I’ve tended to write off the online world when it comes to helping others get more referral business, but since none of us lives in a vacuum, I decided to read Bill Tancer’s book Click: What We Do Online and Why It Matters (2008 in US, 2009 in UK) .I am glad I did. Tancer is head of Global Research at Hitwise, ‘the world’s foremost online competitive intelligence company’ and he writes weekly for Time.com.
He argues we are what we click.
I would like to highlight five trends he writes about that come closest to impacting readers of this ezine.
1. Even more instant gratification
The internet has fueled our belief that we can have things whenever we want them: instant news, instant sports, instant contact with friends, instant banking, instant answers to questions as well as instant vice (porn, pills and gambling). It feeds the quick fix.
The number two search on New Years Day is not just for ‘smoking cessation’ but specifically for ‘stop smoking drug’ and ‘stop smoking pill’.
The Challenge: this ‘want it now’ mindset makes it harder still to help others be congruent in achieving lasting long-term success by living according to the timeless principles that get meaningful results. You can’t get referrals from magic words and trickery - only from a quality relationship.
It encourages us to market what we do as instant results. What appeals more to you?
‘Get an Instant Tsunami, Flood and Explosion of Referrals Using the All New and Expanded Referral Authority programs!’ Or
‘The Path to a Thriving Referral Business. There is no shortcut but The Referral Authority programs will get your business where you want it to be if you are persistent, patient and committed.’
Hmmnn, that second option sounds like work! Surely there’s a search I can do online and get that quick tsunami effect?
I drove past a billboard last night that said: Change Your Zip Code; Change the World. It was an ad for attending Iowa State University! In other words: if you go to college in Iowa, you will change the world. But not if you stay in Wisconsin!
Tip #1: Manage your clients’ expectations even better. While the benefits of how you help people may be obvious to you, are you 100% sure your client isn’t expecting something else - some quick fix results? I have developed an expectations conversation well worth checking out that always gets great feedback. Email me for a copy then customize the wording to address all your clients’ expectations.
2. More False Hope Syndrome
While most of us live in hope that we can make positive changes, the internet is exposing us to even more questionable claims that are quick fix ways to address deep-seated challenges. Tancer’s research based on search volume (and other algorithms I don’t understand) has found that optimism in the new year only lasts about 4-5 days when it comes to losing weight.
False Hope Syndrome is a phrase coined by Janet Polivy, a psychologist at the University of Toronto. It refers to our persistent attempts to change. That’s good. The damaging part is that the claims made by many internet ads for us to dramatically change our lives are getting more bold and outrageous. This leads to more failure (because there is no short cut) and often our problems get worse. And we get even more cynical.
Tip #2: Manage your clients’ expectations as in Tip #1. What are realistic goals for them? Also, rely more on referral business. While this may sound like an excuse for me to plug what I do, consumers have been getting increasingly cynical about marketing ploys for decades, so do a better job of nudging your clients and contacts to recommend you by word of mouth. (More info on referral programs below this article).
3. Having 1000’s of ‘friends’
It used to Dunbar’s ‘Rule of 150’. He was a British anthropologist who found that 150 was the maximum number of people we could maintain stable relationships with. As recently as 2005, Keith Ferrazzi wrote the excellent Never Eat Alone about the importance of having a large quality network so you could help lots of people that you knew because you were well-connected.
Tancer calls these people ‘old school connectors’ and says “the landscape has shifted since Malcolm Gladwell wrote The Tipping Point” !! In 2009 the Super Connectors are the ones who have 1000s if not even millions of people on their MySpace or LinkedIn pages. While you may justifiably say these contacts are neither friends nor quality connections and that you don’t need such large numbers in your network, these are the people who can now tip a business, future celebrity or a rock band into prime time.
Tip #3: My takeaway here is it IS worth knowing who in your network knows the most people and pay more attention to them. If you are on LinkedIn, MySpace or Facebook, check to see who is connected to the most people. How can you improve these relationships and what can you ask them for? An endorsement from them can potentially go much further. There are times to leverage large numbers. Just ask!
Tip #3b: Early Adopters of trends – people who spread the word fast include three demographics. One of them is worth sharing here. Who among your clients fits the ‘Money and Brains’ group: affluent, work in legal, medical, management jobs or computer science, urban, status conscious and drive high-end cars, into sports, go to brokerage sites like TheStreet.com and MarketWatch.com, love to travel and visit TripAdvisor.com and even go to Covers.com for sports wagering?
How can you improve these relationships and what can you ask them for?
4. More dependence on technology for answers to important questions and fears.
The internet is a safe place to admit fears and seek answers. It can increase our self-awareness, which is healthy. On the other hand, we are asking many deeper questions that once used to be real life conversations with important people in our lives. This trend is isolating us even more.
Also, the quality of the answers varies horribly (see Trend #5) from helpful to ads for instant ‘solutions’.
Look at this list of top ten social ‘fear of’ searches and we can see why so many people are challenged in sales and don’t like to network!
1. Intimacy
2. Rejection
3. People
4. Success
5. Crowds
6. Failure
7. Sex
8. Commitment
9. Public speaking
10. Being alone
It’s a good thing the answers are all on the internet!!
Tip #4: We can’t know what important questions our clients are asking on the internet (although Hit wise can!). But we can allow more time for them to ask questions and create a more open environment that encourages them early and often. Some of us use too much jargon and this scares people away. Are we really making ourselves understood? I suspect this is an area where we often overrate ourselves. The last thing we need is a quick fix merchant fooling our clients online when they resort to going there with questions.
5. Web 2.0 is potentially unreliable NOISE.
Web 2.0 is consumer-generated media. It encourages us all to participate and is enormously popular on certain sites. But the trend is concerning in two ways:
a) Information overload – how can anyone keep up?
b) How much of the information is reliable? Some are arguing that we are creating a culture of amateurs writing unsubstantiated content.
Tip #5: Since our clients are spending time online (60% of Americans are online between 1-4 hours/day – 180 million people just in the USA!), it would be wise to recommend where they get their information and which sites you consider to be reliable, including neutral third party content.
While fascinating and immediate, the internet trends do not make our work any easier if our goal is to make a long-term difference for others. It requires superior communication skills and an acceptance of our ever-evolving habits online. We need to do a better job of managing people’s expectations now people are used to getting more instant answers and expecting even quicker results. What alarms me most is that our society was full of urgency-addicted people before the internet, that I am one of them (!) and that we need to pause even more to reflect: what brings me my best long-term results? Watch this space!
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