"As business owners, we now need to create a business that is attractive to both customers and employees."

When I speak with business owners about their “Limiting Factors to Growth,” finding and retaining good people is always in the top three.

Last week I was invited to a presentation titled “Managing a Multi-Generational Workforce,” by Rhonda Thorburn, the regional Director for Kelly Services, Australia.

As a rough guide, below are the year brackets that determine the generations.

• Silent Generation: Born between 1922 - 1945
• Baby Boomers: Born between 1946 - 1960.
• Generation X: Born between 1961 - 1980.
• Generation Y: Born between 1981 - 2000.

How to attract and keep good people is a growing problem for all businesses, across all industries, especially so when we talk about Gen X and Y.

So how do we specifically attract and retain these younger employees?

The below *Five Strategies from Rhonda’s presentation will help set you on the right path.

(*Edited from the Kelly Services white paper titled Five Ways to Connect with Generation X and Y Workers.)

1. Think “High-Tech”
Make sure your company invests in the latest technology. Gen X & Y want the latest and greatest. Provide it and benefit from high productivity and dedicated employees.

2. Create Fun Environments
Add entertaining elements to work environments, eg… chair massages and spaces with lounges for social networking. Celebrate birthdays and recognize achievements.  Offer work contests with high-tech rewards such as MP3 players, Mobile Phones and Laptops.

Investing in your company socially will help create a fun work environment that not only attracts Gen X & Y, but also enhances productivity, quality, customer service and job satisfaction.

3. Leverage Relationships / Get Personal
Gen X & Y value friends and work mates of their own generations. They are the perfect resource for word-of-mouth recruitment for new employees. Educate them about the kinds of workers your business is seeking. Offer incentives for their part in the process.

Communicate. Communicate. Communicate. Build relationships with these generations by talking with them, showing you care, and making yourself available to hear their concerns. And never forget to thank an employee for doing a good job.

4. Embrace Workplace Flexibility
Develop an accommodating environment. Provide employees with opportunities for job changes, internal mobility and flexible schedules. Don’t micro manage. Give them room to grow and make decisions.

Studies show that three out of four Generation X workers pick the place they want to live before they find a job. This means your company may need to follow talent.

5. Expand & Enhance Training Opportunities
Gen X & Y thrive on developing their work skills and knowledge. Most opportunities are seen as stepping-stones to something better in terms of their career. Provide learning opportunities by expanding e-based learning modules.

Create work “teams” or pair older workers with younger workers to prepare them to take over when necessary.

Does some of that sound too much?
It may have in the past, but things have changed.

As business owners, we now need to create a business that is attractive to both customers and employees. Creating a work environment that nails these five strategies will appeal to all generations and all genders, not just  X & Y's.

As my business partner Michele Miller says, "Everything is Marketing."

Marketing to employee's is a new arrow you must place in your marketing quiver.

Let us know if you need help.

Read About Craig Arthur

1.I love it when my wife replies to me, "Oh.”

Read About Joshua Stevens

Looking to start a new business that can sail the choppy waters of today’s economy?  Give some thought to opening a thrift shop or consignment store.

Goodwill reports that store revenue has increased 15% in the past year - $38 million and only 24 stores across the U.S.  These stores have become a must-visit on any shopping trip, especially with kids heading back to school and parents who are tightening their economic belts.

My Sister's Closet is one of the most successful local businesses in the Phoenix Valley with 11 resale boutiques and a reported 25% revenue increase in 2008.  Tamra Thomas of the Name Brand Exchange store says, "It is crazy busy right at this time.  People are selling clothes to get money for vacation, save up for college or for gas.  We make at least $10,000 to $15,000 more a month in sales than we did five years ago."

With relatives who have successfully run consignment shops in the past, I can tell you there’s fertile ground for profit (especially in today’s economy).  But there’s also more hard work than you’d ever guess.  If you think consignment might be an avenue to explore, check out Too Good to Be Threw, the website, blog and book that can answer all your questions and help you get started.

Who knew that Second Hand Rose just might be the richest person in town?
 

Read About Michele Miller

I read a story about square watermelons. I thought the lessons could very well be applied to business.

