Finally, as a philosophical framework, make the effort to "recruit" your employees every day - to make sure they want to come back the next day. Guy Kawasaki, Art of the Start, Chapter 6: Recruiting.
Employee engagement is built one day at a time. And, nothing builds it better than making sure they want to come back the next day. Operative word is want.
Is it worth the effort to have one that inspires passion in your customers, in their communities and families, around the world? Why do you need one that inspires passion and inspiration in those who aren't even your customers? Who cares about them, right? You're focused on your customers, your bottomline.
Makes sense...maybe.
If your business mission is something vague, not connected with your employees, or...you think such a high-minded mission is all folly for latte-sippers, out on the cafe' and doing it mid-day no less... maybe you should read Customer Evangelism Case Study: Tom's Shoes.
You should definitely read it if you're the latter: you think such a high-minded mission is all folly for latte-sippers, out on the cafe' and doing it mid-day no less. If only for your family, you should read it. They may enjoy you more with a bit more heart worn on your sleeve. And definitely read it for how this mission helped expand the reach of this company's marketing message, and free too.
You can spend your money on ad agencies creating a message to differentiate yourself. Or you can do something different, do something that matters for somebody. And that message can stand out on its own and be carried around the world with no talking points, no scripts, no branded colors or logos.
Perception is reality...Maybe. If it is, it's only because we're lazy. We like our realities spoon-fed to us with an even consistency and a regularly scheduled surprise of naughtiness/drama/outrage that's well within our limits.
Advertising's sweet seduction comes from its easy application. It's much easier to create an ad campaign for a product than create and deliver that same product. It's much easier to claim features and benefits, whisper sweet nothings (literally) in the consumer's ear, than deliver a product that delivers on its promises or...OR...wows the customers and your employees.
That's messy. That's a source of whew...a great number of headaches...and aggravation when you really- really, in reality, like ...to real people, like...in real-time, like...in their time have to deliver on your promises in something more substantial than a glossy ad campaign.
Where's the glamour in all that? You go to a party. You're standing around with a drink in your hand and shout WOW. Did we really exceed a customer's expectations today! I mean, they THANKED us! And you nod your head emphatically, maybe do a fist pump, raise your hand and hold it there for someone to slap it in a high-five celebration.... You'll get blank stares before they silently turn from you and walk away. (Take my word. I've done it. It's true.)
On the other hand, talk about your hot new ad campaign on...YouTUBE! Yeah! Wooo! It's HOT...HOT! You'll be surrounded the whole night. High-fives. Beauties adoring you. Men slapping you on the back, wanting you to high-five them. (That's never happened to me. I've SEEN it happen to others.)
The difference is what happens when you get back to the office. Perceptions fade. You're left with reality. Or Authenticity. And the first example is left with a cost-effective, sustainable business model...probably a slew of referrals and a crew of happy, proud, satisfied, motivated employees. (Take my word. I've done it. It's true.)
The second example...I don't know. After the party, they usually don't last very long.
The guest post, Authenticity: Being What You Say You Are by James Gilmore and Joseph Pine at Branding Strategy Insider inspired this riff.
How are you helping your employees to show their pride? Jones Soda is asking them to sign their names to their work, using the inside of their boxes. 
As a bonus, this shows Jones Soda taking some pride in their people, too.
In your small business, are you building in opportunities for people to sign their names, to show their pride?
More importantly, are you doing something worth being proud of? How are you communicating it to your people?
- Guest Author: Becky McCray writes about small business and rural issues at Small Biz Survival, based on her own success and failures.
Employee Engagement notified its members (I'm one) of this upcoming 2-day event: Innovating Employee Engagement.
Why should you go? Well, when you realize that on average 70% of your/our employees are NOT engaged...(translation: 70% of your number one asset, your most expensive asset, is being under utilized to their detriment/unhappiness, and that of yours, your company's and your customers.)
Why should you go? It's being held at the always fun, cool, productive Catalyst Ranch. I've attended 2 events there in the past. Both were excellent, engaging, fun, productive, interactive, personal. Innovative and engaged.
And if you want to stay current with best practices, resources, conversations, forums, events and ideas related to building employee engagement, then you should join: Employee Engagement.
One company listens, generates passionate word-of-mouth, more referrals, is a success.
