Forget Micromanagement: 12 Team Techniques That Work |  |
- Forget Micromanagement: 12 Team Techniques That Work
- Kevin Cochrane of Adobe: Everyone Is a Marketer
- Valpak Extends Online Presence with Acquisition of Savings.com
- Yay, Nay: Err. . .Purr, Hiss
- Tumblr iOS App Tumbles Out and Other Mobile Developments are Coming
| Forget Micromanagement: 12 Team Techniques That Work Posted: 22 Jun 2012 11:00 AM PDT Entrepreneurs are a particular breed of people. They see holes in the marketplace that others have never seen; they compile practical solutions that can solve their future customers’ problems. Entrepreneurs can grow an idea into a vision worth implementing, recruit team members who believe in that vision, and truly create something that’s both innovative and profitable.
Despite such characteristics, entrepreneurs also feel like they can do everything themselves — and, at times, that they should. Pitching meetings and press presentations are one thing, but setting schedules and sending tweets may be another, especially if you’re already paying people to fill those roles. There’s a difference between keeping a close eye on your employees’ productivity and breathing down their throats to make sure they meet their deadlines. We asked members of the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invitation only nonprofit organization comprised of the country's most promising young entrepreneurs, the following question to find out what their secrets to retaining their clients:
Here's what YEC community members had to say: 1. Keep Up the Weekly Meetings “I meet with my team members once a week to discuss progress over the past week and projects for the next week. We work together to discuss priorities and deadlines. We keep the projects short, taking no longer than 1-2 weeks each, so each team member can always see the finish line. With this approach, I always know what everyone is working on but don’t need to get involved on a day-to-day basis.” ~ Bhavin Parikh, Magoosh, Inc. 2. Powerful Project Management Software “In startups, you often have to get down to the micro level, and can’t rely on general information when it comes to project status. My teams use Asana to track who is responsible for each deliverable, due date, and benchmark. The right project management software gives managers the micro-level detail without creating more work for the team.” ~ Kelly Azevedo, She’s Got Systems 3. Set Specific Deliverables “Give your team specific deliverables and deadlines, and check in periodically to make sure the progress is on track. If it is, you can incent early completion. If the team is lagging, you can catch it quickly and find out why.” ~ Vanessa Nornberg, Metal Mafia 4. Always Share the Big Picture "The more that I can influence my team to buy into the big vision that I have for my company, the better my team manages themselves. It’s important for a team to feel like their job really matters to the world and know how their actions positively or negatively affects others that they work with. Additionally, I like to give reminders about little details that are important for company success." ~ Lawrence Watkins, Great Black Speakers 5. Set Goals Together "The only way your employees will take ownership of the goals they are set to achieve is if they play a major part in coming up with them. Always set goals together with your direct reports. Never provide them with a list of goals you feel are “reasonable” and then ask them to go execute them. This will always yield better results and minimize your desire to micromanage." ~ Warren Jolly, Affiliate Media Inc. 6. Keep the Fun Going "Once the goals are in place, make and keep the journey fun! A startup is stressful, but if everyone is having fun while being reminded of deadlines and goals, it is a more enjoyable and productive journey." ~ Nancy T. Nguyen, Sweet T 7. Run a Results Oriented Company "I work primarily with contractors whenever possible so that I can focus on getting results, not assigning long lists of tasks. I’ve found that working with people on a per-project basis keeps them focused on the specific result that they’re working towards, which means that I can focus on my own work." ~ Thursday Bram, Hyper Modern Consulting 8. Is It Really Micromanagement? "There are typically different stages to a startup: proof of concept, validation, efficiency testing, growth stage, exit. If and when you make it to the efficiency test, you will find yourself likely micromanaging. While you cringe at the thought, you actually are doing more than micromanaging, you are conducting massive time/motion studies to determine ways to increase profit. So chin up!" ~ Carmen Benitez, Fetch Plus 9. Create Templates "For almost everything we do, there is a corresponding ‘how-to’ Google document that our team has access to. We generate a step-by-step process that includes how much time each step should take, the tools we use to complete it, and plenty of examples. That way, we don’t have as many little mistakes in the process that would require micromanagement." ~ Caitlin McCabe, Real Bullets Branding 10. Keep the Team Small "Micromanagement tends to happen when people don’t