One, in the form of a postcard, came from Zappos.com addressed to my son who returned a pair of shoes. He’s growing fast, but he only needed one size bigger, not two, to replace his shredded Lakai Manchester Selects.

What do you do when your shoes don’t fit?

My son, a high school sophomore, gets on the phone. After all, Mom is for preliminary price approval, not return intervention.

When he found ...]]>
Today’s mail call brought in two thank you notes.

One, in the form of a postcard, came from Zappos.com addressed to my son who returned a pair of shoes. He’s growing fast, but he only needed one size bigger, not two, to replace his shredded Lakai Manchester Selects.

What do you do when your shoes don’t fit?

My son, a high school sophomore, gets on the phone.
After all, Mom is for preliminary price approval, not return intervention.

When he found the shoes he ordered weren’t in stock in his correct size, the customer service rep stayed on line with him while he shopped for a new pair onsite. He wanted the ones that cost $11 more and was willing to pay. But, Zappos said no prob, we’ll upgrade your order at no charge.

Today Sarah’s postcard came in the mail: “Thanks for calling in today! I hope you like your new Lakai shoes!” The “return address” on the card is a call to action: “Put a smile in someone’s day by sending them an unexpected observation or totally random comment.”

In the past 10 years, I’m estimating I’ve purchased at least 50 pairs of skate shoes. [Please, don’t do the math.] Not one shoe or shoelace has come from Zappos. Why? We never thought of them as a skate shoe store. Do you think Zappos has a frequent skate shoe buyer club? Because if they do, I know at least a dozen dudes who’ll sign up.

And, the second thank you note came as a letter addressed to me to share with Social Media Club Chicago from Adele Hazen of GasPedal thanking us for all of our help with BlogWell. Primary credit for that goes to Tim McDonald, SMC Chicago’s communications director.

What’s our customer relationship with BlogWell? Social Media Club is a marketing partner, which means that we often get free tickets to the events in exchange for letting our members know about special discounts.

But, my personal relationship with GasPedal goes back almost two years ago when Andy Sernovitz gave me a scholarship to attend his Word of Mouth Marketing Genius event – for free. Inspired, I wrote “PR Tools: Word of Mouth Marketing – Give it Away,” and gave away the steps in my company’s marketing transformations process.

How do you show customer appreciation?

As many times as I’ve listened to Natalie Merchant sing “Kind and Generous,” the first time I saw the music video was just now when I previewed it to embed in this post. Wow!

For those of you would like a personal thank you note for reading this post, please email your address to corywestmedia @gmail.com with the message “Please Thank Me” in the subject line.

How do you or your company show appreciation?

Image creditt: Thanks to Shutterstock.com for supplying images in exchange for a photo credit.

It was an honor and a pleasure to present with them all. Blagica took us behind the scenes at Edelman to talk about community. Brad shared what’s new on Facebook, a presentation that could ...]]> Assignment: Talk about how to do business on LinkedIn Challenge: in 10 minutes or less.
Result: How to Grow Business in 3D on LinkedIn: Digitally, Directly and Dynamically
Program: Social Media panel at Integrated Marketing Summit Chicago
Panelists: Aaron Goldman, Blagica Bottigliero, Brad Kleinman and Tony Bombacino of Restaurant.com

It was an honor and a pleasure to present with them all. Blagica took us behind the scenes at Edelman to talk about community. Brad shared what’s new on Facebook, a presentation that could be updated every week. Tony talked about listening to customers and gave examples of how his company manages customer service requests. Aaron has a new book coming out – Everything I Know About Marketing I Learned from Google – and is someone to watch. Thanks to Aaron for organizing and moderating our panel and to Shawn Ellege for bringing Integrated Marketing Summit to Chicago.

Here’s my presentation . . .

What do you do to grow your business digitally, directly and dynamically?

If you’d like to enter to win the Wired PR Works August 24 Integrated Marketing Summit conference in Chicago ticket ...]]> One of the benefits of being a speaker is getting complimentary event tickets to pass on to friends or to give away. So, yes, this is a promotional post. And, yes, this is the kind of post I wish I could write more often. Who doesn’t like to pass out free tickets – especially when they’re valued at $279?

If you’d like to enter to win the Wired PR Works August 24 Integrated Marketing Summit conference in Chicago ticket giveaway, please leave a comment. On Monday August 23, I’ll use random.org to choose a winner.

