A common Social Media strategy amongst companies I know:

Objective:

1)     Build business.

2)     Reduce customer service costs and identify unarticulated product and service problems.

3)     Provide content helpful to the customer.

I heard a similar Public Relations strategy recently. Employees of this company are asked to participate in everything from walk-a-thons to collecting clothes for disadvantaged inner city job seekers.

Objective:

1)     Build business.

2)     Build team spirit amongst our employees by having them participate in these activities as a group.

3)     Generate news media mentions of our company to build awareness of our services.

4)     Establish our reputation as ethical and caring.

5)     Do good for the community.

What’s wrong with doing things for the customer and community because it is the right thing to do? Regardless of return???

If you go into these activities with money generation as your primary agenda, I will make a bet your audience (and employees) can hear the lack of authenticity and sincerity.

If you have substituted Social Media and PR activities for what used to be your advertising budget, it is unreasonable to expect the same ROI from it. In fact, you may create a negative ROI by targeting the wrong objectives.

Topics: branding + positioning, communications, leadership, selling skills | No Comments »

In my last blog, I pointed out that even if you work for someone else, you are CEO of your own destiny. You need to take 100% responsibility for the success of your own future. Alex Neff expanded on my concept using Sales and Sales Operations examples. Below are his thoughts:

I meet people frequently who don’t know how to advance their own career. Here are the kinds of things they say:

1 – I don’t know why I was part of the group that was laid off.

2 – I don’t know how to move past “meets expectations” in my annual review.

3 – I don’t know how to get more than a 2.5% annual raise.

By comparison, the CEO of the average multi-person company expects (demands) 10-15% growth year over year. Why are you settling for less growth for your one-person company?

America rewards the entrepreneur, the innovator, the one who thinks “outside of the box.” Regardless if your passion is sales or operations, anyone can succeed by thinking as the CEO of You, Inc. and by putting you, as the customer, first. By doing both, you will help your career grow.

Examples:

If you are in B2B sales, many of you have provided a customer-centric sales story via your employer’s company that 100 of your customers used to build the business of 100 of their customers. Consider the pitch you created was worthy of being retold 10,000 times.

Check out Nike’s Fuel Band. It counts your calories, your number of steps, your time. It makes staying in shape a game that you play against yourself. It provides a message that people embrace and repeat. It adds personal value. Social Media was used to help Nike’s product go viral at relatively little cost. Can you use Social Media to do the same for yourself via You, Inc.?

If you are in operations, as CEO of You, Inc., are you creating repeatable and scalable processes to ensure the future of you the customer? Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald’s, sweated the details to ensure that the French fries one eats at McDonald’s are the same each time and at each location. The repeatable and scalable processes provide predictable consistency, and comfort for the customer. People know what to expect regardless of whether they are in the big city or the heartland. They want to experience a Zen moment, no surprises. Strive to achieve the same predictable results and peace of mind for the customer of You, Inc..

When you are working with your employer’s clients, it is important to solve their problems and needs and to provide on-going process improvement and value-add. The CEO of You, Inc. must similarly come in each morning and say “I’ve been thinking of our challenges, and I believe I may have a couple of new solutions that we should try.” Never stop seeking innovation and test-marketing alternatives of achieving better results.

As CEO of You, Inc., you need to continually challenge your company to increase value to the customer, grow, adapt, and be forward thinking. Failure to do so will cost you money and, more importantly, time. The company You, Inc. will be looking for your next client versus having prospective external clients reach out to you as a solution provider. Thinking as a CEO is something that is learned. A great career coach will help you learn it faster.

By the way, regardless of your age, planning done now should set the stage for your later success as CEO of Your Retirement, Inc.. Another reason to take command of your strategic direction as soon as possible.

Note: I don’t know if the concepts of “You, Inc.” and “CEO of You” are copyrightable. I have found several previous variations on the phrases on the Internet and in book titles. My apologies if this use of them offends anyone. Pat O’Donnell.

Topics: branding + positioning, getting ahead, leadership, selling skills, visibility | No Comments »

I get 6-10 requests a day to connect to people on LinkedIn. One third of them I know from past interchanges, but may not have spoken to them in months. I always ask everyone by return email to introduce himself/herself or update me by phone and tell me how I can help most effectively. To protect my own business value, I want to screen access to my clients, especially if my name is being mentioned at the same time. Few respond.

