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If you are one of the coveted few who received Google Wave invitations and you still don’t get it – you’re not alone. I recently received my invitation and gleefully logged in, ready to roll. Once I logged in I thought… huh? On first glance, Google Wave looks like a new type of email client. But it’s much more.

Google Wave provides a collaborative environment where teams can collaborate on documents in real-time. More important, they can collaborate on the same version of the document without the worry of multiple versions floating around via email.

Google Wave is most effective when you have several connections that can contribute to your wave. So, if you are part of the small beta group of testers, you may not have other connections to collaborate on your wave.

Confused yet?

In a nutshell, Google Wave is a real-time collaborative tool that:

• In most instances, enables you to see what someone else is typing in real-time.
• Enables developers to build apps and widgets, so its functionality is pretty extensible.
• Can be embedded on any blog or website.
• Allows files to be shared via drag and drop.

While we all muddle through this new tool, we need to understand that Wave wasn’t meant to be understood instantly. Expect to take some time to familiarize yourself with the tool, its use and others that you might connect with.

The good news? There are many professionals paving the way to help us better understand Google Wave:

• Google Wave (Not) For Dummies
• The Complete Guide to Google Wave
• Trying to Understand Google Wave

Is Google Wave going to transform your business? Not in the short term. But it’s a tool with enough potential that it could change the way groups collaborate in the future. For this reason, it’s worth investigating sooner than later.

Beth J. Bates consults with Hinge on social media tool selection and strategy and helps its clients find effective ways to leverage these new mediums to meet business goals.

“Cloak yourself in credibility.” That’s the advice Arun Gupta offered to start-up companies trying to gain traction with Venture Capital firms when he participated on a panel at the annual Venture Capital Outlook conference presented by Potomac Tech Wire last week. A partner in Columbia Capital and a very active player in the tech and services arena, Arun knows a thing or two about venture capital. And his comment is obviously right on point for firms seeking venture funding.

What struck me about his advice is how relevant it is to all professional services firms. You see, venture firms are betting on entrepreneurs to solve difficult problems. The same could be said of professional services buyers and the firms they hire. Credibility is the coin of the realm in both cases.

Arun had two additional comments that rang true. First, he emphasized the absolute importance of knowing and tracking the cost of acquiring a new customer. Far too few firms have any idea what it takes. If you don’t measure what it costs to acquire a new client, you will have a difficult time improving your closing rate. When you are armed with this information, you are in a position to accelerate investment when you discover a technique that works exceptionally well. For example, today I was talking with a client who was evaluating a lead generation program with a cost per lead of around $50. When I asked him what the value of a lead was, we calculated it to be about $5000 (average contract size multiplied by closing percentage). Who wouldn’t be interested in buying $5000 bills for $50?

Arun’s final point was to stop focusing on what’s hot today. If it’s hot today it’s too late. Your firm needs to be focused on what will be in demand in 2-3 years. How do you do that? Start by understanding trends that will shape the industry you serve. Then get in front of them. Easy? Not really. Can it be done? Absolutely. And the rewards for getting it right are very great indeed.

As you may know, Hinge conducts regular research on professional services firms and their clients. We are just finishing data collection on a national study aimed at identifying professional services firms that are growing fast, even in this challenging economic environment. The good news is that there are some impressive performers.

Today, I’d like to highlight one such company, a technology firm called Invizion. They operate in the GovCon space and are focusing on the security market.

Their top management team includes founders Steve Johnson, George Washington and COO Lauren White. Consistent with many top performing firms, these folks are experienced players with solid track records and experience.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that Invizion is a client of ours. I confess that I admire this company, and I believe they would be successful even without our help. Why? We’ve researched professional services firms across North America. And based on our profile of the most successful professional services firms, Invizion does a lot of things right. Let me give you three good examples:

1. They have brought on very high quality people, both employees and business partners. They spend senior management time and money to develop and maintain a carefully conceived corporate culture. This is very important for a company with a widely dispersed, culturally diverse workforce — a characteristic shared with many government contractors.
2. They understand that their brand has to reflect their strategic focus. Like many high performing firms, they are clear about how they want to be perceived — and they do what it takes to support that perception. From website to office space to choice of teaming partners, they push for consistency. It’s not easy to refocus a high growth firm, but a well-calibrated brand helps keep high performance firms at the front of the pack.
3. They are willing to take calculated risks and innovate. These initiatives build on core strengths and reinforce their brand positioning. Many companies are content to play it safe in an uncertain economy. But playing it safe comes with its own risks. Do all of their initiatives pay off? Of course not; that’s why they are called risks. But when risks work out, they can open up tremendous opportunities.

