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Category: Management

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Management Marketing Skills

The Easy Way to Gain More Referrals

Since people of the world started trading with each other, the number one activity and action that would drive future success was gaining new business from the word of mouth of others.

Despite all the modern marketing methods and new lead generation strategies it is still the creation of referrals from your network that brings you the biggest, quickest and most authentic return on your marketing investment.

I know that you would LOVE to have an endless stream of referred clients and would do anything to make this happen. Yet for the majority of business owners and sales professionals there is just one HUGE reason why they fail to gain the referrals they deserve.

They simply do not ask their existing contacts to open the doors into their contacts.

What could be stopping you from asking?

For me it comes down to one of the following 3 things:

    1. You’re too LAZY, bone idle and cannot be bothered…
    2. You don’t know WHEN to ask …
    3. You don’t know HOW to ask…

My guess is that option 1 does not apply to you – because if it did then you would not be reading this article. Therefore – if you knew the answer to the other 2 questions then you could probably ask more often.

Timing is everything and for many, the fear of finding the exact right moment to introduce an idea is the primary reason that stops the idea being mentioned. In my work I am renowned for helping others to know exactly what to say, when to say it and how to make it count. Let’s see if today we can help you understand how this relates perfectly to referrals.

When is the right time to ask?

The short answer to this is at the point that your prospect or client is happy. The difficulty in this answer is that there are literally dozens of examples where this could be the case. At the point of sale, the delivery, at a success milestone or even at the point of resolving a complaint, to name but a few. This abundance of opportunity creates a chaos of confusion and typically results in an inability to ask the key question of the other person.

The better answer is to set the small antennae on the side of your head (AKA ears) to listen out for one simple phrase. This phrase is a coherent clue to the fact that the other person is not only happy with what you have done for them, but also in that precise moment feels indebted to your actions to a point they may even feel like they owe you. There is no better time to ask for something than when the other person feels indebted.

The words you must listen for are the words…

Thank you.

When you receive this sign of appreciation please do not pat yourself on the back and think “I’ve done a wonderful job”. Understand instead that this is your perfect moment to ask for more.

Now that you understand the precise timing for the request we should probably explore a structured and powerful way of asking…

How to ask for referrals

The subconscious brain is a powerful thing. Particularly in the sales process. Why? Because it works a little bit like a computer.  There is only “Yes” or “No”. There is no “Maybe”. Having the ability to trigger instant decision from your client or prospect delivers you a fair advantage in communication and can often allow you to get your own way more often.

The subconscious cannot stop itself from working. It’s like our human autopilot. When you drive to a familiar destination, you don’t always remember the journey between getting in the car and out of it again. That was the subconscious brain taking over.

To lead you into this precise set of word choices you must learn the power of a simple set of “Magic Words” that can be used to get people to agree to an action before they even know what the action is.

So they have said “Thank you”. And this provides your cue to ask your first question.

“You couldn’t do me a small favour could you?”

This simple question gains an almost certain agreeable response and gives you instant permission to continue with the rest of your request.

You can then go on to say:

“You wouldn’t happen to know…”

(This throws down a challenge, which makes people want to prove you wrong)

“…just one person…”

(Just one because it’s reasonable and seems a simple ask they’re more likely to think of someone by name)

“…someone who just like you…”

(Has the person narrowing down the options and gives you more of the right prospects plus pays a subtle compliment)

“…would benefit from…”

And then emphasize the specific benefit or positive experience they have just thanked you for.

Then…

Shut up!

When they have thought of somebody you need to know where to go next. You will probably see in their body language and movement when they have thought of somebody.

At this point you say:

“Don’t worry. I’m not looking for their details right now, but who was it that you’re thinking of?

This automatically takes the pressure off and the “but” helps them to only recall the final part of the sentence.

Find out then when they’re next likely to see the person they are thinking of.

“You couldn’t do me a further favor could you? (I mean they said “Yes” the first time)  Next time you see Steve could you share with him a little bit about how it was doing business with me and see if he’s perhaps open minded to taking a phone call from me to see if I can help him in the same way I helped you?”

Your prospect will almost certainly agree.

“Would it be ok if I give you a call next week and find out how the chat went with Steve?”

They will most likely, again, be agreeable.

You then call him when you said you would and ask:

“I’m guessing you didn’t get around to speaking to Steve?”

As a person of their word they will either proudly say how they have spoken to Steve, or will be embarrassed and tell you how they will go on to complete the introduction.

The magic in this process is that if you slow the process down you can often speed the outcome up.

It provides you with qualified future customers who already have third party experience of your offerings and permission to make contact. I would take that over a name and a number any day of the week.

Categories
Growth Management Personal Development Technology

Right of Boom – Planning for Post Breach

At this year’s (2017), International Information System Security Certification Consortium (ISC2) Security Congress, we heard a keynote from Juliette Kayyem. She is the former Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security under the Obama administration. She not only talked about the importance of being prepared in order to stop attacks, but also being prepared for what she called “Right of Boom.”

