Drew McLellan is doing a viral Advice to Grads effort among blogs.  I am speaking to two marketing classes at Kent State today and thought I would kill two birds with one stone.  Here is what I will be telling the marketing students, and it is good advice for any student today.

As early in your college career as possible, start working on this list of things to do.  I can tell you as an employer, if you came in and had done these things, had a good attitude and reasonable expectations, I would not need to interview anyone else.

1. Blog.  Not your My Space blog.  Blog what you are learning, what you see in the industries that interest you.  Connect with other bloggers in that industry.  This is more valuable than any resume.
2. Start a Business and Network. Network online and go to networking events.  Start a little (or big) business so that when you go to a networking event, you are not just saying: “I am a student collecting business cards so I can blast you with my resume later.”  Some ideas are:
   - Website/Blog Design
   - Graphic Design
   - Marketing Assessment
   - Local Guerrilla Marketing
   - Writing
   By doing this, you will have first hand experience that few other graduates had, even you it never becomes a thriving business.
3. Publish Articles.  The web is full of places that you can publish articles.  A future employer will Google your name and the top ten spots can all be you if you use the web to get your message out there.
4. Speak.  Don’t dread speaking.  Look for opportunities to speak any chance you get.  Craft a couple of canned speeches that you can “sell.“  (For the speaking fee or just for the opportunity.)
5. Publish a Book.  OK, now you think I am just wacky.  However, I think publishing a book was a lot easier than college.  If you write a couple of pages a day, you can be published in under a year fairly painlessly.  The key to publishing a book is that it may not make you much money, but it makes everything else easier. 

The key to all of this is picking your areas of interest and establishing yourself as an expert in those areas before you ever ask someone for a job.  Someone that has taken this kind of initiative will not even be looking for an entry level position.  They will be in the running for a more senior position right out of college.

And don’t worry, most of the people reading this will not do it.  You will stand out if you do.

The Success of an Organization is the Responsibility of Every Member

That is what you will see at the top of the cover of my book, Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing.  The book is about how to get more people involved in creating buzz for the organization.  I am in this field not because of the interest in Buzz and Word of Mouth, but because I am passionate about making a difference in people’s lives.  Helping them be a better part of the place they call work and finding more success and fulfillment. 

There are a few things that I would argue most employees do not do, but if they did they would be happier and they would help the organization be more successful.  Here is my list of critical things employees must know and do.

Health and Fitness

In the US, we have a real problem with obesity and poor health, despite knowing better.  Studies show that productivity is higher and costs are lower with more physically fit people.  If an employee is healthy, they will be more productive, lower healthcare costs and be happier.  This will also spill over to their family, further lowering healthcare costs and increasing happiness.

There is a great book on employee and family health called Move It. Loose It. Live Healthy.  The author, Dr. Gilliam is a client of mine and he also puts together workplace health plans and tracking.

Read More

Every employee should work to keep their mind sharp.  Reading is critical, and a dangerously low number of Americans ever read a book after they finish school.  Read some books for fun, and read some books to understand your organization and world better.

Employers may consider starting a book club that reads one book per quarter.  Employees that participate get the book free and they get a catered book club meetings after work or at lunch.  Well read employees will create more buzz and contribute to the organization’s success.

Be Conscious of your Attitude

Attitude, like a relationship, rarely falls apart overnight.  Instead, it can slip over time slowly down from exuberant optimism to regret and pessimism.  Attitude takes effort.  You have to be conscious of your attitude and combat things that begin to chisel away at its foundation.

One of my favorite blogs about attitude is Make It Great.  Phil Gerbyshak is an excellent blogger and has a simple book about transforming your day and making it great.  The book is something that any employee can read and digest in a few hours.  It also has plenty of work space so you can analyze yourself while you read it.

Word of Mouth

No matter who you are, you impact the word of mouth that your organization gets.  Every employee can create buzz and word of mouth via telling people about the organization, as well as by doing a remarkable job that gets noticed (and talked about).

