A few short months ago, I took a terrible leap of faith and launched my own consulting business.  Included is the word terrible because EnSpire Communication Consultants was born on September 1, 2008 - just days before the financial and business world crumbled around us. 

I've tweeted about the principles that have guided me for many years.  Unfortunately I'm not sure who to attribute these principles to, but they continue to guide me.  Today, I'd like to share with you the seven Ps.   

First - be Positive!  Avoid those things that are negative in our lives.   Focus on the positive attributes and you'll gain momentum.  Only by being positive will you move forward in your goals. 

Passion ...Passion ...Passion - Cultivate the passions that inspire you.  Fold your passion into your business.  Not only should you be passionate about your business, you need to branch out.  If you are passionate about helping disadvantaged children - make it a business objective.  Your business will flourish. 

Persistence is the key to success.  I believe in patient persistence.  It’s more than keeping in touch - it s going the extra step, knowing your client's business, being part of their team.

Oh ... Patience - a true virtue.  It took having children, specifically a special needs child, to teach me the true essence of patience.  The fall-out has proven to be an unexpected blessing upon my business life.  When you've had to make life and death decisions, it puts a whole different perspective upon things.

Being Prayerful is a true challenge.  Being a Catholic since childhood has incited a struggle between convention and conviction.  I manage by being true to my core beliefs. 

POWER  - Being Powerful is a result of having all of the previous P's in place.  Power over your life is so fulfilling that this is the ultimate goal.   This is where you gain spiritual and emotional fulfillment – until you get here, you can’t imagine it.  

Be Prosperous - Don’t think about it.  Being prosperous is a by-product – there is no way you are going to put it at the top of the list.   Being prosperous will only follow your efforts in following the previous set of Ps.

I wish you well –

Susan

Most people who know me are aware that my early career was devoted to advertising and business development.  And, while maintaining a good relationship with my clients was crucial to the success I enjoyed, about 10 years ago I recognized that organizations were going to be faced with finding new ways to connect with customers through enhanced relationship management.  This led to my belief that the public relations discipline is destined to play a more important role in the marketing mix.  And thereby began my education in and practice of PR - ultimately leading to accreditation nearly four years ago. 

This morning, I ran across a blog posting by David Phillips in the United Kingdom where he says, "Now, more than at any time since the Great Depression, we need to reflect on the nature of relationship management and who has the corporate responsibly for its governance."  His post examines the importance of relationship management in wealth generation, along with a hypothesis about the cost of the loss of relationships.  I highly recommend it. 

Many companies have budgeted for PR as a part of their marketing mix, but I would daresay that most are see the primary PR function as generating press releases and garnering mainstream media coverage.  In fact, I still see PR departments measuring success by counting media clippings and calculating advertising equivalencies. 

In a recent conversation with an acquaintance from an advertising agency, my friend referenced a client of his that had allocated a very small percentage of their marketing dollars toward PR.  Somehow I get the sense that PR dollars continue to be added as an afterthought with no clear strategy as to how relationship management should be implemented to affect the bottom line.

Successful professional service organizations have long recognized the value that relationships bring to business development.  And, today, maintaining relationships has become much easier with e-mail and social media.  But it pays to use these tools with care, lest they impersonalize the relationship.  A part of every professional’s personal marketing plan should include inviting past, current and potential clients and referral sources to meet for lunch (coffee, dinner, golf, drinks, a social event, etc.). 

As Phillips’ blog post references, really getting to know your client builds trust and might forestall serious consequences.

Early - I mean REALLY EARLY - this morning, I went to a marketing and networking program presented by the Seminole Chamber of Commerce.  The presenter, Chris Hurn, CEO of Mercantile Commercial Capital, has to be one of the most enlightened CEOs I've ever encountered.  By enlightened, I mean he not only gets marketing and relationship building, but he spends more than 80 percent of his time entrenched in the practice of marketing.  If you get a chance to attend one of his presentations, I highly recommend it.

Right now I'm watching REAL Sports With Bryant Gumbel - a report on steroids in horse racing.  Let's just say that my family has loved and nurtured horses for many years and I'm more than glad to see that states are finally banning the use of drugs in racing. But I digress ...

So how does all this segue into relationship management?  One of this morning's presentation points illustrated how larger companies are maximizing relationships by using new direct marketing tools based on psychological insights.  It’s like they are looking to commoditize the one-on-one relationship building that professional service practitioners have been perfecting for many years. 

What does this tell us?  Our world is becoming more and more reliant upon building a relationship with the people we want to do business with.  It means that professionals need to consider using new social media toools to keep our relationships alive and well.  We need to blog, tweet and update our profiles on FaceBook and LinkedIn.  We need to enhance our traditional outreach - make our Web sites, newsletters and white papers more robust. 

I also wonder at the end result of mass marketers' attempt to build relationships with consumers.  In my experience, it takes much more than just the use of someone's name to create a relationship.  It will be interesting to see how consumers react as more and more companies implement tactics designed to create faux relationships (my term for a large company's use of demographic data to insert personal information into marketing materials).  

That's not to say that there aren't large companies that really do well in developing and maintaining relationships with their customers - ZAPPOS does a great job.  On the other hand, I'm still waiting for AT&T to reply to an issue with my BlackBerry desktop software that was submitted to them more than 36 hours ago via their online support (I was never able to locate a telephone number to inquire into a resolution).   In the end, it's all about customer service.

Earlier today I attended the Legal Marketing Association, Orlando City Group's annual Managing Partner Forum.  The panel presentation included representatives from two law firms, an accounting firm and an architectural firm.  All of the firms indicated that they are not cutting back on marketing resources and concurred that building and maintaining relationships continues to be a crucial element of their marketing activity - all good news for marketers. 

When someone from the floor inquired about using tools such as Linked-In, I was not surprised to hear that the firms are only now dipping a toe into the waters of social media.  However, what was surprising was when two of the younger panelists - mid-30's - indicated that they don't really understand social media with one describing herself as a "dinosaur". 

Hmmm ... I'm not really into sharing my age, but let's just say I'm a bit older.  And, the thing is - I see social media as having huge potential in relationship marketing.  Maybe it's the name we've attached to this new media - "social" - that detracts from its perceived business value.