Thanks goes out to Shawn Ellege, Chief Engagement Officer, of Integrated Marketing Summit, for inviting me to speak on the Integrated Marketing Summit Social Media Multi Speaker Panel on August 24, 2010 at Hyatt O’Hare in Chicago.

Because I know you’re busy, I’m listing the featured speakers and the program agenda here. If you don’t win the contest, but would still like to go, get 20% off both the event and next day workshops with Social Media Club Chicago’s member discount code: SMCC10.

Featured Integrated Marketing Summit Speakers

Tim Arnold, Columnist, Adweek & Consultant

Jamie Turner, Chief Content Officer, 60 Second Marketer

IMS Mission: Help Marketing & Advertising Professionals Drive Revenue Rapidly
IMS is the signature summit for Marketing, Advertising and PR Professionals in both B-to-B and B-to-C markets throughout the U.S. IMS provides actionable insights, expertise and cutting-edge information in a convenient, affordable one-day educational format. And the best continues, with next-day, hands-on workshops presented by leading practitioners.

Registration and Continental Breakfast & Beverages 8:15 AM – 8:45 AM

Welcome Presentation – Shawn Elledge – CEO – IMS 8:45 AM – 9:30 AM

Morning Keynote – The Agile Marketer – A Framework For Succeeding In The New Marketing Era
Chad Mitchell, Senior Managing Consultant, IBM’s Global Business Services, BAO practice – Business Optimization and Analytics.

9:45 AM – 10:45 AM

Program A – Integrated Social Media Marketing
Chris Kovac, Director of Social Influence for Nicholson Kovac, (Kansas City, MO) will review best practices for social influence (media) marketing, including: social monitoring, blog development and relations, Social News Release (SNR), Facebook/Twitter development, Multimedia and more. Chris will provide a blueprint on how to get started in social media and how it can be integrated into traditional marketing communications strategies and tactic.

9:45 AM – 10:45 AM
Program B – Marketing Automation – Lead Management
Craig Meurer, Director of Technology Solutions at Harte Hanks (Austin, TX) will talk about best practices in demand generation and marketing automation platforms discussing lead tracking, scoring and nurturing including crm integration. Eloqua is the world leader in Marketing Automation Platforms (MAP) and provides the underlying technology used by Harte Hanks.

9:45 AM – 10:45 AM
Program C – Integrated Marketing Case Study BtoB
Gayle Novak, Director of Client Service and Partner at Slack Barshinger & Partners (Chicago, IL) will share a BtoB integrated marketing case study for Fellowes shredders. The office products category, on the whole, was suffering from commodization. See how Fellowes used true innovation—both in their business model and their IMC strategy—to not only differentiate their shredder products, but also reinvigorate the category and help their own channel partners bring relevant “news” and products to their own end consumers.

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Program A – “How to Make Money with Social Media”
Jamie Turner, Chief Content Officer at 60 Second Marketer, a division of BKV (Atlanta, GA)
If you’re like many people, you may have some questions about social media. You may be asking whether it’s over-hyped or if it’s going to be replaced by something else or if it’s just a big waste of time.
But the important question isn’t whether it’s over-hyped or going to be replaced by something or a big waste of time. The important question is “How can I make money with social media?”
In this fun, engaging, interactive presentation, Jamie Turner provides an insider’s look at the business models that work for social media. He answers many of the key questions businesspeople have about social media and takes a look at the tools, tips and techniques necessary to set up a social media campaign.

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Program B – Using Data to Drive Sales & Marketing Effectiveness
Garth Moulton Co Founder VP of Community for Jigsaw, a Salesforce.com company & Michele McMahon former Sr Director, Marketing Operations at Ariba now VP of Revenue Generation at The Network in Atlanta GA will showcase how marketing can use data to increase overall effectiveness and revnue.

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Program C – A Roadmap for Managing the Webinar Life Cycle
Join Webinar expert Mike Agron, Executive Webinar Producer for WebAttract, LLC, for a tutorial to learn how to tightly manage and control the many aspects of running a great Webinar. You’ll hear about real life examples on Webinar best practices, methodologies and metrics that WebAttract has used for producing and delivering webinars for global brands such as Google, Oracle, Underwriters Laboratories as well as many emerging regional brands, etc. This webinar, featuring WebAttract, was recently sponsored by BtoB Magazine and hosted by Citrix Online, providers of GoToWebinar.

12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Lunch Time Keynote -Tim Arnold, AdWeek Columnist – Consultant
Tim Arnold is a 30-year advertising industry veteran. For three years he’s told his stories in a regular column for Adweek magazine and is now going to share his latest research study, Luxury is Dead. Or is it? And why should I care?

