Michael Reynolds

Is “meeting people” enough?

In: Design| Lifestyle| Marketing| Productivity

19 Jul 2010

As a member of Rainmakers, BNI, and a number of online social networks, I am constantly asking and being asked this question: who do you want to meet?

This is a great way to network because it helps others understand how to help you and who the specific person is that you want to meet. However, is it enough to just meet lots of people, even if they are good prospects for you? What is your game plan for approaching them? How scalable is it to meet a lot of people if you don’t have a system?

Here are some things I think about as I meet people:

How is this introduction getting me closer to my goals?
Who is in this person’s network?
Is this person a prospect, referral partner, supplier, friend, or something else?
Who introduced us and will this introduction help that person?
Is there any way that I can help this person?
Is this type of introduction repeatable and scalable?
What will I do when I meet this person?
Is there any indication that this person wants to talk to me?
Do I already have someone in my network who fills this particular need?
Is this good timing for me?

These questions help keep me accountable and on target when I am being introduced to someone. So much of the time I see people with an interest in “meeting people” but when it comes down to it, they don’t have a specific reason, plan, or strategy to figure out which introductions make sense or which ones to pursue.

It’s perfectly ok to decline introductions if they don’t align with your business goals. It doesn’t mean that you don’t like that person or that you’re mean and selfish. It just means that there are only so many people you can meet without sacrificing your productivity and so it’s important to be strategic and methodical about who you meet.

Meeting new people is great. It can lead to new customers, referral partners, suppliers, and friends. However, make sure your strategy goes beyond just looking for introductions. Help your network understand your needs and be strategic about who you meet.

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Tags: bni, constantly, meeting, meeting people, online social networks, people, person, questions, rainmaker, rainmakers, scalable

The Best Sushi in Indianapolis

In: Lifestyle

11 Jul 2010

I thought I would take a break today from the business world and write about one of my passions in life: sushi! I love sushi. I could eat it just about every day. And lucky for me, Indianapolis is full of great sushi restaurants. I frequently get asked what my favorites are, and I don’t really have one favorite that stands out above all others, but I can certainly comment on the ones I really prefer. Here is my list of favorites.

iSushi
Carmel
http://www.isushicafe.com/

iSushi has recently become my favorite sushi restaurant. They have some amazing and unique rolls, including the Beehive Roll, the Dynamite Roll, and the Lollipop Roll, which is the biggest roll I have ever seen. The owner is hilarious and is prone to joking with the customers throughout the meal. Don’t pass this place up – you will love it.

Naked Tchopstix
North Side / Broad Ripple
http://www.tchopstix.com/

This is at the top of my list. Both the Broad Ripple and North side locations are outstanding. The atmosphere is classy and the sushi is always excellent. The Broad Ripple location gets very crowded on the weekends so be warned if it’s a Friday or Saturday night. They also have a great mango fizz and a variety of ice cream flavors. My favorite roll here is the sunset roll.

Miyagi’s
North Side
http://indymiyagi.com/

This is one of Indy’s newer sushi places and has a very classy atmosphere. Miyagi’s seems to specialize in the artistic presentation of sushi. Great service, although a little pricier than some. My favorite roll here is the Special Saporro roll – it is freaking awesome.

Benihana
North Side
http://www.benihana.com/locations/indianapolis-in-in

I was surprised when I discovered that the Benihana in Indianapolis serves excellent sushi! It is recently remodeled and has a great atmosphere. The prices are pretty average and the service is good. They also have a nice assortment of smoothies for those (like me) who like that sort of thing. My favorite roll here is the Alaskan Roll.

Kona Grill
Carmel
http://www.konagrill.com/

I would vote this as Carmel’s best sushi. Not only is the atmosphere very classy and comfortable, but the sushi is outstanding. The outdoor seating is also very nice and it seats plenty. The prices are a little high but it’s worth it. I don’t have a favorite roll here but everything is good. A nice bonus of Kona Grill is the dessert – they have some incredible stuff on the dessert menu. I’m a big fan of the Ultimate Fudge Brownie.