Japanese grocery stores are much smaller than in the USA, and watermelons  wasted a lot of space. Most people simply told the grocery stores that watermelons grow round and there is nothing that can be done about it.  But some Japanese farmers took a different approach. If the supermarkets wanted a square watermelon, they asked themselves, “How can we provide one?” It wasn’t long before they invented the square watermelon.

The solution to the problem of round watermelons wasn’t nearly as difficult to solve for those who didn’t assume the problem was impossible to begin with and simply asked how it could be done. It turns out that all you need to do is place them into a square box when they are growing and the watermelon will take on the shape of the box.

This made the grocery stores very happy and had the added benefit that it was much easier and cost effective to ship the watermelons. Consumers also loved them because they took less space in their refrigerators which are much smaller than those in the US meaning that the farmers  could charge a premium price for them.

So I say: what does this have do with anything besides square watermelons?

Are a few lessons business owners can take away from this?

Business Owners; Don’t Assume. The things that you have been doing a certain way in your business might have taken on the aura of the round watermelon and you likely don’t even take the time to consider if there is another way to do it.

Break away from the thinking you have had about marketing, advertising, and growing your business. Come to Nashvile August 1st and 2nd to see and hear 14 Wizard of Ads Partners . They will show you how to think differently about growing your business during these difficult times many businesses are facing. We call it Boom Your Business! See the topics covered.

Wizards Question Habits: Am I just doing this because we have always done it this way?
We have a saying,  “It is hard to read the label when you are on the inside of the bottle.” The Wizard Partners  will help you see new and better ways to attract customers.

Wizards Can Be Creative: When faced with a problem Wizards can be creative in looking for a solution. This often requires thinking outside the box. Most all people who viewed this question about getting the water melons to grow square  thought it would be a much more difficult process to accomplish.

The Wizard Partners can help you find a better way: The square watermelon question was simply seeking a better and more convenient way to do something. The stores had flagged a problem they were having and asked if a solution was possible. Do you have a problem? Are you spending more money and getting less in return?

Is Your situation Impossible?  Most Often It Isn’t: If you begin with the notion that something is impossible, then it obviously will be for you. If, on the other hand, you find someone to help you, that has the advantage of looking from the outside in they can see things you can’t.

So then, all you have to do to grow square watermelons is to put ‘em in a square box when they are small?  All you may need to do to get your business out of the square box it’s in, is to find a way to grow it outside the box.

All you may need to fix the problem you are having in your business is to buy a plane ticket to Nashville and attend the Wizards on the Road Seminar at the Music City Sheraton Aug 1st and 2nd. Your business will never be the same. Would you like a slice of square watermelon?

 

Read About Clay Campbell

Tennis is dead.  No one cares about it anymore.  That’s what ESPN columnist, Bill Simmons, opined on June 16th, just before the start of this year’s Wimbledon. “If I guaranteed you that the 2008 Wimbledon men’s final would be the best match of the past 20 years would you watch it?”

I love it when über-confident journalists make fools of themselves.

Ratings for Sunday morning’s match reached all time highs or shot dramatically up in the U.S., England, Spain and Switzerland.  Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer thrilled the audience with what’s being called the best Wimbledon final of all time.  I’ve never seen miraculous shots, comebacks, near injury & heart displayed so consistently by both players.

How can a company position itself to survive disaster and then capitalize when the good stuff finally happens?  How does a sport like tennis keep its pulse going when the Bill Simmonses of the world declare it dead? How does a booming business keep its sight set on the message that really connects them to their customers before they end up on a journey to the land of lean?

Lean years arrive no matter how carefully we plan.  Harley Davidson, major-league baseball, Kodak, McDonald’s, Starbucks, the NBA; they’ve all choked on hard times and bad decisions.  Our knee-jerk, shock value media culture frenzies around the blood in the water, hoping to be the first to predict the future.  Only the future continually resists our straining efforts to predict it.

For all of the stupid suggestions he made to revive tennis (make it louder, sexier, and shorter, for our diminutive attention spans), the enduring message that has sold tennis for over a century slipped right through his fingers.  For one player “to dominate, it’s completely conceivable. And boring.” “We’ll never see anything like Borg-McEnroe again.”

