Successful Blog

6 Ways to Credit Your Team

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By Ben Morton

Recently I was reading an article on INC entitled ‘The Difference Between Managers and Leaders‘ by Ilya Pozin where he provided some fantastic insights. Ilya’s fifth point was this:

‘Managers want credit, leaders credit their teams’

This is a brilliant point. When it’s acted upon the impact that it has on the leader’s connection with their team, the trust that it engenders, and the respect it earns the leader is huge.

What was really interesting to me though was one of the comments from a reader.

‘How do I give credit when I answer to the MD without my staff present; how will my staff know?’

This is actually a great question which prompted me to stop and reflect on how I have actually gone about this during my leadership career. So, here are my personal and very practical tips to do this.

1. They will just know…

Here’s the key thing. If you start from a position of genuinely wanting to support your people and ‘give credit where credit is due’ then you will naturally credit you team whenever you can. By consistently crediting your team to your boss, your peers, your customers or whoever it may be, these people will eventually come back to your team and say something like this…

‘Hi John. Ben told me about all the work you put into that proposal – great job and thanks’

So you see – they will just know.

2. Reactive email

When you get that email from your boss saying ‘thank you’ or ‘great job’ why not respond, cc’ing your team or the individual, saying something like…

“Thanks Nigel but it was actually Gemma who did all of the hard work on that project so she really needs the praise. Well done again Gemma and thanks.’

3. Proactive email

Instead of waiting to redirect the credit to your team why not be proactive by sending a thank you email to your team and cc’ing your boss.

4. Ask your boss to thank them

Next time you are in a meeting with your boss and you tell him or her that it was your team that put in all of the hard work why not say something like this…

‘The team worked really hard on that project Nigel and it would be great if you could stop by and say well done or drop them a really short email.’

It would take a pretty cold boss to refuse such a request.

5. Pass on credit in public

During a team meeting or company event look for the opportunities to publicly pass on the credit, praise and thank your team or individuals for all of their hard work.

6. Use the intranet

If your company has an intranet site why not post a very short news article celebrating the team or individual’s success and attributing the credit to them.

Hopefully you’ve found this list useful and there are some things in here that you will go and apply to help move you from a good manager to an exceptional leader. I know that there are lots more ways to give credit to your team and I’d love to hear what you are doing…

Author’s Bio: BEN MORTON is a Consultant at TwentyOne Leadership specialising in the provision of high quality leadership training, mentoring and coaching. He has approaching two decades experience in leadership, learning and management along with a wealth of expertise in strategic Human Resource management drawn from experience as a Board Member in small entrepreneurial organizations and working in large multi-nationals such as Tesco and TUI Travel. Having led expeditions around the globe from the Alps of Europe to the Steppe Country of Mongolia and served two operational tours of Iraq as an Officer in the British Army, Ben understands what it takes to lead people in the most difficult of conditions. He’s passionate about sharing his knowledge, experience and expertise.

Are You Really Protecting Your Customers From Identity Theft?

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According to the 2013 Identity Fraud Report by Javelin Strategy & Research, identity thieves stole more than $21 billion dollars from 12.6 million victims in 2012 — the highest amount since 2009.

Even worse from a small business standpoint, fraud victims tend to become more careful about where they shop after having their identities stolen.

According to the Javelin study, 15% of all fraud victims decided to avoid smaller online merchants after an incident — an even larger number than those who avoid gaming sites or large retailers.

So how can you protect your customers’ sensitive information and avoid taking a major hit?

Review Your Employee Internet Policy

One of the ways hackers can gain access to a company’s sensitive documents is by taking advantage of existing security breaches. Unfortunately, many of these come from employees who aren’t careful enough about their online browsing while at work.

Employees who conduct their online shopping from work computers may be setting their employers up for trouble, since hackers regularly target ecommerce sites. A worker who unknowingly visits a compromised site can introduce malware into your company’s system, granting the hackers access to customer information stored on your servers.