Sakura
Central
http://www.indysakura.com/

Sakura is a solid staple on the list of Indianapolis sushi restaurants. It’s very popular and well-known and has a great atmosphere. It’s small and intimate and is a great place for conversation and fantastic sushi.

Ichiban
South Side
http://www.indy.com/streetcred/location/1949

Ichiban is an incredible value. The sushi is first-class and the price is lower than any other place I have ever been. It’s fairly small and intimate and they also have some recessed-seating booths, which is kind of cool. I loved the Ichiban Roll when I went there.

Bistro Tchopstix
Downtown
http://cityguide.aol.com/indianapolis/restaurants/bistro-tchopstix/v-118008543

If you find yourself downtown, I recommend Bistro Tchopstix. It is a small, intimate sushi place in the heart of downtown and it serves up excellent sushi at a reasonable price. I know that some people enjoy The Mikado for a downtown sushi experience but Bistro Tchopstix provides quality that is on par or better at a much lower price. I don’t have a favorite roll here, as I usually get nigiri when I’m at Bistro Tchopstix. Service is also friendly.

While I’m sure others have their own preferences on the best sushi, these are my top picks for consistently high-quality sushi and a great atmosphere. I welcome your comments below if you would like to add any experiences of your own. Itadakimasu!

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Tags: indianapolis, sushi

Resume or productivity footprint?

In: Lifestyle| Marketing| Productivity| Technology

10 Jul 2010

What is the standard procedure when applying for a job? You inquire about openings and the first thing you are told is “send us your resume”, right? Is this relevant anymore?

I would argue that resumes are antiquated, lifeless leftovers from a time before rich online communications. A resume is just a simple document outlining where you’ve worked before, what you did there, and how well you can embellish.

We have tools today that are so much better than a resume. The first place I go to research a prospective employee is LinkedIn. This will show me recommendations from others, previous work, communication skills, and connections.

I can do a simple Google search and find out a great deal about someone’s previous work. I would much rather read a candidate’s blog than a boring resume. A blog will tell me how well that person writes, what that person is passionate about, and what that person knows. I’m interested in what he or she posts on Twitter and why he or she finds it important. I look for a personal website that collects previous work and showcases it in a rich, living medium.

We all have a productivity footprint, which is a collection of all the work we have done, words we have published, and profiles we have created online. This productivity footprint tells me so much more about a person than a resume.

This is why I don’t really look at resumes. When someone inquires about a job at my company, I am more interested in that person’s productivity footprint than a lifeless document.

What do you think? Should we stop using resumes?

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Tags: facebook, jobs, linkedin, resume, spinweb

Should you get paid to speak?

In: Lifestyle| Marketing

13 Jun 2010

I love speaking. I am grateful that I am frequently asked to give presentations on marketing, technology, and other topics. It’s very fulfilling to be able to share my knowledge and experience with others and continue to develop my own skills through speaking.

I’ve noticed, however, that speaking is one of those activities that seems to sometimes come with an expectation of unpaid service. Many organizations invite speakers to present at their events but frequently do not pay for their time and expertise. I wonder why this is?

To put things in perspective, here is what goes into a presentation when I am asked to speak.

1. Creating the presentation. Whether I’m giving a presentation that I’ve already prepared or creating a new one, I spend many hours putting together my slide decks and outlines. Building a presentation is a process that takes time, inspiration, and focus. It also draws on years of experience that I have gained through my work, research, and other sources.

2. Preparation time. Before each presentation, I review my slide decks, update them as needed, and review the outlines to prepare for the upcoming presentation.

3. Promotion time. Typically when I’m speaking I will promote the event via my own means. This includes using social media and networking, all of which takes time.

