Take Some Advice

Originally published February 2013
Sweeping, The Journal of Chimney and Venting Technology

"Fear less; hope more.

Eat less; chew more.

Talk less; say more."

-Swedish quote from "Dear Abby"

Last month the world lost a syndicated icon when Pauline Phillips, better known to many of us as “Dear Abby,” lost her battle with Alzheimer’s disease at the age of 94. Her column lives on in the pen of her daughter, Jeanne, but when I reflect on the legacy that she created in the 57 years of her column, I can’t help but think of the correlation between the influence of decades of her accumulated advice and the volumes of invaluable counsel association members give each other every day.

So I thought I would share.

One of the advantages of being in an association is the opportunity to pick the brains of your professional peers to get ideas and find solutions. A couple of years ago I facilitated a group discussion at a convention about practical business tips based on real life input from  small business owners across the country. Between the information I gathered ahead of time and the plethora of ideas shared during the session itself, I ended up with a nice list of over 200 tips.

In the interest of a relatively easy read for you this month, here’s a sampling of the professional advice that was collected in the area of leadership and development. Perhaps some of this will trigger some of your own thoughts as you plan strategies for the year ahead.

5 Tips on Managing Yourself

·         Recognize when you’ve outrun your abilities. When one entrepreneur saw that her skills were not adequate to manage her company, she hired a president to handle day-to-day operations. Could you use a business or office manager?

·         Get a business coach. Skilled consultants can help you learn how to take your company to the next level. Resources such as SCORE can help (www.score.org).

·         Open yourself to being transformed. Listen, really listen, to employees. Let go of old notions of leadership (managing by fear, for example).

·         Be self-aware. Many business owners say self-awareness is essential to understanding what leadership style works for you.

·         Be a servant leader. Consider it your responsibility to serve employees and customers.

5 Tips on Creating an Innovative Environment

·         Show your employees and/or peers that you think of innovation as an ongoing process. Some ideas will work and many won’t. Keep experimenting.

·         Listen, listen, listen. Innovation is a collaborative process.

·         Be open to “accidents,” the unexpected connections that spark new ideas. Inspiration comes from everywhere—often from outside your own field.

·         Draw on your own employees—they know the company’s problems and goals best. This is probably one time you don’t need outside consultants.

·         Be patient. Creativity can’t be hurried.

5 Tips for Renewing Yourself as a Leader

·         Take a time-out each day. Put a “Gone Thinking” sign on your door and don’t let anyone disturb you.

·         Pursue hobbies and interests outside your business. They’ll provide relaxation and may inspire creative ideas that you can feed back into the business.

·         Take a vacation or a sabbatical. 

·         Spend time with your family. Kids provide a refreshing perspective. If you don’t have kids of your own, consider spending time with friends or family who do.

·         Do something you’ve always wanted to do but never did—learn a new instrument, take a course in acting, learn to fly, take up gardening, you name it.

5 Tips on How to Be More Efficient

·         Don’t start your office organizing by shopping for containers. Determine what files and books you need to store, measure them, then go to the store.

·         Declutter. File, act on or toss papers and emails instead of letting them pile high on your desk. You should be able to make a decision immediately as papers cross your desk.

·         Take advantage of electronic devices and the abundance of digital programs available to categorize work.

·         Choose the calendar system that’s best for your organizational style, and stick with it. If it is computer-based, back up, back up, back up!

·         Manage your time ruthlessly. 

5 Tips to Get a Good Mentor

·         Think about the end result. Let your mentor know what advice you want for success. Do you need advice on managing cash flow or a mentor to help keep you energized and motivated? Both are good. Be clear.

·         Be prepared. Share a snapshot of your business today. Share goals, so your mentor has a picture of your dream for success. Then, ask questions and listen for great ideas.

·         More is better. Develop a network. No one person has all the answers. Not you, your CPA, your mentor. You may want a mentor for business planning and a mentor for finance and cash flow.

·         Good cash flow is important especially at start-up and growth stages. Always be wary of economic slowdowns. A mentor can help you plan a collections policy, make plans for a line of credit and project cash flow based on sales. 