1:30 PM – 2:30 PM
Program A – Social Media Multi Speaker Presentation
Whether you are BtoB, BtoC, offering a considered purchase or selling a commodity, this multi speaker presentation moderated by Aaron Goldman, Founder and Principal, Connectual will help you develop an effective social media strategy.
Speakers include:
Tony Bombacino, CMO Restaurant.com (Chicago, IL)
Barbara Rozgonyi, Principal CoryWest Media, LLC & Founder, Social Media Club Chicago (Chicago,IL)
Brad Kleinman, Director of Education at Online Marketing Connect (Cleveland, OH)
Blagica Bottigliero, VP of Strategy Edelman Digital (Chicago, IL)

1:30 PM – 2:30 PM
Program B – Enterprise Segmentation Driven Customer Centricity
Presented by: Ramin Mikaili, Merkle, VP Segmentation Practice Lead, Quantitative Solutions & Jeriad Zoghby, Merkle, Customer Centricity Practice Leader
One of the key characteristics of a high performing organization is customer centricity. Customer centric organizations have a consistent and precise value proposition and service for their customers at any interaction point.

1:30 PM – 2:30 PM
Program C – How the Power of Publicity Can Supercharge Your Business
Marsha Friedman – Public relations expert, author, radio personality and public speaker – will give you the inside track on how to raise your company’s visibility to your target audiences and become known as “the” credentialed expert in your field.

2:45 PM – 3:45 PM
Program A – Blue Bunny Integrated Marketing Case Study BtoC
Integration done right is done right a variety of ways. Within a brand’s marketing team; within an entire agency; and between partner agencies. How do brands make all three types of integration work in synch? Brad Hanna, SVP, group account leader at Barkley will showcase how his teams have made integration work across all of these functions for Blue Bunny ice cream.

2:45 PM – 3:45 PM
Program B – Forget what you THINK you know about PR….it’s a Whole New World
Michael Pranikoff, Director of Emerging Media, PR Newswire (Washington, DC) will share insight into the future of PR including multimedia press releases.

2:45 PM – 3:45 PM
Program C – Mobile Marketing Best Practices: Opt-In Strategies for Mobile Campaigns
Stacy Adams, Global Director of Marketing & Paul Griswold, Product Management for Air2Web (Atlanta, GA) will cover these requirements in detail and explore how you can use your other marketing channels, such as social media, web and email, to drive customers to your mobile campaigns.

There’s no question that mobile is an emerging and exciting channel for your marketing mix. But how do you access something that’s as closely guarded as a mobile phone number?

4:00 PM – 5:00 PM

Program A – Search Engine Optimization & Marketing (Panel)
Panel Presentation and Discussion on Best Practices in Search Engine Optimization & Marketing – Moderated by Bill Leake, CEO of Apogee Results (Austin, TX)
Speakers Include:
Viji Davis, Vice President, Client Services Resolution Media (Chicago, IL)
Josh Dreller, Vice President of Media Technology and Analytics, Fuor Digital (Chicago, IL)
Chris Gilmartin, President of Lever Interactive (Chicago, IL)

4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Program B – Online Offline Integration
This multi speaker presentation will cover case studies and best practices on integrating offline with online.
Speakers include:
Patrick Moorhead, VP and Director of Mobile Platforms, Drfatfcb (Chicago, IL)
Reggie Riley, Vice President, Global Multi-Media Sales, Wall Street Journal (Chicago, IL)
Anne Rago, Managing Director Business Development, Novus Media (Chicago, IL)

5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Networking Reception
Social networking in person! Join us for an end-of-day cocktail or wine and meet IMS attendees, sponsors and speakers in an informal venue.

Does this sound like a conference you’d like to attend? To enter to win, leave a comment. Good luck!

Here’s the background story on the sales and social media presentation for financial advisors and the message Annette sent out to the attendees . . .

Barbara Rozgonyi on Savvy Social Media: How to Leverage Social Network Connections into Profitable Business Relationships __________________________________

Barbara is a social media queen!

She provides practical useful information we all need to know about social media.

This interview has already had a ...]]> Thanks to Annette Bau for asking me to be today’s Financial Summit’s social media speaker.

Here’s the background story on the sales and social media presentation for financial advisors and the message Annette sent out to the attendees . . .

Barbara Rozgonyi on Savvy Social Media: How to Leverage Social Network Connections into Profitable Business Relationships
__________________________________

Barbara is a social media queen!