Invizion expects to continue growing this coming year. We’ll be right there with them, watching and learning.

Everyone loves a good story, especially when it’s about them. Stories are full of life and fuel the imagination. They enable your company to connect with its customers on a personal level. That’s how connections are made.

Corporate storytelling is becoming a popular and effective way to share what a company, its employees and its customers are doing. Done right, it can build emotional interest and trust.

There are a number of ways to present your corporate story. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

• Identity stories connect your customers with your brand. They like to know why a company came to be or how you were able to grow a company from a small kitchen-run business to a large corporation.
• Customer stories enable the people who use your service of buy your product to share their experiences. Stories might include how your product changed their life or how they used your service to better their community. People like to share good news and empowering them to connect helps build validity in your brand.
• Product stories explain how your product came to be. You don’t have to give away trade secrets, but customers like to know why a product came from and who made it happen. It puts a human face on your product, and customers like to connect with people.
• Internal stories are a great way to share your company’s greatest assets — your employees — with the rest of the world. Many of your employees, for instance, are probably doing great things within the community. They are volunteering and helping folks who are less fortunate. That can be a great story.

So, encourage your people and your customers to tell their stories … and you just may live happily ever after.

Beth J. Bates consults with Hinge on social media tool selection and strategy and helps its clients find effective ways to leverage these new mediums to meet business goals.

As business leaders, we’re supposed to know all about strategy. After all we’re typically responsible for setting the strategic direction of our firms. But it’s a widely misunderstood topic. So it’s a real joy to encounter someone who can put the topic in perspective.

Recently, I attended a workshop on the topic of execution conducted by Patrick Thean of the Gazelles organization. In my experience, strategy and execution are closely related, and a point Thean made only deepened this conviction. Thean was emphasizing how important it was that tracking performance indicators support your business strategy. That’s when he said it:

“Strategy is not about being better, it’s about being different.”

Now think about that for a minute. How much time do professional services firms spend trying to be better than the competition? We’re forever trying to be faster, more agile, smarter, have better people, use a better process, and walk on water. This is not a strategy. It’s not much of a competitive advantage either.

Let’s reflect on being different for a moment. If everyone else emphasizes low cost, you emphasize ultra-high quality. Now you are talking strategy! Your competitors emphasize customer service; you go for the self-service niche. That could work. What will not work, however, is trying to be “competitive” — i.e., doing what everyone else does, only better.

It is true. Being different just to be different isn’t very smart either. The only differences that really give you an advantage are those that are meaningful and beneficial to your target customers. Nail that one and you have a strategy that will put your professional services firm at the top of the list.

Let’s face it. With social media usage on the rise, news travels fast. And bad news travels even faster. In the past, if you had a bad experience with a company you might write a letter to the CEO or tell your friends face-to-face. But today, a viral complaint is just a click away.

Social media, however, can be used to turn a disgruntled client’s frown upside down. Companies like Comcast, Century Link and Ning use Twitter to monitor customer issues — and they take rapid action. Their quick response gives customers a sense of priority and their professionalism builds loyalty. With the economy still weak but on the mend, happy customers can keep a company afloat.

When I have a positive experience with a company, however small, I like to tell people about it — in person and online. That’s the power of customer service, and it spreads quickly.

On the flip side, many companies never monitor their social media streams. So when a customer complains and gets no response, the damage is multiplied (remember, it’s a public forum). Poor service like this can be detrimental to a brand.

