RESULTS.com - Business Execution Blog

Strategic Communications Plan: 5 On-line Tips

With all the talk about websites, blogs, email newsletters, and social media platforms (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter etc) it is easy to forget that these are just communication tools. If you, as a business leader, do not have a clear and focused marketing strategy with a strategic communications plan, no tool is going to save you.

Assuming you have a quality product or service that is unique and remarkable (worth remarking about), here are some suggestions to help your online communications stand out:

What is the purpose?

Don’t do something just because your competitors are doing it. Get clear on you marketing intentions. What exactly do you want to achieve? What are your options? What are the right online platforms for you? Define what business success looks like for you and how you will measure it.

Have a clear target audience in mind.

When you have a clear target market, your communications become more focused and effective.

To paraphrase Seth Godin – a blog for everybody is a blog for nobody. Keep a clear picture in your mind of exactly who you are writing for at all times.Don’t try to be all things to all people.

7 Steps for Business Leadership Self-confidence

Self-confidence is a key factor in business leadership and ultimately business success. How can future leaders learn to demonstrate more of this? Here are seven suggestions from Marshall Goldsmith with our additional insights added:

1. Decide if you really want to be a business leader - MBA graduates might be great technicians, but many find the uncertainty and ambiguity of being a leader very unsettling.  They are looking for the “right answers” - similar to what they learned in business school.  Not everyone is cut out to lead people, and that is OK.  Some people will find more fulfillment being an expert in a specific area.  Do not feel obligated to become a leader. 
2. Make peace with ambiguity in decision making - There are usually no clear right answers when making business decisions.  Even your best decision has a high probability of being wrong.
3. Do what you think is right - Gather a reasonable amount of data, involve other people to generate a range of options, and encourage robust debate.  If everyone agrees at the outset, tell them to go away and come back with some counter viewpoints.  Then follow your gut and do what you think is right.
4. Demonstrate courage, even when you don’t feel it on the inside - We are all afraid at times - that is just part of being human. If you are going to lead people in tough times, you will need to show more courage than fear. When direct reports see worry and concern on the face of a leader, they lose confidence in the leader’s ability to lead.
5. Accept the fact that you are going to fail on occasion - Build feedback into your decisions to test how they fare against actual events.  Even good decisions have a finite lifespan. All assumptions become obsolete sooner or later.  Reality does not stand still for long. 
6. Once you make a decision, commit and go for it.
7. Act or do not act - The surgeon does not take out half the tonsils. You either operate or you don’t.  Don’t continually second guess yourself. If you really have to change course, then change course.  If you never commit, all you will ever do is change course. The hardest part of any decision is not making it, it is executing it.
8. Life is short. Have fun! - Get a Chief Execution Officer to help you to drive your business froward so you have more time for fun. The last one is on us.

Employee accountability culture

“Whom in your life can you really count on?” This question was posed to one of my business partners recently by author David Irvine. David has written a number of books on culture, leadership and accountability, including Accountability: Getting a Grip on Results, which he co-authored with Sean Murphy and Bruce Klatt.

As I pondered his question, I realized the people who made my list possess two key characteristics in the way that they operate.

First, they take promises seriously by clarifying and con- firming expectations, understanding the required outcomes and making sure that delivering on their promises is realistic. They don’t say “yes” to vague, undefined commitments. In fact, they don’t say “yes” very often at all, being careful to manage other promises they’ve made and not to overcommit.

Second, the people who I can really count on have a system for promise-keeping. They write down their commitments, schedule follow-ups and get things done proactively. They are organized and use paper- or electronic-based task management systems to keep track of their promises and priorities.

ACCOUNTABILITY IN ORGANISATIONS

Just as it matters who we can count on personally, accountability in our organizations matters, too. In fact, the ability to execute on our business strategy depends on our employees’ ability to make and keep promises, to be accountable for outcomes and to deliver on commitments. In our work with clients, lack of accountability is a recurring theme. Here’s what it sounds like:

• “If I could just get my people to care as much about the results as I do, we would be more successful”.

• “It seems like we cover the same issues over and over again, and no one takes ownership for solving the problem”.

• “It doesn’t matter; no one is keeping score.”

