Next Level Executives

What do Guy Kawasaki, Seth Godin, and Barack Obama have in common with MC Hammer?

Okay, I know the title of the post gave it away. Yes, they all use Twitter. The real question I guess is, why do they use Twitter?

What does Twitter, this ridiculous mico-blogging tool that limits posts to 140 characters have to offer these guys? At first glance it seems insane that anyone who takes himself seriously, or even the Hammer, would consider joining the fray where the question “What are you doing?” is often answered with total honesty. And like almost every Twitter user on the planet that is what I thought until I started using the tool and watching how others use it.

I signed up for Twitter back in October 2007 during PodCamp Boston but it was useless to me. I was following one person and had one follower, Aaron Strout of Mzinga. I already had Aaron’s email address, his IM screen name and his phone number, there was simply no reason to use Twitter just to talk to Aaron. I left it alone until a few months ago when I noticed Aaron had added his Twitter handle to his email signature and I decided to take a second look. Then I Googled Aaron Strout and noticed that not only does his name fill page one but his Twitter page ranks number three.

Why is Twitter Useful For Me?

Once I saw Aaron’s rankings I was sold because despite owning two companies, Course Pilot Financial and Next Level Executives, with separate and distinct brand identities I knew that my own name was associated very closely with each. A quick Google search for Mike Langford made me realize I needed to take some action. There apparently is some famous photographer with the same name along with a few others. If I wanted to be found through this noise maybe tweeting could help.

Guess what? It worked. I am all over page one on Google now. But the story doesn’t stop there.

I realized in the process that Twitter is actually an amazing Personal Branding tool. When I noticed Guy, Seth, Barack and yes you too Hammer, were on Twitter I had to wonder why. Why would two prominent business thought leaders, a potential leader of the free world, and a guy who used to wear big poofy pants while dancing side to side like a hermit crab be on Twitter? Then it dawned on me.

The First Rule of Branding: Awareness

All four of these men depend heavily on the strength of their personal brands as a key component of their continued success. And in the world of branding, awareness rules.

For my money, and Guy Kawasaki and I agree that we would pay to use it, Twitter is by far the most effective tool in existence for generating and maintaining brand awareness. When Guy responded to my tweet about a future business model for Twitter over 13,000 people saw my name. As a result a few of them decided to follow me. The same thing happened when Chris Brogan took the time to say “nice to meet you” after a Tweetup.

Remember, people on Twitter are not just random eyeballs, these people made a decision to follow certain people.

Aware of What Exactly?

Now there’s the rub. Name recognition alone is not brand awareness. Your brand starts to come through when people develop an expectation for what you are about. I know Seth Godin is out to help business people become better marketers. When he tweets there is a consistency with this expectation and his personal brand is reinforced.

So, where does this leave me. I am using Twitter to extend my personal brand to new territory. As a financial advisor I am known quantity, Mike Langford stands for honesty, integrity and a commitment to excellence. In taking on the leadership of Next Level Executives I find myself needing to add new features to the @MikeLangford brand. If you follow me you will quickly see that I am working hard to associate with and learn from some of the leaders in the social media scene. You will also notice that I frequently promoting others and brokering connections between successful business people.

Of course you will also see the occasional plea for a venti iced coffee here and there as well. Let’s just say it is all part of the master plan.

What Are Your Thoughts?

• Do you have a personal branding strategy? Does it involve Twitter?
• Do you have any examples of great personal branding campaigns that involve Twitter?
• Did I miss anything?

I finally picked up Seth Godin’s book “Meatball Sundae” yesterday after listening to Mitch Joel pimp it (albeit gently) on Six Pixels several times over the last few months. As of this morning I am about half-way through the book and I find myself compelled to get a conversation going on the book’s thesis.

Old Marketing (mass marketing) is dying or at least shrinking in relevance and New Marketing (permission based marketing) is the future.

The good news for business, small businesses in particular, is that new marketing is much more cost effective and has an exponentially higher response rate. One example Seth uses in the book is a comparison of response rates for direct mail versus permission based (opt in) email marketing. The typical direct mail campaign costs $1 per recipient and has an expected response rate of one percent. Compare this to a permission based email campaign where the recipients have asked to receive information about your products and services. The cost of crafting the email is most likely the same as the cost of designing the mailer in the direct mail scenario but there is virtually no cost of distribution. Sending an email to one person or one hundred thousand costs the same. Here’s the rub, according to Seth the response rate for email is often 20 to 30 times higher than snail mail.

The cost component in the above scenario, while significant, is not the point. The point is the response rate and what it means to your marketing strategy. In today’s world, people can choose to not be interrupted. Think about it:

• Radio - People have iPhones, podcasts of radio broadcasts and XM satellite radio.
• TV - TiVo, iTunes and other on-demand delivery systems make sitting through ads unnecessary.
• Telemarketing - The “do not call list” makes dinner interruptions a thing of the past.
• Spam - Unwanted email marketing (no permission given) is swept up via spam filters.

New Marketing, as Seth suggests, eschews yelling in the faces of people who would rather not hear what you have to say in favor of engaging people who have a problem you can solve. It’s the old “fish where the fish are” axiom taken to the next level.

Fish where the fish are but be sure to have the bait the fish like to eat.

My father and I took my son Jackson fishing for the first time recently. The first stop we made was the local bait shop where I asked the guy behind the counter for the best place to catch trout. Then we bought our worms and headed to the pond he suggested. We knew where the fish were.

When we got to the pond, set up and baited our hooks with several options. In addition to the worms we had brought other options such as PowerBait and salmon eggs. Sure enough the fish started biting but only the hooks baited with worms. Nothing else was drawing even the slightest nibble. But we had all that other bait. What to do?

We could have developed an aggressive marketing strategy to push the PowerBait as an attractive alternative to worms. And salmon eggs are so European and chic, they are like caviare. I mean come on, we had all that inventory. Certainly if we yelled loud enough the fish would try our other products.

But wait, there was a guy with his son fishing right near us and they were using worms. Just what the fish wanted. Hmm…maybe we should position ourselves as the best place for trout to fill their worm needs.

And this is the most important part of the “Meatball Sundae” message. New Marketing, is not about selling what you have or what you want sell to people through new marketing tools. It is about identifying what people want to buy, finding out where these people are and structuring your marketing and business strategy to maximize the engagement of these customers.

So, have you read “Meatball Sundae”? I would love to hear your thoughts.

Are you using all available brainpower to solve your business challenges? If you haven’t taken the hot seat in a mastermind session the answer is “NO”. And your business may be suffering for it.

Scientists and mathematicians long ago discovered that more brains are better than one brain when it comes to solving complex calculations. In recent decades more brains began to include more computers. And more computers has evolved into cloud computing which essentially represents a supercomputer comprised of thousands of individual machines working together in concert to solve virtually any calculation.

“But I’m a small business owner (or solo-preneur) and I don’t even like math. How is cloud computing going to help me?” Say you.

Well your small business is more like a complex math problem than you may realize. Think of the four main business processes that every business has, new product development, order acquisition, order fulfillment, and post sales service. Change what you do in one process and it impacts the result in another, which in the end creates a different value for your business.

Things get even more complex when we include the variables of business functions such as marketing, finance, HR and so on. Like the calculations facing scientists and mathematicians, some variables carry more weight than others. Identifying these weighty variables and engaging all available brainpower to solve your problem not only saves time but also tends to lead to results that your one brain would have overlooked.

So what do you say? Are you willing to take the hot seat?

To get a glimpse of the power of the mastermind session take a quick read of Heidi Brooks’s comments and my own personal experience this Wednesday.