Relationships are king; they’re also getting more and more confusing in the business world throughout social media. That’s why I was grateful to speak with Jon Ferrara; co-founder of GoldMine, creator of the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) movement.   He is currently the founder and CEO of Nimble.com which is leading the movement for CRM 2.0 and creating pivotal business relationships online. During our conversation we discussed relationships done the right and wrong ways, CRM 1.0 vs. CRM 2.0 and the secret to building your business online.

Check out the video interview here:

And for your reading enjoyment here’s some helpful thoughts from our discussion….

Jon starts by telling us that we’re experiencing a “Renaissance in relationships”. People aren’t struggling to make connections; opportunities for connections are available any time and any day now. What we’re struggling with is nurturing and managing people that matter in our lives. Why? For starters a lot of people use the term “relationship” loosely or incorrectly in social media.

What you need to do to is create real, meaningful relationships as opposed to just collecting Twitter followers, Facebook friends and LinkedIn connections. How can we avoid this? Jon’s advice is to get rid of the word “Social”; “social” media has become a buzzword. Business IS social and has always BEEN social.

If business has always been social then we need to ask…

CRM 1.0 AND THE NEW CRM 2.0 – WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?

The basic model for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is to make connections, turn those connections into conversations and then turn those conversations into revenue. The problem with this system is that most of the CRM’s today aren’t about relationships; they’re reporting platforms that tell you where you met someone, what kind of client they might be and when to contact them for a potential sale.

To go along with this using a web site as a “marketing” too usually means the company’s site generates leads which are put into a marketing automation system until they’re lead qualified and then put into a CRM system. Then the sales people are told to go get’em.

With CRM 2.0 that’s changing. Today people are in six different tools (like Twitter and LinkedIn in addition to email and all the other ones) in multiple browsers. Today’s CRMs need to add value to relationships. That’s exactly what Nimble does – rather than having to Google someone and then visit five or six web sites to find out about them Nimble automagically connects all the people you’re having conversations with in the places you’re talking to them. You get to walk in their digital footsteps, find out what’s important to THEM and make better connections.

With that in mind the work starts BEFORE you ask to connect with someone. Here’s…

3 THINGS YOU NEED TO DO BEFORE YOU REACH OUT

Do your homework! Then when you do reach out make sure it’s meaningful and effective. You need to find out:

  1. WHY they might want to connect with you
  2. HOW you can serve them or work with them to help them achieve their business goals and
  3. How they can help you.

Notice the first two things you need to learn about are… all about THEM. It’s not “Hello Bill, you can help me by….” You lead with why you want to connect and how you think you can help them. This is where most people go wrong right out of the gate.

This will help you stand out above the rest of the “networkers” that just send generic emails or the stock LinkedIn invites (you know the one, the impersonal “Because you’re a person I trust I’d like to add you to my LinkedIn network…”. Come on.

Give those steps a chance – reach out TODAY and start, build or rebuild a relationship in your business life. In our next post we’ll talk about what you need to do AFTER you’ve made those initial connections and want to maintain your relationships.

That’s why Jon created Nimble.com – to help make the work of researching and connecting with people seamless.  Check out this quick video with a few tips for getting the most from Nimble.

Who will YOU connect with TODAY?