Obviously, you can read over their profile and see what they are doing now, how long they have been there, where they have worked in the past, where they went to school, and what groups they belong to.

You can get their email address.

You can see who they are connected to, and you can see what connections you have in common.

Most people have links to their blog and website.

You can see how active they are on the site, whether they are connecting regularly with new people and posting updates.

If they have the apps enabled, you might be able to see what they are reading, what trips they have planned, what events they are attending, and what presentations they have uploaded to Slideshare.

That’s already a ridiculous amount of information.

If you want more, do quick searches in Updates and Answers.

Then go into a couple of their groups, find them in the Members section and look at their recent activity and discussions.

You will have a much richer picture of what interests and appeals to them, what they are trying to find out, what they are proud of, what is worrying them.  That’s information you can use to help them and connect with them at a deeper level.

What are your best tips for information gathering on LinkedIn?

The simplest way to start is to add the fields to your CRM, and input the information manually for each prospect. It usually only takes a couple minutes for each prospect.

But if you have hundreds or thousands of people in your contact database, those minutes add up. And you may not want your sales people taking the time to do this research. If that’s the case, hiring a virtual assistant or giving the project to an intern might be a good solution.

It’s important to note that getting links to social media profiles can be a little more complicated than you would expect. Some people are very easy to find. But none of the social media platforms have perfect search, and it can be surprisingly hard to get to the right person.

We’ve been doing this for clients, and here are some tips:

1. Start with LinkedIn’s search. A simple search will turn up the right person most of the time. If the person has a common name, use the advanced search to narrow your options by geography or company.
2. Go to the person’s website or blog. Many people have links to their social media profiles there.
3. If you have an email from the person, check their sig file. There may be a link to their profiles there.
4. Google them. You may turn up a website that has links to their social media profiles.
5. Use software to do the matching. IKO System (www.iko-system.com) and Fliptop (www.fliptop.com) will match your contacts to their social media profiles. Neither comes close to delivering a 100% match rate, but they can save you a lot of time.
6. Start using Bump (www.bu.mp) to import the social profiles directly into your phone – no keying needed!

Do you have tips for finding social media profiles? Please share them in the comments.

Tim Sanders is the most amazing person – I took notes all the way through the book. It is packed with great ideas.

I want to be a lovecat. (If you read the book, you know what that means.)

I’m going to start by sharing this book with you.

Here are some of my favorite takeaways:

1. The world is run on the combination of knowledge, networks, and compassion. Knowledge by itself isn’t sufficient. It only becomes valuable when you share it with your network.
2. Everyone needs to know something new, be connected to someone new, and get an affirmation that they are a good person.
3. The value of having you involved in a situation needs to be greater than the value without you – don’t be a value vampire – add value wherever you go.
4. The transparency brought about by social media means that being a good person matters.
5. Use your products as props and your services as a stage to deliver a compelling experience. Become the equivalent of a human theme park.

These are all themes that resonate very deeply with me – that we’re trying to put into practice as we build out our new products and services. You can get a sneak preview here. I’m very excited about what we’re doing and I’m looking forward to sharing it with you. Stay tuned…

Here’s what you say back…

How much time and effort do you spend keeping your contact data up-to-date?

How many opportunities do you lose each year because your contact’s email changed?

What if you had a permanent way to stay in touch with people?

Even better, what if you had a way to keep an eye on what was going on with your clients and prospects? If you got a heads-up when they received a promotion or changed jobs, if you knew what was worrying them or what they were excited about…

That’s what social media does for you.

First, you get permanent contact information. People change their email addresses constantly. But they don’t usually change their LinkedIn profile or Facebook page. If you are connected to them in social media, you are connected to them permanently.

Second, even if your contacts are not particularly active in social media, you can keep an eye on the big changes in their life. Most people will keep their job information fairly current on LinkedIn. You can set your alerts to let you know when their title or company changes.

If they are active in social media, then you can get a whole lot more information. You can see what groups they are involved in, what questions they are asking, who they are connected to. That gives you a lot of information about what their current issues are, what is motivating them, what is keeping them up at night. This is insight about your prospects and clients that you never had before. Or at least not without a whole lot of work.

