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11 (Pain Free) Marketing Tips for Business

Marketing, yuck!  The daunting task of selling your products, your services, your brand…yourself.  You went into business not because you are a natural sales person but because you are good in your specific industry.  The sad reality is that in order to be a successful entrepreneur, you must also be a successful marketer.  You may have the best business in the world but it means nothing if no one has heard of it.  If the idea of sales makes you shudder, read these pain free tips for marketing your business.

  1. Start Posting More on Social Media

Want to get some buzz on your page? Posting updates, links, photos, and retweeting is the best way to organically generate interest on your page. If you are having trouble coming up with ideas, do some market research and look at what your competitors post on their social media pages. A few posts a week is a good start.

  1. Join Relevant Facebook & LinkedIn Groups

Joining groups on social media introduces you to new people and helps you target potential customers. Use LinkedIn’s search function to find the groups most relevant to you. People often use groups to pose questions or ask for advice. This is where you can demonstrate your skills and expertise but don’t be too salesy. Remember, you want to add value and help people, but you must also be patient. If you provide solutions to people on a regular basis, you will be top of mind and they will look to you for advice in the future.

  1. Start a Blog

According to Entrepreneur, a blog is a place where you find your customers, feed them information, and position your value. You have a lot of knowledge that could help people. Write about your business, your customers, and frequent problems customers have that you can shed light on. Think about the kinds of things your customers would want to read or that they would look up and create posts on those topics.

  1. Write a Guest Post on Another Blog

Don’t have the time to make your own blog?  Submit a guest article on someone else’s blog. Many bloggers accept guest content so just email them and ask. (For example, http://brainhackers.com/contributorguidelines/ looks for contributing writers all the time!) Find a blog with an audience similar to the demographic you are looking for. Make sure that the host blogger includes a link to your company website in the post. This is called a “back link” which over time this improves your SEO (search engine optimization.) The more places your website link is posted, the easier it is for people to find you via Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines.

 

  1. YouTube Ads

Running YouTube ads is a great way to get your message in front of a target audience and it may also help your SEO. (Google owns YouTube, so these videos are often ranked high in the search algorithm.) Google makes it incredibly easy to set up and monitor ads. For more info check HERE.

  1. Be a Guest on a Podcast

Much like writing a guest blog post, this will you get your message in front of a new group people and will only take an hour out of your day. How do you become a guest on a podcast? Simply contact the host and ask. Do NOT be overly salesy with the podcast host because you will be offered paid ad space instead of a free guest spot.  Rather than selling them on your product or service, sell the information and value you will provide to their audience.

  1. Optimize your Site for SEO

Does your website show up on the first page of a Google search…or the tenth? Did you know there are often simple things you can do to improve your ranking? For example. some things that affect your website SEO are the quantity and quality of photos used, the titles and descriptions of your pages, the way the pages are categorized, etc. Not sure where to begin?  Check out this article in Forbes for some tips to improve the SEO of your business.

  1. Create A Yelp Listing

Many businesses grow through word-of-mouth marketing and Yelp is the digital version of this. Customers turn to Yelp more than any other site to make buying decisions so it should be an essential part of your online portfolio. First check to see if you are already on Yelp. (The platform pulls information from different places so you may be without realizing it.) For more information on how to optimize and manage your Yelp listing click HERE.

  1. Offer a Free Giveaway

Everyone loves free stuff. This is a great way to get customers familiar with your brand. It can also help you build a mailing list of contacts. Offer a free download on your website (like a tip sheet or a report) that you must opt in to receive. Discount your service on Groupon and post on Facebook about the sale.

  1. Get Press

Getting your name to appear in the media raises brand awareness and it also builds credibility. Unlike advertising which immediately puts people on the defense (no one likes to be “sold”) earned media frames you as an expert and allows you talk about your brand in a discreet way that is much more effective for making sales and building brand advocates. Check HARO for media requests, send an opinion editorial piece to publications, or you can outsource the work to a professional PR team.

