FAQs

IMPORTANT NOTE: Because WottleDo is a relatively new service, these FAQs are not yet complete. If you have any questions which you feel are not covered here, please send them to us via the 'Contact' section of the site, so that we can add them to our growing list.

Contents

Introduction

What is WottleDo?

WottleDo is:

  • your own personal business network support and referral directory

WottleDo:

  • for more focus and collaboration within business communities. It is all about promoting, supporting and helping businesses
  • making people's networking efforts more effective
  • a business tool, NOT a social networking site (See here for more)

What does it do?

  • 1. Focus; Inform:
  • WottleDo lets Watchers (ie any Wottler or Member) receive emailed Watching Brief emails to help them keep up with key updates made by businesses (Wottlers) they have chosen to Watch (latest developments; leads they are looking for; latest promotional offers; etc) and so spot more business referral opportunities for them
  • 2. Motivate; Reward:
  • WottleDo lets Wottlers offer referral rewards (WottleRewards) to selected contacts (who can be Wottlers or Members). You can offer and receive referral rewards in an ethical way (see Code of Conduct and WottleReward FAQs) using an easily adaptable standard format – unique to WottleDo
  • 3. Support:
  • WottleDo lets connected Wottlers (WottleContacts) promote and support each other by Advocating each other, and by Championing each others' Promotions
  • 4. Find and Be Found:
  • WottleDo gives you a business directory based on your own extended business community

What's in it for me?

WottleDo:

  • helps you get real business value from your business network
  • helps you strengthen and develop existing business relationships
  • leads to more word-of-mouth business referrals, more business, and more profits

What's in it for individuals (Members)?

  • Help and support others. Become a more effective networker. Watch your favourite Wottler businesses – customers, suppliers, other businesses in your network. Be kept up to date with their business offerings. Spot opportunities to pass business leads to them.
  • It's quick and easy to sign up. It only takes seconds. You don't need to enter a profile. Just enter your name, email and password – and you're in!
  • Wottlers may even offer you rewards for business leads.

What's in it for Wottlers?

WottleDo for your business:

  • All the same features and benefits as for Members. PLUS:
  • Add your business profile – promote your business to your business network
  • More business leads through your business network
  • Support your business network
  • Keep up to date with your key suppliers
  • Watch your customers; spot when they might be looking for your services again

  • Unlock the value of your network.
  • WottleDo helps you turn your best contacts into a knowledgeable and enthusiastic outsourced salesforce for your business.
  • Resulting in more word-of-mouth referrals, more business, and more profits!

What's in it for business networkers?

  • There is no better business lead than through someone you know. So how well do the people you know know your business?

Is this you?

  • Been attending regular networking meetings for a long time?
  • Lots of contacts through business, networking and social media activities?
  • But not sure how well your business contacts really understand what your business can offer?
  • And not getting as many business referrals from your network as you would like?

WottleDo makes it easier for all of you by letting you give a watching brief to any of your contacts who opt in by electing to Watch you. Which means you can advertise your business, leads you are looking for and latest promotional deals to your own willing audience.

And it works both ways: Effective networkers look out for business opportunities for others. The more they do this the more business leads they receive. It's true – what goes round comes around! So Watch your favourite Wottlers, look out for business opportunities for them, and become an even better networker!

WottleDo is NOT itself a business networking platform. In fact WottleDo wants to encourage its subscribers to join networking groups and to be actively involved in them….to develop the relationships to turn into business using WottleDo…

Plus – have you thought about offering referral rewards?

Do you want to offer referral rewards as a way of encouraging more business leads from your customers, networking contacts and other business contacts? Do you think if they know you offered a referral reward they might try even harder to keep up with your business and look out for opportunities for it?

Using WottleDo to create and offer referral rewards (WottleRewards)] takes any effort, embarrassment, fear or confusion out of offering and accepting rewards for business referrals. It is also ethical see (Code of Conduct).Click here for more FAQs about WottleRewards.

