Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Inspiring Company Cultures: A Great Place to Work


blog content from The Buzz

Blog Update #612 - Tuesday, July 26, 2016



Inspiring Company Cultures: A Great Place to Work

How often do you dread coming to work in the morning? Even for business owners who love what they do, sometimes getting out of bed and coming to work can be a chore. Putting a priority on developing a company culture that inspires your employees to have fun at work can help take the dreariness out of the everyday mundane. While not all businesses have a budget to implement all of these ideas, you can find some creative juice from what these companies have put in place to make their workers enjoy the workplace.

What Makes a Great Place to Work?

Sparks, a marketing company, creates activities that make work fun for their employees. Some of the activities they have implemented include:

*Mix & Mingle - A program that coordinates employees from different departments having lunch together.
*Food4Thought - Focuses on lunchtime presentations from various departments and what they are doing.
*Events - Creating parties for holidays and other occasions.

Encourage Staff to Get Up Out of Their Chairs

Limeade, an employee engagement platform, tries to get their workers out of their chairs by using standing desks, walking meetings, puzzle stations, coloring stations, fitness challenges, and even Nerf wars.

Let Employees Play Games

TinyPULSE, a performance review company, has office games that the staff play together to relax and de-stress throughout the day. Two of their favorite games are Werewolf and Eat Poop, You Cat. These games can be played by the entire staff at short intervals one at a time. Team members can take a few moments away from their job to have a bit of fun. You can find instructions for the two games at the links below:

*Werewolf - Who is the werewolf that has been killing off the sheep? https://www.tinypulse.com/blog/sk-3-team-building-games-organizational-culture
*Eat Poop, You Cat - Similar to Pictionary, people make drawings and try to figure out what they are. https://www.tinypulse.com/blog/sk-work-icebreaker-games

Create Activities that Employees Can Enjoy After Work

SnackNation, a healthy snack company, designs activities for employees that they can do after work or on weekends. Most of those activities involve fitness at some level. Activities include going offsite to nearby parks such as Big Bear, scooter races in the parking lot, yoga in the office, boot camps, and Friday Happy Hours.

How Can You Develop Your Company Culture?

Even small companies can develop their business culture to bring employees together and make work more enjoyable. It doesn't take a large budget to implement some of these ideas. While you may not be able to sponsor a weekend trip, you can certainly add some games into your day that only take a few moments away from the stress of work. You can find a lot of unique team-building games on the internet with a quick Google search, many of which take minimal money to run. Some take only a piece of paper and a pen. These types of games help your staff solidify by laughing together, and they will feel more comfortable working together later on. Additionally, work can be stressful. Taking the stress away will help staff become happier at work which will give them the incentive to stay with your company longer.

You can implement team lunches to share employee recognition or talk about what is going on in the company. You can also help employees build camaraderie with lunch-time sports. Think about how you can make small changes to create a positive, fun atmosphere in your workplace. If your staff is having fun, that attitude will translate to your customers who will enjoy coming into your office.

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

5 Psychological Triggers To Convert Prospects To Clients



blog content from The Buzz

Blog Update #608 - Tuesday, July 12, 2016



5 Psychological Triggers To Convert Prospects To Clients

Any marketer worth anything will tell you that the key to increasing sales is to use A/B testing to determine which sales tactic is more successful than another. If you're not familiar with it, A/B testing (sometimes called split testing) is comparing two versions of something to see which one performs better. With that in mind, have you ever wondered why some tactics are more successful than others?

Logically, we think that if we appeal to the rational brain, we will convince people that our product is the best possible product for their needs. However, if that were the case, would anyone ever buy Croc Accessories or Pet Rocks? Nope.

Unless you're selling to Mr. Spock, there's a much simpler way of convincing people to buy what you're selling. The key to turning prospects into clients is tapping into the deeply embedded emotions inside each one of them.

By identifying these emotions and learning how to trigger them, you can increase your revenue faster than you can say "Chia Pet." Here are the top 5 psychological triggers you can start using immediately to boost your bottom line.

1. Increasing Pleasure and Avoiding Pain

Avoiding pain and increasing pleasure are the driving forces of all human activity. This idea is the most fundamental reason we have a nervous system. If something hurts, we find a way to stop it. If something feels pleasurable, we do it more.

Translating this into your marketing strategy, you must first identify what your clients associate with pain and pleasure. Once you've figured that out, the rest is easy. Draft your marketing message in a way that shows your customers how your product or service will get them as close as possible to their pleasure trigger and away from their pain trigger.

2. Simplifying Life

For most of us, life is complicated. Too complicated. It takes 47 steps to get us from the comfort of our beds and out the door prepared to work. We don't need another product or service that will add more steps (obstacles) to our day.

Take a good, hard look at what you're selling. Does it add or remove barriers from people's lives? If it's not easy and fast to use, consider making a few tweaks that will take all of the "no's" out of the equation.

3. Creating Novelty

New and shiny are what we love. In fact, it has been scientifically shown that exposure to something novel increases the amount of dopamine in the brain, that chemical that makes us all tingly and excited.

If you've ever heard someone complaining about the lack of significant changes in the latest iPhone, but still stand in line for hours to get one in their hot, little hands on release day, you've witnessed the power of novelty.

You can easily create innovation with your products by making a few simple changes and give your prospects that shot of dopamine they've been craving. Think googly-eyes on the pet rock.

4. Telling a Story

Humans have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years by telling stories. It's how we share our experiences. The best storytellers invoke all of the senses to put their audience directly into the action.

You can infuse even the most mundane products with the magic of a good story. Try updating your copy to tell a story about your product that transports your prospects to a happier, more memorable place. They'll buy just to keep the story alive.

