Walter Mischel is an American psychologist who is best known for his groundbreaking study on delayed gratification known as “the marshmallow test.” Born in Vienna, Austria in February 1930, the Mischel family immigrated to the United States, following the Nazi occupation of Vienna in 1938, settling in Brooklyn, New York in 1940 where his parents opened a discount retail store. Walter was a promising student and was valedictorian of his high-school class and received a scholarship to New York University where he completed a bachelor’s degree in psychology in 1951. In 1953 he completed a master’s degree in clinical psychology and in 1956 a PhD in clinical psychology from the Ohio State University.

He held teaching roles and professorships at the University of Colorado (1956–58), Harvard University (1958–62), and Stanford University (1962–82). His studies with preschoolers in the late 1960s, often referred to as “the marshmallow experiment”, examined the dynamic of delayed gratification amongst young child. Whilst this research was fascinating in and of itself, it was the subsequent ongoing research with the same sample group which examined how children develop over a lifetime that provided data to formulate a view that the ability of a child to delay gratification is an important predictor a variety of important outcomes over the course of their life.

2. The Stanford Marshmallow Experiments

Walter Mischel’s marshmallow experiment is one of the best-known studies in the history of psychology. It refers to a series of studies on delayed gratification in the late 1960s and early 1970s led by Walter Mischel. The concept of delayed gratification refers to the ability to resist and abstain from instant but less-desirable outcomes in favor of delayed but more-desirable outcomes. The purpose of the original study was to understand when the control of deferred gratification develops in children.

The original experiment took place at the Bing Nursery School located at Stanford University and the sample included over 600 nursery-school children, ranging in age from four to six years old.  

Mischel put the children in a room one-by-one – and seated them alone at a table with a self selected treat (such as a marshmallow). The child was offered a choice: They could eat the treat right away, or wait 15 minutes until the experimenter returned. If they waited the 15 minutes they would get an extra treat. I.e. they could eat one marshmallow immediately, or wait 15 minutes and get two marshmallows.

A few kids ate the marshmallow right away, as soon as the researcher left the room. Some children were unable to wait a full minute. Most of the children struggled to resist the treat and held out for an average of less than three minutes. A minority of the children were able to wait longer by employing a variety of distraction techniques. Some would cover their eyes with their hands or turn around so that they could not see the treat. Others kicked the desk, or tugged on their pigtails, or stroked the marshmallow as if it were a tiny stuffed animal.

In total a third of the children were able to wait without eating the treat until the researcher returned, some fifteen minutes later. To put it another way about 30% of the children were able to delay gratification long enough to get the second marshmallow. Whilst they wrestled with the same temptation all of the children did, a small group somehow found a way to resist.

3. Follow-up Studies

After publishing a few papers on the Bing studies in the early seventies, Mischel moved on to other areas of personality research. Mischel himself had three daughters, the same age as the children involved in the experiment, who had also attended the Bing Nursery School at the time of the research. Occasionally Mischel would ask his daughters, simply making conversation, about their friends from nursery school. It was from this that he began to notice a link between the children’s academic performance as teen-agers and their ability to wait for the second marshmallow. To his surprise he discovered a correlation between the results of the marshmallow test, and the success of the children many years later.

Starting in 1981, Mischel sent out a questionnaire to all the reachable parents, teachers, and academic advisers of the 600 subjects who had participated in the marshmallow task, who were by then in high school. He asked about every trait he could think of, from their capacity to plan and think ahead to their ability to “cope well with problems” and get along with their peers and their S.A.T. scores.

Once Mischel began analyzing the results, he noticed that the children ate the marshmallow quickly, seemed more likely to have behavioural problems, both in school and at home. They got lower S.A.T. scores. They struggled in stressful situations, often had trouble paying attention, and found it difficult to maintain friendships. The child who could wait fifteen minutes had an S.A.T. score that was, on average, 210 points higher than those who could wait only thirty seconds. Mischel found that children who were able to wait longer for the preferred rewards tended to have better life outcomes, as measured by SAT scores, educational attainment, and body-mass index (BMI) and other life measures. To put it bluntly Mischel found that the ability to hold out in this seemingly trivial exercise had real and profound consequences. As they matured and became adults, the kids who had shown the ability to wait got better grades, were healthier, enjoyed greater professional success, and proved better at staying in relationships even decades after they took the test. They were, in short, better at life.

Mischel’s work has been enormously influential, making its way into popular culture in a way that few academic studies have. It has changed the way educators and psychologists think about success and demonstrated that self-control is critical to academic and personal success. The lesson is that it’s not just intelligence that matters, but self-control and patience and being able to tame one’s impulses, from the desire to eat the marshmallow to the desire to blow off an exam or have an affair.

4. Implications and Conclusions

Delayed gratification is particularly revealing when it comes to how we manage our money. At face value the implications of Mischel’s work is profound. It would suggest that in a random sample of any population there are around two thirds of people who have some difficulty with impulse-control: They will struggle to save money so as to achieve a lifestyle; they will struggle to cut back on spending to achieve their retirement goal; They will struggle to complete their studies so that they can obtain a better job.

Most of what we do in financial planning is aimed at building a financial platform for some stage in the future. By it’s definition it has to do with delayed provision of something we want. And in nearly every situation the delayed future state requires us to make a sacrifice in the immediate or current moment.

So what does this mean for me as an adviser?

My first thought was this: I wonder to what extent the people who put up their hand for financial planning are the type who would have resisted the marshmallow. If that is the case does it mean that our natural target market is limited to roughly one-third of the population?

I hope that my initial thought is wrong, because I would imagine that those who struggle the most with impulse control are exactly those who need assistance with planning and controlling their finances. So that leads me to a second thought: As a financial planner, would roughly two thirds of my clients struggle with delayed gratification and impulse control? If that is the case, then my ability to help them requires far more than my ability to crunch numbers and propose the most optimum strategy and product for them.

I don’t know the answer to this question yet but have a bit of a “straw-man” to put offer as a working model.

In my client interactions I need to be open to identifying which clients of mine are likely to be “immediate marshmallow munchers” and which are likely to be “delayed marshmallow munchers.” In working with them, I should adopt different strategies to assist them. For the immediate munchers I somehow need to find a way to figuratively end up sitting in the room with them so that I can help them find a way to resist the marshmallow in the room.

In our earlier blog What is Content Marketing? we spoke about the increasing media savvy of modern consumers and how they quickly recognize when they are being sold to. Given this we suggested that traditional marketing and advertising are becoming less effective. This is driven in some part by the reality that consumers are subject to an overwhelming volume of advertisements and that advertising provides a “distorted reality” as a consequence of adverts becoming increasingly “spiced-up”. Today’s consumers are more informed than ever and they are searching for useful information to help them make educated decisions about which services and products to buy. This creates an opportunity for marketers as summarized by the question: “How do you tell people about, and get them to engage with, your products and services without them feeling that you are selling to them?”

