Ok this is a big one. Are you ready? When I wrote this I had no idea how much I and my clients would come to rely on the advice held within this section of Sharing Superheroes. Consume it, devour it, and then put it into action. It’ll make more difference to the way you do business than you’ll ever know…

If you’re remotely like me you just want the practical guide to doing something. You had to wade through a vast wave of insight to get here, so let’ hit it without any further ado.

About time we talked about that new Sharing Superheroes gig in more detail…

The ultimate goal of sharing media is to create more loyal customers, building a brand that is both loved and sustainable. With that in mind, here are the 7 things you need to do to get started on your Sharing Superheroes strategy for success:

1. Identify the essence, history, story and strengths of your business and brand. Why did you launch it in the first place? What got you hot under the collar with excitement? Why do your customers need your stuff? Who’s in your team? Who are your favourite suppliers? What inspires you most about the industry you’re in? What happens next?
2. Take a close look at the most popular parts of your website. If you’ve got a blog on-site, that’s a perfect place to start since it’s oh-so-obvious what your top 25 articles are, both by traffic and comment count. If not, you can examine your sales process and see which parts are working, and which aren’t. This is equal parts useful to become a Sharing Superhero, since you’ll be able to see where you’re particularly strong and where you need to fill in the gaps, and refining your web proposition, since you’ll obviously be able to sell better as a result
3. Consult your customers to find out what’s going well, and not so well. Include in your survey questions about what they like best about your service and products – and what would make them even better into the future. This is perhaps the most important part of your discovery process as a Superhero apprentice: Understanding the minutiae of what your company and brand represents in the mind of the customer.
4. Start a list. The ultimate goal of sharing the story of your business is, as we’ve already learned, to grow your customer community. Therefore it stands to reason that the moment you start sharing content is the moment you give interested people – prospective clients – a way to get more. Setting up a mailing list is your goal here, and it doesn’t come easier or quicker than by signing up to Mailchimp. Creating the account and then adding a widget to your WordPress website means you’re ready to start building that list. But I have something that will make it oh so easy to get even more people ‘in the pipe’ and that’s called adding value. When people sign up for something, they’re effectively offering their email address as currency. How often do you pay for nothing but a promise? It doesn’t make good business sense from either side – because it is precisely at the moment when that customer-in-waiting signs up that you have the greatest opportunity of moving them up the board towards the win. Reinforce the decision they’re about to make by giving something away of value – whether it’s a five-step course, a series of videos, a whitepaper or ebook, or even a link to a virtual conference of YouTube videos you’ve curated. Don’t miss this chance.
5. Create a website that’s easy to use. If you’ve been living with a clunky site that you have someone manage on your behalf, stop. Stop having it managed by someone else, and stop settling for second best. You have two options: Either learn how to create a WordPress website or head over to SquareSpace and have them host and help you design one, for a small monthly fee. If you go the WordPress route you simply need to buy a domain name, grab some webspace from a company like Clook, have WordPress installed automagically in your control panel using Softaculous, and then go and add your first bit of content (or migrate existing pages over to it).
6. Identify your top 25 suppliers/partners/customers/employees. Tell them you’re in training to become a Sharing Superhero and you want to tell the world how awesome they are. Set up some guest posting opportunities, think about having them guest on your forthcoming radio show, even (gasp!) arrange to meet them to find out more about what they do and how you can work more closely together. The whole world is a focus group these days – so why not make the most of every contact to move closer together? That’s effective communications and one of the easiest ways to attain expert status and amplify your exposure to new customer communities. There are few better ways to spend your time than on building partnerships which trigger unprecedented levels of word of mouth marketing…
7. Start a Superhero sharing schedule. Your aim here is to be as useful and relevant as you possibly can. While YouTube and video are darlings of the day don’t dismiss resources such as Quora and LinkedIn Answers for showing your smarts. You should be spending half an hour a day on sharing content. Don’t shirk – this is your business’ best marketing opportunity.

If you’re short on ideas you can base your Sharing Superhero efforts upon, how about this for a list?

Tomayto, tomato

Content creation and content curation.

Let’s talk about those for a moment.

There are about 160 million blogs, according to Blogpulse. If you could browse a different website every second from the moment you were born, to the second you leap off this mortal coil, you’d be able to visit each blog just under 15 times.

I’m not suggesting you attempt this, or bear progeny in experimentation – but that’ not nearly enough time to build a relationship with every blog producer.

Or put another way, that’ a lot of content. A heck of a lot of content. And what puts a lot of people off blogging is the ‘competition’.

Well let’s cut to the chase here:

• The vast majority of blogs are dead
• Blogs cover a near-limitless range of stories. Few, if any, are actually in the same vein as yours
• Some of those blogs are in Iranian. English is your first language, I would imagine, so remove a fair share of foreign language blogs from your calculation
• Some of those blogs can actually help yours be better.

That this book appears to flow effortlessly is unintentional. But point 4 leads on to a seamless segue and helps define the difference between content creation and curation.

Unique content is wonderful. It often sparks greater recognition among search engines (and keep an eye on Bing, by the way. It’ starting to challenge Google. But more on that, possibly, in a future blog post at Word And Mouth).

But you can often do wonders with a fresh perspective on what you have to say, no matter which medium you’re foraging. And the beauty of the internet connecting people with all different ideas and insights is you can harness their input and use it to challenge yours.

That, at it’s most elementary, is content curation. Finding ideas relating to your subject matter or service, and bringing them into the fray to offer your customers truly holistic and turbocharged content.

