Category Archives: Game Strategies

Follow-Up

In an earlier post, we talked about how to work a room when you’re networking. If you were fortunate to meet an excellent potential client or referral source at that event, your key to success with a networking marketing strategy is follow-up!

Do you have a marketing strategy for networking? For following up?

Assume you had an interesting conversation with an accountant who, you discover, has years of experience working with the types of companies you want to connect with. Assume this accountant has been looking for someone like you to whom they can refer some of their clients who need your services. Assume this accountant also seemed pleased with your responses to her questions and asked you to call and set up an appointment to get together for a smoothie or coffee. That connection alone made attending the event worth the entire evening, in your opinion.

Now let’s assume it’s a week later and you have yet to make that follow-up phone call. In the book of right ways to do things, that follow-up phone call should have been made within 24 hours of the event. The preference would have been to pull up the calendars on your smart phones and make the appointment right there on the spot, but if that wasn’t done, the call needed to be made the next day. Having a time frame for following up, and how it’s done are part of a networking marketing strategy.

How do you handle the fact you messed up on following up? Here are some scenarios:

You make the call and humbly apologize, paying attention to the tone of her voice to determine if there’s a coldness to her response, which is also verified by whether she still wants to meet with you. She may meet, but is likely to be skeptical of your ability to follow-up with her referrals in light of how you followed up with her, meaning she may be hesitant to refer clients to you;
You wait for her to call you and, if she does, express your confusion about whether you were supposed to call or she was. If she calls, she is obviously still interested, so stay on top of the relationship from there on out;
You avoid making the call and anticipate you will run into her again at the next networking event. Be prepared to eat humble pie if she shows up at that one or any of the next events where you may both be in attendance. You may have a ready excuse, but it may carry little weight in convincing her you really are good at following up with people, and she may have already made a different alliance that shuts you out of getting any potential business referred to you;
You call her with a referral for her, and apologize for the delay with an excuse that you were working on the referral before you followed up. It might work if she appreciates the referral, especially if she can convert it into business; or,
You write it off as a lost cause, toss her card in the recycling bin, and kiss the potential referrals business good-bye.

Which scenario would you be most comfortable using a week after meeting someone? Which is most likely to nurture that relationship and lead to referrals?

How much easier is it to carve a few minutes out of your busy schedule to grab your phone, dial the number, and exude enthusiasm for having met the person last night? Make that part of your networking strategy.

Follow-up is easy if done promptly.

Two quick examples of what it can mean for your business:

Trying to scrap an old vehicle, I contacted a salvage yard that had been recommended to me. Several phone calls and voice mail messages failed to get a response. I contacted one I had used before and they were on site within an hour, gave me a fair price and hauled off the vehicle. I heard from the first one an hour after the vehicle was gone. Too bad, so sad.

Looking for a plumber, I contacted two in the community where the work needed to be done. The same scenario of waiting for a call back played out, until I called the second one. The first had been highly recommended so I was giving them the benefit of the doubt. Within an hour after contacting the second, the first finally called after more than a week. Yes, I understand plumbers can be busy people, but a courtesy phone call does wonders to build credibility and that level of trust you expect from contacting a business.

Part of your corporate marketing strategy should be to carve out a brief time period every day to make those follow-up phone calls or to merely follow-up on whatever you need to follow through on. Your customers, prospects, and referral sources will appreciate it.

Working A Room When Networking

Networking events get you face-to-face (F2F) with potential customers, whether you’re the business owner or a sales person, so knowing how to work a room correctly is an essential skill in today’s high-tech business environment.

At a recent event, one of the participants was sitting at a table checking her E-mail. I commented to someone I was networking with that this type of event is about net working and you should avoid net sitting or net eating. The person in question realized her mistake, got up, and came over to the small group that I was with to make her introductions. She admitted she should have been up and meeting people instead of catching up on her E-mails, which can be done at any other time.

There once was a preferred E-mail response time that has given way to texting when it comes to urgent matters.

The people who are there to network with you and other participants are only in your presence for a limited time, so you need to take advantage of those moments.

