Daily Biz Solutions

Guest Post By: Janet Holian, President, Vistaprint Europe

 

Growing the lifetime value of your customer base can seem like a daunting task but, in reality, a systematic approach to understanding your customers along with a step-by-step plan for new and repeat customer growth will make a positive impact on your bottom line.

 

What is customer base lifetime value? It’s the value your customer brings to the table in terms of total profit.

 

Profit, it is important to note, is a more effective lifetime value indicator than revenue since it provides a better window into the impact your customers have on your company goals.

 

Quantifying Lifetime Value

In order to quantify the lifetime value of your customers, be sure to look at profit per unit sold times average units sold minus costs by acquisition channel.  These three pieces of information should enable you to get a good idea of lifetime value.

 

And, if you look at this over a specific period of time, 24 to 36 months, you’ll be able to trend the lifetime value of your customer base over time – by acquisition source, first purchase, customer segment, etc. The goal is to understand and maximize lifetime contribution margin.

 

Typically, the size of the initial purchase is the single biggest driver of lifetime value and can be a solid indicator of the performance of your customer base. It is also a good cross-reference check to your lifetime value calculation.

 

Once you have calculated actual lifetime value, the next step is to figure out how to grow it by 1) acquiring more of the right customers, 2) encouraging repeat customers to purchase more and 3) getting customers to purchase more frequently over time. 

 

Growing Lifetime Value

In order to grow lifetime value, you first have to understand how much money you can afford to spend to acquire new customers and retain old ones. Then you must determine where the best place is to focus that marketing spend. 

 

For example, direct mail may cost more, but it might provide customers with a larger lifetime value. 

 

Paid search may also be more expensive than affiliate partnerships, but if the quality of customers acquired is better, it is worth the extra cost. 

 

 

Each organization will have acquisition channels that perform better than others. Understanding the mix and what provides the best lifetime as well as short-term results are important.

 

Once you have gained new customers, the first 90 days are the most important to establish a strong relationship. If you can get a new customer to make a repeat purchase during that timeframe, those customers are considerably more valuable over time than those that don’t make a repeat purchase until later.

 

Getting customers over the hump on the second purchase is something to take seriously. Remove barriers and provide offers with value. Whether it is a welcome kit, special offer, thank-you or giveaway, make the extra effort to convert first-time buyers into the multiple-time buyer category.

 

Another technique to consider is increasing the frequency of the purchase vs. the size of the purchase. Frequency may be better than a larger order in many cases.

 

Establish a dialogue with customers through surveys or requests for comment to make them feel more connected so they purchase more often. 

 

If you can segment your database, provide targeted offers specific to the needs of a specific group of customer.

 

No matter how you acquire them, if you can establish a strong relationship with customers, you can make them advocates for your organization. 

 

Don’t overlook the power of customer referrals. Ask customers for a referral, and thank customers who bring associates to your organization with a handwritten thank-you note – much more powerful than e-mail.

 

This helps in two ways – the more people talk about you as a company to friends and colleagues, the more likely they will want to purchase more from you. And – it’s the lowest cost and most effective acquisition channel available. Incentives provide the added push for many.

 

Consistency Is Key

 

As you are growing the lifetime value of your customer base, consistency in brand is key. At all times, customers should know who you are, know what you stand for and understand what they get when they interact with your organization.

 

Ensure that all of your offers and related materials are high quality and meet the same brand goals as your overall organization. 

 

Sending mixed messages to customers can distract and confuse them, causing limited response to new offers, referral bonuses or other means of interaction.

 

In summary, while it may sound overwhelming, don’t be intimidated by understanding the lifetime value of your customers. Defining your customer base and making smart decisions on acquisition and retention spends can improve lifetime value and enable bottom line benefits previously not attainable.

 

Janet Holian is President of Vistaprint Europe. Vistaprint (www.Vistaprint.com) is the small business marketing company.

Creating a habit of identifying your most important things and getting them done on a daily basis is key to strategy execution.