Tennis has always needed at least two athletes so masterful, no one could predict the outcome, and the match between them was guaranteed to cause eyes to dart back and forth across the tv screen for hours.  In the 70’s and 80’s it was Borg – McEnroe – Connors.  The 90’s didn’t have quite the rivalry, but Nike got their advertising right when they had Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi playing impromptu tennis in the streets of New York.  And it just turns out that both Nadal and Federer wear their shoes, so hmmm…

In the meantime, tennis pros continue giving lessons to kids.  Junior tennis competitions stoke the rivalries of the future.  Tennis tournaments keep negotiating television contracts and corporate sponsorships to ensure that the tradition of their sport continues.  They eagerly wait to capitalize on the arrival of the next Williams’ sisters, Chris Evert – Martina Navratilova, Magic Johnson – Larry Bird (oops, sorry, wrong sport). 

Later this weekend I watched the U.S. Olympic trials and marveled as athletes qualified, others faltered, and unexpected heroes emerged to pursue their dreams in Beijing.  Suddenly a women’s hurdler came from nowhere to annihilate the 100m hurdles field and qualify after never having won an event as a junior.  As if primed for her next business seminar she reflected on her long, unlikely journey, “Winning all the time is not important.  It’s staying in the game.”  I hope tennis ...and Bill Simmons were paying attention.

Read About Peter Nevland

While until recently most full-length features by name directors posted to YouTube haven't exactly been legit, this new section of the site is a sanctioned showcase dedicated to airing films by top indie filmmakers from around the globe. Many of the films have been shown at international film festivals, while others will be receiving their world debut. Every Friday, four new films are posted.

Current offerings include the Miranda July short Are You the Favorite Person of Anybody? and The Danish Poet, which won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Animated Short. Next time someone sends you a video of a dancing monkey/laughing baby, hit delete and watch one of these instead.

(from trendcentral)

Read About Ray Seggern

With a growing rate of 50%, the online advertising market in Spain, matches Italy, on being one of the most, fastest growing markets in Europe. The other online markets in UK, Germany and France have grown 38% in 2007.

The investments in search engines and graphic advertising in the first three countries mentioned are close to €4,090 Million 2006 to €5,700 Million in 2007, according to Ad Ex Report, presented by IAB Europe and PwC in Interact Congress.

Spain has 4.5% share of the market, just above Greece (1.5%). Above Spain are Austria (5.2%) Italy (6.7%), Finland (7.5%) France (8.8%), Belgium (9.1%) Poland (10%), Germany (11.6%), Sweden (13.3%), Denmark (14.3%), UK (15.3%), Norwegian (15.6%) and the Low Countries (18.5%)
 

Read About Luis Lopez

What's the biggest mistake businesses make in their advertising?
They don't live up to their promises. The customer comes in with expectations set by the ads, and leaves disappointed. Not only did the advertiser waste his money, he's actually damaged his image in the minds of people who are now much less likely to become customers.  No amount of advertising will overcome a bad customer experience.

What's the biggest contribution to bad customer experiences?
Bad customer service. The question most companies fail to address is, “How do you assure a consistent level of service?” So-called excellent customer service is dependent upon the mood and attitude of whoever is on the sales floor on a given day. The challenge is in replicating the highest level of service every day. How can you make that repeatable and teachable?
The sad part is that most companies believe they are doing the things they're promising. They really do believe that they have “the best service in town.” If they could only see through the customer's eyes, they’d realize it simply isn’t true.

What's the solution?
Manage the buying environment – the world inside your doors. Create an experience so compelling that the customer doesn't even notice the service. Start by creating distractions to keep the customer entertained and engaged. Most customers don’t mind waiting when they perceive the wait as part of the experience. Keep in mind that anyone below the age of thirty grew up in a multimedia world. Can you use flat screen monitors to display an entertainment loop? Do you have old photographs of the early days of your company or your community? Control the sensory conditions of your environment. What can you do to involve all of the customers' senses? Does your store smell fresh – or funny? What’s the sound of your business? Loud and chaotic, or tranquil and soothing. Either is okay, as long as it’s intended to fit the temperament of your customers. The right selection of music can set a particular mood. A random selection can set your customer’s teeth on edge.