In our earlier blog we defined content marketing as “any marketing format that involves the creation, distribution and sharing of relevant and valuable content in order to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience with the objective to attract and convert prospects into customers, and customers into repeat buyers.”

In that blog we identified seven key elements of content marketing as follows:

1. Communicating with Clients: Content marketing is about communicating with prospects and customers in a non-intrusive way without selling. It involves attracting and engaging an audience in a conversational way.
2. Focus on a Specific Target-Market: Content marketing targets a specific group or audience. It aims to reach a well-defined group instead of an amorphous demographic.
3. Giving and Helping: Successful content marketers recognize that they need to share information, ideas, and experiences that benefit others without asking for something in return and without being overtly promotional. Content marketing informs, educates, and creates revelation for your audience.
4. Incorporates Multi-Media: Content marketing delivers information your audience is seeking in all the places they are searching for it and is presented in a variety of media formats, social media platforms, and devices.
5. Builds a Personal Relationship: Content marketing engages with your audience in a human, personal, and engaging way with the result that they feel a close, personal, and emotional connection with your brand. Content marketing operates within the emotional domain stirring beliefs, feelings, opinions and emotions.
6. Builds Trust: Content marketing helps to establish your credibility as an expert in a field, presenting you as a trusted source so that your audience can know, like, and trust you enough to do business with you.
7. Commercially Oriented: Content Marketing has a commercial focus; it seeks to drive profitable consumer action and deliver a return on investment by building your brand and by influencing purchase decisions.  

2. How to Create Good Content

In today’s blog we will focus on what are the elements that create good content. In defining good content I think there are two conditions your content needs to meet. I refer to them as influence and virality.

Simply put, influence has to do with whether your content achieves the effect of getting more of your audience to use your product or service? That is to what extent does it encourage or persuade your target to adopt your product or service? Ultimately good content drives a change in consumer behavior.

Virality answers the question: does your content urge your audience to share your content with their friends and contacts? Virality has to do with the tendency of an image, video, or piece of information to be circulated rapidly and widely from one person to another. The goal of marketers interested in creating successful content marketing programs is to create messages that have a high chance of being presented and spread by people.

To put it simply – good content spreads quickly, thereby reaching more people, and powerfully influences, in a subtle way, those it reaches to take up your product or service.

There’s a growing body of science exploring what makes good content and much of it is directed at understanding the psychology and the social transmission process. Here are some of the elements I consider important.

1.  Capture Attention

Captivating content has the ability to attract and hold the reader’s attention. It serves to draw you into the content. The first thing most of your audience will see is the headline of any content or blog post. The right headline can make the difference between a handful and thousands of visitors reading your post. The headline has two purposes. One of them is to clearly and succinctly communicate what the post is about. But a far more important purpose is to attract the reader to open and view the content. This could involve adding an element of suspense or intrigue. There is a range of other ways to get the attention of your audience:  including the use of humor, shock, statistics, something sexy, or something topical, and newsworthy.

2.  Make it Sticky

Once people start with your content you want to make sure they ‘linger’. Research suggests that there is a direct relationship between the length of time spent visiting your content and making a purchase. What are the things that make your content sticky? Some of the stickiness drivers include informative content, useful content, relevant content, valuable content, interesting content, exclusive content (something uniquely valuable), entertaining content, appropriate use of images, and product and content recommendations.

A key reason in stickiness is being believable. This has to do with being trustworthy, credible, authentic, and convincing. If someone reads your content, but they do not trust, there is no way they will share it. Something is considered believable if it is based on the truth, understated, concise, correct, specific, and there is evidence to support it.

3.  Provide an Emotional Connection

Content which engages with emotions is a great way of increasing persuasion and share-ability. Great stories are easy to absorb, keep, re-experience and share. One of the experts in this field is Jonah Berger who has conducted ground-breaking research into how emotions drive people to share content with others.  Perhaps the most important part of his work has been to identify two aspects of emotion that influence behavior. He refers to these as Emotional Valence and Emotional Activation.

Valance is the degree or level of attraction or aversion that a person feels towards something. It relates to the strength of feelings associated with something. The higher the valance the more strongly you feel. According to Berger content which evokes strong emotions (positive or negative) is more likely to be shared. Put another way, emotionally evocative content is particularly viral. The more strongly your audience feels about your content the more inclined they will be to share it.

Activation or Arousal refers to the extent to which a feeling urges us to take action. It is a reflection of the extent to which the emotion stimulates us to activity. Some emotions accelerate a physical reaction and urge us to set activity in motion. Other emotions do the opposite – they encourage paralysis or slowing down of action. Emotions that cause activation create a heightened sense of arousal or mobilization and are more likely to be shared. Some of the emotions which carry a high valence (or a high arousal) include: Inspired; Enraged; Fear; Anxiety; Amused; Frustrated; Embarrassed, and Elation. By contrast emotions that create low or zero arousal include: Depression or Sadness; Contentment; Serenity; Exhaustion; Calm or Tranquil; and Boredom.

To benefit from including emotional content we should create content which activates high arousal emotions and which evokes these emotions in a strong and powerful way.

4.  Make it sharable

We spoke about virality as an aspect of content which encourages your audience to share your content with their friends and contacts. In effect sharable content benefits from a kind of multiplier effect. The big question is why would someone want to share your stuff with other people? There is a growing body of research into why people share content. It would seem that people share content for reasons, most of which have to do with how it makes them feel about themselves. In 1966 Ernest Dichter conducted a study on why people share information through word of mouth. His study revealed that most people share because they want to: Gain attention; Show they have inside info; Help; Reach out; Show friendship; Show humor; and Provide information. To put it more cynically, the primary reason that people share content is because it makes them look good, smart, connected, funny, insightful etc. That is, people share primarily out of their own self-interest.

I would be hesitant to say we share out of our own full-blown narcissism. I think it is more subtle than that. But I would confidently argue that a major reason that we share content is that it enhances our opinion about our self. Or put another way we share content for self-enhancement. So we are more likely to share content that reflects positively on us and portrays the image we would like to present to the world of our self. I may share something because I think that it makes me look witty, ahead of the game, helpful, or a thought leader. I share funny stuff because it makes me look like I have a sense of humour.In a sense then sharing helps us to define, build, and communicate our identity.

I would also add that there are some secondary reasons for sharing which are not totally self-enhancing. So for example we share content to build relationships: If you think something is funny or inspiring you may want to share it with your closest friends because it strengthens your relationship. I think sharing is also a valuable method to make sense of our experience. Research identifies that people acknowledge that reading responses from others helps them to grasp and understand information and events better. People also share content to feel involved in what is happening around them. 

