The big take away for me is – great speakers make a conference. Everyone has personal preferences so every speaker won’t resonate with every attendee. But great speakers connect with the audience and there were some real stand outs at Social Slam 2012.

Self-Deprecating Humor

It’s hard to be funny in front of a crowd. But there is a trick that works for almost any speaker. Make fun of yourself. If you are smart with self-deprecating humor, you tie the humor into your overall message. Get people to laugh and then they will listen.

Jon Moss of Moss Media Labs delivered a 10 minute slam about LinkedIn. He started his presentation by explaining that he shares a name with a member of the band Culture Club. Googling Jon Moss did not provide the results he wanted until he developed his LinkedIn profile and that helped fix his search problem. The humor was a hit because the crowd could immediately relate to Jon’s difficulty in getting found. 

Jon Moss – @JonFMoss
If you liked my #solam talk on LinkedIn, how about a little +K http://t.co/YxM3U3qA

Enthusiasm is Contagious

Any speaker that is enthusiastic and energized can get a crowd excited. With the right techniques of audience engagement a speaker can really win a crowd over. Masters of this technique go way beyond making eye contact and asking questions. Masters personalize questions and engage a cross-section of the crowd to make every person in the crowd pay attention. Audience members can’t help but think the speaker’s next question might be directed at them.

Marcus Sheridan of The Sales Lion blog hits the stage like a freaking tornado. No audience member is safe from his engagement techniques. His presentation covering content marketing by blogging was convincing and more importantly fun.

Marcus Sheridan – @TheSalesLion
Thanks everyone here at #SoSlam for being such a dang awesome audience and all your kind words!!!

Patience and Cool

Tom Webster of the Brand Savant blog demonstrated how to overcome an epic technology fail. Tom was educating us all about the importance of viewing data with skepticism until you understand how the data was gathered and analyzed. Then his notebook locked up. Technology problems derail most speakers, but Tom was a consummate professional. Despite the glitch he kept the crowd entertained and left us more informed at the end of his presentation.

Tom Webster – @webby2001
For everyone at #SoSlam who watched my laptop go up in flames, here is how I deal with speaking FAILS like that: http://t.co/KBoM4rSO

Make A Memorable Point

How many presentations have you sat through that you can’t remember the point after a day or two. It helps if the title of the speech or presentation represents the topic that’s covered. Sometimes it’s just hard to remember the point though. It’s not your fault for not remembering, it’s the speaker’s fault. She didn’t make her point well.

Billy Delaney of The Small Business Compass gave a 10 minute speech titled “The Spirituality of Social Media”. Billy didn’t use slides. He used sound speaking skills to make a point.

I bet everyone in the room retained his point. “People beg for love and earn respect.” This is transferable to companies. You have to love your customers to earn their respect.

Billy Delaney – @Billy_Delaney
Social Slam versus your favorite social media conference http://t.co/krl6ngZo

Have Gratitude

Maybe the most important lesson of all happened before, between, and after the formal speeches were done. Every time I saw Mark Schaefer of Schaefer Marketing Solutions he was ceaselessly giving credit and heaping praise on everyone else that was involved in the Social Slam event. Sincerely showing gratitude might be the greatest speaking skill of all.

Mark Schaefer – @markwschaefer
What do I write about? http://t.co/s3Vz2pVW

Share your thoughts about Social Slam or speaking skills in the comments section or contact me to discuss your marketing or sales problems.

The topic of generating leads with blogs was discussed during a lively Twitter chat tonight. Most of the posts reinforced the benefits of using a blog as an effective marketing tool. I captured a few as highlights.

Laura Fitton – @Pistachio
Getting your business found is why you blog. It has SEO value, social sharing value, etc. But traffic does not = customers #blogchat

Anyone can create a blog easily and start generating traffic, but that is only the first step in using a blog as an effective marketing and sales tool. According to Wikipedia there were more than 156 million blogs in February of 2011. Proof of how easy it is to start one. The trick is using a blog effectively to serve your purpose. That purpose for most industrially-focused b-to-b companies is to not only generate interest but also leads for your producs or services.

Leslie Fine – @lesliefineint
A lead to me is someone who has the appropriate needs for my services – not just a reader of my blog #blogchat

Blogs are no different than magazine ads or sales calls though. If you aren’t talking to the right people you are just wasting time and money.

Ray Gordon – @RayJGordon
Quite often the case! RT @markkilens: Businesses that are the best educators will win. blog=education #blogchat

With the target audience in mind, what topics should you discuss in blog posts then. After all it’s a “chicken or egg first conundrum”. You have to talk about what your target audience wants to hear on your blog before your target audience will find your blog! So educate them. Tell them the tricks to using your products and entertain them with news and topics specific to your customers interests. Tell them both about the beneficial features of your products as well as the shortcomings and the things you are working to improve.

audaciouslady – @audaciouslady
RT @ValaAfshar: If content is king, context is queen. Blogs have to demonstrate relevancy to your target audience. #blogchat

Give specific examples of how your customers enjoy or prosper because they use your services. Better yet. Let your customers do guest posts demonstrating how excited they are to work with you.

However, the overlooked secret to blogging success is quite possibly what you ask readers to do after they’ve read your post. Maybe you are making the mistake of not even asking them to do anything. Including a call-to-action after every post is a requirement if lead generation is what you are seeking.

marti konstant – @martikonstant
according to socialtriggers.com, one strong call to action per page is best #blogchat people can’t focus on more #blogchat

Blogs are powerful tools to help your marketing and sales efforts. Good blog posts can provide qualified leads to your sales force or can educate suspect contacts and help your marketers move them to the next stage of the buying cycle.

