Don't be up yourself!

Reading my bible is a daily challenge, but it's one thing I enjoy, but only after the exercise. Anyway this particular day I read in Proverbs 27:2. Don't call attention to yourself; let others do that for you. I stopped and thought about this for some time and realized the truth is especially important in a business marketing context.

God, is stating that we should not self promote, but let others do it for us, and in my experience this is true, making sales easily, faster and getting those all important calls or enquiries and we must resist the temptation of thinking that we should tell people how good we are. it's like our CV that's us self promoting, and that's why prospective employers contact and interview referees and past employers. A good book written specifically about this was by Al Ries "The fall of Advertising and the rise of PR" His premise in his book was that large firms that appear to have built their position or reputation by creative advertising, actually built it early in their life cycle on the back of some very good PR and all that advertising does is maintain or strengthen that market perception.

... So then how can we improve our reputation?

1. If you have a LinkedIn page then get other contacts to write recommendations. This is very easy to do if you've taken the time already to connect with many business contacts.
2. Join networking groups, like the chamber of commerce, The Cycling Cluster, BNI and get to know other business people that will actively recommend you.
3. Build a blog so that people the ability to comment on your posts, this has others see that you have people following you or social proof (take a hint people write nice things please ;-)
4. Post in Facebook and Twitter regularly asking questions that inspire others to comment, just don't be like me and go too contraversal
5. Here's a big one: DO A GOOD JOB! all the tricky tactics in the world don't work unless you or your business aren't delivering good value.
6. Avoid all tactics that have you stand out from the crowd, they'll be the reason people remember you, for potentially all the wrong reasons
7. Become world famous, write a blog, post in the social networking arena, or like my good friends at concentrate.co.nz, write articles for the local media.
8. Be easy to talk about, my anadotal evidence as a marketer involved in networking groups, is the businesses that are the easist to understand get the most referrals. This requires a deeper understanding of what you do for your clients, not what you do! (If you need help call me 03-974-9230 and I'll steer you in the right direction)

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Why am I blogging

 

Every weekend myself and Joey get to lie in bed while the kids watch junk TV (like all great parents do) and while the kids are entertained we get to chat for hours about everything... It's a great aspect of our marriage that I love. So this weekend I was discussing the recent blog and how a business friend stood at a networking BNI meeting and promoted that everyone should go read it... I was embarrassed and a bit nervous... What would they think, would they argue with me, not accept some of my ideas... ? So while sharing this with Joey she turned to me and asked, why am I blogging? bloody good question...

After some time examining the reasons and motives... I settled on this one, it's for me! If you enjoy my writing, that's fantastic. I hope you do and I really love to hear your feed back and encouragement (notice I left out criticism ;-)

My initial motivation was inspired by my two cycling mates Hans and Arron while drinking coffee, they pointed out that it's a great way to order thoughts, arguments and apply more discipline to any opinions. So I'm now into my third month and really enjoying the process.

Malcolm Gladwell talked about the 10,000 hour principal, an observation that anyone that masters anything usually has spent about 10,000 hours refining their skill, so I've got 9,990 hours to go.. Or you have about 1,000 blogs to read ;-)

 

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