In due course, by helping you and your contacts to focus better on the business end of networking, WottleDo helps you all save time and money by networking more effectively.

Tip: use WottleDo and WottleRewards to help develop mutual win-win collaborations and partnerships with other businesses that sell into similar markets, or which sell complementary goods or services.

What's in it for business communities?

WottleDo:

  • helps businesses to get more word-of-mouth business referrals from within their own business communities
  • helps to strengthen business community ties
  • helps to promote the membership and use of business networking groups

Or would you prefer to subscribe to expensive 'find a supplier' websites to get your business leads? Or spend large chunks of your marketing budget on SEO?

WottleDo: helping business communities to help themselves.

How is WottleDo so different from social media sites?-Short answer

  • Less noise! No idle chatter! No time-wasting!
  • Focus on word-of-mouth business referrals
  • Focus on supporting and promoting businesses; not on individuals
  • Permission-based opt-in push marketing
  • Offer and receive referral rewards (WottleRewards)
  • And a lot more

How is WottleDo so different from social media sites?- Longer answer (worth a read: this should really help you 'get' WottleDo!)

There are no hard and fast rules about what constitutes a social media site. But WottleDo is different from most social media and networking sites (eg LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter) in many ways.

  • A. Different subscriber markets:

Social media: broadly, people looking to build up their contact base, promote their personal profile and share information and ideas.

WottleDo:

  1. Aimed at:
    1. businesspeople looking to get more out of their networking efforts and looking to increase word-of-mouth referrals through their business contacts
    2. people and businesses looking to stay informed about their customers, suppliers and business contacts, and/or looking for opportunities to refer business leads to them
  2. Business profiles (Wottlers), not people profiles
  3. No need to put ANY profile on the site if you just want to be a Member and Watch Wottler businesses or be invited on Wottlers' referral reward arrangements (WottleRewards)
  4. NOT about sharing information and ideas, let alone idle chatter!

  • B. Focus:

Social media: Networking and social media are great. They are about developing social relationships with others in your chosen networking communities (and often way beyond!).

WottleDo:

  • helps you focus this into more effective business relationships – it turns you and your best contacts into an effective source for referrals for each other.The focus is on helping businesses. WottleDo is a business tool for established business networks to support each other and make business referrals to Wottler businesses.
  • WottleDo is about focussing on your existing network and trying to help their businesses and vice versa. It's NOT about finding new contacts. It's not about building relationships so much as about working relationships.

  • C. Inform and be informed:

Social media: push marketing (actively promoting your business to your contacts and others) is generally frowned upon. And when it is done, it's often hidden amongst all the other 'noise' on your social media site.

WottleDo:

  • Is about keeping people in your network who WANT to be kept informed up to date with the latest information about your business, your promotional offers and any business leads you are looking for.
  • WottleDo works on opt-in principles. It lets you choose who you want to be kept informed about and push marketed by, ie who you want to Watch. As such, it is a natural complement/next step for businesses and businesspeople who are developing relationships through networking and social media. 'Watching'on WottleDo is the business-focussed equivalent of 'Liking' or 'Following' on social media sites in that you can receive email notifications of new promotional offers (Promotions), leads (WottleWants) and latest news about the business of Wottlers you are Watching. And unlike with social media, when you choose to Watch a Wottler no one else gets a message (or has any way of knowing) that you are Watching a Wottler. So it's completely different!

  • D. Motivate, Reward:

Social media: nothing, really.

WottleDo: has facilities (WottleRewards) to let you offer and receive business referral rewards. The original inspiration for WottleDo was to create a trusted and accepted website which enables business networkers to offer and receive business referral rewards in a transparent and ethical way to encourage more effective networking activity by networkers (in the sense of encouraging them to understand their fellow networkers' businesses and to spot and make business referrals to each other).

  • E. Business-focussed support:

Social media: some sites have limited support tools.

