As you build your business online, you have probably thought about how to improve the performance of the current team that you work with.  Whether you have two employees or two hundred, this series aims to equip you with common sense but not necessarily common practice tools.  This week, I will be blogging about the second step of building strong teams: how to keep your team at peak performance!

Part 2: Managing High Performance

Annual Reviews: Most established organizations have an annual review process that normally coincides with a salary evaluation.  If you do not have annual reviews, you need to consider the cost to your team; however small it happens to be.  The common misconception is that annual reviews are not necessary for small teams, because “they already know what I think of them.”  This couldn’t be further from the truth.

At minimum, annual reviews are a great time to recap the year and discuss what went well and what opportunities came along with your successes.  It is customary to discuss not only a broad view of the organization’s achievements but to focus in on the individual contribution of the employee.  In low trust environments, you will typically see a report card type of review — where a lengthy list of responsibilities is weighted against a measurement scale that attempts to give the employee feedback about their value to the company.  In my experience, these types of reviews are not very engaging to the manager and frankly not much fun for the employee either.  However, its better to have an annual record of such conversations rather than have nothing at all.

Ideally, feedback about an employee’s progress (good and bad) should be presented to them far more regularly than on an annual basis.  If you are not giving feedback weekly, and at minimum, monthly to your employees, you are not setting them up for success.  The pace at which our competition is moving warrants responsible managers to move swiftly to correct inappropriate behavior that detracts the organization from reaching its goals.  Remember the rule: offer one negative feedback for every five positive ones you offer to your employees.  This will help you grow your emotional bank account with your team, and help make your negative feedback hold much more weight.

With this practice in place, you may ask then, what would be the point of an annual review?  Good question.

1. Highlight the year’s feedback. Since feedback is given regularly, I use the annual review to highlight the best feedback that I have given that employee in the past year and point out some of the more consistent opportunities.  At this point, it should no longer be a surprise to the employee.  In fact, the annual reviews should never contain any surprises or unknowns to the your people.  A review of past conversations helps to frame the context of the annual review.
2. Talk about what engages your employee. With feedback summarized quickly in your meeting, start talking to them about the best parts of the past year.  You’ll soon find them talking about the work and responsibilities that excite them and bring purpose and passion to their role.  You may even be surprised that the best part of their year was being called ad hoc into a committee that ordinarily had nothing to do with their role.  Listen carefully to what their heart is drawn to.  This is where you will find their engagement to be at highest level.  As much as the business allows, talk about how you can give them more opportunities to pursue more work that brings them alive. Be sure to also check in on the tasks and responsibilities that drain your team. You may not be able to change the scope of the responsibilities but just being aware of it and offering them a chance to be heard is a valuable exercise in and of itself.
3. Consider the partnership approach. All in all, it’s important to hold the perspective that your employees are partners with you on your organizational goal, rather than employees that need to be micromanaged towards the results that you determine.  Don’t get me wrong, give regular feedback, but in your annual review, make it a time where you give the gift of true listening to your employees.  You will be amazed at how much their engagement levels will change when they feel like they are understood and supported; even if their actual duties don’t change much.

Invest in your Leaders: If you have a larger team, you probably realize that it’s impossible for you to keep track of all the day-to-day operations of your business unless you appoint leaders that manage a segment of the business.  If you have a large team with direct reports who are managers, it is wise to spend the majority of the time allotted to personnel issues with your leaders.  I have an open door policy where any employee can approach me for any reason.  However, I typically initiate and make sure that I spend a good chunk of time connecting with my managers.