One company...what...is deaf to not only their customers, but their own experiences...and they're closed.
From Brad Shorr, Word Sell, Inc. a Tale of Two Companies.
Would your company grow faster, farther, quicker, easier with a camp counselor like Meg Fowler?
Would your customers spread more positive word-of-mouth if your company had a handful of employees with the passion and zeal of a camp counselor like Meg Fowler?
Would your employees come to work, stay at work, with more enthusiasm and zest and drive and energy and commitment if you could offer 2-3-4 camp counselors like Meg Fowler?
I know, I know. We're a business and that's a summer camp. That's just silly to ask, even think about asking, that expecting a camp counselor evangelism, that kind of commitment, from our employees.
Really? Why?
Ok. We're not teenagers. And you have teenagers at home maybe. And we have families that deserve our attention. Ok. Your point is ...what? I'm thinking all that means we're all better organized and smarter with our time. And besides, we're a role model and what role do we play if we go home bitter and cynical from a disengaged day at a disengaged company? Or...what message, what role, do we communicate to our family when we come home engaged and inspired and excited about what we accomplished, what we fought and what we gained and what successes we saw.
I'm just saying. Is it unrealistic to ask, to even consider moving the motivators for you personally or your company corporately in that direction? How far could you take it? How far would they take it if given the chance?
As Meg says in her post:
There are a ZILLION worse jobs you could do. I always knew that, no matter how tired or dirty or overwhelmed I got.
That doesn’t mean it was always easy.
So right. And we've all worked there or more likely been customers of those companies. And we can remember our experiences....ok, don't.
But there's the opportunity. A zillion is pretty much the entire marketplace and that term is pretty accurate for accounting and emotional purposes when you consider the experience from most jobs. In a market of a zillion horrible jobs offering a zillion horrible experiences for their co-workers AND their customers...it's easy, not always, to stand out.
Start simple. Just do one thing. Just do one thing from the list of Meg's learning experiences. Here's my favorite...number 9, number 10's great, numbers 11- 14 are indispensable, 16 and 20 gotta have.
Whatever. Pick one. And go from there. You'll soon have her whole list. I wish I'd had this list at different times in my life and career. But now I do. And you should, too.
I really wasn't expecting to riff on this. But that's the great thing about blogging and social media: you never know from where the inspiration's coming. And you rarely expect it to be from a camp counselor.
Link, yet again, from Chris Brogan.
Workplaces to see more spats about after-hours work.
Should an employee get paid for reading a BlackBerry at the dinner table, sending an office e-mail or posting a job-related blog at home?
Of course.
The question then is Why is this even asked?
Somewhere along the way, the engagement between this employee and the company, and their shared goals, was...severed.
The company may be clear on the answers to these 3 questions as they're applied to this issue:
What's in it for me?
Why should I care?
Why should I believe?
But the employee sure isn't.
The best customer-loyalty metric is the Net Promoter Score. Fred Reichheld, its creator, asks if your NPS, or Net Promoter Scores, should drive your compensation.
I'm in the pro camp, obviously, especially with Net Promoter Score. Of course.
( Ultimately, every business uses customer loyalty to drive compensation. Really? Without customer loyalty, returning customers with repeat purchases, your business is either a ponzi-scam, an investment scam or out of business before you can reply to this post if you've even had time to read this post. )
Building on customer loyalty is the only foundation for a sustainable business. Your business grows to the extent you build on customer loyalty. NPS is one of the most, if not the most, accurate means to measure customer loyalty in a way that everyone in a company, from CFO's to customer service reps, can understand. So, yes, NPS should drive compensation.
The big concerns of the con camp Mr. Reichheld shares seems centered around the fear that employees would game the system. They would manipulate it somehow. Brow beat customers, beg 'em for a high score, threaten retribution unless...
If that's the concern, then it's not the fault of the Net Promoter Score's implementation. NPS won't change the corporate culture from one of trust and openness, to one of deceit and manipulation. If you have a corporate culture where gaming the system is a standard procedure...that's the issue, not the system you use to score customer loyalty. And for those who worry about employees gaming the system...I'd encourage you to look at the source of that fear and ask yourself why you think that or why your employees would be motivated for that.