In a traditional view of F2F networking, the idea is to meet, greet, and exchange business cards with as many participants as possible. The fallacy in that approach is you rarely spend any quality time getting to know the other people and you go home with a pile of business cards that usually winds up in another pile on your desk somewhere. If you are religious about following up on the business cards you receive, give yourself bonus points. If they stay in a pile for more than a week, deduct a whole slew of points and try a new approach.

This is a less new than an unused approach.

Go to networking events prepared. Yes, be prepared! You need business cards but if the people in attendance use the LinkedIn-related CardMunch app, they can take a picture of your card and give it back to you, as I did several times at the last event. It syncs up with LinkedIn and the person’s profile, so the card becomes another one in a pile if you keep it. You make take it back and plug it into Outlook or other management system. If you do, toss the card unless you want to wallpaper your office with business cards.

What I mean by being prepared, though, is to know which professionals are valuable for you to meet and network with at these events. If you get referrals from CPAs, for example, you want to meet any other certified public accountants who may be attending the event. If you get referrals, or can give referrals to a graphic artist, spend time with the ones you meet at the event. Find out if they have specialty areas or enjoy one aspect of being creative more than another form.

On the other hand, if you meet or get introduced to someone in a profession that has little value to you our your business, be courteous and make small talk but then look for a way to exit gracefully. Keep in mind they may know someone you might want to meet someday.

The most graceful exit strategy may be to simply say: “Excuse me, but I just saw someone I’ve been waiting to meet. Do any of you know (and point out the person)?” If they know them, they may feel comfortable introducing you – so make sure it is someone you truly want to meet. If they don’t know that person, they are all likely to respond, “Nope, sorry,” which gives you permission to bail. Or … simply excuse yourself.

Hang on to their cards, if you feel it may be worth giving them a call to prospect at some point.

With the people you do meet and get to spend a few minutes with, remember you are trying to make a connection. Ask them about what they do, and listen to what they say. Let them do the talking, but be prepared to give a brief overview of how you may be able to use their services, help them in some capacity, or refer business to them. The more you let them talk, the better you look as a conversationalist, and less pushy as a sales person.

Networking is about being visible with the people you want to establish credibility with, and then working to build the trust that will solidify a relationship. Be confident in yourself and in your ability to make small talk. Try to have some fun,too.

Advertising: Purpose is Pivotal

When a business owner tells me they need a brochure for their business, my first question is: Why? The answer usually goes something like: Well, everyone has one, we should too.

Again, why?

I take it a step further by asking: What is the purpose of the brochure? This puts a big stump in the middle of the road. When you take the time to think things through, the purpose of a brochure is, first of all, to get the viewer to pick it up. That means it either has to have a strong attention getting device or that the viewer is interested in the subject of the brochure. That could be a resort, a restaurant, tourist attraction, business information, or whatever else is being advertised, if done right.

Thinking it through a bit more, the second step in the process of an effective brochure is to get the viewer or person who picked it up to open it up and spend some time reviewing the contents. Typically, once they’ve digested the information, they look for a call to action or a reason to save the brochure. Without a call to action or reason to save it, the odds are that little brochure winds up in the recycling or trash bin.

The plus is that a brochure that is picked up and looked at has made at least one impression on one human being’s brain. Whether anything is done about it is another matter, and that is what has prompted this blog.

The purpose of the brochure or other advertising is pivotal. The call to action is essential, especially if it is intended to drive sales.

Regarding a brochure, here are a couple more questions:

Who do you want to see or receive the brochure?

What do you want them to do once they’ve received it?

The answers provide you with basic information about your target audience, how many brochures to print, the delivery vehicle (a brochure rack, direct mail, etc.), and how the reader should contact you. Have you ever received a brochure in the mail that was without any contact information? That’s a big “Oops!” and a costly one, too.

Whether it’s a brochure or some other form of advertising for your business, here’s the basic question you need to ask yourself: What’s the purpose?

You should know what you want your advertising to do. Do you want viewers, readers, and/or users to call you? Stop by your store? Go online? Check out your website? E-mail you? You must first give them a compelling reason to take action, and then call them to action so they do what you want them to do.