  1. Host a Webinar

Webinars are a way to build trust with customers/leads and help you demonstrate your expertise. Your webinar should provide useful information around your subject area. For ideas, you can look at what other people in your industry have done in the past. (Yes, someone has done a webinar on your topic, and if you search you will find it.)

 

 

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Best Practices Marketing Personal Development

PR Trends to Look for in 2018

Over the years, we have seen a number of PR and Marketing trends come and go. If you want your business to grow and thrive, it is important to stay up to date. Adapting to these trends will keep you savvy and sophisticated in a competitive market. So, what should we look out for in the New Year? I compiled a list of the top 5 industry trends expected for 2018.

Check it out!

1. Brand Reputation Will Hold Even More Weight in 2018

As Taylor Swift said, “Big Reputation, Big Reputation,” brand reputation is your business’ most valuable asset. If you have a positive track record, your customers will trust you and refer you through word of mouth. Customers depend a lot on what the media says about a brand, even if it is not true, so it is important to build a positive relationship with the media before catastrophe strikes. 2018 is expected to bring more brand crises than ever before and because of this, many brands are going to feel an urge to express socially good messages—but giving in to that urge is not always a good thing. Brands are going to have to be very careful about sounding inauthentic in attempt to thwart future bad press. Instead, build up your brand’s reputation slowly but steadily and only send out messages that you feel authentically represent your image.

2. Think Outside the Box when it comes to Media Relations

What will happen to newsrooms in 2018? Many full-time journalists are going to lose their jobs, which means there will be less people with deep resources and experience. This industry change means media professionals need to work on being more creative to get their stories told and decide which channels to do that through. Today journalists are there are under immense pressure to pump out headlines in order to gain clicks and shares. They must resort to picking up disagreeable news stories that offer shallow content with a lack of fact-checking resources. Journalists are covering stories that are not necessarily their beat, so it makes promoting your brand to the right person even harder. (Source)

Because traditional media is dying, we need to adopt different tactics in order to stay current. For example: Influencer Marketing. (See below)

3. The Evolution of Influencer Marketing

New forms of media give rise to a new breed of influencers. Whether it be opinion leaders, experts, ambassadors, creators, celebrities, activists, or healthcare professionals…the purpose remains the same. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat are where these influencers thrive.  Media relations has shifted from pitching traditional media to working with these individuals across all forms of media.

Influencers provide a means of building trust with specific communities through third party storytelling. They are best used for their ability to create relationships through compelling content, rather than their reach. PR companies seek to negotiate with influencers and build long term relationships, whereas marketing wants to buy access to audiences at scale in the same way you’d buy media space.

If you want to stay ahead of the game, investigate and build relationships with the influencers in your industry. (Source)

4. Use Story-Telling as a Means of Engagement

(Photo Credit)

Do you want to stand out? Start with a great story.

The human brain is hardwired to remember stories in lieu of facts. Do not throw out data and numbers in a pitch to promote your product/brand. We cannot lose sight of creativity. This is the key to good story-telling, along with content of course. Yet these are frequently overlooked elements when it comes to public relations. Communicating these complex messages successfully will help to cut through a cluttered media environment.

5. Outsource Effectively

With so many different types of PR requiring different skills and strategies, it’s impossible for an internal team to be experts at everything. Be open to partnering with specialty companies who can help provide your client the best, honing in on their wants, interests, and needs. You can always learn new things, but when your internal team is flooded with other clients, it is best to reach out to specialty firms for support. (Source)

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Skills Women In Business

Are you Consistent Monday to Monday®? 4 Steps to Commitment

Click here to watch Are you Consistent Monday to Monday®? 4 Steps to Commitment

Consistency is a key element of influence. Inconsistency leads to a lack of trust. If people don’t trust you, they won’t act on your recommendations or follow your lead.

Influence comes down to two different elements that often collide; what you communicate, or the message, and how you communicate it, or the delivery.