And with inspiring results, at least for one Fortune 500 company:
[Democratic approach] stimulated organic growth above the industry average, and became the industry leader. Net operating revenue grew from $1.45 billion in 1999 to $5.26 billion in 2007. And over the past five years, the company's stock has soared 279 percent, while the S&P 500 Index has returned 52 percent. - Even Big Companies Are Embracing a Democratic Style from the Christian Science Monitor.
3+-fold growth in net operating revenue, stock price that grew 4 times faster than its stock index...I'd say democracy works.
The idea is simple. Democratic management styles get everyone involved. And as a result, you increase the numbers of people offering solutions to include everyone in the company.
Granted, it can be messy. It can be painful, too, especially if you're implementing an open, transparent, democratic management approach in a company with demoralized, disengaged employees. Some baggage will need to be unloaded.
And if you're the new guy, it's highly likely it will get unloaded on you. No fault of yours. But you're going to hear about all the past transgressions.
Part of that comes from the healing process. And part of that comes in the process of developing trust in your new leadership. You'll be tested, deliberately, until you show you're really REALLY committed to an open democratic style of management and leadership.
But when you look at your choices and the results this one company achieved (future results are not guaranteed), doing nothing and expecting different results really is the definition of insanity. Jump in, engage, open-up the conversation, get everyone talking and engaged and stirring the pot with...solutions!
dWould you test a new hire's belief in your culture with a $1000, walk-away, bonus?
That's what Zappos offers new hires after 30 days. No kidding. Here's a $1000. You can have it on your way out the door. Don't let it hit you...
Bill Taylor, Game Changer blog, wrote about this idea.
It started at $100, went to $500, and may well go higher than $1,000 as the company gets bigger (and it becomes even more difficult to maintain the all-important culture and obsession with customers.)
And, oh by the way, during that time Zappos has grown from $70 million in sales to an expected $1 billion for this year.
Paying new hires a bonus to leave, if they don't believe, isn't the only way they've grown. But it does insure that as they grow they hire and keep true believers in their obsession for customer happiness and insuring their own happiness from a consistent commitment to their values.
Again, would you test your new-hire's belief in your culture?
UPDATE: Angela's not able to do the show. She's on the way to the hospital. Not life-threatening, but it needs her attention. We'll reschedule. You can leave your get well wishes here or on her blog at Angela Maiers.
My weekly BlogTalk Radio show has a special guest this morning: Angela Maiers
Angela has a passion for creating engaged teachers and creating an engaged learning environment. And THAT's the foundation for our future: engaged teachers creating engaged students.
And not just for our school years, but for life. Her vision is we create a habit, a lifestyle for learning. And more than vision, she has skills and programs that will bring her mission to life for many.
And, she's grown her business solely through Word-of-mouth.
I'm looking forward to our talk, this morning.
Our conversation is live at 9:30 AM, Central time, here in the US. You can listen streaming at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/zane-safrit.
And you can call in and ask questions at:
US: 646-915-9212
Code: 19978#.
And a link will be up later so you can listen at another time in streaming mode.
You can listen to it here in streaming mode or download it for later listening.
Begging your customers never work.
Bribing your customers never work.
Paying...them...to...use...your...product...each n' every time...isn't...a customer-acquisition plan. It's just the noise you create to muffle your death rattle from the ears of your customers and employees.
That's not my quote.
Leopard Dog wrote that comment at TechCrunch's debate over Microsoft's decision to pay users of its search engine. It's a great quote.
And he's right. The noise of the announcement and the ensuing hype and debate at TechCrunch is just that: mere noise to hide the death rattle of Microsoft.
Microsoft? You're one of the world's largest companies, with one of the largest collections of smart people. The market is $16 billion and will double by 2010. You currently have 9.1% of this market and you're losing even that small slice.
And you've engaged your corporate brain trust, incentivized them with an understanding of this opportunity...and this is what is spit out. We'll pay our customers to use our product....!
Microsoft, let me suggest another idea. Here's Seth Godin talking to your competitor, Google. Listen to his description of Google's plan. It's complicated. But it's boiled down to this: Google gave their audience something worth talking about. And they did it...for free.
It's had some success.
Annie Mole's London's Underground's Blog.
