Matt Lambert, Author at Making Conversation

Human Networks

February 26, 2015 By Matt Lambert Leave a Comment

In today’s Social Networking event in Woburn Sands, we discussed Facebook. The consensus seemed to be that its use by businesses is increasing – which raised a few eyebrows in the B2B half of the room. Of course, B2B is the wrong framework, but we’ll leave that for another day.

Network Effects

When looking forward, sometimes it helps to look back. SMS messaging was one of the first digital networks we can look at.

There was a time in the 90’s when text messaging didn’t exist on mobile phones, it was only invented in 1992. Once invented, nobody much used it.

Fragmented Networks (don’t work)

The reason; each mobile phone network had it’s own SMS platform. Which essentially meant, that if I was using a mobile phone on Orange then I couldn’t text someone on Vodafone. So we didn’t text each other.

In 1998, and I know because I was there, the networks invented cross platform SMS messaging; interoperability.

It took off. This chart seems to imply that we might send one million billion messages in 2015.

Obvious in hindsight

Can you imagine having three different Email delivery systems too choose from, or three different Internets. Can you imagine not being able to call a landline from a mobile?

It would be a less consistent world.

Networks work well when everyone is on the same one. Its not a wonder that Facebook works well, when you realise the convenience of everyone being on that network. The ubiquity is the attraction.

Separate your activity into groups, by all means. But a single interface to a single network is an incredible draw.

Positivity

October 9, 2014 By Matt Lambert 2 Comments

A couple of years ago, I decided to find out about Positivity. It’s been a bold Journey

Is Positivity important?

It started when I heard this phrase once, “Perpetual Optimism”. It sat with me, resonated, a moment of ‘fascination’ worth paying attention to. It seemed significant and important to me, at any rate.

I figured that a lot of the achievements in my life have relied on people saying Yes. Which means that, I was interested in knowing more about positivity in the marketing profession – and everyone is in marketing these days.

A single positive event can turn a lifetime. Where to start?

She wrote the book on it

Amazon has a book called Positivity by Barbara Fredrickson. A happiness scientist! A rare gem amongst the thousands of academics that studied depression over the last 100 years. In the amusing book, the concept of Positivity was broken down into component parts.

Interest, Amusement, Hope, Inspiration, Joy, Love, Pride, Gratitude, Serenity, Awe.

I’ve rearranged them into some sort of order that wasn’t referred to in the book, it seems chronological doesn’t it? It all starts with having an interest, then follow the path.

The book talks about a positivity ratio. When you get to a 3:1 ratio of positivity to negativity then it becomes self sustaining, reinforcing, and good s*** happens. Probably when you get three quarters through the list above.

Follow the positive path

So, that autumn, when I was invited on an NLP taster course conceived and run by Mark Oborn; I said yes. It wasn’t a subject I warmed to, but I warmed to Mark and I thought of the ratio. I hoped it would help.

The upshot of thinking about positivity is that you start saying yes, because ‘no’ isn’t always positive, is it? A couple of years on, I am grateful for what I learnt.

Positively Motivated?

Among many insights that day, Mark demonstrated the link between motivation, negativity and positivity. I didn’t get it – until he physically demonstrated motivation – by signposting a line between a positive flipchart on one side of the room, and a negative flipchart on the other.

Literally walking around to show that the negative ‘orientated’ waited until they were in danger of getting in trouble, and then they’d pedal ‘away from’ the source of the problem, towards the middle of the road. Once danger was out of sight, then they’d stop pedalling and drift backwards until the seat got warm again (somebody lights a fire under them).

See some light

As with all frameworks, it’s just one way of seeing the world, but it gave some clarity to several people in the room. Lack of motivation often led to a cycle of negativity. Trouble, work, trouble, work, trouble. Do you actually get anywhere? It depends if you know where you’re headed. And that, is where goals come in. Duh. I finally saw the link. Negativity is a downward spiral.

