Author: Geoff Hudson-Searle

Social media sites already offer free advertising in the form of tweets and Facebook posts, but these tools can only take your brand so far. The next step involves paying for social media ads, and if you’re considering this option, you’re probably most concerned with one big question: What will my return actually be? Will spending money on an ad on Twitter or Facebook bring more customers to my business than the same amount spent on Google AdWords?

Social media have become an accepted part of a company’s marketing efforts. Around 70 per cent of Fortune 500 companies have a Facebook page and 77 per cent have a Twitter account, according to a study by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research. The average company spends around $19m on social media a year, according to research group TCS.

But at the same time there is a creeping feeling of dissatisfaction – are those social media campaigns producing results? Nate Elliot, analyst at Forrester Research, sounded the alarm on social media advertising last autumn, saying that marketers were less satisfied with Facebook and Twitter advertising than many older forms of digital advertising, including email marketing.

Snapchat recently started to include advertisements in its popular ephemeral messaging app, but its advertising strategy is notably different from its competitors’ strategies. Snapchat says it has no interest in tricking its users into clicking ads by blurring the line between advertising and organic content created by actual users.

The majority of social media platforms purposefully gather as much user data as possible to help brands place relevant and targeted ads. Snapchat calls that strategy “interesting,” but the reality is that it can it deliver targeted ads?

The question is though, would they been better spending a couple of thousand pounds on LinkedIn advertising?.

Do high-value customers respond to ads?  Even highly targeted ads pushed to them by popular sites like LinkedIn or Viadeo?

The facts are, if you are going to advertise you need to consider the short-term and long-term view, tactical and strategic, to build the brand and convert the advertising spend into ROI, social media advertising needs to be integrated into your social media marketing:

·        Understand your targeted social media channel

·        Target the correct users with your message

·        Ensure the advertisements are supplementing the present content on the social site

·        Have a social networking presence

This covers the two obvious targeting issues: get the right network and target the right users; and then tackle the issue of integration: connect your adverts to your social media presence and engage with the people visiting/connecting with you. I have heard of social media consultants running Facebook ads that, instead of linking to their landing page, links directly to a Facebook Page (or Group). This resonates with the last two points above and makes a tremendous amount of sense – the ad-clicker is already signed into Facebook so they can take action simply by clicking that they “Like” the page. No landing page could get that result in fewer clicks.

Nielsen and Facebook recently teamed up to create an “independent” report which highlighted the value of combining “social” with advertising. Unsurprisingly, people responded better to adverts that told them which of their connections “Liked” the company whose advert they were viewing.

In summary, social media performs two important functions. The first — and most obvious one — is that it enables participants to communicate among themselves. With the possible exception of LinkedIn, that’s the less important role for experts, consultants, advisors and thought-leaders.

The more important role when it comes to marketing is how social media functions as a search engine. People still go to Google to search, but increasingly, when clients are seeking answers to their most vexing problems, they turn to social media.  After Google, the second most powerful search engine is YouTube, (which is owned by Google).

When clients are trying to discover who the true thought-leaders are in a particular field, they turn to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn as the tool for finding who’s at the forefront. If you are not visible, you will not make it on the short list of those who are viewed as experts.

The good news is that most experts, consultants and advisors still think of social media as a place to primarily interact with others. They have not grasped the huge potential social media offers to break out of the pack and become highly visible. For those who are aggressive now, there is a huge opportunity to capitalise on this huge benefit of social media, before others jump and cease new opportunities. I think this window will only stay open another 12-18 months, which by then it will be common knowledge.​

Although it may seem ideal to tackle all data issues at once, it’s far more effective to target specific assets to start. Implementing data governance in a targeted way sets a firm foundation for taking it across the enterprise.

For starters, it helps to avoid one of the biggest historical problems with data governance: lack of follow-through. By targeting an area of the organization, such as marketing, one can work with the underlying organisational structure to take action and ensure accountability. Information goals are clearly aligned with business strategy. The information architecture is clarified by taking inventory of the data assets – how they are managed and used as well as how they support the existing application architecture – and by evaluating and removing obstacles. Diverse stakeholders reach consensus and coordinate with one another. They find key data entities and critical data elements and develop information policies. This is far easier to do when targeting specific areas.

