marketing value Archives - Page 2 of 6 by Mark Murnahan

Building Equity in Social Media vs. Interruption Marketing

Interruption Marketing vs. Social Media

I know this may seem impossible in 2011, but I discover many companies that do not yet fully appreciate the value of social media and the long-term equity it can build for their business.

A lot of companies understand the value of their brand being visible in many places online, and some will understand the value of those people who help to grow its visibility. Only a relatively few actually look forward beyond the horizon to understand the greater value that social media represents over an extended time.

When I hear people say things like “we just don’t have time for all of that” or worse, “we don’t have the staff for that”, it always leaves me shaking my head. It reminds me why only a small percentage of businesses account for the lion’s share of their market. It is explained well by Joseph Juran’s well documented “Pareto Principle” named for Vilfredo Pareto. Many people know the Pareto Principle as the 80/20 Rule.

Consider the Interruption of Marketing

Think as a consumer for a moment, and consider the way you shut down to marketing. Think about how your brain just goes in another direction when companies interrupt you with their marketing and try to sell you stuff. We are each inundated by a constant barrage of commercial information about everything from A to Z in our daily lives. This is why we fast-forward through commercials on television, we screen our telephone calls, and we are seasoned to ignore advertisements on websites.

Interruption Marketing Train Coming Through

Unless you are really tired and vulnerable, you probably don’t stay tuned to that late night infomercial about something you really never knew you needed. Although, I can almost bet that you can remember a time when you thought “why in the hell am I still watching this?” Perhaps you can even remember thinking “Holy crap … I was about three seconds from picking up the phone to buy one of those” or even “Damn, I bought this … why did I buy this?!” It happens, and we each have our weaknesses, but let’s face it, we are far better adapted to turning away from all the hype. Otherwise, if marketers had their way, you would own one of everything, and you would have worthless crap in every nook and cranny, and stacked to your ceiling.

For the most part, we consumers make efforts to avoid these awkward moments which compel us to buy things. Why? Maybe it is just because, deep down, we hate saying “no”. If we can avoid the pitch, we can avoid wanting something, and thus, avoid saying “no” to our own urges, and the urges of those squillion salespeople out there.

Maybe you are different, and you enjoy that marketing interruption, but in that case, you are not like most people. I am addressing most people.

Marketing Got Sneakier With Social Media

Since there was so much information out there interrupting our days and nights, as a collective group, consumers became more cautious. We decided to make companies earn our business. Of course, the economy of the past few years has helped this along faster than ever. The timing was perfect for social media marketing to explode like a shot from a gun.

Maybe you like it, or maybe you don’t, but let’s face it, marketing got a whole lot sneakier. It became more targeted, and marketers became better spies. Effective marketing today utilizes more information, better strategies, and just a bit of James Bond 007-style of thinking.

Marketing Became Targeted and Marketers Became Better Spies

As consumers, we became more cautious and protective of ourselves. We got really smart and created clever ways to filter our television ad consumption, filter our email, and filter our social media.

In order to effectively reach us consumers, marketers have been forced to provide a greater value proposition. This is a hard concept for many companies to grasp. Today’s successful companies are giving before they take, and the ones giving the most are receiving the most.

Today, people are more likely than ever to make purchasing decisions based on trust, reputation, and a good old fashioned sense that the company gives a damn about us. We have come to expect it, and whether you feel this way yet or not, it is a sweeping trend. People want to do business with people, and with brands represented by people. The world is building relationships with brands, and those relationships are worth money … a lot of money. Missing this fact is a very costly mistake.

You can consider it sneaky, or you can consider it a welcomed gift, but brands are in our lives to stay. We will always need to buy things, and we buy from the companies and the people we feel good about. When the brand is there to help us with information, and with a legitimate desire to help us make good decisions, they win, and we buy.

Shortsighted Brands Damage Their Social Media Future

A huge obstacle which gets in the way of social media marketing is time. Companies want everything, and they want it right now. It is understandable, but when companies forget the importance and value of longevity, and when they feel the breath of their competitors on the back of their neck, they can be quite irrational.

Smart Companies Have a Social Media Vision

Smart companies look far ahead into the future. Rather than take a reactive and panicked approach to a weak quarterly report, they work with an eye toward longer goals. Strong companies can look farther ahead, and that is why they succeed farther into the future. Applying this to social media marketing means doing business the right way, and not simply with the urgency of trying to force a brand down the consumer’s throat. This means doing business on the customer’s terms and timelines, and not only in a one-way company-centric method of the past. Consumers respect companies for this, and they return with even more consumers following closely behind them.