If you are hearing phrases like this in your organization, you have an issue with accountability. And because of that, your company is not reaching its full potential. Accountability starts at the top of the organization. We can’t begin to address accountability gaps if we, as leaders, aren’t prepared to model the behaviours we’d like to see in our people. We must set and meet the performance standards for ourselves first, and then look to hold others to the same standard. Then we must recognize that accountability follows relationship. We can’t create a culture of accountability without knowing employees for who they are as people, building rapport and trust, understanding what matters to them, and opening the lines of good, healthy communication. Then, and only then, can we build a framework for accountability.

ACCOUNTABILITY FRAMEWORK AND CULTURE

Last year I had the opportunity to spend some time with author and business thought-leader John Spence. John is the author of Awesomely Simple, and a consultant to many Fortune 500 firms in North America. John agrees that accountability is a huge issue for many organizations, and he recommends the following principles to address it:

• Top managers need to be clear about their expectations, modeling accountability for themselves first and then cascading clear expectations throughout the organization.

• All goals and performance targets should be specific and measurable. They are “binary” in terms of their achievement, and can be objectively assessed either as being achieved or not.

• Promote lots of transparent communication, and make performance data and results visible to all employees. Business dashboards can facilitate this.

• Celebrate when goals are met, AND deal with goals not being met. Accountability is meaningless without consequences. In my experience, making performance visible throughout the organization is one of the strongest means of delivering consequences. Weekly execution meetings should be conducted to track priogress. No one wants to be seen by their peers as a poor performer, while at the same time there is nothing more energizing and engaging than seeing a team celebrate a significant success.

 I would agree with John on the points above, and would suggest adding the following elements to further build the accountability culture:

• Establish a single point of accountability. Ensure that each outcome and each key metric in your business has one person’s name beside it. That does not mean that that person must individually deliver the outcome, but he or she is the person expected to coordinate and muster the resources of the organization to make it happen (and “sound the alarm” early if the targets are not going to be met).

• Set role scorecards for every role. Each job should have a role scorecard specifying the objective measurements of success for the position.

• Turn conversations into promises. Keep a roster of actions for each functional or project team that clearly displays who will do what by when.

Balance outcomes and inputs. As a leader, constantly ask people what support and resources they need to deliver the outcomes they have committed to.

UPGRADING THE TEAM

Mediocrity breeds mediocrity. You get what you tolerate. If you settle for lackluster performance, you’ll get more of it. But as you start to build an organization that has a culture of accountability, something interesting begins to happen.

First, poor performers will become less comfortable. There is no longer anywhere to hide when performance is objectively measured and visible. In many cases, these employees will see the proverbial “writing on the wall” and choose to find another place to work. And that’s not a bad thing! Having mediocre performers leave the organization provides opportunities to recruit more “A” players.

Second, the “A” players that you already have on your team will become more engaged. Top performers want to work with other top performers. Their ability to deliver on their promises is dependent on others in the organization, and they will see your firm as a place to advance and thrive.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Creating a culture of accountability takes time; there is no quick fix for effective business execution. But without it, your company will not meet its full potential. Just like people, admired organizations are those that keep their promises — promises to customers, suppliers, employees and shareholders. Can your organization be counted on?

This article, written by Scott Morris, has been published by OilWeek Magazine in March 2012.

 

Business leadership and the NEW normal

We are excited to present John Spence in New Zealand, who will be speaking to a capacity crowd of 400 people on “Business leadership and the NEW Normal”.

For the past 18 years John Spence has cultivated some of the world’s greatest business leaders.  He’s developed business leaders for Apple, Microsoft, IBM, GE, Abbott, Merrill Lynch, AT&T, Qualcomm, and many other companies, government offices and not- for-profits, and hundreds of small businesses.

John is the author of Excellence by Design - the six key characteristics of outstanding leaders and Awesomely Simple - essential business strategies for turning ideas into action and take control of your business. He has been a guest lecturer at over 90 universities including Stanford, Harvard, Cornell and the Wharton School of Business on leadership and business excellence.

At the age of just 26, John was named CEO of the international Rockefeller foundation, overseeing projects in 20 countries and reporting directly to Winthrop P. Rockefeller III. Two years later John was nominated as one of the top CEOs under the age of 40, and Inc. Magazine recognized him as one of America’s up and coming young business leaders. Today, John is regarded as one of the top business thought leaders in America.