Right of Boom is what you do after an event (attack or mistake) has occurred, whether it be a bombing like the Boston Marathon, a mass casualty event caused by system malfunction like the BP oil spill, or a cyber incident. The event is the Boom and what comes next is Right of Boom (picture a timeline).

This article is focused on Right of Boom planning for cyber security and whether you are an executive responsible for security and/or IT or an executive outside of this area (CEO, COO, CFO, CMO, etc.) this matters to you because at the end of the day it could mean the survival of your business.

You can plan all day long to stop a cyber attack or incident through vulnerability and risk management, good secure coding practices, and security awareness training, but you can’t stop it all. There will always be an attacker one step ahead at some point in your journey, whether because they just have more resources and time than you do, or one of your employees simply makes a really big mistake.

Since you can’t stop it all, you must plan for Right of Boom, what you do after the attack, which will be the difference between staying in business and maintaining a good business reputation, or going out of business. Even if you don’t go out of business, the way you handle Right of Boom could be the difference between a few million dollars spent in recovery and notifications and a few billion dollars spent.

Planning for Right of Boom means that you don’t just focus on a defensive approach to stopping attacks, misuse, and errors, all of which can have a catastrophic effect. You also ensure that there is proactive planning, testing, and more planning on what you do after something goes wrong. It’s not a matter of if something goes wrong; it is a matter of when.

Too many organizations are notified of a breach by a third party and oftentimes months after the breach happened. That means months have gone by with an attacker in your network doing what they want, collecting the data, and using it for their own benefit. It’s never good news when you are told by a third party that you have been hacked and that you have been leaking company and customer data for months. And with the average cost per stolen record of $141 based on the 2017 IBM Cost of Data Breach Study, imagine how much that can cost your organization not to mention the loss of customers and reputational trust.

The cost of that cleanup is much less for an organization that can detect a breach in near real time especially if they know what to do upon identification of the incident, i.e. if they have a  Right of Boom plan. It means less data loss (if any) and more time to properly clean up the incident, as in get the servers working again with the vulnerability fixed and bad guy out of the network with minimal disruption to the business.

The only way that proper Right of Boom planning and response is possible is if your organization takes it seriously. Do you have a security team that is empowered to create Right of Boom response scenarios and test them? Do you have a security team that has the resources to identify a suspicious event, whether it be malicious or accidental? Do you provide training for your IT and user community to understand their role in Right of Boom? Do you have third parties on retainer or whom you can call that are specifically trained to help you contain and investigate an incident?

These are just a few critical questions to ask your security team. If you have a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) or Chief Security Officer (CSO) they should be part of the C-Suite discussion on Right of Boom. They should have the resources they need and be tasked with and empowered to help ensure a Boom does not put your organization at great risk… or even worse, out of business.

If you do not have a CISO or CSO it’s time to either hire one or find a virtual resource that can help you on an as-needed basis with strategy planning around topics like Right of Boom. If you have questions about this or about finding a resource email sharon@c-suiteresults.com to discuss your specific situation and needs because security is what I do and I want to see your organization prepared.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Best Practices Growth Human Resources Management Personal Development Women In Business

The Other, Other ‘B’ Word

As an advocate for gender parity and diversity, I strive to broadcast a message about the immense economic potential of advancing women in the modern workplace. Often, my content is couched as a rallying cry for more men to become allies on the journey toward gender equality. Aside from the obvious egalitarian reasons for having more women in leadership, it also makes sense from a purely business standpoint. If organizations had gender-balanced leadership teams and equally valued the contributions of both sexes, they would be better suited to adapt and thrive in a complex, volatile global economy. The advantages of diversity in business have been studied for years and are well-documented: There would be higher employee engagement, less turnover, and greater profitability.

Considering the clear benefits of diverse leadership, why are there still so few women in C-level roles today? Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandberg, founded the Lean In non-profit organization to address this issue, and one of their campaigns is to ban the ‘B word’. No, not the one that rhymes with pitch. The other ‘B word’, bossy, is a term applied to young girls and women who are decisive, confident, and direct in the way they relate to others. It’s a pejorative used to discourage females from acting contrary to societal norms; i.e. that they should be agreeable and docile. Of course the male-driven business model encourages cutthroat competition and a commanding leadership presence, creating a Catch 22 for women who hope to be successful. If they try to fit in as one of the boys, they are perceived as aggressive and difficult. But if they are simply authentic, their kindness and cooperative nature work against them. The Ban Bossy project aims to empower women of all ages so they embrace their innate leadership qualities and are recognized as leaders in their own right. While this is an important effort in the push for gender parity, I worry that the message can be misinterpreted by some women who take it as free license to be the other, other ‘B word’: bully.