If our primary motivator for sharing information is because it enhances our self-image then as a content marketer you need to give some consideration to how can you create content that causes your audience to look and feel better about themselves and through the eyes of their peers? Your strategy should be less about your brand and more about creating something that, when shared, makes them feel good, smart, connected, funny, and insightful.  

5.  Succinct and Well-Written

Finally, a well written piece is more likely to be shared and to persuade. Well-written content does not jar with the user and is a pleasure to read. I am more likely to share a concise and well-written piece because it makes me look good to my connections. If your content is interesting but badly written with grammatical errors and convoluted text I will be unlikely to share it or be persuaded by it.

3. Concluding Comments

In closing I would like to leave you with these quotes and some further reading on this topic.

People don’t believe what you tell them. They rarely believe what you show them. They often believe what their friends tell them – Seth Godin

To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful – Edward R. Murrow

Some further reading on this topic:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/why-content-goes-viral-the-scientific-theory-and-proof

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/5-tips-for-creating-shareable-blog-content

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1528077

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/blake-landau/the-5-attributes-of-viral_b_2901769.html

Related articles

• What is Content Marketing? (chrisnothling.com)

1.  Introduction

You can buy attention (advertising). You can beg for attention from the media (PR). You can bug people one at a time to get attention (sales). Or you can earn attention by creating something interesting and valuable and then publishing it online for free. This is the premise of content marketing: We are all standing on a mountain of knowledge that, when shared, will pull prospects towards us taking them a step closer to a buying decision. Put another way – content marketing is about creating and publishing interesting information that your customers are passionate about so they actually pay attention to you.

2.  Marketing Weary

One of the apparent contradictions we experience in the market place is that people don’t like to be sold to, but they do love to buy. Modern consumers are increasingly media savvy and they quickly recognize when they are being sold. The question for marketers becomes: “How do you tell people about, and get them to engage with, your products and services without them feeling that you are selling to them?”

Anecdotaly it would seem that traditional marketing and advertising is becoming less effective than it was in the past. It seems that advertising has lost some of its effectiveness. At face value I would agree and argue that there are two main pressures leading to the decline in advertising efficacy. Firstly I would say that as consumers we are subject to an overwhelming volume of advertisements. I can not verify this statistic but I heard somewhere that the average person is bombarded by some 3 000 brand impressions a day. There may be a few super brains out there that can assimilate and make sense of all this information but as for me – I find it overwhelming and confusing. My coping mechanism is to “tune-out”. If I am watching TV or listening to the radio in my car and your advert comes on chances are I will not even register it. Ask me a question about your advert 10 seconds later and I will not even have heard it. Even though they might not admit it, I think a lot of people are like me. We selectively disregard the mountain of data coming our way and selectively cherry pick bite sized bits of data that we may be interested in that very moment. Consumers have learned how to simply shut off the traditional world of marketing: They skip television advertising, often ignore magazine advertising, and now have become so adept at online “surfing” that they can take in online information without a care for banners or buttons.

I think there is a second reason why we place less value on traditional advertising and it has to do with a growing recognition that advertising provides a “distorted reality”. Adverts compete with each other to grab our attention. In an increasingly “spiced-up” space each advert needs to be spicier than the next simply to get our attention. Ultimately the entire market place becomes saturated with adverts making “lots of promises” but offering little by way of real substance. People recognize that advertising allows a certain amount of exaggerated posturing. When Lynx advertise a deodorant that provides us with sex-appeal we rationally know that it is not true but it appeals to our aspirational nature so we allow ourselves to be seduced into believing it for the moment. But there is a growing ground swell of people who don’t want advertising when making purchasing decisions; they want valuable information. People crave knowledge that empowers them to make more informed choices on what products they choose. Today’s consumer is more informed than ever and they are constantly looking for useful information to help them make educated decisions about which services and products to buy.

3.  Definition

It is in this broader context, facilitated by the role that Social Media plays in providing rapid and far-reaching communication mechanisms, that content-marketing has come to flourish. While content marketing isn’t new, its power has been exponentially improved with today’s social media platforms and other devices.

Content marketing is defined as any marketing format that involves the creation, distribution and sharing of relevant and valuable content to acquire attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience with the objective to attract and convert prospects into customers, and customers into repeat buyers.

4.   The Role of Social Media

Content marketing is not new. Companies having been creating and distributing content for many years, both to attract new business and to keep existing customers. Content marketing has existed for a long time. In the publishing world it used to be called “advertorial” and served as a pull strategy for providing relevant, educational, helpful, compelling, engaging, and sometimes entertaining information.

Blogging, micro-blogging, and social networking sites have created an environment where the average person can use the variety of platforms to build an audience. With content marketing, you can take advantage of these tools to create articles, blog posts, micro blogs, videos, pod-casts, webinars, and more to show thought leadership and build a relationship with your prospects and customers. The content, optimized and distributed across the web, makes it easier to be found online. It generates traffic without selling. By delivering useful and relevant information answering questions, solving problems and improving lives in some fashion, prospects can make an informed decision to buy. The idea is they will buy from you, because you have earned their trust.

Social media has created conditions in which content marketing has flourished as the formats (videos, blogs and tweets, for example) and ways to connect and share has grown exponentially. With the rise of social networks and mobile devices, brands can bypass newspapers, magazines, and TV to connect directly with customers and prospects on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, YouTube, Foursquare and other networks. Content marketing marries publishing/TV/radio/events and marketing to build audiences, deliver relevant and educational “content” and information ultimately turning readers into customers.

5.  Elements of Content Marketing

Communicating with Clients

It’s a way of communicating with your prospects and customers in a non-intrusive way and without directly promoting your product or services. In content marketing the focus is less about pushing the virtues of your products or services and more about being conversational; it is more of a give-and-receive-type scenario. The aim is to attract and engage with an audience without overtly selling to them. To use an analogy – it is a very subtle form of seduction or flirtation.

Focus on a Specific Target-Market

Rather than broadcasting information to the masses, content marketing targets a specific group or audience. In content marketing you want to reach a specifically defined demographic by talking with them about the things that interest that specific group.

Giving & Helping

In content marketing you give something first. As a content marketer you share information, ideas and experiences that benefit others without directly asking for anything in return and without being overtly promotional.

Content marketing informs, educates, and creates revelation for your audience. By informing we mean that you give information to prospects and customers that makes them more informed about key issues that are relevant, valuable, helpful, interesting, and entertaining to them. You offer solutions to problems that they are having. By revelation we mean that the best content shows readers something that they’ve never seen before. It surfaces information that readers find helpful. By education we mean that content marketing also teaches your target audience about the industry and important elements pertaining to the industry.