Even if you merely want to share information to educate potential consumers, you need to stir action to get them involved. If you’ve paid attention to the fine print in TV commercials for ED products, you’ll notice they generally direct people to a magazine ad for more information. Pick up that magazine and you’ll see a three-page ad; one for the product and two pages of disclaimers.

Think about who you want to receive your advertising message. Male, female, or both? What age group? What income level? Where do the majority of them live?

Next, consider what is the best way to reach them with your message. Are they most likely to listen to radio or view a brief video online? Choosing the right delivery vehicle and crafting a message relevant to your target audience are additional steps to gain success and a return on your investment in advertising.

Advertising seems simple, but it’s a complicated process that requires you take the time to think it through. Save yourself some money and engage a qualified consultant to help.

Your Competitive Advantage

Bigger, faster, smarter, and stronger can be advantages in competitive sports and in business. Teamwork can give you the advantage necessary to win in both arenas. The key to long-term success lies in knowing how you stack up against the competition, how you can stay ahead consistently, and what the competition is doing to catch you.

The current trend among consumers is to ask companies what differentiates them from their competitors. What the customer is asking, in essence, is why they should buy from you instead of your competition. The Internet and search engines have made consumers more aware of all the companies out there that can provide the product or service they are looking to purchase.

Your company must, therefore, have an easy-to-find presence on the world wide web and, more importantly, a well-defined statement of why your company, your product, and/or your service is different from and better than the competition. These are essential tools for marketing your business today. Without them, your advantage is that you are playing on a different field than your competitors and every other business, and probably without an audience.

An example: Exceptional customer service is now an expectation and ruled out as a competitive edge. It must be delivered consistently or your doors will close. Consumers can, and will, find alternatives if they believe they have been mistreated or are dissatisfied. Gone are the days when a poorly treated customer simply goes away. Social media can severely damage a company’s reputation if a negative impression goes viral, and today’s savvy consumer spends scads of time sending tweets and text messages.

We digress from the topic of your competitive advantage. You need to know your competition. What do they do that’s different from what your company does? As you study the competition, avoid trying to emulate what they do and focus on what you could do better, more efficiently, or at less cost to the consumer. If you try to match what the competition does, you can easily become your own competition.

When we worked with a company that built websites in the early days of the Internet, we could build them faster than any other company, with better graphics and greater functionality than the competition. We knew how long it took our company to grasp those techniques and how long we could hold the advantage until a competitor figured it out and caught up to us. Time, in that case, was our competitive advantage.

As you study the competition in your business or industry, and evaluate how well you compete, focus more on what got you to where you are and less on what your competition is doing. Maintain that difference, for that is what gives you the edge and makes you palatable to the broad consumer market.

Protecting Your Image

Your brand is your image. Your image is conveyed through the marketing or your brand. That encompasses your logo, your social media, your advertising, your employees, and every other aspect of your business … all the way down to your business cards and the way you answer the phone.

The first step is to brand your work. Even if you are a sole proprietor, your brand involves the unique nature of your business. What separates you from others in your field? How do you answer the question it seems everyone asks nowadays: What makes you different? You need to know.

The second step is to craft a plan to protect your brand. Your image, in large part, is what attracts consumers to your business. Your business, therefore, is on the line. Your reputation is at stake, so every effort should be taken to protect what you represent.

Set standards for the use of your corporate logo. Make sure printers have the right colors (PMS standards usually apply) and place your logo in the proper location. Register the copyright and consider obtaining either trademark (™) or registered (®) marks. Prevent infringement of your logo by copycats or thieves as much as you possibly can. In an earlier blog we covered the basics of protecting your brand.

The biggest concern for companies should be protecting the corporate reputation in social media. You can probably find an article about the topic in virtually any business-related publication since it has come to the forefront lately. One of the best methods for protecting the brand is an old technique – have an online and social media strategy that includes written policies and a corporate protocol manual.

Outline who is authorized to post. Be careful who has administrative capabilities. Clarify content to be posted. Create response time guidelines. Follow accepted protocols for each social media application. The concept for your business using social media should also be clearly defined in order to protect your credibility.

Here’s an example of how your reputation can be damaged in social media: If your goal is to increase sales and every post is a pitch to move a product or service, the strategy is likely to backfire and drive consumers away from you. Once that happens, it will be difficult to get them back. Share relevant information that is of interest to users, especially your target audience. You want to be a thought leader, which means consumers look to you and your company for valuable information to help them make decisions.

