Great Question!

Out of the blue today I found myself in the middle of someone else's blog. Paul Hassing writes a very nice blog over on MYOB and today the topic was on interview questions. You'll find that here .

Questions are funny things. Not all questions are equal when it comes to getting down to the nuts and bolts of why you asked the question in the first place!

So what makes a good question?

The first place to go when you want a good question to ask someone else - is yourself. What purpose is there in asking the question? What is it that you really want to know? What's important about this question? What will knowing the answer give you?

Critique Your Own Questions

• What is the purpose of the questions I will ask at this interview?
• What precisely am I looking to understand by asking these questions?
• Does this question align with that purpose?
• Does this question have a trap set in it?
• Will this question put my candidate in a position where they have to guess what I want and just tell me what I want to hear?
• Is there a better way to ask this question?
• Is there a different question that would be more useful?
• I really need to know the answer to this question because... (insert answer)
• What's my objective means of measuring the responses to the questions that I ask?

How we ask questions and the quality of our questions is just one aspect. The next hurdle is in interpreting the answers that we receive.

When you ask questions that are not concrete with measurable, quantifiable, or verifiable answers then you are out in no-man's land without a compass. You have to translate that answer into something that is meaningful for you and that can leave a wide gap between what the person meant when they responded and what you thought they meant when you heard it.



Facebook Foolish

Which brings me to another issue that is more and more a factor in hiring and that is checking Facebook and social media platforms. In the same way, the information that may surface (leaving aside legalities and ethics) is subject to interpretation. Not everything that you see online is real or true and not every situation that looks bad on social platform, tells you anything about the ability of that person to show up and perform  in an excellent manner in the specific role for which they have applied.

Indeed, the worry is that many who are vetting the sites for this information may have little or no experience of the online environment and no knowledge of how to reasonably make judgment about work suitability or competency, based on irrelevant information from a completely different non working environment.

Over time we have been reminded that 'we don't know what we don't know'. Just as tricky, is separating what we assume we know, from what we just think we know.

Ask yourself if you really have done enough to know your questions are the best ones to get you the information you want to know and that this is information that you also need to know.  Make sure you are not asking a bunch of questions that don't further your purpose while failing to ask the questions that really do matter.

Tweet
Like to discuss your business? Lindy Asimus Design Business Engineering Get Help For Your Business Download your free 24 Page Action Plan Marketing Workbook! Subscribe to Actionbites Blog

What A Business Should Know About Social Media

"What should I know about social media marketing and Facebook and Twitter and all that?"

This is a great question! Unfortunately nobody asks it so I am putting it out there.

This is a great question because it starts at the beginning. Many times businesses have already put a website up on the web, maybe they have paddled around on Facebook and started to build their Friend list thinking that this is social marketing ... but not asked this question.

Basic Components For Getting Found Online

Website

It comes to many as a bit of a surprise that a website is a part of social media marketing for local business. I have to say ths seems to be a secret that many "Gurus" don't know either.

The sad reality is that most websites don't work very well.
And there are many things that can be adjusted slightly to make them work
better, without the need for a new website. Indeed, I've seen businesses
replace a website that wasn't effective with a new fancy website with all
the bells and whistles ... that is still not going to be effective.

It may be pretty - and still be useless.

An attractive website is a good thing, and you want your website to be attractive and show your business in a good light. But if nobody finds it, you've done your dough.  If people find it and there is nothing there for them to see that you really know what you're on about then you've wasted that chance to convert their click to your site to a sale.

"Whatever Google Wants ... Google Gets"
Search and how websites are selected by search engines is changing all the time. One constant that you can rely on is this. Google will  always want to see

1) Fresh content
2) Quality Content that is relevant for visitors searching for that topic.

This will never go out of fashion.

Your content needs to be verified that it is yours and original and that what it says was worth saying.

What is content?
Content is articles, blogs, images with good tagging, online discussions and more.

By integrating your effective website with your social media platforms you have the best chance of being found. In search engines - and in the local chit chat that happens online when people are looking for recommendations.

Customers look online now when they want to know about something. As a business owner your job is to give your business the best chance of owning your category in your local market. That means getting your act together and making sure your business is there where it counts.