Take action this week to make sure your personal brand is consistent Monday to Monday rather than making your listeners guess who is going to show up.

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Best Practices Health and Wellness Human Resources Management Marketing Skills Women In Business

Handling Conflict with Class

Potential conflict lurks around every corner. Over the weekend, I found a surprise in my inbox, which turned into a good lesson in two-way diplomacy and proactive problem solving.

It was an email from Jeff Hayzlett, co-founder and chairman of the C-Suite Network and the Hero Club. He was responding to a couple of questions I had asked, and at the bottom was the following comment:

“On a side note— I got feedback that when asked you had mentioned that the experience with Hero was not good— so was that wrong feedback or is this [program you are putting together] another run to make it work?”

I’m not sure which dropped further – my jaw or the pit of my stomach.

These are the kinds of scenarios that tend to trigger people’s fight-or-flight reflex. They either run away in embarrassment – even if the allegations aren’t true – or they react angrily and defensively, neither of which is conducive to productive discussion and problem solving.

My mind raced, simultaneously trying to figure out who had given him that “feedback” and what on earth I had said to that person that would have left the impression that I had a negative overall experience with the organization. Plus, I didn’t want some misrepresentation to tarnish my relationship with Jeff and the C-Suite Network.

However, one thing I did notice was how he chose to bring it up to me. On the one hand, he didn’t passive-aggressively write me off and give me the silent treatment, leaving me completely in the dark, but he also he didn’t attack me with accusations. After all, upon hearing that kind of rumor through the grapevine, most people’s reflex would probably have started with “WTF?!”

Instead, he neutrally and unemotionally stated the nature of the information he had received. There was no direct accusation, insult, or attack. He then equally objectively asked if what he’d heard was accurate (it wasn’t), and made an effort to try to understand my current position, giving me the benefit of the doubt and a chance to give my side and set the record straight.

What mattered most to me was to maintain that tone throughout the exchange, however long it took, in order to get to the bottom of things while keeping our relationship intact.

I responded showing my surprise, and wanting to set the record straight, while indicating my continued support for the organization and mending any fences that may have been damaged:

“??? I have no recollection of saying that. Can I ask what the context was?  Be good to know who that came from, not for gossip, just for context. And if I can reach out to clarify to them I’d be happy to. I want to promote HC, not disparage.”

Although he didn’t reply directly to my email, we saw each other the next day at the C-Suite Network Thought Summit in New York, which he had organized. I approached him first.

Knowing that if our roles were reversed, I would have felt betrayed upon hearing such a report, I apologized for any potential miscommunication on my part, and repeated the request for more information to try to figure out where things got lost in translation.

The story he received was that I had sent an email responding to an invitation his team had sent me about speaking on his panel, allegedly saying I didn’t want to because I’d had a bad experience with the Hero Club. This already sounded odd to me, because I love being on stage at his events (heck, at just about any event), and we both get great feedback afterwards, but I wanted to see what I had written.

I took a moment to scroll through every email I had sent to him or his team in the past few weeks, and the only one I found that remotely addressed the issue was a response I had sent to the original invitation saying that (a) I’d love to; (b) in full transparency I couldn’t address [XYZ] exactly as requested and explained why, but (c) suggested another angle from which I could approach the topic, and asked if that would work instead.

I showed him the message, and wanting to confirm that he hadn’t inferred something unpredictable from it, I asked him sincerely if it sounded like I had declined the invitation.

“No,” he agreed unequivocally.

“Does it sound like my reasons for [XYZ] implied that my experience with the Hero Club was not good?”

Again, he shook his head and said, “No.”

I also pointed to the thread and showed him that I had not received a response regarding whether or not my alternative solution was an acceptable one. I wasn’t trying to be antagonistic, or throw anyone else under the bus. I simply wanted to show where my current understanding of the situation ended, and hopefully restore my reputation with him, not at anyone else’s expense, which I also stated outright.

