Category: Drew’s Articles

Could IBM Be Bigger in Social Media than Facebook?

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Fathoming a new product from IBM via a launch event is like trying to understand the ocean by watching a wave. Nonetheless that was my task, swimming through the presentations and ultimately landing an interview with Jeffrey Schick, IBM’s VP of Social Software. Drenched in the vision Schick shared for the IBM Customer Experience Suite, it occurred to me that IBM could end up being more important to the business use and monetization of social media than Facebook.

While the comparison between IBM’s new social software solutions and Facebook could be considered all wet from the start, the mere fact that I’m discussing both in the same sentence should make you take notice. IBM is not sitting idly on the dock as web and mobile usage transform business interactions. Rather they intend to ride the wave of Web 3.0, creating and implementing the software that according to Schick, “can better connect people with people and people with information.”

Social software is not a new idea at IBM

Long before Mark Zuckerberg aggregated his Harvard friends online, IBM’ers could find their colleagues in a similar manner. According to Schick, “at IBM 15 years ago, we had a way to look up people to create a globally connected enterprise.” “Today we have approximately 500,000 people within IBM and we do about 6 million look ups a day on pages that look strikingly similar to other social network profile pages with features like blogging and photo posting,” added Schick.

IBM’s internal network served as both an incubator and torture test for its latest offering. “The idea of getting the right person over the right time at the right opportunity and yield the right result was really important,” explained Schick. So while Schick and his team watched the rise of Facebook with interest, they took greater inspiration from the technology they were already using to deliver “an exceptional work experience for employees” which also translated into better client service.

Social software for business that is as easy as Facebook

Recognizing how simple it is to publish on the web today, IBM aims to make their social software tools as easy to use as social networks like Facebook. Acknowledging the early adoption of social technology by kids, Schick noted, “now I say this stuff is so easy us old people can use it!” This simplicity of use has fundamental implications for business, “making a tremendous difference in the way that people can collaborate and share information,” added Schick.

The emphasis on ease of use also means that IBM may be able to address some of the needs of small and medium size businesses with its new offering. By taking the capabilities they’ve created for big companies and putting them on the cloud, smaller businesses may indeed be able to leverage these services and according to Schick, “easily create a community that would allow them to invite their clients and engage them.”

Reaching for more than 500 million “likes”

While pundits debate the value of a Facebook fan, IBM has no doubt about the value of its new social software portfolio. In addition to using the software to “build better client and employee relations,” Schick expects that “people can get genuine business value [from it].” While dialog is important, all of this, according to Schick, “is done to drive revenue, to create better customer satisfaction and gain some competitive advantage.”

And though IBM calls its Customer Experience Suite “new,” they are already touting case histories that prove its merit. Schick explained how the relatively small Practicing Law Institute is “leveraging the web to create communities to better engage their attorneys that take their classes.” He also explained how a large construction firm, “created a web experience that allowed them to hear the types of homes they should be building.”

Being a social organization is more than being on a social network

Though Facebook is the reigning social network, it is simply a ripple in the ocean of IBM’s vision for the new social organization. Businesses of all sizes need to think social across their intranets, extranets, the internet itself and the emerging mobile marketplace. Whether it’s about sharing information internally, with clients in a walled garden, or with prospects on their cellphones, “social is an important dimension and critical to what we’re doing,” explained Schick.

Recognizing that the social tsunami could be a bit overwhelming to its customers, IBM also tried to use itself as an example, employing a range of external and internal social tools at the launch event and online. Attendees were encouraged to tweet using the hash tag #IBMexperience while the event was streamed live online. All of the launch-related content was shown in real-time using IBM’s social media aggregator providing proof positive that IBM was indeed practicing what it preached.

Final Note: Regardless of your business size, IBM’s big move into social software should be a clear indication that every business needs a broad-reaching social strategy not just a Facebook fan page! This strategy needs to address the needs of your customers and your employees, ensuring optimal collaboration between them anytime and anywhere.  (This article first appeared on FastCompany.com)

The SIMPLE Route to Niche Marketing

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Things have not been exactly rosy for the perfume industry in the last two years. Many big brands suffered huge declines in sales as consumers turned up their noses. Meanwhile Clean Perfume, an indie fragrance from NYC-based Fusion Brands, enjoyed double-digit growth, building up a remarkable fan-base on a minuscule budget. How the Clean team, including CMO Roslyn Griner, pulled this off is a potent reminder of the beauty of SIMPLE, especially when it comes to the marketing of consumer goods.