What About Social Media Marketing Equity?

I know that for some people, it is easy to look at social media as a bunch of time-wasting crazy people who believe that somehow the world’s consumers will come flocking to their front door just by using a nice, soft approach and patting everybody on the butt with nice words. Well, maybe yes, and maybe no, but there is a very significant value in a good reputation. Reputations do not just happen … they are built. It takes a lot of effort to build a good reputation, and it takes both words, and deeds.

Anybody in business today should understand the value of word of mouth. What people say about a company, whether good or bad, forms consumer’s perceptions of a brand. More than ever before, they are not just picking up the telephone and talking to a friend, or talking about companies at a lunch meeting. They are talking about them in large groups such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and etcetera.

Whether the perception is good or bad, they will be talking. Either outcome cannot be controlled by a company, but when a company is not involved in their own brand message, they are missing huge opportunities. Even a negative statement made in social media is an opportunity to make things better with customers, and other potential customers who are silently watching.

People really do notice what companies are doing online. I realize that for a lot of companies, this just seems impossible, and they do not have a good grasp on how to track their reputation. Just because a company does not really “get it” does not keep them out of trouble. This would be about as silly as trying to talk your way out of a speeding ticket just because you didn’t read the speed limit sign. It just doesn’t work that way.

If you feel a bit lost about the value of social media, it is time to read the signs.

I will leave you with a video which I believe makes some very good points. I believe that this video titled “The Thank You Economy: How Business Must Adapt to Social Media” is well worth your time and consideration.

If you feel like you still have more to learn, please subscribe to my blog, and as always, feel free to email me or ring me on the phone. I am always happy to hear from readers and to brainstorm.

I hope that you have found this useful, and I would really appreciate your comments.

Photo Credits:
Skyline photo by Hackfish via Wikipedia
Train Crossing photo by Paul Heaberlin via Flickr

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Here is That Extra Time You Asked For

I am excited to hear from you if you can relate to this. Have you ever had somebody ask you to do something and use the phrase “when you have some extra time”? It may be just fine if a friend says that, while asking you to go and do something fun. When it attacks your profession, there is a line to be drawn.

I get this “extra time” concept thrown my way almost every day. I am not joking or exaggerating about this. I know that a lot of other professional service people get this, too. It is hard for a lot of people to understand that when your product is knowledge or time, it still has a cost.

Yes, even those intangible things like rubbing brain cells together to create a spark, blowing on it, and turning it into a flame actually have a real and measurable cost. So, how can we deal with this, and make it understandable to people who think there is some magical “extra time” laying around to hand out for free?

It seems apparent that old sayings like “time is money”, “you get what you pay for”, and “time is our most valuable resource” have outlived their usefulness. They have become as cliché as a passing stranger asking “how are you doing?” They don’t really want to know how you are doing when they utter that. Try it out the next time you hear it, and give them a big earful and you will see what I mean. People often overlook respect for other peoples’ time with a similar disregard.

I suppose that free time can be a touchy subject for a lot of people, but not for me. I am going to share my responses when people slip me this sort of “give me free stuff” proposition. If you are a professional who deals with this, I hope it will help you to manage your time. If you are a time-beggar, I hope this will help you to be more understanding and respectful the next time this absurdity begins to spew forth from the vile and disrespectful hole between your lips.

Defending Your Extra Time

If you are ever faced with similar matters of requests for your free time, think about what else you could be doing with it. These are just a handful of thoughts which stomp loudly through my head when people ask me to provide professional services in my extra time:

Extra Time? My Kids Would Love That! – When I am asked for my extra time, the first thing that comes to my mind is how much my wife and kids would really love it if I had some extra time to share with them.

Have You Tried This at a Restaurant? – I imagine it like this: “Hey waitress, when you have some extra food back there in the kitchen, can you do me a favor, please? In return, I will send my hair stylist in to see you, and I am sure he will make up for all of the free food I gobble while I keep you from earning your tips. He is a great guy, and I am on my way to see him for a free haircut as soon as I leave here.”

Doctor, My Toe Hurts! – “I know that you usually charge people for this, and you have huge liability and licensing in the balance, but since we are not in the office, could you do this one as a freebie?”

