Brent's Social CRM Blog

Why Small Businesses Aren't Feeling Web 2.0 - Part Two

My second blog post over at Small Business Trends was published today and I was pleasantly surprised by the discussion it kicked up. It was based on a recent study by Bredin Business Information on how small and mid-size businesses have not adopted Web 2.0 in large numbers as of yet. I admit to being surprised to a certain extent by their results, as a good number of my business associates are into this stuff in a big way. But I can see many small business people, over the age of 40 with businesses outside of high tech and marketing, have been slow to adopt the Web 2.0 philosophy....and tools.

But as my buddy Paul Greenberg pointed out in his comment to that entry, the small business folks who have bought in to Web 2.0 are true mentors, demonstrating to the big guys as well as other small businesses how these tools along with the right mindset can be extremely successful. They are also benefiting tremendously. And although the survey says that only 14% of SMBs think blogging will be really important over the next 5 years, I'd be very surprised if that's the case. I don't know the ages of the people surveyed but I'd bet the average would have to be over 40. With the average age of first time entrepreneurs coming down, colleges teaching entrepreneurship and social media as part of their curriculum, and a whole new generation being raised with all this stuff, I think traditional small businesses will adapt, and adopt quicker. And once the big companies begin using these tools for what they were intended for, that should speed things along as well.

As a small treat for the readers of this blog, below is a clip of a conversation I had with the editorial director of Bredin Business Information, Stuart Feil. It's the first part of a two part conversation that will air this week on my radio show. It's about 9 minutes, but it's a quick 9 minutes....I think. Enjoy!

Technorati : blogging, small business, trends, web 2.0

Just What The World Needed....Me on Internet TV

Well trying to pass myself off as a "web 2.0" guy will be moving to all new level starting next month as I will be hosting a new internet television show on www.iBusinessChannel.com. It will be a 30 minute program with the current working title of Tech Talk which (what a shock, me talking about technology

To get a sense of how this will look I can point you to the show I just hosted on the network as a trial run called Cover Story. I interviewed Tom Vass, author of the Predicting Technology, an interesting new book about how technology impacts regional economic markets. I had to break out the micro and macroeconomic books from the days of yore to try to understand some of the things in Tom's book and to be able to ask a few intelligent questions. I guess things worked out well as Tom gave my interviewing skills a passing grade. You can check me out doing my impersonation of Tavis Smiley at the link below.

Cover Story - http://www.OnTheRibbon.com/videoplayer.php?ep=1632

So now you've been warned...

Technorati : economic theory, predicting technology, small business, tom vass

Four Good Minutes with Jason Calacanis

I enjoy all the conversations I get to have doing my weekly radio show. We're coming up on our one year anniversary and I can honestly say that we have had no boring guests on so far. But some conversations do stick in my mind longer than some of the others. That's definitely the case with the conversation I recently had with Jason Calacanis. Those of you may know him from being one of the co-founders of Weblogs, which he and his partners sold to AOL back in 2005 for big bank.... meaning somewhere in the neighborhood of $25M-$30M. That's a neighborhood I'd love to live in some day, but I digress....

Now Jason is heading up Mahalo, a human-powered search engine site that hopes to snag a nice piece of search traffic from Google, Yahoo! Microsoft and Ask. He feels by providing better search results in a much more appealing format will suit some web searchers more than the algorithmic approach. While that remains to be seen, one thing that he can share with you from his entrepreneurial track record is what he thinks it takes to be successful. Because our show is only so long I couldn't fit our whole conversation in, but the below clip is so good I wanted to let people check out Jason's take on what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur today.

After hearing this short clip you may want to check out the full conversation by clicking here. He covers a lot of stuff, including why his definition of Web 3.0 has stirred things up. Thanks Jason for the time!

Technorati : entrepreneurship, jason calacanis, mahalo

From Blog Follower to Guest Blogger

If you're looking to get more people to check out your blog, one of the best ways to do it is to do some guest blogging on popular blogs in your industry. I know it's easier said than done but it can definitely be worth the effort it will take to do so. Anita Campbell over at Small Business Trends graciously invited me the opportunity to write a few articles for the wildly popular site, with over 90k feed subscribers...that's right 90k.

