8) Know your audience. This is one of the easiest, yet most forgotten things in customer service. Imagine being able to talk to your audience about things that relate directly to them when they walk into your store, or contact you for an order? It’s not hard. With the level of sharing we’re all subjected to on a daily basis, a simple Google alert on your best customers, or a perusal of a Twitter account should give you a basic insight into what’s up in their world. Mind you, I said a quick perusal. There’s a fine line between “taking an interest,” and “being the creepy stalker who works at Staples.”

7) Being early is a trait of those who excel in customer service. I had a car for 8am this morning. At 7:26am, I get a text that my Groundlink car is on the way, and at 7:39, I get another text that it’s downstairs waiting for me. 20 minutes early, just chilling. When I get downstairs at 7:50, the car is there, I’m calm, relaxed, without that “where the hell is he, I’m going to miss my flight” stress that we get when the time comes and there’s no car. Can you do the same? Can you deliver a project before deadline? Can you auto-upgrade shipping for your customers without charging them extra? Zappos does… Focus on ways to make things happen quicker.

6) Something unexpected. You know what was in my car when I got in this morning? A bottle of water. Simplest thing in the world. They probably buy them in bulk for $5 for 20 bottles. But it was there, and it was available to me, no charge. That little bottle of water made me so happy. I hydrated ,and felt just a little bit better when I arrived at JFK. Good luck getting a bottle of water in a taxi. What little things can you do? I bought a Keurig machine for my office/apartment, and some funky flavored coffees. People actually ask to have meetings at my apartment because they never know what kind of cool coffee they’re going to get. I once knew a CEO who went to Africa each year to bring back 30 pounds of a specific type of coffee bean, but he never told anyone where they could get it. His reasoning? “Maybe they remember where they had the great coffee, and maybe they come back for more, and maybe we do some business.” (Say that in a Yiddish accent, it sounds much funnier.) But he was right. What unexpected things can you do?

5) Stop nickel and diming. Airlines are terrible at this. They quote you a fare of like, $99 dollars to go somewhere, right? But then, that’s each way, and that doesn’t include taxes, tariffs, boarding fees, baggage fees, lubrication fees (for the TSA Anal Probes) and other fees. Total on a $198 round trip? $445.50. How is that good customer service? It’s not. What can you include for no additional cost? Batteries? Ink? Toner? Spare parts? Free transfers? What can you include and call it “a good karma inclusion” or something like that?

4) Can you help someone in a way that’s out of the ordinary? We all know what Morton’s did for me last summer… But what else can you do? I’ve heard stories of restaurants picking people up and driving them to their establishment when a customers’ car died. I’ve heard other stories of companies doing things completely random – A hotel in San Francisco called a hotel in NYC to get the bellman there to deliver flowers to a San Francisco guest’s wife who wasn’t feeling well in NYC. Remember: Simple things are expected. Amazing things get remembered.

3) Don’t be afraid to do something truly incredible! I once heard of a company that makes metal pipes – One of their corporate customers had come in to discuss a new order. While they were there, they mentioned to the owner that they had to take a trip overseas because their plant was having some kind of problem. Turns out, the metal pipe company also had a plant overseas, pretty close to the customer’s plant. The owner of the metal pipe company was able to send his technicians over to the customer’s company and fix the problem, saving the customer a $10,000 trip and a week of his life. How loyal do you think that customer is now?

2) Give your customers the tools to tell your story! There’s a restaurant in the mid-west that has an iPad attached to the bar by the take-out order station. When someone comes in to wait for their food, they’re offered a chance to play with the iPad for free. They’re also told that if they log onto Facebook and “like” the restaurant’s page, they’ll get a free appetizer, right then and there. The company then thanks each and every customer on Facebook, and asks how they like their appetizer. It’s a no-brainer, works so easily, and, perhaps most importantly, as Facebook starts to ramp up “Places” and “Offers,” Facebook will become the de facto standard for customer experience stories – Why wouldn’t you want to help facilitate growth and excitement when the customer is there, in your store, and willing to be talked to? Easiest thing in the world.

1) It has to start from the top down. CEOs can’t run a company from a corner office. It simply doesn’t work. For a company to truly embrace radical ways of handling customer service, the entire corporation has to get in on it. I’ve heard stories of CEOs driving to a customer’s home with a part or an order, because it came in after hours. I once heard of a CEO who happened to be in the building on a Saturday, and answered the phone – The call was a random customer complaining about something. The CEO took the call, and got a resolution in 20 minutes – On a Saturday! You know the customer told the world about that.

