The New Gymnastics of Business: Part 1, the Balance Beam

Compare these two cases:

I published a book so I need you to read it

vs.

There’s something you need to read, so I wrote about it.

See the difference? Seth Godin called it the enthusiasm of commerce, not of belief and pride.

One has me-centric, the other you-centric motivations. With so many more individuals and organizations actively online, some days it looks and sounds like Times Square in New York City. Except for it's becoming harder to tell the billboards from the genuine desire to connect, when in a rush.

As Peter noted in our conversation on 90 minutes, things may end up not being timed right for some reason - but just for the author. For everyone else, the 90 minutes only starts from when they needed to know it.

And this is where the gymnastics of business comes in - being out there, embracing change in all its messiness for the sake of finding that one opportunity to make a connection before having a connection.

Is it in the way you position? How many people do you need to follow and be followed back by before you start promoting your stuff? Is it alright to promote, or should I just resign myself to talking about my stuff as little as possible? When I talk about my stuff nobody links to it or retweets, why? How come there are some who can talk about their products freely? Why are people interested in what they have to say? How do I get there?

This is the first in a three-post series that will address some of the most frequently asked questions I get about marketing and social media.

Balancing Act

Actions do speak louder than words, and, in digital environments, you have the ability to observe individual and group behavior. When you see someone who is able to promote their activities in your view effortlessly, you don't consider that they are balancing self-promotion with community building.

If you take the time to note what they do, you will find that often there is a direct correlation between working on a project that benefits an industry, giving back to the community, or organizing great experiences of learning and networking for others, and the attention they are earning.

You know that a testimonial provided by a third party is much more powerful than something you'd say about yourself. You also know that getting those nice testimonials from others is directly tied to the experience they have if you - your work, your services, and your attitude.

It's no different in digital spaces and social media.

Businesses, like individuals, need to get to the point where they can justify adding involvement in new ways as part of their marketing and customer relationship efforts. The ability to promote what you're working on is part of that - and ironically, part of the sustainability of the very tools we hold in such esteem as to dedicate endless posts to using them.

Believing in what you do matters

A couple of weeks ago, I shared more details about my experience explicitly in a post rather than in a bio page. I've been giving away tons of knowledge, information, and helping others make connections consistently over the span of my career, and visibly online in the last ten years.

That and what I know make me very valuable to your business. I have no problem saying that, as long as I can back it up with facts. The other layer is that I am passionately in love with connecting ideas and people - getting the execution part going, connecting the dots, helping businesses create, helping design businesses. These are layers where PR, marketing, communications are weaved depending on the type of conversation. The overall outcome makes up what we call brand. 

These functions are never neatly packaged in a diagram, unless you're looking at them from the inside out as part of an exercise to parse resources. They are in constant flux, just like on a wave.

Whether you're a business or an individual, there are a number of ways you can broaden the context in which you operate and be generous towards your customers, colleagues, and friends without compromising your values, giving away the secret recipe - or the shop. It starts with clear communications and honest dialogue.

What kind of connector are you?

The difference really is in the call to action. Surprise, surprise. Asking for the order has its place in the mix and it's at the end of a meaningful journey - whether that be one tweet, or a thousand email exchanges, phone calls, and in person chats. The conversion depends on the other party.

Where are they in the buying cycle? By buying I also mean being alert for opportunities to refer someone for a project, for example, or for a job, both of which are very important. I think you'd agree with that. Honestly, much of the problem resides with the terminology being beaten down into the center of the earth.

Promotion is part of business. If you're a consultant, you are the product. The problem is another one entirely. The issue is that there is a lot of talk and so far many who are doing the doing are too busy doing to talk about it in social media circles.

The doing part is harder because it involves changing old habits and a lot more due diligence, research, lab thinking, and some failing, too. Self-promotion is bad when you're sleazy and have nothing to back it up - experience, execution, even passion and attitude count.

It's all in the performance.

I told you about my passion for speaking. Kim Wood backs up my performance publicly.

You should probably check out Jeff Turner as well. If you are in the Philadelphia area, and need to speak with someone knowledgeable about real estate, you should give Kim a call. She's good people. And I'm not just saying that to scratch her back. I've read her messages, heard her talk, talked to people who worked with her. You get the drift.

