There is networking, then there's connecting, then there is being "connected": The Waldo Factor, part 7

In the governnment contracting community there are arguably only a handful of networking events where there are a significant number of "power players" in one place at one time- senior executives from the top contractors, senior government officials, key press contacts and others.

One such event is the annual Deltek holiday party, now held at the Ritz in McLean. Due to Fire Marshall issues, it has become an invitation only (gotta be on the list) event.

This event was started byTom Hewitt when he ran Federal Sources. Of all the people I have ever met in the government market, Tom knew the value of networking and went out of his way to meet people, make introductions, create networking venues and help as many as he could. He is a truly gracious guy. On many occasions I was the recipient of introductions by and invitations from Tom, and I remain grateful for both.

Hewitt was the epitome of being connected. He was the LinkedIn of the 1990s.

He started the annual holiday party in the late 1980s and held it at the McLean Hilton as an open, anyone can attend event.  There was no fee to attend and it remains so to this day, although you need to bring a $20+ toy for the US Marines "Toys for Tots" program.

When I attended this event for the first time (according to my old Day-Timer collection, 1991), I looked around the room and thought, "These are the people I read about in Federal Computer Week, Washington Technology and Government Executive - and here they are!"

My job that evening was to meet as many people as I could, gather as many business cards as possible, and see if I could develop some consulting business. I had some minor name recognition at the time through my newsletter (hardcopy, snail mail), from being on the Board of Advisors for FOSE, a little word-of-mouth, and a few speaking engagements. But I was far from being "well known" in the contracting community.

So I'd gather the business cards, drop people a note (snail mail), follow up with a phone call.

The results were not stellar, but they were OK.

Tom Hewitt may have known many or most of the people in that room but I certainly did not. But everyone in that room knew Tom Hewitt. His rolodex and influence was truly unparalleled in this market throughout the 1990s.

So 20 years later I find myself at the Ritz at the annual holiday party and I'm looking around and I am thinking - "These are the people I read about in the trade magazines, hear interviewed on Federal News Radio, see on LinkedIn - and here they are!" The attendance is around 1,200 of the most influential people in the contracting community.

While I have better name recognition and good overall market visibility, I still don't know everyone I'd like to know. So I still collect business cards.


So my goal with the business cards is to make certain that while I may not know everyone in the room, I want to have most of them in my "network" - so I invite the key players to connect with me on LinkedIn, making certain my business card collection pays some dividends.


There may be 1,200 people in that room, similar to the way it was in 1991. But the difference for me is by connecting to key players (by offering them a reason to connect with me), I have reduced the number of degrees between me and anyone in the room. My network now includes all top contractors, many senior government executives, much of the government trade press, and more.


I may never have the power or influence of Tom Hewitt, but my goal is to emulate certain of his behaviors so my reach in the market is as broad and deep as possible.

So far, so good.

LinkedIn Master Workshop

I just hosted the inaugural LinkedIn Blackbelt Master workshop this morning and there are now 8 more intelligently armed soon-to-be LinkedIn experts out there.

This is a 3 hour workshop with very limited seating so everyone attending gets some one-on-one coaching along the way.

Without a doubt, LinkedIn has become the premier social network for business professionals. With nearly 140 million business professionals and over 2 million individual company profiles, LinkedIn is the place to be found for business professionals, and to find and connect with influencers in your market niche.

However it is estimated that fewer than 25% of those registered to use LinkedIn do so effectively, and less than 10% maximize the value this powerful tool can bring to you and your company.

Unlike some other social networks, LinkedIn is all business all the time. If you are not maximizing this extraordinary tool, you are losing mindshare.

I currently host this session monthly near BWI, but should be hosting a Virginia monthly session in the near term - hopefully no later than March.

The next BWI session is Wednesday, February 29 from 8:30-11:30 AM.

Drop me a line for details on upcoming sessions.

mark@federaldirect.net

The Waldo Factor - part 1

Here’s the scene, and I think we’ve all been here: You are at a conference and the person on stage speaking to 1,000+ people is somewhere between adequate and pretty good, but you are thinking he/she is not as good as you. My usual thought is along the lines of “where did they dig up this clown, and why is he/she talking about last year’s hot ideas as if they were new?”

So why is that person on the stage and you are sitting, frustrated, in the audience? What got them up there and not you?