Content curation also manifests itself in many websites’ mashed-up RSS feeds.

A client of mine operates a very successful business in the travel industry. We’ve cherrypicked 15 blogs, fed them into Yahoo! Pipes (which takes the very latest information from these blogs via their RSS feeds, and mixes them up before serving them with a very elegant garnish of clear format) and added the resultant output to a section of their site under the title of ‘latest news from across the industry’.

Content curation can simply be a case of checking your RSS feeds each day, and adding whichever stories tickle your fancy to your Delicious bookmarks with a memorable ‘tag’ you can pull up when you’re ready to write or produce a podcast.

Or you could add them to a page on Evernote, or Wunderlist, or a plain old Google Spreadsheet.

I mentioned podcast, back there. Many people power podcasts with the thoughts and scribblings of others, adding their own thoughts and inviting listeners to share theirs.

Content creation is your chance to appear even cleverer than you are, without risk of people .calling you out as a proper smart arse. And the good news doesn’t stop there.

Whenever you link to someone else’ content from yours (and make sure you do give them proper credit, at the very least by using a link back to the original story on their website) chances are you’ll appear on their content management system as a ‘trackback’.

This shows the webmaster which sites are linking to theirs. It could be the start of a fruitful, and profitable, friendship – all for the cost of growing respect among your customers for not only giving them the latest and greatest information, but for potentially opening their eyes to new products and services they might never before have considered.

Let’s get to it. It’s Week 3 of the School for Sharing Superheroes – the book that’s set to change the way you do business, better, forever. We start by unlocking your incredible savvy. Lose all inhibitions and gain everything. Let’s GO!

Expertise is where the magic begins for our Sharing Superheroes. It’s the bedrock on which great successes are built, from the general on the battlefield to the owner of the shop.

Expertise is an intoxicating perfume that we all wear, yet few of us recognise how sweet it smells to everyone around us. Expertise births incredible reputations for business operators with sustainable success in mind. Expertise produces remarkable results and crafts staggeringly-impressive relationships between supplier and customer.

Expertise is, in a nutshell, the very lifeblood of your growth – as a person, and as an entrepreneur. And when it’s paired with passion, expertise is dynamite.

Remember when you were at school and the teacher with the Tefal forehead dropped a strip of potassium into water and the collected audience of pupils gasped and screamed like they were on the scariest rollercoaster ride in the world?

Blow it up!

Let’s focus on the potassium, and let’s call it passion. It looks so innocent and meek when it’s contained, yet when you add it to your expertise, or rather a jug of H20 – WAM!

So why do we hide our expert status so readily? It depends on the person. There are

• Those who have it, and know it, but don’t think it’s important to anyone else
• Those who have it but guard it like a prisoner in a dungeon
• Those who have it but don’t know what to do with it
• Those who have it but don’t know it

Each is equally dangerous.

Expertise is important. Without experts, we fail. We need leadership, we need visionaries, and we need advice. Some people – they’re generally called women, because men like me are in the main far too conceited and riddled with bravado to have to leave their ego at the door for a minute to ask counsel of another – are clever enough to seek experts to get on the fast-track to answers rather than trudge through treacle themselves.

Remember we said ‘no secrets’? No self-respecting Sharing Superhero wants to come face-to-face with a big slice of Kryptonite, and we’ll be exploring later in this book why holding back on your knowledge is about the most daft thing you can do.

Get scribing

The #1 thing you need to do next, is start writing like a madman. I expect to see that pen pumping out some serious steam from its stem as you scribble down all the things you’ve experienced in your realm as an expert. The events you’ve been to, the people you’ve helped, the talks you’ve given, the books you’ve written, the articles that have compelled dozens or hundreds of people to share their stories aligned to yours…

Soon a pattern emerges. If you’re truly passionate about it, the light bulb moment will dawn and you’ll find your life’s purpose (or at least your graduation certificate from the School of Sharing Superheroes) waiting to be aired and amplified.

We’ve got issues. You’ll know you’re an expert because you’re either working in that space where you hold expertise already, or you have a burning desire to know even more about something. The triggers are there – the nuances, like people asking for your insight, right through to the overt and blatant being downright obsessed by something to the point where you can’t sleep without thinking about it.

So watch, listen to and read the signals and start making a song and dance about your talent. 7 billion people out there, and even if you’re into some random, esoteric hobby a tiny fraction of that audience loving your work can amount to a generous dollop of business.

Each type of expert – and chances are you’re one of them – will continue to learn, and change, and develop, and that’s part of the reason why it’s crucial that you take the next step and start sharing your savvy right away. We’ll be learning why it’s so important to extol your expertise later in the book.

To me, the most frightening type of expert is she who denies her aptitude. The simple fact of expertise is this: If you spend one hour doing something, you’re an expert over anyone else who didn’t. So you quickly come to realise that you’re an expert in a great many things.

You’re the expert. So use it.

Having knowledge or skill, as the dictionary definition intones, is what it takes to make an expert. So now it’s time to decide which of those areas of expertise is having a big snog with your passion.

The smart Sharing Superhero has already dropped the potassium in the water. They know that being expert in something they’re truly passionate about, they simply cannot fail. The world appreciates expertise and passion equally, and understands those who make the most of both, concurrently, are rare and to be cherished.

Being passionate and expert aren’t uncommon – it’s the sharing what you know, in the way only you know, that is uncommon.

