Monthly Archives: July 2012

Is Your Office Harboring a 'Michael Phelps'?

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Poor Michael Phelps – after a dismal fourth place showing at the Men’s 400 M race in the London 2012 Olympics, everyone is talking about the new golden boy, American Ryan Lochte, and wondering how Phelps will make up ground from his abysmal fourth place finish. Phelps’ performance in the water has been the focus of most Olympic coverage since Saturday. He may have shrugged off his loss by just calling it ‘a crappy race,’ but it was probably a little bit more than that considering Phelps only started training again six months ago, and commentators have been talking about his poor performance during the qualifiers. So, since everyone else is talking about it, we figured that we could shoehorn the topic into our own blog by helping our readers figure out if they have a ‘Michael Phelps’ situation in their own office.

He is holding onto that medal like it is the only real thing left in his life.

1. Is there an employee that is way too overconfident?
Maybe a few months back they were the office’s star employee. They had all of their reports done early, they got along well with others, and they won the hearts and minds of everyone watching. They could do no wrong. Then, after a some time had passed, they began to slack off a bit. No big deal – they were doing more than their share of work before, and now they’re just settling into everyone else’s level. Then they started to do less, started to show up late or expect others to pick up their slack. And yet, despite all of this, they were genuinely surprised when the rumors about their lackluster performance finally hits their ears.

Overconfidence can hit anyone without warning. Office environments don’t lend themselves well to a lot of negative feedback, lest they become mired in low morale. It’s difficult to judge our performance when no one is willing to tell us our performance is slipping. But if you have a co-worker or employee who is beginning to get a little sluggish, try to nip it in the bud. That doesn’t mean making a big, dramatic scene by calling them into the office and going over numbers from three years back, but a quick chat about getting things where they need to be is a great way to make sure that they don’t flounder and choke when things get hectic.

2. Can they stand not being the best?
There are plenty of people out there who get very upset when they aren’t seen as the best at what they do. These types of people also end up grating on their co-worker’s nerves, and sometimes those co-workers feel a little schadenfreude when that top dog falls from grace. All of this leads to a fairly negative working environment, so if an employee is beginning to see their numbers drop or managers ignore their ideas they need to honestly ask themselves if they can handle a scenario wherein they aren’t the best at what they do. Unfortunately, these types of questions can cause them to turn inwards, and its important to remind them that, even if they’re not the best, they are still pretty dang good.

3. Do they want to become better?
There is always some innate, competitive drive that inspires us to push ourselves to the brink. Offices, especially offices that sell something, feed into that competition. And that is perfectly fine! Sometimes we need something to inject a little excitement into our day. But eventually that competitive drive burns out, especially when an employee thinks they are the best and there is no one who could challenge that position. Then when that self-understanding is inevitably challenged, the person who was once on top feels that it would be impossible to ever reach that position again. So they shut down, and just do the bare minimum.

And that isn’t a healthy mentality to have. So if there is an employee on the floor who is barely being noticed after months of being on top, talk to them. This type of situation can be very depressing, and sometimes we need to be reminded that its just work, or a hobby, or a sport.

That, sometimes, we just have ‘a crappy race.’ Phelps still has 5 races to compete in (one of them tonight!), and we’ll all be waiting to see if he can bring back some of the magic he showed in the water at Beijing. There is no reason that an ex-golden employee could not do the same.

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Guest Post: How to Improve Your Cold Calling Results

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Your company may be one where routine cold calls contribute to your business and keep new customers coming in. But when it comes to cold calls, your staff probably hears more “no” responses than “yes” when you’d like it to be the reverse. Whether you have an outbound call center or a single employee who focuses on cold calls, these tips can help improve your results.

Before You Start

If your company is one that turns to cold calls, chances are you have at least one person focused on doing just that. The process can easily become tedious for the employee calling out and this can hinder their interactions with other potential customers. Before you even make a call, here are some things to keep in mind.

  • Throw out your script, or at least create one that is easily customizable. Every new person you call is different than the last, so why should the script stay the same? You want to create a relationship and a script can make doing so more difficult.
  • If you can, do a little digging into the business and person you plan to speak with. Saying something different from what you’re pitching is a great way to establish rapport before you transition to the reason for your call. It also provides insight into how you should pitch.
  • Be prepared to leave a voicemail. Be brief, pitch-free, and leave a contact number to be reached at (and repeat it back a second time) and your chances of a return call increase.

Continue reading →

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Three Ways to Follow the Olympics from the Comfort of Your Desk

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The Summer Olympics come but once every four years, and social media has evolved fast since 2008′s games. Facebook had only just cracked 200 million active users, overtaking MySpace for the first time. Twitter was also really beginning to grow with six million users, and many of us often spent hours staring at the infamous ‘Fail Whale’ wondering how the heck this service was going to make money. YouTube, though well established, had only just begun to make a name for itself as a source of Olympic coverage as people who had never used the service began passing links to the outstanding opening ceremony at Beijing.