What can you do that’s different, over the top, and inexpensive? Let me know in the comments, and as always, thanks for reading. :)

I spent last weekend in Florida, jumping out of airplanes. When I had some downtime (no pun intended,) I was doing some quick homework as to my expenses last year. I came up with ten reasons we waste money, and how to prevent them. A ton of them I’d already been doing, but I thought of a few new ones, as well. Hope they help you, too.

Why you’re always broke:

10) You’re broke because you mistakenly believe that coffee served by a person in a green apron tastes better than coffee you make yourself at home. $4 a day, $20 a week, $80 a month, $960 a year on the cup of coffee you get at Starbucks. Buy a good coffee machine. Even if it costs you $300, plus $100 in beans for the year, you’re looking at a savings of $560 if you make coffee at home and take it with you in a reusable mug.

9) You’re broke because you take cabs to or from the airport, or park at the airport. I get it, if you live in a place with no transportation system. But for everyone else, this is a needless expense. NYC, DC, Boston, San Francisco, and San Francisco are just a few of the places where the transit system is more than good enough to get you to and from the airport. NYC: $15 for the AirTrain to Newark, $2.50 from midtown to LaGuardia, $7.50 to JFK, vs. a minimum of $35 for a cab, average rate $50-70. EACH WAY. Don’t even get me started on parking costs. Use mass transit, not only for airports, but for the majority of your travel.

8) You’re broke because you prefer Seamless.com to FreshDirect.com, EVERY WEEK. In other words, you prefer to order in than to cook. I get it. Cooking is hard. BUT… Cooking just four hours on a Sunday can give you enough meals for the week. Cook half a dozen skinless chicken breasts on a Sunday, keep them in the fridge. On Monday, add a sauteed onion and nuke some spinach. Tuesday, add a small serving of pasta, and a vegetable. Wednesday, unfreeze some frozen pre-cooked shrimp, with a vegetable. Thursday, chicken with hot sauce and rice. Friday, go out. There. One meal out vs. five. Money saved – A lot, or REALLY a lot, depending on where you live.

7) You’re broke because you waste time talking on your mobile phone. The way I see it, we learned to use the mobile phone backwards. We should have started out sending texts, then learned to talk on it. Because we did it the other way, we spend way too much time talking about crap we could totally avoid if we were limited to 160 characters. If you have a low monthly minute plan, you should use your phone for emergencies and when you absolutely can’t text. (When you’re driving, for example.) If you put texting before talking, chances are, you can drop your minutes even more, lowering your bill that much more each month.

6) You might be broke because you still have a land-line. If you work somewhere other than your home, and you still have a land-line, do you have a reason for it? The only reason to still have one is in case of a massive catastrophe, when all the electricity goes out – chances are, your corded phone will still work. But other than that, you could be saving $40, $50, or even more by simply losing the land-line.

5) You’re broke because like your mother probably used to say, you actually DO think you live in a barn. When you leave, are you turning off all your lights? What about your TV? Muting it doesn’t count. Do you shut off your desktop monitor? Screen savers don’t save you that much. Shut off the monitor, if not the entire computer. Electricity doesn’t have to be as expensive as it is. Heat and AC? Same thing. Put on a sweater, or get a thinner comforter for your bed. You’d be AMAZED how much lowering the heat and AC can save you over the course of a year.

4) You’re broke because you wear one outfit, then dry-clean it. Hang a blazer on a hanger, and put it out your window for an hour. Brand new. Buy a lint-roller (all cat owners know this trick) and your blouse is ready for another day. Jeans? I wear them till they can walk on their own. I’m not saying don’t stay clean and neat, but on the same note, the only things that should be washed after each use are socks , underwear, and gym clothes.

3) You’re broke because you prefer a treadmill to that amazing thing called “The outdoors.” Take a run outside. Drop halfway through for pushups. Want more? Do them with your feet on a bench. Last tenth of a mile of the run? Squat to the finish line. Then do some sit-ups on the grass. Boom – $60-150 a month saved.

