Blog Author Mellissah Smith - Page 75

The past few years has seen us as marketeers witness the tip of a technological iceberg. 

In a world where the word ‘Facebook’ is now as internationally recognised as the ‘Coca-Cola’ and ‘OK’ of yesteryear, we can conclude that social media and with it, social media campaigns, are the order of the day.  Businesses won’t maximise business without an effective social media presence - it is essential to play in today’s extremely competitive business environment and create long-lasting communications to build brand image and trust.

Sitting in the Los Angeles airport after being in Miami Beach for an entrepreneur’s conference, I pick up The Mail on Sunday only to discover a story written about women who meet each other through work.

It’s been five days of the best Miami has to offer coupled by discussing entrepreneurial topics, life and success (or in some cases, lack of) with some very versatile, uninhibited entrepreneurs who all seem content to share stories and experiences while enriching each other’s lives through old-fashion mateship.

Pinterest is going ahead leaps and bounds in the business space. Not only has it achieved to provide one of the easiest platforms to understand and their instructions for setting up a business on Pinterest are so easy - even I can do it - but they also have cleverly launched a free analytics tool that will allow you to track engagement. 

I really don't want to mislead you, but there are some truths about social media that you need to be aware of.

Social media is powerful - undeniably so. It has the strength and depth to make or break a brand. It can cleverly make a company or person appear more successful than they really are. It can make you famous, rich and powerful.

Out of the wood work, names that were not known just five years ago, are now ranked in the top brands online in the world. 

But is this 'social media' thing all that its cranked up to be?

Forget what you have always been told about how people get ahead in the workforce. No, you don't need to sleep with your boss or your clients for that matter. No, you don't have to be "Mr Nice Guy" 24/7, and you certainly don't need to play office politics. 

There are ways to improve your chances of landing that dream job - and it's not as hard as you think.

1.  Engagement:

Being an engaged employee means that you know a thing or two about the business. You have definitely learnt the art of listening to those at the top of the pyramid and those who are just starting in the mail room. You read every memo from management and you participate at every level in the organization without complaining that "there are too many internal memos" or that "the social club puts on crap events". You listen, learn and comprehend the value of engaging people around you and having them remember who you are.

2.  Competitive:

Contrary to popular psyche testing on how to be the best employee in the office, a little bit of competition is healthy. If you are looking to spearhead your career and take that top job or a dream job in the Executive team, then you need to have a competitive spirit to be the best. That doesn't mean stomping on the person beside you to "win" nor does it mean that you need to spruik your successes from the rooftop. What it does mean is that you need to set benchmarks for yourself and your team, and ensure that you are reaching it and you have the drive and competitiveness inside that won't stop until you reach the goal you have put in front of you. Some people fear competition and some misuse it. The trick is to compete with yourself and the benchmarks that have been set before you.

Have you seen an increasingly large amount of those quirky, square-shaped, two-dimensional graphic images floating around recently? QR codes probably started popping up noticeably in 2012 and have since been a prominent marketing tool used by tech-savvy whizzes and consumers alike. 

QR code, an abbreviation from ‘Quick Response Code’, is the trademarked matrix barcode that originated from the automotive industry in Japan. The code is made up of numerous black dots that are subsequently arranged in a square grid on a white background. The information encoded within this matrix may be made up of four standardised kinds (“modes”) of data- numeric, alphanumeric, byte/binary, Kanji- or through various supported extensions, virtually any type of data.

An updated on our story of expansion from a recent speech:

Everywhere I go, people say “are you crazy… you left the sunshine, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, kangaroos, koalas and the great barrier reef for this.

I always pause, almost second-guessing what I am doing. But every single time, I come to the same conclusion.

I have a dream and that dream is to build a global small business firm that helps businesses realize their full potential.

Walking into Caribou in Buckhead, Atlanta this morning, I was quietlly disturbed by a very loud American woman asking for her coffee. 

"I would like a double mocha grande with a dash of skim milk, and a bit of vanilla. Oh, and I would like some sweetener with that. Make sure it isn't too hot. Actually, I don't want a grande, I want a tall. So that will be..."

I waited patiently for her to repeat her order over and over again until it was my turn.

How familiar are you with your clients?

Do you remember their birthdays? Their children's names? Where they last vacationed?

There is such a thing as being too familiar - you know the type; when a person comes up to you and invades your personal space. However, in business, putting aside the touchy feely stuff, being familiar by remembering important details about your clients, their habits, and perhaps the way they take their coffee, can ensure that your client feels comfortable sharing things with you that perhaps they would not do to a "stranger".

First meetings are always key to ascertaining what level of playing field you will be on in the relationship going forward. That means, if they share important information like the fact that they are married and have three children or like to ski, then ensure you capture this data and use it in the future. In ski season, perhaps you send them a new pair of gloves or a scarf.  

Yesterday, I met with a company in Atlanta that was headed by an Australian man. Immediately, we had something in common and were able to conduct the rest of the meeting with a sense of familiarity. Going through the same issues of settling in a new country, gives a sense that we are both on the same page. This makes the whole process so much easier because there is a sense that we both know where we are coming from thus helping Marketing Eye win this piece of business.

Food for thought!

Phew! Exhausted. Seriously. Whoever said that expansion was a walk in the park needs their head read.

While the first week was the most exciting time of the year to date, the second week was riddled with sleep deprevation, home-sickness and a case of missing the basic home comforts that I have come to enjoy.

On top of that, I realized that although getting new clients was relatively easy (for today) it is twice as hard to get everything else organized around that from an administrative point of view when you don't have your entire administration team at your disposal.

And... the time difference means that instead of 12 hours a day at work it was now 16 hours a day with little time to spare and if I was really lucky, I would get Sunday off, but probably not, because there is so much to do.