I Want a Free Car, Too! – This is funny for me, because I have had car dealers offer to trade me very nice cars for my work. This always reminds me to say: “You want my extra time, but you would like it for free? Let me think about that and get back to you when I have something really large with which to hit you over the head.”

Motorcycle! – See the 47 second video … Enough said.

Misconceptions About “Extra Time” Are Worse in Some Industries

I realize that in some industries, the lines are a bit more blurred than others. In my job role, I find that a lot of people want me to simply “look it over” and to give them a “quick estimate”. Although it may not seem to be a big deal, performing marketing asset reviews and building marketing strategies puts food on my table. It is not just the act of implementing what I know that I am paid for, but also the research and strategy.

Researching, planning, and “looking it over” are things which most people expect to pay for in the accounting, legal, medical, and many other fields. Those of us in the marketing industry are also paid for that time we spend doing the things you may imagine to be “quick and easy” for us. Otherwise, it would be common for us to waste enormous amounts of our time writing boilerplate marketing plans for people who are not serious enough about their business to do what they really should be doing. Worse yet, if we provide a plan and you decide to try and implement it yourself or have an inferior marketing person do it for you, we look stupid for a plan that failed but could have succeeded with abundance.

Drunken Sailor Coming Through!

I could really go crazy with some drunken sailor language on this topic, because in my world it is easy to see it as theft of my goods. It is hard to describe my struggle to be diplomatic about this. Any shred of diplomacy I display comes to me because I understand how people may view this from the outside. After all, the vast number of semi-professionals on the fringe of the marketing industry make it appear so “salesy” and like marketing people are all begging people for their money. It creates an absurd illusion that marketing people earn more money for themselves than they earn for their clients.

The reality is that for true marketing professionals, our time is worth just as much as that iPhone you are holding, that car you are driving, or that house you live in. You see, this is because our time and knowledge is what we earn our living with. We don’t sell items … we help other people to sell items. Our job is to earn more money for our clients.

If I had some extra time, wouldn’t it make sense that I would use that “extra time” to work harder and to sell it at its fair market value? Yes, that’s right … that is exactly what I would do. So, here you go:

Dear Friend:

I appreciate your show of confidence by asking me to look at your business and give you recommendations to make it more marketable. I would be delighted to write you a researched marketing plan and proposal free of charge … if it was free for me, too. You see, my time and knowledge is what I earn money with, just like a shoe store uses shoes to make money.

This is my extra time, right now. I am using it to write this blog so that more people will know who I am, respect the value of my time, and pay me money for that extra time I had laying around.

Respectfully,

Mark Aaron Murnahan

All of my extra time is gone. If I find any more, I will use it to further my business reach. Fortunately, you also receive a benefit from it, because I am providing you with a constantly growing blog archive to teach you things that you can put to use in your extra time.

If you want some of my time to help you decide if it is worth paying for, I have already used that time, too. I used it to build a fantastic reputation, and an exemplary work history.

Whether this reaches you as a person who earns a living with your time and knowledge, or a person on the other side, I hope I have helped you see things a bit differently. I have tried my best to express consideration for both parties, and I hope you will do the same.

Thank you for your time.

Big Ben photo credit to peterpearson via Flickr

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Sutures: Another Reason I Love and Hate Marketing

You may say that marketing is not worth the time, effort, and monetary investment that others claim. Maybe it really isn’t what separates companies within an industry. It could just be luck which drives a company beyond their competitors’ boundaries and makes them successful in business. Maybe it is an awesome product at amazingly low cost supplied by a company that is willing to work hard while going broke. Yes, perhaps that is the real secret to success, and maybe the moon landing was a hoax, too.

The reasons for apprehension about marketing could be any of a squillion things which you can rationalize in your own mind, or it could simply be that you are scared to bankruptcy by the thought of putting a lot of money and hope into something you have pre-qualified as “doomed to fail”. Now, would you like to know why most marketing is doomed to fail, or would you rather just read another blog, buy another book, listen to another lecture, and follow what every other failed company that ever walked in your shoes did wrong?

I like to imagine that most companies would prefer to learn things without hastening failure, but I have been shocked before. In fact, I am shocked very often by things I learn while interviewing a prospective new client. Something I find most shocking is when smart people think that marketing is a matter of implementation, while strategy and planning go out the window. I hope you will have a little fun with this example I am about to spell out, because I will.