2) You’re broke because you don’t know your credit score, and aren’t negotiating lower rates. Go to annualcreditreport.com – (The only free one) and download your credit report. Got a good one? Call your credit card companies and ask for a lower rate. Bet you get it. But don’t close your accounts if you pay them off – That can actually hurt your credit report. Keep a hundred bucks on the card, and you’ll always get good interest rates, and make your score even better.

1) The number one reason you’re broke? You just assume fees “have to be.” Guess what – They don’t! Keep $100 in a TD Bank account, and all fees are GONE, including ATM fees for other ATMs. Negotiate EVERYTHING. ASK what the fees are when you rent a car, and ask to have some of them removed. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. And trust me – You CAN get. Ask your utility provider how to lower your monthly bill. Ask your cell phone provider if you’re actually using all your minutes, and if not, drop down. Ask. Trust me. You CAN get.

What am I missing? Tell me your best tips below – The top ones get a prize.

But my title stands. If you call yourself a “Social Media Expert,” don’t even bother sending me your resume.

No business in the world should want a “Social Media Expert” on their team. They shouldn’t want a guru, rock-star, or savant, either. If you have a “Social Media Expert” on your payroll, you’re wasting your money.

Being an expert in Social Media is like being an expert at taking the bread out of the refrigerator. You might be the best bread-taker-outer in the world, but you know what? The goal is to make an amazing sandwich, and you can’t do that if all you’ve done in your life is taken the bread out of the fridge.

Social Media is just another facet of marketing and customer service. Say it with me. Repeat it until you know it by heart. Bind it as a sign upon your hands and upon thy gates. Social Media, by itself, will not help you.

bunny ©jimbenton.com

We’re making the same mistakes that we made during the dotcom era, where everyone thought that just adding the term .com to your corporate logo made you instantly credible. It didn’t. If that’s all you did, you emphasized even more strongly how pathetic your company was. You weren’t “building a new paradigm while shifting alternate ways of focusing customers on the clicks and mortar of an organizational exchange.” No, you were simply a freaking idiot who’d be out of business in six months.

Ready for the ultimate kicker? We still haven’t learned! We got thirsty again, and are drinking the same damn ten-year-old Kool-Aid without so much as asking for ice. Rather than embracing this new technology and merging it with what we’ve learned already, we’re throwing off our clothes and running naked in the rain, waving our hands in the air, sure that this time it’ll be different, because this time it’s better!!”

“It’s not about building a website anymore! It’s so much cooler! It’s about Facebook, and fans, and followers, and engagement, and influence, and…”

Will you please shut up before you make me vomit on your shoes?

IT’S ABOUT GENERATING REVENUE THROUGH SOLID MARKETING AND STELLAR CUSTOMER SERVICE, JUST LIKE IT’S BEEN SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME.

It’s About Transparency. It’s about not lying to your customers, and thinking that a good Twitter apology will suffice when you’re caught. It won’t, and you’ll lose. Customers will run away in droves, because they can. They can go wherever they want now – It doesn’t matter how loyal they were in the past. Lie to them and get caught, and say goodbye. It’s about using the tools to market to an audience that wants to help tell your story, because you’ve been awesome at providing them with the service they deserve. United’s reaction to “United Breaks Guitars” WASN’T a stellar example of a good use of social media. It was the exact opposite – It was knee-jerk crisis management, that would never have had to happen had United been focused on customer service in their marketing to begin with.

It’s About Relevance. It’s not about tweeting every single time your company offers 10% off on a thingamabob. It’s about finding out where your customers actually are, and going after them there. If you’re tweeting all your discounts, and none of your customers are on Twitter, then you sir, are an idiot. Marketing involves knowing your audience, and tailoring your promotions in specific bursts to the correct segments. “Social media experts” don’t know this. They’ll build you a fan page, and when all that work doesn’t convert into new sales, they’ll simply say “Well, we’ll just post more.” Don’t be that guy. Real marketers know when to market using traditional methods, social media, or even word of mouth. Go ahead. Ask a “social media expert” what a traffic planner does at an agency, then laugh as they quickly ask Google for help finding the answer.

It’s About Brevity. You know what the majority of people calling themselves “Social Media Experts” can’t do, among other things? THEY CAN’T WRITE. The number of “experts” out there who can’t string a simple sentence together astounds me. Guess what – If we have about three seconds to get our message across to a new customer, you know what’s going to do it? Not Twitter Followers. Not Facebook Fans. Not Foursquare Check-ins – NO. What’s going to do it is GOOD WRITING, END OF STORY. BAD WRITING IS KILLING AMERICA. Good writing is brevity, and brevity is marketing. Want to lose me as a customer, forever, guaranteed? Have a grammar error on any form of outward communication.