Being remarkable is not only good for the organization, but also good for the employee.  Remarkable gets notices, and it could get notices internally resulting in a raise or promotion, and it can be noticed externally resulting in job offers, testimonials, demand for employees particular skills, speaking opportunities, etc.

Of course I recommend Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing for this.  I wrote the book specifically to address this issue that gets lost so easily. 

Employees in an organization cannot sit back and just do their job.  To be successful and help the organization be successful, employees have to invest in themselves and not take their job for granted.  Create a work culture like that, and you will have more buzz than you can probably handle.

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When I go out and speak about getting employees involved with creating buzz and word of mouth for the company, I always get a lot of nay-sayers that think it is not possible.  The fact is, involved management that helps a certain percentage of the workforce create buzz will improve employee moral and give employees a stronger sense of involvement with the company.

What does the management team need to do to increase buzz and employee morale?

• Identify which employees will enjoy creating buzz.
• Create some easy to repeat stories that employees know that they can spread.
• Let them know why creating buzz is good for them too.
• Get participating employees each a copy of Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing to give them ideas and inspiration to create more buzz.
• Celebrate success and keep employees moral and involvement high.
• Help employees feed off of one another’s enthusiasm.

Challenge employees to make a difference in all aspects of the company.  This will help management improve buzz, improve employee morale for those that are willing to participate and make the sales guys job easier by generating more leads.

As I was writing my post from Friday, I had the terribly interesting idea to talk about systems that can help you create buzz, and I wrote about tracking promises as one of the bullet points.  I thought I would expand on it here.  This is a big issue, and no one likes to admit they do not follow through on all of their promises.

It is easy to imply things or agree to something and not deliver.  Not every time, but you always have potential customers that say, “No onions.” and then you deliver their food with onions.  Or you say the software does something that it either does not do, or it is difficult to make do it. Or you say you can get something by a deadline and it is nearly impossible to accomplish.

These kinds of things are critical to creating a positive experience with the customer and creating buzz.  Have you ever bought something that you thought was going to be a pain but went very smoothly because of good planning on the part of the vendor?  Have you bought something and said WOW, that was fun?

Those vendors kept their promise.

So here is the deal.  It is hard to get every employee in the organization to create buzz by spreading stories.  I believe it can be done in many types of business, but it is hard and take a while to get in place.  Regardless of an employees willingness to directly create buzz, his or her attitude towards making and keeping promises on behalf of the company could create enough buzz all by itself.

Here are some points to consider when training employees on promise keeping:

• You may not think you are making a promise, but the customer may.
• Approach each task as if it is a promise you made to someone you care about.
• Telling someone no is better than breaking a promise down the road.
• Delivering what is promised is the minimum option, not the goal.
• Do not promise things that cannot be controlled.  Let people know the risks and rewards.
• Feel good when you keep your promise to the customer.  It is not just a job, it matters to the people you are working with.

Of course, sales people need to have a meeting and discuss what can and cannot be promised.  After, you may decide that you have some things you frequently promise but cannot always fulfill.  Find ways to manage those expectations and clarify your promise in the sales cycle.  Your buzz will be much greater.

Who Creates Buzz?
There are three primary kinds of people that will create word of mouth about your company.

• Influentials – They may not actively talk about you often, but when they do it carries a lot of weight.
• Advocates – Your customers and friends that love your company and what it represents.
• Employees – Most employees do not think to create buzz, but they can with guidance and encouragement.

If your goal is to create word of mouth and buzz, you must have different strategies for these different groups. Influencers must be enticed to create some buzz, Advocates must be encouraged to create buzz, and employees must be educated on the importance of creating buzz and how to do it. If you understand your goal and approach, you will be very successful.

I have recently done several presentations to large groups. One take away I got is that people are skeptical about creating buzz with employees and I thought I would address that here.

If your organization is not run well, you will not be able to create buzz. The only way employee evangelism works is if people are genuinely happy to work with you. This means managers must make employee happiness that is fair for everyone a priority.