A comprehensive training program about safe browsing and internet security, as well as frequent refresher courses, can help keep your customer data safe.

Encrypt Sensitive Files

Encrypting sensitive information like your customers’ personal and financial information can help protect you, even if a hacker gains access to your system. Make sure any data sorting tools you’re using, such as Syncsort, are protected.

Even with savvy employees working for you, a virus or other malware can get into your system. Encryption provides a crucial second layer of protection for you and your customers.

Limit Your Personal Customer Information

The more personal details you require from customers, the more risk you take on.

This is especially true if you’re using your customers’ social security or driver’s license numbers as account numbers.

If your business requires you to ask for private information, don’t do it in front of other customers, and keep all computer screens turned away from customer view.

Know Vendor and Contractor Policies

It’s not just your internal employees who may have access to private customer information. Vendors and contractors, such as website designers or payment processors, may also be able to get into these private areas.

Talk to these contractors before they do any work for you. Find out what measures they take to protect your and your customers’ information, and lay out terms defining who is going to be responsible in the case of a breach.

Identity theft isn’t just costly for the immediate victim. Exposing your customer information to hackers may leave you open to liability. Even if that’s not the case, your business is going to suffer when word gets out that fraudsters gained access to your customer data.

By educating yourself and employees, and taking steps to keep customer information under lock and key, you can keep both your customers and your business safe.

Photo credit: creditrepair.com

About the Author: Freelance blogger Angie Mansfield covers a variety of subjects for small business owners. From business growth to marketing to social media, her work will give you tips to keep your business running smoothly.

 

How to Make Your Blog Stand Out in the Crowd

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By Tracy Vides

To err on the side of diplomacy has always been a safer bet than being blunt. Diplomacy is everywhere. Being nice is an all-pervasive disease. To be boring, just like diplomacy, works for a lot of people.

As long as you don’t stand out, you don’t ask for trouble. To stay out of trouble is a global requirement.

People start blogs just as they start political parties, form governments, and start businesses. Since most people try to stay safe, their blogs will reflect that ‘safe’ vibe. As a result, the content is usually trite.

Rehashed, over-used, and boring blog posts are the staple of the blogosphere, as this slide deck from Velocity Partners makes painfully clear. It’s tiring to see just another blog out there.

We agree that there’s only so much information that can be shared on a topic. But who said that you’d have to keep it bland?

Popular blogs share the same content, but they do it differently.

Only a few bloggers stand out. They are different. Their voice is powerful. Their content is engaging. How do they manage to do that? What’s the secret sauce?

They are bold. They are beautiful. They write what they want to.

Here are some ways to make your own blog stand out from the rest:

Stick to Your Opinion, Don’t Waffle

Pick up a few facts, put your brain to this data, and craft your own opinion (rolled into a blog post). While you use your own voice, personality, and writing style to express your justified opinion, take a vow (in writing, if you can) that once the blog post goes live, you won’t budge from your opinion. Even if the string of virulent comments might want to make you think about your initial stand, don’t bother updating your blog post with the new school of thought.

Blogs get their mojo from opinionated writing. There’s no place for you to waffle here. No changing shoes once you wear them.

One caveat here:

One danger, when you’re writing lots of quick, opinionated blog items about the latest developments, is that you never get around to stating fully, in one place, what you think about a particular topic.

– Mickey Kaus

Write for the Emotion Connect, Not the Spider’s Web

Google is powerful. Bloggers all over the world love a continuous, incoming stream of traffic from search listings. Yet, you have to let go of the obsession to rank in search. I’m not knocking down SEO or SEM, do what you have to do. Just don’t assume that your blog promotions or marketing for your blog depends wholly and completely on Google.

Stop writing for search engines, because that makes your blogs read like school textbooks or poorly maintained journals of manipulative keyword-stuffing maniacs. Or worse, like The Dullest Blog in the
World.

If you ever have to create a blog post, do it for the reader. Google search takes care of itself. Your readers will thank you for it.