I stumbled across a YouTube video secretly recorded by a Georgia middle school janitor as he was being reprimanded by the principal for leaving work 8 minutes early. (You can watch for yourself here.) Throughout the meeting, the principal was rude, condescending, dismissive, belittling, and downright cruel. She repeatedly asked the janitor what his hours were, interrupted him as he attempted to explain the situation, and spoke to him in a manner unfit for conversation between grown adults. It was obvious from her smug demeanor that she was accustomed to using fear and menace to bend employees and students to her will. I’ve worked for and with women like this throughout my career. They either adopt this ‘dragon lady’ persona as a means of survival in a company or industry dominated by men, or it’s just their personality. This management style is unacceptable regardless of a person’s gender, but, as I mentioned before, there’s a double standard for women. They’re damned if they do act like men, and damned if they don’t.

How, then, can we ensure equal representation of women in leadership while discouraging bully behavior? Well, there are plenty of excellent books on the former, so I’ll tackle the latter because I believe bullying is an employee engagement issue, not merely a gender issue.

In my employee engagement practice, I teach managers to embrace a mindset of empathy, curiosity, and humility. Without these virtues, you are a just boss, not a leader. And you certainly won’t earn the respect or engagement of your employees if you forgo true leadership in favor of being a bully.

Empathy is our ability to relate to and feel for others. It’s what makes us human. When we empathize with people and “put ourselves in their shoes”, it causes us to think more carefully about how we behave and speak toward the the individuals in our lives. When meeting with an employee to have a potentially difficult conversation, empathy can make the difference between a mutually acceptable outcome and a result that leaves one party — invariably the lower-ranking person — feeling unheard, disrespected, mistreated, or cheated. Had the principal in the video practiced empathy by asking herself how she would want to be treated if she were the janitor, things would have gone much differently (and saved the school quite a bit of embarrassment).

While empathy means having an open heart, curiosity is keeping an open mind. Being a curious leader requires a willingness, even a desire, to hear positions other than your own. Doing so gives you an opportunity to build stronger relationships with employees. By asking them for their views, their feedback, their stories, and then listening without judgement or interruption, you are positioning yourself as a leader who wants to collaborate on solutions, instead of just bark orders. When leaders curiously listen, they are sending a message that they wish to co-create a positive and engaging employee experience. Woodrow Wilson once said, “The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.” The principal made it clear during her meeting with the janitor that the only voice she cared to hear was her own.

Curiosity also means questioning your motives and behaviors. This takes a high degree of emotional intelligence that comes from being humble. Humility allows us to challenge the ego and make decisions that are more effective in the long run, as opposed to satisfying our own immediate need to feel important. Many people, when given power over others, tend to let it go to their heads at the expense of the relationships with those in their charge. They haughtily believe their management title grants infallibility and deity; that it somehow elevates them to a higher stratum than the peons being managed. But we are all flesh and blood. None of us is any better than the rest. What makes a leader is not her status, nor her ability to control and punish. The measure of a great leader is seen through the eyes of people whose lives are better for having followed her.

In order for us to have an impactful conversation about developing more women into leaders, we need to agree that bullying is the antithesis of effective leadership. We need to hold everyone in management positions, gender notwithstanding, to the highest standards of conduct and preserve the integrity of what it really means to be a leader. It will take a dramatic shift in the business world, one that champions the merits of empathy, curiosity, and humility. To start, those with the power to make this change will have to be another ‘B word’: brave. Courageous leaders — both men and women — must shape the modern workplace into an environment where bullies aren’t welcome, one where success doesn’t come without kindness.

About the author:

Jonathan D. Villaire is a bridge-builder, truth-teller, and advocate for empathy who helps leaders understand how to effectively engage their employees and, more importantly, how to stop disengaging them. He founded Cognize Consulting with the aim of giving supervisors, managers, and executives a new perspective on employee engagement: See employees as human beings, not as human capital. Understand how to create an employee experience that increases retention and attracts top talent. Engage employees with a leadership mindset of empathy, curiosity, and humility. He is a speaker, coach, and author of the upcoming book The Stepford Employee Fallacy: The Truth about Employee Engagement in the Modern Workplace.

Categories
Management Marketing Skills

Always Be Closing – Get a Decision, in Place of Leaving a Brochure

I thought I’d tackle one of those challenges that we’ve been faced with time and time again in our business career. When we receive the objection early on in our sales process, such as “Can you send me the details?” This prevents you from getting down to the detail where you’ve given them enough information to make a full decision. You’ve got a conceptual yes, they’re reasonably interested in what you do, but not specifically interested enough to give a decision. 

As the brochure is stereotypical, what happens when we send them out? At best it sits on a coffee table for a period of time. Does it really get digested or discussed or lead to a decision, picking up the phone and taking action? Sometimes it does, but typically no further action happens unless we make it happen.

