If Time is Money, How Can There Be Free Time?

by Leo Bottary

I couldn’t help but look up the old axiom, “Time is money,” just to find out who first uttered this quote.  Not surprisingly, it was Benjamin Franklin.   In the future, I should just save myself some time by attributing anysuccinct, wise quote to Ben Franklin and be comforted with knowing that I’d probably be right at least 50% of the time.  That said, this post isn’t about Ben Franklin, but about the age-old paradox that if one subscribes to time as money, then by definition, carving out “free time” is a false pursuit.  It’s something we dream about (during periods where we could be doing something more productive no doubt), imagining if that if the world would just stop spinning for a few days, we might be able to catch a breather and recharge our batteries without believing that we are somehow sacrificing our livelihood.   So how do we serve our life and our livelihood?  How can we use our time more wisely?

Last week at Vistage, my colleagues and I talked about the top reason CEOs and senior executives balk at joining a peer advisory group.  Know what it is?  Time’s up.  It’s time.  It’s not about added expense for dues, questions about the potential value (personally and professionally) that can be gained, or a lack of willingness or understanding about how much there is to be learned from a group of peers from diverse backgrounds and industries.  It’s about the perception that as a CEO or senior executive, you believe it to be impossible to reserve one day a month to attend a peer advisory board meeting.   Here are five reasons I suspect are at the core of this issue:

1. You believe in your heart of hearts that your company can’t live without you for one day per month.  If you take a moment to think about it, it shouldn’t take you much time to concede the point that this is a flawed excuse.
2. That the peer advisory group meeting is time “away” from your company.  Physically, maybe, but as a practical matter, not at all.  By working with a board of advisors, you’re learning and receiving practical advice that can help you take your business to the next level and address some of the shared challenges you all face, particularly during these times of economic and political uncertainty.
3. A lack of understanding about the personal benefits that can be gained by engaging with your executive peers.  At the office, you can work on your business, but it’s not so easy to work on your life.  As a peer advisory board member, you help one another do both!
4. If you really believe that time is money, then it stands to reason you should be just as concerned with your Return on Time as you are the Return on Every Dollar you invest in your people, your company, and your myriad stakeholders (including yourself).   If you’re a business owner or have risen to the rank of CEO, follow Marshall Goldsmith’s sage advice that “What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There.”  If you’ve never joined a peer advisory group, you’ll be investing your time in a pursuit that can take you THERE.
5. Admitting to yourself that your employees might actually benefit from a day where the boss isn’t in the office.  That’s not to say they don’t love you, but they could use a day a month too – maybe engaging ininternal peer groups of their own.

So if you believe time is money, it’s hard to go wrong joining a peer advisory board in your local area; or if you have an impossible travel schedule, live in a rural market or prefer to engage your peers online, you could always try this!  I may be partial to Vistage, but I wholeheartedly encourage you to seek the peer advisory experience that best meets your specific needs.  Working on your life and your livelihood with a group of peers doesn’t serve as a withdrawal on the limited time we have in this world, it’s a deposit.  Just remember what Ben said.

Three Myths about What Customers Want

by Karen Freeman, Patrick Spenner and Anna Bird 
via @harvardbiz
 

Most marketers think that the best way to hold onto customers is through "engagement" — interacting as much as possible with them and building relationships. It turns out that that's rarely true. In a study involving more than 7000 consumers, we found that companies often have dangerously wrong ideas about how best to engage with customers. Consider these three myths.

Myth #1: Most consumers want to have relationships with your brand.

Actually, they don't. Only 23% of the consumers in our study said they have a relationship with a brand. In the typical consumer's view of the world, relationships are reserved for friends, family and colleagues. That's why, when you ask the 77% of consumers who don't have relationships with brands to explain why, you get comments like "It's just a brand, not a member of my family." (What consumers really want when they interact with brands online is to get discounts).

How should you market differently?

First, understand which of your consumers are in the 23% and which are in the 77%. Who wants a relationship and who doesn't? Then, apply different expectations to those two groups and market differently to them. Stop bombarding consumers who don't want a relationship with your attempts to build one through endless emails or complex loyalty programs. Those efforts will be low ROI. Chances are there are higher returns to be had elsewhere in your marketing mix.

Myth #2: Interactions build relationships.

No, they don't. Shared values build relationships. A shared value is a belief that both the brand and consumer have about a brand's higher purpose or broad philosophy. For example, Pedigree Dog Food's shared value is a belief that every dog deserves a loving home. Southwest Airlines' shared value revolves around the democratization of air travel.

Of the consumers in our study who said they have a brand relationship, 64% cited shared values as the primary reason. That's far and away the largest driver. Meanwhile, only 13% cited frequent interactions with the brand as a reason for having a relationship.

How should you market differently?

Many brands have a demonstrable higher purpose baked into their missions, whether it's Patagonia's commitment to the environment or Harley Davidson's goal "to fulfill dreams through the experience of motorcycling." These feel authentic to consumers, and so provide a credible basis for shared values and relationship-building. To build relationships, start by clearly communicating your brand's philosophy or higher purpose.

CEB has done extensive work on shared values, showcasing how brands like Mini, Pedigree and Southwest use them to engage with customers. You might also check into Jim Stengel's examination of growth ideals and David Aaker's latest work on brand relevance.

Myth #3: The more interaction the better.

Wrong. There's no correlation between interactions with a customer and the likelihood that he or she will be "sticky" (go through with an intended purchase, purchase again, and recommend). Yet, most marketers behave as if there is a continuous linear relationship between the number of interactions and share of wallet. That's why, as the Wall Street Journal recently reported, you see well-established retailers like Neiman-Marcus, Land's End and Toys R Us sending customers over 300 emails annually.

In reality, that linear relationship flattens much more quickly than most marketers think; soon, helpful interactions become an overwhelming torrent. Without realizing it, many marketers are only adding to the information bombardment consumers feel as they shop a category, reducing stickiness rather than enhancing it. (For more on consumers' cognitive overload, see the sidebar "Too Much Information" in our recent HBR article.

How should you market differently?

Instead of relentlessly demanding more consumer attention, treat the attention you do win as precious. Then ask yourself a simple question of any new marketing efforts: is this campaign/email/microsite/print ad/etc. going to reduce the cognitive overload consumers feel as they shop my category? If the answer is "no" or "not sure," go back to the drawing board. When it comes to interacting with your customers, more isn't better.

How To Hit the Ground Running When Returning from Vacation

I found this useful!
via @lifehacker 

Dear Lifehacker,

I'm about to take a much-needed vacation, and while planning my trip is a blast, planning for my return is always the hard part. I'll be mostly disconnected, and don't like the idea of checking in just to make getting back to work and life easier when I return from my time away. Do you have any tips on how to quickly re-integrate with my day to day activities when I get home without immediately feeling like I need to take a vacation from my return-from-vacation?

Sincerely,
Burnt Out on Burnout

Dear Burnt Out,
That's a good question! A lot of us have the same problem, and it's one of those insidious facts of work life that actually keep some of us from taking much-needed vacations in the first place. There are definitely some ways you can ease back in to the normal routine of work and life while still retaining the benefits you get from being away from it all long enough to recharge your batteries. You can also use the opportunity as a fresh start to try and cement habits that'll keep you from getting too burned out in the first place. Here's what we mean.