have enough to do. If your team is only as big as it needs to be, you’ll have less time to micromanage. Also, with a smaller group, the team will be easier to keep on task. So stay small and you’ll cultivate a lean, mean, productivity machine." ~ Wade Foster, Zapier 11. Vision and Values "Clearly define and articulate your vision for your company, and establish the values with which you expect your team to execute that vision. By setting the parameters upfront, you’ll be better able to develop a culture where people self-manage in line with your expectations." ~ Michael Tolkin, Merchant Exchange 12. Set the Destination, Not the Journey "In some instances, you need to have a process repeated to exact specifications. But in many other situations, the journey doesn’t matter as much as the destination. In those cases, give your team members a specific goal and deadline, but let the way to achieve that goal allow them to use their creativity. This gets you results, but keeps you from micromanaging." ~ Elizabeth Saunders, Real Life E®
From Small Business Trends |
| Kevin Cochrane of Adobe: Everyone Is a Marketer Posted: 22 Jun 2012 08:00 AM PDT These days, it’s true. No matter how large or how small your business, everyone is a marketer. Heck, you don’t even have to own a business. Let’s face it, everyone is marketing themselves or selling something, on some level, somewhere online, nowadays. Tune in as Kevin Cochrane, Vice President of Product Strategy Marketing at Adobe, joins Brent Leary for an in-depth discussion on the ever changing landscape of today’s digital marketers. * * * * *
Kevin Cochrane: I have been at Adobe for 2 years and, very excitingly, I have responsibility for Web experience management solutions, and how we enable our customers to get social, to get mobile, and to deliver personalized engaging experiences across channels to build brand and drive demand. I've been in the content management industry going back to 1996. Small Business Trends: How has digital marketing and content management changed over the years? Kevin Cochrane: Well in the early days, it was very much about building brands. It was very important for companies to be able to broadcast and communicate information via the public website to all of their external and even internal audiences. One of the big key changes that we have seen is the Web is the primary way people are looking to go to market. In this day and age marketers, in particular, are now responsible for corporate strategy. They are responsible for top of the funnel activity and for driving Net-to-lead and driving top line revenue growth. That means for marketers today it is not just about leveraging the Web to build brand, it is about driving demand. Literally leveraging the website to funnel leads into your backend salesforce automation systems, to directly conduct transactions and to once again increase corporate growth. I think one of the challenges with that is, how do you drive demand in an age where consumers have very fragmented attention? Where consumers don't necessarily know to go to your own Web property because they are spending all of their time on external social networks like Facebook. Small Business Trends: What are the biggest challenges? Kevin Cochrane: Well a non-obvious challenge is that there are so many easy to use tools out there. We face an explosion of different marketing technologies and each one of these tools is designed to attack one facet of the problem of driving customer engagement and revenue in a mobile & social world. What is happening is that marketers are having to become technologists to put in place a unified platform for executing their marketing campaign. The more obvious challenge that marketers are facing is they need to speed execution, they need to be agile. They want to compress the time from ideation to execution in revenue. And in order to compress that time frame to launch the campaign more quickly, they need to be able to run a coordinated campaign across different channels and across different devices. So having a lot of the disparate point tools that are not unified does not help them to accomplish their overall goal. Small Business Trends: When is it the time for them to get serious about an integrated approach? How much effort does it take for them to transition from that point system to that integrated approach? Kevin Cochrane: When digital marketers get sophisticated and get serious about understanding their customer, their customer personas, and how their customer is choosing to interact with them on a big browser experience on desktop, as well as on different mobile devices. When they get serious about delivering a very personalized, targeted experience that drives a two way engagement between the customer and their employee. When they look to leverage their social interactions to get deeper insights into their customer behavior so they can fine tune and optimize the way they are communicating with them, that is the right time. Small Business Trends: How has mobile and html-5 heightened the job of the digital marketer? Kevin Cochrane: Well everyone is a marketer nowadays. Every one of your customers, every one of