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How Do I Keep My Employees Healthy?

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As a business owner, it is your responsibility to keep your employees motivated and productive throughout the day.

Part of this is helping them become healthier, physically and mentally. People who are living healthy lives tend to have more motivation to do a great job.

So by introducing healthier food options or wellness programs in the workplace, you’re not just helping your employees, but you’re helping your company’s success as well.

That said, what are you doing to help keep your employees fit and productive?

Provide Healthy Foods

Start by introducing healthier foods around the office.

If all you have in your office is coffee, donuts and vending machines filled with snacks and sweets, then that is all your employees typically have during the day.

A good majority of people are not going to bring their own lunches and instead go out to eat. So on the days when they don’t feel like going out or are hungry for a late morning snack, they head straight to the break room.

One way to improve their physical health is by offering healthy items instead of things like donuts and bagels. Have fresh fruit set out for employees, and stock the break room with snacks like yogurt, granola bars or even whole grain bagels with fat-free cream cheese. Put more healthy options in your vending machines as well.

Introduce a Wellness Program

Wellness programs have been very successful for companies who choose to utilize them.

A wellness program can include anything you like, such as on-site classes in yoga, Pilates or even CrossFit.

You can have someone offering stress-relief services for the wellness programs as well, such as massage therapy or acupuncture. This can become part of an employee’s signing bonus and benefits program. It helps your company by offering more benefits and being able to retain your employees, as well as getting more productive and motivated workers in return.

Offer Fitness Center Memberships

If you have a gym on-site, great! But even if you don’t have one, you can still encourage the use of fitness centers by offering memberships or discounts to local gyms.

Contact fitness centers in your area and see if they will offer discounts if you send your employees to their gym. Employees get a cheap gym membership and the gym get a good deal more business, so it works great for everyone.

Encourage On-Site Fitness

There are also ways to encourage physical activity in the workplace.

Start having stretches a couple times a day where you have everyone stand from their desks and perform stretches. This is going to help prevent injury from repetitive motion, such as doing stretches for the hands, wrists, arms, shoulders and back.

You can also give an extra 5 or 10-minute break to employees who want to take a walk around the building for some fresh air and exercise.

Your employee’s health should be important because it keeps them working every day and improves their productivity.

Another thing to note is that you should be offering them help for mental and emotional health through their benefits package.

Photo credit: healthline.com

About the Author: Tina Samuels writes on social media, healthcare recruitment, small business, and social media.

Be a Human Super-Collider

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Physicists at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland, made news recently when they announced that they expect to offer evidence of the existence (or non-existence) of the Higgs boson (or “God” particle) by the end of the year. Essentially, the “super-collider” smashes together particles at high speeds to see what happens when they collide.
large hadron collider

You can be a human super-collider.

Pay close attention to the people around you, their characteristics, dreams, businesses. Take mental note when someone shares their life experiences with you. Then when you see an opportunity to put two people together for their mutual benefit, do it.

When you proactively connect your connections, magical things will happen. Especially if you do it without any thought in mind of how it will benefit you.

How to Become a Human Super-Collider

Get very good at remembering names. Here’s a great article that will help you build that muscle and start connecting names to faces.

When you meet new people, find out what they’re up to. Don’t just go for the standard “what do you do,” think of interesting ways to draw out their long-term goals and dreams. Next time, try “what made you decide to go into [digital marketing/psychiatry/dog grooming]?”

Listen deeply and actively. Molly Cantrell-Craig wrote an excellent post about how to listen earlier this year.

Create a system for organizing information. You can use the notes section of your Address Book client, use the new LinkedIn Contacts app (they have a special spot for noting where you met someone), or try Evernote. As soon as you can, jot down some details about the person you just met. Bonus points if you remember to go back and read it before the next time you see that person again.

Don’t be afraid to introduce people. They may or may not hit it off, but you’ve just shown them both that you have their best interests in mind. Be sure to include the reason why you feel they should connect (do they have a mutual interest, are they going to the same conference, are their businesses complimentary). Here are some tips on the etiquette of introductions.