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Prepare Before You leave

The old adage is that the last few days before a vacation are often the busiest. They don't have to be, but proper preparation is key to making sure it's easy to get back into the mix when you get back from your vacation without wishing you never left in the first place. Here's how:

• Delegate. Make sure you give your work away. Whether it's your boss, your colleagues, or someone else, make sure that you work with your manager and your team to make sure that your regular responsibilities are covered while you're away, and little things that anyone can do don't just pile up while you're away. If someone else can do it, make sure someone else is doing it, so you don't have to play catch up while you're gone—and your clients or customers don't feel slighted because you took a few days off.
• Get the word out. Whether it's an out-of-office notification in your email client, calendar appointment to the people you work with most often, an email, or a face-to-face conversation, let everyone know you'll be gone. You may even consider setting a calendar appointment with a reminder 48 hours before you actually leave, or an out of office during the last week before your vacation that you'll be gone the following week so everyone knows you'll be out in advance. Don't give anyone the opportunity to say "Oh, I didn't know you'd be gone!"
• Clean Out That Inbox. Whether you have to declare inbox bankruptcy to get it cleaned out, it'll help you to know that the only email waiting for you in your mailbox are messages you missed while you were out of the office. If you have a to-do app or some kind of tool where work is assigned to you, make sure you clean it out as much as possible before you go as well.
• Shift the responsibility to follow-up. Whether you put it in your out-of-office message, voicemail greeting, or just tell everyone, let them know that you'll be gone for a while, and if the issue is important, ask them to follow up with you when you're back at the office, on whichever day it is. Of course, that doesn't totally absolve you of the need to follow up with people when you get back, but it does remind your colleagues to come see you when you're back in the office instead of waiting around for you to answer an email that could be weeks old.

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Make Your Home Easy to Return To

In addition to preparing your professional life and making sure everyone knows you're headed out and will follow up when you get back, take some time to do the same thing for your personal life, around your home or apartment. When you get back from a long, relaxing vacation, the last thing you'll want to do, for example, is clean up a house in disarray. You can make coming back from vacation a little easier on yourself with a few simple tips:

• Clean up your house before you leave. Take out the trash, change your sheets, vacuum your floors, tidy up the bathroom—you know the drill. When you get back home after a long vacation, you'll be happy to be home, but you'll be happier if your home is clean and tidy, you have a nice freshly made bed to fall asleep in after a long trip home, and most importantly you don't have a long to-do list of chores around the house to do. If you take care of that stuff before you leave, it'll make unpacking and settling back in that much easier.
• Lay out a set of fresh clothes for your morning back. If you're getting back on the day before you go back to work, lay out of your work clothes before you even leave so you don't have to think about it on your first morning back. If you get back a few days before, lay out your around-the-house clothes—anything to make it easier for you to relax a bit and to make your first morning back painless.

Ultimately, do what you can to make getting home and back into the swing of things as easy as possible before you leave. The last thing you'll want to do when you get home after a vacation, whether it's around the corner or across the globe, is start working as soon as you walk through the door. You'll likely be exhausted but happy to have had your vacation—don't make coming home more difficult than it already is.

Disconnect and Stay Disconnected

Once you've done all of that preparation, go take your vacation and really enjoy it. You've set the stage so you know that returning can be easy and you won't have a ton of work to do as soon as you get back just to make yourself at home. Whether you disconnect completely when you're on vacation or don't is up to you, but we're big proponents of disconnecting from your work at least as much as possible. Your vacation is just that—you won't get the full benefits of being away to recharge your batteries if you're half-working and spending time cleaning out your inbox while you're supposed to be relaxing.

Come Back Recharged and Refreshed

We've discussed some great ways to make your first days back easier to deal with, like getting started early, eating a good breakfast, and tackling your email and other responsibilities by importance and not by when they came in. Don't get overwhelmed when you return from time away—in fact, you might do yourself a favor and ignore your inbox entirely and make the rounds talking to the people you work most closely with on your first day back at the office—that way you don't waste time following up on emails or other requests that have been resolved while you were away.

You might also consider declaring inbox bankruptcy upon your return. Shoot an email to your team to let them know you're back and that if there's anything important they need you for, invite them to catch up with you. Many of us don't have the luxury of just deleting everything in our inboxes and starting over, but you can safely make assumptions about what needs follow-up and what doesn't. Take it easy, and try to make your first day back at work or school as hassle-free as possible. You don't have to take care of everything on your first day back.

Finally, take some time to relax and remember how great your vacation was. Maybe you can hang up a photo from your vacation, or bring in a memento of your trip—something to help you stay grounded and reminded that you took some great time away from work or school and had a chance to recharge. Put it front and center where you'll see it. Every now and again, look at it and meditate on how much better you feel now or having taken that time off. After all, you just recharged your batteries—it doesn't make sense to drain them again in your first day or week back to your dayt-to-day life.

You Can't Control Everything, So Don't Worry Too Much

If you're looking for some more tips to make coming back from vacation easy, check out some suggestions from our readers, like coming back in the middle of a workweek instead of the beginning, and taking off a few hours early for the first couple of days you're back so you're not overwhelmed. We're also big fans of using a vacation as a logical place to start new positive habits, like trying to get out of the office at a reasonable hour every day, and scheduling your breaks and relaxation time to make sure you get them.

Finally, keep in mind that you can't control everything. The unexpected may happen, you may get back from your vacation to a tragedy or some big issue that needs your immediate attention, or something you trusted would go well without you went poorly. That's okay—remember that your company, your classmates, your colleagues will all survive just fine without you—you need to take care of yourself. Put yourself first and try to stay positive: a good attitude goes a long way!

Good luck,
Lifehacker

What are the key drivers of an innovative culture?

Robert Reiss

Pat Charmel, CEO of Griffin Hospital, explores the concept of innovation in his organization.  He begins by linking innovation to creativity.  In re-inventing the then-failing organization, Charmel says creativity was a must.  He drives his point home with the recent construction of Griffin Hospital’s cancer facility, in which the concept of “experience mapping” was put to use.  Charmel goes on to explain that the strategy determines and prioritizes the needs of the patient, by walking through or experiencing renderings of a health facility in the eyes of the patient.

In another example of Griffin Hospital’s innovation, Charmel points to their principle focus on comfort by de-emphasizing what he calls the intimidating and frightening look of technology.  Whereas other health care providers celebrate expensive machinery as ‘centerpieces’ in their facilities, Charmel says Griffin would rather colorize million-dollar technologies in neutral tones.  This approach, he says, helps make otherwise-daunting machines disappear in the patients eyes.

When asked about Griffin’s innovation practices outside of healthcare, Pat Charmel explains the innovative steps that Griffin has innovated to turn their company around. See the full interview here.

Corporate Strategy: 5 Critical Alignments To Assess

By Joe Evans

As businesses muddle out of the recessionary hangover, the fundamentals management matter more than ever. For multi-national enterprises and small businesses alike – it is all about the results. With the pressure to perform ratcheted up to an all time high, corporate strategy and crisp execution are top of mind with business leaders. Crisp execution requires business strategies to be aligned with methodically planned actions. This article addresses five of those key areas where alignment to corporate strategy are essential to business effectiveness.

1.  Strategy and mission alignment

If organizations cannot succinctly explain what they do, how will their marketplace consumers understand it? An organization’s mission statement must be defined broadly enough to allow room to maneuver, yet be direct and purposeful in defining the market(s) served, the products and / or services provided by the firm and the distinguishing characteristics of those offerings.

Let’s look at Target’s mission statement as an example and then break it down into parts.

Target’s Mission:  “Our mission is to make Target the preferred shopping destination for our guests by delivering outstanding value, continuous innovation and an exceptional guest experience by consistently fulfilling our Expect More. Pay Less.^® brand promise.”

What are the key elements?

-  Market Served: economy and quality minded shoppers

-  Contribution: exceptional guest experience

-  Distinction: outstanding value, continuous innovation and an exceptional guest experience by consistently offering more for less

This same information must align with the strategy of the organization. Strategies are broad in scope, but should also be capable of being summed up in strategy statements that employees will understand and embrace. A strategy statement, while being simple in structure, must also anticipate the need for adaptability. Too much specificity in the statement will undermine flexibility down the road.

