Along the way Steve meets a new friend Edg, who learns him about leadership and what LEAP is. An old friend calls Steve because she needs help with a problem at the company. Steve meets the great William G. Maritime. In the end Steve finds what he was looking for, no I will not spoil the ending for you. You will just have to read it your self…

Since the book is so easy to ready you learn almost without noticing important aspects about leadership: Love, Energy, Audacity and Proof.
Watch the video and my book review.

Steve Farber

Here is Steve in a presentation about Audacity:

At SOBCon May 2010 I listened to the story by Steve Farber, he blew me away. Want to do a short interview with him over Skype soon.

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Radical LEAP – personal story on extreme leadership

You become friends with people, not with companies. You connect with people, not with companies. You connect with people in the company not with the logo or building it selfitself. However; you may want to follow or “like” a company so you can receive updates from them.

On social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn you have the option to create a special page or profile for your company. This makes it odd that people use their company details and logo to create a ‘personal profile’ on these networks.

Keep the user profile personal

So keep your ‘user profile’ really personal. The profile should state your first and last name. Make sure you upload a picture of yourself into your profile and not your company logo. The profile details should be about you. This way people can know about you before they connect and build a relationship with you. You can more easily form real relationships.

Terms and Agreements

Let’s see what the official Terms and Agreements say about it. Most people don’t read the Terms and Agreements, so let me share this with you:

LinkedIn

Don’t undertake the following: 5. Create a user profile for anyone other than a natural person;

Facebook

4. Registration and Account Security

• Facebook users provide their real names and information
  2. You will not create more than one personal profile.

This means that Facebook and LinkedIn can (and will) at any moment decide to delete your non-personal profile.

“And what about Twitter”?, you ask. Twitter is not a social network, per say, it is a micro blogging system. Twitter can be personal but also just small blogposts of companies. The Terms of Twitter do not state that your profile needs to be either for personal or business use. However; I do think it is a lot nicer to understand who is sending these tweets on behalf of the company.

If you have a Twitter account for your company, and a personal twitter account, it is smart to show who is writing the status updates. For your business account, you can use a company logo as profile picture, use your company URL but also add a name of the person(s) doing all the work.

Examples of non-personal profiles

Bijzondermooi Dutchdesign in Facebook

Players for the Planet in LinkedIn

Here you see a personal name in the profile, but the completed profile is about the organization.

Example of personal profile and company page

Here you see the personal profile page of Eydie

And this is her professional page: Eydie’s Office

This is a great example of how you can make a personal page for yourself and create a page for your business on Facebook.
On her personal profile and the company page she is engaging with friends and fans. So on both profiles the conversation is personal, the best way to connect and develop real relationships.

Let’s connect

This is my personal profile on Facebook and my professional page on Facebook – “Like” the page and you will get updates and follow the discussions.

My personal profile on LinkedIn and my company profile on LinkedIn. And as you send a connection invitation, please tell me why you want to add me to your network. That is another thing that I will write about another time, impersonal invitations to connect in Facebook or LinkedIn. Hate it when I get these. Makes me guess why you want to connect with me.

Lately I’ve received more friend requests and connections requests from non-personal profiles (business profiles). Talking to some of the people behind these profiles it has become clear to me that some people don’t get the idea of personal profiles, social networks, and relationships.

I found this great article by Tamar Weinberg – Dear Facebook Friends, You’re Doing it Wrong. In her article, Tamar talks about social media etiquette, and other online do’s and don’ts.

Do you connect with people in social networks personally, professionally or both?

Update: the text was edited to improve English reading with the help from Eydie.

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User profiles are…. personal

From this video I was just blown away by the idea of the golden circle. In my next presentation I included the idea and diagram.
A friend mentioned she had the book and wanted to send it to me. From the moment I received the book I started reading it and kept thinking about the impact for my business. I started thinking about why I did what I did.

This is what I wrote down:

I believe that Independent Professionals can attract clients via the internet
I believe that relationships via the internet are real.
Real relations help you to become more successful.

Where did this come from? In a course about writing articles I came with the posing that people feel that online relationships are not real. Entrepreneurs want to meet the people that they do business with. They want to meet potential customers. They connect with me online and write me a note “Let’s have a cup of coffee and see what we can do for each other.” Or they only connect with people on LinkedIn they have actually met, shaken hands with and exchanged business cards.

This is not necessary you can build real relationships via social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook and/or Twitter.

I love the book Start With Why. Simon talks a lot about Apple a lot, because they seem to have an intense connection with Why. Another example Simon uses is South West Airlines.

