Tips for using Airtime and Google Hangouts

I recently recorded a new video about how best to use some of the prevalent video chat services in the business world.

You can find it here.

Failing forward ( guest post by @cleverkibitzer )

Kathi Browne is a fellow member of Entrepreneurs of Knoxville and a go to professional when it comes to marketing. Particularly social media. She has been a member of GoGrabLunch.com for quite some time and a big supporter.

Failing forward

Are you a risk-taker? According to Peter Sims, author of Little Bets, successful people don’t usually start out with a brilliant idea. They discover them by taking risks. Trial and error is a healthy process to weed out that one good idea from the pile of bad ones.

Many great entrepreneurs have failed forward through experimentation: jumping in with both feet to test ideas until something worked! Simms points out that Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin didn’t plan to build the powerful search engine we know today, but rather a solution to prioritize library searches. Eventually, their search algorithm lead to Google AdWords and the rest is history. Google teams continue to seek out failures in an effort to learn from them. They understand that the successes are formed through the process of elimination and discovery. Each failure is a chance to gain insight into what will result in success.

But experimentation only happens if you are willing to take action: If you are willing to take chances, and if you are willing to see each failure as a new discovery. Are you actively seeking opportunities to fail? Or are you playing it too safe? Take a chance. Meet someone new for lunch and ask them what failures they have learned from. It will make for good conversation, and may spark new ideas. That’s what the napkins are for.

You can find out more about Kathi here.

Is Airtime the next ChatRoulette?

Airtime is the latest hot startup to be discussed on TechCrunch and Business Insider. Tied to Facebook, Airtime allows you to connect with people you do or do not know based on social interests. Google Hangouts accomplishes a similar result.

Let me just say that we were one of the first to help people connect face to face with people you don’t, but should know. In our case it was based on professional needs.

While I see the value in what Airtime and Google Hangouts are trying to facilitate, I wonder if this is just ChatRoulette in a different skin. While I never tried their service, ChatRoulette ended up being awkward for participants. Their site connected you randomly, not based on any filters. And often times the person on the other end of the video stream was acting or dressed inappropriately.

One way they can overcome these issues is to have a built in rating system. On our site we require feedback on each member after each meeting. Similar to eBay’s feedback system, our “NetQuotient”, helps networkers avoid unprofessional behavior.

So, I am curious. Will you try out these services? Do you see usage being more personal or professional?

Developing relationships, connecting resources, growing businesses

appropriately.

Prospecting by the numbers – cold calling versus referrals

I am one of the weird individuals that enjoys seminars and webinars. This week I attended one of each. The seminar I attended was on the topic of business networking and was put on by a local business networking organization. I should point out that I am not a member of this organization. In fact, I am a member of another very similar organization.

The last portion of the meeting was fifteen minutes of comparing two prospecting methods – cold calling and referral marketing. While the presentation was a bit of a sales pitch to convince guests to join the group, I thought the presenter did a nice job laying out the case for how referral marketing (more specifically developing relationships with other professionals that are willing to refer business your way) is by far a much more efficient way of prospecting and closing new business.

Let’s take a look at the average statistics:

Cold calling

20 – twenty calls on prospects
10 – to speak to ten people
5 – five of which agree to meet with you
2 – two actually show up for your appointment
1 – close one sale

Referral marketing

5 – referrals from complimentary business professionals
2 – two that agree to meet
1 – close one sale

What amount of time do you think it takes to complete the cold calling activities versus the referral process? Without actually calculating it, I think we can agree that leveraging referral relationships much more efficient by a fair margin. I can tell you from personal experience that this is accurate.

So, why do so many professionals continue to make cold calls? A main reason is that they just don’t understand how to build referral relationships in the first place. Certainly doing so can take time. And many professionals are looking for the quick sale that cold calling can yield. But I would hypothesize that the quality of the sales closed through referrals is vastly better.

My question to you is – would you rather have a 20:1 or a 5:1 ratio?

If you see the value in meeting like-minded professionals, in order to build referral relationships check out a new way to network.

External cannabalism

Last week I mentioned Entrepreneurs of Knoxville as a great place to brainstorm with like-minded professionals. The founder of the group, Leo Knight, and I have gotten to know each other over the past few years. Sometimes we see things the same, and sometimes we don’t.

At the last meeting I asked how a particular project was going for him. Apparently, it was not going at all. It’s seems that Leo’s client had decided to pursue a particular project with in-house talent, instead of engaging his services.

Your customer can often times be your biggest competition.

I have experienced the same thing with one of my projects. A few months ago, after numerous invested hours of laying out a plan of action, a potential client decided to try and replicate my teams services on their own. According to my contact, their solution “was not near as good or cool”. Apparently, being neither good or cool mattered.

So, how do you protect yourself from external cannabalism? Well, you can’t. If you are merely saving them time or money you risk losing the sale. And even saving them both time and money isn’t enough, because your prospect can choose to do nothing.

Your only play is to provide enough value that your prospect cannot implement the new product or service without you. And only you.

Feed your network!