WottleDo:

  1. Championed Promotions: by just pressing a button, you can Champion a fellow Wottler business' Promotions, and thereby let YOUR Watchers know about them.
  2. Advocates: more powerful than a simple endorsement message. If you Advocate a fellow Wottler business you are going to the effort of saying that you are happy to be contacted for a conversation about that Wottler.

  • F. Find and be Found:

Social media: some have a limited business directory function.

WottleDo: gives you a business directory tailored around your own business network and beyond.

  • G. Other social media features:

WottleDo deliberately eschews social media site features which do not support WottleDo's core purpose, which is to encourage more word-of-mouth business referrals within existing business communities. So for example:

  1. No artificial rankings. Your levels of activity and whether you are 'liked' or not have no effect whatsoever on your search or other 'rankings'.
  2. Less noise! No idle chatter! No time-wasting!

    WottleDo is not a place for entering into long or unfocussed group discussions/idle chit chat which will often have little direct relevance for your business and do little to actively promote it.

  3. No advertising. No pop-ups. We believe that these would detract from the vision behind WottleDo, which is aimed at helping business communities to help each other.

Should I join as a Member or as a Wottler?

Join as a Member if you want to keep up to date with Wottler businesses, their business offerings and promotions, and leads they are looking for, and if you want to look out for referral leads for them. It only takes a minute to create a Member account, and is totally free.

Join as a Wottler business if you want to do the above AND ALSO want to create your own business profile and promote your business on WottleDo

What does WottleDo cost?

WottleDo will always be completely free for users with no business profile (Members).

At this early stage, WottleDo is free to join for business profile subscribers (Wottlers) as well.

Because WottleDo will not carry any 3rd party advertising (or allow advertisers to pay for information about Wottlers) Wottlers will eventually be asked to pay a small amount for their subscription (no more than £10/month).

Pricing and payment arrangements will be simple, cheap and transparent. And you will be given plenty of notice we are ready to start charging.

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Members

Who can be a Member?

Member membership is free for any individual.

How should I get started as a Member?

  1. Upload your contacts. Quickly and easily upload contacts' basic details from your address book, csv file or LinkedIn (first name, last name, email address).
  2. Find Wottlers who you know by doing a tailored search of the WottleDirectory. WottleDo will automatically recognize which of your uploaded contacts work for a Wottler business.
  3. Watch Wottlers. Start by Watching any Wottler which has invited you to Watch them (if you want). Start Watching any other Wottler you want. You will then receive a Watching Brief every time that Wottler chooses to inform you of any change in its business profile, eg any recent news, any leads it might be looking for, or any promotional deals.


How do I convert from a Member account to a Wottler?

You have 2 choices:

1. Open a new Wottler account. Click here to do this.

2. Convert your Member account to a Wottler account. When you do this, all your existing information (uploaded contacts, Wottlers you watch, Wottlerewards you have been invited on, Conversations) will carry across. Click here to do this.


You can also do this from your Member page. Click 'Account type: Member' at the top of your page. This will take you to your 'Account'. From there, click 'Convert to a Wottler account' to complete your registration.

NOTE: All Wottler accounts need a proprietary web domain (eg@[your business].com) in the designated email.

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Wottlers

Who can be a Wottler?

Subscription is available to any business entity:

  • Sole Trader
  • Partnership
  • Limited Company
  • A business in any other form

How should I get started as a Wottler?

Follow these 3 steps:

  1. Complete your profile / WottlePage

This should be a balance of useful general information about your business, as well as more up-to-date information about your business activity. To start with you should enter:

  • WottleBrief
  • Promotions
  • WottleWants

You can elect for your Watchers to receive Watching Briefs whenever you make changes to your WottlePage

Tip: Try and make your WottlePage interesting and easy-to-read

Tip: Don't forget to change your WottlePage from time to time, to keep your Watchers up-to-date. But don't abuse your Watchers' generosity by sending too many notifications

When you sign your business as a Wottler, you should place your WottlePage url on:

  • your website
  • social media sites
  • emails
  • postings on networking portals

  1. Upload your contacts

Easily upload contacts' basic details from your address book, csv file or LinkedIn (first name, last name, email address).

