What’s Your New Year’s “Re-Solution”?

New Year’s Resolutions are most often pledges to rid our lives from nasty or unhealthy habits. A resolution is made when we choose to resolve a situation. As I started to make my list, I realized that the word “resolve” is re-solve and “resolution” is a re-solution. In other words, another try or a different solution. I like that better. It feels more like a step in the right direction rather than a self punishment or prevention. It’s a new way to approach an old problem.

I think in business we tend to spend too much time looking for new solutions, rather than rethinking the ones we have. Our vision gets clouded due to time constraints or pressures to perform. Many of the answers are already there in place and just need tweaking. (That’s tweaking not twerking).

Sure we have budgets, and schedules, and marketing plans. But what about business resolutions? Where are they? Maybe we need to pledge to ourselves and our employees to take a new look at old problems. Offer new solutions. “Re-solutions”.

What’s your New Year’s “Re-Solution”? Will you try a new approach on how you follow up on those sales leads and vary the day and time and communication method you respond? Will you rethink that job description for that position people always seem to leave too quickly? Will you pick up the phone rather than avoid “that” call?

I intend to do everything differently in 2015: both for the problems I couldn’t solve and for the ones I did. Yes, even the the tried and true methods will be subject to reassessment because good solutions can always get better.

Happy New Year. And Happy Re-Solving.

What’s Your New Year’s “Re-Solution”?

How Human Resources Can Be Better In 2015

Happy new year everyone! I hope you all enjoyed the holiday season, and as we start the new year, it’s important that we plan and work hard to make this the best year yet.

2014 was an incredible year for human resources, and Deloitte had called 2014 the “year of the employee.” There was a growing emphasis on engagement and giving employees more control.

Many HR teams are still struggling with a few core things, and I’ll go through them in this post. 2015 will see an increase in purposeful technology, better and more actionable reporting, and more integration between HR and other departments.

For your company, employee survey systems are an excellent way to find out what key areas you need to improve your business.

Human resource executives are exposed to so much research and knowledge about the advantages of having engaged employees that there should be very little doubt about whether to do anything. The big shift in 2015 is measuring and optimizing the initiatives to promote engagement.

According to data from SHRM, the top 3 priorities for HR departments are managing talent, managing a leadership pipeline, and managing demographics.

Let’s go through each of these one by one.

Managing Talent

What they meant by managing talent was attracting, recruiting, retaining, and developing talent. This is a tough one for HR, just because they’re not in full control of all the steps. Retention, and part of developing the talent will also be the responsibility of the respective manager of a department.

Human resources can work with upper management and department managers to make sure that training and development is a crucial part of work. Personal growth is one of the most important things to employees, and having a manager that can coach them will make all the difference.

Retention will be the key here, and this is where I think frequent pulse surveys can help. Using predictive analytics, HR can understand why employees stay and when they might be at risk of leaving.

Frequent feedback sessions (at least once a month) is important.

Learn more about how employee feedback can benefit your company with this CultureTalk with David Hassell of 15Five

A tool I’d recommend looking into for attracting and recruiting is Entelo. They have one of the best recruiting platforms on the market.

A tool I’d recommend looking into for learning and development is Axonify, making a significant dent in the corporate learning market. They’ve gamified corporate learning and have achieved some pretty incredible results.

Managing And Developing Leaders

Many HR leaders report that developing leadership talent is hard for them, and this goes back to coaching and development.

Google does this well. Using data from hundreds of surveys, feedback responses, performance reviews, etc. they were able to figure out what qualities make a great leader. You can do this for your organization too.

Going through all of this data and finding patterns among responses of what employees think make an excellent manager, you can use that data to develop your talent.

360-degree feedback is an excellent way to discover people’s strengths and weaknesses and come up with a plan to improve.

What Google also does, which you can do too, is create a mentorship program, where the best managers help the lower performing ones. Once you’re able to discover what qualities make a good manager, and who has those qualities, create an environment for knowledge sharing.