One thing I am not sure of from the book is the size of the business when the Why is good to use. Simon writes it is not really important for a small company. Since you, the owner of the company, make all the decisions and they are aligned with your Why, your gut. That is true but I also feel that being clear on your why in all your communication will make it easier to grasp as a customer. Put your Why on your website. Start with Why, then How then What. Maybe that can even be the order of your menu in your website.

The book does not give you a step by step how you can find your why. Finding your why is a process of discovery according to Simon.

The Golden Circle

The book is all about the Golden Circle.

The book review in video:

Start With Why by Simon Sinek – book review ErnoHannink from Erno Hannink on Vimeo.

How great leaders inspire action

This was recorded at TEDxPuget Sound September 2009.

Simon published his book “Start With Why” in 2009. There is also a website Start With Why you can order the book via Amazon Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action (aff).

A reaction on TED.com:

Belief leads to trust
Trust leads to confidence
Confidence leads to happiness
Happiness leads to love

And we all love to get some LOVE. LOVE from another person and LOVE for what we do.

Why do you do what you do. Love to here the Why for your business, for why you do it all.

This book was sent to me by Brigitte van Tuijl

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Start With Why by Simon Sinek book review

So blogging is important if you want to grow your business.
And I want to grow my business, not just in Holland but also internationally.
Therefor I want to blog.

For now I have set a schedule for 2 blog posts per week. I also blog on two other, Dutch, websites for my business. Somehow this blog always comes in last. Something needs to change.

Last week Denise had a great question on her Facebook page that I responded to:

“How often do you post on your (primary) business blog? If it’s less than 2-3 times a week, what would it take to help you post more often? A blogging buddy? Share your blogging habits here and if you’re looking for a blogging accountability buddy, post your request here as well. Blog on!”

So I posted:

“How often do you post on your (primary) business blog? If it’s less than 2-3 times a week, what would it take to help you post more often? A blogging buddy? Share your blogging habits here and if you’re looking for a blogging accountability buddy, post your request here as well. Blog on!”

There were a number of people responding in the same way that I did and that need a blog buddy to keep a schedule. Using a tip of Denise I had contacted two other people that responded.

This is the way we ended up being four people and last night we had our first call. We all talked about our blogging goals and made them very clear. This way we can kick each others butt if we don’t keep the schedule.

Nice thing is that Denise shared the story on het blog as an example:

“If you haven’t been convinced that participating on social networking sites can be beneficial to your business, this should give you pause. Eydie not only has a new business partner and can expand her service offerings, but now four people from three countries are helping each other be more successful and there’s no telling what they will create together.”

Completely agree with Denise. I believe that online relations are real. Relations are essential for a business.

Of course you and I will learn in time if this works for all of us.
My blogging schedule on this site: Monday and Thursday. If I don’t keep up with this schedule just send me a note here or on my Facebook page.

Bron: Hubspot The state of inbound lead generation.

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Blog buddies to grow your blog

Do you like it? Want to make your own? Go to http://www.youtube.com/searchstories and Search On

Drop the link to your video in the comments. Love to see them.

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Attracting Clients via Social Media video

Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Have a great day.

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Happy 4th of July

Interview Seth Godin on b2b marketing from Ingrid Tappin on Vimeo.

In the video he explains why a company should blog. Why Seth has no comments on his blog and why he is not using Twitter. All very valid and interesting reasons. Where so many of us just do what we are supposed to do: “Be on Twitter” “Be on Facebook”. Seth thinks about the advantages and disadvantages, “Do I want to spend time here?” and then comes to a decision.

Also they talk about his latest book Linchpin that has nothing to do with marketing. Very interesting espacially when you work at an organisation. The chapters about Thinking about your choice, The resistance and Making the Choice.

via MarketingFacts

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Why you should blog and become remarkable – Seth Godin

“This is all great”, he says, “but I still don’t see why I should use LinkedIn. I use Outlook, all my mail comes in there and all my contacts are in there. So why should I start using LinkedIn when I am already using Outlook?”

It was clear that Patrick was not ready to use LinkedIn. So I had to bring it down one notch and talk about the Why? Why do you want to use LinkedIn?
In this case I want to make clear what the advantages are over an email program with a database of contacts, Outlook.

