Johnnie Firari

Archive for 2009

So you are in business and working hard to build on what you have accomplished. Great job!

Are you monitoring your competition? You could have a problem! Some forget that the smaller businesses, you know the place where most business owners start, are competition. We tend to measure ourselves next to businesses of the same size or bigger. The smaller companies are the ones to watch out for. They bring new thoughts and originality to your industry. They are smaller and can react faster. Think about your business and how much drive you had when you started out, is it the same? I would bet it isn’t.

Technorati Tags: Indiana, competition in business

So I have failed! I set a personal goal for myself to maintain and work diligently on my blog. No excuse is a good excuse but just maybe you would accept that I was working hard for customers? Anyways, I would love to hear how you might keep up with taking care of clients and practicing what you/I preach.

How I plan on keeping up with all that I do and updating my blog.

1. Write shorter post.
2. Start doing video post (You will see in 2010 some videos that are not the best quality but let me know what you think of the message).
3. Still a tough one for me at times but doing away with my “corporate mindset”.
4. In the words of @mattrouge: Just rock harder, bro!

Love to hear your advice or keep up, please share.
Technorati Tags: 2010, blog, Indiana,

Have no idea where the idea for this post came from or why I even made this note to myself to do a post on “Connect the dots”. I guess I need to make detailed notes, so I do not lose the original idea of the topic in the future.

So what does connecting the dots mean to me. Well I think about myself as a kid growing up and how connecting the dots prepare us for the future. This simple exercises forces you to move in the direction the creator setup for us. Connecting the dots teach you that if you want to create something, you have to have a starting point, a step by step plan, a vision, execution and a end result. Do you connect the dots the same as others? Have you looked at what the orginal creator created and see a different picture from the dots than everyone will see? I think it is easy to see how this relates to business. We all hear how important a business plan is. Your busienss plan is the starting point, creates your turn by turn road map and ultimately clarifies your vision. Of course you need to execute the business plan.

PROBLEM!! This post is really bad. I would like to open this up to anyone who could provide a better post on how “Connect the Dots” relates to business. Thanks for any help you can provide me and my readers. Please post below.
TKS

After a brief discussion with a newbie to networking, I thought I would share some of my networking tips online.

1. Listen to others!

2. Listen to others (very important)! Get your ears checked before networking.

3. Do not just throw your business card or hand your business card, unless the person ask for it. Make them ask for it.

4. If you are bored, you are probably boring.

5. Remember your 30 or 60 second elevator speech is not a sales pitch or presentation.

6. Listen to others and see how you can help (cannot say this enough, hopefully you got it).

7. Do not expect new business. Approach the event as a way to help the other people you have been listening to.

8. Build quality not quantity relationships.

9. It is a good idea to align yourself with others to help each other. Two, three, four or even five heads are better than one.

Do you have any good tips? Please share below…

Many times people go to a event with high expectations for a large turnout, only to see a smaller group than expected. Turnouts with the masses are not always a good thing. Sure you many have a ton of potential clients but it does no good if you are not listening and effectively communicating with the one or two people standing in front of you. Next time you go to a networking event and see a small crowd, be happy, take your time and focus on the person in front of you.

Big networking event turnouts are not wrong but they can be if you approach them wrong. Do not be the person telling everyone about your product or service and NOT listening to others.
Blog topic provided by John Cannon (My Car Doc).

Popularity in Social Media, does it equal income?

Of course your business having some popularity or even yourself should be a good thing. My question to the popular ones, is your income equal to your popularity?

Do not get me wrong, I recently did a post about setting goals for your Social Media platform and maybe their goals is not to create income from Social Media.

Side note:

My personal take on popularity is to focus on quality not quantity. Tough I know because so many feel they need to follow thousands and have thousands follow them on twitter. Those I follow on twitter definetly put out good content or help my business in some form. The ones following me, I can say most are great people but I know, I have some spammers who just followed me in hopes they would get the ever so polite, follow back. Consider me rude, sorry not happening.

Time and time again I hear business owners saying, they are trying to utilize Social Media to grow their business. The truth is a lot of these businesses have no clue on what they are doing and sometimes feel they are wasting time, energy and resources to Social Media, all while trying to measure a ROI.

The key word in the title of this post is “MANAGE”. It is so common to hear people stumble over their words and give me a duh look when I ask the question, “What are your goals for Social Media?”. Social Media is a platform that can help your business but you have to decide first how you want it to help. If you are in business, setting goals is a no-brainier for the everyday tasks and it seems most have forgotten to set their goals for Social Media. Once you have your goals set, you can now start to “MANAGE” how you will use Social Media.

Keep in mind your goals can vary from one business to the next. Keep your goals realistic, specific and measurable.