1. Connect intentionally. In these regular meetings, I use the same discussion process as the annual review but in a much more simplified fashion.  First, I review high-level priorities.  At CityMax, I am privileged to work with a wonderful group of managers, so I am usually doling out compliments whenever I remember to.  I affirm all the great qualities that I appreciate and I thank them for the great results they have shown. Next I discuss how their energy level is with their current load of responsibilities and do the best I can to alleviate any stuck points or hindrances.  Lastly, I hold the perspective that we are partners, and consistently ask them for feedback on my performance as well as anything that I can do to help them do their jobs to their best level.
2. Listen carefully whenever your leaders give you feedback about yourself because there is usually more underneath a meek offering that you can learn about yourself and how you can be a better support to them.  As much as possible, involve them in major decision making processes and consider their concerns with the utmost care.  I firmly believe that leaders ignore their manager’s opinions and suggestions to their own detriment.  In a spirit of partnership, the less you treat them as underlings, the more engagement you will see as they not only interact with you but with the people that they lead.
3. Be a resource. One of my worst career experiences was when I was starting out in business and was working for a prominent retail chain.  As was common, there were management shifts that caused me to have a new boss.  This manager would speak down to his people disrespectfully and every week he would assign work to his people that far exceeded a reasonable completion time.  Imagine if your boss asks you to finish a project in a week that would normally take two weeks… and then did absolutely nothing to help you.  Nobody wants to work for a tyrant and no one will respect your leadership unless you show your people that you truly care about their well-being.  Jim Collins in the influential management classic “Good to Great,” writes that the most effective leaders leading today’s most successful companies have a deep humility with the people they work with.  So consider being a resource to your people instead of only simply being a delegator.
   1. Ask your managers if you can shift around organizational and people resources to help supplement capacity for large undertakings and urgent tasks.  Always ask if you have done your part in providing the best environment for them to succeed.
   2. Find ways to provide educational resources that can help your leaders grow professionally and personally.  This could be supporting a portion of their tuition as they pursue a professional certification, or simply paying for the cost of a conference that would refresh their relevant work skills.
   3. Just because you’re not in it for the money, doesn’t mean that your people don’t care either.  As much as possible, find ways to financially care for your leaders.  It’s not easy to justify paying a premium for good work but consider the loss of productivity should a key person leave.  Think about how expensive it would be to firstly find a person of similar qualifications and knowledge base about your business and then ask yourself how long it would take a new person to pick up where the other one left off.  I think you see where I am going with this.  The worst feeling for an employee is to give up hope that they will reach their financial goals with their current employer, find new work, give notice, and THEN find out that the current employer is willing to give them a substantial raise to stay. “If you are willing to pay me that much now, why have you held back all this time?”

   If you take care of your leaders, you will find that the investment more often than not will only benefit the stability of your organization.  Remember to connect intentionally with them, listen carefully to their feedback and always find ways to be a resource to them so they can be freed to focus on getting the bottom line results you need to see your organization thrive.

(Darrell Lim is our Operations Manager at CityMax but he is also a trained organizational development coach.  Find out more about him and get more business insights at his CityMax powered business website: www.oakmanagementconsulting.com.)c

Have you ever thought about moving your blog from one host to another, but were afraid of what might happen to your search engine ranking?

Should Double Dragon Jewelry move their blog?

Cindy of Double Dragon Jewelry Ltd. is deciding that exact scenario. She’s debating whether to move her new blog from BlogSpot.com (one of the most popular blogging software programs) to one that will allow her to keep her blog as part of her jewelry website.

Just to make this clear, her jewelry is being sold on:

silverjewelry-sterling.com

Her blog is currently at:

doubledragonsilverjewelry.blogspot.com/

Her web host, i.e. CityMax which is us, has added a blogging option so she could have her blog on:

silverjewelry-sterling.com/blog.html

If Cindy moved her blog to silverjewelry-sterling.com, she would have to weigh the following:

1. Potential to improve the rank of silverjewelry-sterling.com

Having her blog on her CityMax site will do 3 things that may increase her search engine rank for silverjewelry-sterling.com. First, every blog post is new content on her site. The more often you update your site, the more often search engines will re-index it (i.e. check out your site to see what new info is posted so their links are up to date) and rank your site higher.

