A lack of skills, focus or (heaven forbid), talent, can doom the best marketing strategy before it ever gets off the ground. But, more often than not, the problem isn’t with the team. It’s with management. According to US News and World Report, “Even in this economy, between 1.5 million and 2 million people quit their jobs each month.” And the top reasons people quit their jobs relate to management and culture.
Does your company measure up? The simplest question you can ask your team—ensuring their anonymity, of course—is whether they’d let their friends work for you. If your customers said they wouldn’t recommend your business to their friends, you’d sit up and take notice, right? Why not do the same with your employees?
Finding the right people and then keeping those people happy, focused and secure separates the companies winning the race from the ones that fall by the wayside.
If your team lacks skills, it’s your responsibility to get them the training needed to succeed. If your team lacks focus, it’s your job to inspire them. And if they lack the desire to gain the skills and focus, well… dude, you hired ‘em. Something must have attracted you to them in the first place. Find that and draw it out again[*]. I once knew a manager who complained about every person on his team, even those he’d professed to love when they first joined his team. After hearing this story repeatedly, I figured he either a.) didn’t know how to hire or b.) didn’t know how to manage.
It’s easy to assume that employees will work for you, no matter what. It’s also BS. Yes, the economy—especially on the employment front—sucks. But people want to feel valued and to work on things that matter. I’d mentioned that you’ve got to have your team in order when looking at the 5 steps for online marketing success in 2012 over on the Biznology blog a few days ago. If your employees wouldn’t want their friends to work for you, it’s not the team that’s out of order. It’s you.
Footnote: Of course, you may be better off finding folks who actually are engaged and passionate to learn/work. But, unless you’re like a former Governor, you probably don’t like firing people. The decision whether to retain or part ways with an employee is one of the hardest any manager ever faces. My advice—unless you’ve long since determined the person isn’t going to work out—is “teach, teach, term.” Make sure you’re providing the employee the opportunity to improve. Again, you hired the individual. Try and rekindle whatever it was that sold you on the person first before deciding to move in a new direction.
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Is it better to be lucky or good? Why can’t you be both? After all, luck favors the prepared, right? Which is why, as you hit the ground running here in 2012, it’s important you’ve prepared in all the right ways. How you can do that is the subject of my latest post for Mike Moran’s Biznology blog: “5 Steps to Online Marketing Success in 2012.”
Are you getting enough value out of your small business website? Want to make sure your business makes the most of the local, mobile, social web? thinks helps you understand how to grow your business via the web, every day. Get more than just news. Get understanding. Add thinks to your feed reader today.
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Google introduced its latest “Think Quarterly” online magazine today, this time focused on speed. But why does speed matter in marketing?
Adaptability
The most basic reason speed matters? Adaptability. Change happens every day. And those changes occur increasingly rapidly. With the volume of change, it’s almost impossible to predict where the world will be 5 days from now, let alone five years. But what you can do is adapt quickly to the world around you.
“Fast mover” vs. “First mover”
Most people forget that Apple didn’t create the first MP3 player. Or the first mobile phone. Or the first tablet computer. And Amazon wasn’t the first online retailer. Or the first provider of cloud computing services. Or offer the first e-book reader. And yet each has staked dominant positions in their respective markets.
Why?
Because they learned from the people who came before them, introduced clear improvements on the existing products, then continually innovated to maintain their market leadership. Their efforts haven’t always succeeded (see Apple’s Newton or Amazon’s auctions platform—on second thought, don’t). But they’ve learned from their mistakes and moved forward. Quickly.
SEO and customer benefits of speed
Of course, so far we’ve only looked at the pace of product and service innovation. But at least two other places exist where speed matters, especially in terms of SEO and customer experience:
- Your web platform
- Your content process
Platform
Google values fast websites. Increasingly, Google’s algorithm factors speed into the equation when determining who gets that vaunted top search result.
But more than that, your customers care, too. Imagine you’re looking for a phone number or address when searching from your mobile phone (actually, this is one of the key reasons Google cares about speed so much). 4G may provide reasonably fast service, but bloated, clunky websites that take a while to appear on a desktop computer become downright glacial on mobile devices.
Customers and search engines simply aren’t going to wait for your page to load. They’re going to click to the site that answers their question quickly and readily.
Content
Customers have too much on their plate to wait for answers to their questions. We’ve frequently seen companies waiting to address customer complaints—and by doing so, failing to do so effectively.
By contrast, companies that act quickly in response to customer concerns often gain from those actions. Waiting to say what’s on your mind (or address what’s on your customer’s mind), risks missing the moment.
Plus, of course, our old friend Google also values frequently updated content. So a content process that isn’t built to support regular and rapid updates isn’t much of a content process.
Speed matters
My very good friend Mike Moran is fond of saying “do it wrong quickly.” In fact, he’s been saying it for over 5 years (the man is both fast and ahead of his time). Don’t wait until 2013 to catch up. Make “value speed” one of your New Year’s Resolutions right now and get ready to leave your competitors behind.
Are you getting enough value out of your small business website? Want to make sure your business makes the most of the local, mobile, social web? thinks helps you understand how to grow your business via the web, every day. Get more than just news. Get understanding. Add thinks to your feed reader today.
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