This was the topic of my speech at the FDMA last week.

When AJ Morales called and asked if I’d speak—I said “No”!

Why? Because, every time I do we get every supplier in our area calling for business. We’re a small group, and spending that time and preparing the speech—usually makes new friends for my agency and that’s good—but it eats up a lot of time.

AJ Morales called back a few weeks later and said I’d help members if I taught them the right way to engage people and get business.

So I relented and did!

Then he changed the venue from the Westin hotel to Johnson & Wales University. I told him attendance would drop like a rock (because people including me)—don’t know where it is.

He said 80 people would show up or he’d eat his hat. I told him I’d bring the hat. Here’s AJ eating his new Yankees hat.

And the group was great! The bonus was there were many students from the University who are taking the Direct Marketing course there. The great professor,
Mr. Mark Neckes is shown here with me.

Hope his students intern with us this summer!

This was my leave-behind from the speech,
the ten steps to getting new business:

Twitter’s site went down for a few hours the other day and within 15 minutes I started feeling the pangs of withdrawal. Why? My goodness, it’s just a web site for short messages, isn’t it?

As I thought about it last night – why am I so attracted to Twitter? – it occurred to me that the reason might lie in Twitter’s competitive value to small companies like mine. In an important way, it gives us a leg up on big companies.

A lot of corporations worry about Twitter. Many of them don’t want to tweet on their own because they can’t control the process tightly; maybe employees will give people a bad impression of their brand. So they turn to their large agencies for help in testing social media. The large agency gives the job to junior creative people who do the best they can. The problem is that they can’t come up with revenue projections for Twitter results.

But small companies can really go to town with Twitter marketing. They can be themselves. If they’re looking for local customers, they can find them on Search. So if, for example, I have a store that specializes in interesting kites, I can talk about all the people who fly kites, I can give ideas for parties, have kite flying contests and sell discount kites, Twitter invite only, say once a month.

After several months, I can track ROI on Twitter much more easily than a large company ever could. This means that small businesses can:

• Build a great big wonderful Brand and voice that sound like they come from a real person;

• Begin to develop really solid friendships.

I’ve been doing this for a while now and I’m seeing real value. And I actually do feel a lot like the man behind the curtain, the Wizard of Twitter, pulling all the right levers.

If you’re interested in a Twitter or Social Media Program, feel free to call: 646-723-3231 or to visit me, on Twitter, of course, at twitter.com/loisgeller

I mentioned that it takes time to build relationships and the people that hawk their sales all the time will never win. He thinks that it might be a “flash in the pan”.

Then I read about a great Twitter Pizza in the Pan story on a blog, and it said that… Naked Pizza has been blogging and trading stories on Twitter. They decided to find out at the register if it was actually helping them make sales.

So on April 25th, they worked on tracking and found out that 15% of the day’s business came from Twitter. Frank Reed at Marketing Pilgrim tells the story best. Read all about it.

See, I told you so, Dwain! I’m a Twitterite.

People are still using it for all of that, but it has changed.  Now, it’s an open forum for people to talk about products or services and create followers and most companies are branding themselves in this huge arena of people. But, how are they doing that?

For the most part, they’ve relegated a techie person to craft the Twitters, the Facebook pages, and Youtube. They’re really missing the boat, I think. They should get their best salesperson, their best communicator and make that person their “unique voice” :

1. The voice should sound like real human being, and actually be one. That means he can talk about the company, but also add some personal things about his life, and maybe even some “inside stories” about the company.

2. The person should answer questions that people are asking about their company.

3. The person should not be an advertisement. He should just talk about people using their product or service (and maybe throw in some funny stories).

Most of all, there should be a strategy for the social media. Are you sending people from Twitter to Facebook, or Youtube to your website. I’ll talk about that more in my next Tip of the Week.

My topic for my three hour seminar: How to Build Relationships With Your Customer Using Your Brand …Virtually! While I was preparing my session, I was wondering: why would a customer want a relationship with their dry cleaner? It is about trust, and delivering great service, and caring.

But, then the night before I was flying out, I tried on my own suit. I couldn’t even squeeze into it. My dry cleaner had somehow shrunk it and I had just worn it to Toronto only two weeks ago. So, I either bulked up two sizes or it was ruined.

I mentioned this to Nora Nealis, the President of the NCA, and Ann Hargrove, who works with her (pictured above),  They said it was probably “wet cleaned”, and had shrunk (thank heavens it wasn’t that I’d bulked up 15  pounds), and she said to mail her the suit when I came back to Florida. I sent it out to her today.

They have a lab on West 29th Street, and they analyze these things, so they can send out information and help dry cleaners not to do this to their customers. I’m one of those  people who just  silently defects. So, I’m searching for a new cleaner.

The dry cleaners that attended this brainstorming event are always the best and the brightest. I told them how to give their websites and their businesses a “brand personality”, and invite people to interact with them online. They can build loyalty, by having some fun with their customers, and starting contests, selling ancillary products. Some had never discovered the magic of search engines, or even tried offering Pick Up and Delivery as an online option.

One website we created at Lois Geller Marketing Group is Apthorp Cleaners (http://www.apthorpcleaners.com), and the owner, Debra Kravet was there. The website features a lady in red walking her dog, and Debra Kravet has expanded that brand to appear as posters on her windows, and in direct mail invitations, and a host of other programs she’s working on now. Soon her New York City trucks will have her “lady in red” doing many pickups and deliveries… which is really a moving billboard for her business.

Please visit her website: www.apthorpcleaners.com

One gentleman there has a dry cleaners in Belize. It is the only one in that country, and he built it from scratch… never having been in the business. He showed us his commercials, and we were all impressed. Here’s someone who has used his great ingenuity to build something wonderful and employ many people. He does quality work too.

So, all in all…it is a joy to teach dry cleaners how websites, and blogs and social media can all help them build their community outreach, and relationships with their customers and prospects.