“Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.”

September 29, 2009 Leave a comment

- Vince Lombardi

What a common mistake to take a very good employee and make him a manager without making sure he can be successful. Great leadership comes out of hard work but also of being coached, supported and mentored. We should always work a leadership plan for all our key employees – to give them to tools AND the time to become the leaders they can become.

Yes, someone can have good leadership skills but like anything else in life, you need to fine tune things, give time to mature. Not nurturing properly these skills results in bad managers – which is a double loss: you will be short on managers/leaders to drive business forward and you’ve lost a good soldier as well. This is very costly – more than anyone usually realize …

Bottom line: any company needs some form of a leadership development plan

Filed under Quotes Galore

A room full of monkeys and a loaded gun

September 28, 2009 1 Comment

I love this saying. It has for me quite a visual illustration of upcoming business fatalities. You just know that something is bound to happen, you don’t know how and when but it will happen. Now the trick if not to be in the room when it does …

Filed under Quotes Galore

The Fundamental Challenge with Corporate Branding

September 24, 2009 4 Comments

While I was reading the 2009 best global brands ranking , I started thinking about the challenge of startups and even mid sized companies to successfully manage their brand.

Vision & Mission

So what can you do to get your Corporate Brand into the right direction? First, you need you begin to have clarity in the Corporate Vision and Mission. Where do you believe you will be in the future and what will be the impact of your Company in the market? Beyond your executive team, how many employees and people in the industry understand and agree with your Vision and Mission? This is a fundamental component of your business and should not be underestimated – even more importantly with your staff. They need to understand why this means for them and how they can actually have a positive impact on your Corporate goals stated as part of the Vision and Mission.

Core Values

This is also something that is too many times neglected. What are your core values? Are you enforcing them throughout all your processes and decision-making? Core values cannot be half-baked. Either you endorse them fully or you don’t. Going halfway is probably as worse as not have any stated core values … Again, just as for the Vision & Mission, how much do your employees buy in to the core values? Do they know them well? One trick is to paint your Core Values on the walls of the office and conference rooms.

Distinctive Competences

A brand is valuable because it means something to your customers and the market you serve. One key contributor to this value is having a clear set of distinctive competences. How unique is your company compared to your competitors. Do you have competences that go beyond what other do or have? Having clarity and focus about your uniqueness in your competences can greatly help increase the perceived value of your brand.

Long Term Strategy

People like to follow companies that know where they are going. Having a well-defined long-term strategy is key. The Vision and Mission says where you want to land but do you know how to get there? Do you have the right map to success? Be clear about your path and how you are going to achieve your Vision.

Deliver the goods

Also this means having a strong product plan and roadmap. Above and beyond, you need to make sure you deliver a constant flow of good products and solutions that make sense for the consumer. If every time you release something, people need to be explained why you are doing what you’re doing, you can’t buildup a strong brand. Make sure customers can see an evolution in what you’re doing – your products need to reflect this.

These are fundamentals that need to be in place if you ever want to achieve brand recognition – even spending a lot of marketing dollars does not ever replace this.

Filed under Business Principles, Marketing Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Pain is Inevitable, Misery is an Option

September 21, 2009 Leave a comment

No pain no gain as some would say. Taking risk in both our work and lives can result in feeling pain – there is no way around this. But if you don’t take those risks out of fear of getting hurt, then you will never achieve success and to some extend, love.

Of course, you want to take calculated risk in everything you are doing. There is no point of being suicidal when tackling objectives that are not realistic. One of my measures in risk taking is counting the number of Ifs you have in your way. How many are there? Do you have an idea on how (or find ways) to resolve them? If there is too many unknowns or elements that you are not sure you can achieve, then failure is almost guaranteed.

As for relationships (or lack thereof), there is only one occasion by which you won’t feel pain at the end of it – it’s when you die first. Otherwise, it is an absolute guarantee that there will be some level of pain at the end.

