Every year, Women in Consulting (WIC) conducts its compensation survey. And every year, we get rave reviews about how this survey helps consultants benchmark their individual practices against those of the most successful consultants. Not only do the results inspire participants to do something a little different to grow their businesses further, but local and industry news sources track the annual results as well.

This year, the economy is on everyone’s mind. Whether your business continues to expand in spite of — or because of — the economy, or you’re noticing a slowdown, or you’re moving at the same pace as last year, we’d like to hear about your experience. The survey closes on May 11, 2009.

Participate in the 8th Annual WIC Compensation Survey

Survey Details

The survey takes about 10 – 15 minutes to complete. To thank you for your time, all participants who complete the survey (whether or not they’re WIC members) will receive the survey results and be entered in a drawing to win one of five prizes: 

• A seat in any future WIC workshop or seminar (one winner)
• A set in a future WIC webinar (four winners)

The survey asks some detailed questions about your business, so have the following information handy for the May 2008 – April 2009 timeframe when starting the survey:

• Total revenue for the past 12 months
• Avery hourly rate (if applicable)
• Average retainer fee (if applicable)
• Average project fee (if applicable)
• Number of subcontractors used
• Total amount paid to subcontractors and/or employees

If you’re affiliated with WIC in anyway, the survey also asks a few questions to help us understand how WIC can help you with your business and how you rate the benefits of being part of WIC. We use this data to guide our decision making to ensure we’re doing the things that will provide the most support for our members and their businesses. (If you’re not affiliated with WIC, you’ll automatically skip these questions.)

We’ll present the results at the WIC members-only meeting on Thursday, June 18th. Nonmembers will receive the survey results after the survey closes, providing they submit an email address when completing the survey.

Please feel free to pass along this survey to any fellow consultant. The more people who complete the survey, the better results we all receive.

Thanks in advance for participating! We appreciate your time and value your input.

General Motors eliminated the Pontiac nameplate  this week. This set me to thinking about core versus non-core business. To eliminate an icon is a tough decision for any business at any time – when GM is clearly fighting for its survival in a shrunken U.S. auto industry, it had to be very difficult.  I grew up with a huge Pontiac Bonneville (with fins:^) and an even older Chieftain sedan as the family car in my childhood.

The exercise of pruning non-core business from our consulting practices is something we each need to do regularly. One of the reasons I love having my own business is this opportunity to regularly prune what isn’t working or what is no longer important to me. And to re-invent segments of my business as the market changes or my interests change. To experiment with things I haven’t done before and challenge myself is always a great learning experience and a chance to provide new value to my clients as their business needs change.

If I can help you on this path of pruning and re-invention, post a comment or send me a private email at Deb@BroadBandHR.com

Google has a relatively new tool that allows you to create a profile that may start appearing on page one of Google searches almost immediately. 

In fact, my profile appeared at the bottom of page one right after publishing. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter still appear at the top, as will your own site (hopefully!); but it’s another opportunity to increase your visibility and add all important links to your company site, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles, and any other relevant site.

Profiles are easy to create and can include:

• Your name and title
• Links to various websites (I included my company’s site, LinkedIn profile, and Twitter profile, as well as WIC’s website and blog.)
• A brief bio, including links
• Photos (I uploaded images of some of my customer solution snap shots. NOTE: the photos have to reside on Picasa, Flickr, or other photo-sharing site and must be publicly viewable. I didn’t have any such account, but it only took a few minutes to create a Flickr account and upload the photos.)

Create your own Google profile now

Checkout my Google profile as an example

Ann Handley, editor in chief of MarketingProfs (a WIC partner) posted an article on Mashable about a Twitter survey conducted by MarketingProfs. It’s worth the read, but then again, I’m biased. It was nice to see I’m not the only one who:

• Doesn’t follow everyone who follows me, and doesn’t expect everyone I follow to return the favor 
• Doesn’t think large twitter followings = greater intelligence, expertise, or respect
• Isn’t bothered if nobody responds to my tweets (but I do enjoy reading every response and engaging in dialogue–it’s just not every post warrants a response)
• Loves the information sharing that happens on Twitter

Read “Inside the Minds of Twitter Users“

I tend to stay away from self-promoting on blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc. It’s just not my thing — probably because I really dislike hard sells. And as a board member of Women in Consulting (WIC), responsible for its marketing & PR no less, writing a piece on “why I love WIC” is considered self-promotion. However, in this instance, I just can’t help myself; and WIC’s latest monthly meeting is the reason.

