Strategy

18th May 2011 / Posted in: General, Management, Operational management, Productivity, Strategy

What Keeps You Awake At Night?

What stops you sleeping?  Other than your partner snoring, or car alarms going off in the night, we sometimes find ourselves lying awake mulling over business concerns such as cash flow, cost control, sales pipeline, winning new business, retaining existing business, managing clients, competitor activity, staff performance, being too busy and not having enough time for everything, work-life balance,  etc.  Every business is different, as is our individual capacity for managing stress, so I’ve chosen just three worries which have given my clients, friends and me sleepless nights. 

Start with the end in sight

I’ve been asked this same question by business owners who work for themselves and have a really unique set of skills and experiences, and others growing their business. The question they both want answered is whether, or when, they should take on staff.  My answer to both is a question - ‘What is your exit plan?’ Do you want to turn the lights off, close the door and go home when it’s time to move on to the next thing, or do you want a business to sell?  If you want the former then you’ll need to manage the business to maximise your revenue streams.

The latter is more complex because if you’ve been doing everything yourself, and your business is ‘your baby,’ you may have difficulty letting go.  You may not be the best person to analyse your strengths, and the complementary skills required to share the load, so taking professional advice may save sleepless nights in the long term.

Taking your eye off the ball

If you’ve been in business a number of years, and you have a number of long standing clients, a good sales pipeline and you’re reasonably effective at winning new business  you probably enjoy what you do and feel quite pleased with the way business is going. But, it’s easy to feel too comfortable and take your eye off the ball in such a subtle way that you don’t even notice you are doing it.  Compared with the early days you deliver services to your clients more efficiently, you’re more familiar with your clients, your hunger is less pronounced and you’ve drifted out of the habit of challenging yourself to ensure you’re going the extra mile. Your clients seem happy. Nothing is broken so there’s nothing to fix. You’ve become complacent, you haven’t noticed and it’s a dangerous place to be.

Then disaster strikes. What seems like a insignificant oversight really damages a long standing client relationship and they either terminate the contract or ask you to re-tender. The mistake seems disproportionate to the client reaction. Either way, you feel devastated and you lie at wake feeling guilty and worrying about your other client relationships.

This isn’t an unusual situation and one I’ve experienced as an employee.  The reality is that statistics show clients move on every 7 years.  Your oversight just provided the trigger.

Don’t lose more sleep - learn from your mistake to avoid repeating the disaster: 

• if you’ve had clients for 5 years or more, start succession planning - don’t wait until you lose a client
• business is dynamic. If you haven’t refreshed your offering for the last couple of years it’s time you did
• don’t put off a periodic review because business is going well and you think the relationship will stand it, and don’t make it a repeat of the last review
• keep watching your competitors and your clients’ competitors
• put your self in your clients’ shoes. What would make them move to another supplier?
• remember that going the extra mile when the client relationship started is very different from what you need to do for a mature client business
• your priorities are not your clients’ priorities (see below)
• clients hire you because of your personality and the perceived added value you would bring. They probably selected two or three competitors for the original pitch but it was something about you that won the business. Over time this uniqueness can fade so it’s important not to get too comfortable in a relationship.  Most relationships that fail - whether personal or business - do so because of poor communication.

The waiting game

Have you ever sent a proposal to a client and heard nothing for weeks, sent information a client needed urgently and heard nothing, found yourself waiting for a signed agreement or purchase order to progress a project you’ve agreed with the client?  Most of us have been kept waiting, and probably lost sleep over it thinking the worst. 

What we forget is that our priorities are not our client’s priorities, and most of our clients have many responsibilities and priorities we don’t even know about, so the trick is not to worry.  In my experience if clients are unhappy they’ll waste no time telling you.   If you have a deadline to meet - don’t rely on e-mail - pick up the phone.  Leaving a message or speaking to a colleague conveys more urgency than an e-mail. If there’s no deadline then give the client a week then e-mail or call.  I had a client whose capability intimidated me.  I was approaching a deadline, had heard nothing so plucked up courage to pick up the phone. It was a great decision. The client was clearly much happier to discuss the issues on the phone than ping e-mails back and fore.  And, guess what - I feel more in tune with my client and I’m no longer feeling intimidated.