Finally, it’s about knowing your customer, and making sure your customer thinks of you first. When Barry Diller was running Paramount, he’d call ten people in his Rolodex each morning, just to say hi. That translated into all of Hollywood knowing this previously unknown executive’s name, because he took the time to reach out and communicate. It also translated into Paramount making billions in a time where other movie companies were struggling. Do you know your audience? Have you reached out to them? I’m not talking about “tweeting at them,” I’m talking about actually reaching out. Asking them what you can do better? Asking those who haven’t been around in a while what you can do to get them back? It’s not about 10% off coupons or “contests for the next follower.” For God’s sake, be smarter than that.

You’d never give the intern permission to write the corporate press release to accompany an earnings announcement, so why the hell are you listening to the 22-year-old who says “we’re going to do this social media thing because it’s cool?”

Social media is not “cool.” MAKING MONEY IS COOL. Social Media is simply another arrow in the quiver of marketing, and that quiver is designed to GENERATE REVENUE.

If you’re doing anything else with social media, here’s a book of matches, and I expect to never see you again after the smoke clears.

The fun part about grabbing someone else’s ID (other than the fact that I can ask them what they think of the keynote they’re about to hear and they don’t realize that they’re talking to him) is that I get to hear unfiltered information about what scares these people – what these small business owners think about social media – and more often than not, why they believe social media to be complete bullshit, and not worth their time.

Why is that important ? It’s important because I can tailor my speech to those specific people who don’t believe that they’re going to get anything out of what I’m saying. The ones who’ve gone to countless speeches like these in the past – Those radio-sponsored “business breakfasts” where they listen to some full-of-it “social media guru” talk about the coolness of social media and how it can save them.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. NO CEO THINKS THAT “COOL” TRUMPS “REVENUE,” AND YOU SHOULDN’T EITHER. The speakers who get on stage and tell you how “cool” social media is and how is good for only “your brand” are full of it. Below, I’m going to give you seven ways that your small business can use social media TO GENERATE REVENUE, TODAY. Retweet this. Repost this. Link to it. Feel free. Why? Because I’m simply sick to death of these snake oil salesmen posing as “social media gurus,” charging you thousands of dollars to listen to them tell you how they can save you. BULLSHIT.

Remember HARO? I started HARO. It was a social media company that generated over a million dollars a year in actual revenue, and when I sold it, I sold it on the merits of what it DID, not some “I make my money by talking about social media” crap.

TWEET THIS: The biggest problem with Social Media is that too many people talk about it and not enough people ACTUALLY USE IT TO GENERATE REVENUE.

So let’s use it. The following are tips for small to mid-size businesses – They’re the kind of stuff companies ask me for all the time. I charge for this stuff. But rather than do that today, I’m giving it away below. Enjoy it. Use it Call it your own if you want. I won’t know. (But Karma will.) The main reason I’m doing it is because I’m sick of these charlatans saying they have all the answers, and they’ve never done one bit of real social media in their lives. That goes for those heads of PR and marketing firms who’ve told their clients that they can handle their “social media for them” and don’t have the first clue as to how to do it.

Marketing in the form of social media, to drive sales and generate revenue, makes you skilled in social media. “Having a Facebook Account” does not. “Speaking about Twitter” does not. Saying you have “Influence” does not. Having “guru,” “expert” or “rock star” in your name, ID, or business card, most certainly does not. Stop believing the charlatans who show you 100 twitter followers and expect you to believe that they can cure cancer. They’re angering the universe. Trust me. The universe will kill them soon. Believe in what works, and nothing else.

IF YOU’RE A RESTAURANT: Get to know tools like Foursquare and Facebook Places. Teach each server who works for you to recognize the signs of someone who uses Foursquare, Places, or the like: They keep their device on the table, they talk about “checking in.” Have those servers ask their customers if they use those location based games. If they do, have the servers offer a free drink or appetizer. Explain what it means to be a “mayor,” and why that’s beneficial to your establishment. Explain to them why they should help your customers use these technologies. Most importantly, explain to your servers that THEY represent your establishment, and without them, your restaurant is history, as is their job. The goal is to get customers to come back, bring friends, and spend more money. IT’S NOT ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA, IT’S ABOUT GROWING YOUR RESTAURANT.

