Technology Blog

Users of online dating sites often struggle to find love because the sites themselves make it more difficult than it needs to be. To the rescue: Virtual Dates, an online ice-breaker from Jeana Frost of Boston University, Michael Norton of HBS, and Dan Ariely of MIT.

More: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5478.html

Their advice about online dating (which also applies to winning business online):

“Remove yourself as much as possible and don’t invest your ego in one particular date,” Frost offers. “Remember that it’s very easy to get carried away and imbue a profile with overly favorable qualities. My advice is to try to stay calm and resist being invested in one person until you’ve actually gotten to know them. Avoid long e-mail correspondences because they tend to heighten expectations.”

“It also takes resilience to go on a lot of dates and spend time actually arranging to meet rather than spending hours a week just searching. The people who go on a lot of dates are the people who find someone. In some sense it’s a numbers game.”

New users especially should keep in mind that online dating is not in the end so fundamentally different from regular dating, adds Norton. You try to find people, you try to meet them. “It’s the people who think it will be quite different from their regular experiences who end up being the most disappointed …. In online dating, the same sorts of people who are online are also out there offline. It can help you sort, but ultimately it takes work, effort, and a little luck.”

This post was written by David Teten, source: Online Match-Making with Virtual Dates

The event below is targeted at CFOs of mid-size and larger companies (over $50M in revenues). I hope that you can join us.

CFO Leadership Team
First Alumni Gathering
September 21, Stamford, CT

Guest Speaker: David Teten

The Virtual Handshake:
Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online

Join fellow CFOs of mid-size and larger companies, and learn how to accelerate your sales, recruit star employees, enhance your marketing, or just find your next job by using online networks. David Teten will discuss blogs, social network sites, virtual communities, relationship capital management software, biography analysis software, and other new tools.

When: September 21, 6:30 to 8:30 PM
Cost: $30 including hors’deurves, cash bar
Where: Stamford, CT (location disclosed to confirmed attendees)
RSVP: by September 14 to Kevin McEnery, KJMcEnery(at)aol.com, 1-203-348-4435

Who: This event is open only to members of the CFO Leadership Group. Members must have experience as CFO or Divisional CFO in an organization with at least $50M in revenues. A few select recruiters specializing in CFO searches will also attend. Our members have experience with companies that include Acclaim Entertainment, Altria, Arc, Associated Press, Atari, Barnes & Noble, Calvin Klein, Dover, Gartner, Georgia Pacific, Gerber Scientific, Groupe Danone, Kodak, Labatt, McCann Relationship Marketing, Nestle, Newsweek, Pepsi, Revlon, Rogers, Scholastic, Sesame Workshop, The Reader’s Digest Association, Time Warner Cable, and World Wrestling Entertainment. Nominations welcome for members.
Why: To see old and new friends

MORE ON OUR SPEAKER

When you finish David Teten’s program, you’ll know how to:
* create a powerful professional presence online
* attract business in online networks
* meet more relevant clients and potential clients
* start and promote your own blog
* master the email deluge
* analyze and value your community of business partners
* manage your contact database
* ensure privacy and safety online

“We hosted one of David Teten’s presentations at the Euromoney 2004 Annual Hedge Fund Start-Up & Business Development Forum. Out of 40 speakers, David tied for first place for the highest speaker rating.”
- Diane Higgins, Financial Markets, EuroMoney PLC

BIOGRAPHY

David Teten is CEO of Nitron Advisors ( www.NitronAdvisors.com), which provides independent industry experts with consulting opportunities to hedge funds and other institutional investors. To participate in paid interviews with Nitron Advisors’ institutional investor clients, at no cost to you, join the Nitron Advisors Circle of Experts ( www.CircleofExperts.com ). David is the co-author of The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online ( www.TheVirtualHandshake.com ). David was formerly CEO of an investment bank specializing in Internet domain names. He has worked with the Bear Stearns Technology investment banking group and Mars & Co strategy consulting.

This post was written by David Teten, source: Sep. 21, Stamford, CT: for CFOs of mid-size/larger companies

Many business users of social networking sites have heard Mark Granovetter’s 1973 paper, The Strength of Weak Ties, which concluded that “weak ties”, rather than “strong ties”, were more helpful in finding a job. This is often used as an argument to justify connecting with as many people as possible in social networking sites, even with no more interaction than the connection request and its acceptance.

Granovetter’s study is great, but we have to know what the definition of a “weak tie” is that he was using for the purposes of his study. We can’t make our own interpretation of “weak tie” and then use his paper to justify our actions if we’re not using the same definition of “weak tie”.

So what does Granovetter himself say?

It is sufficient for the present purpose if most of us can agree, on a rough intuitive basis, whether a given tie is strong, weak, or absent. [Unfortunately, he was apparently wrong, as people actually don’t seem to be able to agree.] […] Included in ‘absent’ are both the lack of any relationship and ties without substantial significance, such as a ‘nodding’ relationship between people living on the same street, or the ‘tie’ to the vendor from whom one customarily buys a morning newspaper. That two people ‘know’ each other by name need not move their relationship out of this category if their interaction is negligible.

Every single person you meet doesn’t elevate even to the level of “weak” in his definition, nor do people whose “interaction is negligible”. No interaction = no tie.

Let’s look at what another expert has had to say on the topic. Valdis Krebs is one of the world’s top experts in Social Network Analysis (SNA) – the creator of InFlow, a software tool used for analyzing relationships within organizations to help teams improve their effectiveness.

From a March 2004 InfoWorld interview, Capitalizing on Communication:

IW: These projects were about strengthening ties within groups. Where does Stanford University Sociology Professor Mark Granovetter’s “strength of weak ties” idea fit in?

VK: People have a wrong impression about what a weak tie is. It’s not just a casual acquaintance. A weak tie used to be a strong tie; there was trust and shared knowledge. If I go to a conference today and meet somebody new, people will say “That’s a weak tie.” I say no, it’s an acquaintance tie. But if I also run into Peter from Disney, who I used to work with, that’s a weak tie that can be reactivated. A lot of Granovetter’s research on weak ties was based on people who had known each other better before.

Your “weak ties”, as referenced in the Granovetter study, are exactly the people a tool like LinkedIn is designed to help you stay connected with and leverage your relationships with. It’s former co-workers, customers, vendors, schoolmates. Those are weak ties as Granovetter defined them. You don’t need LinkedIn to manage your truly strong ties, because you interact with them every day/week/month.

I’m not saying there’s no value in those “weaker than weak” ties, aka “acquaintance ties”. Yes, some of those can become the weak ties that lead to real value. But to raise them to the point of real valuable — to action, not just presence — generally requires more interaction than just mutual consent to be in each other’s database.

But I do hope people will stop using Granovetter to justify their own “light linking” behavior. It’s a complete distortion of the findings of his study if you’re not using the same definition of “weak ties” that he did.

This post was written by Scott Allen, source: Granovetter’s Weak Ties - How Weak Is Weak?

In the LinkedInnovators Yahoo Group, the perennial debate has re-surfaced about LinkedIn linking behaviors — is it better to connect with as many people as possible? Or only those you already know? Or somewhere in between?

In the course of the conversation, Barbara Dobrinsky Holtzman posed the question:

If you already know everyone you need to know to accomplish everything you’d like to in life, why bother to network at all?