S is for Story

A number of successful niche brands like Tom’s of Maine and Nantucket Nectars have a compelling story about their creation. Clean is no different. Founder Randi Shinder, not a fan of perfumes, took notice when people commented on how good she smelled, a smell that was simply her soap. Unable to find a fragrance to match “that universal fresh out of the shower scent,” she developed her own in 2003.

That simple start launched a line of products with wonderfully evocative names, such as Fresh Laundry, Warm Cotton and Summer Linen. “Everyone can identify with the idea that you just used a bar of soap and smell really good or the smell of towels coming fresh out of the dryer,” explains Griner, “we were one of the first perfume brands to be successful on HSN because we had a wonderful story where people could imagine what it smelled like.”

I is for Involve

A lot of brands pay lip service to their fans, offering token opportunities for involvement. Clean, on the other hand, works hard at nurturing all of its fans from the lone customer to the highly influential blogger. “Be good to the people who really make your brand and reward them every once in awhile,” counseled Griner, who supports a vibrant Facebook community with contests, special offers and quick responses to inquiries.

Clean also created a product testing “advisory board” from among its Facebook fans. “We recruited people who were Warm Cotton fans to test a new type of Cotton fragrance as a disaster check, because if your real avid fans don’t like the fragrance, you’re in trouble,” advised Griner. Amazingly, over 1,000 people applied to be on the advisory board, demonstrating both the strength of their fan base and their fans unbridled enthusiasm.

M is for Minimize

With retail strategy, for smaller brands sometimes less is indeed more. Rather than striving for broad scale distribution, Clean minimized its approach, concentrating its efforts on a single outlet, Sephora, a decision that has paid off many times over. One of over 200 perfume brands on Sephora shelves, Clean is now in the Top 10, making them a priority product for this retailer. “Sephora gives us prime real estate, allows us in all of their promotions and provides huge merchandising opportunities,” explained Griner.

With such a strong retailer relationship, Clean is also able to test new products and push through large seasonal promotions. Griner noted that Clean is currently testing Bath and Body products in 25 Sephora stores, though perfumes remain their top priority. “We had amazing point-of-sale opportunities including end-caps for our summer perfume and the launch of our Outdoor Shower Fresh which gives you an indication how strong the brand is performing.”

P is for Promote

At the risk of being obvious, niche brands simply can not gain traction without some well-planned and well-executed promotions. Clean gained over 13,000 fans in two-weeks by offering a free sample to anyone who became a fan on Facebook. Clean spread the word initially via email and then encouraged referrals with a sweepstakes. With an acquisition cost of under $2.00 per fan, this program provided a cost-effective foundation for their on-going social media program.

In-store promotions at Sephora also played a crucial role in Clean’s success.  Noted Griner, “our primary drive to acquisition is through sampling so we created 30,000 gift sets, half of which sold through in two weeks!” Part of Sephora’s “Steals and Deals,” the gift set bundle was an incredible value offering three scents of Clean perfume for $10.00, enticing existing Clean fans as well as targeting new customers to try the product or share it with their friends.

L is for Leverage

Like David before them, niche brands need to make the most of their opportunities, finding leverage wherever they can. One place Clean gains leverage is through a partnership with HSN (Home Shopping Network). “We’re on HSN at least 9 times a year selling gift sets that are very different than what we sell at retail,” explained Griner. “We were a ‘Today’s Special’ two weeks ago and sold out of 17,000 gift sets, providing us a million dollar day,” she added.

In addition to the immediate sales generated, HSN also provides an extraordinary halo for Clean. A delighted Griner offered, “being on TV as much as we are with HSN, it’s basically our form of advertising.” That said, working with HSN can be challenging, explained Griner, “there is a lot of complexity but we plan this months in advance.” Griner’s team also created a scented towel to make the HSN gift set truly unique, helping to leverage the relationship.