At a minimum, for strategy to yield competitive advantage, it must address three key questions:

- “What do we do?”

- “Who are our customers?”

- “How do we do what we do better than our competitors?”

The aligned strategy statement “shell” for one of Target’s brands might be stated as follows:

“Our strategy is to _____ by offering _____, at a cost that brings value to our customers unmatched by our competition through  ___ and ____.”

Note the alignment of elements in the mission and strategy:

Contribution = “What do we do?”

Market Served = “Who are our customers?”

Distinction = “How do we do what we do better than our competitors?”

2.  Strategic goals and core values alignment

Strategic goals and organizational core values are both extremely important aspects any business, so overlooking the alignment of these elements is a serious mistake.

Strategic goals should define the outcomes the organization desires to accomplish in measurable terms.

Core values serve as the compass to help steer strategic decision making. Businesses should know what these values are and state them in no uncertain terms.

If a core value of the organization is to respect employees and promote quality of life, then setting goals that are unrealistic and are sure to drive employees into the ground is a violation of that core value. Such a violation represents an alignment issue. While super-human feats may bring about short-term benefits, sustaining them over time is not realistic – therefore, no long-term advantages will be gained.

3.  Strategic goals and operational capacity alignment

The best way to ensure alignment between strategic goals and operational capacity is to face realities during planning and do not allow over zealousness projections to take over. Ask questions.

-  Do our internal systems have the ability to support goal achievement?

-  Will suppliers, distributors and partners be able to keep pace in support of goal attainment?

-  Can our managers and employees step up to the added workload an pressure we will be asking of them?

4.  Strategic goals and core competencies alignment

Strategies should follow a simple alignment rule related to business core competencies. Compete where you have an advantage, otherwise do not. Do the skills and knowledge exist in the right levels within the organization to accomplish the strategic goals? In strategy development, the question of “what should we do” is a corollary to the “what we do” question.  This perspective relates to building competitiveness in your offering and exploring tangential markets that might be exploited, provided that the barriers to entry are not too high and organizational capabilities match the opportunities being evaluated.  Truly gauging core competencies is key to ensuring alignment exists in this area.

5.  Strategy and operational execution tactics alignment

Operations-level planning describes the tactics of execution, correlating strategy to action. Misalignment often occurs here, primarily because companies skip over operational planning altogether or do a poor job of paying attention to details.

The goal of the operational planning is to create realistic and comprehensive work breakdown structures (project plans) for the work entailed in all identified initiatives related to the strategic goals of the client. Additionally, accountability and responsibility structures get established at the initiative and project levels when operational planning is done correctly. This activity has an important alignment to budgets, as it affects resource plans, infrastructure and schedules that might have downstream consequences to sales, marketing and other functions.

In conclusion

It is critically important to build alignment into strategic plans as they are constructed and each time they are refreshed. Alignment refers to sensibly attaching strategies to actions while remaining true to the organization’s mission, core values, actual operational capabilities and core competencies along the way.

How to Stop Sleeping with Your Smart Phone

In visiting with a CEO this week he was describing an underperforming employee who could not get the "work-life" balance right.  In this case, too much "life" and not enough "work"!  That is not normally the case.  This balance is critical both for ourselves as leaders but also for those we lead.  I am a big believer in working toward finding and excercising proper balance.  The article below has some very practical tips...

By GARY BELSKY | @garybelsky

In her new book, Sleeping with Your Smartphone, Harvard Business School professor Leslie Perlow details her years-long research project with the Boston Consulting Group, an attempt to improve the work-life balance at the hard-driving firm with incremental but meaningful changes in attitude and behavior. It was a worthy goal, given that by most measures, overconnectedness is a real problem in the workplace.

 By all accounts — Perlow’s, the firm’s, even clients’ — the experiment was a success. And not just because the professor scored a book deal from it: she outlines a plan that any organization can implement, which has the advantage of both simplicity and acronymability. She calls it PTO — Predictable Time Off — and it’s almost sure to pop up soon at a staff-building meeting or HR conference near you.

In the meantime, here are Seven Lessons You Won’t Learn in School About … Breaking the 24/7 Work Habit. (Interview edited and condensed by Gary Belsky.)

1. We’re becoming a nation of success addicts. “People are often labeled as workaholics, but we’ve come to think of them as ‘successaholics.’ Very few hard-driving people want to be answering e-mails in the middle of the night. What they want is to be perceived as being available and responsive.”

2. Even well-meaning firms can burn out employees. “BCG had lots of work-life policies and programs before we entered the picture. But when we first spent time with the company, we found they were losing many of their best people, and a lot of it had to do with being too connected with work and with a lack of control over the schedules and unpredictability in their lives in general. We came to recognize that at the source of this problem is what we call the cycle of responsiveness.”

(MORE: Why Companies Should Force Employees to Unplug)

“If you work in a culture where being ‘on’ is valued, you feel pressure to be available. So you adapt. Then, because you’re more available, clients and colleagues naturally make more requests of you. That leads to more pressure to be available, so you adapt again. It’s a vicious cycle. By always being connected to work  you’re reinforcing, even amplifying, the pressures that cause you to be available in the first place. Most of the people we surveyed reported spending 20 to 25 hours a week monitoring their work while not actually working.”

3. Everybody needs predictable time off. “In many industries and at many companies, even when people aren’t working, they’re still on: catching up on reading, preparing presentations, checking and responding to e-mails. People check e-mails constantly: at night before they go to bed, soon after they wake up, on weekends. When we first started doing our research, we asked people two questions: How easy is it for you to make a plan for a Wednesday night? And, Would you be interested in working 80% of the time for 80% of your pay, if there was no stigma attached? It became clear that making personal plans was extremely difficult, and people — younger and older, married and single, with young children and not, men and women — were working so much that they would happily give up money if they knew they were gaining more control over their time.”

4. The business world should take a cue from the medical profession. “Doctors have call schedules. They are on, on-call and off. In the business world, we are only on or on-call. We don’t have off. And yet doctors are the ones saving lives, not us.”

5. Looking for big changes? Take small steps. “The magic, if you will, of PTO is that it’s very achievable if a team is committed. First, team members have to agree on a specific unit of time each week that everyone can turn off. Not at the same time, obviously, since team members have to cover for each other. In our first experiment, it was one night a week. But whatever the goal, it has to be valued by the team, as a group. It has to be small but doable. And it has to be concrete and measurable.”

“Second, the team needs to meet weekly to discuss the challenges and successes they’re facing as they try to achieve the goal. These meetings are crucial for PTO to work, but they offer much more. They’re a regular forum for productive conversations about work, conversations that empower people to speak up. In theory, people are speaking up about process, which allows the team to meet the time-off goal. But really they’re speaking about all aspects of the work experience.”

“Finally, the team’s leaders — bosses, managers — have to show support for the project and for team members’ efforts. That’s not just about allowing colleagues to speak up and to use their time off. It’s also about doing the same themselves.”

6. Schedule predictablity is contagious … “We started with one team of six consultants at BCG, and that eventually led to office-wide change. Four years after we conducted our first experiment, 86% of the consulting staff in Boston was on teams engaged in PTO projects. And the changes in culture were extremely positive: 72% of people in PTO experiments said they were satisfied with their job vs. 49% of their colleagues who were not doing PTO; 54% of people were satisfied with their work-life balance vs. 38%; and 51% said they were excited to work in the morning, compared with 27% of those not using PTO.”

7. … and good for clients too. “There was a shared sense within BCG that PTO was having no negative effects on clients and in many cases was having profound, positive effects because of the improvements made to the work process itself. To confirm, I interviewed the clients myself. Most didn’t even realize BCG was engaged in the process. Upon learning, people were pleasantly surprised that nothing had dropped through the cracks. There was an appreciation for the fact that people were getting their time off while still meeting the client’s expectations. Few of us want the people we hire to be miserable. There was a sense that by having to cover for each other in each other’s absence, the client was getting more minds focused collaboratively on their problems.”