Bring in the Fun

Whether it’s a blog post or the copy (long-form or short-form), you need to use interesting and engaging content to market your products or services. Work hard to bring in the fun in your writing.

Your ultimate goal: bring that smile on your readers’ face, convince and convert.

While your blog post should have facts and opinion rolled together, your sales copy would have to be brief. Yet, make sure you bring in the humor when you are writing.

Stop being a bore.

Plant the ‘Feel’

Marketers now need to don the role of publishers through blogging. All marketers must work to ‘plant the feel.’

What do I mean by that? By making customers ‘feel,’ you bring a string of emotions, desires, needs and wants to the fore. Your customers almost visualize what you are writing about. The ‘feel’ factor can do wonders to your blogging efforts whether you are a physics teacher blogging about quantum mechanics or a tiny mom & pop e-commerce store that sells handcrafts online.

Stay Consistent

Add blogging into your lifetime to-do list. Blogging ought to happen every single day (or whatever frequency you like to blog with). While you might think that this was probably the first lesson you learnt about blogging, it’s one of those things that will help you stand out from millions of other blogs.

Why?

Most other blogs are dead. Most bloggers don’t update regularly. Some lose steam, while others just aren’t blessed with the commitment it takes to see a blog through success.

By blogging regularly, you are already in the top percentile of bloggers who are real, professional and serious.

Hook Up with Readers Personally, the Human Way

Forget about building relationships through your blog the usual way. If it’s usual, then everyone does it. You’d still have to build relationships with your regular readers, but how do you make a difference? It’s called ‘The insane reach out plan.’

The Insane Reach out Plan for the time-starved reader (that’s you):

  • Got a comment? Go hunt that commenter down and then follow his or her blog. Leave comments to reciprocate.
  • Find out who your readers are and then connect with them on social media to continue the =93small talk=94 that forms the bridge between your relationships.
  • Find opportunities to highlight some of your readers. There’s a reason why widgets that show ‘recent comments’ or ‘top comments’ or ‘most active contributors’ are downloaded by the thousands.
  • Sit down and send out emails to some of your regular users. Most popular bloggers tend to get high volumes of emails from readers, most of which end up unanswered. Turn this practice upside down. Actively send out emails instead.
  • Whenever possible, call or meet your readers.

Hard work? Yes.

Payoffs? That’ll require another blog post.

Necessary? No. But mandatory.

The only blogs that’ll work today are those that continuously produce content that gives something to readers that they can think about. Your blog is like a public kitchen giving food for thought to your readers.

That’s a grim challenge, yes, but others are doing it already!

It’s useless to worry about word counts, SEO, the size of your social media network, the platform you use for blogging, and the hosting account your blog depends on.

Worry about value. Lose sleep over how to make your content better. Brainstorm ways you can make your blog engaging.

Write with your heart, not your fingers.

Author’s Bio: Tracy Vides is a content creator and marketer, who loves to blog about subjects as diverse as fashion, technology, and finance. She’s always raring to have a discussion on startups and entrepreneurship. Say “Hi” to her on Twitter @TracyVides. You can also find her on G+ at gplus.to/TracyVides.

I Meant To Do That! How To Turn A Mistake Into Success

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By Jon Norwood

I’ve started four businesses and successfully sold three. The common factor in all of them is that I made at least one serious error right out of the gate. When you’re faced with a fixed and immovable object, caused by either a mistake or due to matters outside of your control, if you cannot change it stop fighting it. But simply embracing it is not enough however. Adapt your plan and make this obstacle part of your intentional offering.

Military strategists, as well as every mother of little children, have learned how to roll with the punches. Adapt to the environment and its challenges. If you want to guarantee your failure, approach your business (and life in general) with a stiff neck and refuse to be flexible. If you don’t believe me, just picture all those poor suckers that collapse while standing at attention with their knees locked!