E is for Emotion

Niche brands seem to have an inherent understanding of the emotional relationship consumers want to have with their products and respond accordingly. Offered Griner, “you have to be genuine as a brand, because people can spot fakery.” Griner believes that marketers should be careful not to delegate social media communications to outsiders who might misrepresent the brand. “The marketer has to be the one responding to the consumer,” added an emphatic Griner, “because the consumer can smell phoniness.”

In addition to honesty, Griner is a big fan of using humor. To this end, Griner created the Clean etiquette guide which offered tongue-in-cheek advice on texting, tipping and hand washing among other topics. Consumers responded with content of their own which in turn inspired bloggers and Real Simple magazine to join in on the fun. Concluded a delighted Griner, “I just think it’s about creating emotion.”

Final note: As anyone who has ever designed a marketing program will tell you, keeping it SIMPLE is anything but. Fortunately for Clean, the idea of simplicity speaks to the very essence of the brand itself. (This article first appeared on FastCompany.com).

A Lone Tooth Does Not A Marketing Smile Make

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Given the choice between asking friends to make a donation and a root canal without anesthesia, I know a number of people who’d chose the latter.  Not I.  Stay away from my gums if you please, give me a cause to believe in and off I go badgering friends like a dental professional with a sharp metal pick, sometimes hitting the right nerve but more often meeting painful resistance.  Taking each fundraiser as a personal marketing challenge, yet I persist.

Ever the optimist, I actually believed that social media would change all that.  No more biting personal calls.  No more unnerving follow up emails.  Just a couple of tweets and the money would pour in like ceramic in a perfect porcelain crown.  Wrong again, medicine breath!  As I found out recently, fund raising via social media is a true torture test, revealing the cracks in the various options, offering a pointed reminder that a lone tooth does not a marketing smile make.

My recent fund-raising operation started with an introduction to charity: water at the SuperGenius Word-of-Mouth conference back in July.  There Digital VP Paull Young, explained how 4-year-old charity: water had used all sorts of viral marketing techniques to raise $20 million, every penny of which went to drill fresh water wells for those in need.  Intrigued by their success, I later interviewed founder Scott Hamilton who spent an hour with me explaining how charity: water came into being.   Totally blown away, I decided this would be the perfect way to test the power of my social network.

To facilitate personal fund raising campaigns like mine, charity: water set up MyCharityWater.org, which was indeed the easiest part of my effort.  The whole process takes less than five minutes during which you name the campaign, set a fund raising target, upload a picture and generate a link to your page for sharing with friends.  Excited about helping the Bayaka, one of the last remaining bushman tribes in Central Africa who are being forced out of the forest and denied access to clean water in the villages, I grabbed my link and started my campaign.

First up, a mass reaching article on FastCompany.com.  The article profiled founder Harrison telling the story of his personal leadership journey and offered up “8 questions for aspiring leaders.”  And while questions 1-7 did offer guidance, question number 8 was a barely veiled appeal, inviting the reader to learn more about the Bayaka and even make a donation.  With over 1 million monthly visitors, you might have thought that at least one would have made an immediate donation, right?  Guess again!  Raising awareness is clearly not the same as raising money.

Next up, Twitter. With about 1140 followers, I wasn’t sure what to expect but I sure expected more than one response.  My first tweets focused on my article on the Bayaka and these did generate some click-thrus to the article, a few retweets but not even one donation.  Switching gears, I started linking directly to my campaign URL with a more direct appeal that persuaded one single generous sole.  Thinking that perhaps it was a reach issue, I enlisted Twitter superstars like @TedRubin and @JeffreyHayzlett who kindly sent out tweets to their 55,000+ followers.  But alas, when it comes to fundraising, Twitter appears to be all bark and no bite.

Undaunted, I moved onto Facebook hoping that a few of my +250 “friends” would actually demonstrate a little love.  Much to my delight, a handful offered more than smiles, making donations and encouraging others to do the same.  One true friend offered advice on how to improve my campaign by lowering the fund raising target, “if its too high, people won’t bother because they think their small donation won’t make a difference.”  Taking his advice, I lowered the target to a still ambitious $16,000 but well below my naïve initial goal of $300,000!