If I request information from someone I always e-mail a thank you as I think it’s bad manners not to do so. However I’ve found that my standards are not always the same as those of my clients or suppliers which can leave me feeling nervous when I've sent them something and heard nothing.   It can be true that no news is good news as if you get it wrong you'll hear soon enough so if you hear nothing leave it a few days then call to check what you've sent has arrived safely.

It's easy to fall into the trap of being less formal about aspects of managing relationships with clients. To ensure everyone has the same perception of  what was agreed at a meeting it's a good idea to write a succinct contact report, and when meetings are arranged verbally don't forget to send an e-mail confirmation.

This blog was written as a guest blog for Sussex Enterprise and published on their website in April 2011.

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10th May 2011 / Posted in: Comfort zone, Management, Planning and preparation, Strategy

Outside My Comfort Zone

Some of my work involves helping clients address issues they’ve been avoiding - usually because it takes them out of their comfort zone.  On Sunday I tasted of my own medicine by stepping, or should I say, cycling, outside of mine. In a moment of madness I’d let my cycling-mad brother persuade me to enter the Davina’s Diva 100 - a women only 100km cycle ride in aid of Action Medical Research (www.action.org.uk/davinas_diva100).  He knew I wanted to get better acquainted with my road bike and what better way to do it than a 100km cycle starting in Cowdray Golf Club - a couple of miles from where I live.

Preparing for the day

Friends say I’m pretty fit so I just needed to spend more time in the saddle to prepare.  It sounded logical and plausible but as the day grew closer I felt outside my comfort zone as I’d never cycled further than 68km, and what if I didn’t have the stamina; fell off and got hurt; had to ride in wind or rain; got cold - which stops me functioning; crashed - I’ve never cycled in a group. Worst of all what if I couldn’t finish.

As this daunting task grew closer I put myself in my clients shoes. I focused on the things I could control not the ‘what ifs.’ I read the event manual and planned what to wear and take with me, what to take to eat and drink, what to have for breakfast before and what time I needed to get up.  I’d seen the route before I made the decision to enter so I either had to stick with my decision or pull out. Obsessing about the number and length of the hills wouldn’t help. I knew I needed to keep a positive, ‘can do’  frame of mind. My brother and my friends believed in me. I just needed to believe in me too. I couldn’t do anything about things out of my control - like the weather. Instead I decided the weather was like a day at work - you’re never quite sure what it may throw at you but whatever it does you can probably deal with.

They’re off

The cyclists were being set of in groups of 30 and my plan was to be in the first group - start early, finish early and enjoy the rest of the day at home.  My approach was just what I help my clients to do - break down the task into  manageable chunks. With food stations at 33km and 66km the route naturally fell into three chunks, each of which was about the same distance as my cycle to work.  But, to do these in succession I knew I must cycle steadily, at my usual pace making sure I kept fueled and hydrated, as its too late leaving it until you feel hungry or thirsty.

'The start of the Davina's Diva 100km cycle ride

I kept my distance from other cyclists at the start and after the first couple of miles, I settled into rhythm and found myself not far behind the lady leading the group. She looked like a better and more experienced cyclist than me - judging by her bike and her sculpted calves! I decided to keep her in sight as her pace was similar to mine and watch what she did as my brother says to watch follow better cyclists if you want to improve. So, I observed her cadence (the number of times her legs go round) and tried to match. I watched her up hills and adopted her technique of getting out of the saddle early, the result of which made me go up faster with less effort. At last I’d found a good use for those extra 5 lbs I’m carrying! She must be cursing me for what I learned as half way round the course I found my rhythm going up the Trundle meant I was cycling faster than her so nervously I crept past her. With no-one ahead to focus on I keep an eye on my average pace on my Garmin watch until about 16km later I got overtaken by a faster rider. I caught up with her going past Stansted Park and we rode together and chatted for quite some while. Imagine how good I felt to find myself cycling alongside someone who said she could just keep going and going, had been doing triathlons for 7 years and recently completed the full Ironman!  Sadly here stamina took her ahead of me about half an hour before the end. That was the toughest bit. I was on my own, it was windy, my legs were tired and my back hurt. I’d come this far, and in a good time, so I just focussed on maintaining my pace.  Seeing a road sign ‘Midhurst 4’ gave me a real boost. I crossed the line after 4 hours 10 minutes and 8 seconds.