WottleDo will automatically recognise which of these work for a Wottler business.

Any time after uploading you can send them a once-only notification inviting them to Watch you. (Note: It's your responsibility not to use this facility as spam).

Tip: Get into the habit of uploading customers' contact details – inviting them to keep in touch by Watching you

  1. Find Wottlers

Find Wottlers who you know by doing a tailored search of the WottleDirectory. WottleDo will automatically recognize which of your uploaded contacts work for a Wottler business.

  1. Watch Wottlers.

Start by Watching any Wottler which has invited you to Watch them (if you want). Start Watching any other Wottler you want. You will then receive a Watching Brief every time that Wottler chooses to inform you of any change in its business profile, eg any recent news, any leads it might be looking for, or any promotional deals.

  1. Explore and experiment!

There is plenty more you can do. Why not:

  • Create and offer referral rewards (WottleRewards)?
  • Connect with other Wottlers, so you can;
    • Advocate each other
    • Champion each others' Promotions
    • Help each other be found in WottleDirectory searches tailored around business networks?

What is a WottleWant?

Post a WottleWant if you are looking for a lead to a potential collaborator, customer or supplier. Or anything else (so be creative!)

What are Promotions?

As a general rule, Promotions are used to set out current promotional offers.

Promotions are visible to any visitor on the site.

What is a Championed Promotion?

You can support your WottleContacts by 'Championing' their Promotions. These Promotions will then be seen by viewers of your WottlePage.

Whenever you add a Championed Promotion, you can elect for your Watchers to be notified by email.

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Watching

What is Watching?

When you elect to 'Watch' a Wottler, you will be emailed Watching Briefs when the Wottler updates their WottlePage which has on it:

  • Their WottleBrief (key business information and latest news)
  • their Promotions
  • Promotions of Wottlers Championed by them
  • their WottleWants

Watching helps business people spot opportunities for each other, and so become better networkers.

Tip: Watch your suppliers

Tip: Watch Wottlers if you are serious about keeping up to date with their businesses and spotting opportunities for them

How do I find Wottlers to Watch?

Do a tailored search of the WottleDirectory. Or, look though your list of imported contacts and if they have a Wottler icon against them, click on it.

How do I 'Watch' a Wottler?

On a Wottler's WottlePage, click 'Watch' in the 'possible actions' box.

What is the difference between 'visible' and 'invisible' Watching?

You can choose to watch Wottlers visibly or invisibly. Wottlers can see who is Watching them visibly, but they cannot see who is Watching them invisibly.

Wottlers have the option to disallow invisible Watching if they choose – in which case they can only be Watched visibly.

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WottleContacts

What is a WottleContact?

If two Wottlers are already closely connected or share a close connection they can invite each other to Connect as WottleContacts.

Why might I want to connect with another Wottler as a WottleContact?

  1. To support: WottleContacts can support each other by:
    • Championing each other's Promotions and
    • Advocating each other.

  2. To motivate: WottleContacts can motivate each other by inviting each other onto their WottleRewards.

  3. To find and be found: The WottleDirectory lets searchers find Wottlers who are WottleContacts of their own WottleContacts, and so on.

Tip: Make sure you already have a good relationship with a Wottler before inviting them to become a WottleContact

Who can I connect with as a WottleContact?

You can connect with another Wottler if:

  • You share a mutual WottleContact, OR
  • the other Wottler's designated email address shares a domain with one of your imported contacts

How do I find Wottlers who can become my WottleContacts?

Do a WottleDirectory search, using the appropriate filter buttons. These will help limit your search to Wottlers you could connect to, ie those with whom you share a mutual WottleContact and those whose designated email address shares a domain with one of your imported contacts.