Still way below goal, I turned to that old marketing standby, email, to push things along.  Not a mass mailing, but rather a highly targeted one aimed at friends and acquaintances I thought might jump at the chance to give back or at least return a favor.  Keeping my expectations low, I was actually pleasantly surprised when approximately 5% responded with open checkbooks if not open hearts.  Imagine that, email worked better than Twitter when it came to generating transactional responses!

Shortly thereafter, I was at a bar with a bunch of former associates from Renegade and several asked me about The Bayaka and charity: water.  They said, “Hey I saw your tweets but what’s the deal?”  I explained how a $20 donation would provide clean water for 1 person for an entire year and how not having clean water lead to disease and array of other horrific yet preventable social problems.  The conversation moved on but the next day, my donation count nearly doubled.

So, while my torture test is not quite over, the interim conclusions are as obvious as a toothache.  First, Twitter is more like a mass marketing vehicle building awareness but not necessarily generating action.  Facebook is a more intimate place than Twitter where friends can and will engage.  Email is quite effective if you have a strong list.   And lo and behold, good old-fashioned 1:1 conversation proved to be the most powerful social media of all.

PS–If you found this post valuable, feel free to donate $20 which will provide clean water for 1 person for 1 year!

PSS–If you have found any of my posts valuable, feel free to donate $40 which will provide clean water for 2 people for 1 year.

Fight Social Media Fire with Social Media Water

Posted on by Drew Neisser

“I’m just the guy who gets it,” offers the humble yet vivacious Ramon DeLeon when explaining his unlikely rise from delivering pizzas around Chicago’s lakeshore to delivering keynote addresses on social media around the world. What seems to be intuition for DeLeon is in fact an uncanny ability to be way ahead of the curve, to observe what’s going on with his target and adapt accordingly. DeLeon gets it in a way that is both inspiring and enlightening, offering a tasty guide to social media success.

1. It’s Not About the Pizza

Marketers long-trained to push out messaging, often look at social media as a new channel to tell their story. A few minutes with DeLeon and they will realize the folly of this approach. In fact, I spent 40 minutes on the phone with DeLeon talking through his social media success stories before the quality of his pizza even came up. The truth is that when it comes to social media, it is simply not about the pizza. “My focus has always been on the consumer,” noted DeLeon. “Out of ten tweets, maybe only one will mention our product.”

2. It’s About Connecting with the Customer

Most companies pay lip service to customer service, hiding behind phone trees and avoiding intimate interactions. DeLeon, on the other hand, has been on a first name basis with his customers ever since his days delivering pizza. Explained DeLeon, “My whole thing is the connection with the customer—how can I help you?” Starting first with Instant Messaging then Facebook in the mid-90’s, DeLeon established tight bonds with the local college kids so much so that when they graduated, those students brought Domino’s with them into their new companies.

3. Make Deposits in the “Good Will” Bank

Many CEO’s ask their marketing head’s to focus on “things that deliver immediate ROI,” often at the expense of relationship building. DeLeon likens marketing to dating, noting that he “always includes customers in marketing pieces to give some love back after spending [their] hard earned dollars and to create very strong bonds.” These bonds were money in the bank when Domino’s faced it’s YouTube video crisis in 2009. Noted DeLeon, “because of the relationships we had with customers they had our back, so they still would order and support in confidence.”

4. Fight Social Media Fire with Social Media Water

When two young Domino’s employees in North Carolina posted a video of them cooking a pizza with cheese they’d put up their nose, Domino’s Corporate and the local franchise were both caught completely off guard. Not so DeLeon. He immediately created his own video, noting how horrific the other one was, and then follow up with anyone in Chicago who commented online about the offending video. Local bloggers and tweeters responded favorably to his outreach, acknowledging that DeLeon had been “part of the social media scene forever” and would “never let such a thing happen in his stores.” Remarkably, DeLeon’s store sales actually rose during this period while nationally Domino’s took a hit and the local NC franchise ultimately went out of business.

5. Learn To Apologize (Really Well)

Admitting a mistake often comes hard to corporate America. DeLeon, on the other hand, has turned apologizing into a PR-generating, customer-satisfying art form. When a well-known local blogger had a problem with a delivery and wrote about, DeLeon responded with an amazingly heartfelt video apology they he posted on his YouTube and Facebook pages. In the video he and his shamefaced manager invited the blogger into the store to “make things right.” DeLeon’s apology video has been watched over 125,000 times and is regularly showcased in speeches by marketing gurus Seth Godin and Jeanne Bliss.