Here’s my take on this:

I’m not saying you should never meet new people – that would be absurd. But most people haven’t even scratched the surface of the potential that exists in the network they already have. To answer your question as to why to network, even if you know almost everyone you need to know to accomplish everything you’d like to in life:

Information - To learn more about them and share more about me so that we might discover those as-yet-undiscovered opportunities to be of service to each other. To brainstorm. To share expertise and ideas.

Character – People can’t know your character from your LinkedIn profile, and only minimally from a blog. When it comes to hiring people for critical positions or contractual work, character becomes extremely important, and you need people who know you well enough to vouch for your character.

Competence – Your LinkedIn profile shows what you claim to know. A blog is a bit better. But it is only through interaction – through seeing someone’s expertise applied in context, that we really see just how much someone knows about what they’re doing.

Strength leads to action. For all the talk of the benefits of weak ties (a misinterpretation of Granovetter, though, as I’ve written about before), there is in networking the concept of an “action threshold”. People have to know you well enough to be willing to take action on your behalf. Simply put, the better people know you, the more willing they are to do more for you (and you for them).

Can you honestly say that you have tapped into even a tiny fraction of the potential of the network you already have? What’s the point in adding a bunch more hypothetical potential when you haven’t even tapped into what’s there? It’s like buying more land to drill for oil when all you’ve done with the land you own is start drilling one or two wells, and you haven’t even surveyed the rest of it.

I frequently hear the argument for making more connections that, “You never know where your next opportunity might come from. If I don’t connect, I might miss that next opportunity!”

To my thinking, that’s “lack consciousness”. How much opportunity have you “missed” in your existing network because you haven’t really worked it?

The way I see it, there is more opportunity in my network than I know what to do with – than I can possibly ever act on. The purpose of my network, for me, is not to continue spreading like wildfire in search of new opportunities, but to filter out all the noise and let the really great opportunities rise to my attention.

In the course of that activity, a few really interesting people will get added, but I don’t really seek them out just for the purposes of making new contacts. They come naturally as a part of the more focused activity, and they are typically far more oriented to doing something immediately that’s of mutual benefit.

This post was written by Scott Allen, source: Why Bother to Network If You Already Know Everyone You Need to Know?

Eric Shahinian wrote some detailed notes on last night’s panel on “Are You Googling Your Privacy Away?” for the New York County Lawyers’ Association / Cyberspace Law Committee.

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Mark Grossman, Partner, Dewitt Grossman, P.L.

(To stay current with tech law issues, ask Mark Grossman to add you to his mailing newsletter. His email is mgrossman (at) dewittgrossman.com. )

To discuss recent news, let’s look at the new Sprint Family Locator. Who is concerned? Doubtful. Many of you probably feel that it’s a sign of relief, that now I will know where my spouse or kid is in an instant. But it’s more serious. Think divorce litigation. You claimed to be at work, but your phone says you were at the Holiday Inn. Curious. I wonder what you could’ve been doing. Many issues come up as to: is my provider allowed to disclose information if I don’t want them to? Is there any way to stop them? This is only the beginning.

To add on to the discussion of the actual cost to store this information, we are talking a tremendous amount of space. This information therefore must be worth it, and it is. It is worth an incredible amount.

The EU operates differently than the U.S. In Spain, this isn’t an issue. We are in a different culture, people easily spread their information. Myspace.com is a great example. 75 million users and growing, all of which have given out readily accessible information, that can deduce other information that can say so very much.

There are tons of things to improve in the industry, but we need to focus on one thing in particular, and politics has a great deal to do with it. I am a moderate Democrat, and my views reflect that position. This is truly a debate on choice. Yes, some people prefer to have their information known in order for companies not to waste their time by trying to sell a consumer things that person does not want. That is fine. As I will say again, the question is, if you didn’t want your information shared, could you stop it? No. If the information was lost or stolen, would you want to know? Yes. Could you? Probably not.

I recommend Webwasher and Scroogle.org as useful tools to combat the concerns.

I would love it if the bookstore owner knew what I wanted and would pick out books for me. It is the same thing now. But it isn’t one piece of data, they are compiling vast amounts of information.

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Harry Valetk, Director, Privacy Online, Entertainment Software Rating Board

Everything can be tracked. This isn’t just web pages here. This concerns call records, email records, search queries. It is all saved, it is never really deleted. Google doesn’t delete a thing. They have compiled detailed profiles of every imaginable characteristic.

What has emerged as the controversy over internet cache is truly, how can they sell this to someone? This is private information. But now think back 20 years. Often times a business’ greatest asset was their mailing list. Especially for a marketer. It is the crux of their modern marketing business.

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Raj Goel, CTO, Brainlink International, Inc.

What I find most fascinating, something that most people don’t catch on to, is who would want this information from people, aside from marketers and thief’s? Easy to answer: the government. Surprising how most people never realize they provide the demand for most of this information.

A good analogy of this industry and discussion is to the automotive industry. We are at the equivalent right now of having just got a new Cadillac (picture this 40 years ago), driving 90 mph, and this was years and years before seatbelts and airbags. What a dangerous situation indeed.

What is most frightening about Google is not their basic search, it is Gmail. Does anyone have Google? Who got an invitation? It is invitation only. But wait, look at this, if you provide your cell phone number, they will send you an invitation? Ever realize they could easily just give you an invitation on the website? They want your number. Google doesn’t want to be a search engine. It wants to be the largest database in the world. They already know more about you than you may know. Under legislation email must be kept private, under legal documentation, Gmail isn’t an email account, it is a database. Notice how the top link in Gmail happens to work very nicely with your tastes. Something in your email revealed that. Check the fine print.

So what’s worse than Gmail? Google Desktop. Yeah it’s great, and efficient. But it gives Google “the keys to your life”. You make yourself so vulnerable to issues. Ever realize how you can view deleted emails from a long time ago, or find web pages you may have view briefly? All which has been “deleted” truly was not. It is saved for many, many years.

Remember the litigation facing Google, in which they refused to give over user data? Don’t feel safe, it is because it is too valuable to them, not you. But what is not discussed is the National Security Letter they likely received, forcing them to give over the information, and forcing them not to discuss the situation.

To hit home, I know most people have medical information they don’t want disclosed. I did work for a healthcare provider, and trust me, your information, minus any psych evaluation, is in at least 5 countries.

This post was written by David Teten, source: Are You Googling Your Privacy Away?

The New Yorker magazine has an interesting profile of online (and offline) terrorist-hunter Rita Katz:

There are hundreds of extremist Web sites, but there is also a hierarchy: sites on which terrorist groups release statements and videos have the most devoted audiences. As soon as something appears, users post it on dozens of message boards, chat rooms, and blogs. For much of the past two years, activity centered on a board called Ansar; once it was shut down, with its British-based Webmaster imprisoned for his part in a bomb plot, users shifted to a board called Al Hesbah. “There was absolutely no disruption,” Katz said.

more on Rita Katz…

Rita runs a very small research group. By contrast, the IHT reports on the phenomenon of online mobs of vigilante Chinese chasing alleged evil-doers: more

This post was written by David Teten, source: Chasing terrorists and evil-doers online

Adobe offers a converter to PDF format on their site (for a fee), but there are countless other options out there that cost zero. Try www.Pdfonline.com or PDF Creator. They’ll convert documents from Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, and so on.

Via 101 Fabulous Freebies

This post was written by David Teten (admin), source: Converting your documents into PDF format

Via Mark Hurst of GoodExperience and GEL:

Part of learning to type means learning how to position the arms and wrists. (See more on “learn to type!” here:) http://www.goodexperience.com/blog/archives/000576.php

For years, to cut down on wrist pain, I’ve rested my forearms on a dictionary and a thesaurus, each 5 cm thick. That elevates my forearms above the mouse and keyboard and reduces stress on my wrists.