The #1 CEO Mistake That Will Kill Your Company

Christine Comaford, Contributor @forbes

Bob’s business was growing by a consistent 30% per year.

Then it stopped.

Two of his key sales people had left, followed by his VP of Marketing. A handful of his most promising emerging leaders were moving toward the door too. Bob’s revenue had flatlined. I was called in to stop the exodus and turn things around.

Sue’s business was growing by 100% per year. The speed at which the company was expanding was barely manageable. At any given time her company had 20+ job searches under way.

And there was no sign of a slowdown.

Until her people’s performance started to falter. Accountability became wobbly. At 5pm the office was a ghost town. The previous palpable energy in the office now was dull and dreary. Everyone looked burned out and tired.

Both Bob and Sue had the same problem: no People Plan.

What Inflection Point Are You Headed Toward?

In my 30 years of helping CEOs build highly profitable businesses, I’ve consistently correlated company challenges to what I call Inflection Points. At each Inflection Point your business is reinvented–there are profound people, money and business model changes. The people ones are the hardest. Without mastering them, the money and business model become irrelevant, because your business isn’t going to make it.

The business world is moving too fast to tolerate CEOs who don’t prepare for their next Inflection Point. Let’s look at the Inflection Points then we’ll lay out your People Plan.

Image Credit: Copyright Christine Comaford Assoc 2012

How’s Your People Plan?  13 Questions To Ask Now

Rate yourself on the following questions. Answer each with Yes or No, then total them up at the end.

1-Is your revenue growing as quickly as you want it to?

2-Is your profit growing as quickly as you want it to?

3-Do you have the right people in the right roles doing the right things?

4-Are you retaining or losing your superstars?

5-Are you using specific proven techniques to help your executive team lead better by seeing into their blind spots, overcoming challenging behaviors, expanding their vision and ability to elevate others?

6-Have you identified your next generation of leaders?

7-If so, are you following a specific proven process to cultivate them?

8-Would you like to get more accountability, communication, execution from your team?

9-Are you navigating rapid growth or turnaround where internal priorities are frequently shifting and the team is challenged to quickly adapt and stretch?

10-Are you frequently resolving conflict between key executives or team members?

11-Does your culture have a prevalent victim mentality where problems are focused on versus outcomes?

12-Do you know how to scale and allocate your human resources to get more done with fewer people?

13-Are you keeping your finger on the pulse of the culture and implementing programs to increase emotional equity?

If you have five or more “No” answers you likely have no People Plan. Keep reading to remedy this.

4 Key Components of Your People Plan

People Plans evolve over time. The reason most CEOs want one is three-fold: greater profit, greater revenue, greater retention and development of their key team members. With an effective People Plan you’ll get:

• 35% more productivity from your team members
• Close sales 50% faster
• Double revenue or net income annually

For version 1 of your People Plan you’ll need the following:

1-Individual Development Plans: Each team member across your company should know their next two possible evolutions (promotions imply a raise/title change, which may not occur)—whether they are up, across or within. The “within” evolutions are when their current role takes on significant new responsibility or acquires a new skill set. Think of a customer service rep who has now been trained in up-selling, down-selling, cross-selling and thus can now receive performance bonuses when their new skills are demonstrated. Plan out 1 year at a time.

2- Leadership Development Programs:  Every team member in your company should have the opportunity to apply for a Leadership Development Program. This program is a six month training and coaching intensive where the person develops significant new skills and changes previously limiting behaviors. Your next generation of leadership will come from the people who graduate from this program, and everyone who participates needs to “pay it forward” by mentoring a person in your company on enhancing their own leadership.

3-Lean Training: See my blog on Crushed Culture to learn the four short and sweet trainings (2.5 hours each or less) every staff member on your team must receive. Don’t assume since Joe works in the warehouse that he doesn’t need training on smart skills (aka management skills). Au contraire. One of our clients had a warehouse worker named Marv. He took our Neuroscience of Leadership training and one month later had optimized  warehouse efficiency and reduced costs by over $300,000 per month. Needless to say Marv has been promoted.

4-Accountability Structures and Rewards/Consequences: I covered super effective accountability structures in my Accountability Blog, so I won’t repeat it here. The main point is everyone must know their key “Needle Movers” for the year, quarter, month and be delivering results consistently. They get rewards for results and consequences when they miss them.

Don’t let your growth grind to a halt. And don’t tolerate a Crushed Culture like United Airlines and Hilton Hotels–two brands that I used to love–now have. (Hint: surly employees and inconsistent quality are huge signs).

Both Bob and Sue now have a People plan. Their cultural chaos is a distant memory. Bob’s growth is now at 42% annually, Sue had another year at 100% growth then we moved our focus to cranking up her profit and operational efficiency.

Christine Comaford has created and implemented People Plans at many of America’s most successful companies for the past 30 years. She’s also the author of the NY Times bestseller “Rules for Renegades.” Follow Christine on Twitter: @comaford

What a 9-Year-Old Can Teach You About Selling

via @ INC by Tom Searcy

I recently read a study that confirmed my suspicion that most people don't remember what we present to them in a sales call. The data suggested that the average buyer in a meeting will only remember one thing–one!–a week after your meeting.

Oh, and by the way: You don't get to choose what that one thing is. Sigh.

So what have sales professionals done about this? They have worked on "honing the message," developing a "compelling unique advantage" and, of course, the ultimate silver bullet: a surefire elevator pitch.

But here's what you're fighting: A world cluttered with information, schedules, packed with more meetings and work than a person can handle. A decision-making process with more people involved in every choice–many of whom know little about your product or service. No wonder so little is remembered; often your audience doesn't even understand much about what you're offering.

What Kids Want to Know

I have a 9-year-old daughter with spring freckles, long brown hair and blue eyes the size of silver dollars. She asks the kinds of questions that on the surface seem so simple:

• Daddy, what do you do?
• Why do people decide to hire you?
• Why don't they hire somebody else or do it themselves?

One of the great things about 9-year-olds: Like many buyers these days, they lack context. Any answer that you provide has to be in a language that they can understand.

What does a procurement specialist know about what you sell–or the IT person, or the finance person? The challenge is this: Can you answer the three questions my 9-year-old asked, for your own business?

Hint: There are right and wrong answers for both.

Daddy, What Do You Do?

• Right answer: "I help companies to grow really fast by teaching them how to sell bigger companies much larger orders."
• Wrong answer: "Our company helps develop inside of our clients a replicable and scalable process for them to land large accounts."

Why Do People Decide to Hire You?

• Right answer: "We have helped lots of companies do this before, so we are really good at it as long as they are the right type of companies."
• Wrong answer: "We have a proven process for implementation that allows organizations to tailor the model to their market, business offering and company's growth goals."

Why Don't They Do It Themselves?

• Right answer: "Just like when you learned to play the piano: Mommy and I could teach a little, but we don't know as much as your teacher, and teaching you ourselves would take a long time and be very frustrating. Daddy is a really good teacher of how to make bigger sales, and people want to learn how to do this as fast as they can."
• Wrong answer: "We are the foremost expert in this field with over $5 billion in business that our clients have closed using this system. Usually our clients have tried a number of things on their own before we work together and have wanted outside help to get better results."

In these cases, both answers are accurate, but that doesn't make them right. In a world in which more decisions are made with less information and context, our responsibility is to get to as clear and memorable an answer as possible for all of the buyers to understand.

What Success Really Looks Like

This napkin sketch was tweeted this morning by Babs Rangaiah of Unilever (@babs26). It has been attributed to Demetri Martin, the author of a book called This Is A Book.

It's wise:

Best business books list...

