The Art Of Listening

Vani Kola Influencer

Managing Director at Kalaari

“The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard”

We must have all played this game at some point. Maybe, when we were children. Or maybe, as adults. Everyone, at some point, has taken part in ‘team-building’ exercises or activities in a corporate training workshop. One such exercise involves passing a message along a line of people all the way to the end and then seeing how the original message changes as it moves from receiver to receiver. It’s an amusing and interesting game. It’s intriguing because more often than not, the last person gets an almost entirely different version of the original message! Such a simple game, which highlights the importance of communication and active listening.

As children, speaking is one of the first skills we develop — a developmental milestone that is usually the cause of great celebration. But there doesn’t seem to be a developmental milestone for listening. We are taught to speak, but we aren’t taught to listen. We learn how to debate and make a speech, but we aren’t taught how to listen to that debate or speech. But listening is just as important a skill and one that just gets lost in the hubris of life. To me, listening is the biggest gift you can give anyone — a precious act of sharing our time solely for the understanding of another. When you think that way, listening becomes an exploration, a journey into the tangled web of relationship-building, and its true gift is selflessness.

So, that brings me to these questions:

When was the last time you were truly listened to? How did that make you feel? Or when was the last time you truly listened to another?

For most of us, I am guessing the answer may be “not often enough.” Despite knowing the importance of listening, we somehow overlook its importance as we move through the schedule of our busy days. Yet because it’s in listening that the richness of communication gathers its strength, this should be a daily priority.

Aspects of listening

There are two aspects of listening: The one who is listening and the one who is speaking.

Both aspects are critical. It’s like a finely choreographed dance, an involved exchange of thoughts and ideas that enrich each conversation.

When we want someone to listen, we might have already made up our mind on a topic, but we want to reaffirm this from the other’s perspective. Sometimes, we keep regurgitating the same point because we can’t come to an answer and we hope the listening person might provide us with a direction. Evaluating what the speaker wants from us is important to be a good listener.

At times, we want someone to affirm what we are doing or acknowledge what we feel. We want someone to respect and embrace our thoughts. Often, all we want is to be validated.

A listener’s role gets compromised by their emotions. As a listener, you might mentally turn off when we don’t agree. Our emotions become filters that block our ability to have a dialog or give a thoughtful or measured response. Then it most definitely stops being a conversation or helpful to the speaker. It merely becomes a tug of opinions! The act of listening just deteriorates to the act of making one’s point.

So, how can we be heard? As a speaker, what can we do? Likewise, as a listener, how can we be effective? How can we offer the gift of listening?

When we consider the edginess of living, of balancing our thoughts and opinions and our desire to express them, we immediately understand the many complex layers to listening.

Our life is defined by a mesh of four key areas: Family, professional or work, friends or our social network, and our interactions with strangers. We move around in these circles in a constant interplay of conversation, and listening is at the heart of all these conversations, connecting us through all these relations.

Now, picture in your mind a famous, exceptional leader. Almost immediately, one of the first images that may come up is of that leader in the context of talking, of giving an inspirational speech, perhaps. A wonderful leader is one who communicates well not just through speech but through the powerful act of listening as well.

The best leaders are strategic and intuitive listeners.

One of the facets of Nelson Mandela’s leadership was his ability and willingness to listen. The South African rugby team, popularly known as the Springboks, recently won the World Cup, drawing frenzied celebrations across the nation.

But rewind the tape a little. It was back in 1995 that Mandela delivered what was one of the most symbolic and inspirational gestures in modern history when he wore a green Springbok shirt to meet and greet the mostly all-white rugby team. In one stroke, he laid the seeds of unifying a nation that had been torn by apartheid and deep fissures of hate. He listened to the heartbeat of his country and defied tradition to carve a new path for South Africa. A powerful example of listening leadership in action.

That kind of listening can be replicated in the corporate world too. In the organizational setup, great leaders are always learning to listen. They listen to their customers, competitors, peers, critics, and subordinates. They ask questions and elicit feedback.

Learning to listen better

We all can’t become better listeners overnight, but we can take small steps toward achieving that goal. The ability to listen doesn’t depend on intelligence. But to be good listeners, we can apply certain skills acquired through training or experience. Some small resolutions that we can immediately implement:

Give undivided attention: It’s tempting to multi-task, but authentic listening is an act of concentrated focus. Put away the smartphone or the laptop and give the other person your complete attention, at least for the allocated time. For any meetings, I rarely take my phone. Whether it is 15 min or 50 min, once I have agreed to the meeting, that person deserves my undivided time.