Incorporates Multi Media

A skilled content marketer will deliver information his or her audience is seeking in all the places they are searching for it. This information is presented in a variety of media formats, social media platforms, or devices.

Use of media format can include text, photographs, videos, audio, presentations, white papers, ebooks, info graphics, case studies, how-to guides, custom magazines, print or online newsletters, websites or micro sites including blog posts, webcasts and webinars, pod-casts, wall posts, in-person road shows, roundtables, email, and events. Use of Social Media platforms can include Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, and devices used can include computers, tablets, and smart phones.

Builds a Personal Relationship

One of the tenets of content marketing is that the content should help you engage with your community, in an approachable way. It should help you to create a human, personal, and engaging relationship with consumers. They should make a personal connection to and feel closer to your company or brand. Part of the delivery mechanism is to expand the conversation and encourage interaction in the form of dialogue or conversation. In addition the content should work within the emotional domain. The best content marketing is not dry and technical. It should stir beliefs, feelings, opinions and emotions. Think of content marketing as more about bonding and less about branding. Content marketing should focus more on emotions and messages that are relevant and captivating to the target audience.

Builds Trust

Effective content marketing shows the reader how much you know about the topic, establishes your credibility, and positions you as an expert in the field. Effective content marketing demonstrates that you are an expert leader on a particular topic – a trusted source. By effectively combining the emotional domain and simultaneously building trust you create conditions where your audience feels that they know, like, and trust you enough to do business with you.

Commercially Oriented

Whilst some aspects of content marketing draw heavily on the skills of journalism, photography, art, and film making it differs from each of these aspects in that it has a commercial focus – it seeks to drives profitable consumer action and deliver a return on investment. Put another way: content marketing is based on the belief that if we deliver consistent, ongoing valuable information to buyers, they will ultimately reward us with their business and loyalty.

Effective content marketing indirectly and directly promotes a business or brand and builds the brand. It helps you to get noticed and it drives enquiry. Content marketing gives you the opportunity to present calls-to-action to your audience to buy or try your product or service. Ultimately effective content marketing aims to influence purchase decisions by providing information to help your audience make more informed (better) product decisions – ultimately buying your product. In a sense content marketing uses content to educate people, in a way that makes them easier to sell to.

6. Concluding Comments

What if your customer looked forward to receiving your marketing? What if when they received it, via print, email, website, they spent 20 minutes with it? What if you could create marketing that is anticipated and truly makes a connection? This is the ultimate aim of content marketing.

Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing – Rollo May

Introduction

AFA, AIA & Business Health recently released The New Frontiers white paper based on results obtained from surveying views of 12 000 clients of advisers over a four-year period. The research investigated what the best financial adviser businesses were doing and what we could learn from them about how to run a financial planning business.

Not surprisingly, the research identified a clear link between business profitability and the frequency and quality of client communication. For example the survey established that there was a direct relationship between profitability and how many times advisers contacted their clients. Those practices that communicated with clients between 5 and 10 times a year were 174% more profitable than those that had less than 5 client contacts. The profitability grew to 287% when there were more than 10 contacts in a twelve month period. Surprisingly however, only 15% of Australian adviser businesses employed a structured approach to seeking client feedback, despite the obvious benefits; asking for client feedback strengthens the relationship and provides opportunity to redress failings, and increases profitability.

The research also found that clients who had been with their adviser between three and seven years were the most likely to feel disconnected, presenting the greatest business risk to the adviser business. This represents a window of opportunity during which advisers should focus on the quality and quantity of communication pieces with clients.

Client Communication

The research report identifies some general guidelines in terms of communication with clients. In simple terms the most productive form is to communicate frequently, meaningfully, in a personalized way, through a variety of media, and proactively.

1. Frequent

Frequent communication is a key driver of productive relationships. Think about it: If you stopped communicating with your partner, your children, or your friends for any meaningful time the relationship starts to lack in intimacy. Things can happen in their lives without your knowledge and when you next speak with them you feel out-of-the-loop and somehow estranged from them. The same applies to your relationship with your clients. To keep up the professional intimacy you have built up you need to adopt quite structured communication programs and processes to stay in touch. One such process is to build a communications calendar. This can be as simple as a one-page editorial calendar that identifies the topics you intend to cover and at what intervals over a time. This creates an opportunity to call and have a topical conversation on a regular basis thereby keeping you “top of mind” with your clients. A communication calendar provides you with a structure to keep in regular contact with a client group, what topical issues you will use to keep in contact, what medium of communication you will use, and when you will socialize with them. Your calendar can include sending emails, sending newsletters, doing a review, and running events. That way you can see the frequency and the variety of your communication.

2. Meaningful

For business communication to be most effective it needs to be more than social for social sake. It should aid in maintaining or building closer professional intimacy. At least some of the communication opportunities should have a business feel to them. To be meaningful they should offer something to the receiver; an insight, some education, some inspiration, or some market commentary. Keep your mind open for what may be of interest to your client group and as you come across ideas, set them aside in a folder or electronic file for future reference. The questions you are asked most often by clients make good marketing topics. Share success stories with clients, as well as your civic or charitable activities. Use your articles to draw attention to the types of services that you would like to expand or the types of services other clients have found valuable. Use opportunities to refer your clients to each other if they could help grow their respective businesses.

3. Personalized

Clients want personalized communication. They want you to talk specifically to them. It is not enough to send out generic information to everyone on your distribution list. Whilst it is easy and tempting to do this it can easily be seen as a lazy alternative with little thought put into it. In today’s technological environment it is relatively easy to use high-tech solutions to offer high-touch experiences. Make use of a client building list such as Mail-chimp or AWeber to personalize and liven-up your client communication. Whether you decide to use a list building tool or not you should keep up a relationship building database and refresh it regularly. An exact, up-to-date client list containing both a mailing address and an e-mail address is an essential building block for any successful marketing initiative. The client list should include key data such as the client’s age, income, and occupation. It should also include the name and age of children, spouse, hobbies, and schools. If you know that your most valuable client has a child at Knox Grammar School and has a passion for soccer then keep a lookout for information on Knox and World Cup Football so that you can occasionally send something to him. It acts as a way of saying “you are important to me and I am thinking of you.”

4. Variety

We are spoiled for choice with regards to communication media. The tools at our disposal include email, phone calls, texts, Facebook, LinkedIn, twitter, a thank you card, a hand-written note, a social invitation, a coffee catch-up, a birthday card, a PowerPoint presentation, videos, or an annual review. Your communication calendar and communication activities needs to reach a balance between giving information and asking for information, as well as striking a balance between business and relationship building content.