And now, in 2012, most of these services have matured. Social media is the number one activity on the internet, and the International Olympic Committee has decided to release (some very strict) guidelines on social media to its athletes. But despite the muzzle, there are still a few great ways for you to get your Olympic fix, even from your work desk.

Make use of that Google+ Account you signed up for

Now that Google+ account you were dying to get but have sadly neglected after absolutely no one made the transition from Facebook can get some much needed love. The IOC (International Olympic Committee) announced that they’ll be utilizing the Google’s native social media service and fans of Google+ are ecstatic that they haven’t been overlooked. Of course they’re also running coverage on Facebook but the Google+ feed has shown a much more aggregated approach to its coverage of the pre-game festivities, at least so far. Compare the two pages and you’ll see blurbs from major news outlets filling up the Google+ page, while Facebook is relegated to a few pictures posted by the IOC. Of course we’ll be following both, but if you really want to stay on top of things it looks like Google+ may be the go-to outlet for updates.

Check out the IOC Hub

The IOC has accomplished something wonderful for us Olympic fans – it’s centralized its social media campaign. The IOC hub lists the twitter feeds of thousands of athletes, offers its own coverage, and even has a cute little community with rewards and tiers for those who want to try and connect a bit more closely to the action. If that doesn’t suit you, you can always just sit back and let the news updates/tweets roll in after merging your account with the Hub. The whole idea behind the Hub is actually quite astonishing, as putting all that information into one place is a fairly behemoth undertaking, but it seems to be working, and we’re all the happier for it.

You can still follow your favorite athletes on Twitter

Don’t let that IOC muzzle scare you away – many analysts are guessing that the IOC won’t be chasing down athletes who post pictures of themselves warming up or tweet about their joys and disappointments on the road to Olympic gold. Really, they’re just trying to make sure that an athlete sponsored by Coca-Cola doesn’t tweet about how much they enjoy Pepsi. The involvement of advertising dollars sort of sullies the experience, but at least the tweets won’t have to pass an IOC committee before being sent out. It is still a great idea to follow the athletes, if for nothing else to connect that much more closely to the men and women representing your country. And how else would you know that Michael Phelps isn’t a fan of the new Team USA swim caps?

At the end of the day, social media is about enjoying yourself online. It allows you to connect with other people – people you may never have had a chance to connect through any other medium. And while we’d never recommend loafing on the job so you can scan pages of tweets and status updates, following all of these wonderful outlets is a great way to stay up to date while at work.

Just remember to go back and look for what you missed once you get home!

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Guest Post: Should Your Small Business Buy or Lease Commercial Real Estate?

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For most businesses, having a physical location to meet, work and operate in is essential to the success of the business. One of the first steps in acquiring property for a small business is the decision to buy or lease office space. There is no right or wrong answer here as every business faces their own set of unique factors and budgets to make this decision with.

Whether your business is stable and established or still quite green, leasing or buying an office space will require that you consult an advisor who specializes in bookkeeping services because they can help you determine how much you can afford to spend on property as well as the cash available you have to use for scouting locations with. Below are a few more matters to consider when making your decision to buy or lease real estate for your business:

New Businesses:

If you are a small business who is new to the game and still expanding in terms of location and staff, then it is in your best interest to lease commercial real estate. Your goal should be to find a place that is in a good location, functional for the business, and, most importantly, available at a reasonable rate. As a new company, your budget will be smaller to work with, and you do not want to sink all of your available cash into high payments on a lease.

When you have found a great place to lease, make sure that the terms of your lease are flexible. Month to month payments are the easiest terms to work with offered, but annual renewal is another great option. Whatever you may decide, make sure that your terms do not exceed more than 5 years. This allows you freedom to look into larger properties as you continue to grow and establish your business.

If your small business is just taking off and you have the luxury of working with a larger budget, then you may consider buying instead of leasing. You should only do this if you have accumulated the amount of quality staff that can effectively deliver results based on the business coming in. If this is not the case, then leasing is still your best option.

Established Businesses:

Once you have an established and successful business, purchasing real estate becomes a more practical option. Pending that you are not searching to expand your staff, this is a great choice to minimize the hassle in finding a new place in the future. By purchasing property, the payments will eventually cease which is much unlike a lease where payments are continuous and property ownership is never granted to the lessee.

The purchase of property is an investment; so you must take into account your risk tolerance and financial commitments. Consult a financial advisor to be able to come to a decision on whether to purchase or lease and the price range that you can afford.

Remember, property whether purchased or leased is an investment. Take some time to look at various locations and then make a list of pros and cons for each area. After you have done this, pick the place that you feel fits your company best as well as your customers and employees.