By Prafulla Pande*

Rhythm is the occurrence and recurrence of an activity at regular intervals. It is the basis of life. From the rotation of the earth that gives us days and nights and the climatic changes to the beating of the human heart that gives us life – everything depends upon rhythm.

Successful planning and execution of strategies in a business is a rhythmic process. When executives come together for yearly, quarterly, monthly, daily meetings and stay focused on important things, great results are generated. Rhythmic behavior at the highest level of the organization creates a culture of learning and development through creation of good habits.

Our brains are quite adaptable. For every behavior we repeat, our brain builds circuits for managing that behavior. The more some behavior is repeated, the more the brain builds onto that circuit for managing that behavior. Our brain uses signals from our bodies to know that we are repeating a behavior and to perform this circuit growth. When the repeated behaviors are rhythmic, the brain builds rhythmic circuits.

These rhythmic circuits control our behavior (including focus and attention) and are integral to our development.

Creating and maintaining rhythm is a matter of priorities. When we are disciplined to doing the important things, we must have a process for identifying the important things and then doing them. This closes the loop. Once we have a system, sticking to it and repeating it builds rhythm.

As a business advisor and a coach I help executive teams create a rhythm of meetings. It is my job to be alert for signs that suggest the organization is “out of rhythm”. Getting out of rhythm should be neither unexpected nor alarming; however, we must strive to catch this weakness early.

Organizations get out of their meeting rhythm and don’t even realize it.  The following are some of the symptoms that may indicate an organization is going “out of rhythm”.

The first symptom is the irregularity of meetings and erratic schedules. This indicates weakness in the organization’s internal meeting rhythm.

The second relates to the nature of the conversation surrounding the prior quarter’s highest priorities.  If the conversation repeatedly bogs down with debate over the issues rather than a quick review of the outcome, the team is probably out of rhythm.

The third symptom is more subtly recognized.  A team member will occasionally mention that weekly or monthly meetings are running too long.  This likely means that administrative and non-priority issues are clogging the meetings, indicating that the client is out of rhythm at the daily or weekly level.

The fourth is when the team members start getting bored in meetings and look for reasons not to participate. This may be a sign for greater trouble in the organization.
Identifying your most important things and getting them done on a daily basis is key to strategy execution.

It is like your physical fitness program that works only when you have created a rhythm of regular workouts. Create a habit of identifying your most important things and getting them done.
• Know your single most important thing to accomplish in the year
• Know your most important action in the quarter you are in that will help you accomplish your single most important thing for the year
• Know your most important thing for the month that will help you accomplish the most important thing for the quarter
• Know your most important thing for the week that will help you accomplish the most important thing for the month
• Know your most important action for the year that will help you accomplish your most important thing for the week
• Move to #2 most important thing for a particular time bucket only after you finish the #1 for that time bucket

About the Author

*Prafulla Pande is the founder of PANDE Associates Inc., a Business Advisory firm. He advises Boards, CEOs, and senior executives of organizations (both for profit and non-profit) on leadership, strategy formulation and strategy execution.

If you have trouble persuading others—or your career is just stalled in general—it may be because bosses, coworkers, and clients don’t trust you or believe what you say. Here’s what you’re doing wrong.

By Sandy Allgeier

Do you have what it takes to be a viable member of the 21st century business community? Are you sure? Globalization, virtual collaboration, and the rise of the project-based workforce have changed all the rules. These days you must be able to influence others, communicate clearly, and—most important of all—elicit trust. If people don’t trust you, they won’t work with you. It’s really that simple. But there is one sure way to gain the trustworthiness you need to succeed: Improve your personal credibility factor.

Whether you’re an employee, a leader, or an entrepreneur, personal credibility is truly a “magic bullet” for success. It forms other people’s opinions of you, shapes their interactions with you, and helps them decide whether to trust and respect you. In other words, it leads to healthy, productive relationships—and relationships are the vehicles through which business happens.

It’s like this: If you have no credibility, people won’t trust you. If they don’t trust you, you won’t persuade them. And if you can’t persuade, you’ll never be able to problem solve, innovate, or lead. You’ll become increasingly irrelevant—and vulnerable to the staggering numbers of others, worldwide, who are vying for your spot.