5. Proactive

One of the often heard phrases is the lament that “My adviser is really good, if I ask a question but I wish he or she would contact me more often”. This speaks to the need for adviser generated communication on key issues. If the news is all abuzz about the Greek Sovereign Debt Crisis, or about the fiscal cliff or about the Cypriot banking crisis send out a quick note about it showing that you are aware of it and are monitoring it. That is a lot more reassuring that hearing nothing from you even if you are fully on-top of the issue. So be sure to comment on topical issues. Developing responses to frequently asked questions and having these available as text or even videos is a great way to show that you are being proactive. One of the key learning points from the research is to be aware of the specific risks associated with clients who are in the 3 – 7 years group and to give them targeted communication that illustrates your gratitude for their business. These could include simple rewards for being a client at the 3, 5, and 7 year anniversaries.

Concluding Comments

The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate – Joseph Priestley

Good communication does not mean that you have to speak in perfectly formed sentences and paragraphs. It isn’t about slickness. Simple and clear go a long way – John Kotter

Perhaps I have created the impression that you need to create a sophisticated and complex plan to communicate with your clients. Nothing could be further from the truth. The purpose of our client communication strategy is to maintain and build on the professional intimacy we have built with our client. A simple goal requires a simple solution. Your communication strategy is simply a framework which acts as a reminder to keep in close contact with your clients, to communicate about a variety of issues and to use a range of media in doing so.

Women have made significant progress towards equality since the early 1900s. They are graduating with more college degrees than men, and climbing farther up the ranks in nearly every industry than ever before. There are more women in senior and management roles, greater equality in legislative rights, and an increased number of women as role models in every aspect of life. But there is still much to be done: Women are still not paid equally to that of their male counterparts in business or sport. They are still not represented in equal numbers in business or politics. Globally violence against women is worse than that of men. Perhaps the most severe indictment of all is summarized by the fact that 70% of all people living in poverty are women.

When it comes to managing their finances men and women are not equal

Women have more power and earning potential than ever before. In developed countries there are a growing number of women are now the family breadwinner. Yet somehow women still defer to men on money matters related to building wealth, investing, and retirement funding.

Women face a unique set of personal finance challenges which have been formed as societal norms over centuries. For generations it was accepted that men earned the money and women decided how to spend it. For women, being smart with money traditionally meant knowing how to stretch the family budget. Generally women were excluded from discussions about accumulating wealth, investments, and preparing for retirement. Even until as recently as twenty years ago most women were raised to believe that their husbands would handle the finances. Few people now in their 40s and older were raised by mothers who were the key financial decision-makers. Some women in their 30s or younger have grown up with the idea that they would be secondary earners and a man would be responsible for investing and long-term saving

Being financially literate in today’s society requires women to move beyond worrying about finding the cheapest bargains and start thinking about accumulating and protecting their personal wealth.

 1.      Get more involved with your financial affairs

Take financial ownership and understand your rights and your responsibilities when it comes to money, debt, and wealth accumulation. Many women are too willing to take a backseat approach to their finances, allowing someone else, a husband, partner, or parent, to take control. One of the greatest threats to your financial well-being is not being directly involved with your own financial affairs.

Women worry more about the effect of money on relationships: A survey by Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management revealed that nearly 80% of ultra wealthy Gen Y women are concerned their wealth will complicate relationships with spouses, partners, friends and colleagues. Only 20% of wealthy men shared these concerns.  So this is my simple tip: Get over it! If your lover can not handle your financial independence then move on. This is the 21^st Century. You don’t need to hang out with a Neanderthal in this day and age.

Whatever your age, marital status, or level of financial knowledge, you can not afford to stay in the dark about your money. I do not mean to sound alarmist or prejudice your partner in any way but by remaining uninvolved in your joint finances you create opportunities for your own future financial distress. You don’t want to wait until your partner leaves or dies to discover that you are deeply in debt or that savings are inadequate to sustain you in retirement.

2.      Take stock

Do not wait until you are a widow or in the middle of a divorce to figure out what you have, what you owe, and where everything is. In order to get an insight into your finances you need to take stock – put another way you should make an inventory. That means you should take stock of what you earn and spend, what your assets and liabilities are and what your net wealth is. Irrespective of whether you are in a “marriage” or not you should take stock. If you are in a “marriage” you should extend your stock-taking to include your joint financial affairs.

All women should know:

• What your income and expenses are (for married women this should be your joint income and expenses);
• What your assets and liabilities are (for married women this should be your joint income and expenses);
• Whether or not bills are up to date and being paid on time;
• Whether or not your tax affairs are up to date;
• What insurance policies you (and your partner) have and what policies name you as a beneficiary;
• What superannuation or other retirement savings accounts you (and your partner) have;
• Where important financial records are kept;
• Who to let know should your partner die;
• Where your safe deposit box and key are kept; and
• The user names and passwords for online or phone access to your accounts.

3.      Expand your knowledge about financial matters

Studies show that many women are insecure about managing money and that more than half of women think that their investing and planning skills are below average. Improving your financial knowledge will give you more confidence in money matters. Being financially literate means you need to know about managing your debt, understanding interest rates and compound interest, budgeting, insurance, asset classes (cash, equity, and property), liquidity, risk, and volatility. If you don’t feel like you know what these terms mean then make it your goal to learn.

Here are some resources to get you going:

• Get Rich Slow by Sarah Riegelhuth  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Get-Rich-Slow-Achieve-Wealth/dp/1118406168
• The Barefoot Investor by Scott Pape  http://www.amazon.com/The-Barefoot-Investor-Financial-Freedom/dp/1841127159
• You can also check out his website at: http://barefootinvestor.com
• ASIC Money Smart website at https://www.moneysmart.gov.au
• Hotcourses.com.au website provides a list of personal finance training programs across Australia http://www.hotcourses.com.au/australia/all-personal-finance-courses-australia/nq-aus-all/db-a46.7/order-cd-1/kw/courses.html
• Personal Finance for Dummies by Eric Tyson  http://www.amazon.com/Personal-Finance-Dummies-Eric-Tyson/dp/1118117859
• Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny by Suze Orman  http://www.amazon.com/Women-Money-Owning-Control-Destiny/dp/0812981316

4.      Plan for financial independence

We all know that more than half of marriages end in divorce. If you are part of a couple, you need to prepare for life without your partner. As uncomfortable as it may be to think about divorce or the death of a mate while you are still happily joined, doing so can help you avoid a dramatic change in lifestyle after your partner is gone. Some surveys conducted in the USA suggest that on average a woman’s standard of living can drop up to 25% after divorce.

Financial independence means being able to support yourself, having your own income, and being able to sustain a decent quality of life or standard of living without needing financial support from anyone else. Many married women are financially dependent on their spouse, and many single women are financially dependent on either credit, or their parents/family/friends, or all the above. The consequences of being financially dependent can be damaging to relationships, self-esteem, and overall happiness. A financially independent woman has personal safety in knowing that through her own abilities she can survive without depending on others.

