Wanted: Cooler Customers

Facebook came into our lives and our business in January as one of the background applications of choice for some extremely bright and already-accomplished 20-somethings our firm added to the consulting team.  First of all, we learned that these folks multi-task like crazy and produce more work--and quality work, in compressed time.  Other background applications of choice (all going on while they are working) include the iPod, two computer screens going at one time with Facebook and a game running simultaneous on one screen and what we would call "real work" happening on the other.

Intense customer interface is going on through all of this.

We came to know Facebook as the preferred Interstate Highway of Information Exchange for everyone in college and those in the first 10 years of their career.   If anyone who needs your service or product is under 30, Facebook will become as fundamental as Google.

Since January, we have noticed many of our friends in their 30's, 40;s and 50's are diving into Facebook, setting up their own communities of conversation and social networking like crazy. John Jantsch just set up the Duct Tape Marketing Group on Facebook, invited a few thousand of his closest friends to participate and that included me. 

Already cool with my Facebook account since the first of the year, I joined John's group and several other groups as well.   The networking activity has been totally amazing and eye opening.  This Facebook  "space" place is full of business people and customers!

The big question hits us.  Will this work with our customer base?  So we use the cool tools on the Facebook site to download our entire Outlook Contact list to see how many are already Facebook folks.  Out of more than 3,700 customers and colleagues, only 38 had Facebook accounts and could be connected.  The other 99% of my business and community has yet to discover social networking and the new media and tools of the practical, affordable and effective world of Duct Tape Marketing and Facebook.

I'm wondering if we need cooler customers or if  Facebook is just a passing piece of technology.  What do you think?

Customers Still Clueless on RSS

How cool is RSS if customers don't get it?

Where are we on this RSS conversation?  How many of your customers ask you about RSS or say they are attached to you because of the RSS factor?  I've been listening for this for more than 5 years and the voices of our customers are not bringing up the topic of RSS.

ClickZ writer Heidi Cohen tells us RSS is about to go mainstream. In her article 10 Ways for eMarketers to Use RSS, she urges us to start testing new ways to use this technology to gain a competitive advantage.  Heidi goes on to tell us RSS is the ultimate opt-in marketing vehicle with high returns available if we stay in sync with your consumer's needs.

What goes through you head when you see that an eMarketer study estimates that 88 percent of employees don't know what RSS is?  What seems to be a more important statistic is what percentage of your customers have RSS as their information filter and information grabber from the flood of content and images coming at them every day?

The acceptance and adoption of RSS has been much slower than expected.  It seems to be one of those situations that if you have never experienced RSS, all the talk about it means nothing.  This reminds me of the communications exercise during an executive retreat at one of those very nice resorts where thinking and brilliant thoughts come easier than when working in a pressure situation.  The group leader told us to describe an apple to someone who had never seen or heard of an apple. What does it look like?  What does it taste like? What are all the reasons why you would want an apple?  And so forth.   Obvious to those of us to have enjoyed many apples and a total mystery to the one who has never seen or heard of an apple.

I remember the time and place I first heard about RSS.  It was 5 years ago and Paul Ward and I were working with the corporate partners (Business Council) of the American Society of Association Executives.  For three meetings and six months Paul explained RSS.  He got out his brand new Apple laptop computer and showed it to them. The more excited he got about how wonderful it was and how it creates value, the faces around the conference table turned more blank or more confused.  The other issue was more subtle.  That Apple computer was just a little too geeky for the business leaders around the table and besides, there was a lot of scrambling and calling up tech support in the middle of the presentation when it was clear the high-tech conference room was all set for the PC world and PC connectors.  It just didn't feel mainstream and that causes the masses to wait until the early adopters have absorbed the risk for the rest of us.

While Heidi now hypes RSS as "your opportunity to get ahead of the crowd and learn how to use RSS on your site and in your marketing I'm still concerned about the fact that my customer are not jumping into this "opportunity" with our firm.

With the release of the latest software updates, such as Explorer 7, and other software that shows us the orange RSS icon means you can get an instant alert every time the Web page or blog is updated, the convenience factor alone may help this along.

Customers want us to figure all of this out for them and then bring them what they want, when they want it, the way they last told us they wanted to hear from us.  On that point, Heidi is completely aligned with customers.  She shows us that  RSS feeds enable you to "parse content into small, digestible chunks that consumers want."