Be a trampoline: Good listening is about absorbing with intent what the other person is saying, but it doesn’t stop at that. It involves providing the speaker with a new perspective — a good listener is like a trampoline, always directing the energy of the conversation forward.

Listen to listen and not respond: Sometimes, listening just becomes a reactive activity. We think of our response even while the person is talking! But listening becomes an inherently more compassionate action if we pause and choose to respond, putting ourselves in that person’s place instead of reacting. This kind of listening validates people, connects us to them, and provides meaning.

These are small steps, but with practice, we can build lasting connections that bind us to the people we meet at work or in our personal life.

True listening, at its core, is about using our heart and empathy in ways that also connect us with our self.

The art of listening may be floundering in these days of reducing attention spans. But this is a precious life skill that needs to be honed because it’s the one skill that can help us treasure the finite time and relationships we have, be it professional or personal.

Let me know how you listen and how you make yourself heard.

What Is Digital Marketing - And Why Should I Care?

Posted by Scott Lambert 

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing is an essential form of educating the world about your products or services. It’s also one of the most misunderstood forms of marketing. Let’s take a look at what it is and why it should matter to your organization.

Why Digital Marketing Is Important

Digital marketing incorporates all methods of reaching your audience using the internet. Businesses who use it well reach customers through numerous channels including social media, search engines, and their websites.

Nearly all of your customers have a smartphone in hand. Utilize that as a tool to reach them as well because your customer expects you to be connected to them and to make connections easy.

Salesforce released a study called “State of the Connected Customer” that sheds light on why digital marketing is so valuable today. They found that 69% of buyers expect an Amazon-like experience when buying, yet only 27% of the businesses’ buying experiences actually meet their expectations.

The report also demonstrates the value in digital marketing. It found that 67% of buyers prefer to purchase through digital channels and 68% of buyers want companies to have cutting-edge digital experiences to keep their business.

Here’s another example of the current market. HubSpot reports that just 29% of people want to talk to a salesperson to learn about a product before making a purchase. Yet, 62% of customers use a search engine to gather insight before making that purchase.

Are you putting all of your efforts into the 29% of customers that will turn to that sales professional?

If so, it’s costing you.

Sellers no longer control the sales process. Rather, the buyer controls the entire process, from their willingness to research a product to the engagement they show within digital channels. And their research is done through digital channels, making your digital presence even more important than ever.

What Is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing focuses on putting your business in front of customers where they are online. You know most adults have access to the internet through their smartphone throughout the day. Digital marketing is the method of advertising your business so it’s always accessible to these would-be customers. 

Any type of marketing a company does online falls under digital marketing. Use of new media or digital technology to achieve your business objectives is a form of digital marketing.

Everything from mobile technology, computers, social media, and even digital billboards fall under this type of marketing. These tools, including digital marketing software, help marketers to create, distribute, and then track their marketing efforts on all digital platforms used.

There are Two Key Distinguishing Forms of Digital Marketing:

Outbound Digital Marketing

In outbound digital marketing, the brand advertiser is pushing out a message to a target audience, usually one with a clearly-defined target buyer and with a very specific objective.

The use of a visual display banner, pay-per-click ads, or videos that are shown numerous times can help people to recognize the brand, for example, in the “drive product recall” method.

With outbound marketing, you have a defined message and audience. Then you push that message out to your audience using digital means.

The goal is to get the attention of your audience.

Inbound Digital Marketing

With inbound marketing, the brand advertiser is pulling in the audience to their content, service, or the brand in general.

You want to attract people to your product or service. This encourages those individuals to then engage with your company. Companies may use blogs, email subscriptions, word of mouth advertising, and search engines to bring people in.

Online reviews are also powerful for inbound marketing.

Once individuals reach your brand, you want to turn them into customers. Being creative when drawing people into your brand is critical because it is your chance to attract an audience who perceives your services or content as valuable to them.

By providing the information that your potential customers are looking for as they do their research helps create an atmosphere that makes them want to work with you.

Digital Marketing Channels

Digital marketing channels are the avenues with which you’ll communicate with your audience and the tools you’ll use to reach them. Your digital channels include anything you use online to reach your customers such as:

• Social media websites including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat
• Search engine optimization
• Websites
• Content marketing channels such as infographics and eBooks
• Pay-per-click, or PPC, advertising using tools such as Google Ads as well as paid ads on Facebook, Promoted Tweets on Twitter, and Sponsored Messages on LinkedIn
• Marketing automation which is done through email newsletters, social media post scheduling, and campaign tracking and reporting
• Affiliate marketing such as hosting video ads through the YouTube Partner Program or posting affiliate links on your accounts

 

The Buyer's Journey in Digital Marketing

How will your customers learn about your product or service and interact with you?