Consider, for example, the possibilities for data governance in customer relationship management (CRM) initiatives. It can greatly improve call center effectiveness and cut frustration due to lost or duplicate information, multiple mailings, or delivery to wrong addresses. In sales and marketing, data governance can improve sales by solving issues with multiple, inconsistent product catalogs and inaccurate customer demographics. In risk management, it can improve auditing and reporting, solve privacy concerns, and prevent fraud. In finance and accounting, it can ensure accurate, consistent billing and provide a consistent credit picture. These are just a few examples where success in one area will lead to success in others, and the organisation can reap immediate measurable benefits.

The first step is to objectively assess where business improvement can bring the most benefit to the organisation immediately, and establish a beachhead there. It’s critical that this assessment is objective, using an outside point of view. Work with an organization that has helped others successfully implement data governance. One that looks across the organisational silos, has a methodology for assessing data governance across the enterprise, and knows the key questions to ask to assess where to begin a data governance initiative. It should also understand the best data governance models, data governance and data quality processes, and ongoing organisational processes.

The demand to improve your business continues to increase as expectations change, new technologies emerge and competition grows. An effective way to establish continual improvement within your organisation is to conduct regular business process improvements (BPI).

Business processes can be informal or formal and touch a variety of company functions: information technology, employee development and training, customer service satisfaction, etc. Regardless of the process you are trying to enhance, the improvement procedure follows a similar path.

Analyse Current Process: Once you have decided which process you are going to improve you need analyze the current procedure. This way you can fully understand the process from A-Z and set realistic improvement objectives. Regardless of the tool you choose for analysis (process mapping, operational surveys, cause/effect analysis, etc.)  you should consider the following questions:

• What in the process is broken?
• Which steps in the process create roadblocks?
• Which step requires the most time to complete?
• Which step causes the most delays?
• Are there any steps that cause costs/resources to go up?
• Are there any steps that cause quality to go down?

Create Improvement Strategy: With the process analysis phase completed you need to develop your strategy. It is recommended that you include what steps in the process are broken, why and how they should be improved and any financial and resource implications.

Answering how the process can be improved is a springboard to create your improvement objectives. It is recommended that you set realistic and measurable objectives that align with your overall strategic goals.​

December is always a calendar month for reflection across how well we did or did not do in the previous year and for most people, particularly in start-up or pre-revenue businesses, December is actually too late.

The importance of strategy and planning in a business should be a living a breathing document between the directors and employees daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly.

Why?

Without strategic planning, objective setting with goals and proper financial planning and business care rarely manage and develop and grow.

We are also experiencing a new level of uncertainty in our current world about geo-political events and sanctions, that can also disrupt a company on an existing coarse or plan of growth, learnings, among other things, that we need to expect the unexpected, you should be prepared for disruptions to the business on all fronts and all levels of severity.

Planning is one of the most important but poorly utilised management tools of businesses. This is true whether the focus is on planning a start-up business, operations planning, expansion planning, strategic planning or other planning.

Before you being the planning process you need to create the proper environment within the business. This will increase your chances of having a productive planning effort.

1. Create a culture within the organisation that is open to planning. It is easy for management to focus all of their attention on day-to-day management and forget about the long-term direction of the business.

2. Involve all management personnel. It is often believed that planning is a business function separate from management. However, to be successful, all management personnel need to be involved in planning. Involving management personnel is the way to create “ownership” and “commitment” to the plan and its implementation.

3. Remember customer needs. During the planning process it is easy to focus on matters internal to the organisation and forget the customer. Remember, satisfying customer wants and needs is the reason the business exists.

4. Focus the plan on goals. The purpose of the plan is to achieve the goals of the business and help reach its vision and mission. So, the first step is to re-examine the business mission statement and  the goals associated with it. Without goals, planning is meaningless.

5. Set realistic deadlines. Setting a time deadline for the first draft of the plan is important. It forces management to move forward on the planning process. However, expecting too much to be done in too short of a time period usually leads to a poorly drafted plan.​

6. Provide enough time and money for the planning process. Planning is often entered into half-heartedly. So, it is often under-funded with insufficient managerial time allocated to it.

7. Make good assumptions about the industry and market environment. The business will be operating in an industry and market environment. So, it is important that you thoroughly understand these environments. The assumptions you make about these environments are important for the success of the business.

8. Focus on results. To be successful, planners need to proceed through the various steps of the planning process. During every step of the process, planners need to focus on the expected results of the planning process.

Finally, the plan is a “living” document – revise it regularly as needed. Business leaders often believe that a plan cannot be changed once it has been put in place, or at least until the next planning period. Although a plan should not be changed frivolously, it needs to be modified and updated when appropriate. As a plan is being implemented, it is not uncommon to uncover deficiencies in the plan as well as changes.

