Future Predictions – Business Structure

Future Predictions – Business Structure

Expectations of Future Business Settings

With the exciting onslaught of many new technologies, the future looks to become a more customized and individualized experience. To stay relevant and engaging business structure will have to evolve. This is how I believe businesses will evolve.

WANTED: The Business Renaissance Man

WANTED: The Business Renaissance Man

Richard Branson once said that his biggest motivation was to “…keep challenging myself. I see life almost like one long University education that I never had – everyday I’m learning something new.” Learning in business, just like learning is school is necessary. At the same time the education and learning that you do, it requires a return on investment (ROI). This ROI is based on getting valuable information in the form of a practical education with real world application – this is the next required step in educational evolution.

Why You Need to Create Professional Training for Experienced Workers

How to get more out of an experienced hire!

Most mid to large size firms have a training and development or on-boarding program for new graduates – from Bachelor’s to PhD’s. This program or session gets them acquired to the company, general role, departments and potential peers or mentors. This gets them on the right track and begins to bridge them from academic to work life.  But what do you do with someone joining your company after 5-10 years in the business world? How do you on-board someone going from a technical to a business role? Do you on-board someone who recently joined from an acquisition? Do you on-board a new division in a growing business area? Most companies would say no.

Engage! Through Efficient Meetings

Engage! Through Efficient Meetings

Are your meetings a seemingly endless parade of status updates? Do your meetings always get side-tracked by irrelevant topics? Do you always have back-to-back 1-hour long meetings?

If you are anything like me and the majority of American’s you are always trying to do more during your eternally scarce work resource – time. Shorter attention spans, more multi-tasking, more interactions, more global teams, more team rooms, more projects, more high priorities, more strategies, more decisions, more initiatives and at the base of all of this – more meetings.

To create more efficient use of time and communication for every aspect of what you are doing “more” of is the thoroughly efficient meeting. Create shorter, more engaging meetings, loyal employees or co-workers, and enthusiastic attendants. This isn’t aimed to transform every meeting into a motivational speech, but simply establishing a better use of resources during what is considered to be one of the most highly unproductive times of the day – meetings.

Engage at Work by Leaving Work!

Engage at Work by Leaving Work!

Productivity through Passions

Want to know a great way to be more productive and creative at work? Leave.

A new study presented in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology found that there is a positive correlation in work performance and outside-of-work activities. Participants that performed creative activities outside of a work setting performed better and generated more creative ideas. In short, if you have a passion and drive for an activity or hobby outside of work...

Engage Internally On a Daily Basis!

Engage Internally On a Daily Basis!

The New Generation of Employees

“There are only three measurements that tell you nearly everything you need to know about your organization’s overall performance: employee engagement, customer satisfaction, and cash flow. It goes without saying that no company, small or large, can win over the long run without energized employees who believe in the mission and understand how to achieve it.” – Jack Welch, former CEO of GE

Employee engagement is a key metric in any workplace as it is the emotional tie the employee has with the company and the company’s goals.

Engage Externally When Branding Your Product

Engage Externally When Branding Your Product!
Effectively Communicating Your Product Value to a New Generation

“It is not the employer who pays the wages – employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.” –Henry Ford

Consumers want engaging encounters and companies want to find ways to captivate product consumers. Engrossing customers in your marketing message could make the typical customer experience anything but. To do this your products have to excite your customers. No longer will the one-sided marketing conversation with customers on the “whats” of your products be enough. Customer interactions must advance to the next level, requiring a connection with customers (see Young Professionals – New Employees, Same Problems). Building off of traditional marketing methods, a new form of marketing is required to begin engaging an evolving market. This new counterculture market wants information, connections, customized/personalized experiences and involvement. This market repays this connection with deep loyalty and consumer insight.

How do you engage your customers, convey your product message and market effectively to key customers now?

Engage Internally Starting at the First Handshake!

Engage Internally Starting at the First Handshake! Hiring the New Generation of Employees

Everyone comes to work needing something to learn. This is especially true with the newest generation of employees. There are unique hiring dynamics for Generation Y – especially for entry level positions – and to build a great work force, you must understand the generation you are hiring. To have a successful hiring practice, it requires due diligence and commitment to create an engaging workforce.

If you are hiring for a Generation Y, entry level position you need to realize they will not have much experience. As a whole, Generation Y comes to the work force with 4-5 years experience behind previous generations at the same age. This requires more difficult more intricate dissemination between candidates to look forward the biggest thing that separates candidates – passion.

The Beginning of New Engagement

The Beginning of New Engagement

Never before have the opportunities and markets been so diverse and evolving. Currently there are four generations in the work force and five generations in the overall market. There are Builders, Boomers, and Generation X, Y, Z’ers. All of them are unique and all of them buy. This is a wonderful time to be in marketing. Marketing is process of creating, communicating and delivering value to a customer and knowing your audience is vital to communicating an effective message.

No longer can there just be one solution to market to an entire audience, you need effective communication in each marketing opportunity. If you are selling B2B, you might need to have your products sold through catalogs, direct sales, trade journals, Facebook, websites, forums, expert testimonials, radio ads, podcasts, webinars or other methods to effectively reach each demographic you are influencing. You may have to write a hand written letter or respond to an inquiry through instant messaging on your website. The times are evolving, but it doesn’t mean old marketing tactics don’t work – it just created additional marketing tactics and avenues.

Reflecting on an earlier article I wrote on Generation Y (see Young Professionals – New Employees, Same Problems), I think there needs to be further clarity on the new marketing tactics and avenues for the coming generation to create necessary engagement for the younger generations. In the coming articles, I will be identifying and discerning a variety of engagement opportunities necessary for growing your business externally and internally.

-thePonderingNick

Confrontational Intelligence

Confrontational Intelligence to Create Accountability

In our time, if you are afraid of confrontation, you are not going to thrive in business.

Confrontation does not necessarily mean throwing down with another or yelling at another, nor should it lead to conflict or negativity. When problems overlay confrontational situations, conflict results. These problems can be eliminated through confrontational intelligence.

Strengthen a Brand by Blogging: Best Corporate Blogs

Strengthen a Brand by Blogging: Best Corporate Blogs

After reflecting on my last post on why all companies need a blog (see Why All Companies Should Have a Blog), I thought that great examples would be necessary. Companies with effective blogging, create brand awareness, engage customers, build on innovation, and drive digital research while differentiating and building its brand, credibility and trust (also addressed in Product Launch Perfection – Promoting the Pitch). Effective blogs should convey a specific message and branding, whether it is to prove competency and expertise in a new field/product/service or to gain a new audience, there should be a mission and a vision for corporate blogging and the following companies are some great examples on how blogging can gain and audience and transfer that message to build a brand.

Every Company Should Have a Blog!

Don't Have a Blog? What you are missing.

Business is evolving. Business is moving from hard copy to digital, from catalogs to PDFs, from pamphlets to YouTube videos, from face-to-face meetings to conference calls. This is not new, but companies need to transition with technology. Business evolution is paramount in order to stay relevant and grow with a changing market and business structure (for more on Accepting Innovation). There are a variety of technologies to enable the transition to digital marketing to create the perfect global message and to build brand awareness for your product. One key overlooked innovation is the Corporate Blog.