Questions are a Learning Tool

Week Ending 7.3.2016

Questions have power. One way to learn is to formulate questions from the materials that we get exposed to. That way, we don’t get trapped in the author’s way of thinking about an issue but rather develop our own insights into our challenges and issues. This may happen, mind you, even if we just formulate the questions. They don’t necessarily have to be answered, not right away anyway. (On that note, check this out.) It’s also a great way of making everything we read and learn relevant to our world and our lives.

I have shared some the-best-answer-is-an-unanswered-question questions you can ask yourself as you consider the ideas in the articles shared below. They are highlighted in orange.

Branding, Messaging, Sales, and Marketing

I think every business has at least one idea that they can build into a rapidly growing business. If that’s something you want – and it’s ok to NOT want it – here’s a blueprint. What one product or service idea in your business can you build into a rapidly growing business? (Build a Foundation for an Exponential Business Model)

Interesting angle to social media marketing. I don’t see myself doing this but you may be different – so here it goes. How can you make your competition one of your most leveraged assets? (Co-opertition: How To Make The Competition Your Most Leveragable Asset)

Recruiting and Onboarding

I would add that employee onboarding is an ongoing process, not just an event that happens on her first day at work. And it’s never too late to onboard your existing employees the right way. What process have you been following in onboarding your employees so that they function well in their work? (The Step-by-Step Guide to Onboarding New Hires)

Leadership and Management

I don’t think transparency – the tendency of the employers to share *everything* about their business with their employees – is the only way, or even a preferred way, to create trust and engagement in employees. In fact, sharing everything may be a lazy way to engender trust. A better way is to open up channels of communication, both between employees and the manager and from employee to employee. But such an effort also must be paired with creating a culture of positive reinforcement and positive values so that what does get communicated helps the organization as well as the people involved. If not, the workplace will degenerate into back-biting, back-stabbing and even sabotage. We are funny animals, us humans! What do you do as a leader and a manager to instill trust and a sense of security and belonging in your employees? (The Ugly Side of Transparency in HR (And Everything Else))

Idea: Separate relative urgency from absolute urgency. Especially useful if you manage projects and people. How do you make sure that not all of the tasks in the project you manage are driven by urgency? (The Boy Who Cried Late! – Why Most Deadlines are Meaningless)

Running Effective Meetings

I would add one more. #10: Engage viscerally by asking meaningful questions. How do you define an effective meeting? (9 Ways to Make Sure You Run Effective Meetings)

“If you want more productive meetings, … keep them small and short, and schedule them for a time… after employees have had a chance to be productive and produce.” Sure. But also make sure you find ways to keep them engaged with their whole selves through the whole meeting. Ask me how the next time we meet. How will you know when a meeting has been productive – nor not? (The Science of Productive Team Meetings: Quality Over Quantity)

Personal Performance and Productivity

The question is: Have we developed the habit to honoring all our commitments? Can this hack work if we have not developed such a habit? (This Productivity Hack Completely Changed My Life, and It Can Improve Yours)

I would add mind-mapping tools, which allow you to visually connect random ideas and then put them in a linear outline. My favorites are Mindjet Mindmanager and Scapple. Do you see the benefit of outlining your ideas before making a presentation, for example, or do you prefer to fly by the seat of your pants? (Make a Plan: How to Outline Your Ideas with 20 Powerful Tools)

Even a non-Excel-geek like me can pick up a tip or two. What’s your favorite tool or method for crunching numbers and making them meaningful? (Pimp my Excel: 10 geeky poweruser spreadsheet tools and tips)

Future Trends

Human intelligence has become more sought-after over the years and will continue to become more so in the future. How can you use this piece of information or at least this concept in making better hiring and firing decisions in your team or your business? (How Machines Destroy and Create Jobs)

Thanks for reading. I will be back next week with more! Until then…

Wishing you a very Happy Success,
Bhavesh.

Is your business built around your people’s strengths? You can find out here by taking Business Health Check AQ. It’s free and comes with a strategy guide to help you leverage your people’s strengths and compensate for their weaknesses.