Second, each blog post Cindy does will hopefully result in more links to silverjewelry-sterling.com because people like her posts. Each link or “vote” helps your search engine ranking. If a website with a high search engine rank links to your page, this is even better. Their “vote” for your site is actually worth several votes.

Third, each time Cindy posts a new article, this will result in a new page that can be linked to from the search engines to her site. This in turn will mean more opportunities to draw people to her site. The more people who visit her site, the higher her website ranking will be.

2. Cannot take search engine rank of doubledragonsilverjewelry.blogspot.com to new blog

If Cindy already has a good rank for doubledragonsilverjewelry.blogspot.com,she cannot transfer that rank directly to her new blog pages. This is because her blog is moving to a different domain. The search engines will recognize this change as doubledragonsilverjewelry.blogspot.com has shut down and then when they index her blog on silverjewelry-sterling.com/blog.html, they will recognize this as a new blog.

3. Beware of duplicate content as it can get your site delisted temporarily

If Cindy plans to move over articles she posted on doubledragonsilverjewelry.blogspot.com to silverjewelry-sterling.com/blog.html, she could get silverjewelry-sterling.com delisted temporarily. The reason is search engines don’t like duplicate content or even very similar content. It looks like someone who isn’t an authority on a topic, just copied someone else’s content. Everything is automated too, you cannot tell Google: “Hey, I just moved my blog to ______.”

Cindy may want to only post new articles on her silverjewelry-sterling.com/blog.html blog at first and not copy over any of her old articles. After her old blog has been closed for a considerable amount of time (many months) such that the old page content is no longer indexed on search engines, she can then repost the articles.

4. Potential to increase sales on silverjewelry-sterling.com

Cindy is likely to get more people to click to other parts of silverjewelry-sterling.com since her website navigation will be right beside her blog posts. This may result in greater sales. Note that if she didn’t move her blog over, you could argue that she could simply have a link to her jewelry online store.

5. Functionality and Convenience

Cindy needs to weigh the functionality of the 2 blogs. To BlogSpot’s credit, they have had many years to develop their site and blogs are their primary focus. CityMax is an all-in-one website builder and must balance the benefits of developing the blog further against other features that are requested. When it comes to convenience, Cindy may like that she can manage everything on CityMax instead of having to monitor 2 websites.

If anyone has any other reasons to move or not move a blog, please post them in the comments.

As you build your business online, you have probably thought about how to improve the performance of the current team that you work with. Whether you have two employees or two hundred, this series aims to equip you with common sense but not necessarily common practice tools. This week, I will be blogging about the first step of building strong teams: the hiring process!

Part 1: The Hiring Process

Create detailed job postings: I have seen far too many job advertisements that have a total of 3 lines of detail in the posting. The more information you can put down about the job, the less work you have to do in weeding out unqualified candidates. This, in turn, saves you valuable time to focus on your business. As you consider posting for an opening in your company, be clear about:

• The job duties. If it’s a generalist position, then be clear in the posting that it is so and list the varied duties. The more detail you put down, the more you will be able to interest good people who are on the fence about applying for your job. Otherwise, you depend on an applicant’s current paradigm about what it would be like to work for a clothing company or a trade business – this could deter you from finding the best candidate.

• The job qualifications. Be clear about the educational background and past experience that is critical to the success of your applicant. You’ll be surprised at how many apply for managerial positions for which they either have no education or past experience. Awhile back, I consulted with a grocery store that had been looking for a Bakery Manager for almost a year. One of my first areas of investigation was the current job posting they had advertised. You would be shocked if I told you the percentage of people who applied to the role whose baking repertoire was only limited to their kitchen! The problem was that the ad simply said: “Bakery Manager wanted, send a resume to ABC Grocery store.” Instead, they should have made it clear that they were looking to hire someone with at least 3 years of experience in ordering supplies for a scratch bakery as well as managing a team of 6 or more. This would certainly have ruled out the wannabes from the true talent they were looking for.