Last week I spotted in Yahoo News, “Forearm Support May Cut Computer Injuries” :

“An “ergonomic board” that provides forearm support may relieve upper body pain and disorders that can develop from spending extended hours on a computer, a new study suggests. The device, a board that attaches to a desk and supports the forearm, lowered the risk of developing shoulder and neck problems by nearly half and significantly reduced neck, shoulder and right arm pain associated with computer work.”

My favorite, though, was this quote:

“The average cost per board is around $100, said Rempel. The study found that employers would recover these costs within about 10 months of purchasing the boards.”

A hundred bucks? Buy a dictionary (from Gel 2006 speaker Erin McKean, please) and a thesaurus for much less than that!

This post was written by David Teten, source: On Elevating Wrists

One of the questions David and I are frequently asked, and that comes up as a recurring topic of debate, is, “Which tool is best for me to build my network?” In our latest Fast Company column, Of Hammers, Wrenches, and Screwdrivers, we take a side-by-side look at online networking communities, blogging and LinkedIn, and compare and contrast them based upon the Seven Keys framework we introduced in The Virtual Handshake.

While the boundaries between the application of these tools is somewhat fuzzy and they tend to cross over each other, this is a handy, concise overview of the predominant models and how they relate to each other and to your relationship-building activities.

This post was written by Scott Allen, source: Choosing the Right Tool for Virtual Relationships

Are you being pushy if you contact an employer after submitting a resume? The opposite may be true, suggests a new survey from Robert Half International.

Eighty-two percent of executives polled said job seekers should contact hiring managers within two weeks of submitting application materials. Only five percent said professionals should refrain from communicating once a resume has been sent.

More

This post was written by David Teten, source: When to Follow Up on a Job Application

I recently was fortunate to participate in a panel discussion on “The Great Sales and Marketing Debate: The Cagey Sales Veterans Debate the Young Up-and-Comers”, sponsored by the New York Software Industry Association, March 13, 2006, held at JP Morgan Chase.

Allen Reynolds and Jesse Mandell all took some notes, which we have merged in the summary below.

Master of Ceremonies, Bruce Bernstein, welcomed and introduced the two questioners and four debaters.

Questioners: Sherri Sklar and Ruth P. Stevens

Sherri Sklar, President, Sherri Sklar Strategies, LLC
Sherri Sklar has built a star track record in helping organizations obtain exceptional results. Over the last 20 years, she has enabled organizations to make dramatic turnarounds, helping under-performing divisions achieve significant growth in the most difficult of marketplace conditions. Ms. Sklar has helped organizations in marketing strategy and execution, sales strategy, sales execution and performance, business development strategy, channel management, and communication skills training. A frequent presenter at seminars and conferences, Ms. Sklar practices and teaches ‘peak performance delivery’, a proprietary technique Ms. Sklar employs to help clients achieve optimal results. Ms. Sklar is President of her own consulting company, Sherri Sklar Strategies, LLC., (SSS). SSS is a sales, marketing and business development consulting firm that delivers measurable results from assessment, proven strategies, and excellence in execution. Ms. Sklar received her MBA from Harvard Business School and her BA from Newcomb College at Tulane University.

Ruth P. Stevens
Ruth P. Stevens’ expertise in customer acquisition and retention derives from a decade and a half of hands-on marketing for both large enterprises and start-up companies. Just prior to beginning her consulting practice, she served as chief marketing officer at an Internet company in New York City. Before that, she had broad responsibilities for direct marketing at three corporate giants– IBM, Ziff-Davis and Time Warner.

At IBM, she served as director of direct marketing, North America, for the IBM hardware, software and services brands, leading a team of 140 direct marketing professionals. She then moved to the IBM Software Group, where she directed global direct marketing.

At Ziff-Davis, she served as vice president of marketing for the electronic publishing division, and later helped launch Ziff’s Consumer Media Group as its vice president of marketing. At Time Warner, she worked in marketing, new business development and general management for the Book-of-the-Month Club and Time-Life Books.

Ruth has been a regular columnist for DMNews and is a frequent contributor to a variety of marketing publications. She teaches marketing to graduate students at Columbia Business School and NYU’s Stern School of Business. Ruth serves on the boards of the Direct Marketing Idea Exchange in New York City and the Direct Marketing Club of New York.

She is past chair of the Business-to-Business Council of the Direct Marketing Association and holds a BA from Hamilton College and an MBA from Columbia University.

Debaters: Alan Kaufman, Ed Martino, Larry Cohen, and David Teten

Team Old School: Alan Kaufman and Ed Martino

Alan Kaufman
Alan Kaufman is a 38 year veteran of the Computer/Software/IT Industry. He was a founding member of the management team of Cheyenne Software, Inc., where as executive vice president of sales, he grew the business from $1 million in fiscal 1990 to over $200 million in 1997 to propel Cheyenne into the 13th largest software company in the industry. He has served as an officer in the Navy and holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Tufts University. He serves on the Board of Directors of NetIQ, a leader in server and security management, and is a Trustee of Outward Bound USA. Alan also serves on the Board of Directors of NYSIA and is its founding president.

Ed Martino, Director of Industry Business Solutions, Sprint Nextel
Ed Martino is currently the Director of Industry Business Solutions for the new Sprint Nextel Company. He has worldwide responsibility for the market penetration, solution development and overall growth in industry sectors for Financial, Insurance, Media and Professional Services, a $2b business area. Prior to this role, Ed was the Director, Northeast Corporate Sales for Nextel Communications. Other roles have included the Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sales reporting to the President for two companies both in the global systems integration business. Ed also served in various global management positions for the IBM Company for eighteen years.

Ed is a member of several boards including the NY Software Industry Association where he is the Vice Chairman.

Team New School: Larry Cohen and David Teten

Larry Cohen, EVP, Heartbeat Software
Larry Cohen is one of the most creative and inventive minds in the software business. He has that rare ability to listen to a business problem, quickly isolate the key issue, and translate that insight into a practical software solution.

From his early days in the industry, Mr. Cohen has demonstrated a remarkable instinct for identifying a new technology solution and putting it to work quickly. Shortly after graduating from UC Berkeley, he pioneered the use of Webcasting in the healthcare industry. Soon after, he received an NIH grant to conceive the first online adherence programs ever developed.

Larry was a driving force behind the first enterprise-class, web-based software products for Marketing Content Management (MCM) in the financial services industry. He devised a highly innovative technology and methodology for performing online competitive intelligence. And lately, he’s been fashioning a new form of CRM that integrates data-mining and web services.

Throughout his career, Larry has closely advised some of the world’s most prestigious organizations, including Amgen, Novartis, GSK, Goldman Sachs, UBS, and Intel.

David Teten, CEO, Nitron Advisors
David Teten is a serial entrepreneur and CEO of Nitron Advisors, an independent research firm which provides hedge funds, venture capitalists, and other institutional investors with access to a network of frontline industry experts. He is also coauthor of The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online, the first business guide to how to use blogs, social network sites, and other online networks to accelerate your sales. He blogs on the Circle of Experts Brain Food Blog and at TheVirtualHandshake blog. David formerly worked with Bear Stearns’ Investment Banking division as a member of their technology/defense mergers and acquisitions team, and was a strategy consultant with Mars & Co. He holds a Harvard MBA and a Yale BA.