In this one meeting, I was reminded of the many reasons why WIC is so important to me as a consultant, both personally and professionally.

• Collaborative environment and rich information sharing: collaboration is the chief quality that truly sets WIC apart from other organizations. I’ve not met one person who isn’t willing to share best practices, insights, resources, and more. All you have to do is ask, and you’ll have an amazing number of members responding immediately.
• Amazing connections and friendships, and an unbelievable support system: I never cease to be amazed at the brain power and talent that make up WIC. As a WIC member, you have access to some of the best minds in the Bay Area. WIC’s collaborative-not-competitive environment also fosters close relationships, resulting in some wonderful friendships. The business life of a consultant can often be solitary; but with WIC, it doesn’t feel that way at all. No matter the business challenge, I know I can call any number of my WIC friends/colleagues for advice. They not only listen willingly, they offer spot-on advice. They also happily celebrate my successes.
• Numerous learning opportunities: whether it’s a table discussion at a WIC meeting, a guest speaker, an email exchange on the WIC Community List, an article or blog post by a WIC member, or some other WIC communication exchange, I learn something.
• Business opportunities: I can attribute at least 75% of my business over the past two years to my involvement with WIC, and another 15% to following the best practices advocated in meetings. One of the reasons I get so much out of WIC is because I’m involved. I’ve been a member since 2002 and started volunteering in 2004. Participating in the organization has been an amazing business booster. My WIC colleagues provide me with invaluable advice, and they also are a great source of business — either hiring me on their engagements or referring me to clients. Even at Thursday’s meeting, two different people whom I hadn’t met previously recognized my name because someone had referred them to me for a project.
• Inspiration: I always leave a meeting feeling jazzed and excited; and it’s because of the energy that fills the room. People care. They listen. They share. You hear their latest triumphs and business plans and you leave energized to do more. And this happens even when the economy isn’t doing well. It did this past meeting.
• Great meeting topics: no matter the topic, I typically walk away with at least one usable tip or strategy. For example, April’s meeting on “Attract new Clients and Increase Revenue Now!” I learned some tips for positioning the initial evaluations I do for clients, whether or not I choose to charge for the evaluation — a topic that was much debated at the meeting. Even if a topic is way off base from your philosophy or interests, chances are you can still find something of value. I always do. It’s just a matter of perspective.
• Delicious food: the mushroom ravioli at Quadrus is beyond yummy, as was the other food. So often food at networking events is at best tolerable. Not so here.

These are just a few of the reasons I love WIC, and the ones that presented themselves at last Thursday’s meeting. If you’re a consultant or small business owner, you really should check WIC out, read about exclusive member discounts, attend a meeting, or even sign up as an affiliate on the WIC Community Email List – where you’ll see information sharing on steroids among some of the best consulting minds in the Bay Area (and beyond, for that matter).

If you’ve read my previous recap/intro to Twitter, and I’ve got your attention — read on, this post will help you quickly get up to speed.

UI design of social media tools is a point of hot contention. Both Twitter and Facebook have been heavily criticized for the lack of clarity and consistency in their applications. Facebook recently embarked on a redesign that generated a firestorm of negative feedback from loyal users, and Twitter — in addition to have bandwidth issues that can cause the site to crash and leave those only using the twitter.com UI stranded — is notorious for having a confusing, ever-changing UI that has generated a plethora of other tweeting tools that many prefer to the actual Twitter site. The author includes herself in that latter group, btw.

What I find so interesting and fascinating is that these companies could have such serious UI/design issues and yet see exponential growth and popularity. What that says to me is: they are definitely on to something and social media is most likely here to stay. It may morph in the months and years to come, but I don’t think we’re going to see it die any time soon. Just today, Oprah signed up for her Twitter account. If that isn’t an indication of where Twitter is going, I don’t know what is.