IF YOU’RE A LANDSCAPING BUSINESS: Photos and videos are your friends. Why do people hire you? They hire you because they have EGOS. Lets face it – EGOS SELL. If I want my property to look better than the Kleinman’s property, I hire the best landscaper. That’s YOU. Want to use social media to GET MORE CLIENTS and make more money? Go out and buy a good digital camera/video camera. Check out the Canon G11 – I use it and love it. Then learn to use it, and shoot what you’ve done! So many social media hucksters have NOTHING to back up what they’ve done – YOU DO! You have your clients and your work! Made an amazing lawn? Shoot it! Made some kind of waterfall, the type that I can only imagine because I live on the 30th floor of a high-rise in NYC? Video it! Post it on Vimeo.com, and let people see it! That’s REAL social media because you’ve done it and are sharing it! That’s truth. Go forth and spread it, most awesome landscaper! IT’S NOT ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA, IT’S ABOUT SHOWING THINGS YOU’VE DONE THAT WILL BRING NEW PAYING CLIENTS.

IF YOU’RE AN ACCOUNTANT/FINANCIAL PLANNER: OMG, how boring! Right? That’s what most people say when they hear that you work as an account or financial planner. OK, that may be true for some of you. But if you’re an accountant or financial planner who has the most basic knowledge of social media and how it relates to your industry, then not so much. How about starting a basic twitter feed that you populate every day with the top two stories about your industry? “What will this five minutes out of my day possibly do,” you ask! Well, if you’re an accountant/financial planner trying to grow your business and get new customers, check this out: You post one or two stories per day about your industry – perhaps they’re the stories you find interesting and think others might find interesting – you post them, and what happens – people find them, and retweet them – repost them on Facebook – All of sudden, you’re a CURATOR! You’re one of those people who knows about the trends before they become trends! What happens then? The media starts following you, and you get called on by them, get quoted in the paper, on TV, on the radio, and online on a regular basis, and how about that, new people start calling you out of the blue, asking if they can be your clients – Where do you think they came from? From the media! And where did the media come from? From your brilliant use of social media. To quote the chief of police from the movie Casablanca, “I’m shocked, shocked to find that there’s gambling going on in here!” Face it – This isn’t rocket science!! You’re simply employing common sense –something the charlatans won’t tell you actually works – because it takes away from their revenue. Screw them. Make their revenue yours. IT’S NOT ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA: IT’S ABOUT USING THESE TOOLS TO PROVE YOU KNOW MORE THAN YOUR COMPETITORS AND ARE BETTER THAN THEM AND DESERVE NEW CLIENT BUSINESS.

IF YOU’RE A REALTOR: As someone who’s currently in contract for an apartment in New York City, this really hits close to home. If you’re a realtor, social media is SCREAMING for you to pay attention. What are you selling? Location, image, and the like. Come on! You should have a digital camera with video inserted under your skin! Your industry was BORN for social media! A new property comes on the market? Get video of the best parts of it – But not from the traditional boring “front of property,” “back of property,” kitchen view” way. Figure out cool ways to do it! Current family got a swingset in the back? Shoot video of the house from the swingset – It’s different, and anyone with kids will appreciate it. Selling mostly to families with school-age kids? Take the flipcam, duct-tape it to the grill of your car, and SHOW, IN REAL TIME, how close the best school in the district is to the house! Why? Because no one else is doing it, and that’s something different! And let’s face it, realtor – if you’re using social media, you’re doing it to make a good commission. So take these ideas and build on them. Why? Because they’ll sell properties. And in the end, those properties will make you a commission. And I gonna go old school here – What are you gonna do with your commission? “I was going to take my commission, and buy Ferris a car.” Use social media, do it in a new and exciting way, make a commission from it, and buy Ferris a car! IT’S NOT ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA, IT’S ABOUT SHOWING THROUGH THIS NEW TECHNOLOGY THAT YOU’RE GOING TO HELP SELL OR BUY A HOME FOR SOMEONE WHO WANTS IT.