• The job remuneration. Although people will not admit it, one of the first things that applicants are looking for is how much they will be paid. If the salary meets their expectations, they are more likely to take it seriously. The reality is that most people end up taking the first job they know they can perform well in - at the rate that they believe they are worth. If you hold out salary information until the end of the interview process, you stand the risk of losing someone even though you may have been prepared to pay him or her more than your competitor! Also, if you have a generous benefits plan or anything that is unique or rare in your industry - put that on the posting!

Look for Competence, Character and Chemistry: Too many employers focus only on past experience or education. The problem with that approach is that it only hones in on one part of what it takes to have a successful team. To be sure, it’s vitally important to hear from a candidate about what they have done in the past, but it’s also useful to hear about what they would do in a hypothetical situation. Asking behavior based questions helps you to learn how the candidate problem solves and reacts under conditions that may be unique to your work environment. It also forces them to think outside the box a bit, as it’s quite easy to prepare well for the typical interview questions.

After you get a good sense for their competence, check in with a behavior based question that reflects a character value you uphold. For example, ask them what they would do if they saw a co-worker stealing, or if they witnessed an internal or external harassment issue. You will quickly get an idea if this person is the type of person you will not only enjoy working with (because of their competence), but their values will be personified through the way they answer character related questions.

Lastly, evaluate for chemistry. There may not be specific questions that you can use to consider the chemistry you may have with a potential employee but it’s a vital part of your working relationship. You could have someone who is of good character and delivers results consistently but if they root for a baseball team that you despise or you can’t imagine having an enjoyable conversation on Monday about the weekend, you may be best to move onto someone else you know that is easy to relate to. This personal connection will add dividends to your professional relationship in spades.

Invest in a background check. A recent study showed that 1 in 3 job applicants have included some form of dishonesty on their resume. This may seem like a shocking amount but this may not be surprising since 2 out of 3 people have been surveyed as having cheated for a test while in college. The fact is that most people who cheat sincerely believe that they can get away with it. I have conducted many background checks after I have interviewed successful candidates and it’s always disappointing to hear that the employment records were inaccurate or the educational qualification was fudged. The cost of training a new employee is exponential compared to the couple hundred dollars you can spend on a background check. A good background check can also reduce costs on employee theft, reduces employee turnover and creates a safe workplace environment for your team. Typical background checks will include:

• Educational and employment history verification
• Reference checks
• Criminal record check (Theft and Violence)
• Credit check.
• Industry specific verifications like Driver Abstracts and Public Safety.

There are many reputable organizations that offer this service, but please verify the presence of certifications and memberships that are relevant to your state or province before you choose who will contract this work out to.

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Darrell Lim is our Operations Manager at CityMax but he is also a trained organizational development coach. Find out more about him and get more business insights at his CityMax powered business website: www.oakmanagementconsulting.com.

Last Thursday, I went to the Art of Marketing Conference and thought I’d share some of what I learned:

Be where your customers already are

If your customers or potential customers frequent a particular website, discussion board, etc., you should be there in some meaningful way too.

Post reviews of your products

You’re out with friends and one of them tells you about a product they think is amazing. Now, you’re thinking about getting it for yourself, but if you’re like 75 to 80 percent of people, you’ll search online for reviews about it first.

Testimonials, positive and negative, can help you make sales. Even the negative ones may reinforce buying a product. For example, you want a simple camera for taking photos without a lot of buttons. A professional photographer posts how they dislike a camera because it’s too simple for them and doesn’t have a lot of functions. Now, you know you’ve found a camera that’s perfect for you.

Create a workplace that reflects your company values

Ask yourself:  What can you do in your workplace to get your staff to care more? At CityMax, for example, we encourage people to always be learning new skills.  The result is we have an unlimited book budget for anything that will help you with your work directly or indirectly. I’ve seen people with books on business, psychology, creativity, programming and design.