NOTES ON THE EVENT:

Larry Cohen, EVP, Heartbeat Software

David and I see 5 main differences between the ‘old school’ and the ‘new school’ of sales and marketing:

1. The new school sells highly focused products. The new school goes after underserved, highly niche markets (and submarkets) that do not have much competition or many me-too products. For example, Heartbeat Software does not sell CRM to pharmaceutical sales organizations. We sell a highly specialized CRM product to Medical Affairs Departments and their Medical Science Liaisons. Due to our specificity, we are able to work with the majority of pharmaceutical companies and offer them incredibly specific learning from their competitors. We aim to penetrate the majority of these markets (and have done so in pharmaceuticals). Similarly, Nitron Advisors focuses specifically on introducing their clients, hedge funds, VC funds, and law firms, to industry experts—and more specifically experts in transition.

The new school understands that we need to do a few things very well and that companies buy software because their competitors have bought software - period. One client told me that if no one has bought the software they would never buy it. If everyone has it — what’s the point? But if a few key competitors have purchased, they will quickly jump on board. Non-vertical specific back-up software, data storage, or cell phones are not specific enough to attract the new school.

2. The new school does not waste valuable marketing dollars on soft, non-focused, and unproven channels. The new school uses on-line and off-line tools that have a proven, measurable ROI by creating a direct, track able, one-to-one relationship with our customers. Among the major mechanisms for this:

+ highly targeted old school cold calling with a new school spin; selling a proven piece of software to a sub-market that is not being called on;

+ e-mail marketing to very specific titles and organizations where we have market share, with tracking provided by software provider;

+ Pay per Click search engine advertising (Google, etc.)

+ Pay per Call search engine advertising (Ingenio, etc.)

(Teten’s editorial note: Eloqua offers some useful marketing ROI tools.)

3. The new school focuses on smarts & network, not necessarily experience. Sales methodologies are interesting. They are also boring and notoriously difficult to get to stick or to actually change behavior. The new school understands that growing a stellar sales team is about hiring smart, energetic people who are great at sales. What makes a good salesperson? The new school knows that it is one thing: A person that keenly understands the part of themselves that other people relate to and who can leverage that part to get people to buy. We hire those people. No matter what experience, sales training, or existing client relationships they have. Google famously put a billboard up on the road from San Francisco to San Jose that had a complex mathematical problem on it. If you solved it, you gained access to a recruiting website. The new school knows that smarts goes a tremendously long way.

4. The new schools taps online networks, not only face-to-face networks. Consider that 84% of U.S. Internet users have used the Internet to contact or get information from an online group—more than have used the Internet to read news, search for health information, or even to buy something. More and more of us are using online networks, such as blogs, social network sites, virtual communities, and other “social software” as a daily part of our business life. All the major Internet players, including Yahoo!, Microsoft, AOL Time Warner, eBay, and Google, are already offering social software tools and planning more in the near future. Bill Gates, John Kerry, and other celebrities are among the over 2 million people currently registered on LinkedIn, a popular business networking site. Nitron Advisors uses these technologies both to target customers and to recruit new industry experts on our clients’ behalf.

5. The new school sells based on product quality, not just on who plays better golf. Many salespeople spend a tremendous amount of time and energy playing golf and drinking beers with customers. They believe that a personal “I like him” relationship is key to closing the sale. In the new world, that relationship is helpful, maybe even a prerequisite, but it doesn’t close the sale.

Neil Rackham, founder of sales consultancy Huthwaite, conducted a study of whether salespeople who built good relationships would really make more sales:

“We found that sellers who dealt successfully with small retail outlets in rural areas seemed to rely heavily on personal factors in their selling. . . . For example, the seller might ask, “How’s Ann enjoying her riding lessons?” . . . In rural areas, where the size of the sale was small, successful sellers used more of these personal references than did sellers who were less successful.”

“But it was a different story in the large urban stores, where the average sale was more than 5 times the size. We found no relationship between success and reference to personal issues[emphasis added].”

… “I’ve heard many other professional buyers complain about salespeople who try to open calls by cultivating areas of personal interest. The last thing a busy buyer wants is to tell the tenth seller of the day all about his last game of golf. . . . Many buyers become suspicious of people who begin by raising areas of personal interest.”

Source: Neil Rackham, Spin Selling (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1988), 140.)

Alan Kaufman

After Cheyenne sold, I retired. Soon after, I was approached by the VP of sales for NetIQ Corporation and asked where I found my stellar employees. The answer was that I trained them. Training is incredibly important. Every new situation I went into was different. I never took a cookie cutter approach to anything. A good sales/marketer carries a quiver full of arrows and can use each one for any new situation that arises.

Sherri Sklar, President, Sherri Sklar Strategies, LLC

As my first question, can you sell a complex software solution without meeting the client face to face?

Ed Martino, Director of Industry Business Solutions, Sprint Nextel

Yes, you can, but I wouldn’t advise it. If it’s complex, it needs lots of service. The biggest cost is in the service side and your goal is to build a bridge to the customer and use them as a referral to build business.

David Teten

Yes you can. Salesforce.com does it all the time. That said, the more complex the product and particularly the after-sales support, the more helpful meeting in person can be.

To sell virtually, you first need credibility (your potential clients and competitors look you up online and evaluate the validity of your service) and second, effective relationship management.

Ed Martino

I disagree with David. Most of Salesforce’s sales are to corporate customers and their success depends on the time that they spend with their customers.

David Teten

But it is impossible for a company to meet with all their smaller customers.

Alan Kaufman

You must identify how complex a sale is and whether you need to go out there to meet face to face.

Ruth P. Stevens

To be competitive in getting the product to market, how should the marketing be structured? What is the best marketing approach?

Larry Cohen

At Heartbeat, customers pay for product development. Marketing should focus on specific departments in like companies. When we call someone who works in hedge fund marketing, and say we have a product designed just for him, we get a good response rate. It’s not spam if the person is interested in buying what you sell.

Alan Kaufman

Good marketing programs include people who are interested in talking to analysts to see how the customers are buying. I don’t believe in print advertising, especially if you are working with a small budget.

Bruce Bernstein

How should you go after your target market? How do you enable the sales to happen? How do you structure the sales team?

Ed Martino

It all depends on the size of companies. It always takes lots of research and phone calls, and knowledge of the competition. Draw 3 circles:

1. What business am I in?

2. What are the customers’ needs?

3. What does the company have to offer?

The little space where the circles overlap is what you develop and present to the CIO.

Larry Cohen

Small software companies are unable to pay to talk to analysts, so they must talk to businesses in the area for the problem they are going to solve. Refer to previous success that you’ve had at one or two other companies.

Ed Martino

I agree that if you don’t have a large enough budget, don’t talk to analysts. Talk to smaller CIOs from a niche group and then work your way up to the top.

Larry Cohen

I agree with Ed. We use that business model at Heartbeat Software.

Ruth P. Stevens

The marketing department must provide good leads for sales force. How would you suggest that you develop these leads?

Alan Kaufman

Having an inside telesales group that goes through incoming leads and cold calling is good. You also need to develop a good computerized process that is repeatable. Leads from the Internet need to be shown to the inside sales group as well.

David Teten

We get to the big dogs through networks. Each member of our sales team (and of our whole company) has a personal network that we can tap.

In addition, no surprise, we use online networks. We post intelligent comments on someone’s blog to make an entrée, and get into a target’s network in that manner.

Microsoft has approximately 1,200 bloggers out of 55,000 employees. There is no excuse to cold call Microsoft; just contact a blogger in your target area, and use their blog as a conversation starter.

