It involves a trip to their website, a few google searches to gain some additional insight on their industry and to get an idea of who they compete with and also preparing a list of questions. This educates me on their business, it enables us to fast-forward the business part of our conversation from a level 1 to a level 2 or 3, it demonstrates my genuine interest to win their business and most importantly, it’s a sign of respect.

When I’m on the other side of the desk meeting with someone who wants to sell me their products or services, or with someone who is interviewing for a position, my first question is, “What do you know about us?” Depending on their response, it tells me how interested they are in working with us. Unfortunately, in slightly more than half of the instances, the energy in the room changes as the person in front of me explains that Seroka is an advertising agency and knows little else. It quickly becomes apparent that s/he didn’t even invest the time to look through our website. It places them in a deficit position.

A significant amount of time, thought, money and energy goes into influencing a prospective client to agree to a meeting. The person who is the best prepared, demonstrating the most interest will have the best chance of winning the business.

Just because everything is status quo doesn’t mean your customer isn’t keeping his or her options open.

Just because the conversations seem friendly doesn’t mean those same friendly conversations aren’t taking place with your formidable competition.

It’s a big mistake to assume the relationships with your customers are great simply because they don’t say anything negative, or because they don’t initiate conversations to address a problem you’re not even aware of. If they do, consider yourself lucky because non-confrontational personalities find it much easier to fade away from one relationship and engage with another that seems to be a better match. Unfortunately, by the time you realize their business is fading away it may be too late, and you’ll have little success winning them back.

When you ask the question, “How are we doing?”, you’re telling your customer that you care. If there are problems, you’ll have the golden opportunity to make corrections and recover quickly.

All you have to do is ask.

As people increasingly become more and more intertwined within their social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Google Latitude and Foursquare, they are consciously removing their walls of privacy, one brick at a time.

According to a recent report by eMarketer, two in five mobile owners (39%) use location-aware services despite privacy concerns and fears of hackers tapping into their networks. Hence, it is reasonable to conclude that friends letting friends know where they are and checking in to locations is more important to these users than the inherent risk that information about their personal whereabouts and identities may be used by malicious, criminal minds. Not too many social networkers consider that whenever they check in to a location, there’s a chance that the wrong person with nefarious intentions will note where they are not – home, and you can let your mind wander from there. Beyond the obvious consequences, some insurance companies are reviewing social networking activities and challenging claims submitted by those who advertise an “all clear” on social media sites.

Viewed from a different perspective, this trend is great news for marketers who wish to obtain available, personal information on current and prospective customers. The more data available, the more targeted they can become to reach otherwise invisible customers. Moreover, retailers are witnessing that more consumers are willing to trade some personal information in exchange for discounts and other monetary rewards.

The next 6, 12, 24 and 36 months will be very telling. Will this trend continue? Perhaps, but there will always be those people who question how important it is to let 544 friends (plus someone else) know that they’re having a great time on vacation.

Generally, as much as they are industry specific, they can also be somewhat vague, built from a pool of data from multiple sources and perspectives. Although these lists may challenge our beliefs, answer questions and provide new direction and optimism, it may be time to construct your own best practices and top 10 lists for your company as they pertain to your purpose, customers and goals.

As the saying goes, you cannot manage what you do not measure. Hence, everything worth doing is worth measuring and from measuring, conclusions can be drawn. From these conclusions you will acquire the intelligence to methodically build, and over time, hone your own personal best practices and top lists.

In the beginning, you may be spending more time interpreting, analyzing and measuring than you will planning and launching. However, as your lists metamorphosize into doctrines, the ROI of everything you do will improve measurably.

Yes, many of us innovate on some scale. But large-scale innovation can be attributed to a combination of practices, habits and personal philosophies. True innovators…

1. Search for new opportunities by connecting seemingly unrelated dots. Pierre Omidyar launched eBay when he found himself at the intersection of three unique desires: to create efficient markets, locate hard-to-find items and create a channel to help people find them.

2. Get a kick out of questioning and aggravating the status quo. In other words, if it ain’t broke, they break it, kick it around, add components, eliminate others, put it back together differently, experiment, test it and do it all over again.

3. Collaborate with people who don’t share similar views. Innovators get bored quickly hanging around the office for too long talking to like-minded people. It’s much too limiting and there’s not enough people around to challenge them and push their hot buttons. Instead, they thrive in environments surrounded by others who oppose their views.

4. Create prototypes, launch pilots, construct experiences and provoke different outcomes. To a true innovator, the world is their lab to test and try new things.

5. Scrutinize everything. Innovators study how people behave in their natural environments. They are true people watchers who take notes and think about how to accomplish something easier and more efficiently.

6. Possess acute listening skills. Most people communicate through verbal exchanges of views, opinions and experiences. Innovators possess a sonar with which they interpret and translate what is being said into miniature ideas that are filed away in their minds for future use.

Inspired? Hopefully so. Nearly everything we have today is vastly superior to what we had ten years ago for one reason: innovation.

Whatever it was, is or will be, your company must be able to act fast and on demand with the ability to make and execute decisions faster than your competitors.