Social media is a powerful tool for managing your customers needs in real-time. It gives you the chance to intervene before a problem spins out of control. When managed properly, it gives you the ability to demonstrate your company’s responsiveness and strengthen your brand.

Beth J. Bates consults with Hinge on social media tool selection and strategy and helps its clients find effective ways to leverage these new mediums to meet business goals.

With the holidays just around the corner, consumers are are planning on spending slightly less than in 2008, but much more strategically. 59% of consumers plan to shop in discount stores. 42% plan to shop online. What does this mean for professional services firms? Probably not much. But it does demonstrate that people in general have embraced social media and web-based alternatives to traditional ways of doing business. This public acceptance of new media almost certainly has implications for the b2b world.

According to Deloitte’s 2009 Annual Holiday Survey:

• 17% of U.S. consumers plan to leverage social media sites to assist in their holiday shopping.
• 60% will do so to seek discounts and sales.

In an online study conducted by an independent research company:

• 53% of consumers will use social media sites to research potential gift ideas.
• 46% will research product reviews.
• 52% will view their family members’ wish lists.
• 30% plan to share their own wish list.

The study surveyed more than 10,000 individuals.

Another recent study conducted by Shop.org indicated that 47.1% of retailers plan to increase their social media usage during this holiday season. The most common social media sites that are being used by retailers are Facebook and Twitter.

Retailers are getting truly creative when using social media to promote their products through events like Twitter scavenger hunts and Facebook contests. Still other companies reported to feature “Facebook Only” discounts through their fan page or exclusively to their Twitter followers.

Professional services firms would do well to watch what is going on in the b2c world and monitor what social media tactics are truly engaging people. Chances are, at least some of these marketing techniques could be successfully adapted to your firm. So this season, keep your eyes open as you do your online holiday shopping. You might just discover a free gift!

Beth J. Bates consults with Hinge on social media tool selection and strategy and helps its clients find effective ways to leverage these new mediums to meet business goals.

Sometimes the data speak volumes. I recently had that experience when reviewing the new survey of government contracting firms released by Deltek. The survey, called Clarity 09, is a great resource for anyone who sells professional services to the federal government (and you can download it for free).

Here is the first nugget that caught my attention: How should you approach proposal writing if you want to maximize growth? Be selective (the so called “write fewer and win more” strategy)? Or should you maximize proposals to maximize wins? How about a compromise and be moderately selective?

The survey broke the volume of proposals written per year into four categories 0-24, 25-49, 50-99, and 100+. They then looked at the number of proposals written as a function of growth rate.

What they learned was that as the rate of firm growth increased, the middle categories began to disappear. By the time you get to the highest growth companies (50% or more per year) the only two categories left are the companies who do under 25 proposals a year or over 100. Laser focus vs. carpet bombing (please excuse the military metaphor, it seems so perfect). They both work, but which is most effective? As it turns out, 80% of the high-growth firms use a targeted strategy. Interestingly, this finding fits nicely with our observation that high-growth firms tend to be more focused in their marketing. Thank you, Deltek.

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t been in the habit of thinking of Michael Chertoff, the former head of the Department of Homeland Security, as a source of sage marketing advice. But alas, I was wrong.

Mr. Chertoff spoke recently to the Association for Corporate Growth on the topic of security and the role that private-sector business plays. In his role as the first head of DHS he was perhaps one of the world’s largest purchasers of professional and technical services. The lesson he shared from that experience is relevant to anyone interested in professional services marketing.

Chertoff described how his department was inundated by firms who had wonderful “solutions” — all in search of a problem to solve. He urged professional services firms instead to take the time to understand the problems faced by their target customers (in his case it was the government security community, but the lesson is universal). Then sell them on the solution. The reception they’ll receive will be enthusiastic.

Amen. This is exactly what our own research on professional serves buyers says.  The challenge, of course, is that everyone pays lip service to this concept but few actually follow through. It’s easy to fall into the familiar and routine: “This is what we do.  So you want us to do it for you?”  If you approach professional services marketing the same way as everyone else, don’t be surprised if the results you get are the same as everyone else.