Pleased with my achievement

What I learned

None of the things I had worried about stopped me achieving my goal. There were a few spots of rain, it was windy and my legs were really tired towards the end but I had the right mental approach to get to the finish.  Even better, I shaped this blog in my head as I was cycling.  Conquering something outside my comfort zone gave me a great sense of achievement and reminded me that the experiencs we learn at work are often very useful to our home lives and vice versa.

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8th April 2011 / Posted in: Blogging, Communication strategy, Marketing strategy, Social media, Social networking, Social networking policy, Strategy, Tweeting, Twitter

Unravelling Social Media

As a result of my social networking I was invited to the Payroll World Spring Update Conference (www.payrollworld.com/springupdate/) to demystify social media, and as an effective user of social media the following is a blog of the presentation.

Unravelling social media

The presentation was a whistle-stop tour covering:

• what social media is and what makes it different
• why people and companies use it
• how companies can use social media and how business professionals can use it in a business context.
• the benefits of using social media
• why lots of companies, particularly the HR department, get worried about social media

Many people think of Facebook when they think of social media those with kids probably wonder why they’re chatting on Facebook with their school friends when they only saw them half an hour ago.  It’s no different now from how kids used spend time on the phone.

But there’s a lot more to social media than Facebook - particularly from a business context. It’s no longer the “new” thing - it’s here to stay, so we can’t ignore the changes going on around us and whilst we need to adapt, the needs of the business must come first.

What is social media?

According to Wikipedia social media is: “a blending of web-based or mobile technologies and social interaction for the co-creation of value”
In essence it’s how we use todays web-based technologies - at home and on the move to communicate,  and this interaction creates value by enriching our lives in some way. 

Examples of social media

In the same way the marketing mix is made up of a number of different communication channels such as advertising - TV, radio, press etc, PR, direct marketing, to name a few, social media is made up of 6 broad categories.  As with advertorial  -  which is paid editorial - there is a cross over between some of the core types of social media and as technology advances the cross overs will probably become greater.

In the same way an organisation would use a combination of press and TV advertising supported with PR, if the marketing strategy defines that social media as an appropriate tool to reach their market then they are unlikely to find that using one communication channel will meet their strategic aims.

One of the problems encountered with social media is people focus too much on the tools rather than what they are trying to achieve.  I often come across businesses and individuals who say ‘I must start tweeting’ rather than I’m tweeting, blogging and using LinkedIn to build relationships with my target audience.

There are 6 broad categories of social media:

• Social networking sites: are probably the ones that come to mind when someone mentions social media eg.Facebook, LinkedIn.
• Facebook is predominantly B 2 C (business to consumer) and conversely LinkedIn is professional business networking. Since 2002, LinkedIn has been building the world’s largest professional network on the Internet. It now has more than 90 million users in 200 countries, who conducted nearly two billion people searches last year.This group includes sites with a variety of functions such as finding stories based on your interests - Reddit and StumbleUpon, recommending stories to others - DiggIt, sites that tell followers where you are - such as FourSquare. The list is endless
• Sites for images: still or moving - such as YouTube, Picasa, Flickr.  As well as being a site for uploading films and music, YouTube has become the second largest search engine after Google
• Blogging - is the publishing of a short article on the internet either through their own website or use blogging tools such as Wordpress or Blogger.
• Microblogging - is the publishing of a a very short article - only 140 characters (although there is software to extend) and the most well known platform is Twitter. Twitter is a a network devoted exclusively to microblogging. It’s predominantly B2B although there are many B2C successes.
• Group forums: Those of you that use LinkedIn will be familiar with the groups, forums and discussions.
• Web based sources of information: web based sources of information to which anyone can upload information - the best know of which is Wikipedia

I must stress these are only a few examples in each sector as there are many, many others you may have heard of.