If you are getting started with social media, here are two important next steps:

1. Start by connecting to all the people who are important to you on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Make sure you send invites to your clients, your partners, and your prospects.
2.  Add social media to your contact database. If your CRM doesn’t full support social media yet – and a lot of CRMs don’t – then use custom fields. Put LinkedIn URLs in one field, Facebook in another, Twitter in a third. If other platforms are useful to you, add them too.

What are your thoughts about having permanent connections with your clients, prospects and partners?

I tell them that they need to think about trade shows a little differently from the way they used to.

The main reason to attend a trade show is that you have the most influential people in the industry gathered together in the same place at the same time. You can meet a lot of people and gather a huge amount of information in just a couple days.

And no matter how useful the Internet is, you build a better relationship when you meet people face-to-face.

Here’s the system I use for getting the maximum value out of any trade show or conference…

Pre-show brainstorming

Sit down with your team about a month before the trade show and talk through what you want to accomplish:

1. Who do you want to meet?
2. What do you want to learn?
3. What do you want to test?

Let’s talk about each of those areas in a little more detail…

Who to meet… Prospects, customers and business partners, of course. But who else? Do a little brainstorming to come up with a list. Who would make a big difference to your business?

• Editors, bloggers, and industry analysts.
• Consultants and other influencers.
• Prospective employees.
• New business partners, for technology, distribution and outsourcing.

You can see who will be speaking at the event by looking at the sessions. You should also look over the list of exhibitors. Some shows provide lists of attendees too.

What to learn… I like to pay attention to the issues people are talking about at the conference – what are the hot problems people are trying to solve? If everyone is talking about a topic and you can frame your product as a way to address it, you can get more doors to open for you.

I also like to check out competitors – see what they are talking about, who is visiting their booth, what they are promoting, how they are selling. You might be able to get some hints about the future direction of their products.

This is a good opportunity to see what booths are attracting the most traffic – what are they doing that’s working so well? Do they have a fun giveaway? Have they launched a new product? What’s on their booth signs? Are they doing something in the booth to draw people in? You can get wonderful ideas from seeing what works for other companies.

Do you have technical issues or situations with clients? You might be able to pick up solutions for those.

What to test… At a show you have the opportunity to talk to a lot of people within a short period of time. This is a great place to see how people respond to a new marketing message or test different ways to describe a new feature.

Think about decisions you have been debating internally for some time. Here’s your chance to get feedback from real people so you can finally settle the issue.

If you want to do usability testing, a conference can be a great venue. You can do this informally, even in a hallway between sessions.

Design a plan

Once you know what you want to accomplish, look at the opportunities that you will have at the conference. Where can you encounter the people you want to meet, find the info, run your tests?

• Educational sessions (think in terms of both attendees and speakers)
• Exhibits
• Vendor events, hospitality suites (think about hosts and attendees)
• Birds of a feather and other networking events

If you have more than one person attending, decide who will do what. You’ll get much better results if you split up – even if you attend one or two of the same sessions, sit on opposite sides of the room so you can meet more people.

Plan to get together once a day so you can report back on what you found. This makes each person accountable – and it gives you a way to share your triumphs.

Do your research

Take the list of people you want to meet, and do a little research ahead of time. Glance at their website, subscribe to (or at least scan) their blog, follow them on Twitter and check out their tweets, maybe like their Facebook page.

This takes a little effort, but you will find out what they are currently interested in and it will be much easier to open a conversation.

If you’re on Twitter, find out the conference hash tag and make a few tweets before the conference.

If you don’t already have a Bump app, this might be the time to download one for your phone.

At the show

Work your plan but stay flexible. If an opportunity arises, take advantage of it.

At every session… Introduce yourself to 4-6 people. I usually meet the people on either side of me, in front of me and behind me. Even if you are naturally an introvert, remind yourself of the type of people you want to meet and make the effort to reach out. You will be amazed at the interesting people you will find. If you’re not sure what to say, ask them what they hope to get out of this session or why they are at the conference.

