Our Client’s Breakthrough Day is TODAY!!!
August 19th, 2010
Today one of our YMCA clients is posting the Execution Organization Board that we designed. Why is that an exciting day to celebrate?
We have been working on the Org Board with our client for 6 months. It is going to create Clarity, Improved Communications, Accountability and Higher Levels of Performance. What company would not be interested in that? This particular client has received more than a 20 times return on their investment from our project, by far our most successful to date.
Why is our Execution Org Board so successful? Well to be honest it is just a bunch of papers posted on the wall, but those papers contain very specific information that gets the employees to compete with each other and work together. It is not just names and positions…That would be just a waste of time! The board is a living breathing tool used to manage the workings of the company. It can be as big as our clients with 200 employees or as small as a 1-2 person small business. The point is that it creates something missing in most organizations: Clarity!
When staff know how they are measured, what their totally responsible for and what job they were hired to produce, a new level of clarity is created. Contact us today to find out more about what we do and how we can help your company produce more… CLICKING HERE.
The Sleeping Giant…LinkedIn
July 19th, 2010
There is so much attention directed at Facebook and Twitter right now that it is dwarfing the power of Linked In. Facebook and Twitter are part of the social media circle, but so is Linked In and maybe even more so. We consider Twitter to be a traffic driver, taking interest in tweets and driving them to other sites and information sources. We consider Facebook to have a large pool of people that socialize and interact with business thrown in the mix as advertisement or fan pages. Both of these sites are extremely valuable and serve a great purpose, but here is the deal…
…Linked In is business people and their business connections. If you are looking to go B2B with your approach Linked In is the place to start. Here is our suggestion for developing your Linked In account:
1. Get an intern or employee to take the giant stack of business cards you have and search out every name on Linked In and have them join your network. You can also do the same with your customer database.
2. Make it a habit to enter every new contact into your customer database and then perform a search on Linked In to find them and ask them to join your network.
3. Make sure your profile page is exceptional and full of information that could be used by your network.
4. After you have created a large network form a group for your network to join and interact based on a common subject you all may share around business. The goal here is to add value to their business by generating ideas.
5. Interact on the site everyday to ensure that you are posting information that keeps your network engaged and your name at the top of the list.
These are just some of the many things you can do on Linked In. It is a powerful tool for generating business if you can leverage it correctly and respectfully. Remember that business people are super busy and they don’t necessarily need 20 “tweets” a day from the Linked In account. What they need is high quality, low quantity interaction. Get out there and deliver.
Leaders Get Results
May 19th, 2010
“When you are commanding, leading [Soldiers] under conditions where physical
exhaustion and privations must be ignored; where the lives of [Soldiers] may be
sacrificed, then, the efficiency of your leadership will depend only to a minor degree on your tactical or technical ability. It will primarily be determined by your character, your reputation, not so much for courage—which will be accepted as a matter of course—but by the previous reputation you have established for fairness, for that high-minded patriotic purpose, that quality of unswerving determination to carry through any military task assigned you.” -General of the Army George C. Marshall
Leadership builds effective organizations. Effectiveness is most directly related to the core leader
competency of getting results. From the definition of leadership, achieving is focused on accomplishing
the mission. Mission accomplishment is a goal that must co-exist with an extended perspective towards
maintaining and building up the organization’s capability for the future. Achieving begins in the short-term
by setting objectives. In the long-term, achieving based on clear vision requires getting results in pursuit of
those objectives. Getting results is focused on structuring what needs to be done so results are consistently
produced. This competency focuses on the organization of how to achieve those results.
Getting results embraces all actions to get the job done on time and to standard:
- Providing direction, guidance, and clear priorities involves guiding teams in what needs to be done and how.
- Developing and executing plans for mission and task accomplishment involves anticipating how to carry out what needs to be done, managing the resources used to get it done, and conducting the necessary actions.
- Accomplishing missions consistently and ethically involves using monitoring to identify strengths and correct weaknesses in organizational, group, and individual performance.
Post from the US Army Leadership Manual
Does your Company have Standards?
April 19th, 2010
What are Standards? They are a set of agreed on behavior a business employee’s have with each other. If a business does not have a corporate set of standards how can they be efficient and communicate effectively? Each person is operating on a different level of understanding which leads to confusion. Let’s level the playing field!
Having standards in your company will set the Minimum Acceptable Level of Behavior. If you want to up the performance bar of your company you can implement a set of standards for your business. Many companies do not have a corporate identity and the employees are in the black.
The bad news is that standards require a significant amount of discipline to be able to introduce and more importantly maintain. Some types of standards for a business could be:
- Return emails within 48 hours
- Return phone calls within 24 hours
- All staff show up to meetings on-time (what is the agreed upon measure of time?)
- All problems presented come with suggestions for solutions
- All projects or milestone are completed on-time
- No Gossip
- Do what you say you will do (honor your word)
- Etc.