And start saving early! This gives you plenty of time to accrue the down payment necessary to purchase the building and helps build a good relationship with your banker, so they are more likely to be supportive when it comes time to ask for financing. If you decide not to purchase, then you’ll have a strong savings established to help start making payments on a lease.

Bert Doerhoff is owner and founder of Accubiz, a firm providing accounting services out of Jefferson City, Missouri. Accubiz specializes in small business accounting, bookkeeping service, and wealth management. Prior to opening his own firm, Doerhoff worked for Peat, Marwich, Mitchell & Co, which is currently known as KPMG. Frequently, he speaks at state level and national conferences on various business management topics.

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Three Reasons Why You Should Feed Your Poor, Starving Employees

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The quickest way to anyone’s heart is through their stomach, and that includes your office staff. There are few things more demoralizing than a bare fridge, its plastic shelves long wiped clean of any form of sustenance. It will soon lead to an entire office of people making a forlorn journey from their desks to the kitchen and back, and then resigning themselves to dejectedly scrolling through pictures of food on their computer until they can sneak out for an early lunch. For the simple sake of productivity, you should always have snacks on hand. But if our grim scenario did not incense you to hop in the car and head to Costco to load up on jerky, here are three reasons to keep those loyal employees fed.

We were going to use a nice photo of healthy fruit, but for some reason we went with the donut.

1. A fed office is a motivated office.

It’s really, really difficult to work when your stomach is growling and all you can think about is sinking your teeth into a savory, cheesy toasted sandwich. There is an old theory that we all have to recite from Psych 101 that relates to a pyramid and a guy named Maslow that says if you’re hungry, you’re less inclined to care about things like the respect of others or the need to solve problems. It also says a lot more and, we’re sure, is mired in criticism but for the purposes of this blog post let’s just accept the theory at face value and agree that when an office is thinking about food, they are less inclined to be thinking about sales and paperwork. Satisfy their baser needs, and they’ll be able to focus on work.

2. A well-stocked kitchen boosts morale.

There really is just something about a kitchen full of food and drinks that makes people happy. The office kitchen has been known as a place for gathering and socialization for generations, but if only the cold, bitter emptiness of an unused refrigerator awaits your employees, they’ll have no reason to step foot into the kitchen. That ruins an integral piece of office culture, and turns your office into a building full of strangers that are paid by the same person. Throw some snacks into the kitchen, turn on the coffee pot, and socialize with your office.

3. You can help keep them healthy!

Now, we realize that our lovely stock photo for today’s post is a chocolate donut resting on a computer. We recommend against both of those things – sugar and fried dough are good for neither you nor a computer. Plus that’s a great way to get ants. But you, as the provider of the office snacks, can help boost overall health by investing more in fresh fruits and vegetables than in candy and chips. The MyCorp office made the switchover a few weeks ago and, after some initial apprehension, everyone has adjusted and is perfectly happy with crunching down on an apple rather than through a bag of Lay’s.

Well fed staff members are happy staff members, and when you run a small business it is vitally important to keep all of your employees happy. Just remember to accommodate any food allergies or intolerances, and judge the overall wants of the group. After all we still have a small candy dish sitting in the front of our office because, honestly, we couldn’t give up all of our vices. The office kitchen should be a source of comfort, and as long as it is open and stocked you can bet on a building full of happy employees.

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How to Write an Elevator Pitch That Lifts You Up

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Oh, the elevator pitch. Everyone is supposed to have one – tucked away in their back pocket, ready to be unleashed. Typically most elevator pitches have been hanging on with their writers since college,  hurriedly scribbled down the night before class. They’ll tweak it depending on the occasion, but after a while the delivery goes stale.

Disclaimer: It may not be appropriate to give your pitch in an actual elevator.

Minds always begin to wander the minute an opener like ‘Our company represents the future of…’ is uttered anyway.

Elevator pitches are important. They are supposed to be able to captivate the attention of an audience of any size, from a boardroom of bigwigs to a colleague in the hallway. You want one that will actually lift you up, rather than one that’ll send you down to the parking lot. While we can’t promise you’ll get a standing ovation at the end of it all, we can assure you that if you follow our advice, you’ll be able to open the door for future business.

1. Stay focused, and don’t hide your objective

Obviously, you want something from the person you’re talking to. You know it, and they know it – it’s just part of networking. The trouble begins when you try and pretend like you just want to chat, or try to catch them off guard by being really roundabout. Don’t beat around the bush and leave them wondering what the heck you want. They’ll quickly realize you’re trying to deceive them and they won’t trust a word you say. So when writing ask yourself – do you want a business card? Or do you want their business? That will help you define the objective that your pitch revolves around.
2. Be a teller, not a seller.