What makes social media different?

Firstly - unlike other, traditional media social media is free whereas traditional forms of media used to take products or services to market have all had a cost - both in terms of media space and in preparation of the communication for that medium. It’s also immediate and can have very little or no lead in time. 

The biggest difference is that social operates on three levels:

1. As you’d expect - the corporate message - in my case SFM Consulting
2. Next is a corporate message from an individual. Historically you only expected this from a spokesperson - but many companies allow their staff to communicate as say Sarah of SFM Consultiung
3. Finally you as whoever you choose to be.

Social media is simply a communication channel but where social media differs from other communication channels is that any member of staff can set up accounts on various social media platforms and blog or chat away. It operates in real time so there aren’t the lead in times with most forms of social media as there are with traditional forms, and communicating in real time social media can add value to a business.

Conversely, whilst you may think that because it’s real time, it’s instant therefore it’s out of date or forgotten very quickly. However everything posted on the web can be found at a future date so there are other risks and benefits.

Why use social media?

From a business point of view, the main reasons people use social media are for:

• Finding or meeting people: old colleagues and friends or people with a particular skill or expertise
• Finding out things, information and learning: It’s an enormous, and quick to use,  source of information which provides learning and development opportunities.
• Sharing, collaborating and influencing: Sharing information such as blogs and articles which is often done to drive traffic to the website. It enables people with similar, often specialist skills and knowledge to communicate and collaborate with similar people.  IIt provides exposure to the great people who work in a company and the great work done by a company. Using social medial can raise your profile.
• Socialising and keeping in touch: To socialise - this doesn’t only apply to Facebook - I use Twitter for keeping in touch with business friends and contacts.
• Marketing: It’s a new platform for amplifying communications,  a source of client or customer insight and it facilitates the customer experience - internally and externally - and provides direct, two way engagement. It also levels out the playing field as the cost and accessibility is the same whoever you are. The choice of social media used by an organisation should be driven by the marketing strategy not the desire to have a presence on Twitter, however companies need to watch whether their competitors are using social media as if the your clients or customers are reading about your competitors not you, you have a problem.
• Recruitment: We have a generational change. School and university leavers communicate on Facebook so it’s appropriate to communicate with them on the same platform. Many large organisations are successfully using social media for recruitment. There are conferences dedicated to it - and it’s not just school or university leavers using social media for job hunting, and as with marketing it levels out the playing field.

How organisations can use - Internally

However a company chooses to use social media it should be driven by their communications strategy and not something they fall into.  An attitudinal change is probably needed for social media to become an intrinsic part of the communication internally and externally. 

• Communication:  Having no voice or being unheard is the main contributor to breakdowns in relationships and working relationships are no different from personal ones in this respect.  Social media is an open form of communication and encouraging openness is to everyone’s benefit.
• Breaking down silos & geographical barriers:  Where social media differs from other communication channels is that any member of staff can set up accounts on various social media platforms and blog or chat away.  They are collaborating, communicating and building relationships. Harness that to the organisation that employs them and think how powerful it can be.
• Influence: People that communicate well tend to get listened to and it is no different on social media.  Influencers are not those at the top but those that connect with the maximum number of members in a community. They can make change happen, so it’s important for every organisation to know who is a key influencer.
• Learning:  There’s a great deal to be learned from social media - from information that is circulated, comments people make, by watching your competitors - the opportunities are endless. Probably the most difficult thing is being selective and disciplined about your use of time. Information sharing and distribution using social media platforms are a useful training resource.
• Collaboration:  Collaboration using social media within an organisation is like a staff survey going on all the time.  Comments are a great gift as they aren’t hearsay so can be acted upon, whereas office gossip can’t.  Social media tends to enhance the perception of HR as  they are seen to be doing something.