Get to work

So now you’ve locked in on what makes your heart leap, and you’ve committed to doing something about it, we’ll take a look at how you start making headway towards establishing yourself as the thought leader and automatic go-to guy or gal who inspires and influences customer communities of today and tomorrow.

We’ll then create a Sharing Superheroes success strategy with tools to get your message across and bring your business to life.

Finally, we’ll look to the future and how to grow your reputation which in turn puts your business on a fully-fuelled jetpack taking you on a journey to as much success as you can handle.

So let’s get to it!

Tomorrow, we’re looking at content curation – the most powerful weapon in your smart marketing arsenal. Don’t miss it!

If brevity was one of my strengths I hallucinate this entire book could have been written in four words.

Fear nothing, share everything.

But there are times when embellishment is a good thing: When it comes to publishing a book, for instance, you can’t go wrong with at least a fully-composed sentence between front and back cover.

Fear nothing, share everything. To wit, the essence of Sharing Superheroes is found in these three elements:

• Leveraging your expertise
• Creating content
• Curating content

Leveraging expertise

Stop being so damn down on yourself! I’m speaking with experience, here – it’s so easy for every one of us to be dismissive of our exceptional talents. When you realise expertise is inherent in passion, you can confidently step forward with a strategy to leverage it.

What does it mean to share expertise? Put simply, you become an information concierge – sharing everything you know about your favourite topic, subject, product or service, focusing on relevance and delivering it with an absolute focus on value from your customer’s perspective.

And let’s not forget an equally critical component of sharing your expertise: Labelling it so people can find it.

Whether you’re producing a video for YouTube, a screencast to form part of a forthcoming webinar, or a blog post for your own website, you have to remember that search engines rely on keywords, titles and meta tags to help users find the right content.

Creating content

You absolutely need to have someone in your team devoted to creating incredible content providing your customers with all they need to share everything you do with their friends and communities. Even if it’s only part of their job, it needs to be documented and defined. Ideally everyone in your team, with their differing perspectives and varied skillsets, should be involved – but let’s find somewhere simple to start your journey to becoming a Sharing Superhero, and begin with one.

You need to keep a close eye on where your customers hang out, so you can serve them appropriately.

And you need to be ruthless in focusing on what is most important to your customers, rarely deviating only to provide even more value when they’re in need of other products and services that you, specifically, cannot provide. And here lies another opportunity as a Sharing Superhero: When you’re talking about ancillary services that you approve and heartily recommend, affiliate marketing can provide you with a new revenue stream.

Curating content

This is perhaps the most powerful tool in your smart social marketing repertoire. We’ve already talked about the millions of blogs out there, teeming with content that’s just waiting to be discovered.

Now is the time to use all the tools at your disposal to find articles relevant to your niche, harness their value and deliver their messages using your own unique perspective.

10 (ish) incredible tools to help you curate, create and aggregate content like Sharing Superheroes

• Google Alerts
• MySyndicaat
• Scoop.it
• Storify
• Curation Station
• AllTop – @guykawasaki‘s virtual newsstand spanning a world of topics
• To keep track of your RSS subscriptions, Google Reader or Netvibes
• NewsVine
• PopURLs
• Yahoo! Pipes

You don’t have to invent the news – you just need to share it.

Rules of the universe – rules of word of mouth marketing for those sceptical about the way the world works – clearly intone that when you show you care, and share, you’re building a better business. Tell more, and sell more. Show, and grow.

Leveraging your expertise. Creating content. Curating content. Master these three essential elements of smart social marketing and you’re well on your way to becoming a Sharing Superhero.

Es are good, as the great band Prodigy once declared. Enlighten, Excite, Engage and Entertain. These are the cornerstones-but-one of customer Euphoria.

And expertise. Where would we be, without expertise. And where would our 5Ps of smart marketing be without prowess?

Look around you. Every minute of the day brings an opportunity to learn and add to your immense expertise – from customer feedback to great news, ideas and insight in unexpected places, from newspapers to bus shelters.

Building better businesses since time immemorial has involved creating customer communities. The biggest obstacle we as business owners have today in creating customer communities is distance: If you’re on the web, chances are you can’t just get up close and personal in the traditional manner with the people upon whom your business relies.

Trust in the future

But you have a greater chance than ever before to show them they are right in having great trust in you. You can engage them in more ways, and ultimately let loose the kind of loyalty that breeds word of mouth marketing, the holy grail for any business operating in today’ global village.

Sharing Superheroes realise they’re sitting on an incredible opportunity to develop immensely profitable customer relationships by, quite perversely, giving everything away.

Sharing Superheroes know that communicating is more to do with listening than talking. Your real strength comes through learning, and using your incredible talents and experience to discern how your customers can benefit most from what it is you know best.

It doesn’t matter what business you’re in: Today your job is as much to do with being a content concierge as it is with making widgets, filling in forms, delivering services or baking pies.

“I’d say sharing expertise has helped me to build a small, committed fan base and it’s also led to writing jobs, because those people recommend me when opportunities come up.

Without the chance to share stuff on my blog, it would have been harder to network with fellow writers, as I’m not a natural forum person. And of course, you always learn from other people, so it’s been great for personal and professional development too.” - Sharon Hurley Hall, Writing Consultant

Everywhere you look companies are spending thousands on unproven ways to get more business. A double-page advertorial in a local newspaper, a radio ad, some brand placement on a TV show.

Time after time the marketing manager scratches their head wondering where their budget went, and what they have to show for it.

And the reason for the navel-gazing is simple: They mistakenly believe they’re in control of the game. But the truth is that the customer is in control, holding the pieces and rolling the dice.