Quarterly budgeting and 100-day plans with allocated responsibility and tasking can help support business planning, transformation and growth.

The office Christmas party is fraught with perils usually due to the over-consumption of alcohol. There is the danger of having had too much to drink and telling your boss that you hate them or posting inappropriate ‘selfies’ of you at the party all over social media and texting your hot colleague or partner with innuendos.

Now, a survey of more than 1000 UK workers and managers by the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) reveals which misdemeanours at the Christmas party cause the greatest unease when you return to the office.

So what are the consequences of the office Christmas party and what should you watch out for? The ILM survey found:

• Almost 9 out of 10 workers (87%) have seen colleagues drink too much

• 48% have gone to work with a hangover after their office party

• 28% have heard staff revealing their colleagues’ secrets

Every so often we get to partying and we end up having a couple more drinks than we planned. As adults, we get to the point where we know how to drink responsibly, but like they say, “I didn’t go looking for trouble, trouble found me.” When that trouble is in the form of an adult beverage, it can quickly lead to embarrassing moments. Whether it’s your office party, birthday, or you just got a little too far ahead of yourself before dinner, it happens. Of course, you know what happens next… you take out your phone and get to texting.

Everyone has either received them or sent them … some of them are funny and some of them are just down right annoying! So, when is enough, especially when you are dating someone?

Research has shown that age comes into play with this; if you are in your low twenties, then this will happen more often than not with apps like What’s App, Snap Chat, BBM etc. But, if you are closer to thirty or over thirty, that is when you start to scratch your head and think, “Really?”

In a recent blog ‘What is Happiness’ I mentioned that in terms of relationships and happiness at home, according to a new Brigham Young University study published by researchers Lori Schade and Jonathan Sandberg, romantic couples who text each other with confirming messages (“How are you?” “How’s it going?” “I miss you!” “I feel tingly just thinking about you!!!”) tend to experience greater relationship satisfaction. Confirming messages are best conveyed with an emotional dimension – communicating essentially: “I care about you,” and “You’re important in my life.” In fact, sending affectionate messages to one’s partner yield even greater emotional satisfaction than receiving them.

On the other hand, couples who rely on texting for conflict resolution tend to experience lower relationship satisfaction. When texting, vital verbal, non-verbal and emotional cues are invariably missed, which can severely limit a couple’s ability to reconcile.

There is a latin phrase which is often continued as, “In vino veritas, in aqua sanitas“, i.e., “In wine there is truth, in water there is health.”

But is there truth is drunkenness as a state of condition or mind?

According to Bruce Bartholow, author of Alcohol Effects on Performance Monitoring and Adjustment: Affect Modulation and Impairment of Evaluative Cognitive Control, alcohol does not make you behave badly, it just makes you care less.

For all of you trying to apologise or rectify some misspoken words, the excuse, “I was drunk, I didn’t mean it I am sorry for being stupid” does not cut it anymore.

Bartholow, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Missouri College of Arts and Science, concluded that alcohol dulls the brain’s “alarm signal” that warns you when you are making a mistake. These dulled warnings are what lead to the loss of self-control we often regret after one too many.

If you think back to that moment you were saying all those things you wish you could take back (if you can remember them, of course), wasn’t there a part of you that knew what you were saying? Only, at that moment, you didn’t care about how much it was going to hurt the other person … or you.

Is drinking all about a whirling, tumbling gamble of life? We throw away all our inhibitions and knowingly drown ourselves in a liquid that, at certain levels, is poisonous enough to kill us.

Another thing with drunk texting is that you have that alcohol courage helping you out. So not only have you sent that oh so important text message to declare your undying affection, but you have also sent a billion other text messages in a row that are pointless gibberish. And that will start to annoy anyone who is on the receiving end especially sober people. So because of all the other messages, the most important message you wanted to get across is lost on that person, because they are too busy counting how many text messages you have sent in one hour.

So the moral of the story ladies and gentleman is if you are drinking, please ask yourself over and over, if you really want to send that text message because once it is sent, you cannot take it back, possible best to switch the smart phone off and resume once in a sober state!​

I have been engaged in several discussions recently discussing the topic of human to human interaction in relationships and in the workplace.

So many technologies allow us to collaborate “virtually” today. Email, instant messaging, video conferencing, and desktop sharing are common parts of the workday for many people. But regardless of what technologies we use, all of our interactions still rely on a basic element: each other. No matter how many great and easy to use tools we have, we cannot forge ahead and progress without other people.

So the question is “do we need to get back to intimacy?”

