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I’m going to go in a different direction this week.  If you’ve followed my blog this long (hi Mom!), you know that I’ve become a fairly big advocate of using tools like social media to enhance your marketing.  SHAMELESS PLUG >>> I’ve even been published (in ALTA’s May/June Title News) by trade publications on ways to better use them. << SHAMELESS PLUG

 

But let’s not get carried away, people!  There’s a flip-side to using the great tools we have these days.  And I’m going to incorporate into this rant discussion some of the other great tools we’ve been using for a while now: e-mails, text messaging and so on. 

 

Just because you’re using a communications tool doesn’t mean you’re communicating.  If I believe anything about this field, it’s that sometimes, an electronically-reproduced word just isn’t good enough.  Pick up the phone.  Hop on a plane.  Send a letter (if you’re really old-school, try hand-writing it when circumstances dictate.  And please, please, please stifle the urge to write “LOL” in cursive.  Trust me.)

 

It’s actually pretty easy.  Look your prospect/customer/colleague in the eye….

 

And talk.  Open your mouth.  Form words.  Try to make them honest words. And keep looking your conversation partner in the eye.

 

This isn’t just to make the sale, either.  Do it when you screw up.  Because, as good as you are, you will, inevitably, screw up.  Hey, you’re busy right?  (See my previous blog on how “busy” we all are…)  Do it when you didn’t make the sale.  Do it after they’ve been using your product for a while.

 

Too often these days, I’m seeing people hide behind an electronic fence.   It happens with marketing, to a degree.  But it happens even more often when it comes to interpersonal relationships.  I have babysitters (in their 20s) who won’t pick up a cell-phone call, but would, I believe, respond to a text at 3 a.m. if I bothered to send one. 

 

Unless, of course, they have bad news for me.  Fortunately, the nature of that “bad news” tends to be of the “I can’t babysit this Saturday” variety.  But if and when that is the case, the bad news is generally never delivered.

 

Instead, my text will be met with…silence.  Dead air.  No response.

 

So why am I talking about my babysitters’ text habits in a blog about marketing communications frequented by a few loyal family members, a couple of wireless communications sales people and a fleet of single-name Russian women whom I suspect have more sinister designs on my Web site, rather than an interest in my thoughts?

 

Because it ain’t just twenty-something babysitters who refuse to deliver “bad news.”  It happens in business all the time.  I’ve been through hours of interviews with agencies and companies when interviewing for jobs.  In many cases, the way I found out that I wasn’t the Chosen One was just an unending string of silence.  In one case, I’d spent 3 or 4 hours of time on Friday nights, gone through humiliating writing tests, etc., only never to hear anything from the company.  And, no, my follow-up calls were NOT taken or returned.

 

Why?  Did they fear I’d openly weep over the phone?  Perform a drive-by shooting?  File some kind of dilatory (lawyer-word alert!) lawsuit?  Do something really radical like vote for a third party in the next election?

 

Similarly, I’ve found that new clients and even prospects are occasionally shocked when I pick up the phone (and when I screw up, I pick up the phone) and announce “I’ve screwed up.  I’m sorry.  Here’s what I’m doing to make sure it won’t happen again.  And here’s what I will now do to fix this.” I guess they’re used to having to hunt down offending parties to wrangle a fix out of them, never mind an apology. 

 

How are your customers doing these days?  Do you know because of a spreadsheet or series of e-mails?  Or do you really know?  “We’re happy” can mean many, many different things in person.  “We’re happy” looks roughly the same no matter what font it takes in your in-box.  The good ones understand the subtle shades of “we’re happy.”

 

And why did or didn’t your prospect choose your product?  Remember, we’re all busy.  It’s easier for the prospect to choose a multiple choice answer or type “not interested” when faced with a simple survey, if there’s any response at all.  Your prospect is far less concerned about why he or she rejected your offer than you are.  But if we have an interested set of ears in front of us?  Well, let’s just say there’s suddenly a lot more data to collect.

 

From a marketing angle, I’ve been following a recurring discussion in a few LinkedIn groups lately.  It seems that some folks out there have no use for Twitter.  There’s nothing to it.  It has no features.  What will it do for me?  What can I write in 140 characters that will help my sales?

 

Well folks, Twitter is a tool.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Not a cure for cancer.  Not a silver bullet.  It’s another type of telephone really.  Just using it won’t triple your profits.  Just having a profile on LinkedIn won’t sell things per se.  You have to have a real message that really affects your prospects. 

 

Having a blog is great (trust me).  But it can be a one-way or a two-way communications tool.  Depends on how you use it.

 

And you have to do more than just social media.  Just as one postcard to a few prospects won’t improve your margins.

 

My dad taught me that we all make mistakes.  The difference is in how we address them.  Folks, it only makes things worse to hide behind your texts, e-mails (so easily misread), Tweets or, even worse, your wall of silence and professed “busy-ness” when it comes time to face the music. And it’s all too easy to quantify things, shoot a quick e-mail, whatever, when we want to cross something off of our lists.  And it’s way too easy to say we’re in touch with our clients because we sent them a broadcast newsletter or e-mail, or updated our LinkedIn status or blog.  But I’m starting to realize more and more that, when I desperately want to send an e-mail to someone rather than call them, it probably means that, on that occasion more than ever, I should go “old-school” with my communications. 

 

Electronic tools are nice.  But they’re really…just…tools.  It’s the fingers (or thumbs) attached to arms attached to a torso supporting a head with a brain that makes the difference.  So the next time you’re not sure if you should be using your fingers or your mouth, start with your brain.  It will tell you what you need to do.