When you start consistently doing these things, you’ll start to see the magic of particle collision. Just don’t tell those folks in Switzerland.

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Image via Flickr CC: Image Editor

The Power of Stupid-Simple Business Building

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Marina

The following article is written by our good friend Wendy Piersall.

Last year, my husband Dave left his 12 year career at Xerox to pursue his dream of starting a boat repair shop up by the Chain O’ Lakes. Since his background is corporate sales, his previous career was built on taking care of his customers’ every need, even if that meant helping a print shop meet it’s deadline on a Saturday afternoon. His customers were so loyal to him that some still call him for advice when they need to buy new machines.

It might have seemed a little insane for him to start a new business, in a new industry, with three kids and looming college tuition bills mere months away. I was… um… “skeptical”. Coming from the marketing & blogging world, I was thinking that once he got a name, a website, and started establishing his brand with some advertising, he could start fixing boats on the side for a few months to ramp things up before we let go of his income. I guess I was thinking small. Because before he had a name, website nor even a shop to rent, he was filling up our yard with boats to fix. I promptly lost the battle to hang onto his income. And he’s been growing consistently ever since, while established marinas all over the area have been closing down.

I had wanted to talk to you about how he pulled this off in this post. He only advertised on Craigslist and one single local online forum for boaters, and got listed on all the local directory sites such as Yelp, Yellow Pages and Yahoo & Google local. That’s it.

But I realized that there was a much more important story to tell – and it’s about how he as a sales person and I as a marketer approached starting a business so very differently. As if I don’t already sound a little foolish, I can unequivocally state that I underestimated him and the power of thinking like a salesperson. While I was designing pretty logos, contemplating my business mission, and choosing WordPress templates, he was literally out pounding the pavement introducing himself to local business owners and calling our boat-owning friends to ask for referrals.

Only now can I see I was allowing myself to get caught up in the formalities of starting a business, instead of focusing on what was most important of all: customers. In my world, sales come after I’ve been able to craft and hone my “marketing message”. In Dave’s world, marketing is something he does in his down time when he isn’t closing deals.

When I asked him his thoughts on what has made him successful, it was a list of things you would expect to hear: following up with leads, acting confident even when he didn’t feel it, asking for referrals, and finding an underserved niche in his field. But the starkest difference between he and I was how he approached communicating with his customers: Dave has no marketing message he relies on. He finds out what is important to his prospects before he ever pitches a thing.

In short, he listens before he speaks.

And before you say to yourself, “Well DUH,” let me remind you that I’ve built 4 successful businesses in my lifetime, and I’m starting again on my fifth. The reason I forgot something so easy and so basic is just that: I dismissed it as easy and basic. And you might hear things at SOBCon that sound easy and basic – but please don’t make the same mistake that I did. The presenters at this event are freaking brilliant. If they bring up something ‘basic’, it might just be the most important thing you hear all weekend.

Values Drive Value — Always Did

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You Don’t Have to Wait for a Response to Know, Do You?

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In a conversation on Twitter on Sunday, I asked what I thought was a simple question.

How do you know when you’re tweeting value?

I asked it because a new guy on Twitter wanted to know the answer. I thought I might see what ways other folks had for managing the value of their Tweet stream — keeping the signal higher than the noise, not drifting over into in to useless chatter.

Many people started with the idea that they know they have tweeted value by the response — the retweets, reactions, engagement, and new followers that come from what they tweeted. So many answers basically said, “Other people tell me whether I offer value.”

I was thrown by the sheer number of responses that came back like that.
Being a teacher and a business person, my first thought was “Is this how our schools and our businesses have undermined us? They teach us to defer to other people’s opinion of value?

Isn’t putting something out there and then deciding it’s value by how people respond what network television does?

Value Is Worth


BigStock: Value is worth.

Imagine a contractor saying he would decide what a house he built was worth by tracking how many people talked about it? Wouldn’t you hope that the contractor might have a sense of quality and value before he picked his materials and assembled them?

