How You Measure Client Success

Showcasing engagement on Twitter is nice. Reaching 150,000 people with one Facebook post is amazing. Highlighting a Pinterest board that a lot of people are following must mean you’re doing something right… right?

There is meaning in measuring what people are doing for or on behalf of your client. It gives you talking points, it proves you’re stirring the pot for them and getting people to interact with the brand.

I think we can do more. We can go beyond what customers, tribes, fanatics are doing for our client and notice, share, and appreciate what our client is doing for them.

The best way you can measure client success on (and off) social is by recognizing and shining the spotlight on what the brand has done for them. Sometimes this is represented by a gracious tweet or a shoutout on Facebook, but gets lost in all the examples of what the buyer is doing for the brand.

Metrics like click-through rates and subscriber numbers matter, but no one starts a business for the sake of getting engagement on a social platform, they start a business to make a real life impact on someone. Don’t you think we would want to show that’s being done on social?

 

Stay Positive & Let’s Start Measuring Results, Not Impressions

Become A Remarkable Business Owner

“Instead of caring about everyone and taking what you can get, embrace a subset, find the weird, and love them more than anyone else ever could.” – Seth Godin 

Great Business Owner

Great business owners

… are determined to get it right even if it calls on them to change their worldview or do what they previously said they wouldn’t. No matter what the cost is, they will do it right.

… are in complete awe and fascination for the remarkable impact little things done just right can have on people. It’s not just noticing the little things, it’s being the source of them.

… are in cahoots with the requirement that to reach a higher level of achievement, they must focus their attention on systematizing the plethora of (what many see as) insignificant, banal, grunt work that makes up every business.

… are working more than they should for the monetary return they are receiving on their investment. But the intrinsic value they receive from working with passion is priceless.

… are providing the people who they work with and who work for them an idea that is truly worth working for. They tell a story worth believing in.

… are always imagining, dreaming, visualizing; are always in wonder.

… are absorbed by the people, and not the work. You will only ever love the game if you love the players.

… are seeing their business as a product and treating it accordingly. Yes, that means treating it as a system, defining all its pieces, and writing out a strategy, people, marketing, etc., plan.

… are treating all customers in a way that makes them feel right, even if they are not.

… are working to be the best they can be, to learning what they don’t know, to acting more human than their competitors.

… are aware of Lippmann’s and so many others similar conclusions that reality only exists in someone’s perceptions, attitudes, beliefs and conclusions. It is not subjective or definable to the mass. To understand a customer you must understand the images in their head.

“The problem with most failing businesses is not that their owners don’t know enough about finance, marketing, management, and operations, but that they spend their time and energy defending what they think they know.” – Michael Gerber

 

Stay Positive & All You Do Is A Reflection Of Who You Are

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10 Ways To Make A Difference (Lessons From Cambodia & Thailand)

10 Ways To Make A Difference (Lessons From Cambodia & Thailand)

Cambodia

1) Smile at people until they smile back. Not much is more universal than a smile. And nothing so simple can change the day for someone.

2) Provide the most selfless service you can when you can. It’s one of the beauties about Cambodia. Unlike here where we have to work to be selfless, there it comes natural. Surely it’s something we can work toward and achieve.

3) Observe the little ways you can make the life of another easier. Sometimes carrying the luggage of someone else is all you need to do. It’s difficult to change someone’s life in a huge way. It’s quite easy to make a lot of people’s lives a bit easier. Let’s face it, we can all use a break with this or that.

4) Always suggest the scenic route. You won’t ever regret it. I mean that. They say let the fear of not doing something scare you more than it not going as planned.

5) Put yourself in a location where others are making a difference. It’s sometimes difficult to make a difference on your own, but if you go where the movers and shakers are, there’s no doubt you’ll make the impact you’ve dreamed of.

6) When in doubt, play. (Particularly with children) There’s not much explaining to this one. You’ll experience and learn why this is a way you can make a difference once you do it.

7) Give thanks to three things a day. If you’re thankful for something that involves someone else, let them know directly. Gratitude is the dictator of attitude.

