Let me first get a couple of things out of the way:

1. This post is for people who own very small businesses. It is not about brands, corporations, or conglomerates.

2. If you have a Facebook profile (where you must send and accept friend requests) with a name like “Sister Sue’s Cafe” you are doing it wrong and you need to hire someone to help you build a Page for your business ASAP. Call me. I’ll refer you to someone good.

3. This is my opinion and reflects my experience. I have done no studies, have no scientific or statistical evidence to back anything I say, and am offering advice from my own perspective.

Whew. Now that’s all out there, we can get on with things. I have a page for Smiling Tree Writing on Facebook. I mostly publish links to posts from this

blog there, but sometimes offer writing tips or let loose with rants about poor grammar. I also have a personal Facebook profile, which is for family,  friends, spying on my kids, keeping up with people I barely remember from school, and even for playing Words with Friends now and then.

For a while, I worried every time someone I know through my work as a writer sent me a friend request on Facebook. I don’t have lists set up, so pretty much everything I post is visible to all of my connections. Sometimes, in status updates, I curse. Sometimes I post links to political articles. Sometimes I make jokes that only certain people get. I even torture my Facebook friends with poetry once in awhile. How would a prospective client feel about that stuff?

So, I tried to direct people to my business page rather than my personal profile. But it really didn’t work. Past clients sent me referrals – to my personal page. People I met at networking events sent me friend requests. Past colleagues did, too.

Finally, I came to a decision: Accept their requests, and let them see the “real” dava – honest opinions, bad photos, silly poems and all. I still suggest that people “like” my professional page, but I don’t turn them away from my personal profile.

I’m not great at “sales” in the sort of stereotypical sense of the word. I am good at building relationships, though, and that ability helps me find and keep clients. As it turns out, one of the most important parts of building relationships is allowing people to get to know you. Allowing clients, prospects, and others from my professional life see a bit of my personal life through Facebook is a pretty simple way to let them know me.

This probably goes against every bit of expert advice you have ever read or heard. You’re probably remembering how many times people you respect have exhorted you to use the privacy settings on Facebook, to use business pages for business and to keep personal stuff personal. There are a few reasons ignoring all of that has worked for me:

1. I own my own business. I do not have a boss who will read something on my Facebook profile and be offended. I cannot injure the reputation of any company except my own.

2. Similarly, I get to decide with whom I do business. If a client says ugly things about one of my poems, I can fire them. I probably wouldn’t, but the knowledge that I could makes me feel better about the situation.

3. Part of the reason I love what I do is that I get to be me – fully and totally dava. I spent years trying to suppress parts of my personality, or trying to be more like others in order to fit into various work cultures, and it never worked for me.

4. While I post relatively frequently on Facebook, I do think about each post. I have never (and hopefully will never) posted a personal tirade in the heat of the moment. I may have taken part in a few online debates, but you can be sure I considered every word carefully. While I am open about my opinions and thoughts and to some extent, my emotions, on Facebook, I am also a little cautious.

It works for me. I am Facebook friends with at least 5 or 6 clients. If any of them are offended by my opinions or they don’t like what they have learned about my personal life, it hasn’t stopped any of them from continuing to send me work.

Do you mix personal and professional on Facebook? Do you have barriers in place so that your professional contacts only see some things you post? Do you  have any Facebook/work horror stories?

 

 

 

 

 

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Yesterday, I ran across an ad for a job in my Facebook stream. Pretty much everything about the position appealed to me, and I spent several minutes reading the posting and thinking about who I knew at the organization and comparing my experience

with the qualifications listed. Then I just sat there feeling conflicted. This has happened a few times in the recent past. 

 

I’ve said several times that I don’t want another full time job. I love writing, working from home and having the ability to be choosy about my who I work with. There’s no dress code and no schedule, I don’t have a commute, and I get to play with my dogs or dig in the garden whenever I need a break. So, why would a job opening raise such turmoil?

 

At least a couple of my clients have struggled with the same question. Would a position with a company give me some stability while I continue to build a business? Could I still do a good job of running a business while working somewhere else? Should I be thinking about winding my business down and start looking for a full time position? These are the questions that haunt my darkest professional moments.