What was important in the exchange was that we both kept objective and neutral in word, tone and body language, and shared what information we had with each other, staying open-minded and seeking mutual understanding, all of which is critical to problem solving.

A little while later, he came back to me after a bit of his own digging and shared what he had discovered regarding what had fallen through the cracks on his end as well. I was relieved, knowing that my reputation and our relationship had been restored, which was my main priority, regardless of whether or not I had a formal speaking role at the event.

He said to me, “(when I realized what happened), I told my team, fix this.”

Sure enough, a little while later we were both on stage together. And truthfully, I think the result was even better than what either of us had originally envisioned.

But what made the greatest impression on me was how powerfully smooth the process was. At the end of the day, I asked him how he’d feel if I blogged about the experience and how we worked through it. He nodded. “Go for it.”

When both parties address concerns directly but diplomatically, share all relevant information, listen openly, take responsibility for whatever went wrong on their respective side, and collectively seek to find a remedy, that’s where positive change occurs.

******

Do you struggle with how to navigate conflict, or know someone who does? Contact me at laura@vocalimpactproductions.com or click here to set up a 20-minute focus call to discuss it with me personally.

 

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Leadership Marketing Operations Personal Development

When the Sale Hits the Fan

Victoria wanted a new car. Since she had previously bought three cars from the same dealership, and even though she had recently moved several hours away, she chose to drive the extra distance to make yet another annual new car purchase. Her credit was good, and the sale went off without a hitch. After a few hours, she drove off the lot in a brand new year end model.

Two weeks later, the car brakes failed, the engine lights all came and the car stalled in traffic- all in the middle of traffic. To make matters worse, she narrowly missed being hit by an 18 wheeler and her 75-year-old mother (who was in poor health) was also in the car, shaken by the near miss.

She immediately called for roadside assistance. Needless to say, she was less than pleased that her car, with fewer than a thousand miles on it, not only almost got them both killed, but had left them stranded on the side of the road. Roadside assistance arrived after a two hours wait and towed the car to the nearest dealership. (Which was over an hour and a half away from her home.)

Towed with Less than a Thousand Miles on the Odometer

The dealership receiving the car advised her that the car was under warranty. They told her to leave the car and then come back a week later to retrieve it. This upset her and she told them that she wanted the dealership to replace the car. They responded that most dealerships would simply repair it and not replace it. They further stated that upon inspection, they were not able to locate the issue. They went so far as to question her version of events, until she provided photos taken with her cell phone of the lights and warnings lit up on the dash. This made her even angrier.

At which point, Victoria called the original dealership demanding to speak to the manager. Unfortunately, the sales manager was out due to a doctor’s appointment, and her call was not returned to the next day. (More about this later.) The preceding scenario is not only real; it shows how one weak link or product failure can kill a previously profitable long-term sales relationship.

A 2011 study, for example, demonstrated that customers are overwhelmingly responsive to good service, with 9 out of 10 people surveyed stating they would be willing to pay more for a positive customer experience. US companies lose as much as $84 billion dollars each year due to poor customer service, and or product performance failure.

While it can bring an abrupt end to the sales conversation, a flawed product or even poor service does not necessarily mean the end of future sales. Of course, the best solution to poor quality of a product or service is always to prevent it beforehand, rather than trying to fix it later. If and when it does happen though, all is not lost. The same research study mentioned above also concluded that as many as 70% of all customers will continue to do business with a given company following an issue, provided the issue is resolved promptly.

It may not work every time, but a thoughtful retention strategy can rebuild customer and brand loyalty, when issues arise. This kind of responsiveness is not haphazard and must permeate the company culture and mindset. If left unchecked, product and performance issues tend to create a downward spiral that sucks out profitability.

Poor service or product issues can compromise and damage your brand, leading to a sales slump. Even if your you spend more to market the product, the issue will only grow unless you forcefully course correct the way you respond to inevitable failures. This means that you need to anticipate, plan and respond in a way that makes the customer feel both heard and valued.

