Sharing Content isn't Enough, Enlist Employee Advocacy

Even in today’s era of social media, the number one marketing channel for new leads and customers is word of mouth.  In essence this means that you need to have people talking about your company.  When the world is talking; people are listening. According to Nielsen and Pew Internet, "Only 15% of people trust messages received directly from businesses compared to the 70% who trust messages received from personal contacts."

If we extend the personal WOM channel to social media, the amplitude of your message in a noisy world is magnified. It’s no longer a one-to-one conversation, but possibly one voice to tens-of-thousands. There’s a good chance your customers are on one of the major networks.  As a matter of fact, the people you want to reach demographically (whether you are B2B or B2C) are participating right now. Businesses and customers are reading messages on social media and you can’t watch a TV show without seeing a brand hashtag to follow.

Know that the days are gone where you as a brand can control your message, but you can intensify it.

Your customers and investors are talking about you online so why not join the conversation. If enough voices are speaking positively about your brand, there’s a strong chance your market share will raise.  No matter the size of your business; you can achieve a successful outreach and employee advocacy can be the key to get you started. 

According to a recent Inc article, employees have the most credible voices in the organization, so why not power them with the right tools? 

At Pitney Bowes for example, their employee advocacy program “The Insiders” has seen great success in only a few months. With over 200 employees already part of the program, this new approach to building more socially savvy employees and bigger WOM is catching up quickly.

The program has already been expanded to the UK, with plans of additional expansions before the end of the year.  Not only were The Insiders a big part of the new Pitney Bowes brand launch back in January, but they have been key to sharing the #NewPitneyBowes story.

“The Insiders initiative is an excellent opportunity to get employees engaged in social media, while spreading the word about the new Pitney Bowes and building our collective thought leadership in the marketplace." - Jason Bartlett, Vice President, Digital Marketing & eCommerce

At Pitney Bowes, the employee ambassador program is more than just a communications tool. It is also helping the company with the bottom line, creating sales opportunities, as they go. From building brand awareness and improving company culture, employee advocacy has also been proved to have a significant impact on revenue.

Bruce Gresham, VP Business Planning & Strategy had an amazing success story, clearly proving the ROI of the program.  

“I shared one of our new product innovations on LinkedIn, and several of my existing connections ‘liked’ the post. One of the ‘likes’ lead to a person outside my network ‘liking’ the information (in the post) as well. This developed into a sales opportunity of significant worth with a client with whom we normally would not have connected.”

Your employees are the face of your company. They can also be valuable promoters for your message, why not try a new way of return on human investment? Need additional WOM? Your employees are first in line to help, just ask them.

FTC disclosure: This is a sponsored post. I only work with and showcase products, events and/or companies I believe my readers will benefit from. Pitney Bowes has hired me as a brand ambassador. I am not formally employed by Pitney Bowes. All thoughts and viewpoints are mine. This is disclosed in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

You've Got to be "In It" to Win It Never Applied More #GoGlobal

After I graduated and got in the real world of advertising, my observances of the small business people taught me far more than a classroom ever could. There were those (no matter how great their customer service) who just couldn't make a go of it. Others succeeded in ways which were a mystery to me. Dumb luck, I guess.

But for those who achieved some modicum of success, they found their niche and were able to grow. Their business built jobs for family and others. Some expanded their enterprise to other locations and many, eventually online.

These people took a challenge and grabbed it. They worked out what they knew and studied to learn more of what they didn't. It takes a special kind of entrepreneur to succeed and build a business for a lifetime. It really made no difference whether they chose to stay small or to expand. Their accomplishment spoke volumes.

Now that anyone with a plan and some gumption has access to an international marketplace on the Internet, it brings new challenges. I would have never thought that my small, online business would be shipping product to Moscow, or Buenos Aires or Tokyo. But I have; and now service customers worldwide.

Which brings me to the point of this post. The idea of sending merchandise to customers overseas used to scare the heck out of me. I knew there were customs regulations and I knew it would be ever more expensive (even if the customer paid the shipping).  Who would even care to spend extra to buy from me?