Oh No! Another Suture Hopeful

Sutures are those things that many people refer to as “stitches”. You know, like the kind you get when you bump your head and lose all of your logic.

I received an email message from the delighted VP of a surgical supply manufacturer a few weeks ago. He read and laughed his way to the bank about a story I wrote to exemplify an online marketing failure. He had every reason to love the story, because it was one of my best wrist-slaps of 2010 to a company that, in layman’s terms, “screwed the pooch”. You can say that it was an edgy move, but when this VP’s rival stiffed their marketing guy, they became an interesting study in just how bad a company can be represented online. I don’t go picking on companies indiscriminately, but I do carry a pretty big sword to wield against aggressors. In fact, this example has provided much amusement and joy to a whole lot of people in my industry.

The company who received my defensive wrist-slap was Suture Express. If you wonder why this rival surgical supply VP was delighted by my work, just perform a search on Google for Suture Express and read the first couple pages of results to find out how much love I gave them. They wanted search engine optimization, and they got it. In fact, they got enough search engine ranking that even the rival VP found me using a search for his own company name.

If Google deserves to be a verb to describe searching something online, then Suture Express has perhaps earned their place as a verb to describe companies who sabotage their online marketing hopes.

Anyway, this is not about Suture Express’ lies, or Suture Express CFO, Brian Forsythe. It is about having the guts to pull the trigger, and to understand that marketing is a huge factor in making or breaking a company.

I spoke with the amused surgical supply VP, and he was a joy to meet. He told me that he had a great laugh from my work, and that he could clearly see I know my career well. He also had a job for me to do.

The surgical supply manufacturer VP gave my name to one of his clients who wants to grow his online suture supply company and be more visible to people who buy sutures online. Since I rank right up there when people search for things like “order sutures online”, it seems pretty certain that I can help his client.

I received a call today, from the VP’s eager referral, and I was smacked with a snowball once again. Since I felt that the referral was pretty qualified, I spent some time on the phone with him. I liked him, too. I learned that he has five salaried field reps beating the streets and hitting the surgical centers and doctor’s offices, with some pretty impressive sales results at roughly a 40 percent closing ratio. It starts to sound like this guy has something that can be sold. He has technical studies to back up his products, and he is pretty enthusiastic about reaching the online market with it.

Slam on the brakes! He doesn’t have any goals, any budget, or anything more than a few basic statements to reflect why he even picked up the phone. He wants more people to know about his company, he wants more of them to come to his website, and he wants them to buy his products. It is simple, right? He lays all of his business hopes at the feet of a marketer, as so many people do, but he also wants it cheap. He would love to slide by paying a marketing guy less than he pays a sales rep, even when the rep has no sales. Yet, he wants to enjoy the branding and ongoing collateral that a marketing guy brings. That is pretty brilliant, except that it doesn’t jive. He wants what everybody else does, which is “the most bang for the buck”. Oh yes, but nix the buck part.

What I think he failed to realize, right off the bat, is that he is in a business that will go head to head with Suture Express. He knows the article I wrote explaining how his competitor spent $150,000 on a website and online marketing approach, and then called me to come and fix their mistakes. The article also explained that I turned down a lot of money to delete my story and sweep it under the rug.

With this information in-hand, he sent me the proposal his researcher gave him as the best alternative for their new online shopping cart, which was priced at $2,000. Are you kidding me?! Do people really hope to go to battle against a company who can buy and sell them with a bad day’s revenue, and do it without a real-life budget, or a plan? Worse yet, do they hope to do it with a plan that is comprised of nothing more than soliciting a marketing provider’s “off the cuff” proposal?

There is a lesson in this tale. If you don’t have a grasp on your market potential, don’t have quantifiable and achievable goals, and don’t have a solid and merit-based budget reflecting those goals, you need to pay somebody to do that research for you. Successful marketing does not come from shooting into the dark without a strategy. It is not the action of implementing ill-prepared tactics that a marketer suggests. Success requires research that experienced marketers are prepared to offer, but if you don’t have any of the basic groundwork, we get paid for that, too.

If you think that asking for a marketing proposal is how you will get the best research, think again. I can whip out a boilerplate marketing proposal that will keep you reading for hours, but it is not going to be anything more than a big number on a page if you are trying to get somewhere with your carriage pulling your horse.

