Tag Archives: blog

7 Ways to Motivate Employees

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We all know how important it is to keep ourselves motivated, but how do we ensure those in our businesses are as motivated as we are? I have written an article explaining the following 7 ways to motivate employees
1. Understand your own values.

2. Respect everyone.

3. Understand employee values.

4. Gain employee respect and trust.

5. Value your employees opinions.

6. Simply work out how to say “thank you”

7. Help employees plan their own future.

 

I felt it was so fundamental that I have made it an integral part of the site rather than just a blog post so follow this link  7 Ways to Motivate Employees to read the full article..

What is more powerful than Why, yes it is.

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‘What is more powerful than Why’ is a statement not a question.

I saw this tweet by Jamie Dunn @ JDEntrepreneur this morning

‘The “Why” should always be bigger than the “How“… Focus on the reasons why you’re doing something, instead of how you’re going to do it.’

Which is perfectly correct in that when you focus on ‘How’ you are going do something you lose the spark of energy, the passion for the initial reasons are you doing it. These reasons are the real insight into ‘What’ you want to achieve.

 

If you look at the recent disturbances, they were termed Riots but once they got past the initial activity were just opportunist looting in the main, and ask two questions with the same intent yet different structure, you will elicit different responses.

Qu: Why are you kicking that window in?

Answer: Cos I want that pair of trainers

Qu: What will you (do you hope to) achieve by kicking that window in?

Answer (if they actually had an agenda):
I hope to make a political statement about the unjustified shooting of Mark Duggan in Tottenham
or
I hope to make a political statement about the lack of opportunities for young people in the job market
or maybe even
I want to get that pair of trainers so i can sell them to get £20 so that I can put some dinner on the table for my family tomorrow night.

Unfortunately the more likely answer from the looters is:

I want to look cool in a nice new pair of trainers.

 

When you ask ‘What’ you as the questioner are prompted to add the ‘do you want to achieve’ or ‘are you hoping to get out of’ etc therefore making your initial question more explicit and focus around what you want to achieve.

Why did I write this blog?

Because I enjoy playing with the language we use day to day.

What do I hope to achieve by writing this blog?

I want other people to question the language they use and challenge themselves to get better outcomes.

So I will leave you with 2 questions that you can ponder.

Why does that person annoy/frustrate/upset you?
What do you get out of letting that person annoy/frustrate/upset you?

I am not expecting you to be able to fully answer the second question (or understand the answer you come up with), that is where coaching comes in all I want you to see is that you get two totally different answers.

If you would like to find out more about how restructuring the language you use day to day can help you change your perspective and therefore the results you achieve, please call me on 0118 324 1010.

7 Habits of Highly Social Media – Habit 3: Put First Things First

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You need to cover all your bases, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube to name but a few, the advantage you now have is that you are using a single source, your website blog, so you already have the content that you can point all of these towards (thus reducing your overall workload).

Now, analyse your response, look where you get the most activity and give that some focus, however activity is often confused with results, take a second look. 10,000 followers on twitter, but only 100 clicks, maybe one purchase. 1000 people in your LinkedIn group, with  50 clicks and three purchases. Look to where your results come from and give it some real backing. You maybe surprised as to where you get your results.

There are plenty of tools for this,
Google analytics – Web analytics
Bitly – url shortener with analytics
Plus many more.

References and Inspiration in 7 Habits of Highly Social Media – Intro

7 Habits of Highly Social Media – Habit 2: Begin with a blog behind.

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A slight adaptation of the familiar ‘Begin with the end in mind’ the often quoted 2nd habit from Stephen Covey, and I feel a valuable one.

We hear so many Social Media experts telling us how good all of the different social media channels are and that they can drive traffic to your site, but how or why?
Tweet this, Youtube that, Liking it on Facebook, or simply Linking it In,  just have a quick look at how much work you are doing, I have mentioned four and there are many more, are you quadrupling your workload by putting information on them all?

This week is Social Media Week, a series of workshops and presentations being held locally and globally, I have been to 4 so far in London, (http://socialmediaweek.org/london/ ) there are many more around the world, and you could pick up so fantastic information. I know I have. It has built on information that I have received from various events recently including JCI Inspiration Day www.jcireading.co.uk/id2011

Before I go much further I am advocating formulating a strategy, there are plenty of social media experts our there to advise you about each channel, my role here is to help you to create an effective and productive strategy from which you will profit for many years.

The main point of this article is to get you thinking. Why use social media in your business? Simple answer is usually ‘to get people to………’ to do what? Call you? Buy from you? Look at your website?

The overriding theme that is coming through is actually none of the above:
It is actually ‘engage people’
Once you engage them, you can interact, inform, influence and help them. All of these activities can be done by providing information via a blog which drives people to your website. This information is a central repository that all of the channels guide people too, once there they can read, comment, discuss all of which brings them one step closer to wanting your product or service.

So in short, ‘Begin with a blog behind’ save time by putting everything in one place (your blog) then promote it via the channels (that you feel suit your business) this focuses both you and your audience to one place. Be consistent about making updates so that there is regular new content that people will want to come back to.

>>related article: The Social for Business Revolution, How to effectively write for social media.
References and Inspiration in 7 Habits of Highly Social Media – Intro

of the familiar

The Social for Business Revolution, How to effectively write for social media.

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Having just spent the weekend at the JCI UK Inspiration day hosted by JCI Reading (www.jcireading.co.uk/ID2011) focusing on Social Media and obtaining the best from it alongside what JCI means to some of its members, I thought a short article on Social for Business may be of use to some people.

We regularly hear that social media is taking over in terms of lead generation and that we should all be blogging twice a day and tweeting, facebooking, LinkinIning (think I just made that one up) about our informative blogs.

The reaction I see from most people when there here this is either;

I don’t have enough time to do that, I have actual work to do
or
What the hell am I going to write about without giving away all the knowledge I have spent years learning.

So let’s address these two point. So in reverse order, What and How:

What do you write about?
Whatever you write about it must be done with some enthusiasm, something that draws people into what you are discussing and shows that you are keen and able to help. One easy what to identify these is to know both your company and personal values. Once you know what you care about (and why) make sure you supply a consistent message to your readers. It also allows you to release responsibility to others to write some of the articles as you know everyone is ‘on message’.

How do you write without giving away all your knowledge?
By picking subjects that show you have knowledge you can are actually giving yourself ‘status’ showing that you are an expert in your field. A vast majority of what you know you discount as being valuable because you have already moved on to the next concept, idea or speciality. Therefore spending time working on what you do know that you can tell people ie Identifying your Resources, will be time well spent.

Moving onto having the time.

One of the main reasons most people feel they do not have the time is that they do not know the What and How, therefore they are constantly questioning themselves and what they are writing about. As soon as you know what is ‘on message’ and that you can quickly check that you are encouraging interest rather than giving away secrets you instantly cut out most of the time taken to write articles.

Therefore whenever you have an idea about what you want to write about you will be able to effectively write a short article that you can share on your blog.

Happy writing.

>> Related article ‘Begin with a blog behind‘