Managing Demographics

Managing demographics has two sides to it and is going to be difficult for HR managers to do.

There are the baby boomers, who are getting closer to retirement, so that is an issue that we need to deal with, while at the same time, we have Gen Y and Gen Z workers to think about.

There is an enormous number of employees exiting the workforce due to retirement; it would be a shame to lose all that experience and knowledge. Companies need to think about how they’ll be able to preserve that.

Mentoring programs can be a great way to get that knowledge transfer.

Gen Y and Gen Z also have very different learning styles, so in terms of training and development; HR needs to take that into consideration.

Use technology to your advantage, since Gen Y and Gen Z, are very well-versed. Growing up using decentralized networks like Facebook and Wikipedia, while having instant access to information makes them a unique group to learn from.

They probably have a ton of knowledge on how to do things better at your company, so listen to them.

How Would You Improve Human Resources In 2015?

How Human Resources Can Be Better In 2015

Customer Experience: Summing Up 2014

I Find Myself Hurt, In Pain, With Sprained Ankle At Paddington Station

In an earlier conversation I shared the following:

I arrived at Paddington Station and made my way hurriedly toward the underground. Suddenly, I found my feet sliding, no control, left knee smacks into the hard tile floor, right leg twists awkwardly, the right ankle is in some pain. A helpful gentlemen helps me up. I recover and get that the floor has become an ice rink in some places (food for a future post). I walk slowly, in pain, towards the underground….

I hurt myself. Why? Because, the ‘vehicle’ for enabling-facilitating walking at Paddington Station was not fit for purpose. What do I mean by that? That one of the primary functions of a floor is to make it easy for folks to move around, at normal walking speeds, safely. Before, I get further into this, I want you to get that Paddington Station is one of the main railway stations coming into and out of London. There are always plenty of people standing around and walking about. It is especially heavily trafficked at peak time (early mornings, after work). And there are all kinds of people using this station: older couples, middle aged folks, youth, male, female, business folks, leisure travellers etc.

Customer Experience: What Is The Default Setting?

Why is that the floor at Paddington Station did not facilitate one of its primary roles: enable passengers (customers) to walk about easily, freely, quickly (if need be) around the railway station? Because it was raining. Some of the rain ended up on the smooth, good looking, tiled floor. The rain on the smooth floor, reduced the already reduced friction/traction – to the point where it is really easy to be walking one second, sliding the next, and then finding oneself in pain, hurt, on the floor, dazed, wondering what happened.

Let’s stop. I invite you to ask yourself, how is it that intelligent business folks did not put the various elements together to foresee (smooth floor, rain, floor as ice rink) and thus prevent the annoyance and/or harm to the passengers? My hypothesis, is that insufficient attention-consideration was given to the customer. Did anyone even put the ease/safety of walking as a key decision criteria when the floor was being selected? It is easy to be smart with the benefit of hindsight. So let’s accept that with the best of intentions we are fallible creatures and make mistakes.

Before we move ahead, I do wish to make one general point: the default is that of poor customer experience and this is so because the world has been setup without adequate consideration of experience based customer needs. In my view, this is particularly so in nations-cultures with a strong Protestant-Calvinist influence. Incidentally, the lack of consideration of the end users experience based needs is the reason that most CRM systems fail to be adequately adopted and thus fail to generate the promised benefits.

Summing Up The State of Customer Experience As At 2014

Let’s get back to Paddington station and sum up the challenge:

What is so: the floor becomes a potential safety hazard for customers (passengers) when it rains;

Desired outcome: make it easy and safe for all the usual customers to walk around the station, given many obstacles (usually fellow travellers), in all the usual weather conditions – rain is usual in the UK.

Imagine that you are the person responsible for Paddington Railway station. You are the person confronted with coming up a course of action to deal with what is so and bring about the desired outcome. What is the course of action that you’d take? What would the end solution look like? Would you fix the roof so that no rain got through to the floor? Would you fix the floor to ensure that the floor is rougher thus providing more traction? Would you put some kind of drainage solution to drain water from the floor? What would you do if you were truly customer-centric and committed to putting the right customer experience (of walking) in place?