In today’s economy, monitoring your social media platform and electronic footprint involves keeping your website current and watching E-mail correspondence, too. These have become as important, if not more so, than keeping tabs on your other advertising strategies. Today’s savvy consumer checks out your web presence right away.

Other concerns when it comes to protecting your image may seem minor, but they have an impact on consumers. Two we’ll cover here are employee attire and visual images.

When they’re at your place of employment or representing your business in the community, your employees convey your corporate image. Consider putting a dress code in place, along with methods for dealing with violations. How would you feel about a sales representative appearing at a trade show for your company wearing a logo emblazoned dress shirt that wasn’t tucked in? Or being drunk? How about a customer service representative swearing and arguing with a customer in a room full of other customers? Proper training can go a long way toward alleviating the potential for these mistakes, which may seem trivial but could have an impact on sales.

How does the outside of your building look to the public … your potential consumer base? If you have a reader board, keep it current. Sweep the sidewalks and shovel the snow. Keep the lobby clean and smelling nice. It’s often the little things that make a difference.

Do your corporate vehicles sport faded or outdated signs? Monitor the quality of your vehicle graphics and replace them when they start – repeat “start” – to look shoddy. You want existing customers to be excited to see one of your vehicles in their neighborhood or community, and you also want potential customers to be enticed by the image they see.

Brand Your Work – Work Your Brand

Where Is Your Business?

Where is your business?

Two reasons we bring this up: 1) It’s important for your customers and prospects to be able to find your business; and, 2) It’s important for you to know where your business is in the cycle of life for a business such as yours. Make that three reasons: 3) It’s critical that you know how your business is doing from the consumer’s perspective, which ties in closely with customer service. Are you doing the right things to take care of customers and bring them back frequently?

#1 refers to your location, whether it’s the physical plant or your place in cyberspace. You need to make it easy for people to find you, either through optimizing your search engine position and social media or providing clarity as to your physical location. If your business is at the corner of a major intersection in town, just off the highway, or conveniently located next to a city park, use your advertising to tell people that’s where you are.

The focus of this blog, though, is on #2 – where your business is in its life cycle.

A typical graphic of a business life cycle.

At left is one of hundreds of diagrams that try to explain the cycles a business typically goes through during its existence.

This example may seem foreign if you’re unfamiliar with Smith-Corona, which was one of the top brand names for typewriters in the days before computers. When you think about a company that had a dominant role in the typewriter business and look at the life cycle diagram in that context, it is rather obvious why Smith-Corona disappeared from sight. The company had grown and expanded to a position of maturity in the typewriter marketplace, but failed to make the transition when the new technology of computers entered the picture. Transitions can be brutal, especially when most people and a majority of companies tend to resist change.

Take the time to think about your business. This is always a good exercise. It forces you to work on your business by thinking about where you are instead of remaining immersed in the day-to-day ennui that can stifle the growth or expansion cycle. Do you consider your business to be on an upswing, or have things stabilized and stayed fairly steady? Do you enjoy a high percentage of repeat business from the same customers or do you have a steady influx of new customers? Are you unsure where you are because you’ve only been in business a year or two?

Have you grown as much as you can and now sales and production seem to have stagnated? The question you may ask if you’ve reached this cycle is “Now what do we do?” This is an excellent position for bringing in an outside consultant to examine and explore options. They might help you discover that a simple change in your existing product line or offering a similar but slightly different service can re-energize sales and bump up production for an additional boost. They might also find that what you’ve been doing for x number of years is out of style and an entirely new direction is needed.

Take those recommendations, whatever they might be, with a modicum of caution. Weigh the costs of re-tooling and re-branding your business to make sure the change makes sense. Change for the sake of change is rarely worth it, since change is constant anyway.

Here’s a big question: What are your plans for getting out of the business? Do you have an exit strategy in place? Are you like a great many dreamers who insist that their business is their retirement plan and when they’re ready to retire, they’ll sell the business and live off the profits? Think about that for a minute … or longer and do something about it before it’s too late.