5.      Ensure you have assets in your name

Make sure you have assets in your name too. Your home, investments, and other assets should be in both names. As an example, try to avoid “owning” a car that is in your partner’s name. Many husbands may buy a car for their wives but register it in their own name. This can cause problems in the event of the husband passing away or in the event of divorce. The same principle applies to “owning” a car which is registered in the name of one of your parents.

Establish a credit history in your own name. Establish credit accounts and loans jointly, or open some accounts in your own name. If you divorce and start using your maiden name again, and you and your husband had a good credit rating, notify creditors of the change.

6.      Create your own retirement fund

Implement your own retirement plan even if you have a partner assures you that he or she is saving enough for both of you.

Whilst many women take part in retirement plans, men generally contribute far more to those plans than women do. According to a recent study women start saving later, earn less than men, are more likely to be in and out of the workforce, and invest more conservatively – all factors that reduce their retirement income. This is compounded by the reality that women generally outlive men by six to eight years, and many women live decades longer than their mate.

To avoid outliving their money, women must manage their finances with a longer life expectancy and perhaps lower earnings in mind. So it is important that they start investing as early as they can. If you begin investing just two years earlier, you will increase your nest egg by 18%. There are also opportunities to benefit from various co-contributions. Women need to be aware of these and take advantage as far as possible. Women should also be aware that it is double tax effective to supplement their retirement plan by salary sacrificing to superannuation.

7.      Create your own emergency provisions

I don’t know your personal circumstances so don’t take this as personal advice – but I would suggest that you consider some insurance in the event of your not being able to continue working as a consequence of being involved in an accident or suffering a severe illness. Whilst life insurance may not be that relevant to you should be thinking about Income Protection and Trauma Insurance. The former pays a regular income when you are not able to earn one due to an accident whilst the latter pays a lump-sum of money on being diagnosed with a range of typical lifestyle diseases such as heart attack, stroke, and cancer.

Another form of provision is to set up an emergency fund, which consists of accessible capital which is set aside for a crisis [No, a new pair of shoes or a new handbag is not a crisis!] As a rule of thumb this fund should be enough to last you at least three to six months without any income from your employer.

Ladies – if you want to be truly independent you should have your own income protection, trauma insurance and personal emergency fund.

8.      Keep yourself employable / maintain your ability to earn an income

Women who become divorced or widowed often have to re-enter the workforce, but their prospects and income may be limited if they don’t have marketable skills and experience.

Here are some tips to stay employable:

• Keep up-to-date with advances in workplace technology;
• Consider working part-time, even if you don’t have to;
• Renew any of your required licenses and certifications;
• Stay connected with your industry community through networking;
• Read industry related publications;
• Consider going back to school or taking a course;
• Volunteer or intern within your desired field;
• Consider hiring a professional interview coach and/or resume writer; and
• Find someone in your previous, current or new field of employment to help guide you with making the best decisions to success in re-entering the workforce, or advancing your career.

Concluding Comments

Money is a tool to help you achieve your goals and the lifestyle that you want. Women should learn how to prepare themselves financially so that they can secure that lifestyle irrespective of who accompanies them, on the journey. This does not imply that you have to treat the men in your life with suspicion and distrust – it simply means accepting responsibility for your own financial affairs as an independent person in your own right. Nor should you infer that I think all women are spineless door-mats. I don’t mean to pass any judgement. I do however want to urge you to take greater care of your own financial destiny and not to rely on others. Let me urge you to take control over the financial aspects of your life now!

The project, known as MS Queensland’s Life at Annerley program was launched in February 2010. It is designed to empower people with multiple sclerosis, with high care needs to live more independently in housing that is within the community, as opposed to living in a nursing home. The aim is to give life back to people with MS and to ensure that the conditions of their everyday life are as close as possible to people in the general community.  The facility is based in the heart of Annerley where residents are close to all services including shops, banks, transport and hotels.

At the Annerley facility I met Carmel, Ian, Tammy, Lisa, Glen, Brook, and Jenny and the 3 people who care for them. All of them put on a brave face. They were lively, funny, and full of life despite the illness which has ripped their lives apart and is slowly taking their life from them. Even so I was shocked at what MS does to those it affects.

All of them require round the clock assistance, some more than others;

All of them are wheel-chair bound;

All of them live lives separated from their families;

All of them have been saved from living in aged-care because of the work done by MS Queensland.

Carmel and Ian

Lisa and Brook

Jenny

MS is a disease of the central nervous system. In simple terms the immune system attacks the body’s own tissue, primarily the protective coating around the nerve cells in the central nervous system, causing scarring. These scars interrupt the transmission of nerve impulses, resulting in the symptoms of MS. Symptoms of MS vary, depending on which areas of the central nervous system have been affected. There is no set pattern to MS and everyone with MS has a different set of symptoms, which vary from time to time and can change in severity and duration, even in the same person. Common symptoms include:

1. Vision problems such as blurring of vision, double vision, inflammation of the optic nerve, and occasionally total loss of sight.
2. Balance and coordination problems such as loss of balance, tremors, unstable walking, giddiness, clumsiness of limbs, lack of co-ordination, and weakness in the legs.
3. Altered muscle tone and muscle stiffness accompanied by spasms
4. Altered sensation such as tingling, ‘pins and needles’, numbness, and burning sensations
5. Pain including muscle pains, facial pain, stabbing sharp pains, and burning tingling pain
6. Abnormal speech including slowing of speech and slurring of words.
7. A debilitating kind of general fatigue which is unpredictable or out of proportion to the activity.
8. Bladder and bowel problems including the need to pass water frequently, incomplete emptying or emptying at inappropriate times, constipation and, loss of bowel control.
9. Cognitive and emotional disturbances such as loss of short term memory, and loss of concentration, judgment or reasoning.

I would like to say a big thanks to Carmel, Ian, Tammy, Lisa, Glen, Brook, and Jenny for sharing their stories with me. I was touched by simple things like the fact that Carmel is paralysed from the neck down. She arrived in her powered wheelchair which she “drives” and “steers” with her chin. She also proudly mentioned that she types on a keyboard in the same manner and had written to “the council”. Carmel politely asked her carers if they could feed her some of the pastries we were enjoying and asked if someone could blow her nose. At the other end of the spectrum is Ian; he is one of the younger members in the group at age 36. Originally from Townsville he has a 13 year old son called Tristan and is still reasonably new on the MS journey.

Brook is an attractive young lady who won the Miss Philipines pageant in 2004, has participated in scuba diving but is now living apart from her husband, is wheelchair bound with a permanent “tremor” and a generous smile. I can’t help but feel humbled when I meet people like this, and I can’t help but see my own life in a new perspective.