Doing something remarkable will make people talk about you. Getting results will prompt customers to refer you to others. When you help professionals in your network with business referrals, the network itself will consider you more valuable.  The new (because of social media, more obvious) gymnastics of business require you to make your activities even more of a balancing act. That's because these tools are amplifiers - they will highlight what you do and magnify it.

Next post, we'll talk about the second part of the issue: scale.

How many referrals do you make in a day/week/month? When you meet other professionals, how do you engage? Have you found ways to balance promotion with community building? What's your story? Why do we need to hear about it?

If you'd like to read stories of people and what they are looking for, or want to share yours, we have a page for that here. It's here, so it can be all about you.

[image by Faeryan]

Comments

[Kami Huyse]

I think that the ability to promote online comes more from intent than anything else. We are willing to hear some promotion from people when we are also getting something valuable from them (knowledge, insight, connection).

Someone mentioned Peter Shankman in this regard during a conversation we were having about this subject. He often promotes what he is doing and also his advertisers, but we all love HARO so we are willing to deal with the other stuff - not to mention that it is entertaining anyway.

It is a good conversation and no one right answer. Kudos to you for taking it on with your readers. I look forward to hearing what they think is too much.

[DJ Waldow]

Awesome. My favorite part - and what I think makes what you do so special and genuine - is this quote:

"The other layer is that I am passionately in love with connecting ideas and people - getting the execution part going, connecting the dots, helping businesses create, helping design businesses."

We have much in common. Looking forward to that glass of red wine someday soon.

dj

--
DJ Waldow
Director of Community, Blue Sky Factory
@djwaldow

[Diego]

Very nice article Valeria, I really liked the theme, thanks!

Diego

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Kami - The Web and social networks have become the land of sweeping generalizations and quick judgments these days, so intent is harder to gauge. Intent is subtle and not everyone is paying attention. I agree that it's over the long haul and about consistency.

@DJ - my travels in the next few months will be for the conferences and events that have invited me to speak, only. While it would be great to hang out at every one, work does come first.

@Diego - thank you for stopping by.

[Peter]

It was near on 10 years ago that I first remarked that the internet was Gods tracing paper.

For the first time in human history we could tag ourselves to our consequences and glimpse what Hesse, Eliot and many others could capture in prose but never prove.

Through the looking glass of social media ( or Hesse, eliot if thats your thing) measurement can soon be abandoned and self interest becomes enlightened:

There is no "so". I published a book.

But I don't expect anyone who hasn't peered through the glass to see this as anything but misguided.

Peter

As an aside, what is it that we need know? "Everyone" seems convinced that I need to know their something. But why do I need to know their something? I've spent a couple of days reflecting on this and I'm not coming up with anything useful.

[Meryl K Evans]

While a few folks can get away with the me-centric messages, most of us can't. I love how you worded the "I wrote a book" message to show me vs you-centric.

I believe in the same that DJ pointed out: I write not because I want my name out there (who cares?) but because I want to share exciting information and findings with other people and make their lives easier.

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Peter - you always manage to help me think further. Online I've been getting a bit lazy lately and gravitating towards what agrees with me too much. Did you get a blog off the ground yet? How can I spend a few hours conversing with you? It would do me a lot of good, I know. Promise you'll let me know when you're in the US next and I will tell you in the unlikely event I make my way to Australia.

@Meryl - much of my writing is a way to think through problems by story telling, and to gain insights from all of you. You have quite an interesting background.

[Shih]

Hi Valeria,
I'm really interested in this article but unfortunately there're some sentences I can't fullly understand. Could you kindly explain again?
"The ability to promote what you're working on is part of that - and ironically, part of the sustainability of the very tools we hold in such esteem as to dedicate endless posts to using them."
This sentence seems to be the gist of the paragraph. But just can't get it.
Thanks!

[Valeria Maltoni]

Hi Shih,

I gave you a difficult one, wow. Thank you for pointing that out. What the paragraph means is that companies can probably start to justify participating in social media if they can promote what they do. Which is by the way the prevalent trend on these tools - people do promote their stuff. Maybe we accept that more because we feel they're like "one of us" and not one of the big brands? Sustainability of these tools will be determined by adoption.