So pain is inevitable in almost anything we do, what about being miserable? Well that’s all ours, we choose to be miserable – nothing is forcing us to be like that. Ever since I discovered this quote, I am a lot less prone to being miserable as I approach any new challenge, friendship and relationships with the belief that there will be pain in the process or at the end – and leave misery to others …

And out of pain, comes opportunities of personal growth. Nothing good comes out of misery.

Filed under Quotes Galore Tagged with , , , ,

The Purpose of a Web Site

September 18, 2009 2 Comments

Of course, everybody knows that you need to have a web site for your Company. But are you clear about its purpose for your specific needs? Are you looking to increase brand awareness, generate leads or even sell your product online?

Having a clear understanding of what is the purpose of the site as well as having measurable targets and objectives is fundamental to having a web site that will actually help to grow your business – not just spending Marketing dollars.

Targeted audience

Who are the people that you want to attract to your web site? If it’s a targeted audience, you need to be able to articulate what they are looking for and how you need to design your site in order to be compelling and valuable for them. If you are selling a product, you need to take the visitor by the hand and lead him thru a discovery process that will lead them ultimately to contact you or to buy directly your product from the site. Having a BUY NOW button on the front page of a B2B web site even before you have explained why someone should consider buying your solution will result in virtually no click-thru.

Telling a story

Visitors to your site may not fully grasp all the value of your offering. You need to think of telling a story with the end result of getting them to contact you. Why would they care about what you do? Why is this valuable for their business? This requires you to build a journey where the prospects will navigate and inform/document themselves about your solution. Pushing a bunch of action calls such as request a demo, contact us and buy now won’t help the process unless they are ready to be pro-active with their visit. Think of your own experience on the web. How many times to you ask to contact a company unless you are convinced you want to talk to someone? The web is a lot about self-service; create a great web experience and they will end up contacting you – if you have the right product of course.

Limit the number of calls to action

Customers are very good at determining when they are ready to talk to you. In the meantime, provide them with sufficient content that will inform and educate them: e-books, video, white papers, etc. The call to actions on any page needs to make sense for the visitor. If you are entering a product overview page of an expensive B2B solution, the next step should be GET MORE INFO, not BUY NOW.  The more the lead learns about your product thru self-service, the lower your cost of sales will be. Forcing a quick transfer of a web lead to a manual/human driven process is cost prohibitive and is not scalable. As a rule of thumb, you should not have more than 3 calls to action: one for additional info, one for referencing (customer stories, etc) and lastly (and really the last item) one asking to contact you – this should NEVER be the first call to action in a B2B world.

Nurturing leads on the Web takes time

Like many things in life, nothing happens overnight and a web site is no exception. You need to continuously improve your site for targeted traffic and help the visitors navigate thru a positive learning experience about your company and the solutions you sell. There is no quick fix and the stronger the content on your site will be, the better you will do. Look at metrics that can actually help achieve the goals and objectives of your site. For example, if you want to improve credibility and demonstrate the strength of your solution, do not track necessarily traffic size but rather the quality of the feedback of the leads that come in or the number of inbound links to your site.

Bottom line: stay focused on your objectives and give yourself time to measure success…

One key tool to improve your web site is to have proper launch plans, read more

Filed under Business Principles, Marketing, Sales Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Growing a Company is also about Growing Up …

September 17, 2009 Leave a comment

We spend a lot of time talking about Company growth and how to achieve greater heights. But we forget too many times that this requires our business to grow up as well. What worked in the past is not guaranteed to work in the future.

Growth only comes out of change – and this can only begin with yourself. As a Leader, you need to continuously re-invent yourself ; learning new skills, pushing your boundaries, challenging status-quo. This is not an easy thing to do but if you can’t find the tools to do it yourself, find a coach, a mentor, someone that will help you see what you can do to become an even better Leader.

“Now that I am at the head of the Company, I don’t need to change ; everybody else does”

Sadly enough, I have heard this before and you wont be surprised to learn that this company has a high turnover and the employees have a low degree of attachment.  Leading requires to show the example and believing that change only happens below you is a huge mistake …

Read more about Getting the most of your employees

Filed under Quotes Galore Tagged with , , , , , , ,

“If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.”