your prospects, every one of the prospects that you engage that did not purchase your product. Everyone is a marketer. Today's marketers, their job is substantially different. They are actually community leaders. They are the people that are building community and engaging customers in a dialog and actually monitoring their sentiment, influencing their sentiment, and helping to collect their story. So that they can better understand what they should be messaging to the broader market. I believe, from my memory, that marketers – yeah their job is very, very different. It is not just about sitting in a room and coming up with the great message and then broadcasting out across every different channel 'the big brand campaign.' Small Business Trends: Do you think most marketers have taken the job of community leader on? Kevin Cochrane: I don't think the majority of marketers have yet made that leap to becoming true social leaders, true community leaders. I think people are starting down that path. It is a very, very big culture change to do that. The culture change is a very simple one. It is becoming a customer-central organization. When you take that outside-in approach and become a truly customer-centric organization, then your digital marketers really do become a social marketer and they do wind up becoming community leaders. They become people that become the paragon of the customer base. I don't think the vast audience of the market has made that leap, but I think people are starting down this path. Small Business Trends: Where can people learn more about what Adobe is doing in this area? Kevin Cochrane: You can learn about us on our website, Adobe.com. You can follow us on Twitter on @AdobeWEM. Small Business Trends: How big a role does video play in the digital marketer's role in the next six months to a year? Kevin Cochrane: It is the second most important content that you need to incorporate all of your marketing activities into to drive customer engagement. It is the second most, simply because the most important piece of content is the content that your customers themselves provide. This interview is part of our One on One series of conversations with some of the most thought-provoking entrepreneurs, authors and experts in business today. This interview has been edited for publication. To hear audio of the full interview, click the right arrow on the gray player below. You can also see more interviews in our interview series.
From Small Business Trends This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Valpak Extends Online Presence with Acquisition of Savings.com Posted: 22 Jun 2012 07:00 AM PDT Best known for its snail mailers, Valpak, a subsidiary of Cox Target Media, is increasing its online presence. This week, the company announced its acquisition of Savings.com (as well as its sister site, London-based Savoo.co.uk), an online source for savings, personalized deals and tips for saving money. The acquisition will add Savings.com’s 5 million monthly visitors to Valpak’s existing online traffic.
More Options for Small Businesses – And Consumers Valpak introduced cost-effective direct mail to small businesses nearly half a century ago. Small businesses could include a coupon or special offer in a Valpak packet sent out to consumers. These days, 40 million Valpak mailers are sent out each month, and the company claims an open rate of about 85%. Now the company may be trying to create the same innovation online (though there’s much more competition in the online deals and coupons space). “Cox Target Media and Valpak changed cooperative direct mail over the past 44 years, and now Cox Target Media is changing the sensible shopping landscape again with this acquisition,” explained Michael Vivio, CEO of Cox Target Media, ”We are always looking for new ways to be as relevant to consumers as possible, and ultimately help them make the most of the dollars in their wallet.” Valpak’s online strategy started in 1996 with its digital savings site. That site now offers 40,000 local coupons as well as a proprietary e-commerce product. Valpak also has apps for the iPhone, iPad and Android. What Will Change For the outsider, not much will change with this acquisition. Valpak.com and Savings.com will continue to operate independently, but will share savings content. What it means for small business owners is the opportunity to connect with consumers through multiple coupon and discount offers, online and off, through a single channel. Valpak will continue to have offerings that fit small business budgets. The combined efforts will also give national merchants of all sizes options in pay-for-performance advertising; this allows marketers to drive sales with lower upfront costs than they typically encounter with traditional promotional options. This acquisition speaks to the larger trend of advertising platforms seeking ways to help small businesses connect to consumers in more targeted and driven ways. From Small Business Trends |
| Posted: 22 Jun 2012 05:00 AM PDT