When we had customers interested in an overseas investment property, I heard “would you leave me a brochure?” so often that I knew I had to find a way of tackling it. I had to get into the position where I could spec something in detail–the specs they would want if they did proceed. Now you know how much better we are at looking at things in hypothetical circumstances rather than in reality, and this is exactly what we do here when faced with this scenario. I’ve developed what I call the “Devil’s Advocate Close”, the opportunity where we spec something in a hypothetical circumstance.

What I decided to do was every time somebody said ‘Can you leave me a brochure?’ I’d say “Absolutely, but why don’t you play devil’s advocate with me for a second, so you know what it is that you’re saying ‘no’ to. I know you’re not going for one of these right now, but if you were to invest in one of these properties, just hypothetically speaking, would it be for–lifestyle or investment?’

Let’s say I get the answer “investment”…

“If it is investment, you’re looking at maybe something that’s going to bring you the best possible returns for the smallest amount of outlay?”

“Yeah that’s right Phil.”

“Let’s say you were going to go with it and use that property anyway, how many of you would be using the property?”

“Well it’d be me, the wife, and the kids.”

“So you’d be looking for at least two bedrooms?”

“Yeah that’s right Phil.”

“So if it were a two bedroom apartment and investment was in mind, I guess you’d be looking at a two bedroom, first floor apartment, because those are the cheaper properties and they rent for the same as a ground floor, hence your yield is slightly higher. It makes sense to go for a two bedroom first floor.”

“Yeah that’s right.”

“Assuming, with investment in mind, that you may want to sell this on one day and be able to get some use out of it, so you’re probably going to be wanting something with a nice outlook or pool-facing view.”

Yeah that would make sense Phil.”

“Then let’s have look at what’s still left on the development – two bedroom, first floor, pool-facing. Well I’ve got this apartment here, it’s apartment A202 and it’s 74sqm and here are the two bedrooms and the two bathrooms. Here’s the en-suite and the large open plan kitchen and here’s the balcony, and on the balcony you can see you’ll be overlooking the beautiful pool area. Now I know you’re not in the position to move forward with one of these today, but again just playing devil’s advocate and so you know what it is that you say no to, would you be open-minded to take a look at what the figures look like so that you would know what a yes would look like if you were ever in that position?”

“Yeah absolutely Phil.”

So I would walk them through the payments, I’d walk them through exactly what their investment for apartment A202 would look like, and funnily enough, their final decision in order to secure that property was just a small reservation fee. At the end of that presentation, I would say to the customer, “Well in terms of what we’ve gone through, obviously we’re showing you the best of our available stock. I’ve got a number of appointments later today, as have the rest of the team, and two bedroom apartments are the most popular because they’re the best rental option. No doubt the next person who reserves a two bedroom first floor apartment will probably come to the same conclusion that you have that A202 is the best apartment. So if you were to look to reserve, then all we need is a $1200 reservation, and we take cash, cheque, and credit or debit card.”

Where people have previously said, ‘Leave me a brochure’, we’ve now prompted a discussion between decision makers. Now let’s say we did that ten times in a week…most people would continue with the “Can you leave me a brochure” along with the numbers and the floor plans for the specific apartment in question–but two or three people out of the ten would genuinely move forward with a transaction that they would have previously have asked you to leave on.

We know how hard it is to create opportunities to sit in front of people and then create a genuine opportunity for them to make a buying decision with us. Just ask yourself this, is it easier to hang in there for another five, ten, fifteen minutes to give them enough information to make a decision and help them see what they could buy from you, or easier to start again with somebody new? Because purely by playing devil’s advocate you can get some great information out of people – valuable information that puts them in a position where they can make a decision.

Categories
Growth Management Skills

Don’t Talk to Strangers

When many of us are looking for new business, we can find ourselves in the mysterious world of business networking; for most, attending open networking events is a less than enjoyable experience.

We all know that to find new customers we must speak with more people, so why do so many of us find this such a daunting task?

The reason we find this difficult is that we were all conditioned as children by a simple sequence of words – “Don’t talk to strangers”. The first challenge is to defy that conditioning, and I’ve found that the easiest way to resolve this is to understand that pretty much everybody else is feeling the same as you. Getting over the initial “fear” is one thing; however, to succeed in a network, here are some simple rules that have worked for me, and I am sure if you choose to employ them they could have significant benefit to you too.

Have a plan

Regardless of the size of the event, it is unlikely that you can develop lasting business relationships with all in the room, and I am certain that there will be some people who will be of considerable more value than others. Set a goal and stick to it. It may be to make a number of new connections or to set a meeting with a specific person. Just turning up and seeing what happens is leaving your success to chance.

Know what you are going to talk about

Starting a conversation is the hardest thing to do when entering a room full of strangers. To open conversation, the easiest place to start is to talk about a subject that you all have 
in common. The one subject that you all have in common is the event you are at. As such, plan a series of questions related to the event.