How organisations can use - Externally

Social networking should be part of the communication and marketing strategy which is driven by business strategy so it’s essential that whoever writes the social media strategy understands what the business needs, and if it is to be successful there is board level buy-in.

• Marketing: Remember, if it’s only your competitors, and their staff, using social media to talk about the market sector in which you operate - you are in trouble. Not only is your company invisible to your target audience, but if your staff are inspired by what they read don’t be surprised if they join the competition. It also allows interaction with existing and potential clients/customers and drives traffic to your website
• Influence:  Influence operates at three levels: the company. the individual on behalf of the company, the individual.  As I mentioned earlier it is those that have the greatest number of contacts and followers in a community that are the biggest influencers.
• Collaboration: Collaboration isn’t just something that happens internally. Many organisations with niche roles encourage collaboration externally to increase knowledge and job satisfaction.
• Expertise: Companies can position themselves as experts by giving exposure to the great people that work for them and the great things they do.
• Recruitment: I’ve already mentioned that social media is a rapidly growing tool for recruitment and also has the benefit of being far less costly than traditional media. Last year Oracle did 99.8% of their recruitment through social media.

Who should own?

Marketing,  Human resources and IT need to work together to develop and implement a social networking strategy to ensure the brand is communicated accurately, internally and externally, in everything they do.

The benefits

• Free:  As well as social media being free, your employees are brand advocates - your best form of free advertising.  It’s a leveller as companies of all sizes have equal clout.
• Improved communication: Positive communication culture and this invariably has a positive effect on innovation and learning. 
• Real time: It has brought corporate communication into real time.
• Breaks down barriers - geographical, communication: The combination of social media and smart phones can remove geographical separation in multi site organisations.  Internal social networking systems get staff collaborating and working together - the cumulative strength of this is usually greater than the sum of the constituent parts.Social networking brings out the influencers - and this link can make things happen.
• Feedback mechanism: Feedback is the most valuable asset - internal or external. As it’s ‘written’ it can be acted upon. From an internal perspective you can’t stop employees being negative about their employer or colleagues - they’ve always done it - in the coffee room/pub, out with colleagues/friends. If these negative comments are on social media they may be quashed by colleagues. If they stimulate others to join in - you know there is a problem and because the comments are in writing they can be acted upon.  Historically gossip was hearsay and HR couldn’t address - the business benefits if these conversations are in the open.  Curiously people who don’t like to speak out in public are often happy to “speak” via social media.

The concerns

I’m sure everyone has concerns about social media or works with colleagues that do, however if you start looking for negatives - you’ll never stop finding them.

Rather than take the cup half full approach, embrace the positives and have sensible guidelines to protect against the negatives.  Having reams of strict rules won’t work as most people have an inner child - telling them something isn’t allowed makes them rebel and they give it a try.  The fact that many staff will have smart phones means they can access social media throughout the day if they choose to.

Kodak have been actively using social media for 4 years & Thomas Hoehn, Director of Interactive Marketing says that the fears people used as reasons to avoid social media just never materialised. (http://www.kodak.com/US/images/en/corp/aboutKodak/onlineToday/Kodak_SocialMediaTips_Aug14.pdf)

