Lately, I’ve been reminded that business Web sites often come in one of two flavors.  Perhaps you can recognize them:

1. What we do – These are sites that focus on attracting business.  They devote most of their pages to describing their services, human capital resources, success stories and the like.
2. Who we are – These are the sites that have chosen to focus on attracting talent.  A significant percentage of the site is devoted to recruiting, so they showcase the work experience, profiles of their office locations and career opportunities.

These are broad brush-strokes and there’s nothing inherently wrong with either approach.  Of course, some overlap occurs when talking about the work experience (showing a potential client how thorough you are) or describing your services (showing potential recruits the level of impact they can have).  Many sites dedicate space to both services and recruiting.  But they could be so much more.

The best sites offer a third option, one that combines the flavors above with a way that keeps clients, prospects and potential new hires coming back again and again.

The knowledge site

Call it the Neapolitan solution because it’s three flavors in one – services, recruiting and knowledge.

The difference, of course, is in what knowledge you make available.  The idea is to make the knowledge you share valuable and useful without giving away the store.  Give them just enough new information on a regular basis – or provide access to a database of information if that aligns with what you do – to whet the appetite or keep you top of mind when the time comes to actually purchase your services.

If you’re a design firm, for example, you could offer case studies on how good designs have made a difference between success and failure in a campaign, or offer tips for how to approach branding, color or layout.

Professional services firms can present examples of best practices in operational efficiency or performance management.  Publishing companies can offer reviews and insights culled from their latest editions.  Industry news, white papers, articles, summaries of round table events – the opportunities to position your organization as a valuable resource are endless.

This isn’t a difficult or particularly new concept but for some reason it’s a rare one to see being utilized.  But examples can be found: just look at what Paladin is doing by publishing these blogs.

What kind of a Web site are you?

It’s not easy to do this.  It takes imagination, management appetite, resources and, just as important, maintenance.  It takes collaboration over the long haul to create the content and promote its existence on a regular basis.

It’s long past time when a company could get away with being an electronic brochure.  The war for talent and the fight for business demand that you reach out to clients and prospects – or give them a reason to reach out to you.

Small businesses are especially vulnerable these days and are looking for ideas to generate revenue.  The good news is that those ideas are right in front of them, in the knowledge gained through the experience of their people, the tools they use, and the services they provide.  The not-so-good news is now that knowledge needs to be transformed into a format where it can be shared.

But it can be done.

Do you have any examples of favorite sites that exemplify the Neapolitan approach?  Remember what your mother said about sharing…

Take the red pill.

In fact, take it now before you really need it.  That’s the lesson I’ve learned about networking.

In The Matrix, our hero is given a choice: take a blue pill and continue on with his life or take the red pill and see life as it really is.  Of course, he takes the red pill (wouldn’t be much of a movie if he didn’t), the veil is lifted and he becomes aware of things that were always there but never seen.

Lately I’ve begun to build on my own network of friends and professional colleagues, coaxing it to take form, and develop.  Actually, I’m helping it grow.  The network was always there; I just never saw it.  Then I took the red pill.

It was April 2006 when I was first asked to join a friend’s network through LinkedIn.  Sounded like fun and a good way to stay in touch with people.  But I rarely looked at it.  The next request came in October 2007.  I was flattered someone would ask me to join a network and, yeah, I felt hip.

But it wasn’t until this past February that I began to build my network in earnest.  I had to; my role had been eliminated and along with so many others folks I was in the market for a new position.

As so many at Paladin attest, you’ve got to get out and network.  This may seem rather obvious but it isn’t something all of us do when we’re employed.  Of course, some roles – from sales to marketing to politics – require networking and maintaining relationships to achieve their goals.  Networking within the organization was key to my last role.

Many job descriptions, however, do not ask you to stay in touch with people who don’t directly affect you or your work.

Because so many people are new to this networking gig, it seemed like a good idea to ask some friends from my network what they have learned along the way.   This list is by no means comprehensive, but it is road tested:

• Get out of the house – My friend Buzz put it as a simple, Nike-esque rule: “You just gotta be out there!  Go out and go to things anytime you can.”

It’s okay, everybody’s doing it.  And by “it,” I mean looking for work.  Here’s the yin and the yang of it: We all know that this isn’t the best time in the history of humankind to be looking for work.  On the other hand, the stigma of being out of work isn’t what it used to be, not when so many people are in the same position.  There’s no shame in being unemployed but somehow it seems a little easier to say “I’m in transition” when the headlines are always talking about yet another round of lay offs.  Just ask all of those former headline writers.