How do I connect with a Wottler as a WottleContact?

Visit their WottlePage. In the 'possible actions' box, click the text 'invite to be a WottleContact'. Or you may receive an invite message from a Wottler, in which case you can click to accept.

How can I invite a Wottler to become a WottleContact, if I'm not given the option of sending an invitation to connect?

If you know the Wottler, start a Conversation with them, asking them to send you their designated WottleDo email address. When you have this information, you can import them as a contact and invite them to connect.

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Imported Contacts

Why might I want to import any contacts?

  1. Find, Focus, be Informed: Once you have imported contacts it is easy to do a WottleDirectory search to find Wottlers who share a domain (name@domain) with any imported contact. You might then choose to:
  • Watch that Wottler
  • Use the WottleDirectory to search that Wottler's WottleContacts
  • Invite that Wottler to connect as a WottleContact

  1. Inform, Motivate: Once a Wottler has imported contacts, it can:
  • Send them an email inviting them to Watch
  • Invite them on a WottleReward

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Advocates

What are Advocates?

If you are a Wottler and you have good experience of a WottleContact, you can Advocate them. This is much more powerful than a standard testimonial or recommendation.

When you Advocate a fellow Wottler, you are making someone in your business available to be contacted by anyone wanting to know more about that Wottler.

Tip: The best Advocates are happy customers. So be bold: ask customers to Watch and (hopefully) connect with and Advocate you.

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Conversations

What are Conversations?

Wottlers and Members can start and continue one-to-one conversations using WottleDo's messaging system.

Tip: Start a Conversation to find out more about a WottleWant or Promotion

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WottleRewards

What are WottleRewards?

Once you have set up your WottlePage, you can add WottleRewards. This means you can offer rewards to invited contacts when they bring you referrals.

Any payment you offer on your WottleReward will be known as a WottleReward.

Setting up a WottleReward: Exactly how you set up a WottleReward is up to you. You can set out detailed parameters of the deal using the formatted fields provided, or you may choose to set up your own tailored deal without these fields.

A formatted WottleReward will take this shape:

  1. What needs to happen to trigger a WottleReward?
  2. When does a trigger event need to have happened?
  3. How 'strong' does a referral need to be for it to qualify?
  4. What do you want to give as a WottleReward?
  5. When will you pay any WottleReward?
  6. Any other terms of the WottleReward

The person who sets up a WottleReward is known as the Rewarder. Those invited to participate in it are known as Rewardees

Once you have set up a WottleReward, you will not be able to change it. Thus, your Rewardee will have the comfort of knowing that your WottleReward will remain as it was when they first saw it.

If you do want to change a WottleReward, you will need to withdraw it and put up a new one. Those who have made referrals on a withdrawn WottleReward will continue to be able to view it.

Having set up a WottleReward, you can send a message to invited uploaded contacts and WottleContacts, to tell them about it.

Tip: You could have a standard WottleReward which stays live all the time, then add specific WottleRewards which would take precedence

Tip: WottleRewards need not just be a percentage of fee. They could take the form of gift items, vouchers, discounts, payments to a nominated charity, etc.

Grey Areas:

  • It is almost inevitable that there will be 'grey areas' in some WottleRewards.
  • This is why WottleRewards are stated as being not legally binding. You have complete discretion as to how to apply them.
  • In determining what is and is not a 'qualifying referral', you will need to use your discretion – and your sense of 'right and wrong' to decide what, if any, rewards should be given.

Does WottleDo take a cut of my referral reward (WottleDonation)?

No!

Why might it help me to offer WottleRewards?

Unless you state otherwise in your WottleReward, you only have to pay a WottleReward if you get paid for business you wouldn't have got but for the referral. So what have you got to lose? Nothing. And what have you got to gain? –new business leads; more profits; stronger business relationships…

What if I have a WottleReward I want to make available to all members of a particular group?