September 14, 2009 Leave a comment

- Henry Ford

How many time do you hear a sales team talk about what the customers want? Just like Henry Ford, you need to make sure to ask what the customers need – which is harder to find out as you have to spend more time asking the right questions and understanding the real issues customers have … otherwise you will spend a lot of time building a faster horse :-)

Read more about product validation in this post.

Filed under Quotes Galore

“The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.”

September 13, 2009 Leave a comment

Kenneth Blanchard, University of Massachusetts, Schatz, Managing By Influence, (Prentice-Hall, 1986)

Entrepreneurs often begin to “lead” by using authority and too often like a dictator (I know, that’s how I started myself …). But over time, I have learned that to be a coach and supporter were key tools in order to become a great influencer. Read more on this post I did a couple of months ago …

Filed under Quotes Galore

“No battle was ever won according to plan, but no battle was ever won without one.”

September 11, 2009 2 Comments

–Dwight D. Eisenhower

Thanks to Camille Caron (Corporate Marketing Manager, Matrox Graphics Inc.)  for this great quote. Camille also adds: “This quote reminds me how often we’re trying to hit a moving target. As leaders, we need to communicate our vision (i.e. have a plan) so that our “troops” will follow. However, as we learn more about our target audience, do market research, or hit development roadblocks, we need to adapt and adjust our course.”

This is so very true and I always have a problem when the CEO will justify not having a plan because things will change, that’s how the Company can stay agile, nimble and flexible. Just like I don’t understand Product Teams that do not have a product roadmap longer than 3-6 months. Of course, things will change but this no excuse for not having a vision, direction, a plan. Great companies don’t succeed without plans or roadmaps …

Filed under Quotes Galore Tagged with , , , , , ,

Press Releases that Matter

September 10, 2009 1 Comment

How many press releases do you read and after you’ve gone thru the whole document, you’re still not clear about what the Company is trying to say? No one can afford to distribute a press release that will not successfully convey the message. And please don’t just count newsfeeds that just copy your press release verbatim. For me, you only get a successful press release out when you are seeing editors and other contributors make a summary or editorial of your news. And that the news will carry over beyond the day of the announce …

The Title and Subtitle

So what do you want to say? Please do not try to write fancy “Pulitzer prize” literature, go for clarity … what is the one thing that you want people to remember. The title should be as short as it can be. Anything that has more than a line is virtually impossible for people to remember AND repeat. Please realize that a message is only good when it trickles down to more people – anyone that has done viral marketing in the past knows to well about this. The subtitle is there to support the primary message with additional information.

Target Audience

You need to know who is the target audience that you want to be made aware of this news. Are you addressing this to the Exec level of your potential customers, your individual users or to the entire industry you are serving? If you are announcing a new feature that is meant for a given audience, tailor the whole release to them. Writing for everyone and no one will just make the news muddy.

What is the Call to Action?

Are you expecting people to do something once they read your news? Do you want them to go buy something? Is it ready for purchase? When will it be? Is there a specific page on your site that provides more information? Don’t ever expect people to do something unless you help them in the process.

Stay away from the “Technobable” Frenzy and  “Pulitzer prize” Literature

The simplest way to describe something can be the hardest to do – but the payout is huge. Never assume that people will get what you are saying unless it is clear and simply explained. If you are announcing an innovation, explain why that is. If you are announcing a new feature, explain what more this gives the customers. If this is a major milestone, explain how it fits in your strategy. Any qualifier you give the news need to be supported to a certain degree. Remove any information that does not directly support your news (minus what you usually have in your boilerplate). And please do not invent new words, now matter how cool you think that is …

The ultimate test on the quality of your press release is to take someone from your Company that is not in the know of the news and let him or her read it, and explain to you what are the key points of the news. If you don’t get a clear answer or not getting the points you were aiming for, you won’t get it from the market once it’s released…

Filed under Business Principles, Marketing Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

← Older posts

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,060 other followers