We have always learned that people are more engaged when they can interact the way humans have done for thousands of years: face to face. When personal meetings are not possible, there is a tendency to embrace technology.

There are four key points for successful collaboration, and they all rely on human behavior.

·        Build relationships and networks that lead to trust

·        Turn human interactions into results

·        Balance decision-making and consensus building

·        Evolve the culture for productive collaboration

People collaborate to innovate in businesses. This type of collaboration focuses on developing creative solutions or ideas that improve an existing process or product. Through ongoing collaboration, socialisation, and vetting, the idea develops into a viable solution to discuss a new market opportunity, re-engineer a core process, solve a problem, or create business value. Technology can be used as the accelerator for change, transformation, and improvement.

Harvard University has studied this subject for years. They state that the human moment has two prerequisites: people’s physical presence and their emotional and intellectual attention. That’s it. Physical presence alone isn’t enough. You can ride shoulder-to-shoulder with someone for six hours in an airplane and not have a human moment during the entire ride. And attention alone isn’t enough either. You can pay attention to someone over the telephone, for instance, but somehow phone conversations lack the power of true human moments.

Human moments need energy. Often, that’s what makes them so easy to avoid. The human moment may be seen as yet another tax on our overextended lives. But a human moment doesn’t have to be emotionally draining or personally revealing. In fact, the human moment can be brisk, business like, and brief. A five-minute conversation can be a perfectly meaningful human moment. To make the human moment work, you have to set aside what you’re doing, put down the memo you were reading, disengage from your laptop, abandon your daydream, and focus on the person you’re with. Usually when you do that, the other person will feel the energy and respond in kind. Together, you quickly create a force field of exceptional power.

The positive effects of a human moment can last long after the people involved have said goodbye and walked away. People begin to think in new and creative ways; mental activity is stimulated. But like exercise, which also has enduring effects, the benefits of a human moment do not last indefinitely. A ten-mile run on Monday is wonderful—but only if you also swim on Wednesday and play tennis on Saturday. In other words, you must engage in human moments on a regular basis for them to have a meaningful impact on your life. For most people, that’s not a tall order.

I am concerned, however, that human moments are disappearing and that this trend will be accompanied by worrisome and widespread consequences. I say this not as an executive who has seen and lived through the many technological challenges of the last 20 years. As discussed in my earlier post ‘Is human to human communication dying?’ I can tell you without a doubt that almost everyone on the planet is experiencing some deficiency of human contact. The power of Face to Face contact in a relationship need not die however it should be lived and exercised as an important medium across effective technology if we are to accelerate business progress, relationships, and indeed trust.

What does your organisation define as valuable points for successful collaboration? Does it encourage human relationships?

I visited the annual gala for one of the charities that I support recently. The event and evening took its normal schwa ray of greetings and smiles, with exchanges, and my amusement. For the first time, I was not asked for a business card but “could I kindly have sight of your QR code” whilst I held a large grin on face. I could not help but wonder what had happened to the long tradition of exchanging business cards.

To my relief, the next person I met did actually ask me for my business card. I asked myself if this is the end of a lifetime of generations where etiquette was a formality of exchanging a business card.

I remember my time in Japan and China where presenting your card with two hands is a big part of business culture. To these cultures this is the first representation of you. I could not imagine a PA to a director carrying your iPhone, Android, or Blackberry to the person you are about to meet.

Are we now going to be subjected to “can I see your QR code” and the next thing you know you will be zapped in a CRM program for life?

Industries may change and brand names may come and go, but at least one tradition in the business world has remained largely unchanged for hundreds of years. The exchange of cards between two people who are meeting for the first time is a ritual that goes back as far as business itself.

For most of us, the handing over of contact details is an important moment – a clear signal that a connection has been made. But as our lives turn increasingly digital, technology is attempting to offer a range of futuristic alternatives to the old-fashioned card.

Ever since the arrival of electronic communication, people have explored new ways to share information with each other from swapping email addresses to trading mobile phone numbers and, increasingly, connecting through an online social network.

In the majority of cases, I believe business cards matter. The personal and interactive approach vs a CRM listing is what builds trust and the relationship.

