Monthly Archives: February 2012

The Rocky Transition from Intern to Full-Time Hire by Amy Hirsh Robinson

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To compete in the “New Economy,” companies are seeking employees with an aptitude for technology and innovation. Many, believing that the Millennial generation has these core competencies, have beefed up their college intern programs as a way to fill the talent pipeline. Such programs are successful in developing and motivating Millennials. The problem, however, is in the transition to full-time hire. Specifically, the experience new graduates receive as interns contrasts sharply with what they experience as full-time employees.
For example:
  • Interns are urged to meet new people and explore the company, while full-time hires are discouraged from actively networking
  • Interns receive messages such as “our doors are always open,” while full-time hires hear “know your place”
  • Interns enjoy explicit career-pathing guidance, while full-time hires receive little or no career development
  • Interns work for managers invested in their experience, while full-time hires report to whomever has headcount, regardless of that manager’s “people skills”
Companies that do not invest in a seamless transition from intern to full-time hire will experience high attrition, damage their reputation as a desirable place to work, and lose competitive advantage. What does the transition from intern to full-time hire in your organization look like?

 

For additional insight and strategies on this topic, feel free to download my white paper from my website’s link at the end of my blogpost, “The Rocky Transition from Intern to Full-Time Hire.”

My colleague, Amy Hirsh Robinson, MBA, is a leading expert on the impact of generational differences in the for-profit and not-for-profit workplace. She consults to C-level leaders on strategies to reduce attrition costs, increase profitability and create agile workforces able to adapt to ongoing change. See www.interchange-group.com.

Working smarter #1: Time management & setting priorities

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In my consulting work with CEOs optimizing their early stage tech ventures, and with expert consultants maximizing their practices, I train my over-committed clients to “work smarter.”   Here begins a series of articles sharing some of those tactics.

Time management & setting priorities

I completely understand the pressure of time, the need to prioritize tasks, and the cycle of exhaustion and exuberance that comes with building and growing a venture or a consultancy.  I used to work more hours and less smart too.

We all need the discipline of time management and prioritization to move us beyond “putting out fires” every day, so we can focus on the important stuff.  If we can gain this focus, hopefully well before a deadline, we have time to refine the task and then feel confident in its value.  Here are some ideas to try.

  • Restrict and schedule pro-bono or “non-margin” meetings into a couple of hours during the week’s least-pressured time on your least-pressured day.  That is, set that time aside on your calendar, and put these “giving-back” meetings into that time-slot on a first-come, first served basis, and restrict it to two hours each week on that same day.
  • If you have multiple clients (or investors or direct reports), set a schedule when they can rely on your presence and/or full attention.  Work around other requests from them as best you can, and always inform them when they can expect a response for each of their requests.
  • Also, train them to make their requests clearly, and to specify what level of response they need and when they need it.  This will allow you to plan your time of response (say, later in the week?) and not jump to put our their fire when it pressures you.  This allows you to focus on your own priorities and deadlines.
  • For product proposals, allow yourself adequate “buffer time” to prepare a bid, if it is not time-sensitive.  Ask your prospect directly when the proposal is needed. (And then, of course, do not leave the work until just before the deadline!).
  • Book at least two hours at the end of the week, or the beginning of the week, with no interruptions (none!) so you can organize your week’s priorities.  List these priorities in descending order of urgency.
  • Each day, give yourself 15 quiet minutes to plan the day’s priorities in the same way.  Do not distract yourself– just plan the day’s work.
  • Use technology and personal support as best suits you to offload the tasks  you do not do efficiently, to free up your time for your unique skills.
  •  Establish simple templates for email responses, promotions, responses to proposals and other recurring tasks.  Of course you can personalize them, but learn to use your own templates to save time and energy.

Sometimes my clients outdistance me in my own smart-work.  One of my clients has built his own intranet for the two of us, and every system we have developed is captured in a template.  I have seen him send out a proposal on any of his various pricing models in less than 3 minutes!

This time management and organization takes more discipline than it takes time to actually do.  And it can keep you calm throughout the day, and more efficient than your earlier mode.  And you can get more of your “other” life back too.

 

SharpInsights: Get to Know Your Customer – Again, by Seena Sharp

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January is over. How are you doing on your business resolutions? If this is your year to reconsider, retool, and reinvent, take a look at your customers or clients with fresh eyes. Do you really know who they are and what they want?