I took the step first by selling action figures and opened up sales to a worldwide audience. Amazingly, even in the early 2000s, there were people willing to buy and pay a premium for my goods!

The first step is getting past that fear. When businesses are growing and succeeding, there always seems to be a similar barrier: expanding globally. I’ve worked with more business owners than I can count who just don’t want to go the extra mile (pun intended) and expand their markets internationally.

There are various reasons entrepreneurs hesitate before taking the global leap. For one, there’s a popular myth that shipping across borders significantly changes the status quo. Yes, no one likes change, but the logistics behind international shipping can be just as easy to navigate as domestic shipments once you know the rules.

An easy way to get your feet wet is to take a single product and start selling on an established international marketplace like eBay. For any ecommerce business, I suggest starting slowly and first deciding which products and countries blend best for your business. Read my article here for tips on how to save money while expanding your business globally.

This week I will go to IRCE (Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition). If you ever intend on stepping into a full-blown ecommerce business, there is no better place to start (once you've read my books - of course). The sessions are most excellent sources of information.

Granted, going to the conference is quite expensive for a small business. So I recommend going for the first time to just the exhibits, where a pass is $75 (when you purchase in advance). The exhibits at IRCE cover a 250,000 square foot show floor and boast over 600 vendors showing off the latest in technologies for the new retail economy. The ideas that will come to your mind when walking the floor will be dazzling. Plenty of ROI to cover your transportation and hotel!

No doubt when you're there, you will see a badge of someone you've met online or a representative for a service you've considered using. Its the perfect place to get recommendations and network with other businesses like yourself.

I will be at IRCE 2015 sharing the experience recording videos (using Periscope too) and doing a book signing in the Pitney Bowes booth (#743) on Wednesday and Thursday.

Pitney Bowes has been around a long time, and as a forward thinking company, has some new ideas for cross-border commerce. Talk to one of the people in their booth and learn how to take the next big step in enterprise level fulfillment. They will have experts who can help you develop and execute your international growth strategy.

It's a big step from shipping First Class International packets to moving your full business online. The Pitney Bowes folks are there to hold your hand to help you succeed. Stop by the booth and say hello. Tweet me @MarshaCollier or @PB_digital during and after the show and we'll be glad to point you in the right direction.

How to Reinvent an Ecommerce Business in Less Than 90 Days

When I first started my mentorship with Pitney Bowes Smallbiz Mentorship Contest winner Julie Wiley, I knew it would be a challenge. Here was a woman with years of entrepreneurial experience moving from a full-time job to a home-based, online business.

Julie had been profitably selling on eBay since 2002 on the side, so a jump to a full ecommerce business was not a big stretch. When deciding about her business plan in 2008, she wanted to select a theme that was fairly recession proof. She reasoned that people were always getting married so she named her eBay store I Do Bridal and Gifts.

She also wanted her business to be unique in the marketplace so she widened her product offerings. Tapping her creative side, she began making varied custom items – such as canvas wall décor, glassware and creative bachelorette favors. These items not only build her bottom line, but require less inventory investment. Smart move.

Thinking further into the bridal idea, Julie came upon the thought that remarriage is almost as popular as first-time marriages, so she felt that second-time brides might enjoy a place of their own. She named her new website Second I Do’s.  Despite doing all that seemed right, she was struggling to turn a profit.

We dug in, and together we addressed many of the issues that face small businesses. Here’s what we changed:

• Mobile–izing the Website. The first thing I did was to check the Second I Do’s website. Although it was chock full of great merchandise, the layout was dated. Although the host told Julie her site was optimized for mobile. It clearly was not. We negotiated for a new template, but the template that was offered up was incredibly basic (but could be seen on mobile). After checking the latest from different providers, we selected a professional Shopify ecommerce website which offered contemporary templates and excellent mobile conversion. This also cut down Julie’s monthly expenses. The new version of the SecondIDos.com website will be live on Shopify by December 1st.
• Getting Centered. They are numerous popular ecommerce portals and Julie was trying hard to do a good job on many of them. It’s a lot of work to keep up to date on changes and relisting and listing the same merchandise on many sites. We looked at her monthly sales on each platform and evaluated the ROI. We narrowed her alternative selling platforms to the ones which performed best: eBay, Etsy and Artfire.