To listen to these free interviews go to www.FASummit.com/schedule.php

Here are the resources I mentioned on the call.

Office Depot Web Cafe LinkedIn Webinar

LinkedIn for Small Business Owners Business Insanity Radio Interview

Seven Day LinkedIn PR Course – complimentary by emailing linkedpr @aweber.com

Do you need a social media webinar presentation for your group? Contact Barbara Rozgonyi at 630.207.7530 to discuss topics and availability.

Listen to the Business Insanity show on BlogTalk Radio with show host Barry Moltz interviewing Craig Newmark and Barbara Rozgonyi.

In our interview we talked about LinkedIn expert profile tips for small business owners.

Barry asked me about . . . Five things you need to do to transform a LinkedIn profile into an always-on ...]]> Thanks so much to Barry Moltz, host of the Business Insanity Radio Show for interviewing me today along with Craig Newmark, founder of Craiglist,who talked about customer service.

Listen to the Business Insanity show on BlogTalk Radio with show host Barry Moltz interviewing Craig Newmark and Barbara Rozgonyi.

In our interview we talked about LinkedIn expert profile tips for small business owners.

Barry asked me about . . .
Five things you need to do to transform a LinkedIn profile into an always-on networking hub
Why your company needs its own LinkedIn profile
Places to find LinkedIn connections
How to increase your influence on LinkedIn
What LinkedIn groups can do for you and your business

You can find Barry online at BarryMoltz.com. Read what Barry had to say as a Wired PR Works guest blogger in this post about how to get on TV shows.

Interested in more ways LinkedIn can help you grow your business? Listen to a webinar I dd for Office Depot and find out how to sign up for my free 7-day LinkedIn and PR ecourse.

Do you need a LinkedIn, PR or social media expert to interview for your show? Call me at 630.207.7530 – last minute requests are okay. We can discuss tips and tools I write about in Success Secrets of the Social Media Marketing Superstars, a new book published by Entrepreneur Press that features chapters from over 20 social media thought leaders, including Mitch Meyerson, the lead author, Keith Ferrazzi, Tahl Raz, Brian Clark, Ann Handley, Gary Vaynerchuk, Andy Wibbles, Chris Brogan, Joel Comm, Craig Valentine, Starr Hall, Dan Janal, Michael Stelzner, Denise Wakeman, Mari Smith, Deborah Cole Micek, Barbara Rozgonyi, Julie Perry, Paul Colligan, Chris Garrett, Kim Dushinski, Shama Kabani and Dave Evans.

Image: Barry Moltz, Mike Michalowicz- the toilet-paper-entrepreneur-and me, Barbara Rozgonyi at an event here in Chicago in July 2010.

And, I’m inviting you to list yours in the comment box. As a strategic marketing and social media consultant for all types of companies, including PR firms, I advise companies to keep a watch on their competition as well form collaborative ventures to refer business that doesn’t fit ...]]> Recently someone moving to Chicago asked me for a who’s who guide to Chicago PR firms. Thanks to Crains Chicago Business, I’m posting this list of the 25 Largest Chicago PR Firms.

And, I’m inviting you to list yours in the comment box. As a strategic marketing and social media consultant for all types of companies, including PR firms, I advise companies to keep a watch on their competition as well form collaborative ventures to refer business that doesn’t fit and to partner up when a broader team makes sense.

My Personal Observations about Chicago’s Largest Public Relations Firms

Edelman folks seem to turn up in more places than any other firm on this list, including David Armano and Blagica Bottigliero and Archana Ramachandran and back to Leah Jones, no longer there, but the first Edelman person I met.

Adam Keats and his team at Weber Shandwick brought in their client, Oscar Mayer, to sponsor a Social Media Club Chicago event.

GolinHarris invited me to the Elysian Hotel opening, which I wrote about as a how to stage a twitter PR campaign. Interacting with their team at the event with members including Len Kendall, was engaging. It’s going to be interesting to watch GolinHarris now that Amber Porter Cox is on board as a VP of digital, dialogue team.

One of managing partners for one of these firms headed up a division at a place where I once consulted. Ketchum and CoryWest Media partnered up on a PR project for clients we had in common.

Disclosure: I am biased. I really admire those mentioned in this post.

It only takes 16 people and nine clients to make the list. Revenue ranges from $3.2 to $435 million. How do these companies stack up in social media? What do you think? That’s not on the chart.