Consider this:

  • More than half of American men identify themselves as their household’s primary grocery shopper. Even if the figure is lower, it’s still higher than most stores assume.
  • A Pew Forum study showed that atheists and agnostics are more informed about religion than most believers. Holy cow!
  • Consumers who are 50+ make up a third of the most frequent customers at fast food restaurants, buy half the new cars sold and spend 75% more on vacations. Yet, most advertising is geared to 18 to 34 year olds.
  • Teens would rather text than tweet. We recently advised a client not to spend money promoting their new offering via Twitter because their target audience is simply not there.
  • New immigrants to the US are far more likely to settle in a small town or a suburb. In decades past, immigrants generally formed enclaves in big cities.

How current is your knowledge about the people who buy your goods and services? Are you missing opportunities? Competitive intelligence reveals today’s reality to grow your business. Prepare to be surprised and seize competitive advantage.

 

Seena Sharp of Sharp Market Intelligence is my long-time colleague who identifies your competitive edge by uncovering opportunities, threats and growth segments. Visit Seena at www.sharpmarket.com, and Download the free chapter in Seena Sharp’s new book, Competitive Intelligence Advantage: How to Minimize Risk, Avoid Surprises, and Grow Your Business in a Changing World (Wiley)http://bit.ly/8XLKmj. And read the great Amazon reviews.

 

Pitching & selling: don’t rush your prospects to close

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Whether you are leading a product business or expanding your consulting practice, you cannot rush your prospects to close the deal.  You must be persistent but not annoying.   You must be available but not “chasing.”

Defining your strategies to respect this invisible line, and to judge when to take an action, is critically important and often learned through experience.  And the more personal your contact with the prospect, the more loaded your expectations for a response.

So, here are some approaches that have worked over time:

Make certain you are speaking with the person who can sign the check (the decision-maker).  This is done during the first meeting, often by simply asking what decision-making structure exists (is there a management committee, boss, or Board that needs to approve the deal?).  If you are not speaking with the decision-maker, move quickly to determine how much work you must do to reach that decision-maker (a simple introduction to him or her, or a series of proposals or bids that move up the chain of command?) and then determine if that work and the margin involved is worth the effort of the close.

Be gracious.  Be available to help, offer some top line expertise or sample products, and move to negotiation after there is an initial relationship created.  The initial relationship is that the prospect feels supported by you and encouraged by the value of your offering, and that you feel as if you can close and support this prospect and still maintain appropriate margins.

Don’t panic.  Often prospects take much longer to close than you would expect.  They have some other agenda or hidden issues they may not be sharing with you, other than the decision-making issues.

Don’t believe everything you hear.  Sometimes prospects lie. Sorry, sometimes their egos drive them and they mislead you in some way as to their importance or power, or sometimes they are trying to get your strategy in a proposal with no intention of hiring you to execute.  Be especially aware of this in international work, where cultural norms and expectations may be different during negotiation.  But it can happen often in the U.S. as well.

Don’t take offense.  If the close is delayed, do not take it personally.  You don’t know what is involved in the decision on the other side.  No one is “conning” you (except if they are lying, see above).  Stay supportive and persistent without chasing.

Don’t show you need the deal.  This “negative-selling” approach is most effective.  While you are being supportive of and patient with your prospect, be (or seem to be) easy in your approach to the timing of the close.  Imply that all is well, and you are ready when they are ready.  Don’t show tension for the new revenue, or in meeting some monthly or quarterly goal.  None of this will help.

The customer or client will not sign until they are ready.  There may be many reasons for the delay that you will never know.  This softer side of selling tends to create longer-term relationships, based on your availability and support, and on your not embarrassing your prospect.

Remember that this prospect is likely to become a client or customer, and this closing phase is the beginning of the lifelong relationship and value you want to create.

 

 

Best Practices to Optimize Your Brand, Manage Your Web Reputation by Terry Corbell

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tc2 Best Practices to Optimize Your Brand, Manage Your Web Reputation by Terry Corbell
By Terry Corbell, The Biz Coach

As you no doubt know, the digital age has brought new challenges and opportunities. Best practices are critical in order to maximize your Web presence and to manage your online reputation.

The Key to Internet Dominance Is to Think Integration – naturally, the first steps include a quality Web site and synching it with your social media, business listings, inbound links and other elements.

Despite warnings here and other places, many small businesses have made a tactical error in thinking Facebook is the crème de la crème in marketing. A Facebook page can be helpful as part of your marketing mix, and a large volume of fans might enhance a site’s ranking on the search engines.

However, Aside from Privacy, Security Issues, Facebook is a Threat 2 Ways. It’s also worth noting that the majority of business Facebook fans aren’t local. Plus, fans usually change their minds. Within a month or so, they decide a business’ Facebook page offerings are boring.

