What traditions are hindering your business’ growth?

November 17, 2011 / by Collaboration / in Growing Your Business, Overcoming Challenges in Business
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The other day I was having a glass of wine with my friend Debbie, who’s a bookkeeper, and she began to tell me a story about one of her clients who’d been performing these laborious accounting processes. She said they were completing multiple forms to even write checks, which only worsened an already time consuming task.

When she asked the business owner why this system was necessary, he looked puzzled and replied that he wasn’t sure except that years ago a former employee had instituted the process. She then asked if he ever referred back to any of the information on the forms, and he said no. That’s all it took for him to realize that there really was no purpose for the forms, and he ended the process on the spot. It was one of those systems that they had kept simply because they had always been doing it that way.

This reminded me of the story of a family’s turkey tradition at Thanksgiving. A little girl was watching her mom cut off the turkey legs and wings prior to putting the turkey in the oven to cook. The little girl asked her mom why she cut off the wings and legs, and the mom replied that it was a family tradition and it was the way her mother had always cooked the turkey.

The curious little girl then asked her grandma about this family tradition. “Why do we cut off the turkey’s legs and wings before we cook it?” The grandma told her it was a family tradition that her mother had started many years ago.

Still not satisfied with these answers, the little girl approached her frail great grandma to ask her about this mysterious turkey carving tradition. As the family matriarch listened to the child’s question, a wide smile spread on her face and she began to giggle. “There wasn’t really much meaning to this tradition,” she told the little girl. “It started because many years ago, my oven wasn’t large enough to hold the turkey, so I had to cut off the legs and wings in order to make it fit in my tiny oven.”

This story makes me ponder all the ‘turkey carving’ traditions or processes that we may have within our businesses – those that were created out of necessity years ago, but may no longer be relevant or needed today.

You should encourage your team to question the ‘why’ of the processes and systems you have in place at your organization. Are they all really needed? Are they relevant to completing a task? Is there a more efficient or effective method that could be deployed instead? If the process was put in place to remedy an issue, does that issue still exist?

I’m willing to bet you’ll be amazed at what tools, processes, systems or reports within your organization may no longer be relevant or needed. We tend to do things that have always been done without considering why we’re even doing them.

Bottom Line

Don’t follow the ‘turkey carving’ traditions methodology in your business. Encourage your team to ask the ‘why’ question with everything they do. You and your team will discover processes and systems that might need to end or be refined, or new more efficient ways of getting things done.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving! And think about asking questions of the origins of your own family traditions – you may find some interesting answers.

This is another article in a series on Michael’s entrepreneurial story and how being raised in a large family has influenced his career. To read the previous articles in this series, visit his blog at www.Collaboration-llc.com.

Michael Gunther is Founder and President of Collaboration LLC, a team of highly skilled business professionals who are dedicated to assisting proactive business owners to build profitable, sustainable businesses through results-oriented education and consulting services. Learn more at www.Collaboration-llc.com.

How to Leverage Social Media and Track Your Results

November 4, 2011 / by Collaboration / in Communication, Marketing, Networking for your Business, Sales Growth and Tracking, Social Media
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“We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media, it’s how well we do it.” – Erik Qualman

Social media is a hot topic, and for good reason. Trends shift constantly in business, generally influenced by economic, political or technological factors – but social media is a result of the trifecta. Business owners now know they must incorporate social media into their marketing strategies, but most don’t know what that entails.

There are a number of people who can give you the “How To” in terms of creating a business page on Facebook, posting a video on YouTube or creating a LinkedIn profile – but simply having a presence online isn’t enough. You need to know how to engage on different platforms, and you must measure your results to determine if you’re getting any ROI.

The 3 keys to successful social media in business:

1. Define your Goals

What do you want to achieve through social media? If you’re just doing it because you think you have to, well, you need to stop and examine your business development strategy.

Identify your Ideal Client Profile:

- Where are they?
- What are their interests?

Now, what do you want to gain by engaging in social media?

- Increased website traffic?
- Immediate e-commerce results?
- Expanding your brand’s geographic reach?

2. Outline your Strategy

Once you have clear goals you can create a solid strategy. It’s important to remember that social media is only a piece of marketing, and it shouldn’t be your entire plan. Depending on your business, industry and location, you can separate your plan into 2 segments: Brand Communication and Face to Face (or Relationships). Keep in mind, it takes 6-8 “touches” to close a sale, meaning, a potential client interacts with you nearly 10 times before they do business with you. Social media is a fantastic way to close the gap between these “touches.”

Brand Communication

- Emails, newsletters, greeting and holiday cards, advertising, PR, online tools and resources – these are all ways to increase brand awareness. It must be consistent, not intrusive.

Face to Face

- Relationships are critical. Don’t forget about the “social” part of “social media.”
- Attending events and trade shows, networking, being active in your community – these are all ways to engage on the Face to Face level.

Incorporate Social Media

- Now you’re going to pull from all of those efforts to create content for your social media outlets – but first, you have to know your platform and your audience (because they’re all different!)

Facebook
Think of it as the personal side of your business. Share pictures from community events to illustrate your involvement and the causes you support. Invite your “fans” to join you for happy hour and tag the watering hole (if the venue is managing their social media the way they should be, they’ll prepare for your visit and your post becomes an example of “social-media-in-action full circle”).

Twitter
Here you can follow thought leaders and share insights – you can choose who to follow, rather than being totally dependent upon someone choosing to “like” you. Although your goal will be to build “followers,” by following those who interest you and interacting with them, your audience will grow organically.
An example of this is seeing a post from Forbes about Marc Benioff (Salesforce CEO) and his incredible leadership. Now you can share this with your followers, giving them an awesome resource, as well as connecting with Marc Benioff and Forbes!