Talk of how you help people

“So what do you do then?” This is a question that you are almost guaranteed to be asked, yet each time I witness it, 
the receiver of the question looks startled and bemused
, hesitantly giving their job title or profession as the answer. Your goal from this question is to open a conversation by being interesting to them. So when asked this question please rephrase it in your head to “How do you help people?” And answering that question instead.

Sell to the room

This goes against what you are often told when networking, yet is based on the simple reality that your best referrals come from existing customers. Therefore to gain a quantity of referrals, you need a good number of customers within your network. Now this does not mean forcing your products or services on people, but simply having a simple entry-level offering that makes it easy for people to try your offerings.

By utilizing some, if not all, of the above tips I am sure you will reap significant returns. Good luck in your networking!

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Personal Development

Strategic Alignment Drives Sustained Results

There are seven ways for your company’s strategy, culture, and operations to align. Only one delivers sustained results.

• Are your business results falling short of expectations?

• Are you blindsided by hidden costs, disengaged employees, and unnecessary complexity?

• Are you sick and tired of fighting your competitors and internal roadblocks?

Unless your strategy, culture, and operating model are synchronized, you are wasting time, alienating employees, and leaving money on the table. The few minutes you spend reading the rest of this blog, will explain how a strategically aligned company is positioned for sustained results. Let’s define terms!

Your strategy is your overall plan to win in your marketplace.

As you develop your strategy, you get to choose your marketplace and you get to define what is a win. The only reason a company might choose not to have a strategy is because they are comfortable in their market position. Having no strategy is a certain slow death for a company. Market forces will eventually consume that company. Do you want this to happen to your company?

Your culture is the sum of the beliefs and behaviors your employees bring to work every day.

Each company’s culture is unique. Your culture is formed by the values lived and breathed by each employee, every day on the job. I’m not talking about the slogans hanging on the walls or the T-shirts. I’m talking about the accumulated employee beliefs and behaviors which arrive at work every single day. This is ‘who you really are.’ This is ‘your identity.’ This is how ‘your brand is created.’

Your operations are simply how things get done at your company.

• What needs to be done?

• Who does what?

• When does it get done?

• How will it get done?

These are your systems, processes, and procedures to deliver your strategy to the marketplace. Your resulting operating model translates your strategy into the daily operating instructions to be performed by your front-line employees. Now that we have defined strategy, culture, and operations, I challenge you to reflect on this question? ‘How satisfied have you been with your company’s growth and profitability over the past ten years?’ If you are not pleased with your results, ‘What are you going to do about it?’

The first thing that must change is, your mindset.

Begin to visualize strategy, culture, and operations as the ‘life blood’ of your company. When you successfully synchronize your strategy, culture, and operations, you are in a strong position to ‘chart your company’s course’ and begin to ‘experience your company’s vision.’ When strategy, culture, and operations are not in sync, your strategy, culture, and operations counterpunch each other until the ‘best man wins.’ Employees become disengaged; complexity surrounds what should be, simple changes; and you are consistently ‘leaving money on the table!’

So, how do you know if your strategy, culture, and operations are aligned?

Let me walk you through the process. First visualize your strategy, culture, and operations as three circles. Each circle represents strategy, culture, or operations. The question that matters is: ‘How well do your strategy, culture, and operations circles intersect?’ See the diagram to the left. The top circle represents strategy. The left circle represents culture. The right circle represents operations.

Strategy, culture, and operations and inter-depedent, and simultaneously impact each other. The numbers one thru seven in the diagram above, represent the seven ways your strategy, culture, and operations can align with each other. Let’s briefly describe each. After you have reviewed the descriptions, think about: ‘Which alignment sounds most like your company?’

Alignment 1 – Strategy Rules!

You have a great idea, but you have no clue what to do with that idea. Your strategy is developed and distributed, however, strategy is not a standalone step. You must make your culture and operations integral parts of your company’s strategic plan development.

 

Alignment 2 – We Decide, You Do!

 

Results when strategy and operations are in alignment and your culture is supposed to just, ‘Follow Along.’ Have you ever wondered why some of your company’s ‘initiatives,’ underperform?

Alignment 3 – The Dream!

You have in your head, ‘that idea.’ In your mind you can see it, feel it, and touch it, as if it were real. But, you’re the only one who sees it. The dream has not been translated into an executable game plan.

 

Alignment 4 – Silo / Turf War!

Results when your culture and operations are in alignment, but there is no common overall strategy. Each unit / department creates and act on the strategies they individually create. Say hello to politics, back stabbing, and game playing.

Alignment 5 – Culture is King!

Here, it is extremely important that people work well together. There are very few HR issues to deal with, but, there’s no strategy. No one knows how operations fit into the picture? A overall balance is needed.

Alignment 6 – Everyone’s on Board, I Hope It Works!

Results when your culture and strategy are in alignment, but you’re ‘rolling the dice’ with operations thinking, ‘it should work.’ You begin your new initiative, have your kick-off meeting, post your slogans, wear your T-shirts, but don’t spend a dime, nor give a second thought to operations.