Positivity isn’t just some frame of mind. It’s an activity, it’s a path upwards. Goals are a way to change your mindset. If you want to remove negativity, a great way to start is by walking towards the positivity flip.chart.

Why hate negativity?

Negativity doesn’t exist in isolation, it’s probably a single timeline, although I don’t know, it feels like it isn’t something to ignore. It is a signpost towards a lack of positivity. A lack of the good things in life.

Here is a demonstration of negativity flipped in a great article everything is my fault, inspirational. The article shows how taking a positive stance changed the way he looked at his situation – I think about it often.

For me, it also got to the point regarding blame. When you let someone else determine your destiny, by waiting in the middle of the road, then whatever happens is always someone else’s fault. It steals your power. Don’t let people take that responsibility from you, it’s your right to keep control of the accelerator pedal and change direction.

Negativity is a deficit, intrinsically linked to blame, an abdication of being in control of your own life, by definition. Negativity stops progress.

Goals change games

When it’s easier said than done, start. by. saying: “I want to”….. then say, anything you want. Not always easy.

I decided to try this out. My 8 year old daughter and I were walking our dog round the lake; “If you could do anything you want, what would it be?” I asked her.

It turns out that she wanted to be able to talk to the animals. Number 1. The second thing she wanted, was to climb Snowdon. Who knew? The third thing, she wanted to play the drums. And so on.

This time, we wrote her goals down (someone, somewhere, said to write them down). This had the advantage of being able to talk them through. How do we make this happen I asked? 1st, see if Mummy can book some holiday, 2nd, look up some hotels. We had a fantastic few days in North Wales.

What I didn’t realise was the visible amount of confidence that she would get from ‘being in control’. She made it happen, she felt on top of the world. And we were. Goals, Motivation, Confidence. Ah. It was a joyful thing.

When my brother asked me ‘what can I get for her birthday?’, I knew exactly. The first few lessons went well, we’re currently studying for grade 1 drums.

What if I don’t know what I want?

If a goal involves things you don’t like, you might decide you don’t want it. Hmm.

You don’t start out being good at anything, it only gets that way over time. In the meantime, it’s uncomfortable, it can be humiliating, it involves fear. Strong words, strong feelings. Avoidance kicks in.

My own goal

Whilst most everyone I know would say that I like talking, they might not know that I don’t like crowds. Especially, if I have to speak to them.

But, you know, this positivity thing, yada yada. When I was asked to speak in front of a small crowd. I said yes. It wasn’t a given, but I was thinking of the positivity ratio.

I took a positive stance, and instead of saying “I don’t like speaking in front of people”, I started thinking “What I’d really like, is to be able to talk to crowds without being visibly uptight”. A goal can involve getting rid of obstacles.

Speaking of goals

After my pain inducing speech, I apologised to the organiser for my lack of ‘skills’ at which point, Becky suggested I might like to try the Toastmasters club she was a part of, at Cranfield University. It teaches people to handle public speaking. It is a friendly, supportive and a shared experience club. Of course, it had to be a yes. Ouch.

Last night, after a nearly a year of being in the Toastmasters club, I effectively did my third speech. Obviously, I didn’t volunteer, I still had to be asked to do it. The title of my speech was…

Positivity is for Muppets (irony in a speech title)

The theme of the evening was Muppets. You can’t get more positive than a Muppet. They certainly don’t mind feeling silly in front of an audience.

My speech was about the downsides of Positivity. One for later. I loved doing it.

As with all goals, you feel better afterwards than you do before they’re achieved. This time, I had these ribbons to keep me company on the drive home (woohoo). I’m proud of these.

The journey continues. In my case, it is with the help of some new friends to whom I owe a debt of gratitude. Firstly, thank you Sharon and Becky. And latterly; John, Jim, Atma, Allison, Daniel, Minje, Sunday, Maria, Paul, Karel, Maxime, Paul, Andy, Amaia, Amani and Alex, Gustavo and Stephen – and anyone else who knows me. I must buy a memory book.