Our reasons for sharing and responding or not doing so are often unrelated to value. Sometimes we share to get attention, without discrimination, or just to fill up the silence. Sometimes we don’t share because we’re busy, bored, tired of the noise, or uncaring.

If you offer something of value and no one responds does it mean that it has no value? If no one visits Tiffany, or Cartier for a week, will that mean that the diamonds they sell will no longer we of value?

Value is not what provokes a response — we swat mosquitoes when they bite us, but we don’t value the experience of a mosquito bite. Value is worth — what people find worth thinking about, worth using, worth discussing, worth time and attention. Value is what people keep and remember — we remember it because of how it changes or adds to our lives.

Values Drive Value — Always Did

Values drive value. We stop and notice what we value. Value resonates. Value influences. Value moves us to act on it because we want to incorporate it or add it our lives and our businesses. Finding value is its own reward. Sharing value is a generosity.

If you want to find what resonates with, influences, and moves other people, start with what resonates with you. influences, and moves you. If you want to know what other people will value, start with what you value first. If you don’t know where to start, here are three universal values you might use to offer irresistible value in what you write, build and choose to share.

  1. Value simplifies. Simple is elegant. Fewer clicks, fewer buttons, fewer steps in a to complete a task means less less to learn and less chance of introducing error. Simpler can move us past building to using. We do less hunting and gathering, less collecting data, art, photos, words, music, books, videos, and more enjoying, participating, reading, reviewing, listening, analyzing and sharing what we’ve collected. Anything that simplifies the navigation or the process of collecting gets us more quickly to discussing, learning, interacting, and connecting with the people about what we’ve found.
  2. Value saves time, energy, and resources. Who wouldn’t value something that offered more time, more energy or more resources? We need all three to process information and to make connections to people. Information and people help us remove problems, disarm obstacles, or lighten burdens. Connecting us to people who and you free our attention and time for what we want even more of in our businesses and our lives.
  3. Value adds meaning. Meaning, passion, purpose is what keeps us moving forward and gives us something to look forward to. Meaning is how we define ourselves and what connects us to other human beings. Meaning helps us explain why we’re here, who we care about, and how we’ll invest our time, energy and resources. Friends, family, fortune, fame, fun, faith and so many others are meaningful to people. Share what’s meaningful to you.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that we stop listening for a response. Listening is a value in itself. It adds meaning to the relationships we’re building. Values attract people who value what you do. Serve them. Sharing values builds trust and trust simplifies, saves time, and adds meaning to a relationship.

Don’t build a life or a business around people who don’t share your values. They won’t value you. They won’t value your work. Why would you want to share what you value with people who don’t value it too?

Share what you know to be of value with people who value what you do. Then listen to their responses. Identify those who value you what you do and use what they say to serve them better, to think about what they might need next of value that will simplify, save time, and add meaning to their lives.

How do you know when you’re offering value?

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

How to Gain Influence and Earn Trust – 3 Things to Be First

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Influence and Trust

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Two relationship words — influence and trust — can be found throughout this social business culture. Those of us who authentically enjoy the influence of high-trust relationships with a large audience are finding that to be almost a currency evidenced by the way that we are pursued.

Influence is valued because it wins attention, moves people to action, and sometimes even changes how and what people think. Trust is valued because it extends and deepens influence into a stronger bond. The power of influence and trust has become so studied, demonstrated, and valued that major corporations regularly include influencer outreach in their marketing strategic plans because a few words or a blog post from the right ones can bring thousands of potential customers to them.

How does a person gain influence and earn trust like that?

How to Gain Influence and Earn Trust – 3 Things to Be First

If you’re a person or a brand who wants to establish your own community of fiercely loyal fans, it’s natural that you’d be interested in how to gain influence and earn trust. Building a platform or making an offer as a means to attract an influence network establishes a fragile and at best. The sort of influence and trust that consistently moves people to action comes not from something that we build or offer, but who we are.