So… while these apps were supposedly designed to be low-calorie and user-friendly, they can be confusing. Reading up on a few tips and tutorials before you jump in can get you tweeting better and faster without the frustration that sometimes leaves people scratching their heads over the Twitter/social media phenomenon. Following is what I’ve learned in my own Twitter experience in the last week or so, plus tips I’ve picked up from other Twitter users. I’ll cap this post off with the Mother of All Twitter Tutorials that Nancy Friedman kindly tweeted to me a few days back.

Twitter Tips and Tutorials

I’ve got my Twitter account, now what do I do? There are a number of basic features that you should immediately set up to give yourself (or your company) a good Twitter presence. Once you’ve created your account, hop over to ‘Settings’ and do the following:

1/ Add your name or company name to your profile. This is one of the first things users will see under your profile, so you want it to be correct. You may need to decide whether you are going to be tweeting under personal or company name. In my case, I opted to do a hybrid, using my company name in my twitter handle (elevatainc) and my personal name (Rachel Cary) in the ‘Name’ field.

2/ Add your twitter handle under ‘Username’. Correct me if I’m wrong, someone, but I believe that this field is auto-populated once you set up your Twitter account. From what I know of databases, it would certainly make sense to have it so.

3/ Add or change your email address. I think this field is also auto-populated but it can be changed/updated. Caution when updating email addresses: I initially set up several ‘elevata’ accounts and inadvertently got the email addresses mixed up. It took Twitter a while to get that sorted out. If possible, decide what info you’re going to use before sign-up and then stick with it.

4/ Time Zone: self-explanatory.

5/ Add your web or blog site url. Bet you wish you had that web site live now, huh? [wink] Consider this more incentive to get serious with your online presence.

6/ Add your bio. Note: here’s an area where the Twitter UI is confusing. If you enter 160 characters as instructed, your info will be cut off after around the 100th character or so. Keep it under 100 and everyone will see it. Also, very important: make this bio keyword rich. It will be used to find you in the future under Twitter searches.

7/ Add your location: self-explanatory.

8/ Choose your language (defaults to English.)

9/ Save your work and bam!, you’re already several steps ahead.

10/ Oops — don’t forget to add your picture or company logo/icon. Jump over to ‘Picture’ and upload an image under 700k (jpg, gif, png formats only) and Twitter will do the rest for you.

11/ Click ‘Save’ again and now you’re cookin’ with gasoline, as they say.

When I first started with Twitter, I thought it might be fun to brand my Twitter profile. It’s relatively easy to do and Twitter gives you 12 background images that you can use or play with using their color picker tools. You can also upload your own background image. Keep in mind it will need to tile and should be under 800k.

Since I quickly learned that I much preferred other Twitter apps to the Twitter UI, I decided to forgo this route. But if you want to have some fun with design and color, or you actually prefer the Twitter UI, then you should check on the ‘Design’ tab and play with the tools they have there. Pretty user friendly and the color picker tool in particular is a great idea as it allows you to create variations on the 12 design themes they provide.

If you’re really into decking out your Twitter profile, you might want to check out PimpMyTwitter for some low cost, custom design.

Okay, I’ve set up profile… now what? Now you need to find people you’re interested in following. Don’t be as concerned with who is following you to start. That will come in time. Often, those who you’ve chosen to follow will follow you back, particularly if you share similar interests.

You can start by using the ‘Find People’ feature on the Twitter site to look for names of people you know, or people you’d like to know and follow. Once you’ve exhausted that, use the Twitter Search tool to search for people again. You can also use Twitter Search to search for terms, such as ‘marketing manager’. You might be amazed to see who is on Twitter. More people/companies are joining every day, and you might just find that C-level executive and get some great insight into what they’re thinking and doing, as well as the opportunity to make contact.

Twellow is another fairly robust Twitter search tool that allows you to search by name or topic. You won’t be found on Twellow unless you sign up with them, but you search to your heart’s content without signing up.

Got my profile, got my following… what do I tweet about? This is the crucial element of Twitter and where many users find themselves doing a ‘huh?’ There’s already a lot of bad tweeting out there, so learn to Tweet the right way before picking up bad habits. If you’re thinking ‘but nobody cares what I had for lunch…’, um, you’re right, they don’t. So don’t break that rule. In general, you should keep tweets short, sweet and honest. Don’t toot your own horn too much, although calling attention to significant updates/accomplishments is okay. Remember that Twitter is more immediate and more permanent than The Internets. Avoid profanity and nothing confidential, of course. Also annoying: tweeting one-on-one conversations that should be left to Direct Messaging or IMs. There are more tips on how to tweet well in the WebDesign Depot link referenced at the top and bottom of this post.