The last word on this is still John Jantsch in  Your Readers Don't Care What the Technology Is Called. Speak the customers' language, John coaches us.  Your customers know what Yahoo, Google and AOL is.  RSS feeds fit right in with that world they like know, like and trust.
 

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A Wowser of a Year, So Far

We felt the ground shake a little there at the end of 2006 and knew something really big was going to come this way.  It turned out to be one direct hit after the next and that makes Q1 of 2007 the most memorable, phenomenal period in our business and personal lives--ever. 

It's been a wowser of a year, so far, and it's time to climb back up in the blogging saddle and ride out the rest of this year, with you, our loyal customers and blog fans.  The great news is I have enough great information and stories to feed this Customers Count blog for some time.  Here's the top lines of what's going on and what you can look forward to.

1. Business is booming and the talent is terrific. It's not just professional football owners who scout the college talent for their first round draft picks--my company does the same thing.  We looked for a super achiever in communications practices and performance and found it in our newest member of the firm.  Because of blogging, UTube, social media, and all of the essentials communications consulting in the future, we now have a 20-something consultant who won the hearts and minds of all of our clients before we got to the end of January.  Most importantly--the customers are especially thrilled. 

2. The book--it's a big hit. Duct Tape Marketing was officially released on January 9th and that put our whole world on fast forward. We knew there would be a feeding frenzy the minute it came out and we have been delightfully swamped with the success, buzz and additional business coming this way because of the book.  We bought 100 copies to give away to 100 CEO's and marketing leaders who are our loyal customers and best referrals.  We have 100 great stories and that's another reason to stick this blog in your RSS feeder.  Come back often. You'll love theses stories. Okay, here's my favorite.  One recipient of a Duct Tape Marketing book is a super sharp consultant who is a Wharton MBA graduate.  She said, "Every time I read a business book I want to slap the author because they insult me or mislead the reader.  This Duct Tape Marketing is the first business book I've read where I didn't want to slap the author. It's good.  Really good."

3. Life gets in the way of blogging. We know the rules.  If you are on the Duct Tape Marketing blog team, you have to act like a #1 Blog author and that means posting several times a week.  My dad went into the emergency room of a hospital in January, ended up in the Intensive Care Unit and he died within 10 days. Intellectually, you know that everyone will die.  Emotionally, you don't think it's your turn. Not this month.   But it is.  The aftermath of it all takes months of appointments, decisions and paperwork.

4. Getting back on the blog. There are some bloggers who you should read anyway.  If you ever need a shot of inspiration or motivation to write good blogs, all the time, see if these do it for you (in addition to the whole Duct Tape Marketing Channels blog):

• Social Customer Manifesto

• Network Centric Advocacy - Advocacy strategy for the age of connectivity.

• Media Guerrilla

What makes them worth your time (which you will never get back)? They are interesting,frequent, and useful. They give you something every week that helps you find customers, connect with customers or increase value for your customers.

5. Learning to Live. When business and life is super intense every day, you discover the absolute necessity for taking time to recharge your battery.  For years we've heard how important this was and we just thought that was for those who are already wealthy or have too many customers.  Because of the extreme intensity of 2007 so far, we also learned about the ways to decompress and handle that stress.  It really is a killer and it will rob you of years of life, if unchecked.

There isn't a business person reading this who doesn't have a stressful job. Customers, no matter how much you like them, have a way of changing their minds, going outside of the scope of work and expecting more for less.  This can drain you and make you less than cheerful and generous with another customer or prospective customer.

Here are some proven strategies that will help you stay where you prefer to be--on top of things.

1. Laughter. A lot of laughter, with friends, for at least 15 minutes over something really funny will make you feel great.
2. Music. Go for the music you love--the kind that makes you move your whole body.
3. Exercise. If nothing more than a fast walk outside for 15 minutes, exercise is a key to staying emotionally balanced and positively charged.
4. Recreational reading.  This is not the book you think you should read--go for the one you think is totally stupid or diversionary.  It will help you decompress and stimulate parts of the mind you thought were deep fried with burnout.
5. Special time with family or friends. Don't assume they will always be there. Do something that shows them how much you count on them, caring about you.
6. A special place or special activity. These always feel like guilt, such as four hours playing golf or a weekend getaway instead of working constantly.  This is what you really need the most.
7. Extra sleep. This is what renews and restores you, so why are we all cutting into our sleep time to check off five more items on our super hot priority list?
8. Massage. My husband, who has to have a massage every week for a medical condition, introduced me to the health-promoting aspects of this.  See item #6.  This feels like luxury at first.  Then you realize it is one of those things you'd better do, like dental hygiene, if you want to stay well.