Here’s the answer that the folks that manage Paddington Station have put in place:

Let’s stop and consider this. Has the challenge been addressed? Has management got rid of the potential hazard to customer safety? Has management improved the customer experience? No! What has management done? Management have provided some useful information to the customer: “caution wet floor”. What else has management done? They have placed the burden of responsibility on to the customer – now if the customer slips and hurts himself he can blame himself for being careless. And management has mitigated its liability under the health and safety legislation. Why have I shared this with you? Because it occurs to me that this concrete example illustrates the course of action that many have taken regarding Customer Experience challenges-opportunities.

Looking at 2014, based on my personal experience, the experience of fellow consultants, and reading the relevant articles/posts, I am of the view that I can sum up the state of Customer Experience in 2014 as follows:

1. There are only a handful of organisations that compete on the basis of the Customer Experience and excel at it. These organisations continue to do well. For the folks in these organisations Customer Experience is a way of life – like speaking English is a way of life for me.


2. The vast majority of Tops and Middles toying with Customer Experience lack the courage to take bold action. In the absence of courage, a ‘burning platform’ is necessary to trigger bold action. For most organisations and management teams such a burning platform is not present. Look beyond the fear mongering and ask yourself how many organisations are in the shape IBM was when Lou Gerstner took over and kind of totally reshaped IBM?


3. Where work has been done on Customer Experience, Tops and Middles have taken the easy way out, tinkering on the edges. The stuff that really matters has been kept intact. The business model remains intact. Management practices including those that yield ‘bad profits’ – profits made at the expense of the customers – remain intact.


4. The Tops and Middles have, once again, resorted to the same old tools and techniques: business process changes and implementation of information technologies whether labelled as CRM, CX, marketing automation, or big data…


5. Many claim to be Customer Experience experts and/or gurus, almost none of them are. Before you accept this claim I ask you to consider how you would determine if a carpenter is a great carpenter. Would you do so by listening to him speaking? Would you do so by reading his book where he share his tales and tales of others – stories which make you feel good? Or would you go and see for yourself that which the carpenter has created with his own hands? This has to follow logically and necessarily from point 1 above – there is only a handful of organisations that compete on the basis of the Customer Experience and excel at it.


6. One reason that so many can get away with claiming to be Customer Experience experts and/or gurus is that the term Customer Experience has been turned into an empty and usually misleading idea. For example Customer Experience is became another fashionable, higher status, label for Customer Service; many folks of significance in Customer Services (including call-centres) have customer experience in their titles. On the other hand some marketing folks – especially digital marketing folks – are using and abusing this fashionable label. Then there are folks who oversee the execution and compilation of customer surveys – they have also chosen to sit under and claim the Customer Experience label.

Customer Experience: Summing Up 2014

Six Tips to Beat the Wintertime Blogger Blues

During the holiday season, theorectically a time of cheer and togetherness, I always see an increase of Grinch-like behavior on my social networks, in the office or even waiting in line for coffee. You all know at least one Grinch… the person who always talks about how much their LIFE sucks, or how much PEOPLE suck, or how much YOU suck.

Until you want to scream …”Stop sucking the life out of ME!”

If you’ve been noticing that negativity has been running a little more rampant recently, you aren’t the only one! It’s common for people at this time of year to experience Seasonal Affective Disorder (Otherwise known as S.A.D.) this isn’t an excuse for the negativity but it is a good way to ask someone who is being negative…“Hey, is everything okay?” Maybe they just need an outlet for the inner S.A.D, however some of them are just really good at taking it out on others.

We’ve all heard the saying “don’t let the bastards get you down,” but when those people are surrounding you daily … whether it be in the online realm or some of your closest friends, family or workmates … it can be pretty tough to deal with without making you seem like the party pooper. We might not even realize it, but maybe you might have become a little bit more frigid during the winter months yourself.

I’d like to share a few helpful tips to beat the winter time blues.