Sign up to our blog, we will be sharing our learning’s next week.

Strategic Execution

RESULTS.com guest blog – by John Spence. I was recently invited to return to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business for the eighth year in a row to teach a special class on strategic planning. I called my contact a few months before the session to ask if it were possible to shift the class more from "strategic planning" to “strategic thinking" this year, but was surprised to find out that 98 executives had already signed up for the class based on the catalog description of it as "a solid look at how to write and effective strategic plan." So I decided to go back and take a hard look at the program and see if I could update it a bit and was surprised to have an epiphany of sorts.

I have long decried that one of the factors that inhibits the ability to write a good strategic plan is the lack of "strategic thinking" that typically goes into the planning process. If a practitioner is not spending serious time and effort on the thinking part of the equation, there is the possibility they can do the planning part of the process (the methodology, the framework) superbly, only to create a flawed plan because it was based on poor information and ideas. (The old GI = GO… Garbage In = Garbage Out -- a computer programming term) Then I realized that there was another major issue that I simply had not been stressing enough; the execution of the plan.

Every year I ask the executives in this class: “What percentage of the time do you think companies that have a solid strategic plan – actually effectively execute that plan?”  The answer I typically get is: 10-15% - YIKES! Everybody knows that even a brilliant plan that is poorly executed is almost worthless (actually it is very, very costly!). And there can be no denying that every strategic planner in the world will jump up and down about how important it is to "execute to plan" - but then it struck me – that maybe the reason this number was so incredibly low was that almost no one makes planning for effective execution part of the actual strategic planning process. Ah-ha!

It has been my experience that most organizations spend very little time doing any real strategic thinking before they begin planning… then spend a lot of time, energy and money on an elaborate "planning retreat" that focuses heavily on process… and then walk away from the planning retreat and simply expect that they can pass out the plan and it will be dutifully implemented by their people. I say NO, not unless just as much energy, time and effort goes into creating a system and a process for ensuring effective execution as well. What I am suggesting, and will now add to all of my classes, is that a strategic plan is NOT complete, until you have also written a clear, specific, measurable and detailed "Strategic Execution Plan."

In an effort to better understand the "process" for being more effective at execution, I sat down and read 22 books on effective execution (4,000+ pages). What I learned is that they all basically said the exact same thing. To successfully execute any significant strategic initiative you need to follow these steps:

1. Figure out what to FOCUS on (and by default – what you must say NO to). Where will you allocate resources?  What are your core competencies? Where can you differentiate your products and services for a sustainable competitive advantage?  What do you need to stop doing?  How exactly will you compete for markets, customers and profit? The answers to these questions are of course... your strategic plan!
2. Communicate the plan and vision to everyone involved -- over and over again - in every way possible -- in order to gain alignment and commitment. The people involved in executing the plan need to truly understand it and clearly see their role in making it happen.
3. Create systems / processes / procedures to ensure that the plan is executed in an effective manner. Personally I hate having to follow procedures -- but I absolutely know they are critical in ensuring that the good ideas in your plan - become reality.
4. Give people the training, resources, help and support necessary to follow the systems and processes. Set them up for success. Make it easy for them to win by giving them everything they need to effectively implement the plan. The most important likely being -- time!
5. Monitor and track business progress. A few keys on this... use as few measures as is necessary - you do not want to add in a bunch of extra paperwork and reporting.  Just because something is easy to measure - does not mean you should. Just because something important is very hard to measure - does not mean you can skip it. And lastly, after you have identified the 5 or 6 key measures --- post them for everyone to see. Make sure everyone knows what the targets are, how they are measured and exactly how well you are doing towards those targets. Transparency is the watchword.
6. Reward successes lavishly - deal decisively with mediocrity.

If you follow these steps with great discipline, you should be able to see quite startling positive results. And interestingly enough, when I put this list up in one of my classes and ask the participants if the honestly follow a process similar to this to make sure they are executing successfully – almost no one says they are. Another ah-ha!

So, I now see planning as a three part process: Strategic Thinking + Strategic Planning + Execution Planning. You can be incredibly innovative and have stunning ideas that you run through a wonderful planning process, but without the detailed and specific systems in place to ensure execution, the plan will simply go up on the shelf as credenza-ware, only to be pulled down for next year's planning retreat - dusted off - and have all the dates pushed out 18 months. That is no way to use a strategic plan.