Taking care of yourself if the same as taking care of your customers.

Rain Making, Version 3.0

In 2006 I can make more money taking a vacation if I hire myself out in advance as a rain maker.

This year is stampeding through Q3 and next month we hit the gun lap of 2006--the 4th Quarter!  So far, I've taken the advice of my friends who say "You can't work all of the time.  You gotta take a break.  Go on vacation."

What do they know?  I know that I should have called ahead to each spot I chose for time off this year and let them pay me for my amazing rain making ability.  Do you have a drought?  Getting ready to lose millions on failed crops, totally fried landscapes that you'll pay big time to reinstall next season, and there's a ban on using water? I'm for hire.

My strategic mistake is not calling ahead to the governor's office at the same time I am online for my tickets.  I should ask for payment in advance to come to their state. For Labor Day weekend plus a day on both side to make it the equivalent of a work week (5 days), I made my plans to go to Dallas-Fort Worth, where they have had 20 days in a row of 103 degrees or more, without a break.They are fed up to here with the drought and angry.  I arrive.  The clouds move in.  The local residents thank me.  The rains begin and go on, and on, and on.  All the way through the holiday weekend.

I've taken two other breaks from work this year and in each place there were record floods, breaking records for 70 years or so and hitting the front pages of the papers and CNN the whole week I was there--rained in, with bridges and roads washed out.

This all reminds me to catch up on my reading of one of our favorite customer creation tips sheets--RainToday.com.  Everything about that newsletter reinforces the principles and marketing system of Duct Tape Marketing.  We just love it.  This week, for example, you get 5 Ideas For Marketing Small And Mid-Sized Firms: A Perspective From Architecture, Engineering, And Construction by Virginia Daffron.

She reinforces the big message here at Duct Tape Marketing --you have to have a marketing system or it's all a big waste of energy and a world of hurt and disappointment.  Virginia writes, "Of course, your firm needs a marketing plan, with strategies and tactics to guide you in building the business that you will enjoy working at each day. Of course, you need to get everyone on the same page to harness the power of your whole team to promote your firm. Of course, you need to do a million and one things that can't fit into your day, or your week, or your year. But until you get around to those, these five ideas might be a good place to start."

Virginia and the Customer Creation Queen have this in common--we work with a lot of professionals in the engineering, architecture and construction industries.  By their own admission, they are not the greatest at marketing.  In fact, the best attended seminar for more than 20 years at the national convention of the American Institute of Architects was the session on rain making and getting business. Not building codes.  Not how to specify glass.  Not how to make sure the building doesn't collapse.  Marketing your professional service!  That's where the need is the greatest.

Virginia offers these five ideas and we encourage you to fold this into your Duct Tape Marketing system and get on with it!

1. What You Don't Do Is Just As Important As What You Do.
2. A Good Public Relations Program Offers Terrific Bang For Your Buck.
3. Create And Maintain A Web Presence That Makes You Proud To Give Out The Address.
4. Develop A Marketing Framework To Structure And Guide Your Efforts.
5. Find The Right Balance Between Talking To Many And Talking To One.

How Will Customers Find You?

At first it was mysterious.  Then kinda sexy and illusive.  Then it became the buzz word in every work session we facilitated or coached in every possible kind of client organization, when the conversation turned to "How do we get people to notice us and prefer what we sell?"  It was so "in" that it came in one of those "initials only" kinds of monikers -- SEO. 

Now almost everyone has had a taste or full dose SEO.   Most likely your SEO awareness is less than five years old, too. That's fast and if you missed it, here's your chance to get a grip on Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Everything you should know about SEO comes in a neat package from MarketingProfs.com from Todd Miechiels, who writes "Search engine optimization (SEO) is no longer a secret weapon of cutting-edge, Web-savvy marketers. Even traditional companies have to make sure that search engines like Google and Yahoo find them consistently—because search engines are the primary way that prospects and influencers learn about products and services."

Since you faithfully return to this blog watering hole for the mere mortals of marketing called Customers Count, let us put all of this in some customer-winning, money making terms for you.