All of which begs the question: What is personal credibility, anyway? Admittedly, it’s one of those concepts that people struggle to define. They know it when they encounter it, but they’re not sure why. Personal credibility is about respect, trust, and being believable.

In short, personal credibility is judged by your actions. What you do—and don’t do—determines other people’s perceptions of whether you have it. And personal credibility may be best understood by its absence. People may not look at you and say, “Wow, there’s a person with lots of credibility”—but if you display a lack of it, they will most definitely notice.

To make it simpler to understand, we should aim to avoid “credibility busters.” Here are some of the most common:

• Failing to do what you say you will do. The number one way to bust your personal credibility? Just fail to deliver on the promises or commitments you make. We’re all guilty of committing this sin from time to time, but when we do it more often than not, we’ve got a credibility problem.
How often do you say, “I’ll get that to you today”…and then you don’t? Or “I’ll call you back in a few minutes”…and then you don’t? Most people are forgiving when this happens—to a point. But when you make a regular habit of this, well, you quickly become labeled as a promise-breaker. If you’re not sure you can follow through on your promises, don’t make them. Period!
• Breaking appointments (or frequently rescheduling them). When you make meetings and appointments, other people expect you to keep those commitments. Have you ever dealt with someone who regularly needed to break or reschedule appointments with you? It’s annoying, at best. And after it happens more than once or twice, you stop trusting them. Don’t be this person. When you make an appointment, keep it, if at all possible. Yes, life can be hectic and sometimes you have no choice but to reschedule. That’s precisely why you must do everything in your power to keep your appointments most of the time. Then, when you have to make an exception, it will be just that—an exception.
• Constantly showing up late. You say you will meet a client at 11:30. You call her on your cell phone and say, “I’ll be right there—I’m caught in traffic,” and then you arrive at 11:45. It’s bad enough to do this to a friend. But in the business arena, where people tend to be less forgiving, it can be the kiss of death. And if lateness becomes the norm, you have taken a virtual hammer to your personal credibility and it is busted.
Plan ahead and arrive a little early—consistently. Not only is your credibility protected, your stress level is reduced by avoiding that last-minute rush!
• Being messy and/or disorganized. Is your desk overflowing with papers that should have been filed (or trashed) months ago? Are you always losing documents or leaving them at home? Do you go to meetings looking disheveled and bearing wrinkled, dog-eared reports? If so, your credibility is almost certainly called into question—and with good reason.
Sometimes creative people, in particular, think they’re exempt from the “neatness counts” rule. They’re not. When you’re disorganized, important things will fall through the cracks. And if you’re sloppily dressed, people assume you’re equally sloppy in your work. Allow enough time at both ends of the day to look neatly put together and to file away your papers. It makes a world of difference!
• Bringing too much “personal life” into your workday. Do you get lots of personal calls at work? Is your e-mail inbox cluttered with letters from friends and receipts from Internet shopping you’ve done on company time? If so, you’re losing credibility.
Rest assured, your boss notices when your friends, spouse, and kids call 10 times a day. And even if you think she never looks at your inbox, the day may come when she does. What if you’re out of the office and your boss needs to access an e-mail a client sent you? When she can’t find what she needs in the deluge of “forwards,” she’ll assume you’re barely working at all!
We all take the random personal call or order the occasional birthday gift for our spouse during working hours. That’s fine. But when personal matters start to interfere with your job—or even appear to do so—you’ve got a credibility problem.
• Speaking first, thinking second. Consider this scenario: On Monday, your boss asks you if you can have a project done by Thursday. Wanting to please him, you immediately answer “yes.” But as you get into the project, you realize there’s a lot more involved than you had originally thought. You toil on it for a couple of days, then late on Wednesday, you sheepishly approach your boss and tell him, “Sorry, I didn’t know it was going to be this complicated. I’m not going to be able to have it done tomorrow after all.”
Always, always do your research before you make a promise. There’s nothing wrong with saying, “Let me think about it and get back to you.” It’s far better than undermining your own credibility.