Big companies have an advantage, don't they?
No. Most big companies are slow and unwieldy. It’s difficult for them to change quickly in response to sudden shifts in the business landscape. And when they do decide to make a change, typically all of the locations have to go along, for the sake of conformity. On a local level, this makes them vulnerable to a more nimble small business owner who can humanize and personalize the buying experience to suit the customers in the area.

How much of this is in your new book?
All of it and then some. But, I decided to do something new and different from my other books. Rather than putting together a bunch of essay type chapters, I wrote a business fable, similar to “The One Minute Manager” and “Fish!” It’s a story about a failing family-owned business struggling to survive in the shadow of a big-box retailer. By the end of the book, the reader has learned methods for managing the customer experience that are adaptable to any business.

What will people take away from How To Fight The Big Boys And Win?
Specifically, three things: First of all, they’ll gain a clear understanding of the “Personal Experience Factor” –the PEF - and how it applies in their businesses. Secondly, they’ll be shown three ways to trigger positive word-of-mouth. Third, I’ll share multiple low-cost examples of ways to improve the PEF that they can apply to their own businesses when they return home.
 

Read About Ray Seggern

Three, to be exact.  

Chapters 44, 58, and 59 in Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads discuss in great detail what it takes to create an effective long-term branding campaign on radio and/or TV.

In essence, sleep is the great eraser of memory – in order for yours to be the business that customers think of first and foremost when needing your product or service, they must come in contact with your ad approximately three times per week.  In the advertising business, it’s called a “Frequency” of 3.

As a Wizard of Ads partner, I work day-in and day-out using this rule with my own clients, to great success.  Yet it was only recently that I became the puppet rather than the puppeteer:

In the last ten years, the population of greater metropolitan Phoenix (AZ) has grown from 1.3 million to 3.8 million.  There are literally thousands of realtors, but only one who has had the smarts to make a valley-wide impact.

As an independent realtor, Russell Shaw started advertising approximately five years ago with what had to have been the most miniscule of budgets.  Instead of pouring his money into newspaper advertising (the traditional media of realtors nationwide), he chose television, which can be expensive.  But Russell was smart.  He figured out that the best use of his budget was to buy one ad per night during the 5 o’clock news hour.  Every single night, that one ad would air at the same time.  And since folks tend to have a favorite local news network, he was repeatedly planting that seed in the same minds.

The message in Russell’s ads is acceptable; Russell himself is annoying.  I’m talking a syrupy delivery with a nasal voice quality that has caused me to dash for the remote more times than I can count.  I can hurry all I want to and switch channels, but guess what?  Over the last five years, Russell has slowly re-invested his profit into buying the same ad on all the other networks.  Apparently I can run, but I can’t hide.  I’ve come to hate the Russell Shaw ads.

So the other day I was talking with a friend who’s thinking of moving to Phoenix.  At one point during the conversation she said, “What I really need is a good realtor.”

My response?  “Well, there’s Russell Shaw…”

Hoisted on my own petard.

Points to remember:

1.  Buy smart advertising that will get you the most Frequency.  Even if all you can afford is a monthly postcard, make the message smart and keep sending the regular postcard out to the same group of people.  Embed your message into their brain then wait for their moment of need.

2.  Re-invest your growing revenue into an expansion of advertising.  If you’ve achieved maximum impact with your current mode of advertising, don’t abandon it – add on to it.  Russell Shaw is the perfect example of giving a small ad budget the power of a jackhammer.

3.  If people think your ads are annoying, that’s not a bad thing.  If you get calls and emails saying that your ad is annoying (ads in poor taste are another matter altogether), it means you’re making an impact.  And that ain’t bad.  Would you rather have an ad that leaves people remembering who you are and what you do, or a middle-of-the-road ad that the brain ignores altogether?  I’ll take annoying any day.

When you have advertising constraints, go for Frequency – done right, it hits the mark every time.

Read About Michele Miller