Back to the Broken Brand New Car 

After arriving at the dealership the next day, the sales manager was informed of the issue. He promptly called her and offered to replace the car, but she would have to drive to the dealership (a trip of several hours due to her relatively remote home location), to pick up her replacement.

Someone would either have to drive her there and then follow her back, or she would need to rent a car and then figure out where it could be returned. In the end, the sales manager made a decision to have two members of his team drive out with an identical replacement, bringing the necessary paperwork and contract with them.

This was outside of the norm, but given the lifetime value of the customer, the specifics of the problem, and the need to rebuild trust, he chose to step up with demonstrably superior service. The manager also made sure to include a few extras, such as adding the window shading at no charge. The issue was resolved within a week. As an aside, the customer later stated that she intends to purchase her next vehicle from the same dealership.

The takeaway is threefold:

  • Develop a responsive plan for restoring client faith
  • Be proactive in making them whole and rebuilding brand trust
  • Listen and respond appropriately based on the situation and client needs

Instead of simply trying to save face, taking responsibility for situations and working towards rebuilding brand trust, can save not just the sale, but the lifetime value of the sales relationship.

Jamie Crosbie is an accomplished senior executive with a proven record of sales leadership success.  Contact Jamie today and find out how to take your business to the next level. Beyond ordinary. Be extraordinary! jcrosbie@proactivate.net

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Personal Development Women In Business

Understand Before Seeking to be Understood

 

In your negotiations, how much attention to you give to really understanding the needs, wants, and desires of the other negotiator? Do you understand why he’s really negotiating with you per the mindset he possesses, his values, his sources of motivation? A lot of negotiators don’t really understand the mindset of the opposing negotiator and thus, they lead themselves down a path that infuses the negotiation with more angst than what otherwise might be the case.

In your future negotiations, be more mindful of the mindset of the other negotiator. Seek to understand him before you seek to be understood by him.

www.TheMasterNegotiator.com

 

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Entrepreneurship Marketing Personal Development

Why is the Barefoot Startup So Important Today?

We talk about the Barefoot Startup very often. But, what is it exactly? It’s sales! That’s it! Selling before your doors open; sales-supported growth; sales maps for new hires; overhead warranted by sales; bonuses based on sales; and development built on the cost of sales. The Barefoot Startup philosophy is sales-driven.

Why this fixation on sales? It’s how each employee gets paid. Each and every one! If not for the sales department, everyone else—production, marketing, HR, admin, and CEOs—wouldn’t serve a purpose.

Why is the Barefoot Startup so vital today? Focus on sales has vanished. Instead, we favor programming, engineering, HR, production, and legal.  We’ve grown to think that breakthrough technology, an amazing app, or a new financial system takes priority over sales. They don’t, and they never will.

In the Barefoot Startup, product design is determined by sales. You aren’t finished until you thoroughly understand how the market will be accessed and what the market wants.

Today, people believe success is based on financing. It’s not! You can secure financing before making a single sale. You can quickly burn out your investor dollars, too, without sales.

Startups trick themselves into believing that landing a spot in a major retail store is a recipe for success in itself. It’s not! This is not the end—it’s only the beginning. Real success is increasing and maintaining sales while staying in the market.

We’ve seen companies that have pushed marketing while neglecting the importance of sales. They’ll take a bow when sales are up, and they’ll blame the salespeople when numbers are down.

With no sales plan, no sales experience, and a really cool idea, you can still get financing. This way of thinking isn’t limited to just startups. Their investors can take sales for granted as well, and they shouldn’t. The failure rate of startups is on the rise. Over half of small startups collapse within their first four years, according to Small Business Trends.

No matter how bright, no idea is going to sell itself. Every idea must sell and, more importantly, resell on a continuous basis.

Focus should be on the cost of sales. Instead, it is usually on the cost of goods. But, if you aren’t able to service what you sell, you’ll soon be off the market. If your sales can’t generate positive cash flow, you’re stuck pleading with investors just to keep the lights on.