Send the perfect thank-you gift

When you want to thank a customer, instead of sending the usual gifts, you can go one step further. Check their tweets (search their name at search.twitter.com) and see if they’ve got any special interests like a baseball team.  Then, you can send them a thank-you card with a gift catered to them like a baseball jersey. This may be particularly useful to do with a customer who brings in a lot of repeat business. They’ll remember you better and they have a great story to tell about how they got the gift.

Test a marketing campaign before you launch it

Before you spend lots of money on a marketing campaign, test it as much as you can beforehand. For example, Google posted several videos for people to view for a future television ad. One stood out in terms of likes and views compared to all others.  That video ended up being used for their Superbowl commercial — they bet on a sure winner.  Here’s the video:

LEGO

Last week, I was talking to a co-worker about LEGO and it got me thinking about how brilliantly LEGO has expanded. Here are some things that every small business owner could learn from them:

1. Look outside your primary market

Originally, Lego was geared toward boys until 1971 when they introduced furniture pieces and dollhouses for girls. LEGO also added the Duplo product line (essentially large-sized lego) for pre-school kids. Like LEGO, you should keep an eye out for new opportunities for your products outside your traditional buyers.

2. Use your product to help others

Since the 1960’s, teachers used LEGO as a learning tool. By 1980, the LEGO group caught on and established the Educational Product Department to expand the educational possibilities of using LEGO. When your product has a learning component to it, you may want to offer it free to schools and/or community centers. People will talk about it and since they’re already used to your products, they’re most likely to buy it for their own private use too.

3. Keep on top of industry and mainstream news

In 1985, with the ever increasing popularity of computers, LEGO introduced the Technic Computer Control. It allowed Technic robots, trucks and other motorized LEGO toys to be controlled by a computer. As a small business owner, it’s important to read up on what’s happening not only in your industry but what’s becoming mainstream. It may help you find inspiration for new product ideas and prevent your product from getting outdated.

4. Form partnerships with complementary companies

Nowadays, it’s common to see movie-themed LEGO sets like Harry Potter and Star Wars. You can also find LEGO video games and story books. The company smartly formed partnerships with products that suited their brand and you can do the same. Ask your regular customers for ideas or brainstorm your own from time to time.

5. Embrace your fans

LEGO has encouraged and embraced hardcore LEGO builders through competitions and clubs. In 1988, LEGO held the first ever LEGO World Cup building contest. You can also see LEGO exhibits and subscribe to the LEGO Club Magazine. When you notice your customers are banding together to use your product, look for ways to help them to connect with each other. It could be as simple as a discussion board on your website (on CityMax, add layout “Message Board”) or hosting meet ups for customers to share ideas.

If there’s a company that you aspire to be like, check online for their story.

Cookies from Sweet Chic's Cookies

Big time sporting events like the Superbowl or World Series are opportunities for small businesses to get free publicity. I live in Vancouver where our hockey team, the Vancouver Canucks, are in the Stanley Cup finals against the Boston Bruins. News outlets are going crazy right now for anything related to the Canucks.

Here are some examples of different strategies to draw publicity to your product or service during a major sporting event:

1. Change your store name temporarily

The Shark Club changes it’s name to the Vancouver Club temporarily

In one of the Canucks’ playoff series, they played the San Jose Sharks, so one of the most popular sports bars in Vancouver changed it’s name. The General Manager actually received lots of requests from patrons to change the name so he made the change while at the same time garnering free publicity. Shortly thereafter, all B.C. locations changed their name.

Boston Pizza changes it’s name to Vancouver Pizza

Pizza chain, Boston Pizza, got into the act too when the Canucks were set to play Boston. All locations in B.C. rebranded their store names including the Boston Pizzas in the Canucks’ home arena.

2. Serve food inspired by your team

May I have a Sedin Twin Burger please?

At Vancouver’s Opus Hotel, the executive chef made a burger inspired by 2 players from the Canucks team. You can also have it served with a Henrik to Daniel Drop Shot.

Local cookie company makes Canucks cookies

I showed up for work this morning to a table full of Canucks cookies from Sweet Chic’s Cookies. The perfect gift for a Canucks viewing party.