5. Building Anticipation

We've all turned 16 at some point in our lives. Remember the anticipation we felt as the day drew nearer and the prospect of being able to drive around without an adult sat winking at us in the distance? It made life a little more sparkly, didn't it?

If you've got a new product or service in the works, don't just plunk it down on the counter when it's all done. Start building some buzz while you're still working on it. Send out emails to your current customers and prospects. Create a series of videos giving out little bits of information at a time. Get people in that "I can't wait" mode and your launch day will be more profitable than you can imagine.

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Is Your Office a Gossip Shop?


blog content from The Buzz

Blog Update #606 - Tuesday, July 5, 2016



Is Your Office a Gossip Shop?

Let’s face it – we all have our quirks. Part of working with others is the opportunity to develop collaborative working relationships. Other people’s habits and behaviors affect us when we are in a shared environment. In many instances, these are the people that we interact with for the majority of our days. As a natural result, friendships form as trust and respect are gained from our day-in and day-out interactions. You may have experienced this in your own company. And then, one day… BOOM! Like a bolt of lightening, an employee begins to engage in storytelling that looks and smells an awful lot like gossip.

“Did you hear about Kathy? She is dating one of her supervisors…” or “I think Corey is on something. He has been late a lot lately and his eyes are watery…”

And with that bolt of lightening you have an out-of-control wildfire on your hands. It only takes one person to spark this type of destruction. Once one person speculates to another and then another, that speculation soon becomes a “fact,” and the object(s) of the gossip are in a position to defend the truth. This type of defensive space can shut down trust and, as a result, the creativity and collaboration that take so long to cultivate are lost. Gossip wars can emerge with retaliation, and the cycle of destruction keeps on going.

So how can you protect your workplace from gossip? Here are a few tips to help you guide your employees in stamping out the gossip wildfire.

Change the Subject.
If a conversation isn’t heading in a positive direction, encourage staff to change its course by politely changing the subject. It can be easy to say something that’s interesting – and upbeat – while also sending them a clear signal that you don’t want to talk about whatever you perceive to be gossip.

Say something positive about the person who’s the target of gossip.
No matter how negative a story about a person may seem, we rarely have all of the facts and there are likely positive qualities to that person. Remind people who are engaging in gossip that the person they’re talking about has done or said something praiseworthy by mentioning something specific that’s positive.

Confront gossip politely yet firmly.
Stand up to people who are gossiping by saying that you don’t want to know about the story they’re trying to tell you. Don’t hesitate to call out gossip when you hear it, but do so with grace. For example, you could say something like: “That sounds like it is none of my business, so I don’t really want to hear any more. Let’s just drop it.” Encourage your employees to hold others accountable for their choice of words.

Point out missing information.
If all else fails, ask questions that point out gaps in a story, such as specific times and places of events that supposedly happened. Challenge gossiping people to tell you how they personally verified the information they’re spreading about others. Help them see that just because they heard a story doesn’t mean it’s true – and even if it is, they can’t possibly have an accurate perspective on the situation.

Making it clear to your staff that gossip will not be tolerated. Eliminating gossip in the workplace will perpetuate an ongoing culture of kindness and respect.

Friday, July 1, 2016

Managing Employees Who Are Working Remotely: Bringing Your Team Together, Even When They're a World Apart



blog content from The Buzz

Blog Update #605 - Friday, July 1, 2016



Managing Employees Who Are Working Remotely: Bringing Your Team Together, Even When They're a World Apart

Modern technology has ushered in a bold, new era in terms of employee productivity. Case in point: thanks to not only cloud computing but mobile technology, almost ANY employee can become a remote worker if they truly desire. Employees can be just as productive at a coffee shop as they could from their desk in the office, which has meant big things for businesses in all industries. For the people tasked with actually managing these remote employees, however, it can quickly become a challenge, to say the least.

If you want to get better at managing employees who are working remotely and your goal is to bring your team together even when they're a world apart, you'll want to keep a few key things in mind.

Lay Down the Ground Rules

Some employees who are working remotely tend to have this romantic idea that they are their own boss or that they "work for themselves." After all, they don't have to go into the office to be productive - they can work with the TV on if they want to or decide to stay in their pajamas all day if they feel like it, right?

Wrong. In reality, even remote employees still have a very real boss - the work itself. This is the master they're trying to serve, and while they do have an extra level of comfort that on-site employees might not, any decision that takes away from the quality of the work is one that has to go.

Establishing a firm set of ground rules for all employees who are working remotely is essential to getting everyone on the same page. Whether it's the fact that they have to work at least X number of hours per day. or that they have to be available between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., or even a rule saying that you'll have at least one video conference per day, rules are important to not only keep everyone focused but also to make sure you're all working towards the same long-term goal.

It's All About Perspective

Above all else, it's important for you and your employees to start looking at working remotely as a privilege, not a right. Just because the technology exists and is more affordable than ever does NOT mean it is something that they are entitled to. If a top-quality employee who previously worked on-site switches to remote access and the quality of the work suffers, you have to see the situation for what it is: someone who is abusing that privilege. If that situation arises, it's time to not only bring them back into the office (if possible) but make sure that all other employees know that the same thing can happen to them in the future.

Encourage Communication

The type of work that you're doing cannot exist in a vacuum, yet this is exactly what you're creating if you don't encourage or even insist that remote workers still communicate and collaborate with one another. Even if it's something as simple as a quick daily phone call, it's hugely important for remote workers to understand that what they're doing affects everyone else at the same time. It's far too easy for someone who doesn't go into the office to start thinking "out of sight, out of mind" in terms of their fellow employees. Encouraging regular communication can help prevent this from happening.

Working remotely for a business is a truly great thing, but the opposite can certainly be true if you're not careful. Only by establishing ground rules, holding people accountable, and by having the right perspective will you be able to unlock all of the benefits of remote workers with as few of the downsides as possible.