True Learning is Not afraid of Truth

Weekly Roundup Ending 6.26.2016

One of the objectives I have in putting out this content on a daily basis is not necessarily to immediately solve a problem in your work or business with a trick or a strategy. That may or may not happen. My real intent is to get you to question the assumptions we make about things, about certain aspects of our business, our teams, our work and our people.

You may or m Decartes Quote Seeker of Truth ay not be helped by the strategy or the trick that’s shared by a particular article. But you can certainly take a fresh look at an aspect of your work, your business or your people and perhaps develop some fresh insights that may make your work more effective. That may mean that sometimes we question some of the commonly accepted wisdom and assumptions behind how a business is run and how work gets done.

Recruiting is by far is the most important task that a manager can engage in, so we start with some thoughts on recruiting…

Recruiting

I disagree with the core premise of this article which is that “The future of HR is analytical and, well, more intelligent.” Recruiting is a very human affair and making it strictly data and intelligence driven sucks the soul out of a business. I think the future of HR is recognizing and honoring of our inherent humanness, which goes way beyond intelligence. (How Analytics are Transforming the Hiring Process)

How do you make sure that your employees are emotionally engaged, right from the get-go when you interview them? Tap into what their “pain” is, which covers all three layers of their brains mentioned in this article! And remember to make sure that you lay out what your expectations are if and when they come to work for you. Don’t ever beg or flatter; make it a business partnership. (Neuro-Recruiting: 5 Ways To Tap Directly Into The Candidate Brain And Influence Decisions Recruiting)

Sales and Marketing

A story is an indispensable marketing tool. But a story does not always need to be told in words. Sometimes, a picture can tell stories that words can’t. Ask yourself: How can I use data visualization or infographics, even if it’s not a map, to tell my story? Pictures are also a great way to look at your business’s story from a yet another perspective. (7 Compelling Visualizations That Show The Power and Value of Maps)

Speaking of which: “…sales and marketing teams must be aligned.” Consider having a joint meeting between your sales and marketing teams frequently so they are in sync; and while at it, get them to develop a story together. (Closing the Gap: the Road to Quality Leads)

Here’s a good first step towards defining your personal brand. But don’t stop there. It’s the work of a lifetime. Bonus point: Develop your personal brand as a story! (Creative Personal Branding – Find Your Brand in 4 Easy Steps)

Now that you have a story to tell, you might as well forget that you have one and focus on the stories that other people have to tell. If you remembered only one thing the next time you attended a networking meeting, this would be it! (How To Open And Master The Art Of Conversation And Networking)

Leadership and Management

The problem today in management is not that there is not enough advice out there; it’s that there is too much. Judging by the number of books on sale at Amazon on the subject, there are over 100,000 theories on management and leadership. How do you pick (or create) the right one for you? Ask me the next time we meet! (70+ Free Resources For Becoming a Better Boss)

Consider this before you meet with your staff next time: “… ditch the chairs!” It could work especially well in meetings that you want to keep hyper-focused. But I think a good manager will also conduct meetings where things do get a little personal . When things get personal, we become engaged. (How to Get The Most Out Of Your Management Meetings)

Customer Service

“Focus on People, Not on Personas” and “Merge Product Development and Customer Development”: Among some nuggets of insight in this article. (Should You Listen to Your Customers’ Needs or Do They Even Know What They Really Want?)

LIFT (Legal, Insurance, Finance, Taxes), IT & HR

For the in-house IT management team, a company’s employees are its customers. So why are they not consulted for input in IT initiatives? (Why employee consultation matters with new IT projects)

Personal Productivity and Performance

There is only one reason why I have a to-do list (and I do have it), which is that it frees me up to do whatever I want to do, even if those things are not on my to-do list. But that’s me. Do you suffer from the dark side of the to-do lists? (Do Your To-Do Lists Damage Your Productivity?)

Thanks for reading. I will be back next week with more! Until then…

Wishing you a very Happy Success,
Bhavesh.

Being Human Never Gets Old

Weekly Roundup Ending 6.19.2016

Here’s a roundup of everything I shared with you last week, albeit with a slightly expanded commentary. I hope you find at least one piece of information that you can take away and apply to your work or your business.