While there are no easy answers to that question, the biggest factor is they are better known for what they do than you are. It may be because they wrote a book or some articles, they had some other speaking engagements, they were recommended by someone advising the event, or maybe they “knew somebody” or probably some combination of these and other factors. Somehow they were able to get in front of the right people at the right time and get the speaking engagement.

Regardless of the factors that created the situation, the fact is they are on the stage and you are in the audience. People are looking at and listening to them, and you are one of those faceless people in the crowd. Again, we've all been there.

Think of the person on the stage as Point B, and you as Point A. How do you get from Point A to Point B?

In the book series Where's Waldo, a tall guy with glasses dressed in blue pants, a red and white striped shirt and matching hat is always somewhere in a scene so crowded with other things and other people that it is hard to find him. The reader’s (really, viewer, as there are no words) job is to find Waldo.

In the speaking scenario above, the only one easy to find is the person on the stage. Unless you are wearing a red and white striped shirt with a matching hat, you will be hard to pick out in that audience. That's not usually the way you want to stand out in a business crowd.

Your job is to intellectually stand out and stand apart in your business niche, and to be easily found by those who need to find you because of your expertise. Then the people you want to meet and know will have an interest in knowing you and having as part of their online and offline network.

Growth in any market niche is predicated on building relationships with key influencers in that niche, and then becoming an influencer in that niche. Those influencers can include prospects, partners, press, investors, C-level execs and others influential in your market.

To build the relationships and maximize your presence, you need to develop credibility in your market, then build your visibility. Visibility without credibility has no value or worse, negative value.

Credibility is developed by being good at what you do and working at getting better,  being among the best at what you do, and adding value to the community. Then you find ways to share some of your knowledge and opinions with others.

Once you start this process, you are already creating visibility, but it is necessary to continue to build your knowledge base as you expand your visibility. Markets evolve and you must evolve with them to retain your credibility.

Traditionally we have face-to-face events for networking, seminars and conferences where we share or receive knowledge, publications where we read, write or be quoted. These are still excellent venues.

But wait!!! There's more!

With the advent of web 2.0 tools, we have the ability to either bypass traditional methods or enhance them by incorporating them into our web-based activity.

For business professionals, LinkedIn has become an incredibly valuable tool for developing credibility and visibility. Your ability to stand out in a crowd is now predicated on your ability use both the traditional and web-based tools and coordinate the activity between them to make you among the most “findable" experts in your niche. Think of it as "findability".

So here is the initial equation:

credibility + visibility = findability.

There are several examples and one great example is Steve Ressler, founder of GovLoop.

Steve was a government IT analyst and program manager at the Department of Homeland Security. While working for the government, on his own time he co-founded Young Government Leaders, which has become a great networking venue for the next generation of public managers.

Then in 2008, Steve started the online community for Feds, GovLoop (by for and about Feds - the Facebook for government).

Steve's use of social media, which also led to being featured in traditional media, is a great example of what can happen if you develop an expertise and share your ideas. Along the way he won acclaim and awards from industry groups and trade publications, leading to even more visibility.

Steve stays active through GovLoop, Young Government Leaders and mainly by sharing ideas in as many forums as possible.

None of this happened overnight for Steve, and it all required hard work.

We don't all need industry-wide visbility, but most of us need visibility within a defined niche. And the tactics to gain that visibility are basically the same:

1- be good at what you do and work hard at staying good;

2- find the venues where those in your niche congregate, both online and offline venues, and get involved;

3- participation in these venues involves helping with events, working in special interest groups, developing and sharing ideas, commenting on other ideas, etc;

4- always be on the lookout for ways to share with others who would be interested.

Credibility, visibility and findability are truly keys to success.


IF you need assistance in developing and implementing a plan to raise your findability, send an email to markamtower@gmail.com . 

Creating Visibility for You & Your Company

We have all read articles written by people who may not be the most qualified experts, and we certainly have all seen speakers who would be better off taking copious notes from the audience rather than dispensing advice from the podium. There are even some business book authors out there who have one or more books out that really offer little value, yet they seem to find an audience.

How did they get the speaking gig, article assignment or book deal, and how do they develop an audience?

Each of them has defined a niche and studied it at least enough to get the attention of a trade magazine or book editor or a conference director. Then they have designed a way to get on the radar, to generate some attention.

Becoming visible to your business community, your niche, is not an easy or quick process. It can be simple, but it is not easy, but we all need the attention only our niche can provide if we are to survive and thrive in these tough times. It does not matter if you have a small, medium or large company (although some will argue it is easier for large companies to get PR), or even if you are a solo-preneur like me - each of us needs enough attention to generate new business, to find the right job, to get the book deal or to move to the next level.