We counselled a client with that mindset and talked frankly about the potential for that strategy to do what they anticipated it would to let them retire. A buyer would have little interest in their facility unless the new owner was looking to first enter the marketplace and had yet to establish a base of operations. If the buyer did have a facility, the interest level would be less. The same would hold true for the equipment, machines, and tools which become antiquated the longer they have been in use. Even employees, unless they’re willing to move, may be written out of a purchase agreement.

What the potential buyer has the most interest in is the customer base!

Lots to think about as you continue through the process of evaluating your company’s position in its life cycle. When you need an independent party to help you through the process, contact Brand Irons at 920.366.6334.

10 Reasons To Engage A Marketing Consultant

While we could speak for other consultants, we’ll let them do that for themselves. What we can write about are things to consider when engaging a business and marketing consulting firm such as Brand Irons. Here are 10 reasons to engage:

To make more money. Yes, there is a cost to engaging a consultant, but you hire them to open doors, bring in more cash flow, and to create opportunities you may be too close to be able to see.
To hold you accountable. Too often, business owners get tangled up in the day-to-day activities of their business and wind up working in it more than on it. Consultants help keep the grand vision in focus.
To reduce risks and identify needs. An independent, third party observer looks at your business objectively, which makes it easier for them to see the potential problems and address solutions to keep things running smoothly.
To research options and alternatives. Your business may be on the cutting edge, and a consultant can study market trends, emerging markets, and your competition to keep you at the forefront of your industry.
To develop successful strategies. There are times when the path through the forest is a straight line and others when it involves cutting down some trees to achieve your objectives. Experts know what works for marketing your business.
To keep you focused. You should always maintain a customer orientation, which is a perspective your consultant keeps as the emphasis of every move you make because it’s important to add new customers and keep most of the old ones.
To identify resources. A strong, professional consultant has a myriad of resources at his or her fingertips, all ready to step in on a moment’s notice to modify a website, provide employee training, or assist with legal or other issues that arise.
To be your coach. Consultants usually have a limited engagement with a client, which means they should teach you what you need to know, coach you along, prod you if necessary and, at some point, let you move forward on your own.
To solve problems. The independent nature of a consultant and some common sense go a long way to helping businesses solve problems with solutions that may be obvious or hidden but easily thought through … and resolved.
To be engaged. When you engage a consultant, for whatever purpose or length of time, they should be immersed in your business … as a consumer … as a confidant … as a friend … and as a professional who cares about results.

Think about these general guidelines with the understanding that it generally takes time for a consultant to become familiar enough with your business and where you want to take it to develop a relationship focused on the results you’re looking for, even if you’re unsure of what those might be. The more open and honest you are with whomever you engage, and the more honest they are with you, the more success you will realize.

Consider, too, whether the person or firm you’re looking at has the experience and knowledge to help you solve the problems you think you have. You must also be open to the realization that what you think is the problem may not be; it may be something entirely different than you anticipated. The consultant should be able to clarify the scenario for you in terms you understand.

What you engage is less a formula or system than the mental acuity to grasp your situation, look at it objectively, and provide viable solutions. To check out Brand Irons with a simple conversation, call (920) 366-6334 or go back to brandirons.com.

What’s Your Plan B?

If you already have a disaster strategy in place for your business, congratulations! Yours is one of the few that does.

What do we mean by a disaster strategy? Think for a minute about the worst thing that could happen to your business today? Or tomorrow or the next day or a week or a year from now?

Have you considered the implications of that crisis? Have you derived strategies to deal with whatever happens?

Being prepared for worst case scenarios means you have a Plan B.

Let’s assume you have one client that represents 60% of your company’s business volume and, because that client loses a government contract, they have to end your relationship and cancel your pending orders. What do you do?

Odds are you have to scramble to replace that loss of business. That means:

pushing the sales force to close more deals;
driving potential customers to get off the fence and commit;
trying to expand work orders from the other 40%;
perhaps reducing the work force temporarily;
finding another buyer for the materials you’ve already ordered;
potentially suing the client for outstanding order fulfillment;
offering incentives to potential customers to come on board; and,
increasing your marketing and advertising exposure, among other tactics.