I’ll post next on Twitter Apps. Personally, I’ve already switched to using TweetDeck for my tweeting and I highly recommend. But there are others, as well as other apps that you can use to enhance your Twitter experience. If you’re already a Twitter junkie and need a fix, be sure to check out the following wonderful post on Twitter. Chock full of Twitter info, including a glossary of terms and an extensive list of Twitter apps to check out: Webdesigner Depot’s Ultimate Guide for Everything Twitter. Oh, and if you’ve got any great Twitter nuggets to share, please leave a comment or tweet me: elevatainc.

I love Mack Collier’s “Social Media Ain’t About One-Night Stands, It’s About Relationships” post on The Viral Garden. It’s short and sweet, with a couple of good examples to underscore his point. I love it, though, because of the key point he drives home: social media is about communicating.

As many of you may notice, communication is a common theme in my posts. I love communication (studied it in school, actually), and doing it effectively is the key ingredient to business success — and doing it effectively all starts with knowing your audience and really listening to them.

A few key points from Mack’s post:

• Social media isn’t about generating buzz, it’s about connecting. It isn’t about campaigns, it’s about movements. “What to use Twitter as a way to generate buzz for your product launch? Fine. Now what’s your plan for leveraging that buzz and using Twitter as a channel to connect with your customers that are now paying attention to you?
• Social media tools are just tools. “Many companies miss the mark when it comes to implementing social media because they focus too heavily on the tools as opposed to the communication and potential relationships that are enabled by them.

Marketing Vox summarizes a social media study by Michael Stelnzer that set out to understand how and why marketers are using social media to grow and promote their businesses. The study found that Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn, and Facebook — in that order — are the top four social media tools used by marketers.

Given that the study (”How Marketers Are Using Social Media to Grow Their Businesses” PDF) “began with a Twitter post, which was then re-posted by users onto Facebook and blogs,” it’s not surprising that Twitter placed high (approximately 2,500 marketers were sent an email asking them to take the survey as well). 

Other stats about the survey:

• Survey closed after 10 days with 880 respondents participating
• 70% of the participants were small business owners
• 26% of the participants were employees working at a company
• 78.1% of the participants were between 30 – 59 years of age
• 56% of the participants were female, and 44% of them were male

Read “Marketers’ Top Social Media: Twitter, Blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook“

This is the second part of my recap of the EBWIBR Social Media Luncheon that I attended on Friday, April 3rd. I learned quite a bit in the two presentations given by Nancy Friedman of WordWorking and Kelly Parkinson of Copylicious. It was obvious both presenters had far more to say about Twitter and LinkedIn than we had time for, and I look forward to hearing these women speak in the future about Social Media. In the meantime, here’s a recap of Kelly’s presentation which focused on using one of LinkedIn’s powerful networking tools: InMails.

If you’re like me, you’ve set up your LinkedIn profile and you’ve got a nice set of contacts. Perhaps you’ve sent out recommendation requests and got those set up as well. Maybe you’ve joined a few LI groups. And then you let your account sit there. What a lot of people either don’t realize or aren’t taking advantage of is that LinkedIn can be a great social media tool as well.

Let’s talk results first: when Kelly tried InMail (initially as sort of an ‘experiment’, and not expecting huge results), she had a 41% response rate and 6 new clients. If that doesn’t make you sit up and take notice in this economy, I don’t know what will. I should note that I would like to know how many InMails Kelly sent because while that’s a great response, InMails do cost money. (And Kelly if you read this, please comment if you can.) But as the saying goes, sometimes you’ve got to spend a little money to make a little money.

What is InMail? InMails are a proprietary LinkedIn networking tool. It is a paid service and may seem pricey at first: $10 a pop. However, there’s an enticing aspect to this and for some, a significant upside: no cold calling. Now, if you’ve been in business for a while, you probably don’t do a lot of cold calling, or only as your last resort. But if you are new to the game (as Kelly was at the time), or in a, ahem, down economy, you might find it necessary to pick up that telephone. Before you break out in a cold sweat and do that however, consider InMails. Quick, easy, non-invasive and here’s a bonus: if they’re not opened, you get a 100% refund on the InMail and you can use it to send to someone else. You only pay for what actually gets opened. For me, that softens the blow of the $10 price tag a bit.