• Sharpening Keywords and SEO. When you have a lot of merchandise up for sale online, the mere act of listing many items makes it easy to let item titles get stale. I went over about a hundred of Julie’s eBay items and made suggestions on new titles based on keywords. In ecommerce, keywords are king. They are the SEO for your items for sale. I recommended she be sure to use words that fully describe the items and fill the entire permissible title space. We also went through and freshened up listing descriptions to answer any question a prospective customer might have.

We visited Google Analytics and checked visits, time on site, average pages viewed and bounce rates (how many people leave your site without visiting other pages). We discussed the factors that needed to be improved. Moving her main site to Shopify, with its open layout, should handily increase sales.

• Cash Flow. Many ecommerce businesses get weighed down in inventory. Unless the inventory is evergreen (and fashion rarely is), it’s time to slash prices and move merchandise. We also looked at monthly costs related to websites, subscriptions and payment providers and compared these to current options. We managed to pare down her monthly output significantly by using many of the lower priced and often free services.

For example, there was a paid store app on the Second I Do’s Facebook page, so we switched from that to Auction Items from eSoftie, a free solution that allowed Julie to send her eBay items to a Facebook store. Setup was simple and took only a few minutes for the entire inventory to populate.

• Social Media Marketing. We went over the best practices that I lay out in my book Social Media Commerce For Dummies and gave her tips on how to better engage and build a community of customers.

Julie had a nominal presence on most of the social sites. Since social media seems to be everywhere these days, we examined the demographics and decided in which sites Julie would put the most effort – and agreed to focus only on those.  We also set up Google Alerts so she could monitor mentions of her brand and industry on the web and take best advantage of sales opportunities (as well as to derive content for sharing).

Setting up a social media plan can take a while and generally done after the ecommerce platforms are mostly complete. So it might be a while before Julie’s Twitter feed ramps up. I suggested Julie use Buffer to better organize the timing, so as not to send out tweets and posts in rapid fire fashion, leaving room for responding and connecting.

In the three months I worked with Julie, we covered more than I can possibly list here (I can’t give away all her secrets)! In doing so, I was reminded that mentoring is a two-way street; a partnership. When mentoring, you always gain a new point of view on many things. A recent post of Julie’s on Facebook signaled to me that we’d been successful:

“I have never been so busy working from home. Part of it is due to my mentor, Marsha Collier who has given me many “tools” I can use to become a better ecommerce business. Unfortunately, with the new tools comes time spent learning and utilizing them and when you are trying to sell to generate income, it can seem like these tools take away from your selling. I am learning that in order to be successful at selling, I need to have the proper foundation laid. Thanks, Marsha. I know next year my business will be positioned so much better for success!”

Thank you Julie. It was a great experience for me as well!

This article originally appeared on the Pitney Bowes blog

Advice on 5 Perils and 8 Complexities eCommerce Entrepreneurs Face Every Day

Consulting or mentoring a small business owner isn’t as easy as working with a large business. Most businesses with several employees have already assigned tasks and jobs to different people. An entrepreneur is working on one's own and you're wearing many hats. 

So just I started mentoring the winner of the Pitney Bowes Small Business mentorship contest Julie Wiley owner of I Do Bridal & Gifts. It made me remember just how many points a small business owner needs to touch; I guess I have come to take them for granted. Working with her reminds me of the many tasks that need to be covered on a daily basis. 