Disclaimer: I am not devaluing any ones presentation skills or why someone would hire them to present. Just a question I am pondering.

Their are over 784,000 people living in Indianapolis. So I wonder why companies pay for people from out of state, to fly in to give presentations on various subjects? Obviously this does not just happen in Indianapolis, companies pay for people from Indianapolis to fly and give presentations as well. I network and meet numerous people everyday and know there is so many awesome people living here. Many are very well established and some are on their way. With all the talent here, why would a company avoid the cost and pick an individual from the local area?

I completely understand the value of being in the flesh. We watch the Colts on T.V. but we love to actually go to the games. However when the Colts travel to another stadium, we do not follow them, we watch it on T.V.. I am a Bengals fan but I do not travel to see their game every week although I am sure, I would enjoy watching the game in person much more than on T.V.. So as an Indiana resident, I now go to Colt’s game and still get the same experience.

Is it the speakers are that talented or is it because they have created some tremendous fans? Ok, so lets say they have created a great fan base(I can respect that). With all of the technology why are some not utilizing it completely? Ok, so you feel your company must hear and see this person speak. Are they going to receive the message better if they can smell the person? Or could the same message be relayed by a local resident? Just wondering if I am missing something. Is there a lack of talent? Please someone feel me in.

Hi my name is ? Do you know ? Have you heard what happen to ?

How do you define your name. If you have not figured it out yet we are not talking about your actual name but the name that your business stands for. The more people in business I meet, the more I realize more than 70% of people in business know their name!

NETWORKING EVENT
How do you introduce yourself? I meet you at a networking meeting where people are all looking for new business. You introduce yourself as “Hi my name is John Doe and I do blah blah blah.”. How many people remember names? Not many, studies show most forget names. Next, you start off telling me what you do, do you even think I care? I understand you have to convey to me what you do, how else will I know if I can use your service. How are you going to earn my business? It will not be because you have a cool name (like mine Johnnie Firari). It is going to because of our relationship. If you start our relationship with a buyer, seller routine, do you think you are going to get my business. Start off our relationship with a natural even playing field. It might look something such as, “Hi my name is John Doe, how are things going? Do you know many people here? Then you may lead to talk about the weather or something you think we both can discuss. Leave business outside until I ask you what you do.” Doing something like this will allow us to build a relationship, once we have a relationship you are going to be more likely to get my business.

WEBSITE

Ok someone shows up on your website, do they see your name? What type of message are you sending? This is a no brainer but your website should reflect the proper message. Either you are serious about your business having a online presence or you are not. Come on do you think people are really going to buy something from your website if it looks like a 1996 website template that was done on a scrap budget? If they are not going to buy from your site, what is going to make them buy from you. Your website should reflect the image if your business. Get feedback from people you do not know, cause sometimes that template site you felt great about building, looks terrible and is not functional. Send me your link through the contact page and I will give you my honest opinion. If you can handle the truth!

FLIERS

You give me this flier, I am suppose to look at it and see what you do? Is this thing printed on cheap paper and missing your website address? Is the message the flier sending clear? Do not let your flier tell me you are cheap, unorganized and leave out important information. Design is a big plus. Colors, text, image texture and size are important for more than just visual reasons.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Make sure you relay your name properly within the social Media platform. For more information on Social Media I recommend reading my Social Media Blog. (click here)

It is tough to build a good name for your business. Make sure people want to get to know your name and come to like what your name stands for. Figure out what your name is and how to better market your name and your business will succeed.

What do your customers expect from you?

Do you provide great customer service?

Do you go the extra mile?

Do you do all the same things your competition does but better?

So do you have customers?

Things are good when you have customers but if you just have customers, you are doing something wrong. I know you are asking, what are you talking about? Let me explain. Start with just the definition of customer, it means one that buys goods or services. Ok, so I am sure you already knew this. When building your business your “customers” expect you to sell them a good or service. Yes if you meet their expectation they may hire or buy from you again. To succeed, you must create”FANS”. Fans are huge in business, the definition, a person who admires or is enthusiastic about someone or something. Fans want to see you do good and suceed. Think of how much Colts fans cheer for Payton Manning. They buy his jerseys, cheer every time he does something great on the field, fans become concerned if he is hit hard, etc.. I am sure you get the point. Rather in your business you have to turn your customers into your FANS. In doing this your fans will care about your business because they are your FAN!

You may already have some fans of your business and have not even noticed.

Do you have fans of your business? I would love to hear how you created your fans or some stories on how fans have helped your business.

UPDATE!

It has been brought to my attention by the owner of My Car Doc, John Cannon that there is a book about “Raving Fans”. He said it was a good ready and I plan on checking it out for my first time. Below is a link to the book if you want to give it a read.