• Turn off the computer and go outside. Fresh air and sunshine is key to getting oxygen and Vitamin D to your little negative thinking brain cells.


• Go Into The Light. You might be like me, and live in an area where sun is hard to come by in these winter months. I highly recommend in investing in a sun lamp for your desk or taking supplements.


• Feed Your Brain. During the winter we tend to love to hibernate and eat. Instead of spending money on snacks or expensive lunches, I’ll spend that money on movies, books or music. I’ve been making more lunches at home and downloading a new album, book or movie each day. Not only do I feel healthier, creative and more positive on my choices, it shows through in my moods. Plus you’ll have some great conversation starters for the holiday dinner table.


• Not only does your personality stink… but you do too. Smell can really make a mood sour, essential oils such as peppermint and pink grapefruit can really do wonders to brighten up your personality. I keep great smelling candles and oils by my workspace.


• Keeping social networks sane. Start following more positive people in your social networks online and keep an eye on the repeat offenders. I know you may just want to hit that block button on some people. Two wrongs do not make a right, so best thing to do before giving them the boot is funnel them into a group and then see who is just having a bad day or is just a constant Debbie Downer. Remember this key term … shape up or ship out!


• Please Be Kind … Rewind. Always before speaking, typing, tweeting … THINK about it. Yes, there is a screen in front of you but ALWAYS remember the fellow human being behind it.

Above all, remember the end of the year is a great time to start fresh with a good attitude and to pass that on to others. There’s way too much awfulness in the world to let it thrive in our everyday lives. Let’s all make a pledge in 2015 to provide more positivity be it online or offline.

Six Tips to Beat the Wintertime Blogger Blues

Why You May Want to Consider Using Vine

Vine is one of those platforms that came on to the social media scene and quickly racked up a loyal user base. Since June, the number of users has more than doubled to approximately 40 million people. And this doesn’t even tell the whole story; there are millions of people out there engaging with Vine videos that come up in their Facebook or Twitter newsfeeds.

Let me back up: what exactly is Vine and why am I dedicating a whole post to it?

Vine is a video-based tool owned by Twitter where users can create a 6-second video to share with their Twitter followers and Facebook friends. The videos are played “on loop,” meaning that as soon as the video ends, it starts back up again. This way, if you missed something the first time around, you can catch it the second or third time. You might be thinking that this sounds absolutely ridiculous. What value is there in a 6-second video?

Think about some of the most basic marketing lessons we have learned in the business world:

1. Less is usually more


2. Reinforcement goes a long way


3. It’s all about the brand

These days, people are so bombarded with information that it can be quite overwhelming at times. And we are so busy that, frankly, we don’t have the time to sit through a long spiel about why your company is the best at what it does. We are exposed to thousands of marketing messages every day that we can’t possibly process them all.

This is where Vine can step in. Learn to think like the consumer; think of what critical information you would need to know to understand what your company does. Think about the fact that like you, consumers are extremely busy, and can’t dedicate a ton of time to one particular piece of content.

So how can you use Vine in your social media strategy ?

• Brand Awareness
  
  
  
  • Allow viewers to see what you do and how you do it
  
  
  • Improve recognition when it comes to your logo, brand colors, etc.
  
  
  
  


• Introduce a New Product
  
  
  
  • Video version of a reveal party
  
  
  • Quick overview of the product and when it will hit the market
  
  
  
  


• Promotions/Giveaways
  
  
  
  • Provide a link to information about a contest or exclusive offers
  
  
  • To create more interaction with prospects or customers on Vine, have them submit their own Vine video in a contest
  
  
  
  


• Show Off Company Culture
  
  
  
  • You love what you do, so show it off!
  
  
  • Consumers want to be reminded that they are working with real people (it’s all about that human-to-human marketing we emphasize at Mainstreethost)
  
  
  
  


• Product Demonstrations
  
  
  
  • How-To guides
  
  
  • Great for showing recipes, DIY crafts, etc.
  
  
  
  


• Introduce Your Team
  
  
  
  • Who are the faces behind your brand?
  