Ruth P. Stevens

What incentives do you use for the sales team to follow up?

David Teten

Pay people a good commission. Develop a sense of ownership. Give options.

Larry Cohen

We have company wide minimums. If it’s a top 25 pharmaceutical company we go in person and talk to them

David Teten

In order to get leads, people should be thinking about how to talk to their particular network. This method is much easier than getting leads from a database company.

Bruce Bernstein

The old school is emphasizing structure and the new school is going with leads. We hate the people who contact people for business by my boarding school alumni directory. What do you think about David’s method?

Ed Martino

If you have a niche, then you don’t need to worry about making the phone call. If you’ve got value and you’ve done the research, then the other person may actually appreciate the call.

Bruce Bernstein

It might also be a generational thing. The youngsters don’t mind getting the networking call.

David Teten

The issue is how to get the most targeted individual. Email used to be an effective means, but today, email is broken. You can’t reach people easily via email due to spam filters and overuse of the email medium. If you can find the name of person in your sweet spot, call them. Even the shallowest referral is better than an cold call.

Sherri Sklar

What are the most important things that someone in marketing can do to create a buzz for their firm and their product?

David Teten

Get to opinion leaders. Get to bloggers. They are very powerful way to spread word of mouth. That’s a large reason why companies like Foldera have attracted over 1 million downloads—great coverage in influencer blogs like Techcrunch and Om Malik.

Lead events. Be a speaker and put yourself in a leadership position. You will reach far more people speaking at a conference, than you will handing out business cards before one. Reach 100 people, not 5.

Ed Martino

Blogs sound good. We want to look into them. Press releases are also good. Sometimes a trade show is a good idea, if you can find ways to bring customers too it. You will create a buzz just from saying that you are going to be at the show. Target is the key word. Marketing to promote your product in a targeted way is very important.

Larry Cohen

For selling to institutional investors, I lean more toward conferences on asset management trends, rather than trade shows, since marketing and business people will be speaking at them. Pay for your sales people to attend, and shake hands and create relationships. It’s cheaper to send 5 salespeople than to get one corporate sponsorship.

Alan Kaufman

The trade shows that you choose to attend must have your customers there. I like to allow our customer a chance to demo our products. If possible, get a small booth so people can at least see your company logo.

Ed Martino

It’s all about ROI. It can make the difference between a million in sales and 60-70 billion in sales. ROI is key. You must be selective and you must leverage the money that you put out to get a return.

Sherri Sklar

How do you grow a stellar sales team? Do you simple hire energetic, smart people, or is there much more?

Ed Martino

I am big on balance. People with fire in the belly are important, but what you really need is diversity because it enables different groups and people to bring in their abilities to the sales force. You want young people who are energetic and idealistic to bring in pep, and older people who can bring in learned skills to pass on. You also need people from the industry for which you are selling. The younger people will give you a lot of overtime. Motivation, however, is key. People need to feel empowerment and ownership.

Larry Cohen

We are a $10m company. Each person needs to meet their quota. We do, however, go after a wide range of people. The key is to find people who know what about themselves makes them successful. We interview a ton of people, but after they are hired, 99 percent of them stay.

Ruth P. Stevens

As sales managers, how do you optimize profits to your firm when the sales team is always trying to give away a deal?

Alan Kaufman

I think it is sloppy to sell on price. You can always cut a deal if you have to. If they cut a deal too much, the loss should come out of the salespersons percentage.

Larry Cohen

We need to train people to stay by their product.

David Teten

Another idea is to pay your sales team a commission on margin instead of based on revenue. This margin info should be shared with your team, but it often isn’t. We show all our new employees our full business plan on their first day of work, because we want them to understand the big picture.

Ed Martino

In smaller companies, I would drop price to get marketing traction. If the customer will eventually become a testimonial, then it’s good. You need to take risk. Larger businesses need to have focus. They need to pick customers. At the end of the day, you want sustainability. In smaller companies, salespeople don’t see the sales price, and that’s why they try to give it away for lower.

Sherri Sklar

If someone says that he is interested in your software if you can prove to them that it is buy worthy, do you fly someone out? How do you approach the relationship?

Larry Cohen

Because products are focused, we phone and then fly to meet with them. I’ve learned that we are more likely to make the sale if we stick to the price, because if we slide, then they may question the value of the product more and more.

Alan Kaufman

In today’s world, regions are a lot larger so you have to be careful about support. How would you support your product in South Africa? This scenario requires discipline in the sales force. They should know not to go after crazy leads. If it’s a one-time, you might want to walk away, but if it’s American Airlines in Texas, you have a lot of chances to make other sales.

Sherri Sklar

What technologies can you use if you don’t know what the return will be, you don’t want to lose it the sale, but you also don’t want to send expensive resources out?

David Teten

Use all the media: IM, email, webconferencing, phone, in-person meetings. This allows for a steady progression of relationship closeness. Professor Caroline Haythornthwaite has done some very interesting research in this area showing that the more media channels you use, the higher the trust levels that develop between two parties.

QUESTIONS FROM AUDIENCE:

Scott Lichtman

How do you feel about PowerPoint and its role in sales pitches?

David Teten

People buy from people, not from paper. The more talking I do, the less selling I do. Communicate value and use a slide show for support. You want the attention focused on the company and the project, not the PC.

Ed Martino

I am seeing that the PowerPoint is here to stay. Today, it is more animated and you are trying to stay way from stale slides. There is more animation and stuff over the net. Webinars etc. are a great way to get your story in front of a lot of people.

David Teten

Humans are wired to be interactive. PowerPoints are passive, and your potential customers will learn less and buy less when they are passive. You need to keep them active if you want to keep them interested.

Bruce Bernstein

What method was used before PowerPoint?

Alan Kaufman

We used flip charts and then foils. I love listening to good speakers. A major problem today is that people don’t speak to the audience. Also, never read from your charts. If you read to your audience, you will lose them. Using a wipe-board works for developing an idea in front of a crowd. Using a PowerPoint can be a disservice.

Audience Member

In your experience, what best motivates a sales force?

Ed Martino

Incentives work if they are fun. Recognition of achievement is also important. Build a plan at the beginning of each year. Each person should know what the accelerator and multiplier is. If they blow the doors off, they will know what the cap is.

Alan Kaufman

Salesmen have fragile egos, and when they are in a losing streak, it gets to them. Give recognition to the people who perform the best. This has the incredible effect of reinforcing their positive performance.

Audience member

The three most important things for generating leads are current clients, (stealing from) competition, and referrals.

Larry Cohen

I find that if they have a rolodex, it may be all that they have to offer. That’s why we don’t go with them. At some point the rolodex runs out.

Alan Kaufman

There is nothing wrong with a portfolio, especially when you are trying to capture a vertical.

Larry Cohen

We put out our own PR, and when we come out with a new product, we send out targeted emails.

Bruce Bernstein

Earlier in evening, David Teten mentioned that email was broken. Ed Martino said that there is no place for instant messaging in corporate America. Please expand.

Ed Martino

Instant messaging is internal. Email should only be used because everything needs to be logged. Instant messaging isn’t on the radar screen, and it can’t be logged or archived.

David Teten

As the young grow up, instant messaging will become an increasingly important medium. There are plenty of companies which sell archiveable IM and email solutions. IM is being used regularly across corporate boundaries—we use it with our clients.

Bruce Bernstein

Are there fundamental differences in advertising that that came out during this discussion?

