Sales & Marketing Society of the Mid-South

While many SMS members know Lori Turner as managing partner of RedRover Company Sales & Marketing, they don’t realize that she was also contributing ghost writer for “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Guerrilla Marketing.” She possesses tremendous knowledge about how small businesses can use non-traditional marketing tactics to promote their brand, product or service.

Lori shared the secrets of why guerrilla marketing works and 10 types of guerrilla marketing that you may have never heard of in a recent SMS workshop. Attendees learned about proximity marketing, intrusive marketing, ambient marketing, and more. The presentation also included examples of brands using guerrilla marketing – some successfully and some not so much. Lori also outlined the six steps to creating your own winning guerrilla strategy.

We had a packed house for the workshop, so if you missed out then make sure you’re on our mailing list to find out about our great upcoming events! You can register on the homepage of our website at http://www.sms-midsouth.org

We had a great turnout for our workshop featuring our own president James Hutto with Valeo Design & Marketing. He focused on The PLET Method for understanding Twitter. We learned everything from the basics of starting an account to tips and tools to growing a successful following. No matter the exact industry you may be in, we learned there are already people talking about it, and we need to be a part of the conversation.

Check out his slide show below. It has lots of great tips that will help you use Twitter successfully for your business!

We also want to thank Union University for the use of their facility, and Simply Fabulous Catering for the delicious lunches.

Don’t miss our February 17th luncheon, featuring Susan Stephenson. Sign up here. We’ll see you there!

We’ve got an exciting workshop coming up on January 27th at Union University, featuring James Hutto of Valeo Design & Marketing. He’ll be covering a 4-step method to understanding and successfully using Twitter for Business. The PLET Strategy will give you the understanding and tools you need to implement Twitter for your business:

Post | Why, What, When, How
Listen | Real-time searches and Monitoring Tools
Engage | Rules of Engagement, Best Practices
Track | Analytics, URLs, Phone numbers

Click here for more details and online registration for this event.  The cost is $10 for SMS members, $30 for non-members.  Ticket price includes lunch.

We had a sold-out house today for our 3rd workshop, and this one was by far one of the most compelling.

Lori Turner, Manager Partner at RedRover Sales & Marketing delivered an amazing overview of what an effective sales strategy is, and then how social media tools can be used to increase sales effectiveness.

James Hutto of Valeo Design & Marketing covered the “Four C’s to Conquer LinkedIn” and talked the audience through the building blocks necessary to using Lori’s strategy of prospecting and profiling sales leads using social networking sites like LinkedIn and Facebook.
Here is their presentation:

We’re looking forward to the next workshop which is tentatively scheduled for October 2.  Due to the last two workshops selling out, we’re going to seek a new location that will allow us to accomodate more seating.  We hated to have to turn so many down today that tried to register the 1-2 days before the event!

October Workshop

We get more questions about Twitter-this and Twitter-that, we feel like its time to jump in and get you some answers.  We’re going to have a panel available to answer questions about how to use Twitter, how people are using it in their businesses, and most importantly- how (if) people are profiting from their use  of it.

We want to hear from you! Fill out our Twitter Survey to submit questions that you would like to see us cover.  We’ll get some savvy people there to give you some different perspectives.

We just finished up our second workshop in our new series designed to offer more value to our members and the community.  This was titled Weaving the Social Web: How to Maximize Your Time Spent on Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and More.

We had an even better turnout for this session, and there were some great questions from the crowd.  Social media continues to be a hot topic, and this organization is dedicated to helping you understand the practical ways to implement this new channel for your marketing efforts.

Make sure and mark your calendar for our next workshop, which will be on September 2nd.  This one will feature Lori Turner of Red Rover marketing, and James Hutto of Valeo Design & Marketing.  They will be covering how to harness social media to fill up your sales funnel and close more business.  Details to come!

Our July 15 Luncheon was a great time and featured Michael Graber, a partner from Southern Growth Studio.  Michael talked to us about the 6th “P” in marketing: Play.

His thoughts on how you now need to think about how you can ‘Play’ with your brand were insightful and thought-provoking, and Michael was an entertaining and energetic speaker. You can find out more about Southern Growth Studio and what Michael does at their website.

We had some good photos from this event, as always, taken by Nigel Merrick:

Upcoming Events!
We hope to see you at one of our upcoming events very soon!  We have two scheduled for the next couple of weeks:

Business Mixer on July 23rd
Join the Sales & Marketing Society as we team up with Memphis Business Journal for a Business Mixer on July 23rd from 5-7 p.m. Come downtown to the beautiful Majestic Grille and meet other Memphis professionals for some fun, networking, and cocktails.

We will have discounted drink and food specials. There is limited capacity for this event, and we expect to fill up quickly, so register for free online at http://bit.ly/smsMajestic

Enjoy the easy access parking in the garage on Peabody at 2nd Street (above the Flying Saucer). The elevators in the garage will put you on Main Street, right in front of the restaurant’s entrance. Don’t forget to bring your ticket with you and get it validated!

SMS Workshop Series- next event is August 5th
The  next in our workshop series is schedule for the first Wednesday in August.  If you missed the last one, then make sure you register for this one because it may fill up quickly!

This workshop is titled Weaving the Social Web: How to Maximize Your Time Spent on Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and More

Find out more information and register online

We hope to see you soon!

We experienced a great turnout today for our Facebook Tips workshop. Thanks to everyone who was able to come and to guest speakers James Hutto of Valeo Marketing and Joe Spake. Below is a copy of today’s presentation. Enjoy, and remember to engage your business in the social media conversation!

Learn how to get more out of Facebook with these Power Tips!

This will be the first of many Sales & Marketing Society Workshops designed to provide tactical, timely, and  useful ways to achieve your goals as a sales or marketing professional.

Join us for an informal session that will run over a variety of Facebook Power Tips, and give guests the chance to talk with 2 social media marketers and find out how you can harness the power of this tool for promoting your business.

If you want to talk about the power of Social media, then we highly recommend checking out the Social Media Expedition.  If you want real-world, practical information about how to effectively reach out to over 200 million Facebook users, then this is the group for you!

Your hosts will be:
Joe Spake is a Web 2.0 Memphis real estate broker and social media consultant. www.Spake.com
James Hutto is the Managing Project Director for local online marketing agency, Valeo Design & Marketing

Event Details:
Lunch is provided, and there are a wide variety of sandwiches, wraps, and sides available.
Free street parking is available along Tennessee Street