·         Seek industry expertise. Find a mentor who can address industry specific issues. 

5 Tips on Networking

·         Consider joining or creating your own industry management information exchange group. This is small group of your peers, typically no more than 12, from non-competing geographical markets that review each other’s operations serving as a panel of confidential advisers with the intent of helping each other’s businesses be as strong as they can possibly be.

·         Join your local Chamber of Commerce and go to the meetings/events

·         Join local service groups such as Rotary, Sertoma, Kiwanis, etc.

·         Join an area professional networking group (i.e. www.bni.com or www.bnicanada.ca), or a free online professional networking site such as LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com).

·         Join your industry association if you are not already a member and attend their annual or regional conferences.

This is as good a time as any to start strategically planning for the year ahead. How is it going to be different than last year? As the boss of your business, what can you do to gear yourself up to make this the best year yet?

Don't let yourself get overwhelmed. There's great advice out there everywhere, you just need to look around and make the decision to act. In a 1990 interview with Larry King, Pauline Phillips exclaimed, "There is always an answer, even it it's say, look, pal, you can't change anybody but yourself."

Until next time, here's to good advice and to your continued success!

-Mark

2013: It’s a Whole New Game

Originally published in the January 2013

Sweeping: The Journal of Chimney and Venting Technology

"In the long history of humankind those who learned to collaborate 

and improvise most effectively have prevailed." -Charles Darwin

Resolution, sticking point, determination, zeal, ardor, earnestness, resolve, drive, vigor, iron will, tenacity, perseverance, fortitude, commitment, devotion, compulsion, firmness, dedication…Pick a word, but they all represent a conscious act; a decision to do something. Sometime over the past month or so, most of us have likely at least thought about making our New Year’s resolution. The mere idea of a resolution to kick off the year as a fresh start is a multi- billion dollar industry. For most people, making the resolution is the easy part; making the resolution happen tends to be a little easier said than done.

If 2013 started for you without some resolve to change something up in your life, I have an idea you are welcome to steal. If you haven’t done so already, resolve to figure out what the social media buzz is all about and what it might mean to your business plan this year.

While there are all sorts of different views and stories about social media out there, clearly it is not a fad that is going to eventually give way to the good ole days. Last year, consumer giant Proctor & Gamble announced they were significantly scaling back on their multi-billion dollar annual ad budget to take advantage of free impressions in the form of “Likes” and status updates offered by Facebook. Just this past month even the Pope finally succumbed and jumped into the scene by sending out his first Twitter message. Since September, CSIA has picked up over 200 new followers on Twitter and more than 250 new fans on their Facebook page.

Now no one is suggesting that we all abandon the art of the handshake and face-to-face relationship building in exchange for virtual networking, but any successful business needs to be prepared to go where the customer are, and the customers are online in increasing record numbers.

According to Nielsen’s 2012 Social Media Report, total minutes of mobile app usage have increased 120%. The greatest growth, while still dwarfed by social medial giants Facebook and Twitter, has been with Pinterest, Tumblr and Google+. Pinterest saw a 1047 percent (yes, that’s thousand) increase in unique visitors in 2012. PC users spent more than two billion minutes on Tumblr, growing that network by 55 percent. Google+ enjoyed an 80 percent increase in unique visitors as they reached 500 million users. 

This past October, email marketing firm Vertical Response conducted a survey of small businesses across the country and found that 43% of them spend at least six hours a week on social media, with seven percent spending over 21 hours a week on Facebook and Twitter alone. According to that same survey two-thirds of small businesses report spending more time on social media than they did the previous year having realized the need and value of social media marketing.

For many, while they don’t argue the impact of this ever growing virtual marketing monolith, the breadth of it all is overwhelming. Believe me, there may be a number of things that NCSG has done over the past couple of years to get us and keep us active in this space, but there are still countless additional steps that could be taken…many of which we see from our association counterparts. So knowing we are all in this together, and that we will all likely be faced with even more social media decisions in 2013, I scoped out some advice from a variety of sources to see what I could put together for those wanting to figure all of this out for their business.

