Tag Archives: business

August 12, 2013 · 10:39 am

Weddings

We’re going to a wedding this weekend.

Wedding Bells

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You know you’re getting up there in years when it’s no longer your friends that are getting married but their adult children, which is the case here. Having been married for 35 years my own wedding is a distant memory but I do recall a few things about the day that I think have some business implications as well. Pretty romantic, huh?

One thing I remember was a sense of great optimism.  We were making a statement about our belief in our relationship and how we were better together than we would be as individuals.  Attacking life together was going to advantage us and pooling our emotional and financial resources (which were pretty limited at that point) would give us a leg up.  I don’t think we thought about it in those kind of terms exactly, but we knew it was the right thing to do.

What we didn’t know was the work involved.  Anyone who tells you that a marriage is an easy walk in the park probably hasn’t been married or for very long.  The stress of every day life can test not only the partnership bond but also the very concept of being together in the first place.   Making it work can be hard but it’s been tremendously rewarding.

New businesses are the same.  You have a great idea.  You think you can add resources, gear up, and do something better than anyone else is doing it – solve a problem with a product or provide a service.  You take on partners – investors, other workers, even the people who pay the bills – clients or customers.  Easy right?

Ha!  No sane business person will describe it as easy.  It’s a lot of work and unfortunately the business failure rate is almost as high as the divorce rate.  How the partnership deals with adversity and ever-changing conditions shows a lot.  Is there honest dialog or a lot of shouting?  Are you working on the problem together or are people retreating into their safe shells while things fail around them?

I love weddings, maybe because I’m an optimist at heart.  I love young businesses too – I work with a few in my practice.  The key to both is a commitment to work together to solve the mysteries that are life and business.  So far, so good for me.  You?

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August 7, 2013 · 10:14 am

If You See Something…

I don’t know about where you live, but those of us in the New York area are hit on a regular basis with a message that “if you see something, say something.”

say something

(Photo credit: istolethetv)

It’s in the subway, on trains, on bus stops, and on mass media. If you believe the reports, and I do, those sorts of actions have prevented some nasty incidents over the last decade.

I got to thinking about that the other day from a bit of a different perspective which of course then led into some business thinking. We all know a person who displays symptoms of things not being right in their lives. Those symptoms could come in the form of substance abuse or a big weight gain. Maybe their personality has changed – gone from light to dark. If you care about that person, you probably think about a way to say something that asks about what’s going on. It’s hard – people have feelings, after all and they are probably just as aware as you are of what they’re doing. Probably more so.  The ensuing discussion can be hard for both of you.  Sometimes it can derail a friendship.  More often, it begins a healing process, but only if you care enough to say something.

The same is true in a business.  The symptoms are different, obviously.  Unhappy team members, a faltering bottom line, processes that are inefficient.  Those things won’t fix themselves until someone cares enough to say something.  Oddly, the people who are best equipped to do that are often the youngest or newest members of the team.  They approach the business with few preconceptions and “new eyes.”  The problem is that they tend to hold their tongues believing that it’s their newness or lack of knowledge that makes them see the flaws rather than the familiarity of the day-to-day that’s blinding everyone else.

I always demanded that new hires speak up.  I reminded them of their special status – everything is new – and that they should ask about anything that didn’t make sense to them.  If they saw something, they were to say something.  If their supervisor or I didn’t have a good reason for the way things were, we needed to do the hard work of introspection.

Hopefully you’d never let a friend in pain stay there alone once you see the symptoms.  You can’t let a business remain there either.  Say something – everyone will be better off.  Agreed?

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July 31, 2013 · 8:34 am

Why You Suck At Social

I’m feeling a little snarky this morning so I’ll apologize in advance if this comes across as yet another bitter old guy (all you kids get off the lawn!).

Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...

Image via CrunchBase

I ran into yet another so-called “social media guru” the other day.  OK, I ran into the chaos they left but felt as if I’d been smacked across the face by their incompetence in person.   Oh, they market themselves far better than I do – that’s how someone of their abilities manages to get nice gigs with otherwise smart clients – brilliant marketing.  They excel at leveraging themselves online.  Bringing those tactics to bear for clients in a manner that grows the client’s business?  Not so much.  Let me explain.

Even as we’re five years into the age of social media marketing (I hate that term), many clients aren’t told the truth about it by those of us they employ to bring them up to speed.  Some of my so “peers” don’t explain that social is hard work and it’s not a place to stash the interns (since they’ll be on Facebook and Twitter all day anyway).  Make a page and magic will happen!

That’s an apt analogy except very few of us point out that when “magic” happens as we watch a performer do a trick, hundreds or thousands of hours of prep and practice have gone into making it seem seamless.  There are often specialized boxes or mirrors involved and one false move brings disaster.  Of course, “smoke and mirrors” is not exactly the type of reputation I think we’d want for our brands but I could be wrong.  Magicians put in the work and have the right tools.

So let’s try this one more time.  To do social well, companies have to blow up a very fundamental part of their thinking.  While most marketing is all about the product or brand, social is not.  It’s about your audience, and you need to focus squarely on them with the odd brand message here or there.  What’s helpful to them?  If you’re not willing to make that investment as well, maybe think about print or TV or some other medium where you can just barf out messages about how great you are.  You need to have a plan and tools and people with enough business acumen to assure all the stakeholder interests are aligned, including those of your customers.

And you “gurus?”  Get off my lawn…

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