i am an openly known user of blogs to understand my customers and find new opportunities. If it sounds more like a confession then a statement- it probably is because you don't understand that bloggers want to be heard and our jobs as consultants and sales people are to listen.blog reading has treated me very well in the last 2 years+ and over the last few months i have been trying to share some of that knowledge with my fellow co-workers as well as customers who are starting to see blog content as another powerful external content source to be added to their sales processes.
now- i realize i have an unique territory (south to San Jose and all the way up to Seattle)- where many of my clients and prospects have employee blogging policies and allow their employees to Blog it UP! - but with blogging becoming more prevalent across industries and with the 'MySpace' generation coming into the workforce- using employee blogs to understand our customers, industries and competitors may keep us ahead- or at least more interesting to speak to!
some customers even have said that as a company "we get it"(ok it was mostly me at that point ;-)- here is a quote from Jeremiah Owyang's recent podcast on business blogging:
there is one company in particular called Factiva and they have been approaching us and talking to us about our offerings as far as information supply, and there sales team was reading my blog to understand what are my needs because I would be one of the primary decision makers.
in prepping for a meeting i found the dirtydogstink blog that is authored by an employee- one that happens to be in a group that i was scheduled to have a conversation with- so in the middle of the conversation- me being me- i mentioned dirtydogstink-
in prepping for a meeting i found the dirtydogstink blog that is authored by an employee- one that happens to be in a group that i was scheduled to have a conversation with- so in the middle of the conversation- me being me- i mentioned dirtydogstink-
(i think it was at an appropriate point- we were having a conversation with someone else who was on the phone and who is our main day to day contact at this company- and the two from one group were talking about the recent change from MSN Operations to Windows Live Operations but during our conversation MSN kept coming up and corrections from the Live Operations team that it was Windows Live Operation not MSN - yeah could have been confusing but as an outsider, i wasn't confused because i had already read dirtysogstink's view on the whole thing the day before)
so to get to the point- it lead to this conversation which is pretty funny- maybe it is because of the blog's name- and the fact that a vendor (me) actually said dirtydogstink during a call ;-) and everyone did go and read it- but we did get our main objectives accomplished and i look forward to the follow-up next week-
6 comments :
I'd also like to add that Claire the former CEO of Factiva did a great job reaching out to me both via email and my blog.
I company that listens and connects --a great example of a company that wants to build a sincere relationship with it's customers.
Now...about those RSS features ;)
1. RSS Company Alerts went live in last weekends build- yep they listened. i haven't had a chance to update all my company alerts to the SalesWorks solution and i have been super busy with two projects that are going into delivery mode which mean i can come up for a breath this week. you are on my list to send a note once i test it myself-i will send you access- some other GREAT features with this build that i will share
2. i went to see Clare when i was in Princeton two weeks ago. i spoke to clare about how our blogs should go with us as we move companies (she is now Dow Jones Enterprise Media Group EVP/President)- i mentioned you were wondering when she will blog again. i am sure it will come- she really hasn't spoken to the press about her new position yet but i am sure when she is ready her blog might be a place to let us know what she has been up ay DJ.
There's been discussion if blogs are a corporate asset or a personal one.
Scoble is leaving Microsoft and taking his personal blog with him.
There was another corporate blogger but he wasn't allowed to take it (I think it ended on bad terms)
Why not turn Clare's blog back on and hand over to her, or, it's possible to export her historical posts (and even comments) so it can populate a new one. My reccomendations to any individual however are to buy a domain and settle on that (like I'm doing right now at web-strategist.com
Lastly, this article is interesting
RSS is the Intranet Protocol
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=3257
when we spoke two weeks ago she seemed to have every intention to blog again she is just taking some time to figure out when-
Clare Hart remains involved with Factiva as well as Chair of Factiva’s board (which is great for us)- and being that Dow Jones is one of our parent companies (the other being Reuters)- i am sure http://fromthehart.typepad.com will live on in one form or another-
thanks for the zdnet article- our three main destination products (Factiva.com, Search 2.0 and SalesWorks) now have RSS output alerts- we are ready to plug and play basically into all enterprise and commercial RSS platforms.
Daniela - I'm glad to hear that your meeting did actually get back on track. I'm also glad that you said 'dirtydogstink' while on the phone...that alone is worth the price of admission. ;-)
Take care!
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