One last thought . . . It’s interesting, to me, that I know more PR people from around the world than I know from Chicago . . .

Top Chicago PR Firms

1. Daniel J. Edelman Inc.
200 E. Randolph St., 63rd floor, Chicago 60601
(312) 240-2600; www.edelman.com

2. Weber Shandwick
676 N. Saint Clair St., Suite 1000, Chicago 60611
(312) 988-2400; www.webershandwick.com

3. GolinHarris
111 E. Wacker Drive, 11th floor, Chicago 60601
(312) 729-4000; www.golinharris.com

4. Fleishman-Hillard Inc.
875 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 3300, Chicago 60611
(312) 751-8878; www.fleishman.com

5. Burson-Marsteller
222 Merchandise Mart Plaza., 250, Chicago 60654
(312) 596-3400; www.bm.com

6. Porter Novelli Inc.
225 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 1935, Chicago 60601
(312) 856-8888; www.porternovelli.com

7. LipmanHearne
200 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 1600, Chicago 60604
(312) 356-8000; www.lipmanhearne.com

8. Jasculca/Terman & Associates
730 N. Franklin St., Suite 510, Chicago 60654
(312) 337-7400; www.jtpr.com

9. Ketchum Inc.
200 E. Randolph St., 36th floor, Chicago 60601
(312) 228-6800; www.ketchum.com

10. Public Communications Inc
1 E. Wacker Drive, Suite 2450, Chicago 60601
(312) 558-1770; www.pcipr.com

11. S&S Public Relations Inc.
2700 Patriot Blvd., Suite 430, Glenview 60026
(847) 955-0700; www.sspr.com

12. Dig Communications
549 W. Randolph St, Suite 201, Chicago 60661
(312) 577-1754; www.digcommunications.com

13. Ruder Finn
211 E. Ontario St., Suite 1600, Chicago 60611
(312) 329-3900; www.ruderfinn.com

14. Hill & Knowlton
222 Merchandise Mart Plaza, Suite 275, Chicago 60654
(312) 255-1200; www.hillandknowlton.com

15. Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide
350 W. Mart Center Drive, 11th floor, Chicago 60654
(312) 397-6000; www.ogilvypr.com

16. Cramer-Krasselt
225 N. Michigan Ave., 25th Floor, Chicago 60601
(312) 616-9600; www.c-k.com

17. L.C. Williams & Associates
150 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 3800, Chicago 60601
(312) 565-3900; www.lcwa.com

18. KemperLesnik
500 Skokie Blvd., 4th Floor, Northbrook 60062
(312) 755-3500; www.kemperlesnik.com

19. Gibbs & Soell PR
2800 W. Higgins Road, Suite 730, Hoffman Estates 60169
(847) 519-9150; www.gibbs-soell.com

20. Margie Korshak Inc.
875 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 1535, Chicago 60611
(312) 751-2121; www.korshak.com

21. MS&LGroup
222 Merchandise Mart Plaza, Suite 4-150, Chicago 60654
(312) 861-5200; www.mslworldwide.com

22. Res Publica Group LLC
444 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 3600, Chicago 60611
(312) 755-3535; www.respublicagroup.com

23. Zeno Group
200 E. Randolph St., Suite 5230, Chicago 60611
(312) 396-9700; www.zenogroup.com

24. Cushman/Amberg Communications
1 E. Wacker Drive, Suite 3750, Chicago 60601
(312) 263-2500; www.cushmanamberg.com

25. Tech Image
1130 Lake Cook Road, Suite 250, Buffalo Grove 60089
(847) 279-0022; www.techimage.com

What other Chicago PR firms would you add to this list?

Image: view from Michigan Avenue by Barbara Rozgonyi c2010 for www.thesociallens.com

Now, let’s think about business skills. What is the one skill you need to know to master to survive any economy?

Because PR is in this blog’s title, I’ll give you a few points for that. But, the only ...]]> Being really great at what you do doesn’t always translate to other skills. For example, how well do you know how to swim? Can you dog paddle, compete in a triathlon or watch the beach as a lifeguard [or a sun bather]?

Now, let’s think about business skills. What is the one skill you need to know to master to survive any economy?

Because PR is in this blog’s title, I’ll give you a few points for that. But, the only real answer is sales. Yes, content marketing is important as is customer relationships – but you can trace every business interaction back to sales.

Thanks to Annette Bau, I’m the sales and social media strategies presenter for the Financial Advisor’s Summit. Visit the event online at http://budurl.com/fasummit or read on to find out why I think sales education is a must for every business.