One question should come to your mind at this point, and it's not why I decided to blog elsewhere instead of hording all my musings to my own blog. That should have been self explanatory as soon as you read that line about having over 90k subscribers....that's right 90k. No the question that should jump to the front of your mind should be why would Anita invite me to do so. Although Anita is a very nice person with a kind heart, that wouldn't be enough I don't think. The invitation came about because I truly enjoyed reading the great information on her site and decided to email her to let her know. And she read the email and replied! I also wrote some comments on a few of the entries on the site. I took the time to try to contribute something of value to the conversation with each comment I offered up. And then a funny thing happened, Anita started reading my blog and adding great comments as well. She even invited me to be a guest on her internet radio program. And I recently had her on my radio show - and she was great...and at the time she only had 57k subscribers. Man these number really climb quickly.

To make a long story short I believe the reason Anita invited me to contribute to Small Business Trends was because she trusted me with her audience, which is a big compliment that I take seriously. And after reading my blog she thought some of those 90k feed subscribers may want to as well if they read a few of my posts on her site. And I can honestly say I've seen an uptick in subscriptions and hits thanks to Anita's generosity.

So if you're looking to build up your blog readership, find your Anita Campbell and take time to really join in the conversation on that site. It may not lead to an invitation to blog, but it might just get you in front of 90k feed subscribers.....that's right 90k.

Technorati : blogging, small business trends

Lessons on Building a Web 2.0 Business From Guy Kawasaki

I just received the November issue of Entrepreneur magazine. Before going any further let me thank Entrepreneur's Sr. VP and Editorial Director, Rieva Lesonsky, for hooking me up with a complimentary subscription to this must-read publication for anyone serious about going into business. I had the pleasure of interviewing Rieva for my radio show and she was a great guest. Feel free to check out the my conversation with Rieva by clicking here.

Back to business. If you don't subscribe to it, you may want pick up this issue when you get a chance. Besides the usual good stuff that comes in most issues, you should definitely check out the interview with Guy Kawasaki about building a Web 2.0 business. Guy is great about telling like it is without sugar coating anything. Now I would have enjoyed reading this under normal circumstances, but I really got a kick out this because I interviewed Guy for the show around this same subject, and it was like reading transcripts from that conversation. So if you don't get around to reading this, just check out my conversation with Guy right here!

Technorati : entrepreneur magazine, guy kawasaki, tfbs, truemors, web 2.0
Del.icio.us : entrepreneur magazine, guy kawasaki, tfbs, truemors, web 2.0

CRM, Internet TV and Me

I had fun today being interviewed by Ruth King, author of The Ugly Truth About Small Business and host of an internet tv show with the same name on www.iBusinessChannel.com. The interview runs about 30 minutes and I get to talk about......customer relationship management and small business.....what a shocker. If you want to check it out just click here but do it before November 8th as I think it gets archived after that. Let me know what you think if you get a chance to watch it.

Thanks Ruth for inviting me on the show and letting me have fun with it. I truly enjoyed myself!

Technorati : crm, internet tv, small business

Customer Relationship Mismangment Revisited - Ellen Filipiak is Wasting a Good Opportunity

I haven't done one of these Tales From The Dark Side sagas of customer relationship mismanagement in a long while. Not that there's been a shortage of horror stories as there have been too many to mention. I've been just a little tied up lately with other stuff. But sometimes there's something that comes along that makes me take a little more notice.

A while back my buddy Paul Greenberg had a really bad customer experience with DirecTV. It was so bad that he devoted a series of blog entries to it, detailing the many attempts he made to actually reach someone who could take care of his issue. He even went so far as to keep a running clock tracking just how long it took DirecTV to fix the issue. He finally was able to reach someone who helped him get this handled. He connected with DirecTV's Sr. VP of Customer Care, Ellen Filipiak. I believe she was pretty new to the position, but she impressed Paul enough that he offered her an opportunity to write a regular article on his blog to chronicle her efforts to understand and rectify the problems people were having with customer service. Apparently Paul was not alone, as he heard from SEVERAL people who shared their horror stories with him.