21679-a-consistent-thinker-is-a-thoughtless-person-because-he-conforms-II The immediate intent of what I share with you on social media is to provide actionable ideas to help your business and your workplace in a meaningful way. But the more important reason, at least from my perspective, is to get you to think about the issues you face on a daily basis in a new light and bring a fresh perspective to them.

As you might know, I share these resources with the mindset that human awareness, the life-force of our people, is what ultimately drives our business. And, of course, it all starts with managing our people right…

Leadership & Management

Radical Candor! It sounds so good in theory. The real question is how you go about being radically candid! Being radically candid, for some bosses, could become an excuse for being obnoxious and insensitive. “I was just being radically candid!” Yeah, sure. (Radical Candor — The Surprising Secret to Being a Good Boss)

Why not try managing people with questions instead? Questions are the most important tool in recruiting. But they are even more important in managing people. What I like about the questions presented in this article is that they don’t just “test” the technical aspects of a candidate’s expertise but also their mindsets and attitudes. (10 Sample Marketing Job Interview Questions & Answers From HubSpot’s CMO)

I have always believed that “being human” is more valued now than it was before and will be increasingly more valued in future! (Ignore soft skills at your own risk)

Speaking of which, are you tired of kicking a*s to get your people to do things? Try some of these statements with your employees. Better yet, create your own positive reinforcement statements and test them out, combined with some questions. You may be shocked to see the results. (You Should Hear These Sayings From A Boss)

And finally, in many, if not most workflow software implementations, we put mechanical automation over (human) intelligence and awareness. This, in my opinion, is the primary reason a vast majority of software implementations become a disappointment or at least a daily struggle to get the results out of. That issue applies here somewhat. (Powerful Project Management for Regular People)

Customer Service

It’s important to please the customer, even when it’s difficult because customer retention has a compounding effect: “The longer you keep customers, the faster your business will grow.” (How to create awesome Retention Curves from Mixpanel Cohorts – what you need to know)

Here’s a good analogy: Workplace as a Performance Stage. The customer to me is the audience: They can’t always describe what they exactly want but will know when they get it. The theater director is the manager or the CEO of the business. (Today’s Workplace Is A Stage, Not An Office)

And a couple of good ideas here on how to provide consistently good customer service. (A Quick Guide To Providing Amazing Customer Service)

Marketing & Sales

In my work with clients, I have found – and so have they – that what makes them truly unique is always there even when – especially when – they don’t think it’s there. This uniqueness comes from the fact that their business is made of people, each one of whom is a unique individual among the 7 billion on this planet. Once they see that uniqueness, they can build their brand, and sometimes rebuild their whole business, around it. (How to Embrace Uniqueness And Discover Your Secret Weapon)

The question then is: What is a brand? This article puts it well… “A brand is a promise that lives in the minds of consumers.” (Branding 101: Brand vs. BRANDING)

And to fulfill that promise we must think of new ways of reaching out to our customers or revisit the old ones.Was direct mail it ever dead? I still check my snail mail every day. (Direct Mail is Back from the Dead)

No effort to reach our prospective clients is complete without the personal touch of a human being. However, who says that effort can’t be helped by technology? A Sales Stack is a suite of sales tools built into a unified solution to help the sales process. Here’s a good collection of sales tools at every step of the selling process. (2016 Will Be The Year Of The Sales Stack)

And we can always benefit from some research to make those personal touches more meaningful. Use these wisely! (6 Advanced LinkedIn Prospecting Tactics for the Outbound Sales Rep)

Productivity & Time Management

As much as I like to accomplish and achieve things, I am always afraid that I will overdo the “productivity thing.” I think there is a level of automation where it’s an overkill. As of late, I would rather be engaged with my life than automating it. But I get it that you may be different and would like to automate at least some parts of your work or life. Here are some terrific tools to help you do that. (Automation Resources)

Or… Pick just one thing from this list to try or create one of your own productivity tricks. (Hint: Your own trick will be the best for you!) (8 Tricks For Boosting Your Productivity At Work This Week)

Strategy

And finally…”Keep your friends close, enemies closer,” as the Godfather would say. I think Nadella of Microsoft made a crafty move partnering with Salesforce while buying LinkedIn in the background. (Satya Nadella explains in a sentence the real reason he bought LinkedIn … and Salesforce should be worried)

I will be back with more ideas and insights next week.