No matter what business you’re in, sales is a survival skill. I know your time is valuable, that’s why I’m including the presenters’ bios here so you can make an informed decision to attend. By the way, Annette’s arranged for each speaker to provide a free bonus. It’s worth signing up just for that.

We’re living in challenging times: markets and marketing is constantly changing.

But, for people who don’t know how to sell, markets and marketing conditions don’t matter. You see, the more you know about how to create customer relationships and deliver value, the better your sales and your business will be.

How do I know? I’m a former corporate sales trainer for one of the largest health care systems in the country. Although I’m not a national sales manager anymore, I do incorporate what I learned into everything I do.

I know what it’s like to build the most successful regional health care insurance office in the country with competitive products and services. I left that position to become a sales rep in Indiana.

Six months later I resigned. With no sales coming in – who wouldn’t quit? I transferred to Chicago and within a year my new territory – and the one I left – were leading the company. Ten years later, the relationships in Indiana I thought must be stone cold were still warm when a friend of mine took over my territory for another company. She wound up being their sales leader.

Taking my learnings from highs to lows, I became a national sales trainer on a mission to increase sales – as much as 400%. How did we get such great results? Simple: personalization and customization. From classroom presentations to riding along on sales calls, I worked with sales reps to come together as one team to serve customers.

Today, helping businesses navigate change and grow is what my business is all about.

That’s why I wanted to let you know that I’m presenting at the FA Summit, which takes place next week on August 10-12.

It’s conducted over the internet so it’s free to attend.

I have to tell you that I don’t know any of the other presenters. Except for one, I’ve never heard them speak. And, I don’t get any compensation from speaking or promoting the event. So why did I agree to present?

Because I love talking to people who sell, which means everyone. And, I know that most businesses need more sales education.

One of my favorite creative projects was for the financial services market. A Fortune 50 company engaged my services to create the optimal marketing materials for a fictitious financial planning firm. I made up everything: the logo, the name, the address, the bios, the clients, the statements, the identity and fabric of the firm were formed in my imagination and brought to life in my writing and the designer’s graphics.

So when Annette Bau, asked me to be a social media strategies presenter for the FA Summit, I said yes. Annette is an accomplished financial planner, marketer and an author. We geared the call for beginners in social media and professionals in sales – quite a mix, right? It’s interesting, to me, how regulations set tight guidelines on what financial advisors can say and post on social networks.

Financial Advisors Summit Speakers

All content from FASummit.com . . . .

Sid Walker: Selling Without Wrestling – How to have a 90% closing ratio and an abundance of quality referrals without being pushy or controlling
Sid is a champion of the consultative, relationship-building style of selling and self-promotion. His battle-cry is: “Your main job today is to help the client make informed decisions that feel right to the client!” Sid has successfully coached over 2,500 financial services reps including hundreds of the top people in the business. Sid is the founder of the Selling Without Wrestling Society, author of six books on topics including: interviewing to get more client commitment, how to develop the confidence to prospect for bigger clients, overcoming call reluctance and the fear of self-promotion, and how to “get on a roll” and “stay on a roll” selling financial services.

Michael Beck: Hit Your Marketing Bull’s-eye with D.A.R.T.S. Deep-seated, Action Reflex Trigger Strategies
Michael Beck is a recruiting and marketing specialist and is the nation’s leading expert on recruiting independent sales agents. Having helped insurance and financial service professionals for many years, Michael provides new perspectives on how people behave and how to communicate more effectively. He is a regular contributor to many trade publications such as producer’s web, financial services journal, and advisor today. He is also the author of the upcoming book, Stand Apart or Stand Aside.

Annette Bau: The Fast Track to Double Your Income and Success
Annette Bau, CFP™, a Certified Financial Planner™, is the Managing Member of Estate & Retirement Strategies, LLC, A Registered Investment Advisor. She has been a financial planner for over 20 years working with extensively with affluent business owners and women. She is the founder of the MillionDollarMarketingPractices.com and MllionaireSeries.com. Annette has authored books and products including The MillionDollarMarketingSystem.com, The Affluent Women’s Marketing Guide, the 7 Principles for becoming a Millionaire for Life and her upcoming book Winning Clients for Life.