 

For me, so far, the answer to all of those questions has been no, and for a long and varied list of reasons, not the least of which is that I know the grass is NOT greener anywhere else. I’ve never had a job that I enjoyed as much as I have enjoyed Smiling Tree Writing. That doesn’t mean that there are not hassles and aggravations, but for the most part they are small, and overshadowed by the good stuff.

 

If you are a business owner, do you ever contemplate taking on another job, either part time or full time? Even if you don’t seriously consider it, do you indulge in fantasies about working in an office, and watching those lovely, regular paychecks flow into your bank account?

 

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Yesterday I was pleased to attend an event hosted by the Social Media Club of Chattanooga.  It was at my favorite coffee house and lots of friends were there, so it would’ve been fun regardless of presenters or speakers or whatever. However, it would be hard to describe watching a “live” (by Skype) interview with someone like Guy Kawasaki as a bonus.

 

The interviewer was John Martin of the Small Business Round Table, and he conducted the interview for his Internet radio show SBR with John Martin. Each week, John interviews small business owners, successful entrepreneurs and others who have wisdom to share with those of us working to build profitable businesses. John asked Guy questions about failure, venture capital and much more as we all looked on, listened and learned.

 

Guy Kawasaki is successful and excellent at what he does. He also seems to be a genuinely nice person who is interested in helping people, sharing his knowledge and teaching others how to be…enchanting. I think, though, that some of the things he said during the interview should be put into perspective.

 

For example, John asked about the way that Guy uses Twitter. Now, Guy has been scolded many times for posting too often, using a team to post under his name and other practices that some people view as “bad” or “wrong.” The thing is, it’s working. For Guy.

 

Guy has two accounts on Twitter, and if you follow both of them, you are probably seeing his name pop up quite frequently in your stream. He says that he posts each link that he wants to share four times a day – twice on each account. Now, if I re-posted things four times a day, people would get irritated really quickly. But Guy has something like 400,000 followers between his two accounts, and they are all online at different times. Some might check things in the mornings, others in the evenings – and that’s not to mention time zones. So, if you have 400,000 followers it makes good sense to share the same thing four times a day.

 

But if you don’t have that many followers? If you only have a measly couple of thousand? You are probably alienating people by repeating yourself so frequently, particularly if you are posting links to your own stuff (Guy doesn’t do that, by the way). Most of us can get by with posting something twice, but that’s about it.

 

Guy does something else that probably wouldn’t work for the rest of us: he uses social media like a billboard. He broadcasts on Twitter, which is why he wants tons of followers. For him, a follower is a set of eyeballs that might click on a link and look at an ad – and might even click on the ad.

 

He almost never retweets anything, mostly because he says he pays no attention to his stream. He is not using Twitter to engage in conversations. This works for a man who is hanging out on the NY Times Best Seller List, owns a couple of companies and is a respected authority in his field.

 

It probably wouldn’t work for you, and it definitely wouldn’t work for me.

 

Small business owners need to be having conversations on Twitter and Facebook. We need to be talking to people, and participating in useful discussions. You know, being authentically ourselves and stuff. For the business owner with a small reach and even smaller budget, real conversations with real people who spend real money are the power of social media. We can talk to people, make them love us, find out exactly what they need then sell it to them.

 

I would never presume to say that someone like Guy Kawasaki is doing it wrong. I will say that most of us cannot hope to do it the way he is and be successful. Do you follow Guy on Twitter or like him on Facebook? How do you feel about his tactics? Would you ever try to replicate his success using his tactics?

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Several months ago, I was at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast. The presenter asked the crowd how a business owner should go about pricing services besides looking at the prices of competitors. No one said anything, and since I’ve never even thought about what my competitors charge, I said, “Well, if someone agrees to pay what I ask without qualms, I raise the price just a little bit for the next person. If that person agrees, I raise it just a little bit more for the next person, and then just a liiiiittle bit more for the next one and so on. No one has argued with me about price yet…”

 

Everyone laughed – except the presenter, who said, “You’re all laughing, but she’s right. You just keep raising it until somebody says no. Then you tell them you made a small mistake in estimating, and quote them the price you quoted the last time.”

 

In other words, you keep going until you’ve gone one step too far, then you back up.

 

It worked well for me. I’m now confident that my services are well worth what I charge. It took quite a long time for me to feel I had reached a good, stable pricing structure, but approaching it slowly allowed me to gain confidence.