Customer-centricity is the king of content

So why is it that more businesses aren’t listening out for what their customers want? Why does the boss always know best?

In my experience as a journalist and marketer, it’s the leaders who take time to build deep and meaningful relationships with customers that breed trust, loyalty and engagement, who truly deserve the kudos and pay rises.

And it’s the heads of departments who endow trust in their subordinates to speak frankly and openly with their customers who ultimately will decide the future fate of their entrepreneurial endeavours.

Imagine building a friendship on duplicity and lies. Not exactly the most enduring foundation for success, wouldn’t you agree?

How about you try that again but by laying your cards on the table, being yourself, letting your personality run free and helping out wherever you can, using your knowledge and that of others in your field?

We’re talking about your role changing to embrace becoming a customer concierge. About forecasting, and responding to, customer needs. Finding answers, solving problems.

How exciting is it to get to talk to your customers? And who doesn’t realise they’re all you need to succeed?

Building customer communities is an identical proposition to starting a friendship.

Customer communities: Beyond Facebook

Nerd Fitness, Art of Manliness, SavvyMom.ca to savvy magazines and newspapers, and hyperlocal communities. All of them have developed raving fans who in turn power communities wholly owned by their guardians.

And this is a sharp lesson in why walled garden approaches to communities often work for the best.

Have you seen Apple’s stock lately? I just did some research largely involving me (and noone else) that revealed it would take 1,863 years to count up to the profit figure that the Cupertino company generated in the last quarter of 2011.

Apple has been scalded and ridiculed for its ‘walled garden’ approach to application development and usage of its iDevices.

When the first Apple iPad was launched, many poured scorn on its missing USB port, which meant you couldn’t pour your own content into the hardware.

Thousands of talented hackers work fanatically to ‘jailbreak’ the devices to let you add your own programs, because Apple imposes a strict set of guidelines on application acceptance before they are offered in the iTunes Store – the only source of new content for the vast majority of users.

Yet the fact is this: Apple continues to own the community it serves. And right or wrong, Apple’s profits have rocketed year-on-year since the first iPod was launched back in 2001.

Which tells me that relying on a third party like Facebook to host your community isn’t necessarily a good thing.

As Facebook continues to be deluged with randomness and noise, I’ve noticed many people dropping off the platform. I suspect that’s precisely because of the content interference, that the purity and relevance for which Facebook was renowned, the content that people joined to see and share, is quickly being eroded.

And it’s another example of why your home base, your website, matters so much. Unswerving devotion to your customers’ needs, and nothing else, is precisely the reason why people will continue to flock in your direction, and exactly the opportunity that awaits if you have the tenacity and commitment to build long-term success.

It’s all about relationships

Without sounding wishy-washy, the principles of social relationships mirror those for transactions.

And what is a transaction, anyway, if not an interchange of assets or ideas?

To become a Sharing Superhero is to understand your customer and build your business around them. To find solutions to their problems, to fulfil their needs.

The Superhero won’t simply sell to succeed. The golden eggs of any successful business are personality, passion and prowess – and using each to create a presence so irresistible that your business becomes inextricably woven into the lifestyle of your customer.

The Superhero finds opportunity in every experience to unleash the simplicity, style and substance of their industry for the betterment of others.

Because building expertise and developing a reputation of relevance and integrity is the most legitimate way to create a business that is truly worthy of greatness.
Seth Godin talks of purple cows. Jim Collins of ‘good to great’.

Whatever your stance on the distinction of remarkable, I say it’s all about becoming a Sharing Superhero.

In this book we’ll look at how you can crush the competition by embracing it in a big, loving bear hug. Every word in Sharing Superheroes is geared towards helping you build a better, more sustainable business by putting your customer front and centre of all your operational efforts.

We’ll talk about

• planning a content strategy for your website, your social networks, and your list of incredibly important prospective and established clients
• what to share to create loyal and engaged customer communities
• finding the benefits – not features – in your products and services
• using creativity to demonstrate your expertise

and much, much more. But first, let’s look at the stuff of Sharing Superheroes: What is it that makes them such a big hit in business? It starts by understanding what we know, and what to do with it…

• If you’re new to the serialisation of Sharing Superheroes: Have It All By Giving Everything Away, it’s time to go back to the very beginning. Alternatively, I’ll be publishing the Kindle version of this book once we’re through with it here at WordAndMouth.com. For a free copy of Sharing Superheroes: the Kindleified version, simply sign up to our newsletter to the left of this post – and we’ll let you know when it’s good and baked!

What does it mean to be a Sharing Superhero? What was it that convinced Ben, Gina and Gene to give everything away?

It was a relentless pursuit of customer delight, first and foremost. Being tuned in to the reason your business exists, catering to the needs of your community, your town and our global village.

They are no different to you and me. They go home each evening and on all but those rare days are buoyed by the joy of building a successful, profit-motivated business.

And they understand, Gina, Ben and Gene, that the currency traded for sustainable growth is not in the tangible products, but in the expertise that charges through the organisation like a river. It is in the people around them, the suppliers, the industries theirs abut and even the competition.

It’s in the passion to care, to share, and the lust to show, and grow. Because while we’re at this rhyming parlaver, there’s another home truth that shines like a diamond – when you tell more, you sell more.

Discovered your competition is no longer Kryptonite, but an invaluable source of information. Whatever they do, you can do it better – effortlessly.