This Article has been written by John Spence. John has been recognized as one of the Top 100 Business Thought Leaders and one of the top Small Business Influencers in America. He is the author of “Excellence by Design: Leadership” and “Awesomely Simple – key business strategies for turning ideas into action.” John will be in New Zealand on March 15, 2012 at the Ellerslie Convention Center to deliver a seminar on” Leadership in the New Normal.

For our New Zealand subscribers, John will be in New Zealand on March 15, 2012 at the Ellerslie Convention Center to deliver a seminar called “Leadership in the New Normal”
Click here to learn more about this event

Driving human behaviors

Pavlov was onto something with his dogs. Recognition is the bell that drives human behavior “Thank you” - is a universal concept with an underlying definition that means, “Please do that specific behavior again.”

A survey of more than 200,000 managers and employees over a 10-year period showed that “purpose-based” recognition is proven to engage your employees, reduce staff turnover, boost productivity, and increase customer satisfaction.

What’s more, companies who effectively recognize their staff are much more profitable.

Organizations that scored in the lowest 25% for recognition had an average Return on Equity of just 2.4 percent, whereas those that scored in the top 25% had an average ROE more than 3 times higher!

To create the best results, recognition is most effective when it meets 5 criteria:

• Positive: Remembering a person’s past negative behaviors and speaking about how much better they have become is not positive.  Recognition is not a time for correction – make sure you just point out their positive behaviors.
• Immediate: The sooner you give the recognition to when the actual performance occurs, the better.  Catch people doing things right, and let them know straight away.
• Close: Recognition is best presented in the environment where the actual performance occurred, ideally among their peers.
• Specific: Recognize the specific behaviors that were observed – especially those that reinforce company core values, and the achievement of current company action priorities.
• Shared: We usually think of recognition as coming from the top down, but interestingly, it is recognition from peers that often means the most to people.

Recognition is just one of 12 key success factors you need to implement in your business to maximize employee engagement and boost productivity.

Becoming Referable

Any business leader will tell you that referrals and word-of-mouth introductions are the most effective sources of new customers for companies in a business-to-business environment. A recent review of our client base showed that well over 50% of our current clientele originated from referrals, and, in some cases, we could trace numerous new clients back to one raving fan.

But ask business leaders if they have a systematic process for generating and capturing referrals, and many will say “no.” Rarely does “referral process” appear explicitly as a line in the marketing plan, or drive specific, measurable activities within an organization.

Why is this the case? If referrals are so important, why don’t organizations recognize them and have a defined referral process as part of their growth strategy?

In his 2010 book, The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself, author John Jantsch tackles this question. In his research, he interviewed hundreds of small and mid-sized businesses to determine not only the importance of referrals for business growth but how referrals actually present themselves. Here are some of the key process steps that John recommends:

Step 1: Create a Superior Customer Experience

The first step in becoming “referable” is to look at your current service offering. Would existing customers refer you? Does your firm provide a superior customer experience?

In one of my previous articles, I wrote about the Net Promoter Score (NPS) approach to soliciting customer feedback; the NPS is an indicator of how “referable” your firm is. An NPS score is achieved by asking clients regularly, “On a scale of zero to ten, how likely are you to refer our firm to friends or business associates, and why?” The “and why” component of this feedback is the critical element in determining what improvements can be made to your current product, service, or overall customer experience. Look for themes and decide what changes will improve your NPS score. These changes may be minor (like offering an electronic funds transfer capability for the payment of invoices) or major (like developing a new product line). In either case, your firm must respond to the themes and find ways to stand out from the crowd. For your company to become “referable,” the experience your clients have with your business must be superior to the experience they have with your competition.

Step 2: Clarify Your Market and Your Message

First, there is little point in executing any marketing activity without knowing who you want to target. Clarifying precisely your target market, both in terms of demographic and psychographic criteria, ensures that any activity you undertake is focused and directed to the right audience.

Second, it is critical to clarify your brand position and promise. Look for a position of leadership – are you the quality leader, the cost leader, or the best at time-to-deliver? Is your promise to drive down clients’ overall cost of ownership, or to give them a leg up in speed of bringing their product online?