As in the last 5 years I will be cycling the Brissie to the Bay to raise funds for people affected by MS. The only difference is this year it will be personal! Please consider how you can support Carmel, Ian, Tammy, Lisa, Glen, Brook, and Jenny can continue to live a life with some semblance of normality and dignity.

What you can do to support them

You can sponsor me for the ride by clicking on the link:  Sponsor Chris Nöthling of phatboyz

You can join phatboyz and ride the Brissie to the Bay Event in the 10km, 25km, 50km, or 100km event by clicking on the link:  Join phatboyz for the B2B

You can check out phatboyz face book page, give us a like and share:  phatboyz face book page

You can check out phatboyz on YouTube, give us a like and share:  Shouldn’t you support phatboyz?

If I had to use a few words to describe this book I would say it is accessible, generous, practical, and transformational.

Accessible: By accessible I mean that Sarah’s book is easy to approach, reach or use. It is one of those rare books that is easily or readily understood. For sure, financial affairs are complex but it takes a rare ability to look behind the complexity and define the key principles. Sarah does this handsomely.

Generous: What strikes me about this book is Sarah’s willingness to share her intellectual capital with readers for a little over $20. Sarah’s job revolves around the information and knowledge that she is willing to give away or share. This is the type of kind, friendly, and helpful attitude that makes her a special person. By sharing her resources with us she elevates herself to a position where she is free from pettiness in character and mind. It is a really simple strategy – want to stand out from the crowd? Then give people more of your time or money than is usual or expected.

Practical: By practical I mean that this book is disposed to action. It is designed for actual use and is capable of being put to use. It involves and relates to real situations and events. Use the contents in this book to help you make sensible decisions and choices, especially the types of decisions and choices that you have to make every day.

Transformational: Transformational is defined as the act or process that creates spontaneous, sudden and dramatic change in form, function, appearance, structure, substance, nature, condition, or character. At a personal level, transformation implies a process of profound and radical change that orients a person in a new direction and takes them to an entirely different level of effectiveness. Transformation implies a basic change of character with little or no resemblance between the past configuration or structure and the new.

I know that I can not fully do justice to Sarah’s book but thought I would offer you 20 key principles that I picked up from her book about accumulating wealth.

20 Principles for Accumulating Wealth

1. Accept responsibility for your own finances. Your financial situation is entirely your own responsibility.
2. Work towards wealth accumulation by taking small incremental steps that become good habits.
3. Understand the cost of debt and control your debt. Understand what you should borrow money for and what you should not borrow money for. Use a conservative level of borrowing to leverage your investment portfolio.
4. Start early to take advantage of compound interest.
5. Understand what investment really means: placing money or capital in something that gives returns or appreciates in value.
6. Understand investment basics such as: The difference between capital and income; risk verses return; and liquidity.
7. Understand the relative strengths, weaknesses, and differences between the three main asset classes (cash, shares, and property). Particularly understand the costs of entry and liquidity of each asset class.
8. Start your investment portfolio by investing in the asset class with the lowest costs of entry and with the highest level of liquidity.
9. Invest in yourself.
10. Get to understand and make appropriate use of superannuation. It provides a tax effective structure to accumulate long-term wealth.
11. Your attitudes and behaviours are the primary determinant of your wealth accumulation success.
12. Get to understand which of your attitudes to money are sabotaging your success.
13. Recognise some of your money habits and develop new productive money habits by questioning whether you are really receiving value for money.
14. Take stock of your income and expenses and identify your surplus income. Your surplus income is what you should use to get you to where you want to be.
15. Take stock of your assets and liabilities to establish your net wealth.
16. Create an effective cash management system by setting up a set of bank accounts and distributing cash flow according to a pre-set strategy.
17. Set financial goals which have emotional appeal and prioritise them.
18. Classify your goals according to three buckets: The emergency bucket; the lifestyle bucket; and the retirement bucket.
19. Protect your income generating ability by making appropriate use of life insurance, trauma cover, TPD, and income protection.
20. Seek and share advice.

I hope you enjoy the book as much as I did. Good luck with your wealth accumulation journey.

This section features David Crawford – Recruitment Specialist at AMP Financial Planning – from Brisbane in Queensland.

David’s broad experience includes many years in financial services and insurance where he has held roles in recruitment, human resources, sales, sales coaching, and management. During the last eight years he has specialized in recruitment within the financial services sector, predominantly for financial planning type roles.

In this section David talks about the opportunities that present themselves through the transition to fee-for-service. These include a greater emphasis on client education in financial matters, the exodus of financial advisers from the industry, and building stronger partnership relationships with clients. David also talks about the enormous impact advisers have in changing the lives of their clients.

Watch out for Episode 5 coming soon.

In October 2012 I attended a marketing workshop, hosted by Asteron, and presented by Tim Reid. One of the things I heard Tim say was “You are who Google says you are”. This simple little phrase made a big impact on me and put a lot of things in perspective. Based on this simple truism I have now come to understand that how we find things (answers, information, services, and products) has fundamentally changed. It has become common-place that before we do anything these days we search and re-search via the internet. In fact it has become so common that we have created a new verb, namely “to Google” – which means to do or conduct an internet search.

Let me give you an example: I recently needed to buy tyres for my wife’s car. What did I do? I jumped online and typed in tyres and our city and reviewed what came up. In doing so I was able to identify who provides tyres, what range they have, what price they charge, and any other special offers they may have running. Then and only then did I get on the phone, armed with knowledge about what their competitors were doing and started negotiating with tyre fitment centres.

This is what the digital age has done for us. It has provided access to information at the touch of a keypad or touch-sensitive screen. We have access to an enormous amount of information, but the flip-side about the information rich world we live in is that we are responsible for making sure that our own information is available and attractive.

What does Google say about you?

I can hear you many of you saying that you have a company website – is that not good enough?  Let me use an example to illustrate: A friend asks me to refer a specialist professional to him. I give him three names and suggest to him that before he calls any of them he should first “Google” them. Let’s assume that the friend was asking for financial planners and I gave him your name. What would he find if he “Googled” your name and how would it compare with the other names I gave him?

Let me illustrate with another example. Assume I am at a party and someone asks me who I use to provide [insert your occupation or profession]. In return I say “Oh I have a great guy, but I can’t remember his full name or the name of his company. I think his first name is [insert your name] and his office is in [insert the name of your office suburb]. I am sure you can find him online.” If this was you could I find you as Joe the financial planner at Indooroopilly?”

Whilst you may have a website and your name may be mentioned in your website, unless it has been viewed frequently it simply will not appear in any search of your name. This is where social media has really earned its stripes. If you have created a LinkedIn account, a Google+ account, a face book page, or a YouTube account chances are that when I “Google” your name these will be displayed.  