I shared this list with my Vistage group members... it is a collection of some of the best business books I have come across.    Below I have listed the book, a description of the value and a link to Amazon:

Leadership is an Art - Best book I have read on high level leadership - Amazon

The Marketing Playbook - Outstanding book on marketing strategy.  How to compete, new products and services.  Well written - Amazon

Top Grading - Discussed in our last meeting.  How to get the right people on the bus - Amazon

The Alchemist - Not your normal business book... this book is about life and work balance as well as priorities.  Thought provoking - Amazon

How to Become a Rainmaker - Excellent book for sales and BD, both practical and inspirational - Amazon

Fierce Conversations - A Vistage endorsed book on having the tough conversations and communicating with clarity - Amazon

Death By Meeting - A must read for executives.  This is a fable about meetings and very practical ways to make the far more effective - Amazon

I have many more listed on my LinkedIn Reading List.

Business Etiquette: 5 Rules That Matter Now

via @inc by Eliza Browning

The word may sound stodgy. But courtesy and manners are still essential--particularly in business.

The word "etiquette" gets a bad rap. For one thing, it sounds stodgy and pretentious. And rules that are socially or morally prescribed seem intrusive to our sense of individuality and freedom.

But the concept of etiquette is still essential, especially now—and particularly in business. New communication platforms, like Facebook and Linked In, have blurred the lines of appropriateness and we're all left wondering how to navigate unchartered social territory.

At Crane & Co., we have been advising people on etiquette for two centuries. We have even published books on the subject—covering social occasions, wedding etiquette and more.

Boil it down and etiquette is really all about making people feel good. It's not about rules or telling people what to do, or not to do, it's about ensuring some basic social comforts.

So here are a few business etiquette rules that matter now—whatever you want to call them.

1. Send a Thank You Note

I work at a paper company that manufactures stationery and I'm shocked at how infrequently people send thank you notes after interviewing with me. If you're not sending a follow-up thank you note to Crane, you're not sending it anywhere.

But the art of the thank you note should never die. If you have a job interview, or if you're visiting clients or meeting new business partners—especially if you want the job, or the contract or deal—take the time to write a note. You'll differentiate yourself by doing so and it will reflect well on your company too.

2. Know the Names

It's just as important to know your peers or employees as it is to develop relationships with clients, vendors or management. Reach out to people in your company, regardless of their roles, and acknowledge what they do.

My great-grandfather ran a large manufacturing plant. He would take his daughter (my grandmother) through the plant; she recalled that he knew everyone's name—his deputy, his workers, and the man who took out the trash.

We spend too much of our time these days looking up – impressing senior management. But it's worth stepping back and acknowledging and getting to know all of the integral people who work hard to make your business run.

3. Observe the 'Elevator Rule'

When meeting with clients or potential business partners off-site, don't discuss your impressions of the meeting with your colleagues until the elevator has reached the bottom floor and you're walking out of the building. That's true even if you're the only ones in the elevator.

Call it superstitious or call it polite—but either way, don't risk damaging your reputation by rehashing the conversation as soon as you walk away.

4. Focus on the Face, Not the Screen

It's hard not to be distracted these days. We have a plethora of devices to keep us occupied; emails and phone calls come through at all hours; and we all think we have to multitask to feel efficient and productive.

But that's not true: When you're in a meeting or listening to someone speak, turn off the phone. Don't check your email. Pay attention and be present.

When I worked in news, everyone was attached to a BlackBerry, constantly checking the influx of alerts. But my executive producer rarely used hers—and for this reason, she stood out. She was present and was never distracted in editorial meetings or discussions with the staff. And it didn't make her any less of a success.

5. Don't Judge

We all have our vices—and we all have room for improvement. One of the most important parts of modern-day etiquette is not to criticize others.

You may disagree with how another person handles a specific situation, but rise above and recognize that everyone is trying their best. It's not your duty to judge others based on what you feel is right. You are only responsible for yourself.

We live in a world where both people and businesses are concerned about brand awareness. Individuals want to stand out and be liked and accepted by their peers--both socially and professionally.

The digital landscape has made it even more difficult to know whether or not you're crossing a line, but I think it's simple. Etiquette is positive. It's a way of being—not a set of rules or dos and don'ts.

So before you create that hashtag, post on someone's Facebook page or text someone mid-meeting, remember the fundamentals: Will this make someone feel good?

And remember the elemental act of putting pen to paper and writing a note. You'll make a lasting impression that a shout-out on Twitter or a Facebook wall mention can't even touch.

8 Steps for Refreshing your Brand

by • Marc Emmer • 

One must contemplate the distinction between branding and rebranding. Rebranding is often miscast as an exercise in repairing one’s reputation. Some rebranding efforts focus on mitigating a negative image (such as Philip Morris’s name change to Altria or AIG’s move of their advisory business to Sagepoint). Yet rebranding may also represent subtle changes in positioning, or the recasting of visual identify, such as Starbucks recent move to a more contemporary look.

If you thinking about rebranding your company, bear in the mind the following considerations:

Seek out simplification-Today’s rebranding efforts are often a function of providing clarity to the marketplace and removing brand confusion. Citi’s recent rebranding removed a single word (if the word bank is in your name, it may not be a bad a idea to remove it). Our cluttered market values simplicity.

Leverage Social Media from the ground up- Within our firm, we recently rebuilt our website, refreshed our brand, and printed new business cards (including a QR code). All of our marketing includes embedded social media components, with the intent of driving traffic to our website where prospects can experience various multimedia tools that are featured online.

Use emotional triggers-Google famous Parisian Love ad (when an American finds love in Paris) is a classic example of using emotional messaging to capture the imagination of your audience. All marketing should utilize emotional triggers.

Enter new markets- Pabst Blue Ribbon, perceived as an also-ran in the U.S. rebranded in China as an ultra-premium American lager (PBR) and is selling for upwards of $44 a bottle (the Chinese may not have everything figured out).

Reshape perceptions about quality-Rebranding should not appear cosmetic or contrived. Harley Davidson’s slide in perceived quality in the 80’s was magnified by stiff competition from Japanese competitors.  The company’s drastic repositioning included a return to its core products and the formation of the Harley Owners Group (HOG’s),  which reestablished Harley a bad boy brand.

Identify unmet needs- Your offer may need to change as the utility of your product or the benefits that differentiate it may shift over time.  Marketers will often use a tag line when they wish to preserve there brand equity, and point out new features or benefits.

Use professionals- Rebranding can back fire when companies draw attention to their marketing.  Many smaller companies try to utilize self service template web sites and similar home grown tools that come off as……home grown. Marketing requires constant investment. Hire people who can assist you with both messaging and technology.

Understand the hard and soft costs- Change can be expensive, given the need to reprint, re-sign, change email addresses, etc. Consider all your  hard and soft costs (including management team band) with as you refresh your brand.

Organizations often under appreciate the importance of branding. In this world of hyper-competition, the way you communicate the nuances of your brand are more important than ever.

6 Habits of True Strategic Thinkers

You're the boss, but you still spend too much time on the day-to-day. Here's how to become the strategic leader your company needs.

By Paul J. H. Schoemaker | @inc

In the beginning, there was just you and your partners. You did every job. You coded, you met with investors, you emptied the trash and phoned in the midnight pizza. Now you have others to do all that and it's time for you to "be strategic." 

Whatever that means.

If you find yourself resisting "being strategic," because it sounds like a fast track to irrelevance, or vaguely like an excuse to slack off, you're not alone. Every leader's temptation is to deal with what's directly in front, because it always seems more urgent and concrete. Unfortunately, if you do that, you put your company at risk. While you concentrate on steering around potholes, you'll miss windfall opportunities, not to mention any signals that the road you're on is leading off a cliff.