Bhavesh.

View at Medium.com

Authentic Business: Truth as a Strategy in Business-Building

It’s a common misconception. We often think that conveying sophistication and excitement in our sales and marketing is the best way to engage potential clients.

Not according to Doug Hall, the CEO of Eureka! Ranch. In his best-selling series of books, Mr. Hall often emphasizes that communicating with authenticity, sincerity and straight-talk is a better marketing strategy.

How often do you think about your sales and marketing message? What does your marketing message convey to the marketplace about your business? Would you rather be perceived as authentic and sincere or exciting and interesting?

>> Let me share a little story of my own (click to read): Authentic Business

Unique Selling Proposition: Confidence Lost

Do you ever wish you could just start the whole thing – your business, your career or your life – over? You know, a do-over.

I have a better solution for you, at least as it relates to your business (may also apply to career or life). I believe that you can have a business do-over even while running it. In fact, I think that doing the do-over while running it is better than dissolving the whole thing and starting over.

Where do you start? Simple. Start with your Unique Positioning Statement (USP) or the core narrative of your business.

There is a catch, however. You will find that writing the USP for your business is one of the hardest things you will ever do. And get this: Rewriting your USP is even harder. I am not trying to discourage you! Just pointing out where most businesses go wrong in developing their narratives. They expect to whip one out in a staff meeting, a half-day workshop or a two-day seminar.

In my experience, working on the USP is a life-long process that takes quite a bit of mental effort and time – at least at the beginning – and then a regular gut-check with it. This does not have to be a bad news, however. In fact, I think it’s the good news. Why? Because when we do it right, it unleashes tremendous amount of locked up energies that can be used to build our business and manage our life. No more having to attend those motivational seminars! When we get this process right, it becomes one of the biggest sources of motivation and inspiration for us and for the people in our business.

The question then is: Why don’t we do it? A simple reason: We have lost confidence in ourselves. You see, in the end, developing a liberating, cathartic, stimulating USP is not about your business, your clients or your products and services. It’s about You – individually and collectively! That’s what I talk about in the following article.

Unique Selling Proposition: What Makes You Different?

Do you ever get potential clients who negotiate the price you ask for your products and services?

There are two main strategies to deal with price objections or price pressures: 1) Deal with them when they happen in the field during a sales meeting (corrective strategy) and 2) Prevent it from happening in the first place (preventive strategy) so that pricing is a non-issue from the get-go. They both have their place. However, I personally like the second strategy of preventing price objections from happening in the first place. In fact, I believe the best way to deal with price pressures is to psychologically prepare your prospective clients long before they contact you.

The key to the preventive strategy is the idea of being meaningfully different from your competition. In the following article, I present some strategies and ideas to help you figure out a meaningful difference between your offerings and your competitors’.

>> Read Here: Unique Selling Proposition: What Makes You Different?

Unique Selling Proposition (USP): What’s In It For Me (WIIFM)?

The bad news today is that people see thousands upon thousands of marketing messages a day. The good news is that there is one thing that has not changed through the last decade of change: People are obsessed with one subject that occupies them almost full-time. That subject is “Me!”

That’s why, it’s important that businesses take the pains to communicate to their marketplace the one thing that their prospects are looking for: What’s In It For Me (WIIFM)?

As social media becomes an important force in marketing our businesses, it becomes even more important to pay attention to the basic principles of creating a compelling message.

A study done in the mid-1990’s by Eureka Ranch, a marketing communication firm, revealed that an average person in the United States is exposed to 3000 marketing and sales messages a day! But that was before facebook, twitter, pinterest and a hundred other social media platforms became mainstream.

How many messages do we get exposed to everyday today? It’s anybody’s guess, but it’s safe to assume that it’s at least a few thousand and possible many times more.

What does this mean to a mid- and small-size business trying to get its message out and get some attention in the noisy marketplace? It means that they need to be super-smart in communicating the right message, to the right audience to get their attention.

Creating a compelling Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is more important than ever in the post-social media marketplace. But It’s even more important to communicate the WIIFM component to the marketplace.