At the end of the session, make a point of going up and introducing yourself to at least one of the speakers. If you’re not sure what to say, just tell them you enjoyed the session. It’s even better if you can mention something specific they talked about that you agreed with or found useful.

Every time you are in line… At lunch, at a coffee break, at the Starbucks – introduce yourself to the person in front of you and the one behind you. Again, you will be surprised at the great people who are there.

Remember that conferences are one of the very best places to meet senior management. They are more open to being approached there than anywhere else. In fact, often one of their goals is to hear what regular people think. So take advantage of that!

Working a trade show like this takes a lot of energy, so make sure you take care of yourself. Eat right and try to get enough sleep so you can keep up your energy level.

Before you leave… Have a chat with the conference organizers. Tell them what you liked about the conference, and if you have ideas for making it better next year, share them. Remember that the organizers probably know every company that attended, and have the potential to connect you with most of the influential people who were there. It’s well worth getting to know them.

After the conference

Within a week after you get home, go through your stack of business cards and send connection requests on LinkedIn. Follow people on Twitter, consider friending them on Facebook or other platforms.

Subscribe to their newsletter or blog, and ask if it’s OK to subscribe them to yours.

Do whatever other follow-up actions items you promised to do.

When you attend a trade show using this strategy, I guarantee you will get 10x more out of it than if you just attend the sessions and work your booth. I’ve been doing it this way for years, and I always come back with great leads and amazing connections.

If you have tips for getting the most out of a show that you’d like to add to this list, post them in the comments.

A Life Dedicated to Nurturing

Jim Cecil, as most of you know, is the father of nurture marketing. He has been creating nurture marketing programs for 30 years now, and his blog posts are always insightful.

Nurture Marketing

Jim founded the Nurture Institute (now called Nurture Marketing) and also blogs here, along with other Nurture Marketing team members.

HubSpot Blog

It’s not a huge surprise that the HubSpot blog offers a lot of nurture marketing tips and strategies – their software is designed specifically to help companies do lead nurturing.

Silverpop Blog: Email.Marketing.Automation

Silverpop is another marketing automation vendor that devotes a lot of time to talking about lead nurturing. Check out the case studies and specific nurturing tactics.

Nurture’s Blog

Nurture is a new marketing automation tool for B2B marketers. The software is cool and the blog is all about building long-term trusted relationships.

Also worth checking out…

There are a lot of marketing automation vendor blogs that cover lead nurturing from time to time. It’s worth keeping on eye on all them:

Marketo

Eloqua

Pardot

And it’s worth reading the perspective of social media marketers and virtual assistants who blog from time to time about nurture marketing:

PlayBig Online Marketing

Judy Lorenz, BarJD Communications

DT Virtual Services

When you ask people for small favors – that they can easily do – you are helping them feel good about themselves. And then they also feel good about you.

I know, it sounds odd – ask for a favor and people will like you better – but that works.

So ask for favors!

Just make them extremely simple and painless to do.

It’s even better if you can ask a favor where helping you makes them look good too – where they can both help you and show their own knowledge and experience.

For example, if you ask for a suggestion for a restaurant in Boston, people get to show that they know Boston and have knowledge of the good restaurants there. That’s pretty cool!

If you ask for suggestions about whether to get an iPad or one of the newer tablets, people get to show that they have a lot of knowledge about the products.

So ask for advice.

You can look for business help:

• Vendors
• Tools
• Services
• Consultants
• Equipment
• Methodologies
• Techniques
• Coaches
• Seminars
• Training

You can also ask for personal recommendations and advice:

• Restaurants
• Shows
• Hotels
• Gadgets
• Tours
• Gyms
• Camps

If there are only a couple of choices, it can be fun to set up a poll and let people vote.

A couple tips… Only ask for one favor at a time, and keep it simple to do. Ideally it should be something they can do in a couple seconds – it shouldn’t require a lot of thought. You also don’t want to ask them to put themselves on the line in any way. It shouldn’t be risky.

But do ask regularly. People love to help, and if you make it easy you will find that you can grow your circle substantially. What are some ways you’ve asked people to help?