• Don’t be so shy – Of course, once you’re out of the house you’ve got to meet people.  “People want to help,” as my friend Katherine put it, but don’t make it difficult for them.  Give them your personal marketing plan or your newly updated resume to review.  Suggest meeting for coffee so there’s an understanding that the meeting doesn’t have to last for hours.  (And note that just because you say “Let’s meet for coffee” doesn’t mean you need to drink coffee at every meeting – especially if you have several lined up in one day.  Trust me on this one.)

Job seekers and their friends might want to read this article in The New York Times that provides some suggestions for how to give and receive help.  “The most important corollary to this rule,” Katherine points out, “is to thank people for their time and respect their schedules.”

• Be prepared – It’s not just for Boy Scouts anymore.  “Never show up unprepared even for a quick networking meeting,” said Katherine.  “You have to do your research in advance, or you waste people’s time.”  This means knowing about your contact’s business and providing something for them to use (which can be as simple as meaningful article referrals, for example, suggests Leslie).

• Back to basics – It’s all about the prompt follow-up and the personalized, hand-written thank you notes.  Making sure to write down unique reminder information on business cards. (“No,” says Leslie, “you won’t remember who all those folks are when you’re sitting in front of your computer doing the follow-up.”)

• Don’t just do something, stand there – “A lot of people don’t know how to listen,” says Buzz.  It’s not that you just sit back and watch the show.  “If you ask somebody for help, shut up and listen!  Don’t ask for advice and then overwhelm someone with your expertise!”

Here’s a surprise: You’ve already started.  As I mentioned earlier, my network was always there.  Sure, it was a little fallow and needed some tending and weeding.  But at the risk of taking this gardening metaphor too far, let’s just say you’ve bought the land already; employed or not, you need to start tilling the soil.

At a meeting of job seekers I attended, one participant put the benefits of networking this way: “I’ve lived in Chicago for 20 years.  Now it seems like a small town.”

Take the red pill.

Contributed by: Frank McGee
Business writer, trainer, coach

We have all felt the pinch in a tough economy.  Messages get jumbled and clustered together; marketers shifting campaign focus to lower cost mediums such as webcasts and social media outlets.  And emails, oh boy the emails… ping, ping, pinging away at your inbox until you cannot take anymore.  As marketers, we must refrain from jumping on the “buy from me now” podium and take a different stance in order to stand out in this challenging time. 

My message is not a novel idea by any stretch.  But why not make sure that traditional sales efforts are once again in sync with marketing - and truly integrated. If marketing launches an educational campaign, whether it be a download, a white-paper, or a prospect reach-out, companies have to make sure those leads are followed up with quickly—which means that sales communicates back with those contacts in a timely manner.  I manage marketing for an IT consulting firm and we have implemented “Marketing 101″ in a sense, where marketing provides awareness, then sales drives the client through the purchase process with the proper phone call and follow up steps.  Again, this is not a novel idea but a simple reminder in an environment where the next greatest technology has us running to catch up. 

Do not get me wrong of course, organizations and marketers in particular must stay on top of the latest technologies in order to maintain b-to-c and b-to-b reach.  But we cannot lose out on the opportunities to remain traditional in our execution. 

In a tight marketplace, it is more important to coordinate and execute marketing and sales efforts as well as you possibly can. Make it like a re-training exercise if you have to. Learn to sync up sales and marketing all over again, since opportunities are few and far between. You have to take advantage and maximize each possibility, and that means being more on the ball than ever.  Do not forget the basics!

I have been using LinkedIn as a business development, personal brand management, and recruiting and research tool for years. But I have to admit it has taken a lot of time to put the pieces together. The process can be overwhelming trying to navigate the many options available. In fact, at times it has felt more like performing magic than actually getting any tangible, traceable results.  The following pertains to a quick success story covering business development, research, and branding through a LinkedIn Poll, an incredibly user friendly tool.

LinkedIn Poll Success!!

This is actually a two fold success. I had lunch with a Chicago Tribune reporter several weeks ago and she mentioned a story that she was working on regarding social media policy within organizations. When I returned to my office I created a very easy to use LinkedIn Poll.

I circulated the poll out via Twitter, Facebook (Paladin Fanpage), LinkedIn Groups as well as my individual contacts. In addition, several of my colleagues here at Paladin sent the poll out to their clients and prospects. We had over 180 responses in a week along with two fantastic outcomes.

1) Paladin was able to get their client an interview for the Chicago Tribune article and, in turn, Paladin received a job order from the client the very next day.

2) Desert Rose Design, an agency that participated and left a comment in the poll, was contacted by the Tribune and made an appearance in the article as well.