, a search result, a ppc ad. It all adds up and increases the success of your marketing efforts.

I’m curious to hear what other skills are must haves for today’s marketing.

Courtesy of Active Network via Flickr

In November 2011, I decided to leave my consulting business to join Active Network as director of marketing for the Business Solutions division.  It’s been a busy three months with a launch at the PCMA Convening Leaders conference and acquisition of StarCite, a leading strategic meetings management company. And as you know, my blogging has suffered as a result.

While my new position focuses more on the face-to-face events – attendee management, attendee engagement, SMM and more, I anticipate sharing more insights about the role of marketing, PR and social media. I will also continue to have a vested interest in seeing where event technology - virtual, digital and every iteration in between.

As I settle into my new position, I hope to return to a more regular blogging schedule.  Until then, PR meet Marketing, Marketing meet PR =)

And please note, everything on my blog is my own personal opinion and is not representative of my company’s.

by RambergMediaImages via Flickr

I subscribe to quite a few enewsletters and RSS feeds, so it’s always surprising to receive an enewsletter that I never subscribed to. How did they find my email? Then I recognize the “from” address and I realize, I gave someone in that company my business card in the past.

A business card is meant to develop a relationship between people, not a person and a company. However, the first tendency is to take all business cards back to the office, dump them into a sales database and automatically subscribe them to all the company emails. Come on, you know you’ve done it!

From my perspective, this is the quickest path to 1) decrease people’s interest to work with your company and 2) for future emails to be blocked. In the end, this is about permission marketing (as eloquently written by Seth Godin in the book with the same name). Here are my three tips to gaining permission and starting your marketing relationship on the right foot.

Always ask and say please

What did you parents teach you when you were growing up? Always ask and say please. This is no different with marketing. Instead of adding me to a an email newsletter and anonymously sending it to me, consider sending me a personalized note highlighting why I may be interested in your newsletter. My motto is, if you never ask, then you’ll never hear yes, right? So ask first and maybe you’ll be suprised how many will say yes instead of hitting the unsubscribe button.

Treat each business card as a first date

Treat each business card as a first date – you’re seeking to win me over to go on the next date and the next. To do this, you have to understand my likes, dislikes and unique habits that make me special. The same with business. A business card provides a wealth of information to determine what type of information the person may be most interested in. For example, a marketing person may want to optimize lead and demand generation programs while a sales person may want to increase closed sales opportunities. Though similar, the needs of each are different.

Don’t be desparate

Have you ever seen the movie Swingers? Remember the scene where the main character keeps on calling this woman he just met, leaving voicemail after voicemail until she finally tells him to stop. Believe it or not, this happens in marketing as well. While creating multiple “touchpoints” is good for generating awareness about your company, multiple phone calls and emails is not necessarily the right application of this strategy. The key is coordinating between sales and marketing to understand how often a person is being contacted and why. Otherwise, the person on the other line will just hang up.

Conclusion – Long-term relationships

If done well, permission marketing will allow you to develop a long-term relationship that delivers value not only to the customer but also to your company. While this begins with a “yes,” you must constantly maintain that permission by understanding the person’s business needs, likes and dislikes. In a way, it’s like marri

Please share you thoughts, expriences and comments below on holding/producing a virtual press conference.