Alignment 7 – Sustained Results!

When your strategy, culture, and operations are aligned, five things are crystal clear:

• You know who you are.

• You know where you are going.

• You know how you will get there.

• You know when you will get there.

• You know you will have sustainable, scalable results.

So, what will strategic alignment look like at your company?

Your company is in strategic alignment when you can:

• Embrace marketplace turbulence with your agile workforce.

• Consistently deliver your execution plans better, faster, and more cost effectively than your competition.

• Maintain a workforce of ‘owners’ who are excited to come to work each day.

• Maximize the return on investment in your people, your equipment, and your capital.

Just imagine:

• The resulting positive impact on profitability.

• Planting the seeds for your company’s future growth.

• Consistently beating your competition ‘to the punch.’

Can you really afford not to align your strategy, operations, and culture?

We’ve come a long way together. So now, in the comments section, please let me know:

1. Which alignment best represents how your company operates today?

2. How is that working for you?

Want to know more about strategic aligning your strategy, culture, and operations, sign up to receive my blog at www.GrowCompanyPofits.com.

Wayne helps CEO’s eliminate hidden costs, disengaged employees, and unnecessary complexity. How? Ensures your strategy, culture, and operations are aligned to deliver sustained results. Optimize ‘The Business Value Formula’ –> Recipe + Resources = Results.’ Learn more at www.GrowCompanyPofits.com

Categories
Growth Management Skills

The World is Shrinking!

The biggest change in the way we now communicate globally is the revelation of social media. Its impact has been so huge that we can now communicate across the planet with such ease that our marketplaces have got significantly larger, and our networks are now much easier to reach.

For those unaware of what the term ‘social media’ relates to, it is the collective term of platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube, and these forms of media are changing the way that we now communicate. This shift in communications sounds drastic, and for many we are fearful of change – particularly when there is technology involved. However, this is nothing new; this is just modern day word of mouth, and as a tool for building business is like stepping back in time. This is about building relationships with your customers and community, as well as understanding what others are saying about you, to build your brand and grow your business.

In this article, I want to give you the basics in a simple process that all can follow, get you off to a great start with social media and ensure that it can start to help you and your business. One thing I am not is an expert. However, I have used social media with great results for both my own business and for clients, and I am happy to share those lessons with you.

First Impressions Count!

Just like in the real world, you never get a second chance to make a first impression when it comes to social media. Before you open for business, I would seriously recommend that you take the time to fully complete your profiles.

On LinkedIn, this means completing all fields from start to finish. It serves as your online CV, and if you were looking for a new job then you would certainly make sure that your CV shared the right message and was complete. On Twitter, you only have a few characters, so ensure that your biography delivers a strong message that intrigues people to find out more.

On all platforms, the visual appearance is also critical. You can use certain areas to apply your brand identity and convey your business message. This can be done simply and easily by speaking with your designers to create the correct sized artwork. Consider your photography. These are social platforms, so images should be warm, friendly and not too corporate, and I believe should always include the image of a person and not just that of a company logo.

Build Audience

Once you are all set up most people start to worry about their outbound content. Now your content and posts are important, yet only when people are listening. Social media is particularly useful as a communication tool to the people that already know you, so I would start there. If using it for business, then my first action would be to connect with as many of your existing customers and contacts as possible. You can do this by uploading your contacts as a database and sending out an invitation. Additionally you should look to use all current communication tools to let people know that you are active on social media. This means adding social media icons to your e-mail signature and stationery, informing all your customers when you write to them, making it a news story on your website and adding leaflets or posters in the view of your customers to entice them to your profiles. To actually get them to your profiles is harder than just asking though, so running a competition or great offer to reward them for visiting your profiles, and connecting with you, will drastically improve your chances. Remember that investing in this audience is critical in achieving social media success; without an audience, your great work could be wasted.

Be interesting

When it comes to content, the key is to remember that these are social platforms. Very few people are enjoying times on social media because they want to be sold to. To be interesting, you need to be varied with your communication and show yourself as human. If your message becomes
monotonous, you become boring and people stop listening, so keep your outbound content varied. For me this means posting in 3 areas:

    • Firstly, commenting on or sharing useful information relating to your wider industry as a whole.
    • Secondly, presenting your products and services but only with customer focused offers relating to the action that precedes the sale and not the sale itself. For example, if you were a car retailer, you should provide an offer to get people to visit the showroom and not to buy the car.
    • Finally, be human. To succeed in Social Media, you must be prepared to share some personal information. Life and family events, as well as successes and failures, are great ways of starting dialogue.

Please remember that the aim of posting content is to start a conversation or encourage debate. Starting conversation with your contacts opens you up to their contacts and then your network grows!

Categories
Growth Management Skills

Account Management

We All Spend Time, Money And Effort Finding New Customers So We Can Grow Our Business. However, The Opportunity Of Growth Is Typically Among The Customers We Already Have.