What are some of the key traits a manager must have to create an atmosphere that will facilitate employee buzz creation?

• Must care about employees and take the time to understand them.
• Must enforce rules evenly for everyone.
• Must share success.
• Must believe staff is capable of creating buzz.
• Must not mind that people will outgrow a job and move on.
• Must not be afraid that an employee will become a specialist.
• Must not tolerate employees that hurt the attitude and success of the team.
• Must always be working on improving leadership skills.
• Must help train employees for success.

It is true that one bad manager or owner can make buzz impossible. Many do make it impossible by not creating the environment that makes people want to talk well about work. This is no excuse for employees to say bad things, but it is a barrier for them to say good.?

I did several presentations today and in one I was asking people what they wanted to do when they graduate from school.  One guy wants to be a marketer in the alchohol beverages industry.

Cool, I though.

Later he had the chance to explain it better.  He met someone that worked for Guinness and did nothing but go out to bars and get people to try Guinness if they are drinking something else.  To this guy, it was a dream job.  Unlimited charge card and buying people drinks all night long.

It is probably very effective in converting people, assuming your product is good. What I found more interesting was the fact that they created a job position that made people think about it and talk about it. 

Can you create a position in your company that would stand out?  Corporate Evangelist was not always a reality…. what others can you come up with?

How do you jump start getting your non-sales employees to start creating some buzz?  Here are five quick tips that can impact your effort.

• Publish your success stories and testimonials so every employee can see them.  The more buzzworthy stories you provide your Employee Evangelists, the more ammo they have to spread the word.  Do not assume they already know everything. You could do a weekly email or post them in a public place.
• Recognize top performing Employee Evangelists in a public way.
• Teach employees how to create more buzz.
• Grow Employee Evangelists by growing the expertise of your employees.  The more professional they become, the more they network, the better Evangelists they will be.
• Reward employees for becoming involved in the community.  Support their efforts and encourage them to make a difference.  By actually sponsoring or organizing some of this support, your organization can get considerable buzz.

These are just five quick ways to get your employees buzzing today.  Employee Evangelism is important for improved teamwork, organizational success and rapid growth.  The ROI on having happier, more involved employees is always a high return on investment.

Enthusiasm and Quality – How they effect your Buzz

In this article I have done a series of graphs that illustrate what may be happening with you and your company in regard to Buzz Marketing.

In order to create buzz individually, you must have a high level of excitement and enthusiasm for what you are buzzing about.  If not, you will not be able to sustain the effort and convince other people to get excited and spread word-of-mouth about your business or product. 

Yes there are other ways.  It is possible to create a product so good, so different, that it generates its own buzz and sales.  It is also possible to do something so newsworthy that you get a lot of buzz from the media.  These are not things you just wake up and push the buzz button one day.  They take a lot of work and some level of luck.

For the purpose of this article I will assume you have a high level of enthusiasm for your business or product and we will discuss how the remarkable qualities of what you are buzzing about will influence the effort you make through your enthusiastic promotion.

Dull Product or Bad Quality

The first analysis is the situation where you have very high enthusiasm but a product that does not excite people.  Your excitement makes them take a look, but few buy and many fewer tell someone else about it.  This is very frustrating for the buzz creator because they are excited but sustaining the excitement when no one else buys into it is difficult.  One of three things is happening in this case. 

1) The product is not the right product
2) The product is of very poor quality
3) The product is very boring and/or a commodity

If you fall into number one or number two, you have to improve the product or move on.

Number three I see all the time with professional service providers.  Insurance, Legal Council, Accounting, Finance,….. they are all services that many different people are selling.  Standing out here is not so much about the product as it is developing your personal brand to the point that people would come to you for whatever you are selling.

Difficult Product but Good Product

The difficult but good product is one that you can sell to people very well but your customers and advocates have trouble selling it via word of mouth.  Thus, you do not get any scale or residual on the buzz effort.  Businesses that try to do many things for many people will have trouble in this area.  They may even have their own customers going out and hiring others to do another thing that they do.  I saw that when another company I am with was hosting an Internet Marketing site and the client then bought SEO services from someone else because they did not know we did that too. 