Being a soloprenuer requires an “in the trenches” education. Luckily there are lots of books (mine included) that will help you learn new and interesting business methods that may previously have been foreign to you. The learning experience is broad. For an ecommerce business, as an example, the entrepreneur wears all these hats: 

• Merchandise Buyer. Being on top of industry trends and being able to find merchandise (at the right price) for web sales.
• Bookkeeper. Even if the business has a bookkeeper, the owner needs to watch financial trends and prepare the numbers for consolidation by a professional.
• Legal Assistant. Every business needs to file for appropriate licenses and permits from the state and federal governments, plus keep track of DBA and required business filings for your city.
• Website maintenance. The website is a one-man operation. Entrepreneurs have a picture of what they want and how they want it to look on the web. Reviewing and applying ongoing updates are part of the job, as well as being cognizant of SEO and Google Analytics.
• Listing items for sale. Aside from the small business commerce website, items need to be listed on e commerce platforms to increase sales, build their brand and eventually build traffic back to their own website. Descriptions need to be well written to encourage a buyer to click the buy button.
• Photographer. If you’re selling items on the web, you’re going to need good images. This takes a certain amount of equipment - and experience. Snapping off pictures quickly just doesn’t work; there is a lot to keep in mind. Click here for best practices for taking photos for online selling
• Shipping Department. Shipping is often the most daunting task for a small business (it takes up a full chapter in my books). Learning the ins and outs and updates on regulations is of utmost importance. Many small businesses dilute their bottom line here, through inaccurate and expensive shipping decisions.
• Chief Marketing Officer. Being close to your business makes the entrepreneur the ultimate expert. Armed with that knowledge, you need to apply social media and promotional best practices to improve sales online. Tread the thin line between marketing and possible spamming.

The tasks above become part of the business’ daily routine. But following a routine over months and maybe years can cause an entrepreneur to get stale. We all often fall into habits that may end up hurting our sales efforts.  Here are five common pitfalls of which to be aware:

1. If sales start to lag don’t blame the platforms you are selling on right away. Be sure that you are updating your titles regularly using the most popular keywords that describe your item. Better descriptor keywords (just like SEO) can help you rank higher in the site’s search.
2. Signing up and selling on multiple ecommerce sites because your sales are lagging and you think expanding is a good idea. Take a look at your core listings and see what you can improve before abandoning ship for another shiny site, thereby further weakening your views.
3. Money can drain slowly, even at $5 a month; subscribing to (and paying for) multiple services that you don’t need or use is a waste. Unsubscribe!
4. Not checking the competition! Every time you list of relist an item online, be sure to search the platform (and other vendors on the web) to see what the going price is. If others are successfully selling an item that you are not, take a close look at their descriptions, pictures and pricing to see if you can’t be better.
5. Keep your listings fresh. Add additional photos to your item listings. The more those visitors can see, the more likely they are to click “buy.”

I have been selling online since 1996, and yes, I do get complacent. Much of what I’ve learned is from the ecommerce school of hard knocks. But after almost 20 years of selling online and researching for my books, I’ve got a strong grasp on what it takes to succeed. Keep learning and stay on top of trends, your ecommerce business will bring you a full time - or a side income, your choice.

Someone complained to me on Twitter about selling on eBay, you might find exchange amusing:

@cheryljnu It is only a second job when you are successful ;)
— Marsha Collier (@MarshaCollier) October 7, 2014

5 Tips for Mentor Relationships that Produce Positive Results

Certificates from the County of Los Angeles, California State Assembly, California Legislative Assembly and the City of Los Angeles for "Businessperson of the Year" and "Small Business of the Year"

When I started my business, there was no Internet - to speak of. That is, unless you could call CompuServe (a modified CB simulator chat service), the Internet. It wasn’t until the early 90s and AOL that we could send email. It was a dark, dismal, lonely time.

At the Los Angeles Daily News, I had developed what I called a “renegade revenue” department of the newspaper, the Special Projects Division. There, I could come up with ideas, present them to management along with a business plan. If it was approved, we could run with it. We did some really off the wall projects and were very profitable. I should have known right then that I was an entrepreneur, but the word never resonated with me.

