Posts Tagged ‘Business advice’
Tuesday, May 17th, 2011
 SafetyWeb.com has identified the major threats to security and privacy for businesses. They are:
1. Data Breach Resulting From Poor Networking Choices
Cisco. Sun. These are enterprise-level networking choices that are found in large IT departments around the world. The price tags, however, price small or medium business out of the market. If these businesses have networks at all, they may use networking devices targeted at home users. Some may forgo the use of routers at all, plugging directly into the Internet. Business owners can block most threats by using a quality router, like a NETGEAR or Buffalo brand router and making sure to change the router password from the default.
2. Data Breach Resulting From Improper Shredding Practices
Dumpster diving identity thieves target businesses that throw out paperwork without shredding it. Most home shredders will suffice for small businesses in a pinch, but a commercial shredder is a wise investment if private information is printed and shredded daily.
3. Identity Theft Resulting From Public Databases
Individuals, especially business owners, often publish lots of information about themselves in public databases. Businesses are registered with the county clerk, telephone numbers are in the phone book, many individuals have Facebook profiles with their address and date of birth. Many identity thieves can use information searchable publicly to construct a complete identity.
4. Identity Theft Resulting from Using a Personal Name Instead of Filing a DBA
Sole-proprietors that do not take the time to file a Doing Business As application are at a far higher risk of identity theft due to their personal name, rather than their business names, being published publicly.
5. Tax Records Theft Around Tax Time
Businesses must ensure that tax returns are dropped off at the post office and refunds are collected promptly from the mailbox. Identity thieves often steal tax returns from an outbox or mailbox.
6. Bank Fraud Due To Gap in Protection or Monitoring
Business owners know that it is vital to balance their accounts every month to ensure that checks are not being written out of business funds by embezzlers, but many businesses rarely, if ever, check what kind of credit accounts have been opened under the business name. Monitoring services like myID.com can alert business owners when new credit accounts are opened fraudulently.
7. Poor E-mailing Standards
Many businesses treat e-mails as confidential communications, but this is far from the case. They are available to a number of people other than the recipient. It’s more appropriate to treat e-mails as postcards, rather than sealed letters.
8. Failing to Choose a Secure Password
In fact, many security experts are recommending the use of a pass phrase, rather than a pass word. Pass phrases are several words long, at least three, and are far more secure than passwords. A pass phrase like “friday blue jeans” can be typed far quicker than a complicated password, and it doesn’t need to be written down on a post-it.
9. Not Securing New Computers or Hard Drives
Businesses that had their IT system professionally installed may opt to upgrade a computer or two by themselves. This is strongly discouraged on a business network, as new computers must be professionally secured or else they pose a serious threat and an entry point for hackers.
10. Social Engineering
Social engineers are individuals that call and claim they are from another organization. They may even claim to be with a firm that a business owner does business with. If someone you do not know calls on the phone, be sure that it is the person you think it is before revealing passwords or confidential information.
Tags: Best Practices, Business advice, SafetyWeb.com, top ten privacy and security threats to business
Posted in Business advice, Internet/New Media, IT, Security | 1 Comment »
Monday, May 16th, 2011
 Jim Muehlhausen As recovery creeps up on the U.S. economy like molasses going uphill in the winter time, small businesses are starting to feel the pressure ease, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to go back to “business as usual.”
That’s the opinion of consultant Jim Muehlhausen, CPA and author of The 51 Fatal Business Errors and How To Avoid Them(www.51errors.com). He wants to help owners keep their cool as the economy starts to warm up. He has narrowed down the reasons why small businesses tank during the lean times.
Small businesses face more challenges than the large corporations with huge cash reserves to help them through financial crises. They are more susceptible to market fluctuations, have fewer clients to support them and generally have more transient staff. On the flip side, they also make up 70 percent of the businesses in the U.S., so as goes small business, so goes the economy. Small business:
- Represents 99.7 percent of all employer firms.
- Employs about half of all private sector employees.
- Pays nearly 45 percent of total U.S. private payroll.
- Has generated 60 to 80 percent of new jobs over the last decade.
- Hires 40 percent of high-tech workers (such as scientists, engineers, and computer workers).
In order to prevent the ensuing panic and confusion to consume your business, Muehlhausen has devised six basic rules that can help steer businesses clear of the pitfalls of recession:
- Focus – Pay more attention to your business model and your business, and pay less attention to the economy. Keep your eyes on the road, and not the landscape, and you’ll get where you’re going.
- Don’t Throw the Hail Mary – Don’t make dramatic changes. Work on the tactics already in front of you. Keep moving and keep working at the tasks that have traditionally helped your company succeed and don’t count on that big order or some other source of instant salvation.
- Stop Fretting – This is a terrific time to tune up systems, make large time investments in future products/services that you just did not have time for when times were good. Rather than lamenting bad times and wasting time on activities aimed at making things better right now, focus on two years from now while everyone else is short-term focused.
- Buy a competitor – Now is a great time to buy weaker competitors. Prices are low and rolling their business into yours can add valuable employees and sales at bargain prices.
- It’s not the economy, it’s your model – The weak economy has hit businesses with weak business models MUCH harder than those with solid models. If the economy has hit you hard, this is not bad karma. It is a sign that you need to tune up your business model.
- Ignore Web 2.0 at your peril – Yes, Web 2.0 is just as valid for B2B as it is for B2C. Web 2.0 has very little to with Facebook and Twitter. At its core, Web 2.0 is nothing more than an automated referral system. If your business does not need additional referrals, ignore Web 2.0, but beware that traditional marketing methods will continue to loose effectiveness while Web 2.0 methods will continue to improve.
“Decisions made out of panic and anxiety are rarely, if ever, the right ones,” Muehlhausen said. “I’m not sure there is a single business book or consulting firm that has recommended running scared when times are bad. That being said, far too many business owners let fear affect them and their choices.
Times are not great, but people still have money and companies are still spending. For every business that is closing, ten more are surviving. So, relax, focus and get smart about how to navigate the tough times. You may find you wind up doing even better than before.”
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Tags: Business advice, Jim Muehlhausen, Six tips for steering clear of small business pitfalls, Viewpoint
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Monday, May 9th, 2011
By David M. Mastovich
 David M. Mastovich What do senior leaders of organizations, regardless of size or industry, think when they are asked to commit more resources to messaging and selling?
While those working in the field talk about different disciplines like Marketing, Public Relations, Sales, Communications and Advertising, decision makers tend to lump them all together and ask:
Do we really need to do that?
How much is this going to cost me?
How will we know if it is working or not?
Isn’t (Insert name of person or department) responsible for that?
Focus on ROI needed
Marketing and messaging professionals are quick to passionately explain why their recommendations are vital to the organization. However, they often do not focus enough on the Return on Investment in terms CEO’s, entrepreneurs and CFO’s are accustomed to hearing and end up without the buy-in necessary for success.
Senior leaders also tend to lose patience with multiple departments or vendors (PR, Sales, Marketing, Corporate Communications, etc.) that rarely communicate with each other as well as they should. Each function or area sees things in their own biased way.
Sales thinks they’re king because they bring in the business. Others find them arrogant and demanding. Advertising sees themselves as cool and full of big ideas. Others see them as full of something else. PR talks about framing the message while other departments wonder what they really do. The list could go on and on. The end result is a perception among senior leaders that these areas are inefficient cost centers with overlapping, duplicative efforts.
Organizations often talk about getting these departments to work together more but become frustrated with mixed results attributed to the type of work and workers involved. Phrases like “You know those creative people,” or “He’s a marketing guy, they’re different,” are used to explain it away.
How can organizations overcome this vicious cycle of frustration?
Five Steps to Integration
Senior leaders need to champion the idea of creating a true integrated marketing and PR program and then focus on these five strategic initiatives to make it happen:
- Develop mutually agreed upon target markets that the organization and its messaging and selling efforts will focus on. Far too often, target markets are described in broad or general terms. Drill down each target audience into manageable market segments then make sure each department knows and agrees on the segmented target markets. For example, Sales often overlooks the importance of employees as a key target market while Corporate Communications clearly sees this group as vital. Marketing/Advertising sometimes focuses so much on the creative message but forgets that the target audience has to see or hear it when they are able and willing to buy. Taking the time to clearly communicate information about the target market segments is the first step toward successful integration.
- Find out what each target market wants by asking them, through multiple channels. While engaging a market research firm is the most formal of research methods, don’t overlook other ways to learn about target markets. Your Sales team can ask customers and prospects what they think and track the results. Corporate Communications should be able to easily survey employees. Your methodology doesn’t have to be perfect. The key takeaway is that you should ask your customers, internal and external, what they think and act accordingly.
- Develop a consistent message and require that each department live by it. Be vigilant about message integrity and consistency but also be flexible. For example, your sales team isn’t going to use the slogan from your advertising all the time. Tweak the messaging accordingly for each target market but ensure that the overall theme and key message points are still being conveyed. Consider secret shopping so that you are more aware of what your customers are really seeing and hearing.
- Work with each department or vendor on clearly defining their goals and the market forces that impact their ability to achieve those goals. Develop a summary of each department or vendor’s specific roles and their strengths. Then, convey these key points to everyone involved. The goal is to increase the level of understanding and respect across functions.
- Instill a Corporate-Wide Marketing ROI focus. Challenge your marketing and messaging professionals to provide rationale in terms of Marketing ROI Success Metrics. Ask them to work in conjunction with Finance to build the metrics. Then, report the success metrics to leaders and managers throughout the organization. The more everyone understands the marketing, selling and messaging goals and processes, the better.
Developing a true Integrated Marketing, PR and Selling program doesn’t just happen. But once you invest the time and effort, you will reap the benefits of a positive Marketing ROI.
David M. Mastovich, MBA is President of MASSolutions, Inc. With a core philosophy of integrated marketing, MASSolutions focuses on improving the bottom line for clients through creative selling, messaging and PR solutions. In his recent book, “Get Where You Want To Go: How to Achieve Personal and Professional Growth Through Marketing, Selling and Story Telling,” Mastovich offers strategies to improve sales and generate new customers; management and leadership approaches; and creative marketing, PR and communications ideas. For more information, see: massolutions.biz.
Tags: Best Practices, Business advice, David Mastovich, true integrated marketing, Viewpoint
Posted in Business advice, Internet/New Media, Marketing, Viewpoint | Comments Off
Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011
 ATLANTA – A study of Fortune 50 companies by digital agency IQ, reveals how corporate leaders are using Twitter to connect with their customers. The study explores how major brands respond to different types of Tweets from their followers.
“When a customer tweets a company and they tweet back, it can do good or evil for the brand. It’s all in how you do it,” said Sarah McFather, a social media strategist at IQ and author of the study. “Simply varying the tone or degree of personalization in a response can change the brand impression completely.”