6. Don’t Get Bogged Down by Trying to Measure Everything

Much to the chagrin of marketers, not every effort, online or otherwise, can be tied to sales. DeLeon believes that “sometimes there are too many metrics,” adding, “how much do you love your wife?” As an example, DeLeon points to a poster program in his stores that invites customers to take pictures of themselves in front of a Domino’s poster and share them with friends. “I’m not telling them to tag these or anything—just share them with your world,” noted DeLeon, who praises the program as generating good will and giving his customers something to do while they wait for their pizzas.

7. Make Each Program Your Own

Geo-based social networks like Foursquare are just emerging as powerful tools for local retailers. Not surprisingly, DeLeon was one of the first retailers to try Foursquare in Chicago, but did not settle for the norm of giving something free to the people who checked-in most at each of his stores. Instead, DeLeon challenged his “mayors” to take responsibility like a real mayor; “to do whatever [they] think [they] gotta do to keep me in business!” By putting the onus on his best customers to “represent” his stores and rewarding them by allowing them to give free pizzas to whomever they chose, DeLeon tightened his relationships and made the program his own.

8. Have Fun and Keep it Real

Fun is not a word that is heard a lot of outside of start-ups. Ramon DeLeon evaluates his own success with two questions, “am I having fun?” and “are our sales and profitability up?” The fun part for DeLeon is a constant, since he clearly loves connecting with people, whether he is on stage, behind a counter, on Facebook/Twitter/Foursquare or in his homemade video shout-outs. Regardless of the channel, DeLeon tries to be the same person and advises all others to take this approach. Concluded DeLeon, “there are real people behind these tweets and I just want to have fun with them.”

Final Note: While DeLeon could not offer actual sales figures, he noted with pride that sales growth in his stores over the last 18-months has significantly out-performed both the Chicago market and national average for Domino’s stores.  This article first appeared on FastCompany.com.

Profound Advice from the Pizza Delivery Guy

Posted on by Drew Neisser

For want of a belt, Ramon DeLeon almost didn’t get the part-time job delivering pizzas that launched his remarkable career. Fortunately for us, he overcame this hurdle just as he has so many before and since, becoming a highly successful businessman, not to mention the most effective practitioner of social media I’ve yet to meet.

How he got from delivering pizzas to delivering keynotes on social media is a fascinating tale of chutzpah and perseverance, of street smarts and tech savvy, providing a road map for any kid from any neighborhood, anyone willing that is to start small and think big. A two-part series, this first one focuses on the business lessons gleaned from an extensive interview with Ramon a few days ago.

Borrow a Belt (i.e. Do Whatever Else it Takes to Get Started)

Looking for a part-time job while still in school, DeLeon put in a cold call to a local Domino’s store. Having already delivered newspapers in the same Chicago neighborhood, DeLeon made his case well enough over the phone that they told him to show up for work the next day at 5pm. Arriving a half-hour early only to learn he’d lose the job if he didn’t find a belt to wear, DeLeon dashed to his sister’s to borrow a frilly ribbon number two-sizes too small, thus avoiding getting fired before he had even started.

Listening to DeLeon now, it is easy to downplay the significance of this little interlude. But if you’re a kid just getting out of school, you might want to take note. DeLeon was able to get his foothold in the industry that has made him highly successful by building up a portfolio of relevant experience, in this case delivering papers. When he got the opportunity to get in the next door, he didn’t let it slip by and instead scrambled to find a belt, however ridiculous it might have made him look that first day. He did whatever it took to get started.

Find the Joy in Pleasing Customers

DeLeon credits much of his success to his parents whom he described as his “biggest role models.” When DeLeon was in elementary school, his “blue-collar parents used to buy clothing wholesale and sell it at work or to friends.” He took note of the relationships they built with their friends and customers and tried to do the same when he started delivering pizzas. He paid attention to the smallest details, even how to park unobtrusively in driveways and how to ring doorbells to the customer’s liking.