This is a tough job, make no mistake. "We need strategic leaders!” is a pretty constant refrain at every company, large and small. One reason the job is so tough: no one really understands what it entails. It's hard to be a strategic leader if you don't know what strategic leaders are supposed to do.

After two decades of advising organizations large and small, my colleagues and I have formed a clear idea of what's required of you in this role. Adaptive strategic leaders — the kind who thrive in today’s uncertain environment – do six things well:

Anticipate 

Most of the focus at most companies is on what’s directly ahead. The leaders lack “peripheral vision.” This can leave your company vulnerable to rivals who detect and act on ambiguous signals. To anticipate well, you must:

• Look for game-changing information at the periphery of your industry
• Search beyond the current boundaries of your business
• Build wide external networks to help you scan the horizon better

Think Critically

“Conventional wisdom” opens you to fewer raised eyebrows and second guessing. But if you swallow every management fad, herdlike belief, and safe opinion at face value, your company loses all competitive advantage. Critical thinkers question everything. To master this skill you must force yourself to:

• Reframe problems to get to the bottom of things, in terms of root causes
• Challenge current beliefs and mindsets, including your own
• Uncover hypocrisy, manipulation, and bias in organizational decisions

Interpret 

Ambiguity is unsettling. Faced with it, the temptation is to reach for a fast (and potentially wrongheaded) solution.  A good strategic leader holds steady, synthesizing information from many sources before developing a viewpoint. To get good at this, you have to:

• Seek patterns in multiple sources of data
• Encourage others to do the same
• Question prevailing assumptions and test multiple hypotheses simultaneously

Decide

Many leaders fall prey to “analysis paralysis.” You have to develop processes and enforce them, so that you arrive at a “good enough” position. To do that well, you have to:

• Carefully frame the decision to get to the crux of the matter
• Balance speed, rigor, quality and agility. Leave perfection to higher powers
• Take a stand even with incomplete information and amid diverse views

 Align

Total consensus is rare. A strategic leader must foster open dialogue, build trust and engage key stakeholders, especially when views diverge.  To pull that off, you need to:

• Understand what drives other people's agendas, including what remains hidden
• Bring tough issues to the surface, even when it's uncomfortable
• Assess risk tolerance and follow through to build the necessary support

Learn

As your company grows, honest feedback is harder and harder to come by.  You have to do what you can to keep it coming. This is crucial because success and failure--especially failure--are valuable sources of organizational learning.  Here's what you need to do:

• Encourage and exemplify honest, rigorous debriefs to extract lessons
• Shift course quickly if you realize you're off track
• Celebrate both success and (well-intentioned) failures that provide insight

Do you have what it takes?

Obviously, this is a daunting list of tasks, and frankly, no one is born a black belt in all these different skills. But they can be taught and whatever gaps exist in your skill set can be filled in. I'll cover each of the aspects of strategic leadership in more detail in future columns. But for now, test your own strategic aptitude (or your company's) with the survey at www.decisionstrat.com.

Apple Announces iBalls: The Ultimate Retina Display

CUPERTINO, CA — Whoever designed the human body did a respectable job — but leave it to Apple to take it to a higher level.

With its new iBalls technology, Apple has created superior eyes. Once installed, iBalls allow you to choose between five different modes of vision: normal, microscope, telescope, wide-angle and sepia.

Even better, iBalls allow you to take 8-megapixel still photos with one eye, 3D photos using two eyes, and upload a 24/7* video record of your life to iCloud in glorious 1080p.

But uploading is only part of the story. iBalls can also tap into your iTunes account to retrieve movies and TV shows, allowing you to be entertained in the privacy of your own head. It’s the perfect solution for boring business meetings, church services and family functions. (HBO is available at an additional cost.)

As Apple’s press release puts it, “What would you rather do — sit through a two-hour business meeting or watch Star Wars Episode IV? With iBalls, the choice is yours.”

Even if you never use the technology built into iBalls, you’ll feel better about yourself. iBalls let you choose from a palette of five colors, so you can finally get rid of the boring peepers you were born with. You can even mix and match to create your own unique look.

iBalls are installed by a higher level of Genius Bar employee — the iGenius — who is Apple-trained to ensure a smooth upgrade. Reservations are available online for the 20-minute procedure.

iBalls have an initial cost of $999 each and require a $59/month subscription. Both natural eyes must be removed prior to installation — but if you have limited funds, you can start with just one iBall, then use the optional iPatch ($49) to cover the vacant socket.

Those who default on their iBalls subscription will lose all functionality, including basic vision. However, in these cases, Apple will provide iBraille training at no additional cost.

* Sleep time not included.

Posted:  April 1st, 2012 :)

Head on over to Scoopertino for some more funny fake news.

Why Timing is Everything in Hiring

via @inc

Like the Broncos signing Peyton Manning, getting the right person in the right role at the right time is key to the success of any organization.

 

Getty Image

Peyton Manning during a game against the Tennessee Titans at Lucas Oil Stadium

For football fans everywhere, but especially in Denver, the last two weeks have been a suspenseful ones. With Peyton Manning jetting around the country to be courted by general managers, coaches and potential teammates, all those in Broncos Country were keeping up with every article, post and tweet about what the future might hold for their team. Would the Broncos land the Super Bowl-winning yet injured star quarterback? And if so, what would happen to the celebrated young player that brought so much excitement to last season?

Those questions are answered now. I’ll reserve judgment, because for the Broncos management this was not an easy decision to make. In many ways, NFL teams are a good mirror of the corporate world. Sports metaphors in business might be cliché, but they are at times the best and simplest way to communicate fundamental truths. In this case, just as every team needs the right player for each position, so does your company.

That choice might be a difficult one to make. An ambitious, well-liked player with the right attitude and drive might not be able to take you to the Super Bowl or even the playoffs, for that matter. A veteran player that has led the team through many seasons may no longer be a good starting match-up against the opposing team. In business, just like in football, having the right person in the right role at the right time is critical.

Jim Collins, author of “Good to Great,” captured this business fundamental well. In order to be a great company, you must have the right people on the bus, sitting in the right seats. Conversely, the wrong people need to get off of the bus. In a company that is constantly evolving, which all companies should be doing, the right person for the bus is likely to change over time. Sometimes a person must switch seats and other times it’s best for that person to get off the bus–and in the finest cases they end up driving their own shiny, new bus that they will eventually fill with the right people too.

Keeping the wrong people on the bus or the wrong players on your team isn’t fair to anyone–the employee, coworkers and company or the player, fans and teammates will all suffer. It’s usually never an easy decision, but it’s the right one.

For the Broncos organization, signing Manning maybe wasn’t a hard decision. For the fans, there is a bit of excitement mixed with fear or confusion. Will Manning be ready and injury-free by the season opener? Who will be back-up, as Tim Tebow leaves the Broncos’ bus and jumps on a new one–a jet actually? Fans will have to trust that John Elway and crew are making the best decision for the team, just as employees will have to trust that decisions made by management, executives and owners will be best for all parties in the long run.

Why Working More Than 40 Hours a Week is Useless

For many in the entrepreneurship game, long hours are a badge of honor. Starting a business is tough, so all those late nights show how determined, hard working and serious about making your business work you are, right?

Wrong. According to a handful of studies, consistently clocking over 40 hours a week just makes you unproductive (and very, very tired).

That's bad news for most workers, who typically put in at least 55 hours a week,recently wrote Sara Robinson at Salon. Robinson's lengthy, but fascinating, article traces the origins of the idea of the 40-hour week and it's downfall and is well worth a read in full. But the essential nugget of wisdom from her article is that working long hours for long periods is not only useless – it's actually harmful. She wrote:

The most essential thing to know about the 40-hour work-week is that, while it was the unions that pushed it, business leaders ultimately went along with it because their own data convinced them this was a solid, hard-nosed business decision….