In the video I talk about 3 advantages of LinkedIn compared to Outlook:

1. In Outlook, or any other program with contacts on your computer, you are the person whom is changing and entering the details of your contacts. When a contact changes address or phone number you will have to make those changes in the software. In LinkedIn the owner of the profile will change their details. So any changes are being maintained by the owner not you.
2. In Outlook you can not see what the connections are between your contacts. You will have to find out about the connections in conversations and enter those manually in Outlook. LinkedIn is a great software. All your details and that of your contacts is data. LinkedIn is able to find connections. The software will reveal connections between people that you are connected to and even to people that you are not connected to. LinkedIn can show you your connections, their connections and even their connections. So up to the 3rd grade. Suddenly you get access to a huge database of people that could help you.
3. The workshop was about getting clients via LinkedIn. So the last point is about attracting clients. You use Outlook to receive email from your contacts and send email to these contacts. In LinkedIn you can profile yourself in a way that when contacts of your contact land on your profile see what you offer and may contact you. If you are clear about who your target audiance is and what you do for this group you will attract clients.

After the workshop I had a longer talk with Patrick and he is a happy signage supplier. He has some great customers all over Europe and is not really looking for new business at the moment. He did have an issue with finding trainees whom really wanted to learn his trade.

Patrick teaches about his trade in school and sees that there only a few young people interested in really want to learn about all aspects of signage. He wants the best of the best to come and learn from him.

So I showed him that these young people are also some sort of a client that you could attract. Then he really saw the light and wanted to learn more about using LinkedIn to attract the best and most interested trainees. At this point I suggested that Facebook would probably be the best tool to use for his needs.

Do you use Outlook or LinkedIn or Facebook for your contact database?

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LinkedIn vs Outlook

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Fifth P of People in your Marketing mix – Hank Wasiak
]]> At the last day of SOBCon 2010 we worked in groups on 4 charity projects. The first day was Hank Wasiak shared a great story with us about Asset Based Thinking.

Just before we all departed on this last day of SOBCon, Hank did me this favor of a short video.
He is sharing that Social Media is not about media anymore it is about the 5th P in your marketing mix. The P of People.
Watch Hank rand.

Follow Hank on Twitter.

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Fifth P of People in your Marketing mix – Hank Wasiak

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Why do you want to Twitter?
]]> This is post was inspired by Justin McCullough. Justin is building an ebook about Twitter, for new users to embrace Twitter. He is building it together with other contributors. So feel free to jump in on the Twitter eBook Project. My contribution is about why You want to use Twitter.

At SOBCon 2010 I have first met Justin. It was a great event with many great people. The event is organized by the wonderful Liz Strauss and great Terry Starbucker. Pieter brought my attention to this ebook and there you have it.

What to do
Contribute 300 words or less in the form of best practices, a quote, advice, top 10 list, or blog post.

Purpose
Provide newbies and folks who are struggling to embrace twitter with short, concise, helpful instruction on what twitter is and how to use it. In short, this will help tell folks what we wish they knew about twitter so they are more fun, engaging, and twitter friendly!

So here is my contribution:

Why do you want to Twitter?

What is Twitter – is not very difficult to explain. You can also find great tutorials of How you can use Twitter. The most important question is of course Why you want to use Twitter. If someone is saying “You simply MUST use Twitter.”, let me share with you, they are wrong.

There is no need for you to be on Twitter. Even though it is a lot of fun. It is also one of the most easiest ways to meet new people and to find out if you like them or not. So it is also a very easy way for people to find out if they like you or not. Or better yet if they LOVE you.

Why do you want to use Twitter has a relation with Why you are in business, Why do you get up in the morning? Why do you do what you do? What is it that you bring to this world that makes it a better place for the people around you?

When you have the answer to that “Why?”, Twitter is a great platform to spread your message and find fans. Please remember that your website or blog on your own domain hosted by yourself is your first platform, your hub. Do not build a movement on a platform that is not yours because the risk that it will not be there one day is just to big. Or if the platform changes the rules in a way that does not support your message you should be able to give it up.

Why is Twitter such a great platform? You have only 140 characters to bring your message. Fans or haters have only 140 characters to respond to your message. You have to think about what you want to say because you only have 140 characters. It is easy to write book, but it is difficult to remove enough words so that the book becomes outstanding. So you have to think really hard what you want to say in 140 characters that will touch the people around you.

Reading @lizstrauss‘ tweets you will probably understand what I mean here.

So here is the 3 step plan:

1. Find your answer to the Why? question.
2. Build your website or blog, your Hub, to spread your message
3. Attract Fans on a platform like Twitter to come to your Hub.

This way you will build trust with your followers. Once we trust you, we can start to LOVE you. When people LOVE you they will follow you.

Erno Hannink helps independent professionals use social media to get more fans. ErnoHannink.com and @ernohannink

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Why do you want to Twitter?

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