To be a Sharing Superhero means you’re obsessed with delivering value in every piece of content you put out there. You don’t just whizz it out in five minutes – you develop a reputation so that every time your news and ideas are in the public domain, people are jumping on them with giggly excitement like a day on the trampolines.

Let’s talk about value

Value means a revolutionary mindset. Previously you’ve been guarded and protective. As a Sharing Superhero you can’t give enough information away.

What I learned a couple of years ago was that karma does exist, no matter whether or not you truly believe in things like The Secret.

That is, whatever you give, you get back in multiples. And the content you give away, while absolutely valuable, isn’t the whole story. Because the real gold is in working with you, if you’re a service provider – or in the products that people want to use.

Don’t be afraid to give it all away

I used to be pretty cagey about telling people everything I knew about a subject, if it was something I was working on.

And then I realised during a Mastermind Group that as soon as you’ve let the cat out of the bag, your mind is already working on a new initiative that takes you to new levels of success. And those people you just helped? They’re practically begging to help you achieve your next goals.

Not only that, but the stuff you’re being hired for is the bespoke information that you simply couldn’t give away because you don’t yet know exactly what that reader-turned-client needs.

Being a content philanthropist is the most valuable status you could ever hope for – for you and your customers.

Today, more opinions about what you do will be cast further and wider than ever before. The power of the people is growing, and everyone wants to tell their neighbour, cat and friends exactly what they’ve bought, ate, listened to and talked about.

As the groundswell of sharing has loomed ever larger, backward-thinking companies have shrunk into the darkness, either in denial or simply fearing the worst.

Flip the coin and you’ll find innovators and pioneers embracing the change. As people share their thoughts and feelings about brands, businesses, blogs and any other paraphernalia that Facebook can turn into advertising currency, so us businesses have a responsibility to get in on the act. To start conversations, to advise and support people with what we know, and the things we’ve experienced.

Sharing certainly isn’t new. At its most raw, sharing is barter: Companies bring their wares to the table, either free or paid-for, and a transaction is made whether in notes or respect.

Those same companies who are learning to embrace the potency of sharing are seeing benefits that far outweigh the one-off sale.

We already know that a loyal customer is five times cheaper to keep than a new client is to attain. But until now we’ve not really understand exactly the secret sauce to making our customers truly happy and fulfilled with the service we provide.

Few of us have shop windows, any more. Fewer still realise that the amply more effective successor to that promotional space, is our website. It is our hub, our future, a round-the-clock opportunity to influence, engage, educate, excite and entertain.

TEL more, sell more…

Trust, Engagement and Loyalty. That’s the TEL, and they’re the gatekeepers of long-term success. And they start when you begin to understand that a customer is far more valuable than a sale. One customer alone can build a business. That snowball effect we’ve all heard of – imagine if you were able to cosset just one customer to the point they brought every member of their family to your door. They in turn encouraged their friends to do business with you, and so on.

You don’t need TV advertising. You don’t need newspaper advertorials, and you certainly don’t need direct mail. The only sales tool you need is word of mouth marketing.

Little wonder pyramid schemes laced with invisible snake oil were so popular among the get-rich-quick schemers. Multi-level marketing (MLM) is intoxicating at its worst – but when it’ leashed in a win-win, wholesome capacity where your intent is to add value to the customer’s life, it’s downright magical.

Word of mouth marketing is the byproduct of what Seth Godin called ‘the Purple Cow’, which translates as ‘remarkable’. Astonishingly the idea of a business being transparent, accountable and radiating personality is still remarkable – perhaps more so than ever before. The internet has allowed many to hide behind pixels. Rare it is for a customer to ever talk to a merchant, these days.

But are you starting to understand how you can go against the grain and the gossamer-thin relationships built between your competition and their clients?

If there’s one lesson you learn from this book, it’ this – and it’s two words long:

Be there

Show up. Give your customers everything you can. If you sell physical goods, this advice should be brought into even sharper focus. Provide as much useful information and advice as you can, in every form possible, and you’re in the 1% the other 99% will never reach.

In the chapters to follow we’ll take a look at the tools you can use to develop solid relationships through content creation and content curation. This book isn’t a glossary of URLs, though – the pace at which websites become flavour of the month, then go out of vogue, is bewildering and makes Moore’s Law look like the work of a lame snail.

It’s going to take a little time to fully wrap your mind around a totally new way of working with your customers. The customers are in control, though, and the quicker you realise the simple fact that every customer is your paymaster and CEO, the better.

We’re talking communication creating customer communities. I’m excited to be sharing this ride with you, and I’m determined by the end of this adventure, your business will be steady and ready to hit new levels of growth and enduring success.

The expert in you

A wise old man (though younger than me) once declared that you’re an authority on a subject if you’ve study it for an hour longer than they.

Which makes a lot of sense. And we all have the feeling that everyone knows what we know, which is blatantly an untruth and a disservice to ourselves. If you run a business specialising in a subject, then you’ll know more than almost 100% of the world’s population, even if that topic happens to be technology.

In fact technology is an excellent example. Hit Twitter and you’ll see thousands of people posting the latest tech announcements, talking about the newest and greatest ways to use LinkedIn, and even suggesting the iPad 65 is out new week.

It’s easy to be fooled into thinking that the whole world is on the same hymn sheet. But the fact that’ been brought home to me and my mastermind group members time and time again is that us geek types live in a bubble. Not a bubble like the one that blew up in the late 90s causing billions to be wiped off the stock market, but a microcosm of society comprising people who falsely believe everyone thinks like they do.

