Entrepreneurs’ Organization Edmonton (EO) celebrated entrepreneurship last month with keynote speaker Cameron Herald—former COO and co-founder of 1-800-GOT-JUNK. I’m always skeptical about whether or not I’ll get value from speakers in a seminar format, but I’ve developed this habit where I try to take one thing from every speaker I listen to and, so far, I’ve had good success. To my delight, I got a whole pile of “things” from Herald.

Herald’s talk wasn’t about how to build an empire (it certainly could have been). Instead, he focused his discussion around a rollercoaster analogy. The idea is that every entrepreneurial-minded individual is “on the track” and, like it or not, there will be significant highs and lows and the journey will be tough. Herald shared some strategies around how to get through the highs (what he called uninformed optimism) and the lows. It was simple—and profound. I identified with every stage.

After his talk, I had an opportunity to chat with him. I asked him about success, and he immediately pointed to the strategies he used to build relationships.

Cameron: “We had over 5,000 (yup, 3 zeros!) media hits in the first 5 years of our company’s life.”

Me: “What was the secret?”

Cameron: “Well, I can tell you that it wasn’t really due to our successes, it was more about how we built relationships.”

Me: “Tell me more.”

Cameron: “I’ve always bypassed the reporters and gone straight to the writers, the camera operators, and the field staff. I’m still friends with a writer who I called up once. We ended up meeting and sharing a Manhattan—I gave him some perspective, and helped him with our story angle—the guy was thrilled to be talking to the source! Ever since, he’s become a huge ambassador for us. It’s pretty simple, treat people with respect and find a way to help them out—and big things come your way.”

Cameron: “We had an employee once who was struggling with his work so I asked him what his dreams were. He indicated that he had always wanted to sit in the box with the Vancouver Canucks during a hockey game. Turns out the writer I mentioned had some connections so I called in a favour and next thing I knew, my employee was at the game in the box with the coaching staff and players of the Canucks! The players liked him and took him out for beers afterwards…he doesn’t work for me anymore but, to this day, he’d break down walls for me.”

“How can I help?” versus “What can I get?” Five thousand media articles (and a globally recognized business) later and Cameron Herald’s riding the wave.

Let’s start with the basics. What exactly is social media? According to Wikipedia (which in itself is a social media platform):

“Social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media uses Internet and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many).”

Social media is about creating conversations online. It’s about having the freedom to express your thoughts, without repercussions. It’s about spreading news regarding your positive experiences or expressing your anger about negative situations. It’s about sharing.

Before jumping on the social media bandwagon, organizations need to determine their target audience, outline their objectives for each social media platform (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, YouTube, Flickr), and develop a plan to ensure successful execution. Even though the various social media platforms are free to use, they are not free in terms of your time. It takes time to develop your social media strategy, and even more time to execute it. If it’s not properly executed, social media can have more of a negative impact than a positive one.

To ensure your time will be spent wisely, make sure to examine three things:

1. What is your target audience ready for?

In the book “Groundswell” written by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff from Forrester Research (a highly recommended read), they identify 5 categories your audience can fit into:

• Creators – at least once a month publish a blog, maintain a Web page, upload videos or audio, etc.
• Critics – react to content online, post comments on blogs or online forums, post ratings or reviews, edit wikis
• Collectors – save URLS & tags on social bookmarking services, vote for sites, use RSS feeds
• Joiners – participate in or maintain profiles on social networking sites (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn)
• Spectators – consume what the rest produce (e.g., read blogs, online forums, reviews, listen to podcasts)
• In-actives – non-participants

If your audience includes creators, critics, collectors, or joiners, then implementing a social media strategy is a good idea (you’ll need to allocate the time and resources to do so). If your audience is made up of spectators, they will take in messages from social media; however, do not expect them to participate. Lastly, if your audience consists of in-actives, then perhaps it’s not worth your time to enter the world of social media. Always keep in mind who your audience is.

2. Why will your audience participate?

What kind of content or information do you plan on sharing? Will your content speak to your audience? Is the content engaging enough to inspire participation? Content is king in social media.