Evan Robinson, a software engineer with a long interest in programmer productivity (full disclosure: our shared last name is not a coincidence) summarized this history in a white paper he wrote for the International Game Developers’ Association in 2005. The original paper contains a wealth of links to studies conducted by businesses, universities, industry associations and the military that supported early-20th-century leaders as they embraced the short week. 'Throughout the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, these studies were apparently conducted by the hundreds,' writes Robinson; 'and by the 1960s, the benefits of the 40-hour week were accepted almost beyond question in corporate America. In 1962, the Chamber of Commerce even published a pamphlet extolling the productivity gains of reduced hours.'

What these studies showed, over and over, was that industrial workers have eight good, reliable hours a day in them. On average, you get no more widgets out of a 10-hour day than you do out of an eight-hour day.

Robinson does acknowledge that working overtime isn't always a bad idea. "Research by the Business Roundtable in the 1980s found that you could get short-term gains by going to 60- or 70-hour weeks very briefly — for example, pushing extra hard for a few weeks to meet a critical production deadline," she wrote. But Robinson stressed that "increasing a team’s hours in the office by 50 percent (from 40 to 60 hours) does not result in 50 percent more output...In fact, the numbers may typically be something closer to 25-30 percent more work in 50 percent more time."

The clear takeaway here is to stop staying at the office so late, but getting yourself to actually go home on time may be more difficult psychologically than you imagine.

As author Laura Vanderkam has pointed out, for many of us, there's actually a pretty strong correlation between how busy we are and how important we feel. "We live in a competitive society, and so by lamenting our overwork and sleep deprivation — even if that requires workweek inflation and claiming our worst nights are typical — we show that we are dedicated to our jobs and our families," she wrote recently in the Wall Street Journal.

Long hours, in other, words are often more about proving something to ourselves than actually getting stuff done.

Are your 55+ hour weeks really productive and sustainable?

Jessica Stillman is a freelance writer based in London with interests in unconventional career paths, generational differences, and the future of work. She has blogged for CBS MoneyWatch, GigaOM, and Brazen Careerist. @EntryLevelRebel

How Peer Advisory Groups Can Change The World

By Leo Bottary

When you consider the nature of today’s public discourse – with the right screaming at the left and the left shouting at the right – you hear the noise loud and clear, but no one is ever really listening.  And if they ARE listening, it isn’t to understand the logic behind an opposing argument; it’s to collect punch lines that bolster one’s own point of view.  People listen selectively for ammunition they can repeat at cocktail parties or share in blog posts.  I call it ammunition because it rarely serves to strengthen one’s own position; instead, it’s aimed at shooting holes in another’s point of view and, too often, in a fashion that’s intellectually dishonest.

One of my favorites attributes of the Peer Advisory Group is that it is a safe haven for what scholars would describe as “skilled discussion.”   It’s a place where people see others as special rather than different. A setting where participants really listen to one another.  And more importantly, an environment that embodies Stephen Covey’s 5th Habit, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”  It’s not the place for debate – where the goal is to be right.  Nor is it the place for pure dialogue, because helping members come to a decision is an essential benefit of the interaction.  It is where skilled discussion lives and thrives!  Here’s the best definition I’ve found for it:

“A way of talking that leads to decisions. Skilled discussions are infused with rigorous critical thinking, mutual respect, weighing of options, and decision making that serves the groups’ vision, values, and goals. A skilled discussion’s goal is to reach decisions. In its Latin roots, decide means to kill choice. Thus, a discussion is aimed at eliminating some ideas from a field of possibilities so that stronger ideas will win. Groups who are skilled at discussing employ many cognitive operations related to critical thinking, but not in any particular sequence.

“In its most ineffective form, to discuss is to hurl ideas at one another. Discussing ideas, in unskilled groups, often takes the form of serial sharing or advocacy. Decisions are attempted through a variety of either voting or consensus techniques. When discussion is unskilled and dialogue is absent, decisions are often poor quality, represent the opinions of the most vocal members or the leader, lack group commitment, and do not stay made” (Garmston & Wellman, 1998).

While the noise of today’s public debate may spike television ratings, it’s a poor excuse for communication in a civilized society.   It’s a recipe for gridlock and division.  Give me skilled discussion any day.  Peer Advisory Groups can’t change the world, but what we learn from them and how we can lead and inspire others to communicate based on that experience, could make a big difference.  People who regularly participate in these groups will tell you that for them, it already has.

5 Digital Marketing Trends You Can’t Afford to Ignore

By Jonathan Gardner

Digital marketing is a discipline in flux. We face an onslaught of shiny new technologies and platforms that promise to “change everything.” Marketers are creating similarly breathless headlines, proclaiming the next revolutionary devices/apps/social networks.

Yet, even smart marketers don’t know what changes the future will bring; but they do need to be aware that their industry is changing every day. For instance, to reach consumers marketers need to be increasingly mobile, engaging, relevant and aware of the contexts in which we currently operate.

I don’t pretend to know the future. But the decisions and products of Apple, Amazon and other innovators will affect how we live in the years to come. As we anticipate our connected, Minority Report-style future, here are five big marketing ideas to embrace now to get ahead of the curve.

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1. Location Services

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Consumers are out there and many want you to find them. Location features of social apps such asFoursquare, Ban.jo and Path are potential goldmines of important consumer data. The near field communication (NFC) technology in products like Google Wallet is just starting to show its potential. And while privacy issues surrounding location services will need to be resolved, consumers are still demanding that marketers understand all of their daily contexts and find ways to make their lives easier. If the rumors are true and the iPhone 5 has NFC embedded, expect these features to go from leading edge to mainstream.

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2. New Ad Formats

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While new online video and mobile platforms are — unsurprisingly — attracting a lot of heat, their marketing spend is still way out of whack, compared to the amount of time consumers spend there.

Don’t just throw money at these new channels. Instead of pre-roll video ads and other “forced view” options, look to user-initiated solutions that respect the user’s time and interests. Research new ad formats that help brands look beyond clutter and “banner blindness,” such as in-image ads, which integrate brand messages elegantly within relevant content.

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3. User-Generated Curation

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User-generated curation (UGC) is powered by content discovery apps such as Pulse, Flipboard, Fancy and Foodspotting. Content producers and merchants provide the feeds, and consumers tweak them to suit their interests and contexts, filtering data and curating personalized information platforms.

These models can help brands become relevant to consumers and provide the next great opportunities for marketers. For instance, Pinterest has received applause from consumers and marketers alike, and has demonstrated the power that personal curation and relevance can have for engagement.

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4. Advertise by Format

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Everyone is excited about mobile’s potential, and tablets present appealing platforms or consumer engagement. If you’ve decided to advertise on mobile apps, what are you going to do with the user after you get him or her to tap? Will you use the platform to its full potential? Or will you roll out the same old display strategy you’ve been using online, praying that users will choose to interact with your ad?

It’s time to get creative and imagine the new possibilities. Media industry guru Ken Doctor points to innovative advertisers who take advantage of the iPad’s unique format. “What’s better for an insurance company like Liberty Mutual than threatening you with disaster (tornado, earthquake, flood) and then, by simply tilting your iPad see the damage magically disappear,” he poses.

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5. Integrated Marketing

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Being relevant to your customer in every context improves brand recall and enhances engagement. Ditch the silos in your advertising strategy (e.g. this is what consumers watch on TV vs. on their phones) and focus on the most important thing — your customer.

In this increasingly interconnected world, consumers are not necessarily thinking in terms of silos. Researchshows that 72% of consumers want to be engaged with an integrated marketing approach, but only 39% are receiving that. Google found that consumers had 74% brand recall when the advertiser’s integrated strategy carried across mobile, TV and online.