Come along?

If you’d like to attend a Toastmaster’s Demonstration event, then the next one is at Cranfield on the 22nd October, more details on the group facebook page. Maybe, we can help each other, it would be awesome.

We’re all in Marketing now

February 7, 2014 By Matt Lambert Leave a Comment

In the dim and distant past, I had a new job where the new Managing Director and I started on the same day.

My company induction was at 9am, where he gathered the whole company together, and started talking. It didn’t take very long.

“You won’t notice too much change”, he said, “The reason I joined the company is that it has a bright future. But I did want to say that from now on, I’d like everyone to be in Sales“. Silence.

“Even if you’re an engineer, on site, please be thinking about how else we can help the people you’re talking to. And if you think we can, then let the account manager know, and we’ll give you a commission if anything comes of it”. Thanks for listening, nice to meet you all.

And that was about it. We got on with our day. We changed the word Engineer to Consultant, and over the next year or two, the service revenue went through the roof.

As a sales orientated chap, I noticed that

We got more leads from our existing customer base
It rewarded people to do the right thing, which was to promote our true value as experts in the field by being proactive

But that was in the days where sales helped by getting their own leads. We were calling, networking and visiting, inviting people to seminars and exhibiting a few times per year. These were important methods of lead generation.

Over the years, that’s changed. The smallest company, far smaller than those I used to work for, well, they all do more marketing now. It’s quite new. And it shows. The newer smaller companies are quite agile and adept. The larger ones, not so much.

If my old boss was starting a new gig today, I wonder if he’d say the same thing.

I’d like to think that he’d add Marketing to the speech. Change it in light of this virtual age, where installations happen in the virtual cloud. Where connections are made digitally, instead of face to face. Where shares and networking via LinkedIn, Twitter and Google Plus are replacing the brochure shot.

We’re all in Marketing now.

Engineers can help by connecting with their contacts and sharing what sales and marketing are doing. Those who make the effort; they should be rewarded.

Finding your Networking Audience?

January 26, 2014 By Matt Lambert Leave a Comment

Do you go, or have you ever been to those ‘networking meetings’? How did it go for you? I remember learning a lot, doing a bit of business and having a few laughs. But I know that it wasn’t the same for everyone.

Today, I believe that Social Networks make it better.

But they knew something in the old days

Networking Audiences

Ok, things have changed a bit. But finding the right channels to talk to the right audience, this stuff is still relevant. More than ever. Whilst Social Networking enables new markets and audiences, the fundamentals are quite similar, the basics were more than useful.

Getting some context stayed with me. How differently everyone looks at the World, how being specific often produced better results than being broad. I am still finding these things useful every day, it made me think more about audiences, about who we’re talking to. Eventually lessons sink in.

Which Networking is the Right Audience

This started for me way back in 2009 and so I had to physically go and find out. Spotting a likely bunch (BNI), I picked up the phone and asked to be invited. There was this thud from the other end of the phone, I think someone had fallen off their chair (it wasn’t normal for people to volunteer).

The wheels started to turn. A guy called Steven, a total professional, rang me back. He picked the most likely group for me and off I went, to be educated, to meet some new friends with similar interests.

It was a strange environment. Telling each other what we do, and how we do it. A bunch of people who all know each other quite well, it seemed. Standing up and speaking in front of strangers put a lot off from coming regularly though.

People will be People

Some of the people dynamics at the time;

A lot of people didn’t like the formulaic approach to ‘do what’s good for you’.
Wherever there are rules and people, politics follow
Fear of competition was palpable. My first meeting, I was accosted by a PR copywriter, saying, “you do what I do”.

You get on with some, not with others. We’re all fallible and brilliant by turns. We did some business.

Generating Leads?

This was what we were there for. At first glance, generating leads appeared to be based on who was in the room, the networking audience. Although there was a lot more to it than that, you can see people silently asking, “am I in the right place?”