Marie Swift: Branding Your Firm from the Inside Out: What You Must Know and Do to Win Market Share Now
Marie Swift is the CEO of Impact Communications. Her firm boasts a long and illustrious list of industry thought leaders, celebrities, and highly-successful advisors-all gleaned effortlessly through attraction-based marketing and PR strategies. She’s one of the top PR experts in the country, as well as an expert in public relations and marketing communication. She is hailed as the ‘Marketing Guru’ by the editors at Investment Advisor Magazine.

Steve Moeller: Capture $10 to $20 Million Dollars in New Investments in 2010
Steve Moeller, president of American Business Visions and author of Effort-Less Marketing for Financial Professionals, is widely regarded as one of the industry’s most ingenious business consultants. His unique business-building process, defined as relationship-based niche marketing, has become known as the “Moeller Method.” This turnkey system enables advisors to identify and attract clients that are both profitable and fun to work with.

Bill Cates: How to Get Referrals Without Asking for Them
Bill Cates is a world-renowned referral expert and he has basically revolutionized the way financial service professionals generate referrals. He is the author of Unlimited Referrals, Get More Referrals Now and his newly released book (which I love the title), Don’t Keep Me a Secret. Bill is the President of Referral Coach International and the creator of Referral Advantage Program. This program has been featured in publications such as Success Magazine, Entrepreneur Magazine, Selling Power and the Wall Street Journal, just to mention a few. His own business success has been featured in Money Magazine.

Bruce Wright: Affluent, discerning clients: How to attract them, serve them and retain them
Bruce R. Wright is Chairman and founder of The Wright Company. He is the author of The Wright Exit Strategy: Wealth, How to Create It, Keep It, and Use It and Macro Strategic Planning® Your Life and Business. For over 20 years, Mr. Wright has been meeting the macro life, business and wealth management needs of discerning, affluent individuals and families. From 1985 through 1989, Mr. Wright was a managing partner for a registered investment advisory firm. Later, as founder of Macro Strategic Design Inc., he began consulting with discerning clients in their individual and family Macro Strategic Planning® needs strictly on a ‘uniquely value added’ fee only basis.

Maribeth Kuzmeski: The New Normal for Financial Advisor Business Growth
Maribeth Kuzmeski, MBA is author of The Connectors: How the World’s Most Successful Businesspeople Build Relationships and Win Clients for Life (Wiley, September 2009). Creating strong business relationships has been the focus of Kuzmeski’s business and career. Her book, The Connectors, is packed full of tools and techniques aimed at helping readers develop better, more profitable connections—tools and techniques proven effective by some of the world’s most successful professionals.

Richard Weylman: Understanding the Affluent Mind
He is a highly sought after marketing consultant, he draws from his lifetime of experience to help others understand this unique marketplace, overcome obstacles, and grow a profitable business. He is the author of the best selling book, Opening Closed Doors- Keys to Reaching Hard to Reach People. Richards is the found of The Weylman Center for Excellence in Practice Management, an online university for financial professionals and staff to elevate their success in working with the affluent.

Wendy Weiss: Recession Prospecting: How to Build a Strong Sales Pipeline in a Weak Economy
Wendy Weiss, The Queen of Cold Calling™ is an author, speaker, sales trainer, and sales coach. She is recognized as one of the leading authorities on lead generation, cold calling and new business development and she helps clients speed up their sales cycle, reach more prospects directly and generate more sales revenue. Wendy has been featured in the New York Times, BusinessWeek, Entrepreneur Magazine, Selling Power, Sales & Marketing Management and various other business and sales publications. She is the author of various books and programs including Cold Calling Women and Getting Past the Palace Guard.

Ken Varga: Power Methods For Generating Prospects and Referrals
Ken Varga is a businessman who has built 35 successful, profitable businesses in his career of 38 years. One of Ken’s off-line businesses had over 460,000 ongoing customers. Ken is the author of over 300 information products, including the bestselling book, “How to Get Customers to Call, Buy and Beg for More!” All of his works are based on his experiences of developing hundreds of thousands of customers through expert marketing. He has an eye for what works and a way of conveying his knowledge and intuition to his listeners so that they will profit from it immediately…and for years to come.

Mitch Axelrod: Success Secrets of World Class Producers
Mitch Axelrod is the author of The NEW Game of Business™, The NEW Game of Selling™, Sales Alchem™, and more than 50 training programs. He is founder and CEO – Chief Encouragement Officer – of The NEW Game Publishing and Media. Mitch has delivered 3,500 live appearances, radio, television, teleconferences, webcasts, audio and video training to more than one million people from 35 countries. He has been changing the business game since 1978.