Mandy Arnold, president of Gavin Advertising, published a simple, straight forward list of do’s and don’ts for those trying to determine how to best reach their real customers in the virtual world. She advises to think realistically. Don’t expect a windfall immediately, but be sure you’re getting a decent return on the amount of time you are investing in learning and using a new marketing and technological platform.

Be visual. When posting information about your business and services, include pictures and even video to add depth to the information you are sharing. Photos and video get attention, but remember to ensure that the images you post are consistent with your business image.

Be authentic. Provide an experience for the customer that delivers a message they can trust about the personality of your company rather than just propaganda. You want your social media presence to build an atmosphere that customers respect and trust rather than just throwing out a sales pitch.

Be accessible. Provide an opportunity for easy feedback and interaction. Always include “Like” and “Follow” buttons wherever possible, making it easy for people to subscribe to your media. If they can’t do it easily, they won’t do it at all.

Don’t overpost. I can’t begin to tell you the number of people I have stopped following on Twitter or removed from my Facebook because they simply post non-stop and I simply had better things to do with my time than have to decipher which of their posts were important and which were not.

Watch your language. Social media is public, and what you have to say and how you have to say it can speak volumes about you and your company. Certainly this includes the avoidance of foul language and derogatory comments, but it also includes proofreading what you post before you send it out. If spelling and grammar are not your strong suits, then find someone who can proofread for you. Right or wrong, potential customers will make assumptions about you and your business based on the way you communicate.

The growing social media scene has given small business owners yet another way to promote their businesses online for relatively little investment. In fact, time is the most significant cost when it comes to social media.

As a small business owner, you are busy running all aspects of your businesses, so you likely don’t have a lot of extra time to spend on social media. It’s important to have a plan and set goals for your social media activity, and learn as much as you can about the various social networks you plan to venture out into so you can reduce the learning curve and avoid wasting time.

Alyssa Gregory at About.com provides seven tips for getting started in social media:

·         Pick One Social Media Site to Start. Most small businesses that are active in social media participate on more than one site, but trying to do too much too fast is not only overwhelming but it can also prevent you from learning how to effectively use each site. Choose one site to start with and focus your attention there first before moving onto others.

·         Create a Social Media Time Budget. You could easily spend hours each day getting up to speed on all the popular sites out there. While that may be a good way to learn the ropes, you may not have the time, energy or interest in putting so much of yourself into social media. Instead, create a time budget that limits your social media time to a daily or weekly total that you can fit into your schedule relatively easily.

·         Clarify Your Social Media Goals and Objectives. Once you know how much time you will be spending on social media sites, you will need to make sure you are clear on your goals. Know what you want to accomplish and what you truly want to get out of your efforts. Are you interested in generating jobs, finding others in the industry to network with, establishing yourself as an expert in your market?

·         Outline Your Approach. There are all sorts of different ways to use social media sites for business. One way is not necessarily better than another, and no single way is the right way for everyone. The key is knowing what your intended approach is before you start. Will you be a communicator, provide an industry-related news feed, present a mix of business and personal information? Outline your intended approach and work it into your goals as you get started.

·         Complete Your Social Media Profiles Consistently. Each of your social media accounts will include some kind of profile. Profile fields may include a bio, websites, blogs, location and a picture. Be sure to completely fill out your profile on any social media sites you use and keep the information relevant and professional, as well as consistent from site to site. You you’re your customers recognize you when they find you on multiple sites.

·         Lurk and Observe. Sometimes the best way to get started on a new social media site is by signing up and then watching how the relatively experiences people do it. Each social media site has a very unique set of nuances, and it’s good advice to spend some time observing and learning the ins and outs before diving in head first.

·         Use a Social Media Dashboard. One of the biggest challenges with social media is time management. There are social media “dashboards” such as HootSuite, TweetDeck and others that can help you manage your social media time more effectively. These tools allow you to set up alerts and notifications, create groups, skim activity quickly, and schedule updates so you can automate some of the social media process.

This is a lot to absorb, but it is the face of business in 2013 and it is likely the launching pad for whatever is next for us all in 2014 and beyond. Be brave and if nothing else, resolve to have fun with it.

Until next time, I wish you and yours an enjoyable and prosperous Happy New Year!

-Mark