David Teten

1) There is a movement in spending from advertising in mass media to PR. We are so deluged with advertising that it has lost efficacy. However, people do read the actual content in the magazine around which the advertising is wrapped. A good PR firm can get you in there as content. We get sales leads every few weeks from a Businessweek article about us from last year.

2) Secondarily, there also exists a movement to advertising where you can calculate an ROI. We’re moving from pay per click, to pay per action or pay per call. Compare that with throwing a million dollars at the Superbowl and seeing what happens.

Ed Martino

I have to disagree because my company (Sprint) sponsored the Superbowl! It depends on the industry. If you are in a big industry you have to make a statement, so you have to go with pro golf, the Super bowl etc. If you do not advertise with it, people ask why you aren’t in it. Such mass advertising is important.

Alan Kaufman

No one can afford TV. PR means hiring an agency. It’s best if you can get someone to develop relationships with the editors of blogs. You have to stay on top of people who can influence the influencers

CLOSING STATEMENTS:

Ed Martino

There is more in common between the old school and the new school, because it is an evolution from one to the other. Sales and marketing is fun and the interrelationship and interdependence between that and finance is important. Ethics is also very important. Ethics is everything. You need to have respect for your customers and your competition. We need to be ethical about how we do our business.

David Teten

We’re in the advice/education business. Ironically, there is a lot of advice out there in the world, but most people don’t absorb it and don’t follow it. They listen but don’t learn.

I encourage people to internalize the ideas that we’ve discussed here. I hope that people learned something that they can take home and incorporate into their sales and marketing strategies.

And as last words: A.B.C.—Always Be Closing.

This post was written by David Teten, source: The Great Sales and Marketing Debate: The Cagey Sales Veterans Debate the Young Up-and-Comers

You Play World of Warcraft? You’re Hired!

Why multiplayer games may be the best kind of job training.
By John Seely Brown and Douglas Thomas

In late 2004, Stephen Gillett was in the running for a choice job at Yahoo! - a senior management position in engineering. He was a strong contender. Gillett had been responsible for CNET’s backend, and he had helped launch a number of successful startups. But he had an additional qualification his prospective employer wasn’t aware of, one that gave him a decisive edge: He was one of the top guild masters in the online role-playing game World of Warcraft.

more….

This post was written by David Teten, source: You Play World of Warcraft? Youre Hired!

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This post was written by Scott Allen, source: Marketing Yourself on MySpace

After a decade (and for some of us, longer) online, we know all about Netiquette, right? Don’t use all caps in your subject line (or, God forbid, the body of an email message). Don’t send attachments to people who don’t know you well. Don’t we know pretty much everything there is to know about etiquette online?

Well, maybe not. Online networking sites like LinkedIn can challenge our ideas about what constitutes white-lace-handkerchief behavior online. In fact, if we’ve learned that it’s important to be polite when using email, it’s even truer in the social networking sphere. Here are ten tips for establishing yourself as a well-mannered online networker, when using LinkedIn:

1) Create a user-friendly profile. Your LinkedIn profile is your virtual business card. Make sure that it represents you the way you want to be viewed by strangers - make that ‘people you haven’t been introduced to, yet.’ A sketchy LinkedIn profile signals that your busy day doesn’t allow you to fill in trivial details like what you’re doing now, what you’ve done in the past, or any other useful information. Such an incomplete profile won’t serve you as you network on LinkedIn, but it’s impolite as well: its message is “I’m going to use this database to find people, but I won’t bother to include enough information about myself to indicate how I might assist anyone else.” Take a few moments to fill in the gaps.

2) Invite true friends - or at least, true acquaintances - to connect. Spam is spam, and you must have a minimal level of contact with a person before inviting him or her to connect with you on LinkedIn. A contact - a less-intrusive overture than an invitation to connect - is a good way to approach people with whom you have no relationship. LinkedIn users vary in their views on how well you must know someone before connecting to him or her, but it’s inappropriate to send connection invitations to people who have never met you, heard of you, or had any inkling of your existence (unless they have indicated a desire to be approached by strangers). Think about it: if you found a person’s phone number on a scrap of paper, you wouldn’t feel that you had permission to phone him. Your possession of an email address doesn’t give you license to contact an unacquainted LinkedIn user and suggest a connection - and it’s this kind of overzealous outreach that gets users in trouble with LinkedIn, as well.

3) When you make a request, be clear about your intentions. You’ll find your LinkedIn contacts generally happy to forward your requests if you approach them politely and are clear about your goals. In the physical world, if you asked a friend to introduce you to his friend because of a mutual interest in sailing, and then actually hit the friend-of-a-friend up for a loan, you’d be viewed as a sneak. It’s no different online. If you’re job-hunting, say so. If you’re looking for investors, ditto. A wolf in sheep’s clothing soon finds his messages sitting, unforwarded, while his LinkedIn contacts wonder whether he can be trusted.

4) Reciprocity is a wonderful thing, and gratitude is key. When possible, it’s great to include in your LinkedIn outreach messages some suggestion that you’re aware of your obligations as a requester. That could mean an offer to make a useful introduction for the person who’s forwarding yours; or an offer to help in some other way; or just a heartfelt thank-you for the introduction you seek. It’s disconcerting for your first-degree forwarder to receive a slew of requests from you in one day (and this is common when one of your first-degree contacts is more-highly-connected than others) with no acknowledgement at all of the favor you’re asking. LinkedIn is no different from the ‘real’ world, in that sense: asking for an introduction is a favor, and it’s nice to show gratitude for that.

5) Pass along requests promptly, or say why you won’t. Membership in LinkedIn is a kind of agreement with the community that you intend to participate as an active node in a large and vibrant network. If people send you requests and they sit there, unforwarded and unresponded-to, for weeks, you’re not only the weak link in the system. You’re impeding someone else’s business efforts, and giving no reason for your bottleneck behavior. If you can’t forward on a request or move a communique forward, say so - and say why. LinkedIn provides a handy list of reasons for declining a request, plus an “other” option - use ‘em.

6) Avoid the boilerplate text, if you can. Of course you can. Unless you’re terribly afraid to strike out on your own with creative verbiage, please make an effort to put your own stamp on the standard invitation language that LinkedIn supplies. For instance, you could mention something impressive that you’ve heard about the person you’re contacting, or bring an old friend up quickly up to date on your doings. Using the boilerplate text shows a certain want of effort - so, even if you stick with the standard language, why not add “sorry to use the boilerplate text, but I’m not much of a wordsmith”?

7) Don’t abuse your network. Once you have cultivated a network, it’s tempting to reach out to the gang anytime you have news or a need for assistance. And LinkedIn’s functionality allows you to broadcast a note to your posse of contacts, by way of a Profile Update blast. Use these sparingly, not as a substitute for the Daily All About Me Newsletter. If you do, you may find yourself being un-connected from people who can’t manage the high volume of what’s-new-in-your-life mailings.

Don’t invent history to acquire colleagues. LinkedIn allows you to find former workmates at any company that has employed you, without being connected to them otherwise. Finding a colleague match only requires that you and another person worked at the same organization during the same time period. So, as tempting as it may be to make connection with people who worked in various appealing companies over the years, if you invent a work history in order to do that, you’re going to Hell. Perhaps that is overstated, but if you falsify your employment history on LinkedIn in order to create colleague-links with people you haven’t actually worked with, it’s an abuse of the LinkedIn system and the trust of the LinkedIn community.