4. Presentation and travel time. When I’m speaking somewhere, I need to make time to travel and present. Though I very much enjoy speaking, it also does take time that I am not able to do other things.

As you can see, quite a bit of time, effort, and experience goes into every presentation I do and I feel that it helps me makes a good case for being fairly compensated for speaking.

Now of course there are always exceptions. Often I will waive part or all of my fees if there is a strong strategic benefit to the event. Perhaps I am able to collect leads or network in a way that creates strong strategic connections. These are great reasons to waive speaking fees.

However, I do encourage organizations to consider how much hard work goes into a presentation and how valuable a speaker’s time is. Creating a proper budget for speakers will usually increase the quality of your speakers and therefore improve your attendance.

What about you? Do you think speakers should be paid?

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Tags: Marketing, michael reynolds, networking, social media, speaking

Personal Branding with Social Media E-Book

In: Lifestyle| Marketing| Productivity| Technology

7 Jun 2010

Personal branding is becoming more important today as people are becoming more interested in relationships and personal communication. Sales professionals, job-seekers, and professionals in a variety of industries are finding that how they relate to people and how they are perceived in the marketplace on a personal level makes a huge difference in how successful they are.

Social media is enabling us to strengthen our personal brands like never before. In order to address this, I’ve written an e-book to help others understand the dynamics of personal branding using social media and how to take advantage of social tools to strengthen their personal brands.

The e-book is free and you are encouraged to share it with others. If you have any personal stories you would like to include, please feel free to contact me and I would love to include your notes.

The e-book can be downloaded here:

Personal Branding with Social Media (PDF)

As always, comments and feedback are welcome.

Smart, simple solutions

In: Design| Lifestyle| Marketing| Productivity| Technology

30 May 2010

There is an abundance of complexity in the world. It occurs pretty much everywhere. Companies create products with way more features than we need, bosses over-complicate policies and procedures, and our government passes ridiculously complex legislation that no one even has time to read.

We do it to ourselves, too. We think we need big, complicated systems to run our accounting and business systems. We create convoluted policies to try to anticipate every possible scenario. We look for that magic piece of software that will do all 500 things we think we need it to do.

After the air clears and we’ve spent a lot of time and money on our complex solutions, what happens? We usually end up only using 10% of it.

This is why our brand promise at SpinWeb is “smart, simple solutions.” We happen to build websites but our over-arching goal is to help you work smarter with simple online tools. Rather than sell you a big website with 27 tools, we’re more likely to encourage you to consider a smaller site first that does 3 things really well. You’re probably more likely to use it and you’ll save some money, too.

Ask yourself if you really need all the complexity that is currently in your business, or in your life. Could you serve your customers, employees, and partners better if you simplified?

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Tags: abstraction, branding, complex systems theory, complexity, complicated, computational complexity, Design, Marketing, online tools, simple solutions, smart, solutions, spinweb, usability, website

Better usability in conference websites

In: Design| Marketing| Technology

26 May 2010

As a speaker, I attend and present for a lot of conferences. As an attendee, I register for events online and consume information primarily online via the conference website. As a speaker, I submit proposals for presentations with the intention of presenting at the conference.

As I analyze conference websites, I see a lot of opportunities for improving usability among them. Why is usability important on a conference website? Probably the most important reason is that it can play a huge part in determining how many people actually register for your event, as well as the quality of the speakers.

Here are some things to think about as you plan your conference website or landing pages.

1. Online registration is a must. I know it seems surprising but I still see conferences that do not have online registration as an option. They require you to call, mail, or fax in your registration. This puts up a huge wall between your event and your prospective attendees. Who has time to mail in a registration these days? Not me. I need quick, easy, secure online registration with credit card or I’m probably not going to bother. The same goes for your exhibitors.