Five key Twitter best practices were clearly demonstrated by brands such as HP, UPS, Wells Fargo and GM:
1. Clearly label the purpose of your Twitter account.
2. Make it very clear who you are when you reply.
3. Keep the tone light and friendly.
4. Be as quick as possible in responding.
5. Make sure you respond.
“It’s amazing to us that some major brands don’t have a full social media strategy in place.” said McFather, “It’s very dangerous for a brand to not listen or respond to their customers in this era of social media.”
The study is available at www.iqagency.com/twitter-best-practices.
Tags: Atlanta, Business advice, IQ, study, Twitter best practices for business
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Friday, April 29th, 2011
 John Hamm Do your employees trust you? The brutal truth is probably not. It may not be fair, and you may not want to hear it, but chances are that previous leaders have poisoned the ground on which you’re trying to grow a successful business.
Make no mistake: Unless you and all the leaders in your organization can gain the trust of your employees, performance will suffer. And considering how tough it is to survive in today’s business environment, that’s very bad news for your company.
Why is trust so pivotal? According to John Hamm, it’s a matter of human nature: When employees don’t trust their leaders, they don’t feel safe. And when they don’t feel safe, they don’t take risks—and where there is no risk taken, there is less innovation, less “going the extra mile,” and therefore, very little unexpected upside.
“Feeling safe is a primal human need,” says Hamm, author of Unusually Excellent: The Necessary Nine Skills Required for the Practice of Great Leadership (Jossey-Bass/A Wiley Imprint, February 2011, ISBN: 978-0-47092843-1, $24.95, www.unusuallyexcellent.com). “When that need isn’t met, our natural response is to focus energy toward a showdown with the perceived threat.
“Our attention on whatever scares us increases until we either fight or run in the other direction, or until the threat diminishes on its own,” he adds. “Without trust, people respond with distraction, fear, and, at the extreme, paralysis. And that response is hidden inside ‘business’ behaviors—sandbagging quotas, hedging on stretch goals, and avoiding accountability or commitment.”
Hamm calls trustworthiness “the most noble and powerful of all the attributes of leadership.” He says leaders become trustworthy by building a track record of honesty, fairness, and integrity. For Hamm, cultivating this trust isn’t just a moral issue; it’s a practical one.
“Trust is the currency you will need when the time comes for you to make unreasonable performance demands on your teams,” he explains. “And when you’re in that tight spot, it’s quite possible that the level of willingness your employees have to meet those demands could make or break your company.”
Hamm has spent his career studying the practitioners of great leadership via his work as a CEO, venture capitalist, board member, high-level consultant, and professor of leadership at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University. In his new book, he shares what he has learned and brings those lessons to life with real-world stories.
In his book Hamm explains that most employees have been hurt or disappointed, at some point in their careers, by the hand of power in an organization. That’s why nine times out of ten leaders are in “negative trust territory” before they make their first request of an employee to do something. Before a team can reach its full potential, leaders must act in ways that transcend employees’ fears of organizational power.
The first step starts with you, Hamm notes. As a leader, you must “go first”—and model trustworthiness for everyone else. Being trustworthy creates trust, yes. But beyond that, there are very specific things you can do to provide Unusually Excellent, trust-building leadership at your organization:
First, realize that being trustworthy doesn’t mean you have to be a Boy Scout. You don’t even have to be a warm or kind person, says Hamm. On the contrary, history teaches us that some of the most trustworthy people can be harsh, tough, or socially awkward—but their promises must be inviolate and their decisions fair.
“As anachronistic as it may sound in the twenty-first century, men and women whose word is their honor, and who can be absolutely trusted to be fair, honest, and forthright, are more likely to command the respect of others than, say, the nicest guy in the room,” says Hamm. “You can be tough. You can be demanding. You can be authentically whoever you really are. But as long as you are fair, as long as you do what you say consistently, you will still be trusted.”
Look for chances to reveal some vulnerability. We trust people we believe are real and also human (imperfect and flawed)—just like us. And that usually means allowing others to get a glimpse of our personal vulnerability—some authentic (not fabricated) weakness or fear or raw emotion that allows others to see us as like them, and therefore relate to us at the human level.
Hamm offers Carl, a self-made success and CEO of a venture-backed software company, as a great example. Carl had a Ph.D. and held senior management positions at several large IT companies. But he came from a family with humble roots. In fact, he was the first kid in his family to go to college. The stories Carl used when leading his team came from his own rural upbringing.
He told them from the heart and with great humility. He would emphasize a point not by reference to some academic theory, but rather with a story about working in the corn fields. His team not only trusted him more because he wasn’t afraid to show that side of himself, but they loved him for it.
“Carl knew that if he was authentic, it would be much easier for him to earn his team’s trust,” says Hamm. “The best leaders consciously present themselves as accessible and open and vulnerable—that is, they talk about their fears, challenges, and failures with humility, candor, and at times even some humor—so as to break down the barriers with those whom they wish to know. They know this does not threaten their power, but, rather, increases their influence.”
No matter how tempted you are, don’t bullsh*t your employees. Tell the truth, match your actions with your words, and match those words with the truth we all see in the world: no spin, no BS, no fancy justifications or revisionist history—just tell the truth.
“Telling the truth when it is not convenient or popular, or when it will make you look bad, can be tough,” admits Hamm. “Yet, it’s essential to your reputation. Your task as a leader is to be as forthright and transparent as is realistically possible. Strive to disclose the maximum amount of information appropriate to the situation.
When you feel yourself starting to bend what you know is the truth or withhold the bare facts, find a way to stop, reformat your communication, and tell the truth.”
Never, ever make the “adulterer’s guarantee.” This happens when you say to an employee, in effect, “I just lied to (someone else), but you can trust me because I’d never lie to you.” When an employee sees you committing any act of dishonesty or two-facedness, they’ll assume that you’ll do the same to them. They’ll start thinking back through all of their conversations with you, wondering what was real and what was disingenuous.
In his book, Hamm describes an incident that took place at a famous, fast-growing technology company. A young, inexperienced, but talented associate had what he thought was a plan for a powerful new marketing initiative. So he asked the CMO to broker a meeting with the CEO to make a presentation on the subject. The CMO agreed, and the meeting took place.
During the presentation the CEO was polite, if noncommittal. He gave the presenter a sort of passive accepting feedback—“Nice point,” “Interesting,” and so on—and wrapped up the meeting quickly, thanking the presenter for his initiative. But the CMO could sense a duplicity in the CEO’s behavior and attitude as the parties all headed back to their respective offices.
Then, ten minutes after the meeting, the CEO called the CMO into his office and said, in essence, “That presentation was absolutely terrible. That guy’s an idiot. I want you to fire him, today.”
“The story of this harsh and unjust firing spread (as it always does) throughout the company, morale slipped, and the CMO never completely trusted his boss again,” writes Hamm. “The CEO’s reputation for trustworthiness had been wounded forever. The wreckage from one seemingly small act of dishonesty was strewn all over the company and could never be completely cleaned up.”
Don’t punish “good failures.” This is one of the stupidest things an organization can do—yet it happens all the time. A “good failure” is a term used in Silicon Valley to describe a new business start-up or mature company initiative that, by most measures, is well planned, well run, and well organized—yet for reasons beyond its control (an unexpected competitive product, a change in the market or economy) it fails.
In other words, “good failures” occur when you play well, but still lose. When they’re punished, you instill a fear of risk-taking in your employees, and with that you stifle creativity and innovation. Instead, says Hamm, you should strive to create a “digital camera” culture.
“There is no expense associated with an imperfect digital photograph—financial or otherwise,” he explains. “You just hit the ‘delete’ button, and it disappears. No wasted film, slides, or prints. And we are aware of this relationship between mistakes and the consequences when we pick up the camera—so we click away, taking many more photos digitally than we would have in a world of costly film.
Because we know failure is free, we take chances, and in that effort we often get that one amazing picture that we wouldn’t have if we were paying a price for all the mistakes.”
Don’t squelch the flow of “bad” news. Do you (or others under you) shoot the messenger when she brings you bad news? If so, you can be certain that the messenger’s priority is not bringing you the information you need: It’s protecting her own hide. That’s why in most organizations good news zooms to the top of the organization, while bad news—data that reveals goals missed, problems lurking, or feedback that challenges or defeats your strategy—flows uphill like molasses in January.
“We must install a confidence and a trust that leaders in the organization value the facts, the truth, and the speed of delivery, not the judgments or interpretations of ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ and that messengers are valued, not shot,” says Hamm. “Make it crystal clear to your employees that you expect the truth and nothing but the truth from them. And always, always hold up your end of that deal. Don’t ever shoot the messenger and don’t ever dole out some irrational consequence.
“Unusually excellent leaders build a primary and insatiable demand for the unvarnished facts, the raw data, the actual measurements, the honest feedback, the real information,” he adds. “Very few efforts will yield the payback associated with improving the speed and accuracy of the information you need most to make difficult or complex decisions.”
Constantly tap into your “fairness conscience.” Precise agreements about what is fair are hard to negotiate, because each of us has our own sense of fairness. But at the level of general principle, there is seldom any confusion about what fair looks like. Just ask yourself: Would most people see this as fair or unfair? You’ll know the answer (indeed, as a leader, you’re paid to know it).
“If you treat your followers fairly, and do so consistently, you will set a pattern of behavior for the entire organization,” says Hamm. “This sense of fairness, critical to the creation of a safe environment, can be reinforced not only by complimenting fair practices but also by privately speaking to—or if necessary, censuring—subordinates who behave unfairly to others in the organization.”
Don’t take shortcuts. Every organization wants to succeed. That’s why, inevitably, there is a constant pressure to let the end justify the means. This pressure becomes especially acute when either victory or failure is in immediate sight. That’s when the usual ethical and moral constraints are sometimes abandoned—always for good reasons, and always “just this once”—in the name of expediency.
“Sometimes this strategy even works,” says Hamm. “But it sets the precedent for repeatedly using these tactics at critical moments—not to mention a kind of ‘mission creep’ by which corner-cutting begins to invade operations even when they aren’t at a critical crossroads.”
Plus, when employees see you breaking the “code” of organizational honor and integrity to which your company is supposed to adhere, they lose trust in you.
“Betray your organization’s stated values when you’re feeling desperate—by lying to clients or ‘spinning’ the numbers to get out of trouble with your boss—and you devalue the importance of trust and honesty in their eyes,” adds Hamm. “They see you breaking your own rules and suddenly they see you as less trustworthy. After all, if the client or the company’s executive suite can’t trust you, why should they?”
Separate the bad apples from the apples who just need a little direction. The cost of untruths to an organization can be huge in terms of time, money, trust, and reputation. As a leader, you have to recognize that you are not going to be able to “fix” a thief, a pathological liar, or a professional con artist—all of these must go, immediately.