Examples:

Consumer businesses often did immediately well because they served wide audiences, everyone in the room, and all their friends – Gardeners, Plumbers and Car Mechanics.

And those selling to Small Businesses did well, because they had a very focussed networking audience – in other words, everyone else in the same room – Small Business Marketers, Personal Assistants and Business Coaches got leads.

High Frequency Businesses did ‘well’ in that they got lots of leads, but then, often you need a lot of those small transactions if you’re a flower shop, cake maker or nail technician.

So what did well again?

Generic Wide Audience
Focussed Small Audience
High Frequency of Purchase

A generic wide audience, when you can work for anyone, then a networking group could work well for you. Those consumer businesses got work, but the quality of work could be questionable.

For the Small Business Services group, if you’re in a room where everyone can be your customer, then that time spent should also serve you well.

And finally, if you have a low value high frequency product, then people will spend money with you because they like doing business with people they know.

If you do well, then you may well get referred. The effects can be quite far reaching. Ripples in the pond. This is when you would hear the phrase, “You’re not selling to people in the room”, and that was sometimes true, depending on who it was. How switched on.

Power Group Audiences

From a more advanced view was, when in similar industries, that people could band together. This was a way to build things, introducing each other’s similar audiences – competition was a misnomer.

Copywriters work with Designers, work with Marketers work with Website Developers work with Googlers.
Accountants work with Conveyancers, work with Lawyers, work with Mortgage Advisors work with Bookkeepers (more of a guess this one).
I presume Health and Lifestyle companies work together.

Who did it not work for?

Specialised expertise didn’t always find much company. Niche business had little competition but a relatively small local audience.
High value deals tended to be done by larger companies, whether business to business or consumer
Low frequency businesses – their best prospects were hardly ever in the room (dilute audiences)

These were people who were better served by industry specific exhibitions, trade advertising, industry account management and Search Marketing.

Modern Day Networking, Powered by Social

Things are not the same. Networking grew up. Apparently we’re in relationships now. But we’re in a bigger brighter brave new world. Everyone is now connected, we’re all in the same room as our natural partners, more often.

We’re in bigger, online rooms such as LinkedIn, Twitter and my Favourite, Google Plus.

What this means is more people can play

Specialised Expertise can find an audience more readily online (someone should write a book about that – is there a link to somewhere?)
High value, infrequent deal, and niche businesses, if not the same thing, can ‘get’ found more easily

Low frequency businesses might probably still be best served by Search, but it’s rarely one or the other.

We get to build our own Audiences

We have that one big audience, but what we need is lots of different channels. They might find you, and you might find them but over time I hope it will get more relevant.

People now talk about groups, lists and circles in the same way as Networking people talked about Power Groups, and that TV people talk about new channels. Only, this is two way communication, with tools like Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, Buffer, Pocket, Pearltrees and Feedly to create and monitor conversations.

Channel Hopping

When at a conference on biddable media this week, there was an expectation that TV ads will become biddable, just as web based ads are today, targeted at what people are most interested in.

The ‘net result’ will be that you and I will be watching ‘Tailored TV, with Tailored TV ads’. This is what Social Networking feels like when filtered properly. The same channels, the same devices, but a different experience for each of us. I watch to learn.

Essentially, our media, channels and audiences will drive our networking and our ‘meetups’. Saying the right thing, to the right audience in the right place at the right time. T’was ever thus.

We can do both

Isn’t it great? There is nothing but more opportunity. I guess the question is, what do we do first, for greatest effect?

This post is dedicated to Jon, Jacky, Jacqui, Steven, Heather, Michael, David, Peter, Sonja, Keith, Chris, Lee, David, Bill, Caroline, Mark, Alex, Tim and everyone else.

Company vs Networking Websites

January 20, 2014 By Matt Lambert Leave a Comment

What does networking mean?

It’s marketing of a sort. The newest form of niche marketing in fact, it has been made more powerful by the introduction of social media, being able to connect with friends of friends and connect with your target audience more readily. If you know where your prospects are, then you can connect and start conversations and keep them going.