As for advertising, it rarely helps small businesses to insert their ads on the social medium. It’s better to save the money or budget it for prospects to offer loss-leader discounts to try your products or services.

By virtue of its 800 million global members, Facebook is highly ranked. Despite the Facebook buzz, it’s losing members in North America and Europe. Facebook’s growth is in emerging Third World countries.

Moreover, if not managed well, a Facebook page can and will dilute or cannibalize your Web site’s presence. You never want to let any social medium presence outclass your Web site ranking. You want to use a social medium to enhance your site’s presence and drive traffic, not have it stop there.

How to maximize your search-engine listings

In U.S. market share, according to the various ranking services, Google consistently has about a 65 percent share, and Bing and Yahoo each have about 15 percent. Of course, there are others but most use Google for search. Worldwide, Google has a 90 percent share.

So develop a quality Web site. If budget is a concern, it’s possible to use free online tools for an adequate site. Insert your Facebook, Google+ and Twitter widgets. If you cater to a professional clientele, include LinkedIn.

Otherwise, the big Kahuna to generate local customers is Google Places. If a consumer searches for a local product, Google weaves the top seven results at the top. Normally, the top three business listings attract the most customers.

So it’s imperative to maximize your Google Places’ presence:

  1. Complete all the information – physical address, telephone number and your relevant categories.
  2. Insert professional pictures and a video.
  3. Synergize your listing on CitySearch, Local.com, Manta, Merchant Yelp, YP.com and mobile sites such as Foursquare and Facebook Places. Produce an informative video for YouTube.
  4. Entice your best customers to insert reviews. If feasible, encourage them to take a moment to write a review before they leave your business.

Reinforce your Web presence

Even though you’ve done all the footwork to create a Google Places presence, you’re not done. Next, protect your turf. Yes, many businesspeople have been stunned to learn their local listings were closed on Google Places.

Here are the necessary preventative measures:

  1. Regularly update your Web site. On your home page, every week make a change, even its small such as a loss leader or testimonial.  Again, include your social media widgets if you have a blog, insert the latest headline. Customers and prospective customers will notice. Just as importantly, so will the search engines.
  2. Strategize with media centers of influence. Write search engine press releases and submit them to local media outlets if you have a newsworthy item. If you Need PR, But Don’t Have a Budget? Here’s How to Leverage News Media. In addition, insert a press page on your site and include your releases. The news media will be a big source of credibility.
  3. With blogging success, others will want to re-publish your work it or otherwise link to you. Don’t allow them to do so, if they have an inferior Web presence. The first step is to check their site’s Google page rank.
  4. Regularly monitor your Web presence with search-engine news alerts, especially with Google Alerts and Tweetdeck. Daily search for what’s being written about your business, and evaluate any changes to your search rankings and customer reviews. Respond quickly. So develop a prototypical emergency response strategy including templates. Why? Some competitors of businesses are gaming the system with false reviews for their gain or to badmouth others to enhance their online presence. They furtively do this and can quickly dominate the Internet by downgrading your presence. So keep a careful record of your business listings, and have template responses ready to insert in advertising along with key words ready to implement on the search engines and other sites. This includes responding to journalists, social media and other online forums.

Every business is different. These are merely the basics to cover most situations. But if you implement these steps, you’ll be well on your way for strong results.

Terry Corbell, my close colleague and friend, is Seattle’s “Biz Coach.” He is a business-performance consultant and profit professional.   I wanted to share his article with you, and refer you to his site, where you will find hundreds of interviews and articles (http://www.bizcoachinfo.com), and where you can contact him for a complimentary chat about your business.

Is Ageism Real? by Amy Hirsh Robinson

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The recession swept through America, leaving scores of unemployed Baby Boomers in its wake. Millions have been unable to find work since. It’s now gotten so bad for the unemployed over 50, that President Obama is proposing legislation to make discrimination against the unemployed illegal.

So is ageism in the workplace real? You bet it is. But the situation is complicated by these competing truths:

Many older workers do not have the skills and competencies that employers need to compete in the new economy.

  • Some younger managers are afraid to hire older workers because they don’t know how to manage them.
  • Sometimes older workers cost more to employ. Sometimes they cost less.
  • Productivity can decline with age, but younger workers are not always more productive, nor more reliable.

To be over 50 and unemployed carries a terrible status in our country, and we are ALL complicit. My challenge to hiring managers is to check your assumptions when screening candidates and look for the competencies most critical for the role. My challenge to Baby Boomers is to prove your relevancy to the new economy, adapting your skills and offerings to meet these changes in the market.

