Advocacy - the act of pleading or arguing in favor of something, such as a cause, idea, or policy; active support – according to dictionary.com. What are you an advocate for? Are you an advocate for your company? If not why not? I have been thinking about this of late. Word of mouth is so very powerful in generating new growth. I think that this is especially true in the small business community. I try to be an advocate for all my clients. I want them to grow and become better at what they do. I always am thinking of my clients first when I hear about any opportunities that might be a match for them. I would like to think that others think of me when they hear about an internet opportunity that might be a match for me.
- need a handyman – I know someone
- need commercial building work done – I know someone
- need your carpets cleaned – I know someone
- interested in home automation – I know someone
It has been my experience that the smaller a company is the more likely it is that employee’s are advocates for the company, and for other companies. Having worked in big, medium and small companies I found that my skill set was best utilized in a smaller business environment. I like doing a variety of things and have many different skills. Many times my clients do not even realize that I have a skill that they could use, until I am chatting to them about something else, and it will come up that I know how to do the task that they are in need of.
Search and social media come to mind when I think of skills that my clients might not know that I have. Social media is all the buzz right now. Facebook, Twitter, blogging, Flickr and all sorts of other sites. Ask me about it sometime and I will give you my 2 cents worth. I don’t think that just because you can means that you should — each business is unique and I try to speak to their needs. And not all social sites are a good match for all business operations. Search is a term that could have many different meanings for different people. Some might say search when they mean paid ads while others mean organic search. When clients are not sure of what they want it can be tough to speak to their needs. How do you handle this situation? I would love to hear about it.