Networking is one of the ways of generating new business, but it’s different to the traditional sales and marketing model of developing Attraction, Interest, Desire, Action (AIDA is the Marketing Acronym we all know and love). Often we’re not selling to our network, we want to work with them and add value.

Networking is a different Audience

When networking I could be doing business by referring, partnering, or working with freelancers in the same industry. Or, I might not be looking to do business at all, I could just be sharing and helping or going for serendipity, those ripples in the pond that are hard to measure.

I’m experimenting having this Networking Website, for the following reasons.

This is where we can Talk Shop

For example, whilst networking with design agencies, I might be discussing how the nature of website search traffic and website structure affects how we lay out the page for greatest effect. Or perhaps we discuss the merits of various plugins in WordPress – we short-cut the conversation as we both know what we’re talking about.

Exploring ideas and business development in a network is a different conversation, and possibly a conversation that could distract visitors to our main business website.

Niche Marketing or within an industry

If you are ‘always’ selling within an industry, a niche, then that is the ultimate networking. Your network is your business, you are part of the industry and you may not need another website. There is value in talking shop on your main site, life is easy, your blogs and conversations are free samples.

But if your business appeals to a different audiences, more horizontal than vertical, and you need your company to sell to people outside of your own industry, you might think about having a separate networking website.

Being a Person vs being a Company

Do we need a different website for Business Networking?

Company websites promote products and services, so maybe we do.

I myself want to communicate, to keep in touch, but sense that the company website isn’t always the right place. Maybe other people feel the same way. So the idea with this ‘Networking Website’ is of a place I can talk with Colleagues, Referral Partners, Channel Partners and Friends throughout a career.

Keep the company website clear

Quite often, the people we network with can be in the same industry, we may even compete on some simple levels, but work together on more complex projects. People in Networking groups will recognise this aspect, where one ‘marketer’ will be worried that another ‘marketer’ is competition. Often they’re not.

But a separate place to Network will remove all those concerns. We can publish with our friendly competitors, we can meander onto important subjects that interests us without contemplating deadly distraction for new visitors. Distraction loses the sale on company websites.

Why not just use Social Platforms?

Whilst networking is inherently social (and mobile), there is the fact that not everyone is on the same Social Network, and even if they are, we’re not connected on all of them, it’s not like all your circles will mix well. Or you might not want them to. Google Plus will handle this, but it’s not ready for everything.

More importantly, Social Networks are like rivers, where the conversations flow quickly, the water is different each time you hang your line out. And then it’s gone. If what you say could be useful in the future, you might want it to live somewhere, be persistent.

A Networking website is the difference between having somewhere to live and snacking in a cafe.

With a professional networking site, you get to have somewhere to put your stuff. Other people may have somewhere to link to. Its no fun when you turn up to your local cafe and it’s gone, as most social platforms will likely do in the end.

What are you saying?

On a networking website

I am free to say things I might not want to say on a business website. Sometimes the things I say might need to be long form, unsuitable for social networks, like this piece.
I can build and sustain and relationships in my own way. People engage and link more readily with non commercially motivated websites.
We can benefit from having a networking website when it comes time to move on, or sell the business, or just do different business.

A professional networking website is to look after my professional interests

What do we need?

A domain – I thought that if this site is to build relationships, then it might well be in your own name, or something that is closely associated with your identity.
Your own WordPress website – the most flexible, lowest cost of ownership
Mobile Device Support – Networking is ‘Social’, and Social is predominantly mobile
A blog – the best way to keep people up to date, including yourself, is to blog.

The site is a template, and takes very little time to create. So if anyone were interested in trying the concept then I’d be happy to help by throwing a quick site up for them (of the same ilk) if we can share the experience.

Here’s part of the thinking behind trying it out. The different methods of business generation that I contemplate.

A mindmap of Search vs Networking vs Customer Base marketing