Facebook
Facebook is not for every business and yet really there are few that can't benefit by having a presence on Facebook and building a local network.  I could probably think of a few but then I could probably give you a very good reason why even those businesses may find it useful. Sometimes those reasons are not obvious to the business owner.

Keep in mind Facebook's agenda is to build Facebook - not your business. You are renting a space there and paying with your time and you do not own that space. You can be evicted any time so remember to spend time on your website and keep that in good order and incorporate your social media profiles with your own property that is your website.

If Facebook goes belly-up - You don't.

Twitter
Twitter can be a great platform to use and you need to understand what it is - and what it isn't. For meeting new people in your local area it can be fantastic and a great way to keep in touch in a casual and sharing way.

Linkedin
For those business owners who think they are too Fine for being on Facebook, Linkedin could be your place of preference. Linkedin is not for pushing out ads it is for many things and connecting to people of influence that you want to meet is just one of them. There are many ways that Linkedin can be used. First and foremost ensure that you have completed your profile and that you look like you know what you are doing. This is where you establish your professional bona fides and this is critical as the first step. While there are many things you can do with Linkedin you need to look the part first. And never, NEVER use Linkedin to spammy sales letters to people in your network!

Blogging
For some the idea of blogging is just such a weird idea that it is beyond comprehension and impossible to consider doing. Well get over it, your blog is your key to keeping your website fresh and the quality content added regularly. Before you start you need to plan what kind of information and content you can use it for. You will be amazed at how much you can do with this blog and once you get into the swing of it, will wonder what you ever did before you had your business blog. This is the key to managing your business information that you want customers to know and to being able to post quality information to your social platforms. Without a blog - what are you going to post? What you had for breakfast? No seriously, nobody with any sense posts that kind of thing to social platforms.

The beauty of the blog for you is that you can package your expertise and reuse that in many different places and contexts. This is what I like to think of as Radical Laziness. Write it once - get to use it over and over. Also sometimes called Increased Productivity.

Your Traditional Marketing
Guess what? This is part of your social marketing too.
When you have a marketing strategy that works, your existing marketing will be aligned with what you are doing online and each of these will support and complement your business.

It's a wild ride but fun too.

And seeing your business become better-known in your market of choice is a great thing to know.

 Related
Develop A Strategy For Social Marketing
Check Your Website For Roadworthiness
Think Social Media Is No Use For Your Business? Think Again.
How To Get Your Local Business Noticed Online
Purpose Then Strategy - Case Study Starting Your Website
  Quick And Dirty Business Review





Tweet
 

Your Career & Role Models

Young managers have a job that is sometimes not clear to them. That job is to drive their career and do whatever they need to do in order to progress. In a way that expresses their values and allows them to be congruent with those core values.

This is a personal challenge that we all face and seldom recognise as an obligation to our own future and should not be seen as the duty of others to further our career.

So how does a young manager (or anyone for that matter), learn about what they need to know to manage their career?

There are many issues that will relate to this but the one that I want to focus on right now is that of role models.

For a manager in a larger business, there may be supervisors and managers or directors above them to whom they report. Or there may be older people they manage that are particularly good at some aspect of what they do either at work or in the community.  Seek out people who display excellence in some manner or are in a role that you would like to have some day.

So how might you start? 

If you have several managers or directors of a business then you will have noticed that some have a special knack for some element of the business. It may not be apparent what that is, but the chances are that they have some ability that has put them where you might like to be in the future.  You may not know what that is until you have spent some quality time with them getting to know them and how they operate. What do they do and how did they come to that method of doing what they do?
What works well for them, or conversely, what's not working so well for them? Positive lessons and lessons of what doesn't work are all valuable and sometimes the context is all that makes the difference.

Make a list of directors or other business owners you admire
Arrange to meet them one on one for lunch and get to know them a little and see if they are open to help you get to understand them and how they have achieved their success.
Make notes of all that you learn and don't censor yourself about what's important. Patterns may only develop later as you look back so make a note of everything.
Record the sessions if you can. If not make notes immediately after the session.
.
Some things to look for when analyzing your sessions:

What beliefs does this person hold about life and business?
What values do they display in their dealings?
In what esteem are they held by others?
What led them to hold their beliefs?
 What advice do they have for someone starting out?
What would they do differently if they were starting now?
What would they do the same if they were starting now?