2. Use online forms for speaker proposals. As a speaker, few things irritate me more than having to print or fill out a Word document to submit presentation proposals. Many speakers like me are submitting proposals to a variety of conferences and the more cumbersome it is to apply, the more likely I am to skip over your conference. I think I have a lot to offer and bring a lot of value to conferences when I present but making it hard for me to submit a proposal often keeps me (and other speakers) away. Make sure speakers can fill out application forms directly on your website.

3. Create landing pages for each session. I sometimes see conference websites that will give a general outline of the sessions for each day but do not break out sessions into individual landing pages. It’s important to give each session a specific landing page because this allows your speakers to promote their own sessions better, which in turn helps market your conference. It also gives you more specific content to publish on social networks and for search engines.

4. Make your conference website socially-aware. In addition to session landing pages, each session page should allow easy social media distribution. Two great ways to encourage social sharing of your conference material are with a Re-Tweet button via TweetMeme and a share button via AddThis. Both services are free and allow website visitors to easily market your sessions for you with one click. If you make it easy to announce your sessions, your will find that your speakers will help a great deal with your marketing efforts.

5. List all relevant time and location information clearly. This seems like a pretty obvious one but I still see conference websites that neglect to list the times and locations of breakout sessions. Not everyone wants to attend every session so make it easy for them to see exactly when and where each session is. Also, make sure your website includes interactive Google maps to your location so that your attendees can easily find it.

6. Include detailed speaker bios and photos. Few things are more boring than a big chunk of text listing presentation titles with no information on the speakers. Be sure to include speaker photos and bios with the session pages and perhaps even create speaker landing pages to help showcase them. Link out to their own website and social profiles, as well. This helps your attendees feel more connected to the speakers and can sometimes encourage people to register because they have an interest in seeing a particular speaker.

Paying attention to some basic usability details can make a huge difference in the quality of your speakers and the number of people who attend your conference. Do you need to make any adjustments to your conference website?

Top 5 things to consider when redesigning your website

In: Design| Marketing| Productivity| Technology

29 Apr 2010

I had a wonderful time speaking for ISAE yesterday and serving on a panel on website redesign projects. After my keynote presentation and a great lunch, we had some excellent Q&A around what leads to a successful website redesign project. Special thanks to Katie Voorhest for inviting me to speak and for being one of the most effective, organized planners I have ever met.

Here are the top 5 takeaways that I want to share based on our discussion.

1. Know your audience. Be sure that your new website is not designed for your internal staff. It should be designed for your constituents. The personal preferences of your CEO or other executives should not dictate your design. Your brand identity and your constituents should drive the design.

2. Avoid “design by committee”. Choose one point person as your project lead. This person should solicit feedback but filter accordingly. However, make sure all decision-makers are in the room during approval meetings.

3. Instead of writing complex RFPs, try starting with interviews. RFPs can sometimes lead to an over-complicated vendor selection process and can also result in inaccurate pricing. Start by talking to qualified web firms and see what their processes are like.

4. Choose a good website design and development firm. This makes a huge difference. Look for a firm that has experience in your industry (or similar types of websites), a deep portfolio of work that you like, and (most importantly) a proven process.

5. Budget for content and photography. Great content and professional photography can make or break a design. Remember, website visitors make snap decisions about the credibility of your organization in less than a second based on your design. Don’t skimp on content and photography.

For further reading, here are the websites I referenced during my presentation with further information on design trends and usability:

A List Apart (design and development trends)
Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox (usability)
Redesigning Your Website (my presentation given at the event)
7 Habits of Highly Effective Websites (my presentation on website best practices)

Thanks again to ISAE and all who attended for a great event!

Law firm marketing plans and how video can help

In: Marketing| Technology

22 Apr 2010

I was in Reach class (which is life-changing, by the way) yesterday engaged in a lively discussion with CJ McClanahan and the rest of the class about how to differentiate our businesses from the competition. One of our class members, James MacAbee, is an attorney and we were brainstorming some ways that attorneys can create a law firm marketing plan to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

One complaint we came up with about attorneys is that they have a reputation for not being the best communicators. Their clients can sometimes feel in the dark because of a lack of communication while they are working. Jim suggested that maybe he could make a guarantee to his clients that he would send a weekly update to all his clients on a consistent basis via email. This sounded pretty good but then I thought, why not take it a step further and use video? How can a law firm use video communication in a marketing plan?