Think of all of that marketing you might do and all of the words, pictures and web sites you might invest in, just to get customers and prospects to either notice you or remember you.   Think of it as a growing sea of information and you are fast becoming the often-disdained "drop in a bucket."  Essentially you are on a small desert island, surrounded by an endless sea of messages and you'd better get some smoke signals or flares going so someone flying through the area will notice you.

That's what all the fuss is about with search engines.  The Internet is how people now look for what they want. The primary purpose of using the Internet is to find something.  All of those other marketing materials you once used are not as important now as your understanding of what it takes to get your name high up in the search engines.  Some amazing statistic says if you are not on the FIRST PAGE of Google or your favorite search engine, very few will click to the 2nd or 3rd page to look further.

Miechiels also points out, "Too often, executives focus on the technical aspects of SEO and lose sight of the more important strategic aspects. Meta tags, spiders, page views, and visits don't mean much to company stakeholders and shareholders. Results—in terms of better leads and more of them—do."

This applies the same to small businesses as large. If you want people to find you or you desire more leads and better qualified leads at the same time, you really gotta learn this SEO stuff.   It's not an option for staying in business or growing a business--it's as fundamental as providing ways for customers to discover you and refer you.

What you  may think is word of mouth is really conversations reinforced or validated by what people look up the Internet.  That's another topic for another blog and one that we can come back to, if you are ready for the truth about all of that mystique called referrals.

Customer Attraction Mecca

Where have you been?

You want to know, don't you?  And that's a great question considering recent declarations on this blog to deliver a daily dose of exciting insights on how to find, attract and keep satisfied more customers than you can imagine or even start counting in your dreams. 

We've been on a quest for customer-building, customer relationship bonding information that is so powerful--plus affordable, effective and simple, that you will become a gushing fan of the Duct Tape Marketing blog.  It took longer than expected but we are thrilled about what we found for you.  And we hope you will be thrilled too--and comment, right here on this blog.

We found a fabulous customer experience.  It's an example of what you need to become. 

It's Zaadz and it's in beta. Go, look and sign up immediately.  Become part of the community that is all about your success and is now connecting the Customer Counts diva into their promise to all to deliver the best of the best when it comes to marketing tips, insights and secrets to smaller businesses.

Have you been to Disney World?  Did you ever go to Tomorrow Land?  Zaadz is the Tommorrow Land of customership.  Some people read books about "community" and some talk it.  Can you live it?  The citizens of Zaadz are like you--only richer and more focused on everything that counts, such as your job, customers, family, money, and mostly, dedicated to changing the world.

John Jantsch will change the world. You can too.  And your customers are hoping you will, as well.

Using Blogs to Attract Customers

Are customers flocking to this blog or do I need to go have a real conversation with them?  Are customers reading this blog or barely keeping up with e-mail?  Some wise words, delivered daily to my desktop, caused me to pause and ponder.

Okay, it's been two weeks and I admit it's been a time of spending a lot of time with customers and not much time in front of a computer.  Here's what set me on my recent adventure.  See if any of this mirrors your situation or gives you encouragement to try this yourself.

An article in eMarketer , Blogs Continue to Multiply, fired up my imagination.  Are too many blogging and not enough reading?  According to the "State of the Blogosphere" report issued in January by Technorati, there were 26.6 million blogs online. It said,  "19.4 million bloggers (55%) are still updating their sites three months after their blogs were created. That's an increase in both absolute and relative terms over January, when only 50.5% or 13.7 million blogs were 'active'. In addition, about 3.9 million bloggers currently update their blogs at least weekly."

Technorati claims over 75,000 new weblogs are created every day, which means that on average, a new weblog is created every second of every day.

I decided it was time to put down the Blackberry and TREO and take some customers to lunch, then devote the afternoon to any major issue or problem they wanted to toss on the table. It turned out they were thrilled to be rescued from their world of too much information intake and have a quality conversation, focusing on two questions we had for each:

• My dear (customer)...Other than all of the information we see all over your website and in your emails, what is the nagging concern you have these days about your business and would some increased appreciation, understanding and help be welcome? 
• The second set of questions, reserved for established customers asked, "Are can you think of areas where you might appreciate some attention and are you completely satisfied with our service> Would you refer us to your business colleagues?