 Your Life Plan

As you collate your notes give thought to what you have learned as you set about planning your goals for your career and your life generally.

This is a valuable resource for you.
Make the most of it.

And let this inform your own values and describe your best path forward in your life.


Tweet
Like to discuss your business? Lindy Asimus  Subscribe to Actionbites Blog

Social Media For Business. Now Open

 Another week and another slew of nonsense has flashed past my eyes.

"I can't use Skype because it changes  my website."

No it doesn't. 

 "I have a local business so I don't need to have a webpage."

Yes you do.

" I am going to this expensive seminar to be a Social Media Superstar! so then I will know what to do online."

No you are going to this expensive seminar because that is a money maker for whoever is running it and it doesn't follow that you will have any idea what to do online when you get back to your business.

"I have a marketing plan ... it's in my head!"

That's not a marketing plan.

"I can't afford a decent website."
 What you pay is no indicator of what is useful when it comes to websites.
 
"My graphic designer does all my SEO"
 Abandon all hope.

 "I'll get my teenage daughter to do a Facebook page for me."
Great idea if you have no interest in your business.

"I don't know why I'd need a blog."
That's a good start.

"I'm a professional so social media is beneath me, *sniff*"
Hold on to your hat. Not all social media is cat photos on Facebook.

If you do want to know how to find your way around online then a seminar isn't going to cut it.  Seminars can be one way to learn about the landscape. It is a dismal way to learn how to expertly present your business online. 

The online world is not hard to learn about but it does take time. It requires a certain level of understanding of how things work online and how your business can fit within that space for best results. And it is a moveable feast. What worked last month may not work next week.   It requires you to know the difference between issues that affect results and issues that are bunkum. Believe me, I have the hours logged to know.

If you would like to learn how to do this stuff in your local business without 'paying the tuition' in hours and hard graft contact me. Here are some details on how you can get on top of this stuff and start having some fun and making it work for your business. Social Media Training For Local Business.

You won't be a Social Media Superstar... but you will know why that phrase and others like it,  should sound a warning bell.



Tweet

Like to discuss your business? Lindy Asimus Design Business Engineering Get Help For Your Business Download your free 24 Page Action Plan Marketing Workbook! Subscribe to Actionbites Blog

This Is What Collaboration Looks Like

Cover of Gotye's Somebody I Used To Know shows how well it can work when we put our heads together for mutual benefit. Watch the guy on the end!



How are your efforts at collaborating going? Is your team working like this right now?



Tweet

Like to discuss your business? Lindy Asimus Design Business Engineering Get Help For Your Business Download your free 24 Page Action Plan Marketing Workbook! Subscribe to Actionbites Blog

It Comes Down To Communication

Effective communication takes effort both when speaking and listening

 "But behavior in the human being is sometimes a defense, a way of concealing motives and thoughts, as language can be a way of hiding your thoughts and preventing communication. '

    ~ Abraham Maslow

 "It all comes back to communication, doesn't it."

This was the statement from a client recently, a young very savvy professional, manager of a local outpost of a business that's into a highly technical, engineering related field.

Marketing. Managing employees. Managing customers. Understanding which metrics in the system really matter. They all relate back in some way to communication. They can all be impacted - for good or bad - by communication.

It's quite surprising how often the things that are not working in a business, are suffering because of a breakdown in how we communicate. Communicated poorly by others, but sometimes how we communicate with ourselves.

 Know what you really want to know
We can spend enormous amounts of time collecting data on things that may or may not matter, before we have even asked ourselves the questions that really pinpoint and then articulate our true and deepest ambition we want to achieve. Instead we build sentences that sound impressive but don't really communicate the essential nub of what we want to know.

Take the case of a marketing plan. Many times I've heard people say they have a business plan or a marketing plan and it is this: "Create a high quality product and provide good service."  As fine as an ambition this may be, it is not a marketing plan. It is not a vision. It is certainly no business plan. It may be a value, and a commendable philosophy to work to, but it is not specific, has no action and no standard by which it can be measured.