Getting the most from our existing customers is a skill that is often overlooked, but can bring incredible results when perfected. I believe that the reason new customers are pursued with such vigor is that they always appear more exciting. The thrill of the chase can be addictive and emotionally more rewarding. By adopting this technique, we are not only overlooking our existing contacts, but missing substantial opportunities.

Ask yourself the following questions:

    • Are you aware of your customer’s future plans?
    • Do your existing customers know all the services you provide?
    • Do you review your customer accounts at least every 6 months?
    • Do you make regular contact with your contacts who never became customers?

If you have answered NO to any of these questions, you are losing out on winning business and making money.

Develop a systemized process

Great sales procedures avoid the requirement of individual brilliance. Integrating your process with a CRM (contact management system) will ensure that nothing gets missed and all promises are kept.

Design a method that details your ideal customer experience. Play out every eventuality from initial contact through to first meeting and onwards to close. You will know how to arrive at the desired outcome and how that is best achieved. Create a template for each e-mail and letter at each stage and develop a flow chart to record your process. Attach the relevant communication to each stage of the process and ensure this policy is followed. Also consider what happens once the prospect has made a decision. Continue this process with a number of scheduled communications, and integrate this into your CRM system.

Create a product matrix

Consider every product and service you offer and every customer you do business with. Plot this information on a matrix.  Can you see the gaps? Now you know exactly the potential new business within your reach and what you need to discuss with each client.

Vary communication methods

Continually change the way you communicate with your clients and prospects. Every method has its place, but bear in mind that all will lose impact and minimize effect if used consistently. Consider social media tools, email with images, text messages, direct mail, pick up the phone or speak face to face. Variety will keep your contacts interested and engaged.

Hold review meetings

Your customers are your most valuable asset. They should be cherished and nurtured. Holding regular meetings with your customers presents you with the opportunity to under sell and over deliver. Introduce them to valuable contacts, techniques and processes that will help them develop their business or reduce costs. The key purpose of the meeting is to establish opportunities and discover how you can help them further. Determine problems you can fix or goals you can help them realize. Understanding your client’s plans and challenges presents you with an abundance of ways you can help them.

These are all practices you can implement immediately.

What are you waiting for?

Categories
Best Practices Growth Human Resources Management Skills Women In Business

Listen Different

Typically, I write about speech. But today I want to take a new look at the role of the listener in leadership communication. As Apple might say, you have to “Listen Different.”

Of course, as the speaker you need to present your information in a way that will make sense to that particular listener, which is an important leadership skill. But that’s only half the story.

Not everyone is going to be good at adapting their speech to fit your expectations for what good communication sounds like. That’s why it’s important to learn to listen differently, so as not to be at risk for missing some of the most valuable pieces of information.

As an example, I work with a lot of women’s groups, and one of the most common frustrations I hear is when a woman makes a comment in a meeting, which gets glossed over, and then five minutes later one of the men at the table says almost the exact same thing, but he is praised for the contribution. The following cartoon illustrates the sentiment.

Gender-bias issues aside, why this is such a common experience, and how can it be changed? The underlying principle stands for everyone – women and men alike. The truth is that the responsibility for change is shared by everyone present Here’s one reason why:

Sometimes the way a comment is framed makes it “fly under the radar” if listeners aren’t tuned into that frequency, so to speak. For example, they say something like “What about X? Should we look at that? Would that work?” If you heard this at a meeting, what would your response be?

While the person is technically making a suggestion, you might not register the value of the suggestion because it is framed as a series of questions that – on the surface – seem to be seeking validation or approval.

Believe it or not, many listeners don’t understand the nature of what they’re really hearing, and need to recognize the speaker’s intent

You might wish they had just said, “We haven’t tried X yet; let’s take a look at that option,” but they didn’t. So you need to learn to hear the message, no matter how it is framed. Make sure you’re fully present when someone is talking, because we first process tone and instinctive feeling before we process actual meaning. Otherwise, you risk missing out on critical information.

But even if you are just a participant in the conversation and you realize that you do hear the someone’s real message but believe the others in the group somehow missed it, or if “Ms./Mr. Triggs” offers an idea that is only praised when repeated by another person, it becomes your responsibility to diplomatically draw it to everyone’s attention: “Yes, Pat, I think you’re reinforcing what Chris said a moment ago about…” After all, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem, right? Passive listening and lack of proactive participation are not qualities of effective leadership.

It may be frustrating to feel like you need to work harder at listening, that people should just “speak clearly,” in the end, communication is a two-way street, so if you want to be an effective communicator, learn to listen different.