Today, business owners think if they have a cool idea and catchy marketing, all it takes is some people to sell it. If they don’t make sales, just get rid of them and hire more. Right? Absolutely wrong. With this revolving door, you never learn why your idea didn’t work—until it’s too late.

How did this happen? The world of sales has gotten a bad name. Nobody wants to come across as “salesy.” People don’t want to face rejection. And the “typical” salesperson is viewed as a shady character who is only after your money with almost nothing to offer in return. A good salesperson offers first-rate customer service, and they should be a startup’s top priority, not the bottom.

From small startups to large corporations, the time is right to implement the Barefoot Startup. Get started now! Focus on the most important key to success—sales!

For more, read on:  http://csnetworkadvis.staging.wpengine.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/

 

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Skills Women In Business

How to Listen Better to Win More Negotiations

“When asking questions, listen to the response! Be sure to hear the meaning and any hidden meaning in the message you received.” –Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

To win more negotiations, listen better. When you negotiate, how well do you listen? The better you listen, the more negotiations you’ll win.

… but he didn’t answer the question! Good negotiators are very adept at diverting questions that don’t serve their purpose. In some cases, they’ll give superficial responses that appear to answer the question, or like a good magician, draw your attention in another direction without you noticing that they’ve done so.

To enhance the probability of winning more negotiations, listen to how questions are answered, and listen to the words used to represent the answers. In so doing, you’ll gain invaluable insight into hidden meanings and the thought process behind those meanings.

Listen to how questions are answered:

Take note to what degree a question is answered, avoided, and/or modified. As an example, if you ask, “Is that your best offer?” You might receive several responses:

A.) In the past, that’s as much as we’ve paid.

B.) Due to our current ‘situation’, we have a ceiling on the amount we can pay.

C.) Other vendors/suppliers are accepting our price structure.

In each of the above answers, you received a response to your question but what you did not receive was a direct answer to your question. Depending on your alertness or how diligent you wanted to appear, you might rephrase the question, point out that you’d not received an answer to it, or accept the answer given in order to address the situation from another perspective. The course of action you adopt should be aligned with how you wished to position yourself and the person with whom you’re negotiating to enhance your negotiation position.

 Listen to the words used to answer questions:

Words are the representation of the thoughts being conveyed. In the above answers, the word choice conveyed additional insight per how that person was thinking. In response ‘A’, the information conveyed is stating, “That’s our norm.” It could also be perceived as, you shouldn’t consider going outside of the norm. Conform to our standards.

In response ‘B’, the subliminal message is, “We’re in a challenging time, please bear with us. Help us by being understanding.” If you acquiesce, you might attempt to acquire chits that can be used in future negotiations. If you do so, attempt to instill in the current negotiation when and how you might use such chits. Keep in mind, you’ll also be setting a precedent to ‘help them’ again in the future, since you did so this time.

Depending on the value of your offer, you could position it so that it’s seen as ‘added value’ that warrants a ‘higher investment’ on the part of the purchaser, or one that you can fit into the current pricing structure because of the reason that’s best suited for the situation and your purpose. The point is, after you’ve gleaned the additional information based on how your questions are answered, you have a better understanding of how to position yourself.

You make decisions based on your interpretation of the situations you’re in. Then, based on your interpretation, you decide how you’ll act and react to situations. Thus, you and only you control your actions in a negotiation. So, to control more of the aspects of the negotiation, listen to the meanings and hidden meanings in the answers given by the other negotiator. Your reward will be in winning more negotiations … and everything will be right with the world.

Remember, you’re always negotiating.

 

 

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Marketing Personal Development Technology

Does Marketing AI Replace People or Enhance Them?

Blame Hollywood. Blame Elon Musk. Blame whomever you want for the wide perception that Artificial Intelligence will put us all out of work. Others say that AI will lead to a life of leisure. Few are pointing out that those two predictions are the same–it’s just a question if you are optimistic or pessimistic.