Also, keep in mind that you won’t be blasting to hundreds of people at a time. One of the myths about using LinkedIn that Kelly pointed out is that being a ‘power user’ is not necessarily the best way to go about it. Are you really going to have any meaningful contact or interchange with 8000 connections? Chances are more likely that if you cultivate a smaller but highly relevant set of contacts and selectively add to them when doing InMails, you’re chances of making contacts that actually go somewhere are much higher.

How do I use InMails? If you don’t have a LinkedIn account, you’ll need to get that first. And honestly, if you’re just getting started on LI, you’ll probably want to explore the basic features before you jump into InMails. But in the event you’re ready to jump in, or have been on LI for a while now, sending InMails is not rocket science. Basically you would want to do a keyword search on LinkedIn to find the people you’d like to contact. In Kelly’s case, she use ‘marketing manager cleantech’ as this was where she wanted to focus her work. Hint: as in any marketing outreach program, targeted InMails will probably get you a much higher response rate. Use the very user-friendly LinkedIn UI to set up the emails, compose your message and hit ‘Send.’ Easy as that.

What should I say in my InMail? Keep it short and suggest a brief initial contact: ‘Let’s talk for 15 minutes on x/x/2009, etc.’ Nobody likes to be sold heavily on the phone, or even in person, right? Bless your email outreaches with the same brevity and you’re more likely to get a response.

Another great tip from Kelly: as you’re going to send your InMails (and I think this works for almost any outreach marketing you do) remember that you are the expert and they need you. Approach this kind of outreach with the attitude of ‘why, of course you want to hear from me, because I can really help you.’ This takes the pressure off of ‘making that sale’ and comes from a more honest, non-aggressive and, I believe, successful position than what we sometimes are taught as ‘good’ sales techniques.

I haven’t tried InMails yet, but I intend to do so in the future. I’ll report back here with what success I have, if any, and I hope to hear from any of you out there on The Internets who have also tried InMails and what your experience has been.

In future posts, I’ll be exploring other networking features of LinkedIn and how to really work your profile. For now, I’ll be focusing on Twitter though as I’ve only begun to scratch the surface there.

Nice little post by Joel Postman at Socialized PR offers seven rules for establishing a corporate presence on Twitter:

• Create a Twitter profile that helps people verify your legitimacy
• Let consumers know who they’re talking to
• Empower your Twitter representative to make a difference
• Protect consumer information
• Include your social media affiliations on your corporate website news page
• Be human, and have a sense of humor
• Turn control over to “regular” employees

I like Joel’s style. He admits there are other rules that he’s not covering, that these are just the ones he feels most strongly about, and welcomes suggestions from others. He also provides examples of companies he thinks are doing it right. They are, for the most part, the ones we hear about often; but I think it’s good to repeat the better examples, given that Twitter is still new for so many people/companies.

There are two other guidelines (I prefer guideline vs. rule) that I’d add to Joel’s list:

• Use Twitter to communicate not to sell
• Be authentic

Yes, there are definitely more guidelines that we could add to the list, but “communicating not selling” is really big in my book. Most people don’t like a hard sell, and they dislike it even more in the social media realm.  (Yes, I’m someone who is turned off by hard-selling, so I’m biased. It really annoys me, especially on Twitter.) That said, if you disguise your selling as communicating, people will figure it out and not like it and be even more annoyed. Hence, I included being authentic as a top guideline.

Yes, businesses on Twitter and other communities ultimately want to improve their bottom lines. Customers/clients understand this, but followers would rather companies do it by delivering good customer service, sharing useful information, and providing other similar customer-oriented Tweets. After all, that’s that what good business is really about — the customer.

So be good at what you do. Be customer oriented. And be authentic. And carry all of these components into Twitter (and other social media endeavors for that matter). If you do, your odds for success will be a lot higher — which leads to another guideline: know your goal(s) before you establish your presence (okay, so it really was “Plus Three)

Read “Seven Rules for Establishing a Corporate Presence on Twitter“