• Making decisions while keeping others in the dark. Trust and credibility are built when others feel valued. It is broken when others feel like they don’t matter to us. Let’s say you head a project team, and after gathering the team’s input you have reached a consensus agreement about a key decision. Then you learn additional information and change your decision. As the leader you have the authority to do that, right? Yes—but the team needs to understand your thought process. Otherwise, they won’t believe you really ever wanted their input, and your credibility as a leader is busted.
It really doesn’t matter whether others have the authority to impact the final decision or not. What matters is keeping them informed of your thoughts as you work through the process.
• Telling little white lies that morph into Big Hairy Lies. You’re supposed to be preparing an important presentation for a client, but hit an internal snag and miss your deadline. Rather than admit you dropped the ball, you blame your tardiness on a vendor: “Sorry, the printer had trouble getting the color exactly right on the cover and made us a day late!” It turns out that your client had built a few extra days into her deadline, so she’s not upset at all (in fact, you get kudos for being such a perfectionist about the color). No harm done, right? Wrong!
Over the weekend, your client runs into the owner of the print shop at a party and mentions how nice the cover looks, adding, “…so even though it took a day to get the problem straightened out, the end result was worth it!” Puzzled, the printer asks, “What do you mean? We turned that job around in record time!” With that single chance encounter, your credibility is busted—not only with your client but also with the printer who now knows you sold him down the river.
It would have been so much better to take the blame for the missed deadline, apologize, and possibly offer a discount on the project. Admitting to a mistake is far better than being forever branded a liar and backstabber. When you lose someone’s trust in this way, you can never get it back.
• Trying to do everything—but ending up doing it all in a half-a**ed way. Let’s say your manager asks you to help him write a critical marketing proposal. Then, a few hours later, an outside client asks you to do an “emergency” project. You agree to both. Problem is, you are also trying to prepare for a speaking engagement just a few short days away. You don’t want to let anyone down, so you cross your fingers, vow to go without sleep for the next 48 hours, and try to do it all. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that at least one of these commitments is going to suffer—and probably all of them.
Overextend yourself like this and you’re sure to make mistakes. You’ll let down your boss, your outside client, and the audience you’re speaking to. It’s far better to say no to some things than do a poor job at everything.
• Putting others down to pull yourself up. Suppose one of your coworkers has recently received a promotion to a position that you wanted. You congratulate this person, but then proceed to have a few “private” conversations with other employees about how unqualified the promoted person is. As you enumerate the areas the promoted employee is “deficient” in (from your perspective), you are also enumerating your own qualifications. Do you convince them? Not a bit.
With each put-down you are actually demonstrating your own lack of credibility. Everyone who hears you talk about this thinks “hmmm…sour grapes”—and this forms doubts about your ability to be believable and trustworthy.
• Putting yourself down rather than learning from mistakes. Surprising as it may seem, self-deprecation is a credibility buster. We’re not talking about true humility, but rather the tendency to continually beat ourselves up over past mistakes. We increase our personal credibility when we acknowledge and admit mistakes, both to ourselves and others. We derail it when we continue to rake ourselves over the coals—either mentally or verbally—and fail to learn the lesson and just move on.
It’s important to accept ourselves as the real, fallible, and imperfect human beings that we all are. Others just respond better to people who cheerfully admit that they’re not perfect, but are trying to learn and grow from their mistakes.
• Making too many excuses—even if they’re legit. Maybe the dog actually did eat the expense report. Or maybe the check really is in the mail. Perhaps you really cannot finish the project due to someone else failing to do her part on time. All of these things can happen and can be legitimate excuses. We destroy our personal credibility, however, when we frequently offer the same excuses to the same people. It doesn’t matter how real these excuses are—when repeated, our personal credibility is down the drain.
So what’s the remedy? Simple: Don’t focus on the excuse part—rather, focus on what it will take to keep the problem from occurring in the first place!