“In my coaching practice, there are three failure modes that I will decline to coach: integrity, commitment, and chronic selfishness, that is, manipulating outcomes for individual gain at the expense of the larger opportunity,” says Hamm. “These are character traits, not matters of skill, practice, knowledge, or experience.
“That said, one huge mistake leaders make is to doubt or distrust someone because their work or performance disappoints us,” he adds. “Performance problems should be managed fairly and with little judgment of the person’s underlying character, unless that is the issue at the root of the trouble. Ultimately, unlike my failure modes, improving performance is often merely a matter of feedback, course correction, and some coaching.”
“Trustworthiness is never entirely pure,” says Hamm. “Everyone fails to achieve perfection. So the goal for a leader is to make those wrong choices as rarely as possible; admit them quickly, completely, and with humility; fix them as quickly as you can; and make full recompense when you cannot. Trust is the most powerful, and most fragile, asset in an organization, and it is almost exclusively created, or hampered, by the actions of the senior leader on the team.
“A working environment of trust is a place where teams stay focused, give their utmost effort, and in the end do their best work,” he concludes. “It’s a place where we can trust ourselves, trust others, trust our surroundings, or—best of all—trust all three.”
John Hamm is one of the top leadership experts in Silicon Valley. He was named one of the country’s Top 100 venture capitalists in 2009 by AlwaysOn and has led investments in many successful high-growth companies as a partner at several Bay Area VC firms. Hamm has also been a CEO, a board member at over thirty companies, and a CEO adviser and executive coach to senior leaders at companies such as Documentum, Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, TaylorMade-adidas Golf and McAfee. John teaches leadership at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University.
TechJournal South is a TechMedia company. TechMedia presents the annual conferences:
SoutheastVentureConference: www.seventure.org
Internet Summit: www.internetsummit.com
Digital East: www.digitaleast.com
Digital Summit: www.digitalsummit.com
Tags: Best Practices, Business advice, Nine skills required for great company leadership, Unusually Excellent, Viewpoint
Posted in Business advice, Reviewed, Tech Culture, Viewpoint | Comments Off
Thursday, April 28th, 2011
 A long-time consultant is offended by something a new salesperson said on a conference call and is threatening to leave. And an employee in marketing is furious about being passed over for a promotion in favor of her coworker and is trying to discredit her.
These are just a couple of examples of the workplace conflicts that take up 42 percent of the typical manager’s time. The trick to moving past these conflicts and on to increased productivity for everyone at your organization, says Steven Dinkin, is knowing how to broach the topics in a way that leads to improved working relationships.
“Disagreements, disputes, and honest differences are normal in any workplace,” says Dinkin, coauthor along with Barbara Filner and Lisa Maxwell of The Exchange: A Bold and Proven Approach to Resolving Workplace Conflict (CRC Press, 2011, ISBN: 978-1-4398529-8-9, $39.95, www.ncrconline.com).
“When these normal occurrences are treated as opportunities for exploring new ideas about projects, they can become catalysts for increased energy and productivity. Getting to that place starts with an honest discussion.”
Dinkin knows what he is talking about. He, Filner, and Maxwell have spent years heading up the National Conflict Resolution Center. Their new book supplies readers with proven tools for resolving emotionally charged disputes.
The Exchange itself is a four-stage, structured process specifically designed to encourage discussion of all the issues in dispute—even the intense, emotional issues—in ways that are more productive than a gripe session. It derives from the conflict resolution model used successfully by National Conflict Resolution Center mediators for more than 25 years and includes constructive techniques to use in face-to-face meetings with disputing or disruptive employees. You can use this process to break down barriers—and to create changes that have a positive effect on your whole workforce.
It’s important to note that The Exchange was designed by mediators for managers. Managers learn a structure and skills similar to those mediators know and use, but it also takes into account managers’ responsibilities, both to their companies and their employees.
“A key difference between managers and mediators,” Dinkin explains, “is that managers are not expected to be neutral. They have the responsibility of reinforcing the interests of the department and the company for which they work. The Exchange teaches managers the right combination of skills and structure, as well as the finesse, to express the needs of the company.
“The Exchange begins with you—the manager—and ends with employees meeting with the manager to develop effective solutions,” he adds. “Like most managers, you probably did not set out to be a conflict resolver. And you probably find it more than a little frustrating to be your company’s resident fire chief. The Exchange teaches you to resist the temptation to simply tell people what to do. Actively engaging your employees in problem solving helps them take responsibility for the problem and for the solution. When you know how to address workplace conflicts properly, these challenging situations can lead to creative resolutions that re-energize the workplace and bring new ideas to old problems.”
The following tips—excerpted from The Exchange—will teach you how to turn your next meeting with conflicting employees into a productive conversation.
Start with an icebreaker. Most people will be ready to complain, debate, or argue at the beginning of any conflict-based conversation. They have marshaled their most compelling arguments and are ready for battle. If you go straight to the topic of controversy, most people will quickly get stuck in defending their positions and attacking their opponents.
“That’s why you need to do something different,” says Dinkin. “The Exchange teaches that you should begin with an icebreaker. This is not just a light introductory activity. It is a way to non-confrontationally initiate a conversation about difficult issues. An ideal icebreaker asks for a person’s own take on something that’s both work-related and positive. For example, if the conflict involves two employees involved in the same project, you might break the ice by asking each of them how they became involved in the project and what they hoped to achieve.”
Listen. Conflict resolution is tricky because too many managers ignore the fact that sometimes what they aren’t saying is more important than what they are saying. Often the best resolutions come from listening carefully to what the other person has to say. Being an active listener sends the message that you are genuinely concerned about him or her and the dispute. Put plain and simply, it’s the best way to get good information.
“Ask an open-ended question,” advises Dinkin. “It can be as simple as, ‘So, tell me, what’s going on?’ Then listen carefully to that person’s side of the story. You’ll know it’s time to insert yourself into the conversation when the discussion turns negative.
“You can acknowledge someone’s emotions without seeming like you are taking his or her side,” says Dinkin. “Especially at the beginning of talking about a conflict, you’re building rapport, even if it’s with an employee you’ve spoken with millions of times before. When there’s a conflict, you’re treading on new ground, and showing that person you are willing to see his or her side of the story is how you will set the foundation for working toward a solution.”
Use and encourage positive language. This one might seem like a no-brainer, but any frustrated manager knows how easy it can be to slip into negativity after a conflict has affected a workgroup. Always think before you speak. Use positive, easy-to-understand language. Don’t fall into repeating, verbatim, paragraphs from your company’s HR manual.
“Remember, you’re having a conversation, not a trial,” says Dinkin. “If you keep the language positive, whoever you’re addressing will likely mirror what you’re doing. Even referring to the department’s needs can be stated in very positive terms, which will lead to a more collaborative (rather than punitive) tone in the discussion. For example, if the manager says, ‘This has increasingly affected the entire team, and we need to address it so we can get everyone focused back on the project goals and having a comfortable working environment. I am looking forward to establishing a good working relationship between the two of you and improving morale for everyone on the team,’ it will set a constructive atmosphere. When you keep things positive, you can work toward great solutions efficiently and effectively.”
Work toward SMART solutions. Sustainable solutions are SMART solutions. That means they’re:
Specific: Be clear about who will do what, when, where, and how.
Measurable: Be clear about how you will all be able to tell that something has been done, achieved, or completed.
Achievable: Make sure that whatever solution you agree on fits the situation; that it complies with both the law and organizational policy; that everyone involved has the ability and opportunity to do what is required of them. Don’t set up anyone to fail.
Realistic: Check calendar dates for holidays and vacations; look at past performance to predict future actions; allow extra time for glitches and delays; don’t assume that the best-case scenarios will come true.
Timed: Create reasonable deadlines or target dates; include a few ideas about what to do if something unexpected occurs; be willing to set new dates if necessary.
“Once you have your SMART solutions in place, immediately put them in writing,” says Dinkin. “Putting solutions in writing is very important, and not just for legal reasons (and for covering your back). It’s a way to honor the work that you and your employees have accomplished. It’s also a way to keep people’s memories from diverging from the agreed-upon solutions. Verbal agreements have a way of being remembered very differently by different people—and then becoming the subject of another conflict. It’s safer and easier for everyone to have the solutions written down, in order to be able to easily verify them later.”
“Disputes, full of emotional complexities and interpersonal histories, are the headaches of the workplace,” concludes Dinkin. “They’re always going to pop up, even in the most cordial of workplace environments. The good news is that when you’re armed with the tools you need to work toward productive resolutions, you and your employees can use them to strengthen your organization rather than harm it.”
Steven P. Dinkin is president of NCRC. He received his law degree from George Washington University, where he taught a mediation clinic as an adjunct law professor. He has also taught mediation courses in the United States, Europe, and Latin America. For several years with the Center for Dispute Settlement in Washington, D.C., Steve served as an employment and workplace mediator for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and other federal agencies. In 2003, he moved to San Diego to lead NCRC. His experience managing a talented and opinionated staff has contributed to the realism of this book.
Barbara Filner was the director of training for NCRC from 1984-2010. She currently works as a consultant for NCRC. Barbara has a master’s degree in teaching from Indiana University and has worked as a teacher, a labor union official, and an analyst in local and state government.
Lisa Maxwell is currently the director of the training institute at NCRC. She has traveled all over the world as a trainer for NCRC for almost 20 years.
Tags: Barbara Filner, Best Practices, Business advice, conflict resolution at work, Lisa Maxwell, National Conflict Resoltution Center, NCRC, Steven Dinkin
Posted in Business advice, Viewpoint | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, April 27th, 2011
 By Carl Van
“Everything you know is wrong. Black is white, up is down and short is long. And everything you thought was just so important… doesn’t really matter anymore.” “Everything You Know is Wrong.” – Weird Al Yankovic
If you are a fan of the show “Seinfeld,” you will remember an episode where George concludes that every single decision he made and every single approach he took in his past, was wrong. Every gut instinct he had always led him to disaster.
So he incorporates a new philosophy: if every single thing that he had ever done was wrong, then the opposite must be right. And from that point forward, instead of doing what he would normally do, he does the exact opposite. Of course things work out very well for him. He gets a new girlfriend, he gets a new job, and his life becomes quite blissful (for a while)
Sometimes, in order to be persuasive, businesspeople tend to argue and try to prove others wrong, which is the exact opposite of what you should do. In fact, those arguing will be very detailed in pointing out why other’s beliefs are wrong so they give in. This usually doesn’t work very well, and then you just have a battle on your hands that isn’t needed.
Negotiation Maxim #1: “Great negotiators never argue with reasons; they argue the facts.”