Where do our customers stand when it comes to paying attention to blogs or working with the new technology?  Nicholas Carr said it best when commenting on the thinking and writing by Andrew McAfee, Associate Professor at Harvard Business School -- one of the most thoughtful scholars of corporate information management.

McAfee notes the possibility that "busy knowledge workers won't use the new technologies, despite training and prodding," and points to the fact that "most people who use the Internet today aren't bloggers, wikipedians or taggers. They don't help produce the platform - they just use it." There's the rub. Managers, professionals and other employees don't have much spare time, and the ones who have the most valuable business knowledge have the least spare time of all. (They're the ones already inundated with emails, instant messages, phone calls, and meeting requests.) Will they turn into avid bloggers and taggers and wiki-writers? It's not impossible, but it's a long way from a sure bet.

Nicholas G. Carr is a former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review and speaker whose work centers on strategy, innovation, and technology. His blog, Rough Type has an article worth reading and applying to your situation--Is Web 2.0 Enterprise ready?

How did I know which customers needed some quality conversation with some intense listening on my part?  Here's the clues.  Analyze your email for the past three months.  Who is most of it from?  Which customers?  In my case, it turned out to be the customers with the Blackberry, TREO or other thumb numbing, personal digital assistant, always on or in the charging, synchronizing cradle.  It was the customers we play the most phone tag with because they are always "in conference."   All signs pointed to them as the ones most interested in communicating, staying connected and probably in need of a break from technology, as long as the lunch conversation seemed more valuable.   It did. 

We found a new balance between all of this blogging and paying attention to why the customers know, like and trust us.  And we rediscovered why we came together in the first place to change the world, one marketing step at a time.

Small Business Lovefest

The Valentine message you craft yourself and hand to someone you love is simply the best.  Those sweethearts over at the Small Business Administration (SBA) give us all 10 reasons to love small business.  Consider this your best valentine, ever.  Send this on to a customer you care about.  Share it with another small business owner, too.  If that is one and the same (your customers are also small businesses) then we call that a Double Bonus Valentine.

Reasons to Love Small Business:

1. The latest figures show that small businesses create 75 percent of the net new jobs in our economy.
2. Four years after start-up, half of all small businesses with employees remain open.
3. Small businesses with employees start-up at a rate of over 500,000 per year.
4. Small businesses make up 97 percent of exporters and produce 29 percent of all export value.
5. Home-based businesses account for 53 percent of all small businesses.
6. Small businesses employ about 50 percent of all private sector workers.
7. The 22.9 million small businesses in the United States are located in virtually every neighborhood.
8. Small patenting firms produce 13 to 14 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms.
9. Small businesses create more than 50 percent of the non farm private gross domestic product (GDP).
10. Small businesses make up more than 99.7% of all employers.

You may not be in love with the whole notion of "the government" or burdensome bureaucracies, but have you ever had first-hand experience with the SBA's Office of Advocacy?  They are the "small business watchdog" of the government, they examine the role and status of small business in the economy and independently represent the views of small business to federal agencies, Congress, and the President. 

Have you seriously looked at government as a customer? Would you know where to start and how to do it? Do you think it's any harder than completing a form online?  It's easy, when you remember what you, as a small business owner, have always done best--talk with the customers.  There is an army of personal assistants to help you succeed in attracting government customers and they are called the Office of Advocacy Staff.   

Let's put this customer love fest another way for you.  Did you know the government can act just like your other customers?  Absolutely! If you have something they want--service or product, and you are set up to take credit card transactions, the government agencies buy!

That online registration I mentioned earlier is called the Central Contractor Registration (CCR) and my firm is in there --Communicators, Inc.  CCR is the central database which all federal government agencies use to "go shopping."   Isn't technology grand?  Trust me on this--the government can find your business, services and terms of sale faster than Google can find you, if you are in the CCR. My only limit in doing business with the government is deciding how much I want to let them buy.  There's no bidding, no RFPs, and no standing in line when you are small business and have exactly what they need.

Three great reasons to have the federal government agencies as a group of customers:

1. They pay quickly (how fast can you swipe a credit card?) and their money is good.
2. They are a really big customer with a lot of needs.
3. They are a great repeat customer and they are THE BEST at referral business.

Did I mention that the federal government includes the U.S. Treasury and they have so many ways to put money directly into your bank account (when sell to your government customers) that it just amazes us? 

What's not to love about small business?