Ask yourself, What should I do to keep the expense report away from the dog? Or, How can I ensure that payments get made early? In the first case, it’s probably just a matter of keeping your work papers out of Rover’s reach. In the second, electronic check paying may be the key. Avoid those situations that create excuses—even those that are legit!
• Being a rigid rule enforcer rather than a flexible problem solver. (Think Dwight on The Office.) Rules and policies are helpful; they set guidelines and boundaries so things can get done in an orderly way. However, our personal credibility suffers when we rely only on rules and policies—instead of trying to be flexible enough to help others solve problems.
It’s easy to say, “That’s against the rules!” but it’s no way to win friends and influence people. It’s usually better to say, “Let’s figure out what the problem is and see if there is a way to solve it!” People trust problem solvers. They don’t trust rule mongers and bureaucrats—people who are hung up on following procedure at the expense of common sense.
• Losing the balance between accomplishing tasks and maintaining constructive relationships. Yes, delivering on results is critical for personal credibility—but nothing is more critical than keeping relationships positive while also delivering on results. If you force an employee to cancel her honeymoon in order to meet a deadline for a client, you’re probably damaging that relationship beyond repair.
If you must choose between meeting your commitments and damaging your relationships with valuable people in your life, it’s probably better to break the commitment and keep the relationship.
• Casting blame when you should be solving problems. Let’s say your sales department makes commitments to customers that your operations department can’t realistically meet. Operations works long and hard to try to deliver on Sales’ commitments and tempers begin to flare. What happens next? Often a power struggle ensues, whereby Sales blames Operations for being rigid and failing to meet customer needs, and Operations blames Sales for sacrificing them on the altar of incentive bonuses. Meanwhile, no one is solving the problem. Everyone loses credibility with each other—and the company loses credibility with its customers.
In situations like this, someone must care enough to stop the squabbling, determine the cause of the problem, and work toward developing the solutions. Ending the blame game is the only way to restore credibility.
• Coming across as “all knowing” when you’re really just thinking out loud. Many of us are extroverts, which means we tend to express ourselves verbally as we are thinking. (If you’re one, you know what she means.) But other people, some of whom may be introverts who like to ponder ideas carefully before they speak, assume your “thinking out loud” moments represent firm and definite conclusions. Then, when you do make a final decision, they think, Well, here he is flaking out on what he said yesterday—again!…and you lose credibility.
If you have a tendency to think out loud, be sure to tell others that’s what you’re doing. When they realize that this verbal mulling is just part of your decision making process, they won’t assume you’re constantly changing your mind.
• Exhibiting body language and vocal tone that doesn’t match your words. Are you guilty of this? You become a little bored or distracted when someone is talking to you…and your eyes wander around the room. Or, maybe you stifle a yawn while you are attempting to look interested and engaged. Maybe you say “nice things” to someone, but your vocal tone is flat or disinterested. Your credibility is dramatically reduced when your body and tone are not in sync with the words you’re saying.
As humans, we react much more quickly to tone and body language than we do to words. Be conscious of your body language and your tone and make sure you’re sending the message you mean to send. Work on genuinely staying in the moment when you talk to someone. This way you won’t have to “give the impression” that you’re engaged—because you really will be.
Does this list seem overwhelming? It doesn’t have to be. Focus on one “credibility buster” at a time and work to eliminate it from your life. The results you see will spur you on to keep improving yourself.
Make a conscious effort to stop committing these sins and your life will change in ways you could never have foreseen. When people feel they can trust you, a seismic shift happens in your relationships. Everything improves: your marriage, your relationship with your kids, your relationship with colleagues and coworkers.
Yes, some of these changes may seem small—for instance, showing up on time instead of always being late—but they all work together organically. You’re removing roadblocks, one by one, and once they’re gone, you’ll be amazed at the abundance that flows into your life.