What are you negotiating? Negotiations are for cooperation. And when negotiating for cooperation, the very best negotiators never argue with people’s reasons; they argue with facts.
When you argue with someone’s reasons, you are trying to prove them wrong. In fact, most people believe in order to convince someone you’re right, you have to show them that they are wrong. It is just a natural response. It’s the old “let me show you that you are wrong so that you will see that I am right” impulse.
Negotiation Maxim #2: “You never have to prove anyone wrong; you only have to prove yourself right.”
So what do great negotiators do with people’s reason if not argue? Well, like George, try the opposite.
The opposite of proving someone wrong is to simply acknowledge where they are coming from. Effective communicators use the tool of acknowledgement to gain cooperation and save time.
In the event you are trying to be persuasive and gain someone’s cooperation, use these three steps:
1. Ask why they don’t want to cooperate
2. Acknowledge their reasons as valid
3. Return to the facts
Negotiation Maxim #3: “People will consider what you have to say, to the exact degree you demonstrate you understand their point of view.”
Here is an example. Mike works at a department store in the customer service area. His main job is to deal with people who want to get a refund for a product that did not meet their expectations or did not work properly. Rhonda is a recent customer who has brought in an item to return.
Mike: Okay, Rhonda, in order to process this return, all I need to do is get a statement from you on what was wrong with the product or how it didn’t meet your expectations.
Rhonda: I don’t want to give you that.
Mike: Well, why not?
Rhonda: Because, you will just use it against me.
Mike: Why would I use that against you? That doesn’t make any sense.
Notice how Mike immediately tried to show Rhonda she was wrong? Mike should remember three important things:
- People will consider what you have to say; to the exact degree you demonstrate you understand their point of view.
- Great negotiators never argue with reasons; they argue the facts.
- You never have to prove anyone wrong; you only have to prove yourself right.
Here is how Mike might have handled it.
Mike: Okay, Rhonda, in order to process this return, all I need to do is get a statement from you on what was wrong with the product or how it didn’t meet your expectations.
Rhonda: I don’t want to give you that.
Mike: Okay, can I ask why?
Rhonda: Because, you will just use it against me.
Mike: You know, Rhonda, if you don’t want to give me a statement about the product and why you’re returning it; because you are concerned that I am going to use it against you, then I can certainly understand why you don’t want to give me a statement. That makes sense
I just want to let you know that the purpose of the statement is not to use the information against you. In fact, the reason I need the statement is to document the file to be sure that you do get a full refund and that you do get everything that you are entitled to. If you’ll give me a statement of facts, I will be able to process your return and you can be on your way.
Did you see how Mike took the time to acknowledge Rhonda’s reasons and skillfully return to the facts at hand?
Notice what Mike did in this case. He completely reduced Rhonda’s uncooperativeness by acknowledging it. Notice he did not agree with it, and notice he did not say, “yes, you are right.” He simply acknowledged where Rhonda was coming from. He called the customer a reasonable person. She’s reasonable for the way she feels. The fact that Mike took the time to tell this customer that she was a reasonable person for the way she feels is going to allow her to change her mind (which, of course, is all he wanted in the first place).
Stop trying to prove other people wrong, and stick to proving yourself right. It’s easier and a whole lot less stressful.
Carl Van is a Professional Public Speaker and business course designer. He is President & CEO of his own international training company. He trains and speaks to audiences all over the United States and Canada on soft skills such as Customer Service and Branding, Negotiations, Time Management and of course Gaining Cooperation. His new book, “Gaining Cooperation” is available on Amazon.com. Mr. Van is available for Guest Speaking and can be reached at www.CarlVan.org or www.facebook.com/carlvanspeaker.
TechJournal South is a TechMedia company. TechMedia presents the annual conferences:
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Tags: 3 maxims for successful negotiations, Best Practices, Business advice, Carl Van, gaining cooperation
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Monday, April 25th, 2011
By Joelle Jay, Ph.D.
 Joelle Jay High achievers… go-getters… type-A personalities… Whatever you call them, one thing is certain: these people want to do it all, and they want to it all…right now.
While having many lofty and simultaneous goals is a good thing, doing too many things at once can make you feel overwhelmed and stressed out. There just never seems to be enough time to make everything happen. But that doesn’t stop high achievers. They are determined to make everything happen, even if doing so ruins their day and everyone else’s in the process.
Realize that the answer to getting everything done isn’t about doing less, especially since high achievers gain great happiness from getting many things accomplished. They’re determined to do whatever it takes to meet their objectives.
Rather, this is about having a system in place that can simplify the process of doing many things fast—one that will bring you progress as well as peace.
If you’re ready to supercharge the completion of your ‘to-do’ list without becoming overwhelmed or alienating others, the following five-step process will help you get it all done, with less stress and greater results.
1. Make a mess.
If you’re like most high achievers, you likely have numerous sticky notes, lists, files, piles, papers, and a host of other items spattered around your office, on your desk, and in your computer. Each one is meant to help you move forward to reaching your goals; however, as the piles and files grow, they become overwhelming, no matter how neatly you may have them organized. Therefore, begin by getting all of your ideas and notes in one place. Make a big pile of all the papers and items in the middle of your office floor or on your desk. Don’t leave anything out.
2. Sort and purge.
Now it’s time to roll up your sleeves and start digging. Go through your pile of “stuff” and look at each item to determine what you should keep and what you can toss. For each item, ask yourself,
• Is this idea or information still important to me?
• Can I retrieve this information from elsewhere should I ever need it?
• Is this information duplicated somewhere else?
• Will this information or idea help me reach one of my goals?
As you decide which items to keep, put them in separate piles or files as they relate to a particular goal or task.
3. Organize your list.
Look through all your “keep” papers and ideas to get clear on which goals are truly important to you and what steps you need to take. Put all your ideas and action items into one organized list, preferably on one page. You don’t have to painstakingly detail every action step at this point; the objective is to simply create one coherent ‘to-do’ list rather than have multiple ones floating around your office.
4. Rank the list in chronological order.
Redo your list one more time, now paying special attention to the order in which you feel you should do things. At this point, you can also add more detail to your action items. In other words, you can list not only what to do, but also how to do it, who to call for help, which resources you may need, etc. You may feel as if you’re wasting time here by going over the same tasks, but trying to rank your initial ideas in chronological order is difficult until you can see them all on paper at once.
5. Get going!
Now that all your ideas are organized, all you have to do is take action and tick off the tasks as they’re completed. No more thinking, planning, and organizing; it’s already done. And most important, no more confusion of what to do when. Just look at the list, take the top task, and knock it out. What could be easier?
Mission Complete
This process works for a variety of scenarios, including special event planning, home and family goals, work and business projects, as well as long-range strategizing for professional and personal objectives. And while it’s designed for high achievers who tend to have many high priority tasks going on at once, it works for anyone who simply wants to end the stress and chaos of having incomplete tasks hanging over their heads. By taking the time to complete this five-step process, you can finally meet all your goals and achieve the results you want.
Dr. Joelle K. Jay, Ph. D., is an executive coach and the senior managing partner of the leadership development firm, Pillar Consulting. She strategizes with business leaders to enhance their performance and maximize business results. Her clients include presidents, vice presidents, and C-level executives in Fortune 500 companies. Joelle is the author of “The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership.” For a free Sample Chapter, go to www.TheInnerEdge.com or email Info@TheInnerEdge.com.
Tags: Best Practices, Business advice, Five ways high achievers get things done, Joelle Jay, Viewpoint
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Friday, April 22nd, 2011
By Anthony Poillucci
 Tony Poillucci While analogies may not be the most sophisticated way of describing complex subjects, they tend to work pretty well for helping people understand a fairly abstract subject like Information Architecture (IA). When talking to clients about the importance, the cost and the time invested into something that they have probably never heard of, such as IA, I tend to use the following analogy.
What is Information Architecture?
Like building a custom house, a website redesign is a huge commitment. You would not dream of investing large sums of cash into a new home without a set of well-thought-out plans drafted by a proven professional who understands your specific needs. Neither should you commence a large scale website redesign without a well-thought-out IA done by an experienced professional who understands the goals of your organization. Essentially, the IA of your website is the blueprint and plans of your home.
Unfortunately, the IA phase is typically the most overlooked part of many large-scale website development projects. What IA allows you to do is to make sure that all decisions are carefully considered and tested before you bang that first nail.
A Space Designed for the Needs of the User
For your house, you have a set of needs. You might need three bedrooms, two and a half baths, a living room, a kitchen and perhaps that library you’ve always dreamed of. The arrangement of the space in a home can be compared to the arrangement of content types on your website. Just as the planning of a home’s space affects the way people are able to move around in it, the planning of a website’s content structure (its IA) affects the way your visitors navigate your website.
In your home, you would not put the kitchen on a different floor than the dining room, nor put the master bathroom in the basement, two floors away from the master bedroom. Instead, you would want to design the space in a way that makes sense for its use, so that people can intuitively find what they want.
In the same vein, your website needs to group “like content” together, so that users can find the information they are looking for and take the action they’ve come to the website to take. For example, if your organization is an institution of higher education, you don’t want students roaming around your website, frustrated that they can not find the course description they need any more than you want people roaming around your house, frustrated they can not find the guest bathroom.
The Foundation for a Successful User Experience
Like real architecture, IA is a complex discipline that requires analytical thinking, an understanding of user behavior and years of training and experience. My company has created complex IA for large-scale websites since the inception of the Web for clients ranging from a large global company’s intranet (with more than 400,000 pages) to dynamic publishing sites to entire university website redesigns.
Expertly crafted IA provides the foundation for a successful user experience. Before you get into design, coding or content development; you must develop an IA that will:
· Serve your users
· Inform intuitive navigation through content grouping, categorization and clear nomenclature (plain language)
· Inform page-level hierarchy
· Allow for growth in the future (so you do not have to tear down your site and start from scratch a couple of years from now)
· Serve SEO and searchability
· Inform visual design
With the right IA in place, users will be able to find what they are looking for quickly and easily, and they will not be calling you for help with information that should be readily located on the website.
Anthony Poillucci is vice president, Creative & Strategy at VisionPoint Marketing. For more information, call (919) 848-2018, visit visionpointmarketing.com, or send inquiries to info@visionpointmarketing.com.
TechJournal South is a TechMedia company. TechMedia presents the annual conferences:
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Internet Summit: www.internetsummit.com
Digital East: www.digitaleast.com
Digital Summit: www.digitalsummit.com
Tags: Anthony Poillucci, Best Practices, Business advice, Information architecture for website design, Viewpoint, VisionPoint Marketing
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Thursday, April 21st, 2011
 The best technology. The best employees. The biggest budget. The strongest R&D department. Check, check, check, and check! If you think these are all the elements you need in order to build a consistently successful company, you’re wrong. Dan Adams says there is one other factor you’ll need to check off that list—an innovation strategy that works.