The Tribune Company was forced to sell my employer due to FCC issues and I had to take my fate in my own hands. I had no close relatives who were business kingpins, so I had to search for someone I trusted. This mentor had to be someone who had no skin in the game, a neutral third party who could give me advice. Luckily, I knew of a c-level newspaper executive whom I had met at conferences that just moved to Southern California .

Tip #1: You never know where your mentors will come from or when you will meet them. When networking, always be at the top of your game.

I didn’t know if he would remember me, or even take my call. I called his new office. He did remember me and I explained my situation. He invited me to lunch to talk - I assumed it was because he didn’t know many people in his new city.

Tip #2: Find someone to mentor you who is not a self-proclaimed expert. Find someone who is (or was)  a success in your field and is respected by others in the industry.

We’ll call him Howard. Howard (surprisingly) knew a lot about the work I had been doing and had great advice. He asked me if I wanted to be ‘another small fish in a big ocean, or a big fish in a small pond.” Message received, I decided to strike out on my own.

My background in renegade marketing would pay off. I presented my ideas to several regional shopping centers and I got five big clients. Now all I had to do was start my business. I had no concept of how to start a business.

Tip #3: Get business structure help from licensed professionals; someone who doesn’t have a disclaimer at the bottom of their website.

I went to the EA (EA is an Enrolled Agent - someone licensed by the IRS as an authorized tax practitioner) who did my personal taxes for references. I walked away with her advice, the name of a good accountant and a lawyer. I also found out that I’d have to get a loan to bankroll my exploits.

Many long, lunches later, I had everything in order. My business was set up legally and I had fulfilled all government requirements. Today the Internet would make things much easier.

Tip #4. Finding good mentors, those you can trust and resonate with is not an easy task. Don’t attach to the first person you meet; find someone who “gets” you.

By the way, I did get that bank loan and paid it back. My business powered on and was featured in Entrepreneur Magazine. You can read the actual article here - which gives my 1986 "Formula for Success." I was so successful that, in 1990, my company was named Small Business of the Year by the California State Assembly.

Because I have never been one not to take notice of cultural trends, I researched and devoured books. As the world changed and my business progressed I went deep into the writings of by my favorite futurist, Faith Popcorn. The turning points for my business and career also came from the many mentors I worked with during my career, especially Clay Felker, founder of New York Magazine; advertising and marketing genius, Tom Culligan and the engaging Peter Glen, author and customer service advocate for whom the Retail Advertising & Marketing Association's annual Peter Glen Award is named.

Tip #5: On your way up, you may be lucky enough to meet people who become “the greats” of the future. Be sure you keep in touch with them.

My business has morphed in different directions over the years and I still look to those who succeeded for advice. The fact that they will still get on the phone humbles me.

Which brings me to the point of this post. Through a relationship with Pitney Bowes Small Business, they have invited me to be a part of their latest initiative the Pitney Bowes Smallbiz Mentorship Contest which starts today and runs through September 22, 2014.

Pitney Bowes is the perfect example of a business born through mentorship and partnership. Arthur Pitney needed a mentor when he worked as a clerk in a wallpaper store and invented a machine to imprint envelopes with postage. Luckily, he found Walter Bowes who sold a letter-cancelling machine to the Postal Service. Together, they invented the postage meter. 

You can win a customized, one-on-one mentorship with me or my colleague Brian Moran, a small business expert dedicated to helping small businesses owners run better businesses. I’ll work closely with you to help tackle the biggest obstacles you are experiencing, or ones that are keeping you from the success you imagined. We’ll  review your business plans together. Then, I’ll make some actionable recommendations, and follow through with you until the end of the contest period. Hopefully providing some useful guidance to help you ignite your business.

To enter and win a mentorship, all you need to do is "like" the Pitney Bowes Small Business Facebook page and post a comment of less than 200 words letting us know us why your company would benefit from a mentorship program. Then, tell your friends and co-workers to like your post. Every Like helps your chances. Visit this page for the complete (and official) Terms and Conditions.