 

I do this with all kinds of things. We have pets. Lots of pets. Two birds, four dogs. We have also had frogs, pigs, cats, fish and lizards. It seems like there is always room for one more critter. Until there’s not. It’s obvious when we have gone one step too far with our menagerie, but not quite so easy to back up.

 

A couple of days ago, I went for a run first thing in the morning. It was HOT. Since I haven’t been running regularly for a while, I kept having to walk for a few steps, then run some more. I kept doing this until I could feel my hamstrings shaking. Several hours later, the evil heat exhaustion headache made its ugly appearance. One step too far.

 

Taking things just a little too far is a good way to find your boundaries, so that you can push them. It is probably the best growth strategy for cautious people because you are constantly testing the waters and rarely diving in. There’s not much danger involved because you go forward about an inch at a time, and it’s perfect for people who like to take small steps.

 

There are dangers, of course, and alternative methods of progression. Peter Shallard wrote a great post about the difference in the tortoise and the phoenix methods of transformation. Peter recommends getting comfortable with both types of change, and makes good points in favor of that recommendation. It’s possible that, by pushing your boundaries slowly, you miss out on opportunities. There’s no telling how much money I “left on the table” in those early months of business.

 

It’s not a good strategy to use in relationships. You generally don’t want to go a step too far with people. Sometimes it’s not possible to back up.

 

Do you ever purposely go a step too far to see what will happen? How do you handle it when you have to back up?

 

 

 

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Today I had the great pleasure of listening to a webinar put on by Sonia Simone, Brian Clark and Chris Garret that was part of a series called Authority Rules. Today’s talk was all about attracting the right traffic to your site or blog. Since I am a fan of pretty much anything Copyblogger does, I thoroughly enjoyed the entire webinar, but toward the end Sonia suggested an exercise that I think most of my clients would benefit from completing – writing out a description of your ideal customer.

 

When you start a business, your ideal customer is one that will pay you. I know this because I’ve been there. I’ve chased after all sorts of business that I probably should have ignored

even if they flashed thousands of dollars in my face. A bad fit can be even more painful in business than in shoes.

 

You can save yourself some grief by directing all of your marketing, writing and efforts toward your fictional, but perfect, customer.

 

Clearly, you should not deny doing business with someone because they don’t fit that description exactly, but if they don’t fit it at all….well, you should probably run. Just like you can get by just fine wearing those extra hot high heels out to dinner but not for dancing, you can get by just fine working with people who are not your ideal in some situations.

 

Since it is sometimes better to show than to tell, I am going to write out the description of my “dream” client here, as an example of the kinds of details you should think about when completing this exercise yourself.

 

My ideal client is Jake. Jake is a farmer who is passionate about food, food safety and changing the way our food supply is created and distributed. He isn’t trying to put Wal-Mart out of business, but he does think people should have a choice about where they purchase their food.

 

Jake is 38 years old, and has been in business for 9 years. His farm has a CSA program and he sells his produce, meat and eggs at farmers’ markets and through a small stand on his own property as well. Jake is running his farm, his CSA, his farm stand and also doing all of the marketing required himself. While his business is growing, he foresees a time in the near future when he will not be able to grow anymore simply because of time constraints.

 

Jake is married and has a small daughter. He likes his family and would like to spend at least a little time with them. He has decided it’s time to find some help. Since Jake’s least favorite thing is marketing and writing, he has decided to hire someone to help in those areas.

 

Jake is comfortable with computing. He understands that Facebook is an important way to stay in touch with some of his customers. He has been writing a blog, but erratically. He has sent out a couple of email newsletters and isn’t sure if that is an effective tool for him. Jake knows what SEO is and realizes the importance of web design. He has worked with a professional developer.

 

He doesn’t know it, but Jake has already put together a lose marketing strategy. He just needs help in executing and expanding it. He is willing to invest the necessary money on a monthly basis to make sure his Facebook Page is active and interesting, blog is updated, his newsletter goes out, and that his customers are happy to hear from him.  He wants to build a community around his farm, both online and offline.

 

So there you are.  My ideal customer fits like a pair of fuzzy slippers in January. What about you? Are you clients like expensive, gorgeous shoes that rub blisters on your feet or more like the best sneakers ever?

 

 

 

 

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