3. How will your audience participate?

Will your audience be comfortable responding to your blog posts? Is your audience the type to forward on information to friends and family? Will your audience be inspired to re-tweet your message? Audience participation is needed to spread your message(s).

Knowing your target audience is extremely important. If they are not willing to participate and share with you online, you might be wasting your time.

Is social media right for your organization? Now is the time to find out.

Over the course of my year in Nanjing, China, I learned about the word guanxi, which means "relationships." People seemed to think very highly of this somewhat puzzling word. The phrase, "he has good guanxi," would inevitably receive significant admiration displayed through a great deal of head nodding and grunts of approval. Despite my initial puzzlement about the meaning of the word, I would be profoundly influenced by the real culture of guanxi in China.

It happened while eating dinner with a famous business leader in Nanjing. During the course of an eight-hour twelve course meal together, and despite great communication difficulties, the two of us became friends for life. I have yet to meet an individual who was as genuinely and unconditionally interested in me, my country, my thoughts, my family, my business, and my beliefs.

This experience taught me a great deal about guanxi and the Ancient Chinese Art of Relationships. By the end of my trip, I realized that my accomplishments in China would not have been achieved without the wonderful relationships that I had developed. Here’s what I learnt through guanxi:

1. Slow down. Be patient. Great relationships take time.
2. Be polite. Say thank you. Show respect. Tell people how much you appreciate their investment in you. Write hand written notes. Learn how to do a proper handshake.
3. Listen. Look people in the eyes. Show genuine interest. Ask tons of questions. Repeat their answers. Limit how much you talk.
4. Don’t judge. Give people a chance. The people you meet will teach you, inspire you and make you grow. Develop relationships with people from all walks of life.
5. Forgive. If people have upset you, deal with the issue for the sake of the relationship. Holding a grudge gets you nowhere.
6. Apologize. If mistakes have been made, don’t be afraid to offer a sincere apology. Admitting mistakes is a sign of strength, not weakness.
7. Stay in touch. Follow up with the relationships you have made. Keep a database of your contacts with a calendar of activities to maintain contact with them.
8. Ask for help. People love to help – show some vulnerability and let people in.
9. Lose your ego. People don’t want to be around people who make them feel small. Learn to talk the same language and use the same expressions as the people you meet with.
10. Have fun. Everyone likes to laugh. Humour is perhaps the most underrated networking technique.

Follow these basic principles and incorporate them into your daily behaviours. As your network of solid relationships expands, so too will your success in business and in life.

Interdisciplinary work between cognitive scientists and rhetorical theorists (people who study language) has recently shed light on the old maxim that the way you say or write something is just as important as what you’re saying.

What cognitive science has discovered:
Our brains operate along basic principles of rhythm, repetition, similarity, and difference (among others).

What rhetorical studies has discovered:
Rhetorical scholars point out that the very objects of their study – literary figures of speech – function along these same principles. For instance, figures of speech based on similarity and difference include rhyme, assonance, consonance, alliteration, and many more.

How these discoveries are related:
Since figures of speech align language to the way our brains operate, we can intuitively recognize the formal (or structural) patterns in the language of a message. This recognition subtly invites our participation, because our brains naturally detect and anticipate patterns and structures.

Just think of the last time you caught yourself singing along to Britney’s latest pop-atrocity. You despise the song, but your brain is simply delighted by its repetitive structure, strong rhymes, and consistent rhythm, and just can’t help but join in.

Philosopher and theorist Kenneth Burke explains that once you grasp the trend of the form in a message, it invites participation regardless of the subject matter. The result is a sort of “collaborative expectancy” between audience and message, inherently making the message more persuasive.

When applied to business communications, formal patterning can be used to:

• create parallel structure across sentences in a sales piece
• ensure message consistency across a company’s entire business communications
• weave a powerful metaphor throughout your business proposal

Ultimately, science has reinforced a powerful principle to guide business communications:

Literary figures of speech improve the persuasiveness of a message because they align language with the ways that our brains operate.