“The best way to ensure your company will be a success is to deliver more than your share of customer value,” says Adams, author of New Product Blueprinting: The Handbook for B2B Organic Growth (AIM Press, 2008, ISBN: 978-0-9801123-4-4, $35.00.
“Specifically, you need to develop differentiated products that provide benefits your customers crave. Products they can’t get anywhere else at a comparable cost. But you shouldn’t be guessing what they want. You should base your product innovation on what they say they want.”
Take it to the next level. For more than five years, Adams has been helping B2B suppliers engage their customers in the innovation process. In that time, he has almost seen it all! And he’s used what he’s seen to distinguish six levels of customer engagement during product development. What’s your level?
Level 1: Our Conference Room: At the lowest level, you decide what customers want around your conference room table. Internal opinions determine the design of your next new product.
Level 2: Ask Our Experts: At the next level, you poll your sales force, tech service department, and other internal experts to determine customer needs. Better—because more voices are heard—but still too “internal.”
Level 3: Customer Survey: Here you use surveys and polls to ask customers what they want. This begins to shake out internal biases…but doesn’t deliver much in the way of deep insight.
Level 4: Qualitative VOC Interviews: You send out interview teams that meet with customers to learn what they want. This is a quantum leap from VOO (voice of ourselves) to VOC (voice of the customer).
Level 5: Quantitative VOC Interviews: The problem with just qualitative VOC is that people hear what they want to hear. Quantitative feedback drives out assumptions, bias, and wishful thinking.
Level 6: B2B VOC Interviews: Unlike end-consumers, B2B customers are knowledgeable, rational, and interested. B2B-optimized interview methodology fully engages them to take advantage of this.
“If you aren’t happy with your level, don’t worry,” says Adams. “Through solid training and committed leadership, I’ve seen businesses leap from Level 1 to 6 in the space of a year.”
Remember who’s showing you the money. A successful company innovates for its customers, not itself. “That’s because nobody inside your company can pay for innovation,” notes Adams. “Only your customers can do that. So the more closely you engage those who pay…the more you learn what they’ll pay for.”
Make sure you’re asking the right questions. Too often, innovation is misunderstood as the process of coming up with the right answers. “The reality is that it is actually about asking the right questions,” explains Adams. “If the bright people in your company are focused on real customer needs, they’ll run circles around the bright people at competitors who are focused elsewhere.”
Learn to pre-sell. “I believe the Booz Allen Hamilton conclusions are especially potent for the B2B supplier serving a concentrated market,” says Adams. “If you interview the ten largest prospects in your target market correctly, you’ll engage them so they’ll be primed to buy when you launch that new product.”
“So the bottom line is if you want to boost your innovation, you should start by directly engaging your customers,” says Adams. “And do this in a way that allows you to understand their world, focus on their important, unsatisfied needs, and entice them to keep working with you.
“This innovation strategy is great because you are removing the guessing game aspect of new product development,” he concludes. “You won’t have to worry about whether or not your customers will like your new products because you’ll already know you are delivering exactly what they want.”
TechJournal South is a TechMedia company. TechMedia presents the annual conferences:
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Internet Summit: www.internetsummit.com
Digital East: www.digitaleast.com
Digital Summit: www.digitalsummit.com
Tags: best pracitices, Business advice, customer value, Dan Adams, innovative prodcut development, New Product Blueprinting, Viewpoint
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Thursday, April 14th, 2011
 By Danita Johnson Hughes
Time gets lost. People kill time. Time flies. It gets wasted.
Time weighs heavy on our hands.
We spend time. Time passes. It drags on or it hurries by. Those behind bars are said to be doing time.
Sometimes, we have no time left; we’re out of time.
According to the great American inventor, Thomas Edison, “Time is really the only capital any human being has, and the one thing he can’t afford to waste.”
The perception of not having enough time for the things we must do or, just as importantly, the things we want to do is a leading cause of stress in society today. Continued exposure to stress can have an adverse effect on a person’s health, both physical and mental.
Interruptions hamper managing time
Because you spend a great deal of your time at work, meeting your employer’s expectations becomes increasingly important. Managing your time effectively, however, is often hampered by interruptions at work. Constant interruptions can significantly hinder effort, curtail creativity, and decrease productivity by disrupting thought processes and workflows, causing individuals to lose focus and take longer to complete tasks. A high rate of interruptions can be a serious issue in the workplace and can be a barrier to success.
Think back to your last day at work. I bet it went something like this. You arrive at work, sit down, and slowly begin to get into a groove. You begin working on that report that’s due at the end of the day. After about an hour and a half, you quit to go to a meeting that was scheduled a few days ago. After the meeting you think, “What a waste of time. They could have just sent a memo for us to read and not interrupted my work day.”
You go back to your office and try to get back to that report. The phone rings. It’s Tom. You decide not to answer. Whatever it is, it can wait.
Two minutes later, Tom is knocking on your door. You bite your tongue and invite him in as you’re thinking, “Can’t he take a hint? I’m busy!” He spends twenty minutes discussing the meeting you just had and how he thought it was such a waste of time. He leaves.
The phone rings again. It’s Jenny. You don’t answer. You really need to get this report completed by the end of the day. Jenny sends you an email. You open it. She needs to discuss a matter of mutual concern regarding another work matter. She’d like to do this at your earliest convenience. You email her back that you will meet with her later in the afternoon. Gee! Another meeting!
While emailing her, you notice several emails received since yesterday. You think, “Maybe I’ll read some of these and get them out of the way. Two hours later, it’s past lunch time and you haven’t eaten. You take a break for lunch. When you return, Jenny is waiting to start the meeting you agreed to this morning.
Jenny leaves. Before you restart your computer, you decide to take a bathroom break. You run into John in the hallway. He comments that he hasn’t seen you all day and wants to know what you’ve been up to. You tell him you have a report due and need to get back to it. The two of you talk for ten minutes.
You finish the conversation and complete that trip to the bathroom, resolving to get back to that report as soon as you get to your office. In your office, you remember a file you need to finish the report. You don’t remember where you put it. After 30 minutes you locate it. Finally, you get back to your computer.
As you’re typing away on your computer, your boss walks in, pats you on the shoulder and wants to know how it’s going. You try to keep a straight face as you’re thinking, “It could be going better if I could get around all these interruptions.” After a light conversation, you’re alone again.
Does this sound familiar? If so, you may be experiencing “time stress.” Learning to manage your time more effectively by controlling interruptions is the key to reducing stress and being more productive and successful on your job.
Here are six helpful strategies for taking control of your time and using it more effectively:
- Regularly organize and prioritize your work.
- Assess the types of interruptions you experience most. Are they necessary or not?
- Distinguish between available time and time that is off limits.
- Postpone unnecessary interruptions until you have some available time.
- Be willing to say “no.” There are only so many hours in a day and only so much you can do with that time.
- Recognize that some interruptions are unavoidable. When these occur, encourage the interrupter to get to the point quickly. Don’t engage in “small talk.” Establish how much time you have initially, e.g. 10 minutes, and stick to it.
Time management is a journey. By keeping control of your time and managing how it is spent, you may find that you have just a little more to spend.
Danita Johnson Hughes, Ph.D. is a healthcare industry executive, public speaker and author of the forthcoming “Turnaround.” Through her work she inspires people to dream big and understand the role of personal responsibility in personal and professional success. In her first book, “Power from Within,” Danita shares her “Power Principles for Success” that helped her overcome meager beginnings and achieve professional, community and personal success. For
Tags: Best Practices, Business advice, Danita Johnson Hughes, six strategies for managing interruptions, Viewpoint
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Friday, April 8th, 2011
 By Tracy Eden
The statistics may say that the U.S. economy is out of recession, but many small and mid-sized business owners will tell you that they’re not seeing a particularly robust recovery, at least not yet.
There are various reasons for the slow pace of recovery among small businesses, but one is becoming increasingly apparent: A lack of cash flow caused by longer payment terms instituted by their vendors. Dealing with slow-paying customers is nothing new for many small businesses, but the problem is exacerbated in today’s sluggish economy and tight credit environment.
This is ironic given the fact that many big businesses have accumulated large cash reserves over the past couple of years by increasing their efficiencies and lowering their costs. In fact, several high-profile large corporations have announced recently that they are extending their payment terms to as long as four months, including Dell Computer, Cisco and AB InBev.
So here’s the picture: Many large corporations are sitting on huge piles of cash and, thus, are more capable of paying their vendors promptly than ever before. But instead, they’re stretching out their payment terms even farther. Meanwhile, many small businesses are struggling to stay afloat, much less grow, as they try to plug cash flow gaps while waiting for payments from their large customers.
How Alternative Financing Can Help
To help them cope with these kinds of cash flow challenges, more small and mid-sized businesses are turning to alternative financing vehicles. These are creative financing solutions for companies that don’t qualify for traditional bank loans, but need a financial boost to help manage their cash flow cycle.
Start-up businesses, companies experiencing rapid growth, and those with financial ratios that don’t meet a bank’s requirements are often especially good candidates for alternative financing, which usually takes one of three different forms:
Factoring: With factoring, businesses sell their outstanding accounts receivable to a commercial finance company (or factor) at a discount, usually between 1.5 and 5.5 percent, which becomes responsible for managing and collecting the receivable. The business usually receives from 70-90 percent of the value of the receivable when selling it to the factor, and the balance (less the discount, which represents the factor’s fee) when the factor collects the receivable.
There are two main types of factoring: full-service and spot factoring. With full-service factoring, the company sells all of its receivables to the factor, which performs many of the services of a credit manager, including credit checks, credit report analysis, and invoice and payment mailing and documentation.
With spot factoring, the business sells select invoices to the factor on a case-by-case basis, without any volume commitments. Since it requires more extensive controls, spot factoring tends to be more expensive than full-service factoring. Full recourse, non-recourse, notification and non-notification are other factoring variables.
Accounts Receivable (A/R) Financing: A/R financing is more similar to a bank loan than factoring is. Here, a business submits all of its invoices to the commercial finance company, which establishes a borrowing base against which the company can borrow money. The qualified receivables serve as collateral for the loan.
The borrowing base is usually 70-90 percent of the value of the qualified receivables. To be qualified, a receivable must be less than 90 days old and the underlying business must be deemed creditworthy by the finance company, among other criteria. The finance company will charge a collateral management fee (usually 1 to 2 percent of the outstanding amount) and assess interest on the amount of money borrowed.
Asset-Based Lending: This is similar to A/R financing except that the loan is secured by business assets other than A/R, such as equipment, real estate and inventory. Unlike factoring, the business manages and collects its own receivables, submitting a monthly aging report to the finance company. Interest is charged on the amount of money borrowed and certain fees are also assessed by the finance company.