Creating a buyer's journey is done based on research and it’s rooted in your inbound methodology.

Inbound marketing is how you attract your highly-qualified audience by providing them with the tools and content they need to make decisions.

The Different Stages of the Buyers Journey

Here’s a breakdown of how the buyer’s journey is likely to occur and what steps you should implement at each stage to achieve success.

Awareness Stage:

• Consumer/Buyer: The consumers become aware of a problem they want to solve in their life and perceive your product as a potential solution.
• Business Supplier: Focus on creating visibility and recognition.

Interest Stage:

• Consumer/Buyer: The moment when consumers are looking for options that will help solve their problem. They have a selection of ideas in mind but need more information and experience to make a decision.
• Business Supplier: Increase emotional engagement through reviews, blog articles, social media, and ad product websites.

Consideration Stage: 

• Consumer/Buyer: The moment when consumers know about your brand and think it might be a good fit for their needs or what they are trying to achieve. Your company is one of their options.
• Business Supplier: Bring your company to the forefront of their choice by inbound strategies through search and social media.

Conversion Stage:

• Consumer/Buyer: The moment when consumers are ready to buy your product or take action on your website. They have done their research and decided on the best product for their solution.
• Business Supplier: Create a point of contact to drive conversions to a sale. Typically achieved with targeting and re-targeting, promotional offers, and creating a sense of urgency.

Retention Stage:

• Consumer/Buyer: Key stage for ensuring reoccurring revenue and creating a group of brand advocates.
• Business Supplier: Critical to providing value and a real relationship. Create a desire for your customer to continue to come back to your product to keep them satisfied.
  

Aligning the Buyer's Journey with Digital Marketing Channels

The key is to bring together the proper channel with the stages your potential buyers are in right now. Here are a few key breakdowns to consider.

Awareness and Interest Stages

In these stages, customers are slowly becoming aware of their problem and looking for solutions. It’s essential to provide them with the answer to their questions. Here, your decisions are driven by your content’s relationship with the question or need the buyers have.

Your content must be engaging, interesting, and designed to provide them value. Ultimately, you need to provide the solution to their problem.

How can you do this? By doing the following:

Content

Content works to grab the customers’ attention and then encourages them to learn more or to research what you have to offer to them. It’s critical to get your content right. It’s the biggest priority you have within your inbound strategy and will be the most important component of every effort and campaign you run.

Display and Video Advertising

Another component in these stages should be video advertising. These should be based on your developed outbound strategy or the way you’ll push your message out to your potential audience.

The goal here is to build awareness and consideration for your brand. To do this, you’ll need to use audiovisuals and banners – any type of visual format – across the channels where your likely audience is across the web.

Social Media Marketing

In these initial stages, social media is a very important component as it allows you to begin to build a relationship with your audience. The goal is to create a connection – make them want to learn more about you and your product or service.

Social media also allows your brand to remain in the back of their mind. To do this, you’ll need to be active with social media outreach.

Success comes from not just using social media but also making it easy for your audience to reach you or to ask a question. It also should give them an avenue to provide feedback to you.

Consideration and Conversion Stages

In these stages, your potential customers are more zeroed in on your product and brand. You want your potential customers to begin to associate their problem’s solution with your brand.

You’ll need to build a strong association with your potential customers to encourage them to keep learning and engaging with your company.

To do that, you’ll need to focus on the following:

Search Engine Optimization

It’s important to recognize search engine optimization (SEO) as more than just a website-building component. It should be built into every piece of content and campaign you launch.

SEO is best for discovery and researching on search engines. Your goal is to ensure your potential customers can find you when they search for a solution to their problem.

Paid Search

Paid search puts your brand in front of your potential customers sooner. While it costs a bit of money, it is also one of the more valuable tools you have when it comes to conversions.

This is because paid search will position your ads in front of those people looking for what you can offer, which in turn leads to better conversions and more sales.

Retention Stage

In this stage, there’s a consistent customer experience. Your goal is to create a sense of intimacy with your customer. This involves building a strong customer experience, reaching out to them, following up with them after their purchase, and using information to build a better relationship with them.

In this stage, you’ll have a number of tools to use including:

Email Marketing

Once you have the customer’s email, it’s important to reach out to those individuals (with proper subscriptions) and provide them with reliable information, updates, and engagement opportunities.

Automation

Automation helps you to bring back your customers again by consistently using email marketing and social media. Because it’s automated, you’re able to connect more effectively at any time.