For some companies, this will require an overhaul on how decisions are made and who will be empowered to make them. If your approval process mandates that everything must be anointed by a committee before going to HR for their blessing prior to going to legal for their seal of approval before submission to the CFO, you may be waiting indefinitely for the green light. Usually, and unfortunately, the larger the organization, the longer the approval process, and that can keep you permanently behind the curve.

Understandably, you will not always be able to bypass certain layers of approval. However, if you place your focus on creating a decision-driven culture by discovering ways to expedite the decision-making process, you will be that much more agile. This ability to be quick on your feet will be necessary to compete, succeed and grow.

Low energy environments such as these create a culture of complacency where everyone continues to do their work per their respective job descriptions, despite warnings of a looming crisis.

There are some leadership experts who believe in fostering an environment in which everyone is aligned and follows the chain of command. However, for large-scale change initiatives, an occasional dose of dissent is necessary to fire up the creative mind and have the requisite breakthroughs for growth.

In organizations where growth is the fundamental objective, you’ll find a staff populated with devil’s advocates, right-brainers and left-brainers sharing the same office, and a diverse sea of personalities. Sugarcoaters are on the endangered species list.

Some leaders will say they want to be asked the tough questions and they may even say they want to be challenged. Sure, that sounds great when things are quiet at the moment, but how do they react when it actually happens? You’ll find out soon enough.

In the words of Henry Ford, “If two people always agree, one of them is unnecessary.”

Question: What do the following four things all have in common?

1) The mouse nestled under your hand

2) Your customer relationship management (CRM) software

3) The construction of the desk in front of you

4) Your last medical procedure

Answer: Someone somewhere spent a significant amount of time designing its shape, application, construction and process. Each of the above functions better than its equivalent did several years ago. The mouse you use today is much improved over the mouse you used five years ago, as is your software, ergonomically friendly furniture and doctor’s visit. In fact, every thing and every service under the sun continues to improve in design because in the mind of the designer, the best can still be better.

If you don’t think of yourself as a designer, think again. If you’ve ever purposely bent, modified, drilled, shaped, sketched, fabricated, molded, installed, configured, programmed or re-arranged, you are a designer.

So if it ain’t broke, break it, and put it back together better than it was before, because he who has the best design, wins.

Fifty-two percent of respondents to its survey are satisfied with the ROI of Twitter while 48 percent are either indifferent or disappointed. This isn’t too surprising given that BtoB social media marketing consistently trails BtoC. We hear and read about how influential social media marketing is on the consumer side so often that it actually deters some BtoB marketers from investing too much time into something that isn’t quite proven yet.

However, as with everything else in life, you get what you give. It isn’t so much the actual tweeting time involved, but the time to think through your social media marketing strategy.

The following are four Twitter strategies from successful tweeters, a direct lift from BtoB Magazine:

“In a series of case studies featured in the report, successful adopters outline some of their strategies for making the most of their tweets. Tactics include scheduling messages for optimal visibility, retweeting messages from influential bloggers, adopting a rigorous schedule for sending tweets and concentrating messages around important events.”

In other words, make sure you’re consistently posting meaningful, relevant and timely content during peak times when your audience is most likely to be engaged online. Of course, this applies to Facebook posts, LinkedIn updates and blogging as well.

Are you satisfied with the results of your social media marketing efforts? If so, please share…

Beyond the standard demographic data of age, gender, income, marital status, location, etc., it’s equally important to understand people’s beliefs, values and attitudes and how they are changing in the swift of  political, economic, technological and social trend currents.

Below is an enlightening list of the top 10 consumer trends for 2010 that were recently published by trendwatching.com. Enjoy.

1. Business as unusual: Companies must move “with the culture,” meaning they need to be transparent and honest about their efforts to conduct environmentally sustainable business practices and genuinely collaborate with their customers rather than try to dictate to them. Trendwatching.com cites Google, Amazon, Zappos and Virgin as four companies that are successfully conducting “business as unusual.”

2. Urbany: As of 2008, more than half of the world’s population resides in cities. This means increasingly sophisticated consumers want daring goods, services, experiences, campaigns and conversations.

3. Real-time Reviews: Consumers are constantly online with immediate access to reviews of products and services by fellow consumers. Companies must either offer products and services which are so good they are beyond criticism or involve customers in product design from day one to minimize the chance of a bad reaction.

4. (F)luxury: Consumers want luxury, but there is no longer a clear definition of “luxury.” To create a sense of luxury, companies should produce products and services that are scarce or radically different from what is on the marketplace.

5. Mass Mingling: Consumers who interact online through social networks increasingly are taking those virtual relationships into the “real world.” Companies should help facilitate real-world meetups from social networks in a way that promotes their brand.

6. Eco-Easy: Time-strapped consumers want to be ecologically conscious but don’t want to expend time or effort in doing so, creating a market for products and services that make it easy to be “green.”

7. Tracking & Alerting: Using online technology, consumers want to instantly track and be alerted of events and information they find interesting or important.

8. Embedded Generosity: Consumers will continue to respond well to products and services which have a charitable component, such as apparel items which have a portion of their profits donated to a worthy cause.

9. Profile Mining: Consumers are increasingly protective of their online privacy and are receptive to products and services which offer security for online social networking activities.

10. Maturalism: Short for “mature materialism,” this trend revolves around consumers’ increasing receptiveness to products, services and advertising campaigns which are edgy, controversial and push social boundaries.