bwagy, the blog of Ben Young

A few people messaged me yesterday when I mentioned if I hired someone here is what I would do (Obsess about your employees).

A common thread is that there can be a lot of dissent amongst employees, especially those that receive extra perks because they have a family vs those that don’t.  When some people put off having a family to have a career or unable to, bringing up these kind of issues would be very very difficult.

My idea would be to have a pool of perks (kind of an employee loyalty style programme) over time you receive these perks, you can swap as you please.  Thus if you choose something like day care you are giving up something else.  Not a be all end all solution but would allow employees to fairly allocate their own rewards.

(Oh and also you can get employees to make up their own perks or provide them within the scheme…)

Really obsess about your employees.  Look after them.

No seriously, the good guys aren’t hanging about, especially if you don’t look after them.

If I was hiring, things I’d offer are:

• Decent Health & Life Insurance
• Huge holidays, if you want to take 3 months off no pay, let’s figure out how to do that.
• Extra benefits for family guys
• Performance bonuses based on real business value that employees contribute
• Own time to build personal projects, whether related to business or not (including building personal brand, blogging, twitter)
• Flexible hours.  What are rigid schedules for? Deliver on time, don’t care whether you do 1 hour or 2 hours.
• Flexible location, if you can do the work from Cambodia whilst you do some travel, let’s make that happen
• Want to build a startup out of work hours? All good, maybe we can sort you out with some equity or loans to give you a helping hand.

Oh and of course a reasonable wage.

Maybe this sounds like a pipe dream or maybe providing a dream job scenario will attract dream employees…

Something we should all practice.

The Art of Objectivity.

It promotes mutual respect, encourages understanding and actually helps people to agree to disagree.

Sure peoples opinions may differ but do we have to dislike one another because of that?

As the web is showing us by flattening previous preconceptions (through twitter, blogging, social media), sure you may disagree on political views but on Rugby or Marketing or Traffic issues you share the same views.

Maybe there is something in an alternative view? It is worth a thought, or at least mutual respect.

The world would be such a better place if this was practiced more – or even taught in schools.  Now that would be amazing.

Even if you are in a bad mood a smile can cheer you up or take the edge off your grumpiness.

In fact a smile is contagious, if you smile at someone, chances are they will return it.  But the smile stays.  For them to spread to others.

So keep that in mind, smile 🙂

When you are doing something new, unprecedented or remarkable you encounter the reverse long tail.

Each of your actions have what seem to be small consequences, however over the long run things begin to snowball and consequences increase.

Hence why…. perseverance is genius.

(Orig Picture by Hay Kranen / PD. Modified by Ben Young.)

It’s like greasing the tyres of a relationship.

If well greased it should be a smooth ride.

If not conflict arises.

It’s not hard either, talk to all parties involved, listen, then adjust accordingly so everyone knows each others expectations.

A little work here will help create amazing results 😉

#11 of the bwagy marketing manifesto:

“You are always wrong, you just need to be less wrong than your competitors.”

It is so true – no matter your stance someone can always come up with a solid reason why you are wrong.

Don’t stress about being 100% right, you just need to be less wrong than those you compete with.

(And take action.)

the phrase: “I give up”

NO.

As much as 85% of all consumer purchases are made by females (via TomPeters.com) and I am guessing that the rest is guys buying stuff for the ladies! (joking).

Seriously though as a retailer you should be helping guys buy for girls.

Run a flower shop? Guide guys as to what they should buy.  Same with wine / chocolates.  In fact why isn’t there a store that solves guys problems – you could call it ‘I’m Sorry’ or ‘I Love You’.

Just give guys a guide – what do you want to say with your gift.  Get the girls to help feed the input.

At the very least it says they cared enough to try.  Just a thought, help guys buy for girls.

Wanting to raise funds for a charity? Build a business case.

If you can convince a company how their support of your charity is going to help build their business – just like any other external proposal they will seriously pay attention.

If you are continuously pitching for charity and donations you are going to be directed to the same person who is turning everyone  else away.  And that’s no help!

Pitch a business case, you will talk to different people and if it is compelling enough they will take you up on it.

Raising money from the general public? Do they same.  Make giving a donation compelling enough that people desire to give you funds.

Leaders.

Seth wrote a post a couple of weeks back suggesting what graduates can do if they can’t get into the workplace.  You can read it here.  Essentially he is saying have some fun, learn something new and be interesting.  Jobs will follow.

I couldn’t agree more.

In an evolving business you strike problems or challenges that you cannot even quite describe – let alone find a solution.  What do you do? You can’t place an ad or ask your friends.  You talk to local leaders in that niche.

Have a Twitter problem? You talk to that person whom you see as a thought leader on Twitter.

If you are one of these graduates doing something interesting that’s how you get these jobs.  And at the moment this is a huge market – the market of ill defined problems.

So as critical as people have been on Seth, he couldn’t be more than right, the problems are evolving and so are who we are hiring.

A while back I had a new client who wanted to work (within a reasonable budget) to grow their market share.  Like most small businesses they had dabbled in a few bits and pieces.

Their latest attempt was to spend $1800 on Fax Marketing – they got a blast out to every local businesses fax machine.  Not once but twice.  Just to make sure they got it.

First round – return was zip.  Second round – return was zip.

Figured that was the end of it.  Nope.  They then sunk the same amount back into it, in the hope that by annoying people enough they would pick up the phone to order.

Nevertheless this wasn’t a good sign of business aptitude (amongst other signs) so we parted ways.

Since then I have come across others doing Fax Marketing.  Fax Marketing is the worst kind of spam – not only is it rubbish but now you have to physically deal with it – and once you’re on a list they keep coming.  Sure if it was relevant, anticipated and timely it could work, but it’s not.

So please if you’re looking at Fax Marketing give it a miss – pay a student $1800 to play with internet marketing (if you must spend the money) you are more likely to get a solid return – or at least know where your money was wasted.

Even better stick with the marketing basics (talk to your customers, listen to them, obsess about helping them).  The basics build real business.

Included in my standard ordering of 100 minicards from moo there is a card at the end which says:

Psst! Pass it on!
I’m a MiniCard from moo.com
MOO prints things with photos
or designs – like StickerBooks,
Postcards and Greeting Cards.

On the flipside is a coupon code for 15% off your first order.

(Mine is 2RB2CK feel free to use it, first in first served).

Not only are the cards themselves a talking point – but they have given me something to give to someone who also thinks they are pretty cool.  Neat huh?

So sit down, map out the customer interaction process, ensure you are leveraging each of those interactions, then implement.

All the small things add up! (You can see Moo is doing a fine job of it.)

Creating a repetitive behaviour is a surefire way to solidify your product.

Yet how can you establish a new behaviour? Or remind your customers of it?

Slide your product back into their routine with freebies.  Give away a sample of your product in the right place at the right time.

Sell chewing gum? Give a stick of gum with every bill at a restaurant.  Create the routine of paying the bill and getting some gum.

Sell hand sanitiser? Have a free dispenser outside public toilets.  Remind consumers that they need your product.

Sell shoe nugget? Give away free samples with every pair of leather shoes sold.

Sell body wash? Give away samples at the gym.

The list goes on…. apply it to your industry.  The point I am making here is consumers often forget about your product – so give them a kind reminder.  They will appreciate it.