When cellphones came along, DeLeon used them to improve the delivery experience, calling when no one answered the door. It wasn’t long before he’d get calls directly, saying “hey are you working today, we want to order pizza.” Like his parents, DeLeon was building strong ties with each of his customers, ties that distinguished him from his peers. At the same time, DeLeon found joy in pleasing customers, noting with pride, “it became a high for me, the excitement, the doorbell, the kids jumping and shouting ‘the pizza guy’s here!’”

Learn to Make the Pizza

After delivering pizza with aplomb for three years, his manager asked DeLeon to arrive early and open up the store since the shift manager was going to be late. Think Lou Gehrig filling in at first base for headache-pained Wally Pipp except for one key fact, metaphorically DeLeon didn’t know how to hit or catch. When the phone started ringing and orders arriving, DeLeon and another driver had no idea how to make a pizza but somehow they did just that.

When the manager did arrive, DeLeon exclaimed, “I don’t want to be in that situation again!” Taking time before and after his delivery shifts, DeLeon learned how to make the pizza and everything else the store sold. Shortly thereafter Domino’s asked DeLeon to join their management-training program. The lesson here for any of you starting out is clear–learn the business of the business even if it isn’t your primary job. In this way, when opportunity strikes, you’ll be able to jump in like DeLeon and Gehrig, relegating the Wally Pipp’s of the world to mere footnotes.

Take the Low Performing Store

Paying his dues as an assistant manager, DeLeon was working at one of the highest volume stores in Chicago when a manager spot opened up at an underperforming location. According to DeLeon, “there were other people more qualified to take over that store but no one wanted it.” Asked why he would want such a dog, DeLeon gamely offered, “When stuff is that low, the only thing you can do is look up.” Not surprisingly, DeLeon’s willingness to take on the bigger challenge paid off.

On the first day of the job, DeLeon somewhat brashly told his District Manager that his store was going to be off the underperformers list by the end of the week, even if that meant he had to buy the pizza himself. Knowing that he couldn’t transform the store alone, DeLeon “rounded up the right people who wanted to stay and let the others go who didn’t.” Having established his business goal and then put his team in place, DeLeon started a series of guerrilla marketing activities that helped his store set a nation wide Domino’s record for most consecutive weeks of sales growth.

Final Note: Ramon DeLeon did not have the advantage of an Ivy League education or social connections that would give him a head start. On the contrary, he started out at the proverbial bottom of the barrel, delivering pizzas on a part-time basis to pay for school. How he became a pioneering practitioner of social media is all the more remarkable and part 2 of this series (to follow later this week).  This article first appeared on FastCompany.com.

8 Questions for Aspiring Leaders

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Six years ago Scott Harrison wouldn’t know a Bayaka from a bialy. He was a nightclub impresario helping to sell $16 cocktails to a cool crowd of Millennials while showing off his sponsored Rolex. Now Scott heads charity: water, a non-profit organization he founded that has delivered clean drinking water to over 1 million people in its first four years and aspires to help 100 million in the next ten years. How this happened is a story of personal transformation and exemplary entrepreneurship, offering up 8 questions for any aspiring leader to consider right now without fail.

1. Is this what you really want to be doing?

If you have to think about this question, then you probably know the answer is no. Discovery one’s calling is often a journey upon which only the bold embark. Finding his nightclub gig wanting, Scott Harrison began his journey as a volunteer photojournalist in Liberia and for two years took “pictures of the some of the sickest people in the world, who were getting treated by volunteer doctors.” Added Harrison, “So coming back off that experience, I was 30, pretty ambitious and bold, deciding I wanted to reinvent charity.” Explaining his need to start fresh, Harrison offered, “I didn’t think I could work within the system and make the impact I wanted to make.”

2. Are you providing a clear vision?

The vision thing seems so obvious that it’s simply overlooked by aspiring leaders, the way the rest of us simply take clean water for granted. For Harrison, the vision involved creating a new kind of transparent charity that puts 100% of public donations to work, in this case delivering clean water to those who don’t have it. Noted Harrison, “Its not guilt based, this is all about presenting people with an amazing opportunity to serve people who need your help.” The opportunity will require raising a whopping two billion U.S. dollars in the next ten years, “a crazy growth rate of 63%” that even Harrison admits is unprecedented. Crazy or not, Harrison’s vision is as clear as a mountain stream.