IF YOU’RE A MOVING COMPANY: If you’re a moving company, then welcome to social media. Last time I moved, I went online to ask for recommendations for good moving companies. You know what I got? Companies who didn’t screw my friends, and that was it. Forget about GOOD moving companies, I got moving companies similar to cell-phone companies – recommendations to the companies who sucked the LEAST. Really? Is that how you want to help grow your industry? By being thought of as the company that sucks the least? Please. How about this: You offer your next client 15% off the cost of their move if they allow you to film the entire move. How do you do that? You go to Amazon and buy three GoPro helmet cams, the same kind I use when I fall from perfectly good airplanes. Then you ask a few of your best movers to wear them the next move they do. They put them on their heads, and everything they do, the gopro films. Because you’re an awesome moving company, the gopro films your best movers being oh-so-careful with the client’s property. When the move is done, you’ve got what, two hours of video of stuff being moved. OK. Great. That’s boring as hell. BUT – What if you take that film, speed it up so that the entire video is sixty seconds in length, then you add a fun soundtrack to it (Think the Benny Hill TV Show theme) and that becomes the first thing people see when they hit your website? They get funny yet real video of a real person’s belongings being taken care of, and you get… wait for it…. Wait for it…. A new client. How about that? You’ve just used social media to land countless new clients. Cost: About $150 for the GoPro. (And you thought GoPros were just for skydivers and mountain bikers.) IT’S NOT ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA, IT’S ABOUT PROVING THAT WHEN A POTENTIAL CLIENT NEEDS YOU, YOU CAN BACK UP YOUR CLAIMS WITH REAL-WORLD EXAMPLES THAT WIL TURN POTENTIAL CLIENTS INTO REAL CLIENTS.

IF YOU’RE A SEAMSTRESS WHO WORKS WITH FABRIC: This one is awesome. So I get an email out of the blue, from someone who says “Hey, I’ve been following your blog because I get the HARO, and I’m a seamstress who has started an event company that makes events out of fabric – If a company wants to hold an event, we’ll produce it.” (Email me if you want their info.) I was like, “OK, that’s weird, but whatever,” until I noticed they had an attachment to the email. Normally, I hate attachments, but since it was a .jpeg, I was ok with it – I opened it – It was my logo, on a pair of running shorts. Think about this for a second: This company was smart enough to realize that I was an exercise geek, ran all the time, yet was still involved in social media. So they made me running shorts with my blog logo on them. What does that tell you? That this Seamstress/Fabric company went out of their way to identify not only me, but what I’d recognize – Why aren’t you doing this? Why isn’t your company assigning one person to say “hey, this is a way to get noticed and perhaps generate revenue? It is. I can attest to that. I’ve given this company business already. IT’S NOT ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA, IT’S ABOUT TAKING THE MOST RANDOM, NON-SOCIAL-MEDIA THING (LIKE FABIRC) AND FIGURING OUT A WAY TO TIE IT IN, BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT WORKS!)

IF YOU’RE A MARKETING/PR FIRM: OK, if you’re a marketing firm, do I really need to make this any clearer? If you’re a company that does any of what I’ve talked about in the past three pages, don’t you think you can figure something out that’s in some way related to what I’ve talked about, and figure out a way to connect what’s here to what you do? I’m sure you can. Because come on, if you can’t, do you really think it’s ok to call yourself a marketing firm? IT’S NOT ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA. IT’S ABOUT BEING SMARTER AND REALIZING THAT SOCIAL MEDIA IS SIMPLY ANOTHER MARKETING CHANNEL TO WHICH YOU SHOULD BE LEADING YOUR CLIENTS.

OK. There you go. Seven ways to grow your small business using social media. Didn’t cost you a penny, you didn’t have to go to some BS breakfast, and you didn’t have to waste your time. So the rest of it is up to you. Will you use what I gave you here, or will you just spend your money and hire someone with no reputation because “it’s easier?” It’s your call.

Thanks for reading.

Yesterday morning, after hitting the gym at 6am and getting my ass kicked in a lifting session with my devil trainer from Hell, I was home and in the shower by 7:15am, listening to 1010 WINS radio. They were promoting their series of Small Business Breakfasts, where they claim to help small businesses do the things they believe small businesses need help with.

This time, they were talking about social media. (Of course they were. Because it’s a day that ends in “y.”)

They were interviewing Julie Morgenstern, who lists herself on her website as “The Queen of Putting People’s Lives Together.”

She said “Limit your Facebook time to ten minutes a day, every day. You have to run your business, and don’t have time for those kind of distractions.”

*Blink* Excuse me?