So what should a Plan B look like?

Take a look at your industry and come up with a ratio of what percentage of your business should be devoted to one customer. By taking the time to think it through, you will most likely come up with the answer on your own. The key is to find a natural balance that maintains cash flow while sustaining strong customer relations. It could be 100 customers who each represent one (1%) percent of your business, ten that each account for 10%, four that are 25% each, or thousands that account for miniscule percentages of your overall business volume.

Think about the pitfalls and benefits of each scenario, and the multiple variations.

From the crisis perspective, losing one of those 100 customers only impacts one percent of your business while losing one of the four means a fourth of your business is lost. It would probably be much easier to add one percentage point to one of the other 99 customers than to get one of the remaining three (or all 3) to pick up the difference from losing 25% of your business. If you’ve got thousands of customers, what contingencies are in place for dealing with a major product recall or harmful defect? Improper action could have a significant impact on your customer’s loyalty.

The actual disaster you plan for may never happen to your business, and that’s okay. By taking the time to think through the repercussions and responses, you consider variables and prepare for actionable contingencies. It’s a process that prepares you for events beyond your control. Whatever they may turn out to be, you can cope with the consequences much more easily.

It is wise to review your disaster strategy occasionally, depending on the potential severity of the impact a crisis could have on your business. What do you do if your building catches fire and employees are hurt? What if flooding occurs or a tornado strikes? How do you react if there’s a groundswell of negative publicity about your company in the social media outlets? How do you handle a shareholders’ takeover attempt?

Diversifying your product line or adding additional services can also be part of your Plan B. When you have a single service or product, your company is exposed to market swings, economic downturns, consumer trends, and a myriad of other factors that can impact your business.

Plan B may also be a long, hard look at your financial status, a frank discussion with bankers, accountants, investors, and shareholders and taking steps to sell or close the business. Obviously, if the conditions are poor, selling may mean only minimum offers.

What happens if a trojan horse virus or malware shuts down your entire computer system – order processing, client records, and everything is contaminated? How long will you be down, or technically out of business? This is less of a treatise on the importance of backing up your data as it is on having a plan in place to deal with this potential crisis.

Brand Irons can help you put together a comprehensive disaster plan or crisis management strategy. Call us at (920) 366-6334 for an engagement consultation.

Protecting Your Brand

Classify this as a “Did You Know?” blog entry.

If you are concerned about protecting the proprietary material related to your business, talk to your legal counsel about the steps you can, and should take. Your attorney may refer you out to counsel who specializes in copyrights, patents, and trademarks, but it’s worth the effort to ensure your investments retain their value.

An example would be putting copyright information on your business documents. You can insert the © that indicates “copyright” in your document, along with a date and an identifier, such as © 2013, Brand Irons. While we don’t pretend to be attorneys, we do believe that simple act sets precedent.

As we understand it, where the legality gets sticky is if you pursue a violation through the court system, you have a far better chance of getting a favorable judgment if that copyright has been registered with the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress. The fee may be as little as $35.

If you’ve talked to someone who either has or has tried to obtain a patent, you have probably heard pros and cons about the merit of having one on your product or idea. These are processed through the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. The key to having a patent on your invention is less about the filing process than it is about protecting your concept and product from being stolen by a potential competitor. This is where your legal counsel can provide a valuable service.

If you have a patent, as we understand it, you should obtain signed non-disclosure and non-compete agreements with any parties interested in learning more about it. The key is the signature and the date, especially if there’s an expiration attached to the document. This, as we’re sure your lawyer would tell you, is the first step in protecting what you have. You must then take every other step necessary to ensure you enforce the provisions of your patent protection. Again, consult and engage your attorney to handle these efforts for you. You want counsel handling these matters so you can run your business.

When it comes to protecting your brand with a trademark, there’s a 7-step process to start with on the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office’s website. From a protection standpoint, having a mark on your logo, service or product name indicates you have taken steps to protect the theft of your brand identifiers. Will it deter knock-off competitors? It should if the potential rival has scruples and business ethics, but remember that competition in our global economy relies on following the leader.