About the Author:

Sandy Allgeier is a consultant, trainer, and facilitator who assists organizations in maximizing their human potential. Prior to beginning her consulting business in early 2000, Sandy had over 25 years of experience as a human resources professional. Sandy’s corporate human resources management experience includes having served as Senior Vice President, Human Resources for Atria Assisted Living with 7,000 employees located in 26 states, as well as serving as Director, Human Resources for Providian Corporation, a Fortune 500 Financial Services company. Prior to this, Sandy was Director, Field Human Resources for KFC Corporation. She is experienced in directing all phases of human resources management, including recruiting and selection, compensation and benefits, employee relations, and training and development. For more information, please visit www.personalcredibility.com and www.ftpress.com.

As a small business owner in the murky waters of a bad economy,
you may be scrambling for solutions on how to keep your company afloat.
But letting the fear take over, and not being true to yourself and your company’s mission, can be a recipe for recession-related disaster.

By Robin Fisher Roffer

If you own a small business, you’ve probably been losing a lot of sleep at night while you spend your days poring over budgets, hoping desperately for a new client to walk through your doors. Indeed, with the economy in trouble, businesses everywhere are feeling the crunch, but no one is more worried than small business owners. While fear may drive you to go into survival mode and compromise your values, do that and you may be making a huge mistake that in the long run can hurt your business far worse than the recession.

You can’t let yourself, or your business be paralyzed by fear. In times like these it’s more important than ever to maintain your brand identity and focus on what makes your company stand out, what makes it great. You have to be what I call a “fearless fish out of water”—shining a light on those qualities that make your company different and more desirable than the other businesses in your industry. Playing up what makes you special could be the very thing that keeps you in business.

While other companies are taking on any project that comes their way (whether it’s the right fit for them or not), now more than ever is when you should be staying true to your company’s brand by sticking to projects where you can excel.

If you try too hard to work outside the boundaries of your talents, it will be reflected in the quality of your work. And in an economy when new business is already hard to come by, providing less than stellar results is a sure way to put the nail in the coffin.

So, what should small business owners do at a time like this? It’s time to refocus on your company’s core values, to remind yourself and your employees what it is that sets your company apart from all the rest, and most importantly, to be fearless.

Here are seven steps to being a fearless fish out of water in the small business world, and how they will help you survive and thrive in this economy:

Go fishing for the real you. It’s time to focus on what your business does better than your competition and put that out there to your clients and prospects. Maybe you’re a boutique ad agency that can create any kind of campaign, but your best work is in B2B advertising. Or maybe you own a sandwich shop where you’ve been sticking to the basics, but your true passion and talent is in creating specialty sandwiches that your customers love.

You have to peel away all the layers that have made you a jack-of-all-trades and focus on the area that you are truly passionate about so you can excel. That’s your vein of gold. Sure, ham and cheese on rye is a guaranteed sale, but your customers can get that at any sandwich shop. Get back to being creative. That’s where you can show your clients your value, and impressing your customers is how you can ensure you keep bringing in the revenue.

Use your differences as a lure. In extraordinary economic times like these, the natural tendency is to just hunker down, do the work, cut back on expenses, and try to keep as many clients as possible. Newsflash! That’s exactly the kind of strategy that will hang you. Because if you’re not luring your old customers back and new customers in based on something they feel they can’t get anywhere else, your days may be numbered.

Small business owners get so caught up in stressful economic times like this that they essentially just start going through the motions to keep their doors open. Unfortunately, often this means they start giving their customers the bare minimum. Just enough to satisfy their order but very little of what most likely attracted the customer to you to begin with. Now is the time for you to hone in on what has always made your business great. Is it exceptional customer service, your creative flair, or organizational skills? Time spent refocusing your efforts is not time wasted. You have to prove to your clients why they should go with you over your competition and once again lure them in based on what makes you special.

Find a few fish like you. While your first instinct may be to fly under the radar right now, now is the time to build relationships with your clients so that you can anchor yourself in these rough seas. Rest assured that you aren’t the only small business owner worried about what will become of your company in these tough times. Your clients are likely feeling just as nervous and unsure as you. Invest in some serious face time to build your client relationships. Doing so will help ease your fears and theirs.

Now is the time to meet with your clients face to face. Find out what attracted them to you and ask what you can do to be of further service to them. Brainstorm with them. Bounce revenue-boosting ideas off of each other. Show them that you want to be more than a vendor or a provider of a certain service. Partner with them now and not only will you make it through the recession, but you’ll have an even stronger business when the seas have calmed.