You don’t have to wait for big wins to do this – share the small triumphs too.

Talk about what a great response you are getting to your marketing or advertising.

Be excited about milestones as you achieve them. If you just landed your 40^th customer or exceeded your revenue target for the month or hired your first employee – yay!

Share quotes and testimonials. You don’t need to have formal quotes – simply forward nice things people say about you in social media.

Tell anecdotes about your customers’ successes. You don’t have to name the customer – you can say “a big hotel chain” or “a mom of two” or “a high-school track star.”

Talk about new partners, new deals, new customers, new hires. Introduce them if you (and they) are comfortable with that. If not, just say you hired someone or got 2 new customers.

Tell stories about how your business is expanding and growing. If you need more space, are joining a coworking group, need a bigger garage to store your merchandise, talk about it.

Thank people for referrals – always! Public thank-you’s are wonderful. They show your appreciation and validate for everyone else that you have people referring business to you.

How can you show that more and more people are buying your products and services, getting involved with you, and supporting you?

If you can show that other people – particularly people your prospects respect – have checked you out and decided to get involved with you, then it’s easier for them to make the same decision.

So find ways to let people see that you have important people in your network, great customers, talented people working with you, respected people who refer business to you.

On Facebook, make your featured likes people your prospects will recognize and respect.

Retweet what influential people say.

Comment on blog posts of influencers.

Interact with customers or partners (especially those who are well-known and respected).

Talk about employees and subcontractors – if they have impressive degrees, I’m sure you can find a way to work that into the conversation from time to time.

Mention your board, advisors or investors.

Talk about really good sessions at conferences or webinars you attended.

Quote people your prospects respect.

Be grateful for any honors or awards you receive (or are nominated for).

Think about who your prospects and customers respect, and look for ways you can show connections with those people.

How do you build credibility by showing that you are connected to people your prospects recognize and respect?

It’s a website all about things people will do for $5. You can search gigs – people who have posted what they will do for $5 – or submit your own requests, saying what you would like to have someone do for $5.

Of course there are lots of weird things, lots of useless things. But there is a lot of cool stuff there.

Here are 5 ways you can use Fiverr in your marketing…

Buy inexpensive gifts for clients

If you want to find low-cost gifts you can send by email to your clients, you can find an amazing array of options on Fiverr. For example:

-          Have your client’s name written in the sand of a New Zealand beach (I bet that becomes their new desktop background)

-          Have a poem written about your client

-          Get their photo turned into a cartoon (I bet that turns up on their mobile phone)

-          Have someone sing Happy Birthday to them in a video

Get better known throughout clients’ companies

When you want more people inside your client’s business to know about you, one way to do it is to have something unusual done with their business logo. For example:

-          Have someone put their logo on an umbrella and take a video of someone walking in the rain with that umbrella

-          Have a video of a parakeet walking across a page with their logo

-          Have someone do speed coloring of their logo

-          Have the logo put onto a picture of a pumpkin (like we did here)

-          Have a bunny eat the logo

-          Get the logo stenciled on the foam of a capuccino

Seriously, you can get all of those things on Fiverr right now for $5. And you just know those videos are going to get forwarded throughout the company.

Add funny videos to your YouTube channel or Facebook page

There are a fair number of people who are offering to do a video for $5, and a couple who are offering multiple videos for $5. You can do all of the same things listed above for clients for your own company instead – those are funny, quirky videos that will engage your visitors and get them to comment on your posts.

Get feedback on your website or blog

If you want a man-on-the-street opinion from someone you don’t know, want it fast, and don’t want to spend a lot, try Fiverr.

Buy opinions from 5 or 10 people and you’ll have some interesting feedback for a fraction of what it would cost any other way.

Buy Facebook fans

If you have just launched your Facebook page and you want it to look lived in right away, buy a couple hundred fans for $5.

They won’t interact with your posts or buy your products – all they do is like your page – but that’s enough to allow you to get a branded URL for your page (Facebook currently requires 25 likes before you can get that).

Check out the site – I’m sure you can come up with dozens more ways to use Fiverr to promote your business. If you’d like to share them, comment below.