You look at this cartoon and it’s pretty easy, right? Instead of the yeas and nays of people voting, you get purrs and hisses of these cats. Except that it’s not really so easy. You’ve got to draw an odd number of cats so the vote can work. You’ve got to draw a good portion of the cats from behind. You’ve also got to draw different looking cats so that the group doesn’t look too similar. See what I mean? The joke, granted, is fairly simple, but the execution is far more difficult. (One additional note: if I could change one thing here it would be the one cat on the back left. It’s like he’s looking right out at you!) From Small Business Trends |
| Tumblr iOS App Tumbles Out and Other Mobile Developments are Coming Posted: 22 Jun 2012 02:30 AM PDT Mobile applications are multiplying at a fantastic rate, an important trend to watch for any entrepreneur doing business regularly online. It’s something to keep in mind at every step of the way while planning your marketing strategy and general business plan, not to mention when deciding on what apps to use. Here are the latest mobile developments from around the Web. Tumblr AppNew iOS app tumbles out. The new revamped version 3.0.0 of the site’s iOS app features changes including revamped dashboard, support for high-resolution images, Spotify, a new image viewer, and offline support. CEO David Karp announced the new roll out at last week’s F.ounders event. The new app should move the site, billed as a community for content creators, solidly into mobile-friendly territory. Do you use Tumblr for your business? The Next Web We don’t need no stinkin’ apps. Apparently, despite its massive popularity, Tumblr hasn’t made mobile development a top priority until now. However, that may change with the new iOS app. Many businesses have yet to create their own apps, even in a market growing more mobile by the minute. It’s important to be thinking about your business’s mobile strategy, no matter how popular your Website is with visitors today. Venture Beat Microsoft & AndroidAndroid app unveiled. Android has its own Google I/O 2012 app, announced earlier this week. The new offering works well on both phones and tablets, and allows sharing on Google+. Other features include I/O Live session video streams, automatic syncing of schedules, and near field communications beaming. For business users of Google Android, these are important features to check out. Engadget Microsoft answers the call. Microsoft will answer the call of users and developers in need of a new version of Mobile Windows. Windows Phone 8 will feature a new start screen, multi-core support, VoIP integration, and near field communications. The company won’t release the new version for existing devices, but a Windows Phone 7.8 update will provide some of the new features for these users. The Verge Which carriers will do the heavy lifting? US carriers AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon have already signaled their intentions to introduce Windows Phone 8 devices, while Cricket, MetroPCS, and Sprint have not yet confirmed their support for the new platform. If you rely heavily on mobile devices for business, it’s time to check with your local carrier to find out when they will be supporting the new Windows for phone. PC Mag Talking back to users. An important part of the mobile business ecosystem is the exchange between app developers and users. Whether you use business apps or develop them, Google Play is enhancing that relationship, allowing developers to respond to reviews from Android app users and to notify users when enhancements have been added. Android Developers Blog Facebook & AppleWe like mobile. But up until now, it’s been really hard to show it. While plenty of people share content on the Web using Facebook’s “like” function, integrating those “like” buttons into a mobile app has not been possible…until now. Andrew Rothbart tells you how to make “likes” work for you in the mobile world, too. Take a look. Facebook Developer Blog The operating system next door. If there’s one thing that stands out about the new iOS 6 for iPhone, it’s that this new operating system will be a boon for local businesses. Just look what the iOS 6 has to offer in the area of local search. You can access loads of information about any location, from photos to Yelp pages on local businesses, deals to save you money, and much more. Think what this iOS will reveal about your business. Cult of Mac Smartphone social. Just as Facebook is integrating its “like” function into mobile apps, Apple’s announcement that it will include Facebook in its iOS 6 software is big news for business users of the social media giant. Though Facebook already has a mobile app of its own, integration into iOS 6 means a bigger audience from iPhone users as mobile’s popularity increases. ITBusiness.ca Mobile ReadyAre you mobile ready? If you don’t have a mobile version of your Website, says marketing thought leader Cody Ward, you may already be loosing traffic and revenue. That’s because traditional Websites were never set up to display on a mobile screen. Traditional Websites displayed on mobile devices are unattractive, hard to view, and, in the case of e-commerce, make it difficult to place an order. Puzzle Marketer From Small Business Trends |
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