While the world is not yet seamless, QR codes and “bridging” apps like Viggle deliver second screen relevance, and can help marketers unleash multiplatform, integrated relevance.

Today’s profound advancement in tech and media is changing how we interact with and filter our world. Smart marketers can succeed by engaging with the trends that are resonating most with the emerging consumer of today.

Jonathan Gardner is director of communications at ad company Vibrant Media. He has spent his career as an innovator at the nexus of media and technology, having worked in communications leadership roles and as a journalist around the world.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, tetsuomorita

Six Strategies for Partnering with Big Brands

BY JANE PORTER, Entrepreneur Magazine

Tom Szaky didn't even try to get his product--a worm excrement fertilizer packed in a recycled bottle--into small retailers when he started TerraCycle six years ago. Instead, he reached as high as he could: Wal-Mart. "If I want to be big and do it quickly, the best way … is to work with the world's biggest companies," he says. "They can accelerate your cycle much more quickly than any other company can."

The Trenton, N.J.-based conpany's first big partnership with Wal-Mart in Canada was just the start of what has become a $14 million business. TerraCycle now gathers unrecyclable trash and converts it into products and packaging for such big brands as Kraft, Pepsi and Mars. Last year, corporate partners spent $45 million on TerraCycle-related marketing--far more than Szaky could have ever done alone.

But breaking in with big companies is no easy feat. For Szaky, it took lots of research, persistence and trial and error. "The biggest mistake small companies make is they don't do enough homework," says Brant Slade, co-author of Think BIG!: An Entrepreneur's Guide to Partnering With Large Companies (Course Technology PTR, 2009). "They think … more from the small business point of view as opposed to thinking from the large business point of view."Here's a checklist to help your business prepare to partner with big brands:

1. Be unique. Make sure your business pitch is carefully thought out and offers value to your potential partner. After Robin Thurston co-founded MapMyFITNESS.com, an Austin, Texas-based fitness social network that offers online routes, training and group activities, he and his partner realized they had developed a geo-location technology that bigger companies wanting online fitness tools and access to a social network could use. With their first corporate partner, Cadbury's Accelorade sports drink, they collaborated on a web interface enabling users on their site to map and share workouts. "You have to have something that is clearly valuable to that big brand that they might not want to spend the time investing in or doing," Thurston says. Now, the company also builds web platforms and mobile phone apps for brands like NBC Sports, Humana and Skechers, whose customers can opt into the MapMyFITNESS social network.

2. Remain persistent. Although Szaky had the worm-excrement-in-a-recycled-bottle market cornered, getting that first deal with Wal-Mart in 2005 still required persistence. After scouring LinkedIn and alumni networks to find the right contact, Szaky called Wal-Mart 10 times a day, every day for three weeks until he finally got through and set up a meeting. Big companies field lots of requests, so persistence is a must. "There are some brands we are working with today that literally were five-year conversations," Thurston says.

MapMyFITNESS co-founders Robin Thurston and Kevin Callahan, Photo credit, Target Brands Inc.

3. Think big. You have to think like a big brand to partner with one. For MapMyFITNESS, that means developing large-scale projects. "A big brand doesn't want to talk about a $10,000 project," Thurston says. "They want to talk in seven figures and really big user numbers." For example, Thurston and his partner proposed that big companies give away their product with subscriptions to the MapMyFITNESS website. The size of their user base--nearly seven million today--was large enough to interest brands like Procter & Gamble's Febreze.

4. Plan for fast growth. If you're growing too quickly to keep up with demand, you'll lose money--and probably your partner. Szaky learned that lesson through experience. "The more we grew, the more we lost," he says. While TerraCycle's sales reached $6.6 million in 2008, it had a net loss of $4.5 million. The next year, Szaky began developing agreements with companies to handle production for him. Today, 40 companies make and sell TerraCycle products for major retailers and TerraCycle turned a profit of $100,000 in the last year.

Polka Dog Bakery, a Boston-based dog treat maker slated to expand into 1,763 Target stores this May, let the retailer oversee production and distribution in order to make the partnership feasible. "It would have been too much for us to expand at that capacity," says cofounder Robert Van Sickle of his 11-person company.

5. Prepare for scrutiny. Make sure your financial and legal affairs are in order. Since TerraCycle works with multinational companies, the company gets audited every two months. After failing the first few audits in his early partnerships, Szaky realized he needed to focus more on developing proper procedures. "If you are going to go down the path of working in big businesses, having your house in order is critical," he says. "You are going to get the growth but you are also going to get a lot more scrutiny."

6. Build on existing partnerships. Don't rush to find the next partner once you successfully link up with a big company. MapMyFITNESS gets a lot of new business from expanding existing partnerships, Thurston says. Companies are often more willing to consider developing a licensing partnership, for example, if they're already buying advertising on your website. "Too many entrepreneurs chase after the next client instead of recognizing the current client could mean a lot more revenue for them if they simply explore other revenue channels," Thurston says. Partnerships now account for a third of his company's total revenue.

Why We Dare To Be Average

By Leo Bottary

Jim Collins offers his perspective in the opening line of his second book by stating, “Good is the enemy of great.”  He explains that we don’t have great government or great schools because we have good government and good schools.  Somehow good enough is good enough, I guess.  In researching and writing about peer advisory groups, I’ve talked to countless members who extol the virtues of their culture of accountability – implying that left to our own devices, most of us dare to be average and we are perfectly content in doing so.  Sadly, they’re right.  I’m sure you’re bristling at the mere suggestion, but ask yourself if you’re doing everything you can do to be at the top of your game every day.  If you’re like most people, the answer is a resounding “no.”

Joe Henderson who writes about running, tells us, and I’m paraphrasing, that it isn’t about doing anything super human; it’s about people doing the things anyone can do, but they just don’t.  Think about how powerful that is.  I spent some time meeting withChris Brogan last week, who I regard as an amazing example of someone who combines his talent with a relentless work ethic and an unwavering commitment to excellence.   He dares for something much more.  Chris is dedicated to his work in a manner most of us are not, which is among the reasons he’s successful, and why we’ll be hearing much more from him for years to come.

But what really prompted this post for me was seeing Cirque Du Soleil perform Ka` at the MGM Grand a few nights ago.  I didn’t know a great deal about the show until reading about it after the performance.  The LA Times review confirmed my belief that it “may be the most lavish production in the history of western theater.”   Of all the amazing live performances I’ve ever attended, I’ve never witnessed such a profound example of excellence.  I thought about how this amazing ensemble comes to work and performs this show twice a day, five days a week.   Then I considered the $220 million investment in the theater and the production and all the people who make it happen at such a high level each and every night.  The vision, creativity, teamwork, and flawless execution is in part a result of superb talent, but I would suggest it’s also largely because of people doing what anyone can do, except they actually do it!  Imagine a country where our government, our schools, and our businesses performed at this level.

Contrast Collins’ explanation of good being the enemy of great with the concept of perfectionism and the familiar quote from Voltaire translated literally as “The best is the enemy of good”  or more commonly expressed as ‘The perfect is the enemy of the good.”  The quote references the paralyzing effect of the pursuit of perfection. It’s where the hope to implement the perfect solution can result in no solution at all. So is good the enemy of great? Or is the pursuit of perfection the enemy of good?  Seems to me, they are two sides of the same coin.  Neither is an excuse for daring to be average.

So how will you dare to be more than average?  Start with a single act.  (This is what I’ll try to do).  Bring your A game to writing your next proposal or presentation and, when you think it’s finished, ask yourself how you can take it to the next level.  Do something simple, yet extraordinary for one of your customers.   Inspire an employee to improve upon his/her greatest talent, rather than address an irrelevant weaknesses.   There are a million things you can try.  See how it feels, enjoy the results, and just keep at it – each and every day.

Tell us how you will pursue what we’ll call the practice of Ka`?