If you want to gain influence and earn trust, here are 3 things you need to be first.

  1. Be clear about your values. Be an example of your values in action. Values establish common ground. When we act from our values we attract people who share them. When we share values, it becomes easy to predict decisions you’ll make and responses you’ll have. So when you point something you believe in or recommend, we can trust that we’ll have the same experience of it.
  2. Be more than credible. Be honest. Trust is goes beyond believing to knowing. We trust people we know who are what they appear even when we’re not around. The only consistent way to live up to that is to be honest with everyone — including yourself — about your your competencies, your expectations, and your commitments. Take care not use honesty as a weapon. Trust is the hard truth spoken gently. Tell the truth with respect.
  3. Be a generous, collaborative, and open source. Bring your expertise and your beginner’s mind. Share information. Share expertise. Share your thinking — as a learner as well as a teacher. Share by introducing people who would benefit from knowing each other. Share in gratitude, without expectation of receiving back. Connecting people to good ideas and other good people with good ideas builds influence and trust. Keep your focus on valuing the people who already trust you and providing value for them. They will share you with their friends.

Take a long hard look at anyone who has a truly lasting network of influence and trust. You’ll find these three traits are attracting people to them. People who enjoy a position of influence and trust give attention, move to action, and often change how or what they think because of the people who listen to them.

Influence and trust aren’t one-way streets. No lasting grant of influence or endowment of trust will be gained or earned without an equal openness to influence and a willingness to trust. We think of influencers as teachers, but the greatest teachers never stop learning. And learning requires trust.

What have you learned about influence and trust?

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Be a Good Citizen

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A Guest Post by
Rosemary O’Neill

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Like it or not, it’s political season in the United States. We must sort through the debates, talking heads, and town halls, and do our duty as citizens.

There are clear rules to being a good citizen of the US. Obey the law and vote, and you’re pretty much good. Throw in some volunteering, and that’s even better.

Online, in the social world, it’s a different story. Depending on where you are, the rules are different, and often unwritten. It can be tricky.

But don’t fear, I’m here to give you some simple tips that will keep you out of the Internet version of Turkish prison. We’ll cover Twitter and LinkedIn today:

Twitter

  • Fill out your bio – it’s the equivalent of politely introducing yourself.
  • Replace the “egg” with an avatar – you don’t walk around town with a mask on, do you?
  • Don’t use auto-direct messages – unless you’re getting hundreds of new followers every day, you can spare 5 minutes to send a personal greeting.
  • Don’t order people to “like” you on Facebook – need I say that this is rude?
  • Vary your stream – don’t just be all retweets, all quotes, all broadcast. Throw in some mentions, replies, original thoughts.
  • Don’t follow hundreds of people at once – it’s best to grow your following organically, over time. Get to know them first, then add more. Also, if your ratio of following to followers is way out of whack, you look desperate.
  • Help people – if you see a Tweet like, “can anyone recommend a good Chinese restaurant in Phoenix” and you know one, jump on it!

LinkedIn

  • Go in with a plan, are you open or not – if you decide to accept invitations from people you haven’t actually met, you are a LION (LinkedIn Open Networker); most people do not accept invitations from strangers, so tread carefully.
  • Be a contributor – when you first join a group, don’t make your first post a “promotion.”
  • Webinar spam – likewise, don’t make your first contribution a webinar announcement.
  • Don’t direct-link your Twitter stream to your activity stream – if I see you in both places, I want different content; come on, it’s not that much work!
  • Answer questions – go to the Answer section and help where you can; remember your manners and thank people who answer your questions as well.
  • Be generous with your recommendations – this falls into the “good karma” category. Spread your good recommendations where they’re appropriate, without expectations. Trust me, it’s good.

If you keep these guidelines in mind, you’re well on your way to being a solid social citizen. And don’t forget to vote.

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Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out their blog. You can find her on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee
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Thank you, Rosemary!

You’re irresistible!

ME “Liz” Strauss