Overcoming Fears and Objections
Some businesses shy away from alternative financing vehicles, due either to a lack of knowledge or understanding of them or because they believe such financing vehicles are too expensive.
However, alternative financing is not hard to understand—an experienced alternative lender can clearly explain how these techniques work and the pros and cons they may offer your company. As for cost, it’s really a matter of perspective: You have to ask whether alternative financing is too expensive compared to the alternatives?
If you’re in danger of running out of cash while you wait to get paid by large customers and you don’t qualify for a bank loan or line of credit, then the alternative could be bankruptcy. So while factoring does tend to be more expensive than bank financing, if this financing isn’t an option for you, then you must compare the cost to possibly going out of business.
Most business failures occur because the company lacked working capital, not because it didn’t have a good product or service. Unfortunately, this problem is currently magnified for many small businesses dealing with ever-longer payment terms from their large customers. Alternative financing is one possible solution to this common cash flow problem.
Tracy Eden is the National Marketing Director for Commercial Finance Group (CFG), which has offices throughout the U.S. CFG provides creative financing solutions to small and medium-sized businesses that may not qualify for traditional financing. Further information on the company and their services offered can be found at http://www.CFGroup.net and http://www.fvf.ca. Tracy’s direct email is tdeden@cfgroup.net.
Opinions expressed in guest columns on TechJournal South are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of TechMedia or TechJournalSouth.
TechJournal South is a TechMedia company. TechMedia presents the annual conferences:
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Tags: alternative financing to offset cashflow problems, Business advice, Tracy Eden, Viewpoint
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Thursday, April 7th, 2011
By Laurie Zuckerman
 Laurie Zuckerman When an editor agreed to give me a spot as a guest columnist, he requested a head shot, and it suddenly struck me that my photo was, gasp, at least 12 years old. Time for a new photo, a task which, as the editor pointed out, is no quite longer an onerous task. You just take a bunch of digital shots, pick out the best one, and fix it up. It may not be as good as a professional photographer, but it will usually do the job.
This conversation made me think about all that has changed in the past 12 years for technology marketers. For starters, there’s been the explosion of online media, social media, digital media, the blogosphere and search marketing along with the dragging down and decline of traditional media.
Then I started thinking about what hasn’t changed. Here’s my top five.
Know thy audience
A deep understanding of your customers’ wants and needs is, and always has been, the number one requirement for a solid marketing plan.
Hint: it usually doesn’t take a $20,000 focus group to find out if your value prop is on target. Need a quick reality check? Ask a few customers (the ones you want more of just like them) some direct, concrete questions. Then listen, really listen, even if you don’t like what they have to say.
Some companies are still struggling to tell their story
How many times have you gone to a web site and been left wondering what the company offers? It’s a challenge for technology companies everywhere to clearly and compellingly articulate (in writing and in person) what they’ve got and why anyone should care.
Hint: if you are asked about your company and you become mired in a lengthy description of features, you have some positioning/messaging work ahead of you.
Content is king
There are now innumerable platforms from which “experts” can pontificate: webinars, blogs, twitter, Linked in, etc. This is cool stuff. But in the race to “become part of the conversation,” marketers should not forget that at the heart of all this outreach must be rich, thought-provoking, original content.
Hint: the beauty of great content is that it can be used over and over in different ways (a white paper becomes fodder for a presentation which is posted on YouTube and then evolves into a webinar which, in turn, is broken into a series of blogs, pieces of which can be tweeted (and hopefully re-tweeted) … and then, well, you get the picture).
Industry analysts continue to top the influencer chain
Even (and perhaps especially) in a time when social media is giving everyone a platform, industry analysts, such as Gartner Group, Aberdeen, Forrester and others, are still leaned on for reporting on who’s who and what’s what. Bottom line, their opinions influence tech purchasing decisions.
Hint: You don’t necessarily need to sign on as a client to start building relationships with analysts. They realize they need to go beyond their client roster to keep on top of industry happenings. Most firms have online briefing request forms.
Ye old press releases live on
The old fashioned press release is still a typical component of most tech company’s PR/marketing plans (especially now that it’s known to be a great SEO booster).
Hint: While press releases have their place, many companies make the mistake of equating press releases with media relations. In truth, media relations, just like it sounds, is about building relationships with journalist and bloggers and is an effort that goes well beyond the press release.
Laurie Zuckerman is a writer and communications specialist based in Chapel Hill, NC. She can be reached at laurie@zuckermanink.com or through LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/pub/laurie-zuckerman/2/174/425
TechJournal South is a TechMedia company. TechMedia presents the annual conferences:
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Tags: Business advice, Columns, five things that haven't changed in tech marketing, Laurie Zuckerman, tech marketing, Viewpoint
Posted in Business advice, Carolinas, Columns, Internet/New Media, Marketing, North Carolina, Tech Culture, Viewpoint | 1 Comment »
Thursday, March 31st, 2011
 By Scott Klososky
Social media/networking and the collection of tools they have spawned have moved solidly into the strategy toolbox for organizations. If you want to be the Zen master of social tools, then first understand the need to implement elements of social that will both drive revenues, and cut back office costs.
Too many people think of social tools as only being for sales and marketing when in reality, there are valuable uses in the back office. With that thought firmly implanted, there are a handful of social tech concepts that are mandatory for every organization today:
1. Building Rivers of Information – One of the least talked about dynamics of social technologies is the massive amount of real time information flying around the Web – on any subject. If you are a CPA, doctor, lawyer, baseball player, or basket weaver for example, there are megabytes of data that could be critical to your performance uploaded each day.
The reality is that you will harness maybe 3 percent of what could be valuable to you. Social tools give us the ability to aggregate and filter this explosion of information so that it can be funneled into your brain. Every organization can institutionalize this process by teaching employees which information sources are valuable, and what tools can be used to aggregate and filter them to a manageable state.
It is a knowledge economy after all, so the smarter teams win. Ergo, use social tools to harness relevant and timely industry information, and you will be smarter.
PS. Don’t use the excuse that you do not have time to digest this information. That is like saying you don’t have time to be relevant.
2. Organizational Voice – Every organization can benefit from building a powerful Web-delivered organizational voice. There are many channels through which this voice can be delivered, Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, podcasts, text messages. The organizational voice gives entities a way to create a conversation with constituents so that they can earn the right to grab their mindshare. The only way to earn that right is by providing a valuable flow of content through the voice. The three biggest mistake companies are making when using tools like blogging, Twitter and Facebook to connect with customers/prospects/clients are these:
1. Lack of a specific and human sounding tone. Every communication through whatever channel you use must sound human, and have a tone that is interesting, intriguing, or unusual. You don’t want to read boring things so why would you think your constituents will?
2. Mistakes with the frequency of delivery. If you deliver content too often, you annoy people and they begin to tune you out.
Even if your content is great, it becomes overwhelming and people just stop paying attention. If you deliver content too infrequently, they lower the perceived value in their minds. What is the perfect frequency? It depends totally on the audience, and the type of content, there are no hard and fast rules.
3. The mix of content is all wrong. As you send content through the organizational voice, you must be mindful of delivering nuggets that are valuable. For example, if you fill 80 percent of your content with sales related information it appears to be spam If you do nothing but deliver your opinions, people might get tired of the editorial.
A valuable stream of content includes a mix of stories, facts and figures, and links to valuable resources, opinions, and product or company information. Get the recipe wrong and it is akin to dumping too much cayenne pepper in the soup.
3. Online Reputation Management (ORM) – Regardless the size, or type of business you are involved in, an online reputation is forming – like it or not. Internet users (which now number nearly two billion) are increasingly sharing their opinions about service providers and retailers through conversations and comments online. Every time they mention your company, or your products names, these comments become searchable. That means that when any prospective customer searches to find information on you, they will find these comments. For this reason, organizations must have today a formal ORM program. The steps are simple, build a listening process, document and engagement policy, and then implement a measuring system.
4. Crowdsourcing – Who wouldn’t jump at the chance to get work done cheaper, faster and with more innovation! That is the promise of crowdsourcing. There are somewhere north of 75 sites on the Web that now assist people with the crowdsourcing process (CrowdSPRING, 99designs, logo tournament, Innocentive, mturk, etc.) Learning to tap into the Internet herd to get work done that traditionally was sourced in house, or by local vendors is a strategic advantage. The quick way to learn how to use this tool is simply to dive in and start experimenting. The risk is low and the rewards are tremendous. The crowdsource market is growing quickly, now is the time to give it a try.
For extra credit, go back and examine these social tech concepts and note that two can directly help the front end revenue generation, and two will help with the back office operation, thus fulfilling the promise mentioned at the beginning of this article. There are too many leaders that still believe that social technologies equal Facebook and Twitter. The reality is that every company can use the four concepts listed above to get a fast return on the investment of their time. You might see them as a luxury right now, but they will soon be mandatory if you want to stay in business.
Scott Klososky, a former CEO and author of the new books, Enterprise Social Technology and The Velocity Manifesto, specializes in having the vision and ability to see trends in emerging technologies, which allow him to be a thought leader who applies his skills to help organizations thrive, leaders prosper, and entire industries move forward. His unique perspectives on technology, business culture, and the future allows him to travel the globe as a speaker and consultant, working with senior executives in organizations ranging from Fortune 500 corporations to universities and nonprofits.
Website: www.EnterpriseSocialTechnology.com, www.TheVelocityManifesto.com, Blog: www.TechnologyStory.com, Twitter: @sklososky
Tags: Business advice, making social technologies relevant to business, Scott Klosoky, Viewpoint
Posted in Business advice, Columns, Internet/New Media, Marketing, social media, Viewpoint | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, March 30th, 2011
By David M. Mastovich
David M. Mastovich Facebook accounts for 25% of all U.S. page views online.
Awareness of Twitter has exploded from 5% of Americans in 2008 to 87% now.
LinkedIn has more than 85 million users including employees from every company in the Fortune 500.
These statistics show how integral social media has become in our lives.
Do you remember when having a website was optional? If you think about it, that wasn’t too long ago. Now we take it for granted that an organization would not only have a website, but that we would be able to find what we are looking for in a few clicks. Yet right now, many organizations still think having a Social Media Strategy and presence is optional.
Why?
It could be because just about everyone defines “Social Media” in a different, and often narrow, way. Instead of thinking of just Facebook or Twitter, consider the entire medium. There really is something for everyone and that means plenty of opportunities to communicate with potential or existing customers.
Organizations could also be wary of the informality of the medium—inappropriate content, posting of pictures, obscenities, etc. Yes, questionable content is on the internet. But so are opportunities to engage customers and prospects and to carry on meaningful conversations. And you have more control of your Social Media presence than you might think.