Swim in their ocean your way. Every time you pitch your company to a new prospect, you are a fish out of water. When you’ve won them over and you finally get inside their organization, it’s important to learn how to be part of their culture without getting lost in it. Remember that your clients have hired you because you bring an outside perspective, and you have talents and skills that don’t already exist within their organization. It’s okay to tailor your ideas to fit their particular needs or style; just make sure you hold onto the core of what makes you you.

I once was hired by an organization that threatened my integrity. Just from the disrespectful behavior that was commonplace among the employees, I knew right away I would have trouble fitting in. What I thought would be a great fit turned out not to be, and I concluded that no amount of money was worth my soul and I made the decision to walk away, despite the loss in revenue. Look for people with values that resonate with yours. If you don’t, at the end of this recession, you may not recognize yourself or your own company, and that can have damaging effects on your business long after the economic crisis is over.

Put yourself out on the line. Businesses that shine a light on what’s different about them are perfectly positioned to make a difference. You may be paralyzed by fear, cutting the budget on anything that’s not payroll and necessary expenses, but you should instead be finding ways to give back. There may come a time when your own company is in need of a little help, and people will be more willing to return the favor if they’ve seen your willingness to help others in the past.

Getting behind a cause is good for business and makes you look like a hero. Now is the time to step up and volunteer, join a board, or give what you can to a local nonprofit. When clients see your philanthropic nature, they will trust you more. For example, if customers know that your company is environmentally conscious, it can give you a great competitive edge. And even if giving back doesn’t mean you’ll see an immediate profit increase, it can help you to re-identify what you are passionate about in life, and that passion will bleed over into your work.

Evolve by casting a wide net. As any business owner knows, each year can be vastly different from the one before it, and 2009 is already a whole new world compared to 2008. We have a constantly changing economy and a new president, and our clients will certainly have different needs this year from last. In tough times many business owners hold strong to doing what has always worked for them in the past, but refusing to change with the times can have disastrous effects on your business’s success.

Operating with a business-as-usual mentality will not allow you to distinguish your business. You have to continue reinventing yourself, changing with the times and with your clients. But remember, don’t let go of who you are as a company while updating your style, your website, your advertising, and the way you think about things. The key is staying true to the essence of who you are, and then recasting your image to feel brand new. Your clients, both existing and new, will appreciate the break from the business-as-usual approach. Working with you will be a refreshing change in a stifling business world, and that will garner success for you this year.

Reel in your unique power. In these tough times, it is only natural that you will experience moments of fear and anxiety when thinking about the future and your business’s fate. However, you know that you and your business are valuable, or you wouldn’t have started it in the first place. And nothing, not even a bad economy, can change that. The fearless among us overcome these doubts by practicing their ABCs—action, belief, and courage—and doing so will help to free you from the fear and allow you to move forward and be successful.

It’s time to stop wringing your hands and start using them to improve your business. The story that you tell about your company is what others will believe, so make sure it’s a story of strength and success. If you believe that now is a time for your company to start a new division, have the courage to do it, despite what others may say. Maybe you have an idea for a new product or some thoughts on unconventional ways to approach customer service. Now’s the time to believe in your instincts and have the commitment to follow through. Have the courage to use your unique power to make them believe that you are indispensable and that is exactly what you will be!”

The biggest problem is that most small business owners are failing to see the big picture right now. And when your livelihood and the livelihood of your employees is dependent on your ability to be successful in a tough economy, I can’t say that I blame them. The trick is to quit thinking about what’s going on right now. And instead think back to who you were when your business first started, and what kind of business you want to have on the other side of this recession. If you hold on to who that person is, and who your business truly is, you’ll sail through this time and into an even brighter future.
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About the Author:

Robin Fisher Roffer (Los Angeles and New York) is CEO of Big Fish Marketing, one of the entertainment industry’s preeminent brand marketing and digital advertising agencies.  She has provided the rocket fuel that has ignited the launch pad of dozens of brands all over the world, developing brand-building marketing plans and promotional campaigns for top media companies like Sony, Time-Warner, and Twentieth Century Fox. For more information, please visit www.robinfisherroffer.com and www.fearlessfishoutofwater.com.

