Challenge #58: Suffering from Email OverLoad?

With Neil Godin (invite me to connect with you via LinkedIn)

What? Email Over Load. If it isn’t a problem for you, then you’re probably retired on an island somewhere, and you’re not actually reading this article. For the rest of us, EOL is real. It’s the monster that moves in every morning (and throughout the day) and makes a mess of our priorities and our efforts at time management. But there is help. Chances are you already using the technique I’m going to share with you today to control EOL. But, if not, then now is the time to start.

Why? We actually want to receive ‘more’ email, not ‘less.’ I know, I find this hard to believe as well. But think about it…   I’ve joined ten different LinkedIn groups so far (mainly groups of ‘open networkers’ who are business people from around the world). Next, I’m going to join at least 10 (perhaps 20 or more) LinkedIn groups made up specifically of business owners and business starters – my two specific target groups of potential customers. And I ‘want’ to receive email messages from members of these groups – letting me know that they have accepted my invitations to connect with them – or letting me know that they would like to connect with me. This isn’t nuisance email or spam, it’s what I’m signing on for. So. Now the question. How do I manage the 200 plus emails I receive each day now – and how will I handle the additional hundreds that I plan to generate as I grow my networks (not just on LinkedIn, but on other platforms as well)? Good question.

How? For me (a MicroSoft Outlook user, like 90% of the world), the answer is a little function called ‘Create a Rule.’ (There must be a similar procedure in the Mac world?). The idea is to deflect certain emails from arriving in your inbox – instead diverting them to a special file folder in your inbox – where you can go and work with them at any time you choose – rather than having them ‘in your face’ whenever they arrive.

Here are the steps:

1. In the left hand column of your Outlook window, highlight the “Inbox” file
2. Go to ‘New” at top left of the window and press and hold down the arrow key at right of the word ‘New”
3. Choose ‘Folder’ (so that you are creating a new folder in your inbox)
4. Now name your new folder (for example, I created a new folder that I titled, ‘LINKED IN’)
5. Now right click on any individual email that you would like to have sent directly into that new file folder – rather than having it appear in your inbox – from now on
6. Choose ‘Create rule’ while right clicked on the email item
7. Tick the box that says, “subject contains…” (which shows the words in this email’s subject lines)
8. Then tick the box that says ‘Move the item to folder…’ and choose the new folder that you have just created (in my case, my new LINKED IN folder)
9. Now you will be asked if you want to move all items with this subject line – that are already in your inbox – to your new folder (this takes a couple of minutes but it’s worth it)

Tipzntrix: Once your emails are safely diverted to your special folders (you will want to create several), you can go into these files at any time, and work with the messages you’ve received on ‘your schedule’ – not just whenever they show up. I organize the emails in these folders by subject line – and deal with batches of them at a time. This approach allows me to make much more efficient (and effective) use of my time. Questions? I’m at ng@neilgodin.com and I’ll do my best to answer.

Challenge #57: Walt Disney on Facebook?

With Jonathan Christian (follow on Twitter: @jdgem)

We just spent an amazing five days in what they call the “Happiest place of Earth.” We were entertained, soaked, baked and stimulated by the power of one man’s dream. I read an article on how sad it was that Walt Disney didn’t live to see the opening of Epcot Park – but the profound response to the reporter was – “Oh but he did – he’s seen this for years.” I have nothing but respect for Walt’s powerful imagination, and his determination to see things through with excellence. I wonder what we would have achieved in our Social Media Generation? (Would Walt Disney have used Facebook?).

What? We’re in an era like none before. We have endless knowledge at our fingertips – any time of the day or night. But for those of us in business (whether we run a theme park or a shoe store), the real challenge these days lies in making sure that prospective customers can find our products and services in this new information maze.

Why? While visiting Epcot Park, all I had with me was my Blackberry, which I turned on twice a day to keep in touch with email. When we returned to our hotel we were back in free Wifi land and the children were busy posting photographs on Facebook and updating their status, and I got to thinking about the Facebook phenomenon (“is it really just for kids?”). Our Social Media Challenge has been all about how we can use Social Media for business development, and here’s what I now know for sure – one of the best ways to get your message out and grow your business is by receiving a trusted referral – and there’s no better platform than Facebook.  I have also learned that the more platforms we use – Twitter, blogging, Meetup, LinkedIn and (of course) your website and email – the better.

How? Facebook has recently made it much easier to create a business page for your products and services. I probably create a couple every week for clients. All you need is your own personal page to start with – then follow these steps:

1. Go to the Account tab and click on the help centre

2. Click on the flag symbol – Pages for businesses

3. Click on the “How can I create a Page” and then click the here button

4. Then recommend to your friends and followers that they “like” your page (which they do by clicking on the

Thumbs-up symbol).