Quality of the product may not be the problem here.  The quality of your message and your product packaging is.

If this is how your buzz effort looks, consider the following.  First, simplify your offerings.  Make them easy to understand and talk about for the average customer or prospect.  You just have to get them to understand the broad benefits and they will find ways to talk about it.

Next, even after simplification you probably are still more difficult than average, so devise a strategy to educate your customers, employees and prospects in a quick and regular way.

Blockbuster Product

This is the kind of buzz that says the quality of your product is great and your benefits are easy to understand.  It also says your product easily creates enthusiasm in others.

If this curve is how your buzz effort looks, you may have big problems.  Are you going to be able to handle orders and questions that are running out of control?  Is your quality good now but will plummet as you get busier?  People always say to me, “That is a good problem to have…” but they do not realize that the incredible high will be followed by an incredible low if you are not prepared to deliver on your promise.

If you are hoping for blockbuster buzz, have a plan for scaling your company.  If you get busy and your quality suffers, your buzz will be short lived. 

Steady Buzz

What does a good Buzz Marketing job look like?  If you are dealing with a big company that can easily scale and maintain quality, the blockbuster scenario is the best.  For a small to mid-sized company, the steady buzz will win the race.  This is realistic graph for most businesses.  If you have good quality and an easy to understand product with clear benefits, a percent of people you talk to will talk about you, and a percent of the people you have never met will talk about you.  Enthusiasm will not be sustained in most cases very far out, but in a percentage of cases it does because the quality of the product gets talked about, even if it is not the next big thing.

This curve does not seem exciting, but it represents double digit annual growth while maintaining high quality and excellent customer service.  This is a goal that should cost you very little to achieve if you already have good quality.  Simply increase enthusiasm and get more people to start talking about you via everyday channels on a regular basis.

Quality and Sustainable Enthusiasm are the two biggest elements for creating buzz and growing your company.  By strategically making more people enthusiastic and maintaining or improving your quality, you will experience positive growth.

We all think of ourselves as individuals.  We are individuals, in fact.  However, take a moment and think about how individual you really are.  Here is a short test to see if you are truly individual:

#1 Do you exclusively speak a language no one understands other than you?  Obviously not, you are reading this.

#2 Do you have mannerisms and attributes that no one else has ever done? 

#3 Do you never interact with anyone else, because of your inability to communicate or understand?

OK, I think that is enough.  You are part of something.  Even if you are a shining light of individualism, of thinking outside the box, of innovation and invention, you are still a part of many things.

If I come to your city and ask you for directions, and you snub me, you are part of the city and have hurt its image and everyone in the city.

If I call your company and you do not handle my call well, you have hurt everyone in the company.

If you make a racist or sexist comment, you have hurt everyone in your race or gender.

Each person you interact with will think of you as a part of a different group, and your actions will reflect on that group.  It does not matter if you like it or not.

For example, when I am traveling in another country I am reflecting on my country.  When someone is visiting my city I am reflecting my city.  When I go to a business event, I am reflecting my business.  Even among all these obvious choices, some people will put me in the white male group, the business owner group, the Ohio group, a presumed religious group, a management group, a heterosexual group, a family group or whatever other group they may see.

Your organization is a group.  You must create a positive group image of your organization.  Outsiders will have an easier time categorizing your organization as a group and remembering details about the group, than they will each individual within.

Creating positive buzz and word of mouth for your organization is a numbers game.  You want to have as many positive interactions with people outside your group as possible.  You want to minimize and diffuse negative interactions.

For this reason, creating a culture within the organization where people understand everyone’s responsibility to creating positive interactions is essential.  Your job is a group of people you choose to succeed or fail with.  If you are not happy representing your group (business, city, club, country) then you should find a new group. Face the fact, you will have to participate with some groups and you might as well be part of more successful ones.