• Reputation: A leap of faith is needed to let staff embrace social media and start connecting, and because social media is relatively new, and the media only like bad new stories - there’s a long way to go before we eradicate the fear. The fear is: fear of the unknown, fear of transparency, fear of the immediacy and fear of employees damaging the company’s reputation. Coca Cola’s on line social media principles can be downloaded from the internet (http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/socialmedia). They are short and they encourage their staff to have fun, be smart, to use sound judgement and common sense and follow their Code of Conduct.  People aren’t aware, or forget, that the Internet has a long memory. Don't publish anything if you aren't confident about as  it will still be on-message in 12 months time.
• Damage to the brand: In addition to reputation damage can be done by an inconsistent approach to the brand. Everyone within an organisation is a brand ambassador so everyone should understand the brand. Many companies already have inconsistencies with their brand - whether it is internal policies not reflecting the brand or recruitment methods not reflecting the brand, to name but two, so good education and understanding of the brand is essential if staff are to use social media and their message is consistent with the brand.
• Time wasting:  Firstly we can’t and shouldn’t assume staff are wasting time, however many organisations still judge staff by what they are seen to be doing and Tweetdeck or LinkedIn on the screen suggests they aren’t working.  However, there will always be lazy staff or time wasters.  There was a time when they stared out of the window and day dreamed - today there are just different distractions.  Management and HR can be unnecessarily worried about distractions. Performance is the issue - culture needs to be output driven rather than driven by rigid rules.
• Lack of trust: If you don’t trust a member of staff I would ask why you are employing them? An over-controlling culture will cause rebellion and disengage staff. Social media won’t engage disengaged staff. If your employees are engaged, and they believe in the values of your company, and can operate in a transparent culture in which they are trusted to do things the right way, then you have nothing to fear from them embracing social media.
• Lack of understanding:  Staff need to understand the aspects of the communication strategy that affect them, how and why the company uses social media, the brand and what they are encouraged to do. In my experience if staff understand what you are trying to achieve and why, rather than being given set of rules saying ‘you mustn’t’ they feel involved, empowered and are more likely to get involved in the way you want them involved

To summarise

• Social media isn’t a new fad - its here to stay.
• When a company adopts social media - internally and externally - will be driven by it’s strategy and the needs of the business. 
• For social medial to be an effective tool internally and externally a positive approach to educating those involved and understanding the aims are essential.
• Integrating social media into the internal and external communication strategy will be influenced by the organisation’s culture and the ability of diverse departments - namely marketing, IT and HR to collaborate.If the culture is negative and one that looks for problems the outcome will be negative.

SFM Consulting can provide training for individuals and companies to help them get started with social networking.

Read more on Unravelling Social Media >

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25th March 2011 / Posted in: Blogging, Communication strategy, Marketing strategy, Social networking, Social networking policy, Strategy, Time management, Tweeting, Twitter

Blogging 4 Business

An invitation from Sussex Enterprise to present a case study about my blogging experiences at their “Blogging 4 Business” breakfast networking event was proof that my blogging is working.

I gave this presentation on 15th March 2011 following Richard Smith of the Internet Consultancy (www.theinternetconsultancy.com) presenting “A handful of fundamentally important things you need to know about blogging for business” and James McLeod of Narvi Digital Media (www.narvi.co.uk) presenting “Your blog, how to get started.”

Summary of the presentation

I work in the B2B sector as a business consultant advising business directors on making their strategy reality through:

• managing their resources effectively
• brand alignment
• management of significant projects

It involves getting inside a business, so building trust is an integral part of winning client business.  When I reflect on where my clients come from, and the collaborative opportunities in which I have become involved, none have come from cold calling.

They’ve all come from:

• Face to face networking
• Personal recommendation
• Social networking

In essence all my business opportunities have arisen from people getting to know me as an individual - either face to face, or through the personality (my brand) that I have developed through social networking. Consequently my marketing strategy focuses on putting myself in front of people - physically and through what I write.

Blogging is just one of the tools I use to deliver my marketing strategy and I try to blog every couple of weeks.  The other tools I use include:

• face to face networking. I have to admit being a “poacher turned gamekeeper” as I used to hate face to face networking in the days when I worked in London and always used to find myself trapped by weirdos and not knowing how to get away. Now I understand the principals, I enjoy it and my business benefits from it. So much so that  I’ve gone the other way and  provide training about how to network and run and participate in role play sessions. I regularly attend Chichester Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Sussex Enterprise, First Friday, South Coast Design Forum and a number of less regular or ad hoc events
• social networking - tweeting and LinkedIn.  I tweet and contribute to discussions and questions on LinkedIn regularly and have found that social networking has speeded up the “getting to know you” process. I don’t use Facebook as it’s more appropriate for B2C businesses.
• giving presentations
• writing guest blogs

If networking is something you do to grow your business - whether it’s face to face or social - it’s important to remember that the golden rule - give before you take!  Help someone else first. If you don’t comment on their blog - don’t be surprised when they don’t comment on yours.