In my world pre-2010, everyone had mastered Facebook, and knew how to build a computer. The thousands of successful social media specialists making significant fortunes from people who wanted to know the basics of Mark Zuckerberg’ website told a different tale. Meantime big box brands selling millions of frankly shocking-quality, pre-built computers were contradicting my alternative assumption.

So I want to impress on you this: You know way more than I do, than probably every other reader of this book does, about your specialist subject.

And by leveraging the power of content curation, you’re into a totally different league.

Gene has seen his fair share of marketing fads and trends. He saw the dilution of profits through direct mail, and the falling popularity of cold calling. He lived through both, practised them voraciously and still has the battle scars as certificates of his graduation.

Gene is every company’s ace man. Far from being schooled as a marketer, he started work in the company’s call centre and quickly learned to love how business went down there. Not your average telesales operator, either, Gene started impressing the senior ranks by listening to his customers rather than hearing what he wanted to hear. When grievances were aired, he was the one who went looking for solutions. Clients quickly started asking to speak to Gene, in good times and bad, and his superiors started asking for his help in devising smart training programs to clone his way of working.

Ever the customer-centric leader, Gene didn’t play the corporate game, but instead chose to focus all his time and efforts on making the little things count. When customers called in to ask about new products, rather than just offer up the wares of his company, Gene dug a little deeper and if nothing in stock matched their needs and expectations, he would help them find something that did. That was back in the early 00s, but the innovator gene was strong in Gene even back in the early days at Acme Inc.

Today, in his flashy senior role, Gene takes his job as a team player, very seriously indeed.

And he all but stopped traditional marketing when social strategies started outperforming. Not that offline and online marketing don’t make great bedfellows; though direct marketing and cold calling have bitten the dust, outbound calling is still a valuable source of new custom though phones are dialled to offer ideas and solutions, rather than upgrades and referral requests. Since the former triggers the latter, it has so far proved a popular strategy – but the brand’s agility is such that when customers know enough, Acme will be ready with another initiative.

The drum roll

With one eye on revenues, another on the triplet totems of motivation, morale and leadership, and two ears devoted exclusively to customer communications, Gene has a cleverly-crafted plan that is constantly shifting, but always successful.

It is what Gene calls his ‘Sharing Superhero’ strategy. Here’s how it works:

Every Friday, in a room of colour replete with deckchairs, a fridge of frosty beverages, some low-vol guitar-driven tunes and an ever-rotating bunch of his company’s people – no qualifications for entry required, the only prerequisite being a keenness to listen and discover – Gene and his motley crew talk over the week’s highlights, product releases, social media plays and competitor moves.

What’s unique about this semi-professional, always-social gathering is the addition of Lesley. Lesley is wearing the cardboard crown today, and is rather delighted to be plied with Krispy Kreme donuts and smoothies, but it could just as easy be any other customer evangelist who jumps on the Facebook status update each time one of Gene’s team asks for volunteers to be the next Ruler of Fun Friday.

This meeting is a 90-minute learnathon where everyone is equal and Nigel the caretaker comes up with as many great ideas as Roger the CEO. And the objective of all this is not only to engender the benefits of accountability and transparency internally, but to refine a content and sharing strategy for the outside world.

The roll call of ideas inspired by the gathering is long and transformative. Because the mood is informal, many people who have passed through the doors of the Fun Friday session use their personal experiences, and don’t contribute merely from a professional perspective. Thus they’ve started a very effective blogger outreach program, and a weekly Google+ Hangout featuring Q and As and including customers and suppliers cements a family feel across the business board.

No surrender

Gene’s crew also helm a fortnightly radio show that packs quite a punch by providing customers with an inside track on the business, its direction, and a backstage pass to imminent releases. Exclusive competitions seal the deal and the web radio show regularly garners 4,000 downloads.

Multimedia runs in the blood of Acme. With $1,500 and the blessing of Roger, the marketing folks put together a studio in a spare room with a couple of video cameras, some green screening and a comfy sofa. Whenever guests come in to the office they make sure to include them on a short segment, which in turn gets sent over to their company (if it’s a good show, free of expletives, which it generally is) and as it is subsequently shared to the guests’ customer communities, so it finds itself being played over by an audience totally new to Acme.

Video brings the Podcasting Pyramid phenomenon in to play, for maximum effect with minimum strain. We’ll look at the Podcasting Pyramid (heck, I may as well give all my secrets away) in a future chapter).

Get ‘real’

It’s not all Facebook and Twitter. Offline the company caters to its traditional crowd of customers by providing feedback forms at every touchpoint. These continue to stimulate proactive and reactive marketing and offer a list of social media profiles for people to follow should they choose to make the leap to the other side.

Gene co-hosts a series of member events across the country when the Acmeites do more research and development work than at any other time in the calendar. The ‘listen first’ strategy put forward by Gene during his early days at the ranch defines Acme’s present and future success, the fervour of its customer communities to be present at these events matched only by the excitement at In-n-Out store launches.

KPIs across the board are now driven by team feedback, instinct – and are focused on number of customers satisfied, a reliable indicator of how much word of mouth marketing is being performed in the company’s name.

Employees are happy. It goes beyond simply feeling valued – they see their worth on screens dotted around the building, as the latest company news stories and testimonials announce to peers their immense contributions, while Bubblinos – cute little blue plastic monsters – blow bubbles when positive Tweets posted by customers appear in the company stream.

And it all started by focusing on giving everything away. All that knowledge, the collected expertise of a team synergised and energised by success.