By being consistent like this, you’ll build that prospect up, nurture them, and encourage them to come back.

Analytics

Analytics is not nearly as overwhelming as it can seem, and it is well worth your investment. Analytics gives you information about the customer’s journey. It provides you with insight into things like when they visited, when they decided to buy from you, and how they found your brand in the first place.

It helps you to continue to build your marketing channels and your sales funnel.

Digital Marketing Functions

Marketing functions are the tasks and processes your marketing team takes to promote your products and brand. How does your product or service stand out from your competitors?

The functions of the marketing team should help to communicate this, and other messages, to your audience.

Strategy and Planning Function

Here, the team sets time-bound actions that lead to achieving the marketing objective. The team works with the product and business team to better align goals.

This is also an opportunity to share insight into the best direction to further develop or add value to your product or service with the goal of bringing the customers’ needs to the discussion.

This is also where the team will develop objectives, assess costs, and create a digital marketing strategy to achieve the objectives of the company.

Within this function, the team works to:

• Set SMART goals
• Determine the business’ needs
• Research the audience
• Develop a digital channel strategy
• Build a content strategy
• Create a media strategy
• Create a marketing methodology
• Build a digital project plan

In each component, there needs to be a clear outline of the deliverables, the tasks necessary, and the resources available.

Awareness Function

The awareness function has the goal of increasing the number of people who know about your company and its products or services.

Here, the goal is to create relevancy – why your company or product is beneficial to your customer.

As a startup, the awareness stage is where consumers first get an insight into your company. In an established company, the goal is to create more understanding of the brand.

Within this function, the team works to:

• Identify the marketing opportunities present
• Develop creative concepts to showcase those opportunities
• Develop a media strategy
• Build content
• Begin to leverage public relations, influence, and branding formats

Consideration Function

Now that you have the prospective customers’ attention, it’s time to build on what they think they know. Therefore, the main goal of the consideration phase is to educate your audience and encourage them to engage with your brand more fully.

Ultimately, you want them to move from being a visitor to your website to being a prospect or lead. This takes time and nurturing.

Within this function, the team must:

• Create effective calls-to-action (CTAs) that connect potential customers with you
• Develop landing pages with outstanding information
• Build forms that help to provide access to valuable content through gated or pillar page content
• Leverage paid search to target very specific potential customers

Conversion Function

At this point, the goal is to turn your website visitor into more than a prospect. He or she now needs to become a customer.

The functions here are more tactical and less creative as it becomes essential to make the purchase process as easy as possible for the lead.

Within this function, the team works to:

• Develop offers and messages to move your lead closer
• Test and adjust content to turn your lead into a buyer
• Leverage paid search, again to bring your ideal buyer into the page
• Retarget, or bring a lead back into the fold if he or she moved away
• Email to encourage the sale

Retention Function

Your lead makes a purchase. Yay! Within this function, then, the goal is to nurture your customers to increase their loyalty to your brand.

It’s not a hard sell here. Rather, it’s about providing something extra and building experiences. Give them a reason to come back through a promotion or extra material.

This value-added approach is designed to encourage your customer to come back to your company on their own terms. You want your customer to have a loyalty or an interest in your brand.

In this function, the team will:

• Work to continue to understand the buyers’ needs and expectations
• Develop a nurturing strategy
• Work to exceed the expectations of the customer
• Provide some type of additional value through content or experience
• Monitor ongoing post-sale activity

Analysis & Optimization Function

Every step thus far has created information and data. That is an incredibly valuable tool for you. The function here is designed to gather data to help find insights that can help to improve the current plan or to boost the success of future digital marketing strategies.

Here, we look at the strategies and any successes it brought and how this impacts your business as a whole.

Did it reach the objectives? If not, why not?

Within this function, the team works to:

• Gather all performance data about the digital marketing campaign
• Analyze both the successes and failures
• Pause underperforming campaigns to assess them more fully
• Reproduce any success that occurs
• Adapt the strategy of the marketing to achieve more

Summary

Digital marketing’s impact on your business is incredible. It’s what helps you to develop goals and objectives and to reach them by engaging with your audience where they are and how they need to be brought into the business.

Yet, digital marketers must stay current on not just the details here, but also on the fast-paced changes that continue to propel digital media forward.

There’s little doubt this is the marketing of today and the future, but it is growing and changing rapidly.

It’s also important for digital marketers to have proper digital marketing knowledge and training.

This is one of the most valuable components to creating increased results in an ever-changing and complex digital ecosystem. Without this insight, it’s impossible for your company to remain competitive.