The answers to these questions should make up the key messaging for your firm. Sometimes called the “elevator statement” or the “unique value proposition,” this phrase or sentence should quickly and simply provide anyone with an understanding of what your company does, its position in the industry, and its brand promise to customers.

Step 3: Develop the “Referral Engine”

Once you have a “referable” product or service, and you are crystal clear about your target market and message, it is then time to build the referral engine.

The old school approach to generating referrals would be to sit down with current clients, pen and note pad in hand, and say something like, “OK, Bill, can you give me the names and phone numbers of three companies you can refer me to?” In some cases this approach may still work, but generally it is intimidating and too high-pressure for today’s business environment.

Alternatively, you can combine content and community to build your own referral engine:

Content – Business is complex. So much change happens every day; new information and techniques constantly arise in every industry. Your customers and prospects can’t keep up with it all – they are busy running their businesses.

That creates the opportunity to position your firm as a trusted knowledge source by creating relevant content. Content can take many forms, including white papers, newsletters, webinars, seminars or presentations. All these provide you the opportunity to educate, enlighten, and inform, while positioning your firm as a competent and credible source of expertise in the industry.

For instance, since late last year my firm, RESULTS.com, has hosted weekly webinars focusing on business execution. The webinar itself educates and informs business leaders about the challenges and solutions in business execution, and that positions us as a leader in the field.

Community – But how does this tie to referrals? Well, it is easy to encourage current clients to forward a white paper or bring a guest (who’s a prospect for you) to a seminar or event. That positions the referral introduction as a value-add for the prospect. In this way you begin to develop community: the relationships between existing customers and their associates, friends, or colleagues who are new leads and prospects for your business.

Consider a specific example: You host an education event and invite 20 current customers, asking them each to bring along one or two guests who they think might be interested in the topic. Through this mechanism you get a warm referral introduction and a chance to provide educational content that smartly positions your company and expertise.

This is the basic framework for a referral engine – combining your content with an appropriate forum for your clients to make an introduction.

Step 4: Exploit Technology

Technology can play a key role in taking your referral engine to the next level. Social media tools are built on the idea of community, where like-minded individuals can meet, share ideas, and post discussion in the virtual world. This creates countless opportunities for your firm to participate in online forums and discussion boards, and to add value while demonstrating an expertise or competency. Is your firm active in online industry forums and communities? Are your customers there, too, and what are they saying about your firm.

Take LinkedIn as an example. There are literally thousands of LinkedIn groups that exist as communities around particular topic areas, geographies, or associations. These groups can provide you the opportunities to share knowledge and position your firm as a leader in your industry. Combine that with LinkedIn’s profile references, networks, and company pages, and you have a complete online referral platform.

Putting It All Together

Becoming “referable” is not a one-time project, or a goal that is going to be achieved this quarter or even this year. It touches all elements of your business, and requires discipline and commitment. But in the end it could be the best way to allocate resources and grow your firm. How “referable” is your organization?

This article, written by Scott Morris, has been published by OilWeek Magazine in Nov 2011

First Fitness Centre for Businesses in Edmonton

EDMONTON — November 1, 2011 — Today, RESULTS.com, the global expert in business execution, opens Edmonton’s first "Business Fitness Centre", designed to help mid-sized firms develop the execution disciplines to perform at their highest levels.  

Using the “fitness centre” approach, business leaders and their management teams attend weekly structured “workouts” with their business fitness specialists (Business Execution Specialists) to make strategic decisions, execute on key priorities, and hold one another and their employees accountable for results.  Through the RESULTS.com program, companies turn their business potential into extraordinary results.

Clients in Edmonton are already seeing the benefit

Can Traffic Services is one of a number of Edmonton companies currently benefiting from the program; they have been working with RESULTS.com since December 2010. According to owner Mike Kelly, “RESULTS.com has provided the tools for our new managers to positively go forward, where before there was a certain amount of floundering. We also had a crisis in human resources, and, with the new tools, we were able to understand the problem, come up with a strategy, execute the strategy, and now eliminate the problem. RESULTS.com concepts will work for any company.”