The list can be as small or big as you would like. The discipline required to making implementing standards is up to the ability of the leadership to maintain the standards and lead by example. Until all staff buy into and UPHOLD EACH OTHER, then you have not made the standards acceptable behavior among each other.
Get Standards! Our business world needs the bar raised. Email us if you are interested in talking more about The Octopus Solution Management Model: info@theoctopussolution.com
More than words…It's your Strategy (part 2)
March 19th, 2010
Now that we have discussed the importance and purpose of a well-thought-out strategy, it is time to walk you through how to actually develop a strategy. We start by working backwards to determine where and what we want to be in the future. Once you have an end goal to strive for, you can back-fill in the pieces that will be needed to achieve the long term. Here is our process:
- Create a vision for your practice. When you first decide to open your business, you had a plan in mind for the way your company will fit into this world and leave its mark. We have all been there. This type of forward thinking can allow you to paint an image of what you want your practice to be like in the future. This can include values, image, size, and scope. The vision can include your values and ideals. These things, pulled straight from your imagination, will need to be reflected in the look and feel of your business.
- Set the long-term goals for your business and milestones for achieving the vision. How many long-term goals will it take for you to achieve your vision? Do you plan to become a fortune 500 company with your small business in fifteen to twenty, years or do you want to stay small? Think about what goals would take multiple years and write them down. Now create milestones that will show tangible results of moving toward each one of those goals. Milestones are measurements at points in time that let you know you are getting closer to completing your goals.
- Set the short-term goals and milestones over the next twelve months, which will lead you toward achieving those long-term goals. Continuing to work backwards, move from the long range planning to the short term. The short-term goal setting is what you want to achieve in the next twelve months. That will lead to long-term objectives, which, in turn, will lead to the vision of the company. At this point you may be thinking, ‘I am too small of a business for this to apply.’ Rest assured, nothing could be further from the truth. Even if you are a one-person show, these steps provide the basis for decision making. It will also help you determine what you want to do with your business, what you want it to become, and what you need to do to make it happen. In the short term, your goals may be to increase sales 20% by doing more direct sales calling. Well, now that you set the goal, what are you going to track to make sure you are actually getting there? Set monthly objectives that will make your successes and failures apparent. It is better to know if you are failing or moving in the wrong direction in the first month, then realizing at the end of a twelve-month cycle that you have been failing all along.
- Create the detailed steps needed to achieve the short-term goals and clarify the success factors. This is the how-to portion of to make things happen! What is the highly detailed process or plan for achieving the short term? What needs to be done? How will it get done? Why is it important to the success? Where will you need to do these things? Who will being working will you to help you achieve them? When do you expect it to be complete and what defines complete?
We mentioned a plan above to increase sales 20% by doing more phone calls. Think about this example. Who is going to do this? What is going to be offered? How will you do it? Why will the customer be interested (benefits)? Where will your calls be focused and when is the best time to call prospective clients? All of these questions need to be included in your battle plan before you can execute it. If you are just starting a practice , developing these questions and plan may only take an hour, but for someone who has a larger thriving practice, it may take a bit longer. In either case, spend the extra time thinking heavily on each component to make sure that the plan is created right the first time around.
- Establish a communication system for how, when, and where people will communicate. Communication is the key to putting this all together. Communication is vital to creating any type of business. Think about a football team with all of the different positions on the field and the importance of everyone knowing their role and responsibility for executing one play. In that one play, there is a systematized communication system, where the players meet in a huddle and communicate the next play to be made. In the huddle, team members can ask questions if they are not sure of what they need to do. When the huddle breaks to move to the line to play, they all start to communicate and read the situation. If players recognize something the other team is planning to do, there is a communication system for that. The quarterback is also speaking to the team, getting them ready to move down field and hike the ball. If the team is all on the same page and every individual begins functioning as a single entity, then they will play at a much higher level. But, if communication is not going well, players can get injured, quarterbacks sacked, turnovers, etc. So before diving into executing a strategy, determine a system of communication, chain of command, reporting, feedback, and roles and responsibilities.
- Define the current status of your business. Now that you have put all of these great plans together, you need to link them with the current status of your company. Take an in-depth look at the current status of your company as it relates to all 8 Arms of the Octopus and determine what resources are needed and what changes need to be made in order to align your current status with short-term goals. Once you have focused in on how to achieve the short term, make sure that the short-term steps are linked to the long-term goals, which will eventually affect your ultimate vision. Now that the strategy has come full circle, you should have a clear indication of direction, timeline, and purpose.
Let’s pull it all together, using the above steps, in an easy to understand example such as taking your family to the beach on a beautiful sunny day. This example will break down the steps into an east to understand example:
- Strategic Analysis
- Industry Analysis – What beach has the least amount of pollution and the best waves? Can you swim in the water or is it shark infested?
- Customer Demographic – What type of people are at the beaches? Is it mostly children, couples, or singles?
- Area Demographic –In what area is the beach located? Are the people who live in the area friendly to visitors, or is it more of a “locals” beach?