Real World Example

A businessman opened a “ropes” course for corporations. After he founded the company, spent the revenue building the course and marketing the opening of his new venture, he was informed that he could not sell alcohol. He didn’t think it would be a major problem, but as the months went on, he discovered just the opposite.

The corporations discovered that they had a hard time getting “buy in” from their employees and volunteers that were asked to spend an entire day that far out in the country, and not be able to have a happy hour after the event. In fact, the promise of a happy hour was a major selling point for his competition!

After 2 years of struggling, he was considering closing the doors. Then he had the idea that he could embrace the problem. In other words, he could look for organizations that would choose him over his competition BECAUSE he CHOSE to not serve alcohol.

Religious and conservative organizations found this marketing enticing. To his surprise, many organizations began to choose his course because they would no longer be vulnerable to law suits due to alcohol abuse and driving under the influence! His limitation became a powerful selling point.

Embrace your limitations and find a way to position them as strengths.

Bad location? Say it was on purpose and adjust your offering.
Spent a ton of money on a typewriter when everyone else is buying a computer? Learn to research for the next time. Say you love the quality and send out letters from that typewriter with marketing about your dedication to quality!

There is always an angle! You just have to stop freaking out to see it. It’s not a matter of being misleading in any way, it’s a choice of looking at the situation from a positive mindset and marketing from that perspective.

Author’s Bio: Jon Norwood writes about business and technology at http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/tech-talk/. He is also the author of internet providers by zip code. You can find him on Twitter as @mobileinformers.

Blogging Conference Guide for 2014

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By Jessy Troy

Bloggers unite! The year 2014 is going to be a huge one for conferences where we can all get together, learn about current trends, improve marketing results, boost content and make plenty of valuable friends along the way.

Some of the events going on are truly exciting, as they are some of the biggest series around. If you are planning on attending any conferences within the next twelve months, here are some you should really consider.

1. SOBCon Chicago 2014

SOBCon Chicago 2014

SOBCon comes back stronger in 2014! Please read the official updates here. Even though the event in Portland was canceled, we will all be looking forward to Chicago SOBCon this year!

To be updated on the details, speakers and official venue, please subscribe to the newsletter!

2. Content Marketing World

Content Marketing World

Content Marketing Institute is one of the most popular marketing sites on the web. Their annual conference is huge, and a huge boost for any career to be seen speaking there. The speaker proposal deadline has passed, but it’s still a great place to network!

Where and When: Cleveland, Ohio. The Conference is September 8-11th, 2014.

3. BlogHer

BlogHer

For the women bloggers out there, you can attend a conference aimed directly at you and the special considerations to females in the blogosphere. Founded in 2005 by Elisa Camahort Page, Jory Des Jardins and Lisa Stone, BlogHer is a great site for educating, spreading awareness and assisting women online in their content and marketing.

Their annual event is always very informative and a lot of fun. Sign up early, because these tickets sell very fast. Also check out Pathfinder, the pre-conference set of workshops only open to a few hundred attendees on a first come, first serve basis. Tickets are on sale now.

Where and When: Thursday, July 24, 2014 at 8:00 AM – Saturday, July 26, 2014 at 11:00 PM (PDT) in
San Jose, CA

4. Now What?

Now What?

Still rather new on the conference circuit, Now What is still managing to attract a lot of attention from industry leaders and members of the public alike. Focused on web content, management and marketing, it is a great opportunity to keep up with the latest trends in the market. All while having plenty of chances to network with others and meet with representatives from dozens of well known brands in the expo hall. They are currently accepting submissions for speakers and workshops.

Where and When: Sioux Falls, South Dakota – Washington Pavilion in
April 23-24, 2014. The official venue hasn’t been announced yet.

5. Lifestyle Bloggers Conference

Lifestyle Bloggers Conference

For the fourth year in a row, Lifestyle Bloggers Conference is coming to Los Angeles. Aimed at female and Latina bloggers in particular, it is a great chance to learn about how social media is changing the face of blogs through greater community interaction.

