In the online marketing world, Facebook may seem like another boring business solution. It’s so easy then to disregard its value and capabilities. That is only because the less interested people has become of it, the less they know how to work with it. Growing your business is all about taking every necessary step there is, no matter how usual or ordinary it may seem. Ken shares a great story that occurred during their annual event where he imparted the value of Facebook and how it could generate you the following you need when done right.
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I got back from Digital Footprint. We hold an annual event twice a year and there was a period of the event where our emcee, Charles who’s a good marketer, was talking about how he’s launching a product and he mentioned Facebook. I was watching the audience. I saw a lot of the white-collar, 52-year-old, white male turns their nose up a little bit to Facebook. I immediately got to the point where I thought, “I’ve got to kick off Charles. I’ve got to get him off the stage. I’ve got to talk to these folks because I saw something that I’m shocked at.” I did let Charles finish his little piece.
I don’t speak until the afternoon and it was 10:30 AM. Lo and behold, I jumped up and said, “I heard Charles talking about using Facebook as a platform and I saw quite a few of the people in this audience turn their nose up to Facebook. Some of you even looked away and started looking at your phones, writing notes and I could tell you were not paying attention. I want to share with everybody a little concept. This is a podcast that I gave before, but it is relevant.” Even though I have done this podcast before, after I told this, at the end of the event, people came up to me and said, “That was the most impactful part of the weekend.”
Sometimes, you don’t want to do what’s comfortable for you. Click To Tweet
I want to share something. For those of you that are not sure what platform might be best for messaging or for getting your message out, for direct advertising, for one-on-one communication, I am not by any stretch, saying Facebook is it. I want to wake people up sometimes that you don’t want to do what’s comfortable for you. You don’t want to do what you think is right. You need to do what you know works and what you have physical evidence that will work, so I want to share a story. There was a nuclear biomechanical engineer. This guy has a high-level PhD in Biomechanics but he also has a PhD in Nuclear Engineering.
He worked for one of the five largest companies in the world and had worked there for twenty to 25 years. All of a sudden, because things changed, he found himself out of a job. This was not a man that you would call skilled in communicating. He was not on Facebook. He had six connections in LinkedIn. He was completely introverted. By personality, it’s what’s called phlegmatic, which is peace at all costs, “Leave me alone. I’ll sit in a corner and read a book.” It’s a cliché of a nerd, but something happened. Eighteen months went by and he could not find another job. He got interviewed at all the companies that could hire him but he could not find a job.
He realized he is within six months of running out of savings and his wife and children are going to be in trouble. Something has to give. Somebody introduced him to a female, a real strong marketer in a couple of different platforms. She’s a New Yorker. They hooked up and they met for coffee. She says, “You have six months of savings left, your specialty is such and such. There are only around fifteen companies that can employ you. Do I have this correct so far?” He said, “Yes, that’s right.” She goes, “I have a plan for you. It’s going to cost somewhere between $30,000 and $60,000. Within four to six months I can assure you, you will either get a big job or you will have a massive consulting agency.” He was so skeptical and he surely doesn’t want to give her $30,000 to $60,000.
As the story goes, he does. She comes back a week or two later with two assistants and they meet. She says, “Here’s the plan. We’ve done a lot of homework. We found 35 groups on Facebook that you are going to join.” He goes, “What did you say?” She says, “We did the homework and we found 35 groups that are currently having conversations directly about your industry or what’s called a sister or a cousin industry, an industry of one of the fifteen companies that can hire you.” He pushed his chair back from the table. He goes, “You better give me that $30,000 back right now.” He was angry. She goes, “You need to sit down. If what you’ve been doing so far was working, you wouldn’t have gone eighteen months without a job. Multiple people recommended me to you.” She was talking as a New Yorker. “You’re going to sit right down and listen. I’ve already hired these two people, I’ve already spent half of your $30,000. I’m not giving you your money back because you’re going to listen. If what I’m about to roll out doesn’t work, I’ll give you your money back.”
He sat down, they begin. She says, “You are going to join 35 groups. You’re going to get involved in the conversations. You’re going to apply your knowledge and anywhere there is a conversation where you think you can add value, you’re going to jump in on that conversation. It’s my opinion, based on what I’ve read about you, that it will be determined very quickly and almost every one of these 35 groups, that you are one of the IP seniors. You have more intellectual property knowledge and wisdom than probably most of the people in the group.” He said something sarcastic, “I don’t have to even guess, I probably will be the superior based on my history, my background, and my schooling. This is still stupid because there are only five companies that can truly hire me.”
He joins 35 groups in about six weeks and he calls her up. He goes, “This is not working. This is exhausting. People ask me the same questions over and over. All I’m doing is wasting my time.” She goes, “No, it’s perfect. It’s time for phase two.” He said, “What’s phase two?” She said, “You’re going to go into every one of these 35 groups and you’re going to tell every one of them, ‘I can no longer do this. Sorry, it’s exhausting. I’m getting the same questions over and over,’ and you’re going to tell all 35 groups that you have to leave them. You’re quitting the group.” He goes, “I can’t do that. I’ve made some friends there. I need to somehow slow down.”
All of a sudden, everything changed and she knew this was going to work. She goes, “No, phase two is you tell all these people in 35 groups that you’re leaving, but you’re going to start your own group.” He smiled. He starts his own group. 3,100 people followed him into this new group. He began to steer the ship of the communication coordinate but he found something interesting. It went from 3,100 people to 5,000 people very quickly and all those new people, the 2,000 new people, they were asking the same questions over and over. He was finding it exhausting. It was time for phase three.
Phase three, this lady explained he was going to tell the whole group, “Here’s what’s happening. This is exhausting for me. I’m sure you can appreciate that, so I’m going to tone down my involvement in the group. However, I’ve noticed eight common questions, eight common business challenges you are having and that I’ve been providing very detailed answers in every case. I’ve decided to hold a webinar two weeks from tonight on a Tuesday at 7:00 PM Central. If anybody wants to join for two weeks, I’m going to hold a moderated discussion webinar in a way that’s going to be recorded. In that way, you guys can have a record of this.”
He does and the numbers were in the thousands that joined the webinar. He was coached that he only gets through four of the eight points in the first Webinar, so he does that. By 9:00 PM Central, he says, “I’ve run out of time. I could probably finish this two Tuesdays from now. If anybody wants to come back, come back.” Two weeks later, the word went around the world about what this guy was teaching on a webinar. It went from 3,000 or 4,000 people to 7,000 or 8,000 people for the second webinar. He does a quick summary of the first four points and then he finishes the last four points.
You might want to slow life down a little bit so you can go fast. Click To Tweet
Right at the end, he says, “Some of you become friends of mine. I’m about to start a consulting agency in this industry. There are fifteen companies that can use my service worldwide. Is there anybody on this call that happens to know any of the decision makers in these companies?” There were 8,000 people on that last webinar. It just so happened that they knew people that knew people. In under six weeks, this gentleman had two jobs and had wires in for consulting for $6.8 million. For those of you that don’t think Facebook’s for you, you might want to take some time and maybe go to the bookstore and download books like Facebook for Dummies, Facebook for Business, Pinterest for Business, written by a great friend of mine, Karen Leland. You might want to slow life down a little bit so you can go fast. Take care.
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