All these activities also drive traffic to my website - and the reason I want traffic is that my website is where you find the detailed information about my business skills and experience. It underpins “the real me” which I present through my networking activity.

How I started blogging

I have to admit that my first foray into blogging was my husband’s idea. His career has been in corporate and financial PR so I reckoned he knew a thing or two about communications.  He suggested I interview CEO’s of SMEs about their business experiences and publish the interviews on my website as “lessons learned”  For anyone familiar with McKinsey Quarterly you’ve spotted where this idea came from.  At this point I should add my husband works with FTSE 100’s .... and I don’t.

The first was an interview with an outgoing CEO and incoming CEO - both of whom had worked together and would continue to do so after the changeover.  It was a very interesting interview. It took many hours of work from preparation before the interview to publishing but I achieved it in less than 4 weeks. This first blog was 2433 words and when I saw very little traffic to my website my husband was very supportive and said I just needed to do more interviews. So I did. The most recent was a staggering 5482 words. The first part of the interview took place in April 2010 and I finally published it in October 2010. Again, a fascinating process, hours and hours of work but the results were the same.  Checking Google Analytics was depressing - the Lessons Learned hadn’t driven traffic to my website.

The changes I made

Before I set up another lessons learned interview I decided to take stock, look at what I was doing and try something else.  I was aiming at a different market from my husband so I decided to make use of  the contacts I’d made through networking - many of whom blogged.  I read their blogs, I asked lots of questions and the turning point was an invitation to a social networking event organised and hosted by a451 (www.a451.co.uk).

There were two speakers at the event who used social networking in contrasting ways - Francoise Murat an interior and architectural garden designer (www.francoisemurat.com) who had grown her business using social networking and Dr Tony Mobbs from IBM who talked about how social networking enabled collaboration and learning within IBM.

After hearing what other people did, reading other blogs and listening to Francoise I decided that “lessons learned” was not right for me and what I needed to do was write short, punchy and relevant blogs as the market to which I’m appealing hasn’t the time, or inclination, to read 5,000 words.  My brand is me - not what my husband thinks it should be, so it’s essential that this comes across in everything I do and write. One of the phrases I use to describe branding is “your brand is like the words in a stick of rock - the same all the way through.”

Making technology work for me

I used Wordpress to blog, which had been embedded in my website by my designer, and to speed up Tweeting I took a step outside my comfort zone. I needed something to link Wordpress to Twitter so asked and read about plug ins then downloaded one that linked the two so my blogs would be tweeted automatically.  I also published my blogs on LinkedIn and circulated to relevant LinkedIn groups. As the tweeting of a blog is a moment in time I’ve learned to circulate more than once - but not to the extent my followers think I’m milking it!

In Summary

• Review your marketing strategy and if social networking is part of it then you need to work out which are the most appropriate tools to use and how you will use them. Remember that all your social networking must be consistent with your brand
• Time is an important consideration - everything takes time but the most important thing is to schedule your priorities NOT prioritise what’s on your schedule. If blogging is a strategic marketing tool you need to be scheduling time to blog.
• Be committed - this comes back to scheduling. If your blog is on your website, you blog regularly for a period then nothing for months it sends a message.  Your marketing strategy should  be driven by a time schedule not a personal whim.
• And finally - the most important rules - remember the Golden rules of networking: - give before you receive - comment on other blogs and they will comment on yours

Read more on Blogging 4 Business >

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24th January 2011 / Posted in: Business efficiency, General, Management, Operational management, Productivity, Strategy, Time management

How much of your time is spent profitably?

My day last Friday started with a networking breakfast with the Chichester Chamber of Commerce and Industry at Vicars Hall.  I wasn’t wholly focused on networking and eating as, in a moment of weakness, I’d agreed to do the 10 minute presentation. Consequently my mind was preoccupied with pre-presenting nerves and whether my Taurean tendencies would deposit fried egg and coffee down the front of my crisp white shirt.