The value of digital marketing goes further. Not only does the digital marketer working within your business need to have exceptional skills, but all business owners and executives should also understand digital marketing fundamentals. This insight into digital marketing provides you with the opportunity to develop and achieve business goals and objectives. 

How to write business plan

Designing a Business Plan for Your Creative Business

Amanda Genther

https://bit.ly/2r0IyD8

Most creatives probably tremble at the thought of creating a business plan, and most likely keep pushing it to the back burner until eventually they need one and throw something together that isn’t complete. I’m going to show you an easier way to go about creating your business plan, with basic steps that shouldn’t be too daunting, if you take them one at a time.

So, what is a business plan?

A business plan is meant to guide your business in the right direction and document your thoughts and ideas for your business. It’s a structural tool that can keep you, your employees and your business on the correct path. The first purpose of a business plan is to identify the aspirations of the business. Second, it’s needed to determine if these aspirations are feasible in the current economy. Third, your business plan is needed to outline the steps you will take to reach your main objective. When I create my business plans, I like to lay it all out there first, and then start to remove pieces that are irrelevant. Think of your business plan as writing a book; you’ve determined the ending, but now you need to fill in how you will reach that desired ending. You will want to be able to hand this business plan over to investors, peers, banks, attorneys, etc, so it’s important to keep a defined look. But, since we are creatives, don’t be afraid to play with the layout and colors, just don’t get too crazy! Keep it readable, clean and professional.

The basic elements of a business plan

1. Executive Summary – this is a one-page nutshell of your business. It includes the background behind your business, your mission, your vision and your tagline/message (if you have one). Keep it short and to the point. The rest of the business plan will go into much more detail.

2. Target Customers/Ideal Clients – this is where you will explain who your business is targeting, who your ideal clients are; their personalities, what they like to do, how old they are, their income level, how much they are willing to spend on your products and/or services. A survey is definitely a good idea to help gather information on your ideal client.

3. Competition/Competitive Advantage – this is where you will detail who your competitors are, what their strengths and weaknesses are, their business structure, and your competitive advantage, or what makes your idea better/different than theirs.

4. Human Resources – if needed, this is where you will document what staff you will need to run your business, what their skills need to be, how much experience, how much you can afford to pay them, etc. I did not need this section on my business plan, because I do not plan on having any staff in the near future. When the time comes, I will definitely add this section to my business plan. It would be wise to add an intern description here, if you plan on having an intern soon. This would layout the groundwork for what they would be responsible for.

5. Vendors/Supplies – this is where you will determine what outside sources will be needed to run your business. Are there any products that you must purchase on a weekly basis (jewelry supplies, paper) or do you use certain products for your clients (USB drives, cards, shipping, boxes/packaging materials)? Put all of these items here, their costs, what category they fall under (supplies, client gifts, packing/shipping, etc). You will need these for you financial plan later, but this section will detail each of the costs.

6. Marketing Plan – this is where you will show how to get your products and/or services in front of your ideal clients. What social media profiles are they on, are they bloggers, do they read certain blog, do they attend conferences? All of these things will help you figure out where, when and how to find your perfect customer. Your marketing plan is actually an entirely different document outside of your business plan, but laying out the general ideas here is great.

7. Operations – this is where you document how to get the job done in the most efficient way. What are your routines for your projects? What order do you follow from the first time you talk to the client/customer to when the client/customer has the final product delivered to them? Describe your operations as if you were teaching 5,000 people how to work at your company. Document everything.

8. Financial Projections – this is where you determine how much money you need to open/run your business and where you will get this money from. Most creative businesses are able to start their companies on smaller budgets, because they tend to not need real estate, and already own the large equipment needed to get the business going. Put your financial forecast on here; how many products do you want to sell, how much do each of your products cost, what is the yearly total? How much did you spend on supplies? What is your profit for the year? You want to be able to show an investor why and how your business is going to make money, so be realistic.

A visual representation

Now what?

I recommend taking the business plan one item at a time. Schedule a time every Sunday where you tackle a part of the business plan. Or, if you are feeling really ambitious one night, tackle a couple of them. Either way, don’t stress yourself out. If you aren’t in a business planning mood that day, then don’t do it. Plan time when you can concentrate and your brain is able to think long-term.

Some tips:

– Write the business plan in your own voice. No need to be stuffy, you are a creative and the person you are presenting this business to will already know that. Creatives are great at creating their own unique voices and styles, so make sure you show that here.

– Keep your business plan versatile. It is very likely that it will change as your business grows, so be sure to document these changes.

– Stick to it! You should know your business plan inside and out, almost like a very long elevator pitch. When you make decisions for your business, you should take your business plan into account.

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