9) Play by the rules. There are a number of ways to misuse LinkedIn in such a way as to convey the message, “I don’t care about the long-term health of this network or the company that built it - this is All About Me.” Including your email address in your LinkedIn name, for instance, makes a fee-for-use service like InMail superfluous for someone who wants to reach you, which is (if nothing else) exceedingly rude, seein’ as how LinkedIn provides the basic functionality to users at no charge. Unless you want to broadcast the message, “I don’t care whether LinkedIn can optimize its revenue strategy or not - I’m gonna optimize my connect rate,” you might consider rethinking your Me First approach.

10) Value relationships over transactions. As in physical-world networking, valuing people for their intrinsic worth over the business transactions they enable is key. No less than in middle school, ‘users’ are never welcome company for long. “Ka-ching” networking - the kind of outreach that signals “Say, you could make me a buck today” is unseemly and unfortunate. LinkedIn is a fabulous tool that enables connectors and influencers to help other people and achieve their own goals, too - and it’s great when we keep those priorities in balance.

Happy networking!

This post was written by Liz Ryan, source: Etiquette for LinkedIn and the Professional Networking World

Leading up to their upcoming Innovation Forum, Fortune has launched a new blog, Business Innovation 2005, which features interviews with a diverse collection of business thinkers on what’s driving innovation today. Kudos to them for talking to people besides “the usual suspects” and for using the blog platform as the vehicle. It’s a great read - I spent a couple of hours there between the original content and the links out to other good stuff.

They interviewed me on joining the conversation, featuring my responses to the following questions:

1. How can mid-size to large companies use blogs, social networking sites and virtual communities in innovative ways?

2. What are the current buzzwords about innovation in the entrepreneurial world?

3. What Fortune 500 companies have been able to create a successful, entrepreneurial culture?

Check out the full interview. You can also stop by my longer commentary on About.com for a short reading list of my favorite picks for entrepreneurs from the Business Innovation blog .

This post was written by Scott Allen, source: Joining the Conversation Drives Innovation

On a recent discussion on Ryze, John Veitch observed:

Those who think of Ryze as a place to “advertise” are not networking effectively. The advertising networks are popular, (lots of posts) but they are ineffective (very low readership).

Jill Slack-Henry replied with the following story that I think beautifully and articulately illustrates the all-too-common problem of people not understanding the difference between advertising and networking, and not understanding why the advertising approach doesn’t work in online communities:

I’ve seen the same thing happen with a few Yahoo Groups that I joined long ago.

Here’s an example.

One of the Yahoo Groups is for work-at-home moms. The group goes along with a web site that is set up to get leaders across the states to volunteer and they set up meetings in their towns. The meetings are meant to get the business owners together to get to know each other and have a presentation each month on something business-related that will help the business owners out. It’s not meant to be a time for folks to get together and try to recruit everyone to join their MLM, for example.

It’s a great idea to have these little groups across the country. The main web site gets some traffic, and interested folks are able to look up their city and see if there’s a group where the live. If so, they can visit. If not, they can start one without having to pay fees to the mother ship.

OK, back to the Yahoo Group.

Rather than using the Yahoo Group as a way to continue the dialogue, keep members pumped, point them to helpful articles or statistics or message board posts that would benefit these moms as they build their businesses, would you like to guess what the main activity of the Yahoo Group has become?

Ads are allowed on Tuesdays, so the only time there is ever any activity at all is when we’re bombarded with ads once a week.

That’s it.

Nothing helpful at all.

What’s crazy about this is these moms aren’t bothering to target their messages. The folks in the Yahoo Group already have a business. They’re already working on something. They’ve already invested money, time, energy, etc., into whatever they’re doing.

Spamming the group once a week isn’t going to make someone say, “Wow! Look at this! If I pay $100 by this deadline, I’ll get $15 worth of free candles. I’m going to chuck this business that I’ve been working on for five years and grab those candles. Yippeeeeee!”

They’re preaching to the choir. It’s a lazy way to go. If these moms seriously want to sign up more folks in their business, they need to get out there and find people who are interested in business but haven’t made a decision yet.

Of course, there are exceptions. Maybe someone is already in a business but they’re not happy with it. Maybe someone would like to add another biz to the mix — possibly a business that complements what they’re already doing.

But, for the most part, the Yahoo Group that I’m talking about (and I’m sure there are other similar examples) is full of moms who want to sign up more people under them in their MLM and that’s that.

What a waste!

I’m active in other message forums and Yahoo Groups where ideas are constantly being exchanged. There’s always a conversation going on. People are even willing to help out their competitors in some cases because it’s a way to help build their entire industry.
…
If your sole purpose is to advertise your business, people will see right through it. What works better is to use the old “Pay it forward” approach.

(Reprinted with permission)

Jill is a busy lady: a freelance journalist and regular contributing writer for Springfield Business Journal; owner of a lawn greetings rental service, AGreetingYard.com; co-administrator for the International Lawn Greetings Association; and working toward a master of arts in writing popular fiction at Seton Hill University. She also blogs at agreetingyard.blogspot.com.

People like Jill couldn’t care less about hearing about another business opportunity. They’re looking for ways to save time, cut costs, attract more business and make more money. If your product or service helps her do that, once you get to know her, she might be interested in what you have to offer. But the relationship has to come first, and it has to be based on helping each other accomplish your goals. Who knows - you might even learn a thing or two from her, as well.

This post was written by Scott Allen, source: Advertising is Not Working (or Networking)

Editor’s Note: Liz Ryan is CEO and founder of WorldWIT, the leading global online and offline network for women in business and technology. After seeing her many insights into virtual business relationships in both her newsletter and various spots around the web, we asked her to join us as an occasional guest blogger and she graciously agreed. Welcome, Liz!

I am interested in the posts I have seen on some of the LinkedIn-related Yahoo Groups that ask how LI can help build your business. I think of LI like my cell phone or my briefcase - it’s a tool. I don’t look at LI as a specific, revenue-goals-attached money generator. I’m not sure that it was designed to be that. But I definitely think that LinkedIn can be a business-builder if you approach it that way. Here are ten tips for using LI to build your business.

1) When you have significant news in your business - for instance, a big product launch or a joint venture - use LinkedIn to notify your contacts by way of a profile update. And in your accompanying email message to the network, say “I would love to catch up with you - want to make time for a phone call?” It’s that keeping-up process that sparks conversations about opportunities both for you and your contacts. It’s in these conversations (which could be done by email, although probably not as well) that ideas will arise about prospective clients, partnerships, and other revenue-generating projects.

2) Use LinkedIn to understand the relationships between people you know and people you want to know. For me, this is the heart of LinkedIn’s value - the ability to see at a glance how people you don’t know, but would like to, are connected to people who are closer to you. So when you find Mr. Lofty Dude in the LI network and realize that he used to work with your former admin assistant - a data point you almost certainly wouldn’t have acquired on your own - you can reach out to the admin and get, not only an introduction, but some intelligence about Mr. Dude’s current dealings, needs, and hot buttons.

3) Connect, by all means, with your former colleagues from every company that has ever employed you. There is something about old-workmate ties (unless you, er, aren’t the sort that former teammates think of fondly) that can’t be duplicated in most relationships of shorter duration. Seek out these old workmates, tell them what you’re up to and who you’re most interested in meeting, and offer to help them out as well. One good lead would be worth the price of LI membership - oh wait, it’s free - or anyway worth the price of your time doing LI searching and connecting.