By John McKee, Founder and President of BusinessSuccessCoach.net

Many executives and other business managers often forget that they really have 2 jobs – the first is to do what they get paid for (and do it better than others). The other is to manage their career path and do what is required to ensure their upward mobility isn’t dependent on others who may or may not be working in their best interest.

The following “secrets”, amassed through my extensive background as both a corporate executive and business consultant, will help professionals better manage their success path:

1. Understand the “circle of success”. A common piece of advice given to managers is for them to spend a great deal of time getting to know, and working side-by-side, with their staff to ensure each employee has what (s)he needs to be productive. While that idea is well intentioned, it’s does not provide maximum benefit to all involved. Rather, it is more important that managers spend time helping their boss look good at every opportunity. When (s)he understands that you are able to help her/him succeed, you and your team will get more time, attention and resources facilitating maximum productivity.

2. Results = Rewards. Companies spend a great deal of money on new systems to help automate and, hopefully, increase efficiency for the whole company. After these big investments, managers are told to become “experts” with the systems and procedures to ensure the intended benefits are realized. This often creates an environment where many managers think that the most important task at hand is to learn the in’s and out’s of these systems and takes their eye off the real task at hand for which their ultimately accountable. To ensure upward mobility, remember to put the primary focus on your department’s core objective in the context of the company’s overall objective.

3. Avoid stagnation. Far too many workers throughout our nation are bored and disinterested, which is adversely impacting their productivity and creativity. Consequently, many U.S. industries are falling behind in the global marketplace. It’s time for our nation’s corporate leaders to re-engage and spend more time acting as leaders rather than bureaucrats. People respond best to positive feedback, emotion and enthusiasm – not e-mail communications, inexplicable charts and fear management. Effective leadership ensures that everyone is focused on, and vested in, getting to the goal lines. This is the most critical issue impacting an organization’s productivity.

4. Understand that outsourcing threatens everyone. Very few professionals actually understand that their position can be outsourced. They get complacent in this false sense of security. While most people realize outsourcing has affected the service industries, they fail to grasp that other professionals, including accountants, lawyers, engineers, etc., can be readily outsourced as well. Virtually no line of work is bulletproof, and knowing this will keep you one step ahead of the game. At this time, those involved in creative enterprises, which high technology has yet to automate, look to be the safest career choices over the long term.

5. “Presence” pays. One’s “presence” plays a big part in who gets promoted and who doesn’t. In a nutshell, presence is a combination of how we look, how we carry ourselves, and our communication skills. Because many of us still associate one’s appearance, demeanor and speaking ability with their overall ability, this remains a formidable challenge for those who have physical or other bias-based attributes that are difficult, if not impossible to change, such as height or weight. This subjectivity is even worse for women as society is generally more able to accept men with what’s considered to be shortfalls rather than women. Irrespective of these barriers, condition yourself to carry yourself with best posture and to wear attire that imparts your success.

6. Pace your boss. To really stand out from the others and get the all important promotion, ensure you are in the office whenever your boss is in the office. Let her or him see that you share the same work ethic. Right, wrong or indifferent, these are new rules of time management. Simply put, if your boss is at work, you should be as well. If (s)he has decided that it’s necessary to be there after hours, on weekends, or early in the morning, it is entirely to your advantage to be there at the same time. In this day in age, one must take advantage of all opportunities to distinguish themselves in the workplace.

7. Step up self promotion. This issue primarily impacts women, but applies to both genders. It is important that those who are in the position to benefit your career in any way know who you are and what you’ve accomplished. Successful business people understand the importance of letting others know about their successes, and go about it in the appropriate way. If done properly, it will not be construed as bragging or conceit.
John McKee, Founder and President of BusinessSuccessCoach.net, is the author of “Career Wisdom” and “21 Ways Women in Management Shoot Themselves in the Foot.” He can be reached at 720-226-9072, , or through his web sites at www.BusinessSuccessCoach.net and www.BusinessWomanWeb.com.