I don't know if Ellen understands how great an opportunity this is as Paul has a loyal readership which includes a who's who in CRM industry, from analysts to execs at the biggest vendors, to many practitioners who read his books and attend his workshops. It would have been a great forum for her to talk honestly about why customers feel the way they do, share her own personal finding when visiting customer care centers, and share some of the plans for really improving the customer experience. Unfortunately, Ellen is blowing it. I've read all three of her entries, the latest coming out a few days ago. And I have to agree with Baylor University business professor Jeff Tanner's assessment:

"Overall, this just reads like more marketing schlock"

I couldn't have said it any better myself Jeff. Instead of using this platform to really connect with people about what's wrong with their current customer care operations and collaborating with the readers to work towards solutions to help customers feel more valued when the time comes for them to reach out for assistance, Ellen is using marketing spin to shift the conversation in a direction she feels more comfortable with. Well maybe it's uncomfortable to deal with the real problems in the beginning, but I bet customers would appreciate and respect that more than the bait and switch, bob and weave she seems to be doing. If that's her plan for using the platform Paul so graciously offered, it may be best if she stepped away from the blogoshphere for awhile and re-think this strategy. Sometimes silence may be a little better than words.

Technorati : DirecTV, customer relationship mismanagement, ellen filipiak

A Tale of Two Conferences

Over the past couple of weeks I attended a few major events focused on small business. The first took place in Denver as the Association of Small Business Development Centers held their annual conference. For those not aware, there over 1000 small business development center across the country funded by the Small Business Association. I've worked with Georgia's SBDC community for a number of years now on a few different programs, including doing a CRM seminar for 10 SBDC counselors at Georgia Tech.

It was my first time checking out the conference and I was really impressed. There were over a thousand people who participated in this conference, and the sponsors list read like a who's who of technology as the usual suspects were there in full force - Microsoft, Intuit, Sage and Google were in the house. Other players exhibiting included web hosting company Homestead, email marketing provider Constant Contact and Business Plan Pro developer Palo Alto Software. And there were many other companies there showing trying to get face time with the counselors, which makes perfect sense as these guys work with small businesses every day.

In addition to taking in the event, I was invited to present by one of Georgia's finest counselors, Sharon Macaluso. Sharon and I did a session on using technology to improve customer service. Thankfully Sharon allowed me to expand that to how to use technology like social media and web 2.0 stuff to engage customers and prospects to improve the customer experience. And I was really happy with the interaction I had with the counselors in the audience. I could tell that many of the things I talked about were new to them, but they were really interested in learning as much as they could. I heard more than once how the counselors wanted to help their small business customers make better use of the web in order to find more customers. Leveraging the web to connect with potential customers and to collaborate more effectively with customers and partners was a concern that is way up on the list of many small businesses, according to the counselors I came in contact with. And they were really appreciative of any information and products they could use to help them be of better service to their clients. And I think the conference did a pretty good job in helping the counselors with that issue and will probably do even more in the future.

The following week I was off to Redmond for the SMB Nation annual conference. SMB Nation is run by Harry Brelsford and is a great resource for IT professionals who cater to the small and mid-size business market. And a vast majority of the focus of the conference and SMB Nation in general is on Microsoft products and certifications. The event was even held on Microsoft's campus.

There were over 700 hundred hardcore IT folks at this event. In fact they were actually giving out hard hats to attendees as there was some construction work being done on campus. There was a great deal of information coming out of the conference, including an announcement about a new Microsoft initiative called We've Gotta Guy that will help market the Microsoft Certified Small Business Specialist logo to the small business community. This was definitely music to the ears of those who've invested in earning that designation but couldn't do much with it as no one outside of this community knew what it meant. There was so much going on there was no way for me to take it all in so there were definitely things I missed.

There was a lot of interesting product information, mostly about Microsoft products like Microsoft Response Point, Office 2007 and others. There were a slew of companies exhibiting their products as well. And attendees could check out exam cram sessions to prepare for certification exams, then go ahead and take them right on the spot.

All in all I thought the conference was pretty good. The attendees were focused on how to sell these new products and services to small businesses they call on. And many of the products can definitely help make small businesses more productive and efficient, and lower operations cost and complexity. They even had a Pocket MBA track that had sessions aimed at helping attendees create more profitable service firms. But one thing I question that I didn't hear asked or answered at this event was the one that rang loud and clear at the ASBDC event - the challenge of helping small business utilize social media, web 2.0, CRM and SaaS to engage customers and prospects. That is a pretty big omission.at this point. One which I'm sure Harry and his team will work to integrate into a good event to make it even better.

All in all I think the two conferences demonstrate how important small business is and how important it is to provide them with products and services to help them compete, thrive and survive. But both events can use an injection of Web 2.0 to move things along even further.

Technorati : asbdc, small businesses, smb nation