4) Connect beyond the obvious. Let’s say that you would dearly like to work with General Motors, but you can’t find anyone at GM who seems especially suitable for contact as you search the LinkedIn database. No problem. Find a current GM vendor or customer in the functional area you’re interested in, and reach out to him or her. Is there something of value that you could offer in exchange for the introduction you want? In an ideal world, your sterling qualities and dazzling personality should convince this new acquaintance that introducing her client to you is something of value all by itself. But don’t bank on that. Offer to extend an invitation of your own, or design his or her new database, or something.

5) Use the LI database to understand more about your prospects. This is the beauty of LI - what other source will tell you where many or all of the senior execs of your prospect organizations used to work (given that only half a dozen of them have profiles on the company’s website)? Let’s say that you want to do some work for ABC Company. And lo and behold, half the ABC execs worked for PayPal back in the day and the other half worked for FedEx. Great intelligence! You see that they have a strong Notre Dame alum thing going on, and some connection to Stanford as well. Now you can use your FedEx and PayPal alum contacts, your Notre Dame folks and your Stanford fellows to help you get ‘over the wall.’

6) What’s in it for them? You wouldn’t email a complete stranger, even if you obtained his business card (say, by stealing the win-a-free-lunch goldfish bowl of business cards at P.F. Chang’s) to say “Hey, why not buy some stuff from me?” So please don’t reach out to new LI contacts by saying “Maybe you could help me make a new-business contact.” I wouldn’t recommend that. Instead, read this intended contact’s profile. Let’s say you are reaching out to me, who runs an online community. Two seconds of reading my profile would give you some ideas of things that might interest me. I guarantee that a typical working person could offer me something I’d be interested in. So, when you make your LI outreach, mention that thing that you could offer! Write “I would love to connect by phone, both because I’m interested in your relationship with [my most-desirable prospect company] and because I have great friends in the social networking community whom you should know.” Bingo.

7) Your contacts may be even more valuable to others than they are to you. Many people in the business community, especially avid networkers, have numerous connections that don’t do any [short-term, revenue-generating] good for them personally but that could be invaluable to their new networking contacts. Think about these valuable contacts as you reach out to people whom you hope might help you. For instance, I know lots of headhunters who have great media contacts - contacts I would drool over - journalists who regularly call them up for insights on the job market. Unfortunately, apart from occasionally mentioning in her stories that Joe Recruiter says that the job market is looking up, the journalist can’t do much for Joe - she isn’t going to write a profile on him any time soon, for instance. But she might write a profile on someone that Joe has just met through LI. Of course, Joe wouldn’t throw around her name carelessly - but he might say, “You know, I can’t guarantee anything, but for your kindness today I’d be happy to introduce you to my friend, an editor at the San Jose Mercury News, who might be interested to talk with you.” Rock on.

When you spot a cluster of people on LI who all know one another and are all accomplished in the same arena, that’s a really special thing. It means that a group of folks who perhaps worked together, or met online, or are part of a group together, represent a kind of mother lode of shared knowledge around a particular area - say, SEO or CRM or German opera. That’s huge, because jointly, these folks may comprise the lion’s share of the current thinking on the topic. You can reach out via LinkedIn to one of them, and say, “You know, I’m trying to get up to speed on the operas of Handel. Might I sent you an email message with some of my key questions, and ask whether you wouldn’t mind sharing your thoughts with me and also forwarding my message to your friend Jack Sprat, who could undoubtedly add a valuable perspective?” With luck, in the case of an inquiry like this, you are able to repay these experts’ valuable time with a gift of some kind (perhaps tickets to the opera). But many such people would refuse any compensation at all. It makes a huge difference how you present your situation and how graciously you pose your request. So much depends on good manners, doesn’t it?

9) LinkedIn in combination with Google News Alerts makes a great business tool. Let’s say you are looking to talk to folks at Fidelity who work in one product area. Use LI to find a name (or two or three names) of people at Fidelity who seem relevant to your situation, and whom you’d like to reach. Set up a Google News Alert on Fidelity, and set one up with the target person’s name (or a few names) so that you can learn when he or she has been quoted, is speaking on a panel, etc. This kind of intelligence will tell you what’s currently on the plate of this person, the issues he or she cares about, etc. What’s more flattering than an LI outreach message that says “I was so sorry to miss your speech at the Financial Muckety-Mucks Summit, but I was fortunate enough to read your thoughts on petro-dollars on Money.com and to catch your NPR interview last week.” Dang! Be diligent, but be careful that you don’t sound like a business stalker.

10) Vendors like to reach out to former clients, and that’s good, but it can be awkward when you haven’t kept up and have no idea what the former client is now up to. But of course, if you’ve got the contact info, thanks (let’s say) to Plaxo, you’re going to use it! LinkedIn solves the problem. Presto, you can track what your former client has been doing since you last saw him - no awkwardness. On top of that, instead of an open-ended “let’s catch up” message, you can say “Wow! You’re at Fidelity! You know, I see that you’ve only been in the job a few months, so we should definitely talk. It so happens that I’ve become something of an expert on Fidelity lately……” Now, that’s power networking!

This post was written by Liz Ryan, source: Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn to Build Your Business

Recently, a relatively new Ecademy member posted an article from my About Entrepreneurs site in his blog without a link and proper attribution. I don’t believe that he was trying to claim authorship or doing anything malicious, but he caught some pretty heavy flak about it, both from current and former Ecademists. What he did was “wrong”, but unfortunately all too common, not because people are willfully stealing intellectual property, but because they don’t know any better.

That may seem shocking to those of you who know (or think you know) the proper care and handling of copyrighted material, but in a discussion about the topic on a couple of Ryze networks, I learned that a common sentiment about articles on the Internet was, “Spreading the articles around just helps promote them. Why wouldn’t someone want their articles posted in discussion forums and blogs, assuming proper credit is given? It’s doing them a service.”

Here’s what I wrote in response to the blog in question about blogs, forums and copyright, with a few additional thoughts and resources. Please take a read. Even if you think you know all about copyright and blogs, there might be a thing or two you hadn’t considered.

Blogs posts are copyrighted by default. The #1 rule to remember is that, by default, posts to a blog (or to a discussion forum, for that matter) are copyrighted material, and the author owns the copyright. Just because it’s “public” doesn’t mean it’s “public domain”. That means that it is subject to all the restrictions on copyrighted work, i.e., it can’t be freely copied and used even with proper credit without either a) the permission of the author or b) within the context of “fair use”. The owners of the site, e.g., Ecademy, may also have rights to use it as part of the user agreement, but no one else does.

Fair use is a concept that allows limited use of copyrighted material, generally for the purposes of criticism, education, satire, etc. And no the “education” umbrella doesn’t allow you to use works in their entirety. There are no hard-and-fast guidelines as to where the line is drawn, but using a work in its entirety is never allowed, whether it’s a four-line poem or a four-page article. Similarly, an entire chapter from a book would also be a copyright violation. You can use excerpts, but not “complete” anythings: chapters, articles, posts, poems, etc. You can see a quick summary of “fair use” at the U.S. Government Copyright Office or get more in-depth information at the Stanford Copyright & Fair Use Center

There are exceptions. Sometimes, bloggers or article writers make things available for use in their entirety. This may be done through an express permission statement in the byline of the article or on the blog site’s footer, something to the effect of “This article may be reproduced in its entirety so long as this resource block is kept intact and included in the article.” Many people now use a Creative Commons license of some type to permit broader use than allowed by copyright, but still under the control of the creator.

Don’t make assumptions. You can’t assume that you know what the allowable use is of