Business leaders, marketers, communicators and managers should work to maximize the opportunity and make Social Media part of their marketing and messaging strategy.
Begin by developing a Social Media Plan integrated into your current Marketing, PR and Communications efforts.
Start telling your story
Then start telling your story. While Social Media is the “new, big thing,” the basic tenets of messaging still apply. Less is still more. Authenticity is still key. And making it about them—your target audiences—is still what it is all about. Tailor your Social Media message to each target audience and what they are interested in.
You can avoid Social Media and hope it goes away or you can embrace it. Just know that while you’re debating which path to choose, your competition might be tweeting to your soon to be former customers.
David Matovich’s previous piece for us: Does your business really need an app for that?
David M. Mastovich, MBA is President of MASSolutions, Inc. With a core philosophy of integrated marketing, MASSolutions focuses on improving the bottom line for clients through creative selling, messaging and PR solutions. In his recent book, “Get Where You Want To Go: How to Achieve Personal and Professional Growth Through Marketing, Selling and Story Telling,” Mastovich offers strategies to improve sales and generate new customers; management and leadership approaches; and creative marketing, PR and communications ideas. For more information, see: massolutions.biz.
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Tags: Business advice, Columns, David Mastovich, facebook, social media, twitter, Viewpoint
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Thursday, March 24th, 2011
David M. Mastovich When you get ready to tell your story online, in social media, or a press release, there are several factors to keep in mind, says Dave Mastovich, president of MASSolutions Inc. MASSolutions focuses on improving the bottom line for clients through creative selling, messaging and PR solutions.
Mastovich recently penned one of our most popular posts, “Does Your Business Really Need an App for that?” and will be doing additional guest columns for us.
“We see how important technology and social media is to our clients, how critical it is to marketing, PR and sales,” he tells us.
The first thing a company needs to do to use them effectively is learn to to its story, he says. That story “Has to be authentic and real. People often do not realize their own stories are good and want to use hyperbole.” Exaggeration is a mistake, though, he says. “That sets you up for failure. We’ve all seen that, bought a product that didn’t live up to the hype. It’s a bad strategy and leaves a bad taste in the buyer’s mouth.”
So make your story authentic and accurate, he says.
To begin doing that, he suggests, “Clearly define who your target market is. Drill down into that until you have the smallest slice that’s accurate. Narrow it down to who you want to reach.” That’s a piece of advice we hear from multiple sources, particularly in defining social media goals.
Once you’ve narrowed down your audience, Mastovich says, make your story “About them. Don’t lie. Be accurate.”
Small business owners are often passionate about their companies, he notes. “But they have to be able to take that passion and talk about it in 30 seconds or less, in bullet points. You need three to five key message points about what you really do. Say them, then shut up and listen. If they respond, you elaborate, making it about them.”
Listening is “huge,” he adds. “In our sales coaching, we do a whole module on listening. Sales people can be some of the poorest listeners in the world. But we all have multiple products and services and if you don’t listen you won’t know what that person wants.”
–Allan Maurer
TechJournal South is a TechMedia company. TechMedia presents the annual conferences:
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Tags: Business advice, Dave Mastovich, Mass Solutions, telling your story, Viewpoint
Posted in Business advice, social media, Viewpoint | 1 Comment »
Thursday, March 17th, 2011
By Kyle Scott, Ph.D.
 Kyle Scott Business ethics is a tricky area because the point of business, to produce a profit, often conflicts with what might be termed ethical. Ethicists rarely have a strong grasp of business or life outside of idealized environments. Managers and executives rarely have enough spare time to sit down and read Aristotle, Nietzsche or Thomas Aquinas. Provided below are three easy questions that you can ask yourself when deciding if a decision is ethical.
Everyone makes decisions; sometimes an unethical decision must be made. It’s a fact of life and no one can go around living like Socrates doing only what is ethical, moral, and just. What’s provided is not a set of standards to be achie ved, but rather a method to weigh your decision to find out if it is worth it to you.
Would you accept the explanation from your kids?
It’s been said, “That’s the way the world works, if you want to compete this is what you have to do,” when trying to justify a decision that is unethical but increases competitive advantage. In reality, this is the adult equivalent of saying, “But all my friends are doing it.” So, is the decision you are about to make one in which you would want your child to make, or is the justification for your decision one that you would accept from your child when he or she has done something that goes against your instruction?
Also, remember, as managers and executives you have a hand in making the world what it is. By working hard and progressing in your profession you have earned the ability to make choices for yourself and for others. No one can change the world, and you owe it to your shareholders and employees to earn a profit. But, you owe it to those people, yourself, and your family to act ethically. So as a decision maker, you have to decide, and have the ability to decide, which is more important at any one time.
Will it make you happier?
Happiness is a tricky thing in that you don’t often know what makes you happy, except from experience. Some think money will make them happy only to find out that once they get it they’re not that much happier, if at all, than when first starting out. To make an ethical decision you must decide what will make you happy.
In following in the footsteps of Socrates; what makes us happy is what makes us better people. You become better, and thus happier, when your higher desires – such as the desire for justice, moderation and courage – guide base desires – such as hunger or sexual attraction. If your higher desires do not guide your base desires you will be led to gluttony and debauchery.
Everyone gets hungry, but you don’t need to eat yourself into a coma as though everyday is Thanksgiving. Moderation is a higher desire, which guides the base desire of hunger. No one can tell you what will make you happy, or when you are following your base desires instead of your higher desire, you must know thyself.
Do you exert power?
If you have to manipulate or coerce someone into going along with your plan, or to achieve your goal, you should rethink your plan. If you can present your argument in a persuasive manner without robbing others of their ability to decide for themselves then you have acted ethically. The workplace is not a democracy most of the time, and subordinates must take directives from above. But, this is not coercion, or at least the type of coercion, from which you should refrain. Telling your head accountant to fudge the numbers or she’ll be fired is different from telling the accountant to finish a project before he goes home or there will be consequences because he has already fallen behind.
One of the things that separate humans from other animals is the ability to reason. When you strip someone of their capacity to reason, or act upon what they have reasoned to be the best choice, you have denied them their dignity and therefore acted unethically. Whether it is withholding information from stockholders or threatening punishment if your will is not followed, it’s denying someone or some group the capacity to reason for themselves.
It would be naïve to think that you can, or should, always act as ethicists would have you act. It would be unethical to let your business fail because you don’t want to do what is necessary to keep a business going. But, you should not act badly because it is easier than being good or because you are too motivated or self-interested to say no. What’s provided above is a set of questions that you can ask yourself when making decisions in order to help you decide which path to follow. The intention is not to pass judgment or tell you how to act, but give you a set of guidelines so that you can make decisions fully aware of their implications, ethically and otherwise.
Dr. Kyle Scott is a lecturer at the University of Houston, with a Ph.D. in Political Science: American Political Theory and Public Law. He has authored two books and a forthcoming third, “Federalism: Theory and Practice,” will be available Spring 2011. Kyle has taught American Politics, Political Theory, and Public Law at Miami University and University of North Florida. For more information, contact him at: kascott@uh.edu
TechJournal South is a TechMedia company. TechMedia presents the annual conferences:
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Tags: 3 questions to ask if a decision is ethical, Best Practices, Business advice, business ethics, Kyle Scott, Viewpoint
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Wednesday, March 9th, 2011
 Heather Lutze By Heather Lutze
As many companies have already found out, having a business presence in the social media communities – namely Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube – can have a positive impact on the company’s bottom line. Being able to connect with customers and prospects to build loyalty and community goes a long way in today’s world, and social media marketing is changing the way customer relations take place.
One of the main questions businesses ask when implementing their social media strategy is, “Do we open this up to the company?” Some argue that allowing employees to access social media sites during the day will result in a productivity drain, and they encourage businesses to put web site filters in place and to ban social media sites from the workplace.
However, Australian scientists at the University of Melbourne recently published an interesting study that found when employees take time to visit websites of personal interest, such as social media sites, it provides them a mental break and actually increases their ability to concentrate.
The scientists documented a nine percent increase in productivity among their subjects. As they explained, “The activity helps keep the mind fresh and helps put you in a better place when you come back to working on topic.”
Additionally, realize that people don’t work 100 percent of the time on what they’re assigned to. They do other things, such as get a snack, go to restroom, talk to co-workers, surf the web, etc. So they’re giving themselves some distractions already.
The question is, “Do you want to offer a suitable distraction, or let your employees choose their own distractions?” Clearly, giving your employees an acceptable distraction is the way to go, especially if doing so helps the company’s bottom line.
With that said, you can’t simply allow everyone to post to the company’s social media sites arbitrarily. You can’t rev the engine and then let go of the steering wheel. Rather, you need to establish rules of engagement. The following suggestions will help you do precisely that.
- Put everything in writing.
Detail what is and what is not allowed to happen on your social media sites. For example, you may want to specify such things as not sharing proprietary information, keeping all posts positive, not sharing client information, not divulging salary or benefit information, and not revealing any corporate intelligence.
What you allow or disallow is up to you and your specific company culture. For example, some companies decide that they will talk about their clients and customers (with the customer’s permission), while others feel talking about customers invites competitors to try to steal them. The main point for everyone to remember is that if you wouldn’t post the information on your web site, then don’t post it on a social media site.
Make it clear in the document that if they break any of the rules outlined, their job is in jeopardy. Additionally, reveal whether HR is monitoring the emails, posts, and tweets. Have each employee sign off on the social media rules and place a copy in their employee file.
- Start by giving social media access to certain people to test the waters; then open it to others in phases.
Rather than let everyone jump in feet first, start by forming a social media committee. Send out an invitation to your staff for people to join the committee (make sure they know it’s optional). Those who come to that meeting will be the best people to represent you on the internet. Work with them to help clarify the rules of engagement and to help define your company’s purpose for being on the social media sites. Then, allow these people to become social media advocates for your company. After a few weeks, have them report back to you on what’s going well, what they’ve learned, and what’s not working.
After you make policy or implementation adjustments based on their feedback, open social media up to another group of people, and then another, until you have everyone on the sites who wants to be there. Don’t force it on anyone. If someone doesn’t want to tweet, blog, or do Facebook posts, that’s okay. Forcing people to be your social media voice will backfire and cause more harm than good.
To get people excited about social media, have an internal contest. Give everyone (or every department) a promo code for something happening in the company, such as a special sale or event. Then, let people market to their family, friends, customers, and social networks. Whichever person or department has the most promo codes redeemed gets a gift or prize. It could be a catered lunch or even a day off. The point is to engage the company meaningfully so you can see some bottom line results.
One major retailer did this and had a $3 million bottom line improvement during an economic recession. This company never opened social media sites to its employees before. Now they’re a believer in the power of social media marketing. So don’t be closed minded in terms of who can be on the social media sites. Let everyone be a promoter of your company’s products and services.