The attorney-client relationship is a personal one and email may not always be the best way to stay in touch. In addition, it can take quite a bit of time to type up a bunch of email updates all of your clients. So here’s my suggestion: use video email as your weekly update tool.

As part of your strategy to differentiate yourself as an attorney, make a guarantee that you will send a weekly video message with a status report on the project to all your clients. Most laptops now have built-in web cams and it would only take a couple of minutes at most for each message. As an attorney, you save a ton of time because you don’t have to type a bunch of emails. Even more importantly, your clients get to see and hear your expressions, your personality, and your tone. It is an extremely personal way to communicate and really keeps the relationship warmer.

Delivering these messages is very inexpensive (or even free). Take a look at TokBox or talk to Jim Britt. Imagine how unique your law firm would be if you marketed your practice using this point of differentiation. Attorneys that send me video updates on my project? What great customer service! Additionally, this creates a buzz-worthy and memorable selling point that will cause others to refer you more often.

Law firm marketing is tricky because attorneys are not supposed to directly solicit business and so they must rely on a solid marketing plan to generate leads. In addition to a great website and SEO, law firms usually rely heavily on referrals to gain new clients. Unique service offerings like video status reports are likely to generate more referrals from existing clients because they will want to tell their friends how innovative their attorney is.

As a law firm, try marketing your practice with a unique service proposition like video status reports. It can save you a lot of time and may just turn your firm into a purple cow.

Nonprofit web design and why it matters

In: Design| Marketing| Technology

15 Apr 2010

Modern websites should follow some standard best practices in design and usability in order to be effective as marketing and communications tools. Smart businesses understand that following these best practices leads to increased sales and revenue.

However, nonprofits also need to understand how design and usability affects their revenue. Nonprofits are interested in many of the same things that businesses are: increasing revenue, building trust, and reaching the right audience.

For some reason, many nonprofits seems to skimp on marketing and communications because they feel that they need to do everything on a shoestring budget just because of their nonprofit status. I believe that the opposite is true and that nonprofits should be especially conscious of investing in the right tools for marketing successfully.

So how does a nonprofit use the web to grow? Here are a few ways.

Invest in great design. Website visitors make snap judgments about your organization based on the quality of your website. If your website looks outdated, cheap, and unprofessional, what assurance do I have that my donation will be used effectively?

Invest in quality content. Many nonprofit websites have very little content or poorly-written content on their websites. Your website must tell a story for donors, volunteers, and the media. Make sure researchers can find the information they need to understand your mission.

Don’t be afraid to ask for money. Many nonprofit websites seem to forget that they need money and for some reason make it very difficult to make a donation. Be sure that you accept online donations via credit card. The donation button should be easy to find and easy to use. Remove barriers to making a donation and giving will increase.

Understand your audiences. Nonprofits need to target multiple audiences: donors, volunteers, sponsors, and the media. Be sure your nonprofit website has the right tools for all these groups. The media will want press releases and press kits. Volunteers will want clear job descriptions and specifications. Donors will want easy ways to give and will want to know how their money is being used. Event sponsors want to be able to sign up quickly online.

Keep content fresh. Nonprofit websites need to pay special attention to how current website content is. Interested parties want to see that your organization is making a difference and that your mission is current. Blogs and press releases are a great way to tell your story and keep your message fresh. If possible, update content at least once a week.

It’s tempting to try to design and maintain a nonprofit website on the cheap, but this does a disservice to your mission. By investing in a high-quality web presence, your nonprofit will actually become more successful in the long run and attract more donations, sponsors, and volunteers.

Won’t this help you make a difference?