3. Can you reduce your business to a simple story?

A crystal clear elevator pitch is often discussed but rarely realized by even the best of entrepreneurs. Most organizations, especially non-profits have a tendency to “lead with complexity,” noted Harrison. So charity: water keeps it very simple, “If you give money, we can bring clean water to a community,” offered the succinct Harrison. Supported with visual storytelling that engages on a visceral level, “as you get interested with a simple story we then let you discover the complexity as your interest level increases,” Harrison explained. This progressive approach has helped charity: water attract thousands of donors from sophisticated millionaires to 10-year olds, all with a shared understanding.

4. Do you know your weaknesses?

Successful entrepreneurs are rarely geniuses; in fact many think of themselves as being too naïve to realize why their idea won’t succeed so they just plough ahead. Naïve or not, they must have a keen understanding of their weaknesses and Harrison is no exception. When explaining why hire #2 was a water projects person and #3 an art director, Harrison revealed, “I’m not an executer and I’m a terrible designer.” With these two critical positions in place, Harrison was able build both his brand and his family, as hire #3 Vik also became his wife. Four years into it, Harrison now laments little with the exception of bringing in systems late–systems that could help him manage hundreds of thousands of donors and related CRM activities.

5. Do you aspire to create an epic brand?

If you are too busy trying to make sales to think about your brand, think again. Perhaps the most instructive of all Harrison’s initial goals was his desire to build a brand, something many non-profits considered to be a dirty word. As he put it, “to solve a problem as big as the water crisis, we would need to create an epic brand.” Modeling brands like Apple and Nike, brands that sold “gazillions of product to people, charity: water would be selling gazillions of dollars of clean water and hope,” Harrison explained. To achieve epic status, charity: water put special emphasis on emotional storytelling via high quality photography, beautifully produced videos, and a gorgeous Web site that is easy to navigate, all produced without a marketing budget.

6. Have you figured out how to scale your business?

A lot of entrepreneurs never build a structure that scales, preferring the hands on approach that keeps them at the center of the action. But for Harrison solving the problem of scale was essential to his vision, “We can only do this by getting millions of people involved through the inevitable math of networks.” This is why Harrison and his team created mycharitywater.org and launched it in beta September 2009. In 11 months, more than 2,800 people have started personal campaigns to celebrate their birthdays, mountain climbs or Mohawk shavings and helped raise nearly $3 million. Noted Harrison, with people raising an average of a thousand dollars per personal campaign, “We only need two million birthdays in a decade to get to our ten year, two billion dollar goal.” And while Harrison says “only” without hesitation, keep in mind he’s gotten this far with less than 25 staffers!

7. Do you have a strategy for each social media channel?

Without a lot of serious strategic forethought, most businesses have jumped into various social media channels with little regard for the roles each might play in their business growth. Admits Harrison, charity: water wasn’t much different jumping into Twitter at the outset, becoming the first non-profit to have over one million followers. “Twitter is great for awareness and getting people to watch a video but outside of benefiting from the amazing Twestival (charitywater.org/twestival), we haven’t tried to raise money with it,” explained Harrison. “Facebook traffic [to their Web site] stays a little longer, engages a little differently, so there’s a big focus now for us to build that community,” Harrison added. With 56,000 fans now, charity: water hopes to grow its fan base to over one million, perhaps by integrating Facebook Connect into mycharitywater.org in some manner. (To become a fan, click here.)

bayaka8. Who the heck are the Bayaka and how can I help?

Most entrepreneurs understand the role of passion in motivating internal staff and external stakeholders. Scott Harrison’s current passion is the Bayaka people in the Central African Republic (see the video). Explained Harrison, “They’re hunter-gatherers, but the logging industry has forced them into the villages where they’re being treated like slaves and denied access to clean water.” With the goal of drilling fresh water wells for all 16,000 Bayaka and another 70,000 other Central Africans this September, charity: water needs to raise $1.7 million. And here’s how you, my thoughtful reader, can help. You can join my campaign with the goal of attracting 16,000 $20 gifts, one for each Bayaka (if Scott can be ambitious, so can I!). Because charity: water tracks where each donation goes, you’ll be able to see with complete transparency your donation in action. As Harrison concluded, “This isn’t our story, it’s your story, it’s everyone else’s story.”  (Note: this article first appeared on FastCompany.com)