If you walk up to a stranger and then immediately start ranting about all the money your business is making or all the wonderful, phantasmical things your new product can do, they’ll quickly tune you out. We see and hear too many advertisements already, and commercials are boring enough whether they’re coming out of the TV or from the mouth of an actual person. When writing and presenting your pitch, stay grounded. It’s understandable to be excited about your field or business, but you need to realize that whoever is listening has probably heard tons of hyperbolic statements and pitches. Tell them why whatever you’re selling fills a particular niche, and speak to them like you would an actual human being.

3. Update, refresh, and re-write

This step is absolutely key to writing a good pitch. You probably have the bare bones framework of an elevator pitch already created, so work with what you have and shift things around. Write new pieces, or take chunks out. Feel free to experiment until you really like what you hear. Just remember that a great elevator pitch is going to evolve. Even if you wrote a killer speech for an investor’s conference you attended, you’ll still have to change it every time you face a new audience. You don’t want to be the person going around the room at a social media meet-up telling everyone about stock options and bottom lines.

These steps may be more effort than you want to put into a 30 second speech, but a solid elevator pitch will really help you stand out in a crowd. Just remember that the pitch actually only gets your foot in the door – you’ll need to be able to carry on the conversation after your thirty seconds are up. They’ll have questions and concerns, and there’s nothing more unprofessional than staring at them, mouth half opened, trying to collect your thoughts to answer a simple query. A good elevator pitch will sound organic and effortless, and will naturally blend into the rest of the conversation. Relax, be prepared, and you’ll be racking up new business in no time.

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Four Kind of Crummy Mission Statements

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Mission statements are one of those holdovers from the domineering American corporate culture of the eighties, and while they can be extremely useful to focus a new business, most of the time they’re bland, and lack any sort of creative touch or impulse. Normally this wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but business schools have a terrible habit of taking the most inoffensive, uninspired mission statements from major corporations and printing them out as an example to which our future entrepreneurs can aspire.

So many thoughts, such little creativity

So we decided to go through a list of multi-national companies and found four odd/funny/not all there upstairs mission statements to help future entrepreneurs reading our blog avoid being the butt of a small time business blog’s jokes.

Dell: “To be the most successful computer company in the world at delivering the best customer experience in markets we serve.”

This one got a collective “Lol, what?” from the Social Media team. It’s like a marketer filled their mouths with business jargon and the word ‘computer’ and then just let it all spill out into a nearly incomprehensible sentence. We understand what Dell is trying to say, that they want to be the top dogs of the computer world, a company that gives customers a technological experience that they simply cannot get anywhere else. But the statement is so poorly constructed! This is the statement that you’ll be using to represent your company, to give it direction – please make sure that it makes sense.

Sony (Europe): “Sony is committed to developing a wide range of innovative products and multimedia services that challenge the way consumers access and enjoy digital entertainment. By ensuring synergy between businesses within the organisation, Sony is constantly striving to create exciting new worlds of entertainment that can be experienced on a variety of different products.”

Ugh, synergy. Is there any business buzz word so widely hated and vilified? Don’t ever use the word synergy in your mission statement. It makes it sound like you’re out of touch and grasping for straws. The first half of the statement is actually pretty good. It’s clear, understandable, and is a lofty goal Sony can aspire to. But the second half is just a white-hot mess of corporate nonsense. ‘Exciting new worlds?’ Really? Avoid falling into the trap of playing up some kind of corporate culture that likely does not exist, and make sure your goals are always clear.

And never use the word synergy. Ever.

Enron: “Respect, Integrity, Communication and Excellence.”

Enron’s statement wasn’t necessarily bad. It was a little silly, and very vague, but those four things were goals that could reasonably guide a business’s development. The reason we’re giving Enron a place on our list, however, is because they didn’t follow their mission statement. At all. It’s hard to respect your customers and shareholders when you hide your debts and cost people their pensions and livelihoods. Your mission statement shouldn’t just be a collection of nice sounding words. It should help guide your principles, and form how the outside world views your company.

Hershey: “Undisputed Marketplace Leadership”

That’s it. Undisputed. Market. Leadership. That type of statement would fit better on a propaganda poster used to prop up a tottering military regime. It’s clear, but it’s vague and leaves a bad taste in your mouth – not the best affect when your flagship product is chocolate. Even if your goal is total market annihilation, you shouldn’t make that your mission statement. How do you even achieve that? Send a man named Slugworth to steal secrets from your competitors? Make sure your mission statement actually relates to what you sell, and that it puts your company in a positive light.

Just remember that a good mission statement will not make up for a bad business plan. A mission statement simultaneously gives a business something to strive towards, and helps introduce it to the rest of the world. Your customers and employees aren’t idiots, and they’ll know if you just slung a bunch of pointless buzzwords together. Just be honest… and make sure your syntax makes sense.

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