Mike Byrnes: How to Grow, Even when the Economy isn’t
Mike Byrnes, founder of Byrnes Consulting, provides business planning and marketing strategy consulting services to help advisors become even more successful. His areas of expertise range from creating business plans that bring results, to the use of social media to market your business. Mike breaks the conventional consulting and coaching model, transcending those traditional relationships by partnering with his clients to develop customized business solutions. Mike has written several articles and is currently providing regular content for www.RIABiz.com.

Barabara Rozgonyi: Savvy Social Media: How to Leverage Social Network Connections into Profitable Business Relationships
Barbara Rozgonyi is a speaker, author and leader of CoryWest Media, LLC,a strategic marketing consultancy firm. As publisher of www.wiredPRworks.com, listed on Alltop and in AdAge’s Power 150, Barbara reports on ways to grow business, build brands, and connect communities. The founder of Chicago’s Social Media Club chapter, Barbara is a frequent keynote speaker, an accomplished corporate trainer, and an experienced educator who’s developed programs for numerous companies, schools and organizations such like Office Depot’s Web Café and the International Social Media Association. As a recognized social media expert, Barbara’s media mentions include inc.com, SOHO magazine, Chicago White Sox magazine, West Suburban Living, Liberty Suburban News, Risk Management Magazine, Nursing Spectrum, Successful-blog.com, to mention a few. She also contributed to the LinkedIn chapter of “Success Secrets of the Social Media Marketing Superstars,” published by Entrepreneur Press in 2010. Named one of the top 30 PR twitter experts to follow by ereleases.com, Barbara’s digital brand is @wiredprworks, which also the name of her iPhone app.

Do you need help learning to swim in social media? This fall The Social Media Center will begin offering courses. To get on the announcement list, visit SavvySocialMedia.com.

What’s your biggest question about sales – or social media?

Thanks to Shutterstock.com for providing images in exchange for credit, which we are happy to give.

Full disclosure: 2010 brings loads of celebrations for me: 25th wedding anniversary, 20th year as a home-based entrepreneur, our oldest son’s high school graduation [where this image was taken] and three children who turn 21, 18 and 16 – wow! life is good. Hey – companies – if you’re looking for a fabulous Boomer spokesperson, here I am.

In April 2009, I wrote ...]]> Can the 40 plus market be the pot of gold after the 20 and 30s rainbow?

Full disclosure: 2010 brings loads of celebrations for me: 25th wedding anniversary, 20th year as a home-based entrepreneur, our oldest son’s high school graduation [where this image was taken] and three children who turn 21, 18 and 16 – wow! life is good. Hey – companies – if you’re looking for a fabulous Boomer spokesperson, here I am.

In April 2009, I wrote about Boomers and social media stats. Because the post attracts a good bit of traffic every month, this tells me that there’s lots of interest out in Boomers and social media marketing.

As a Boomer, I know how much our generation spends. And, I know how much our purchasing decisions are influenced by not just our media habits, but also by others in our household.

[Hey, Old Spice Guy, who do you think is buying Fiji, Matterhorn and Denali? Moms with teenage boys who want them to work out like a gym rat, but smell like they don't sweat. Thanks for making if fun -seriously - to buy products that make my young men smell like awesome guys.]

Over 78 million people fall into the Boomer category born between 1946 and 1964.

If you’re looking for a reason to looking into this group, check this out. Nielsen recently released a report calledWhy Marketers Can’t Afford to Ignore Baby Boomers.

Mismatch: Boomer Buying Stats and Advertising Budgets

Boomers spend 38.5% of consumer product goods dollars BUT Less than 5% of ad dollars target adults 35-64
Most marketers target 18-39 year olds AND the influential and affluent 40+ market is largely ignored

Nielsen Marketing Facts about Boomers

* Dominate 1,023 out of 1,083 consumer packaged goods categories
* Watch the most video: 9:34 hours per day – really?
* Comprise 1/3 of all TV viewers, online users, social media users and Twitter users
* Time shift TV more than 18-24s (2:32 vs. 1:32)
* Are significantly more likely to own a DVD player
* More likely to have broadband Internet access at home

Top 10 Websites for 18-34 and Baby Boomers
Google, Yahoo, Bing, Facebook, YouTube, Microsoft, AOL, and Wikipedia all made both lists. Ask and Amazon rounded out the Baby Boomers list while Fox Interactive Media and Apple were on the 18-34 list. Hat tip to #commentz, produced by Sarah Evans, for the link to the Nielsen post.

Where do Boomers fit into your business?