It is in everyone’s best interest for organizations to attract and retain top talent. What are you doing, as a hiring manager or potential employee, to help or hinder that goal?

My colleague, Amy Hirsh Robinson, MBA, is a leading expert on the impact of generational differences in the for-profit and not-for-profit workplace. She consults to C-level leaders on strategies to reduce attrition costs, increase profitability and create agile workforces able to adapt to ongoing change. See www.interchange-group.com.

Words to live by from the dawn of technology

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I’ve been thinking of all those pithy sayings about living our lives, like the Chinese “May you live in interesting times” and “Be careful what you wish for…”

And I have found my new message.

So, I am only about 50 pages into the nearly 600 pages of Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, and I have already found my favorite part – that new message.

Mind, I have been in the technology business nearly as long as Steve Jobs, although not as long as Atari-founder Nolan Bushnell, with whom I worked some many years later, after Atari.

But there were Nolan’s words for me to live by, on page 44 of the book, revealing the simplicity of his approach to technology and design: the instructions for Atari’s Star Trek game:

1.  Insert quarter.    2. Avoid Klingons.

 

Marketing Checklist to Measure Your Brand’s Personality by Terry Corbell

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  Marketing Checklist to Measure Your Brand’s Personality by Terry Corbell

Here are two key questions about your marketing: 1. How much have you invested in your brand and personality? 2. How’s it working?

These are important questions. However, many companies – large, medium and small – can’t accurately answer the questions. That’s especially true regarding their return on investment. Yet, ROI is critical to measure.

New research shows how to gauge your brand’s personality appeal – if it’s suitable to yield sales.

“We developed this means of measuring brand personality appeal (BPA) so companies can figure out how favorably their brand personality is viewed by consumers – and what they can do to enhance that personality’s appeal to their market,” says Dr. David Henard, an associate professor of business management at North Carolina State, in a press release.

The paper, “Brand personality appeal: conceptualization and empirical validation,” was co-authored by Henard; Dr. Traci Freling, of the University of Texas-Arlington; and Dr. Jody Crosno, of West Virginia University. The paper was published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.  (For purchase:  http://www.springerlink.com/content/mm753j27h285511v/ )

“Until now, researchers have only been able to determine whether a company has a brand personality,” Henard says. “The only existing scale was Aaker’s Brand Personality Scale, which could determine whether a brand personality is rugged, sophisticated, competent, exciting or sincere.

“What we’ve done here is develop a system that digs deeper to help companies link brand personality to concrete outcomes. For example, does the brand personality actually make people want to buy their product?”

The study lists 16 questions to ask about your brand in three variables: Favorability, originality and clarity.

The press release explains: “Favorability is how positively a brand personality is viewed by consumers. Originality is how distinct the brand personality is from other brands. Clarity is how clearly the brand personality is perceived by consumers.”

The press release offers more explanation about the three variables.

“For example, a company may find that its brand personality has a moderate rating on favorability, but is viewed as highly original and clearly defined. High marks for originality and clarity make the brand personality more appealing than the moderate favorability rating might indicate. It also tells a company that it needs to focus its efforts on improving its favorability rating, rather than distinguishing itself from competitors, in order to boost the brand personality’s overall appeal.”

The 16 questions:

  1. This brand’s personality is unapparent…apparent
  2. This brand’s personality is distinct…indistinct
  3. This brand’s personality is satisfactory…unsatisfactory
  4. This brand’s personality is obvious…not obvious
  5. This brand’s personality is unpleasant…pleasant
  6. This brand’s personality is common…distinctive
  7. This brand’s personality is attractive…unattractive
  8. This brand’s personality is ordinary…novel
  9. This brand’s personality is positive…negative
  10. This brand’s personality is bad…good
  11. This brand’s personality is vague…well-defined
  12. This brand’s personality is poor…excellent
  13. This brand’s personality is undesirable…desirable
  14. This brand’s personality is predictable…surprising
  15. This brand’s personality is routine…fresh
  16. This brand’s personality is unclear…clear

The study provides interesting food for thought, right? Munch away.

“What”s a brand? A singular idea or concept that you own inside the mind of the prospect.”  - Al Ries

 

Terry Corbell, my close colleague and friend, is Seattle’s “Biz Coach.” He is a business-performance consultant and profit professional.   I wanted to share his article with you, and refer you to his site, where you will find hundreds of interviews and articles (http://www.bizcoachinfo.com), and where you can contact him for a complimentary chat about your business.