It is a tag line at best and for some it might be called their mission statement. Is it useful? Probably not.

When identifying issues that are to be resolved, it is worth ensuring that there is an action that can be taken to fit with the instruction. Be specific and ensure that when this matter is resolved there is something to show that this is so. Something is now happening that didn't before the instruction, or something has ceased to happen since the instruction was given.

Say there was a problem with start times and employees being on time for work. A new instruction would clearly let everyone know the problem that is the issue, what action they would take to fix it, and management (and everyone else) can see when it has been successfully adopted.

The measurable clear change would be:

• Employees are arriving on time for work, or
• Employees have stopped arriving late for work.

Some areas to watch
Setting deadlines that are non specific.

"Two weeks" is not the same as a date.

If you want something done in two weeks, then go the little bit further and specify what date that will be.
EG. 3 May 2012

And further, specify what action if any, needs to be taken after that thing is completed, to advise others who have a vested interest.


Which actually describes a small process and one that can become a Good Habit. Good processes in a business mean everyone can do them, they are replicable and they save time and confusion. And they can improve productivity and consistency.

Small changes big improvement
Just this one tiny action spread across a workplace can have big impact. Suddenly things that have been dragging on for months and not being attended to are done, ticked off the work sheet and that's cleared one small bit of space and burden from the shoulders of however was to do that thing, and whoever was waiting for that thing to to be done. In some cases this will also enable a third person to act on their part of what comes next so it can be like a chain reaction sometimes. All good.

Specific language, to deliver a well-constructed instruction is a part of good communication. We can do this when we frame questions, too. So often we can fall into the habit of giving a vague instruction. The person who then has to carry out that duty, is not sure exactly what is required, how to do it or what priority it has.  This can be very stressful to that person, and frustrating for the person who issued the instruction, when it doesn't happen, or is done to a standard that was less than expected.


If you are giving instructions, ensure that you are clear in what you want to happen. If you are asking for information be clear what it is you want to know.

If you are receiving instructions and are not sure exactly what is expected of you or about some issue relation to that instruction, seek clarification. Ask. Don't just do what you assume is expected unless you are sure that is what was meant.

Can you identify an area where communications could be improved in your business or at home?

 Related:
Purpose before action
Customers wonder: "Why don't you know me?"
Are you right or wrong about what you think and how do you tell?
Love your customers and engage - try it with your staff too



Tweet

Like to discuss your business? Lindy Asimus Design Business Engineering Get Help For Your Business Download your free 24 Page Action Plan Marketing Workbook! Subscribe to Actionbites Blog

Creative Kids Share A Special Message

 I've posted before about the opportunity that sending cards opens for businesses interested in nurtuing client relationships and there is no better way to send cards than by mail from your computer. It just makes sense.

So I was delighted to see this video that a friend also mad about greeting cards sent me on how these cards are being used in a school program in the US for kids to share their feelings with their family. This is a great example of how an idea can be used in many different contexts to bring great rewards and just generally help people be happy and express their gratitude to those who are important to them in some way. All too often the moment passes and we have said nothing, done nothing and inspired nobody.





Being able to send cards is great for us to do. Getting them is nice too. Empowering our kids to be able to make their own and express themselves using all their creativity is a stroke of genius.

I would love to see these being used by families to keep in touch with elderly grandparents and friends who may be isolated and would so appreciate something to hold and see that they are valued by those they care about.

Once you start to think about different ways that you could be using a card to bring a little joy to someone you know or a customer that needs a lift then the floodgates open with possibilities.

Do you have a favourite story of sending or receiving a card? Do please share your experience. I would have loved to have been able to use these to send my mother when she was alive.



Disclosure: I am an affiliate for this program and you can see how the program works to send cards via internet through regular mail here.

If you have any questions contact me and I'll be happy to help.


Tweet 

Like to discuss your business? Lindy Asimus Design Business Engineering Get Help For Your Business Download your free 24 Page Action Plan Marketing Workbook! Subscribe to Actionbites Blog