That Sharing Superhero status is now yours for the taking, too.

Let’s consider Ben.

Ben is a blogger. He has already amassed a great many articles, and even wrote an ebook to get people signing up to his newsletter list.

But despite being passionate about travel, he has lost his lust for writing.

Business recently started picking up for Ben, having earned some money from putting clickable banners on his website site using a Google AdSense account. But he’ not driven by money as much as he is by seeing the spark in people’s eyes when they learn new things or book holidays explicitly because of a detailed recommendation he has penned.

Recently Ben discovered a website where he could record short audio segments and share them on his website. But until today, he hadn’t given much thought as to how he could use it.

The passion to podcast

Then someone mentioned a website offering free music to podcasters. Ben hadn’t really considered podcasting because it sounded overly complicated, but then he started thinking about how he could really bring some of his blog posts to life by throwing his passion behind a series of radio shows. Yes – radio! The thought of being able to talk about his travel experiences was immensely fun. But where would he start – and why would people listen?

Ben excitedly popped to the music site and after signing up, downloaded a couple of tracks that he felt would spice up his recording. And it was while he was listening again to the second track that Ben had his Valhalla moment: He would scour his archive of blog articles to see which got the greatest traffic, and record a few episodes of his show based on those.

Perseverance

Then Ben, now in a creative whirl, had another idea. What if he could create a series of shows based on his eBook? One for each chapter, he mused. He could do some more research on the topics covered, riff on each for a few minutes, and…

And then he had another idea. What if he could rope in other people who were interested in the subjects in his book, to have a chat with him and have that chat recorded? He knew from the rivers of comments he was starting to see on his site that when other people added their voice to topics and started a conversation, it was the catalyst for even more people to pitch in adding even more perspective to the issue at hand.

So Ben started putting together outlines for each of his five shows to accompany the eBook, emailing prospective guests and structuring his short shows.

Mastering the jigsaw

What if he could update the eBook with his research, and possibly sell it? How could he achieve that? He knew how the eBook market was exploding, but surely he’d need to be a master of marketing to get the word out there.

Ben started thinking about leveraging the networks of guests on his shows; everyone loved being on radio, and his shows were web-based versions of the radio we all grew up with, he thought.

The more he thought about the networks of others, the more his mind raced. Ben started mooting getting tourist organisations involved – travel companies, and authors of printed travel books. There was a whole ecosystem of passionate people waiting to support him in his efforts. He was moving from traveller to trailblazer!

Show me the money

Maybe if the radio show was enduring, he could even get a sponsor on board. And what better way to show people what he was capable of than the living showreel that was the audio compilation to accompany his eBook. And from that same audio compilation he could use a teaser to market that eBook!

Ben was supercharged with enthusiasm. Already his passion was flooding back, and Ben was oozing the kind of confidence that comes with being an expert.

He was on the way to becoming a Sharing Superhero.

Tomorrow – find out how Gina’s love of all things floristry and tech turned her into a Sharing Superhero and blooming success…

I’ve always been impressed by people who do it, smiling. That old guy in the Karate Kid, Ana White, Gary Vaynerchuk. The spirited champions of diverse passions who not only inspire others through them, but create a business from them.

Passion manifests itself in myriad forms and it’s perhaps never more potent than when it collides with an unbridled lustiness for success. It’s passion that makes people share their story. Such people of passion are the reason and inspiration for this book.

Where it begins

Smart marketing was once a dark art, before customers took control. Then, marketeers needed the touch of a watchmaker and the precision of a cardiac surgeon to find the perfect interplay of communications methods to get the sale.

Nowadays your sales force comprises the very people who buy your stuff. Advertising and direct mail has never mattered less, and demonstrating the essence, integrity and authority of your brand, more.

To be your evangelists, those activated customers need to have trust. They need to be engaged. And for them to produce the goods consistently through word of mouth marketing – founded today on the electrifying reach and pervasiveness of social networking – you need to foster loyalty.

In these customer-centric times we might be playing a different game to the one we’re used to, but there’s a constant that ties everything together. To be successful before, as we will, tomorrow, we need a burning passion for what we do.

The biggest difference is that today we need to prove it. Finding the right products to match our customers needs was enough, back then. Today faced by a world of competition, we need to go beyond the sell, and become the trusted aide, ally and counsel.

Put simply, we need to give everything we know, away.

Everything about where we began, everything about where we are, now, and everything about what we do, what we sell, and what the customer can do to make the most of everything we’ve got. Wherever the customer is, whenever they want it, and however they prefer to consume it.

And in doing so we need to take down the one road block that has hindered us from breaking down that glass ceiling protecting us from unlimited growth in the past. We need to embrace the competition, to share the great news from across our industry, and not in our little cocoon protecting us – and restricting us – from the success we deserve.

Today we’re in the era of the content concierge. You need to know who’s going to lead efforts to curate, create and aggregate information invaluable to your customers and crucial to your relationship-building efforts.

It could be you, or it could be someone else in your organisation who is as passionate and knowledgeable as you are when it comes to your business, customers and the industry in which you operate.

Realistic enough is the idea of having someone, a team, even, whose role is entirely dedicated to customer welfare and delight. To this end, many larger companies already have their own chief content officers, and community managers.

But your content concierge is different.

The content concierge needs to know what your customer wants, what your customer is saying, and provide them with everything they need – and more – to be flipping cartwheels in your favour.

The content concierge needs to speak frankly, authoritatively, honestly and openly. In this world of good and bad, you have to be prepared to roll with the punches and if negative stuff happens, don’t just bury it – embrace it.