My shirt remained unscathed and judging by the feedback, on Twitter, e-mail and text, my presentation – “How much of your time is spent profitably?” – which only touched the surface of the subject – was very well received.  It’s a great feeling when things go well and although a number of people requested copies of the slides I thought a blog would be more useful,  so here goes …

How much of your time is spent profitably?

My background is in operational management which centred around developing businesses to reach their full potential through utilising their resources effectively. As people are usually one of their most important resources, particularly in smaller organisations, I became HR qualified.

There isn’t a magic answer to using your time more profitably – but if you want different results you probably need to change the way you work. It’s easier said than done given that a staggering 95% of our behaviour happens out of habit – either subconsciously or as a result of external demands.  That’s why we keep doing what we’ve always done – because it’s comfortable and familiar. We also have an infinite capacity for self deception so it’s easy to convince ourselves that if we want to work more profitably we just need to work longer hours.

Central to every (serious) business is its strategy, and writing one takes an enormous amount of time and effort, particularly for small or medium sized businesses. In my experience once the strategy is written and agreed, everyone involved gives a sigh of relief and moves onto something else.  It’s always struck me as odd that we go to so much effort to write a “recipe” for success then fail to refer to it regularly.

Many of us prioritise what we want to do, or what someone is shouting for, rather than focusing on delivering our strategy.   That’s often because the strategic priorities take us somewhere we don’t like going – outside our comfort zone.  But, for your strategy to become part of your priorities – what I call “making strategy reality” – it needs to be part of every working day for you and all your staff. After all if your staff aren’t all working towards delivering the strategy, what are they doing, what are you doing ….. and why are you paying them?

To make your strategy reality means recognising your strategic priorities – even if you are continually bombarded by non strategic demands.  This quote by Dr Stephen Covey says exactly that – very succinctly –

“The key is not to prioritise what’s on your schedule ... but to schedule your priorities”

You can make your strategy part of every working day by:

• identifying the objectives, goals and actions needed to deliver your strategy and translating them into manageable, achievable chunks for everyone in the organisation.
• using your diary – not just for appointments but for scheduling time to focus on your strategic actions.  In my experience if it’s not in the diary it won’t happen. Electronic diaries are great as you can colour code everything. Don’t be tempted to fill your diary up with long sessions thinking you’ll get something cracked because it’s been proven that we can’t stay fully focused, and work intensively and productively, for more than 90 minutes at a stretch. (see The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working by Tony Schwartz)
• making two “to do” lists. It’s something I’ve adopted and it works. I write it in a book and on the left hand page I list my strategic priorities for the week – I often call them revenue generating and on the facing page I list all the rest.  I’ve found it works better than the traditional way of identifying important and urgent.  I schedule time for the strategic priorities, for breaks and for time to get the other actions done.

This may be sounding like it’s creating more work for you – firstly I’ve asked you to change the way you work, then to add your strategic priorities to your workload – so how are you going to fit all this in? Take look at yourself and the demands on you at work. Do you:

• Pursue what you love – always work to your strengths and  passion.  Do you have the skills, passion and application to deliver the strategy?  If the buck stops with you it doesn’t mean that you actually have to do all the strategic priorities
• Spend 80% of your time doing what you are best at
• Review your work load in light of what you love and what you are best at and ask yourself – “Am I the best person to do this?” If you aren’t then the most effective solution is to delegate or outsource

I’ve suggested some big changes which will involve a lot of personal effort, self-discipline and commitment – or you could just stay doing what you’re doing and put your prices up to make more profit.

• by making strategy reality your business will fly
• you’ll have the best people doing every job if you delegate or outsource which brings competitive advantage
• you’ll have more time to focus on what you are really good at

So in summary your business is more likely to reach it’s full potential …. and so are you.

I’ve only had time to touch on this enormous subject very briefly and would like to leave you with a one final thought about how our busy busy lives are affecting us. It’s a quote from Tony Schwartz:

“Is the life you are leading worth the price you are paying to live it?”

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