The question I have to ask you is what does this say about you? Do you have a half-completed LinkedIn account which has no photo and lists two jobs held all in lower case and has no contact details? If I was searching for an adviser and I came across your LinkedIn profile would I be enticed to call you or would I get the impression of someone who slapped something together in a hurry with no pride at all? And more importantly what messages would I get about you from looking at your LinkedIn site?

There are a number of people who are currently producing fantastic practical information about how you can use digital or social media to enhance your search ability, credibility and desirability. If you have an interest, check out some of the following:

• Gideon Shalwick – specialises in using video – http://www.youtube.com/user/GideonShalwick
• Lesley Samuels – specialises in blogging – http://www.becomeablogger.com
• Tim Reid – specialises in marketing for small businesses – http://smallbusinessbigmarketing.com
• Baz Gardner – specialises in using social media for the financial planning industry – http://www.thesocialadviser.com

Eight steps to improve your Google presence by using LinkedIn

I would like to spend the rest of this post talking about how to get the best out of your LinkedIn site. Of course the digital media is not only about LinkedIn. LinkedIn is an important starting point however, because it features highly on any Google search and because it is accepted as a business networking tool.

Whichever format you choose to use should do three things:

• Enhance the chances that a prospect can find you;
• Enhance your credibility; and
• Enhance your desirability.

Before I provide the eight practical suggestions to improve your LinkedIn profile, I would like to provide a general statement. Your profile will be a visible “advert” for you. It will reflect who you are as a professional. You should allow it the opportunity to reflect well on you by being thoughtful about the messages you want to send and by being thorough in your use of spelling and grammar. As an example you should avoid writing everything in lower case and you ought to use correct punctuation and avoid using punctuation in headings and in your name.

Step 1: Create a powerful headline

When you create (or view) your profile the first thing you will do is create your name. The second field is something called “Your professional headline”. You are allocated 120 characters for this. Use them well. The headline should succinctly describe what business you are in and what value you provide. Most people simply put their job title and the company they work for. I guess there is nothing wrong with that but the most powerful headlines are those which are independent of what job you currently hold for which company. It may answer the question of why did you choose to do this job above any other. So for example, rather than having a headline saying “John Smith Financial Planner ABC Investment” it could say “John Smith – putting you in control of your financial affairs” or “John Smith – growing and protecting your wealth.” Whilst there is nothing wrong with the first the latter examples give me much more of an indication of why John does this job and resonates at a level of “purpose”. As a potential client I want to deal with someone who has purpose in life, not just a job.

Step 2: Add a photo

People want to see your picture. It builds emotional good-will. If you don’t have a picture it sends a simple message: He or she is hiding something. Include a realistic picture that does in fact look like you. Remember it is a “business” network so have an appropriate picture: It does not have to be a super professional portrait but nor should it be you sculling a beer in your singlet. It is an added bonus if your photo can somehow illustrate your personality. It allows me as a prospect to get to know you, and start the rapport building process before we even meet.

Step 3: Create a key-word rich summary

Before you write the summary spend some time thinking about the seven key words you want people to know you for in the business context. Think about what your clients really want from you and what differentiates great people in your line of work from average people. List these words and make sure you include them in the summary.

Step 4: Add links to other sites or media

You can add links to other sites such as your business website, your blog, your twitter account, your Face book account, and you’re YouTube Account. I have linked a short video from my YouTube account which promotes my blog as well as a link to a Face book page called phatboys which is a charity / hobby cycling group I support.

Step 5: List skills and experience

This is a reasonably new functionality in LinkedIn and whilst it is taking off in a big way I think we can all use this better. I would encourage you to you’re your skills and expertise here but please do avoid the temptation to list things we would take for granted. If you are a financial planner I would like to know what skills set you apart from the run of the mill adviser. Is it that you have specialist knowledge about insurance needs of a specific group of people or in-depth knowledge about SMSFs? I don’t need to know that you can use MS Word. Everyone can do that. Showcase the skills and expertise that you are most proud of, that really sets you apart. Whilst you are at it go and check out the skills and expertise of your connections and show some courtesy and recognition by appropriately endorsing them. By appropriate I mean genuine and sincere. If you have personally observed that they have unique skill and expertise in the listed area then go ahead and endorse them. If it is your mate but you don’t really know their sills in the work context then avoid endorsing them.

Step 6: Request and provide recommendations

Recommendations are like written testimonials. My suggestion would be to look through your contacts and identify a few (let’s say three to start with) people who you think are really great in their job. Write their names down and brainstorm what you know and have witnessed about each of them in the workplace. Then use this as a basis to write a short but personal testimonial which you can then link to their profile.

You should also ask some connections to provide an endorsement for you. To get the most out of this, think about the two or three proudest achievements in your career. Identify who worked with you at the time and ask those specific people for an endorsement with specific reference to that achievement.

Step 7: Create a custom URL and include it in your signature

LinkedIn provides you with an opportunity to customise the address of your LinkedIn profile. This is your LinkedIn URL. I have customised mine as follows: http://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisnothling. This is a lot easier to remember and identify with than the random set of numbers and characters I was originally allocated. You can include your LinkedIn URL or an automatic link to your profile on your email signature. This will help people find you and connect with you.

Step 8: Grow your network

If you have invested time and effort in creating your LinkedIn profile you should allocate some time and energy to building your network. Start by inviting your closest colleagues, ex colleagues, clients, service providers, suppliers, associates, and fellow students. Whenever you go to a meeting and you meet someone new ask them if they are on LinkedIn and if you may connect with them. Follow up with an invitation to connect. If you are able to and have the inclination I would go so far as to say each invitation should be personalised. Likewise when you are invited to connect by someone else thank them for connecting and ask them where you may be able to provide value to them.

Just do it … everyday

Like networking, using social media should be a habit. Allocate and diarise to spend 15 minutes each day on your LinkedIn profile replying to invitations, sending invitations, providing endorsements, posting interesting articles, or simply reading what others are posting or doing. These are the basics of using LinkedIn. Of course that is not everything. Once we have got this far we can start to consider whether we should have a blog or a YouTube channel and if we should be joining in and participating in a LinkedIn group. But let’s set that aside for the moment and focus our attention on the basics.

If you want assistance with any of these steps please feel free to contact me directly

• Mobile:      0439 309 493
• Email:        nothlingfamily@bigpond.com

Please feel free to check out my other profiles:

• LinkedIn:   http://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisnothling
• YouTube:   http://www.youtube.com/user/MrChrisnothling
• Twitter:     https://twitter.com/Consilium22
• Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/chrisnothling
• Phatboys:  http://www.facebook.com/phatboyz50