Yes, you should be flattered that someone is mimicking your brand concept. You should also be aware they are diluting the market by causing confusion among consumers who have yet to establish their loyalty to your brand. Setting the precedent of shutting down imitators sends a strong message through the marketing world that your brand is, indeed, your brand and one that will be protected at all costs.

Will there be emulators? Yes. Will there be loopholes in sustaining your legal rights to copyrights, trademarks, and/or patents and in protecting your brand? Yes.

Your strength in these matters lies in the strength of your brand. The more you create a unique identity that consumers associate themselves with, become and remain loyal to, the stronger the case becomes for your brand.

Another aspect of this topic that we’ll leave you with is that you should have a strategy in place for dealing with legal attacks of this nature. Consider it a crisis, perhaps relatively minor but with potentially significant long-range impact, and be prepared to deal with it.

Think of it this way: If you discover someone has launched a product with a similar purpose and knock-off logo, you’re already suffering damage. The sooner you can nip it in the bud, the less significant the potential repercussions. And remember, Brand Irons is here to help you establish and protect your brand.

Brand Your Work – Work Your Brand

Are Your Employees Engaged?

We’re not talking about whether they’re getting married. We’re writing about how involved they are in their work. A recent column by Anita Bruzzese in USA Today, which was also reprinted in the Green Bay Press-Gazette, struck a chord with us and, in our opinion, relates to marketing yourself and your business.

One of the more intriguing items in the column was that a Gallup survey found that 70% of workers are not engaged or actively engaged at work.

The piece delves into the concept that a large percentage of people have a job just to pay the bills and would rather be doing something else. Think about your employees for a minute. They may be doing an excellent job, in your opinion, but deep down they’re thinking about what they would rather be doing. Heck, they may already be doing it and hoping for a big break so they can leave you behind.

Bruzzese writes about Tama Kieves, an attorney who quit her legal practice to pursue her passion as a writer. A friend “got her thinking: If she was so good at something she didn’t like, imagine the success she might have doing something she loved.” It took some time, but eventually a publisher made Kieves an offer for her book, speaking, and coaching opportunities. The law career became an item on her resume.

If you ask your employees whether they are satisfied with and challenged by their work, what are the odds you’ll get a straight, honest answer? They will, in their own mind, at first question why you’re asking. Then they will wonder whether they should tell you what you want to hear or the truth. Keep in mind, they may be one and the same.

Ask about their hobbies and what they like to do with their free time. You may discover a latent talent you can encourage and, in turn, nurture their love of a paycheck from your company. You may also discover a true passion that may lead to an eventual departure from your company. Think of the option that incorporates their passion into your business model; it may be a whole new line of products or services you never thought of.

The gist of Bruzzese’s column, in relation to your employees and marketing your business, is that you must find ways to ensure they are engaged with what they’re doing. We have often seen excellent sales people get promoted to sales manager and wind up failing miserably. They are good at selling face-to-face with customers or prospects, but lack the drive to effectively engage with other sales people. They’d rather be out on the street instead of pushing people, and paper, around.

Perhaps it should be part of your hiring process to determine what your candidates are most excited about and if they are passionate about coming to work for your company or if they like the wage and benefits package. Where do they feel they could make the greatest contribution to the corporate mission? Your challenge, obviously, is getting the right fit and sustaining the engagement and the resulting productivity.

There may also be a time when it’s worth spending a few minutes (perhaps an hour or two) to reflect on where you are as well. Bruzzese’s column cites some points at the end from Kieves that stimulate such self-reflection.

When you think about that 70% ratio from the Gallup survey, it’s easy to understand why so many workers are not engaged. Teenagers working in fast food restaurants are only there for a paycheck and because they were unable to find any other employment. You may find a rare case where they aspire to management, but their career path usually leads in other directions. Take that out to virtually any industry or business and chances are the percentage of 70% disengagement holds true.

Since they’re now no longer with us, I can admit that I hated mowing my grandparents’ lawn. I would do virtually whatever I could to find an excuse or disable the lawn mower to get out of the job. Ever wonder how many accidents at work happen because the employee is unhappy and wants to do something else? There are professionals who can help you ensure that you do everything possible to engage your employees.

Next week we’ll spend some time on the impact social media can have on your business.