  
  • Your most valuable asset is your team; give them a little face time!
  
  
  
  


• Polls/Trivia
  
  
  
  • Have fun with your viewers and engage them
  
  
  • Learn what people know about your company/industry for future marketing planning
  
  
  
  


• Job Postings
  
  
  
  • Video job postings are a rapidly-growing area of HR and hiring
  
  
  • Give brief insight into what it is like to work at the company and what you are looking for
  
  
  
  

Study after study has shown that people are much more likely to engage with social media that contains images or video than just text-based posts. Also, “Brand Vines” are shared up to 4 times more than any other online videos out there, so the evidence is there that Vine can be a very valuable tool in your social media strategy. Finally, like other social media Vine is absolutely free. So why not give it a try? It’s not going to be for everyone, but you never know; it could be the missing piece you were looking for.

Why You May Want to Consider Using Vine

The 4 Rules For Creating Compelling PPC Ad Copy

Creating compelling ad copy can be one of the trickiest parts of developing your PPC campaign. Without bidding extremely aggressively all the time (which is expensive and inefficient), you can’t be in the number one position all the time. Even if you are, your ad copy still needs to drive the searcher to click your ad instead of a competitor’s below.

Here are some rules to creating eye-catching copy to capitalize on a lower position or capture your audience at a higher average position.

Craft a Unique Headline

There are tons of advertisers on Google selling the same exact thing that you are; stand out when creating ad copy by writing a headline that is different from your competitor’s.

Google only allows 25 characters in the Headline of your ad so include punctuation at the end of your first description line to extend your headline and draw attention to the ad.

Get Creative

You only have 70 characters beyond your headline, so get creative with your ad copy. Know your audience and cater to what they need at the exact moment of their search.

This advertiser knows that someone searching for “last minute gifts” needs a solution fast, so they heighten the sense of urgency and then offer a price and promotion.

Include Sales and Promos

Use your ad to tell people about current sales and promotions at the moment (be sure that the landing page tells all the information you couldn’t fit in the ad). This tells the searcher what sets you apart from the other advertisers. If one ad offers free shipping, but another offers 25% off, the searcher can weigh the offers before they click. If you have room, add an expiration date to create urgency that they may miss out if they don’t explore this opportunity now. “Buy Now!” sets a different tone than “Sale Ends Dec 23!”

Make sure you keep up to date on this and don’t use outdated offers.

Ad Extensions

Utilize ad extensions to take up as much real estate as possible. Sitelinks are a great way to highlight other areas of the site that would be relevant to the searcher and add multiple lines to your ad.

Call extensions and location extensions can still appear even if you are not in the top 3 spots on the Search results page, so make sure the searcher knows that they can contact you if they need. Use review extensions and social extensions to add credibility to your business. If you have a 5 star review or testimonial you are proud of, include that in your extensions. The newest rollout of extensions, include callout extensions. This allows you to essentially add a third line of text to your ad to showcase unique selling points.

For more tips and best practices on driving results for your PPC campaigns, check out this free webinar replay, 7 Tips to Conquer Paid Search . You’ll learn the common mistakes made when creating AdWords accounts (that Google won’t tell you), how to use your PPC data to improve your SEO efforts, secrets to analyzing the competition and more.

The 4 Rules For Creating Compelling PPC Ad Copy

Knowing “Why” Will Help You Defeat Your Self-Sabotaging Habits (Why Not?!)

Part of the root, and a great deal of the motivation of what we do, or do not do, is related to our ‘why.’ Our “why” keeps us from getting sidetracked, wandering into and doing things that are not matched with our purpose, and will support us what times get their the toughest.

But, sometimes the “why” of the things we do gets destroyed by all the things we do to sabotage ourselves.

Self-sabotage can easily be defined as deciding you want something and then making sure that it does not come to pass. I am sure you have found yourself in a spot close to achieving your goal, only to throw it all away at the last moment? Did you look back later on and kick yourself for being so foolish? Most of us have.