Search Engine Marketing Magic

In your overloaded, too-complex, BlackBerry world, have you wished someone would just take you out for lunch, put a crystal ball on the table and tell you what the bleep this all means?  For crying out loud, you say, just show me how to attract great customers and make them so happy they become evangelists and refer 95% of all of my business.  Who has time to learn all of this new stuff?

Great news.  We have clues into your future and it's called Search Engine Marketing.  Again, you say, "And this is suppose to make my life easier and more profitable because...?"  That's a fair question because a mere six years ago, Search Engine Marketing accounted for less than 1 percent of online advertising spending.  Today it is one of the most powerful and effective marketing strategies.  This comes from a great report that is yours if you go to the homepage of Omniture and ask for  The Omniture Search Successkit. Search Engine Marketing: A Users Guide for Search Success. 

That means you need to focus on this and let go of actions and marketing relics that just don't work like they use to.  That's because SEM has come up from behind at 282 MPH and blown you off the road--in the ditch and upside down.   Omniture tells us, "Spending in online search adversiting has increased a blistering 282 percent per year, surpassing $3.8 billion in 2004. In the near future, that expenditure will go to $6 to $8 billion."

This also means a lot of stuff about SEM and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is going to come at you.  While working with clients on relaunched websites this week, John Jantsch reminded me of the excellent Search Engine Marketing module he teaches in the Ultimate Small Business Marketing System course. I went through the workbook that comes with that course and I recommend you put this really high on your "Crystal Ball and Marketing Survival" list for 2006.  New courses will be announced soon and make sure you sign up and really wade into the deep end with this SEO survival  information John has create.

Back to Omniture. The big point they make, which you need learn fast and use daily is this: SEM can positively affect your success in every type of e-business, touching every stage of the customer experience with you--from awareness, interest consideration and purchase.

If you think you know a lot about Search Engine Marketing and SEO, think again.  You could not possible keep up.  It came from nowhere in 2000 --less than 1 percent of online advertising, to more than $3.8 billion in 2004.  The crystal ball says $6-8 billion in the near future.

Do you even know how big a billion is?  Do you know how many small businesses think they have "made it" when they pass the $1 million level in revenue?  A billion is a thousand millions.  So, imagine what your part of town would be like if you went from just you in 2000 to a thousand businesses your size this year, all making over $1 million a year.  That could create 100 Rotary clubs in one town!

Now multiply that times 6 or 8.  That look in your eyes tells me you still don't get the significance of these billions and why it's going to decide who attracts the customer --you, or others? This is all about how your business will just explode with growth beyond your bragging in 2006-2007 or quickly dry up and shut down.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into perspective in one of its press releases:

A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate Washington spends it.

Naked Conversations - Blogs and Your Customers

The book on business blogging that we are all waiting to read will come out later this year and the author is John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing.  In the meantime, while we warm our place in the line that winds around our local Borders or Barnes and Nobel stores, waiting for the Jantsch masterpiece, here's another great book to read and understand: Naked Conversations by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel.

This book is about how blogs are changing the way businesses talk with customers. The authors make strong arguments in support of business blogging as an ideal way to build enduring customer relationships.

Scoble is Microsoft's blogger and Israel is a tech consultant, well know for product introductions.  The sections that were page turners for us here in the Customers Count  Channel are all about the warnings about how business blogging can go wrong.  The blogging culture is free-spirited, informal, loose and direct, and corporate communications is just the opposite.

The authors join the many who are bashing mainstream media.  As one who rides atop two galloping horses--one foot on mainstream media and the other foot on business blogging, holding on to the reins so I'm not tossed and trampled, I can assure you it's a fabulous ride and the best view you can imagine.  I have all of the journalism credentials it takes to get in the National Press Club (and I did) and I'm passionate about the power of the blog to be that one voice that speaks for the whole firm, directly to the customers.

In the end, be it mainstream media or blogging, it's all about the public trust and direct relationships with customers and readers.

The first question we always get from corporate executives and business owners when we mention our blog is "how does blogging for business pay off?"  Most just blurt "How are you making money with it?"   That's an easy answer if you understand it takes a system to do marketing and the measure of success is customers. 

It's as easy and as difficult as that--customers count.  You count them and they are counting on you.  They hold you accountable for the quality of the customer experience, the caliber of the customer relationship, the quality of your service and products, the reward system for great referrals, and how well you delight and entertain them.