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Do you have trouble communicating effectively with someone, or feel like your contributions are often overlooked? If you have other questions or feedback about this issue, contact me at laura@vocalimpactproductions.com or click here to schedule a 20-minute focus call to discuss it with me personally!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Best Practices Growth Management Personal Development Technology

The Escape Artist – How to Stop the Data Thief

When you watch Ocean’s Eleven you know that breaking in is only half the battle; you also have to get out unnoticed or undetected. The same thing that is true for bank robbers and cat burglars also holds true for hackers.

If you are a business owner or executive responsible for keeping your customers or your corporate data secure and you think it’s all about stopping the bad guys (and gals) from accessing your data, you are missing what might be the biggest point of failure: their escape.

Over the years we have seen that many breaches are not noticed or identified for months and sometimes even years, which means not only did the bad guy get away with it, he (or she) was then able to unload their loot or start using the data without worry that they would be noticed. That’s good news for them, but not so good for you.

In order to fully discuss the escape portion of the breach, the part that most people forget to talk about or protect against, let’s look at the three main players or threat actors in this scenario. Going forward I will use the common term “hacker” to mean any of these threat actors.

  1. The external hacker with no authorized access to your network: These are the people who sit behind their computers anywhere in the world and try to find networks that are open or system vulnerabilities just waiting to be exploited. Open networks are typically those that do not have good firewall rules, have publicly facing systems that should not be publicly accessible, or have exploitable web application vulnerabilities. It only takes one bad line of code, one misconfigured firewall rule, or one forgotten system on the perimeter to leave your organization exposed.  Once you are exposed and they are in your network, that is where their fun begins.
  2. The third party vendor or partner who has direct access to your network (usually via VPN): These are the organizations outside of yours that you do business with and need access to your network. They might provide you data or receive data from you, they might monitor another system that you manage, or do a number of legitimate activities. However if you don’t know how secure their networks are, which you never truly will, or you don’t know who they employ, you have opened up your network to their network and their people. If they are hacked and that hacker finds the access to your network – boom, they are in.
  3. The trusted employee: Your employees are not going to harm you right? Most of them will not and even the ones that do are often not trying to harm you. But even those employees who mean no harm cause errors or misuse their credentials, which lead to breaches and data loss.

Once the data has been gathered by the hacker they need to get it out of your network and into their control, the escape. Allowing the escape is where many organizations fail by making this too easy or allowing the hacker to get out undetected. You must know all your outbound connections, they must all have a legitimate business need, they must be reviewed on a regular frequency to ensure they are still needed, and they must be monitored.

You may think this sounds like a lot of work, but if setup properly with the right tools and processes it does not have to be cumbersome going forward. If not built right the first time, it can take some time to put in place, but honestly the pain of discipline in this scenario is going to be much better than the pain of regret later.

If you are reading this and thinking, “I have no idea if data can get out of my network unnoticed,” start asking these questions to the people who work for you that manage your infrastructure. Here is the question you can ask, the answer you want to hear, and the next step if the answer is not what you are looking for. The Next Steps are high level and might require outside assistance or third party tools and vendors.

Question Answer Next Step
Do we have all our outbound firewall rules documented with business justifications?

You want the answer to be yes

 Implement a plan to have the network team spend the next few months documenting all firewall rules. This will mean working with business owners to understand what traffic is necessary and where it has to go.
How often do we review the rules to ensure they are still needed? You want the answer to be at least every six months

 

 Implement a plan, either manually or with automated tools to start reviewing rule sets at least every six months to ensure they are still needed, still use secure protocols, and are going to the correct destination outside your network.
What are we doing to monitor outbound traffic? You want someone to be able to give you specifics and have incident response plans that explain what they do if they see malicious or anomalous traffic. Document an incident response plan, determine what third party resources might be needed in the event of an incident, and put processes in place to monitor traffic for anomalies or suspicious behavior.
How would we know if sensitive data left the network? You want a specific answer that should be easy to find if it’s being done. Research data loss prevention solutions or other network detection tools.
Do we allow encrypted data out of the network?

The answer should be no – we only send encrypted data to organizations that we have vetted and only to specific IP addresses they have given us.

 This is important because malicious users and hackers will actually steal your data and encrypt it with their encryption keys so that it is undetectable by Data Loss Prevention (DLP) software and so that no one can steal it from them. Yes they are often more aware of security than you are.

If no one can answer these questions or you are not happy with the answers, take a deep breath and start a new conversation. No finger pointing and no yelling, but an open and honest conversation with your staff about why this is important and how things are going to have to change in order to keep the data secure.

Lastly remember that tools do not solve all problems and only work when implemented correctly. There is no silver bullet no matter what a vendor tells you. Ensure you have the right people asking the right questions of the vendors if you are bringing in a tool or managed service offering to monitor your network.

This is of course just the start of the conversation and the beginning of what needs to be done. If this is overwhelming and you don’t know where to start or what to do next, I can answer your questions. Email sharon@c-suiteresults.com to discuss your questions or concerns on this topic. I am a 12-year security veteran and have seen 100s of different networks and situations and I am happy to discuss your situation with you.