When I attend professional conferences and seminars it’s usually to gather and relay information from, for and about you, the landscape professional.
But last week, for the first time ever, I attended an event for my own professional development – a conference for business to business journalists in New York City. In addition to accepting a national award on behalf of our whole staff for the Lawn & Landscape Message Board (we won bronze for “Best Interactive Community” – third only to BusinessWeek.com and Oracle Technology Network), I couldn’t help but consider how some of what I was hearing applies to people in the lawn care and landscape business.
Here are a few things culled from my conference notebook for you to consider for your business:
Social networking is not to be ignored. You’ve probably heard of MySpace and Facebook and chalked them up to being “for teenagers only.” But have you heard of LinkedIn? It’s a professional networking site, the philosophy of which is “Relationships Matter.” That’s certainly a message I’ve heard over and over again throughout the green industry. At trade shows, on the Lawn & Landscape Message Board and at every industry seminar the mantra is the same: Network, network, network! (For a brief, entertaining explanation of how these types of sites work, take a look at this less-than-two-minute video, “Social Networking in Plain English,” on YouTube).
On LinkedIn, you create a profile of your professional accomplishments, which helps you find and be found by clients, colleagues and former classmates. When you find these people, they may become your connections. Then their connections become yours and so on, linking you to thousands of other professionals – all of whom may be your next client, boss, colleague or employee.
The idea is, through your network, you can find and be found for business opportunities, discover inside connections that may help you land a job or close a deal. As landscape contractors are continually seeking out well-qualified candidates for middle management positions, this might be the place to find them. High school and college students virtually live on the Web via tools like LinkedIn and Facebook, and everyone knows the key to finding a good job is, “It’s all about who you know.”
Second Life sounds odd, but may be worth looking into. If your head is spinning about social networking, you might want to brace yourself. Second Life is tad more complicated than LinkedIn, but businesses are discovering it’s a prime marketing opportunity as real U.S. dollars are exchanged in the 3-D virtual world everyday. Yes, you read that right; real people (who live vicariously through their self-created avatars) buy and sell things with real money in a virtual online world.
Now I’m not saying to go out and open a virtual lawn care or landscaping business (although Second Life’s Web site does list “landscaper” is a legitimate business opportunity, along with publicist, jewelry maker and custom avatar designer). But it’s certainly something to explore. More than 500 corporations already have created presences there, including Coca-Cola, Adidas, H&R Block and many others. Reuters even has a Second Life news bureau. Though a recent Wired.com article details “How Madison Avenue Is Wasting Millions on a Deserted Second Life,” tech experts insist it’s still something business owners should have a handle on, even if they’re not going to set up shop. And especially if they plan to someday provide services to “digital natives” – the generation of Web users who are currently under age 16 and have always had access to the Web and its infinite tools.
There’s no substitute for face to face. It may seem like I’m contradicting myself, but hear me out. LinkedIn, Second Life and industry message boards are indispensable tools – but after my trip to the Big Apple I realized how important it is that they be used in concert with good-old-fashioned face-to-face educational opportunities. The conversations I had with peers over cocktails, in the lobby while waiting for a session to begin and during structured roundtable discussions (much like the annual “Breakfast with Champions” events held at the Green Industry & Equipment Expo) are where I picked up some of the most helpful tips and tricks of the trade: I got a referral for a great photographer, generated a number of relevant story ideas and, best of all, I feel like I have some allies. I met a small group of editors my age who face the same challenges I do. From now on, if I’m ever in a dilemma and need to run an idea by someone, I’ll have no problem sending them an e-mail or giving them a call, because I've shaken their hands, hand dinner with them and talked with them face to face. But not before I connect with them on LinkedIn.