But it is overly simplistic, because the all-knowing AI presence–Artificial General Intelligence–is so far a figment of imagination. Today, we are benefiting from Narrow AI–machine’s ability to outdo humans at just one thing, such as chess, or Jeopardy or Go. These AI wonders would be left wondering if applied to any other task.

And most AI in marketing is not even as autonomous as the game-playing types that make the news. By far the most prevalent AI in use is “human-in-the-loop” AI, such as semi-supervised machine learning. Rather than the computer doing it on its own, it is human beings that help shape the computer’s judgement. I work with Converseon, an AI-based social listening company, which uses human-coded data to do its initial training for sentiment analysis. But as it makes predictions, it uses its confidence level to decide which calls it is sure of and which ones it will refer to human beings to check. Any corrections are rolled back into the training data to make it even smarter.

That approach is more likely to be how AI is used today. Rather than eliminating people, it needs people to train it and people to correct it. It can outperform people over time, but its initial usage is to augment the performance of people. If you’ve been waiting for AI to wipe out your marketing team, you likely have a long wait. But if you want to use AI to make better decisions, the future is now.

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Best Practices Management Marketing Personal Development

People Want Entrepreneurial Culture!

Suddenly, entrepreneurial culture is in demand by C-Suiters of large corporations. Why? They see small companies doing what they aren’t—moving fast and seizing opportunities. They see more and more start-ups taking industries by storm with innovative products, groundbreaking services, and fresh takes on consumer demand. And they want to do the same.

Large businesses are under pressure from stockholders and board members to make entrepreneurial culture happen, and they don’t understand why that culture is off-limits in their own companies. Slowly, they realize where they went wrong. They learn that their rigid structure, strict processes, and scale of standardization they’ve polished over the years have actually worked against them. Their own employees have become discouraged and disempowered.

An employee can’t be forced to feel inspired and invested, and C-Suiters can’t develop entrepreneurial culture overnight. This takes long-term commitment—it is not a fad or an item on a checklist. The basics of entrepreneurial culture contradict some sacred corporate cows, such as structure, compliance, and compensation. This shift will require you to introduce 3 new wild horses:

  1. Work like a two-division company. If your customer is at the top, how can customer service and sales be at the bottom? No matter how an entrepreneur’s company and office are organized, there is a permeating two-division attitude and structure. These are sales and sales support. Sales is on top, and everybody else works to support sales. This includes production, marketing, and administration. Even the CEO is in sales support. Why? Because every entrepreneur knows that employees are paid by the customer, through sales. To ensure that departments such as marketing and production do their best, keep them informed and in the loop. Sales and customer service know the most about the market, so why not use them to keep everyone relevant and updated?
  2. Pay for performance. This might be difficult for a large corporation to implement. Your employees will be doubtful of this shift unless they are already paid according to performance. But, in order to foster entrepreneurial culture, a portion of their pay must be measured by profitability, growth, and sales. You need to make sure that your employees are driven by much more than a stable paycheck. Paying your employees just for attendance tells them, “Whether or not the company makes a profit, you’ll get paid the same, so relax!” Dedicated members of an entrepreneurial workforce are eager to gamble their pay on personal productivity.
  3. Be mindful of the legal department. Corporations can suffer from the restraint of legal departments. Hidden in their good intentions to protect against liability is a tendency to halt creativity. In our opinion, legal should develop a system where strict compliance reviews simply are not necessary. Part of their pay should be based on growth, sales, and profitability, just like everyone else. Why should their pay stay the same no matter how competitive the company is? Their challenge should not be “Can we do this?” It should be “How can we do this?”

In our book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways to Engage and Empower Your People, you’ll find the tools we used to create entrepreneurial culture at Barefoot. These tools can be applied to corporations of any size. Released in 2014 alongside Jeff Hayzlett’s on-demand C-Suite TV, it is the ideal companion to our New York Times bestselling book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. Check ‘em out!

For more, read on: http://csnetworkadvis.staging.wpengine.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/