- Consider your IT and other staffing needs.
When implementing social media access company-wide, your IT considerations are critical. You’re opening your company outside your corporate firewall. Therefore, make sure you’re protecting your company’s assets and work with your IT team to make sure you’re protected before opening those portals.
Additionally, while going doing social media posts can be a rewarding part of people’s day, eventually you will need a full-time staff member to oversee your social media activities. In fact, within the next two years, every company over $2 million in revenue should plan to have that full-time position as part of their company structure. Big companies already have such dedicated positions in place; take your cue from them and start planning now.
- Implement your social media activity and policy from the top down.
Your company’s top-level executives need to be willing to dive into the company’s social media activities as well. If your employees see that the CEO is on Facebook and posting tweets on Twitter and blogging regularly, and that he or she is having fun doing it, your employees will embrace social media as well. No matter what the company size, structure, or culture, the use of social media needs to work its way down.
The Way of the Future
Contrary to what some people may think, social media – especially for business – is not a fad. It may morph and change over time, but it’s certainly not going away. Those companies that embrace it now and get its employees involved will be the one to reap the most rewards. So set up your social media guidelines and gradually phase it into your operations. Not only will your employees’ productivity increase, but so will your company’s bottom line.
About the Author:
Heather Lutze has spent the last 10 years as CEO of The Findability Group, formerly Lutze Consulting, – a Search Engine Marketing firm that works with companies to attain maximum Internet exposure. A nationally recognized speaker, she is the author of, “The FindAbility Formula: The Easy, Non-Technical Approach To Search Engine Marketing” (Wiley and Sons). Heather is a lead speaker for Pay Per Click Summit, and previously spent two years speaking for Yahoo! Search Marketing. For more information, visit www.FindabilityGroup.com.
TechJournal South is a TechMedia company. TechMedia presents the annual conferences:
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Tags: 5 strategies to implement social media, Best Practices, Business advice, Heather Lutz, Viewpoint
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Tuesday, March 8th, 2011
By Dr. Marjorie Wolter
 Dr. Marjorie Wolter Anna couldn’t take any more pressure from work. Another deadline had been plopped onto her calendar marking the completion of a project she had no idea how it was going to get done, or where to start.
Company politics were easy to handle, straight shooting boss included. There were many reasons to stay put in her current job. But, the gears in her brain ground to a halt. A three-foot thick cement wall would have been less of a barrier to progress. Why was it that Anna found herself in this situation every time it seemed success was at her fingertips?
She would get momentum going, only to be jerked to a halt by an unforeseen complication. Thank goodness the office door was closed because all she could do was put her head down on the desk just as she had done in grade school to take a break. Instinctively she took a deep breath and noticed a copy of the book Secretariat was wedged between her nose, forehead, and the desktop.
“I’m high end corporate. What could a horse have to with solving my problems? I just finished the book, but this is ridiculous.” Serendipity had other plans to sooth the intense businesswoman’s stagnation.
To Anna’s surprise, she began to bond with the great champion’s character. “That horse loved to run. Nothing took away his need for speed.” Funny, “whatever it takes” was one of the catch phrases Anna put to routine use. Within seconds, her brain unlocked, and she filled an entire page with action steps to expedite the project’s completion. For the first time, she felt a sense of mastering a situation without getting sidetracked for hours by frustration. While writing, she came up with 5 keys to making the process repeatable:
The Five Keys to Sustained Achievement:
1) Metaphors are powerful medicine. In word and in form, they are symbols that show up in our lives to teach us. Secretariat represented the passionate adventurer in Anna she had been ignoring. The athletic thoroughbred was Anna’s guide to reclaiming her own spirit that was shut down thinking drudgery was the only way to perform at work. Anna loved what she did, and it took a champion acting as a metaphor to assist her in seeing that fact.
2) There’s always another option, generally infinite solutions we never entertain. Frustrated, Anna couldn’t see a whole world of solutions that lay before her. How many times had Anna let herself be stymied seeing only a roadblock instead of multitudes of possibilities? People tend to find one or two solutions and stop there rather than inviting droves of worthwhile outcomes. Anna vowed to take just five minutes when she felt frenzied to breath deep, calm herself, and let alternative solutions surface. Five minutes was a small price to pay for having a life and level of accomplishment she really wanted.
3) There’s an opportunity in every perceived problem. Anna was looking at her position as a plight, an attitude not limited to dealing with a single project deadline. Anna’s habit was to fret over events that didn’t play out as she originally anticipated instead of unveiling the promise of living an accomplished life. Secretariat showed up to expand Anna’s perspective. Thankfully, Anna got the message finding herself more capable than she ever dreamed of being.
4) Bonding with others being positive is a truly alternative lifestyle in our current culture-but it leads to a remarkable existence. Anna knew she was in the right work environment to support her shift to possibility thinking. She admired that her company welcomed self-starter personalities. They didn’t want to baby sit complainers as many of her previous employers had. All she had to do was embody the beliefs she had only claimed to rely upon, until today.
5) Serendipity is always on your side. Logic and seriousness without the balance of humor make the road to success a struggle. Openness to serendipity’s intervention coming to your aid bearing gift-wrapped short cuts is a must to enjoy the journey. Anna had only to recognize the present placed literally beneath her nose dissolve her frustration.
“If it takes a horse tail to set me straight, then so be it. That’s actually more fun than reading another business journal. Whatever it takes.”
Quickly shooting off an email to her boss regarding project completion, his reply came faster than a lap at the Kentucky Derby. “Anna, you never cease to amaze me. Just when I think you have reached the pinnacle of your abilities, you take your skills to the next level. Our owners set out to put a group of expansive thinkers and doers together, and you certainly fit that description. By the way, I’m not sure if you wanted to include your 5 keys to sustained achievement in this correspondence, but I’d like to print them in our weekly office update. Would that be suitable? Whatever it takes, James Louis.”
Maybe a little horse sense was appropriate after all.
Dr. Marjorie Wolter is a speaker, mentor, and founder of Vita Celebrata, a consulting firm specializing in inspired leadership, and creating unique cultures of success. With over twenty years of experience, she is a catalyst for those who will only be satisfied having achieved the highest level of business success. Marjorie has authored three books: “Magnificent Men are Everywhere,” “Seekers and Evolutionaries,” and “Living the Accomplished Life.” You are invited to learn more about her speaking and consulting by visiting www.drmarjoriewolter.com
TechJournal South is a TechMedia company. TechMedia presents the annual conferences:
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Tags: best practicies, Business advice, Dr. Marjorie Wolter, five keys to sustained achievement, Viewpoint
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Monday, March 7th, 2011
 Richard Weinblatt By Dr. Richard Weinblatt, The Cop Doc
There are many stories out there already, which any manager will share when complaining about their employees. There is the one with the salesman who scans Twitter for hours. And then there is the employee who harasses a co-worker several cubicles down from him by hijacking her Facebook account and posting harassing comments.
And of course there is the ubiquitous case of the worker that slams the employer on LinkedIn and is fired, thus exacting a morale-busting toll on the employee, the workplace, and the organization.
From workplace distraction to conduit for stalking, harassment and other criminal activity, the rise of social networking has its supporters and its detractors. While some lament the greater bandwidth demands, virus/Trojan infiltration, and social engineering (identity theft) issues that can pummel a company’s computer network and employees, along with sapping of productivity and channel for co-worker harassment, others point to the teamwork and mental break productivity enhancement outcome.
While initially scrutinized by law enforcement agencies with hopeful candidates who hope to be a badge bearer, employers have now embraced its usefulness as a method of assessing the true character and traits of aspiring employees.
On the flip side, for some enterprises, the ever expanding world of Facebook and their ilk has encroached into the workplace with devastating professional and personal consequences.
But can the likes of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and FourSquare be used in the workplace in a way that doesn’t expose supervisors and employing organizations to moral and legal liability? Can the anonymity-germinated freedom of the Internet that workplace bullies, would be Lotharios, and just plain lazy folks are emboldened by be controlled and channeled into worker productivity? The answer is a resounding yes.
While social networking is a relatively recent technological manifestation, other forms of technology have long dotted the desks and shared the cubicles of workers. The phone, the fax, and the copy machine are but three examples of other technologies that could, at least to some extent, be abused by the lazy up to the downright criminal worker.
The key for supervisors and executives is to recognize the uses and abuses facilitated by the innovation and what steps should be taken to control the relevant actions.
Here are a few tips that you can implement in your enterprise today:
Have Clear Policies. Very specific policies need to be in place, which govern the usage of the Internet and social networking sites. While some organizations may find it easier to just ban their access altogether, this is akin to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
A middle of the road approach is probably more appropriate for most employers. Have them sign for those policies indicating that they have read, understood and had the opportunity to ask questions.
Educate Employees. Make sure that employees, as well as supervisors, understand what is expected of them as far as social networking conduct within and when referring to the workplace. While you’re at it, reinforce sexual harassment, related issues, and their relevant consequences even when they’re taking place within the virtual world.
Employees that bash the workplace online can be heading to a heartache-laden experience for everyone. While free speech and whistleblower protections exist, the laws vary from state to state. Employees may not be on as solid footing as they thought when confronted with disparaging comments they posted online about the employer or a fellow worker.
Take steps to assure them that such online networking etiquette expectations are in place to protect them, as well as the company.
Take Technological Precautions. Be sure to keep one step ahead of the nefarious forces of the Internet. Continuously updated anti-virus protection, mandatory changing of passwords on a temporal basis, and strong firewall protections are imperative to the smooth operation of your endeavor in the new social networking world. Web filtering systems are also available to enable the employer to restrict access based on a number of different options including time frame (such as breaks or lunchtime) or a time limit (such as one hour per day).
Monitor Usage. Be able to monitor Internet usage and, in particular, social networking within the workplace. Be sure that employees understand that their computer interaction is being recorded. This oversight is vital as the company may bear civil or criminal responsibility for some actions of their employees.
The democratization effect of the technology has diffused communication channels and put more power in the hands of individuals. As said in Spiderman: “with great power comes great responsibility.” Employers need to be properly suited up to fight the scourge of villainous social networking in the workplace.
Dr. Richard Weinblatt, The Cop Doc, is a former police chief, ex-criminal justice professor, and past police academy director who is an expert on police, crime, and safety topics. A speaker and book author, Dr. Weinblatt regularly writes articles and has been interviewed in the media including CBS News, CNN, MSNBC, and The Washington Post. To find out more or to contact Dr. Weinblatt, visit www.TheCopDoc.com.
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Tags: 4 tips to protect employees, Best Practices, Business advice, Dr. Richard Weinblatt, social media in the workplace, The cop doc
Posted in Business advice, Internet/New Media, Viewpoint | 1 Comment »
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