- Competition Analysis – What do the other beaches offer that may sway my decision to go to that beach? Do the parking prices vary? Are there lifeguards at each beach?
- Development of Strategy
- Vision- The perfect day for a family day at the beach.
- Long Term- Planning around school vacations, work schedules, and lunar cycles. (Full moon brings the best weather.)
- Short Term- Who is going with us? Are the kids bringing friends? Do we need a babysitter to help with watching the kids? When should we go food shopping for the beach or should we buy food at the beach?
- Process- We are leaving for the South Side Beach on Saturday, June 12th at 9 a.m. The beach is very family orientated and has very little undertow. No shark attacks have ever been recorded at this beach. We are taking our two kids and two friends. We will bring drinks, but purchase food at the snack shop. We have Google mapped the directions and will take the SUV for the two hour drive.
- Communication- All adults have been issued the agenda, have confirmed in email that they are coming, and are all reachable by cell phones.
- Current Status – Two guests have never been to the beach. We are all working very hectic work schedules and need a vacation.
Extra, Extra, Read All About It!!!
February 19th, 2010
We take for granted the amount of work required to build a customer base and all too often small businesses start up with the expectation that just having a physical location on a busy street will mean success. The fact is that you need to take the steps to aggressively pursue customers! Do not fall into the trap of being complacent and expecting them to know you are in business and walk in your door.
The second your doors open, you may get flooded with customers and your attention may shift to operating the company and marketing takes a back seat because you thought your job was done. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Over the next six months you watch the revenues declined and customer frequency and attendance slow. You thought you were doing a great job running a businesses until you quickly realized that there was no marketing being done to bring in new customers.
You get complacent with the marketing and assumed that everyone else in the world would just hear about you through word of mouth. Wrong again. Marketing needed to be done consistently. If it was not, there can be noticeable dips in dollars. Small businesses never want dips in dollars, but they do happen for a variety of reasons. Let’s make sure those dips are not the result of a lack of marketing. Let’s talk PR.
Would you like to spend $375 for a quarter page newspaper ad in your local paper, or come up with a creative idea for a story that lands you front page and doesn’t cost a cent? Which do you think will give you the most exposure?
Public Relations (PR) is one of the best tools to gain the lime light exposure for your business. Our clients have been on the cover of over a dozen newspapers and stories inside tons of magazines, websites and papers. We create news worthy stories or events to send out as a press release to the print &online media world. These newspapers and magazines need stories, information and content that are sellable and creative thinking and persistence can lead your business into the spot light.
All sources of media love to provide coverage on events happening throughout our communities. You should understand how and when to approach media personnel with ideas for coverage. It would not be wise to call a newspaper after the Super Bowl or a Natural Disaster because of the media focus on that universal event.
Create a list of editors (their names, email, phone, address) and do not feel like you can’t do this–you can. Local papers like to help local businesses. Editors are not unapproachable tyrants, they are business people with the mission of selling print material and creating online exposure in a competitive world…respect their time. If you feel that your story can help them with their mission and is presented as such, then you will gain an attentive ear. Pick one local media source to send an idea to and not shop it around to more than one because of exclusivity! Understand that papers and magazines compete with each other and in order to build a relationship you need to respect that and only offer one story to one source. Exclusivity is a big deal and should be dealt with with respect.
If the media source is not interested in your story or are dragging their feet, simply say: “Mrs. Editor I wanted to give you the exclusive story, but if you are not interested in running it, are you okay with me taking this to another paper or magazine?” That will get things moving, god forbid another paper gets the story. Here are some tips for getting started with your media campaign:
- Identify all the media sources you want to work with that best reach your potential customer.
- Create a database of media contacts (editors, etc) and communication time lines for mapping out your company’s output.
- Contact data for the editors can be found in the first few pages of the newspaper or magazine and onine
- Remember to always start with the editor.
- Before you pitch the idea, make sure that you are well prepared to support your idea with “what is in it for them” and determine the best way to deliver it.
- Determine how often you are going to pitch ideas to them.
- Try to establish a long term relationship and become the expert in your field as the go to person for questioning.
- Follow up after events or postings to get the feedback from the media source. This will show that you care about their business and they will remember that jester.
There are different levels of commitment to getting good PR and those levels correspond to the level of exposure and status of the media source being sought after. Local, regional, national and international media sources all need to be approached differently and require different strategies. Plan accordingly and best of luck. Email us if you would like The Octopus Solution to handle your PR needs.
Love working with the YMCA's
January 19th, 2010
We have been very lucky as a marketing & advertising firm to be specializing in marketing YMCA’s. It is a great organization with a rich history and a very promising future.
We see the same challenges at all the YMCA’s we work with and it is not a difficult fix if they are willing to change. The YMCA is dedicated to the health and well-being of individuals, families and communities at large. They can deliver a fitness experience for families above and beyond any competitor.
Here is some history about the YMCA…I bet you don’t know all the organization has achieved!
Check out this Video: http://special.lib.umn.edu/ymca/150video.phtml