There will be three keynotes, two sponsored lunches, a tour behind the scenes of LA Mart, and various panels and workshops. Unlike many other conferences, this one tries to cover all topics relevant to bloggers, from copyright law to SEO. If you want a well rounded conference targeted at women, you will love this event.

Where and When: March 27-29. 2014 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM (PDT), Los Angeles, CA. Be sure to book a hotel closer to the venue which is Cooper Design Place this time. One of the sites that has a convenient search and a huge database is LosAngelesHotels.

6. Design Bloggers Conference

Design Bloggers Conference

A great place to meet other designers, Design Bloggers Conference has the distinction of being just as much about inspiring creativity as it does learning about an industry. This time they will have two keynotes at the two day event: Jeffrey Alan Marks and Candice Olson. There will also be a fantastic expo there you won’t want to miss, held by the dozens of sponsors who will be showing off the latest in interior design products and ideas.

Where and When: This year the conference will be held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, 3300 Peachtree Road NE, Atlanta, Georgia, March 2-4.

Why Should I Attend A Blogger Conference?

This is a common question, and an understandable one. When your work is primarily done online, and social media becomes the backbone of that work, it is easy to forget how important one on one interaction can be. Sure, you can learn a lot of what is offered online during webinars or posted presentations. But you lose the human element.

Meeting up face to face with other bloggers is a great way to forge lasting working relationships. Not to mention it is a fun and exciting way to spark innovation, collaborate on project ideas, and just get away from the computer for a couple of days.

It also lets you interact more directly with experts and industry leaders in a way that leaves a lasting impression. You know you are more likely to remember someone you speak with over drinks than someone you tweet back and forth to.

Conclusion

When you work online it can be easy to forget to leave the web behind and really speak to others. These conferences are a great reminder that will have some serious benefits along the way.

Jessy Troy is the self-made marketer blogging at Viral Mom, the established blog for WAHMs. You can follow Jessy on Twitter as @jessytroy.

Should Your Employees Expect Holiday Gifts?

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With a still tight economy, it’s a tough time for small business owners.

When they are having a tough time in the business, it makes for a difficult decision when it comes time to think about holiday bonuses, gifts or anything extra around the holiday season.

Small business owners usually do like to thank their employees with a bonus or gift at the end of the year. The personal, family feel is what makes small businesses a nice place to be. However, when finances are tight, it’s not always possible.

Will It Be a Weak Year for Holiday Sales?

According to a report from Entrepreneur, 34% of small businesses are afraid it will be a weak year for holiday sales. Weak holiday sales mean less income and a tighter budget for small businesses. How does that translate into end of year bonuses, gifts and festivities?

It, unfortunately, does mean that more businesses are cutting back on the extras – less bonuses, less holiday parties, less year end gifts, but it doesn’t mean that employers don’t want to show their staff their appreciation. Some are just doing it in different ways.

Take a look at these ways to compensate for the lack of funds but still show your employees you are grateful for all they do:

• Giving a full or half day off for shopping or other holiday prep (no vacation or personal day needed).

• Donating to charities (this can be a tax write off).

• Getting together and helping out a non-profit together instead of a holiday party. There is very little cost, if any, and the satisfaction is big.

• Scaling down holiday parties but still hosting them, maybe a pot luck instead of a catered affair, or a dessert bar instead of a full meal.

• Give gift cards or gift baskets instead of hefty year-end bonus. It’s not quite the same, but does show appreciation, and can even be more personalized than cash.

If you do need to scale back this year, let your employees know that it is not because they are any less appreciated, but that your budget just does not allow it.

Because small businesses have fewer, closer employees, it’s important to thank them at the end of year, and let them know why there was a change (if it’s a big one) from past years.

Being upfront will pay off, there won’t be hard feelings or employees wondering what is going on. And maybe next year will be better.

Photo credit: employeeappreciationhq.com

About the Author: Heather Legg is a freelance writer who covers topics related to small business and social media.