Why do we do this to ourselves over and over? There are several possible explanations, ranging from a need to control the situation to feeling unworthy. But regardless of the cause, the solutions are similar. And we want to focus on solutions rather than sticking with this self-destructive behavior.

The next time you trip yourself up:

1. Take a good, deep look at yourself. Look back at the times that you have sabotaged yourself or come up short. You probably tried to justify the sabotaging behavior in your mind. But, ignore the reasons and just observe your behavior. What conclusion would any casual observer draw from your behavior?

• Learn to notice the signs of self-sabotage.


• How and when do you do it?


• Be objective and recognize your patterns. Almost everything we choose to do is driven by a pattern, sometimes an addiction. Check yourself out.

2. Remember that success is not a straight path. Sometimes we quit because things just are not going the way we thought. Setting more reasonable expectations can help ensure that you are seeing more things through to the end. Nothing in life is ever perfect.

• For instance, many people put making more money on their “wish list.” But, while making a lot of money is helpful, but it will not solve all of your challenges.

3. Think about the other people in your life. Self-sabotaging behavior is selfish. You are doing damage to yourself and to others.

• Before you quit, think about how it will affect your self-esteem.


• How will it affect those around you.


• These two things might provide enough of a motivating force to continue pressing forward.

4. Be willing to be adventurous. When we self-sabotage, we tend to stay in their own little worlds. Seeing a project through to completion means adjusting your outlook. Whether it is a different assignment, a new relationship, or something else, your life will be changed to some degree. Be brave enough to take that adventure.

• If you tend to start new projects, but then stop yourself before ever completing them, nothing will ever change, your will remain discouraged, and you will have wasted more time.

5. Start small. Give yourself the gift of having a few small successes. Then take the time to notice that these successes are not perfect, but they still made your life better.

• Enjoy the victory and imagine how great it would be to accomplish greater successes.


• When I was 13 I wanted to get a job for the summer. State law required that I be 14. I checked out everything that came across my path. Most people just laughed and blew me off because of my age. After pounding the streets for weeks, I finally landed a spot at a private day-care. Someone took a chance on me. This had little to do with my chosen profession, and the pay would sound ludicrous today, but it was a small victory that showed me, and others, that I could stick to a goal. It was also the beginning of a long, and somewhat varied work history, but one I was proud to display.

6. Take some time before making major decisions. Before making a big decision, give yourself some time to think about it. Many of our decisions can be impulsive and emotional. A few days will give you the perspective you need to make the wisest decision.

Me:

In previous posts I have talked about quitting smoking, and finding my own personal why, actually several of them. Read those two posts for context.

As the year drives to an end, know this: There is nothing that you resolve to do has the remotest chance of coming true unless you know ‘why’ you are doing it. And, unless that reason is more important than all of the difficulties that will come against in the interim, you are absolutely screwed.

It took several leaps of faith, a ton of prayer, perseverance, belief in myself, and a ‘why” that was so much more important than anything else to push me forward.

Life will throw all kinds of crap at you. Some things will be easy to brush aside, and some will be very difficult. But…

Action:

Identifying and honoring their purpose is perhaps the most important action that successful people take.

Write all answers in present tense

1. What are your two best personal qualities: (e.g., creativity):

2. What are two ways you enjoy expressing these?

3. In a perfect world, what would your world look like?

4. Now, use information from the first three questions, and write your personal purpose statement. What have you come to do? Again write in present tense.

My purpose is to use my……

Lessons:

1. I know why I am here. I know my purpose

2. I will pay attention to my actions and squash self-sabotaging thoughts and actions as they arise.

3. I will forgive myself, learn from my actions and move on. (see yesterday’s post)

‘It is in those tough times,

in those dark and lonely nights,

in those bitter moments of trial and disappointment,

when you will want to, and may, cry,

that your ‘why’ will keep you warm,

keep you focused and keep you on track.’

Martina McGowan

Knowing “Why” Will Help You Defeat Your Self-Sabotaging Habits (Why Not?!)