Contact me if you’d like to discuss how targeted content generation could help you generate  qualified leads for your industrial automation or wholesale distribution business.

charity: water – @charitywater
RT @LinkedIn Need a dose of inspiration? Watch @scottharrison, CEO of @charitywater, share his story of transformation. http://t.co/XYTTjhBF

And of course a favorite of mine since my wife and I both are cancer survivors:

LIVESTRONG – @LIVESTRONG
Myth Busters: Have you taken the #WorldCancerDayQuiz? http://t.co/jzksDtnI What’s your score?

I donate to these organizations but the donations I make are pretty small and typically their efforts aren’t local. And while it’s possible for those with the financial means, Eli Manning for example to make large charitable contributions. Most of us can’t. 

TwitCause – @TwitCause
Eli Manning: Super Bowl Winner and Charity Giver http://t.co/qGX8ODT3

 A new organization in Chattanooga is trying to make a bigger impact with $100 by pooling some resources and simplifying the tyoical grant process that foundations follow. The UnFoundation pools $100 donations from ten trustees monthly and matches that $1,000 with funds from an anonymous source. That $2,000 is granted monthly to a project that is focused on helping the Chattanooga communnity.  

The UnFoundation – @TheUnFoundation
Congratulations to the College Hill Courts Residency Council for winning our first $2000 grant for a community garden! https://t.co/Bk7ehG3M

The first award was given in January to help fund a community garden. Ideally this small garden will help put a dent in growing Food Deserts in areas around Chattanooga. That is a pretty cool way that $100 can help a community.

 The UnFoundation is actively seeking applicants for future grants. Help spread the word!

Dan Roam author of “Blah Blah Blah: What to Do When Words Don’t Work” and “Back of the Napkin” gives perfect examples of nonsensical explanations in this short video.

How high do you set your customer service bar? Think about the KPIs you use. Do you set goals for those KPIs based on your results from the previous year, against industry averages, or do you actually use benchmarks to ensure you are providing best-in-class customer service. Many companies set the bar too low. They want to satisfy or maybe just satisfice customers and really don’t care enough to put extra effort into gaining their customer’s engagement. Magic happens when you care enough to engage customers. They become fans. Fans are force multipliers for marketers!

Engaged customers don’t tell their coworkers and friends that your product isn’t easy to use. Engaged customers tell you why it isn’t easy to use and specifically how to correct it. Engaged fans are willing to tolerate beta releases because they know deep in their hearts that you will eventually give them access to Version 2.0 that specifically addresses their greatest needs. Engaged customers tell everyone that your products solve their problems.

If you truly want customers that are fans, customers that have a sense of ownership in your company, you have to measure customer sentiments. You need to understand how loyal your customers are, how many customers you retain, and how willing your customers are to advocate for you. How many of your customers are willing to recommend your offerings to people they know?

These results must be used to close the loop in your customer focused activities. The saying you can’t manage what you don’t measure applies to customer engagement as much as anything else. But results measures like any statistic that doesn’t have a comparison is worthless. Comparing “how you did” to “how you did last year” does not result in high levels of performance. You have to benchmark or compare these measures to someone that you know does those things well. Comparisons compel change and build a sense of urgency especially when they show that you aren’t as good as your competitors or as good as you thought you were.

The good news is it is easier than ever to engage customers. Not that the measures are easier to capture, but it is easier to engage with customers. Social media tools, inbound marketing techniques, and the always-connected world we live in gives us ample opportunities to connect and engage with customers but you have to have a plan. What’s your plan for moving customers down the continuum from satisficed to satisfied to engaged and beyond?

Contact me to discuss your specific marketing and sales challenges, how the Baldrige Criteria can help your organization, or look me up at the ISA Marketing and Sales Summit in St. Louis.

“The executives who consistently rank in the top 20% of their companies in both performance and well-being have diverse but select networks…made up of high-quality relationships with people who come from several different spheres and from up and down the corporate hierarchy.”

But the question most people have is how do you meet people from outside your regular social circles? Even people that regularly attend Chamber or other social meet and greet functions (especially if you live in a relatively small community) end up seeing the same people every month. If you strictly use the web and social media for your networking you are really missing out. While social media is a great supplementary tools, Face-to-Face conversation will never be surpassed as the best way to get to know someone.

I’ve found three ways to meet people outside my industry and outside my normal social circle.

GoGrabLunch is a great resource for meeting other professionals. You set up a profile on the website, check a few radio-buttons about your industry and experience level and what kind of people you’d like to meet, and pick a restaurant, and set the time and date for your lunch. Others that are registered on the site can grab that lunch date. It’s strictly professional and it’s free.

There is no better way to meet smart people than through your state or the national Baldrige-based programs. I volunteer for the Tennessee program because as I’ve said before some of the most interesting conversations I have all year happen during training and during my participation on teams. There are a number of ways you can participate either by volunteering or by attending any one of several different conferences and training events.

I was lucky enough to receive an early invite to use Google’s new social tool Google +. It’s been great. I have regular interesting conversations with people I otherwise would not know through this new social tool. If you have not received an invite yet, you can get a Google + invite here. Try it out.

Don’t stop going to Chamber meetings and other social events but find some new ways to network. Make sure your new ways open up opportunities to build relationships with people from outside your normal social circles. And don’t forget to look for me on Google+ or comment here.