Edmonton, Canada’s leading entrepreneurial centre

“Edmonton is a significant market for us because of its entrepreneurial culture,” says Scott Morris, CEO of RESULTS.com Canada. “We estimate there are over 3,000 mid-sized firms in the city and neighboring communities, many of which are led by ambitious, open-minded business leaders who are seeking better results.”

The Edmonton Economic Development Corporation agrees, stating that GDP growth in Edmonton is the highest in the history of Canada, and investment in the economy is currently over $100 billion.

Taking companies to the next level

“Making good companies great is why we exist,” says Jeff Tetz, Practice Manager for RESULTS.com’s Edmonton branch.  “We are excited to see the progress we are making with several firms here already.  The opening of our new Business Growth Centre will enable us to support even more organizations, and further drive Edmonton’s reputation as an economic powerhouse.”

Over the next several months, RESULTS.com will be interviewing candidate firms to evaluate their fit with its program. It will also be hosting a Grand Opening event on November 24, 2011, where guests will have an opportunity to put their firms through a “business fitness test” and learn about their unique opportunities for better performance.

About RESULTS.com

RESULTS.com is the Business Execution Experts, with offices in Canada, the USA, and New Zealand.  It aggregates global research and best practices, and provides client organizations with education, coaching, and consulting in areas of business execution including vision, strategy, employee engagement, and accountability.  It has been in operation since 1996 and has worked with thousands of client organizations.

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For more information, press only:
Tim O’Connor
RESULTS.com
403 234 0999
tim.oconnor@results.com

For more information on RESULTS.com:
http://RESULTS.com

Top employee recognition programs

Pavlov was onto something with his dogs. Recognition is the bell that drives human behavior.

“Thank you” - is a universal concept with an underlying definition that means, “Please do that specific behavior again.”

A survey of more than 200,000 managers and employees over a 10-year period showed that “purpose-based” recognition is proven to engage your employees, reduce staff turnover, boost productivity, and increase customer satisfaction.

What’s more, companies who effectively recognize their staff are much more profitable.

Organizations that scored in the lowest 25% for recognition had an average Return on Equity of just 2.4 percent, whereas those that scored in the top 25% had an average ROE more than 3 times higher!

To create the best results, recognition is most effective when it meets 5 criteria:

1. Positive - Remembering a person’s past negative behaviors and speaking about how much better they have become is not positive.  Recognition is not a time for correction – make sure you just point out their positive behaviors.
2. Immediate - The sooner you give the recognition to when the actual performance occurs, the better.  Catch people doing things right, and let them know straight away.
3. Close - Recognition is best presented in the environment where the actual performance occurred, ideally among their peers.
4. Specific - Recognize the specific behaviors that were observed – especially those that reinforce company core values, and the achievement of current company action priorities.
5. Shared - We usually think of recognition as coming from the top down, but interestingly, it is recognition from peers that often means the most to people.

Recognition is just one of 12 key success factors you need to implement in your business to maximize employee engagement and boost productivity.

Scientific marketing by Seth Godin

Seth Godin has authored more than 10 books on marketing, all of which we recommend to our clients.

Here is a summary of 10 tips he offered in his blog under the topic of “scientific marketing”

1. Don't run out of money.  It always takes longer and costs more than you expect to spread your message.  You can budget for it - or you can fail.
2. You won't get it right the first time.  Your marketing will need to be reinvented, adjusted or scrapped.  Count on it.  
3. Just because something is easy to do – does not mean that it is your best choice.
4. Irrational, strongly held beliefs of others should be ignored.
5. If it makes you nervous, it's probably a good idea.  If you're sure you're right, you probably aren't.
6. Focusing obsessively on one niche, one benefit, and one market is almost always a better idea - than trying to satisfy everyone.
7. At some point, you're either going to have to stick to your convictions or do what the market tells you.  It's hard to do both.
8. Compromise in marketing is almost always a bad idea.  Extreme A could work. Extreme B could work. The average of A and B will almost never work.
9. Test, measure and optimize.  Figure out what's working and do it more.
10. Read and learn.  There are a million clues, case studies, books and proven tactics out there.  You don't have the time or the money to make the same mistake someone else has already made.  It's cheaper and faster to read about it than it is to do it.

If you want to learn proven strategies for marketing success, join our next webinar