I don’t know how Julie puts people’s lives together, the claims on her website say she’s very good, but if she’s giving out that kind of information, I’ve gotta ask what she’s thinking.

Essentially, Ms. Morgenstern just told you to not care about whatever anyone in your competitive circle is doing, at all.

She continues “Also, don’t look at your email for the first hour in your office, focus on running your business.”

Are you kidding me? Let’s translate that: “Don’t look at new potential clients. Don’t look at new orders that you want to fill first thing in the morning. Don’t look at what types of sales and special offers your competitors are putting out via email. Don’t look at what your clients are asking for.”

So don’t do any of this in the first hour, and you’ll be running your business… How, exactly? By sweeping up your office?

Come on, people. A distraction? Really? Perhaps if you think of Facebook and Email as a distraction, you’re simply not schooled in how to use it. Ms. Morgenstern, rather than telling all of us to blanket “use it only ten minutes a day,” and “don’t use it for the first hour,” how about using your platform to teach us how to use both those incredibly powerful tools correctly?

Never mind. I’ll do it.

1) Get the stupid people the hell out of your stream, use your time on those that matter. If you’re spending most of your time on Facebook reading updates on cousin Selma’s Farmville, you’re using Facebook wrong. Drop her from your stream yet still have a lovely Thanksgiving by hiding her. (Click the “X” to the right of the post, click “Hide all by Selma.”) Boom, she’s gone, you’ll never waste time on her again. Want to find out how she’s doing? That’s what Passover is for. It’s coming up in less than a week. Have all your questions ready.

2) Important people on Facebook work like muscles: The more you interact with them, the better results you’ll get. When you’re posting, liking, or commenting on someone’s activity on Facebook, Facebook remembers this, and you see more of that person and less of someone you don’t interact with. Why does this matter? It matters because almost everything you do on Facebook now interacts with everything else you do. So the more you listen, comment, and talk to people within your stream, the more updates from them you’ll see, and the more you have the opportunity to use those updates to your advantage. (“Mark, noticed you just landed that new gig at BigCo! Congratulations! Let’s grab coffee and see how we my agency can help you!”

3) It should never take more than five seconds to decide what to do with an email. Delete, reply, or archive. That’s it. Archive means it’s out of your box. Delete means it doesn’t require anything. Answer means bullet points, then archive or delete. Need to respond to something later? Check out Follow Up Then – Free, automatic resending of emails that are important, to remind you to act on them. By IGNORING your emails, you’re missing out on opportunities. Let me tell you this – And this specifically addresses Ms. Morgenstern’s comment: If I email you at 5am on the way to the gym asking for a price quote or similar, I expect a response by 10am. If you get in at 9, then spend the first hour “running your business,” and finally get around to answering my email an hour later, I’ve already moved onto your competitor EVERY SINGLE TIME. Email IS business. And hey – this is coming from a guy who built and sold a multi-million dollar company that was entirely based on… Wait for it… Wait for it… EMAIL!

4) Be where your audience is, PERIOD. If your audience is on Facebook, and you’re not using Facebook because it’s a “distraction,” I’m sorry, but you’re an idiot. You have all the potential to make all the sales you could ever want, but you’re not even trying, because you’re afraid of being “distracted?” Trust me – When you’re on welfare, you’ll have tons of free time to be distracted. BE WHERE YOUR AUDIENCE IS. Chances are, that’s on Facebook.

5) I’ve said this a million times – Networking is not something you sit down and plan out time to do. If you’re only networking when you go to a “networking event,” good luck with that. You’ll have a nice ranch house in Mediocre Valley. Networking is something you do ALL THE TIME. From blogging to commenting on someone’s stream while on line at the bank, to posting a video while you’re waiting for your oil to change, to waiting for a meeting and offering a coffee to the first person who finds you. THAT’S networking, and you should be doing it twenty four hours a day!

End of the day? I’m not trying to be a cheerleader for Facebook, email, or even social media. (You know my thoughts on Social as a whole – for many, a way to screw up to a much larger audience in a much shorter amount of time.) But the fact is, you want to sell to your customers? You want to make money? You need to be where they are. You need to get the competitive intelligence they’re offering. You need to listen to them. How do you do that? By making sure you know where they are, and being where they are.

Chances are, they’re on Facebook and email. Not using it because you’re too busy “running your business?” Good luck with that. You won’t be running your business for long.