There are many tools available, and more becoming available every day, but the process of selecting and deploying the right tools for your niche.  There are hundreds of web 2.0 tools out there, but let's just look at one for right now: LinkedIn.

LinkedIn has well over 100 million register business professionals, 990,634 groups (as of  11:22 AM EST, 7/19/ 11), many useful apps to use with your profile, and a ton of ways to help you stand out in a crowd and connect with key epople throughout your market.

But how many people on LinkedIn are really using it to stand out in their respective niches? My estimate is less than 2%. But key decision makers are using LinkedIn to identify the "experts" in various fields, and these include people who hire speakers, give writing assignments, and offer book deals.

So what does it take to truly stand out?

Knowing your subject well is always job #1.

Defining your area of expertise in terms that will resonate with your niche is job #2.

Getting the word out is job #3.

I use LinkedIn as the "hub" for my web activity. When I write an article, I post the link for it in pertienet groups on LinkedIn. The result this week is one of the most read and most emailed articles at www.WashingtonTechnology.com . It makes the editor happy to have fresh traffic coming into the site, it keeps my name active in the market niche, and it could generate some business. I write an article for Washington Technology's web site once a month, and each time my promotional activity helps make it a well-read article. And it doesn't take me long to do this.

I will also "tweet' the article link, which will put it on all the social networks I use and maybe generate some re-tweets as well.

How are you leveraging the available tools to generate some targeted viisibility in your niche for you and your company?

If you need some fresh ideas on how to stand out in a crowded market, drop me a line - markamtower@gmail.com

Best of luck with your efforts!

Mark

Amtower Off Center turns 4 (and Amtower & Company turns 26!)

Amtower Off Center turns 4! After completing 3 years at WFED, Federal News Radio – Amtower discusses his twenty-six years in the market as Amtower & Company (January 2010 starts his 26th year as Amtower & Co.- a double anniversary show). In an interview on In Depth with Francis Rose, Amtower talks about the dynamic nature of the government market, why B2G is different form B2B, common missteps companies make entering the market, the difference in the problems facing small, medium and large companies, what marketing methods can works, how market share can occur, the importance of differentiation, best marketing practices in the market, why ongoing education is critical in this market, why and how social networking is becoming a critical element in marketing programs, -all this plus classic Amtower anecdotes and more in a lively discussion with Francis Rose.

http://www.federalnewsradio.com/index.php?nid=17&sid=1868948

End of Week Notes

The Government Media and Marketing Networking Reception is Tuesday, Feb 24 at 7:30 AM at the Tower Club is Vienna, VA. To register, go here - http://www.eventbrite.com/event/263857204. I would suggest registering now as this may sell out. This is a reception - not a lecture. You can meet and talk to editors, reporters, radio hosts and a few PR folks. Tony Welz & Evan Weisel put on great events. If you attend, look for me.

My radio show Monday (noon, 1500 AM, simulcast at www.FederalNewsRadio.com ) features Louis Numkin and Gretchen Morris of FISSEA, the Federal Information Systems Security Educators Association. The 22nd annual FISSEA conference will be held at the Gaithersburg, MD Capus of NIST March 24-26. These are great people who work tirelessly to get the word out on computer security in federal agencies. They also provide in-agency education on all things related to computer security and are big advocates of the various security certifications available. I have been watching them for almost 20 years, ever since Lynn McNulty (who then worked in Dr Jim Burrows Computer Security Lab at NIST) told me about them around 1991. Time flies when you're having fun!

The ASBC held two Business Over Breakfast events this week: the usual one at the Tower Club on Wednesday (with over 40 people), and then one this morning at La Madeline in Columbia, MD (with about 12 people). I was lucky enough to atend both. If you haven't attended one, come next Wed to the Tower Club, but pre-register at www.TheASBC.org .

I also was at the Tower Club Thursday meeting with Bob Gosselin of EMC. While we were in the dining room, at the same time The Washington Breakfast Club (part of the ASBC) was hosting an SRO crowd across the lobby in the Fairfax Room...

This past Monday I had a one-on-one meeting with the Howard County (MD) BRAC Director, Kent Mesner. BRAC plans are proceeding and will certainly impact the national capitol area on both sides of the river. If Mr Mesner's name sound familiar, he went under the title Colonel Mesner when he was commander of Fort George G Meade.....