8) Travel. Period. When you go out into the world, doors to making a difference open every minute.

9) Teach someone how to do something or fail at something new together. The deepest impact you can make with someone or yourself involves learning.

10) Keep an open mind while observing ways to give and receive love. Corny, yes, but ultimately underrated. Also, emphasis on the “receive” end of it. Those who only give and never receive deprive others the satisfaction of sharing an experience, of making a difference.

 

Stay Positive & Impact Others To Improve The World (And Your Own)

How Do You Want To Be Treated?

How Do You Want To Be Treated?

Treat Others The Way You Want To Be Treated

Give someone a great experience, something to talk about. Give them the impact you would want to be given.

When you treat people the way you want to be treated, you create a remarkable reputation for not only yourself, but who you’re doing work for. And their voices are the ones that matter when it comes to word-of-mouth.

When you send an email, think of what you would want to read if you were on the receiving end. When you’re writing your pitch and your crunched on time, just put yourself in the venture audience – what would you need to hear  and how would you need to hear it to invest?

Treat people the way you would want to be treated. In every interaction.

 

Stay Positive & It’s Easy To Make Income, Much More Difficult To Make Impact

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Your Media Control

Your Media Control

Media Control

You have media control. You know that, right?

I touched on it when I wrote you’re a marketer now.

Being a marketer and having media control. They go hand-in-hand.

You might consider your landing pad as the media you control. Or perhaps it’s your email signature.

If you’re letting someone else dictate your control, you’re holding yourself back from progress. If the small efforts you make on Twitter aren’t moving you forward, then control some other media where your tribe resonates more.

If the three minutes you spend on LinkedIn isn’t getting you closer to an end goal, put the three minutes elsewhere (perhaps just brainstorming a better place to spend them).

Is shooting off the 140-character-half-thought worth it? Do you have control of the TV or does TV control you? Where are you spending your time?

Sometimes media platforms do work against you, so it goes with any endeavor in work; where there is forward movement, there will always be friction. But most friction is self-inflicted. Media control is the exception of the don’t put your eggs in one basket adage. When you do, you increase the friction, you move forward slower, and you get burnt out.

 

Stay Positive & Build A Home Base Instead Of 100 Huts

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You Never Know Where Your Impact Will Occur

“I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.” – George Carlin

Carlin is a perfect example of one who self-evaluates and redirects purpose. In his story, which I’ve chosen not to write better, Joe Sergi shares how Carlin’s Seven Dirty Words became the cornerstone case for regulating indecent speech.

It all began when a radio station aired his Seven Dirty Words comedy bit and one man called the FCC to complain because the man’s son heard the vulgar language.

Carlin went from nice suit and tie, safe (and by safe, I mean most of the time awful) jokes to a frustrated, yet intelligent spit-show of an average Joe who found stories about crossing lines to be well-liked by the audience. Through his personal transition, he sparked discussions about the First Amendment – something he didn’t need to mention in his standup sessions, but were a result of them.

I mention Carlin because he didn’t follow a path, he made one. He set out to have people realize their own stupidity and in doing so, in constantly redirecting his comedy, his passion, his words, he changed everything about the FCC, the First Amendment, and most importantly, who people can look up to. If we could ask Carlin if he knew where he would make an impact, he would say the where didn’t matter to him, all that mattered was he would make an impact.

At heart, Carlin was a true critic. A heroic one.

 

Stay Positive & We Need More Good Critics

 

 

When Your Audience Is Too Small

Usually, so is your impact.

When you’re so motivated to get a big audience, reach the mass, have as many people as you know plus all of their friends to attend an event you’re putting on or even something as simple as following you on a social network, you lose out on leaving the impact the few who show up deserve.

Once they are there. So should you. No point in thinking of how you can get more people to attend the next event during the one some are attending.

This goes for Twitter chats, seminars, book readings, classes, and even get-togethers with friends.

 

Stay Positive & Impact Was Your Intention In The First Place, Right?