Tipzntrix: If you haven’t done this already – why not start today! You can leave the page unpublished until you’re ready with photographs and details for a day or so. I’m going to create a page for the beach house we’re staying in as an example. My friend Tom (one of the owners), runs their website and handles bookings – and has just asked me how he could best let people know about this wonderful place. “Facebook,” I told him – and you’ll love his response. “Facebook?  I’m on Facebook,” he said, “but I don’t get it – and I hardly ever use it.” He said that when people ask to be his friend, he adds them – but that’s it. Does this sound familiar? If it does, stay tuned. Because, on Wednesday I’ll show you what’s possible on Facebook – with very little time and effort, and no money! Until then, have a Happy Marketing Monday!

Challenge #56: LinkedIn list building (continued)

With Neil Godin (connect with me at http://ca.linkedin.com/in/neilgodin)

What? Today, let’s keep growing our LinkedIn networks. I gave you a step by step on how I expanded my connections (exponentially) as a member of the True LIONs group. Now, I want to introduce you to several other groups that I’ve also joined:

·        The Everyone LION Group

·        The Open Networker Group

·        The New LIONs group

·        The LION500.com group

·        The FastTrack Business Network

Why? I’ve carefully chosen groups that appear to be well developed and universal. I’ve stayed away from the “jobs” and “recruiters” groups, because I want to network mainly with business owners, independent professionals, and sales and marketing people – not head hunters and job hunters. My plan is to leave groups that don’t fit my target, after exploring each one. And, of course, I’m suggesting you do the same.

How? You can find (and join) each of these groups by clicking on ‘Groups’ and selecting ‘Group Directory,’ and then entering the key word, “lion.” Then simply click on ‘Join group’ in each case. (Note that I’m going for numbers by joining these wide open LION groups. I also belong to groups that are much smaller and more targeted, and you will want to do the same – but we’ll leave that topic for another day). My next move will be to send a message to all my connections, providing a link to the MD blog. Hopefully, traffic to the blog will increase dramatically. We’ll see – and we’ll letcha know.

Tipzntrix: When I did a Google search on ‘LinkedIn open networkers’ the first listing was for Wikipedia – where I was delighted to read all about open networking – and found links to non-LinkedIn sites that you may want to check out as well, including:

·        The MetaNetwork – The LIONs Lair

·        MyLink Network for Libertine, Open, and Closed LIONs and Networkers

·        MyLink Wiki LinkedIn community information site. Active Networkers page

Hey. Have a great weekend huh!

Neil

Challenge #55: Are you a LinkedIn LION?

With Neil Godin (connect with me at http://ca.linkedin.com/in/neilgodin)

What? Okay. I said I would explain how I took my total LinkedIn network from a few hundred to a few million in a few days. So. Here we go.

Why? My purpose – for the moment – in using social media is to spread the word about our free Marketing Dangerously newsletter. The idea is that when business people are exposed to the newsletter, they are exposed to me, and to the products and services we offer here at NGI. The bottom line should be (and is) increased sales of our products – producing a growing stream of relatively passive income.

How? If you want to grow your LinkedIn business network in similar fashion, here is the quickest route that I’ve found.

1. Set up your LinkedIn account.
2. Go to the Groups tab and search for “True LIONs” (LIONs stands for “LinkedIn Open Networkers”).
3. Click on “Join this group.”
4. You will now begin to receive emails from members of the group asking you to add them to your network of contacts.
5. A typical message says they want to expand their network, and that they never IDK or spam (IDK means “I don’t know,” as I’ve mentioned before (you get this message when you invite someone who doesn’t know you, and they reject your invitation. Doing this can result in LinkedIn cancelling your account. This is not a danger with “open networkers” such as True LIONs group members).
6. Yesterday, I received 20 of these emails. Each one contains the email address of the person who wants to be added to your network.
7. Open an MS word document, and copy and paste each email address into this document – separating each entry with a comma, but no space. Then highlight and copy your list.
8. Then go back to LinkedIn (to your home page this time) and click on “Add Connections” (at top right of the window, to the right of your name).
9. Now paste your comma-separated list into the window at the right.
10. Then click on “send invitations” and you’re done. ((I go back and type the word “sent” after each block of email addresses I send out).

Tipzntrix: Now for the fun part. Wait 24 hours (so those you invite have time to accept), then go to Contacts on your LinkedIn home page, and select “Network Statistics” to see how your network has grown. (Also do this before you complete the steps above, so you can see what your stats are both before and after.) Stay tuned, and I’ll let you know if growing my LinkedIn network helps grow our Marketing Dangerously newsletter subscriptions as well. Oh, by the way, don’t worry about entering duplicate email addresses into the window; LinkedIn automatically rejects duplicates, and then tells you how many of your emails were actually sent out.