YouTube
Only 6 years old and named the 2nd largest search engine (behind Google, of course). It’s your chance to show people what you have going on – because it’s used as a search engine, your video (if properly optimized with keywords) will begin appearing in the results of these searches.
There is a fantastic example of this by Central Coast Surfboards. They were moving to a new location several blocks down the street and instead of loading all the surfboards into trucks and hauling them, they called upon their clients and employees to carry the boards in a long procession through town (which ended up being about 200 yards long). They put a clip on YouTube and have more than 450 views. What an awesome example of old school guerrilla marketing mixed with the new capabilities of social media!

Linked In
Think of it similar to Facebook, but professional, not personal. Build connections, share your blog, join “groups” relevant to your business – and participate in them – make yourself known. You’ll exhibit your expertise, build your following, and have a new source of referrals!

3. Measure your Results

Last, but certainly not least, you have to track your efforts. Are you meeting your goals? Is your website traffic increasing and from where are your visitors coming?

Utilize available online tools

- Google Analytics and email services like MailChimp provide accurate and critical data. There are many tools out there – Facebook has “Insights” for pages and Hubspot has a Twitter grader. Just implementing these tools gives you a place to start. (And speaking of awesome tools, if you’re not familiar with Hubspot, you should be.)

Create a tracking document

- This allows you to capture the big picture of your efforts and results on a monthly basis (you should be watching it daily based on a “past 30 days” segment, but record your figures monthly). Now you can see the fluctuation of website traffic, Facebook fans, Twitter followers, event attendees, YouTube video views, and mailing list and blog subscribers. You should be utilizing your strategy and setting your goals to continually improve these results.

Download the Collaboration Marketing Metrics Tool Here

Identify lead sources!

- You should have manageable categories to classify all of your marketing activities, including online / social media segment.
For example
Face to Face: Event
Face to Face: Volunteer / Community
Face to Face: Networking Group
Brand Communication: Email / Newsletter
Brand Communication: Advertisement
Brand Communication: Social Media
- With a CRM such as Salesforce, you can indicate the “Lead Source” for every opportunity and create a report to show you which marketing efforts are paying off – literally. If you don’t have a system to help you, simply make it part of your routine to record the source of each customer and make it part of your tracking sheet. You might be surprised at the results!

Finally, review and revamp

- If you see that something is working, you may want to consider how you can improve it or take it to the next level. If you are putting efforts into something that isn’t providing value, move on.

Once you have this system in place, you will begin to fully realize all of the marketing activities you have in motion, and which ones are the most valuable. You will streamline your business development, concentrating your time and money where it yields the highest ROI — and you’ll have the measurements to prove it!

Beware of the ‘bling’ in your business

November 3, 2011 / by Collaboration / in Leadership, Overcoming Challenges in Business, Time Management
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By Michael Gunther, Founder & Managing Partner

Okay, I‘m not the hippest guy around. In fact, I’m sure it’s safe to say my friends wouldn’t associate me with the word ‘hip’ at all (except maybe my friend EJ, but then again he isn’t hip either). But I’m going to use the word ‘bling’ to describe all the ideas, opportunities, paths, etc. that distract us from the items we should be focused on in our businesses.

Not only have I seen many business owners trying to chase ‘bling’ when they should be focused on the basics of their business or projects they already have underway, but I’ve experienced this quite often myself as a business owner.

You’re working hard trying to build your business and you’re looking for answers to help you take your business to the next level. You think there must be an easier way to get the job done; there must be a simpler way to grow your business. You figure, it just can’t be this hard. Then, the bling appears – you jump head first into a new strategy and forgo all the work you’ve already accomplished because this new bling is so shiny and exciting.

So where does the bling come from?

You’ve just read the latest management book and discovered some great new ideas or theories on ways you need to shift your business. You get your management team to read this book and begin implementing the new concept or ideas that you are confident will solve your business challenges… Until the next management book comes out and you shift direction once again. We call this the “book of the month club” management style.
You’re attending a seminar and the keynote speaker runs a very well-known successful company. He or she is sharing strategies and ideas and telling you what made the company great – even as specific as the top 5 things you need to know to build your business. You leave this seminar wondering how your business can implement these basic strategies. You once again go to your team with a new direction. This dance is called the “keynote shuffle”.
You’re in a CEO round table and another business owner describes a new strategy or direction that makes so much sense that you just have to try it in your business. You immediately go to your team and begin to implement these changes, but after a short time you realize you don’t achieve much success. You’ve just committed the crime of the “cookie-cutter CEO”.

I could go on and on with more examples of bling. I know I’m constantly seeing new opportunities for our business – reading how technology is changing so rapidly and considering how we need to innovate our service offerings. I swear I have 10 new ideas every week for how we need to do things differently, how we need to grow and what services or products we could be offering, and ways we should be improving our operation.

I’ve come to realize that there is no ‘magic bullet’ – no one idea or strategy that will transform our business. In addition, these authors, keynote speakers and CEOs are only sharing a piece of the picture. They’re not sharing the trials and tribulations of the implementation process. They’re not sharing how laser focus and persistent behavior have to be integrated into any approach. And rarely is there overnight success. Typically the people we read about or listen to at seminars have been building upon a consistent theme.

I’ve also discovered how challenging it is for a team to be constantly shifting in new directions. If someone on your team asks “what are we doing now?” it should be a clue that you may be a bling chaser.

I’ve learned that having a strong strategic plan in place is critical. A plan that is evaluated semi-annually to make sure you’re heading in the right direction. The plan allows you to evaluate new strategies and opportunities against where you want to go. I know my team keeps a ‘bling list’ so that when I read, hear or see a new opportunity that I don’t want to lose I have them put it on the list and we can come back to it during a strategic planning session.