In the following article, I share some strategies and examples of a strong USP with a compelling WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?).

Read here: Unique Selling Proposition: What’s In It For Me? (WIIFM)

Unique Selling Proposition: What Business Are You In?

One of the most deceptive questions you can ask a Business President, especially for someone who has been in business for a long time, is: What Business are You In?

It’s one of the most puzzling paradoxes I have seen in my work with mid- and small-size businesses. The longer they have been in business, the more they think they know the answer and the more difficult it is for them to formulate a simple, coherent response. The result is that their businesses suffer with dissipated energies, scattered strategies and diffused efforts.

The fact is, the longer a business is around, the more important it is for its leaders to revisit this question, over and over again. The article I am sharing here is meant to help business people come in touch with an answer to this simple question.

>> Read it here: Unique Selling Proposition (What Business Are You In?)

Unique Selling Proposition: Why Have It

We all have blind-spots in our professions. You know, the stuff that we should know but we don’t and it ends up “getting” us when we are least expecting.

In my work with mid- and small-size businesses, I have noticed that most business owners and leaders also have their blind-spots. If I were to pick the one that’s most dangerous, it would be the fact that they give so very little attention to their Unique Selling Proposition or USP.

A strong USP goes far beyond affecting the marketing and sales results of a business. A compelling USP has the ability to transform an organization from the inside-out. It can transform its sales and marketing results, of course, but also bring its various departments on the same wavelength and affect its morale, teamwork and communication.

A weak USP, on the other hand, scatters a business’ energies and dilutes the effectiveness of its efforts.

This subject is important enough, I believe, that I am writing a series of articles meant to serve as a step-by-step guide. The first article in this series helps you clarify if you need to have a strong USP and offers 4 questions you can ask yourself and your team for crafting a compelling USP.

>> Read it here: Unique Selling Proposition (Why Have It and How to Craft It)

Hiring Mistakes: A Simple Way to Avoid Them

I recently spoke with some folks like you who have read the series of my writings about Leader vs Manager (vs Coach). I came away realizing that I had ignored something very basic in my prior emails, which was to spell out why it’s so important to know the differences among these roles.

The reason why it’s important to know these distinctions is simple: Mistakes in hiring and placing people.

If we hire a strong Leader in the role of an Employee who is expected to follow directions, we have a disaster waiting to happen. If we hire someone who naturally gravitates towards being a Coach or a Guide, she will make an extremely poor choice for the role of a Manager. By the same token, a Manager will more easily grow into the role of a Leader or Employee, but will struggle being a Coach or a Teacher. And an Employee will adapt better to being a Manager or a Coach but will struggle with the role of a Leader.

Don’t take my word for it. Just look around. Or probe your history of hiring and placing people. Get your ego out of the way and give it some serious thought. If you are like most business leaders I know, you will have hired based on resume, prior experience and what the candidates tell you about themselves. Sometimes we get lucky and stumble upon a great hire. But in most cases, hiring based on resumes and work history alone leads to misfits in workplace who drain everybody’s energies – including their own. So hiring, placing and promoting becomes a trial-and-error process where we keep hiring and firing people until we find the perfect fit. Or we learn to live with mediocre performers.

When we place right people in right positions, we set the stage for effortless – frictionless – yet efficient work environment. Equally important, we do a huge favor to the candidates who have little idea of what they should be doing, regardless of their college degrees and their work history. The lack of self-knowledge is a serious epidemic in our world today, where many people end up choosing professions they are not a proper fit for.

That’s why, I thought it would be helpful to list the resources I have developed so far about these roles in one place. So here they are. Simply click the link to read.

Leader vs Manager:

Leader vs Manager: Similarities and Differences

Leader vs Manager: Myths and Misconceptions (Lesson from movies Batman, Jurassic Park and Wall Street)

Leader vs Manager: Traits, Qualities and Characteristics

Leader vs Manager vs Coach:

Leader vs Manager vs Coach: Lessons from Star Trek, the Next Generation

Leader vs Manager vs Coach: Lessons from the Tudors (TV Series) and King Henry VIII

Awareness in Business

Resources for Bringing Human Awareness to a Business Organization

Author: Bhavesh