3. Make a bet with a similar business to yours in the opposing team’s city

Mayors, Governors, Premiers and Parks make bets

Politicians always seem to be getting publicity for stunts like this so why not you? On a creativity scale, they are usually on the tame side (clam chowder for Pacific salmon…boooooring!). I personally think making the losing mayor wear a spandex green suit (taken from 2 dedicated Canucks fans known as the Green Men) would have been far more entertaining as first proposed by the Vancouver mayor. The Vancouver mayor also used twitter to get ideas from locals on what to bet. It was another way to draw more publicity by starting a conversation with constituents.

God and the friendly wager

I must admit this is pretty forward thinking of the Roman Catholic archbishops of Vancouver and Boston to make a bet. The losing archbishop must make a donation to a charity and don the opposing team’s jersey in church on Sunday.

What I would like to see…

Two tour boat operators bet that the losing company pays to have one of the winning company’s boats painted in the winning team’s colors. Bet that boat will be popular with locals and tourists when they see it.

Two laundromat owners bet that the losing owner has to donate $200 in quarters for patrons of the winning team. Both owners should also deck out their locations with their team’s colors. The winning team will get tons of people doing laundry that day.

A floral shop uses flowers to recreate their team’s logo in their window.

An electronics rental store offers local community and cultural centers the chance to enter a draw where the winner gets a free setup of a large screen to watch the game.

Important:  Tell the media!

Lastly, make sure you benefit from your efforts and contact the media. Start with local community papers and then work your way up to any media person or blogger you can find. Just remember when you’re telling them your idea to keep it short and punchy.

Image by jronaldlee

Do you find yourself saying any of the following statements?

“I want to sell to everybody.”

“Everybody can benefit from my product/service.”

“I want to cast a wide net – everyone should know about us.”

If so, I want to give you a high five for your enthusiasm – but I also want you to read the rest of this article so you understand why your marketing consultant looks really uncomfortable when you say any of the above.

The world would be a wonderful place if everyone was the perfect candidate for your product or service. But the truth of the matter is, we’re all different. We all have different wants, needs, tolerances, and preferences. We’re all drawn to different things and we’re all trying to solve different problems. Which is why when you try to sell to everyone, you end up wasting a lot of time, energy, and money on people that are never going to spend money on you.

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Image by Jeff McNeill

One of the absolutely most popular questions we get asked by CityMax.com customers is “how do I get on Google?”

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is a complex game and sometimes it can take a while to get search engines like Google to notice you. It’s a delicate balance of targeting the right keywords, having the right content, using the right elements to build your website, and having the right sites link back to you – you can see how it can be challenging.

While SEO is definitely something you should focus on and ranking naturally through search engines is a fantastic goal, there’s a faster way to do it – it’s called advertising.

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Image by @jbtaylor

No matter how fantastic your small business’ product, service, or idea, it doesn’t matter unless you catch your audience’s attention right off the bat.

You could have the secret to all life’s problems wrapped up in a beautiful box, but if you don’t quickly tell your visitor how you have the answer to everything they’ve ever worried about, they’re not going to care.

So how do copywriters do it? How do they come up with those few, precious, magical words that make customers keep reading?

The first step, as you may have guessed, is to know what your customers are looking for. Essentially, you are offering a solution to a problem that they have. What is that problem? How can you help them?

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Whether you work from a home office or a conventional office, sometimes staying on task can be a challenge. But what about when you have a deadline? Or when you just keep putting off something that needs to be done?

Here are a few tricks to get the most out of your time.

1.    Get out of the office
Sometimes plunking down in the middle of a semi-busy coffee shop can help you get more done than sticking to the quiet of your desk. According to research, when we’re in public we want to look like we have a purpose. This little psychological need can help us stay focused on a task when we’re surrounded by strangers. To learn more about this, check out Lifehacker’s Why Some of Us Get More Done at Coffee Shops.

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