I find that too many people think of marketing as simply an implementation of generic processes. If that is how you look at marketing, you may want to look again. You can search the Internet to buy sutures online, order sutures online, and an extensive list of other fancy search keywords like suture company, suture supply company, suture companies. You will find me very easily that way, and I don’t sell a single suture. To do that, it would take more than just a listing at the top of search engines and a lot of people talking about it.

Now, I ask you, does it look like I am writing a marketing proposal tonight? Oh, I guess you could call it that, but my proposal is this “Get serious, or go broke!”

That’s my rant for the day. What’s yours?

Photo Credit to SuperFantastic via Flickr

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Social Media and the Underestimated Value of Being Liked

When you think about your social media marketing efforts, it may be easy to consume yourself with all of the facts, figures, demographics, psychographics, website visitors, and how getting it all just right will help your business to succeed. I have written what feels like a squillion words about reaching the right people, being useful, gathering data, dissecting the data to measure your marketing efforts, and other fine things.

Something that I find a lot of people underestimate is the value of being liked. I do not mean “liked” in the sense of somebody clicking “Like” on Facebook, either. I mean, actually being likable and not just because you are offering your awesome stuff at spectacular prices with free shipping. I mean giving people reasons to hold you, or your brand, in high regard.

Each and every one of us has a level of trust among our friends. Even the worst people you will ever meet have the benefits of clout. Even if it is only their mother, there is somebody who holds them in high regard and cares about their opinion. The most common reason is that they are liked.

It reminds me of something a good friend of mine says as he nervously awaits his results each election year. He says “As a politician, I can only count on two votes … mine, and my mother.” Fortunately for him, he is very well liked, and he was recently elected for his fifth term in the Kansas Legislature.

A truth that every successful politician knows very well is that even with the best political platform and massive visibility, it will all fail if they are not likable. This does not just mean being likable enough to get elected, but likable enough to create action in a desired direction. You can still polarize people and be liked and respected. In fact, polarizing an audience is a good way to know who really does like you.

With little exception, each one of us has a group of people who respect us, like us, listen to us, and follow our advice. Being likable is not always as easy to measure as we prefer, but if it was, we would probably all walk through our lives feeling really bold and confident about how we influence somebody … at least somebody.

In case you ever doubted it, this should come as great news for you. You have influence, but where did you get it? If you think about this, it often comes from being liked, more than from any other factor. You may doubt it, or have a bad day and overlook it sometimes, but being liked, or lack thereof, is a big factor in the success of almost anything you attempt.

Like and dislike are not the only two options. There is a wide chasm of indifference between the two. If you want to be liked, you must give people reasons. That is how you move them across the chasm.

Testing the Theory of Being Liked

As a test of the value of being liked, let’s picture two people. It does not really matter what they do for a living, but we will say they are “rocket surgeons”. They went to school for brain surgery and followed it up to become rocket scientists. Both are clearly smart and capable, but which one wins?

Rocket Surgeon Jim is a person you respect highly for his genius ideas and brilliant works in his field, but you do not consider him overly likable. He is polite, but he is just not the kind you gravitate to at a party. Something about Jim seems uncomfortable, and you sometimes wonder how sad and boring it must be to be Jim’s wife. Jim is not a bad person, but he seems a little bit “robotic” and not much of a people person.

Rocket Surgeon David is somebody who is perhaps a notch or two less genius than Jim, but you like David very much. He is quite competent, but his likability alone seems to open doors for him. Just the mention of David’s name brings about good thoughts, and he is the kind of person you like to be around … or maybe even the kind of person you want to be more like.

Which rocket surgeon do you think will find more success in their endeavors?

The value of being likable comes in widely varying degrees, but it always matters. In my estimation, you are probably not too excited to do business with “Rocket Surgeon Jim”, right? Further, you will probably not recommend him to others, like those people I mentioned, who are influenced by you.

Now, if you turn this around and think about how others will respond to you if they do not like you, it is easy to see how it can hurt a business. I mean any business, and even the most genius ones, doing the most brilliant work. Being liked does not just mean keeping people from disliking you, but also actually giving them reasons to like you.

I do not wish to imply that you must be a people-pleaser, but giving reasons to be liked and not just being “robotic” is worth the effort.

Likability Applied to Social Media

The power of being liked is especially evident when you apply it to the vast, and fast moving vehicle of influence, which is social media.