You could flag this up in your Promotions or WottleWant, saying you have a WottleReward available to them. You could then ask anyone in that group to send you a message with an email address so that you can upload them as a contact and formally invite them to be a Rewardee.

I give and receive successful referrals in my other networks, with no referral fees involved. So why should I offer them here?

WottleRewards are designed to encourage referrals to be made over and above the usual 'mutual referrals' ethos. (This ethos by itself does not result in anywhere near the number of referrals that would be made if there were more real and measurable incentives in place).

What if I make a referral leading to two people going into a venture together?

WottleRewards are primarily designed for situations whereby a supplier provides goods or services to a customer, but they can be tailored to apply to all sorts of referrals.

I already have a very good relationship with X, who makes referrals to me without asking for a fee.
Should I invite them on a WottleReward I am offering to others? (On the one hand I don't want to give money if I would receive the referral anyway. But on the other hand, it somehow doesn't seem right not to invite X on WottleRewards I am offering to others!)

It depends on your business philosophy. If you don't want to extend the deal to X, don't. OR you could agree that there is no reason not to extend your deal to X, particularly if you have bought into the WottleReward philosophy.

I have a good relationship with X, who makes referrals to me without asking for a reward. I have a weaker relationship with Y and we do offer each other referral rewards. I have the strongest relationship of all with Z who accepts referral rewards from me without giving any in return! How do I make sense of all this?

Good question!

I am the employee of a company. I want to make a WottleReward referral. Should I or my employer get the WottleReward?

The general rule in most countries is that if a referral is made as part of work, the employer should get the WottleReward. That said, you should always take your own legal advice.

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General

What do all these icons mean?

  • A Wottler
  • A Member
  • Wottler or Member you have invited on a WottleReward
  • Wottler which has invited you on a WottleReward
  • WottleContact you are Advocating
  • WottleContact Advocating you
  • Wottler you are visibly Watching
  • Wottler you are invisibly Watching
  • Wottler or Member visibly Watching you
  • Your WottleContact
  • Wottler with which you share a mutual WottleContact. (You could connect to this Wottler as a WottleContact)
  • WottleContact of secondlevel.
  • Wottler sharing an email domain with one of your uploaded contacts. (You could connect to this Wottler as a WottleContact)
  • WottleContact of
  • WottleContact of

Is there a risk that Wottlers could use messages generated through WottleDo to spam people?

We have tried to reduce the risk of spam in various ways:

  1. Any message sent using WottleDo can only be initiated by the sender. So it is up to each Wottler how it wishes to manage its reputation in the way it uses WottleDo.

    There are just two types of message Wottlers can send to their imported contacts:

    1. A notification email inviting selected imported contacts to Watch them on WottleDo.

      • Wottlers can choose which of their imported contacts they send these emails to. Wottlers should not send this email unless they think the recipient would be happy to receive it
      • Wottlers can only send this email once to any imported contact

    2. An email inviting selected imported contacts to be Rewardees on a WottleReward.
      • Wottlers can invite their imported contacts on more than one WottleReward. Again, Wottlers should not send this email unless they think the recipient would be happy to receive it
    • Any non-subscriber who receives these emails can unsubscribe from any further emails sent through WottleDo. So please:
      • only send messages if you know the recipient(s) well enough to send them!
      • do not damage your reputation and ours by messaging people who you think may click the 'unsubscribe' button

  2. Any other messages using WottleDo are only sent on a personal one-to-one basis between subscribers (Wottlers or Members).

    Although subscribers agree, by default, to be sent messages through WottleDo, the Preferences section offers them a range of options about which messages they choose to receive.

Why do you send two emails when I forget my password?

For your safety. The first email is sent to establish that the email address you have given is genuine. Once you click on this, we send you a second email with your new password. You can then use this to log on.

Is WottleDo supported by iPads?

Unfortunately iPads do not enable certain scrolling functions and other less important functions which are used by WottleDo (and many other websites). We are looking into how we can make WottleDo more 'iPad-friendly'.

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