A 2012 report by Reevoo (Bad reviews are good for business: The power of negative reviews) explained:

“But the surprising truth is that bad reviews and other negative feedback bring a host of benefits, from greater customer satisfaction to improved product development.

“Consumers spend four times as long on site when they interact with bad reviews, trust the reviews they see far more and convert nearly 70% more often.”

The content concierge first concentrates on the most important channel of communication for their company and customer, committed wholeheartedly to developing a solid reputation there before diversifying into new areas of opportunity.

But at all times, that content concierge is 100% devoted to bringing their brand to life. It takes resourcefulness, curiosity and a certain level of tech saviness, as well as the obvious passion, personality and prowess, to be a model content concierge – and that’s just today. Ask me next year what the prerequisites are and I expect the only constant will be that commitment to giving everything away.

What you really want to know is why in heck should you bother giving away all your secrets, when we’re living through tough times and it seems like you have more competitors by the month, willing customers away from your grasp.

You don’t really need to know or have the time to hear that I am physically forcing myself to write this book, using mediaeval instruments of torture at times to quell the Monday morning fug congesting my fragile mind.

Who cares that I’m castigating myself on being unsuitably distracted and playing the morning excuse card, especially since it is four minutes to midday and that aforementioned cover wouldn’t carry water even if it was a dromedary camel.

It doesn’t matter that writing a book is tough (jeez, does this guy ever stop whingeing?). You’re very much aware JK Rowling must have had thousands of sleepless nights.

And if you and I were the last people on earth, you’d still insist I mustn’t grumble, since compared to fighting wars, raising children and knuckling down to a haul of Harry Potter sequels, this gig you have in your hand must have been pretty easy to figure.

You know what? You have a point. It was simple to conceive. I’ve been inspired by so many business owners possessing the magical ingredients constituting Sharing Superheroes that the natural segue was to tell you all about it.

And now I’m going to give you my word that giving everything away is the first thing you’ll want to do when you finish this book. Finally, justifiably, you too will be a Sharing Superhero.

Superheroes? Really?

Last year some of the smarter folks in marketing started talking about it being the era of the chief content officer. That content was in some way the most pivotal part of any organisation looking to build a sustainable future.

I think in a short space of time, we’ve evolved from that perspective. It’s no longer about creating content, but about finding the content that is right for your customer, no matter its origin or format.

There are millions of smart people in this world, and as smartphone adoption becomes ever more prevalent, so they have a pen that creates content we can all view on the world wide web.

Some of my favourite blogs are written by people who just a few short years ago would never have been able to communicate across the world, let alone have a shop window for their expertise that is visible by billions.

The impact of content ubiquity is almost palpable for your business. Dovetailed with your own unique perspective, it is invaluable.

Which brings me on to the Sharing Superhero, she the subject of this very book you doubtless read on your incredible eInk device (in fact, self publishing itself is a feat you too will be considering before too long).

The Sharing Superhero realises the immense power she has with one eye on the amazing information relevant to her market, the other on her work and that of those around her in the business which rules her heart and mind.

Sharing is a team ethic – it can’t be compartmentalised. If you’re a sole trader, the ball’s in your court alone. If you work as part of a team, it’s essential your cadre shares passion for your business’ growth – or at the minimum, you find a single theme you’re all pumped about, start there. Whatever the size of your unit, the Sharing Superhero philosophy needs to be shared and worked throughout…

The Sharing Superhero is hyper-aware of every customer interaction, analysing and scrutinising even the nuances to harvest every little detail that could help others get the most out of her products and services.

The Sharing Superhero, more than anything, sees the opportunity in finding the time and resources to provide customers established and yet-to-be, with advice and ideas on every platform they populate.

The Sharing Superhero has founded an out-of-this-world reputation as the go-to expert – so vital in this austere era for every forward-thinking business – based on the 6 Ps of smart marketing, that you’ll be tested on later in this book.

The Sharing Superhero is growing a business that thrives today, and is unstoppable tomorrow. She is a constant source of inspiration and the beacon lighting the way for any organisation that wants to understand its customers better and build rock-solid relationships that both stand the test of time and create unprecedented levels of trust, engagement and loyalty.

It is the Sharing Superhero who best understands the power of word of mouth marketing; that we ourselves have no real control over that most powerful of marketing methods, but can only provide our customers with every tool and reason to spread the word about our good work and help grow our business through our being remarkable in their eyes.

I want you to be the very next Sharing Superhero and in the pages to follow we’ll be taking a look at what it takes to be such an incredible business operator.

Being a Sharing Superhero is having an innate knowledge of who you are, what your customers want, and being there with the goods before they even have to ask. It’s knowing where your customers are, and being in the right place, at the right time.

As we veer into a world where the internet, and access to information, is ubiquitous, the Sharing Superhero who, by definition, is designated a trusted advisor and content concierge by their customer communities, can make a success in any niche using the formula outlined in this book.

Make no mistake – being a pupil at Sharing Superhero School is challenging – but it’s fun, enriching and recklessly rewarding. It involves knowing yourself as much as it does the tools and tricks of Superherodom – so let’s not waste any time and dive straight in…

One last thing…

Secrecy is Kryptonite. To be a true Sharing Superhero you have to remember to not hold anything back. Whatever your customers want, you should not only provide it, but anticipate it.

Proactive responding is an art form that approaches scientific when you understand it, alchemic if you don’t. Just steer clear of the Kryptonite…