Consider this. People in an intimate network where everyone knows each other’s agenda and abilities well are much more likely to help each other. This is true in or out of LinkedIn. If you don’t move the relationship beyond a simple handshake, business card exchange, or connection in LinkedIn, don’t expect much assistance in return.

If you want access to someone’s network or other kinds of help from them, first make a case for why you will be a terrific ally. How clever you are and why you are a “must meet” resource. Your thought leadership.

Honor the other person’s business relationships. At a networking event I watched someone share one of his best client’s name at 3M with someone who wanted to interview there. The lead giver – we will call him Pete – with the best of intentions, called his 3M client and made a case for why the 3M executive should see the job seeker – whom we will call Kate. 3 weeks later Kate had not called, and Pete was embarrassed and annoyed that he had misused the 3M exec’s time. The 3M exec sent a negative reference on Kate to 3M HR without meeting her. He also avoided Pete’s next phone call.

If you want someone to share his/her resources, respect and cultivate the relationships that go with them.

Topics: communications, getting ahead, hidden job market, networking, selling skills, visibility | 2 Comments »

As I sat in a kayak this weekend, I spent time thinking about how I have changed my own labor situation in the last few years. After 30+ years of working mostly for other people I have now been working for myself almost 3 years. Many of my clients have only worked in large corporations and they keep asking if I would go back inside if I get the chance? After all, I worked for global companies with at least 5,000 employees for at least 20 years. OK, I am 55+, so fewer companies would be willing to hire me, but don’t I find it desirable?

Security is a state of mind. I seriously believe I am better off controlling my own destiny than being subject to the whims and decisions of a larger company and other executives. Even though I might make more money right now working for someone else.

Labor is a state of mind. At least now, when I invest 70 hours a week, I know I will reap more of the rewards for my effort. It feels less like “work.” I CHOOSE what to do today and tomorrow. What I am building cannot be taken away from me as easily as it could at a larger corporation. Even a corporation of 3 people.

I worked in Manhattan for 20+ years. There used to be a very popular poster that there was Manhattan and then there was little else. You could see the edge of the earth just beyond the Hudson River. You had little or no work value if you were not working in NYC.

Well, I have outgrown that sentiment and finding my value in anyone or any company outside of myself. Working for myself doesn’t feel so much like work.

Topics: career strategy | No Comments »

Back around 1870, automation shifted the production of most goods consumed in the US to centralized factories. Factory owners needed workers who would contentedly stand in an assembly line for hours on end at low pay. Schools bred workers who were compliant and not trained well enough to have higher aspirations. The paternalistic employer offered workers life-long stability and benefits to keep them content. Unions guaranteed minimum working conditions. Detroit auto workers are an example of this co-dependent culture.

This education model continued through the 1970s when high tech innovation, and the increasing shift of low level manufacturing overseas required that most US workers needed a college education to succeed. Simultaneously, workers began to have higher aspirations for themselves in their relationship with employers. An engineering degree was a ticket to success and long-term approbation.

Fast forward to 2011. Innovation and globalization are well-known phenomena. I think we all understand that the rate of both is accelerating. The average permanent job is lasting 2-3 years as business owners must constantly re-group to meet competitive threats. Yet, workers have become increasingly less engaged, crabby that the employer is not taking care of them, threatening to move on at the first opportunity.

•  69% of employees describe themselves as under-engaged or un-engaged.
• 30% of executives describe themselves as under-engaged or un-engaged.
• 47% of engaged high potentials say they will leave “at the first opportunity.”  (#)

I don’t understand the disconnect. I talk to folks every day who proudly threaten they will move on within the next 12 months to a “nicer” employer.

Why do you think the next employer will be radically better? The phenomenon we are caught in is happening to all of us, employer and employee alike. Yes, the employers could be nicer in many instances. CEOs should not make so much more than the rest of us. However, the bigger trend is that employers will have less and less choice to nurture the relationship with employees in the way you are all accustomed to. Companies are being pushed into decisions that will make the relationship with employees more and more transient.

So what are you doing about it? Showing disengagement to your current employer or a hiring manager is likely to put you high on the first-to-be-fired list. Feeling disengaged is counter-productive, a dead end. It won’t get you promoted.

Instead, you need to learn how to succeed and shine versus other employees in the future or work for yourself.

(#) http://www.workforce.com/section/hr-management/feature/special-report-employee-engagement-losing-lifeblood/

Topics: career strategy, solving problems | 2 Comments »