Here are some other reasons why:

• How many times have you met someone, spent most of the conversation thinking of what to say so you don’t sound stupid, then, promptly forget their name when it’s all over?
• When you meet a person at a business event and get their business card you can write a note or two on the reverse side of the card to capture the key points of your conversation while they are still fresh in your mind. The bottom line here is to have a physical record of contacts you make so you can follow-up as appropriate in conjunction with your broader job search/career development efforts.
• A business card is a road map to opportunity. It could lead you to a great new job, a great business partnership, or simply help your business make money.
• Business cards put a face to a business. When meeting someone new, handing them your business card will help keep your business in the back of their minds. Though they may not need your product or services today, there may come a time when they do, and hopefully they will be able to pull out your business card and call versus trying to remember your company name and searching the web.
• Your business card is a physical object that potential clients can take with them that keeps you or your brand from just being a name that floats around in the ether.
• Business cards never have downtime. They are always accessible, and never have dead zones or Internet outages. Your business card can be viewed no matter where you are located, and even at times when cell phones and other devices must be turned off, such as on an airplane ride or in a hospital, your business card is always working for you.

Not everyone thinks business cards are essential, and some argue business cards have lost their edge.

Technology, and—more specifically—smartphones have made information sharing easier. These days you can email someone while you’re meeting them with a few quick taps of your thumb. There are even apps out there that can share contact information with someone with barely any effort at all. So why bother with a card when you have all of this other stuff?

Networking is about making meaningful connections, and sometimes technology—or the act of using it—can be impersonal.

What are your thoughts? Will business cards become extinct? Do you still  look at the effectiveness of your card design before you re-order? Did you add a QR code to your cards?

I was invited to an executive finance meeting in London recently, hosted by one of the UK’s top business schools, I was discussing many key topics around business today when we moved to the subject of excellence.

Last week’s blog talked around the Changing World, I was discussing are we having to redefine excellence for today’s world, what is the definition of excellence today and how is excellence measured in the eyes of others?

Over the centuries, great thinkers have described just what excellence is. Excellence is not perfectionism. Rather, excellence is a journey through an ever-changing landscape of new possibilities and methods. It is the best result that can be produced at a particular moment in time.

Therefore, excellence is something that can be achieved. But it can also be quickly lost as well. “Today’s Excellence, Tomorrow’s Mediocrity.” According to Aristotle, “Excellence is not an act, but a habit.”

More recently, John Gardner observed that “Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.” While Thomas Peters really nailed it when he observed that “Excellent firms don’t believe in excellence – only in constant improvement and constant change.”

Thirty years ago, Tom Peters published an incredibly influential business book, In Search of Excellence. In this book, he defined eight characteristics of excellent companies:

• a bias for action,
• staying close to the customer,
• autonomy and entrepreneurship,
• productivity through people,
• clear and compelling organizational values,
• focusing on what you do best,
• operating with a lean staff, and
• finding a balance between having enough structure without getting stuck in it.

These principles stay good guides to this day. However, the business world has changed almost beyond recognition over the last 30 years, and the time has come to redefine what excellence means. In today’s world, excellence is more than a set of principles. It’s a set of beliefs, ways of thinking, a matter of discipline, and ways of focusing.

Excellence starts with getting very clear on the end state you wish to achieve (winning) and relentlessly driving towards it every day. Excellence requires knowing when to push on (even when you don’t have all the information or the perfect solution), but doing it well and constantly refining as you forge ahead. Excellence means accepting only the best, and understanding that when it is not given that you, as the leader, are at least partly responsible.

Excellence reveals itself in the language you use, the questions you ask, the people you surround yourself with, and how you interact with others. For example, do you show up on time for meetings? Are you present in the moment? Do you listen actively to employees and direct reports? Are you aware of the biases and creative thoughts you bring to the table? Do you take steps to minimise their impact on your decision-making, or at least explore others as well?

In today’s hyper-fast world, excellence requires building flexible, lean organisations that can quickly adapt to rapidly changing markets without losing sight of their vision of winning. Creating this type of organisation starts with three critical elements.

Clarity

First and foremost, you have to know where you’re going and why. When faced with adversity (or opportunity), having a crystal-clear definition of winning keeps the company from going off in too many directions. It enables clear and consistent decision-making, not only in terms of what you will do as an organisation, but also what you will not do.

Focus

Getting clear on winning represents the starting point for excellence. Keeping your people focused on winning is the engine that will get you there. As the leader, you live and breathe the vision, mission, and strategy every day (or at least you should!). But for the people in the trenches, it’s all too easy to lose sight of the big picture. Excellence requires making winning a daily goal for your people as well.

Connection

People won’t buy into your vision of winning unless they feel connected to the organisation. Connection starts with having a powerful vision people can believe in and feel good about. Keeping it going requires a variety of leadership behaviors that often get overlooked in the rush to get the product out the door.

Clarity, focus, and connection are the status of corporate excellence in the 21st century. What will you do today to create them in your organisation?​