Being genuinely likable, whether as an individual, or as a brand, offers the best possibility to improve the chances of achieving your objectives. If you neglect the importance of being likable, and you just operate as a machine, you are missing the biggest of all assets. Even the least suspecting people you meet will influence somebody, and if they like you, something great could happen.

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Use Follow Through to Increase Your Influence

I realize upfront that a lot of people do not want to address the topic of the things they neglect to do. It is uncomfortable to think about all the tasks that we forget, or put off until another day. Even the mention of it will probably make a lot of people think I am looking right down my finger at them. Don’t worry, this is not a message of scorn, because you are not the only one who is guilty of that thing you know you should have done but hoped nobody would notice or remember your failure to follow through.

Have you ever been stood up? Maybe it was a date, a business meeting, a telephone call, or many other possible ways that somebody did not follow through with what they told you. Do you remember how that made you feel? I can tell you that it is one way to end up in my recycle bin, and I am not the only one who feels this way.

When people do not follow through on their words, it often becomes a personal matter. It is insulting. It can even strangely cause a sense of shame or guilt for the recipient, with thoughts like “Well, I guess I was not all that important to them.” More often, it will bring about a dismissal of the individual’s words, both past and present. It destroys trust, and in business, that is a tragic fate which often negates even the best marketing efforts.

This topic comes up in my business and personal life once in a while, and the person I discuss it with is my wife. We have operated businesses for decades, and we have each encountered liars, cheats, and thieves on multiple occasions. We have also encountered a lot of people who are not quite classified as horrible, but rather what we call “flakey”. You do not have to look very hard to find flakey people. They are the ones you look at with a cautious eye when they tell you something that will require them to take action beyond the moment at hand.

Losing Influence is Easy

There are a squillion examples of what I call “flakey”. I’ll give you a quick example, but it can be far more subtle. In this example, it is the customer who lost influence and trust. I make this point because it can go both ways, and we each determine our own individual influence which we carry everywhere we go.

My wife and I own a thriving cakes and confections business. Mad Eliza’s Cakes and Confections has become quite a hit in our town, and I have found that cakes are about the easiest thing to sell that I ever brought to market.

Somebody recently placed an order for custom cupcakes from Mad Eliza’s and expressed urgency to pick them up at a specific time on Halloween Day for a party he had scheduled. The time came and went, and that afternoon, my wife rang him on the telephone. He quickly blurted “I’ll call you back in just a minute.” Did he call? No. Did we have some nice Halloween-themed cupcakes to hand out to friends that day? Yes, we did, and people loved them.

Being “flakey” in this case involved a blatant lie, right? Well, probably, but we cannot be so sure. Maybe he was in a terrible accident with a hair dryer and a bathtub. We do not know the whole story, but what we do know is that the lack of follow through took this person down a few notches on our “listening scale”. This guy clearly lost influence. He may not ever need any influence, but what would it look like if I saw him in the waiting room of a friend’s business applying for a job? Stranger things have happened!

With the massive popularity of social media, there is an even more profound importance of doing what you say you will do. People talk about things they find distasteful. Although you may think that lacking the integrity to follow through on simple tasks may not be conversation-worthy, you can bet that if your name comes up, there will be significantly less excitement for somebody to say great things about you. If lack of follow-through becomes a common problem within your company, even with “insignificant” tasks, it can destroy your influence. In more extreme instances, you can end up looking horrible when somebody searches for your company name.

Increasing Influence is Easy, Too!

Trust is a tricky thing. I wrote about the topic of building trust a while back, and it included some good food for thought. The article was titled “Building Trust Comes First in Business, But How?“.

Influence has a lot to do with trust, but influence can also be relatively easy to build if you do what you say you will, even when it seems insignificant to you. Being consistent and always following through with even the “little things” can build up over time.

About a decade ago when my company, YourNew.com, was new, I asked my wife and business partner what made us different. I was trying to distill what would set us apart and make our company great. She had a nearly immediate and very definite answer. She told me “I can sum it up in a single word … Integrity!“ That has always stuck with me, and I think of it every time I tell somebody I will call them back, email something, meet for coffee, or anything else when there is an opportunity to let somebody down by not following through.

I am certainly not a saint, but I try really hard to make a priority of keeping my word, regardless how trivial a matter may seem to me. It may matter a lot to somebody else. I hope that you will try hard, too.

Do you have an example of follow through building your confidence in a person or a brand? Do you have examples of it destroying your confidence? Please share your thoughts.

Photo credit to DigiDi via Flickr

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