Challenge #54: – How to locate Mr. or Ms. Right? Part 4

With Neil Godin (Connect with Neil on LinkedIn at: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/neilgodin )

What? The quest continues. As you know, we’re trying to help a Marketing Dangerously member (Specialty Bulb Products Inc., of Vancouver, Canada) find a new star for their technical sales team – using social media, of course. In our last installment, I sent a message to a group of my direct connections on LinkedIn – which produced two leads, according to SBPI president, Peter Janzen. This time, we throw the LinkedIn net wider. Read on.

Why? Because I believe that LinkedIn is ‘the’ social media platform for business, I have been systematically growing my LinkedIn network, and here are my stats as of today:

Direct connections:  286

Two degrees away: 102,100

Three degrees away: 4,844,500

Total members I can contact through an introduction: 4,946,900

New members added to my network in the last two days: 7,267

How? In my next post I will spell out how I’m (exponentially) growing my LinkedIn network, step by step. Today, let’s look at how I can get the word out to all or part of this huge number of people. Knowing that Peter has placed a paid ad on LinkedIn, I logged in and did a search for the ad (I chose “jobs” and searched for “specialty bulb.”) Then I copied the URL for that page with the listing – and then pasted it in to a window at www.snipurl.com – a service that snips long url’s into short ones that look like this:

http://snipurl.com/10rqwk.

Then I forwarded the listing to 50 of my direct contacts (which appears to be the limit, at least at one time). And then I went to my own home page and wrote a post to all 286 of my direct connections, including the snipped URL for the job posting page on LinkedIn. This means that if you want to look at this job posting you don’t even have to sign in – you simply paste the short URL into your browser, and you are taken directly to that page. (Why not try it just to check it out?)

Tipzntrix: The key point about sending a “link” to the posting – instead of forwarding from the job posting page itself – is that I’m no longer limited to just 50 recipients. By sending a message with a link to the job posting page, everyone in my direct connection list of 286 gets the message. Peter’s next move will be to post his opening on the SBPI website – so he can send messages with a link to the posting page on his website – and not have to spend $190 on a paid LinkedIn ad – which actually seems to limit the number of people his contacts can forward it to. (I know, this is counter-intuitive, so I’ll do some more homework).

Meanwhile, it seems like a winning way to save money, while getting the word out further and faster. Hmm.

Challenge #53: Want to go to a shrimp fest?

With Jonathan Christian (@jdgem)

I know I mentioned Wednesday that I would share how to email without spamming, but then I realized there are much better experts at this than myself – so next week I’ll be sharing an interview with one of our MDSMC inner circle thought leaders, David Neale.

Meanwhile, something happened today that I just had to share with you. I was in a coffee shop this morning in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, writing my last blog post, when I saw a poster for a local event that was happening this evening – “Shrimp Fest on Flagler Avenue.”

What? Around this time of year the family team of JDGEM (Jonathan, Debbie, Gemma, Ellen & Maddie – now you know!), take our annual vacation. It’s a time when we can focus on family and I can also catch up on my reading – and creatively write content for some of my clients, and even strategize the fall season. Anyhow – back to the coffee shop – fairly traded, organic, home baked and WiFi – get the picture? And I noticed this colorful poster advertising a street event, right here where we were having our morning coffee. “Come along,” said our super friendly barista, “it’ll be fun.”

Why? Why not, we thought. Maybe it would be a little hokey but hey, we’re on holiday! Did I ever underestimate the power of a poster and a trusted recommendation! The whole street, which that morning looked a little run down (a bit like forgotten era of colonial plantation meets the 70’s) came totally alive. Every local restaurant had a 10 by 10 canopy cooking off the freshest shrimp in every way imaginable. There were local bands playing and in between were local business and artisans selling and promoting their stuff. And the crowds were huge – with everyone enjoying an amazing summer evening complete with cold beer and fabulous fresh food.

How? The whole business community got together and made it an unforgettable experience. Each restaurant gave away coupons with each meal – to attract you back to their own place on another day – offering free appetizers or 2 for 1 drinks. To be able to drink a beer on the street you had to wear a wristband – and on it they advertised their next event on the 28th – “Walk and Wine” – an afternoon of pavement art and wine tasting – brilliant!  All in all, an awesome evening for all the family and a marketers dream come true. It reminded me of the sense of community we had in Vancouver during the Winter Olympics.

Tipzntrix: When was the last time you connected with your local community and held an event?  How would you get the word out? The posters sure worked here, as did the recommendation of a trusted individual – but so would Facebook and Meetup (remember, this is our social media challenge). Why not dream up an event, and start spreading the word. Make it attractive – with free samples, door prizes from vendors and other merchants – and entertainment – and people in your target audience will quickly start connecting, liking, following and sharing on social media.  Start a countdown and watch the numbers (and your online community) grow!  Why not?

Jonathan@jdgem