From the article in Reuter's
A number of the private companies which do maintenance work on the 12 Tube lines that criss-cross London's Underground, have recognised her blog's powerful influence on commuters and have met Mole to clarify rumours and answer complaints, she said.
"They think what I'm doing is positive...they say it's a way for the public to see what actually goes on behind these lines that they would have never done without bloggers."
What happens when more people talk about you, using social media, in an open and transparent manner: You get a better experience, better communication, a better product, happier people. Not immediately, mind you. But first the conversation, then small steps and then you have a system, aka a conversation that's sustainable to make your business sustainable with the help of your customers and employees talking with each other.
Ok. Even a BA in Art(ist) like me knows Newton didn't articulate his Law of Marketing*. He discovered, articulated, the Law of Gravity. There he talked about objects' mass and proximity and how one's experience of gravity is based on the relationship of the two. Jupiter: big mass, little proximity. Moon: little mass, big proximity. Who's movement effects our ocean's tidal surges? Class....?
David E Bowman's post The Physics of Marketing - Newton's Law of Gravitation, takes that discussion of mass and proximity and applies it to...marketing. Does your company have small mass? Well, then you need to get up close and personal with your customers to effect the tidal surges of their spending.
( * Newton's not a scientist, if he's alive today. He'd be a marketer. And he'd write the law of marketing after an iPod would drop on his head. And instead of falling from a tree, the iPod would fall from the fifth floor of a warehouse turned artist enclave where the iPod's user...ok, anyway.)
Link from Brand Autopsy.
A recent study showed that students projected their GPAs by up to .6 points. And then went on to achieve that score in the coming year.
So, is it a fib or an affirmation?
Are they projecting an as yet unmanifest talent?
Is it the power of attention, the power of affirmation?
And what would you do if you encountered this as yet unmanifest achievement in the response of a candidate interview for your company?
I'm not lying; I'm telling a future truth.
Note: You'll be able to tell with the CIDS interview methodology from The Smart Interviewer. CIDS stands for Chronological In-Depth Survey. And your candidate's chronology of success will tell you if he/she is prone to telling future truths when you survey him in-depth. I've used it with 100% success. It helped me avoid 1 bad hire and insure 3 good hires.
With an explicit nod to Mr. Murphy for his law, Anna Farmery at The Engaging Brand has listed 8 variations of Mr. Murphy's wisdom in her post Murphy's Law of Employee Engagement.
They all are great, spot-on, for creating an engaged workforce. Number 5, though, caught my eye:
Opening the dialogue, opens the floodgates....but I would rather be ready with my waders than marooned on my own!
Overlooked in the discussions about how to create an engaged company is that in the first days of opening the conversational floodgates within a company, there may be a bit of a tidal wave of conversations that come flooding over you. It's ok. Like a dam burst, sometimes there's some stuff swept up in the current. Hold tight. Keep your waders on. Let it pass. When the waters settle, and they will, you'll have an enaged workforce, with solutions and energy and passion multiplied. The pace of change and solutions coming forth will be greatly enhanced.
That sense of isolation you may have had as a leader should be diminished. That's a good thing.
Becky McCray nails this business for not talking to their customers. She's right on all her points. When you fail to let your customers know.
She asks for examples on how to do it right. So, here's one:
* Tell your customers.
Do it personally, meaningfully, respectfully. A notice on your sign is none of these. What if...I mean, what if...the pizza place had shared why they would be closed for 3-4 months? Maybe it's a family emergency? Maybe they're renovating the interior? Any of these would be a personal story their customers could share. It would provide a personal meaningful connection. The story would communicate the customers are part of this business' life, an important part.
What if...they had a countdown, then, until they day they closed? 30 days until we start improving our store for you. Thank you for growing our business. You've told us you want more...this and that. We're going to provide. But first we have to renovate...Then 10 days until we start our next phase. Thanks to all of your support. We'll be back and better.
And then they had a contest to see who'd get the last pizza before they closed, or who gets the first pizza before the open. Register now to win the first pizza at our new store! Or Be first in line and win a years worth of pizza!
And then they regularly shared updates and announcements and photos...with the community in a newsletter or article with the newspaper. I think they're re-opening would be an event not only for their business, their customers, but for their community. The ROI from this downtime would be...much more positive, much sooner.
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