Posts Tagged ‘networking’
You Need To Know How To Pitch to Pitch
One of the entrepreneurial buzzwords I have heard in recent months has been “elevator pitch.” Many networking groups have been pushing elevator pitch events as can be evidenced by the 45 upcoming meetups scheduled for elevator pitches or pitch parties. And 35 groups talk about elevator pitches in their description. But as someone who has attended many networking events and heard just about every entrepreneur at New York Entrepreneur Week pitching their idea, I think that the elevator pitch is no longer the key but rather the “pitch to pitch” is.
Lets face it; we no longer have the attention span we did 5 years ago. Twitter has shortened our attention span to 140 characters, TiVo has taken away our ability to sit through a commercial and all these blackberries, Iphones and Ipad like devices have destroyed our ability to do one thing at a time. Think back to Read the rest of this entry »
Perception is Reality: Building your personal brand
Recently, I saw a post on twitter by Gary Whitehill, founder of New York Entrepreneur Week, “One of the hardest things to understand in life is: You’re not what you are, but what you’re perceived to be.” In this day and age of social media, I think this is one of the most important things for people to remember. First impressions last a lifetime and in today’s day and age, our first impression is made with the information that people see about us online. Let’s be honest, when we connect with a person at a meeting or are introduced through a mutual contact, the first thing we do is go to Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to learn more about this person. If the individual has no information available or a spotty resume on these sites, part of the excitement of the initial introduction is lost immediately. The person will now have to overcome this void in order to make a great first impression.
Are You a Social Media Expert Too?
As I am still relatively new to Twitter and LinkedIn, I spend a few hours each day following new people and connecting to their profile. On Twitter, I would say about half the people I follow have automated responses that get sent upon following them. They all sound exactly the same; “I am a social media expert, what can I do for you?” Apparently, everyone is an expert at SEO and they can all tell you how to make money using social media. I am really unsure about what everyone does with social media that makes them an expert or different than the next person.
My thoughts on social media experts are that there is no such thing as an expert. These are just people who have some free time and know how to use WordPress well. I honestly believe that the best way to make money as a social media expert is to convince people to hire you to speak or sell some sort of e-book. People will pay you to sit and set up key words and tags for their site, but all these sites make it so easy to do on your own. I may be completely off base and there may be something to the whole SEO market that I don’t know about.
I was recently contacted by a woman at a non-profit and she told me she had hired a social media/SEO specialist and spent a full month setting up Twitter and Facebook pages and following donors. At the end of the year, they realized that they did not get even 1 penny more from those donors nor did attendance at their events increase. In speaking to her, I realized that they had no idea what the social media sites even did. I gave her a few ideas that have worked for me but never the less, I don’t expect them to have great results for this company as they already failed on their first impression.
So please remember, sitting at a computer and following 10,000 people on Twitter does not make you an expert. It just means you have way too much time on your hands. Use your time to figure out how to take those follows and generate a cash flow. Because at the end of the day, time is money and the goal is not just to say you are an entrepreneur or self employed. You want to be a success and have money to show for it.
The Effects of Social Media On Our People Skills
In the past few weeks, I have had various discussions with people regarding a shift in how people network. When I was in college just 7 years ago, every professor and career advisor taught you the importance of walking into a room, giving a firm handshake when you meet people, looking at them in the eye when you talk and asking for a business card so you can follow up via email or snail mail (for all kids out there, that is when you wrap the paper in an envelope and the guy at the post office brings it to the intended recipient). These days, I am attending networking events where everyone says “I will tweet you” or ‘What is your Facebook fan page so I can follow you and talk to you on your wall.” Even those who do remember to ask for a business card and follow up, never get in front of that person again because they lack the skills needed to network correctly and make an impact. The average attention span nowadays in less than 5 seconds and people do not have the skills to ‘hook” someone in that timeframe. How many times a day do you find yourself deleting emails from people you met once that want something from you, a reference, meeting or to discuss a new opportunity, because they didn’t make an impression when they met you.
While social media definitely opens many doors and avenues that were not available just a few years ago, they are also diminishing the social skills of the next generation. The inability to type a message in proper English and grammar and general lack of people skills is a big problem facing the next generation. I am sure the model of how people do business will change with technology, as it already has, but the inability to socialize and lack of people skills will have a longstanding effect on who will succeed. Remember, business deals don’t get done via twitter, they get done with a firm handshake.
I would love to hear other people’s opinions and thoughts on virtual networking and social media vs. in person meetings and attending real life networking events. I am hoping to start some kind of blog to deal with these issues and would love for some people who are interested in being part of it to email me through this site so we can get started on putting some content together. I am not the best writer but think it’s a hot button issue that will have long standing ramifications. I look forward to hearing your feedback.